Craig opened his mouth several times, looking like he wanted to say something, but each time he glanced toward the kitchen and then shut it again. After a couple minutes of awkward silence, my mother returned with a tray full of steaming coffee mugs. To my annoyance, I only counted five of them. Pity, because if there was anyone in the room who could’ve used an Irish coffee at that moment, it was me.
She handed them out. Then, when our three visitors warily sniffed theirs, she said, “Oh please. Don’t insult me by insinuating I would need to put something in them.”
“Of course not, Lissa.” Craig gave her a forced grin. “Just making sure it wasn’t decaf.”
“As if.”
Right about when it looked like the conversation was about to pick up again, we heard a car door slam outside. I glanced out the window and saw a familiar figure running for the door. “You have got to be kidding me.”
A moment later, my gremlin of a brother stepped in as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He paused when he saw we had company, but then his stupid face widened in a big grin. “Hey, Uncle Craig! What’s up?”
“Hey, champ,” he replied in a friendly manner, reaching out to offer him a handshake. “Look how big you’re getting.” I couldn’t help but notice his nose working overtime as he spoke.
Pity the only thing he was going to get a noseful of was unwashed preteen.
“What are you doing home, Chris?” Dad asked in a neutral tone. “I thought you were hanging out with your friend.”
“Burt’s parents were going out and he’s not allowed to have anyone over unsupervised.”
“Can’t imagine why,” I muttered under my breath.
He again turned to our uncle. “What are you doing here? Sticking around for dinner? Want to come down to my room and play some video games? I have a new copy of...”
“I can’t stay long, big guy. Just popped in to have a quick word with your sister.”
Chris grinned my way. “Let me guess. You finally figured out she was a troll in human skin?”
If there was a less funny joke that could have been told at that moment, I couldn’t think of one. It was like the air went out of the room for a beat, and I could see the three men around my brother tense up ... right before he started laughing like he thought he was the funniest little prick in the world.
Oh, how I could have pummeled him. With my newfound strength, I could have given him a three hundred and sixty degree atomic wedgie, one his unborn grandkids would have felt.
I was still waiting to see how this would play out, and whether we were going to do this in front of him, when Mom said, “I’m glad you’re home, Christopher, but don’t get comfortable.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m running to the mall and I remembered that you need a new pair of sneakers.”
“Really? But I want to hang with Uncle Craig.”
“Yes, really.” At the sulking face he made, she added, “If you’re good, we can stop at Johnny Rockets before we leave.”
That perked him up. My brother was nothing if not easily bribed by chili cheese fries.
“Go wait in the car. I’ll be out in a second after I grab my keys.”
“Okay.” He paused and then turned to Craig.
Our uncle gave him a friendly slap on the shoulder. “It’s okay, buddy. Me and the boys are heading out in a few minutes anyway.”
It was kind of surreal, watching everyone pretend things were normal, just itching for him to leave so that the fireworks could begin again.
Honestly, I was sorely tempted to join my mother, even if it meant an afternoon at the mall with Chris, but I had a feeling I wasn’t going to escape that easily.
Chris gave our uncle a big high five then walked out the door, as blissfully unaware as when he’d entered. A part of me envied his ignorance.
A little bit anyway.
Mom turned back toward the kitchen, but I held out a hand. “If you’re not going to drink that?”
She gave me a sardonic grin in return. “Talk to me when you’re twenty-one.”
Son of a bitch! Talk about adding insult to my probable injury.
CHAPTER 16
After Mom poured out her drink and grabbed her keys, she stopped in front of Uncle Craig. “Let us be crystal clear. If there is even one hair harmed on her head when I return, there is no treaty in the world that will stop me from raining hellfire upon everyone you hold dear.”
Whoa. Up until now, Mom had been acting pretty detached, but this ... it was nice to see her being, well, a mother. Despite myself, I felt my anger toward her ratchet down a notch or two.
Uncle Craig, for his part, replied deadpan, “I appreciate your hospitality and tolerance of our transgression in this time of uncertainty. You have my word. All I want are answers ... for now.”
Mom stared hard at him for a moment. I could tell she didn’t want to leave, but otherwise it was either spill the beans to Chris that his adopted family were a bunch of monsters, or hex him again like she’d done earlier. It seemed easier to simply remove him from the situation. The look she gave my father next said the rest – she was trusting him to take care of this.
All of this served to make me wonder if perhaps I wasn’t being too hard on them, but then I remembered the whole adopted demon thing. Yeah, they still had plenty of strikes against them, but maybe I’d wait and see how the rest of this standoff progressed first.
She left and, a minute later, we heard the car start out in the driveway. It was only after she’d pulled away that our guests dared to speak.
Mitch glanced out the window, probably to make sure she was gone, then said, “God, what a bitch.”
When nobody said anything to that, Craig stepped into the living room. “Since it looks like we’re in agreement that talking is all that’s on the table, mind if we grab a seat?”
Dad waved them in.
Finally, after everyone was sitting, Craig leaned forward. “So what the fuck is going on, bro? That witch messing with your head?”
“Of course not. You know that’s against the...”
“Screw the treaty,” Ugly Jerry said. He tried to sound tough but was sweating too copiously to pull it off. Eww. “Her kind doesn’t give a crap about it. I don’t know why we...”
Craig held up a hand. “Relax. We’re not here to level accusations at the opposing team, especially since you never know when the walls might have ears.”
“Or the people who live here,” I added.
Cousin Mitch leaned forward and growled, his canines elongating into fangs. A day earlier that would have intimidated the hell out of me. Today, a bit less so.
“Just because we’re family doesn’t mean I won’t make you eat your own teeth.”
“You’re no family to me,” he spat.
“Enough,” Craig snapped at his two backup puppies. “You two, pipe down for the moment.” He turned to my father. “I guess that’s the sixty-four thousand dollar question, isn’t it? What is she? Because she sure as hell doesn’t smell like my niece. And what was that shit earlier about her not being adopted?”
“Yeah, Dad,” I replied. “What was that about?”
Craig pointed a finger at me. “What I said to them goes double for you.”
“And what I said about beating the hell out of...”
“That’s enough, Tamara.” If Dad was using my full name, he meant business. Nearly twenty years of childhood survival instincts shot to the surface and I did as told. He turned to his brother. “I was lying back then. I’m not lying now. She’s mine, which makes her your niece by blood.”
“Then who the hell is her mother?” Mitch asked. Freaking idiot. I always did consider him from the shallower end of Dad’s gene pool.
Uncle Craig looked at me, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath through his nostrils. He frowned and then his face started to change.
♦ ♦ ♦
My first instinct was to leap to my feet as his facial features contorted, h
is jawline extending and his nose seeming to melt into the muzzle that formed.
Dad, however, was there to hold a hand out toward me. “It’s okay, Tam Tam. Relax.”
Relaxing wasn’t quite what I had in mind as my uncle’s features melted away and were replaced by something far more canine. I expected him to burst out of his clothes, a monstrous bipedal wolf intent on tearing me to pieces, but the change seemed to stop at his neck. His body remained human while his face was stuck in some sort of halfway point. It was seriously freaky-looking.
He took several more breaths, these more a wet snuffle than mere sniffs. Then, abruptly, his features retracted, melting back into my uncle’s face again.
His eyes popped open, yellow and sinister for a moment, before he blinked and they were replaced with their normal pale blue coloration. Dismissing my look of shock, he faced my father again. “She’s not a lycanthrope.”
“I know that.”
“Her human scent is in there, too, buried.”
“Also aware.”
“But there’s something else. Not a witch either. I...” He trailed off, almost sounding embarrassed. “I’ve never smelled anything like her before.”
Dad leaned forward and clasped his hands. “I think that might be because there’s never been anything like her before.”
“Anything?” I asked.
“Sorry, hon. I meant anyone.”
“But ... how could something ... like this happen?” Mitch asked.
“Oh, c’mon,” Dad said to his cousin. “Put two and two together already. When Lissa and I first suggested the new treaty all those years ago, put forth the idea that our people be joined by marriage to keep the peace, that the two of us should settle in the neutral territory as a check against each other...”
“Yeah?” Craig replied, his eyes narrowing.
“She was already pregnant at that point.”
“I don’t understand,” Jerry said, his doughy face a mask of confusion.
“Do I really need to explain how it happened?”
Craig let out a sigh. “Not that. He means how is it even possible? One, you knew it was forbidden. And two, so far as I’m aware, we’re not even biologically compatible, at least when it comes to reproducing.”
Dad turned to me. “You might want to cover your ears for this.” When I did nothing but glare, he shrugged and turned back to his pack mates. “I don’t think I need to point out that the forbidden fruit is often the sweetest...”
“Gross!” I exclaimed.
“I did tell you to cover your ears, sweetheart, did I not? As for the rest...” He shook his head. “It happened during a blood moon.”
CHAPTER 17
Craig bolted to his feet, appearing like he wanted to kick over the coffee table or punch something. But then he seemingly thought better of it.
He still wasn’t a happy camper, though. “A blood moon?! Are you fucking insane? You know better, man. You’re lucky Pop’s not still with us because he would lose his ever-living shit.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Dad replied, raising his voice – something he didn’t do often.
“Then why? Was it to screw us over? Did she get in your head?”
“It’s because I love her!”
Silence descended on the room as everyone appeared to take this in, as if it were a new revelation which – based on what I was hearing – it actually was.
I decided to take advantage of the lull to ask, “What’s the big deal about a blood moon?”
Craig rounded on me, but Dad quickly answered, “They’re ... special, magical. During a blood moon, our powers are stronger than they normally are, but so are the mages. If you believe the stories, the walls between our world and what lies beyond are thinner on nights like that.”
“All things are possible beneath a blood moon,” Craig said, repeating it like it was less an answer and more a mantra.
“What?”
“It’s something our father used to say,” Dad told me. “He said the cycle of the wolf was at its strongest during such a lunar event. That the impossible no longer was.”
Craig let out a breath which sounded more like a snarl and ran his hands through his mullet. “And you just happened to pick that night to screw a witch. This is fucking crazy.” He stepped up to my dad and pointed a finger at his chest. “And you. You said this was all for the pack. To keep us safe. You stepped down, left us, and we all thought you were a hero for making the sacrifice, when all along this was some Romeo and Juliet bullshit. That’s what hurts the most, Curt. The lies. How the hell are any of us ever supposed to trust you again, knowing ... this exists because of you?”
Dad stood up and looked him directly in the eye. “That’s my daughter you’re talking about. Your niece.”
“She’s an abomination, man. But you’re too busy playing house to see that. I don’t know what the hell that witch has done to you, but you’re not thinking straight. We have rules, a covenant! That’s how we’ve survived this long. And you’d just throw that all away.” He hooked a thumb at me. “You saw what she did last night and you know what’s coming next month. You can’t tell me this is a coincidence, her ... this happening now.”
I could see the other two getting agitated. My mother’s warning or not, I had a feeling that violence was still on the table. If that happened, though, whose side would Dad fall on? I hoped it would be mine, but the way Uncle Craig kept brow-beating him had me worried.
Glancing toward the window, I began to consider contingencies. I sincerely doubted Craig and his friends would turn into werewolves in the middle of the day on our front lawn. Of course, I didn’t know that for certain, but sometimes one has to hedge their bets. If so, maybe I could...
“Do they know?” Craig asked. “And don’t play dumb. You know damn well who I’m talking about.”
Dad shook his head. “They’re in the same boat ... mostly.”
“Mostly?”
“Lissa’s uncle. He helped concoct the formula that kept her powers submerged. That’s it, I swear, and he’s sworn to secrecy.”
“Like the word of a witch...”
“You know how they are.”
Craig glared hard at him, but then nodded. “Yeah, that stupid nobility shit they all adhere to. Fine. Okay, I’ll buy that for now.”
“It was only by accident that Tamara even found out. She missed a dose of her medication.”
I was sorely tempted to remind Dad that those meds were akin to making me a methhead, but I held my tongue. No point in pouring more gasoline onto this dumpster fire.
Craig was silent for several seconds. Finally, he said, “Maybe it’s not too late. Put her back on that stuff. Keep her on it and maybe we can...”
“You can’t be serious,” Jerry cried. Wart-covered dickhead.
Craig glared at him and good ole’ Jer sat his butt right back down. “Shut the fuck up. Nobody asked your opinion.”
“Not going to happen,” I said.
“Tam Tam...”
“No, Dad. No way am I taking that shit again. Ever.”
“Maybe we can find a new formulation, one that doesn’t have...”
“I said no!”
Craig stepped up to me. “I don’t think you understand, little lady. We aren’t asking. The only reason I’m giving you this chance is because we’re related.” He glared daggers at my Dad. “And, despite his stupidity, I love my brother. I love my niece Tamara, too, but you ain’t her right now. If you go back, though, this can all be forgotten.” I opened my mouth, but he wasn’t finished. “Before you say anything, know that there isn’t another option on the table. Our ancestors were very clear on this. No diluting our bloodline with those magic-flinging freaks. It’s a covenant I intend to uphold.”
I held his gaze, feeling my own temper begin to fray. Much more of this crap – being talked of as if I was a thing and not a person – and I’d gladly throw the first punch. Hell, Mom’s warning had been for them. She hadn’t said anyth
ing about me rearranging their faces. Sometimes the devil is in the details.
So tempting, but before things devolved to that level, I decided to take the high road one last time. “You said it yourself. We’re blood, family. You’ve known me all my life, Uncle Craig. I’m still the same person. Are you trying to tell me that some edict passed down by long-dead assholes means more than that?”
A hand fell on my shoulder – Dad’s. I didn’t look his way, though. Instead, I kept my focus on Craig.
Finally, he said, “You’re family, true, but you’re not a member of the pack. Those ties run even deeper than blood.”
“So, what? You’re like supernatural Scientologists now? If I’m not a dues-paying cult member, then I don’t count as a person?”
Before Craig could say something that would give me a reason to split his lip, Dad asked, “What if she was in the pack?”
“What?” the three wolves and me replied simultaneously.
“You said it yourself,” he continued. “She’s not one of us. But why not? She’s blood-related and I think she’s proven she can keep up with us. She could be inducted. We’ve brought in outsiders before.”
“Those were special circumstances and you know it. People we needed help from, folks who married into...” Craig’s voice trailed off again and a different expression, almost thoughtful, crossed his face.
“What is it?”
“Married. That might be it.”
“What might be it?”
But he ignored me, continuing to speak to my Dad. “The witches, they couldn’t know. And she’d need to be loyal. She’d have to follow my lead and do as she’s told. That’s the only way I can convince the others, especially if they ever learn what she is.”
“Convince?” Dad asked dubiously. “Aren’t you the alpha?”
Craig raised the sides of his mouth in a snarl. “Yeah, I’m the alpha, and I’d prefer not to be torn limb from limb by my own pack for making a stupid decision.”
Get Bent! Page 12