Chapter Nine
“Jack, this is Darren you’re talking about,” Miranda said. “You know him. Please, don’t do this. You’re having a delusion—”
“You’re going to lecture me about delusions? You are telling me that everything in this world can be scientifically explained?” Jack’s gaze bored into her. “I didn’t see that coming.”
Her stomach seemed to drop through the floor. Did he know about her power? The way he was glaring, and his comment about saving lives in the future made her wonder.
“I know you’re sweet on him,” Jack said. “But he is dangerous. Even if he manages to keep himself from outright killing you, he could hurt you without meaning to with his new strength. He could turn you. ”
Darren’s leg started to bounce under the table again. “How is it transmitted?”
Jack turned his attention back to Darren. “Why?”
“We kissed,” Darren said. “In front of the restaurant.”
“I’m aware,” Jack said.
“Did I…” Darren glanced over at Miranda, then quickly looked away.
“Relax,” Jack said. “That little make-out session wasn’t enough to turn her. The only way to make someone a werewolf is to bite them—and break their skin—while you’re in your werewolf form. That’s how the curse is transmitted. Not through coughs, or touch, or kissing. It’s not an STD and you can’t get anyone pregnant. Turning makes you sterile. Do you know how we know this, Darren?”
Darren’s leg went still. He didn’t even seem to be breathing.
“Rape kits.” Jack paused, his eyes pinching at the corners. When he spoke again, his voice was even lower and rougher than usual. “In their altered form, all werewolves care about is the kill. When they’re human, they have ‘broader interests’. They’re still dangerous—maybe worse, since they can hide among humans. Tell me, Darren. Since you were bitten, have you had any…out of character thoughts about Miranda?”
“Jack—” Miranda said.
Darren spoke at the same time. “I would never hurt anyone that way. Anyone.”
“The man you were wouldn’t. How much longer will you be him?” Jack paused again. “This room is muting your abilities. Helping you hold on to your humanity. You have three nights after this one until the full moon. Nothing will help you then. You will change. And you will kill. There’s only one way to stop it.”
Jack pulled back the hammer on his gun and gently put it in what Miranda thought was the uncocked position, then turned it around with the handle toward Darren. Reaching across the table, Jack set it down within Darren’s reach. He leaned back and picked up the other gun, using a circular device that held a ring of shiny silver-looking bullets to load the weapon incredibly quickly.
Darren stared at the gun in front of him. He couldn’t be considering…
“This is insane.” She turned to Darren and said, “You can’t believe him. This can’t be true.”
“Tell her the rest,” Jack said. “You got away somehow, and I do not for a moment believe it’s just because you hit the thing on the head with some broken board you found lying around.”
“It was already hurt,” Darren said. “He was already hurt. I hit him with my car.”
“A werewolf would shake that off,” Jack said.
“He was hurt before that,” Darren said. “Someone put silver in him. Not a bullet. A coin.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. He seemed to be handling it very carefully. He tossed it in front of Jack. It made a thunk as it hit the table.
“It happened like I said.” Darren let out a tight breath. “A giant wolf-thing bit me, and I hit him with a piece of shelving. The blow knocked him off of me. Then he…changed. He changed into a man.”
Darren glanced over at Miranda. His dark brows were lowered over his pale gray eyes. She had never seen him look more serious—not even when he was pulling her from the wreckage of her car. He had looked terrified then. Now he looked…terrifying.
Is it possible? Are werewolves real?
She might be able to consider that possibility, but she would never believe that Darren would become the sort of creature that Jack had described.
Darren looked away from her, as if he couldn’t hold her gaze. He cleared his throat, and said, “When he realized he had bitten me, I think he regretted it. He kept saying he was sorry.”
Miranda squeezed Darren’s thigh to bring his attention back to her. “Why would he apologize if he was a mindless monster?”
“He really was sorry.” Darren’s eyebrows drew together as he considered her question. “Seeing that he bit me seemed to wreck him.”
“Lots of people have regrets when their number is up,” Jack said.
Darren shook his head. “No, this was different.”
Hope was seeping back into his expression. Miranda had to help him build on that.
“Did he say anything else?” she asked.
“He kept talking about the night,” Darren said. “No, nights. He told me to ‘find the nights’, whatever that means.”
“Maybe something about the full moon?” She turned back to Jack. “Werewolves are mostly active at night, right? That’s the way it was in my dad’s stories.”
Jack winced slightly, but recovered himself quickly. “Werewolves are active whenever they want to be. It’s vampires who can’t move around during the day.”
“Vampires?” Miranda nearly choked on the word. “Vampires are real too?”
“They’re not as dangerous as werewolves,” Jack said. “A hell of a lot more common, though.”
“Do you think we can find some vampires who can help us?” Miranda said. “Is that what the man who bit you meant?”
“‘Nights’…” Jack lowered his gun a bit, his brow furrowed. For the first time that evening, he seemed uncertain. “Then what?”
“Then he turned to ash and disintegrated.” Darren pointed toward the handkerchief on the table. “I found that coin in the remains.”
Jack cocked an eyebrow, then leaned forward and picked it up. He unwrapped it slowly.
“If werewolves in packs can pick specific targets, that means they can think,” Miranda said. “Darren can find a way to control himself.”
“Werewolves are driven by rage,” Jack said. “By a hunger for violence.”
Darren shook his head. “The one who turned me was driven by pain. That coin was burning a hole in his gut. I’ve felt silver now. It’s like touching acid. The poor guy had to be in agony.”
Jack held up the coin, then turned it over in his fingers. “This looks Grecian.”
“It is,” Darren said. “It’s from a small city that was destroyed by a natural disaster millennia ago. Until recently, it was on loan to Olympus University from the museum.”
Jack let out a sigh. “I sometimes wonder if our founders took it a little too far with the naming theme for our fair city.”
Miranda remembered the conversation Darren had had with his partner, Scott, after the accident. They had spoken about coins.
“Was this one of the coins you and Scott were transporting?” she asked.
“Yes.” Darren actually managed a slight smile as he looked at her. “I’m surprised you remember that.”
Jack was staring intently at the coin. “Underestimate her at your peril.”
He knows.
Somehow, his statement made her sure of it.
Her stomach started churning. How long had he known? How did he find out? Why had he never mentioned it to her?
“Orion and the Scorpion,” Jack said.
The hair on the back of Miranda’s neck stood on end. “What did you say?”
“Orion and the Scorpion,” Jack repeated. “That’s the design. Orion on one side, the scorpion on the other. It’s from a Greek myth.”
“Orion…” She remembered her vision, with the stars falling to earth—remembered the pattern of the constellation and finally recognized it.
Dread flooded her body, making bile rise up in her throat. She pulled her hand away from Darren and hugged her middle tight. She had let him be attacked to avoid the apocalyptic vision. She’d thought that would be the end of it. The end of him.
She shook her head and started rocking, feeling the weight of the vision pressing down on her. She didn’t know what to do, but knew she was at the center of it.
Darren being attacked was only the beginning.
“What is it?” Jack leaned forward in his chair. “What did you see?”
She shook her head.
“He needs to know,” Jack said.
Darren looked back and forth between them. “Know what?”
“If you really want to help him, you have to tell him,” Jack said.
He was right.
She took a deep breath, and forced out the words, “I can see the future.”
Hearing it out loud added a layer of reality to her ability—her life—that she hadn’t felt since her mom was alive.
She glanced over at Darren. His eyebrows hiked up his forehead briefly, but then he sort of shook his head, his expression becoming neutral.
“Okay,” he said.
“That’s it?” Miranda expected questions, disbelief, something other than this calm acceptance.
“I don’t really have room to be skeptical.” He smiled at her and shrugged.
“I suppose not.” Because werewolf. This was so crazy. She turned back to Jack, and asked, “How did you know?”
Jack stared at her for a long time. The crow’s feet around his eyes deepened, like he was in pain. Finally, he said, “It’s from your dad’s side. He and I fought the fey together, along with your mom and some others.”
“What?” Miranda felt like her world had shattered around her. She and her mom had always been open and honest with each other—at least, Miranda had thought so. She shook her head. “My mom would have told me.”
“She wanted you to have a normal life,” Jack said.
“But I wasn’t normal,” Miranda said. “I’m not normal.”
“Not everyone in your bloodline develops the sight.” Jack cleared his throat, but his voice was still raspy. “Your dad thought you’d been spared.”
He’d died before Miranda’s powers had manifested. But her mom hadn’t told Miranda any of this.
“Mom knew,” Miranda whispered. “Why didn’t she tell me?”
“She didn’t want this life for you,” Jack said.
“That wasn’t her choice to make.” Miranda nearly choked on the words, her throat was so tight.
“It doesn’t matter now anyway,” Jack said. “Because this life has chosen you. I need to know what you saw.”
“Is that why you offered me this job after mom’s funeral?” she said. “To keep tabs on my visions?”
“Hell, no.” He took a deep breath and then blew it out. She’d never seen him so upset.
Jack’s gaze softened and he smiled. Miranda couldn’t remember ever seeing such a sad smile.
“Your mom didn’t want me anywhere near you.” His eyes glittered in the dim light and his voice sounded strained. “Your dad and I… We were close. You are all that’s left of him in this world. And I couldn’t leave you to be alone in it.”
The room seemed to be spinning. She wasn’t sure what was real anymore. Nothing she’d thought she understood seemed certain.
Darren reached over to her and placed his hand on her back. She took a deep, calming breath and let his warmth seep into her.
This she did understand. Darren wasn’t a monster. He would never be a monster.
Apparently, Jack didn’t agree. He lifted that damned gun again.
“Careful, there,” he said.
“Enough,” Miranda snapped. She shifted closer to Darren, pressing her hands to her thighs to keep from reaching for him. “Too many lives are at stake for you to throw away Darren’s just because you think you know his future. I’ve seen it, and he will not be a threat.”
At least, not to me.
Jack leaned back and tapped his fingers on the table. “Tell me.”
She wasn’t about to share her visions of her and Darren in bed. She focused on the more important issue.
“An apocalypse,” she said. “But I think I prevented it already.”
Jack waved his hand in a circle, encouraging her to go on.
“I’ve never had a vision like this one,” Miranda said. “It was shrouded in metaphors.” And that stupid fog. “Details kept changing, even while I was in it.”
“What kind of details?” Jack said.
“Mostly who was in the coffin.” She took a shaky breath, glancing up at Jack. “First it was you. Then Darren.” She skipped over Eden. There was only so much Miranda could take at the moment.
If Jack was disturbed by learning of his imminent demise, he didn’t show it. Darren was another matter.
“Wait, we’re going to die?” he said.
“I don’t know.” Miranda shook her head. “I was in a church, and I saw Jack in a coffin. I looked away, and when I looked back, it was you. So I turned around and ran away. But when I made it outside, the stars were shining so bright it almost hurt to look at them. I didn’t recognize the constellation until you mentioned Orion just now. That’s what it was, though. And the stars were falling from the sky, exploding where they hit.”
“That sounds more like missiles than stars,” Darren said.
Jack leveled a grim look at Darren. “Fairies don’t need to use missiles.”
“Fairies.” Her stomach started doing flips. She felt like she might be sick.
Her dad had told her fairy tales when she was a little girl. He’d told her the books weren’t always right, and she needed to remember his versions. He’d said it was important.
She’d always thought they were just stories.
Darren rested his hand on top of hers, his touch so gentle. He was supporting her, and he didn’t know that she had thrown him to the wolves. Literally, as it turned out. How could she ever tell him what she’d done?
“How do your visions work?” he asked.
At least she could explain her powers. Maybe when she had a chance to confess the rest, it would help him understand her choice.
“Like this.” She looked at him and turned her hand over in his so that their palms were touching. She let his future flow into her.
He was below her this time. She was straddling him, fingers buried in the fine dark hair that coated his chest. His eyes were pinched shut and his hands clutched the sheets—the same sheets that were currently on her bed at home. Right down to the mismatched pillowslip she had used because she’d spilled something on one of the matching set.
She felt a quickening between her legs, her face tingling and her breath hitching in her chest.
They were still going to become lovers. Even after what she was about to tell him. And it was going to happen soon.
“What are you seeing?” Jack said.
His question brought her back to her physical senses, to the dark room where she sat with her boss, the not quite retired fairy fighter, and her soon to be werewolf boyfriend. Darren stared at her intently, pupils wide.
“I see that Darren is not a threat to me,” she said.
“That’d be a lot more reassuring if you two weren’t staring at each other like that,” Jack said.
Miranda forced herself to look away. She turned her hand back over, but rested it on Darren’s thigh. She could feel the energy crackling off of him and briefly wondered if their chemistry was a byproduct of him becoming a werewolf or the attraction they’d felt before it happened.
“I’ve seen you reading people in the diner,” Jack said. “A light touch on the shoulder, you space out for a few minutes, then you sit down and talk. Maybe steer them toward making better decisions. That’s talk-show stuff. You need to be ready for this, Miranda. You’re walking into a war that’s been going on for thousands of years. A war between humanity and the fey. You have to accept that there will be casualties.”
He looked pointedly at Darren.
“Not Darren.” She had already sacrificed him once. She wouldn’t do it again.
If Jack—or anybody—tried to take Darren from her, she was ready to fight for him and their future together.
Ready to fight…
Her stomach seemed to rise and then plummet, like she was on a roller-coaster. The air shifted.
“Something’s coming.” She heard the words escape her lips like they were spoken from someone else.
A bell above the door rang—hollow and wooden. Jack whipped his head around, his eyes widening. He leapt to his feet. So did Darren.
Miranda jumped up and put her hand on Darren’s chest. This would be the perfect chance to escape, but she knew they had to stay. Whatever was about to happen, Jack needed their help.
Jack turned to Darren and said, “You want to prove to me you’re still a man and not a monster—that you can control this curse? Now’s your chance.”
He opened the chamber of his gun and let the bullets fall into his hand, then ran to the small cabinet full of ammo again. He pulled out another ring of bullets and reloaded. The bullets weren’t shiny this time. They were a dull gray.
Miranda grabbed one of the skillets off the counter. She wasn’t sure why she wanted it, but she knew it was important that she have it. She backed up against a wall, holding the skillet in front of her.
Jack turned toward the room. He smiled when he noticed her weapon of choice. “Iron. Good thinking.”
“I wasn’t thinking,” she said. “It was instinct.”
He nodded. “Trust your instincts. Always.” He backed up against a wall himself, holding his gun level and aimed at the door. He was also holding a skillet, brandishing it like a weapon.
Darren turned to Jack and said, “Can I draw my gun without you shooting me?”
“It’ll be better if you’re not armed when it shows up.” Jack was scanning the room. “We might be able to take it by surprise.”
“Take what by surprise?” Darren said.
Jack shook his head. “I don’t know.”
The chimes sounded again, stronger this time. Now that Miranda was watching the bells, she saw that it was the bamboo one. She couldn’t remember ever hearing it before.
Whatever Jack was expecting, it had him scared. More scared than he’d been sitting across the table from Darren—ready to kill or be killed. The tension had escalated, too. Miranda’s skin was crawling.
“Jack, what’s going on?” she said.
“Jack?” A new voice sounded in the room. Smooth and lyrical, even in that one word.
Miranda had been staring at the door the whole time and it had never opened. She turned to look in the direction the voice had come from.
A handsome blond man stood right next to her, almost close enough to touch. She yelped and jumped away, moving to stand behind Darren.
Miranda had never seen such a beautiful man. His large eyes were the color of a perfect summer lawn. His skin was as flawless and smooth as fresh snow, and his hair floated around his face in a halo of gold.
“Humans startle so easily.” He laughed, a cruel smile twisting his inhumanly gorgeous features. “Unless my eyes deceive me, you’ll not find succor with that one, though.”
“Forester.” Jack’s eyes were wide with fear. “How the hell did you get in here?”
Miranda wanted to know as well. As far as she could tell, “Forester” had just appeared in the room out of nowhere.
“It did take some doing, even with my beacon,” Forester said. “I was surprised by the wards, but now it makes a bit more sense—Jack.”
Forester smiled. His teeth gleamed in the light—bright and perfect. He tilted his head a bit, and his hair fell against his face, revealing the point of his ear. A fairy?
Please, don’t let him be a fairy.
If he was a fairy, he wouldn’t even see her as an animal. He’d see her as a chew-toy. He’d want to make her squeak.
Forester turned his attention to her. “And you are?”
The green of his eyes swirled with flickering lights. His irises were larger than a human’s. She started to feel unfocused, and was about to mumble her name, when Jack cut in.
“Don’t answer him,” Jack said. “Never tell a fairy your name if they ask. It gives them power over you.”
She knew that. Somewhere in the back of her mind. Stories dad had told her. A warning repeated again and again.
Her thoughts were muddled. She looked at Forester’s chin, breaking eye contact, and her mind began to clear. She tightened her grip on the skillet.
“It’s inconsequential,” Forester said. “I’ve heard the name I need—even though it’s not a true name. Infamous Jack, the fairy killer.” His smile became even more predatory as he turned to face Jack. “Choosing that name was a very clever trick. But it looks like your luck has run out.”