Secrets and Shadows by Shannon Delany Read Free Book Online Page A

many suburban neighborhoods that made up Junction. I’d been here before, years ago. There was a community pool not far from a church Mom had us attend before she and Dad al but gave up on organized religion. I earned my first (and last) perfect attendance during the two years we were members.
    It had been a friendly little neighborhood then. Now, in the soft light the occasional working streetlight cast, I noticed the sidewalks I’d once walked in what Mom cal ed “my Sunday best” had become cracked and uneven.
    “There is an old church we ran past recently. A scent we recognize,” Cat explained.
    “Is it a brick and whitewashed church?”
    Max’s eyes sparked. “ Da, Jessie. You know it?”
    “I attended it. Years ago.”
    “Many probably say the same. It is abandoned,” Cat said.
    “Can you guys even—” I couldn’t complete the thought.
    Cat giggled. “Creatures of science, Jessie. A church is no problem. Holy water—no problem.
    Crucifixes? No problem.”
    “Crucifixes freak you out,” Max corrected, staring her down.
    “I simply feel it is strange to display an instrument of torture on your wal .” She shrugged. “We could not get the floor plans through public records,” Cat said, hesitating. “Too many questions.”

    “Too little time,” Pietr added.
    “It’s easy.” I chewed my lower lip, recal ing details. “The main doors are probably lit. But there’s the door on the right side—up a smal slope—that leads into the nave, and one around back that opens into the acolyte’s waiting room. There’s a downstairs with a kitchen and a big room they turned into Sunday school classrooms with funky folding doors. It’l be quick to see the place.”
    They nodded. Cat looked at Pietr smugly. “See, it was good to bring Jessie.”
    I knew Pietr hadn’t thought I was needed, but it suddenly sounded like he hadn’t real y wanted me along at al . “Wait. There’s also a basement. In the classroom area there’s a big wooden door in the floor.
    There’s a smal staircase, but it was bad even then. The church ladies complained when they put the season’s chowchow down there before the fair.”
    “Chowchow? Like the dog?” Cat quirked an eyebrow.
    “No, chowchow like beans, cauliflower, and vinegar…”
    “Strange people,” Max muttered.
    “Seriously?” I strained against my seat belt.
    He nodded.
    I poked his shoulder. “Borscht-eating werewolf cal ing chowchow-eating humans strange? ”
    He grinned, his teeth lengthening and sharpening. “Point taken.” He tapped one growing canine tooth with a finger and chuckled as his voice lowered into the wolf’s deep rasp.
    Some moments I believed Max could’ve easily been Little Red Riding Hood’s wolf. But she probably would have liked it.
    “We’l return in ten minutes,” Cat assured me, tossing me the keys. “We want to find her, not free her.”
    “Not yet,” Pietr qualified, eyes glowing.
    Out of the car they wolfed quickly, slinking along the shadows and hugging the hedges that marked the property boundaries of suburbia.
    I hopped into the front passenger’s seat and turned the car on to note the time on the dashboard clock.
    Ten minutes. Reclining in the seat, I promised myself I’d only worry after fifteen. I pul ed out my worry stone, rubbing my thumb across its glossy variegated surface. Like Pietr’s eyes it was beautiful and blue.
    Like what shimmered behind his eyes—complicated.
    When fifteen minutes passed and there was no sign of the Rusakovas, I decided I would not panic.
    Yet.
    By seventeen minutes I’d pul ed apart the car’s interior looking for a weapon: a pocketknife, a pair of scissors, anything. It quickly became obvious that werewolves didn’t bother with standard weapons. Teeth and claws were more than sufficient.
    By twenty minutes I’d found a hefty Maglite flashlight wedged under the driver’s seat. It would have to do.
    Slipping the car key off the ring, I tucked it in my pocket opposite my