Death Moon

CHAPTER ONE Sometimes, life has a way of mocking me. Case in point: I’ve spent my entire life in St. Louis, Missouri. I had never seen a wolf, and I intended to keep it that way. Now, in the middle of the city, I was staring at three of them, and they were ready to tear me apart. It was a chilly fall evening, the kind where nightfall came during the evening commute. The nip in the wind made me realize I needed to break my winter gloves out of storage…if I survived. The wolves had black and white fur that bristled in the autumn breeze. Their hackles rose as they bared their sharp canines at me. Their turquoise eyes glowed like alien orbs. They underscored the night with a dark symphony of growls. I was in the parking lot of an auto body shop. It was an industrial building a few miles away from my house, tucked between a sandwich shop and a flea market. The wolves were in an alley, safely hidden from the view of passersby, but perfectly positioned to rip my throat out. I had just dropped my car off to get repaired and Bo was inside paying. Trust me, if I’d known I was going to get eaten by wolves, I would’ve brought my piece and gone down firing. The wolves stalked toward me. The murder wrinkles on their snouts hardened. I had nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. No weapon to attack with. I stepped back. Suddenly, the door to the auto body shop opened. A bell jingled as Bo walked out, waving to the front desk representative. “You have a nice night,” he said. Bo whistled a random tune. I heard his footsteps track around the building to the alley. The nylon on his track jacket crinkled like paper. “Yo, boss man, I got good news and ugly news,” he said. I gulped. Bo was so busy running his mouth that he didn’t hear the damned wolves. Bo cackled. “The good news is I sweet-talked them into a loaner car,” he said, jingling a pair of keys. “The ugly news is, it’s a coupe.” “Speaking of coups,” I said, trailing off. Bo stopped next to me and finally saw the wolves. “Why is it that we can’t go NOWHERE without getting embroiled in some supernatural s**t anymore?” he said. The wolves intensified their growling. Slowly, I reached into the inner pocket of my gabardine. My fingers locked on a razor blade. Bo pointed to one of the wolves. “A’ight, poochy, quit playing games and tell us who sent you.” The wolf leaped at us. I closed my palm hard on the razor blade, drawing blood. A bolt of orange and blue light flashed between me and the wolf. The wolf extended its jaws. I shielded my face with my arm, bracing for impact. It didn’t happen. A ragged stitch to the spirit world with its orange sky and rocky terrain lay before me. The wolf landed in the spirit world. It crashed onto the ground and rolled a few times. It definitely wasn’t expecting that. The animal jumped up, looking around frantically. I willed the stitch closed. Boy, did that change the tone of this fight. The other two wolves’ growling stopped immediately and they backed away in terror. “Now would be a good time to answer my buddy’s question,” I said, taking a step toward them. One of the wolves half-lunged at me, but I didn’t back down. “Who are you?” I asked. The wolves glanced at each other. I gestured to Bo. “Shoot them then, Bo.” Bo pretended to reach for a gun in his tracksuit. Instantly, the wolves’ bodies flashed white and their canine frames morphed into two human shapes. When the light faded, two people stared at us. A man and a woman. The man was white, and he wore a black turtleneck sweater and dark jeans over his long legs. His hair was black and long, nearly touching his shoulders. Sunglasses covered his eyes. The woman was black, and she wore a pink t-shirt and leather pants. Her hair hung to one side in a long braid, and she had troubled eyes. “Bring him back,” the woman said desperately. “Who, your friend?” I asked. “That depends on your answers.” The man drew a knife from his coat. “Wrong answer,” I said. A chilly wind blew as the four of us stared each other down. “Thad, don’t,” the woman said. She grabbed the man’s arm. But the man assumed a martial arts pose. Bo put his fists up and stood in front of me. “Cassandra, we don’t abandon one of our own,” Thad said. Over the top of his thick sunglasses, he stared at me intently, ready for murder. “I told you this wasn’t worth it,” she said. “Now what do we have to show for it?” “You ought to listen to her,” Bo said. “She sounds wise, except for the wolf assassin part a minute ago.” Silence. Thad tensed his arms and took a step forward. “Where’s that gun of yours?” he asked. “Oh, that?” Bo said. “Just a little trick that works every time.” “Then we’ve got ourselves a fair fight,” Thad said. Cassandra looked between me and Thad. She was genuinely freaking out. I didn’t blame her, but I sure noted her emotional state. “Last chance to end this fight, big man,” Thad said. Then, the door to the auto body shop opened and a chime jingled. Thad immediately sheathed his knife as a middle-aged Latino man in a gray winter coat passed by. Eduardo, the store manager. Always smiling and customer-focused. The perfect distraction. He didn’t see Thad and Cassandra at first. “Any trouble with the loaner, gentlemen?” Eduardo asked. I put on my most convincing smile. “Not at all, Eduardo. We were about to drive off when we ran into some old friends. Isn’t that right, Cassandra?” I stepped aside, revealing Thad and Cassandra in the dark alley. They were mortified. Their eyes were damn near about to bulge out of their sockets. “Gotcha,” Eduardo said. “Sorry I interrupted your reunion.” “It’s quite all right,” I said jovially. “Thad and Cassandra were just leaving. You both take care now, all right?” On the street, an engine revved. A MetroBus rumbled to a stop just in front of the auto body shop. The lights were on inside the bus, and it was packed. The hydraulic doors creaked open and several people hopped off. If the wolf assassins were going to kill us, they’d missed their chance to do it in secret. Thad flashed me a look full of malice and daggers. The next thing I knew, he and Cassandra were running through the alley. A chain-link fence rustled as they jumped over it, and they were gone. “You sure everything is all right?” Eduardo asked, staring after them. “Everything’s good, man,” Bo said. “We better get going,” I said, tapping Bo on the shoulder. I took one last look down the alley to make sure the couple hadn’t shifted back into wolves and followed up with a sneak attack. “We’ll see you in a few days,” Eduardo said. “We’ll have your classic Lincoln Town Car looking brand new. It’s a shame that it got caught in the middle of the crossfire.” Eduardo nodded to us and dashed to catch the bus. Bo fished a key fob out of his pocket and pressed the unlock button. A car beeped nearby. A red coupe. The thing was rusting on the bottom, and it barely looked big enough for ME. It looked like the kind of car a college kid drove. Bo must have been crying inside. But we didn’t say a word as we climbed in. Bo kicked the car into gear. When we were out of sight of the body shop, Bo floored it.