Blood Moon (16 page)

‘But you killed…I mean, back there.’

‘That was an animal! Besides it was attacking you. No, I’ll go easy on Dad. Just enough to show him I can win. Dad’s no fool. He’ll know when I’m ready. We’ll fight, well, because that’s what we’ve always done. Symbolic sort of, you know? But it won’t last longer than it has to. Dad’ll tear my ear, just to show I didn’t get away with it too lightly, then I’ll get him in a headlock and force him down and he’ll roll over and that’ll be the end of it.’

‘Sounds like you’ve got it, well, choreographed.’

A laugh beside me in the darkness. ‘More or less. We know each other pretty well, Dad and me.’

‘What’ll happen to him after?’

‘Go on pretty much as before. Except I’ll be the one to breed of course.’ The wolf-like trot beside me was even cockier now. ‘I’ll still need Dad for advice and all that. I mean hell, we’re not in the old days now.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘No, I don’t suppose you are.’

W
e met Jen and Ben racing towards us on the track, with Rusty panting after them. Jen hugged me, sniffing me all over to make sure I was all right, and Len boasted gently about how he’d killed the Dog, and Jen made suitably admiring noises and so did I.

The cubs met us in the doorway and there was more sniffing till they too were convinced I wasn’t hurt.

Emerald exclaimed and pressed a cup of sweet tea into my hand, and Rusty frowned and growled and kept exclaiming: ‘On my own turf too! And a visitor! My fault, my own damn fault, could smell that damn stink for weeks, did nothing about it, on my own turf too,’ until I reassured him and did everything but pat his furry head as I drank my tea.

And all the while Eleanor looked at us with calm dark eyes, impossible to read. I suspected I knew what thoughts were behind them though.

Finally they let me go up to my room to wash away the stink of fear and beast as best I could in the basin in my room. (I knew they could smell the remnants of my fear, and it embarrassed me. The sooner I smelt of rose-scented soap and shampoo the better.)

I had just pulled on a fresh slipon when there was a tap at the door and Eleanor entered before I could answer. She sat on the bed as she had before and stared at me.

I rubbed the towel over my head again and threw it down. ‘Yes. Well.’

‘The beast is dead,’ said Eleanor. She half smiled. ‘They were all so worried about you I don’t think they’ve realised yet what this means.’

‘Exactly.’ I sat on the bed opposite her. ‘The beast that left the paw prints, the beast that Mrs Anderson saw disappear into the night. The beast that killed Brother Perry and the Patriarch and Andy Anderson. And once you show them that Dog’s body the Valley will know how preposterous their suspicions were. I hope they’ll at least be embarrassed by them.’

‘Probably not,’ said Eleanor. ‘They’ll be half suspicious for a while, just so they won’t have to admit that they were wrong. But in time…yes, in time it’ll all settle down.’ She smiled at me, though there was still an edge to her smile I didn’t understand. ‘So now you can go home. You came to prove us innocent and you have.’

‘Accidentally,’ I pointed out tiredly. ‘Not by any great detective work. If I’d never gone for a walk…’ I stopped. If I hadn’t gone for a walk, I’d still be blaming Len for the murders. Len who had rescued me. Len who would, I thought, be a kind and expert leader when Rusty’s reign was over.

‘So you’ll go home?’

I nodded. ‘Yes. I’ll go home.’ I was longing to go home, but I couldn’t say that. I wanted my books and my garden, I wanted to discuss the day with Neil as we ate our dinner in the old stone kitchen, I wanted peace, routine and the Wombat at the door, looking for his carrots.

‘I’ll call in at Black Stump on the way,’ I said. ‘I’ll tell them about the beast and they can spread the news. Maybe it’d be best if Rusty and Len didn’t bury its body till someone outside the family has seen it.’

Just in case, I thought, that there are some who think that the werewolves and I made the story up to clear their names.

‘You won’t stay for dinner?’

‘No. Thank you, but…well, I’ll eat at Black Stump.’ Thank goodness for floaters, I thought. I could press in my coordinates and doze on the way home.

Eleanor stood up. ‘I can only say thank you,’ she said. The voice was almost expressionless, as though whatever she felt was too deep to properly express. ‘There are no words to really say what I feel. How much we owe you.’

She took my hand. ‘This isn’t easy for me, you know,’ she said. ‘I…it should have been me who found the beast. But my sense of smell…well, it’s nowhere near as good as Rusty’s. Or Len’s. But still, I should have been the one to protect us, to protect you.’

‘Forget about it,’ I said. ‘I was just there at the right time and the right place. If I hadn’t been—well, I’m sure Rusty would have found the beast soon. Or Dusty, or Len.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But by then maybe it would have been too late.’

‘It…’ I was going to say ‘It was nothing’. But that wasn’t true. It had been horrible and exhausting and I was glad it was over.

‘I’ll just call Neil before I leave, if you don’t mind putting the Link through,’ I said instead. ‘Just to let him know what’s happening. Then I’ll be off.’

T
here was corn for dinner at Black Stump. Corn fritters, only slightly gritty tomato, lettuce and chicory salad (with slugs for extra protein—the kids had picked the greens), potatoes (half the potatoes not quite cooked through and the other half mushy—Gloucester was teaching the kids to cook), and a cornmeal and dried-cherry clafouti for dessert which was truly superb. It was made by Hippolyta who was apparently better with a mixing bowl than a spanner when she could be bothered.

There was also the home-distilled blackberry brandy that Neil and I had tasted before and three bottles of last year’s apple cider, brought out for my benefit, as congratulations for solving the murders.

‘I knew you’d do it!’ exclaimed Ophelia, her mouth around a forkful of corn fritter.

‘So did I,’ said Portia importantly. ‘Can I try the brandy? Please? I’m ten now.’

‘No,’ said Gloucester. He looked younger suddenly, as though he was happy to have shed the responsibility for protecting the Valley.

‘When then?’

‘When you’re bigger. I’ll get on the Terminal right after dinner,’ Gloucester went on, ‘and tell everyone about it! It’s incredible! You’re incredible!’ He took another giant swig of brandy.

I stuck to the cider, having felt the effects of the brandy before, though the way my head swam already it
seemed that even the cider was almost as potent. Or perhaps the dizziness came from weariness, or triumph—because I was triumphant. Even though I had discovered the solution by accident, I had at least discovered it. And even though I had explained the accidental nature of my discovery to everyone at Black Stump, it was still good to be treated as a heroine by those I liked.

So what if they now had a truly inflated idea of my detective prowess? It was unlikely there’d ever be another murder in the vicinity of their small valley that would need solving. Two killers in such a small community was surely more than their fair share. Nor was Michael ever likely to have trouble with another werewolf Outlander consultant and need to call me in. I could retire in triumph now.

Which reminded me, I hadn’t yet called Michael to tell him the case was solved. But surely Eleanor would do that, I thought fuzzily. There was no need for me to call him. No need for me ever to speak to him again. No need to confront the possibility that he might never have betrayed the Forest. No need to face him and admit I might have been wrong. No need to dissect my own feelings and wonder if just possibly…

No. No need for any of that at all. I would stay at home with Neil now. He’d tend his apple trees and I’d design more projects where kids could play and Water Sprites…well, do whatever Water Sprites chose to do, with whoever they chose to do it with, in whatever combinations…

I had definitely had too much cider.

‘To Danielle!’ exclaimed Yorick, for what must have been the fifteenth time, and the glasses clinked and the
lights blinked on and off and Hippolyta said ‘Oh, stuff it,’ but went, somewhat unsteadily, to check them anyway.

Whatever she did must have worked because the lights were working when she returned, and then it was time to go. And Ophelia was hugging me and Yorick was hugging me and Spot reached up and scratched my leg and was scolded by Portia and Viola. Then Viola and Portia hugged me and even Malvolio hugged my leg and left a sticky residue of corn fritter on my knee, and Gloucester and the others hugged me too.

I took a bottle of the brain-death brandy as a present for Neil and promised yes, yes, of course we’d visit, they must come and see us too—I’d send the floater, and Portia yelled, ‘Pirate ships! Pow, pow, pow…’

The cool air and darkness were a shock, but I was still weaving happily as I made my way to the floater. Hippolyta, Yorik, Romeo and Juliet were waving to me from the doorway, the kids were chasing the cat behind them in the light from the passage, Gloucester and Ophelia were hovering for a final hug…

It was waiting for me in the floater.

It leapt on me. It tore my throat. I felt the pain, but it wasn’t really pain, it was too much for pain. It was simply coldness and something wet flooding across my skin, and Gloucester yelled and reached for it and then Ophelia too. I saw claws flash by, then it was gone, out the other door. I heard someone scream and wondered if it was me.

A shape bounded across the dying grass under the apple trees. For perhaps two seconds the face was clear in the light from the kitchen window, then it was lost among the apple trees.

There were stars, but they weren’t in the right place. The right place for stars was in the sky and I was looking down but the stars were still there, orange stars not silver…

Someone was still screaming. It wasn’t me, it seemed. It was Portia, screaming and screaming in the hall, and Hippolyta was pulling her away, shielding her and the other children from the blood outdoors.

The children had seen enough blood, I thought fuzzily. And then the world went black.

I
was in a bed. It wasn’t my own bed. It wasn’t the bed at the Tree either or the bed I’d slept in the only night I’d spent at Black Stump all those months before. It wasn’t…and then my mind ran out of beds, ran out of consciousness too, and the world was blank again.

It was daylight when I woke again. Or was it candlelight? If it was candlelight, I must be at Black Stump and the generator must have failed again. My throat hurt. My head hurt too. It must be a hangover from the cider.

Someone was speaking softly in the background. No, it wasn’t soft, it was too loud, even my breathing was too loud, but the voice was still too soft to make out.

Someone held my hand. It was Neil. I blinked and it was Michael. ‘Michael,’ I said, ‘where’s Neil?’ But no words came out, and I drifted off again.

There were dreams—a wolf in human clothing who leered at me from across the bed. Michael, but not the Michael I had last seen on the Terminal screen—this was Michael at ten years old. We were running through a forest, but it wasn’t a real forest, it was one I had created in my mind—all streams and flowers—and flashed to him. He joined me in my dreams. We often played together like that back then in the dreams that I created and shared with Michael and the Forest, long before I made my first Reality.

Melanie was saying something too, so soft I couldn’t hear. Neil was calling, but I couldn’t hear him either. Neil was saying, ‘She blinked, I think she’s waking up again.’

‘Neil?’ I whispered.

‘Yes, it’s me. Don’t try to talk.’

‘What happened?

‘Shh. You’re at Black Stump. You’re injured: your throat, a bruise on your head, concussion. Don’t worry, it’s not bad. Ophelia called a Meditech, who patched you up, then Michael brought a doctor out from the City, just to check there was nothing more serious the Meditech had missed. Don’t worry,’ he said, sounding more as though he were reassuring himself, than me, ‘it’ll all be healed in a week or two.’

‘Why am I…’

‘Unconscious? Ophelia said you fainted, or maybe it was the bang on the head when you hit the floater door. Then they gave you some anaesthetic thing to knock you out till the Medtitech got here, because they couldn’t give you PainLink. Then the Meditech gave you something else to keep you still while he stitched you up, and the doctor put you under yet again. She said you’d be groggier from all the anaesthetics than the injuries.’

‘Michael…here?’

Neil’s mouth tightened. ‘Yes. He’s still here. He was with you when I arrived, then Ophelia told him he had to wait in the kitchen.’

‘He brought the doctor?’

‘No, he called the doctor from here. The doctor left about an hour ago, back to the City.’

‘Neil…why…’

‘Why am I here? Ophelia called me.’

Good for Ophelia, I thought, and began to drift off again. Suddenly I opened my eyes again. ‘Neil, the wolf…’

‘It’s all right Danny. The wolf is gone. It didn’t have time to…to really hurt you.’

‘But it…he…it was Len.’

‘Yes, it was Len.’ It was Ophelia’s voice. I hadn’t heard her come in. I tried to raise my head but it was too heavy. It hurt too much as well. I heard footsteps cross the room, and Ophelia stood beside the bed. ‘We all saw him, Danny. It was Len all right. There could be no mistaking him in the light from the kitchen.’

‘But…the Dog…the beast?’

‘It wasn’t the Dog after all. Yorick went to look at its body. It was nearly toothless, Danny. It couldn’t have done the murders.’

Toothless. I remembered how thin it had been. Had it really been going to attack me? Or had I just assumed…My prejudice again, I thought. A beast comes towards you and you assume he’s going to tear out your throat.

‘Len,’ I whispered.

‘Yes, said Ophelia expressionlessly. ‘It was Len after all. I’m sorry, Danny. We all are. It was our fault you were attacked.’

‘No,’ I whispered. ‘Not your fault…’

Why had he done it? Why had Len taken such a risk? Had the incident with the Dog excited him? Had he suddenly seen me as meat and an animal’s prey, and followed me down to Black Stump? Everyone at the Tree knew that I was coming here. It was only fifteen minutes run for a wolf.

‘What…what will happen now?’ I croaked.

Another shadow darkened the doorway. ‘Nothing,’ said Gloucester. ‘Nothing at all will happen now.’

‘But Len?’

‘Len is dead,’ said Gloucester. ‘You don’t have to worry about him any more, Danny. Len is dead.’

Outlanders, I thought, look after their own.