by R. E. Carr
“Do you want to talk about aliens again?” Paige asked softly. He sat next to her. This time when he reached his arm around her, she welcomed it and leaned against his chest. The whooshing sound filled her ears.
“I would talk about anything and everything, just to be back here for a little longer,” he whispered in her ear.
“We can’t go back though . . . back to when it was super simple, and all I was worried about was not falling for the tall, dark, and handsome stranger because I had a boyfriend back home. I remember worrying most that my dad would forget to send a birthday card, not sell me off to some Undying deal-broker. Hell, I’d even take the early days of being a werewolf when I was most worried about running out of razors, or not making it in time to get chicken biscuits in the mornings. Everything was so . . . damn . . . easy compared to now.”
“Is that why you come back to this moment? The end of your unassuming life?”
Paige smiled and closed her eyes. The whooshing sound grew louder, almost to a thump. Soon another heartbeat echoed in her ears. Her breathing fell in time with the thumping. “It’s not just an ending, old man. It’s a beginning too.”
This time when she opened her eyes, everything had changed but the color of his irises. She ran her fingers over the chestnut-colored stubble on his face. The jaw wasn’t quite as long, but his features had an all-American rugged handsomeness overall. “Beginnings are scary,” Jonathan replied in his familiar Texas drawl. “You don’t know what to do or even who you are anymore.”
“I know who you are.” Paige smiled at him. He returned it before kissing her gently on the lips.
“You do?”
“Yeah, you’re that tall, dark, and handsome stranger that buys me a drink and always turns my life upside down. It doesn’t matter if you ask me to call you Lorcan, or Jonathan, or even Mordred. You always find me, and you always mean trouble in the best possible way.”
“I’m not that tall, you know,” he mumbled before kissing her again.
“I’m five-one, everyone is tall to me.”
“Always the logical one, A rún.”
“You finally said it right, Tex.” She grabbed her chest and leaned forwards as pain shot down her right arm. “Ugh.”
“Paige!” she heard, but it came from the darkness beyond their little garden. She lurched again.
“Can’t I just stay in my happy place a little longer?” she whimpered as she saw flashes of Nadia and Toy, Kyle and Kayleigh laughing in the distance. She even saw a tall, blond guy with haunted blue eyes give her a little salute. “Morgan,” she whispered. She heard a sniffle, then a little snort and a whine. In the corner of her vision she could see Steve and her mom huddled around a tiny form.
“There is someone you need to meet, Pip,” Steve said softly. The whining grew louder and more insistent until a full-fledged wail assaulted Paige’s already ringing ears.
Reluctantly she opened her eyes, a terrible dull ache filling her chest. The crying still filled the room, and a blurry form paced back and forth, bouncing in time to an unknown tune. Paige coughed and snarled a little, prompting gasps throughout her smelly, dim hospital room.
A weight pressed against her arm. She turned as best she could to see the top of a head covered with messy spikes of chestnut hair. Jonathan looked up, dark circles around his bloodshot eyes and gallons of drool dripping from his fangs to her hand. He stared at her in utter disbelief. “Paige?” he choked out.
“Which one of you . . . is . . . in there?” she wheezed, her lips cracking at the slightest effort.
“All of us . . . it’s complicated. Babe, you came back. I thought—”
“Paige!” Maria gasped, taking her bouncy walk all the way to the side of the bed. She tipped her arms forwards so that Paige could see the source of all the noise in the room. “Paige, this is—”
“Why, hello there,” Paige whispered between coughs. A pair of teeny blue eyes locked with hers. The crying abated for a moment as the tiny human looked confusedly at her. An itsy-bitsy hand flailed about, slipping defiantly out of the mitt his grandmother had dared to put over his curious fingers. A wild tuft of dark hair poked from the top of his head.
“Oh, baby,” Maria said, tears overflowing. She looked over her shoulder and cried, “Kyle, she’s awake.”
“Everything hurts,” she moaned as fresh agony radiated from her right side. “But I don’t care. Mom, can you bring him a little closer?”
Maria leaned in a bit more. Paige summoned all the strength she could to lift her hand, but it barely budged until Jonathan helped her along, so she could finally touch her son’s face. The three of them froze for a second until the little guy finally decided to blow a spit bubble and coo as Kyle rushed into view.
“Oh my god, Paige!”
“I get that a lot,” Paige grumbled. She winced as Kyle barged in to check her bandages. The doctor seemed grimly relieved once he was done making her life miserable. He even inched her bed up a little further, so she could let the baby rest against her good side. Soon Paige became dreadfully aware of all the eyes in the room weepily focused on her. She ignored them all and instead locked eyes with the intensely curious infant.
“Hey Lincoln, nice to finally meet you,” she whispered to him.
“Lincoln . . . like Honest Abe?” Jonathan asked. “Why do I feel like I met him?”
“Like Lincoln, Nebraska,” Paige corrected. “Like his name. Hi there, Link, I’m your mom.”
“Now we know what to call him. Thank goodness it’s not another Steven DeMarco,” Maria said, wiping the tears off her cheek. “I don’t think the world could handle that.”
Paige winced again. “It’s Lincoln Lancelot DeMarco, if someone needs to write it down. How is he . . . how is he doing, doc?”
“Healthy as a horse, Little Bit,” Kyle said as he gently ruffled the fuzz on top of her head. “I think he’s got more hair than you right now.”
“How bad am I?” she asked, rolling her eyes to finally face him. “No sugarcoating, please.”
“I’ve seen worse,” Kyle said, looking at her IV instead of at her.
“Damn it, Kyle.” She broke into a painful fit of coughing.
“If it was anyone other than you or upgraded Grandpa, they would be dead for sure. Thank goodness Kevin was an idiot who thought that silver bullets would kill werewolves and didn’t bother looking up the real basis behind the myth.”
“Silver bullets don’t work?” Jonathan asked, confused.
Kyle changed out Paige’s IV, holding up a fresh pack of blood. “It’s quicksilver—mercury,” he mumbled as he frowned Paige’s way. “Nothing like injecting an already crazed monster with heavy metals to get the good times rolling. Anyway, his idiocy was our gain, and he mixed regular silver into the buckshot. Sorry to report, kiddo, but I’m probably going to have to dig in a little more. I’m not sure I’ve gotten everything out.”
“I hate bullets,” Paige moaned. She chose to focus instead on Lincoln yawning and flopping against her good side.
“He sleeps,” Maria said in awed tones. “I guess he was just waiting to say hi to mommy.”
Paige whimpered a little and allowed her mother to take the baby back for a while. Even Jonathan backed away as Kyle had to go to work. He pulled the sheet back and Paige got her first look at her lack of a right arm. “Oh, god,” she stammered.
“Like I said, I’ve seen worse,” Kyle said softly. “I had to amputate. Between the shot, the blast, and your change, everything went to hell. I must say, you are one hardcore mom.”
“I didn’t . . . hurt him?” she asked, trying her best not to look down.
“You seemed to recognize me and your mom. You gave Lincoln to her without a fight, and then you let me help you.” As Kyle looked away she could see faint red lines along his neck. “You did take one swipe, though, then I had to knock you out.”
“I recognized you guys? Really?”
“Hey, maybe you’re getting better at this whole wer
ewolf thing,” Jonathan said, squeezing her hand. “Better than me, anyway.”
Kyle bared his teeth ever so slightly as he saw Jonathan touching her. Paige let out a groan that was answered by a loud gurgling from her stomach. Kyle waved everyone back. “You’re not going to like this, Little Bit. I’m going to need everyone out for a while.”
“I don’t like this at all, Steve,” Gail said as he twirled the Jaeger credit card in front of her. “I mean, I know that stupid is kinda our signature thing at this point but come on.”
“You don’t have to come with me,” he countered. Before he could continue, the breakroom door slid open as Maria hustled with mad ninja-grandmother skills to the corner of the room where a makeshift nursery had been constructed out of a car seat and the office manager’s executive chair. She eased the snoring baby into his current bed and made a frantic shushing motion to the vampires. Once she grabbed a water bottle for herself and straightened her messy bun into some semblance of order, she eased down next to her grandfather and whispered, “Paige is awake, now.”
Steve let out a sigh of relief. In hushed tones, he asked, “Does she know—?”
Maria whispered back, “Give her time.”
“Did she at least see him?” Steve pointed to the sleeping time bomb in the corner.
“She even named him. Meet Lincoln Lancelot DeMarco.”
“Lincoln, like the town car?” Steve asked incredulously. “I used to have one of those.”
Gail and Maria both rolled their eyes, but it was Maria who hissed, “At least it wasn’t another Steve.” Gail nodded in agreement.
“What about, you know, the deal?” Steve hissed.
“She just found out she has a baby and a missing arm,” Maria hissed back with more venom. “Give her a break.”
“Is she gonna make it?”
“Of course, she is. There is no way in hell my kickass werewolf daughter is going to be killed by an asshole and an exploding can of fake parmesan cheese. That Kevin is lucky the explosion killed him in the end. If I was left alone with him . . . well, I’m sure I’d find a way to make him suffer even more,” Maria said, fire in her eyes. Gail met her gaze and smiled slightly.
“Yeah, she’s gotta be alright. Heh, little Lance needs his mom. Now that is a name that is a big old screw-you to Arthur. I approve. Maria, I want to see her, but I don’t want her to see me like this, not while she’s in pain.”
Maria squeezed his hand. “Then change back. That’s how it works, isn’t it? You can change back, right?”
Steve cringed a little. “This is awkward, but—”
“You don’t know how, or you don’t remember what you look like?” Gail asked. Maria’s jaw dropped a little. “No reflection,” both women said at once.
“Wait, that’s not really it, is it?” Gail asked. “Is it?”
“I haven’t seen my own face since FDR was president, Pumpkin. All I’ve got is a couple of grainy photos that are probably long gone, with all the craziness we’ve been through. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to end up sepia.”
“Why don’t you ask your mother?” Gail buried her face in her palm. “I’m pretty sure she knows how to change back, and there are zero photos of her.”
Maria gesticulated in agreement, letting out a big yawn mid-flourish. “Look, I’m going to get some coffee and a shower. He just went to sleep, so hopefully I’ll be back before he needs anything, but there are bottles in the fridge already made, and the warmer is by the sink.”
“You’re leaving an infant with two vampires?” Steve asked incredulously.
“I’m leaving the baby with his great-great-grandfather and a nurse,” she said as she rose. As she reached the door, she turned and smiled. “I don’t even have to mention the pack of anxious werewolves that fill the building, do I?”
“Of course not. See you in a bit, Kid.”
Gail quietly dug her laptop out and pulled up the Arce Monstrorum records. She put in the keywords of shapeshifting and reversal. While the translation program ran, she sneaked a peek at the sleeping baby. She involuntarily mouthed an “Aw” as he gurgled in his sleep. “There must still be something human in me,” she mused, even as she grabbed a bag of fresh blood out of the fridge.
“What is all this?” Steve asked, looking at her screen.
“It’s an index. Kayleigh set it up. Yes, we are still tapping that ancient archive. Every time they scan something in, they tag it, and our magic spider does its work.”
“It’s not really a spider is it?” Steve asked with a little smirk. He cringed as Gail gave him dagger eyes.
“I still think—”
“I am not dealing with her. Just let the spider-thing do its job and help me out. Maybe if I relax or something, everything will just go back into place. I can’t be stuck like this . . . I just can’t.”
“Then stop your whining and work on that—”
“Um, Gail?” She looked up to see Jonathan peering into the breakroom, slightly green. “I need you for a bit.”
She slipped out into the hall. Jonathan looked over her shoulder. “Is, um, the baby OK?”
“Yeah, he’s fine. Are you OK?”
Jonathan let out a deep breath and slowly rolled up a sleeve. “It’s Paige. She needs more of . . . well . . . my blood. I can’t seem to get the other guys to stop fighting and take over, so I’ve gotta do this. Please, you’re better with needles than anyone I know, so, um . . .”
“Being a vampire still hasn’t—?”
“Nope, but I have to do what I can, especially since I won’t be able to help her soon.”
Gail led him to lab one, now abandoned after the sheriff’s takeover. She moved naturally from station to station, getting everything ready to collect a bag. Jonathan made a point to stare at the ceiling. Gail dragged the trashcan over next to the seat.
“Trust me, I’m an expert at collecting blood. I volunteered for the Red Cross long before I was a vampire, so you are in good hands. Now, you relax here, I’m going to get the details from Kyle.”
“Oh, he wrote instructions.” Jonathan’s hands shook as he pulled the slip of paper out of his pocket. Gail took a moment to read it all. “He’s removing some more shot out of Paige. She’s still in pretty bad shape.”
Gail stopped to give him a hug. She closed her eyes and leaned against his chest. “She will be OK. Paige is tough.”
She did her best to block the view as she finished prepping her sharps. “Look at me,” she chided. “You just let me know if you start feeling dizzy or nauseous.”
“This feels familiar,” Jonathan muttered. Gail took her time getting every bit ready. “We’ve done this before, haven’t we?”
“A lifetime ago . . . two, I guess. Keep your eyes on me. Tell me about Lincoln. How is that going?” she asked awkwardly as she swabbed his arm.
“I don’t know what to do or even what to think. I mean, Mina’s made it pretty clear, only one of us is going on that reservation . . . ouch!”
“Keep talking. Is that why you are avoiding him? Are you avoiding Paige too? I guess it would make it easier to just push them away at the last minute, since they’ll be gone.”
“Hey,” he growled. She finished his IV. “That’s not fair.”
“Is it true though?”
“Of course, it’s true! Damn it, I don’t know what else to do. How can I get close to someone who I’m never going to see again? She’s got enough to worry about without some confused monster wandering in and out of her life. Don’t look at me like that.”
“And you want to just let her go?”
“Hell, no! But it ain’t about me anymore. It’s not even all about her. There’s a kid now, and he needs every chance he can get.”
“You do care.”
“Yeah, I care!”
“Well, good. I got your IV going, so you can just sit back and relax,” Gail said, still blocking his view. Only once he was staring at the ceiling again did she dare get a chair for herself. “You
want me to keep talking?”
“You just gonna make me feel worse?”
“Probably,” Gail said as she checked his pulse. “You are doing better than last time, and I thank you for not wolfing out on me.”
“Like I know how to do that. Even at my worst, I don’t feel like getting all hairy. Maybe it’s because of the tail or the other guy in the back of my head. I dunno. Hell, I feel like I can’t do anything quite right, and despite all the pressure and the pedigree, I’m pretty much just tits on a bull . . . but you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?” Gail stared at him, stunned. Jonathan rubbed his forehead. “You’re a nurse. You can help people—”
“You helped defuse bombs that saved hundreds of innocent people, didn’t you?”
“I could only defuse them because they were the same easy setups that Kevin used back when we worked for him. You could defuse them after I showed you once. One thing about Kevin, you could always count on equal measures of audacity and stupidity in everything he did. Wow, I’m starting to sound like the other guys again. I just wish I could be like you, Gail. Damn it, you got your memories back—and here I am, just a bag of cats who’s not sure of anything.” He swayed and looked a little green as the bag continued to fill. Sweat broke out on his brow. “I’m such a joke. I mean, who ever heard of a vampire who can’t stand the sight of blood? Maybe I should just go back inside my own head and let the professionals out.”
“Why don’t you just try and relax? Maybe . . . we are both better than we think we are,” Gail said softly as she hugged him again.
21
“So, we’ve been offered a reservation in Canada?” Paige asked flatly in between sips of her trucker cup of bodybuilding shake. Another, but much younger, DeMarco kept sipping as well, drawing furtive glances from time to time from both Jonathan and Kyle who kept making an effort to look at Paige’s face, rather than her partially exposed breasts. “Seriously, can we focus here—or do you need another moment to ogle my tits, boys?”
