P.C. Cast - Mysteria Nights

His lifelong dream, his goal, and it had all flown out of his head right about the time he ripped off her bra. Fucking great. Reason #238 to stay the hell away.

The child—not a child anymore, a woman in her thirties—had dark hair, long strong legs, and Charlene’s owlish eyes. “Anything?” she was asking him, keeping well away from him, as was her habit. “You can’t tell me anything?”

“I’m sorry.” His voice surprised him; it was old, cracked. “I came here and met your mother and that was the end of it.”

“But what about our people?”

He shrugged, then coughed an old man’s cough. Though they were sitting on the porch of his beloved red house, the paint had long faded; now it was his beloved pink house. Many of the windows were broken, but he was too indifferent to fix them—he didn’t feel much in the way of cold, anyway.

Charlene, of course, was years dead. It was just him and the whelp, a woman who avoided him—lived in Reno, of all places—unless she needed something.

“What about my grandparents?”

“Dead.” The black mare was standing patiently on the porch next to his rocking chair and he reached out a wrinkled hand and stroked her velvety nose. “They’re all dead.”

“But these—these things happen to me all the time, things I can’t control.”

“I know.”

“And I’m stronger than everybody. And faster. Everyone else seems like a clumsy—I don’t know—it’s like they’re monkeys or something. I don’t really feel like I belong with them.”

“I know.”

“I can’t marry one of them .”

He yawned. “Then don’t.”

The mare nickered into his palm and he saw the For Sale sign was up again in his yard, facing the house instead of the road, and this time it read DEATH LIVES HERE.

“Dad, you have to help me.”

“I can’t.”

“Dad.”

“Sorry.” The sign changed while he watched: HA. HA. HA.

“But who am I?” the woman asked as she faded from sight, like a ghost.

“I don’t know,” he told her fading figure. “I never knew myself, either.”

The mare nickered again, almost like laughing. The sign now read: TOO BAD, SO SAD, LIE DOWN AND BE BAD.

“Gosh,” Rae’s voice said from behind him. “Don’t you think you should wake up now? This is a doozy of a nightmare. I mean, blech.”

He blinked and coughed his dry old man cough again. His hands were wrinkled claws. He looked at the horse, standing so patiently by his chair.

“Shoo!” Rae said. “Get lost! Go scare somebody else, you creepy nag!”

Startled, the horse clopped down the steps and galloped off.

And he woke up in the middle of a sweaty bed. His hands were normal. He was still young. It had all been a—

“Fucking night mares, they’re always causing trouble,” Rae said from nowhere, and was that a note of sympathy in her voice? “It was just a bad dream, Cole.”

Or a vision of things to come. He leaped out of bed, intent on finding Charlene. He’d been avoiding her for three days, but he had to warn her. Make her understand. And if she didn’t understand, he—he didn’t know.

But . . . like she said, maybe she wasn’t pregnant. Maybe the situation would be salvaged. He would have to leave Mysteria, but the alternative was worse. He had no animosity toward the night mare; she had shown him a future he wanted no part of, a future he needed reminding of, and given him time to fix things.

“I’ve got to see her,” he told Rae, striding toward the door.

“Good plan, Cole. May I suggest clothes? Or at least boxers?”

“Oh. Right. Thanks again.”

“I must say, you’re the most interesting roomie I’ve ever had. Everyone else usually moves out by now.”

“Can we talk about this later, please?”

“Oh, fine, ignore the ghost, see if I care. It’s not like I have feelings or anything!” That last was almost shouted as he slammed the door on his way out. He made a mental note to make it up to her—how, exactly, does one make it up to a ghost?

A problem for later. Right now: Charlene.

He bounded up the steps to her house and, before his fist could land on the door, it opened and he fell through the doorway.

“For a werewolf,” she observed, looking down at him, “you’re remarkably clumsy.”

“Buh,” he replied, because she was wearing a Vikings jersey and nothing else. He had never had much interest in organized sports, but he had a sudden urge to watch every Vikings game ever televised.

“You do not,” she observed, “look well. Everything all right?”

He climbed to his feet. “Sorry about barging in on you like that.” A lie, but he had to start somewhere.

“You didn’t really barge,” she pointed out, walking toward the kitchen, big hips rolling sweetly beneath the purple and white. “I heard you jogging down the lane—don’t you ever drive? We live five miles apart, you know. Then, zip! Like the Marathon Man. Is it safe? Anyway, I had the door open by the time you came up the walk.”

“Uh-huh.” It all went over his head, and who cared? He had other things to worry about. He followed her, trying not to obviously sniff. “Why are you up so late? Oh, of course. Vampire beater-upper business.”

“Ah. Yes. About that. I’m not.”

“Not pregnant?”

She froze in the midst of pouring a glass of milk for herself. “Now how would I know that already? It’s been, what? Half an hour since we did it?”

“Seventy-six hours.”

She gave him an odd look and he crept closer. He needed a really good whiff of her hair or her neck, skin on skin would be even better. In fact, best of all would be—

“Riiiiight,” she replied. “Anyway, I’m not a vampire beater-upper. I made the whole thing up.”

“The whole thing?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t have dealings with the, uh, depraved underworld of the dead?”

She shook her head. He literally didn’t know what to think: his mind was as blank as a broken TV. The enormity of the lie actually distracted him from the other problem. “But—why?”

“Why do you think? I wanted an excuse to be close to you. You picked out the one house for sale and bought it so damn fast, I had to think of something else. Something you wanted. The truth is, I wouldn’t know a vampire if he came up and slapped me in the face.”

“You’re pretty close to that now,” he said, getting pissed.

“Oh, Cole, stop it. You’d suck up your own barf before you’d hit a woman. And I’m sorry to sound like such a bitch.”

Her switches in temperament were dazzling. “What?” he managed.

“Well, it was a crummy thing to do. I’ve been just sick about it and I wanted to—you know. Get all the cards on the table, as the saying goes.”

“But—”

“Justin really is a werewolf, though,” she added anxiously, watching his face.

Justin—some strange male werewolf—was the last thing on his mind right now. “I don’t—” he began.

“I’m sure he can help you. I can’t, though. I’ve got other stuff to worry about. Stuff you can’t even dream of, so don’t bug me about it,” she added, going from truthful to contrite to defiant in about ten seconds.

He stared at her. “I knew you were lying about part of it, but I didn’t think you were lying about all of it.”

“How does it work, exactly?” she asked. “It’s not like your nose is a lie detector—I mean, it is, and obviously a pretty good one compared to most people’s equipment, but how could you know exactly what was a lie and what wasn’t?”

The irony of the woman who claimed to be able to help him find his herd asking about something as fundamental as scenting was not lost on him.