Free Shadow of the Moon by Lori Handeland Page B

them.”
    Will glanced up from the screen. “Has medical
science been able to determine what sent them over the edge?”
    Edward shook his head. “They have tested the
air, the water, the soil, the very buildings in which they live and
the food that they eat.”
    Will frowned and went back to his
computer.
    “I understand why this is a concern,” I said,
“but why is it our concern?”
    Mandenauer’s influence was far-flung. Having
the U.S. government behind him, albeit secretly, meant he not only
had access to a lot of resources but also to a lot of funding. His
spidery webs reached all over the place. Every odd report was
tagged and sent to Jager-Sucher headquarters in Montana,
where Edward’s right hand woman, Elise, would dispatch agents to
check out what was happening and, if necessary, eliminate it.
    "I can’t find anything on the internet about
this," Will murmured.
    “Do you think I would let it become common
knowledge?”
    Not only was Edward sent any odd report, but
he possessed the resources to squash the information. All we needed
was for a town to be taken over by werewolves and have the media
show up. This would not only generate a panic but some very nasty
news reporters.
    Come to think of it, maybe Edward had slipped
up a time or two already.
    “What is it about Riverview that rated a
notice being sent to headquarters?” I asked.
    Edward gave a nod of approval at my question
that would have had me preening, if I was the type to preen.
    “Though the insane gibber madly, there is one
word that makes sense.” Edward glanced from me to Will and back
again before continuing. “ Boxenwolf .”
    He said the word with a German twist. I still
knew what it meant. “Werewolf.”
    “ Ja .”
    Considering a great portion of the population
in Wisconsin was of German extraction, I didn’t find it surprising
that the term boxenwolf might be bandied about. But by those
who'd lost their minds, and all in the same town . . . That begged
a few more questions.
    “Has anyone gotten up and walked out of the
morgue after a horrific and bloody death? Torn out a few throats,
drank some blood, started baying at the full moon through their
brand new snout?”
    “Not yet.”
    “You said this has been going on for
months.”
    Mandenauer dipped his chin. “Several full
moons have come and gone, but none of the afflicted have become a
demon werewolf.”
    Though a lot of werewolf lore was B.S., that
stuff about shifting beneath the full moon was not.
    “Perhaps the gibbering people only saw a
werewolf, they weren’t turned into one,” Will suggested.
    I’d seen plenty of werewolves; sure they were
scary, especially when they gazed at you with the eyes of someone
you knew, someone you loved. But just seeing them shouldn’t turn a
normal human being into an insane inmate of a little white
room.
    “The two of you must go to Riverview and
discover what is happening,” Edward said.
    “And when we do?”
    His faded blue eyes met mine; not a spec of
emotion shone through. “Need you ask?"
    Not really. The rules of Edward's world, and
now my own, were simple.
    Monsters are shot with silver. Human beings
are not.
    Determine which is which before shooting.
    * * *
    Riverview was a three-hour drive northeast
from Miniwa, which put us very close to Upper Michigan.
    What Edward had referred to as a village was,
in reality, a town the size of Miniwa, maybe a little larger, which
made it a decent-sized town. To sport a psychiatric facility with
enough rooms to accommodate over half the residents it would have
to be.
    We’d been told to go straight to the clinic,
and it wasn’t hard to find. On a ridge at the center, Riverview
Psychiatric dominated the town.
    “I guess we don’t have to worry about the
homicidally crazy wandering into the maternity ward,” I
murmured.
    A load off my mind. I hated it when the
beasties got too close to small, helpless things. Nothing ever went
very well after that.
    But while I was glad the