by Karen Ranney
But in the case of an emergency, such as tonight, all hell breaks loose. We have to strip and fast, unless we want to have to keep buying clothes. From the scattered garments all over the backyard, I gathered that the transformation process had been chaotic.
I’d heard, before, of Were/vampire disputes, but I couldn't speak with any kind of credibility about our antipathy toward vampires, if such a thing even existed. From what I was seeing now, though, there weren’t going to be good feelings in the future between the Celtic Clan and the San Antonio vampires.
Both sides looked mad as hell.
Claws were out and teeth gleamed in the headlights. The vampires weren’t lacking in the tooth department. Their eyes were glowing red and there was blood on the faces of the combatants and on the fur of some of the Weres.
It was difficult to figure out exactly who was wounded.
I could hear odd things, the rapid heartbeats of the Weres, the rough, intermittent, breathing of the vampires, and above all a keening sound from the vicinity of the roof. No one seemed to notice, but I suspected that it was Maddock I heard.
I would worry about him later. Right now I had another problem. My father was in the middle of the fight. His fur had changed since I’d last seen him as a wolf. The thick black fur was turning silver on the ends.
Some men couldn't control their wolf. They walked on all four paws. My father could walk like a human, on his hind legs. As he waded into the middle of the fight, he stood tall. Not content with simply towering over a vampire, he reached out with both front paws, and some impressive looking claws, and swiped at him.
I glanced at Mark.
“Can Weres become vampires if we get bitten?”
He shook his head.
"There seems to be some resistance between paranormal species," Marcie said from behind me. “A human is more likely to be infected. Like I was."
I really did need to have that talk about vampires as soon as possible.
"But you don't think it's dangerous for them to be out there fighting the vampires?”
She smiled slightly. “From what I can see, I think it's more dangerous for the vampires right now.”
I wondered if the sound I’d heard earlier had been a scream of frustration from Maddock. Right now, the score looked a bit uneven. Four vampires lay on the ground. But I knew that they’d pop up again the next day. That is, if someone put them in say, a root cellar or someplace away from the sun. Or, they could just be left there. So sorry. Didn't see you. Thought you were one of the plants.
A dozen more vampires were advancing on my father and his friends. I’d already identified the Weres as Council members, but I didn't understand why they were here.
They didn’t look like they needed any help overcoming the vampires, however.
"Well, hell," I said.
I was ready for war and we’d been rescued.
Mark grabbed my arm and shook it just a little, an unspoken way of saying: Torrance, are you nuts?
I'll give you a war if that's what you want.
Well, that was interesting. Exactly what kind of war?
"I'm still here," Marcie said, smiling lightly.
I think I blushed.
A minute later another car entered the service entrance, barreling toward Graystone. I couldn’t figure out why the vehicle was bathed in an almost unearthly light until the door opened and Antonia emerged from the passenger seat, running through the fighting vampires and Weres directly toward her mother. Anyone looking at her would think that she was an angel, the ethereal glow surrounding her illuminating the whole yard. I kept my mouth shut, however, since I had a feeling that nobody else was seeing what I was seeing.
“It’s a side effect," Marcie said.
I wish everybody would stop reading my mind. It didn't seem fair since I didn’t have that talent.
“What is it?” I asked, grateful that I could finally talk to someone about the hallucinations.
Marcie didn’t get a chance to answer because Antonia was racing up the back steps toward her mother. Marcie removed the chain from around her neck and let it fall to the floor.
I thought, for a moment, that she might try to pick up Antonia, but the little girl only stood there with her arms wrapped around Marcie’s waist.
"Your mom's not feeling all that spiffy right now," I said.
Antonia, with the poise and sophistication of a forty year old, glanced at me and said, “Yes I know. She gave you a transfusion."
"And nearly died."
I looked over to see Dan walking up the steps. He was not bathed in an ethereal light. Instead he was surrounded by a pulsing crimson aura and he was controlling his anger with some difficulty.
He turned, and from his perch atop the back steps, extended both arms out, pointing in the direction of the vampires.
"Be gone!"
I know I wasn't the only person to feel the ground shake. And I had to work on getting my hearing back after his thunderous voice nearly broke my eardrums. To my surprise and enormous relief, the vampires melted into the shadows leaving the Weres staring after them.
I deliberately looked away. I've mentioned before that male Weres have a physical response to their transformation. I didn't want to see my father like that and I certainly didn't want to see any member of the Council in flagrante de-dick-to, either.
I heard a police siren and it was getting closer.
That was another worry. Weres normally didn’t involve the police in our disputes and I doubted that Maddock had called the authorities. Then who had?
The Council members melted into the woods leaving their cars in place, lights blazing. My father, however, moved behind his car, and transformed back to his human shape. I walked back into the kitchen, sat at the table, and put the mace down on the wooden surface.
"Are you still mad because you couldn't fight?" Mark asked, coming into the kitchen.
“No,” I said.
Honestly? I was just trying to avoid fainting or having a meltdown. I was still shaking. But time was running out. I had to face my father and do something about Austin.
“What do you want to do about him?” Mark asked, putting his weapons on the table.
“You have to stop reading my mind,” I said. “It’s rude and intrusive.”
“Stop sending me thoughts.”
“I don’t.”
He didn’t respond to that.
“I really don’t,” I said.
Still no answer.
I sighed. I was being bitchy and while it might be understandable, it was also rude. Mark hadn’t done anything but be at my side, medically speaking. Then he’d done the warrior thing and I have to say it looked good on him.
The banging on the front door was the sign that my respite was up. I stood, headed for the front of the house, the Brood following — and barking. Mark was at my side and he opened the door to reveal a cascade of red and blue lights, and the blazing white headlights of at least three patrol vehicles.
Two cops were standing on Graystone’s doorstep.
“Ma’am?”
All three dogs went ballistic, making me wonder if they thought the cops were here to take them away. Before I could try to calm them, Mark looked down at the Brood and shook his head. They fell silent mid-bark.
Wow, if that was a Pranic technique then I definitely wanted to acquire that one. Just think how easy my job at the clinic would be.
“Yes sir?” I asked.
I’ve always been respectful to the police. I will confess that there are times when I’ve gotten teary-eyed when stopped by a cop on the side of the road. It’s not that I’m afraid, but I have a healthy respect for all kinds of authority. All you had to do was look at my father to understand why.
“We had a report of some kind of fight here,” the taller policeman said.
“I apologize, officer,” said my father from behind me. He edged past me to extend his hand to both officers.
Of course they knew him. He was wel
l known in San Antonio, plus he was a big donor to the San Antonio Police Officers Benevolent Fund.
He didn’t look like he had a hair out of place. I think he kept a blow dryer in the car.
“Mr. Boyd. Do you want to explain what’s going on here?”
“A good-natured rivalry that went a little too far, officers. Boys will be boys sort of thing. I apologize if we caused any kind of disturbance.”
I hoped there wasn’t a vampire hanging off the roof right at the moment. But I doubted that Maddock would actually attack a policeman. Vampires were rumored to get along very well with the authorities. Vampire law pretty much took over where civilian law left off. After all, what did you do with a perpetrator who didn’t die? The only choice was to turn him over to the vampires for their version of justice.
“And you, miss?” the shorter officer said, staring at the bloodstains on my scrubs.
I smiled, which was a little more difficult than I expected.
“I’m a vet,” I said. “We had an emergency. I haven’t had a chance to change.”
He stared at me for a few moments, almost like he was trying to decide whether or not to believe me.
“Everything’s under control, then, Mr. Boyd?” he finally asked.
“That it is. I’m sorry that you had to come all this way.”
If we’d been any closer to the start of basketball season, I don’t doubt that my father would have whipped out a few tickets to a Spurs game. As it was, all he could do was shake their hands again, apologize once more, and promise that there would be no further disturbances.
That is, if there wasn’t a vampire hanging from the bell tower.
“Who reported the fight, officer?” I asked as they were turning to descend the steps.
The tallest officer glanced at my father and then at me. I don’t know if he was breaking a rule by telling me, but he pulled out a small notebook and read from it.
“A Ms. Alice Fenway,” he said.
Alice? Alice had been here? What had she been doing here? And just what the hell had she seen? Had she witnessed the Were transformation? I’d run out of time. I was going to have to handle Alice the minute I was finished going through the crazies.
We watched them leave, a convoy of cop cars that still, strangely had their lights rotating. I watched until they disappeared into the woods.
“Who’s Alice Fenway?” Mark asked.
I really wished he’d used the mind meld, because now my father looked like he wanted an answer, too.
“A co-worker,” I said. A witch or a goblin or something. And a woman who’d seen too much.
“What are you doing here, anyway?” I asked my father, partly in a desperate gambit to change the subject and partly because I was genuinely curious. “Not that I don’t welcome your presence, by the way.”
Credit where credit was due. Because of him and the other Council members we hadn’t had to reenact the Battle of the Alamo. Look how well that had turned out.
“Well timed,” Mark said. “But how did you know we needed help?”
“I didn’t,” my father said. He looked at me. “I was coming to see why you hadn’t made the Council meeting. It was a slight that needed to be addressed.”
I knew he would be pissed.
“Did you vote on the Rice divorce?” I asked, turning and making my way down the hall.
My father didn’t speak and I realized I’d done a no-no, speaking of Council business in Mark’s presence. I really didn’t care about that now. I was too busy trying to think of a way to get rid of Austin or my father without either one of them knowing the other one was here.
Before I could formulate a plan, my father reached out and put a hand on my shoulder. I stopped, the Brood still silent, but sticking like glue around my feet.
“I would like to speak to you, Torrance,” he said in that stentorian tone that was so effective in front of a jury.
I nodded, then glanced at Mark. Hopefully, he caught my thought about Austin and would release my brother and convince him to leave Graystone before my father got wind of him being here. I didn’t want to be put into the position of telling my father what he’d done. Hamish would probably banish Austin and that would break my mother’s heart.
Where’s Marcie and Dan?
He’s treating her.
Good, that’s two people I didn’t have to worry about right now. If the rest of my life could be that easy I’d be one happy Were.
That wasn’t happening. Square peg, round hole thing again.
Chapter Twenty-Four
I was going to have to hit something
I led the way into the Sun Parlor, one of the downstairs parlors. The wall covering had once been white silk imported from France, but over the years it had faded to a genteel yellow. I’d been able to match the fabric on the couch and the two chairs arranged in front of the fireplace as well as the large round tufted ottoman. The gold framed pictures on the mantel were all of my family — in their non Furry state, naturally.
My father had grown up at Graystone, but I could count on the fingers of one hand how many times he’d been here since I inherited the house. He and his mother hadn’t been estranged exactly, but they had been irritated at each other at her death. My father was definitely the alpha male of the family and my grandmother refused to obey his edicts most of the time.
I’d gravitated to my grandmother from my earliest memories. Let’s just say that the acorn didn’t fall far from the tree in my family. I was born a rebel.
I couldn’t help but wonder what he thought now as he looked around. I’d made some changes to the house. I’d modernized it electronically, redone the electrical system, and added central heat and air. In addition, I’d restored the massive bell in one of the towers. Granted, I didn’t use it for fear of annoying the city fathers and getting a ticket for noise pollution. But it sat there, waiting.
I didn’t have to pull a rope, either. At the bottom of the staircase to the tower was a clear plastic housing mounted on the wall. Behind it was a red button marked Bell. I didn’t often pass that way, but whenever I did, I smiled, anticipating the day when I didn’t give a flying fig about a ticket or a visit from the police. Graystone’s bell would peal over the countryside and people would stop and stare in our direction. The sound of the bell would mark an important event. Perhaps the day a child was born at Graystone. Or when I married. Some momentous occurrence that would make it worthwhile.
Too bad tonight didn’t count. I was in the mood to ring a few bells.
“Do you want to tell me what went on here, Torrance?”
No, I really didn’t.
I knew I wasn’t going to escape answering his question, but before I did, I asked one of my own.
“Why don’t the vampires tell the world about us?”
Hamish frowned at me, the twin lines between his brows very impressive.
“You were fighting with them,” I explained. “They weren’t falling to the ground all shocked. The vampires know about Weres, don’t they? Why don’t they tell?”
My father looked away, concentrating on the pictures arranged on the mantel. I waited.
“It’s in their best interest to continue shielding us,” he finally said.
That meant we Weres had something on the vampires. Would my father tell me what it was? Or was that alpha-only information? Would Mark know?
I had oodles of questions and zip answers so far.
“Did you lie to the police?” he asked, glancing at the blood on my scrubs. “Have you been injured?”
I was pushing my luck, but I asked another question first. “Have there been any attacks on women after the Hunt?”
He frowned at me, an expression that used to terrify me as a child. At first I’d wanted so badly to please him, to make him proud of me. Later, after I’d recognized that he was the embodiment of the chauvinistic culture in which I lived, I didn’t care about pleasing or making him proud of me. However, he still had the ability to scare m
e when he was angry. At least he had until tonight.
Now I could match him frown for frown.
He walked to one of the chairs in front of the fireplace and sat. I followed, taking the other chair.
“Were you attacked, Torrance?” he asked in a deceptively calm voice. I wasn’t fooled. I saw that vein on the side of his neck pulsing like mad. He was ready to pull someone apart, limb by limb.
“No,” I said.
“And the story about the emergency? Was that true?”
“I’m sorry I didn’t have a chance to change.” Not quite a lie, but not the truth, either.
“Why do you want to know about reported attacks?”
I took a deep breath and told him an abbreviated version of what had happened to me in Kerrville. I wasn’t going to mention the hallucination or the me-Torrance-hear-me-roar toss of a tall and powerful Were into the river. Everything else, however, I divulged.
“He wasn’t going to leave me alone,” I said when I was finished. “He gave me the impression of someone who wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
“I haven’t heard of any reports,” he said after a moment of silence. “But I’ll do some checking. If you were not attacked tonight, then why were the vampires here?”
Oh goody. I was getting in deeper and deeper and I didn’t know how to extricate myself. I didn’t want to mention Marcie because then I’d have to tell him about what Austin had done.
“They were here because of me,” Mark said, entering the room.
I sent him a desperate thought – was Austin still here? His response wasn’t the least reassuring. All I heard was: there’s a problem there.
“What do you mean they’re here because of you?”
My father still looked like he’d like to rearrange someone’s limbs. I had to hand it to Mark. I didn’t know many men, let alone Weres, who were brave enough to challenge my father and that’s exactly what he was doing.
“I’m afraid I’ve incurred the wrath of some of the vampire community because of the work I’m doing.”
My ears perked up. That was new information. What, exactly, had Mark been doing? What was this clinical trial he was involved in?