Victoria Marmot- The Complete Series

by Virginia McClain

  “Oh? What was your mission?”

  “To thank you for saving my butt in there,” he began, “and to offer to walk you home in case Pervy McPerverson decides to show up again.”

  That made me smile.

  “I appreciate the gesture, Seamus, but I think I can handle Mr. McNoPants if I need to. After all, he’s made it extremely easy for me to kick him in the nuts.”

  Seamus chortled briefly before looking serious again.

  “I don’t like the idea of you going home alone now that he’s set his sights on you.”

  I was no longer smiling.

  “Dude. Keep your overprotective alpha male shit to yourself. I can defend myself, and you have no responsibility to protect me. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  With that, I turned on my heel. I liked Seamus. He had a good sense of humor and he seemed like good company, but I had zero tolerance for patriarchal bullshit.

  “Vic, wait! I didn’t mean…”

  I did not wait. At least he was smart enough not to try to make me stop walking away.

  About a block later I caught a strange, dark form out of the corner of my eye, but when I turned to look at it, I saw nothing. My house was basically a straight shot down the road from where I stood, but I decided to make a detour to see if whatever I’d glimpsed was following me.

  Sure enough, after I turned right down a side street, I saw it again. This time I waited until I was sure the dark patch was in my peripheral vision and didn't break my stride, then suddenly flipped around and saw clearly what was following me.

  A wolf.

  And not just any wolf.

  The same black wolf that had launched itself into the pool after Edik had shown up.

  What. The. Fuck.

  I stared at the wolf. It stared back. I considered my options.

  It whined.

  I ran.

  RUNNING AWAY FROM a wolf is a stupid thing to do. It elicits a prey-chasing response in them and is not anywhere near the top of the list of things you should do if you don’t want a wolf to chase you.

  Which is why I was running towards the wolf.

  It probably sounds stupid to you, but really, I was just trying to convince the wolf that I was the bigger, badder predator, and that it should run for the hills. Honestly, we were in the middle of Flagstaff ,which, aside from not generally harboring wolves to begin with, was full of other humans, so the wolf should have been wary to begin with. Me charging him should have thoroughly convinced him that his jaunt into Humanville was over and he should head back to wherever he might have friends waiting.

  Should have.

  But didn’t.

  I stopped when I was only a few feet away from the creature, which was staring at me like I’d lost my mind.

  I lowered my arms and coughed, as though that covered up the insane yelling I’d been doing up until a few seconds ago.

  “Go away. There are humans here who would hurt you, especially after you attacked that guy in the pool.”

  Look, it’s not like I thought talking to the wolf was going to work. But old habits die hard, and after my stint volunteering with the Colorado Wolf and Wildlife center, I was in the habit of talking to wolves. I didn’t expect him to listen to me. I’d spent a year’s worth of weekends and vacations working with wolves who had always seemed like they were listening, but then went ahead and did whatever it was they had planned to do to begin with. Which, to be honest, I attribute to wolves just not giving a fuck, rather than wolves not understanding human speech, but however you slice it, wolves don’t just take advice from humans and do what they say.

  “Go on, bud. I know it’s interesting here with all the weird smells and free food and stuff, but it’s not safe and… and ok, you’re really starting to creep me out with that.”

  That last part was in response to the wolf looking for all the world like he was chuckling when I said the words free food.

  “Please go away,” I tried again.

  Then the wolf stretched a bit, nodded once, and walked away.

  THAT NIGHT I was exhausted. Pants-shittingly eerie wolves aside, it had been a weird day, no matter how you cut it.

  I had been ready to collapse into bed as soon as I got home, especially after the night I’d had previously, full of crazy narrators and bomb drops about my parents’ deaths, but I decided to be a responsible not-quite-adult and microwave myself some leftover Chinese food before showering and collapsing into bed with a good book.

  Luckily, none of my classes had assigned much in the way of homework, seemingly wanting to ease students into the transition from summer. I’d have to give an oral account of everything I’d done over summer vacation in Spanish tomorrow, but since I’d grown up speaking Spanish with my father anyway, I didn’t feel the need to prepare.

  I wasn’t sure what time it was when I finally drifted off to sleep, several chapters into the latest Twenty-Sided Sorcerer book, but I was disconcerted to find the lights turned out when I woke up a few hours later. I didn’t remember turning them off. Nor did I remember leaving the window open, but the breeze that caressed my face definitely brought with it the smell of pine needles and fresh earth, and those were not smells that originated inside my air conditioning unit.

  I casually reached for my bedside lamp with one hand, all the while sliding my other hand under the pillow to grasp for the cell phone I vaguely recalled shoving under there after spending more time than I’d actually wanted to checking Facebook before starting to read.

  At the same moment my left hand turned on the bedside light, my right hand connected with my cell phone.

  The light blinded me briefly, even though I’d closed my eyes as it came on, but soon I was able to see a dark figure standing on the far side of the room.

  “Step any closer, and I’ll call the cops,” I said, brandishing my cell phone. Of course, I’d already hit my speed dial for police dispatch, but whoever the fuck was standing inside of my room didn’t need to know that just yet.

  “I’m sorry, Victoria,” said a vaguely familiar voice, as the figure stepped out of the shadows. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  My jaw dropped as Edik stepped into the light of the lamp.

  “What in the name of ten kinds of hell are you doing in MY BEDROOM?!” I shouted.

  The small, closed-mouth smile that had been gracing Edik’s lips fell, and his eyebrows raised in confusion.

  “I just came to watch you sleep,” he said.

  “What the fuck do you mean, you came to watch me sleep?! That’s the creepiest godsdamned thing I’ve ever heard. GET OUT OF MY HOUSE, YOU FUCKING PERV!”

  Edik looked as though I had slapped him, but I wasn’t about to be deterred.

  “Seriously, get out of my house before the cops get here,” I said, as he took a step closer.

  “You called the cops?” he asked, looking for all the world like a stricken puppy.

  “Yes, I called the cops. THERE’S A STRANGE MAN IN MY BEDROOM.”

  I have to admit I was partially yelling to make sure that whoever was listening over dispatch heard what I was saying. I had to hope that the GPS chip in the phone would give them my location.

  “But it’s just me. Surely you don’t need them to come now?”

  “Edik, did I say or do anything today that made you think I wanted you to visit me at all, let alone IN MY BEDROOM?”

  “No, not exactly but… but can’t you feel it, Victoria? Don’t you feel the connection between us?”

  “No, Edik. I do not. I feel no connection. All I know is that you’re a very attractive, but probably sociopathic, classmate who has shown up uninvited not only to my HOUSE, but to my freaking BEDROOM, after, let’s not forget, showing up to my swim practice butt naked and swimming underneath me like some kind of psychotic seal. Now, I’m going to ask you one more time to GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE.”

  I was beginning to feel that Edik might be a little bit slow, as he persisted in not walking away from me, even though
I could hear sirens in the distance already.

  “But you’re supposed to be the one who understands me, the one who is finally able to love me despite my being… being a… m-m-monster.”

  The way his lips pouted as he said that last part really made me want to hit him. So far he seemed like he WAS a fucking monster. After all, what the hell else do you call someone who breaks into your house at night to watch you sleep and then doesn’t leave even after you call the cops?

  “Get. Out. OF. MY. HOUSE!”

  Instead of doing as I asked, the asshole insisted on stepping even closer to the bed, and I finally decided to stand up and back away, lest he try to pin me down.

  This appeared to have been a mistake, as he covered the distance between us so fast that I couldn’t even track it, and then pinned me to the wall. His body pressed against mine, and his arms pushed my shoulders back. At least I was standing upright.

  “Do you have any idea how your smell drives me to distraction?” he asked, face buried in my hair, winning the award for creepiest shit ever said to me in my entire life.

  “No, and you have one more second to back away from me before I will be forced to kick your ass,” I said, with more confidence than I actually felt. Edik was a good six inches taller than I was, and had at least fifty pounds on me if I was any judge of muscle mass, but I was banking that he’d never been taught how to fight, especially after how quickly he’d backed down at the pool earlier.

  “Victoria, I—”

  His second was up. I’d really only given it to him to gather my own courage, not because he deserved any sort of second chance.

  I stepped hard on his instep and buckled his arms at the elbow with simultaneous strikes from my forearms, then reached forward to grab the back of his head and pull his nose down to meet my forehead. Even as I did this, my knee came up and rammed into his crotch as hard as it could.

  Edik collapsed into a pile on the floor just as I’d hoped, but I felt like I’d head-butted a tree, and slowly braced myself against the wall to hold the dizziness at bay.

  Just as I sank to the floor with my back to the wall, I heard a rush of footfalls coming up the stairs. Without any announcement, the door burst open and a bunch of armed officers in uniform flowed through with their guns raised. I’d never been happier to see a cop, or seven.

  I was just working on staggering back to my feet when one of the officers crouched down in front of me.

  “Are you alright, miss?” she asked.

  The voice caused a faint tremor of recognition to pass through me. I looked into the woman’s face and tried to focus my blurring eyes for a moment. Focusing hurt, but through the pain I had a moment of full recognition, just before my vision started to darken.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked the wild-haired redhead in uniform.

  “Shh…” she said, holding a finger to my mouth, as blackness overtook me.

  “Damn it, Gwen,” I muttered, slumping to the floor as consciousness fled.

  I’D WANTED TO ask Gwen a number of questions, but, of course, she was gone as soon as I came to.

  It took a while for the rest of the cops and EMTs to leave, but luckily they were willing to take my statement in my own kitchen instead of making me go to the local precinct. I’d had a much harder time convincing the EMTs not to drag me to the hospital, but I downplayed the head-butt to Edik’s brick-like skull and played up shock as the reason for my fainting. It wasn’t that I wanted to ignore a concussion, it was just that I couldn’t handle the thought of spending the night in a hospital alone.

  The cops asked who they could call for me, but the only family I had nearby was my great-uncle Algernon, who was 85 and probably didn’t need the hassle of being woken up by the cops at 2AM, so I said no one.

  When everyone had filed out, I heaved a sigh of relief and turned to head up to my bedroom. I desperately needed to get some sleep. But just as I turned towards the staircase, I heard a scratching noise on my front door.

  “What the…”

  I wandered to the door and looked out the peephole. I couldn’t see anything, but the scratching redoubled, coupled with a light whining sound.

  I reached for the lock, then thought better of it. I turned around, went to the nearest closet, grabbed my field hockey stick, and THEN went to turn the lock on the door, field hockey stick brandished threateningly all the while.

  My open door revealed none other than the wolf who had been following me home earlier.

  “What are you doing here?”

  It was a sign of how exhausted I was that I was talking to the wolf instead of panicking about having a large predator on my doorstep.

  It whined again, and nudged its head towards the door, as though asking to come in.

  “No. Dude. I need to sleep. Whatever wolfy business you think you have with me is gonna have to wait.”

  The whining increased, and the wolf stared at me resolutely.

  “Seriously, I just need to get some slee—”

  I didn’t finish my thoughts on getting a full eight hours of rest, because at that moment both the wolf and I turned to look up the stairs, where we’d just heard a ridiculously ominous bump from my bedroom floor.

  “YOU’VE GOT TO be fucking kidding me,” I mumbled, even as the wolf let forth a low growl that made my skin crawl. I glanced at him, just to be sure that the growl wasn’t directed at me, but sure enough, he was staring at the ceiling.

  “Well, should we head upstairs and see what’s making all that racket?” I asked, even as I moved towards the staircase.

  I was experiencing a weird mixture of fear and anger. Honestly, if I hadn’t been so pissed off at the idea of Edik breaking into my bedroom again, especially after he’d just been carted off by the cops, I think I would have been cowering in a corner. As it was, I was ready to tear someone’s fucking head off. Or at least laugh maniacally while I watched the wolf do it.

  I took a deep breath as I neared the top of the stairs. If I was too worked up, I might incite the wolf to violence before it was strictly necessary. Although, I was having a more and more difficult time believing that the response to Edik shouldn’t just be an immediate grab for the jugular.

  Maybe one more calming breath before I opened the door…

  The wolf was right on my heels, his head pushed up against my hip, as he tried to wrangle positioning so that he would enter the room first.

  “Hey, there, Fang,” I whispered. “No need to go all overprotective male on me. I can handle this. You’re just here in case I knock myself out head-butting this asshole a second time.”

  The wolf growled, but took a step back.

  “Look, if the nut shot works as well as it did before, you can pee on him while he’s down.”

  The snarl that followed looked like it was supposed to be an imitation of a smirk. I shook my head. Wolves do not emulate human facial expressions, I reminded myself.

  One more deep breath, and…

  I pulled the door open and then instantly bent down to grab the wolf by the neck as he attempted to lunge past me, a deep-throated growl on his lips.

  “Hold up!” I shouted to the enraged wolf that I had no business trying to restrain. Luckily, he decided not to turn his ire on me and continued to growl at the figure that sat in the middle of my floor.

  “That,” I said, standing up, but keeping one hand nestled in the fur of the wolf’s neck, “is not Creepy McStalkerpants.”

  “GWEN?” I ASKED, unsure where to start. “What the fuck are you doing here? And why didn’t you stick around earlier, if you were just going to show up again?”

  “If you don’t want me around, I can leave.” Gwen stood up as she spoke, wiping imaginary dust from her spotless leather leggings.

  “I didn’t say that. But you know… you could have come and knocked on the door or something, instead of appearing here in my bedroom. Or even… I don’t know, called me, like a normal human being.”

  “Phones are a hassle, you were
busy with the cops and I didn’t want to disturb you, and… I dropped something up here earlier.”

  That sounded like a blatant lie.

  “Right…” suddenly I was glad that the wolf was here with me, even though it should have scared the crap out of me. I kept my field hockey stick raised. Just in case.

  “I was just looking for the light switch when I ran into the end of your massive bed.”

  “Oh?” I guess that explained why she’d been on the floor when we’d come in.

  “Why do you have a king sized bed, anyway?”

  “Because I like to spread out when I sleep. Why do you care?”

  “Because I like to move stealthily and the damned thing knocked me on my ass.”

  “I don’t see how that’s the bed’s fault.”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “Mind telling me why you’re here?”

  Gwen just leveled her emerald eyes at me and stared until I blinked.

  “I have a message for you.”

  “Ok…”

  She flipped her fiery hair over her shoulder and looked pointedly at the wolf.

  “Just you.”

  “Seriously? He’s a wolf. Who's he going to tell? And besides, I don’t really trust you at the moment, so I’d rather he stayed, thanks.”

  It might be insane to trust a wild animal I’d just met more than another human, but I’d had a bad streak with humans lately, and I’d never had a wild animal do anything I wouldn’t expect it to do. Well, ok, yes, except this guy following me and seeming like he was listening to me, but you get what I’m saying.

  “Fine, he can stay, but I’m still casting a silencing spell on the room.”

  “A what?”

  “A silencing spell.”

  “Am I supposed to know what that is?”

  “I think the name is pretty self-explanatory.”

  “Yes, but the name implies… you know… magic.”

  “What tipped it off? The word spell?”

  “Yeah, but… since magic isn’t real, I assume you’ll explain what you’re actually going to do.”