Six, p.33
Six, page 33
“You know, darling, you could probably get great tips. We have customers that like the triple threat of boyish, athletic, and kinky. It’s for the guys who aren’t quite ready to make the leap—”
“Thank you so much for everything. Um, who do I owe for the clothes?”
Bunny waved her away. “Forget about it. They were from an old locker anyway. Girls leave shit here all the time.”
Paige gave one more surreptitious sniff to make certain she smelled the faint aroma of detergent on her new threads. She tottered slightly in the wedges Bunny had found for her and tugged at the bottom of her sleeveless knit top that liked to ride up every few steps. She did pause to admire her six-pack in the dressing room mirror before tugging her top down again and daring to face the boys.
She tiptoed in to find Sammy and Billy flopped on one of the dressing room couches, reading adult magazines of various flavors. Across the room, Morgan had the laptop out and was staring intensely at the screen while every once in a while adjusting his cowhide trousers.
Paige cleared her throat. All three werewolves’ jaws dropped. Paige struck a dainty little pose in the doorway. Morgan dropped the laptop down his legs and had to do a last-minute catch with his feet.
“Did I clean up all right?” Paige asked.
Sammy and Billy both nodded in appreciation, while Morgan remained stunned, staring unabashedly at Paige’s sleek and toned legs. What completely stole the show was a fluffy tail swishing proud and free through the back of her Daisy Dukes.
“That’s even hotter than I imagined,” Billy said. His gawking was interrupted by Sammy pointedly grabbing his eager brother’s arm and dragging him from the room. Paige giggled at the protests as the door slammed shut.
“Are you sure that you should have that hanging out?” Morgan asked.
Paige settled on the sofa, kicked off her heels, and wiggled her yellow-painted toes. She showed off by letting her claws peek out just a touch so that she could show off the French manicure she had attempted underneath. “What are people really going to think around here?” she asked. “And I don’t know if you know what it’s like to have a part of your body constantly cramped and shoved down your pants—”
“I have a pretty good idea, yes,” Morgan said as he moved the laptop to safety and shifted again in his seat. “You just look so different.”
“Good different or bad different?” she purred as she rolled to the floor and crawled across the carpet toward his chair. She grabbed the bottle of hand sanitizer from the table next to him and rubbed it ever so slowly over her hands before she dared to climb on top of him.
“You think of everything,” he gulped as she wrapped her arms around his neck. “You smell like flowers. It’s kind of disappointing.”
“What would you rather I smelled like?” she whispered ever so softly in his ear.
“Me,” he growled before grabbing her back and pressing his lips to hers. Just as his tongue had finally found a comfortable resting place deep within Paige’s eager mouth, the door to the visitor dressing room swung open.
“Well, this is awkward—” a rather nasally voice said. At the same time Paige heard a frighteningly familiar, “Oh, my.”
Paige whirled around to see two red-faced men standing in the doorway. One looked like he stepped straight from the pages of Viking Digest, while the other looked like he wanted to claw out his eyes.
“Bernard!” Morgan cried at the same time Paige yelped, “Dad!”
“Oh, this is awkward,” the Viking-looking dude said as he quickly shuffled Dr. Dexter Carmichael out into the less-embarrassing world of a low-end strip club.
29
Paige kept her eyes firmly planted on the little tea light holder that decorated their corner booth. Next to her, Morgan studied a particularly fascinating buckle in the plastic laminate that formed the edge of the table. Around the booth, Billy and Bernard formed a buffer zone, while Dr. Carmichael actually read the food and beverage menu of the Bust Stop Bar and Grill. Paige occasionally shot a wistful stare toward silent Sammy, who had taken up a perch near Wesley and the front door. The awkward silence continued until their ever-so-pleasant waitress came back with a first round of drinks. She surveyed the aura of awkwardness and offered to come back later for the rest of their order.
“You look very different, Mr. Wolfe,” Dr. Carmichael said as he set down his menu. “Is that something that you can, you know, do with your condition?”
“Actually it was a fat suit and a wig from the party store,” Morgan confessed.
“And does my daughter know about your, um, condition?” Dexter asked.
Paige let out a deep sigh. “Yes, Dad, I know exactly what he is,” she said.
Everyone at the table exchanged awkward looks.
“Is it even safe?” he hissed as he looked nervously around the room. He glared at Morgan. “I might not be . . . like you, but I swear to god if you hurt my daughter—”
“Oh, Dad, please,” Paige growled. “Now is not the time for the macho father routine.”
“Paige, I’m just saying—”
Paige slapped her hands on the table, giving him a front-row view of her claws before she pushed to her feet and stomped away from the group. She could hear feet following her, but she didn’t stop until she had made it all the way out to the parking lot. She had switched back to her dirty sneakers and sweatpants, so she made amazing time running around the building to hide behind the RV.
“Paige! Paige, please.” Dr. Carmichael huffed and puffed as he jogged to catch up to her. The professor glared at Morgan, who had hustled to catch up with Paige as well. “Did you do this to my baby?” he snapped.
“No, Dad, you did,” she barked.
“What? Paige, what are you talking about?” he asked.
“You sent me all that crazy information on vampires that caused Morgan and his insane uncle to come after me,” she spat out. “I ended up in the hospital, Dad, and you were nowhere to be found.”
“Paige, baby, what are you talking about? I saw your mother, tried to warn her, but it was too late. I was going to see you, but there was a car already at your house—”
“Dad, you were in my apartment. You showed me pictures of a freaky guy named Ivan Lyashev, who was there at my great-grandpa’s funeral seventy years ago. You . . . you honestly don’t remember?” Paige asked.
“You gave me a flash drive, Dr. Carmichael. You told me to deliver it to Paige if you didn’t come back to tell me how your meeting went,” Morgan added. “I gave it to her when you didn’t check in.”
“Oh god, I don’t remember that. I thought I was meeting you, Paige, for the first time today—” Dr. Carmichael said.
“In the video you sent me, you warned me that vampires could manipulate people. You told me that you weren’t immune. You told me to find Morgan because he was able to help me—”
“I thought I’d finally found people who could protect you, Paige. Bernard told me that you were coming, but I wasn’t expecting—” His words faded into a flurry of dismissive hand motions directed at Morgan.
“Dad, I’m a werewolf. Are we going to deal with this or what?”
Dr. Carmichael spread out his arms and enveloped Paige in an unequivocal daddy bear hug. He ruffled her curls, much to her chagrin. “I really don’t know what to say, but we’ll figure it out. I mean, Bernard is a nice werewolf—”
“Morgan is a nice werewolf too,” Paige added.
Morgan approached the pair of Carmichaels rather sheepishly. “Sir, I am sorry for, um, you know—”
“Paige, did you have a tail?” Dr. Carmichael asked.
She nodded.
“That’s a relief. After some of the things I’ve seen around here, I was afraid . . . you know, I’m just going to stop talking. Why don’t we go have a few beers and then talk?”
“I like this plan, Dad. I really do.”
Dr. Carmichael sized up Morgan one more time. The over-six-foot tall werewolf cowered before the professor in tweed. He began muttering, “Sir, I am, I mean, I, um . . . I just want you to know that—”
“Stop talking, Morgan,” Paige said.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said as he fell in line behind her.
Dr. Carmichael raised a brow. “I guess I have nothing to worry about,” he said appreciatively.
They settled back into the booth, and all took big sips of their beers. The last member of the werewolf pack, Bernard, had found the time to braid napkins into a fairly substantial piece of rope and was using it to lasso Billy’s beer.
“Oh, you’re back, Professor C,” Bernard said as he finally was able to get the coil of rope around the bottle neck. “We didn’t know when you’d be back, so we ordered you steaks. I just found out that your daughter is part of our pack. Isn’t that awesome?”
“Bernard is the most like me,” Morgan muttered.
Paige eyed the wild-eyed young man with the sides of his head shaved and a beard that stuck out a solid two inches from his face. A few wild waves of hair flopped in front of his bushy brows, but the vast majority of his Mohawk mane was tied into a messy topknot. He stared slightly past Paige, seemingly lost in thought. “Do you really have a tail?” he asked.
“I can see it,” Paige muttered as she looked at both of the twitchy geek boys. She finally sighed, “Yes, Bernard, I have a tail.”
They spent the rest of the evening with beers, steaks, and strippers. Paige and her dad compared their vastly different recollections about the week he came to Memphis, while Billy and Bernard took notes.
“So, what happened after you were attacked? How did you end up here?” Dr. Carmichael asked his daughter.
“It’s a bit complicated,” she said. “Why don’t you tell me more about what you’ve been up to, Dad?”
“Well, I’ve been on a sabbatical to finish my next book. I have a few conventions in the fall and spring, and I think it’s going to be quite a stellar year once I finally expose the greatest conspiracy that mankind has ever known—”
“Dad, you aren’t honestly going to publish a book on vampires, are you?”
“I have to now. Apparently I had data so good that the vampires erased my memories, right? I just have to figure out where my backups are, and with your help and the boys—”
“But you don’t remember anything, right?” Paige asked again.
“I know I’ve got copies somewhere. It’s just a question of figuring out what I did. If I can fool the men in black, I can fool dead people. Paige, Paige, are you OK? You look a little pale—”
Paige rubbed her temple. “I think it’s just too much beer and not enough food. Can you order me another porterhouse, rare? I’m just going to go to the ladies’ room. Excuse me.”
Morgan squeezed her hand. “Are you sure—?”
“Get me a water too,” she said as she pulled free of his grasp.
Paige made a beeline for the back of the joint. Instead of heading to the ladies’ room, she went just a touch farther to a door marked “Office.” She looked over her shoulder before trying the lever on the door. She opened it slowly and smiled to the lone occupant of the tiny, crowded room. Bunny looked at her visitor quizzically and folded over the pile of bills she was looking through ever so intently.
“Can I help you?” she asked. “This is a private office.”
“I just needed to use the phone,” Paige said, pointing to the putty-colored dinosaur on the wall.
“Again?” Bunny asked.
Paige blinked a few times. “Excuse me?”
The manager waved her hands dismissively. “Hey, I know the rules—no questions, no eavesdropping,” she sighed. “I needed a cigarette anyway. Knock yourself out and give the master my regards.”
Paige felt a sinking feeling deep within the pit of her stomach. She looked over at the shiny black plastic of Bunny’s computer and found herself tearing up as green eyes stared back at her.
“No, no, no—” she whispered even as her left hand picked up the phone. “Please, no—”
“Paige,” a familiar English voice said at the end of the line, “Paige, does your father remember anything that might get us all into trouble?”
“No, but he has backup data somewhere. He hasn’t told me where it is yet. Why am I doing this?”
“The prerogative of every living creature is to survive, Paige. I’m sorry if this is uncomfortable for you right now.”
“Get out of my head,” she spat.
“Soon, a rún, soon enough,” Lorcan reassured her. “Now sleep.”
“No,” Paige said, even as her eyelids started to droop.
“You need your rest.”
“No,” Paige growled as she slammed down the phone. She stumbled down the back hallway of the Bust Stop, blood dripping from her nose. Her heart began to pound in her chest, and she could hear her ribs cracking in their sockets. “Oh, no,” she growled. “No, not now.”
She made a beeline for the emergency exit, ignoring the alarms as she tore across the parking lot. Her feet took on a mind of their own, pounding against the ground until she could feel the bones in her legs shifting and snapping. They collapsed underneath her, but she continued to scramble into the scraggly, scrubby underbrush that stretched for miles around the roadside attraction. Only then did she finally pass out.
She opened her eyes and let out a bellowing roar. Much to her surprise, she lumbered onto two massive, hairy feet. Her talons dug into the ground as she stretched her massive hands behind her back. She raised her muzzle and howled at the moon. Her breath was heavy and labored, and she snarled as she could smell the enemy in the air.
“Holy shit!” she heard someone yell. She whirled around to see men surrounding her. One dared to raise his phone to take a picture of the beast. She leaped forward and bashed his hand. As the black mirror landed against the hard red earth, she could just see two amber canine eyes glaring back at her.
“Paige!”
She stared at her mockery of a hand—a clawed, hooked paw covered in black fur. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the pretty one with spiky black hair lunge at her. All she had to do was slip to the side before knocking him back with a single punch.
“Game over, man!” the other attacker said as he stumbled back. “She’s a—”
“Paige!” the same voice barked. She batted away another slow and feeble attempt to lunge at her when a tall, strong attacker stared right at her with his solid blue eyes. She bared her teeth and snarled.
“Morgan, your girlfriend is a werewolf.”
“Paige, can you hear me?” her blue-eyed attacker asked. She took a bold step forward. The other attackers made the mistake of lunging. All she had to do was leap toward the blue eyes so that the slower men crashed into each other. “Paige, it’s me. It’s Morgan,” Blue Eyes said as he reached out his hand.
She took a deep sniff of the air. She approached him slowly, cautiously. Her attackers gasped, as it seemed like every shadow from every cactus and tumbleweed swirled around her arms and torso.
“Paige, I know you’re in there. It’s me, Morgan,” he said softly. “Let me help you.”
“What is she doing?” someone else asked. She whirled around and sent him sprawling to the ground, scraping the back of Morgan’s hand in the process. She felt someone grab her arm. This time when she whirled around, her claws came out, just as a sharp pain entered her arm. She stared in horror at the syringes stuck into her triceps and at the blood welling up on Morgan’s stomach.
“Mor—” she choked out before stumbling to the dirt.
Paige cracked her neck as she yawned and slowly opened her eyes. She felt soft satin under her bare legs and smelled the distant aromas of sweat, sex, and alcohol. Slowly, black iron bars came into focus, and a pair of angry blue eyes just beyond her cage.
She could hear frantic pacing behind her and a nasally voice muttering, “We need to be moving, Morgan—do you hear that? Moving!”
Paige wrapped herself in the chintzy red sheets that surrounded her nearly naked body. The tattered remains of her sweatpants survived, Incredible Hulk-style, and a few rows of her knit top still circled her aching throat. She found herself in a six-by-six Gothic scrollwork cage set in a room full of all manner of whips, chains, and sex toys. An entire pack of perturbed-looking werewolves sat in the dungeon, but only Morgan dared to get within arm’s reach.
Paige made a whining noise like a scolded dog. She mouthed, “What happened?” but Morgan simply shook his head in response.
“Morgan—” Billy started to say. He shut up as Morgan shifted his glare.
Paige turned toward the pacing Bernard. The bushy-bearded werewolf literally jumped back and clutched his bandaged hand. “Thank god we’re in the middle of nowhere,” he said, “because we had to drag a hundred and fifty pound coyote-man beast into a strip club dungeon.”
Wesley piped up, “To be fair, they’ve seen weirder around here.”
Billy scratched furiously in one of his notebooks. Paige growled at him. In response he flipped around the book and showed a drawing of a large coyote-human hybrid in sweatpants. Sammy just stared.
“If one sober person had a smartphone—” Bernard said.
“We covered everyone,” Wesley said. “All we had to do was offer free beer and get Monica onstage, and no one cared about some monster coyote and a false fire alarm.”
“But what are we going to do about Dr. Carmichael? He’s been freaking out so much that I had to give him one of your shots, Morgan,” Billy added. “Dude, there is not enough weed in Nevada to calm down a dad seeing his little girl beat up five guys as a werewolf.”
Paige wheezed again. Sammy and Billy both showed off the bandages on their arms, while Wesley had to use one of the paddles as a makeshift crutch. “Sorry,” Paige mouthed.
“I still think we should pump her full of Special K and move out. Even if the few witnesses were completely drunk and it was night—” Bernard started.
