A Feral Darkness Part 4

"Oh-kaay," Emily said, turning both her gaze and her expertly raised eyebrow on Brenna.

"What the h.e.l.la"" Brenna said, out loud this time, and then realized she was in the presence of young ears. "You guys didn't hear that." She grabbed an elastic from the table and brought her hair around. The fishtail braid was indeed cool, but apparently tedious in execution, for it was only a third of the way down her back. She overrode the girls' protests and fastened it where they had stopped.

"Do me a favor," she told them, talking over them, and her words hushed them fast enough. "Help me find him. He's probably hiding behind or under something. Don't try to get close to him. He's too afraid right now, and it wouldn't be kind to him."

Young women on a mission, they rushed from the kitchen.

Emily caught Brenna's eye and shook her head. "You told me he was strange, but . . . Brenna, just what is it you think you can do with that dog?"

Brenna had no doubt that if Druid had been on a leash, they would all have been treated to another incident of flailing and foaming and shrieking, and she sighed, meeting Emily's gaze long enough for an honest shrug. "I don't know. But you saw him . . . when he's normal, he's a charismatic and well-behaved dog. If I can only figure out what's causing the behaviora""

"The behavior," Emily said, and laughed without humor. "The behavior! Brenna, the dog is hallucinating! He's the doggy equivalent of a homeless man who's not sane and won't take his drugs!"

Brenna could only stare off in the direction of Druid's flight, bemused. Local groomer Brenna Lynn Fallon succ.u.mbed today . . .

Just how crazy did that make her?

Crazy enough to go back to work. On Sat.u.r.day, no less, a day Brenna was used to working but one that always lasted several hours longer than she was actually scheduled, even double-teaming with Elizabeth and with someone pulled off the floor to wash the dogs.

Not someone who actually knew what they were doing, of course. One of the guys from the back of the store, whom Roger must have figured was large enough to handle the big ones. And who obviously loved dogs.

If only he'd ever washed one.

Brenna, swooping in to get her next clip job and crossing mental fingers that the dog was actually dry, found Deryl towel-drying a Collie-mutt and spotted the tell-tale slick of fur at a glance.

"He's still got soap in his hair," she told him, shouting out of necessity; all the dryers were going, all the crates full.

He gave a look of disbelief, clearly not able to comprehend that he'd missed some soapy spots or, more likely, that he'd missed them and she'd been able to see them. "But I've already got him half dry."

As if that was relevant. "Doesn't matter," she said, gesturing at the tub with her chin, her arms already full of West Highland Terrier. "Put him back in and rinse him again. If you don't get the soap out, he'll itch and we'll rightly get blamed for it." She freed an arm from the Westie, balancing the dog in her grip just long enough to point. "There. And there. Get those spots rinsed enough to make your fingers squeak."

And still the doubt.

"Just do it!" she said in exasperation. "You're getting paid by the hour, not by the dog!"

He frowned, hesitated, and thought better of it. When she left the room he was reinserting the unhappy dog into the tub.

Elizabeth was hard at work on a Samoyed who apparently hadn't been brushed all winter. "It's no wonder they hate us," she muttered to Brenna as she used the razor-sharp blades of a mat comb on the dog's haunches; it tried to whirl and snap, but she had it well secured.

Brenna didn't even bother to respond; it was a rhetorical grumble they perfected each spring. Instead she cranked the table up, deposited the Westie, and got to work. "And how are you today, Miss Daisy?" she said, and presented her face for licking.

"No fair," Elizabeth said, still grumbling. "You got to do Daisy last time she was in."

"Gotta be quick!" Brenna told her, grinning. Daisy came on a regular schedule, had a lovely coat, a sweet temperament, and solid conformation . . . good breeding, s.h.i.+ning through. Grooming her always made Brenna remember what had attracted her to the job in the first place. Not just working with the dogs, but working with them in a way that they both enjoyed. Not just cleaning them up and putting them through a clipper a.s.sembly line, but turning it into an art of sorts, taking handsome little dogs like Daisy and putting a smart breed clip on them so they'd want to strut out of the shop.

And the hardest thing about Daisy was that although she knew to stand, she kept trying to give kisses. With a comb attachment, a little stripping work and thinning sheers, Brenna had Daisy spiffed up with a perky Westie breed cut and a tiny pink bow at the base of each ear. "You're too cute!" she told the dog, and escorted her to one of the front crates. Just in time; her owner would be along in fifteen minutes for pick-up.

By which time Brenna would be snacking on carrots and granola bars. "Everything else is still drying," she told Elizabeth, pulling off her grooming smock. "I'm going for lunch, and maybe even that break I worked through this morning."

"Fine by me," Elizabeth said, discarding a slicker brush's worth of hair on the floor. "I'll no doubt still be working on this dog when you get back. I hope you warned the owners that there would be matting charges."

"Oh, yes," Brenna said. "We had the my dog's not matted conversation. I provided visual aids and won the day." What she had done was to stick several wide-toothed combs into the dog's haira"where they stayed upright, quite securely anch.o.r.ed by the mats.

They kept combs on the front counter expressly for that purpose.

But she didn't have to think of that now. She could grab her lunch, her current paperback thriller, and let the rest of her brain take a deep, restful breath in the employee break room, where the biggest challenge was resisting the beguiling whisper of the snack pastries in the vending machine.

Which was where she was when Roger's new buddy sauntered in and poured himself a cup of coffee, a sheaf of photocopies tucked under his arm. She didn't look up from her book; peripheral vision identified him easily enough, although he wasn't moving with the same facility she had already a.s.sociated with him. And he took no special note of her, not until he carefully eased into one of the folding metal chairs across the table from her and came out of his preoccupation long enough to recognize her. "How's that dog?" he asked, but his voice didn't sound especially solicitous. Making conversation.

She hesitated, tempted to pretend she was so absorbed by her reading that she didn't hear him and trying to pin down the faint accent in his wordsa"not English, but too elusive to identify. He wasn't dissuaded; she felt his gaze through the book between them and finally she lowered the book to the table, careful to miss the remains of her lunch. "He's strange," she said noncommittally. "He's about the strangest dog I've ever dealt with, if you want to know. But I suppose somehow I'll manage."

"If you decide you want help, give me a call." He took a card from his s.h.i.+rt pocket and shoved it across the table at her.

"You know," Brenna said, feeling her mouth take over and knowing that she would probably regret it later, "if I was going to ask someone for help, it sure wouldn't be someone who makes that . . . face at me."

"Which face would that be?" he said, and she could swear she heard amus.e.m.e.nt. Not outright humor, just . . .

She couldn't tell, and it frustrated her. "The one you're probably making right nowa"" she said, finally and fully looking away from the book, and then cutting herself short. Whatever his expression, this was certainly the first time he'd had a couple of st.i.tches in one eyebrow and dark purple bruising all the way down the side of his face . . . as if a heavy fist had skidded up from jaw to brow and come to an abrupt stop there. "Well, okay," she said, finding it odd to meet his gaze and those same clear, deep blue eyes as her owna"familiar eyes in an unfamiliar framework. "Probably not that exact face. But under all the colors, pretty much identical." She imitated it for him. "Anyway, working with dogs is what I do."

Undeterred by her response, he nudged the business card toward her. Thanks to the stickiness of the tablea"there was a definite cabal of employees who thought a magic fairy would descend from the ceiling to clean up their mess once they'd gone, but it never seemed to happena"the card didn't go far, but Brenna reached for it anyway. She recognized the logo from his SUV right away, a generic dog silhouette circled by words. Gil Masera, it said. Dog Obedience and Behavior Specialist.

As she looked up from the card he shrugged and said, "Sometimes it's good to have a backup."

Obedience trainer? Talking to Roger, hanging around the store? Greata"it was a probably a professional thing, then, that look. That judgment. Trainer techniques looking down on groomer techniques. She put the card back down where she'd gotten it, in the middle of the table, struck by a sudden bad feeling. "What is it you're you doing here?"

"Having coffee. Listening to you get straight to the point."

"It's better that waya"I don't get a very long break." She flashed an annoyed look at him. "Why," she repeated, "are you having coffee here? Why does your presence make Roger deliriously happy? And why did do you look at me the way you doa"" for he'd done it in the parking lot, too, more or less, "a"and don't deny it."

He withstood the barrage with no change of expression, aside from one barely discernable wince when the coffee touched his split lip.

Maybe it would leave a scar, she thought, and gave it some hope.

He leaned back in the rickety chair, wincing again, but ignoring her blatant scrutiny of his physical woes. "I'm having coffee here because I'm here. I'm here because I'm trying to arrange the necessary layout to hold obedience cla.s.ses in this store. Roger's happy because he thinks the cla.s.ses will increase the customer base, and because he didn't think he'd talk me into signing on since I don't need his customer base."

"Then why did you? Sign on, I mean." Straight to the point, why not. "And don't think I didn't notice you didn't answer my last question."

"The church I used to work out of not only raised their rates, they kept taking my cla.s.s s.p.a.ce at the last minute." Straight to the point, right back at her. And there was something in his voice that let her know he answered because he chose to, and not necessarily just because she'd asked. "Roger made me a better offer."

No doubt. Brenna had gotten one of those herself, luring her away from her last job. And she'd questioned Roger carefully about her professional concerns, all of which he had a.s.sured her would never happena"and every one of which now occurred on a daily or weekly basis.

But let Gil Masera find that out for himself.

"The faces," Masera said bluntly, "are because I don't like big commercial grooming setups. I've seen the way the dogs are handled in those situations. I've even picked up the pieces."

Brenna's composure slipped. "You've never even seen me work! And you've probably picked up the pieces of what happens when a dog doesn't even see a brush until it's so matted that the owners drop off the mess for someone else to deal with, all while demanding that the dog's coat be saved."

"I've seen enough," he said, not narrowing his eyes so much as lowering the lids in a way that might have made someone else look sleepy but just made him look like a big cat waiting to pounce.

"You come work in the tub room for a week if you want to say anything like that about this grooming room," Brenna said, her bangs sliding into her face with her emphatic words. She brushed at them in an automatic gesture and poofed them away for good measure, sitting back in the folding chair. "Are you always this abrasive?"

"It's a gift," he said, watching her. "Sometimes it suits me."

She quite definitely didn't know what to make of him. Under Russell's expectant stare she often kept silent, promising herself she'd do things her way as soon as he looked awaya"which never took long. But now . . . there was some unspoken challenge in Masera's scrutiny, and she gave him an even look in return. Standing behind what she'd said, the good and the bad of it both.

Still, it came as a relief when the door swung open, interrupting their temporarily silent exchange. Sammi Grozny of the People Placing Pets rescue group came in, hunting down a soda. PePP held weekly adoption days out of Pets!, during which the volunteers juggled various cats and dogs, made sure unsupervised kids didn't poke Fido's eyes out, diplomatically discouraged the people who wanted simply to walk away with a new pet, and encouraged the owner-prospects to fill out the initial questionnaire in the process of adoption. Saints, in other words, or so Brenna had always thought.

But not perfect ones. Sammi, who weighed enough that Brenna worried about her health and who never seemed to catch her breath, nonetheless used that breath on endless streams of verbal worrying. "Brenna!" she said, as though Masera weren't even in the room. "I wondered why I didn't see you out front. Have you heard about that dog pack? You're right in their territory, aren't you?"

Before Brenna had a chance to answer, Masera said, "No one's seen a single member of that pack."

Sammi ignored him, making her soda selection automatically enough that it was obvious she knew this machine well. "I hope you're being careful."

"Sunny's crated," Brenna said, but she glanced at Masera and realized right away that his own words had been deceptively offhand in delivery; his eyes were watching every nuance of the conversation. "Hold on," she said, balling up the plastic wrap that had held her peanut b.u.t.ter and jelly sandwich and twisting to toss it out. "I'll walk back up front with you."

"Finish your lunch," Masera said, nodding at the remaining baggie of carrot sticks as he swallowed the last of his coffee; Brenna winced at the thought of how hot it must have been. "I'm through here."

It stopped her short, her hand in the act of stuffing the carrots into her Warrior Princess lunch box. He didn't wait for her response, but stooda"or tried to. It seemed to take him by surprise, as though his attention had been so diverted that he'd forgotten his battered status. But he pushed himself to his feet, straightened with effort, and tossed his coffee cup at the giant bin in the corner of the room, gathering up his papers.

"Don't forget to come spend some time in the tub room," she said, and gave him a dare-you smile. People forgot she could do that; she had one of those wholesome faces, the kind that take on cheerful as their default expression. Her eyes even tipped up a tiny bit, as if they were always smiling. Sometimes she stood in front of the mirror and tried for sultry, but couldn't ever pull it off. Not with that china"strong, in a strong jaw, and with a definite cleft. Or with those lips, which had a little uplift in each corner and, just like her eyes, always seemed to imply a smile even when just in repose. And her nose . . . just hopeless. Not that it didn't suit her face, but maybe that was the problem. It wasn't quite what you would call perky, not with that subtle b.u.mp on the bridge of it, but it was darn close.

Taken together, her features made people a.s.sume certain things of her. Because of her face, they thought her to be incessantly cheerful, and possibly just a little naive. Because she was tall and lean unto gawkiness, with big hands and bony shoulders and a body that, although it had decent dimensions, couldn't seem to a.s.semble itself gracefully, they somehow thought her to be unsophisticated in a charming way, perhaps even someone to be protected, as her father always had.

But she wasn't. She could meet a challenge as well as anyone, and stand up for herself along the way. And that's what her smile said to Masera, a smile she'd startled herself with because she never bothered to use it on people who couldn't manage to perceive it, and here it was. Some part of her had realized the truth before her thinking brain. .&npsp;.that he could see beyond her features, beyond her appearance.

The hard smile surprised him briefly, much as she'd meant it toa"but it didn't seem to put him off, also as she'd meant it to. There was something about him that intensified, leaping to meet that look; something in those hooded eyes.

"Wait till you heal up from whoever kicked the tar out of you," she told him. "You don't want to have to call me in to lift a dog for you."

"Like you did for Roger," Sammi said with a wicked little grina"right on cue, her eyes lighting at the thought. Like all the PePP volunteers, Sammi was grateful for the adoption days allowed by Pets!a"but it didn't make her blind to the way Roger managed his people.

"You see," Brenna said. "People hear about these things here. We watch out for one another."

"We do," Sammi said, quite aware that she was playing a role in a larger conversation that she didn't understand, but willing to team with Brenna to do it.

Again, amus.e.m.e.nt flickered across Gil's face, settling at one side of his mouth. The side with the split lip. "I'll keep that in mind," he said, and left the rooma"but somehow left some trace of his att.i.tude behind.

It kept Sammi silent and thoughtful. Brenna gave it an internal scowl and jumped up to prowl the offerings of the snack machine, thinking hard about chocolate. She was still prowling when Sammi spoke up. "Who was that? Why don't you like him?"

"Because he doesn't like me," Brenna said, which was indeed what it basically boiled down to. Judging her and Elizabeth simply because of the way they mighta"or might not, given that he'd never seen thema"handle dogs.

"Something didn't like him," Sammi said. "Car accident?"

"Fight, I'm betting," Brenna said, thinking of how similar Russell had looked and moved the time several high school rivals had teamed up to put some hurt on him. Not truly to damage him . . . just to make a point.

A very hard point.

Brenna sat on the corner of the table, struggling with the cellophane on the brownie she had just rescued from the depths of the machine. "Anyway, I am being careful about the dog pack. Not even going out at night. At least I don't have anyone leasing the barn right now . . . though I ought to try to get someone in there this spring." She broke off a piece of brownie, popped it into her mouth, and spoke around it. "Is it true? That no one's actually seen any of the dogs?"

Sammi hesitated, long enough for Brenna to sift through her own recollection of news briefs heard on the radio going to and from work. Someone had found a mauled cat on the edge of their property and the wounds were determined to be dog-inflicted. Someone else had found a small mutt dead in the woods edging a farmer's field. But had anyone seen the pack? Had anyone seen even a single dog?

Gil Masera knew something, that was for sure.

Or he thought he knew something.

"No," Sammi finally said, picking at the tab opener of her soda. She looked up at Brenna. "But plenty of people have seen what they've done. We've got PePP members out in your area right nowa"someone found another dead dog last night, a little Jack Russell mix. Some of us volunteered to look for signs of the pack. And Janean is at Lakeridge right now with a second doga"this one's alive. It's hurt, but alive. It'll go through quarantine, and if the owner hasn't shown up, we'll take it on till it heals and place it." She gave Brenna a dark look. "It used to be a real pretty little Sheltie mix. So don't tell me those dogs aren't out there somewhere. And don't you get careless about them."

Brenna held up both hands. "Like I said, Sunny's crated." Never mind explaining Druid, who was crated right along with the hound but had disdained the bone Brenna had left him; his stare had bored into her back as she'd left the house, sending the certain message that he was supposed to be coming with her, regardless of where she was headed. "And I'm not going out after dark, at least not until this whole dog pack thing is sorted out or broken up or whatever."

"Well, good," Sammi said, mollified. She took a swig of her soda while Brenna chewed the browniea"mostly cardboard, but her body seemed to think it was getting chocolatea"and said, "Tell me again who that was?"

It took Brenna a moment, since she hadn't said anything on the subject in the first place. "Gil Masera, you mean? Says he's a trainer. Looks like he's going to be working out of Pets! For a while, anyway."

Sammi waggled her eyebrows at Brenna, no part of subtle. "Bet he cleans up nice."

Brenna laughed at hera"Sammi was at all times an earthy delighta"but her reply was sober and certain. "And I'm betting he won't be here long enough to find out. Guy with an att.i.tude like that? Roger won't be able to hang on to him."

But he knew something. And before he went, she wanted to know what.

Chapter 6.

HAGALZ.

Disruption Born of Human Need

Brenna set the rifle against the barn and pulled her target paper off the ancient hay bales she had stacked high, two deep and three wide behind the barna"a nice, broad buffer. Just in case. So far she'd been shooting with a surprising accuracy, considering how long it had beena"but then, she'd always had a feel for this old .22.

On the other hand, she'd never pointed it at a moving target. Or a living one, for that matter. And she fervently hoped she would never have to.

She stuck the shredded target between two bales and decided against shooting another round; a glance at her watcha"five-thirtya"told her she had only forty-five minutes until the sun went down, and she still wanted to take Druid on a walk around the pastures.

Pastures, h.e.l.l. She wanted to take him to the spring. To match his footprints against those that appeared from nowhere. And . . . some part of her wanted to see how he reacted to being there at all, although the rest of her didn't want to admit it, simply because it all didn't quite make enough sense.

She reloaded the rifle, double-checking that she hadn't accidentally chambered a round, and then left the chamber open and the rifle on the porch. Inside the dog room, Sunny beat her tail against the side of the crate in greeting; Druid merely gave Brenna a dignified and offended look at having been left behind. Brenna shrugged her vest on over her black hooded sweats.h.i.+rt, made sure Sunny saw her fill her pockets with broken biscuits, and then turned the Redbone loose as she leashed Druid. Sunny wasn't reliable on come, but as long as Brenna had biscuits, she wouldn't go far.

On the porch, Brenna hesitated, then reached for the rifle. Never in her life had she walked the pastures with a firearm for self-protection. It felt distinctly differenta"strangea"from when she walked out for target shooting. "Better safe than sorry," she told Druid in melodramatic solemnity.

Druid was unimpressed, and much more interested in the prospect of a walk. He capered before her, never quite pulling on the leada"a gentleman, he wasa"but as happily carefree as she'd yet seen him, this silly dog who often whined while chewing his bones, all the important thoughts slipping out. Sunny slid under the gate that Druid navigated without so much as ducking, and they both waited impatiently for Brenna to use the boring human method of open-and-close.