Derik's Bane

"I hate bringing my car to the garage," she muttered. She could feel the clammy sweat of panic beginning to bead between her shoulder blades.



"How come?"



"Because I always get expensive news!" she snapped. "Look. I'm sorry. I know it's not your fault. It was a shock, and I don't handle surprises well."



"How could you be surprised? Your car's an automatic, but it doesn't change gears unless you hold the accelerator down for at least ten seconds-—"



"Well, it started okay, so I didn't think much of it."



"And the cruise control locks up on you all the time—didn't you say the car forced you through a school zone at seventy miles an hour?"



"Hey, it was Sunday at ten o'clock at night, all right? It's not like there were kids around." He frowned at her and she flushed. "Well, that's why I brought it in."



"M' point is, you got no cause to be shocked that it's an expensive problem. You're exactly like a gal who finds a lump in her tit but won't go to the tit doc and then gets pissed when he tells her she has cancer," Dave pronounced. "I see it all the time."



"First of all, that's the worst analogy I've ever heard. Second, I'm not paying you to lecture me."



"Actually, you ain't paid me at all," he pointed out with a grin. She could be cute, if you liked them rangy and curvy and red-haired, which he surely did. "Nope, not a cent."



"Well, I'm going to, okay? Hell, your kids will go to Harvard thanks to my stupid transmission." On "stupid," she kicked her rear left tire.



"Ha! Harvard. I coulda gone," he confided, "but I didn't want to live on the other coast."



"Trust me, it was overrated." Sara sighed and ran her fingers through her too-long bangs. If hair that grew past your chin could be considered bangs. "Well, as long as you're doing the transmission thing, see what you can do about the clock. It goes off when I turn on my headlights."



"It does?"



"Yes. But as soon as I turn my lights off, it comes right back on, except then it's wrong, and I have to adjust the time until the next time I turn on my headlights. Also, I lost the car lighter—"



"How could you lose—?"



"I just looked down one day and it was gone, all right? Why don't you get a spotlight and shine it into my eyes? Anyway, every once in a while sparks will shoot out from the lighter, which is kind of distracting."



"I guess so."



"My horn doesn't work, either."



"Now, how did that happen?"



She ignored the question. "Also, my radio only gets the local pop station. Which wouldn't be so bad, but they play about six Lenny Kravitz songs each hour." She sighed again. "I used to like Lenny Kravitz."



Dave blinked slowly, like a lizard. "Why haven't you bought a new car?"



"It was my mom's car," she said simply. "She loved the wretched thing."



"Oh." He gnawed his lower lip a moment. Everybody in town knew what had happened to Mrs. Gunn. Nobody talked about it. He'd have felt sorry for her even if she wasn't such a dolly. And Sarawas cute, with those crystal blue eyes and the flyaway mass of red curls. Her skin was perfectly white, like fresh cream . . . not a freckle in sight. He figured if she ever set foot on a tropical beach, she'd go up in flames.



"Look, Dr. Gunn, I'm sorry to be the bringer of bad news to you and stuff, but I'll get your car in as quick as I can. Shouldn't take more than a few days."



"A few days of purgatory!" she shouted, startling him. That was another thing about Dr. Gunn. You'd be having a perfectly normal conversation with the woman, when she'd start screaming. It was true about the temperament of redheads, and that was a fact.



"Meantime, I got a leaner I can let you have for"—at least forty a day, or his boss would kill him. Okay, thirty. Twenty-five ninety-five and that was his final offer—"for nothing. On account of you getting such a bad shock and all."



She smiled and he nearly fell back into the tire pile. She was cute when she was ranting and fussing and being a pain. She was completely gorgeous when she smiled. Her dimples popped into view, and her eyes crinkled at the corners and made you wonder what her mouth would taste like.



He smiled back.



What are you doing, Davey old pal? You got as much chance with Dr. Sara Gunn as you've got to grow tits and fly away.



"That'd be great, Dave," she said with real warmth. "I'm sorry about the tantrum."



"It's not the first one I've seen. You gotta temper on you like a rabid polecat." He said this with total admiration.



"Uh... thank you."



"Maybe after your car is fixed, we could have dinner?"



"Of course! And it'll be my treat, for the free loaner." She smiled at him again. The way she smiled at her students, her colleagues, love-struck mechanics. Dr. Gunn was brainy, high-strung, occasionally shrill, and had no freakin' clue she was a stone knockout.



"Thanks," he sighed.Ehh. Worth a shot. "I'll call you when I get an idea how long it'll take."



"Thanks again."



He ended up giving her the nicest loaner he had, a silver 2004 Dodge Stratus. His boss would strangle him like a rooster when he found out what he'd done.



Screw it.



4



"You have to save the world.'



Derik fought to keep his jaw from dropping. "Me?"



"Yes, brain-drain, you. In fact, could you get started on that right away?"



Moira clapped her hands. "A quest! Just what you needed, oh, it's perfect, perfect!"



"A quest? Do I look like a Hobbit to you?I have to save the world? From what?"



Antonia smirked. "From who, actually."



"From whom, actually," Moira corrected.



Antonia glared at her. Moira stared back, eyebrows arched, and after a moment the taller woman dropped her gaze. Antonia was one of those rare human/werewolf hybrids, but nobody liked her much. Born of a human father and a were mother, she couldn't Change, though she had the preternatural strength and speed common to their kind.



Being unable to Change had been a tremendous burden on her as a child ... the Pack expected much from its hybrids. Her parents tried—and failed—to hide their despair. Hers had not been an easy adolescence, as much from the tremendous pressure she put on herself, as anything ever said, or intimated. "The only thing I have going for me," she often said with bitter insight, "are my looks. And around here, gorgeous bims are a dime a dozen."



This was true. No one was sure if it was breeding or genetics or great good fortune or the omnivore diet, but werewolves, in addition to being exceptionally strong and exceptionally fast, were exceptionally easy on the eyes. Antonia had enormous dark eyes and creamy skin, long legs and the figure of a swimsuit model, but it didn't set her apart.



Nobody had a clue what Antonia was until she woke up the morning of her seventeenth birthday, made herself toast and poached eggs, then fell over in a dead faint. When she regained consciousness, she brushed the egg out of her hair and told her astonished parents, "Michael's going to get someone pregnant today, will be married by summertime and a father before Easter. Oh," she added thoughtfully, "the baby will be a girl, and the epidural won't work for the mom-to-be. Hee!"



To everyone's amazement, she had been right. It was the first of dozens of predictions, some mild ("Moira's going to get stuck with another audit. . . ha!"), some major ("Stay the hell out of New York on September 11, 2001."). She was never wrong. She was never even off a little bit. No one had seen anything like it. No one was even sure what it meant—could werewolves harness mental power as well as physical? It was a mystery to all.



And overnight, Antonia had gone from Pack Nobody to Pack Demigod. Piss her off, and nothing might happen ... or she might foresee your death and fail to warn you, out of spite.



Now here she was, holding court in the solarium, explaining that the world was going to end unless Derik made it to6 Fairy Lane, Monterey, California, as soon as possible.



"You guys know who Morgan Le Fay is?"



Moira nodded. Derik blinked. "Guess I'll play dumb blonde," he said, avoiding Moira's poke. "No idea."



"She was the half sister of King Arthur," Antonia explained. "She had an incestuous affair with her brother and was responsible, indirectly, for his death. She was also a powerful sorceress."



"Uh-huh. That's fascinating, hon. I like story time as much as the next fella, but this is relevant because ... ?"



"I got a line on her."



"A line on her," Moira repeated. "Toni, what in God's name are you talking about?"



"An-TON-ee-uh. And Morgan Le Fay is in Monterey Bay."



"You're a poet, and you don't know it," Derik joked, and was unsurprised to see both women ignore him.



"She's reincarnated and goes by the name of Dr. Sara Gunn. You have to get over there and take care of her. If you don't, a week from now none of us will be here."



Dead silence, broken by Moira's faint, "Oh, Antonia ... for real?"



"No, I made it all up because I want the attention," she snapped. "Yes! The world's gonna end, and we're all fucked, unless the Pack's answer to The Rock gets his ass in gear."



Another brief silence, and then Moira said, "I think—I think I'd better go get Michael and Jean-nie."



For once, Derik didn't argue.



Michael cleared his throat from the doorway. "You're going, then?"



Derik straightened up from his packing. He'd tossed a few things into a carry-on and was ready to leave. More than ready. He was taking the Wyndham jet to San Jose, California, and from there he'd pick up a rental car to the Monterey Peninsula. He'd already said good-bye to Moira and Jeannie.