Blue Moon

"Anita, are you all right?" Jason touched my shoulder. And power flowed between us in a hot, skin-creeping rush. I turned to him and it felt like I was moving in slow motion. I couldn't breathe past the power and the sensations that filled my mind. Images, flashes, like watching a room through strobe light. A bed, white sheets, the smell of sex so fresh it was hot and musky. My hands resting on a smooth chest. A man's chest. That warm, rolling power that was pure lycanthrope, pure beast, filled my body, like the man underneath me. Sharp, pleasant, exciting. The power spilled out my fingertips, pulling claws from my hands like knives unsheathing. The beast pushed at the smooth skin of my body, tried to slip out and overwhelm me. But I held it, tightened my body around it, and let only my hands turn monstrous. Claws sliced that smooth chest. Blood, hot and fresh enough to taste on our tongues.

Jason stared up at me from the bed, still pi

When I could feel my body again, Jason and I were kneeling in the leaves. His hands were still on my arms. Someone was screaming, and it was me. Jason stared at me with a face almost blank with horror. He'd shared the ride, but it wasn't his memory.

It wasn't Richard's memory, or mine. It was Raina's. She was dead but not forgotten. She was why I feared the munin. I was a necromancer with ties to the wolves. The munin liked me. Raina's munin liked me best of all.

"What's wrong?" Cherry said. She touched me, and it opened something inside of me again. It welcomed Raina back with a rush that left me screaming. But I fought it this time. Fought it because I did not want to see Cherry the way Raina would see her. Jason wouldn't care. Cherry would care. I would care.

There was a rush of sensations: skin damp with sweat, hands with long, polished nails on my breasts, those grey eyes staring up at me, mouth open, slack, shoulder-length yellow hair against a pillow. Raina on top again.

I screamed and pulled away from them both. The images died as if a plug had been pulled. I scrambled through the leaves on all fours, eyes shut tight. I ended sitting, hugging my knees to my chest, face buried against my legs. I squeezed my eyes so tight that I began seeing white snakes against my eyelids.

I heard someone move through the crunching leaves. I felt them hovering over me.

"Don't touch me," I said. It was almost another scream.

I heard whoever it was kneel in the dry leaves before Jamil's voice came. "I won't touch you. Are you still getting the memories?"

He didn't ask if I was seeing the memories. I found the phrasing strange. I shook my head without looking up.

"Then it's over, Anita. Once the munin leave, they're gone until called again."

"I didn't call her." I raised my face slowly and opened my eyes. The summer night seemed blacker somehow.

"It was Raina again?" he made it a question.

"Yes."

He knelt as close as he could get without touching me. "You shared the memories with Jason and with Cherry."

I wasn't sure if it was a question or a statement, but I answered it: "Yeah."

"It was a full visual," Jason said. He was sitting with his bare back against a tree.

Cherry had her hands pressed to her face. She spoke, face hidden. "I cut my hair after that night, after what she did to me. One night with her was the price for not having to do one of their porno movies." She jerked her hands away from her face, crying. "God, I can smell Raina's scent." She rubbed her hands against her jeans, over and over, as if she'd touched something bad and was trying to wipe it away.

"What the fuck was that?" I asked. "I've cha

"Have you been trying to learn to control the munin?" Jamil asked.

"Just to get rid of it, them, whatever."

Jamil moved closer to me, studying my face as if looking for something. "If you were lukoi, I'd tell you, you can't just turn the munin off. If you have the power to call them, then you must learn to control them, not just shut them out. Because you can't shut them out. They'll seek a way into you, through you."

"How do you know so much?" I asked.

"I knew a werewolf who could call the munin. She hated it. She tried to shut them out. It didn't work."

"Just because it didn't work for your friend doesn't mean I can't do it." I could feel his breath warm against my face. "Back off, Jamil."

He scooted back, but he was still closer than I wanted him to be. He sat back in the leaves. "She went crazy, Anita. The pack had to execute her." His eyes went past me into the darkness. I turned to see what he was looking at. Two figures stood in the darkness. One was a woman with long, pale hair and a long, white dress like something out of a 1950s horror movie. If you were playing the victim. But she stood very straight, very certain, as if she were anchored to the ground like a tree. There was something almost frightfully confident about her.

The man with her was tall, slender, and ta

"Are you well?" the woman asked.

"She shared the munin with two of us," Jamil said.

"By accident, I take it," the woman said. She sounded faintly amused.

I was not amused. I got to my feet, a little unsteady, but standing. "Who are you?"

"My name is Maria

I remembered Verne and Colin talking about a varga-something last night. "Verne mentioned you last night. Colin said he'd left you at home to keep you safe."

"A good witch is hard to find," she said, smiling.

I looked at her. "You don't feel Wiccan."

Again, I knew she smiled at me. Her peaceful condescension grated on my nerves. "A psychic then, if you prefer the term."

"I'd never heard the term vargamor before last night," I said.

"It's rare," she said. "Most packs don't have one anymore. Considered too old-fashioned."

"You aren't lukoi," I said.

Her head cocked to one side, and the smile was gone, as if I'd finally done something worthwhile. "Are you so sure?"

I tried to get a sense of what had made me so sure she was human, or at least not lukoi. She had her own energy. She was psychic enough for me to notice. We'd have recognized each other without any introductions. We might not have known the exact flavor of each other's abilities, but we'd have recognized a kindred or rival spirit. Whatever power moved her, it wasn't lycanthropy.

"Yeah, I'm sure you're not lukoi," I said.

"Why?" she asked.

"You don't taste like a shapeshifter."

She laughed then, and it was a rich, musical sound that managed to be wholesome and earthy all at the same time. "I like your choice of senses. Most humans would have said I didn't feel right. Feel is such an imprecise word, don't you think?"

I shrugged. "Maybe."

"This is Roland. He is my bodyguard for this night. We poor humans must be watched over for fear that some overzealous shapeshifter might lose control and harm us."

"Somehow I don't think you are that easy a prey, Maria

She laughed again. "Why, thank you, child."

Her calling me child made me add about ten years to her age. She didn't look it. It was dark, but she still didn't look it.