Derik's Bane Page 5

  What had she done to him? Was it like the rapist who was waiting—

  But she wouldn’t think about that now. What happened back then wasn’t relevant to this poor fucker . . . he was dying before her eyes. He had tried to kill her, but that didn’t mean she wanted him to go toes-up in her kitchen. Poor dumb ass. Even his eye was—

  Actually, it looked a little better. Less red, and the pupil seemed to be . . . shrinking? Shrinking and pulling back, and the red was pulling back, too, disappearing, and then his perfectly whole pupil was fixed on her, and he shifted his weight, and she stumbled backward so fast she tripped over another chair and went sprawling.

  10

  “WELL,” DERIK SAID, WAKING UP. “THAT WAS EMBARRASSING.”

  She scuttled back from him, startled. He blinked down at her. What was she doing on the floor?

  “What are you doing on the—”

  “That was fast,” she said, almost gasped. “One minute you were out cold, and the next—”

  “I’m a quick healer.” He started to get up, then realized he couldn’t. He was—for crying out loud! “You’ve taped me,” he observed. “Taped me to one of your kitchen chairs. That’s a new one.”

  “Electrician’s tape,” she said, gesturing to the depleted rolls on the counter. “A must for every household. Now go back to sleep so I can call the cops, you psychotic freak.”

  He wriggled. He could get loose, but it would take some time. She was fiendish in her cleverness! Tape was tough, and he sure couldn’t untie it.

  “You might not believe this,” he said, “but I’m sort of glad.” And he was! He hadn’t been able to kill her. She was alive, and pissed, and he was actually kind of happy about it, and relieved. It was strange, and probably stupid, but right now he didn’t care. “Sorry about the mess in your house.”

  “Oh, shut up. Listen, you were really screwed up. How, how did you get better?” she burst out. It was as if she’d been dying to ask the question. “You had a blown pupil—do you know what that means?”

  “Well,” he said, “it doesn’t sound very nice.”

  “You got that right. It’s indicative of an aneurysm, get it? Brain bleed? Nothing good, in other words. But you got better while I watched. Which is impossible.”

  “About as impossible as you still walking around alive. And I told you, I’m a quick healer. Got anything to eat around here?”

  “I’m supposed to feed you now? After you tried to kill me?”

  “I’m hungry,” he whined.

  “Tell it to the judge.” She reached for the phone, found it gone, then spotted the pieces of the handset all over the floor. “Damn it! I forgot about that. You’re buying me a new phone, buster. And a new everything else we broke!” She knew, just knew, she would regret lending her bedroom phone to one of her former patients. Rose was a sweetie, but lending never meant lending, it always meant giving, and that was just—

  “Sure, okay. Hey, listen, I’ve got to tell you something.” Man oh man, Antonia would not be pleased. Neither would Michael. Fuck it. “I was sent on a mission to kill you.”

  “I gathered,” she said dryly, “judging from all the murder attempts.”

  “No, I mean, my family sent me here. Specifically, to you. Because you’re fated to destroy the world. And it’s my job to stop you. Except I couldn’t.”

  “And you’re fated for a Thorazine drip, as soon as the nice men in the white coats come.” But she looked troubled, as if she was hearing a voice in a distant room, one that agreed with him completely. “And I—I might have been wrong about your eyes. In fact, after the day I’ve had, a misdiagnosis wouldn’t surprise me at all.”

  “Sure,” he sneered back. “Because you make them all the time.” This was a guess, but he figured Dr. Sara Gunn didn’t get where she was by being a fuckup.

  “Never mind. Now: What the hell did I do with my old phone?” she mused aloud, running her fingers through her red, red hair. It kept wanting to flop in her face, and she kept tossing it back with jerks of her head. It was the brightest thing in the room; he could hardly take his eyes off it. Off her. “Did I throw it out? I don’t think I did . . . I never throw anything out, if I can help it . . . soon as you throw it out you need it again . . . stupid thing.”

  “Listen to me. I’m not crazy, though I totally understand why you think I might be.”

  “Do ya?” she asked with faux brightness.

  “I couldn’t kill you. Get it? Never mind that I think my so-called sacred mission bites the bag; I was trying to kill you, and I couldn’t do it. Don’t you think that’s a little bit weird?”

  “No, I think you’re a little bit weird.” But she frowned.

  “Hasn’t stuff like this happened to you before? Weird days? Strangers popping up out of nowhere trying to do you harm? I can’t believe my family’s the only one who knows about you.”

  “This is California,” she said, looking more than troubled; looking vaguely alarmed. “Weird stuff happens all the time out here. And it’s not even an election year.”

  “Yeah, California, not the Twilight Zone.” He wriggled more and the tape pulled at his arm hairs. “Ow!”

  “Well, sit still.”

  “And starve to death? Forget it.”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake. How long have you gone without a meal?”

  “Two hours.”

  “An eternity, I’m sure.”

  “Fast metabolism. Come on, you have to have something around here.”

  “Buddy, you have got some nerve.” She sounded almost . . . admiring? But she still looked pissed. Not that he could blame her. “Weird stuff . . . you probably said that because you were in on it.”

  “In on what?”

  “Oh, like you don’t know!”

  “I don’t know,” he said patiently. “What are you talking about?”

  “You don’t know about the team of red-robed weirdos who tried to kill me at work.” She said this with total skepticism.

  “No, but I can’t say I’m surprised. See, you’re the bad guy.”

  “I’m the bad guy?”

  “Yup. In fact, you’re fated to destroy the world.”

  She touched her chest, looking flabbergasted. “I am?”

  “Yup. That’s why I was sent to make you take a dirt nap, so to speak. And I bet the crack team of weirdos was sent to do the same thing. So you should do three things: Feed me, untie me, and get the hell out of this house.”

  She stared at him.

  “Don’t think you have to do it in that order, either,” he added, wriggling again. Fucking tape! Why couldn’t she use plain old rope, like his exgirlfriend?

  “That’s it,” she finally said. “I’m calling the police. Right now.” But she didn’t move, and he could smell that she didn’t mean it. She was too confused and curious.

  “Okay, Morgan. Fetch the fuzz.”

  “What did you call me?”

  “Morgan. It’s your other name.”

  “I think I would know if I had another name.”

  “Obviously, you don’t.”

  “Oh, piss off!” she snapped, which almost made him laugh. “I’ve had about enough of this ‘mysterious stranger trying to kill me and then being all cryptic’ garbage. Spit it out.”

  “Okay. You’re the reincarnation of Morgan Le Fay.”

  She threw up her hands. “Oh, please! That’s the best you could do?”

  He shrugged, as much as he could mummified in tape as he was. “It’s the truth. You’re a bad witch, back to wreck the world. Sorry.”

  “First of all, Morgan Le Fay wasn’t necessarily bad. Second—”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I did some papers on her in college. Second—”

  “Uh-huh. Of all the people in the world, living and dead, you picked her. I bet your minor in college had something to do with her.”

  “Lots of people minor in European history. And as for picking Le Fay for a research topic—me and about a
zillion other people through the ages,” she said, but again looked vaguely troubled, as if listening to something he couldn’t hear. Which with his hearing was impossible, frankly. “Tell me, the place where you live . . . are there a lot of doctors there? And little cups of pills?”

  “Very funny, Morgan.”

  “Don’t call me that,” she said automatically, but with no real heat.

  “Look, at least consider the possibility. I mean, why would I come here? I live in Massachusetts, for Christ’s sake, but I come all the way across the country just to wreck your house?”

  “That’s the theory I was going with, yes,” she admitted.

  “Pretty shaky,” he told her. “And today not only am I here, but another group of killers? Would-be killers, I mean? And what happened to them? How come you’re not dead? You avoided me and them?”

  “We haven’t established that you’re not one of them,” she pointed out. “And they ran into some bad luck.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet. I’ll bet that happens a lot around you.”

  “Well . . .” Her brow knitted, and she looked severely cute as she pondered. Her blue eyes narrowed and her forehead wrinkled. “I’ve always been lucky . . . but I don’t think that proves anything.”

  “Since we’re going to talk for a while—which I’m totally fine with, so don’t sweat it—do you have an apple, or maybe you could fix me a PB&J, or something?”

  “Again with the food! You’ve got a lot of nerve, anybody ever tell you that?”

  “Pretty much every day, back home. So, do you?”

  “I don’t believe this,” she muttered but, praise God, she turned to the counter, plucked an apple out of the bowl, grabbed a knife out of the rack, and rapidly cut the fruit into bite-sized pieces.

  She stomped over to him and stuffed three chunks into his mouth.

  “Fgggs,” he said.

  “You’re welcome. So somebody sent you here to kill me because I’m the reincarnation of Morgan Le Fay, that’s what you’re telling me.” He didn’t answer because it wasn’t an actual question. “And other people are also out to get me, because of this.” He nodded, still chewing. “So I shouldn’t call the cops, I should leave.”

  “With me,” he said, swallowing.

  “Oh, that’s rich.”

  “I figure there’s more to this than meets the eye, y’know? So we should take off and see if we can see what’s what.”

  She was cutting up another apple in rapid, angry motions, and he eyed the knife a little nervously; if she got pissed enough to plant it in his eye, he’d probably never howl at the moon again. He was a fast healer, but there was some brain damage that couldn’t be fixed, no matter how close the full moon was.

  “See what’s what,” she repeated. “Yeah, sure. Let’s get right on that.” She jammed a few more pieces into his mouth and, although eating cut-up apples had never seemed particularly erotic to him before, the smell of her and the touch of her skin on his lips was starting to, um, cause him a little problem. Okay, a big problem.

  He shifted in the chair and wished he could cross his legs. “Look, you get kind of weirded out whenever I suggest that there’s maybe more to you than meets the eye,” he said around a mouthful of apple. “So why don’t you tell me? What happened before today? How come you’re so lucky?”

  “I don’t know. I just am. I always have been. My mom used to call me her lucky break.”

  “Oh yeah? Where is she now?’

  “She’s dead.”

  “Oh. Sorry. Mine, too.”

  “Gosh, we’ve got all kinds of things in common,” she said, rolling her eyes and shoving another chunk of apple between his lips.

  “Meant to be, I guess,” he said, chomping.

  “Okay, so, I won the lottery. A couple of times,” she said grudgingly.

  “You what?” He knew she wasn’t lying, but it was still surprising. “More than once?”

  “I tend to get . . . windfalls . . . whenever I’m short of money. And once I needed a few thousand to pay for the last quarter of school, and I won the lottery, and it was exactly the amount I needed. And I got a refund one year when I needed some extra money to—but everybody gets tax refunds.”

  “Yeah, but I’ve never even met one person who won the lottery, never mind won it twice.”

  “Four times,” she muttered.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake! And you’re giving me shit like I’m crazy?”

  “It doesn’t mean anything,” she insisted.

  “Okay, Morgan—”

  “Quit that!”

  “—maybe you can explain how, at the exact moment you needed to get me out of the way, I get a freakin’ brain aneurysm, how about that?”

  “A happy coincidence?” she guessed.

  “For Christ’s sake.”

  “Actually,” she said, clearing her throat, “there was a serial rapist in this area a couple years ago. And, um, he got in somehow while I was at school, but when I came home I found him dead in my kitchen.”

  “Brutally stabbed?”

  “No, um, the autopsy showed he had a congenital heart defect, a minor one that shouldn’t have given him any trouble, but for some reason, while he was waiting here to—to—well, he had an M.I. and died.”

  “What’s an M.I.?”

  “Myocardial infarction. Heart attack,” she said impatiently.

  He gaped at her. “Holy shit, I’m lucky to be alive!”

  “Well, you really kind of are.” She poked another piece of apple in his mouth. “Let the record show I still think you’re nuts. Also, once when I overslept and missed the bus, it crashed, and half the people aboard were killed.”

  “Jesus Christ!” It was all he could say. This was worse—and cooler—than he had ever dreamed. “That’s it, that’s your magic. You’re phenomenally fucking lucky. All the time.”

  “There’s no such thing as magic.” But that species of hellish doubt was on her face again. “Everybody’s lucky.”

  “Sara, for God’s sake. Listen to yourself.”

  “The team at the hospital . . .”

  “Don’t tell me, let me guess. They were like the Three Stooges—or however many of them there were. Knocking heads, falling down, having heart attacks on the spot . . . and you walked away without a scratch.”

  “That might be true . . .”

  “We should go clubbing some night.”

  She laughed unwillingly. “Sure we should. I’m sure the police will let you out in no time.”

  “Oh, come on! After all this, you’re still calling the cops on me? We should get out of here!”

  “You did try to kill me,” she reminded him—like he needed it! He’d never live it down. Derik Gardner, badass werewolf, totally unable to kill a nurse. A nurse with a doctorate, but still. “And I’ve only got your word that you’re not going to try again.”

  “Well, my word’s good,” he grumped. Of course, she couldn’t know that. Not like another Pack member would know it. It made everything harder. Which was kind of cool. Yet aggravating. “And like I said, there’s more to this than what we can smell. I think—”

  “Than what we can smell?”

  “Never mind. Look, let’s do some digging, okay?”

  “Okay!” she said with fake enthusiasm. “Do you want to be Nancy Drew or a Hardy Boy?”

  He ignored the sarcasm . . . he’d had years of practice with Moira. “Let’s find out what exactly you’re supposed to do. I mean, you don’t want to destroy the world, right?”

  “This is the most surreal conversation I’ve ever had,” she commented. “And no. Duh.”

  “So how come anybody who can see the future—I assume that’s how the bad guys knew to come after you—says you’re gonna do just that? Huh? Don’t you think that’s weird? Huh?”

  “That’s not the only thing I think is weird.”

  “Then hold on to your hat, sunshine.”

  She eyed him warily. “What? I’m not really up to more surreal revelat
ions . . .”

  “I’m a werewolf.”

  “Damn it! What did I just say?”

  11

  “I’M A WEREWOLF,” THE GORGEOUS NUT JOB SAID again. He shifted in the chair and winced. She suspected he was sore . . . certainly there was plenty of dried blood on his forehead and speckled all over his shirt. She felt sorry for him and stomped on the emotion. “Soon to be a hairless one, but there you go.”

  “Whine much? Try getting a bikini wax.”

  “I’ll pass.”

  “Look, one thing at a time, all right?” Sara tried not to show how rattled she was. She suspected she was fighting a losing battle. As if her day hadn’t been upsetting enough, she was actually turned on by hand-feeding Hunka Hunka Burning Looney. She could feel the stubble on his chin when she popped more apple slices into his mouth, could feel the warmth of his face, smell the apple sweetness of his breath, could

  (I could do anything to him, anything at all.)

  feel his . . . his . . .

  (He couldn’t stop me. He’s tied up. I could sit on his lap and do . . . do anything . . . )

  Aw, nuts. His lips were moving. More nonsense about

  (the true you)

  Morgan Le Fay, no doubt.

  “What?” she asked.

  “I said, one of my Pack members told me what you were going to do, and my—my boss, I guess you’d call him, he sent me here to take care of you. And not in a good way, F.Y.I.”

  “Sounds like a real prince,” she muttered, trying not to stare at his mouth.

  Derik shrugged. “More like a king, actually, and he’s okay. He’s my best friend, so I had to leave before I killed him.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah. I mean, I couldn’t imagine anything worse than killing a friend.”

  “That’s pretty bad,” she admitted, wondering when she’d checked her sanity at the door. This was definitely the most surreal conversation she’d had in . . . ever. “It’s probably just as well you left town to kill me instead.”