Charlaine Harris: An Apple for the Creature

“Would that have worked?”

He shrugged. “The wolves found us before she could try. She shot one with a dart gun, possibly what she’d intended to use on me, and they killed her before she could fire again.”

“Then how did you find me?”

“A friend helped.”

To my complete shock, Captain Bob floated into view.

“Since when are you a friend?” I asked.

“Since I helped save your life!”

“You helped Angie drug me in the first place.”

“I helped save your boyfriend, too.”

“You also helped lure him into Angie’s trap—still no points.”

He thought for a minute. “I told the wolves to bring you food.”

“Really?” Maybe we were friends after all.

The rest of the wolves stayed at Angie’s lair to explore it and decide what part of her research was worth saving. In a surprisingly short time, they dismantled the place and destroyed any evidence of supernatural beings. Of course, that meant destroying evidence of the murders, too, but Angie and Carl were both dead, so it seemed like the best choice.

While all that was going on, David drove me back to the Cahill Resort—it was too close to dawn for us to be sure of getting home. Captain Bob came along, cheerfully criticizing David’s driving. At least he had enough manners to leave us alone when we got back to my cabin.

There was only half an hour left of darkness by then—enough for me to either eat again or thank David properly for rescuing me. I think I made the right choice.

With David in the closet for the day, I took an obscenely long shower and then went down to the main building to see if the breakfast buffet was open. It wasn’t, but when the staff saw me, they started bringing me food. I don’t think French toast had ever tasted so good, and luckily for me, it was just the appetizer.

Other werewolves started arriving for breakfast after a while, and a good number stopped to say hello. Some were shy, some expressed concern and sympathy, and one was bold enough to make jokes about what I’d been through. It was all good. They’d rescued David and me. They might not be my pack, but they were my friends.

After people started heading off to seminar sessions, Captain Bob floated in.

“I thought you’d be getting some rest,” he said.

“Too hungry to sleep.”

He looked at the empty plates around me. “So I see.”

“You’re just jealous.”

“Maybe, but at least I never get heartburn. And I only fart when I want to.”

“There’s no fart like an old one,” I replied, and he chuckled. “So what changed your mind about David?”

“You love him. I thought it was Stockholm syndrome or something like that at first, but you weren’t abused or hypnotized. You just love him. I couldn’t take him from you.”

“Thank you.”

He smiled, I smiled back, and it was very sweet.

Of course he had to spoil it by saying, “Why you picked a vampire to love I’ll never know.”

I wasn’t going to try to explain it to him. “One more question. How did you talk the Council into riding to the rescue? They’d known Angie a long time—it couldn’t have been easy to convince them that she was a murderer.”

“It took some doing.”

“Yeah?”

“First I showed them my death bite, and told them what you’d said about mouths. One of the alphas is a dentist and once she took a good look, she could tell a werewolf had killed me after all.”

“And that did it?”

“Not completely. They were willing to investigate, but they can’t do anything without forming a committee. So I pointed out that if they didn’t stop Angie, there was going to be a vampire nearby who knew pack secrets.”

“That must have lit a fire under their tails.”

“It got them moving, but not fast enough to save your boyfriend. For that, I had to get tough.”

“How does a ghost get tough?”

“I threatened to haunt them.”

“They went for that? I mean you can be annoying, but you aren’t that bad.”

“Wanna bet? You remember how I can take any form I had in life? I picked the worst form I could think of.”

“A teenager?”

“A baby. And I had colic for my whole first year.”

“Remind me to never get you mad at me.”

“Been there, done that.”

I started yawning, and decided I could use a nap after all. I went back to my cabin and ended up sleeping most of the day, and woke up with David beside me. It was very nice.

The rest of the seminar wasn’t bad, either. I attended a few more sessions, with presenters who were considerably less creepy than Angie, and Captain Bob stuck around to make sure I paid attention. The meals were convivial, and nobody seemed to mind David showing up every evening, especially after the Council invited him back the next year to talk about vampires.

There was a gala the final night, which was the first time David and I had danced together. I was wearing a new dress that was tight in all the right places, and he looked absolutely mouthwatering in a suit I’d had no idea he owned. Much to my delight, he’d kept up with the latest dances and had some serious moves.

Most of the attendees were leaving the next morning, but we had to leave that night to make sure we got home in time to get David back to his own light-proof bedroom. So even before the gala ended, we changed out of our party clothes, packed up, and loaded everything into my car. I’d been looking for Captain Bob all evening, but it was only when I was locking the door to the cabin that I spotted him sitting on the hood of the car.

“Just the ghost I wanted to see,” I said.

“How many ghosts do you know?”

“One is enough. Did you ever dress as a pirate for Halloween or a costume party? I mean, as a grown man.”

“I might have.”

“Could you switch into that costume?”

“Why?”

“Just bear with me.”

He frowned, but his clothing morphed into an impressive pirate captain’s costume: a royal blue frock coat with gold trim, a wide-brimmed hat, and big black boots. It was more foppish than David usually wore in his pirate guise, but not so close to Disney’s Captain Hook as to raise copyright issues. Best of all, he looked really good in it—if he’d been wearing a chintzy beard or a painted-on scar, it would have spoiled my plan.

“Perfect!” I said.

David raised an eyebrow.

“I’ve got an idea.” Said idea had been percolating for the previous couple of days, but until I saw Captain Bob in costume, I hadn’t known if it would work. “Captain, have you given any thought to going back to the sea? Or at least to a lake? You see, Pirate Dave’s Adventure Cove has this pirate ship that nobody rides.”

“Nearly nobody,” David put in.

“Fine, nearly nobody rides. So I was thinking, how about a haunted pirate ship?”

“With me providing the haunting?” Captain Bob said.

“Why not? With the proper set dressing and some spooky music, and maybe some special effects, people would be in the right mood to see you.” I didn’t know how we’d convince our workers that Captain Bob was a special effect instead of a real ghost, but that was just a detail. “I bet it would be a big hit.”

I could tell David liked the idea, but Captain Bob had to make a show of looking doubtful.

“Why would I want a job?” he said. “You can’t pay me, and you can’t expect a man to work for nothing. Not even a dead one.”

“What would you say if I told you that there are computer programs that are voice activated?”

“Really?”

“So if somebody set it up for you, and lent a hand now and then, you’d be able to surf the Web, post on Facebook, whatever you wanted. In fact, if you promise to stay out of my bedroom, I’ll even help you play solitaire.”