Darkness Taunts

by Susan Illene

  The visit probably wouldn’t take long, but after hearing numerous horror stories I lived in constant fear of my engine block freezing. I didn’t want to take any chances. During the winter in Fairbanks, you had to plug your vehicle into an electric outlet or have some other way to keep it warm when it wasn’t turned on. If the engine froze and you tried to start it, you could forget it ever working again. The temperature was still about negative thirty this morning and the forecast didn’t expect it to heat up to more than negative ten. Better to be safe than sorry.

  I trudged through the snow to Derrick’s porch and knocked on the front door. My senses told me he was inside but in another part of the cabin. A full minute went by while I stood there shivering. Damn, it was cold this morning. I’d never get used to this crap no matter what anyone said.

  The doorknob twisted in my hand—he hadn’t bothered to lock it. A werewolf living out in the bush didn’t exactly have much to worry about. There weren’t any humans living nearby and he could handle most wild animals, except maybe bears. I never wanted to have another run-in with a black bear again. We’d barely come out of the last incident alive.

  I walked into the cabin to find it a mess. For me it would have been a step up, but for him it was bad. Papers and empty beer bottles littered the coffee table. A blanket stretched across the couch as if he’d slept there instead of his bed. The open kitchen had a few dirty dishes. Nothing near what I’d let it pile up to if Emily didn’t have that chore, but much more than Derrick would normally allow. Things had gotten much worse than I realized.

  “Derrick,” I called out. I sensed him in the bathroom, but I didn’t want to go in there unless I had to.

  A full minute later—no answer. I knocked on the door. Nothing. No strong emotions came from him either, though I thought I heard light snoring. I shifted from foot to foot. I really didn’t want to go in there.

  The door slid open without having to twist the knob. I groaned when I saw him. He lay completely naked in the bathtub. Good thing weres didn’t get hypothermia since he’d filled it with water at some point before passing out. He must have shifted to his wolf form last night and gone on a run. There was a definite reddish-brown tint to the water, implying he’d been out on the prowl. Derrick didn’t like to hurt animals, but his wolf had no problem hunting them when it took over.

  I hesitated at the doorway. How to wake a man as large as him without risking getting hurt in the process? The longer I stood there debating, the more my eyes took in his naked form. I’d had enough temptation in the last couple of days without adding to it.

  Derrick didn’t have classic good looks. His face was too rugged and square for that, but his body was enough to make any woman drool. I’d seen it all before from other times he’d shifted and not dressed right away. That didn’t stop me from noticing the cold water didn’t affect him the same way it did most men.

  I really needed to find a human guy who could keep my interest long enough to get him in bed. This was getting ridiculous. I grabbed a bottle of Listerine mouth wash and tossed it at his head. His eyes popped open, but the glazed look in them told me he wasn’t aware enough to recognize me.

  Shit. I closed the door and dashed for the living room. Running from a werewolf always made things worse, but I didn’t want to deal with him in the confines of his bathroom or the hallway. He’d figure out who I was eventually. If not, maybe Charlie would come in and do something to stop him. Maybe.

  Derrick came barreling though, half stumbling as he went. I could smell alcohol on him as he got closer. He must have drunk a lot after getting back since his wolf would have burned it off. I let him take me down to the couch. His weight covered mine and made it hard to breathe. Every instinct told me to fight, but I knew that wouldn’t do any good. He needed to smell me and figure things out for himself.

  I forced my muscles to loosen and bared my neck. His nose went straight for the spot under my left ear. Hot breath blew across my skin as he breathed deeply in and out. He nipped my skin before moving on to my hair. He rubbed his face in the long strands, and then buried himself in it. I lay there with my eyes closed, trying not to think about how he could rip my throat out at any moment.

  “Melena?” His voice came out scratchy and rough.

  “Yeah, Derrick. Don’t suppose you could get off of me?”

  He still hadn’t moved his face from my hair. “Give me a minute.”

  “Derrick, I can’t breathe.”

  He lifted his body a few inches, but his head stayed in place.

  “You remind me of her sometimes,” he said. “I ever tell you that?”

  I opened my eyes to look at him, but his long brown hair got in the way. I brushed it aside. “No, you never told me that.”

  “You don’t look like her, but you’re strong like she was. Always know the right thing to do.” He pulled back farther to sit on the end of the couch. “I’ve failed her.”

  I sat up. He was talking about his dead wife. She and Derrick’s kids were killed a few years after the civil war ended. A couple of vampires and someone else he couldn’t identify had attacked his home one night. He’d been badly injured as well, but his werewolf healing had kept him alive long enough for help to arrive. I didn’t like to think about who had showed up. Variola was dead now. Saving him was probably the only decent thing she’d ever done.

  “You haven’t failed her, Derrick,” I said. “You just have to find another way to avenge her. Running around exposing yourself to humans is not the answer.”

  He shook his head. “Nikolas shoulda killed me by now. I turned last night in front of a whole group of them in Fairbanks.”

  I kicked him in the leg. “You idiot. What did you do that for?”

  His hand rubbed the spot I’d hit—my boots had hard heels. “Nothin’ matters anymore. All these years wasted. I stayed loyal to a woman who hurt people. Same as was done to my family. Don’t know how I didn’t see it for so long.”

  “You only saw what she wanted you to see. She promised to help you get revenge and gave you her blood so you could live longer, get more powerful. It probably seemed like a good deal at the time.” Not to me, but I hated Variola from the start since she had me tortured. “People make mistakes. The point is you have to move on.”

  “No,” he said. “There’s no movin’ on from this.”

  I kicked him again. He winced. “Yes, there is. Nik hasn’t killed you because he believes there’s good in you—that you have potential. There are people in this town who could help you if you let them.”

  His eyes bored into mine. “Why should they? I ain’t done nothin’ for them. They keep you here against your will. What’s that supposed to make me think?”

  He’d helped me get away that last time. It was a week before Christmas. Derrick, Emily, and I packed what we could into two vehicles and drove off in the direction of Canada. We took every precaution we could think of so they couldn’t track us, including leaving our phones behind.

  A full eight hours went by before Lucas flashed onto the hood of my Jeep. I realized then that whatever magical abilities he could use on me, there would be no escaping him. No one ever told me what the nephilim did to punish Derrick. On Christmas day I found him in his home curled in a ball on the floor. The only words I’d gotten out of him were “Get the fuck out and don’t come back”.

  Coming from a man who never used profanity, it shocked me enough to leave. I did try calling him and leaving messages, but he never responded. If other people hadn’t told me they’d seen him around I might have thought he’d died.

  “Derrick, it isn’t everyone making me stay. Only Nik and Lucas.” I looked away from his penetrating eyes. “One guy said I shouldn’t be allowed to live here.”

  He pulled my face back around. “Who said that?”

  “Doesn’t matter. Nik killed him for it.” Might as well get that out of the way before he heard about it from someone else. He didn’t socialize much, but before we’d stopped talking h
e’d always known what was going on with me.

  “If Nik killed him, it was for a lot more than him just sayin’ words. What did he do, Mel?” Derrick all but growled the words out.

  An idea formed in my head. Maybe it would work, maybe it wouldn’t, but it was worth a shot. “He attacked me. I think he wanted to kill me, but I shot him in the head before he could.”

  Derrick’s face turned red. “Who was it?”

  I let the silence extend for a few long seconds. “Hagan. A couple of young weres watched. They thought it was funny, but since their alpha is too weak to keep them in line that’s not a surprise.”

  Derrick grunted. “I met their alpha. He ain’t worth a damn.”

  No, he wasn’t. The man didn’t have even half the power the werewolf beside me had. I knew who should really be in charge if he’d just pull his head out of his ass. Even Nik agreed if Derrick would clean up his act he’d consider bringing him into his inner circle.

  “No idea why you care since you aren’t around to keep the wolves off of me. They look at me like a chew toy.” I hated using the weak female card, but sometimes a woman had to play dirty to get what she wanted.

  He gave me a skeptical look. “It can’t be that bad.”

  “If you really cared,” I said, “you’d go find out for yourself.”

  “I’ll think about it, sensor girl.”

  Chapter Nine

  “So what did Charlie say about the demon problem?” Felisha asked as she dug through a container in her shop supply room.

  “He says those with strong faith and training could deal with it, but it takes them days to expel a demon from a human body. Apparently, if I feed them my blood it sends them straight back to hell in seconds.” Yay, I was the fast cure.

  Felisha turned around and put her hands on her hips. “What does he expect? For you to hunt these things down and bleed yourself dry trying to get rid of them all?”

  “That pretty much sums it up. He did assure me it only takes about a tablespoon of my blood down their throats to do the job. That I should keep it to a minimum so I don’t weaken myself too much.” I rolled my eyes. “As if I couldn’t figure that out for myself.”

  “But it still has to be fresh?” she asked.

  “Yep,” I said. “I get to cut myself up over and over each time we catch one.”

  She yanked hard on a bag of herbs stuck in the back of the container she’d been digging in. It went flying across the room as soon as it got free. “Lucas better have a way to heal you from that. I’ll find some way to make that nephilim miserable if you come back scarred from all this.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I don’t want you messing up your beauty on my account.”

  A fairy’s beauty, minus any glamour they used, was based on the good or bad acts they committed in their life. If she went after Lucas—even to avenge me—it would count against her. Felisha had looks so beautiful they almost blinded me the first time I saw her. She had creamy skin, shiny red hair, a small but well-shaped body, and glinting green eyes. Even her voice made me want to sit and listen to her talk for hours. I doubted she could be any more good, but she assured me there were a few fairies out there who had her beat. The bad ones, on the other hand, could give trolls a run for their money.

  Felisha plucked the bag from the floor where it landed and smiled at me. “I’d just do some extra charity work to make up for it.”

  I narrowed my eyes at her. “You’ve already been doing a lot lately. What’s that about?”

  She handed me the bag. “What you’re holding is a special variety of sage only grown in the hidden fae cities. Charlie warned me a couple of weeks ago that I should order it. If you burn this, it will repel demons or any evil spirits nearby.”

  “What makes it better than regular sage?” I asked.

  She shrugged one of her shoulders. “Probably something to do with the magic used in the soil. They don’t grow a lot of it because this kind of problem doesn’t come up very often. The regular kind will hinder a demon, but if they are determined they could still fight their revulsion. This is guaranteed to work.”

  I examined the herb through the plastic bag. My senses didn’t pick up anything unusual about it, but it did sort of have a glint to it. If sage helped to get rid of demons, why hadn’t she told me to sell it to her customers when they asked? Then it hit me. “That’s why you’re doing more charity work! You felt guilty that you have this sage and don’t give it to them because there isn’t enough to go around.”

  She wrung her hands and looked away. “I can’t help that it bothers me, but this is all that I could get on short notice. Charlie said it would be needed soon and to hold onto it for him. Yesterday he called and told me I should hand it over to you.”

  “Then stop feeling bad,” I said. “It’s not your fault you can’t get more. There’s no reason to get gray hair or something over it.” She was over sixty years old despite only looking twenty-five. My point wasn’t impossible. Fairies lived centuries longer than humans, but the bad ones could age much faster.

  She gave me a weak smile. “I’ll try. Now tell me about Derrick. Don’t think I didn’t notice you avoided talking about him when you came in.”

  “He’s in bad shape.” I stuffed my hands in my pockets. “I think I have a way to get him out of his funk, though.”

  “Oh,” she said. “What’s that?”

  I explained my plan to guilt him into becoming alpha of the local weres. Nikolas was ultimately in charge because he was the strongest sup in the area, but he had to keep leaders for the various races close to him. The alpha for the wolves would have to be dominant enough to keep his pack in line and be the representative for them with Nik. A chain of command, in military terms.

  Not all areas had vampires as their top leader, though they tended to be the most common. Sometimes a witch, werewolf, or another race turned out to be the strongest. Nephilim like Lucas would be the most likely candidates, but they seemed to prefer independence. Becoming a leader tended to tie you down to one place.

  “Do you think he’ll go for it?” Felisha asked.

  I shrugged. “He didn’t seem all that enthusiastic, but I could see he was considering it. The trick is to give him a reason to get back into society again. That’s where you come in.”

  Her eyes widened. “Me? What can I do?”

  “You told me before you have the sight. I know you don’t like using it, but the main thing that kept him going past the normal werewolf lifespan was revenge for his family. He thinks it isn’t possible anymore, but maybe you could use your gift to help him look.”

  Felisha fidgeted with the sleeve of her blouse. “I don’t know. It’s not that I don’t want to help, but it might give him false hope. My gift isn’t always reliable, and there’s something else that may make things difficult.”

  I could sense her emotional turmoil. It had been buzzing in the background of my mind since I arrived at the shop, but with so much else to worry about I hadn’t clued in on it. “What’s going on, Felisha?”

  She took a deep breath. “It’s my family. They think it’s time I was properly married.”

  “Married?” I asked. “To who?”

  “They are sending someone they think would make a good match.” Her lips thinned. “He’ll be here in a couple of days. I’m supposed to let him court me, but they are pushing hard for me to accept him after a reasonable time.”

  “What, exactly, is a reasonable time? Have you met him before?”

  “I knew him as a child. We grew up together in Canada—in the fae city where they still live. They expect me to give him an answer within a few weeks.” Despair filled her eyes. “I just don’t think I’m ready for this.”

  I rubbed her arm. Fae marriages were permanent. If it turned out she didn’t like him, she couldn’t ask for a divorce later. “Don’t let them force you to do something you don’t want to do. What’s the worst that could happen if you refuse?”

  Her eyes watered. �
��They could disown me. Make me an outcast. It’s bad, Mel, really bad if they decide I’m not falling in line with what they want. They didn’t even like me coming to Fairbanks on my own.” Her hair fell over her face as she looked down. “I kind of promised if they let me have some independence for a while I’d agree to marriage later.”

  Crap. Here I was adding to her load with all my problems. “Felisha, whatever you decide, I’m a hundred percent behind you. A lot of people here wouldn’t care what the fae decrees for you. Giving up your family might suck, but being married to a man you don’t like for centuries would be worse.”

  She pulled me into a hug that overwhelmed me with her floral scent. “Thanks, Mel. I needed to hear that.”

  I’d gone from avoiding supernaturals like the plague to helping them sort out their personal problems. My ways of thinking had changed a lot in recent months, but Felisha had helped me a few times too. It was only fair to give back when I could.

  I pulled away from her. “Is it going to be a problem watching Emily with all this going on?”

  “Oh no, I’m glad she’s going to be here. Male faeries can be rather forceful and,” she blushed, “amorous. Emily will make a great buffer so I can keep some distance from him. He won’t go too far with a young girl around.”

  Well, that was reassuring. It still bothered me to leave my teenage charge with anyone. Emily had become my responsibility. It would kill me if anything happened to her. “Just make sure she doesn’t give herself away. The last thing we need is word getting back to the fae city about what she is.”

  Felisha nodded. “I’ll talk to her about it.”

  I lifted my head and looked at the door. Emily’s signature had begun to move on my radar where I’d been monitoring her position at her nearby school. “She’s heading this way now and should be here in a few minutes. I’m going to take her out to eat for one last meal before I go. I’ll drop her off at your place after we grab her stuff.”

  Felisha pulled me into another hug. “Don’t worry, Mel. I’ll take care of Emily while you’re gone.”