No problem.
Derek scrambled over the gate, clearing it easily, courtesy of his slight obsession with assorted martial arts and fitness. Hey, if something was going to try to murder him next week, he was going to make damn sure he was fit enough to fight for his life, right? Amen, brother.
He raced up the rickety stairs to the back deck, and nearly tripped over his cousin, who was sprawled in a lawn chair. Elated disbelief rushed through Derek. He'd found him! "Les! Didn't you hear me?"
"Jesus. You just don't know when to drop it. Fuck off." Les was holding a reflective cardboard piece across his chest to catch some rays. A horrifyingly small bathing suit stretched to the limit across his hips, the yellowing fabric barely visible beneath his expansive gut. His hairy feet were partially covered by the green, murky water of a plastic wading pool.
Oh, damn.
That was just not a sight anyone needed to see.
Honest to God, the things a guy needed to do in order to break a family curse, right? Derek averted his eyes before the sight could be entrenched forever in his brain. "It's time, Les."
"I'm not interested in your shit." Les didn't even bother to open his eyes.
Derek scanned the backyard, searching for rabid chipmunks and homicidal yard implements that might develop a mind of their own. "You're supposed to die in less than two minutes. I'm here to save you."
"I already told you. I don't need saving. I'm a fantastic model of male perfection exactly as I am." He paused to belch. "Take your insanity off my property, dude."
"Damn it, Les. I'm not insane."
"Are too."
Are too? Really? Because every grown man should throw out retorts worthy of a six-year-old brat. "Listen to me, Les," Derek said urgently. "You're going to hit the expiration date for LaValle men in just over a minute." He raised the bat into the ready position, settling it on his shoulder. "You might want to get off your ass and grab a metal rake or something to help me defend you." I know you're out there, you murderous son of a bitch. I'm ready for you.
"Fuck that." Les took another drag of beer and waddled his ass deeper into the lawn chair. "Everything always works out for me."
"Everything? Really? You're so sure about that?" Derek eyed the rusted motorcycle sunken into the weeds. Could that come flying at Les? That would be deadly, for sure. Shit. There was so much junk in the yard that could be lethal.
"Hell, yeah." Les waved his hand around the broken-glass and weed-filled backyard. "Look at this glory. I sit out here, drink beer, and get high, then go play Internet poker. I haven't punched a time clock in six years, because I'm a freaking genius at working the disability game. I'm one of those lucky bastards, Cuz. Hell, they just made pot legal in this state. I have shitloads of cannabis in my house, and my health insurance paid for it. I live a gifted life, my friend. Gifted." He stretched his arms up and then clasped his hands behind his head. "The other LaValle men were unlucky sons of bitches, but that's not me. I'm a fucking god."
"Unlucky? Hell, Les, it's not a matter of bad luck." Derek's dad had made the same claim, but that hadn't stopped a wayward butter knife from taking him down, right in front of seven-year-old Derek, while they'd been sampling a no-calorie waffle together. Derek had managed to perfect a no-carb-soft-pretzel recipe by the time he was eighteen, but replacing his dad? Not so much.
And how could bad luck explain his Uncle Jack, who'd been lethally impaled by a cotton-ball? Or Grandad Howie, who'd choked to death on lemonade? And let's be honest, folks, newborn babies don't usually generate enough power with their kicks to give fatal brain damage to tenth degree black belts, like his cousin Tony. The fact that his fifth cousin, twice removed, had shot himself in the head while cleaning his gun could have been bad luck, except, of course, for that precise age he'd been when it had happened. And pet hamsters? Really? How many of them maul a three-hundred-pound iron worker to death?
Every LaValle man had died, and every single one of them had died at the same age, down to the second. There was no chance that could be anything but supernatural, as if fate was grabbing whatever was available at that precise moment. Who the hell could be stupid enough not to realize that there was something supernatural going on? "I'm staying, Les."
"Then I'm calling my mom and telling her you're over here talking about the Curse again," Les whined. "And then I'm going to call the cops and—"
"Shut up and let me concentrate." He glanced at his watch. Forty-five seconds to go. "Maybe you should go inside. You could drown in that pool." His bat wasn't going to be much good if the water suddenly swelled up in a massive tsunami and swept Les away. Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation with Les was just not something that he wanted to be thinking about right now.
"You go inside. Get me another beer." Les let his head drop back against the lounge chair straps. "Order a pizza while you're at it."
Derek looked up at the sky. No lightning bolt could come out of that blue sky, could it?
Ten seconds.
He kicked an old pizza box off the deck. He wasn't sure how cardboard could be deadly, but he wasn't taking any chances.
Les yawned. "I'm gonna take a nap."
Five seconds.
Les belched again and picked up his beer.
"Give me that bottle. I don't want glass near you." Before he could grab the bottle, Derek's phone alarm went off, and a huge rock came careening over the back fence, heading straight for Les's head.
Les screamed and dove out of his chair. Derek swung for the rock. It shattered his bat but ricocheted away from Les and smashed through the living room window.
Derek whirled around, ready for another incoming assault, but the yard was quiet.
Nothing else was happening.
Nothing else was coming in for attempt number two.
Slowly, a stunned disbelief settled over him. He'd done it. He'd intervened and stopped the Curse from getting his cousin. Son of a bitch. It was over. Letting out a deep, shuddering breath, he lowered the handle of the bat, barely able to let himself relax. "Believe me now, Les?"
There was no response, not even an obnoxious, ungrateful whine.
Derek spun around, then swore. His cousin was lying on the deck, motionless, his neck twisted at an angle that was unnatural and very, very wrong. His eyes were open and staring, without nearly enough alcohol-induced haze for him to still be alive.
Son of a bitch. Dead. Right on time. "Dammit, Les. Why didn't you listen?"
No one listened. And everyone died.
Well, Derek wasn't going to die, and his twin wasn't either.
So what if he had less than a week to solve a problem that he'd spent his life failing to fix? Deadlines were fantastic motivators, right? So, it was all good. He was going to figure this shit out, and he was going to do it in time.
He glared at the overgrown backyard. "You've just taken your last LaValle man, you hear me?"
There was a weird cackle, almost like maniacal, possessed laughter. It didn't sound human. It didn't even sound like it was of this world. It sounded like a freaking nightmare coming for him.
Chills crept down his spine.
A Curse with a warped sense of humor?
Or he was officially starting to crack.
Neither option felt really fantastic, so yeah, he was going to just pretend he hadn't heard that.
But as he pulled out his phone to call 9-1-1, he couldn't deny the truth.
He'd heard it.
Someone…or rather…something had laughed.
Chapter Two
Derek had a feeling he was forgetting something.
Given the high stakes he was operating under at the moment, the sense that he'd overlooked something important was increasingly concerning.
It had been four hours since Les had died. Four hours of police, ambulances, and other red tape that happened when someone died, all things that had been keeping him from trying to figure out his next steps.
But he was free now, and hauling ass down the hallway at his a
lma mater, a very elite university that currently employed his twin brother as their resident math guru, because moments like this were best spent with the brother who was going to die next week if the Curse wasn't stopped.
But what had he forgotten?
He was just reaching for the handle of his brother's office door when his phone rang, the one ringtone that he didn't dare silence. Good employees were important to keep happy, and when you have the best CEO on the damned planet running the business that you'll abandon if all goes as planned and you die next week, you answer the phone. Becca Gibbs never slept and got more work done in an hour than most people accomplished in a month, which made her a damn good second-in-command, and he wasn't going to mess that up by ignoring her call. "What's up, Becks? I'm kind of occupied right now."
"You're occupied? Really?" As a rule, Becca was exceptionally skilled at using sarcasm to let him know when she thought he was being an asinine shit. Today, the amount dripping off those three words was almost enough to ooze out of his phone. It was impressive, and it was also enough to let him know that she was really pissed.
Derek stopped and dropped his hand from the doorknob. "Um…yeah. Why?"
"Well, the folks from McDonald's are here to talk to you about selling our pretzels in their restaurants, and guess who isn't here to talk to them?"
Oh…shit. The "I feel like I've forgotten something important" feeling was making more sense now.
"You, Derek," she snapped, answering her own question. "That's who isn't here. You. The meeting was supposed to start five minutes ago, and you're not here."
"Sorry, Becks." So, he hadn't fucked up, exactly. He'd prioritized things in a way she didn't approve of, which was better than a curse-related strategic error. Pissing off Becca wasn't nearly as bad as contributing to his own demise. "I don't have time to deal with them. We need to reschedule."
"Reschedule?" She almost shouted the word. "Don't you realize what a huge opportunity this is?" Her voice shot up a few more decibels. "You can't miss this meeting!"
Oh, he was so going to miss that meeting. "I had a situation earlier, and I need to meet with my brother now."
"Derek!" Becca went all in on the volume, which would have made him cringe, except that even Becca couldn't compete with the opportunity to thwart death. "You blew off Dunkin' Donuts last week because you were in the library doing research on that goblet, and you missed the Starbucks meeting on Friday because you saw a girl with a dragon tattoo at lunch and got arrested for stalking her. Arrested! You were on the Forbes top ten list two days earlier, and then you're in freaking jail!"
Yeah, that had been awkward when the Forbes publicity person had called him on that one. "Hey, she was thrilled to drop the charges in exchange for a trust fund for her unborn daughter's college and grad school. Everyone ended up in a better place, so it's all good."
"For God's sake, Derek, it's not good!" Becca made a noise that kind of sounded like she was choking on her rage, which was sort of impressive. That took a lot of rage to actually choke on it, as opposed to just engaging in the literary euphemism. "These are incredible distribution opportunities, and you need to take them seriously. McDonald's wants an exclusive, and we need to think about whether that makes sense for us, and we can't do that if you're off chasing some damned mumbo-jumbo myth!"
Damn, he'd hired well. She was amazing. "Have I ever told you what a badass you are?"
She paused. "Not often enough, but thanks." She sounded genuinely pleased. "I appreciate it."
"You bet." Derek might be a god with pretzels, but when it came to the minutia of managing his multi-billion dollar no-carb soft pretzel business, he couldn't be bothered with prioritizing it over finding a way to live past next week.
Lucky for Vic's Pretzels, and all the LaValle heirs, Becca didn't give a shit if he died, so she wasn't at all distracted by his situation. Synergistic team perfection. Hiring Becca five years ago had been his best business decision since opening Vic's Pretzels. She was a business and marketing guru, and the stock price of Vic's Pretzel's proved it. It gave him time to pursue more important things, like breaking a curse. Not that Becca agreed with his priorities.
Who did?
No one.
Of course, everyone who knew of his plans thought he was insane, so he supposed the fact they didn't support him was to be expected. "Listen, why don't you go ahead and meet with them. You're a hell of a lot more on top of things than I am, and they'll be thrilled to work with you instead of me." He reached for the doorknob. "I'll call you when I'm done here—"
"No." Becca wasn't finished. "These people want to meet with the inventor of Vic's No-Carb pretzel, not his lieutenant. I will stall them for exactly thirty minutes and if you don't get your designer-clad hiney over here by then, I'm going to hand them the recipe and tell them to have at it." She slammed down the phone.
She'd sounded like she meant it. Crap. He'd have to make his meeting with his soon-to-be-dead-unless-he-could-stop-it brother quick and get back to the office while he still owned the rights to his own invention.
Swearing under his breath, he jerked the door open and stepped inside. "Quin!"
Quincy LaValle, his math genius brother, jumped, spilling coffee all over his desk. "Damn you, Derek. Why do you always do that?"
"Sorry." Derek slammed the door shut and strode across the office. His brother was wearing a plaid oxford, a tie that was slightly askew, and his almost-short dark hair looked like he'd forgotten to brush it again. "Quin. I need to talk to you. Les—"
"Good afternoon, Derek," a female voice said from behind him, a voice he didn't recognize.
At the interruption of what needed to be a private family discussion, Derek spun around to find his brother's admin, Wendy Monroe, standing at the dusty, antique filing cabinet behind him. He was so shocked by the sight of her that for a moment, he could do nothing but stare.
Wendy had changed.
In the two weeks since he'd seen her last, his brother's buttoned-up, stodgy, color-averse admin had changed.
Not just a little.
Not just a new haircut or shade of makeup.
She had become someone else.
The Wendy he knew wore shapeless gray suits that made her blend into the aging woodwork. Her gray-streaked hair was always wrenched mercilessly into a tight bun. Her large, thick glasses with huge rims made her look like she'd attached two magnifying glasses to her face. And she was always wearing the same pair of worn-out brown shoes that looked like they belonged on a nun on a cross-country peace march.
That Wendy had vanished.
In her place was a Wendy who was sporting a very short leather skirt, a tight red sweater that was more like a second skin than fabric, and platform heels designed for sin, not filing papers. The bun was gone, and her blond and fuchsia-streaked hair was cascading down around her shoulders in thick waves. She was no longer wearing glasses, and her eyes were such a vibrant, electric green he couldn't believe he'd never noticed them before.
Holy crap. "You look…" He paused, not sure exactly how appropriate it would be for his jaw to drop onto the floor and gape at her. So he just sort of shrugged. "I like the hair."
She smiled at him and looked him in the eye, instead of focusing on his shoes, like she had every other time they'd ever spoken. Where the hell was the real Wendy and what had they done with her body?
"Thank you, Derek." She flipped her hair at him and strode across the room toward Quincy, using her hips for emphasis as she leaned across the scattered papers on his brother's desk to wipe up the coffee spill. Was she purring? He thought he heard purring.
"Are you going out after work tonight?" Maybe this was the off-duty Wendy and she'd just hidden it really well until now.
"No. No plans." As she mopped up the coffee spill, her gaze flicked toward Quincy, and Derek saw a gleam in her eyes that hadn't been there before. Had she finally realized what every other woman on campus already knew? That his anti-social, absent-minded professor bro
ther was a total chick magnet? That would account for the new sweater and colored hair…maybe?
"Quincy? Do you need anything else?" she asked.
There was a definite purr to her voice. Holy crap. Derek felt like he'd just entered an alternate reality. He'd honestly believed Wendy had the charisma and social skills of a piece of plywood, but now? He had no clue how to respond to what he was seeing.
Quincy was already back at the computer typing away, somehow oblivious to the metamorphosis that had happened in his own office. "All set, Wendy. Thanks." He waved his hand vaguely in her direction. "Have a good weekend."
She gave Derek a knowing smile, like they were long-lost pals with private secrets. "It's Monday, Quincy," she said, patiently. "You have to teach class in forty-five minutes."
Quincy looked up from the computer. "Really? It is? What class?"
"It's your freshman lecture." Wendy set a sheaf of papers in front of him. "These are the tests you're handing back to the students today. And on top are your notes for your lecture."
Yeah, okay, that was normal Wendy, taking care of his brother with unflappable competence. So, she was the real Wendy, but in some jazzed-up wrapper that didn't fit the woman who had been getting his brother to class on time for the last two years.
Maybe that was okay. Maybe this new Wendy would finally get Quin to look up and notice he had romantic potential in his life. Maybe Derek would encourage Quin to start dating her…after they'd taken care of the Curse, of course.
Until they beat it, relationships were pretty much doomed. Telling your date that you'll be dead at age thirty-one was a real first-date buzzkill. Being beheaded by a green bean didn't mesh with domestic visions of white picket fences and 3.2 kids, as their dad's unfortunate butter knife encounter had proven. How do you explain to your friends at school that your dad was the victim of a wayward kitchen utensil that had been momentarily possessed by a supernatural force?
It had been awkward at best, and pretty much a shoo-in for getting dumped in a trashcan at recess.
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