Outside all is quiet. By arrangement with the block association, the Klieg lights are off. The crowd is largely dispersed. The moon has disappeared behind the houses. Cameras follow us to the curb then stop.
A driver opens the back door of a limo. We kiss the kids good-bye, promise we’ll see them all tomorrow, make sure Mary will have the shoulder looked at, and escape before the fans can get to us. The cameras don’t follow any further. We’ll see them tomorrow also.
Ransom and I settle into the back seat and I give the directions home. Yes. We are roommates again—
The energy of the moon has flowed out of us. The wolf sleeps after it has fed. I sink into the seat. “I hope they got the footage they wanted,” I say.
Next month we do this at the Chandler in L.A. In October under the Hunter’s Moon it’s the Colonial in Boston. We’re booked two years in advance. The documentary, the long farewell tour—we’re showing them how it’s done.
“Tomlinson was out of control, tonight,” Ransom says. He sounds tired and old. “Much as I like him I’m afraid Tommy’s got to go.”
“He reminds me of you at his age,” I say. “And he gave you the chance to make that speech.”
“What he did was unprofessional.”
“Hmmm. Remember the binge you went on after you walked out on Edia?”
“I remember waking up from a week-long blackout.”
“And discovering you’d signed on to play Cyrano de Bergerac in a former tin can factory in Jersey City.”
“The nose was great. You said so yourself.”
“They’ll find a medical cure for Tommy’s problem. We’ll be the last of our kind.”
But Ransom’s asleep and I take his hand. When I first saw him I knew he was dangerous. But it’s what I was used to. It’s easy to entice and easy to anger when you offer the mixed bag that I did. Now we are as you see us.
On my iPod, Dvorak’s Water Nymph sings to the moon of her troubles. I think of her as a creature caught between worlds—like me as a child. I want to tell her that I’ve seen over eight hundred moons both silver and blue come and go. And I look forward to seeing some more.
IN THE SEEONEE HILLS
by Erica Hildebrand
My name is Claire.
Four months ago, Jules told me she was a werewolf. We were already sleeping together. She should have known better, but I should have been more careful.
Lycanthropy, unless you’re born with it, is debilitating. Contracting it is easier than you think, even when you’re just experimenting with some rough play in the bedroom.
It’s all in the bite.
I went to the clinic—not just any clinic,
The test was just a smokescreen, my way of trying to cross paths with the Seeonee Pack.
I sat by myself, reading a pamphlet on lycanthropy. Jules had sworn to me it wasn’t a disease, but she’d been born with it. She could control it. I couldn’t. So, every full moon, her pack pumped me full of sedatives and muscle relaxants to keep me from changing. The Rothschild Pack ran a pharmaceutical company.
The clinic’s pamphlet talked about smells and instincts, about tapping into the primitive brain of the human psyche, all neatly arranged in bullet point factoids.
A nasty mechanical smell drifted from where the vampires sat, reeking of preservatives and rotten fruit.
I closed my eyes and focused on smells coming from the other side of the clinic instead, smells that reminded me of childhood trips to my grandparents’ farm: muddy creek water and cedar wood shavings. Comforting and familiar. The smells of a pack.
A clean, earthy smell came closer. Cinnamon, woodsmoke, and a November breeze. The plastic cushions of the bench shifted as someone sat beside me.
I opened my eyes and flinched when I saw how close she’d sat. She was early twenties, same as me. Her auburn hair had that short, tousled, bedhead look that I was pretty sure had taken an hour to style. Her amber eyes reminded me of white wine. Moon earrings jingled from her lobes, matching the long necklaces that draped over the cleavage her spaghetti-strap top displayed.
Her face dimpled with a devil-may-care smile and I instantly felt small and pathetic by comparison. She was gorgeous. I realized I was staring. My face heated with a blush and I instinctively looked away.
“Hi. You’re all alone. I’m Ginny Donnelly; would you like to come sit with us?” She gestured to the group from whom the earthy smells emanated.
“Please,” I said, and introduced myself.
“We’re the Seeonee,” she said. “Named so for
“Never read it,” I said. I hoped I didn’t show reaction, even though my heart skipped a beat. I’d found them.
She tilted her head to one side, hair and earrings tumbling in the appropriate direction. “Really? You should. It’s one of my favorites.”
Her pack stood as we approached, and they all pressed in around me, touching my shoulders, shaking hands. Ginny pressed me forward to the only packmember still sitting, a pregnant woman of about fifty, golden trinkets interwoven in her salt-and-pepper hair.
“Mae is our pack leader,” Ginny said. “Her obstetrician works here.”
She turned to Mae. “Mom, this is Claire.”
“A new friend, Geneva?” I detected a note of criticism, but Mae reached her hand out and pulled me down next to her on the seat. “I smell you’re new to the wolf magic. Thankfully you don’t look harmed.”
Catching lycanthropy was normally a violent act, like being impregnated by way of rape, the pamphlet in my hand had told me.
“N-no, nothing like that,” I said. “It was an accident.” Should I be so nervous? What happened to a lone wolf when she encroached on a pack’s territory? The Rothschilds had kept me in the dark.
“Who infected you?” Ginny asked, sitting down on my other side.
Jules had instructed me to be honest with them. About anything except the plan. “My girlfriend.”
There was a subtle shift in Ginny’s posture. “What’s her name? We might know her.”
“Um,” I said, “Julia Straus.”
Mae and Geneva didn’t know her, but they asked the others. A boy with spiked hair nodded. “Yeah,” he said, “I’ve heard of her. She’s with the Rothschild Pack.”
Mae grumbled beside me. “Oh, them.”
I looked at Ginny, feigning ignorance.
“They’re a territorial rival of ours,” she explained. “They’ve recently been encroaching on Seeonee hunting ground.”
I absently watched the vampires across the room, not wanting to betray that I already knew that. My ears and nose, however, were busy sifting out the individuals of the Seeonee beyond Ginny’s clean autumnal scent.
“Does that make me a Rothschild?”
“Nah,” Ginny said, patting me on the back. I roused at the touch but stayed quiet. “You’re free to do as you want.”
Was I crazy? Why had I agreed to do this?
I was only dimly aware of a gothed-up vampire hissing at me from across the room.
“Never mind them,” Mae said quietly. “We don’t associate with that kind.”
I didn’t lower my gaze from the vampire staring back at me; a cold oily feeling poured down my spine. I’d never been a confrontational person, but I didn’t break eye contact with him, not until I heard the nurse call my
