~

 

“Holy crap!” Eileen bit out, and that certainly did take us by surprise because the last person I would ever expect to swear was her. I turned my head to look at Eileen and followed her gaze.

There he was — coming towards us like he could see everything that was going on. Jack Mackie — what were the odds?

“He’s going to walk right into the barrier,” Moira warned, but it was already too late. Jack was at the threshold, and even if we could have pulled the magic back now, there still wouldn’t have been time.

I didn’t know what would happen; I was kind of waiting for the cosmic thud, and then for Jack to fall down on his backside. That didn’t happen, Jack walked straight through the magical barrier, and my heart was in my throat.

How the heck had that happened? Although, Moira put it more succinctly than I could as I was choking on my heart at the time… “What the f…?”

Exactly!

“Detective Mackie!” Eileen practically screamed his name, and I know why she did it because it was the equivalent of someone smacking each and every one of them around the back of the head.

Immediately all supernatural beings were behaving like choirboys — well, not quite, but close.

“Are you flipping kidding me?” Moira demanded of Jack, but he only offered a cursory look in her direction.

While it was true that nobody had their claws and fangs out, people were slightly bruised and bloodied. Mainly the shifters, but Malachi did have a few scratches, and his clothes had seen better days.

“What the hell is going on here?” Jack demanded, and I choked on my heart again, but it was more of a strangled chuckle than anything else.

He flicked those eyes on me, and I offered him a look that I could only imagine was a cross between a startled rabbit when she saw Ross’s wolf and someone who had just seen an alien spaceship land in the car park.

“What’s wrong with you?” Jake demanded, but I couldn’t answer him, I think my brain had farted.

Moira leaned in toward me, “I have to say right back at him?” She whispered. “He walked clean through that barrier.”

“I know.” I managed to get out.

“How the heck did he do that?”

“I don’t know.” I may have sounded like a robot, but that was only to be expected — Jack should never have been able to penetrate the magic that surrounded us, let alone seen right through it.

“He was looking right at us,” Eileen shuffled along toward us and hissed out a whisper.

“I know, right?” Moira offered back in disbelief.

“Only someone with magic should have been able to do that,” Eileen stated the obvious, and I really felt like kicking her in the shin.

My brain was a washing machine on spin cycle, that really fast end of wash spin cycle that went around so fast that all you could make out was colours. My thoughts weren’t exactly a pretty rainbow — there was more chaos in my brain than someone throwing diamonds into a crowd of festival-goers.

“Who wants arresting first?” Jack demanded.

“Actually, Jack,” Malachi started, and boy did I know what was coming next.

“Actually, Malachi,” I said, lifting my hand and pretending to cut my own throat with it. I needed to know how Jack saw what he had, and how he’d gotten through the magical wall.

“Belay that thought,” Malachi said, tossing me a curious look.

“Jack…” I didn’t quite know how to brace the subject.

“Not now, Maggie,” Jack tossed back over his shoulder without even turning to look at me.

“Now might be a good time,” I insisted.

“If you’re going to tell me that this is one of those things that I don’t want to know about — then I don’t want to hear it,” Jack offered back.

“Yeah, it really is one of those times,” I said, feeling guilty, not just for having to brush Jack off like that, but also for what Malachi was about to do — and may even still have to do.

“I’m supposed to let this slide?” Jack sounded more miffed off than anything, and perhaps he should have been.

“Boys will be boys,” Moira tossed back. “What say we just pat them on the head and send them on their way with a caution?”

“This is exactly the reason I hate coming to Skye,” Jack bit out.

“Then stop coming back.” I couldn’t help myself — it basically popped out of my mouth before I’d even put my brain in gear. Not that my brain felt like it would go into gear, it was still on the spin cycle.

“Fine — get the hell out of here before I change my mind,” Jack bit out.

Now, I really didn’t know whether to laugh or cry because like it or not, and I didn’t, Jack was going to want an explanation.

“You don’t want me to rinse his…?” Malachi asked, and I swear I was growling at him without even knowing that I was doing it. It was only when Moira elbowed me, that I shot her a glare.

“Nix on the growling sounds, Ross is touchy enough,” she hissed.

“Maggie, we need to talk,” Jack bit out, and that really didn’t sound like I had much choice in the matter.

“We need to pay Gran a visit,” I said because I really wanted to know how that man had did what he’d done, or done what he did, or … ugh! Spin cycle!

 

~

 

“Maggie, I want some answers,” Jack said, and I thought that was rather predictable of him and rather annoying as Gran wasn’t home yet.

I stood by the dining room table and tapped my fingernails against the wood as I considered my options. Did I just give it to him straight up? Tell him about werewolves and vampires and watch him freak out like a child on the first-day nursery school throwing his arms in the air and running for the nearest exit? Or should I be more subtle about it and talk to him like a five-year-old that I was telling a fairytale to?

Decisions — decisions.

I wanted to speak to Gran first and hope that she had some kind of clue as to how he saw through our magic. It wasn’t right — it wasn’t normal — and it was kind of off-putting. Especially as he didn’t know that he’d walked through a magical shield that should have repelled him.

Did he have magic? Did he have magic and just didn’t know it? All these questions and more will be answered on the next episode of — I’m going bloody insane.

Gran was in her sixties, why did she feel the need to have a life and not be here when something truly mega happened?

“Maggie,” Jack tried to urge me on, but I had this vision of him running down the road waving his arms in the air and screaming at the top of his lungs when I told him of the true monsters that inhabited our world, and I just couldn’t shift it from my brain.

“Well…” I thought that got off to a good start before I hesitated.

The sound of Moira’s car chugging along the road towards the house actually made me feel grateful that she was home. I don’t think I’d ever had that feeling before, and probably would never have it again. “Ooo, car.” I pointed an absent finger back over my shoulder at the window.

“Look…” Jack started, and I turned on my heels and headed for the window, anything to buy time.

“Yep, it’s Moira!” I confirmed what I already knew, and from the look of him, what he didn’t really care about.

“Oh, good,” Jack shrugged his shoulders, thrust his hands into the front pockets of his jeans, and sighed.

“Why are you back?” I asked.

Normally I would have led with that line, especially and considering, the fact that he said he was gone for good this time.

“Dead people,” Jack said.

“More dead people?” I hadn’t heard anything.

“Not yet — but with you around anything is possible,” Jack tossed back.

Numpty.