Hunger Moon Rising Read online

  My mind was working a hundred miles a minute. Theodore Savage had to be Thrash Savage. The guy who'd hit on me in The Cloven Hoof the night before had mentioned him as being connected with McKinsey. The guy Ben had beat to a pulp…but I didn't need to go there. I needed to find a lead.

  “What can you tell me about Thrash Savage, Mister Cullen?” I asked him. “Have the police cleared him in the disappearance of your daughter?”

  He gave another short, harsh laugh. “Sure, they cleared him. He had a rock-solid alibi—he was with another woman at the time. Two of them, in fact. The bastard.” He sighed. “And all I really know about him is that he's kind of a biker—dresses in leather and chains—long hair, tattoos, the works. You'd know him if you saw him—he looks like seven miles of bad road. At least that's what I tried to tell McKinsey. But she was so set on him—she said he told her…told her he could make her special.” He gave a dry little sob. “As though she wasn't already special. Oh, my baby.” He put his face in his hands and his shoulders shook.

  “Mister Cullen, I am so sorry.” I patted his arm, feeling helpless. All the digging I had done, and I couldn't even add a piece to the puzzle. I was no closer to getting McKinsey Cullen back than I had been when her father first came in with her picture.

  “It's all right. I'm all right.” He took a handkerchief from his breast pocket and wiped at his eyes. “I really should go now, Ms. Linden. My wife is taking this even harder than I am, and I didn't help her any with my outburst the other day.”

  “It's completely understandable, Mister Cullen.” I patted his shoulder again. “I don't blame you a bit.”

  “It's the worst thing in the world,” he said, getting up to leave, “losing a child. I pray to God you never have to experience it yourself, Ms. Linden.” I held out my hand to him again, and he shook it rather limply. “Thank you again for being so kind,” he said.

  “You're welcome,” I said. “If there's anything at all I can do, please, don't hesitate to call me or drop by again.”

  He pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger as though trying to drive back tears or tension. “I'm afraid there's nothing anyone can do at this point, Ms. Linden, except pray.”

  I nodded him out of the conference room, but inside I was seething. Ben had told me to drop the case because it was dangerous, but now more than ever I knew that I couldn't. What had started as a harmless way to kill time on a slow news day had turned into a quest. I had to find McKinsey Cullen.

  I dug in my purse and pulled out my phone, dialing a number by heart. The boyfriend was the obvious place to start, and if anyone would know any dirt on Thrash Savage, it would be my main snitch, Daryl Platinum.

  * * *

  Daryl Platinum's real name was Daryl Stevens, and he was addicted to cosmetic dentistry. He'd gotten his nickname because of his teeth—every single one of which was platinum plated. Gold was good enough for most people, but not Daryl—he always had to have one step above the best, at least when it came to his teeth. He had, to say the least, a blinding smile.

  I met him on a street corner downtown, not far from the hot-dog cart where he ate most of his meals. For the money he'd spent on his smile, he could have been eating filet mignon every night, but Daryl, or DP as he preferred to be called, opted for an expensive mouth over expensive food to go in it.

  “Hey, Daryl, how're you doing?” I asked, as we sat together on the bus stop bench, and he tore into the hot dog I'd bought him—extra relish and onions, hold the mustard.

  “Not too bad,” he said around a mouthful. He settled his lanky form more comfortably on the green wooden bench and looked around. “Say, where's your shadow?”

  “What?” I frowned at him and took a tiny bite of my own hot dog. I hadn't been able to eat a thing at the office that day, what with my stomach constantly tied in knots, and I had to keep my strength up.

  “You know—Ben—your other half. Where is he?”

  “He's not my other half,” I said stiffly. “And you ought to know that you probably won't be seeing us together any more.”

  Daryl shook his head and made a tsking sound around another bite. “That's a shame. What'd he do to get in the dog house?”

  I nearly choked on my hot dog. Could Daryl somehow know about Ben's…condition? But, no, it was impossible. “That's none of your business,” I said.

  “Ooo—touchy!” He took another bite. “Seems like a shame though—you two are such a good team. Like Batman an' Robin. Or…” He paused to consider. “Lois and Clark.”

  “You mean Lewis and Clark, who made the expedition to the Pacific Ocean?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

  Daryl gave me a disgusted look. “No! Like Lois and Clark as in Lois Lane and Clark Kent. You know—Superman's secret identity in the comic books? I mean, what with you both bein' reporters and all…”

  “Oh, right,” I mumbled. Well, Ben sure had the secret identity thing down pat, I thought. Mild mannered reporter by day, werewolf by night. “I never would have pegged you as a comic book buff,” I said.

  “Hey, I used to have a kick-ass comic book collection.” He put a hand to his chest. “I mean, I had it all. Superman, Batman, Aquaman—you name the man, I had the book.”

  “So what happened to your collection?” I asked.

  He grinned, flashing his platinum smile. “Sold it. Had to pay for some necessary expenses.”

  “I bet,” I said.

  Daryl shrugged and popped the last bite of hot dog into his mouth. “So what did your man do? You catch him with another lady?”

  “Of course not.” I threw away my own half-eaten hot dog and brushed the crumbs off my lap. “Besides, it was never like that between Ben and me. We're just friends—were just friends. Now we're nothing. Co-workers, I guess.” I sighed.

  Daryl laughed. “That what you really think?” He pointed at me. “You might have been ol' Ben's friend, but that man was gone on you. Why else you think he was always hangin' around puttin' up with your shit?”

  Okay, this had gone far enough. “I came here to ask questions, not answer them,” I told Daryl pointedly. I dug in my purse and came up with a fifty.

  He took the fifty, sniffed it, and handed it back. “Huh-uh, sorry. My man Grant don't do it for me no more.”

  “What?” I looked at the bill he'd tossed back at me as though it was defective.

  He nodded. “Yup—my price has officially doubled.”

  “What? Why?” I'd been dealing with Daryl for years, and his price had always been the same—a hot dog and a fifty bought anything he knew. It was one of the last real bargains in the city, and I felt like he'd just yanked the rug out from under me when he told me he was suddenly charging more.

  He shrugged. “Call it inflation. I'm getting some new work done on my teeth and it ain't cheap.”

  I raised an eyebrow at him skeptically. “I thought you already had every single tooth platinum plated—even the molars.”

  “I do.” He grinned. “But now I'm onto something new. Emeralds. Look close.” He leaned forward and opened his mouth, pointing out his two front teeth. The right one was absolutely plated with tiny, flawless emerald flakes. The left one was halfway finished.

  I thought that it made him look like he had some leftover salad stuck in his teeth, but I didn't say so. I can be diplomatic when I have to be. “Why emeralds?” I asked. “I thought most people put diamonds in their, uh, teeth when they had them done.”

  Daryl shrugged. “That's the problem—I ain't most people. I wanted something new, a little bit of flash and a whole lotta bling. Besides, emeralds are my birthstone. Lots of people have one or two diamonds or just one or two teeth done, but I'm gonna do my emeralds all that way. Forget about Daryl Platinum—they gonna call me Emerald Daryl when I'm done,” he assured me, sitting back with a satisfied smile.

  I thought it was more likely that people would call him “Mister Green Teeth” or something even ruder, but who was I to say? I shook my head. “What does y
our dentist think about all this?”

  “You don't go to a regular dentist to get this kinda work done,” Daryl told me. “I go to a place on Tiber and Fifty-Sixth called Pimp My Grille. They love me there—I put a buncha their kids through college. But this—” He pointed at his partially platinum-and-emerald-plated teeth. “—ain't cheap. So you can see why I had to up my price.”

  “Well, all I have is a fifty,” I said. “Can't I pay you the other half next time?”

  He sighed and rolled his eyes theatrically. “You know I don't usually talk on credit.”

  “I know,” I said. “But you know I'm good for it. Please, Daryl, it's really important. There's a girl missing, and I'm trying to find her.”

  “Hmm.” He pretended to think about it, then nodded his head. “All right—but just this once since it's for a good cause. Who you want the skinny on?”

  “Theodore Savage—Thrash Savage,” I said promptly. “Anything you can tell me would be great, but what I'd really like to know is where to find him.”

  Daryl held up his hands. “Whoa! Thrash Savage ain't nobody you want to find, I can promise you that. I want it understood right now that I am not to blame for any harm that might befall your luscious little body on account of the information I give you.”

  As disclaimers went, it was a pretty strong one. Daryl knew the streets, and he wouldn't have warned me unless Thrash Savage was really bad news.

  “I understand,” I said. “Now can you tell me where to find him, or do I have to sign a waiver?”

  He shrugged. “It's your funeral. Savage is the leader of a local biker gang—called the Wolf Pack. Hey, you okay? You look white as a…well, whiter than usual, anyway.” He peered at me, concern written on his long face.

  “I…I'm fine.” I put a hand to my cheek, feeling how cold and clammy my skin had become. Well, I had known that Savage was probably a werewolf like Ben—it was just a shock to have it shoved in my face like that. How blatant could they get? Then again, most people probably thought it was just a name. “I got it,” I said, taking a deep breath. “The Wolf Pack. What else?”

  “Well, supposedly the DA has been after him for a while for different things—drugs…girls.” Daryl shrugged. “There was even a rumor that he was running some kind of a white slavery ring for a while. But they couldn't never make none of it stick.”

  “So where is he now? I mean, where can I find him?”

  Daryl shook his head warningly, but answered all the same. “They say on Friday nights he usually hangs at a joint called La Bella Luna. That's Eye-talian for 'The Beautiful Moon.'”

  “I've heard of that. On Fourth Street, right?” I frowned. “Isn't that kind of an upscale restaurant for the head of a biker gang?”

  He nodded. “Yeah if he ate out in the front where everybody could see. But word is that there's a back room they keep reserved for him and his buddies. Every Friday night they go there around eight for spaghetti bolognaise. Best in town.”

  “You've been there too?” I gave him a skeptical look.

  “Hey.” Daryl looked wounded. “You think these choppers are only good for eatin' hot dogs? I get out every once in a while between dentist appointments.”

  “I bet you do.” I patted him on the knee and looked at my watch. “Thanks for the information, Daryl. I have to get going.”

  He grinned at me. “Hey, don't forget you owe me double next time. And be careful out there. Thrash Savage don't play.”

  “I believe it,” I said. There was just enough time to run home and change before I went to stake out La Bella Luna if I hurried. I had a feeling I was finally onto a solid lead, and I felt better than I had all day.

  Chapter Ten

  Ben

  “I lost her,” I said flatly, drawing patterns in my meatless spaghetti sauce with my fork. “She found out what I am, and I lost her because of it.”

  “You didn't lose her, honey.” My mom served me another piece of garlic bread and went back to work on her latest sculpture. She was into what she called her “clay phase” at the moment, and half of the kitchen table was taken up with a mostly-finished male torso.

  My mom was what you might call a Renaissance woman—she liked to paint and sculpt and draw, but she also had a degree in Biology. Mostly she loved to learn. Every time I turned around she was taking a new class on Sixteenth Century French Literature or starting guitar lessons or enrolling herself in a Haiku poetry workshop. I couldn't remember a time growing up when the house hadn't been filled with her latest works in progress, textbooks, and sheet music.

  I broke off the piece of garlic bread that had clay on it and munched the rest morosely. “No, she's gone. I mean, she hasn't changed jobs or moved out of state—Dani wouldn't do that. But she's getting a new office, and probably a new partner come Monday, so for all intents and purposes she's out of my life.” I nodded at the sculpture's pecs. “You're making those too muscular.”

  “Oh?” She eyed me for a moment. “I don't think so—take off your shirt.”

  “Mom!” I could feel the heat building in my cheeks. “Not at the table! I can't believe I let you talk me into posing for that thing in the first place.”

  “Hey, this thing is my final project, and it's worth half my grade,” she reminded me. She put her hands on her hips and stood back to admire her work. “Besides, I think it's a pretty good likeness.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I mumbled, going back to my garlic bread. She'd wanted to do a full nude, but I had drawn the line at that. I didn't mind taking off my shirt, but that was as far as I was willing to go. There are limits, even in a close-knit family like mine.

  “So what makes you think you've lost her?” my mom asked, returning to her sculpture and our earlier topic of conversation at the same time.

  I sighed. “Just what I said—she's completely ignoring me. She won't say a word to me—she pretended I was invisible all day today.”

  Mom's eyes flashed behind her glasses. “Well, maybe you should ignore her right back. So she found out you're a werewolf—so what? It's not the end of the world.” She normally liked Dani a lot, but she had always been protective of me, especially when it came to my were status.

  “You know what the problem is?” she continued, pinching the clay in a way that made me wince just to watch. “You're always attracted to these overbearing, domineering women who don't need a man to take care of them.”

  “Mm-hmm,” I said, trying to hide a smile. “I wonder why in the world I'd be attracted to a woman like that?”

  “Oh, you!” Mom pinched off a pea-sized lump of clay and threw it at my chest—my real one, not the one she was sculpting. I caught it and threw it back so that it stuck to the sculpture's side like an ugly mole. “Anyway,” she said, “you know what I mean, Ben. I mean that you're a caregiver—a nurturer. And you need someone who really needs you. If Dani doesn't, maybe you should find someone who does.”

  “I can't,” I said. “It's just…she's the one, Mom. I've known it for years—I just didn't want to risk scaring her off. And now look where I am.”

  “And where are you?” she asked reasonably. “You're just going through a bad patch right now. You and Dani will come through it all right.”

  “I don't think so,” I said, playing with my spaghetti. “I think she was really disgusted—horrified when she found out about me. She looked at me like I'd grown a second head or something.”

  “Well, it can be quite a shock,” Mom said reasonably. “I remember when your father first told me.” She laughed. “Of course I didn't believe him until he changed for me, but then…” She shook her head. “You could've knocked me over with a feather.”

  I had to smile at the idea of anything shocking my mother. She was as close to unflappable as anyone I'd ever met. I picked up my garlic bread and took another bite. “I don't know. Maybe Grandpa is right. Maybe I should have told her from the first and risked it all. But I guess I'm not much of a risk-taker.”

  “Your father was a risk-taker
,” Mom reminded me. “Look where it got him.” My father had been killed in a duel with another were when I was just a kid. His early death was one reason my mom was so supportive of my choice to sublimate my were nature instead of acting on it. If she had known I'd been in a similar fight the night before, she would've flipped her lid. I was wisely keeping that little piece of information strictly to myself.

  “It got him you,” I pointed out. “You never would have stayed with him if he hadn't been totally honest with you.”

  “I guess that's true.” She sighed and patted the sculpture's shoulder as though it was a friend in need of comfort. “And let me tell you, honey, the years I spent with your father were the best years of my life. I don't regret a minute of it, and I know Dani won't regret any time spent with you once she gets used to the idea that you're a little different.”

  I snorted. “A little different? Mom, I have supernatural speed and strength, and I can turn into an animal. I think that's more than a little different.”

  “Better an animal on the outside than an animal on the inside,” Mom said tartly. “It's amazing the number of men out there that are wolves in sheep's clothing, and I'm not speaking strictly metaphorically here.” She pointed at me. “At least I brought you up to respect women and treat them like intelligent beings instead of pieces of meat.”

  I thought of the way I'd treated Dani the night before in The Cloven Hoof, and my cheeks began to heat with shame. I hadn't exactly lived up to my mom's ideals or my own either. It was just that I wanted her so badly—needed her so much. And the moon was pulling on me as it never had before.

  “Mom,” I said. “Do you know anything about the, uh, Hunger Moon?”

  “You mean the extra full moon that occurs every eighteen years?” She nodded. “Oh, yes, I couldn't forget about that. When the last one happened you were too young to be affected.” She smiled. “My, that was a Mabon ceremony to remember. Your father was a wonderful lover, you know.”