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“This doesn’t make sense,” I said aloud as my GPS drew me through the edge of a rundown city. I was already ten minutes late, and I’d been dreading my father’s Darth Vader ring tone for quite a bit longer than that. Patience wasn’t Dad’s strong suit....
Ah. Shamanic Journeys. There it is. Finally.
The sign in question led to a strip mall where cardboard-cutout Indians curled away from the inside of a grimy window. “Really, this is it?” I murmured, rolling down my window to make sure the glass wasn’t playing tricks on me.
Nope, still there.
I hesitated for a moment then crossed the cracked concrete to enter tchotchke-ville. The door opened onto blaring New Age music. Mass-produced dreamcatchers dangled above a huge half-geode.
No wonder Justine had been able to book this guy on such short notice. This wasn’t the office of a shaman. This was the Native American version of a fortuneteller’s den.
Unfortunately, the guy who put the sham in shaman was expecting me. “Dr. Olivia Hart.” His voice emerged from behind a beaded curtain, English accent redolent with feigned wisdom.
My father would likely demand a full report as soon as I was finished here. My heart rate rose. My wolf woke within my chest.
Hunt? she asked, her one-track mind strangely seductive at the present moment.
Shush, I told her, reluctantly admitting that I couldn’t blow off this meeting. “Mr. Redhorse,” I said aloud, pushing through the beads and into the dark.
Wolf-assisted eyes eased my progress. The air was so full of burnt sage and incense that I pressed fingers against my nose to prevent a sneezing fit.
My animal half was even more impacted. She wriggled inside me, her discomfort magnifying my discomfort. My socks chafed as hairs began sprouting on our shared feet.
I held my breath, trying to stop the transition. But that just made matters worse.
The air inside our lungs muddied. Outside. Run, my wolf tempted.
Absolutely not.
She wasn’t listening and I didn’t blame her. Something about this space was strange, electrifying.
My toenails pressed against my shoe tips. I gave up on words and instead gripped human flesh with both hands.
Usually when my wolf and I battled for bodily dominance, the change began discretely. I had time to fight it.
This time, though, my ears popped as if I’d driven up the side of a mountain. My teeth ground together as my jaw lengthened. I clamped furring fingers across my face to hide the effects of the shift.
At least it was dim in the shaman’s back office. As long as he didn’t possess infrared vision, Benjie Redhorse wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between human and not-so-human....
Which is when the shaman flicked on the light.
***
WE STARED AT EACH OTHER for one long moment. I knew what he was seeing because I’d shifted once in front of the bathroom mirror. When my eardrums popped, they’d grown into cupped triangles. A stretching jaw meant I had less of a chin now than a lupine snout.
The shaman’s visage was not so profoundly problematic but it was equally unexpected. Benjie Redhorse turned out to be a tall, lanky redhead, whose skin was milk-pale except for a generous dusting of freckles. Young enough to be one of my students, he looked nothing like the Native American shaman pictured when I cyber-stalked his business while riding in the van.
But his eyes were sharp as he considered my furriness. I half expected him to run screaming. Instead, he raised both eyebrows.
“Explain.”
“It’s a mask. I was at a party and forgot about it...”
Of course, my wolf didn’t always pay attention to spoken English. Belatedly, she must have realized that it wasn’t cool to shift in public. Just at the wrong moment my ears tickled as they popped back into my head.
Now my teeth ground in the opposite direction. The fangs that were pricking against my lips a moment earlier receded into my gum line. Invisible inside my shoes, my toenails pinched as they turned human-flat.
“Nope. Try again.”
“Why haven’t you run screaming?” I didn’t need wolf eyes to peer at him now that the office was illuminated. Benjie didn’t look scared...he looked excited.
“Because you’re my employer. You clearly have a problem. I can help you.”
We were at an impasse. Benjie Redhorse wasn’t the shaman I’d expected or hoped for. I really didn’t want to take him with me. But—
“Just to be clear. If I fire you and leave right now, you’ll...?”
“Call back the nice lady who set up this meeting and blow your cover.”
Then Justine would tell my father. Dad was the last person I wanted to know about my fur problem....
In my belly, my wolf grumbled. But I didn’t have time to bother about her hurt feelings. Instead, I peered at Benjie, who looked as relaxed as if we were sitting on his porch eating watermelon. I cocked my head. Sniffed the air.
Benjie didn’t smell scared, but there was something wiggly underneath his show of dominance. He was hungry for something. Needed...what?
While I pondered, he rose to his feet, holding out one hand as if he expected me to shake it. When I didn’t reciprocate—who exactly shakes on a deal with a blackmailer?—he shrugged.
“Look. I know we got off on the wrong foot. I’m not what you expected. You’re not what I expected either. But my connections are good. With me along, we can access tribal lands tomorrow. I understand you’re working under a deadline?”
“Yes....”
“Like I said, I’m your man.”
Before I could accept or deny him, my phone buzzed. Not Darth Vader’s theme, but a chirping cricket.
Patricia, who’d been left in charge of the rest of the students.
I glanced once more at Benjie. “You’ll have to excuse me for a moment.” Then I accepted the call.
***
“DR. OLIVIA? THANK GOODNESS!” Patricia’s words hit me so fast I had no time to offer a greeting. “I messed up. I really messed up. The Madisons are acting crazy....”
Distant, muffled, a male voice interrupted her. “I told you. It’s a bad trip.”
Was that one of the Noahs? Before I could ask Patricia to hand over the phone to someone who clearly had more information than she did, the boy swore, his voice trailing off as he moved away from the microphone.
“Not into traffic!” Patricia must have forgotten I was on the other end of the line because her voice grew distant. There was a screech of tires and she shrieked so loudly my wolf woke with a vengeance.
Our pack, she demanded.
Our duty, I agreed.
Neither of us was sure exactly what was happening to the Madisons, but we were united in the certainty that our students needed our help. I wrestled in my jeans for the car keys, pushing through the beaded curtain and out the door.
Vaguely, I noted that Benjie Redhorse was following me. But 99% of my attention was focused on trying to decipher the scuffling sounds emerging from the cell phone.
Finally, Patricia’s voice reemerged from the confusion. “Okay, okay, okay. Hold onto them until the ambulance gets here,” she told someone. Then, breathless and terrified: “Dr. Olivia, what do I do?”
“You’ve called an ambulance?” I asked, trying to get a handle on the situation.
“Suzy did.” Her words tumbled out in a cascade of confusion and contrition. “We were playing poker in McDonalds with Emily, Jacob, and one of the Noahs to kill time while we waited on your boyfriend. Madison was super upset about being assaulted. We thought it was okay to let her talk to her friends a few tables away. I dropped the ball so bad!”
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I assured her, trying to unlock the SUV without losing the thread of our conversation. I was the one who’d ignored my responsibilities and left an upset student under the care of people who had no idea what had happened to her.
My fingers shook, the key refusing to find the keyhole. Then a male hand covered mine, stealing the keys and fixing the problem. Benjie pushed me gently aside so he could slide into the driver’s seat.
“I’m driving,” he said when I stood there and glared at him. My brow furrowed. I was still certain there must be a way not to take Benjie Redhorse with us to Yellowstone...
...I just hadn’t worked out the specifics quite yet.
Until I had time to juggle parental disapproval and blackmail, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to let the not-really-shaman pilot the vehicle. Decision made, I took shotgun while Patricia sank into a morass of self-recrimination.
“I can’t be trusted to take care of children!”
I made soothing noises while struggling to make the mental leap alongside her. Right. The nanny gig. Harming a student under her care wasn’t the best endorsement of her abilities. Campus was such a rumor-mill, the parents in question would know about the Madisons before the day was done.
Still—“Patricia, listen to me. Things happen. As long as nobody dies, the Emersons aren’t going to fire you before you start.”
Then I frowned as the SUV turned, not onto the highway, but toward a side road. “What are you doing?” I mouthed at Benjie, catching his eyes in the rear-view mirror.
“Only one hospital in the county,” he answered, a deep country twang sliding into his voice. “Don’t worry, ma’am. I’m in this for the long haul. Can’t return a deposit I’ve already spent.”
This was getting better and better. Benjie Redhorse was not only a shyster and a blackmailer, even his upper-crust accent had been fake.
Closing my eyes and taking a deep breath, I tuned back in to the phone conversation as Patricia howled out loathing of her missteps. “And listen to me,” she moaned. “I’m so self-centered. I’m worried about my future when I should be worried about the Madisons. I mean, they’re really messed up. They’re talking about werewolves.”
I jolted, suddenly doubting the bad-trip hypothesis and dropping the issue of Patricia’s future entirely. “What are they saying?” I demanded, only to be drowned out by the wail of sirens.
“I’ve gotta go,” Patricia cut me off. “The ambulance is here.”
Then she hung up.