by K. C. Blake
“You.”
“Me?”
“Remember when you told me you’d killed your wife? I need you to elaborate. Please. Also, I’d like to know how you became a werewolf in the first place... and when.”
“Look at this,” Jersey said. He picked up a can of peanuts. “I forgot I bought these yesterday. Can I tempt you?” He tilted the can in Jack’s direction. After Jack shook his head, Jersey poured peanuts into his own hand. He ate them slowly, one at a time, an amused glint in his eyes.
Feeling impatient, Jack said, “If you aren’t going to tell me anything, I’ll just leave.”
“I suppose it won’t hurt to share the information with you.”
“Okay.” Jack rested his elbows on the table. “Why don’t you start with telling me her name? Who was your wife?”
His expression softened, and he stared off into space, looking into the past. “You are so young, Jack. Names are not relevant to the story. Names change with the seasons.” He quoted Shakespeare. “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
Jack sighed. “Forget her name then. Tell me about becoming a werewolf. When and how?”
“It happened in the morning of my youth.” Jersey’s eyes danced with amusement again as Jack became more and more irritated and impatient. “I was young and in love, and I foolishly gave my heart to someone who didn’t deserve it.”
“And?”
“Have you ever been betrayed by someone close to you?”
He thought about Cowboy throwing a lit bottle of alcohol into Silver’s home. “Sure. Happens to everyone.”
“No. Not like this.” Jersey leaned across the table, his cold eyes staring straight into Jack’s. “I had a friend who was like a brother to me. We grew up in the same house, raised by a nice old lady after our parents were killed. When we were kids, we shared everything. Then we grew up and fell in love with the same woman.”
Jersey’s expression darkened. “I was not willing to share her with him.”
“Of course not.”
“Fickle girl couldn’t make up her mind. She wanted us both. One day we’d had enough, and we confronted her together. It was the last thing we ever did together in fact. We told her to make a choice.”
“Did she?”
“If you count turning me into a werewolf and him into a vampire, I would say the answer is yes.”
Jack froze as if he’d looked straight into Medusa’s eyes, and his blood turned to ice. In the diary, Lovely had talked about not being able to choose between two young men. She’d loved them both but hadn’t gone into detail on what she’d done to solve her dilemma. Now Jack knew. She’d cursed both men.... but why?
Jersey answered the unspoken question. “The girl I loved had a curse on her as well. She didn’t sleep at all, couldn’t age, and she had been banished to our world forever. That’s why she did it. Brilliant, if you think about it. She fixed it so that I would be her companion during the day, and he would be with her at night. Neither of us had any clue about the other until—.”
“Until what?” Jack literally sat on the edge of his seat, eager to hear the rest.
“That is a story for another day.”
“Are you the first werewolf?”
Jersey’s laughed without humor. “I’m not like the others, Jack. They can’t control themselves. When I get angry, I am still in control. When I kill, I do it for a reason now, not out of blind fury.”
“Answer the question... please.”
“I am the first, but I am not a simple werewolf. I am something beyond your comprehension, something beyond your simple understanding.”
Jack’s eyes drifted to the closet inside the living room. He wondered if Silver could hear them. Did she know she was right? Was she doing a victory dance in the closet?
“I take it you know about Lovely.” Jersey said. “Have the Reigns told you about the diary yet?”
Jack nodded, but he held back the fact that he had the diary and was currently reading it.
Jersey said, “She had a vision about me growing an army and taking over the world. It terrified her, but she stayed with me. The girl thought she could change me from what I am to what she wanted me to be. Imagine that.”
“You don’t have to do it. Her visions aren’t always true. Sometimes she had more than one on the same subject. She had visions about me too, but we don’t have to follow her blueprint of the future. I believe we make our own destiny.”
“As I said before, you are extremely young, Jack. Destiny is solid. It will happen the way it is meant to happen. If you try to change destiny, you will only cause it to take place. There is no escape for either of us.”
“I don’t believe that.”
Jersey put a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “I know about your destiny too. Someday we will meet on the battlefield. I want you to know I will not take any pleasure from killing you, but kill you I will.”
“Comforting. Thank you.” Jack wondered if werewolves understood sarcasm. “You’re already building an army, aren’t you?”
Jersey didn’t answer. He dropped his hand and stepped back, giving Jack breathing room. “I think you should go now. Oh, and don’t forget to release your girlfriend from the closet. I imagine she’s probably tired of being in there.” At Jack’s surprised look, Jersey tapped the side of his nose. “I have powerful abilities. Don’t underestimate me again or it might kill you.”
Jack left the kitchen, went into the living room and opened the closet door. He could tell by Silver’s worried expression she had heard every single word. When she opened her mouth to speak, he shook his head hard. Better to wait until they were alone.
Jersey followed them to the front door, opening it for them like a good host. “Thank you for visiting my modest dwelling. Feel free to return whenever you want. Consider my home to be your home.”
Silver turned on the porch and spoke to Jersey before Jack could stop her. Her tone was crisp. She bit off each word. “Forget the army, and forget destiny. You have one shot to live here. If you know what our destiny is, then you know it’s true. If I don’t kill you, Jack will.”
Jersey disagreed. “I suppose it depends on how you read between the lines. I believe that part of the future was unclear to Lovely. She wanted you to destroy me, but Jack’s existence proves she had no idea what would happen. She gave him to you as a back up plan in case you die trying, which you will.”
Before Silver could say anything else, Jack pushed her toward the car. He hung back for a second to try one more time to reason with a man he thought of as a friend. “Please don’t do this. Don’t force us to take you out.”
“That’s what I like to hear, Jack.” Jersey smiled. “Confidence. Even if it is unfounded.”
Chapter Eighteen:
DECIDING WHO TO KILL
Jack finished reading the diary in six days.
He stretched out on the sofa, a throw pillow beneath his head, feet resting on the opposite arm. The diary’s secrets whipped around his head. He’d hoped to find some useful information on Jersey, but there hadn’t been any. On the other hand, he’d enjoyed reading about Silver and how the two of them were meant for each other.
He closed his eyes on a breathy sigh, feeling kind of lonely. Silver and her parents were hunting on the other side of the county, and Billy was patrolling their land in case his vampire friends returned. No sooner had the thought of loneliness entered his head than the front door opened.
Billy tossed his coat onto the arm of the sofa before sinking into the chair near Jack’s head. “Man, I’m exhausted. Sometimes I forget how much land we own.”
Jack smiled at the word ‘we.’ His brother hadn’t used it before. He’d seen Jack as an outsider, an unwelcome intruder. Perhaps there was hope for them yet. They were headed in the right direction at least.
“I didn’t catch wind of anything out there,” Billy said. “I think we’re safe for tonight.”
Jack sat up and
faced his brother. He looked at Billy, unable to help remembering the kid who had followed him everywhere. It was sad how much had changed in his absence. They’d been close back then. Now they had an ocean of resentment between them, and Jack had no idea what to do to make things better.
Billy kicked his shoes off. He crossed his ankles and wiggled his toes in the dark socks. For a moment he actually twiddled his thumbs. One thing hadn’t changed; Billy still had a low threshold when it came to boredom.
The dark circles beneath his eyes and lines around his mouth attested to the hard times Billy had endured. He rarely smiled. Billy picked the television guide off the coffee table and began to leaf through it. He settled back in his chair, looking tired but comfortable.
“We should talk,” Jack said.
Billy’s eyes snapped up, and surprise registered in them. “What? Why?”
“I’d like us to be brothers again.”
“What are we if we aren’t brothers?”
“We’re strangers who share a house.” Jack reached over and yanked the guide from Billy’s hand. He tossed it back to the table. “Seriously, we need to talk before we cross some line that we can’t get back over.”
Billy had heard enough. With a sigh, he stood and walked out of the room. He went into the kitchen to prepare a snack. Jack followed, but Billy pretended not to notice as he opened the stocked refrigerator and practically climbed inside. In seconds he came out with an armful of food.
“It was nice of Vanessa to go shopping for us,” Jack said.
“Yeah.” Billy dropped a hunk of cheese, bottle of mayo, and some leftover bacon onto the breakfast bar. He slapped some of each between two slices of wheat bread. “I wonder if she got chips.”
Jack placed his palms against the bar and leaned over it. “The first day I showed up, you were happy to see me. Remember that? Of course you thought I was still a vampire then and tried to kill me five seconds later, but when you found out I wasn’t a vampire, you hugged me.”
“Is there a reason we’re strolling down memory lane right now?”
“You are happy I’m home, aren’t you?”
Billy rolled his eyes. He took his sandwich back to the living room and plunked down on the sofa this time before grabbing the remote. A couple presses of his thumb and they were watching golf.
Jack stormed over to the television and manually flipped it off. Before Billy could complain, Jack turned on him. Using a loud voice to try to get through to his brother, Jack asked, “What happened? How did you go from thrilled to see me to can’t stand to be in the same room with me?”
“What do you expect?” Billy tossed his half-eaten sandwich to the coffee table. “In one night I lost my mom, my dad, and the brother I worshipped. While you were all being torn to bits, I was hiding in the closet like a coward.”
Taken aback by the furious burst of emotion, Jack’s voice dropped a few decibels. “I told you to stay there.”
“Mom told you to stay hidden too, but you ran out to help them.”
“And look how that turned out. You were the smart one.”
Billy jumped to his feet and began to pace the length of the room in front of the sofa. “I sat alone in the closet, slowly losing my mind as I waited for one of you to return. I didn’t come out until the sheriff showed. After that, my life pretty much became what it is now. I hunted. I slept. I ate. Then I hunted some more. My life was bleak, and it was going to be that way forever as far as I could tell.
“The day I opened your coffin and found it empty, I cried like a baby. I kept imagining all these horrible things happening to you. Maybe I was wrong, but I saw you as a monster. In my mind, someday I was going to have to kill you.” Billy threw his hands up. “Then ‘someday’ arrived out of the blue. I was going to put you out of your misery even if it killed me to do it. But ta-da you aren’t a vampire anymore. Seems like a good thing on the surface, doesn’t it?
“The brother I’d lost, returns. You look exactly the same as the day you died, but you’re different inside. You don’t talk or act like the brother I knew. Suddenly I find myself living under the same roof with a stranger, a stranger with my brother’s face, and on top of that, I find out my brother is going to have powers and is destined to either kill the top werewolf, and save the world or die trying. You try coping with that. Why should I get close to you again when you’re just going to die on me?”
Billy dropped back to the sofa and grabbed his sandwich. He tore a huge chunk off the end. He picked up the remote again, prepared to turn the television on, but Jack took it from his greasy fingers.
“It’s been hard for me too,” Jack said. “You may not want to hear this, but living with you hasn’t exactly been a picnic. You don’t look anything like my brother. You certainly don’t act like him. Somehow you went from thinking I was the best thing in the world to hating my guts.”
“I don’t hate you,” Billy mumbled.
“You could have fooled me. Half the time you’re bossing me around, and the other half you’re planning how you’re going to kill me.”
Billy stopped chewing long enough to look sheepish. “I wouldn’t kill you unless I knew for sure you’d reverted to a vampire... and maybe not even then. I mean, you told me it wasn’t so bad being a vampire. I think I’d take your word for it as long as you didn’t kill anyone in front of me.”
Sounded like progress to Jack.
“I’m sorry for bossing you around,” Billy added. “I kind of feel like I’ve become an instant father here.”
“But you aren’t my father. You’re my baby brother. Try to remember that, and we’ll get along just fine.”
“I’ll try.” Billy finished his meal. He sucked his fingers and made annoying smacking sounds. “Do you think you could manage to show some respect for the man I’ve become? I’m not the ‘baby’ brother anymore. I wish you’d stop calling me that.”
Jack nodded. “Sounds fair.”
Billy reached a hand out, and Jack shook it.
“We’re okay now?” Jack asked.
“Depends.” Billy smirked at him. “You want to get me a beer while you’re up?”
****
A few hours later, Jack headed to bed. He left the bathroom while rubbing his tired eyes. He hadn’t removed the thick cream-colored sweatshirt or jeans because the heater wasn’t working properly. He planned on sleeping in his clothes. It was too bad Billy wasn’t as skilled with a wrench as he was with a rifle. Since their dad died, he’d let the place fall apart. Billy definitely was not a handy man to have around the house.
Jack went into his room and stopped just inside the doorway. There was something large, round, and black on his pillow. For a second he thought it might be a strange bug of some kind. He removed a shoe and approached with caution, but it was too shiny to be a bug. Frowning, he dropped the shoe and picked the object up. It was a rock, but it didn’t look like any rock he’d ever seen. Too smooth. Now who had put a rock on his pillow?
In answer to his silent question, Silver said, “Magic stone.” She stood in the doorway, a can of purple soda in her hand. Once Jack glanced her way, she entered and closed the door. “I told my mom who the lead werewolf is and asked her to give me the stone so you can use it to destroy him.”
“She gave it to you?” Jack couldn’t keep the surprise from his voice. He’d thought the rock was a last resort, only to be used if Silver got herself killed.
“Actually, she turned me down flat. I took it from her room. She keeps it in her sock drawer. Remember?”
“We can’t go behind your parent’s backs and use it when they obviously don’t want us to.”
Silver glared at him. “I want to have a normal life. I thought you’d understand that more than anyone.”
“I do.”
“Then help me. Once you kill Jersey, all other werewolves will return to normal. The world will be free of them, and I can go to college like a normal person. I can become a lawyer and save people from a different angle.”
Jack went down on the bed and studied the rock from every direction. “It doesn’t look like a magic rock to me.”
“What does a magic rock look like?” Silver laughed before lying next to him. “Have you ever seen one before? Of course not. Because there’s only one and that’s it.”
The light remained on as they stared at the ceiling, side by side. Jack hated it that every conversation they had seemed to revolve around vampires or werewolves. He wanted to talk about the other aspects of life. He wanted to talk about a future with her.
Something was bothering him. “If you go off to college next year, what am I supposed to do?”
“You could come with me.”
He chuckled at the idea. “I can’t picture myself in college. I’m barely keeping my head above water in high school.”
“I’ll tutor you.”
He turned to look at her and asked, “What if I don’t want to go with you? What if I want to stay here with my brother and hunt vampires or ghosts? Then what?”
“I don’t know.” Her lower lip trembled. “I guess I could visit you when I come to see my parents. I’m not going to give up my dreams, and I hope you aren’t the kind of guy who would ask me to.”
He wasn’t, but he also wasn’t the kind of guy who waited around for the love of his life to return. “What if you meet someone in college?”
She sat up then, and her eyebrows drew together. “I am not going to meet anyone else. You and I are destiny, so that means you’re stuck with me forever.”
“Does it?” He swallowed, unsure of what to say and what not to say. “According to destiny, you and I have to fight in a war against the werewolves someday. If we fix it to where it never happens, we might not stay together. We’ll be changing the future.”
Silver returned to her previous position lying next to him. “Are you saying you won’t do it? Are you refusing to use the stone?”
“No.” He brought the rock up to his face and stared at its smooth surface. “I want to use it, but I don’t want to use it against Jersey.”
