03 Long Night Moon - Seasons of the Moon Read online

  But now he narrowed his entire focus on Levi and those piercing golden eyes.

  The werewolf tried to fake him out by feinting to one side and then darting in the other direction, but Seth saw the move coming. He stole the ball and bolted.

  Levi was a blur as he darted in the way. Seth twisted and changed direction.

  The ball was stolen. Seth took it back a half second later.

  Girls screamed as Seth dribbled across the court. His heart pounded in his ears. He just needed to get across, and then he would be in the clear, and—

  Levi flew past him. The ball was gone.

  He slam-dunked and hung off the rim. The onlookers roared, stomping their feet and clapping, and Seth felt numb in the center of the court. Levi dropped to his feet, folded his arms across his chest, and stared at him in challenge.

  Levi was strong and fast—and definitely better at basketball.

  But was he deadlier?

  He imagined squeezing his finger on the trigger of his gun and the blood fountaining down Levi Riese’s triumphant expression. He could imagine himself kneeling by the body, snapping off a tooth, and making a matching earring.

  Rylie stood in the bleachers, chewing on her thumbnail. She was whiter than the snow outside.

  “Rematch?” Levi asked, tossing the ball at him. Seth let it bounce past him.

  Soon. Very soon.

  He went back into the locker room without responding.

  Rylie’s wolf was hungry for Levi Riese.

  She shouldn’t have watched them playing basketball. Her skin was hot, her hands were shaking, and all she could think about was the taste of blood. Eating roast beef for lunch did nothing. She was starving.

  The address for the Riese house was in her pocket. Abel was right. They had to do something now—before anyone else got hurt.

  So she ditched her last class and went to find their den.

  The house Bekah and Levi lived in looked plain from the outside. Rylie had seen it a hundred times when she wandered around town and hadn’t given it much thought.

  Nobody was home. The fresh snow was undisturbed. Rylie peeked in the front windows, hands cupped around her face.

  What did she think the living room of a couple murderous werewolves should look like? It seemed way too normal. They had a nice TV. Their furniture was leather, and there was a menorah on the table by the window. But she didn’t see any meat hooks, bloody handprints, or the other kinds of icky things she expected murderers to have.

  “Took you long enough.”

  Rylie whirled, clutching her knapsack to her chest. Levi stood behind her with a knitted hat pulled down to his eyebrows. The wolf’s thoughts cascaded underneath hers in a torrential river of inarticulate desires: violence and hunger and the need to defend her territory.

  “It’s you,” she growled.

  “And Tate.”

  It was only then that she noticed the black BMW on the street. The wolf immediately silenced.

  She straightened her back. “We have to talk, you and me, whether you like it or not. We’ve got to take care of this now.”

  “Take care of what?” Tate asked, bounding up the path.

  Rylie plastered a smile on her face. “Hi.”

  “I forgot to tell you I invited Rylie to pizza,” Levi said. “Come on, guys.”

  His back was turned to her while he unlocked the door. Rylie considered attacking, but Tate was right there, cupping his hands around a joint as he lit up. The time wasn’t right. She had to wait.

  They went inside, and Rylie was surrounded by the stench of other wolves. She had to brace herself on the back of the couch before she fell over.

  Levi slouched into the kitchen as Tate flopped on the sofa. He took a long drag, holding it in for a few seconds before blowing out a thick cloud. “I didn’t know you and Levi are friends,” he said in a gravelly voice.

  She was still smiling like an idiot. “We’re not—I mean—I’m just getting to know him.”

  “Cool. I thought you hated him.” Tate took another puff. “That’s cool.”

  Wasn’t everything cool with Tate? She wondered if he would be so relaxed if he knew what his new friend did on the full moon.

  Levi came out of the kitchen, turned on the TV, and lifted Tate’s legs so he could sit underneath them on the sofa. They looked… cozy. And they both ignored her completely as they shared the joint.

  Taking deep, measured breaths (which made her a little light-headed from the smoke), Rylie forced herself to sit on the edge of a chair and keep smiling.

  “So what are you guys up to?” she asked.

  “Chilling for now,” Levi said. “But we’re going to pick up our tuxes for the ball later.”

  She blinked. “You’re both going?” Bloodthirsty werewolves in formalwear fit her expectations as much as a nice middle class werewolf den. “Who are you two taking?”

  Tate laughed and offered her the joint like usual, even though she always refused. “I’m taking Levi.”

  She had to process that for a good long minute before the meaning sunk in. “You’re… taking… Levi?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “You mean on a date,” she said.

  Tate was dating Levi.

  Her best friend was dating a werewolf.

  Everything Rylie thought she knew about Tate and Levi was destroyed. Her assumptions were completely wasted—like “blown away in a nuclear holocaust” wasted. She stood and paced in a circle even though she knew it made her look like a spazz.

  “Dude,” Tate said. “Chill.”

  “I’m chill. I’m really chill. I couldn’t be chillier if I jumped in a freezer.” She spun on Levi. “I’m hungry. Do you have anything to eat?”

  He took a hint and went back into the kitchen. Rylie crouched by Tate.

  “You cannot date him,” she whispered urgently. When he moved to take another drag of his joint, she seized his wrist. His eyes widened at the strength of her grip. “Seriously, Tate, listen to me. You cannot date Levi Riese.”

  He sneered. “I thought you’d be cool with it. You’re not one of these tiny-brained, inbred farmers. Seriously, Rylie?”

  “What? No, I don’t mean it like that. You just don’t know Levi! He’s dangerous!”

  “And you two are like total best friends?”

  “That’s the problem,” she said. “You shouldn’t—”

  Levi interrupted them by returning with a plate of reheated pizza. “Cheese and oregano for Tate,” he said, setting down one plate, “and all meat for Rylie. I know it’s your favorite.”

  She glared.

  Rylie didn’t want to leave them alone, so she sat through their afternoon snack. The all meat really was her favorite. She ended up picking off the toppings and leaving the rest. To her surprise, Levi ate the whole pizza—crust, sauce, and everything. Rylie hadn’t thought werewolves ate bread and liked it.

  “I’ll clean up,” she said, leaping to her feet when she finished.

  “There’s not a lot of—”

  She grit her teeth as she grinned. “I’d be happy to do it.”

  Rylie took the dishes to the kitchen. The instant the door swung shut, she dropped them on the counter and started searching. She wasn’t sure what she expected to find. A murder weapon? Evil plans?

  The kitchen was as normal as the living room. They had marble countertops and ceramic flooring. There was a picture of an older woman hugging Levi and Bekah as they all laughed. A giant wooden pentacle hung on the opposite wall, decorated with garland and holly, though it didn’t look like a holiday decoration.

  Rylie recoiled to see it. She grew up going to church and had a pretty healthy relationship with God—until He decided to “bless” her with a werewolf bite, anyway. The five-pointed star made her queasy.

  Were they Satanists? Was that why they wore those necklaces?

  She shuffled through their drawers, but the only weird thing she found were candles. Not just tea lights, which Rylie us
ed to decorate her bedroom, but big tapers in every color. They smelled like wax, herbs, and essential oils. More pentagrams had been carved into them. They gave her the creeps. She didn’t touch them.

  “We’re heading out!” Tate shouted from the other room.

  That was it. No more time to search.

  She slammed the drawers shut and went back, wiping her hands on her jeans like they were wet from doing the dishes. “All done,” she said brightly. Levi must have known what she was doing, but he didn’t confront her.

  “So are you coming with us to the city?” Tate asked, extinguishing the joint with the tips of his fingers.

  “My aunt’s expecting me. I better not.”

  She tried to think of something, anything, she could say to make the guys go separate ways. But nothing came to mind. Tate got in the BMW and started warming it up, and Rylie grabbed Levi’s arm.

  “What are you doing?” she hissed. “You can’t date Tate! He’s human!”

  “You’re dating a human. What makes you special?”

  “Because he’s—because I’m not—” Rylie floundered for words. “I’m not a killer!”

  “We’re all killers,” Levi said. “But I’m not going to hurt Tate. He’s safe with me. I’ll take care of him.”

  “But—we have to—”

  “Later. We’ll talk. I swear.”

  All she could do was stand back on the driveway and watch them go, helpless and scared and a little confused.

  What makes you special?

  “But I’m not like you,” Rylie whispered to the receding BMW.

  Eleven

  Visitor

  Seth picked the lock on the coroner’s office in twenty seconds flat.

  He kept different locks in a bag under his bed and practiced picking them when he had a few extra minutes, and he had gotten good at it. But the coroner’s office was no challenge. Nobody in such a small town bothered with security.

  The door was open and he was inside before so much as a single car passed on the street.

  Seth navigated the dark office without turning on his flashlight. His boots made the floorboards creak no matter how quietly he stepped, and every little noise made him jump. He pulled the curtains shut in the back office before turning on the coroner’s computer.

  The monitor’s glow illuminated the room with stark shadows and burned his eyes. It was an old machine, and she had everything saved on the desktop. He started randomly clicking folders. It was all personal stuff—photos of the coroner’s son and an impressive collection of MP3s.

  “Where are the records?” he muttered as he searched through the file trees.

  How hard could it be to find a coroner’s information on police investigations? But there was nothing. It didn’t even look like the computer connected to the internet.

  His eyes traveled to a row of filing cabinets against the wall.

  Seth turned off the monitor and opened the first cabinet. It was filled with manila folders arranged by date and case number.

  “No way,” he said with a disbelieving snort. Paper filing. Too weird.

  All of the bodies that had been mauled in “animal attacks” were grouped together, so he grabbed the whole stack, sat at the desk, and kicked his feet up on the blotter. He read them using the light from his cell phone.

  Deciphering the coroner’s handwriting was the hardest part. It took him a good minute of squinting to recognize Isaiah Branson’s name and figure out the date.

  Surprise washed over him. There had been other bodies before the farmer.

  The files went back for weeks. Branson was the fourth to die, though it looked like the police hadn’t connected them until the death of the librarian at Turner’s Crossing. There had been another three deaths since then, including the one Abel reported finding in an alley downtown.

  Seven bodies. Two months.

  Seth flipped through the school records he had downloaded to his phone. Two months before, Levi and Bekah Riese had still been enrolled in a school at Los Angeles.

  He turned on the desk lamp and snapped pictures of the case files. He made sure to get names, dates, and addresses, as well as the autopsy photos. They were hard to look at.

  When Seth killed werewolves, they stayed furry—he hadn’t seen many dead people before.

  He started to forward the images to Abel, but paused before hitting send.

  If Bekah and Levi weren’t the murderers… then who had done it?

  A horrible idea occurred to Seth—so terrible he didn’t want to consider it. But once it came to him, it lodged in his mind and began growing.

  Who had come to town two months before? Who could be strong enough, brutal enough, to murder innocent people?

  He turned off his phone, replaced the files, and snuck out the office the way he came in. It was snowing again. The world was quiet and still.

  When he got home, he found Abel sleeping on his futon. He was so big that his feet and arms flopped off the sides. He had a sharpening stone and a giant knife with a serrated edge next to him. The blade was so big it might as well have been a sword.

  How hard would it be to tear out someone’s throat with a knife and make it look like a bite wound?

  Abel stirred. One eye peeked open. “Why are you staring at me, you creepy little punk?”

  “Stop being paranoid and go back to sleep.” He took off his boots and sat down. His brother scrubbed his face and rolled over, giving a bleary blink at the clock on their satellite box.

  “It’s late. Where were you?”

  “With Rylie.”

  Abel flopped onto his back. “What were you two doing?”

  “None of your business,” Seth said.

  His brother snorted and threw a hand out, feeling blindly for the knife. He found it, sheathed it, and tucked it under his pillow. “Nice. You could have any cheerleader you wanted at school, and you’re still with the werewolf.”

  He was trying to pick a fight, but Seth didn’t feel like arguing. “What would you say if I told you that Bekah and Levi are innocent? Their school records say they were still in California when the first people died.”

  “I’d say school records are easy to fake.”

  That hadn’t occurred to him. It didn’t ease the tension at all. “I don’t think they’re the killers,” Seth said. “They’re immune to silver. Bekah said she wants to help Rylie. I think—I mean, I believe them. They’re different.”

  Abel gave a long groan. “You’re getting soft.”

  “Am I?”

  He didn’t respond. Seth squinted in the darkness. Abel’s eyes were closed, and his chest rose and fell with slow, deep breaths. Asleep.

  Seth stayed awake to watch his brother all night long.

  Rylie woke up the next morning with a sticky mouth and a horrible headache. She didn’t even look at herself as she scrubbed her teeth and spat red-stained toothpaste into the sink. Her eyelids felt like they were sticky with glue and every muscle ached. She didn’t want to go to school.

  The only thing that got her out of the house—aside from Gwyn’s threatening death-glare—was the thought of seeing her boyfriend.

  But Seth wasn’t at school, and he didn’t respond to her text messages.

  It frustrated her to think of Seth and Abel hunting without her, but she couldn’t go looking for them. Friday was therapy, as usual, and Gwyn would know if she skipped out on it.

  The secretary set down her knitting long enough to tap the buzzer that alerted the therapist of a patient’s arrival. “He’s on a conference call right now,” she said in a kindly voice when Rylie moved to go into the office. “You can sit out here and wait with me.”

  She dropped onto the waiting room couch. “How long do you think he’ll be?”

  “Not long at all.”

  Rylie crossed her legs at the ankles and tried not to fidget too much. Having to wait made irritation prick at the back of her neck. “So what’s this guy’s name?”

  “Scott Whyte,” sa
id the secretary. “He’s a psychologist from California. He looks a bit like an old movie star—Sean Connery or something.” She giggled like she was a teenager instead of a gray-haired lady with a scarf covered in cats.

  Scott Whyte.

  The name filled her with dread. Why did that sound familiar?

  Rylie suddenly wanted to run. It felt like the office had closed in on her like a cage. She was sure she had never met him before, and she couldn’t bring a face to mind, but she needed to get away.

  Abandoning her promise to Gwyn, she obeyed the urge in her gut that told her to flee.

  But then the office door opened.

  An unfamiliar man with a shock of white hair and a square jaw—just like an aging movie star who had put on thirty pounds—came through the doorway.

  The wolf inside Rylie loosed a growl. She had to clap a hand over her mouth to keep from vocalizing it.

  “You must be Rylie,” Scott said. “Please, come in.”

  She didn’t move. Why was the wolf so scared?

  “I just remembered I have to do something,” she said. It barely came out louder than a whisper. “Can I reschedule?”

  “You’re already here. Come on in and shut the door.”

  He went inside and sat at Janice’s desk. Reluctantly, she followed, but stuck by the chessboard. She took a sniff. His smell was familiar.

  “I can’t stay long,” she said.

  He gestured to the chair in front of him. “You’ve got me for a whole hour. Sit, please. I’ve wanted to meet you for quite some time.”

  Scott Whyte’s polo shirt gapped at the collar. She glimpsed a chain and smelled something unpleasant. Rylie realized, suddenly, that she knew what was on the end of that chain—the same star that Bekah and Levi wore.

  “Werewolf,” she snarled.

  “Wait!” he said when she grabbed the doorknob. “We have to talk!”

  Heat radiated from her bones, making her abs clench and fingers itch. Rylie didn’t have to look down to know her fingernails were loosening again. She didn’t even care.

  “This is a trap,” she said, lisping on the words around teeth that were growing long and sharp. She could imagine sinking her teeth into his throat all too clearly.