Free Moon Cursed by Lori Handeland Page B

amazing number of bizarre stories from there. In a helluva lot of them an old German man showed up, kicked ass, then disappeared.
    Poof.
    There were also several mentions of a white wolf that fought the sudden influx of freakishly smart, incredibly strong, and really pissed-off wolves, all of which seemed to sport human eyes.
    That was something she never wanted to see. And she wouldn’t, because—
    “It’s all bullshit. They want to sell newspapers.”
    None of the stories appeared in any publications of note. No tales of wolf packs in the New York Times. No white wolf popped up in the Chicago Tribune. There had been a few strange incidents mentioned in the Times-Picayune, but Kris had found that when you were dealing with New Orleans strange happened a lot.
    However, she did notice that whenever the white wolf showed up a beautiful blond American woman did, too. When Kris traced that lead, she found connections to other weird tales—leopard shifters, zombies, Gypsies, and bizarre accounts of eagles and ravens and crows.
    The abundance of scary stories involving Mandenauer and what had to be his Jäger-Sucher cohorts would have been troubling. If Kris believed them.
    “I’m gonna have enough myths to bust for the rest of my hopefully very long life,” she murmured.
    Someone knocked on the door. Kris, who’d been reading a report of a Navajo shape-shifting witch who could take the form of any animal whose skin he wore and had actually taken the shape of a man—the explanation for that was just too disgusting to contemplate, though she had been contemplating it—jumped to her feet at the sound, heart pounding.
    Then she gave a shaky laugh. “Doubt there’s a Navajo shape-shifter anywhere around.” She moved toward the door. “ ’Cause first they’d have to exist.”
    Nevertheless, she glanced out the front window. Dougal Scott stood on the doorstep.
    “Hey,” he greeted. “I heard you found a body last night. You okay?”
    He was dressed in his kilt, and the Scottish outfit combined with his very American way of speaking had Kris fighting back a ridiculous giggle, along with the longing for a man who dressed like an American and spoke like a Scot. She was starting to think that he existed in the same realm as skinwalkers, werewolves, and Nessie.
    “Yes.” Kris opened the door wider so Dougal could come in, then pointed to the couch. She sat on the single chair to the left. “Didn’t get any sleep, but that’s happened before.”
    “Why were you out wandering near the loch in the night? It can be dangerous.”
    Kris could hardly say she’d been looking for a ghost, then been drawn to the loch by the reflection of the moon off a log and—
    “You know someone by the name of Liam Grant?” she blurted.
    “No,” Dougal said slowly. “There are Grants aplenty, of course, but none named Liam that I recall.” He tilted his head. “I think there might be Grants in Dores, which is nearer to Inverness.”
    “Dores,” she repeated. “Okay.”
    “Does he have something to do with the body?”
    Kris contemplated Dougal. He seemed awfully interested in the body. Of course she’d learned over her years in television that a lot of people were ghouls.
    To be honest … most people were ghouls.
    She shook her head. “I ran into him at the castle, and we had a nice chat.”
    Kris had to struggle to hold back the snort of derision that threatened to erupt from her throat. Since when did a chat involve the exchange of DNA?
    Dougal’s brows lifted. She half-expected him to chant: Liar, liar, pants afire, and she touched her nose to see if it had begun to grow as long as a telephone wire. Her lying skills had not improved.
    “Mmm,” he said in that way the Scottish had, which could indicate disbelief, sarcasm, or the desire of one speaker for the other to move on. “There was a man asking around the village about you.”
    Kris frowned. “Liam?”
    “As I’ve never met him, I don’t know, but I doubt