“It’s a persuasive argument,” she admitted.
“But I don’t know for sure. If I get close enough to smell her, I’ll know.”
“How can you not know?”
“What, there’s a humongous list of werewolves, and I memorized it?”
“I guess not,” she said. “But doesn’t Michael know?”
“He won’t tell me. I’ve been after him for years, trying to figure it out, and he won’t tell me! Bastard. How do I look?”
“I already told you.”
“Okay, well, I’m gonna go do this now.” He took a few deep, steadying breaths. “I have to do this.”
“I understand.” She gestured toward the bright lights. “Go to her.”
“Great!” He bent, kissed her, loped off.
Sara watched him go, beyond amused. He was like a kid with a crush. A big, scary kid. She hoped Rachel would be nice to him.
Minutes later, he returned, looking so disappointed she knew at once he hadn’t had a chance to meet his idol. “There were too many people around,” he said glumly. “I mean, I could have gotten past them without too much—but I didn’t want to scare her or make her think I was a stalker or something.”
“Maybe next time. Did you find out if she’s a werewolf?”
“No. I could smell a Pack member, but I couldn’t get close enough to sort it out from the rest . . . it could be a techie, could be her assistant, could be the guy who owns Legal’s, for all I know.” His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “But it’s gotta be her. It must be her.”
“Well, you tried.”
“Yeah.” He looked at her, a serious look. Uh-oh. “Sara, I just wanted to say I really appreciate your support.”
“If by ‘support’ you mean ‘mocking you behind your back’, then yes, I am chock-full of support.”
“No, really, Sara. And I just wanted to say—I mean, to tell you, that maybe when this is all done, we can, you know, hit the road again, maybe try to run into Rachel again.”
What an unbelievably weird idea. “Okay. I mean, that’d be nice. I’d like to do that.” As she said the words out loud, she realized it was true. “When this is all done.”
He took her hands again, more gently this time, she was relieved to note. “I’m just saying, there’s nobody I’d rather follow the Thirty Minute Meals show with than you.”
“That’s . . . so sweet.” She bit her lip so she wouldn’t laugh. Then, to her total shock—and his, too, she’d bet—she burst into tears.
“Oh, good,” he said, hugging her. “Because this is exactly the reaction I was hoping for.”
“I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “It’s just that I want this to be over—over in a good way—so we can do dumb stuff like stalk Rachel Ray. Together.”
“Dumb?” Then, “I love you, Sara.”
“I love you, too.”
He cradled her in his arms. His big, strong arms. She resisted the urge to melt.
“Oh, Derik. How the hell did we get ourselves into this?”
“Who cares? I love you, and we’ll fix it. I loved you,” he added nostalgically, “from the moment I tried to kill you.”
“It took a little longer for me,” she confessed.
30
SARA HAD SUGGESTED, IN A PLOY TO DIVERT THEM from their mission and cheer Derik up, that they stop by Wordsworth and pick up a new cookbook. Derik agreed at once.
“Is it totally lame that we’re putting off going to Salem?”
“No.”
“Well, good.” She paused, then walked into the bookstore as he held the door for her. “Why isn’t it lame, again?”
“We don’t even know where we’re supposed to go once we get to Salem,” he pointed out reasonably. “Maybe if we keep hanging out, your power will kick in, or the bad guys will make a move, or something.”
“Uh-huh. Is it just me, or has quite a bit of this world-saving trip entailed waiting around for something to happen?”
“It’s just you,” he said, and trotted toward the cooking section.
“Like hell,” she muttered. She had no desire to add to her cookbook collection, but maybe she could check the New Fiction section and see if Feehan had a . . .
Oh. Oh!
After a couple of minutes, she was sitting on the floor in the History section, looking up King Arthur. Which was really kind of silly, after all, she had done lots of papers in school on King Arthur and Morgan Le Fay, so it was unlikely there would be a book here with information she didn’t have on—
Arthur’s Chosen. Also referred to as Arthur’s Sect, Arthur’s Guild, and Morgan’s Bane. A mysterious sect founded in the year of King Arthur’s death, Arthur’s Chosen believes Arthur will return one day, but only with the help of his half sister, Morgan Le Fay . . .
Well. That was lucky. She’d just sit here and find out all about the bad guys, thank you very much.
Sara became absorbed.
ONE HOUR LATER . . .
IDIOT. FUCKING IDIOT!
“You know better,” he said out loud, startling the clerk standing a few feet away. He shot her an apologetic grin and followed Sara’s scent out the door.
Well, isn’t this what you were waiting for? Something to happen?
“Shut up,” he said—damn it, he was talking out loud again!
Bad move, bad guys. He could find Sara’s backtrail in a snowstorm; he could certainly track her to Salem. And if they harmed one hair . . . one half of one hair . . . if they touched her . . . breathed on her . . . thought about her . . .
He noticed people jumping out of his way and supposed he should calm down—he was scaring perfect strangers and really shouldn’t growl in public—but he was too fucking annoyed.
THEY WEREN’T IN SALEM. THEY HADN’T EVEN LEFT town. Tracking them—Sara—down had been totally super easy. He supposed he should have been suspicious, but he was too relieved.
He stomped over to the building—an abandoned warehouse near Logan Airport, of course, naturally, it was the sort of thing that all bad guys hung out in, and clearly these bad guys had been watching all the right movies—and was just about to rip the door off its hinges when his cell phone rang.
This was startling, as it hadn’t rung since he left the Cape. In fact, most of the time he’d forgotten it was on his hip. He let it charge overnight and clipped it to his belt in the morning and never gave it a thought, just like he never gave pulling on Jockeys a thought. Everybody knew what he was supposedly working on, and no one wanted to bother him. Not to mention, werewolves weren’t big on calling each other up and asking about the weather.
So who was calling him? And why now, when he was about to go all Search and Rescue?
He sneezed—the stench of hydrocarbons in the area was really vomit-inducing—and flipped the phone open. Before he could even say hello, Antonia was screeching in his ear.
“Don’t do it! Derik, don’t go in that building!”
“When this is over,” he told her, more than a little rattled, “we have to sit down and talk about how scary you are. You and Sara would get along great, by the way.”
“Turn around. Walk away. Leave now. Now!”
“I can’t. Sara’s in there. I have to go—”
“Shut the fuck up! Derik, if you go in that building, you’ll die. I saw it. You’ll—” Antonia’s voice broke, and he nearly dropped the phone. Antonia? Worked up into tears over his ugly ass? “You’ll die. Don’t go in, Derik. Don’t.”
“I appreciate the warning,” he said. “But I have to. If I don’t see you again—”
“Don’t!”
“—thanks for all your help.”
“You numb fuck! Men! I told Michael it couldn’t be taken back, and what does he do? Goes to Boston for a day trip! You guys would think I was, like, wrong occasionally.”
“We know you’re not wrong,” he explained. “But that doesn’t mean we’re going to lie down and wait for the world to end.”
An inarticulate screech was her only answer.
&n
bsp; “And thanks for trying to save me. I don’t suppose you saw what’ll happen to Sara?”
“Ape! Chimp! Gorilla!”
“Now you’re just being mean,” he said, and closed the phone.
Nuts, he thought. I forgot to ask her how I die. Well, I suppose I’ll find out in a few minutes.
He was weirdly sanguine about it, and after a moment’s thought he knew why. He could face dying, if Sara was all right. He could even face the end of the world, if Sara was all right. But he couldn’t stay out in this smelly parking lot and play it safe while the redhead was in trouble.
So, he would go in. And die, because Antonia was never wrong. But maybe Sara would come out of it okay. And maybe not.
It was worth trying, anyway.
He kicked the door off its hinges, belatedly realizing it hadn’t been locked. “D’oh!” he said, then picked the door up and sheepishly set it against the wall. “Hello-o?” he called. “You guys better come get me! Quit whatever you’re doing to what’s-her-name and come on over here. Let’s dance.”
“Let’s dance?” a thrillingly familiar voice said. “That’s really bad, Derik.”
“Sara!” He avoided three of Arthur’s Losers—the cranberry-colored robes were a dead give-away, why did they do that?—and ran to her. “Oh, man, thank God you’re all right!” He hugged her, lifting her off her feet. Then he shook her. “And what the hell did you think you were doing, going off with the bad guys?” Then he hugged her again. “I don’t know what I would have done if something had happened to you, oh, baby, baby.” Then he shook her. “Kicked some ass, that’s what I would have done! And what is your problem? I tell you to stay put, and you leave? Have you never watched a horror movie in your life?” Then he hugged her again. “Oh, Sara, Sara . . . you sweet, sweet dumb ass.”
“Will you stop?” She extricated herself with difficulty and puffed a curl out of her face. “I’m gonna throw up if you don’t quit that. And I had to go with them.”
“What, had to?”
“They said—they said they had snipers. Trained on your head. And I didn’t know if it was the truth or a lie. It seemed a little far-fetched. But I know they use guns, because of that time in the hospital—God, was it only earlier this week? I wonder if my car’s fixed yet.”
“Could you stay focused, please?”
“I am. Anyway, I couldn’t take a chance. I didn’t think you—even you—could survive a head shot. They said if I went with them they wouldn’t kill you. So, I went.”
“Dumb ass.”
“In retrospect, yeah.” She lowered her voice, which was stupid, because the Chosen were right there, hearing every word. “They needed my blood.” She showed him the inside of her elbow, which had a drop of dried blood on it. “And they didn’t even disinfect the needle site. Bastards.”
“Your blood? They needed your blood?” That didn’t sound good. That didn’t sound remotely good. “Like, for to do magic? Like a spell?”
“I’ve missed their last few meetings,” Sara said dryly, “so I don’t know exactly what they need it for.”
He put his arm around her, protectively, then turned and glared at the Robed Weirdos. “What’s up, fellas? What’d you need her blood for?”
The shortest Arthur’s Chosen blinked. “Who are you?”
Derik was almost crushed. These guys clearly had access to powerful magicks, at least one of them could see the future, and they had no fucking idea who he was! How totally embarrassing.
“I’m this one’s mate, so there,” he snapped, squeezing so protectively that Sara yelped. “Oh. Sorry, babe.”
“Mate, huh?” Sara muttered back. “Aw. I didn’t know you cared.”
Weirdly, the robed fellas were bowing. He could smell quite a few more and looked up . . . there were at least a dozen on the catwalk, and even more in the back where he couldn’t see. They were all bowing.
“Why are you doing that?” Sara asked, and he was so puffed up with pride—she didn’t sound afraid at all, though he knew perfectly well she was—that he almost squeezed her again. “I don’t think you should do that. Do you think they should do that, Derik?”
“Definitely not.”
“You are our sworn enemy,” they all said in unison. Then the one who had spoken first added, “But you are also the daughter of a king, and the sister of a king.”
“Um . . . I’m the daughter of an ad exec, and the sister of nobody,” Sara said. “But, thanks anyway.”
“In this incarnation,” one robed fella said.
“And I’m not going to destroy the world,” she added, “and you can’t make me!”
“Darned right you’re not,” another of the Chosen said. “Why do you think we’re here?”
“To, um, kill me?”
“To try,” Derik added silkily, in his turn.
“We knew you were coming. Did you think we weren’t ready? We’ve had years to arm ourselves with formidable magicks.”
“Whoa, whoa.” Sara made the time-out sign with her hands. “The only reason I’m here is because your Chosen Ones showed up at my hospital! My mentor told me all about you and sent us to Massachusetts. If you hadn’t tried to kill me, I’d still be in California.”
“I’m such a loser,” Derik muttered in her ear. “Because that actually depressed the shit out of me. We’d never have met!”
“Stop thinking with your dick,” she hissed back.
“Your mentor is a traitor to our cause and will be killed on sight . . . as soon as we attend to this other business.”
Sara gaped. “Dr. Cummings was one of you?”
“Used to be one of us. Then we discovered he was a foul traitor.”
“He was only using us to get information for one of his doctorates,” another one explained. “He didn’t care about our cause.”
“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Sara agreed. “He’s really aggravating that way.”
“Nice of him to warn us, though,” Derik said.
“Extremely nice.” Then Sara added, “Besides, I can’t do magic. I don’t know any spells, or anything. I’m a nurse, for God’s sake!”
“Then, as a nurse,” one of them said from the catwalk, “you know that sometimes it’s necessary to hurt a patient to heal another one.”
“Uh . . . we’re talking theoretically here, right?”
“Your blood will bring back His Majesty, King Arthur. Without your interference, woman”—he spat that word out like someone else would have said “child molester”—“he will be the greatest of all of us. He will raise Britain to heights only dreamed of. He will . . . not! Be! Dead!”
“Oh, boy,” Derik muttered. “Someone forgot their meds today.”
“Probably more than one day,” Sara said. Then, louder: “You mean you’re not going to make me destroy the world? You’re going to use my blood to—I dunno—clone or resurrect a new Arthur?”
“Well, sure,” another robed one said, one not quite so frothy at the mouth. “What’d you think we were going to do?”
“But Sara doesn’t do magic,” Derik said. “In case you guys weren’t listening the first time.”
“That’s a relief,” the mellower one said. “It makes this all so much easier.”
A few of the robed fellows in the corner, who had been bustling busily about during their conversation, now revealed the small lab table where they’d been working. Evil-smelling smoke was pouring from various beakers. It’s color exactly matched the cranberry of their robes!
“They don’t know about your luck,” Derik whispered. “How can they not know?”
“Shit, Derik, I didn’t know until a few days ago. But how are they going to make Arthur just appear? Even if they cloned him, somehow, he’d have to grow. He wouldn’t just appear—”
“We can hear you, you know,” one of them said. “I mean, you’re only standing ten feet away.”
“Aw, shut up,” Derik said.
“Arthur—the dead king Arthur—can’t just appear,�
�� Sara was reasoning out loud. “It doesn’t make sense. Unless—”
“Doseda nosefta kerienba!”
“—unless they know some sort of magic spell,” she finished, and sighed. “Magic. Cripes! I’m from California, and I still don’t believe it. Oh, yuck! Look. They’re splashing my blood all over the table. Gross! And I don’t see a single biohazard sign, thank you very much.”
“Uh, if you don’t need any more of her blood—”
“Yes, yes, you’re free to go,” one of them said, without looking up.
Derik and Sara looked at each other.
“Seriously?” Sara finally asked.
“Yes, yes. Go.”
“Go as in leave? Or go as in wait quietly in the corner for you to come over and kill us with an axe?”
“This makes no sense,” Derik said. “You tried to blow her brains out at the hospital, but now she can leave?”
“We just needed some blood to complete the spell,” Surprisingly Reasonable Robed Guy explained. “It was the last thing. We’ve spent years collecting the other ingredients. And she is a foul sorceress. We didn’t want to take any chances.”
“Which, since she accidentally killed all the bad guys, wasn’t the worst plan, I suppose,” Derik said grudgingly.
Surprisingly Reasonable Robed Guy shrugged. “That was mostly Bob’s plan.”
“So we’re leaving?” Sara blurted. “We can just go?”
No answer. The robed ones all took turns muttering chants and moving things around on the lab table. Sara pointed to the pentagram outlined in what looked like green chalk, which she had just noticed.
“I have to admit,” Derik admitted, “I didn’t really see this coming.”
“What do we do?” Sara asked, gripping his hand. “Do we leave? We can’t just leave. Can we?”
“I . . . guess not.”
“We didn’t travel all the way across the country so they could snatch a few cc’s of my blood and then kick us out. We’re the good guys. We’re supposed to save the world from them!”
“Hey, Sara, I’m with you, okay? What do you suggest?”
“We stop them from the spell they’re working on!”
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