Crescent Moon - By Lori Handeland Page 0,1

out-of-doors - didn't mind dirt or sun, wind or rain. I'd joined the Girl Scouts just so I could camp. I'd done pretty much anything and everything I could think of to emphasize my differences from the never-too-rich, never-too-thin lifestyle of my mother.

"Can you access the Internet?" Tallient asked.

"Hold on." I tapped my laptop, which sprang from asleep to awake much quicker than I ever did. "OK."

Tallient recited a www-dot address. An instant later, a newspaper article spilled across my screen.

" 'Man Found Dead in a Swamp,'" I read. "Not unusual."

Swamps were notorious dumping grounds for bodies. If the muck didn't take them, the alligators would.

"Keep going."

"Throat torn. Feral dogs. Huh." I accessed the next page. "Child missing. Coyotes. No body. Seems straightforward."

"Not really."

Tallient recited a second address, and I read some more. "Wolf sightings."

My heart increased in tempo. Wolves had been Simon's specialty; they'd turned into his obsession. Now they were mine.

"Where is this?" I demanded.

"New Orleans."

If possible, my heart beat even faster. Once red wolves had roamed the Southeast from the Atlantic to the Gulf and west to Texas. They'd been sighted as far norm as Missouri and Pennsylvania. But in 1980 the red wolf had been declared extinct in the wild. In 1987 they'd been reintroduced, but only in North Carolina. So...

"There aren't any wolves in Louisiana," I said.

"Precisely."

"There's a legend, though..." I struggled to remember it. "Honey Island Swamp monster."

'I doubt that Bigfoot-like footprints found thirty years ago have any relationship to death, disappearance, and wolves where they aren't supposed to be."

He had a point.

"Could be an ABC," I ventured.

The acronym stood for "Alien Big Cat" - a cryptozoological label given to reports of out-of-place felines. Black panthers in Wisconsin. A jaguar in Maine. Happens a lot more than you'd think.

Most of the tune ABCs were explained away as exotic animals released into the woods when they became too hard to handle or too big to fit in an apartment Funny thing was, no one ever found them.

If they were pets, wouldn't they be easy to catch? Wouldn't their bones, or even their collars, turn up after a truly wild animal killed them? Wouldn't there be at least one record of an ABC being hit by a truck on the interstate?

But there wasn't.

"This is a wolf, not a cat," Tallient said.

I was impressed with his knowledge of cryptoterminology but too caught up in the mystery unfolding before my eyes to compliment him on it

"Same principle," I murmured. "Could be someone dumped a wolf in the swamp. Nothing special about it"

Except wolves weren't vicious. They didn't attack people. Unless they were starving, wolf-dog hybrids, or rabid. None of which were a good thing.

"There've been whispers of wolves in and around New Orleans for years," he continued.

"How many years?"

"At least a hundred."

"What?"

Tallient chuckled. "I thought you'd enjoy that. The disturbances don't seem to occur in any particular month, or even a common season. But they always happen during the same lunar phase."

"Full moon," I guessed.

No matter what the skeptics say, full moons drive people and animals wacko. Ask anyone who's ever worked in an emergency room, psych ward, or county zoo.

"Not full," Tallient said. "Crescent"

I glanced at the thin, silver, smiling moon visible from my window. "What was the date on those articles?"

'•May."

I frowned. Five months ago. "Since then?"

"Nothing."

"Could be because the bodies weren't found."

"Exactly. Things that hunt under a certain phase of the moon do so every month. They can't help themselves."

I wasn't sure about "things," but I was sure about animals. They were nothing if not creatures of habit.

"A body was found yesterday," Tallient continued. "Hasn't hit the papers yet."

I looked at the moon again. Guess I was right

"What's your interest in this?" I asked.

"Cryptozoology fascinates me. I'd love to go on an expedition, but I'm... not well."

I stood. My feet literally itched. I bounced on my toes as excitement threatened to make me jump at this chance. I had to remember What seemed too good to be true often was.

"You want to pay me to find a wolf where a wolf isn't supposed to be. Once I do, then what?"

"Trap it and call me."

Not an unusual request in my line of work. The people who hired me usually did so in the hopes that they would become famous by revealing some mythical creature to the world, and they wanted to be the ones to do the revealing. I had no problem with that as long as the disclosure took place. All I wanted was to