Lori Handeland - Marked by the Moon

Julian shrugged his shoulder and before she even realized that she’d understood what he wanted without benefit of speech, Alex climbed off the snowmobile, then stepped back so that he could as well.

Villagers approached, staring at Alex with open curiosity. She stared right back with increasing concern. They didn’t all have Julian’s eyes, but a damn good portion of them did.

How many Indian maidens had he boinked? Had every one he so much as glanced at produced offspring?

How long had he been here? There were people of all ages with those damnable blue eyes. They were so going to have a talk.

A rustle went through the growing crowd as Julian straightened to his full height. She had to admit he was impressive, and he stood out among the Inuit like a bright full moon in a cloudless night sky, his golden hair flaring in the sun, even as blue highlights gleamed in the ebony tresses of those that surrounded him.

“Ataniq,” they murmured, bowing their heads as if he were a god. Alex really wished she had a copy of Inuit for Dummies so she could look that up. Considering all the blue eyes she kind of thought it meant “Daddy”—and the more she thought that, the sicker she felt.

Alex was about to demand a translation when the entire group stilled, every gaze turning to the East. Alex turned, too.

“Is that a Smart Car?” she blurted.

The tiny vehicle chugged gamely down a snow-packed street lined with an assortment of SUVs and pickup trucks. As it passed the single Hummer—in an identical shade of black—Alex had the odd thought that the Hummer was big enough to have birthed the thing.

The baby car paused next to the snowmobile. No matter how hard she tried, Alex could distinguish nothing but a swaying shadow on the other side of the illegally tinted windows.

Perhaps a long, gray-haired woman wearing a multicolored skirt, clunky boots, and a T-shirt that read save the planet?

Or a teenager who liked to wear hemp pants, nose rings, and a baseball cap emblazoned with the logo go green?

Maybe a—

Alex’s musings were cut short when the door opened and the last person in the world she would ever have imagined might drive a Smart Car stepped out.

Well, perhaps stepped wasn’t the right word, since several of the Inuit men rushed forward and helped the skinny, stooped old man to his feet.

While most of the Inuit wore modern clothes— parkas from Land’s End, Ugg boots, Levi’s—the new arrival appeared to be dressed in traditional Inuit clothing. His parka, made of patched-together bits of black, brown, and white fur, reached to the knees of trousers the shade of a deerhide. Upon his feet he wore boots, also made of skin, though different in color and texture and therefore no doubt from a different dead animal.

One of those who’d rushed to assist him reached across the driver’s seat and withdrew a heavy, carved cane, which he put into an outstretched, claw-like hand. However, when the ancient elder moved toward Barlow he had a spring in his step, and he barely used the cane at all.

“Taataruaba,” he greeted, blue eyes shining in his dark and lined face. Though his voice wavered, nevertheless it carried over the assembled crowd. “Welcome home.” He bowed his head.

“Tutaaluga,” Julian returned, and touched that head as if in a blessing. “It is good to be home.”

Alex moved closer. She wanted to hear what emergency could be so pressing that the young man had been sent across the tundra at top speed to retrieve Julian, yet everyone here appeared as calm as a Sunday afternoon.

The man Julian had called Tutaaluga glanced up, and Julian’s face took on an expression of extreme fondness—although how Alex would know that she wasn’t sure. She’d never seen such an expression when he was around her.

Barlow put out his hand, and the Inuit grasped it. For an instant Alex thought Tutaaluga might kiss Barlow’s ring, if he was wearing one. Instead, Barlow drew the old man’s brown, withered fingers through the crook of his arm, and they moved away from the ever-increasing crowd.

Alex took a step after them, then remembered…she didn’t have to be nearby to hear everything that they said. Her ears were as good as CIA audio surveillance equipment. Especially since the gathered onlookers had gone as still as the sky right before a tornado hit.

“We are sorry to have to summon you, Taataruba, ” the old man said.

“I know you wouldn’t unless you needed me. What’s happened?”

“I don’t know how to tell you this.”

Julian frowned. “I’ve never known you to have a problem speaking to me. I’m your Taataruba. ”

“You are also the ataniq. ”

“Which is why you called me.” Julian let out his breath, then patted the man’s hand. “What makes you nervous?”

“You are qixa and amabuq . Shaman and wolf.”

Alex’s eyebrows shot up. They knew?

“I would never hurt you,” Barlow vowed; his voice but a whisper, it trilled over Alex’s skin like a feather.

She could easily imagine him speaking like that in the depths of the night, and because she could—hell it appeared most of the women in town could—Alex battled the shudder of awareness until it went away.

“I would never hurt anyone here,” Barlow continued.

“It is not you we are worried about.”

Julian frowned. “Who?”

“If I knew that,” the old man said, “I would not have needed you.”

“Speak plainly,” Julian ordered, and though Tutaaluga had to be his elder by decades, the old man rushed to comply as if ordered to do so by God himself.

“I apologize, Taataruba. ” He dipped his head.

Was Taataruba Barlow’s Inuit name? Maybe Ataniq was. Alex was confused. About a lot of things.

“Our wise woman was killed by a wolf last night.”

They still have those? Alex thought.

“A real wolf?” Barlow asked.

“No, Ataniq. ”

“Are you sure?”

The old man cast Julian an impatient glance, though as soon as his eyes met Barlow’s he immediately cast them down. “We know about werewolves, Taataruba. ”

“None of mine would do such a thing. They have no need.”

“Need has little to do with it. There is craving. There is madness.”

“Not for us.”

“Are you sure?” Tutaaluga murmured, and it was Julian’s turn to cast an impatient glance.

“Perhaps there is a rogue.” At the word Alex started, and Julian turned his gaze in her direction.

The old man did, too. “Who is she?”

“She’s new.”

“You haven’t brought a new wolf here since—”

“What did this killer wolf look like?” Julian interrupted.

“Brown.” The elder’s eyes passed over Alex’s hair. “Light eyes. Blue or—” The man’s gaze lifted to hers. “Perhaps green.”

“It wasn’t her,” Barlow said.

His defense surprised Alex. She would have figured he would love to have her chased up and down the Arctic coast by a band of Inuit armed with silver harpoons. Although, considering the Smart Car and the Ugg boots, they probably had silver bullets and automatic weapons, too.

“No?” Tutaaluga murmured, still staring at Alex as if she were a bug on a pin. “New wolves are always the most vicious.”

“She’s only just arrived. With me.”

“Hmm.” The old man turned his gaze back to Julian. “You ran right past us in the depths of the night. Yet you saw no evil, heard no evil, smelled no evil?”

“Do you think it was her?” Julian’s eyes flared. “Or do you think it was me?”