Fever Moon Read Online Free PDF

sun that came in the cell window. She struggled to sit up but was too weak to do so.
    “What do you remember?” he asked as he offered a hand for her to pull against. She swung her bare feet to the floor, unaware that she wore someone else’s nightgown.
    “Nothing.” Her eyes darted around the cell, and when she lifted her wrist and the handcuff jingled, she cried out in terror.
    “Last night you were on Section Line Road at Beaver Creek.” He saw the frown as she tried to comprehend this information. “Do you remember seeing a man walking on the road?”
    She shook her head. “I remember a storm.” Urgency touched her face. “I went to check on my boys—”
    “Your boys?” he interrupted.
    “To make sure the high water wouldn’t pull them from their grave.” Her gaze faltered, but when she brought it back to his, there was a dare in her eyes. “The moon went behind a cloud, and I lost my way. I fell. I was sick and lost.” She looked at the cuts and bruises on her palms. “When the moon came out again, it was red. Red light all around, bright enough to see.”
    Her words touched Raymond like the fingers of a corpse. “The moon was full last night, but it wasn’t surrounded by a red halo. Maybe you were dreaming.”
    Confusion touched her features, and he saw that she was younger than he’d first thought. Twenty-three at most. “I knelt by my boys, me, and the light around us was red as the storm clouds blew past. I looked at the moon, so big and bloody. The Hunter’s Moon, my brother taught me.” Something alive slipped into her eyes and her features changed as he looked at her. Her eyes narrowed, her chin lifted, and the lips drew into a thin line. When she spoke again, her voice was deeper, rawer, and her body trembled. “Running.”
    “Running from what?” He kept his tone conversational. Her words had sent a creep of flesh along his spine despite the fact he didn’t believe in the
loup-garou
.
    “From—” A gout of blood rushed from her nose. It filled her lap, covering her hands, as if her head had exploded. The blood still pouring, her eyes rolled up in her head and she fell backward onto the bed.

4
     
    H OLDING Adele in his arms, Raymond brushed past Pinkney as the old man tried to come in the door, cups of coffee chattering against saucers in each hand.
    “Tell the sheriff I’ve taken her to Madame Louiselle’s. Doc said he couldn’t help her, and she’s dying.”
    “Good Lord, look at the blood.” Pinkney shuffled from foot to foot, the dishes reflecting his unease. “Good Lord Almighty, there couldn’t be no blood left in her. Sweet Jesus, Mr. Raymond. She done gone.”
    Raymond ran to his personal car and put her in the front seat. “Remember to tell the sheriff.” He got behind the wheel and sprayed mud as he drove away. Adele had lost everything else—and he understood what that meant—but she wouldn’t lose her life. Not if he could help it.
    She was still alive. He could see her eyelids fluttering, and her hands made small motions, reaching out and falling back. He watched so many helpless people die, but Death would not win this time.
    “Adele?” He tried to call her back to this world. And he thought of a young nurse in Europe after the grenade blast. She’d frequented his bedside, demanding that he return to the land of the living. Now he did the same for Adele. “Stay with me, Adele. I know you didn’t kill Bastion.”
    She slumped against the door and he gave up. She was breathing and for the moment she was at peace.
    When he pulled into Madame Louiselle’s yard, the old woman was gathering herbs along a rickety wooden fence that could barely hold the weeds out. She showed no surprise, not even when he lifted Adele out, blood soaking her gown and him. She walked slowly to them and pried one of Adele’s eyes open.
    “Take her inside. You’ll have to leave her.”
    He didn’t argue. The sheriff would be angry, but what good was a dead prisoner? As he