Were-Geeks Save Lake Wacka Wacka

by Kathy Lyons

  “Get out!”

  Laddin ignored him as he started spraying.

  “Over there!” Bruce said, pointing to the nearest bale of hay. It didn’t look like it was on fire yet, but if it caught, they were screwed. Thankfully, Laddin didn’t argue. He went where he was told and sprayed with quick efficiency while Bruce took care of the rest. He even had a moment to notice that Laddin—also stark naked—had some handsome muscle definition and a tight ass. His backside was currently sporting ugly burn welts and that bothered Bruce, but there wasn’t time to tend to wounds while he was shoveling dirt onto straw as if he was digging a trench. Which he was.

  When he finally looked up, he realized the work was pretty much finished. He and Laddin had done it. And at the very same moment, Josh and Nero opened the barn doors.

  “Wait!” he bellowed. The sudden inrush of air could be a problem. He didn’t want a breeze stirring any flames back to life. They didn’t listen to him, of course. So he stood with his shovel ready as he scanned for flames. Fortunately his nose seemed to work better now that he was a werewolf, so that helped him zero in on the few embers that were left. They were nothing big, but a single spark could set the whole place ablaze.

  He stomped over and began shoveling some more while Josh’s voice rang clearly over the car alarms.

  “Did you set fire to the barn?”

  Nero cut him off, proving that he was the more experienced first responder. “What do you need? Where?”

  Bruce held up his hand, still searching every nook and cranny. But he didn’t see anything, and even better, he didn’t smell anything except his own rancid sweat and the dirt he’d been shoveling.

  Meanwhile, Laddin turned off a car alarm—thank heaven—and the second abruptly shut off as well. In the pounding silence, Nero barked his question again.

  “What do you need?”

  Laddin looked at him, and Bruce took a deep breath. “I think it’s out. We need to watch for a few minutes just in case, but Laddin needs burn treatment.”

  “Me?” Laddin snorted. “You look like you were thrown on a griddle and covered with hot coals.”

  Did he? He really didn’t want to look… or feel. Because once the adrenaline wore off, he knew it was going to hurt like hell.

  “Can you shift?” Nero asked.

  Laddin nodded. “I can, though I was trying to save it.”

  “Not with that arm. Was someone playing tic-tac-toe on your back?”

  “Yeah,” Bruce muttered. “Pixie chicks.”

  Laddin snorted a laugh. “You were waiting to say that, weren’t you?”

  Bruce shrugged. That pun had slipped out, but it wasn’t bad. Meanwhile, Nero snapped his fingers at Laddin. “Get furry.” Then he looked at Bruce. “What about you? Got control of your wolf?”

  Hell no, and it burned his pride to admit it. “I’ll use the burn cream.”

  Meanwhile, Bing and Yordan appeared, both looking haggard. They were running, and Yordan set a hand on the barn door as he took in deep breaths. “What do you need?” he gasped while Bing surveyed everything with dark, serious eyes.

  “Faster responders,” Nero muttered while Josh found a switch and flicked it on. The barn was suddenly flooded with electric light, enough to illuminate Laddin, who padded forward as a red wolf with short cinnamon fur and a smile that showed he was fully healed.

  Bruce exhaled in relief when he came close and buried his hands in the warm fur. “Can you sniff around? Find anything smoking and let me know.”

  Laddin nodded and set off to do a tour of the barn. Meanwhile, Nero was watching Yordan.

  “You look like shit,” he said, and Yordan bristled. He was in shorts and boots, which gave them a good look at his gray skin, where every cut and bruise stood out in livid relief.

  “Talk to me after you fight a lich. What happened to you?”

  That was a good question. Josh was walking stiffly back from the light switch. His clothing looked good—his skin too—but he looked bone-tired. Nero did too, and one of his eyes was swollen, and there was blood on his pants.

  “Phantom kangaroos,” Nero said.

  “What?” Yordan barked.

  “You heard me. We were holding a perimeter while some witches tried a demon locator spell and got attacked by ghost kangaroos.”

  Josh took up the tale. “It was easier to herd them away than figure out how to kill them, but one got Nero in the face with his tail. I thought he was dead, but he shifted while still in the air. That bruise is from the landing.” There was a tremor in his voice that Bruce recognized as true emotion—likely fear and relief mixed with adrenaline letdown. He’d heard it a thousand times, and it was more proof that Nero meant a great deal to Josh. That gave him a twinge of jealousy that was unworthy of him. If his brother had found true love, then good for him.

  Assuming Nero returned the emotion.

  “It’ll heal,” Nero said.

  Meanwhile, Yordan pushed off the doorframe. “I wasn’t questioning you. I want to know why kangaroo ghosts are showing up in Wisconsin.”

  A female voice answered from the door. “Because the demon wants them here.” She spoke in a tone that reminded Bruce of bells, with a haunting melody in every note. But the sound only reflected a fraction of the beauty of the woman. She was small, a brunet, and had skin that glowed beneath the electrical light. Her eyes were mahogany with a strange light behind them. And though her lips and body curved in a way to tempt any man, there was a mystical innocence in the way she moved and in the high tenor of her voice. Bruce remembered her as Wulfric’s mother, the same woman who had dragged him outside to sit on the porch all afternoon.

  “Lady Kinstead,” Nero said as he straightened to attention. “I’m sorry we disturbed you.”

  “Barn fires are deadly,” she said as she looked straight at Bruce. Then her lips curved. “Aren’t you a pretty one?”

  Bruce flushed, realizing belatedly that he was still standing there in his birthday suit. He moved his hand and shovel to cover the important parts, but a moment later he realized he hadn’t needed to. The woman was smiling and talking to wolf Laddin as she stepped around Bruce to pet Laddin’s coat and press a kiss to his forehead.

  “You’re so sweet,” she cooed.

  Well, that pricked his pride. He couldn’t remember a woman preferring a dog to him. Then he realized what a ridiculous thought that was. He crossed to the van to find something to wear. Weren’t there extra clothes in there? Even though he knew it wasn’t good to cover up his burns—hell, moving was sending bolts of fire across his skin—he wasn’t going to stand naked in front of a woman while covered in grime and seeping welts. Especially a woman who preferred a wolf to him.

  Except the moment he’d managed to pull on a pair of sweatpants, she left Laddin to look straight at him. He flushed—again—because damn it, at that moment he wanted a shower and some painkillers, not to be the center of attention. And he certainly didn’t want to be asked questions he couldn’t answer. But that didn’t stop her from voicing them.

  “What did you learn about the demon?”

  What demon? He’d stumbled across evil cheeses and fairies with fruit. Meanwhile, Bing peered at him.

  “That was from a demon?” he asked, gesturing to Bruce’s wounds.

  Nero shook his head. “Pixie chicks.”

  Yordan’s head snapped up. “That a joke?”

  Nero shrugged, but Yordan peered at the burns.

  “The chickens pecked at you?”

  “No,” Bruce rasped as he shoved his feet into his sneakers. “Pixies pinned me down with burning ropes. Laddin pulled them off me.”

  “What does that have to do with chickens?”

  Lady Kinstead waved her hand at the men. Bruce had no idea what the gesture meant, but the men fell silent as she stared at him.

  “What did you learn?”

  That pixies weren’t even remotely cute. That if it hadn’t been for Laddin, he’d probably be dead or turned into a frog o
r whatever crazy shit fairies did to uncooperative victims. He didn’t learn a damn thing about a demon, but he did figure something else out.

  “They want to go to Fairyland.”

  She laughed in a mystically beautiful and wholly creepy way, because really, that kind of dreamlike sound shouldn’t be coming from a body as earthly looking as hers. But it did, and it took him a moment to focus on her words instead of her form. “All earth fairies want to go to Feyland.”

  He thought it was Fairyland, but whatever. “Why?”

  “Don’t you want to go to Heaven? To talk to God?”

  Uh, yes, he supposed. He hadn’t ever really thought about it.

  “Feyland is their Heaven. They are created from its magic.”

  “They want to die?”

  She rolled her eyes. “So pretty, but so stupid.”

  Was she talking about him or the fairies? Probably him, because she continued to explain.

  “Fairies don’t die like you do. They can only go to Heaven if you take them.”

  “But I can’t take them.”

  “You can if you eat the apple.”

  Nero jerked his head around. “What apple? Where?”

  “Make it a condition of eating the apple,” the woman said.

  Bruce couldn’t believe she was asking this of him. “I’m not helping a bunch of arsonist fairies get into heaven.”

  “Not the pixies,” she said. “The demon. Demand that Bitterroot tell you where the demon is before the entire world dies. He will agree. He knows Feyland will be hurt too, if the Earth dies.”

  From the opposite side of the barn, Josh banged his fist against a hay bale. “Fucking perfect. First a cherry, now an apple.”

  “No!” Bruce snapped. “I am not going to eat more fairy fruit!”

  Nero blew out a breath. “You might have to, if it’s the only way to find the demon.” His expression was grave. “We’re facing the end of the world, here. If we can’t stop the poison from expanding into Lake Michigan, the whole continent will be contaminated.”

  “It’s not just an apple,” Bruce growled. How the hell didn’t they know that?

  “Of course it’s not just an apple,” Nero argued. “But we’ve been looking for weeks and haven’t found the demon. According to the science crew, there’s only a few days left before the dead zone hits Lake Michigan. If we poison the Great Lakes, we poison Canada, the US, and eventually the world. Everything will die.”

  Bruce knew that. Fucking hell, it was all over the news, 24/7. They all had this graphic of the lake at the center of an expanding circle. Some drew the circle in red like blood, others in green like poison, as if that made any difference. The point was that everything inside that circle died—slowly at first, but with increasing speed the closer you got to the center of the lake. And that circle was growing every second of every day. Foot by foot, it was expanding, poisoning the land with cyanide and putting some unknown crap into the air that was killing everything on the earth. No one knew exactly how far it had to go until the world ended. But they all agreed that once it touched Lake Michigan, North America was screwed, and the western hemisphere soon after that. The latest projections said they were only days away from that happening. A week at most.

  And there was no solution in sight.

  But as much as Bruce wanted to be the savior for everyone, he already knew it wouldn’t work. “I’ve asked. Bitter—” He cut his word off. He did not want to call the guy. “He doesn’t know where it is.”

  “He must,” Lady Kinstead said. “I have seen it. If you eat the apple, you save the world.”

  That sounded like a great idea… not. A crazy beauty tells him to eat the apple and whammo, the world is saved. Right. And yet all the people around him seemed to take her seriously. Worse, her words were an exact echo of what Bitterroot had said to him, which was freaky scary. Especially since he did not know how to save the world!

  Then Nero started drawing that same map in the dirt with his boot. “That’s the dead zone,” he said. “That’s Lake Michigan. We’re right fucking here.” He planted his boot at the edge of the line representing Lake Michigan. “A few more feet and we’re all dead.”

  Bruce threw up his hands. “He doesn’t know. I already asked. I already offered.”

  Josh closed his eyes. “Of course you did.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Bruce said as he rounded on his brother. He wasn’t really angry at Josh, though the guy was being a prick. He was overwhelmed and in pain—and for most of his life, Josh had been his target whenever he felt like shit.

  “It means—” Josh answered, but Nero got there first.

  “Don’t get into that crap now,” Nero snapped at Josh. Then he rounded on Bruce. “You asked him already?”

  Bruce nodded. “The fairy prince doesn’t know.”

  The woman crossed her arms in anger. “The fey know,” she said. “Why do you think I am here?”

  He had no idea.

  She stomped her foot. “Eat the apple! Make them tell!”

  Nero grimaced. “Do we call him now?”

  She pursed her lips and her eyes grew vague. Or bright. Or something. Bruce couldn’t even tell what, but her entire face went weird. Then she solidified back to normal. “It must be him,” she said, pointing at Bruce.

  “I already asked. He didn’t know.”

  “Then why do you still see the apple?”

  He hadn’t really been seeing it. It hadn’t even been in the forefront of his thoughts right then. But at her question, the damned thing appeared before him, all bright and shiny and smelling like the apple pie he loved so much. He would have closed his eyes, but he knew it would remain there behind his eyelids. So instead, he focused on Josh as he gave his answer.

  “He wants to enslave Josh. He said so.”

  Josh and Nero jolted at that, both of them reacting in predictable ways. Josh shook his head, his expression filled with defiance. Nero frowned, clearly thinking hard in the way of a guy used to sorting through military strategy. But neither said a word.

  Bruce looked at the woman. “I don’t know how I fit into the picture, and I don’t know why the bastard picked me to offer the fruit to. But I know he wants my brother, and I’m not going to help him. He won’t get Josh through me. Not ever.”

  Lady Kinstead glared at him. “Then your brother dies along with the entire world. At least a slave is alive.”

  Nero shook his head. “There has to be another way.” He stared hard at the woman. “We have to find another way.”

  She sniffed. “What do you think we’ve been trying to do? You even went back in time, and you failed.”

  “I didn’t—” He cut off his words, but Josh finished them for him.

  “We did. In this timeline, we haven’t changed a thing.”

  “Yes, we did!” Nero answered. “We know how to kill it now.”

  “Not if we can’t find it.”

  And that was it—the big question for everyone. Where was the demon that was creating the expanding circle of death?

  While everyone mulled over that disastrous question, Bruce chanced a look outside.

  Oh fuck. It was a minute or two short of dawn. Laddin had set an alarm, but it had probably been drowned out by all the noise from the cars.

  “Laddin!” he said. “You’re late!” Laddin had promised to give the cheese pixies some answers at dawn—at the tree that was over a mile away!

  “Late for what?” Nero asked.

  But there wasn’t time to explain. Wolf Laddin looked at the sky, whimpered in fear, and then took off. He was running like the wind as a wolf, and Bruce didn’t hesitate to follow him, doing his best to keep up on his human feet. He wasn’t nearly as fast, but there was no way in hell he would let Laddin face those demon cheeses alone.

  By the time Bruce rounded the barn and headed out through the open field, he knew it was hopeless. They weren’t going to make it before dawn. Even Laddin, who was a distant strea
k of reddish brown in the distance, wasn’t going to get there in time. Bruce was running like his life—or Laddin’s life—depended on it, but they didn’t have a prayer.

  “Eat the apple. You can run faster.”

  Bitterroot was back, hopping through the field beside him like a damned bunny. He had no problem keeping up, and Bruce wanted to kick him, just for the hell of it. But he didn’t have the time and he certainly didn’t have the breath. But as it turned out, he didn’t need it to talk to the creep. The bastard could pick his thoughts right out of his head.

  Fuck off! he thought as loud as he could.

  Bitterroot ignored him. “Laddin’s not going to make it in time. And in case you haven’t noticed, magical creatures are all very angry around here. Wisconsin is one big knot of hate and fear. It is not going to go well for your lover.”

  We’re all pissed off. You should be too. We’ll all die if we don’t stop that demon. So instead of hopping like a jackrabbit beside me, tell us where the bastard is!

  Then, out of spite, he imagined Bitterroot as an ugly Peter Cottontail with buck teeth and donkey ears. And to his shock, the fairy abruptly changed into exactly what he’d pictured—complete with a polka-dot bow tie and a ratty straw hat. If he’d had the breath, he would have burst out laughing as Bitterroot stumbled at the sudden change in his body.

  “I am angry, you idiot. And I’m trying to help!”

  Bullshit.

  “Eat the apple, you fool. Lovina was right. The Seers have all said you will eat it.”

  And save the world?

  “Sometimes. It’s not clear.”

  Great. And because he wasn’t stupid, he knew that the two might not be connected at all. He could save the world by entirely different means. Or not save it at all. So this argument was getting them nowhere.

  What do you get?

  “Other than a saved Earth?”

  Yes.

  “Standard contract.”

  Like what? My firstborn child? Wasn’t that what all the fairy tales wanted?

  “Don’t be insulting. We cherish human children. I am the grandchild of a human girl. It is how I am who I am.”

  An asshole?

  “A prince. Listen, I’m offering you a bargain here. I’m hoping that more power will save your world and mine.”