Shifting Shadows: Stories from the World of Mercy Thompson(52)

“Which direction?” said Tom over the sound of the engine.

His presence shouldn’t have made her feel better—werewolves couldn’t swim at all—but it did. She pointed with the hand that held the gum. “Not far now,” she warned him.

“There’s a private dock about a half mile up the coast. Looks like it’s been here awhile,” he told her. “There’s a boat—The Tern, the bird.”

It felt right. “I think that must be it.”

There were other boats on the water; she could hear them. “What time is it?”

“About ten in the morning. We’re passing the boat right now.”

Molly’s traces, left on the gum, pulled toward their source, tugging Moira’s hand toward the back of the boat. “That’s it.”

“There’s a park with docks about a mile back,” he said, and the boat tilted to the side. “We’ll go tie up there and come back on foot.”

But when he’d tied the boat up, he changed his mind. “Why don’t you stay here and let me check this out?”

Moira rubbed her hands together. It bothered her to have her magic doing something it wasn’t supposed to be doing, and she’d let it throw her off her game: time to collect herself. She gave him a sultry smile. “Poor blind girl,” she said. “Must be kept out of danger, do you think?” She turned a hand palm up and heard the whoosh of flame as it caught fire. “You’ll need me when you find Molly—you may be a werewolf, but she’s a witch who looks like a pretty young thing.” She snuffed the flame and dusted off her hands. “Besides, she’s afraid of me. She’ll tell me where your brother is.”

She didn’t let him know how grateful she was for the help he gave her exiting the boat. When this day was over, he’d go back to his life and she to hers. If she wanted to keep him—she knew he wouldn’t want to be kept by her. She was a witch, and ugly with scars of the past.

Besides, if her dreams were right, she wouldn’t survive to see nightfall.

•   •   •

She threaded through the dense underbrush as if she could see every hanging branch, one hand on his back and her other held out in front of her. He wondered if she was using magic to see.

She wasn’t using him. Her hand in the middle of his back was warm and light, but his flannel shirt was between it and skin. Probably she was reading his body language and using her upraised hand as an insurance policy against low-hanging branches.

They followed a half-overgrown path that had been trod out a hundred feet or so from the coast, which was obscured by ferns and underbrush. He kept his ears tuned so he’d know it if they started heading away from the ocean.

The Tern had been moored in a small natural harbor on a battered dock next to the remains of a boathouse. A private property rather than the public dock he’d used.

They’d traveled north and were somewhere not too far from Everett, by his reckoning. He wasn’t terribly surprised when their path ended in a brand-new eight-foot chain-link fence. Someone had a real estate gold mine on their hands, and they were waiting to sell it to some developer when the price was right. Until then, they’d try to keep out the riffraff.

He helped Moira over the fence, mostly a matter of whispering a few directions until she found the top of it. He waited until she was over and then vaulted over himself.

The path they’d been following continued on, though not nearly so well traveled as it had been before the fence. A quarter mile of blackberry brambles ended abruptly in thigh-deep damp grasslands that might once have been a lawn. He stopped before they left the cover of the bushes, sinking down to rest on his heels.

“There’s a burnt-out house here,” he told Moira, who had ducked down when he did. “It must have burned down a couple of years ago, because I don’t smell it.”

“Hidden,” she commented.

“Someone’s had tents up here,” he told her. “And I see the remnants of a campfire.”

“Can you see the boat from here?”

“No, but there’s a path I think should lead down to the water. I think this is the place.”

She pulled her hand away from his arm. “Can you go check it out without being seen?”

“It would be easier if I do it as a wolf,” Tom admitted. “But I don’t dare. We might have to make a quick getaway, and it’ll be a while before I can shift back to human.” He hoped Jon would be healthy enough to pilot in an emergency—but he didn’t like to make plans that depended upon an unknown. Moira wasn’t going to be piloting a boat anywhere.

“Wait,” she told him. She murmured a few words and then put her cold fingers against his throat. A sudden shock, like a static charge on steroids, hit him—and when it was over, her fingers were hot on his pulse. “You aren’t invisible, but it’ll make people want to overlook you.”

He pulled out his HK and checked the magazine before sliding it back in. The big gun fit his hand like a glove. He believed in using weapons: guns or fangs, whatever got the job done.

“It won’t take me long.”

“If you don’t go, you’ll never get back,” she told him, and gave him a gentle push. “I can take care of myself.”

It didn’t sit right with him, leaving her alone in the territory of his enemies, but common sense said he’d have a better chance of roaming unseen. And no one tackled a witch lightly—not even other witches.