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Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Thirteen
“You’re sure?”
The darkness could have been playing with my mind when I’d heard the growl, felt the fur, but it hadn’t been dark when I’d seen the tail.
“I’m sure.” I tilted my head. “You aren’t going to explain why I couldn’t have? Check me for fever again?”
“Maybe later.” He hissed and dropped the match. Eternal night descended once more. “What kind of a tail?”
“Black.”
“Bushy or thin?”
I thought hard. “I don’t know.”
“Long or short?”
“I only saw the tip. Maybe it was nothing.” I wanted it to be nothing.
“We both heard the growl.”
“You did?”
“Uh-huh.”
I took a deep breath, then let it out. “I felt fur.”
Several beats of silence followed my statement, then: “The guy could have been wearing fur, or what felt like fur.”
Gotta love a logical mind.
“Was he wearing a tail, too?” I asked.
“You said you weren’t sure about the tail, and who knows—” He made a movement that was most likely a shrug. “Maybe he was.”
“So we’re talking crazy guy, zombie, or a big furry growling thing where one isn’t supposed to be.”
“Why is it whenever you talk I get a headache?”
“I have that effect on a lot of people.”
Silence fell between us for several minutes, and then: “Did you find anything strange about those eyes?”
I had, but I’d brushed off my unease, and now I couldn’t quite recall why I’d felt it. I hadn’t been able to distinguish a color beyond light—blue, green, gray, maybe yellow. But that wasn’t what had bothered me about them.
“They had whites,” Murphy said.
That was.
Because only people have whites around their irises; animals don’t. Unless you’re talking werewolf.
Hell.
“What do human eyes mean to you?” he asked.
The man wasn’t slow. Even without seeing my face he sensed I was hiding something.
“Human,” I said. Some of the time.
“There’s more to it than that.”
Murphy had already fit me for a straitj acket. One more bit of insanity wouldn’t change that. “In wolf form, werewolves retain their human eyes.”
“There aren’t any wolves on this island.”
“There never are.” I grabbed Murphy’s hand and started forward again.
He hung back. “Hold on. You want to chase the scary unknown being?”
“You don’t believe in it.”
“Just because I don’t think there’s a werewolf in Haiti doesn’t mean there isn’t something here I’m not wild about facing. I certainly don’t plan on chasing it.”
“Not chase. Follow.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Chasing involves running; following is… slower.” I tugged. He still didn’t move. “Murphy, we need to go on. Behind us is nothing but a dead end.”
“Unless the waterfall came back.” His voice was wistful.
“You want to spend hours finding out?”
“No,” he muttered. “I guess I’d rather fight the unknown creepy thing than stay in the small enclosed dark place until the end of time.”
“Aren’t you the cheery fellow?”
“That’s me. Regular Mr. Chuckles I am.”
I was still smiling as I turned, amused now by his British accent rather than annoyed, and I saw it. A light at the end of a tunnel. Literally.
I began to run again.
“That’s chasing!” Murphy shouted. “There wasn’t going to be any chasing.” Except he was running, too.
I burst out of the cave and into a clearing shadowed by a crescent moon. Moist heat slapped me in the face, startling after hours of cool darkness. The scent of greenery, of flowers, surrounded me. The moon’s glow caused the trees, the shrubs, to glisten with an ethereal light, and the blossoms shone with colors both muted and vivid.
On this side of the cave lay a true jungle, dense and damp; I’d never seen anything quite like it. Uneasily I wondered where we’d popped out.
I wasn’t like Murphy. I believed in magic—white, black, and everything in between. I had to. And if magic existed, hell, we could have come out of that cave anywhere.
He reached my side, his grunt of surprise revealing the differences were as obvious to him as they had been to me.
A rustle drew my attention to the dense underbrush. Slowly I removed my knife from its sheath. At the slight rasp, Murphy reached for his rifle. I only hoped it worked after being doused in the waterfall.
Though his gun was loaded with lead, he might be able to slow something down and give me a chance to use the silver blade before the thing ripped out my throat or Murphy’s.
Out of the jungle stepped a man. I give Murphy credit; he didn’t put away his gun. Maybe he was learning.
There’d been a growling furry beast in the cave a few moments ago. In my world, that beast might be right here, minus only the fur and the growls.
He was tall, very thin, dark skin, light eyes, wearing ancient loose khaki trousers and little else. Because of the heat, the destitution, or the need to dress quickly after shifting from one form to the next?
“Ki j an ou ye?” Murphy gave the traditional Haitian greeting. How are you?
“M’pa pi mal,” returned the man. I ’m not worse.
Also the traditional answer. In a land where poverty was a given, I ’m not worse was often the best that could be hoped for.
The man’s voice was strong and clear. Not a zombie. Or at least not a typical zombie who could do little but mumble and shuffle. Which was good.
Or maybe bad, because then he might be—
I stepped forward and before the stranger knew what I was about pressed the silver knife against his bare arm.
He didn’t react, which was odd in itself. Wouldn’t a normal person be disturbed by my behavior?
Murphy was. I sensed his tension, his disapproval, but he kept the gun steady. Just because the guy wasn’t a shuffling zombie or a snarling werewolf didn’t mean he wasn’t dangerous.
“Pardon me.” I stepped away from the man. “Did you see an animal?”
He tilted his head, a chillingly canine gesture. “Animal?”
At least he spoke English. “About so high.” I set my hand at my waist. “Dog? Coyote? Wolf?”
His smile flashed, a bit condescending but still a nice smile—even if he was missing a few teeth. “There are no coyotes or wolves here.”
“Where’s here?”
Confusion flickered. “Haiti.”
I had my doubts. “Someone got a big dog?”
“No, Priestess.”
I blinked, then glanced at Murphy, who shrugged.
“How do you know who I am?” The man turned away without answering. “Where are you going?”
He paused. “You wish to meet the bokor, you must come with me.”
“OK.”
Murphy caught my elbow. “You’re just going to follow a stranger into the jungle?”
“I followed you.”
“That was different.”
“Really? How so?”
He scowled. “I don’t think we should.”
“I do.” I tugged on my arm; Murphy only held tighter. “What else should I do, Murphy? Wander around wherever the hell we are shouting Mezareau’s name?”
“I thought you weren’t supposed to say his name.”
“I think he knows we’re here.”
“I think he’s known from the beginning.”
“I’m going.”
Murphy released me, then stared over my shoulder at the stranger, eyes narrowed, j aw working. I discovered I was nervous at the thought of going into this new, denser jungle without Murphy. I didn’t like the feeling.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s go.”
I let out the breath I’d been holding and together we followed our new friend into the trees.
“You think this guy’s a werewolf?” Murphy asked.
I glanced at our guide, but he didn’t appear to hear our murmured words, just kept shoving aside fronds and low-hanging tree branches, moving in the direction of the moon with a determination that comforted me. At least one of us knew where we were going.
I wiggled my knife, then put it away. “Not anymore.”
“I can’t believe I’m asking this,” Murphy muttered. “But why would you think that? The moon isn’t full.”
Since we appeared to be following the Haitian for longer than a minute and the terrain wasn’t too rugged to walk and talk, I gave Murphy the lowdown as I knew it.
“Werewolves can change at dusk, any day of the month.”
“So the full-moon thing is a myth.”
“Yes and no. Under the full moon, they’re compelled to change—and to kill. Under any other moon, it’s their choice. Though most choose to shift and to hunt whenever they can.”
“Why?”
“They like it.”
“Again I’ll be askin’ why?”
His Irish was back. Murphy must be really worried, and he hadn’t even heard the best—make that the worst—part yet.
“The way it was explained to me, the lycanthropy virus destroys a person’s humanity. They look like people, but deep down there’s a demon panting to get out.”
“Demon?” He stopped walking and I did, too. “You can’t be serious.”
“Do you want to hear this or not?”
“Do.”
I swept out my arm in a “be my guest” gesture, and he began to walk again. Our Haitian friend was now farther ahead of us, since he’d continued on when we’d paused.
“The demon is pure selfishness—even in human form. Me first, screw the other guy.”
“But, Gepetto, how then can you tell a werewolf from a real boy?”
He was catching on. “Exactly. The world as it is now is a perfect breeding ground for evil. People behave like psychopaths and we call it ambition.”
Just look at my husband.
“So you’re saying there are werewolves in every walk of life, masquerading as people.”
“They are people, most of the time. Just not people you want to hang out with. Unless you like to turn furry and murder the innocent.”
“Not really.”
“Then you should start wearing silver.”
He lifted one hand. “Like this?”
His thumb ring gleamed blue in the moonlight.
“That’ll work.”
***
