A Feral Darkness Part 8

"Nothing," he said, but there was a subtle note to his voice that she hadn't heard before. And a distraction to his expression as he looked at the sink and the b.l.o.o.d.y token that was left of Sunny, then glanced at his watch, told himself, "Ucher," as if that were a word, and shook his head. He leaned over the kitchen sink to catch a glimpse of the moon out the big window, heavily waning and still high in the sky. "Medusa Moon," he muttered, and frowned.

"What moon?"

He'd been lost in thought; the look he gave her was surprised. "Nothing," he said. "What it means depends on who you are. But thisa"" and he reached into the sink; she heard the clink of Sunny's ID tag moving against the old porcelain.

Brenna cleared her throat sharply. "Still think there's no dog pack?"

He dropped the collar and abruptly ran cold water over it, watching the blood swirl away. "I never said that."

"You did," she told him. "You said it to Sammi. Maybe not in so many words, but that's what you meant."

He grimaced. "No," he said. "I don't think it was a feral dog pack."

She tilted her head at him; one hand found her braid and drew it up to play with its end. "You say a lot," she told him, "in what you don't say."

"Then I suppose I'll have to stop saying anything at all." He turned the collar under the uneven stream of watera"stronger when the well pump ran, weaker in between as the water pressure ran down enough to kick off the pump again. "In any event, the day might shed some light on what happened here tonight."

"I doubt it," Brenna muttered.

He gave her a quick grin, that dark expression he'd so perfected. "You know what? So do I. But we've got to look."

"We?" she said, lowering her head to give him an even stare from beneath her brows.

Blue met blue. "Or not. Your call."

She fiddled with the end of her braid, considering. She knew this property. She knew what was out of place from day to day, and she'd grown up playing trailing games. She didn't know what he thought he could add to that.

Just being there, maybe. In case she didn't want to mourn her dog alone.

But no, he had an interest here. He wanted to know as badly as she, for all he was willing to walk out and leave her to it.

"You said you wanted to work with Druid," he offered. "This would be a chance to get that in."

"I thought you said you were busy tomorrow."

"I am. Sometimes I change my priorities. But you need to make up your mind now, because I've got calls to make if you want to do it."

Work with Druid. Have someone else there as she scoured the yard for signs of Sunny or of Sunny's flight. And did she really want to be alone if she found anything? She stuffed her braid into her back pocket and gave him a nod. "Okay then. It's supposed to rain, though."

"Drizzle. And I won't melt. In case you hadn't noticed, I'm not made of sugar."

"Actually," she said, feeling some of her strength come back now that the morrow didn't loom so empty before her, "I had noticed."

"Just as well," he said. "It won't come as any great shock later on." And his grin this time was genuine if self-knowing. He turned off the water, shook off his hands, and made a visible decision not to use the towel hanging off the stove. "Call me when you're up and ready to go. I'll be there."

That was it? He had arrived suddenly, swooping in to survey the wreckage, and just as suddenly he was going? And then she'd be alone, with Sunny's collar in the sink and her hand throbbing and her grief lurking.

Well, she'd said it. She could take care of herself. "I'm an early riser," she said.

"Fine by me." But he hesitated by the door, his hand on the k.n.o.b, his gaze first on the sink, then on Druid, then on her. And this time, she knew what she looked like. "Listen," he said. "Do you have someone you can call, so you're not alone tonight? Family?"

She snorted without even thinking about it. Call who, her mother? Rhona Fallon was already firmly convinced that her daughter couldn't handle the life she'd chosen. Or Russell? Then she'd get to hear about his latest success and hey, at least it hadn't been a child, lost in the night. No, better to be here by herself, even if it meant tears in a quiet house, or dreading the return of the horrifying darkness that had somehow descended upon her and Druid both.

"Listen," he said again, watching her face intently enough that she suddenly knew how much it revealed. "I've got a sleeping bag and an air mat." As her eyes widened, he held up a still-damp hand and said, "I'm not up to anything. I'll sleep out there," and he nodded back at the dog room, "if you like. I justa""

"The floor in the den," she said in a rush of words, and looked down at her feet for a long moment. Not that Masera could do a thing about the inexplicable intrusions into her life.

Not a thing but keep her from facing them alone.

He nodded. "I'll get my stuff, then."

"What about your dogs?" she blurted. "Will they be okay?"

In the moment of silence between them, he searched her face, asking and answering his own questions and coming to the obvious conclusion that she'd seen them or been told of them. "I have a housemate," he said. "They'll be fine. If you've got a phone that's not broken, I'll give him a quick call when I get back in."

By the time he reappeared with the rolled sleeping bag and air mat tucked into one arm and an overnight kit dangling from that hand, Brenna had retrieved the bedroom phonea"she never used it except to answer late-evening phone calls from a family that couldn't seem to remember her schedulea"and replaced the broken phone. Not a portable, but she'd have to save up to get another one of those. She handed him the slimline receiver and he dialed the number with his thumb, shoving the phone up under his chin for a quick conversation in a language that totally baffled her.

"There," he said, letting the phone slide down into his hand and replacing it on the cradle. "Taken care of." And then, because he must have been used to the question forming on her lips, he said, "Euskotar. It was Basque."

"He only speaks Basque?" she said, a little confounded by how difficult it would be to find translations and services to accommodate that language here in the States.

"No," he said, more like his usual self. Well, his usual self as judged by a few moments in the break room.

Fine, then, he'd just wanted a private conversation. Whatever. She wasn't up for a rejoinder right now, though she rather crossly thought that he could have simply asked for privacy; she could have gone to ready the den.

Not that there was much to ready. The floor s.p.a.ce was adequate even if the carpet was worn, the light switches were self-evident, and all she had to do was find the television remote. She'd forgotten it was on all this time, silently flickering patterns of light across the empty room. She'd forgotten all about the half-finished movie.

"That wasn't a bad flick," he said, catching sight of the video case on the floor by the couch.

"I didn't finish it," she said. "I mean, I liked it, I just got . . . interrupted."

"Watch it now," he suggested, unrolling the air mat with a practiced flick and release.

"That doesn't seem . . ." Right. It didn't seem right somehow. But the alternative was to go to bed and stare at the ceiling, thinking of Sunny and darkness and terror, and the kind of screams no one should ever hear.

She sat down on the couch and picked up the remote.

Chapter 9.

INGUZ.

Beginnings

The smell of brewing coffee woke Brenna. Disoriented, she lay quietly, adding up clues. The sagging, comforting cus.h.i.+ons of the couch enfolded her; not unusual circ.u.mstances. Druid lay tucked up under her arm; also not unusual for this past week or so, though her hand throbbed and must be stuck in an awkward position. But the light seemed brighter than it ought, and who'd made coffee?

She cracked open her eyes and peered through wispy bangs at the room around her, discovering that the VCR clock proclaimed it an hour later than her natural rising time of half past five and that the rolled sleeping bag proclaimed she wasn't alone.

In case the coffee wasn't enough of a clue.

Ah, yes. Masera. And then, a kick in the gut.

Sunny.

And her hand hurt not because she had slept on it, but because Druid had bitten it.

Well, that made kicking him out of bed a whole lot easier. Even so, she remembered that he, too, would be sore, and eased his transition to the floor with a hand to his chest. Then she sat up, grumbling at the stiffness of her welted and bitten parts. And she'd fallen asleep on the couch, with Masera right here in the same room. That didn't seem right somehow, she thought, giving a little wiggle of her shoulders to shed the odd feeling. Clutching the afghan around herself, she got up and headed straight for the bathroom, dumping the afghan outside the door and dumping her clothes just inside it. A quick shower would make her feel human again.

Of course, she hadn't thought aheada"too used to living alone and running from room to room wearing whatever she darn well pleaseda"or didn'ta"and had to stick an arm out the door and feel around for the afghan so she could make a mad dash to her bedroom and clean clothes.

When she reappeared in the kitchen, her face sported a nasty bruise around the welt but the rest of Druid's nail marks were covered by jeans and a sweats.h.i.+rt with a drawing of a foolishly grinning dog and the slogan All of my clients are animals. Her hair still swung free and her stomach growled, but she was awake and ready to go.

Somewhat to her surprise, despite Masera's internal application of coffee, he still looked bleary-eyed, his naturally unpretentious appearance given over to a downright rumpled versiona"finger-combed hair, lots of stubble, one collar wing inside out.

"Oh, Lord," he groaned upon seeing hera"however well that was. She'd found his contact case in the bathroom. "You're a morning person. I let the dog out."

"Thanks," she said, and grinned at his attempt to string complete sentences together. "I left towels out for you in the bathroom, if you want to shower." She helped herself to the coffee; a cautious sip confirmed that he made it much stronger than she was wont, and she added milk. "It's decaf, by the way."

"I was afraid of that," he said, shoving away from the table and the magazine through which he had been flippinga"not one of hers; he must have brought it in from the SUV. "Even more reason to take that shower."

While he was gone, she took stock of her hand and decided it wouldn't be doing any grooming for a few days. Glancing dog bites meant scuffed skin and surface bruising; full contact bites meant deep swelling and tissue damagea"and while she'd had worse, Druid had definitely nailed her a good one. But the call to Pets! was easy; no one was picking up the phones yet and she left a message for Roger. He'd fumea"lost groomer hours on a Sat.u.r.day drove him crazya"but then, it wasn't like she wanted to be hurt. And Sunday was a day off; by Monday she hoped to be two-handed again. Well, it would hurt, but grooming was pretty much like footballa"you played rough, worked hard, and pretended not to notice the injuries unless the affected body part simply refused to function.

Too bad the pay was a h.e.l.l of a lot less.

Brenna toasted a bagel and got another one out and ready to go for Masera. Then she sat down in his chaira"her chaira"and looked at the magazine he'd left behind. Sporting Dog Journal. Not one she'd heard of. He'd been looking through the ads in the back, which seemed to be chock full of supplement and medical supply offers, as well as some equipment that she simply couldn't place at first glance. Cheesy ads, with lots of superlatives. The best! Results guaranteed! She made no real effort to figure it out, her thoughts drifting to the reasons he was here in the first place.

Inexplicable horrors, Sunny gone . . . Brenna suddenly felt like her whole world was flying off-balance, and she fought the impulse to clutch the table just to keep herself from flying off with it. Poor Sunny . . .

She pressed her fingers over her eyes. No. She had things to do. Things that would require her concentration.

Which was when Masera, looking a lot zippier but as of yet unshaven, returned for his coffee cup. "Ah," he said. "Didn't mean to leave things lying around," and snagged the magazine, tubing it and shoving it in the center of his sleeping-bag roll.

Brenna shrugged as he hesitated on the way back down the hall, presumably to shave, her equilibrium reestablished. She had learned long ago that non-morning people were not to be taken too seriously before their eyes truly opened. "Would you like a bagel? I have black cherry b.u.t.ter or plain old fake grape jelly."

"Your choice," he said, and disappeared again.

She ought to stick him with fake grape, a squeeze bottle from the store. But she pulled out the same black cherry b.u.t.ter she'd used on her bagel and stood by the toaster oven, waiting for the ding to signal the pull-out-bagel, blow-on-fingers game.

He returned just as she slid his plate into place across the tablea"same clothes but cleaner self, and looking like he was just about ready to face the world. "Thanks," he said, referring either to the shower or the bagel, she wasn't sure, and going on to refill his coffee cup. "Maybe if I pretend it's caffeinated . . . ?"

Brenna grinned, flipped her hair out of the way and sat, crossing her ankles under the chair. He came up behind her, hesitating; she felt more than saw the hand that hovered over her hair, almost touching.

But not.

She suppressed a smile. Just like Emily's kids.

But . . . not.

He sat gingerlya"testing the chair and finding it to be one of the st.u.r.dy onesa"and took the kind of generous bite from the bagel that men were inclined to take. Big bites, big chewing, big swallows. "Your hair is beautiful," he said, having devoured half the bagel. "Why do youa"" But he stopped, as if he realized there was no polite way to ask the question she'd heard so many times before.

"Because I'm a groomer," she said, which was the answer she gave most people. Gotta have something to groom was the follow-up, but this time she hesitated, and instead told him the lightest version of the truth. "Because once upon a time I asked for a favor, and it was granted. You could say that I keep it long in remembrance of that day."

Not that she had any real indication that the old hound's extra years were any more than coincidencea"any more than it was coincidence that her hair, the hair she'd once tried so hard to grow and then sacrificed to Mars Nodens as her father's magazine had suggested, had suddenly grown fast and thick.

But my, hadn't there been a fuss when she'd walked back into the house with her ragged new haircut, accomplished with the same pocketknife tucked into her jeans at this very moment. She smiled at the memory, though it had hardly been a fond one at the time. Then, it had been disaster. Now she thought of it as the first time she had defied her parents by going after something important to her and invisible to them.

She found him looking at her, his a.s.sault on the bagel interrupted. As if he realized just how much she'd told him in those quick, light words, even if he didn't yet realize what, exactly, it was.

And then he finished his breakfasta"big bites, big chewing . . .

Brenna grinned to herself and ran her finger up the outside drip on the black cherry b.u.t.ter jar, thinking men as she licked it clean. Though at least he'd asked, and listened. Russell wouldn't have given her even that.

For that she let him finish his coffee in peace. Druid needed to be fed, and Suna"

Not Sunny. Sadly, she put Sunny's bowl in the sink. The collar was missing and she discovered it, as clean as it was ever likely to be, sitting on top of the big crate. She thought about breaking the crate down and then couldn't bring herself to do it. Not with so much mystery still surrounding the Redbone's death. By a silent dog pack, by Druid's mysterious force in the night, ora"and she laughed silently at herself, but she left it in her mental lista"by whatever Masera seemed to have been expecting. She wasn't even tempted to call animal control and report the incidenta"how would she explain it? A wild darkness fell over the house and when it lifted, the dog was gone. No. Not likely.

Masera came out, sleeping bag once more tucked under his arm. "Ready?"

"Um," she said. "Gotta go groom myself. It'll only take a couple of minutes." Damp hair, swift fingers, a couple of thick hair bands and she was out of the bathroom again, tucking the end of the braid in her pocket and reaching for her vest, Sunny's collar, and Druid's leash. Masera waited out by the SUV, under a grey sky with roiling puffs of lighter grey beneath, all of which promised the drizzles mentioned in the forecast.

"Okay," she said, zipping up the vest and reaching for the pebble-palmed knit gloves she always kept in the pockets and gingerly working one over her sore hand. She slid Sunny's collar around her wrist like a giant bracelet, but it wouldn't stay and she ended up catching it in the crook of her sore fingers. "Might as well put us on the clock and see what you can do with this dog."

Something about that amused him, but he didn't say what as she leashed Druid. He just followed along as she went through the gate and into the pasture behind the barna"not, she saw, missing the significance of her target-shooting setup.

But he didn't mention it. He turned to the business at hand. "Bring me up to speed," he said. "Under what circ.u.mstances does he start up with the behavior?"

Brenna waved a gloved hand in a vague and expansive gesture. "Any time he feels like it!" At his sharp glance, she added, "Seriously. You saw him acting up in the parking lot. Sometimes he does that, sometimes he doesn't. He hadn't done it in the house until last night, when he did it twicea"the first time when he bit me, the second in the crate."

"Then where are we going now?"

"A place where I found his tracks and where I'm pretty sure something scared him silly before he actually showed up at my place. He freaked the one time we went there, and I'm guessing he'll do it again. It's as likely as anything else we can do to trigger him."

"He's calm enough now," Masera said, looking down at Druid between them.

And he was. Trotting along at a happy heel despite his sore paws, tail held at an a.s.sertive angle, ears up and sharply intent on the myriad little noises he could hear and they couldn't. "This is what he's like for the most part," Brenna said. When he wasn't talking to himself. "That, and what you saw of him yesterday evening."

"Sleeping with you," Masera said, and smiled, though he wasn't looking at her when he did it and she had the impression he was remembering Druid snugly under the afghan. "You're in for heartbreak if his owners show up."

"Oh, they're another mystery." Brenna stopped short suddenly, right before the crest of the hill down to the creek. "Look." And in quick succession, she gave Druid the hand signals for down and sit and down again, then put him on heel, got an automatic sit upon halting, took him through a figure eight, slowed her pace down to a crawl, sped up . . .

Druid took it like a happy game, and gave her a hopeful wag when Brenna stopped, looking at Masera; she raised her arms and dropped them to slap against her sides in a giant shrug. "He's trained."