Derik's Bane Page 3

  “From whom, actually,” Moira corrected.

  Antonia glared at her. Moira stared back, eyebrows arched, and after a moment the taller woman dropped her gaze. Antonia was one of those rare human/werewolf hybrids, but nobody liked her much. Born of a human father and a were mother, she couldn’t Change, though she had the preternatural strength and speed common to their kind.

  Being unable to Change had been a tremendous burden on her as a child . . . the Pack expected much from its hybrids. Her parents tried—and failed—to hide their despair. Hers had not been an easy adolescence, as much from the tremendous pressure she put on herself, as anything ever said, or intimated. “The only thing I have going for me,” she often said with bitter insight, “are my looks. And around here, gorgeous bims are a dime a dozen.”

  This was true. No one was sure if it was breeding or genetics or great good fortune or the omnivore diet, but werewolves, in addition to being exceptionally strong and exceptionally fast, were exceptionally easy on the eyes. Antonia had enormous dark eyes and creamy skin, long legs and the figure of a swimsuit model, but it didn’t set her apart.

  Nobody had a clue what Antonia was until she woke up the morning of her seventeenth birthday, made herself toast and poached eggs, then fell over in a dead faint. When she regained consciousness, she brushed the egg out of her hair and told her astonished parents, “Michael’s going to get someone pregnant today, will be married by summertime and a father before Easter. Oh,” she added thoughtfully, “the baby will be a girl, and the epidural won’t work for the mom-to-be. Hee!”

  To everyone’s amazement, she had been right. It was the first of dozens of predictions, some mild (“Moira’s going to get stuck with another audit . . . ha!”), some major (“Stay the hell out of New York on September 11, 2001.”). She was never wrong. She was never even off a little bit. No one had seen anything like it. No one was even sure what it meant—could werewolves harness mental power as well as physical? It was a mystery to all.

  And overnight, Antonia had gone from Pack Nobody to Pack Demigod. Piss her off, and nothing might happen . . . or she might foresee your death and fail to warn you, out of spite.

  Now here she was, holding court in the solarium, explaining that the world was going to end unless Derik made it to 6 Fairy Lane, Monterey, California, as soon as possible.

  “You guys know who Morgan Le Fay is?”

  Moira nodded. Derik blinked. “Guess I’ll play dumb blonde,” he said, avoiding Moira’s poke. “No idea.”

  “She was the half sister of King Arthur,” Antonia explained. “She had an incestuous affair with her brother and was responsible, indirectly, for his death. She was also a powerful sorceress.”

  “Uh-huh. That’s fascinating, hon. I like story time as much as the next fella, but this is relevant because . . . ?”

  “I got a line on her.”

  “A line on her,” Moira repeated. “Toni, what in God’s name are you talking about?”

  “An-TON-ee-uh. And Morgan Le Fay is in Monterey Bay.”

  “You’re a poet, and you don’t know it,” Derik joked, and was unsurprised to see both women ignore him.

  “She’s reincarnated and goes by the name of Dr. Sara Gunn. You have to get over there and take care of her. If you don’t, a week from now none of us will be here.”

  Dead silence, broken by Moira’s faint, “Oh, Antonia . . . for real?”

  “No, I made it all up because I want the attention,” she snapped. “Yes! The world’s gonna end, and we’re all fucked, unless the Pack’s answer to The Rock gets his ass in gear.”

  Another brief silence, and then Moira said, “I think—I think I’d better go get Michael and Jeannie.”

  For once, Derik didn’t argue.

  MICHAEL CLEARED HIS THROAT FROM THE DOORWAY. “You’re going, then?”

  Derik straightened up from his packing. He’d tossed a few things into a carry-on and was ready to leave. More than ready. He was taking the Wyndham jet to San Jose, California, and from there he’d pick up a rental car to the Monterey Peninsula. He’d already said good-bye to Moira and Jeannie.

  “Yeah, I’m going now. In fact, I’d better get a move on.”

  “Well. Be careful. Don’t let her get the drop on you.”

  “The reincarnation of the most powerful sorceress in the history of literature, fated to destroy the world in the next few days? No chance,” he bragged, and was relieved to see a ghost of a grin on Michael’s face. “Leave it to me. This’ll be just like the time I agreed to cater your mating ceremony. Except with less flour.”

  “I am leaving it to you,” Michael said seriously. “You knew Jeannie was pregnant again, right?”

  He nodded. They all knew.

  “Well, for God’s sake, don’t tell her you knew before I told you,” Michael said hastily. “I had the worst time pretending to be surprised when she finally got around to breaking the news. And, of course, she knew I wasn’t surprised, and then the shit hit the fan.”

  “It’s not your fault you can smell it on her,” he said, puzzled.

  “You’d think. Anyway . . . my point is . . . everything I have, and am, is in your hands. It’s too bad—” We haven’t been getting along was the obvious end to that statement, but his friend was too tactful to say it.

  “Yeah. Don’t worry, chief.”

  Michael smiled again. “I’m not. Well, I am, a little—it’s how I’m made. But, hell, if anyone can save the world, you can. I’d bet my life on it.” He paused. “I am betting my life on it.”

  Derik was too gratified to speak for a moment. He remembered his earlier words—his earlier actions—and felt his face burn with shame. So he wanted his own Pack—or at least, wanted to be his own man. Did that mean he had to treat his best friend like something to be scraped off the bottom of his shoe?

  “Uh . . . thanks . . . but before I go . . .” He slung his bag over one shoulder, crossed the room, and started to hunch lower, prepared to show throat.

  Michael grasped his shoulder and jerked him back up. “Don’t do that,” he said quietly. “For one thing, you’re off to save the world, so as far as I’m concerned, the slate’s clean between us. For another, Moira says you could be alpha. Since I’m pretty sure she’s never been wrong about anything—”

  “It’s annoying,” Derik agreed.

  “—it’s best for you to get out of the habit of showing throat as soon as possible.”

  Derik paused. “So . . . we almost had to chacha today, but because I’m gonna save the world, you’re gonna let that go?”

  “That’s just the kind of swell guy I am,” Michael said solemnly, and both men cracked up, their laughter sounding more like howls than anything else.

  5

  THE MONTEREY PENINSULA

  HE KNEW IT MADE HIM SHALLOW. HE KNEW HE WAS probably too old for such nonsense. He knew he should be focused on saving the world. But he couldn’t help it.

  Derik loved convertibles. And this one was sublime—electric, eye-watering blue, with leather seats and a superb sound system. Robert Palmer’s “Addicted to Love” was tearing his head off, because, joy of joys, he’d found a local all-eighties rock radio station. The weather was gorgeous—low 70s and sunny—and his proximity to the ocean meant that thousands and thousands of tantalizing scents were on the air.

  He took a gulp and dizzily tried to process.

  Derik’s nose was an instrument of frightening precision, but even it could be confused and overwhelmed. Shit, that was half the fun of a convertible! Right now he was smelling seaspraylilacshottarmacdeerpoopraccoonsseagullfeathers— whoops! Now he was getting a tantalizing whiff of fishoceangrasslawnmowerexhaustpossumfriedchicken and—thank you, Jesus!—girlsweat and Dune perfume.

  I am in California, land of babes and cool cars and movies-of-the-week, but I can’t think about that until I save the world.

  At the thought of what was riding on this little day trip, his heart lurched. He had always thought of himself as
a mellow kind of fellow (recent events notwithstanding), and if someone had told him he’d be responsible for saving the world—not the Pack, or even his closest friends, but the world, the entire world . . . well, his mind just couldn’t get around it. It would try, and then it would veer away and think about something stupid, like how great it was to find an eighties radio station so far from home.

  Saying good-bye to Lara did it. Brought it home for him, however briefly. He loved that little stinker like she was his own pup. He’d die for her in a New York minute. He’d wring the neck of anybody who hurt her and snap the spine of anyone who made her cry. But if he fucked up—if this Morgan gal got away from him—Lara would never make it to first grade. Never go on a date, never experience her first Change. Never grow up to be his boss, the way her daddy was.

  Shit, he’d almost burst out crying just saying good-bye to her.

  Quickest done, quickest back home. Not that he was so terribly anxious to go back home—the mansion held its own unique set of problems. Derik figured you knew your life was screwed up when you were almost glad you could use saving the world as a distraction.

  Well. He and Mike would work shit out. They had to. Otherwise—otherwise, he just would never go home again, even though that probably wasn’t the best way to handle things.

  He didn’t trust himself around Mike, that was all. If he lost his temper and things got way out of hand, the deed would be done, and Mike would be dead, and he’d be Pack leader, and Jeannie would be a widow, and Lara would be without a daddy, and then he’d probably go off in a corner and blow his brains out. Better to be a (coward) loner than risk that. Way better.

  SARA GUNN THRUST HER FOOT INTO THE SECOND pair of panty hose of the morning and, incredibly, had the same thing happen. There was a zizzzzzzzz! sound, and then her big toenail ripped a runner through her last pair of panty hose.

  “Right,” she grumbled. “Why is it that when I’m running late, everything goes wrong? More important, why am I talking to myself?” She jerked the nylon torture chamber off her foot and flung it over her shoulder to the floor. “Okay, then . . . it’s gorgeous out. A perfect day to go bare-legged.” She ran a hand down her left leg. A little raspy, but hardly Yosemite Sam whiskers. Note to self: Shave legs more often when low on panty hose.

  She heard the doorbell, that annoying dum-DUM-dum-dum . . . dum-DUM-dum . . . dum-DUM-dum-dum-DUM! Dah-dum-dah-dum-dum. She cursed her late mother’s infatuation with Alex Trebek and Jeopardy. Every time she had a visitor, she felt like phrasing everything in the form of a question.

  I will never see twenty-five again . . . or twenty-eight, for that matter, and I never quite managed to move out of my mother’s house. Nice one, Gunn. Not pathetic at all!

  She slipped her feet into a pair of low-heeled pumps and squinted distractedly at the mirror. Hair: presentable, if not exactly glamorous, caught up in one of those big black clips that looked like a medieval torture device. Skin: too pale; no time for makeup. Eyes: big and blue and bloodshot—damn that Deep Space Nine marathon, anyway. Suit: cream linen, which meant she’d be a wrinkled mess in another hour. Legs: bare. Feet: narrow and stuffed into shoes so pointy, she could see the crack between her first and second toe.

  “Too bad, my girl!” she told herself. “Next time don’t hit the snooze button so many times.”

  Dum-DUM-dum-dum . . . dum-DUM-DUM . . . dum-DUM-dum-dum-DUM! Dah-dum-dah-dum-dum.

  “Be right there!” She hurried out of her bedroom, glanced through the kitchen, and breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of the loaner car. Finally! David, her mechanic, had at last had a chance to send over a loaner car for her use. A flashy loaner car, at that. Well, beggars can’t be . . . et cetera. The other loaner had conked out after an hour—was it her fault she couldn’t drive a stick?

  She flung the door open. “Thank goodness you’re—whoa.”

  She stared at the man standing on her front porch. He was, to be blunt, delicious. He was to Homo sapiens what a hot fudge sundae was to vanilla ice cream: a complete and total improvement on the original. A full head taller than she was, he practically filled the door frame. His blond hair was the color of sunlight, of ripe wheat, of—of something really gorgeous. He had swimmers’ shoulders and she could actually see the definition of his stomach muscles through the green T-shirt he wore. The shirt had the puzzling logo “Martha Rocks” in bright white letters. He was wearing khaki shorts, revealing heavily muscled legs tapering into absurdly large feet, sock-less in a pair of battered loafers. His hands, she noticed, were also quite large, with squared off fingers and blunt, short nails.

  He was lightly tanned and had the look of a man equally at home camping in the woods, lounging poolside, or hunched over a computer. His eyes were the brilliant green of wet leaves, and they sparkled with turbulence and lusty good humor. His mouth was wide and mobile and looked made for smiling.

  He was smiling at her.

  Get a grip, she ordered herself. She was annoyed to find her pulse was racing. It is unbelievably juvenile to be panting at this man, when all he’s done is ring your bell twice and stand there. He hasn’t even opened his mouth and you’re practically a puddle on your own doorstep. He—oh, oh! He’s talking!

  “—wrong house.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I said, I must have the wrong house.” His smile widened, as his gaze raked her from head to foot, taking in her bare legs, scuffed shoes, rumpled suit, and messy hair. His teeth were perfectly straight, almost blindingly white, and looked sharp. The guy probably ate his steak raw. He could make a fortune doing Chiclets commercials. “I’m sorry to bother you.”

  “No, you’ve got the right house. I’ve been waiting for the loaner.” She nodded at the flashy little blue convertible. “The other profs are going to accuse me of entering my midlife crisis a little early, but what can you do? Come in. How are you getting back to the garage?”

  He stepped inside, and as she reached past him to shut the screen door, she was reminded all over again—as if she needed it!—just how large he was. She was not a petite woman by any means—in fact, she ought to lay off the chocolate croissants—but he made her feel absolutely tiny. She caught a sniff of him and nearly purred. He smelled like soap and male. Big, clean male.

  He glanced around her kitchen. “Listen, I don’t want to put you out, but can you tell me which house is number 6 Fairy Lane?”

  “It’s this one,” she said with bare impatience. Gorgeous, but not terribly bright. Well, nobody was perfect. “I told you, you’re in the right place. I’m running late for rounds, so if you could just arrange to have someone pick you up—”

  “Yeah, I’ll do that. ’Cuz there’s obviously been a mistake.”

  “Tell me about it,” she said, looking at him with longing. In a perfect world, he would be her pool boy. Instead, she was late for work and he had to hitch a ride back to his place of business. “Well, thanks for dropping off the car—see you.”

  He followed her onto the porch. “It was nice meeting you. Sorry about the misunderstanding.” But, interestingly, instead of being regretful, he sounded weirdly relieved.

  Odd! But, she had no time to ponder it. “Bye!”

  She got the car going with no trouble—she’d heard the phrase “the engine purred like a kitten” before but had no real experience with it until now—and pulled out of the driveway. She waved to the man who should have been her pool boy, who was looking as though he’d had a touch of sun, and dropped the pedal.

  6

  DERIK WENT TO THE NEAREST SAFE HOUSE, THE one down the block from the aquarium. An adorable cub answered the door, a boy about eight years old with big dark eyes and black hair.

  “Hi,” Derik said. “Are your folks home?”

  “Sure. What’s your name?”

  “Derik.”

  “Okay. Come on in.”

  Derik followed the boy into a kitchen that smelled like cookie dough and found the lady of the house up to her elbows in butters
cotch chips. “Well, hi there,” she said, her greeting a soft Midwestern twang. “My name’s Marjie Wolfton; this is my son, Terry. Do you need some help?”

  “Just a private phone. I’m—uh—sort of on a mission to—um—never mind.” He just couldn’t bring himself to say “save the world.” It was too bizarre.

  Marjie, however, seemed to know all about it. Either that, or she was used to strange werewolves showing up at her door. “Yes, of course. Terry, show Derik the den.”

  “Okay.” The boy snatched a fistful of dough and disappeared down a hallway. Derik followed him into the den, which had a hardwood floor, windows set into the ceiling, a computer, a phone, and a television.

  “Are you from Massachusetts?” Terry asked.

  “Uh-huh.” He was going to have to call Antonia and figure out this mess. No way was that distracted cutie Morgan Le Fay. No way. “How’d you know? Am I dropping my Rs?”

  The boy ignored the question. “And you live with Michael Wyndham? The Pack leader?”

  Derik looked at the boy, really looked. That was pure hero worship, if he wasn’t mistaken. And since he used to think of Michael’s father in the exact same way, Derik completely understood where the kid was coming from. Men who took a Pack . . . ran a Pack . . . they were just . . . different. More there. And they could make you like them. It was a talent, the way some people could raise just one eyebrow. It was hard to explain.

  “Yeah, I live out there with those guys. Michael’s my best friend.” Was? Is? Save the world first, he reminded himself. Then you can worry about it. “He’s a really great guy, and his wife is supercool. You should try to get out to see him sometime.”

  “I’m going when I’m twenty.” The age of consent, for werewolves. Eighteen was too damned young; everybody knew that. “I’m going to see if he needs a bodyguard, or maybe Lara will.” The boy hugged himself and smiled. “I can’t wait! I bet it’s so cool, living in a mansion with all the boss weres.”