“What?” Michael said. “It’s fine, Derik. Shit, I’m not one to argue fate.” He glanced fondly at his wife. “Not anymore.”
“What are you guys talking about?” Sara asked.
“Derik’s an alpha, too, which usually means trouble for us,” Moira explained, “because our Pack already has an alpha.”
“I don’t suppose he can, like, try to win the next alpha election, or whatever . . .”
“It doesn’t exactly work like that,” Antonia said dryly.
“But part of the problem of being alpha is the overwhelming urge to prove it . . . men,” Moira added, shaking her head.
Sara decided she would like the tiny blonde, if the woman wasn’t so damned cute. Thank God she was married!
“Anyway, not only does Derik not have to prove anything,” Moira went on, “he’s aligned himself with a mate who is quite possibly the most powerful being on the planet.”
“Oh, now, well,” Sara said self-deprecatingly.
“Know anybody else who can get rid of a demon by kicking it?” Antonia asked rudely.
“Kicking it,” Jeannie said, shaking her head. Then, “Excuse me. I gotta pee.”
“Anyway,” Moira continued, frowning at Antonia, who sneered back, “it sounds like you guys aren’t even going to be around that much. So the problem has, essentially, been solved. Both internally—feeling alpha and feeling the need to prove it—and externally, because you’ll be traveling.”
“Oh,” Sara said. It all sounded like a lot of werewolf bullshit to her. She’d have Derik go over it with her later. Probably. “Well, that’s good.”
“Real good,” Michael said, “because I would have broken out all his teeth, and then I really would have gone to work on him. And I would have hated to do that.”
“Dude, what have you been sniffing? You were so toast if I decided to bring the smack-down. I would have spanked you!”
“And then I would have snapped your spine.”
“You’re high! You are on serious uppers, dude! You gotta know I would have totally . . .”
“God, I’m bored,” Antonia mumbled. “At least when we thought the world was gonna end, it was interesting around here.”
“Maybe you can go off an have an adventure of your own,” Sara suggested.
“Yeah, yeah . . .”
“So,” Sara said to Jeannie, who had just returned and was working on her third glass of lemonade, “how are you feeling?”
“Oh, fine. I haven’t started craving raw meat yet—thank heavens.”
“Are you thinking about names?”
Jeannie set down her glass and shook her blonde hair out of her face. “Well, you know, Sara,” she said seriously, “we really haven’t been lately. Because of—because we weren’t sure what was going to happen.”
“Oh. Sure, I get it.”
“But I guess now we have to get back to it. And I think, just for the record, that Sara is a lovely name.”
“Oh, vomit,” Antonia said, which was just as well, because Sara was too choked up to say anything.
EPILOGUE
“HI, AND WELCOME TO ‘FORTY DOLLARS A DAY.’ I’M Rachel Ray, and I’m here today at the annual San Antonio rattlesnake festival with Derik Gardner, who has taken first prize with his wonderful dish, Rattlesnake en croûte. I know, I know, it sounds kind of yerrrgggh, but you gotta try it. Derik has come out of nowhere and unseated last year’s champion with his awesome dish. Derik, congratulations!”
“Thanks, Rachel.”
“Your dish is delicious. I mean, yum! Who would have thought something made out of snake could look so delicious? I mean, look at that, so crispy and golden and just . . . gorgeous! And it’s very tender. It really doesn’t taste like chicken at all. So, Derik, do you catch the rattlesnakes yourself?”
“Yes, I do, Rachel.”
“That’s amazing . . . do you use a net, or a trap?”
“Something like that, Rachel.”
“And this is your wife? Sara?”
“Yeah, hi.”
“Do you help Derik catch the rattlesnakes?”
“God, no. The whole thing just creeps me out. I stay in the RV, while he does that.”
“Well, it looks like you get to partake in the fruits of his labor, then . . .”
“Yes, lucky me.”
“. . . and is it true you two travel around the country going to cooking shows and the like?”
“Yes, that’s true, Rachel.”
“Well, that’s certainly working out well for you so far, at least from where I’m standing.”
“Thank you, Rachel.”
“You’re right about that one, Rachel.”
“Oh, whoa now! I guess you would call that the newlywed effect . . . and congratulations, by the way.”
“Thanks, Rachel.”
“Yeah,” Derik said, beaming. “Thanks.”
Continue reading for a special preview of MaryJanice Davidson’s next novel
Undead and Unappreciated
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“OKAY, GUYS, LET’S SET UP HERE . . . CHARLEY, YOU okay here? You got light?”
Her cameraman looked up. “It’s shitty out here. Should be better inside.”
“We won’t film out here . . . So, you’re sure this is okay?”
The representative, who was smooth and sweat-less, like an egg, clasped his hands together and nodded slowly. Even his suit seemed to be free of threads or seams. “People need to see that it’s not a bunch of chain-smoking losers who are afraid to go outside. There’s doctors. There’s lawyers. There’s”—he stared at her with pale blue eyes—“anchor- women.”
“Right, right. And we’ll put all that across.” She turned away from the AA rep, muttering under her breath. “Fuckin’ slow news days . . . okay! Let’s get in there, Chuckles.”
Charley knew his stuff. With the new equipment, setup was not only a breeze, it was relatively quick and quiet. Interestingly, none of the room’s inhabitants looked at them directly. There was a lot of coffee drinking and low chatting, a lot of nibbling on cheese and crackers, a lot of quiet milling and sideways glances. They looked, the newswoman thought to herself, exactly like the man said. Respectable, settled. Sober. She was amazed they’d agreed to the cameras. Wasn’t the second A supposed to be for Anonymous?
“Okay, everyone,” the rep said, standing in the front of the room. “Let’s get settled and get started. You all remember Channel 9 is here tonight, to help raise awareness . . . someone watching tonight might see we’re not all villains in trench coats and maybe will come down.”
“I left my trench coat in my other pants,” someone called in a low voice, and the room rustled with restrained laughter.
“Anyway, I’ll start, and then we’ve got a new person here tonight . . .”
Someone the reporter couldn’t see protested in a low voice, and was ignored—or wasn’t heard—by the rep. “I’m James,” he said, “and I’ve been sober for six years, eight months, and nine days.”
There was a pause as he stepped down, then a rustle, a muffled “Oof! Stupid steps” and then a young woman in her mid-twenties was standing behind the small podium. She squinted out at the audience for a moment, as if the fluorescent lighting hurt her eyes, and then said in a completely mesmerizing voice, “Well, hi. I’m Betsy. I haven’t had a drink in three days and four hours.”
“Get on her!” the reporter hissed.
“I’m tight,” Charley replied, dazzled.
The woman was tall—her head was just below the No Smoking On These Premises sign—which put her at about six feet. She was dressed in a cherry red suit, with the kind of suit jacket that buttoned up to her chin and needed no under blouse. The richly colored clothing superbly set off the delicate paleness of her skin and made her green eyes seem huge and dark, like leaves in the middle of the forest. Her hair was golden blond, shoulder length, and wavy, with red and gold highlights that framed her face. He
r cheekbones were sharp planes in an interesting, even arresting face.
Her teeth were very white and flashed while she spoke.
“Okay, um, like I said, I’m Betsy. And I thought I’d come here . . . I mean, I saw on the Web that . . . Anyway, I thought maybe you guys would have some tricks or something I could use to stop drinking.”
Dead silence. The reporter noticed the audience was as rapt as Charley was. What presence! What clothes! What . . . were those Bruno Maglis? The reporter edged closer. They were! What did this woman do for a living? She herself had paid almost three hundred bucks for the pair in her closet.
“It’s just . . . always there. I wake up, and it’s all I think about. I go to bed, I’m still thinking about it.”
Everyone was nodding. Even Charley was nodding, making the camera wobble.
“It just . . . takes over. Totally takes over your life. You start to plan events around how you can drink. Like, if I have breakfast here with my friend, I can hit an alley afterward there, while she’s going uptown. Or, if I blow another friend off for supper, I can reschedule on him and get my fix instead.”
Everyone was nodding harder. A few of the men appeared to have tears in their eyes! Charley, thankfully, had stopped nodding, but was getting in on the woman as tightly as he could.
“Get the suit in the shot,” the reporter whispered.
“I’m not used to this,” the woman continued. “I mean, I’m used to wanting things, but not like this. I mean, gross.”
A ripple of laughter.
“I’ve tried to stop, but I just made myself sick. And I’ve talked to some of my friends about it, but they think I should just suck it up. Ha ha. And my new friends don’t see that as a problem at all.” More nods all around. “So here I am. Nobody special. Just someone with a problem. A big problem. And . . . I thought maybe coming here and talking about it would help. That’s all.” Silence, so she added, “That’s really all.”
Spontaneous, almost savage, applause. The reporter had Charley pan back, getting the crowd’s reaction. She wasn’t sure the rep would let all their faces be shown on the ten o’clock news, but she wanted the film in the can, just in case.
She wanted Charley to get the woman walking to the back of the room, but when he panned back, she was gone.
The reporter and her cameraman looked for the gorgeous stranger for ten minutes, with zero luck.
Gone.
Shit.
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