Hudson went to help the sobbing Maisie to her feet, not surprised that she seemed as traumatized as he was.
Chapter 7
Lust for Flesh
Standing in the cool air outside Matilda Saxon’s “Barn of Wonders,” as he and Yoshida had dubbed it, Hudson accepted the dented, extra-large coffee thermos from the other deputy. They had traded it off like a jar of moonshine since the end of Aura’s rehumanizing twenty minutes ago. “Damn, what’d you do? Shotgun it?”
“I was thirsty,” Yoshida said.
“We have plenty of water.”
“I’m also exhausted, if it’s okay with you.”
Hudson took only a couple of gulps and gave the thermos back to Yoshida. “Relax, Yosh. It’s you I’m worried about, not the java.”
“Yeah.” Yoshida wiped the thin sheen off his face. “Sorry.”
“Wanna tell me what the hell happened to you in there?’
Yoshida looked in the barn to check on the minister and the witches, as they attended Aura. The biker was bundled in a blanket on the lawn chair, her expression the slack blank of a newborn.
“Chalk it up to stress,” Yoshida said.
Hudson wasn’t convinced. “I thought you were having a seizure.”
“I don’t think so. Never had one before.” He offered Hudson the thermos. When it was refused, he emptied it in three large gulps.
“Still. Wouldn’t hurt you to see a doctor.”
Yoshida looked at his friend as if to protest, then saluted with the thermos, closed it up and went back in to help the others.
As McGlazer and the magic folk gently pulled Aura to her feet, the biker looked at them like they were aliens, her childlike expression far removed from the smug sneer she wore before she became a wolf.
Supported on either side, she took trembling steps, looking up from her feet to McGlazer and Maisie.
“Her memory is gone,” murmured Ysabella. “Wiped clean.”
“You don’t think she’s…?” Hudson warily began.
“She’s not faking, Deputy.”
“Will she regain it?” asked McGlazer.
“We don’t know,” said Ysabella, her tone that of a very tired woman. She looked and sounded like she had aged twenty years during the ritual.
Maisie continued for her. “We’ve never heard of a skinwalker who remained in animal form for this long. There is no precedent.”
There were other questions: Would she change back? Was she still as strong?
“We have to study and consult with our coven.”
“Not to be disrespectful,” Hudson said, realizing he was falling into DeShaun mode, “I hope your coven has a good benefits package, because it looks like you ladies are going to be working overtime.”
His humor served him well. Everyone relaxed and laughed, except Aura.
* * * *
“Dennis! How go the rehearsals?” Reverend McGlazer secretly hoped the singer, whom he sponsored through AA, hadn’t come by for a sobriety pep talk.
Though McGlazer himself had stayed dry—a miracle itself—in the wake of his possession by the ghost of Conal O’Herlihy, he hardly felt qualified to offer strength, much less faith, to anyone lately.
“You got a few minutes?” Jill appeared beside Dennis in the Community Center office’s doorway—but not too close. “For both of us?”
“Oh, sure!” McGlazer couldn’t help but grin, assuming they were finally going to ask him to preside over their marriage ceremony.
He began the perfunctory and futile ritual of trying to straighten up the desk. The sagging particleboard furnishing was in use at any given time by any of at least eight people, from coaches to janitors. A wrinkled clutter of plans for the Devil’s Night party, poor replacement for the Pumpkin Parade that it was, had spread like kudzu in the two weeks since Mayor Stuyvesant suggested it.
“Oh, please,” said Jill. “We don’t care about the mess.”
McGlazer grew concerned. Jill’s voice didn’t carry the note of excitement he expected from a newly engaged young lady, even a cynical punker. “All right. Take a seat.”
There was only one, made of hard plastic, and it was hosting a net bag full of dusty kickballs. Dennis moved the bag for Jill, then leaned against the wall, well outside of her contact range. “Which thing first, Jilly?”
She regarded McGlazer earnestly. “You know me and Denny are supposed to keep our filthy mitts off each other for a few months, while he readjusts to sobriety.”
“It ain’t easy,” Dennis immediately added. “You gotta help us.”
“Oh. I understand…” McGlazer scratched his ear. “Well, I doubt you’re interested in…supportive bible verses.”
Dennis gave a wan smile. “Here’s where your counseling skills kick in, Padre.”
“Let’s hope. So—tell me how you were…handling it, before now?”
They both laughed. “I know you’re not going for double entendre,” Jill said. “You’ll have to look past our childish preoccupation.”
“I’ll try to meet you halfway.”
“We’re always under adult supervision,” Dennis began, “if you count Petey.”
“I try to dress down,” Jill offered.
“It don’t help,” said Dennis. “She’s still…her.”
“And he’s still him.” She locked eyes with him. The sexual tension was as palpable as they had said.
“How did you make it here today without…?”
“Pedro drove us. He’s waiting for us outside,” explained Jill. “Didn’t want any part of this conversation,”
“It was his idea we talk to you.”
“Says he wants to split the suffering with somebody else.”
“Well, give him my thanks.”
“So, you got anything for us?”
McGlazer took a deep breath, mostly as a stall, while he mulled an inventory of stratagems he might once have suggested. Praying with those struggling against temptation was usually the big go-to in the minister business. But McGlazer grimly realized that would be disingenuous these days. “I think I’m going to have to make a referral on this one.”
“Huh? Who?”
McGlazer just stared at them for several seconds.
“A therapist is out of the question, man.” Dennis’s frustration was obvious. “You’ve always done me right as my sponsor. So what gives?”
McGlazer’s inner dialogue made him feel like he was possessed by Conal O’Herlihy again, as if two minds were at war in his body. He fought his way back to the surface, past a rising tide of doubts he had been ignoring for
