by R. E. Carr
This time Kyle interrupted her by shaking his head and stumbling away. “You know I’d do anything for you, but I’m not that guy. We can’t have . . . or do . . . What I mean is, no matter what has happened, you’re not my type,” he whispered. “You know that, and that’s why—”
“Shh . . . look, on the ridiculously tiny chance that I don’t end up dead in the next twenty minutes, I owe you this moment. I owe you saying those words, even though it’s not a romance for us. When I say I love you, I mean, I love you and Kayleigh, Nadia and Toy . . . and even Morgan’s old pack . . . I’m choosing you guys over Lorcan, now and forever. You are the most important people in my life, and Lincoln is a part of that too. I need you here, more than ever. This isn’t about romance . . . it’s so much more.”
“But you just . . . you kissed me!”
“There is a lot of tension, and I needed your full attention. One last hurrah, you know, before . . . Should we leave it at that and, um—?”
Kyle nodded. He checked her bandages obsessively again, then gave her one last can to drink. She raised her brow at the real coffee flavor. “Here we go,” she muttered before chugging down the mix of vitamins, protein, and caffeine.
“Here we go,” Gail mumbled to herself as she once more waited in the rain. This time, a small fleet of vehicles rolled into the parking lot of DeMarco’s Spicy Balls, including what looked remarkably like a prison bus, complete with barred windows.
“Yeah, that screams friendly,” Steve said, rolling his eyes. “I’m guessing that was Ma’s idea.”
“We’re standing in front of the boarded-up remains of your granddaughter’s restaurant and there are enough potential splinters—”
“Relax, Pumpkin. See all that plastic sheeting? It’s double-coated, we’ll be fine.”
The cars opened one by one, revealing Mina, Edwin, Beulah, and a wide-eyed Winona from Team Harker, while the sheriff turned up in her old lady façade, with Mr. Sugar at her side and a veritable army of suited goons filling up the ranks behind her. Last, but not least, Lorcan stepped from the shadows of the construction dumpsters, wearing an odd mishmash of a suit coat over jeans and a Red Sox T-shirt. Steve bared his fangs as he saw the red logo.
“Something bothering you, Bro?” Lorcan asked as he sauntered to Gail’s side. Gail gawked a little as this strange version of Lorcan clearly checked her out. “Good to see you too, Darlin’.”
“Why the hell did you show up to the party, J.D.?” Gail snapped.
“You know I hate that name, babe,” Jonathan replied. “I’m here because the other assholes are arguing again. I’m starting to feel like the clean-up crew in this body.”
“Welcome to our world,” both Gail and Steve replied. Gail leaned over and adjusted his pants leg to better conceal his awkward tail bulge.
“That is a helluva lot of vampires,” Jonathan said as he surveyed the advancing horde. “Is it weird that I feel uncomfortable?”
“Our kind never really fits in with the living or the dead, Mr. Dean,” Mr. Sugar said as he led the advance. “It is you, isn’t it, Jonathan?”
“I guess it’s just my turn at the wheel. Um, why are we all standing out here in the rain?” he asked as he saw a great many pairs of expectant eyes looking at him.
“It’s tradition to be invited in for negotiations, you nitwit,” the sheriff hissed under her breath.
“There are a lot of you,” Jonathan said with a whistle.
“I like to be prepared when there are werewolves involved,” the sheriff deadpanned.
“Well, I don’t think Paige would appreciate my inviting a platoon of bloodsuckers into the family restaurant. You and one guard can come in, boss, but the rest—”
The sheriff waved dismissively. “Set up a perimeter in case someone tries to run. Kane can certainly handle me.”
Both Steve and Jonathan grimaced at the image of their elderly-appearing mother being manhandled by the giant pirate. She chuckled and led her massive boy toy into the building. Mina raised a brow at Jonathan next. “Should I assume the same rules?”
“I think that’s only fair, don’t ya think, Mina?”
“You know, I just love this delicious drawl on you, lover,” Mina said before motioning to her son. “Edwin will accompany me. Ladies, please make sure these brutes don’t get into too much mischief while we are talking.”
“Very well, you and, um—”
“I’m your son,” Edwin said with a deep sigh. Jonathan shuffled uncomfortably. “Edwin,” the young vampire finally blurted out. “She literally just said my name, Dad!”
“Sure thing, Ed, you’re invited. Now get in there with your . . . mother,” Jonathan spat out. Mina giggled.
“If you really wanted to annoy him, you should have called him Eddie, darling,” she said as she sauntered by. “Your adult son is Geoffrey, and the little one—”
“Link, I know. Jeez!”
“I really need to get to work on you. You are far too stressed,” Mina said, patting him on the cheek before slipping inside as well.
“Only that woman would tell us all to relax before shoving a bunch of pissed off werewolves and vampires in a room together,” Jonathan muttered. He looked to both Gail and Steve. “I was really married to her?”
“For, like, fifteen-hundred years, yeah,” Steve confirmed. Gail just nodded and said, “Yep, you were.”
“She’s your aunt too.” Steve made a sarcastic mind blown gesture, then dragged everyone into the disaster-zone-turned-impromptu-council-chamber.
Gail glanced from table to table, seat to seat. The men settled on crates loosely topped with singed tablecloths, while the two remaining chairs from the Kevin incident had been cleaned and covered with plastic for Lady Harker and Lady Lung to sit on. Plastic and gingham covered most of the debris piles in the corner, but Gail could just make out a terrifying white food-service canister laying on its side near a taped-over window. She nudged Steve, who blanched at the sight of cheese-flavored death.
“It’s just one that got missed, don’t panic, Pumpkin.”
“Um,” Gail stammered as Sam and a large Haitian man with a shaved head emerged from the kitchen—each of them in suspiciously comfortable-looking baggy sweatpants and T-shirts with sandals on their feet. “Which one is that one?”
Steve scratched his head. “Wesley, I think. He never says much and stays out of the way. Hmm, looks like they at least dressed for comfort for a long ride.”
Gail shook her head. “You don’t think that’s a little odd?” Nadia and Kayleigh emerged next, both in similar yoga-inspired ensembles. Gail could just see the edge of a couple of injectors poking out of the redhead’s pocket, then let out a deep sigh of relief as she saw they were clearly the white tranquilizer pens. “Still, you don’t see any potential problems here?”
“Not yet,” Steve hissed. “Give it time.”
“We’re missing a few,” the sheriff sighed, tapping her feet.
“Oh hush, we have all night,” Mina chided. Her eyes lit up as the kitchen door swung open again. Bernard limped into view, looking more like a lost hunter in safety orange and camouflage. He leaned against where the pass to the kitchen should have been, resting his head on some industrial plastic. Gail zeroed in on his hairy knuckles rapping on the damaged wood. Something small and metallic danced between his fingers. Gail groaned inwardly the moment she realized it was nothing more insidious than a fidget spinner made to look like the Autobots logo. The bare bulb over her head flickered, casting more strange shadows in the corners of the room.
Jonathan took a tentative step towards Nadia. “Hey, where’s—?”
“She’s recovering from multiple surgeries, give her a break,” a bitter voice called from the kitchen. “Oh wait—she’s not your problem anymore, is she, Lorcan?”
“Red? You OK back there?” Jonathan asked, looking pained. Gail’s stomach turned as a pair of feral, emerald-green eyes glowered from the doorway. Kyle’s hand curled tightly around the edge of the d
oor, claw tips digging into the fiberboard. He lumbered into view, muscles bulging under his tight T-shirt. His normal smattering of freckles had all but vanished under the hair on his arms and his newly fluffed muttonchops and stubble. “Holy Wolverine, Batman,” Jonathan exclaimed as this ginger demon took his place front and center before the vampires.
Both Mr. Sugar and Edwin shuffled a bit to take more defensive positions around Mina and the sheriff. The sheriff, however, smiled blandly and waved her would-be hero back. “It’s really a shame that my father didn’t use you for his pet project, boy. You really are a dead ringer for that barbarian he pulled out of the filth back in the Golden Age. Anyway, it’s nice to see you being your true self, rather than your pathetic excuse for a doctor, Kyle.”
Kyle snarled. “Really? You’ve been on this earth for thousands of years, and that’s the only insult you can come up with, sheriff?” he scoffed. “Even Steve can do better.”
“Ouch,” Steve said. Then the realization hit him, and he mumbled, “Double ouch.”
“This is not like Kyle, Steve. He’s not this stressed after a double shot and an all-nighter,” she hissed in his ear, grabbing his gloved hand. The gesture made Mina smile. “Steve, how are you not picking up on all the really bad mojo in this room? Why aren’t any of you freaking out?”
“Relax, Pumpkin. You just haven’t been around these many enormous vampire egos in a single room before.”
“Hello! I know literally all these people . . .” She pointed to Wesley. “Except maybe that guy. Steve, everything feels—”
The lights flickered again. Mina looked towards Gail and smiled mischievously. “Is she in on this? Seriously, I cannot be the only one who sees just how fucked up this whole situation is.”
“But you are the only one, mi princesa.”
Gail held her breath. She closed her eyes, and when she reopened them Javier leaned against the back wall suspiciously in the same Cartesian space Steve once occupied. He raised a finger to his lips. “Enjoy the ride, and do as you promised. Everything will be fine.”
“You’re not here. You can’t be here, or can you? Just tell me damn it! Am I crazy, or are you warning me that everything is about to go to hell?”
“These are not mutually exclusive things, mi princesa. Now remember your promise—oh, and when the time comes, run as rápido as you can.”
Gail’s eyes snapped open just in time to see Steve’s hand waving in front of her face. “Earth to Gail … you in there, Pumpkin?”
“Everything’s gonna be fine, Honey Bunny,” she said quickly. Steve raised a brow, but before he could say another word, the kitchen door swung open to reveal a weak, shambling form.
Paige surveyed the room with a hollow, raccoon-masked, dead-eye stare. Her skin tone matched many of the undead in the room, and she shuffled slowly in her slippers, wincing with every step. Mina’s eyes watered, and her lip trembled as she watched the herculean effort, while the far less sympathetic sheriff smiled broadly with the little werewolf’s every stumble. An oversized hunter’s jacket hid most of her form, but the pinned-up sleeve clearly showed that even Paige’s healing had limits when it came to blown-off limbs. She coughed and staggered until Kyle slowly eased his way to her side and helped her to a crate padded with some towels. As he wrapped his arm protectively around Paige, Jonathan growled. This time Kyle snarled back with enough snap to make even Sam recoil a bit.
“You know, I’m not heartless, child. We could have taken care of the details at your bedside and not endured this feeble pageantry,” the sheriff offered.
Paige took a moment to catch her breath, leaning against Kyle and glaring at the vampires in turn. She saved Gail for last, giving her a rather pathetic smile and then nodding to Steve.
“We all know why we are here,” Paige choked out, her voice harsh and raspy. “No matter how hard we’ve tried to be together . . .” She looked pointedly away from the pained Jonathan. “It’s not going to work out. I’m finally starting to understand just what we are and what is destined to happen to all of us.”
“A few of your dogs are missing,” the sheriff growled.
“I just want to know where the baby is,” Mina interjected.
Paige laughed pathetically. “My dogs . . . yeah, my dogs are roaming around, keeping an eye on your dogs, sheriff. As for Lincoln, he’s with the humans that are staying with us. You’ll excuse me, if I don’t trust any of you all that much.”
“Please, Paige. You must know that I would never hurt anyone, let alone my own child,” Mina protested. “And my sister, for all her faults, would never break the first law either.”
Paige laughed bitterly again. “Oh, I know you wouldn’t hurt him. The good sheriff even promised to look after me, but my pack are just dangerous animals to her. What she really wants is for us all to finally be extinct, just like she told everyone we were. Am I right?”
“Of course, you are right. You must know that time has always been—and always will be—on our side. I simply need to wait. It’s not worth the aggravation that two of my sons would give me, if I accelerated the process of your doom.”
Jonathan snarled, but the sheriff merely swatted the air in his general direction. Gail felt Steve clutch her hand in a death grip. Paige, however, seemed more exhausted and amused rather than her normal feral fury.
“I’ve done a lot of reading . . . and had some interesting conversations with your people, sheriff. There have been a lot of people telling me how I’m going insane, and I’ll probably be dead in five, maybe ten years. I know all of us kept looking for any evidence that we weren’t doomed, but then we got blown up by imitation parmesan, and one of us is still in a coma. It really put things in perspective.”
The sheriff stifled a yawn. “Look, are you getting on the bus, or do we have a problem, Paige?”
“Please,” Mina said with an exaggerated eye roll. “If she wishes to speak, let her. Remember, time is on our side, sister.”
“It’s alright,” Paige said softly, her shoulders slumped. The sheriff rose.
“You’re defeated, and you are broken, child. Just go quietly, and then do whatever you want. Believe me, this is not the normal offer that your kind receives. You’ve earned some reprieve for your . . . relationship with my son.”
Paige buried her face in her hand, her shoulders trembling. “You are so right, sheriff. I am broken. I’ve been chased, attacked, beaten, and pushed into a corner more times than I can count.”
“Do you want an apology? Is that it? Will that end this once and for all? If so—”
“I don’t want your apologies, sheriff,” Paige growled, face still hidden. “I want you to learn a lesson.”
Gail froze, a terrible wave of fear crashing into her. She clung to Steve’s hand desperately as Paige finally looked up, a new fire in her dark eyes. The sheriff just raised a brow.
“Oh, really? What lesson could you possibly teach me, child?”
Paige slowly unzipped her jacket. Meanwhile, Sam and Nadia both shifted slightly to move closer to the piles of debris in each corner of the dining room. Gail held her breath.
“Broken things have sharp edges,” Paige growled.
The little werewolf shifted just enough to show the wiring wrapped around her torso. The drop cloths fell away to reveal boxes upon boxes marked “Insane Value Parmesan Cheese”. “Now that I’ve got your attention, bloodsuckers—I’d like to offer you a deal.”
“Why, you boorish, arrogant—” the sheriff sputtered. She turned to Steve. “Damn it, boy, stop the little brat before she gets someone killed.”
“I’m sorry, Steve,” Gail apologized before pummeling him squarely in the jaw. The light exploded overhead as she felt a shiver run down her spine, through her hand, and into the stunned vampire. Steve crashed to the ground a moment later, bloody drool oozing from his lips.
“What have you done?” the sheriff asked, her eyes now brilliant green.
“I made a promise,” Gail said. “It’s not reall
y fair to have the whammy voice in play for a deal that’s going to affect all their lives.”
“You will pay for this for a very long time, child,” the sheriff warned. Edwin and Mr. Sugar both reached into their jackets.
“Hey!” Paige barked. “Listen to me. Now, I know for a fact that a werewolf can survive an explosion. Are you as confident, sheriff?”
“You are going to . . . what? Kill us? We gave you a chance, and you return our mercy with this—” the sheriff hissed.
“For once in your life, stand down and listen, sister,” Mina implored. She took a tentative step towards Paige, hands in the air. “What do you want, Paige? Please, just tell me.”
“I want to offer you a deal, Mina,” Paige said, her good hand now pressed against what looked like a detonator. “Now are you going to listen, or do I push the button?”
“Paige, please—” Jonathan tried to interject. She growled at him.
“You should survive the blast too,” she said flatly. “What’s it gonna be?”
“I offered you safety,” Mina said, tears in her eyes. “You have to believe me, I—”
“You offered us a cage,” Paige retorted.
“You’re animals. You need a cage,” the sheriff taunted.
“I don’t disagree with you,” Paige said with a smile. “But we are choosing our own cage. I’m sick of vampires telling us where we can go and what we can do. This time, you are going to leave, and we are going to stay.”
“Excuse me?” the sheriff asked.
“You heard me. We are going to stay. You were nice enough to pull most of your agents out of town already. Now, you are going to finish the job, and you aren’t coming back. In fact, you two are going to use your power to keep all vampires out of Nashville—permanently.”
“Permanently? This is a city full of hundreds of thousands of humans, not to mention the revenue—”
“Did you honestly just use the word revenue, sister?” Mina asked. “She holds our lives in her hands!”
“Any vampire who sets foot in the greater Nashville area, we attack. If they press, we kill,” Paige growled. “You’ve been warned.”