by M. L. Briers
“Well, there’s no need to be like that. It’s not like I meant to hit you with the door…”
“No, it was just a happy coincidence.” I lifted my hands and shooed him away, and wouldn’t you know it; he didn’t move.
“Maggie, I think we need to talk about…”
“Geez, but you’re as stubborn as a Coo!” I took a step forward; I was still shooing him, and yet, he stood there barricading my way to the outside world like a really big, sex-god-like brick wall.
The man was an eejit, pure and simple, but what was I supposed to do inside a packed pub? I couldn’t zap him with my magic, so I did the next best thing, I stomped on his foot.
“Flipping hell!” Jack bit out, and I’m sure he could have found something stronger to say to me, but he was too busy hopping backward on one foot and trying to reach for his pained toes inside his shoe-clad foot.
Job done. Eejit moved. I raced out into the night air just as Gran’s car was sailing by. I could have killed Jack on the spot.
“Eejit!” I bit out, as I started for my car to follow Gran.
“What did you do that for?” Jack grumbled as he followed on behind me, mumbling curse words under his breath.
“I told you to move, you stupid man, did you not hear me?”
“Aye, I heard you. I thought we could talk — and then you go and stamp on my foot — who does that?”
“Obviously, me,” I shot back. The man truly was an eejit of epic proportions, but then hadn’t I always known that?
I turned into the darkened alley, sprung the locks on my car open with the key fob, tried to ignore the fact that Jack was hard on my heels, and readied myself to get after my grandmother.
That was when I heard it – the sound came from the darkness and was unmistakable — a long, deep, angry growl rolled towards me, and caused the fine hairs on my body to stand to attention like soldiers on the parade ground. My magic sounded the alarm bells, and I knew one thing – I needed to protect Jack.
If Jack’s reaction to learning about witches was anything to go by then, his reaction to learning of werewolves was going to be a doozy. As I pulled on my magic, I asked myself if I wanted to turn Lachlan into a crispy critter or just a mildly charred beast. I mean, if Jack’s reaction to seeing the werewolf was going to turn him into a complete girl then I could only imagine what would happen if I set the beast alight in a blaze of glory.
I’m thinking it wouldn’t be pretty. I’m thinking that was probably something that Jack’s pride would never get over, not that I cared much about Jack’s pride because I would have kept him alive, and that was the crux of it — keeping Jack and me alive.
That gave me an idea. No self-respecting werewolf wanted to be caught by law enforcement with his fur on. So, Lachlan would either have to kill us both or live with the consequences of being outed in the world and killing Jack would bring its own set of problems.
“Look, Detective, I’m busy right now, so why don’t you run along, and keep that tail between your legs, it looks good on you.”
I think Lachlan and I both know who I was directing that toward. The ball was in his court now, he knew the lay of the land and what he was dealing with, and if he still wanted to play, my magic was on hand.
“Look, I know you don’t like the way that I did my job, but it is my job, and I’ll make no apologies for that, Maggie,” Jack said, and I was mildly listening to his words, but it was the sound of the werewolf’s growl that held my attention the most. It was still grumbling on, but it was getting lower, and I could feel the presence of the supernatural receding as that warning system inside of me started to wind down.
“Did I ask you to apologize? Did I ask you to say anything at all to me — speak to me? Because I don’t believe I did.” I didn’t exactly turn my back on the darkness where Lachlan had been, I wasn’t that naive, but I did position myself so that I could look at Jack as well.
“I thought it would be a good idea to clear the air between us,” Jack said.
“Well, maybe I like dirty,” I said, and then wished I could take it back.
How stupid was that? But that was the problem with being around Jack; he made me stupid.
“I…” Jack looked confused for a moment, so I rushed in with both feet and my brain on idle.
“Maybe I want space between you and me to be grubby, cloudy, misty, stinky with the stench of betrayal…”
“Betrayal…?” Jack rushed to speak, and I wish people wouldn’t do that because it threw me off my chain of thought. Not that there was a chain of thought, I was just spewing out words for the sake of it and trying to dig myself out of that dirty hole I’d jumped into.
“Yes, Jack, betrayal — I’m still trying to reach the knife that you thrust into my back. So, why don’t you run long and find some poor slob to give a parking ticket to — speeding fine — drunk in charge of a sheep…”
“Seriously, Maggie?” Jack tipped his chin down to his chest, and those stupid eyebrows, that I had previously thought were so cute, were now doing the mating dance of the caterpillars once more. Eejit. I’d like to get him and Moira in a room together and shave their stupid eyebrows off completely.
“Seriously, Jack?” Our werewolf problem was on the back burner for now. I tossed my hands on my hips, craned my head forward on my neck so I could get good glare at him, and really let rip. “Did you seriously think that you could just walk back onto the Isle and things would be forgotten?”
“I didn’t walk — I drove…” Jack tossed back.
I might have tossed a bin liner at the vampire, but right then and there I really wanted to toss the whole bin at Jack’s head.
“Smarmy, smug, smirky, right up your own bum — how like a man, how like an outlander…”
“And that’s the problem, isn’t it? It’s something we always come back to — I’m an outlander and therefore untrustworthy, unworthy…” He may have had a point, but I wasn’t going to acknowledge it.
“Your actions make you untrustworthy, so if the cap fits then shove it up your bum.” I turned back to my car and yanked open the door.
“That’s childish…” Oh, he didn’t go there. I swung back toward him and considered throwing a whole chimney at him.
“Well, being childish suits me, and I guess being an uptight, sniveling, deceitful…”
“Deceitful? Do you really want to be the one getting on your high horse and calling other people deceitful when you constantly lied to me…?”
“I lied to protect you. You lied…”
“I never lied to you, Maggie…”
“You thought I was involved in murder…”
“That’s not lying…”
“Oh, please, Jack. Call it what you want — you followed me that day…”
“Because I was doing my job. Because I wanted…”
“To catch me in the act of murder…” I tossed up a hand in frustration when what I really wanted to do was toss him onto his backside.
“To protect you!” Jack growled back. Not a Werewolf kind of a growl, but the growl of a man who had reached the limit of his patience.
Well, those words took a few moments to sink in. To protect me — was he lying again?
I felt like I needed to retreat, lick my wounds, have a little time to think things over, and I definitely needed a little space away from him to work things out in my own mind. The man was a numpty, telling me something like that out of the blue. Just throwing it in my face – how was I supposed to come up with an answer?
“Out of the two of us, Jack. I think we both know who is better able to protect themselves around here.”
I said no more. I didn’t even stop to witness the look on his stupid, handsome face. Instead, I climbed into my car, roared the engine to life, and took off in a squeal of the tires that probably made the law enforcement blood in his veins boil with the need to issue me a ticket.
If Lachlan wanted to go back and eat him, I wasn’t going to stop him. I’m sure Jack Mac
kie would make a tasty snack. Not that I thought Lachlan would kill Jack, there was nothing to gain by it and quite a lot to lose, but still…the stupid man deserved to get eaten by a blooming werewolf.
How’d you like them apples, Detective? Pah!
CHAPTER SEVEN
~
“So, your Detective is back on the island,” Gran said as I strolled through the front door, and almost had a heart attack when the woman jumped out at me like a ninja going in for the kill.
“You can still give someone a heart attack at my age!” I berated her as I mentally tried to peel my heart from my ribs, my body from the ceiling like an upside down cat, and swallow the lump in my throat. Two could play that game; if she wanted me to start scaring the bejesus out of her, then we’ll see who lasted the longest in the heart-attack department.
“Witch-up,” Gran said, and that was all that she said. Perish the thought that a member of my family would actually issue an apology for making someone almost poop their panties. She also had a wicked look in her eye like she’d really enjoyed that.
“Stop playing guard dog and barking at me when I walk through the door,” I grumbled as I dropped my keys and bag on the table by the door ready for a new day, and made my way past her down the corridor to the kitchen.
“So, we were talking about Jack…” She said, snapping at my heels like a Highland Terrier.
“No, you were talking about Jack, I don’t even want to think about the man,” I shot back over my shoulder, knowing that the conversation wasn’t going to end there, mainly because Gran really was like a dog with a bone. I had little hope that she would dig a hole in the back garden and bury the bone, or herself in it, but either way, she wasn’t going to stop.
“But think about him you do, don’t you?”
Yep, never going to stop.
“Yes, Yoda. I think about all the ways I could torture his mortal soul — kill him – where to bury the body…”
“Well, why didn’t you come to me? You know I could help you with things like that.”
Gee God’s, sometimes I couldn’t tell if the woman was serious or not. I mean, she’d just gone head-to-head with a werewolf or two, who was to say what Gran was thinking most of the time? Not me that was sure. It was slightly scary.
“I thought you were otherwise occupied with love potions.” I turned an accusing gaze on her, but the woman didn’t flinch.
“I always have time for you,” Gran said, folding her arms, tipping her head slightly to the side, and not flinching, blinking, wincing, or doing anything that would give me a sense of her guilt — or innocence — because a person was innocent until proven guilty, something Jack should have learned.
For all I knew; she’d just died standing up, and I wondered if I should check for a pulse.
“Fine. I’m just going to come out and say it…”
“Well, it’s about time.”
“But I only found out last night, didn’t I?” I offered her a steely gaze of my own, but that worked as well as a chocolate teapot.
“No, dear, you’ve liked Jack from the moment you first met him…”
“What’s that got to do with the love potion?” I snapped back.
“So, you admitted then?”
She got me there. Damn, but the woman was good. Jack Mackie would do well to learn lessons from my Gran.
“I admit nothing.”
“Snap! Me either.”
“That’s not fair…”
“All’s fair in love and love…”
“War…” I corrected her.
“Well, if my own granddaughter wants to go to war about it…”
“All’s fair in love and war — war,” I tossed my hands up in exasperation at having to deal with gran. The woman was tiring, and that was her greatest ploy to wear you down.
“You say potato and I say chips,” she said with a shrug of the shoulders, and I had the urge to grip her shoulders and shake the woman until she spilled everything. “You know, in this life, you reap what you sow.”
“It wouldn’t be me sowing, now would it? Did you, or did you not use my love potion against me?”
“I would never do anything to work against you, and quite frankly I’m shocked that you would think I would.”
Gran had climbed upon her high horse, and I would love to front up and knock her off. She could make a Saint pledge allegiance to the devil.
“Fine!” I grumbled as I turned away from her toward the kettle — and then it hit me, not literally, but the way Gran had worded her answer.
The canny granny.
I slowly turned back to her, keeping that steely gaze locked onto her face in the hope that she would sweat a little. Who was I kidding? This was Gran, and the woman had ice water running through her veins.
“Well, that’s me for bed,” Gran rushed out, starting to pivot toward the door, but I wasn’t going to let it drop there.
“But if you didn’t think you were working against me…” I left that hanging in the air between us.
“Well, that would be a different matter entirely, now wouldn’t it?” She kept on going, and my steely gaze couldn’t pick up a damn thing from her blank expression.
“Gran?” I called after her, and for the second time tonight, the Road Runner was taking off like Wiley Coyote was after her.
“No — no, you don’t have to apologize,” Gran called back over her shoulder, and boy did I wish I were Wiley Coyote? Although, in the true spirit of the cartoon, I’m sure if I caught up to her there would be a stick of dynamite that exploded in my hand.
Gran was annoying, frustrating, a true canny granny in every way possible. I came to the conclusion that the only time I had ever bettered my Gran was when she’d allowed me to do it, or when she was having a senior moment, but that didn’t count because it wasn’t fair.
Admittedly, she did have over forty years of experience, deviousness, and life chances over me to perfect the art of lying, but I also had my grandmother’s tenacity and dog with a bone attitude that meant I wasn’t going to give up either.
I’d get her to spill the beans one way or the other; I only hoped that it was in time to save me from any dastardly spell that she might have concocted.
Detective Jack Mackie and I were not compatible in any way shape or form. Okay, that wasn’t true, we hadn’t tested every way possible, but the man was an ignoramus of epic proportions, and I liked my men on the simple side — not mentally – but he did drool down his own chin every time he looked at my boobies.
I digress. The point is that Jack and I were not now, and would not be in the future, an item.
Gran could shove her spell where the sun didn’t shine. I’m a strong-willed woman, and I would fight against her magic until they carted my cold dead corpse off in a body bag.
The truth was – I couldn’t get involved with Jack now even if I wanted to, which I didn’t! Because you see, I would never know if it was really real on his part, or if it was Gran’s magic and an illusion.
~
The midgies were out in force today, feasting on the poor, unsuspecting tourists that had covered themselves from head to toe in nasty smelling chemical lotions in the hopes of warding off the little beasties razor-sharp teeth, and not having to endure the countless hours of being itchy and scratchy. On the plus side, you were a walking dot to dot board, and if the children got bored, then I suppose you could just let them connect the dots and see how artistic the little angels were.
Islanders choose not to spend time outside when the midgies were about, but that’s not really an ideal solution when you’re on holiday and want to see the sights. Most houses had double doors installed; lights stayed off when the windows were open, which wasn’t a problem because for a while each summer it never really got totally dark, and a little bicarbonate of soda in a paste did wonders to stop the itching.
But it was still an Island pastime to watch the tourists waving their arms around like a police-person directing traffic, trying t
o outrun the humble midge, or walk around in beekeeper netting and trying to brave it out, bless them.
The bistro would be crowded today as tourist season picked up on the Isle. I’d come in early to cook up a storm, and goodies were piled high waiting for the eager crowd that was sure to try to squeeze in to escape the midges at their feeding frenzy time, and if they didn’t, well there was always Ross – the man was a human version of Pac-Man on steroids.
Moira was clattering pans in the kitchen, and lucky me, I got to scale the heady heights of the ladder and change the dodgy light bulb.
I was just cursing my fellow Scot who invented the stupid things when the front door opened and almost took the ladder out from under me. Would it hurt a tourist to look before rushing in like Ross in the pottery shop in Uig where he’s now banned? That was a whole other tale to tell.
I bit down on every curse word that was dying to exit my lips and turn the air blue, simply because I’d found that swear words were easily translatable, as I grabbed the top of the ladder and waited for it to either rock me to sleep or toss me onto the floor.
“That’s a stupid place to put a ladder,” Jack said, and I appreciated those annoyed tones about as much as I’d appreciated Ross farting in the car last Saturday, and the man didn’t even have the decency to open the windows first, not Jack – Ross.
“You and doors! Who invited you in?” I snapped back as his big hands steadied the ladder and I resented him for it. I mean, first he’d tried to knock me off, and now he was saving the damsel in distress…? Please, I no more needing saving than a lionesses that had picked a fight with a mouse.
“I thought customers were always right,” Jack shot back, and if I’d had my crossbow on me, I just might have shot Jack somewhere that would make it impossible to sit on the place where his body kept his brain.
“Have you brought something?”
“No…”
“Then you’re wrong,” I snapped back, sounding like an irrational harpie even to my ears.
“So, it’s like that…”
“Always.”
“I thought we might…”