Bad Moon Rising

  Table of Contents

  © 2018 Tegan Maher

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgements

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Thank You!

  CHAPTER ONE

  Connect with Me

  Follow Me:

  Books by Tegan

  © 2018 Tegan Maher

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, in any form, by any means electronic or mechanical, including but not limited to photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system currently in use or yet to be devised.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or institutions is entirely coincidental.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal use and may not be re-sold or given away to others. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase a copy for that person. If you did not purchase this book, or it was not purchased for your use, then you have an unauthorized copy. Please go to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting my hard work and copyright.

  Author’s Note

  Before you start reading, I thought maybe a little clarification might be in order because I’ve gotten a few emails wondering about the linguistics and grammar.

  First, thank you for giving me your time! I’d love to chat or hear what you think of my books, so drop me a line at TeganMaherBooks@gmail.com

  In this series as well as in my Keyhole Lake series, I use local dialect both in dialogue and in narrative. Even characters who are smart and/or educated still drop back to default dialect sometimes, as do most of us when we’re in casual situations.

  Grammatical errors and use of slang are likely intentional (me and you vs. you and I, we was going vs. we were going etc.) You’ll even find some words that look flat-out made up, unless of course, you’re from the South. ☺

  That being said, typos are never intentional and if I’ve missed any, I apologize!

  So please, I ask for a little latitude for the good folks of Castle’s Bluff. I hope you enjoy spending time there as much as I loved creating it—drop me a line to let me know what you think!

  Happy Reading,

  Tegan

  Acknowledgements

  People tend to think an author is all it takes to write a book, but that’s not true.

  First, and as always, my son, just because he’s always been my biggest fan.

  Next, Regina Welling. She knows why.

  CHAPTER ONE

  "Something's in the air," I said to Sam, my second in command, as I tossed down my pen and leaned back in my chair. I frowned and kicked my feet up on the corner of my desk, trying to nail down what it was that was making me so edgy.

  He took his eyes off the report he was filling out and looked at me over the tops of his readers. "You've been saying that. You know I'm a big fan of following your gut, but we've had nothing but peace and quiet for a month. You're probably just still keyed up a little from the past couple of months. It might take a bit for you to recover."

  I sighed. There wasn't a shred of evidence to indicate everything wasn't just the way it should be in our sleepy little town, yet I couldn't shake the feeling that a storm was brewing just on the other side of the horizon.

  "I know, and I hope I'm wrong." I chewed on my lip and tried to shake the feeling of impending doom from my shoulders. I hoped he was right. There had been a lot of upheaval, what with two murderers running roughshod through Castle's Bluff two months running, but this felt different to me.

  "Tell you what," he said, signing his name to the noise complaint he'd just finished. "Let's go grab some lunch and talk to Sully. Maybe he can shed some light on things for you."

  My stomach rumbled at the thought of a burger from Sully's, the pub right across the street from the courthouse. I dropped my feet from my desk and stood up. "Might as well. Even if he doesn't have any intel, I'm not getting anything done here, anyway."

  He lifted one corner of his mouth in a wry half-smile. "I would have gladly let you talk to Ms. Wilson if you needed something to do. I didn't think she was ever going to stop complaining."

  That was par for the course for Gertrude Wilson. She was eighty, and in the office at least once every couple of weeks complaining about one thing or another. Last week, she'd been miffed because "wild hoodlums" were riding their skateboards down the sidewalk, claiming she felt so unsafe she was about to start locking her front door at night.

  They weren't doing anything other than annoying her for the whole three seconds it took them to get by her house, but I'd learned long ago that expecting logic or a grain of tolerance from her was outside the realm of reality.

  Of course, she named names. The kids who'd made her list were all honor students, or close to it, on their way to the local youth center, where we'd built a skate area. Since the idea behind the park was to keep the kids out of trouble, I wasn't about to get onto them. Still, I'd assured her I'd look into it.

  One of the youth center's volunteers worked at the sheriff's office with me, and assured me that the boys were, indeed, using the facilities almost every day. I counted that as due diligence and left it alone. I figured something else would attract her ire in a few days, anyway, and I'd been right.

  "No way," I said as he unfolded his tall frame from behind the desk. Even in late middle age, he still carried himself like a soldier, back straight and shoulders squared. "It was your turn. Besides, she likes you better. She thinks I'm too young to be sheriff and says I'm lippy. Plus, I'm not tall, dark, and handsome."

  He grumbled, but mostly because it was true. We teased him because when it was his turn to deal with her, there was much more eye batting and preening going on than actual complaining.

  "As a matter of fact, you should just give in and ask her out." I tried to keep a straight face as I said it.

  Sam scowled and reached out to pinch my cheek, a move he knew annoyed me. Lucky for him, he'd known me all my life and was thirty-five years older than me, so he always got a pass.

  "Keep it up, kiddo. If the thought of dealing with her for an entire afternoon didn't make me want to set myself on fire, I'd ask her to your next cookout."

  "If you did that, I'd set you on fire." I barbecued at the house I shared with my roommate and best friend most weekends, and when Sam wasn't covering for me, he always came. Food that didn't come in a frozen cardboard box was a big draw for a single guy.

  We passed Ms. Ellen, our elderly receptionist, on the way out.

  "Headin' to lunch?" she asked, her eyes huge behind her bejeweled cats-eye glasses.

  "Yeah. We're just running over to Sully's if you need us. Do you wanna go?" I asked. She'd been around since God was a boy and had manned the front desk of the sheriff's office since before I could remember. She didn't
accept my offer often, but I always felt rude not asking.

  Besides, on the rare occasions she did accept, she was a hoot. She knew everything about everybody it seemed, and it was funny learning about how the town and the people in it behaved in different decades. And last week. I swear, the woman had eyes everywhere.

  She waved us off. "Nah, you two kids go ahead. If anything comes up, I'll call."

  It was only a hundred yards or so across the street to the pub, but by the time we walked in, but the weather was unusually warm for October. The cool interior was great, and thanks to my wolfie side, it didn't take my eyes long to adjust to the dim interior.

  Sully, the Irish owner, stood behind the bar as he had since I was little, polishing wine glasses and smiling. There were several tables, but nobody at the bar, which is where I usually sat. He tossed the bar towel over his shoulder and lumbered toward us, stopping to pour two glasses of tea on his way.

  He was a bear shifter and both his appearance and personality reflected it. Though he could easily crush beer cans in the bend of his arm, he was a marshmallow inside, at least until he wasn't.

  "Good to see ye, lass, Sam," he boomed. "Are ye hungry, or just here for some quiet space?"

  Sam and I often escaped to Sully's when we needed to discuss business in private. Translation: we went there when we saw Ms. Wilson sneak in, had a case involving a supernatural person, or wanted to plan a surprise party for somebody in the office. Or when we were just bored out of our minds and wanted to play some video golf. Don't judge—we're salaried.

  Today, though, my heart wasn't in it. The stupid black cloud just wouldn't clear out. The bell rang over the door when a customer came in, and I jumped.

  Sully furrowed his brow. "What's got your knickers bunched, lass? You're like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rockin' chairs."

  I gave a small smile at the southern expression delivered in an Irish brogue. "I don't know, Sully. I feel like trouble's coming."

  He pressed his lips together and nodded. "I've been feelin' it myself, lass. There's a bad moon risin', at least if you have bad intentions, so I wouldn't be surprised."

  "Bad moon risin'?" Sam asked. "I thought that was just a Creedence Clearwater Revival song."

  Sully shook his head. "If the moon's wonky, expect anything, and there's serious wonky comin' up. Super blue blood moon in a coupla days. There's a reason farmers, midwives, witches, and other folks close to the earth work with the moon's schedule. They know. And this time around, it's on Halloween, when the veil is thinnest. "

  "Yeah," I said. "We never schedule pack meetings when anything is going on with the moon. Even plain old full moons or new moons, let alone ones that occur in tandem with each other. Things are touchy enough as it is without addin' in lunar havoc."

  "What the hell is a super blue blood moon?" Sam asked, confusion etched upon his face.

  "It's either super good, or incredibly bad, depending upon the magical user's intention," I said. "A super moon is closer to the earth than usual. A blue moon is the second full moon in a month. Both of them individually make magic stronger, especially for spellwork. A blood moon is—"

  "I know what a blood moon is," he said. "It's been all over the news for months. That's the eclipse, right?"

  "Yeah," Sully said. "It's a great time for endings and new beginnings. Put 'em all together and toss in Halloween and you have some serious juju, even if the magical person isn't usually all that strong."

  I'd forgotten it was a blue moon. As a werewolf, I just kept track of when they were, not so much how many times they occurred. Since I was just learning to be a witch, spellwork wasn't such a big deal in my training yet. I did know about the other three though, and they were troubling enough. A prickly feeling ran across my body and I shivered.

  Sam felt it and glance at me. "You okay? I know you can't be cold."

  "Yeah," I replied. "Somebody just walked over my grave is all."

  "At any rate," Sully said, giving me a concerned glance, "there's trouble comin', and it ain't gonna be pretty. I feel it in my bones."

  Just then, my phone rang and a finger of dread slithered down my spine. Before I even answered, I knew trouble had arrived.

  CHAPTER TWO

  "SHERIFF, YOU NEED TO get out to the Hutchinson's old huntin' cabin," Ms. Ellen said without preamble or nonsense when I answered. "Some hikers stopped for lunch and found a body. I couldn't get much more than that outta the kid that called, 'ceptin' the body's all ripped open."

  Sam was sitting right next to me, and Sully had shifter hearing, so they both heard what she said just as well as I did.

  "Did they say what shape it was in?" If the body was fresh, I didn't want them near the scene in case the murderer was still in the area.

  "Just that it looked like it had been attacked by a wild animal. He said he was packing a forty-five, so I told them to sit tight and you'd be there ASAP. Be careful—a scared kid with a gun may be just as apt to shoot you as anything else and he was pretty keyed up."

  "I imagine he was," I said. "We'll be careful and give the siren a couple toots when we get close. I'll let you know when we're on-scene."

  I hung up and pulled in a deep breath, looking at Sam and Sully as I did.

  "Well," Sam said with a sigh as he pushed himself up from the stool. "Looks like you called it. If that ain't trouble, I don't know what is."

  Sully held his finger up as he headed toward the kitchen. "Wait just a minute. You came for lunch, and unless I miss my guess, you're not going to be stoppin' to eat again any time soon."

  I shifted my weight from foot to foot, drumming my fingers on the back of the bar stool while we waited. It wasn't two minutes later that he came back with a paper bag in his hand.

  "I put a couple sandwiches in there, along with some chips and pickles," he said as he poured our tea into to-go cups, topped them off, then handed them to us along with the bag. "Eat on the way."

  I pulled some bills out of my pocket but he waved me off. "That doesn't count as a meal, so just take it and go. Good luck."

  Snorting, I turned to follow Sam, who was already halfway to the door. "If I had any luck, I'd be sitting here eating a cheeseburger instead of bolting off to deal with a dead body, but thanks for the sandwiches."

  "Lass?" he said as I was almost to the door.

  "Yeah, Sully?"

  The concern on his face bothered me because he was usually unflappable. "Take care. I don't like the feel of this. Something's ... off."

  The hairs on my nape stood up and I nodded as I pushed out the door. It didn't feel right to me, either. "Will do. Let me know if you hear anything through the grapevine."

  Sully was the den leader of the region's bear pack, and they were one of largest groups of shifters besides wolves in our area. Between his pack connections and the info he picked up at the pub, not much went on without his knowledge.

  We climbed into Sam's truck because it was closest, opting to ride together since the cabin was off the beaten path. The road to it was more a path than anything, because it was meant to be accessed via ATVs or on horseback. It would be all we could do to squeeze one truck and the coroner in, let alone two. Besides, we'd no doubt have much to talk about after we saw the body and combed over the scene.

  The trip took us a little over thirty minutes, mostly because once we left the main road, we had to find our way around downed logs. Once we pulled up in front of the cabin, we found a twenty-something couple sitting on a moss-covered log as far away from the cabin as they could get without leaving the scene entirely.

  I'd put Sam's bubble light on the dashboard and turned it on. Ms. Ellen was right—the last thing we needed was to be shot at by a frightened, trigger-happy kid.

  We climbed out of the truck and made our way to the couple, a willowy girl with her blonde hair stuffed under a UGA ball cap and a tall guy who looked like a wrestler. Both were wide-eyed and pale, and I could see the remnants of their lunch splattered beside the porch.
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  "Thank God you're here," the girl exclaimed, jumping up from the log and rushing toward us. I couldn't help but notice she skirted the edge of the clearing, keeping as much distance between her and the cabin as possible. The guy followed her, his Adam's apple bobbing as he struggled not to heave again. He side-eyed the cabin but kept quiet.

  "Thanks for waiting. I know it wasn't easy," I said. The tears that shimmered in her eyes evidenced the girl’s relief.

  "It was, but going back out into the woods knowing whatever did that"—she glanced toward the cabin—"may still be out there was scarier than staying put and waiting on you."

  Sam had moved toward the boy, holding his hand out. "I'm Deputy Cassidy, and this is Sheriff Sloan. Before we go in, can you tell us what happened?"

  "I'm Danny Pickering and this is Charlene Tenney." He ran his fingers through his dark hair. I couldn't tell if it was meant to be spiked or if he'd just repeated the action so many times, it had ended up that way. I pulled a deep breath in through my nose, searching for their scents. Both were human, and I didn't yet know if that was a good thing or not.

  Charlene nodded and shook our hands. "We were hiking, looking for berries, and just enjoying the weather when we came across the cabin. We were about out of water, so we figured maybe there were some provisions inside."

  She turned a little green and glanced away into the trees behind me. It was common practice to leave basic provisions in cabins, on the understanding that if you took something, you left something else.

  Danny picked up where she left off. "When we went inside, we noticed a coppery smell so thick it turned our stomachs. Then she pointed to a couch that was tucked into a corner behind the kitchenette, and there he was."

  This time, Charlene couldn't hold back the tears, though she was putting forth a colossal effort. Her nose wrinkled and her voice was thick when she spoke. "He's mangled. It looks like wild animals ate part of him."

  "Did you touch anything?" Sam asked.

  They shook their heads. "We didn't even make it much past the front door," Danny said, and his face turned a little red. "I did get sick off the porch, though. Sorry about that."