Blood of a Werewolf (25 page)

He grabbed her neck again, bringing the stars back.
 
“Well, if she was a vampire, who cares? I certainly don’t and this conversation is over.”

“Wait, she wasn’t a vampire.”
 

“You’re lying! You came with a vampire. Why should I believe you?”

“Why would I come here and take my chances with a werewolf if I wasn’t telling you the truth?
 
The story is too bizarre to have been made up. Believe me. Please. She wasn’t a vampire. I swear it.”

“Than why is he here?”

“He loves her and wants to save her.”

“Save her from what? Becoming a werewolf?”

“Is that what will happen? Will she become a werewolf?”

“Probably, if she was injected with enough blood.”

“Is there any way to un-become a werewolf?”

“Why? Do you have a problem with werewolves? Only like the vampire vermin, do you?”

“I don’t know! I’ve never met a werewolf until today. I just want to know how I can help my sister. Wouldn’t you have tried to help Benjamin if you could have?”

“You can’t fix it. There’s no cure.
 
This isn’t Alice in Wonderland, little girl. There are no magical mushrooms to undo this.”

“Then how can I help her? The full moon will be here in two days.
 
What will happen to her? How can I prepare her for what she will become? Make the transformation easier? She’s scared. You had your brother, didn’t you, when you transformed the first time?”

“There’s nothing you can do.
 
The moon will come and she will change.”

“Will she need to feed? Will she understand me?
 
Can she change when there is no moon?
 
Will it hurt? Why are werewolves and vampires enemies?”

“You ask a lot of questions. She will change. It won’t hurt but it’s no picnic. She will feed, if she chooses to. Some werewolves can understand humans when they are changed, others can’t. It’s best if you can speak without speaking.”

“You mean telepathically?”

“Mmmm.”

“Do werewolves feed on humans?”

“No, we do not! We are not vermin parasites like vampires.
 
We only kill humans in self-defense.”

“Is there any other information you can give me?”

“No. Now get out!”

“I’m sorry about your brother.
 
The man who killed him was a despicable human being. Thank you for talking to me.”

“Get out,” he growled and raised his hand to point to the door.
 
But at that very instance, Blake finally decided to come in. Seeing Darby’s bloody throat and the man’s razor sharp claws, he thought the werewolf was going to kill Darby, so he jumped the werewolf man.
 
The werewolf morphed instantly and both were at it like a tornado of fur and fangs.
 

During the ruckus, a werewolf claw came towards Darby, who was unable to move out of the way fast enough. It caught her in the stomach, lifted her in the air and landed her out the door, into the grass fifteen feet away. The violence continued in the house.
 
With her last bit of strength, Darby pulled her phone out of her pocket and texted Devon and Rowan:

Dean Longmont Blake Help

She pressed send and everything went black.

Chapter 18

Rowan was having breakfast at the kitchen table while Harry did a figure eight around her legs.
 
Her phone rang with the familiar and vibrated. She looked at the text from Darby.
 
Oh no!
She tried calling Darby’s phone, but it kept going to voicemail.
 
She tried Blake’s and it too was going to voicemail.
 
She tried texting, emailing, and calling.
 
Nothing.
 
What would Darby do?
she thought.
She’d get help.

She jumped up and ran next door.
 
She pounded on the door, rang the doorbell over and over.
 
Then she got mad.
 
Enough of this!
 
She stood back a little, took a deep cleansing breath and kicked the door in – at least that was the plan.
 
It hurt a lot, but the door didn’t open.
 
She stood back again, closed her eyes and took a deep breath and...kicked the door in – this time though, with success.
Yes
, she said with a little victory dance and a limp.

As she entered the door, she met Devon running down the hall, obviously wondering what had happened. He stopped cold, and sternly greeted Rowan.
 

“You do know how to make an entrance – I’ll give you that.”

“Yeah, well, a lady tries,” she said as she brushed at her jeans and adjusted her shirt.

“You’ll be paying for that, right?”

“Umm. Probably not! You kind of deserved it, after all. But putting that aside for the moment, there’s something wrong.”

“Isn’t there always?”

“Yes, pretty much since you and your brother moved into town, but if you could get over yourself for a minute, have you checked your messages?”

“No, I turned off my phone.
 
I’m trying to work.
 
It’s distracting.”

“I’ll bet it is. Must be terrible to have texts coming in every couple of minutes from someone who loves you and is trying to apologize.
 
I know it’s not my place to say this…”

“That’s right, its not, so don’t. She decided what she was going to do and did it.”
 

“Are you always this crabby when you work? That’s not really…you know what, I came here to tell you that I think they are in trouble, your brother and Darby.”

“So? He can take care of himself.”

“What about Darby? Can she take care of herself against a werewolf?”

“Blake won’t let anything happen to her.
 
Besides, she made up her mind to follow him in this crazy caper.”

“You aren’t going to help me, are you?”

“I think it’s best if I stay out of it. They decided to pursue this, despite the consequences, but I prefer not to go to jail.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The police database hack. I was working online last night and I was running a diagnostic on the firewall and saw that they were downloading a large program remotely from his hard drive here – I’m guessing it’s the hacking program and they intend to go ahead with their plan, and I want nothing to do with that.”

“That’s impossible.
 
Darby wouldn’t let him. No way.
 
They had plenty of information without it.
 
After your fight, she was adamant about it.”
 

“She obviously changed her mind.”

“You really don’t know her at all, do you?
 
All that talk that night, that was just talk.
 
If I know Darby, and I do know Darby, by midnight she would have had the whole house up and out of bed telling everyone that the plan was not acceptable.
 
Too much danger involved.
 
She got caught up in the moment, but when it comes to putting anyone, family or not, in danger, she’d back down.
 
I thought all of this was explained in her letter. She said that she couldn’t understand…”

“What letter?”

“The letter she gave to Blake to give to you the morning they left for Colorado.”

“He didn’t give me any letter.”

“There was a letter, maybe Blake forgot to give it to you or misplaced it, but there is a letter.”

“You’re wrong. Blake wouldn’t keep something that important from me.”

“Maybe you’re the one who’s wrong - wrong for my sister.
 
You’re acting like a twelve-year-old, and you’re not even willing to hear what she has to say, let alone apologize, which I might add, she’s been trying to do since that very evening.
 
Grow up, Devon, and have a real adult relationship.
 
I don’t have time for this. Something is wrong and I’ve got to get to Colorado.”

He seemed stunned by her words, and definitely hurt.
 
She turned on her heels and ran back to her house.
 
There was no time to make a reservation; she grabbed her backpack and jumped in her car. In the car she called 911.
 
Can you call 911 for another state?
she wondered
. I guess we’ll know in a minute.
 
She knew it was against the law to drive while talking on the phone in California, and she thought of Darby scolding her about it, but this was an emergency and she didn’t care.

“This is 911, please state your emergency.”

“Hi, yes, I just received a distress call from my sister.”
 

“Can you tell me what the emergency is, ma'am?”
 

“She’s hurt, yes, definitely hurt.” She could see Darby like there was a transparent movie screen playing in front of her.
 
Kind of like being at a drive-in theater and playing a driving video game all at the same time. Rattled, she found it too hard to drive and see the scene with her sister play out at the same time. She had to pull over so that she could concentrate on her sister and the conversation.

“Ma'am, are you all right? Do you know where your sister is?”

“Kind of.
 
She is somewhere in Longmont, Colorado.
 
She was going to visit a man named Dean.”

“Dean who?”

“Dean, Dean, Dean Wolfe.
 
The house is, is, very run down, like, umm, abandoned looking.
 
Do you have a listing for a Dean Wolfe in Longmont?”

“Hold on, ma'am, let me check.
 
Yes, there is a Wolfe, Dean B. at 1414 Old Oak Hollow Road.”
 

“Please send someone there immediately.
 
She’s bleeding everywhere and there was a young man with her. He may be hurt too.”

“Can I get your sister’s and the young man’s names?”
 

“Yes, Darby O’Rielly and Blake Bloomington.”

“May I also get your name and a number where we can reach you.”

“Yes, my name is Rowan O’Rielly and my cell phone is 415-555-1221, but I am getting on a plane to Colorado as soon as I can manage it. I’m heading for the airport right now.”
 

“Where are you now?”

“California.”

“How do you know your sister and the gentleman are in trouble?”

“She texted me.
 
Please hurry.”

“Yes, ma'am, they’ve already dispatched a patrol car.”

“Thank you, thank you!”

Devon was in the garage looking for a drill to reattach the front door that was hanging awkwardly on its hinges. He thought about his heated conversation with Rowan when he heard her squealing tires on the street out front. He wondered if there was a letter.
 
Blake had been acting oddly since their encounter with Paine, but he wouldn’t keep information from him, would he?

After getting the door back up, he went back to his room to check the progress of the debugging program he had started. He needed to transfer the program over to a portable hard drive, but couldn’t find an unused USB cable.
 
Shoot, maybe Blake has one
.
 
He didn’t like poking around in Blake’s room.
 
He had always given his brother a hard time about going in his room when they were younger.
 
He looked around the computer desk and the bookcase and as a last resort looked in the top drawers of his dresser. There were a couple thumb drives, an old flash drive, and a bunch of cables, but they weren’t USB.
 
As he rummaged in the back of the drawer, unable to see what he was touching, he came across what felt like an envelope. He wrapped his fingers around it and brought it into view. A blue envelope still sealed.
 
He turned it over to see his name written on the front.