Hair of the Dog (7 page)

He parked behind the ambulance. “Stay here.”

“Yeah, right.” She rolled her eyes.
In your dreams
.

He blew out a deep breath before hopping out of the car.

She surveyed the area. Darkness surrounded them, broken up
only by the headlights of some cars parked nearby, the flashing lights of the
aid vehicle and the vintage streetlights spaced too far apart. A young woman,
in her late teens, if Ivy had to guess, sat huddled on the pavement, clutching
a blanket to her shoulders, which rocked from bawling. A light-blue sedan
rested nearby. Beyond the car a small group of people stood in a circle. Cops.
Aid workers. Mr. Freakin’ Atwood and now Grant.

Ivy got out of the Jeep, but hung back. Drifting over to the
sobbing teenage girl, she said, “You okay?”

She nodded, biting her lip, looking straight ahead. “The
cougar came from nowhere like a flash. I swear.” She pointed off in the
direction
the cougar
had come from.

The cougar? That’s unflattering.
Ivy patted her
shoulder.
And that’s what they all say
. “I know,” she said. She didn’t,
not really. The biggest critter she’d ever nailed was a turtle. Never a person.
She had to guess the experience was traumatic.

The girl sniffled. “When I got out of the car,
it
turned into a person right before my very eyes. I mean, I’d heard rumors, but…”

What have you been drinking, smoking or ingesting?
“Excuse me? I’m sorry.” Ivy felt her face take on one of those skeptical looks
you simply can’t hide. You know it’s on your face even though you can’t see it.
“What was it before you got out of the car?”

“A cougar.” The girl had a
doi
tone to her voice,
like Ivy was too stupid to live. Too old to waste her time exchanging words
with.

“Like an old broad who hits on young dudes?” Ivy asked.
“That kind of cougar?”

Inclining her face toward Ivy, the girl replied, “Like a big
cat that uses trees as scratching posts and the entire forest as a litter box.”
She hiccupped. “
That
kind of cougar.”

Ivy held up her index finger. “Excuse me one moment.”

She turned and hustled over to the Jeep to rummage through
the glove box. Finding a flashlight, she slowly, silently made her way to the
victim, trying to avoid unwanted attention. Some sort of debate was going on
about the best way to notify the next of kin and who should get the honors. It
reminded Ivy of a game of dodgeball.

Skirting the circle of men, Ivy noticed the broken headlight
and cracked grill of the car. She balanced on her toes to get a look at the
pedestrian over the heads and shoulders of the other onlookers. She gasped at
the naked woman laid out on the asphalt, battered and broken. A rescue worker
gently covered her with a blanket. From the debris and equipment spread out
around the body, it looked like they’d made a valiant attempt to resuscitate
her. Before they covered her, she really had looked like a cougar, fortyish
with a kickin’ body. Naked body.

“Who brought their date to the accident scene?” the
uniformed officer asked, looking straight at Grant, then down to his zipper
region.

“Really, Grant?” Mr. Atwood added.

“I’m not his date,” Ivy protested indignantly. You could
hardly call what they’d been up to as a date. “I’m the manager of the resort.”
At the moment, she wished she weren’t. “Why is she naked?”

“Ivy, please,” Grant begged. “Wait in the Jeep.”

“Sure.”
When monkeys fly out of my butt
. Ivy headed
toward the Jeep, but then doubled back to where the driver had pointed.
Flipping on the flashlight, which worked way better than B.J.’s had, she
trained it along the side of the road, not even sure what she searched for.
Clothes? Shoes? Catnip?

Kneeling down, she examined a large cat paw left in the dirt
beside the road.

“Lisa Simmons,” Grant said under his breath. What possessed
her to run wild on resort grounds? He’d known the Simmons family forever, had
graduated a couple years behind Lisa’s younger brother.

Atwood patted his shoulder. “You okay?”

His mind had flooded with thoughts of Molly at the mere
mention of an auto accident. Seeing the scene firsthand had tripled the
discomfort level, the blood and death leaving his head spinning. He did not
want to be the one to break the news to her family, to relive his pain through
their pain. He was afraid they’d end up having to comfort him.

Grant dragged his hand along the length of his face.
Glancing back to his Jeep, he didn’t see Ivy hovering in or around it as he’d
suggested.
Crap
. Without bringing further attention to himself, he
surveyed the immediate area.
Ivy.
He stepped back a couple paces,
covertly inching away from the commotion and into the darkness.

Standing over her kneeling form alongside the road, he
asked, “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Take a look at this.” She flashed the beam over a large cat
paw.

Grant got a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. “You’re
in cougar territory. So what?” He planted his hands on his waist, hoping his
stance would hide his distress. “You’re also smack dab in the middle of a crime
scene, contaminating the hell out of it.”

Ivy glanced at him over her shoulder. “The driver said she
hit a cougar.”

“The driver is going to get a blood alcohol test.”
Please
let her be intoxicated
. Chances are the victim wasn’t in her right mind.
Why else would she behave so recklessly? Why shift at this time of night near a
road when she had all the miles of woodlands to run through? He guessed it had
something to do with the spring. The townsfolk of Mystic liked to think they
controlled the spring, but more accurately, the spring controlled them.
Soothed. Rejuvenated. Healed.

“And the victim?” She flashed the light at him.

Grant shielded his eyes from the blinding light with his
hand. “There’ll be a thorough investigation, Ivy.”

“Grant!” Mr. Atwood called to him. “We’re calling an
emergency meeting at The Den.”

Ivy wrinkled her nose at him. “What’s a den?”

“Just let me get Ms. Fontainebleau home,” he replied without
acknowledging Ivy’s inquiry. Explanations would only lead to more questions.
Questions he wouldn’t or couldn’t answer without causing a panic that might
trigger her impulse to flee. Part of him wanted her to flee for her own good
and his too. He’d get over her. Eventually. Probably.

“I can get myself home.” She stood and looked around into
the darkness. “I think.” Leaning in, Ivy placed her hand on his arm. Her
touched calmed and at the same time excited him. She was the equivalent of the
spring. A living, breathing catalyst of enchantment. “Will I see you later?”
she whispered.

“I…I don’t think so. It’ll be late. Carl, could you see that
Ivy gets home all right?” he asked a junior deputy.

“Sure,” he answered a little too enthusiastically. Carl had
appeared trustworthy enough until Grant tossed Ivy into his realm. “Be my
pleasure.” The word pleasure rolled off his tongue, punctuated with a throaty
growl.

Grant didn’t care for the implication of his tone or the use
of the word pleasure, or the fucking growl, but duty called. He had faith in
Ivy. The waters in Mystic were known to act as something of an aphrodisiac, but
he had to believe the feelings he and Ivy shared for each other, however
misguided and inappropriate, transcended chemistry and pheromones and magic. She’d
wanted him and only him in her bed before they’d been so rudely interrupted.

Whatever the attraction, he had to get a handle on the
desire he felt for her and put the brakes on. That fact didn’t stop him from
worrying about Ivy the entire drive to The Den. All three minutes of it. Once
there, Grant entered through the back to avoid any bar or eatery patrons. He
bowed to the altar and saluted the ancient tapestry hanging on the wall in
their sanctified hall, as tradition dictated. The tapestry had crossed the
ocean from the old country with the ancestors who had immigrated here.

Grant wasn’t sure what customs other shifters observed. He
only knew what wolves like himself clung to and kept sacred. They’d come from
many countries with diverse cultures, all of them drawn to Mystic Springs by
some unexplained force—or so the story was told and retold. Sounded like tall
tales, and yet he’d never ventured far from the springs his entire life. He’d
never wanted to. He didn’t want to now. Mystic Spring was home.

The Native Americans who inhabited the area had acted as
guardians of the spring long before his people had arrived. They still chanted
there on certain days. Generations of mixing and mingling bloodlines, along
with meshing folklore, religions and customs gave his people the traditions
they adhered to now.

Atwood crossed the room. They shook hands like only those in
the Brotherhood of the Wolf did. “We need to make some bold moves, Grayson.”

Looking around at the few in attendance, Grant replied, “We
don’t even have a quorum.”

“I only called a few. We’ll take no meeting minutes, but
something has to be done,” he whispered. “Rules and by-laws be damned. Someone
has to claim that little banshee. And it had better be a wolf.”

“Hear, hear,” a fellow brother of significant rank shouted
out. Experience told Grant that rank and common sense did not always go
hand-in-hand. A wolf could still be a jackass, no doubt about it.

“She’s no banshee.” Grant hated the name-calling. The wolf
pack looked down on her as a non-wolf, all the while wishing to possess Ivy and
the powers they hoped she wielded. To own her would be to own her magic, which
Grant didn’t entirely even believe in. It sounded absurd. He knew he shifted.
He knew others did too. And yet he thought of himself as a forward thinker, not
completely buying into superstition and magic. “She’s a woman.” A woman with an
incredible life force within her. He felt her energy to the marrow of his
bones. But she was more to him than the sum of her powers.

Shifting wasn’t magical in his eyes. It just was what it
was. He’d shift in New York or L.A. or anywhere, he figured. He hadn’t tested
the theory. But other shifters gravitated to Mystic Springs, insisting the
water or the air or something recharged or rebooted their energy. And then they
went back home to live their lives. He’d just take their word for it.

“According to our ancient text…” Atwood began.

“According to our ancient text, we should eat the beating
heart of a virgin,” Grant protested. The sacred scriptures touted some
out-of-this-world rules to live by. Eating of flesh. Drinking of blood. Howling
at the damn full moon. Sacrifice. Blood lust. Good, old-fashioned regular lust.

Atwood stabbed his finger at him. “You need to bed her.”

“Get ’er done!” someone shouted.

Grant didn’t want to mention he’d just about got ’er done if
Atwood hadn’t called him on the phone to come to the scene of an accident. Come
to think of it… “I thought this emergency meeting was about Lisa Simmons.”

“Cats!” someone barked with disdain.

Jack Crump, the maintenance man from the resort asked, “Who
brought that little non-shifter to the resort and let her loose with an
automobile anyhow?”

“Goddamn norms,” someone muttered.

“That’s hardly the point,” Grant said. They were pretty
thorough about only booking shifters into the resort. You had to know someone
who knew someone or be referred by a regular guest. Otherwise the resort
professed to be booked a year in advance. “When a cougar leaps in front of your
car…well.”

“Lisa Simmons is a symptom of the greater problem,” Atwood
pointed out.

“And that greater problem is?” He’d heard it all before.
Rhetoric and speculation heaped on top of conjecture. Fear seemed to be the
order of the day. If you can’t explain it, spread some blame around like manure
on a rose garden and hope something grows. Panic.

“People are frightened, unbalanced,” Atwood said. He himself
sounded a bit frightened and unbalanced. These were difficult times for all.
“The spring is losing its power. The falls is running dangerously low.”

“Nothing but a trickle compared to last year,” someone said.

“Global warming,” Grant muttered. They weren’t the only ones
fallen prey to the Earth’s depletion of natural resources. Throwing down a
fairy princess and doing her doggy style by the supernatural springs could
hardly be the answer. And yet, the idea appealed to him, minus the rituals and
witnesses.

Every type of shifter—cats, dogs, bears, deer—they all had a
legend involving a fairy, witch, banshee, selkie or the dreaded succubus, who
would come save the species, either by sex or by death. Some lore involved
planting a seed in her belly. Others merely stipulated copulation, forced or
voluntary. While a few myths told of the savior, a.k.a. Ivy, falling in love
with a shifter and joining the community, other tales were all about
domination, possession and bondage. One involved her death. It was all quite
outrageous and not to be taken seriously, as far as Grant was concerned.

“She’s taken quite a shine to you, Grant.” Atwood stared him
down, challenging him. Atwood being top dog and all stopped Grant from defying
the elder. There was a hierarchy to observe. Reverence to bestow, due or not.
Some say respect is earned, which wasn’t always the case in Grant’s experience.

Grant glanced away, letting Atwood win their little game of
chicken. He could take him in a fight, beat him in a race, but these were
civilized times. “With respect, Brother Atwood,” he said, tipping his head in
subservience, “I mated my own kind—for life.”

“
Her
life,” Jack Crump interjected.

Mind your own business, old man
. “No.” His voice
shook and cracked with anger and regret and grief. “My life.”

“We all gotta do what we gotta do for our kind,” Crump said.
“I did.”

“Whatever.” He had no idea what Jack was talking about. He
mowed the resort lawn and skimmed the pool, among other things. Jack was, and
always had been, a very active Brother, even being their leader at one point.

“You know there was a noticeable difference in the water the
second
she
came to town.” Atwood paced the floor. “The spring is in
recovery—because of
her
.”

“First of all,
she
has a name. Ivy.” Grant threw his
hands in the air, exasperated by the crazy talk. “Second of all, you don’t know
that she caused the change.”

“We need more repair, faster,” Atwood said between clenched
teeth. “I’m not asking you to copulate
in
the water. Perhaps if she took
a swim in the spring.”

She already had. He failed to tell them for reasons he
couldn’t explain. Divulging that she’d been cavorting in the spring with a deer
would only create more alarm.

“Perhaps if she took a piss in the spring!” Grant snapped.

“I want results! I want them now! I have spoken!” Atwood
spat his heated words at Grant.

“No matter the price to Ivy?” Had they all lost their
humanity?
What’s the worst that could happen if the spring died?
He had
no idea. Life would go on. It had to. Their ancestors shifted in the old
country. They’d shift on Mars, he guessed. But without the spring, could they
control the lust for the hunt that dominated their nature? Would the beast
within take over the man he saw in the mirror each morning?

“Bed her,” Atwood demanded between gritted teeth. His face
grew red, his eyes dilated.

“No,” Grant growled.

Atwood sniffed the air. “I smell her on you.”

The others muttered and whispered amongst themselves,
probably speculating about the implication of her scent on him. Did he or
didn’t he bed her? Christ, he’d washed his hands and face as well as gargling
before heading out to the accident. Due to their heightened senses, he nearly
had to take a hazmat shower for them not to know.

Grant raked his fingers through his hair, hating the
Brotherhood’s intrusion into his private affairs. “That was a mistake,” he
admitted. “A mistake I won’t make again.”

“You leave me no choice, Grayson. I’m bringing in a ringer.”
Atwood said.

Scoffing, Grant said, “A ringer?”

“I can’t take the chance that she might end up with Bobby
Joe Dumfries or, God forbid, Adam Griswold.” Atwood paced the hardwood floor of
the meeting hall, his hands clasped behind him.

“What if she bedded an eagle, for crying out loud,” someone
said.

“I’m bringing in Dirk Fallon,” Atwood said like it wounded
him to say so. “He’s handsome, charming and—”

“A boozing, gambling, womanizer,” Grant finished for him.
The guy was nothing more than a middle-aged gigolo, for heaven sake. He’d been
asked to leave town after imposing himself on a number of female resort guests,
leaving each woman brokenhearted and a little worse off financially. Grant
turned on his heels. “You know something, go ahead. I thought we were the
powerhouses of the community because we’re above all this superstition and
hocus pocus. Bring him on.” Grant punched the air, wishing he could punch
Atwood instead. “Ivy couldn’t,
wouldn’t
have anything to do with Dirk in
a million years.”

Grant walked away. His words expressed more confidence than
he truly felt.

The Ivy he knew was smart, sensible and had good instincts
when it came to people. He also knew her to be sensuous and quick to arousal.
Grant pulled at his shirt collar where jealous heat simmered.

Storming out the door and down the stairs, Grant opened his
car door only to slam it shut. Grasping the roll bar, he rocked the Jeep in a
fit of barbaric anger. Flinging the door open again, he got behind the wheel
and peeled out of the parking lot, spewing gravel. He zipped to the closest
secluded spot he knew, pulling over.