I realized I'd possibly made a grave error in letting her eat the paper, but she was not one to screw with. If the Hummer caught fire it would blow up pretty fast.
"Okay, fine. What was on the paper?" I asked, realizing it was crap I probably needed to know.
"Your question should be—where did I get the papers?" she corrected me.
"I'll bite. Where did you get the papers?"
"Angela's desk—in a folder labeled confidential."
"Is she stupid?" I shouted. "Why would she leave a folder labeled confidential on her damn desk?"
"Maybe she's not stupid at all," Hank interjected reasonably. "Do you think she left it there so we would find it—and possibly find her?"
I was silent. I took some air in through my nose and blew it out through my mouth. There was a very good reason to have partners—especially when part of the mission was to protect your own family. My conflicts of interest were starting to screw with my ability to think rationally. Shitballs.
"That's all kinds of brilliant," I muttered, pissed I hadn't thought of it. "Angela's leaving us clues because she knew we'd come back for her."
"Jesus Hesus," Dima said with appreciation. "You Wolves are smarter than the rest of the Shifter world says you are."
"What in the hell is that supposed to mean?" I snapped and moved to take a piece out of the Dragon.
Thankfully Hank took one hand off the wheel and put it on my shoulder. "You can punch her in the head, but under no circumstances can you kill her or do anything that will take more than an hour to heal."
I nodded curtly and reined in every instinct I had to remove her head. "Tell me what was written on the papers," I insisted.
"Pee, then talk," she said guardedly. "I have to pee too."
"You'll remember what you just ate?" I asked with raised brows.
"Yep." She grinned and winked. "I have a photographic memory."
"Lovely," I said with a glee. "You'll also have constipation or god knows what considering you just ate ten pages of paper recycled from cow and horse poop."
The silence was deafening. I could literally see her brain working trying to figure out if I was screwing with her.
I wasn't.
It was all kinds of awesome.
"We need to pull over now," she screeched as she gagged. "Paper is not supposed to be made out of poop."
"Correct," I said with a casual shrug. "I refuse to even write on the shit—pun intended. However, those pesky Wolves are trying to save trees and have found new, innovative and stanky ways to make paper products."
"I did wonder about the brown flecks," Dima choked out.
"Did it taste like poop?" Hank inquired as he quickly pulled into a rest stop filled with church buses.
"Since I don't eat poop," Dima snapped, "I wouldn't know."
"But you do eat people?" Hank asked.
"I do not eat people," she yelled.
"But your people eat people?" I prodded nicely.
"Occasionally," she hissed. "And your people sniff each other's asses when in animal form…"
She had a point—and a foul one at that.
"I'm not into the ass sniffing thing," I said with a shudder.
"I did it a couple times in high school, but then the actual mechanics of what I was doing kicked in and I had to stop," Hank volunteered without an ounce of shame or embarrassment.
"Have you ever eaten a person?" I asked Dima, trying to level the playing field a bit after my mate's horrific admission.
"Well… yes, but it was a long time ago," she admitted.
"How long?"
"Um, about two hundred and fifty years ago—give or take a few years," she answered as she hopped out of the car and high tailed it to the bathroom.
How in the hell old was she?
The rest stop was typical—vending machines and bathrooms up against the backdrop of a scraggly forest. The parking lot was full of busses and cars sporting large full color photos of a guy who looked vaguely familiar. I just couldn't place him…
"You think she'll make it to the bathroom before she hurls?" Hank asked as he got out and stretched his long sexy legs.
"I'm gonna say yes. She's fast and apparently really old."
"The ruling Dragon family is older than dirt. I'd put her father at approximately a thousand or so, and Dima at around five hundred."
"Really?" I asked surprised. I knew she was probably older than us, but I didn't think she was older than Dwayne and everyone else I knew combined. Dragons clearly stopped aging at about thirty.
"Yep."
"Why hasn't she killed her father before now if he's so awful?" I asked as I meandered up the sidewalk toward the bathrooms.
"Don't know," he answered. "You'll have to ask her."
We both tried to avoid the throngs of talkative and pushy church-goers who were wearing Jesus for President t-shirts. I shook my head in confusion. Were they just stupid or were they stupid? And then it hit me. There had to be hundreds of them milling about. It was perfect—or perfectly awful.
I froze and Hank almost tripped over me.
"You okay?" he asked concerned.
"Yes… but I'm fairly sure I'm going to hell," I replied.
"Why are you going to hell?" Hank asked and then started to laugh.
"Should I tell them?" I asked with a scrunched nose.
"If you wanna make it a thing this is probably a very fine place to start."
"You think?" I asked as I screwed up my courage to lie like a rug.
"Yep. This is not just any church group—it's the group who does the live show with the pastor who’s gone to prison a few times for tax evasion, among other things," he said with disgust.
"The one who has six wives and wants all gays and Buddhists deported to third world countries?" I asked with narrowed eyes, thinking of Dwayne—my wonderful gay Vampyre BFF. Now I knew why the guy plastered on the sides of the cars and busses looked familiar. He was shyster skank-hole Pastor Bob.
"Yep," Hank replied and watched me closely. "You cannot maim them. We don't have time. However, you do have enough time to screw with their heads."
"Jesus does not hate gays and Buddhists," I whispered viciously. "Jesus and God love everyone—including these imbeciles who hate everyone."
"Couldn't agree more," Hank said as he discreetly removed my weapons from me.
It was a smart move. It was not my job to erase hate with a bullet… even though it would have felt good. Two heinous wrongs would not make a right.
"Jesus Hesus Christ," I shouted and fell to my knees, much to the shock of the idiots around me.
"What did you say?" a large, red-faced, angry woman screeched.
"I just said Jesus' full name," I told her as I rose to my feet.
"His middle name is Hesus?" she demanded doubtfully.
"Um… yes. Yes, it is," I said without cracking a smile.
Hank stood stoically behind me, lending his silent support. His muffled laughter appeared to be a coughing fit to the throng around us.
"His middle name rhymes with his first name?" the woman queried still doubtful.
"Yes, it does," I told her.
"How did you learn this?" she demanded suspiciously. "Was it the gays or the Buddhists?"
"Nope, it was the IRS," I replied with barely contained ire. "And the American Civil Liberties Union."
"Well, your sources certainly sound official," she said with pursed lips and her hands on her hips.
"They are," I told her. "It was certified and proven true by the LGBT division of the Civil Liberties Union."
"Really?" she asked, impressed as a horde of idiots began to surround her. "Hey, I have learned the middle name of Jesus," she called out to the dummies.
It saddened me to realize none of them had a clue about what the Civil Liberties Union was or the fact I'd just told them the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender division had certified that Jesus indeed had a middle name which rhymed with his first. It was all kinds of
appalling.
There was no time for me to straighten these people out, but making them look more like assjackets than they already did could help others see how awful these people's beliefs were.
"Can we guess?" a tiny little dude with a mullet and skinny jeans asked.
"Of course," the woman sneered condescendingly.
The names flew fast and furious. It was all I could do not to laugh. Why did these people have so much hate in them for others who were different? They would definitely lead the front line in trying to destroy Werewolves if we were to come out of the closet. I would represent an abomination from hell. Was it lack of education? Was it simply fear and stupidity?
"Jim Bob," a man guessed.
"Skooter," another yelled.
"Homer."
"Moses."
"Kevin."
"Herman."
"Kyle."
"Billy."
"Bubba."
"Nope!" the red-faced angry gal shouted above the excited voices of the dumbass crowd. "It's Hesus. Rhymes with Jesus!"
"Jesus Hesus Christ," an older pinched-faced lady said with bravado. "I already knew this. Everyone who is a true believer knows his middle name is Hesus."
"I knew it," several shouted.
"I knew it," the large gal snapped. "I was just testing the rest of you."
I bit down on the inside of my cheek and slunk away to the bathroom. I didn't need to hear any more. If it wasn't so sad it would have been funny.
"Did you just create the shit show out front?" a pale-faced but amused Dima asked as she walked out of the bathroom as I was walking in.
"Yes. Yes, I did. Did you just puke?"
"Yes, I did." She shook her head and sighed. "I will never eat paper again."
"What about people?" I asked, wondering if she wanted to rid the world of some intolerant hatemongers.
"Too chewy. I like tacos better," she said with a grin. "However, I do know a few Dragons who like to eat bigots and homophobes."
"This is good to know," I said as I did my business. After I washed my hands I gently pushed her back out to the Hummer. "We won't be needing social media in our quest to let the world know Jesus' middle name."
"Nope," Dima agreed. "These assholes will take care of it within the hour."
"Do you think Jesus is going to be mad at me?" I asked as I contemplated what I had just done.
Dima thoughtfully pondered my question. "No. No, I don't think he would be mad at you. I firmly believe he has a great sense of humor. He'd have to if he let imbeciles like those wankers be created," she said, referring to the churchgoers. "I'd like to believe he's more unhappy with what those horrible people preach than the fact we gave him a middle name."
"I didn't want to like you, Dima," I said honestly.
"But you do," she said with a smirk. "And I like you even though I wanted to hate your lupine guts."
"I suppose we're no better than the dummies we just duped."
"I don't know," she said quietly. "The simple fact we're capable of seeing we were wrong and changing goes a long way to our credit."
"I'm wrong about a lot of things," I muttered as I glanced over at the dorks trying to prove they had known all along Jesus's middle name was Hesus. "I couldn't have been more wrong about the Cows."
"The ones who pooped my paper out?" Dima asked.
"Nope. The sexually ambiguous ones with the awful haircuts and hearts bigger than anyone I've ever met who are feeding my granny," I stated, then slapped my hand over my mouth.
"Guessing that was a secret two seconds ago," Dima said with a grin.
"Um… yep," I replied.
"Well, I do believe this car ride is the setting for trading secrets. You went first—now it's my turn. The Dragons trained and house the feral Wolves."
I was stunned to silence. How was that possible? Did the Dragons practice the witchcraft that trapped the Wolves in their animal form?
"Why would you assume I know about the feral Wolves?" I asked her coldly.
"I never assume—makes an ass out of you and me," she replied smoothly, using one of my own lines. "One—it was on top of the pile of poop paper on Angela's desk. I would guess she might think you would come to her office so she left something to entice you on top. Two—on the car ride back to your Vampyre friend's house from the zoo, I heard feral Wolves mentioned as I came around."
"Did the Dragons trap the Wolves in their animal form?" I asked.
She'd been around for several hundred years… surely she knew some of what went on with the Dragons.
"That's a question for my father," she replied with barely contained hatred. "You may ask him before I rip his head from his body."
"You've got some big daddy issues," I said as I clicked my seatbelt and mulled over what I had learned so far.
"Don't you?" she asked.
"Nope," I said with conviction. "Never knew my dad. He was a WTF agent with my mom and they were both taken out when I was a baby."
"Did they find their killer?" she asked as she laid her head back on her headrest and shut her eyes.
"Nope," I said tersely. "Case was dropped—considered unsolved."
"Dude… um," Dima said slowly.
"Yes?"
"That's the strangest thing I've ever heard. No paranormal case is ever closed before it's solved. It's how we stay secret from the humans. We deal with everything in-house. Who closed the case?" she asked, now sitting forward in her seat.
"The Council closed the case," I said tightly.
"How much are you sharing?" Hank asked as he pulled back onto the highway.
"I don't know," I mumbled as I let my head drop into my hands. Decisions were getting harder and harder to make—at least good ones were.
Was Dima what she seemed to be? Was she going to turn around and kill us dead while we slept? Worse… if she knew about Granny, would she tell? There wasn't a species around who would be okay with a Vampyre-Werewolf hybrid. I didn't even know if that was what she would turn out to be. Hell, I didn't know if she would ever wake up again.
"We can tell her some, but nothing about Granny being turned," I told Hank.
"Affirmative. Careful about the Cows too. It was the Dragons who took them out all those years ago," he reminded me.
"I know you guys are talking," Dima said with a snort of frustration. "Look, trust me or don't—I don't care. I'm not sure how much I trust you either. Just tell me enough so that I'm not walking in blind. I don’t want to get killed in the first five minutes."
"Fair enough," I said. "We're headed to my best friend Dwayne's home. He has a lot of them. He's a three hundred year old Vampyre. He's very recently adopted eight Were Cows and they are being courted by the Vampyres who are protecting Dwayne's property. Dwayne is going to have a gladiator-type competition to marry off his daughters to the bloodsuckers. Also, just as a heads up, Dwayne's mind meld is what killed a few of your less than stellar Dragon kinsmen. It's very messy and smells like hell. I'll make sure he knows you're on our side unless you do something shitty and then he has full permission to blow you to smithereens. I have no mother-humpin idea why the Council is headed to Michigan and I don't like it. I would assume they know we're headed there and are going to use Angela as bait."
"I'm kind of lost and grossed out here, so I'm just going to stick to the part which made a modicum of sense. Why would they use Angela as bait and for whom?" Dima asked as she massaged her temples in confusion.
"For Essie," Hank answered stiffly. "Some of the Council want her dead."
"Oooookay," Dima said. "I can see how some might find her annoying and want to slap her around a little, but wanting her dead? Don't get it."
"You do realize we can still put you out of the car," I snapped.
"P.S.," she whispered loudly. "I can fly."
"Whatever," I muttered. "If I tried hard enough I could fly too."
The silence was loud and Hank shot me a look of displeasure.
Crapcrapdamndamn. Me and
my big braggy mouth.
"Werewolves can't fly," Dima said evenly as she crossed her arms over her chest and waited for more of an explanation.
She wasn't going to get one… at least not an accurate one.
"Just wishful thinking," I told her with a laugh that I prayed didn't sound as fake to her as it did to my own ears.
Some Were In Time Page 20
