Dead and Kicking (17 page)

“Noooooo! No! You can’t stop me!” DiCastro
sprang to his feet, his eyes glazed like a mad man’s. “You bitch! This is all
your fault.” He pulled the dagger
from his kilt and lunged at me.

I put my arms up to ward off the blow
and the dagger connected with one of the shackles on my wrist and then bounced
off, slicing a shallow line down my forearm.
He lunged again and I caught his wrist, the dagger inches from my chest,
but my legs were still spread-eagled on the altar and I couldn’t get any
leverage. There was a loud growl and a
huge, furry black wolf streaked between DiCastro and
me, taking him down to the floor. I
watched in shock as the giant wolf tore DiCastro’s
throat out. The wolf shook his head and
sneezed like he had tasted something unpleasant, then turned and looked at me,
his muzzle dripping with DiCastro’s blood.

“Uh, nice wolf. Good wolf.” I gestured for the wolf to keep down. “Nash?”

The wolf sniffed at me then tilted
his head back and howled. Across the
warehouse, the other wolves responded.
Nash, or at least the wolf I was pretty sure was Nash, jumped up on the
altar and I fell back in surprise. His
big nose sniffed at my face and then he started licking my cheek.

“Hey! Stop that.” I made a face, pushing his big, shaggy head
away and wiped the wolf slobber off my cheek.
The big brute plunked himself down between my legs and sat, and I swear
he smiled at me, his big wolfy tongue lolling from
his bloodied muzzle. That’s when I
noticed that the front of my dress was still wide open and my breasts were on
full display. I grabbed the remnants of
the dress and clutched them to my chest.
The wolf huffed at me, the equivalent of a wolfy
laugh.

“You big, hairy pervert,” I replied.

“Harry!” I turned to see Tess making her way across
the floor. She was battered and bruised
but okay.

“Tess! Thank god you’re all right.”

As Tess drew near, the wolf jumped to
his feet and started to growl. Tess
stopped in her tracks and dipped her head low in submission.

“Hey, stop that.” I rested my hand on the wolf’s shoulder.

“I don’t think your wolf protector is
going to let anyone else get close to you for a while,” Isaac said as he
approached from the other side of the stage.
He looked rather worse for wear, his clothes in tatters.

“What took you so long?” I looked at Isaac and smiled.

“I had a bit of a disagreement with a
jack and several zombies.” Isaac frowned
and looked at me critically. “Is any of
that blood yours?”

“Just a scratch
on my arm.”
Suddenly, a thought occurred to me.
“The jacks!
There must be two spirit walkers back in the infirmary. We have to get them before they get away.”

“Already taken care of,” Tess
replied. “They wouldn’t let me be part
of the main rescue party since I couldn’t go wolf this far from the full moon,
but they let me be part of the secondary team.
We rounded up the jack pilots and found the rest of the kidnapped
homeless. No sign of Holly though.”

My breath caught in my throat. I had forgotten about Holly and Tess didn’t
know what had happened. I felt tears in
my eyes. The wolf whined and licked my
face. “Oh Tess, Holly’s dead,” I said.

“Good. Saves me from having to kill the bitch,” Tess
all but growled.

“What? You know?”
I looked at her in surprise.

“That she turned out to be a
back-stabbing, traitorous slut? Yeah, I know.”

“DiCastro
killed her. He was just using her to get
to me.” I frowned at Tess. “But how did you know?”

“It was Bryce that figured it
out. He found out that Holly had a
secret email account and he uncovered months’ worth of emails between her and DiCastro, emails where she gave him all our personal
information and bitched about having to pretend to still like us.”

My heart felt heavy with Holly’s
betrayal. I just wanted to go home and
put the whole nightmare behind me. “Do
you think you can find a key or something and get me out of here?” I shook a shackle at Isaac.

Isaac reached into his suit jacket’s
breast pocket - leave it to a vampire to wear a suit to a fight - and pulled
out his lock pick tools. “Allow
me.” He moved towards the altar. The wolf turned his head and growled. “That
is, if your protector will let me near.”

“Come on Nash. Let Isaac unlock these damn restraints. I just want to go home.” I ran my hand
through his thick, coarse fur. The wolf gave my face another lick then sat
down in agreement.

“Yeah, let’s go home,” said
Tess.

And so we did, leaving the vampires
and werewolves to clean up the mess and deal with any of the survivors. Other than the innocent homeless, I really
didn’t care what happened to the rest of the people. As far as I was concerned they were all crazy
and just as guilty as DiCastro. After
all, they willingly and actively participated in the whole shit-show right up
until DiCastro turned the
zombies on them.

Tess took charge the moment we
arrived home. Isaac had dropped us off
in his big
Escalade
and then returned
to oversee the cleanup at the warehouse.
The wolf had curled up beside me on the bench seat in the back of the
SUV and I have to admit, it was rather comforting to have him there, my fingers
twined in his fur. Way better than
having the human Nash grumbling and growling at me.

Tess sent me off to take a shower and
hose all the blood off while she filled the big soaker tub in the
bathroom. The wolf padded up the stairs
beside me, but I adamantly insisted that he did not need to sit watching me in
the shower, or at least I wasn’t going to let him. I wasn’t sure how long Nash had to stay in
his wolf form after shifting. I knew
that some shifters couldn’t switch from their animal shape for at least several
hours, but I suspected that Nash was a powerful enough alpha that he could have
switched back whenever he wanted. He
also wasn’t fooling me with the whole ‘I’m just like a big friendly dog’
routine. I knew that Nash was still in
there.

It felt great to clean all the blood
and grime off, but I was really looking forward to a long hot soak, so I jumped
out of the shower, wrapped myself in a towel and hustled into the bathroom the
moment Tess called to say it was ready.
The wolf was nowhere to be seen. I figured he had tired of playing guard dog so
I was surprised to find him in my tub.
That is to say Nash, the man, was in my tub.

“Hey!
That’s supposed to be my bath.” I
scowled at him. He was reclined at one
end of the huge tub, his arms spread wide, resting on the marble edge, the
water, complete with bubbles, lapped at his chest. Unlike his canine counterpart, the man-Nash
had only a light dusting of hair on his chest, the water giving it a darker,
curlier appearance. He had several
long, angry, red scars across his left shoulder and chest. They were healing and looked weeks old rather than just mere hours.
Chalk one up for werewolf metabolism.

“There’s plenty of room,” he replied
with a smirk.

“Uh, no
thanks.”
I turned to leave, my cheeks burning.

“Chicken.”

For some reason, after everything
that had happened, I just couldn’t bring myself to ignore the challenge in his
tone. I turned and faced the tub,
letting the towel drop, then climbed in at the
opposite end. The water was borderline too hot, just the way I liked it, and I couldn’t
help but sigh in relief as I slid down until the water was at my chin. Nash’s hands skimmed over my legs as he
guided them to either side of his, sending a shiver up my spine.

“Keep your hands to yourself,
buster,” I said.

Nash laughed and held his hands up in
surrender, but any comment he may have made was interrupted when Tess barged through
the door, a plate piled with sandwiches and a container of chocolate milk in
her hands. She was freshly showered and
wearing a kimono-type robe, her wet hair wrapped in a towel.

She did a little double take at the
sight of Nash sharing my tub, hiding a smile while she busied herself with
delivering the food.

“Here, peanut butter and jelly. Eat up. I’m sure you need to refuel.” She set the plate down on the marble tub
surround between Nash and me.

Nash immediately grabbed a
sandwich. “What kind of jelly?”

“Hey! Those are my sandwiches!” I flicked the water at him with my fingers.

“Strawberry,” replied Tess.

“Good. That’s the only way to go.” Nash took a big bite and smiled a wolfish
smile.

“Yeah, I’ve heard that somewhere
before,” I grumbled, grabbing a sandwich of my own. “Thanks, Tess.”

“No problem, Harry,” she replied, her
face taking on a sad expression. “I was
so worried about you. Don’t
ever do that to me again!” She
reached over and hugged my head to her chest.

“Mmmph!” I replied, my
mouth full of peanut butter; plus, it was very had to talk when being
suffocated against someone’s chest. I
sort of let out a little yelp and Tess released her grip.

“Sorry.” She smiled sheepishly. “Oh! I
almost forgot.” She reached into her
pocket and pulled out her cellphone.
“You’ve got a call.”

“On
your
phone?” I guess it made sense
since I had no clue where my phone ended up.
Hopefully it was back at Dante’s with the rest of my clothes. I grabbed the phone from Tess. “Hello?”

“Ah, my dear
Angharad, so good to hear your voice.”

“Salvador.”

“Isaac tells me that you are well, is
this so?”

“I’m fine.”

“Wonderful. I am so relieved to hear it. Your assistance in dealing with our little
zombie problem was much appreciated.” Little zombie problem?
Seriously?
Who was he kidding? “I look
forward to hearing of your adventure when next we see each other.”

“Uh, sure.” I really had no interest
in reliving the whole
adventure
for
Salvador’s entertainment, but I doubted I would have much choice.

“In the meantime,” Salvador continued
on, “I have taken the liberty of sending a small token of my appreciation for
your assistance.”

“That really wasn’t necessary,” I
cringed thinking about the McQueen dress, “and, well, I’m sorry, but the dress
is totally ruined.”

“Not to worry my dear, there are more where
that came from.” That’s what I was
afraid he was going to say.

“Okay. Well, thanks.”

“Good night, or
should I say, good morning, Harry.”

“Good night, Salvador.”

It wasn’t until I hung up the phone
and handed it back to Tess that I realized he had called me Harry. Was it a good thing or a bad thing that I was
now on a first name basis with the scariest vampire in town?

“Well, I guess you don’t need any
more help from me,” Tess said. She eyed
Nash who was helping himself to my chocolate milk and grinned.

“Uh, no. I think I can manage. That is, if wolfman
over there doesn’t hog all the milk.”

Tess left and I finished off my
sandwiches, washing them down with the last of the milk. I lay back and closed my eyes with a sigh.

“Do you want to talk about what
happened?” Nash’s voice was quiet.

“Not really.”

“Okay.”

I heard the water slosh as he stood
and climbed out of the tub. I was too
tired to even take a peek. Honest.

He puttered around a few minutes
drying himself - I kept my eyes closed the whole time - and then he padded out
of the bathroom. I waited a few more
minutes then sighed, before opening the drain and
climbing out of the tub.

Back in my bedroom I intended on just
falling into bed, but it was already taken.

“You can’t sleep here,” I said to
Nash, who was occupying the far side,
my
side
, of the bed.

Nash just looked at me and pulled
back the covers enough to let me in.
“Get in,” he ordered.

“Look, I don’t want to have sex with
you.” I felt awkward standing there in
just a towel.

“I don’t want to have sex with you
either,” he replied, his tone implying mild exasperation.

“Then what are you doing in my
bed? I don’t need to f-feed.” It was true, but I hated that
expression. I had taken on so much power
during the ritual that even with my massive expenditure to banish the zombies,
I still felt fully charged. “You don’t
even like me,” I muttered somewhat petulantly.

Nash huffed out a little breath,
running his hand through his hair.
“Look, the wolf is still upset about what happened. He needs to be close.”

“Fine,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Just stay on your side of the bed.”

***

The next morning, or maybe it was
already afternoon, I awoke to find myself alone in bed. Sighing with relief that an awkward moment
was avoided, I got dressed and followed the smell of bacon downstairs.

When I walked around the corner and
into the kitchen, two things hit me.
First, out of habit, I had expected to see Holly in her usual place
cooking breakfast. The pain of her
betrayal felt like a knife in my stomach all over again. Second, Nash was wearing a
frilly apron and cooking bacon and eggs.

“Good morning,” I said.

“Morning, just barely,” he replied,
expertly cracking an egg onto the griddle.
“How do you like your eggs?”

“Over easy I guess.”

Nash grunted and pushed a glass of
orange juice at me. “Sit down and drink
up. Breakfast will be ready in a few
minutes.”

I guess the wolf wanted to see me fed
as well. I could work with that. The aroma of bacon was making my stomach
growl.

“Have you seen Tess?” I asked, the
house suddenly feeling empty.

“She had to go into work.” Nash turned and put some bread in the
toaster. “She left you a note.” He pointed to a slip of paper hanging on the
fridge.

I grabbed the note and gave it a
quick read. All it said was ‘
Back at 5.
We need a movie night. I’ll pick
up pizza. Make lots of popcorn. WTF the truck?
’

I starred at Tess’s note in
confusion. I had no clue what that last
bit was about. Nash looked at me and
shrugged.

“You better look out back,” he said
and then turned back to the grill. He
plated up some hashbrowns, bacon and two eggs and set
the plate in front of me. “But don’t
take too long or your breakfast will get cold.”

I slid off the stool and hurried over
and threw open the door. There beside my
old beater of a truck was a brand new Ford F-150. It was metallic green and had a great big bow
on top of the hood.

“A truck? A new truck is a small
token of appreciation?” Well, I guess it
was better than another expensive dress.

***

Later that night, after we all but
demolished two large pizzas, a case of beer and a bowl of popcorn, and binged
on the entire original
Star Wars
trilogy (I’m talking episodes IV to VI), Tess excused herself for bed, leaving
me alone with Isaac. Nash had taken off
right after breakfast and the awkward moment I thought I had avoided earlier
made an appearance. I hadn’t heard from
him since. Not that I expected to.

“So do you think what DiCastro was trying to do would have worked?” I asked
Isaac. I really didn’t know whether I
believed if a god, any god, existed.

“No.”
He steepled his fingers in front of his
chin. For movie night he had gone all
casual and he wore black dress pants and a silky dark, almost black, purple,
button front shirt. This was completely
different than my definition of casual which was why I was wearing a one piece
pair of flannel pajamas. With feet.

“You don’t believe the gods
exist?” I asked.

“No, it’s not that. It’s just he would never have succeeded
because he would not have been able to kill you.”

“Uh, hello? He was going to shove a
six inch dagger through my heart. I’m
pretty sure he would have killed me.”

“He may have facilitated your first
death, but not your true death.”

I looked at Isaac blankly. Say what?

“Tell me what happened when you
tasted the blood last night,” Isaac asked, appearing to change the subject.

“I don’t know. I was getting high on all the magical energy
in the room. The blood tasted so good and I…” I
frowned, not really sure of what happened next.
“Something happened and my whole mouth felt like it was cracking open or
something. It was some sort of
hallucination.”

“A
hallucination?
You’re sure that’s all it was?”

“I thought for a minute I had fangs,
Isaac. I’m pretty sure it was just my
mind playing tricks.” I bared my teeth
to him. “Thsee? No fangths.”

Isaac raised his eyebrows at me, a
smirk on his face. “No fangs now, but what about then?”

“No, it was just a weird
hallucination. Why would I suddenly
sprout fangs?”

“You can’t think of anyone you know,
anyone with a beating heart mind you, that has fangs?”

“Well there’s Tomas, but he’s…” I
trailed off thinking about what Isaac was getting at. I had learned that Tomas was a dhamphir, the
living offspring of a vampire and a human.
“You can’t mean?”

Isaac shrugged again. “If the tooth fits.”

I shook my head trying to deny the
truth that had been staring me in the face for a while. My father, whoever he was, was a vampire.

The End.