Under the Moon (Goddesses Rising) Read online

  Then there was only coldness where he’d been.

  “All set,” he said, his voice coming from several feet behind her. “Need some help with your shirt?”

  “No.” She sounded hoarse and fought not to clear her throat. “I’ve got it.” She carefully pulled the long-sleeved cotton top over her head and down to her waist, then stood and turned to face him.

  He looked normal. Until she examined his face, and a flicker of muscle in his jaw indicated how difficult it was for him to keep his expression clear. His hands shook a little as he folded a towel.

  “Thank you.”

  He smiled. “You’re welcome.” He jerked his head toward her door. “Go get some sleep.”

  “You, too.”

  “I will.”

  Quinn hesitated, but she didn’t know what else she could say. She went into the bedroom, closed the door, and climbed into the soft bed with a moan of gratitude.

  And fell asleep wishing she wasn’t alone.

  Chapter Six

  While you are exploring your abilities and your role in goddess and global society, please consider serving the community in a voluntary capacity. Board and committee service is an enriching experience for both yourself and those with whom you serve.The more you give, the more you receive in return.

  —The Society for Goddess Education and Defense, Election Notice

  …

  Quinn awoke to the scent of nirvana—bacon and coffee. She stretched, lying in bed for a few minutes, imagining the scene outside her door. Sam would be at the stove, flipping pancakes and draining bacon. Nick would be at the table, drinking coffee and reading the paper. She bet they argued about what to do next. The problem was that they didn’t know who the enemy was or where to find him.

  Her contentment erased, she sighed and climbed out of bed into the chilly air. She dressed in jeans and a cable-knit sweater over a T-shirt, then emerged into the main room.

  And stopped dead at the scene before her.

  Nick stood at the stove, the sleeves of his dark green Henley pushed up, a plaid apron tied over his jeans. He held a spatula in one hand and a frying pan full of pancakes in the other. Sam, about four inches taller, turned bacon next to him, while coffee bubbled in the old percolator on a back burner. He wore a blue long-sleeved T-shirt, and his apron was plain white with a ruffle around the bottom. The girlie-ness of the scene only served to make them both look more masculine.

  Quinn could have stood there watching them all day.

  “Mornin’, sleepyhead.” Nick smiled over his shoulder, the sun glinting off his dark blond hair and turning his green eyes pale. “Have a seat.”

  Sam finished transferring the bacon to a paper towel-covered plate and set it on the table. He glanced up and frowned. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing.” Quinn smiled and moved to the table. “Just admiring the view.”

  Nick snorted and turned back to the stove, and Sam shook his head at her.

  “How are you feeling?” She sat and inhaled deeply. Her stomach growled.

  Sam shrugged and nudged the bacon with the tongs. “Sore. Stiff. But mostly okay. How about you?”

  “I’m fine. I can’t even feel the cuts.” Surprisingly true. She didn’t want to test it by leaning against anything, but regular movement didn’t hurt much.

  “That’s my fine doctorin’.” Nick slapped pancakes onto the platter on the table. “Soup’s up.”

  “Hey, Quinn.” Sam opened the back door, bent to reach something on the porch, and came back in holding a large silver dish. “What’s this?”

  “Oh.” She blushed. “Sometimes people release dogs and cats that they don’t want anymore into the woods. When I’m up here, I try to leave food out. I kind of forgot.”

  “Is there any food left? I saw a cat slinking around this morning.”

  “In the bin behind the door.”

  Nick crossed to the door. “I’ll get it. If you bend over too many times, you might pass out.”

  Sam shoved him but came inside and sat down with Quinn at the table. Nick joined them a minute later, and they ate without discussion except for Quinn’s compliments on the food. When they were done, she cleaned up while Sam retrieved his laptop.

  Nick, pacing, laid out the information they had so far. “The leech has hit two goddesses, maybe three. Someone says I’ve gone rogue—which hasn’t hit the Protectorate, by the way, since I’ve talked to a couple of people and they haven’t acted any differently.” He stopped next to his bag on the couch and dug around in it. “In the meantime, the Society is acting like Quinn is the one who’s rogue.” He pulled out a baseball and circled the table, now rolling the ball from hand to hand. “Alana alluded to a family tie, and Jennifer’s e-mail didn’t appear on the Society loop. Neither has anything else since the leech hit.”

  “As if the Society is trying to contain it,” Sam said. He typed something on the computer. “They work hard to keep public perception positive and not overblown. If people found out goddesses can bestow power…” He shook his head at the implications.

  “So it could have been the Society at the hotel and on the highway,” Quinn offered from the sink. She rinsed the silverware in her hand and dumped it in the drainer. “If they think our efforts to find the leech are going to endanger everyone.”

  Sam scowled. “You mean like trying to deter us but not kill us.”

  “Right. I mean, we don’t know what the security team knows and is already doing. Because they won’t tell us.” She threw a spatula into the drainer. “Or it could be the Protectorate,” she suggested, watching Nick’s expression darken. “They don’t have the manpower to protect every goddess, do they?”

  He shook his head. “But they’re not going to violate everything they were created for just to cover their asses.”

  Neither would the Society, but instead of bickering, Quinn focused on scrubbing scorched butter out of the pancake pan. “None of that factors in the family-tie thing, anyway.”

  “So maybe…”

  Quinn whirled on Sam when he trailed off. “Go ahead, say it. That’s where this is going. I can’t hide from it forever.”

  He sighed and closed the laptop. “Maybe the goddess who created the leech is related to you.”

  Quinn squeezed the sponge in her fist, heedless of the water dripping to the floor. “Yeah. That seems most logical, right? Good thing I never tried to become part of the family.”

  Sam moved away from the personal. “Why doesn’t it happen more? Goddesses giving other people power.”

  Nick shrugged. “It’s hard, and damages her. It would upset the balance, both in the goddess and between her and the source of her power. And the result wouldn’t be worth it. No recipient would be able to hold on to the ability for very long.”

  “Unless he started leeching,” Sam said.

  “Wouldn’t that be almost inevitable?” Quinn asked. “I don’t know what would happen to him if he didn’t acquire more power, but it seems like it would be addictive.”

  “So why would one of you do this?” Nick threw the ball against the wall between the bathroom and bedroom doors and caught it.

  Quinn didn’t bother to scold him. She did not want to put herself in the head of someone related to her who would do something so awful. She pulled the drain on the sink and ran some water in the bacon pan to soak, keeping her head down so she wouldn’t see the silent communication Nick and Sam had to be exchanging.

  Sam cleared his throat. “Let’s move on to Nick being rogue. You think of any connection between you and this Jennifer Hollinger?” he asked Nick.

  Quinn hung up the hand towel and sat on the picnic bench, this time glaring at Nick when he raised his arm to throw the ball again. He scowled but gripped it in one hand.

  “None,” he said. “I never heard the name before Quinn showed me her e-mail. I’ve never even been in Mississippi.” Quinn raised an eyebrow at him, and he lifted his arms in a shrug. “Well, I haven’t stopped. I’ve dr
iven through.”

  “Let’s see if we can find a picture of her.” Sam slid his wireless broadband card into the laptop. “Can we get a signal out here?”

  “It’s not exactly wilderness. Should be a strong signal.” While they waited for the computer to connect, she added, “My property backs up on Sarett Nature Center. They own hundreds of acres, and there’s a good buffer of flood plain between us and the main educational area. But a few miles the other way is normal civilization.”

  Sam clicked and typed for a minute, then turned the laptop to face Nick. “She look familiar?”

  He leaned over. “Not a bit.”

  Quinn moved closer. “You sure it’s the right Jennifer Hollinger?”

  “You tell me.” Sam pointed at the caption under the photo. “‘Jennifer Hollinger of Vicksburg, MS, is a hero after saving four people from drowning.’ Some idiot drove through what he thought was a puddle and was really a flooded creek. She diverted the water so they could get out of the car before it filled.”

  “That’s her. She looks different, but I think she dyed her hair. I’ve only seen her a couple of times, though.” She pulled her cell phone from her jacket pocket and turned it on. “I’m going to see if Alana found out anything.”

  The guys talked quietly at the table while she called Alana. Her tone was guarded, but at least she hadn’t sent her to voice mail.

  “You didn’t call me back,” Alana accused.

  “I totally forgot. I’m sorry. Sam was in an accident.”

  “Oh! Is he okay?”

  “Yes, we all are. Thank you for calling to check. The thing at the hotel must have happened after we left.” After Alana made appropriate commiserating sounds, Quinn asked about Jennifer.

  “She wasn’t at home. They’re still looking,” Alana admitted.

  That was not a good answer. Quinn had the dreadful sense that it was too late. “What about the leech?”

  “Nothing I can report.” Alana’s tone had grown progressively colder.

  “How are Tanda and Chloe?”

  “How do you think they are?” she snapped. “I have work to do.” She hung up.

  Quinn sighed. The guys stopped talking.

  “Nothing.” Except ever-worsening relations with the Society. She kept her head bent as she tried Tanda’s number. It still went to voice mail without ringing. This time, she left a lame message asking how she was and tried Chloe, whose phone rang half a dozen times and disconnected. Not even voice mail.

  She’d never been in a situation like this. She’d been a part of things in some capacity—from committee member to board member—going all the way back to high school, before she got her power. More than shut out, she felt discarded. It was almost worse than being left by her birth parents, because this time she’d belonged before they rejected her.

  She shoved the phone back into her pocket and tuned in to Sam asking Nick how else they could investigate the rogue accusation.

  “We’re at a dead end,” Nick insisted. “Until we can get something from Jennifer, there’s nada.”

  “All right. Moving back to you.” Sam turned to Quinn. “Family ties.”

  She shifted to her right as Nick joined them at the table. He sat on her left, his right leg bouncing so fast it shook the floorboards. She touched his knee, and he stopped.

  “It has to be my birth family.” She straightened her spine and her heart. Enough avoidance and hand-wringing. Those people weren’t hers, both by their choice and her own. If one of them was stupid or evil or deluded or whatever she’d have to be to create a leech, so what? It just meant Quinn—with Sam’s brain and Nick’s badass-ness—had more reason than anyone to track them down and put an end to this, before they got to any other goddess.

  “I don’t know anything about them, besides the little they left for me when I was eight.”

  “So Alana could have been referring to your mother,” Sam said.

  “Or aunts, cousins, siblings. I have no idea.”

  “Okay then.” He flexed his fingers, his expression intent. “Let’s find out who’s out there.”

  He looked at Quinn expectantly, but she had nothing to offer. No names, not even physical descriptions because her memories were too vague. She didn’t know what her mother had done with her original adoption paperwork. She hadn’t found anything naming her birth parents when she went through her mother’s things after the funeral. The realization set her adrift, and the loneliness that permeated her twelve years ago threatened to swamp her again.

  Nick’s hand rested on her knee, tethering her, reminding her that she wasn’t alone and never had been. She rested her hand on his for a second before he withdrew it.

  “Nick can get you started,” she told Sam. “He apparently researched me before we even met.”

  Nick shifted and grimaced. “I told you, it was a training assignment.”

  “But you did it, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And did you compare all your other training assignments to your family tree?”

  His cheekbones went dusky red. “Uh, no.”

  “I rest my case.”

  “What case is that, exactly?” His eyes sparkled at her, as much gold as green now. Quinn smiled at him.

  Sam snickered. “Give me what you’ve got.” He tossed a pad and pen across the table. Nick scribbled a few things down and tossed it back, along with a look of warning that Sam ignored.

  “It was a long time ago,” Nick said. “Most of what I know is outdated.”

  “It’s a start.” Sam squinted at the paper. “Is this a Z?”

  “Is your vision fuzzy again?” Quinn asked, worried.

  But Sam scowled at Nick. “No. His handwriting sucks.”

  “You’ve gone soft,” Nick shot back at him. “Too much word processing. Have you reached Tanda or Chloe?” he asked Quinn, who shook her head. “I think we should go see Tanda. Talk to her in person, find out what happened, what she knows.”

  “I’d like to check on her,” Quinn agreed. “We can get a flight out of Kalamazoo—”

  “You’re leaving again?” Sam asked.

  “It’s just for a couple of days,” Quinn said.

  “More than that.” Nick stood. “That’s a couple thousand miles.”

  “We’re not going to drive.” She laughed.

  “Oh, yes, we are. It’s not negotiable. Driving, we’re off the grid and have room to maneuver.” He grabbed his coat off the wall peg and shrugged it on. “We’re past last quarter—”

  “Which makes me as safe from the leech as I’m going to be.” Quinn stood.

  “—and someone wants you neutralized. We don’t know who. I’m not taking chances.” He straightened his collar and looked at Sam. “You can come with us.”

  “Oh, gee, can I?”

  “You have a wireless card, right? You can do all that mumbo jumbo”—Nick waved a finger at the computer—“on the road.”

  Quinn gave in. Add Nick’s valid points to Sam’s ability to do nonstop research, and she didn’t stand a chance.

  Sam printed maps of their route as backup to Nick’s road knowledge and the unreliability of GPS—enduring with stoic silence Nick’s harassment for packing a printer. Quinn and Nick gathered their things and loaded the car. When they were ready to go, Sam handed the folder of printouts to Quinn and his duffel to Nick to put in the trunk, before lowering his computer satchel through the window into the backseat.

  “I plotted a route that detours south. It’ll take us longer, but we need cash, and ATMs have transaction limits. There’s a branch of the bar’s bank right off the highway, and we can go to the teller. We’ll come back north to I-80.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” Nick slid into the car. Quinn held the seat forward for Sam, who crawled into the back. She settled into the front and looked back at the cabin as they rolled down the needle-strewn driveway to the street.

  There was nothing wrong with their plan, and she was not the type to hole up while events
surged on without her. But something in her wished she could go back inside and curl up under her quilt for a few more days.

  It’s just the new moon, she told herself, but she called bullshit right away. Yeah, she was as close to normal as she could get during the new moon, and powerless longer than most other goddesses who had control over access to their source, but she’d dealt with that for seventeen years, for cripes sake. But if the moon were full, they could draw the leech to them, instead of chasing a phantom. She grinned, picturing Nick’s reaction if she suggested such a thing.

  Nick slipped a CD into the console and hit the main road, settling on his spine for the long drive. Quinn glanced back to find Sam already plugged in to the broadband and engrossed in his research. She sighed and slid down in her seat, closing her eyes. This was going to be a long trip.

  …

  They reached Portland midafternoon on Tuesday and drove to the address listed for Tanda in the Society directory. Nick parked at a meter across the street and examined the entrance to the high-rise apartment building.

  “Doorman, security desk inside, elevators recessed—no way to get to them without being seen by security.” He squinted. “Or cameras.”

  “We planning to sneak in?” Sam asked from the front seat. He’d been testy for the last four hundred miles, a combination of confinement and his inability to reliably access the Internet.

  “No,” Nick replied, “but someone did. Unless she knew him. Or is unusually trusting.”

  “Maybe it didn’t happened here,” Quinn countered. “She has an office. Rainy Day Investigations.” Tanda’s source was rain, so she only worked on rainy days, and her strongest ability was reading human energies. She could follow the trail of a person’s energy if they were missing or help them find a lost object. Or more frivolous things, like matching a type of car or home or jewelry to a person’s needs. She could often tell if someone was lying or hiding something. Or…that was what she used to be able to do. To have it taken from her—she must feel like Quinn did during the new moon, only with no hope of becoming whole again. How much despair must she be feeling? Quinn wished it hadn’t taken her so long to get here.