Ten, page 28
Georgia shrugged. “It doesn’t feel real,” she muttered.
“Geoffrey says you barely go out or talk to anyone—”
“I still take care of him,” Georgia snapped.
“I have no complaints about his care, my dear. In fact, he seems to be almost back to his old self, but I know he’s worrying himself sick over you—”
“Then I’ll try harder, fake a few more smiles—”
“Oh, dear heart, that’s not what I meant. I just want you to know that we care about you. I want to see you recover. I know it will take time, but I just want to help—”
“Then ask Merlin how Ren died,” Georgia said flatly. “Ask him why I got to go to an empty funeral parlor and see an urn full of ashes before Ren’s father took them away. I dunno, just find out why it happened in the first place.”
“Would answers really change anything, my dear? He’s still gone.”
Georgia wiped away a tear. “You know, I wasn’t going to cry today,” she muttered. “Look, I know you mean well, but—”
“Come with us tonight. Let’s go drinking and dancing for a change. Do something stupid. Do something you’ll regret in the morning but just do something,” Mina said.
“That’s your answer? I should just party my cares away?”
Georgia asked.
“Sometimes it’s all you can do. I have nursed an army of broken hearts, my dear. Could you indulge me this once? At the very least we can treat you with the hair of the dog that bit you.”
“One night?” Georgia sighed.
Mina raised a finger and smiled. “Just one. Think of it as good practice for Geoffrey.”
“I’m going to regret this but what the hell.”
“You regretting this yet?” Paige asked as she flopped on top of Kyle.
Sweat dripped from her brow and plopped onto the scarlet face of the panting redhead.
Kyle grabbed Paige’s bare torso and flung her across the ring.
She snarled as the shirtless werewolf hopped to his feet and came barreling after her. She rewarded his charge with a perfectly timed throw that sent him back on the mats. She then drove her thighs over his shoulders and pinned him with a triumphant howl.
“Well, that was strangely hot,” Toy said while clapping. “Red, when did you get so buff?”
Kyle grinned between Paige’s legs. “You know, most men would kill for this view,” he said.
“Do I need to get you two a room?” Nadia asked as she wiped off her sweaty neck. “Shorty Spice, you up for another round?”
Paige hopped to her feet and flicked her tail. “Bring it,” she taunted.
Nadia slipped between the ropes and cricked her neck. Her brilliant violet hair was barely contained in a crown braid. She flexed and stretched, showing off a body worthy of an MMA fighter.
“You need to work on your punches, Red. You hit like a girl,”
Nadia said as Kyle rolled out of the ring. “Get on the bag. Toy, show him.”
“Can we at least see the Morpheus versus Neo with tits fight we’ve been waiting all night for?” Toy asked. Kyle stood next to her with the same puppy eyes.
Nadia nodded. She then gave them a wink and beckoned Paige with her hand.
Paige snarled and charged at Nadia. She winced as Nadia slammed both fists into her chest. The smaller woman had to aim low and try to sweep the leg but only ended up staggering Nadia for a second. Soon both were trading blows, bareknuckle boxing, and grappling for the amusement of Kyle and Toy. Eventually the strength and experience of Nadia prevailed, and she hurled Paige onto the mats. As the larger woman pinned Paige, the little werewolf bit her tongue and clawed her talons into the mats.
Nadia nodded in approval. “You’re getting better at controlling yourself, Shorty,” she said. “Let’s work on a few holds and chokes, while those two practice punching.”
By the end of the half hour, Paige was beet red and curled in a ball, while Nadia remained ever the serene amazon. Still, Paige had to smile as she got a thumbs-up from the teacher.
“One day, I am going to kick in those smug pearly white teeth,”
Paige said as she slipped out of the ring.
“Well then, we work on kicks tomorrow,” Nadia said.
“Nads, your phone is buzzing every few seconds,” Toy cried as she gripped a punching bag.
Nadia tossed her towel to Paige. “Please show Red how to hit something other than a bong,” she sighed.
Paige tagged Toy and took over holding the bag. For all of Kyle’s new muscle mass, the bag barely moved as he slammed his fist into it. She peered around the red leather and sighed.
“Kyle, just stop. You’re going to break your thumb like that.”
She slipped around the bag and took his hands. As she gently moved his thumb under his fist, he tensed up. “Hey, not so tight,”
Paige warned. “Do you ever listen to Nadia? You need to be fluid, not tense. Just make your fist, and instead of levelling it at the bag, aim down a little. You want to hit with your knuckles, not your fingers
—”
“When did you become Kung Fu squirrel?” Kyle asked.
“You know what you’ve been doing to relieve tension?” she asked.
“Research and masturbating,” he confessed.
“I’ve been hitting things.”
“Technically, so have I,” Kyle muttered.
Paige responded by socking him in the arm just enough to make him wince. “Damn girl, I see what you mean,” he snapped.
She adjusted his shoulders and legs. He tensed up as her fingers ran down his spine. “Don’t try to throw a super hard punch first,” she told him. “You want to hit quickly to get a feel for it and know the range. You throw something slow, and you’re going to be dodged and clobbered. Just jab and cross, jab and cross—”
Kyle started following Paige’s advice. Sure enough, the bag started moving, and he got in a rhythm of steady blows. Just as he was sweating and making Paige work to hold it, Nadia came over with a concerned look on her face.
“Nads?” Toy asked.
“Why didn’t you just tell me who your research partner was? Not that I couldn’t smell him every time you came out of the lab,” Nadia growled.
“Because I’m a dumb ass, you know that,” Kyle said. “What good would it do? It’s not like he remembers what happened—”
“What matters is that he’s gone, and he tried to take all the research with him. If your sister wasn’t so competent, we would have lost everything,” Nadia said.
“Dr. Langer just left?” Paige asked.
“He was acting pretty squirrely this morning when I dropped off your samples—” Toy added.
“You knew Kunal was there as well?” Nadia asked.
“Like the ginger asshat said, what good would it do talking about him?” Toy asked. “I made sure to warn Kayleigh, so I’m glad we stopped a disaster.”
“We need to find out where he went. Toy—”
“I’ll go meet up with Freckles, and we will track that bastard down,” she said with a little salute. “You want me to take Shorty Spice?”
“Paige, you make sure Lorcan is secure. Kyle, make sure all the data is secure. Toy, I’m going with you—”
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Kyle asked. “Wouldn’t you be the best to look after Grandpa?”
The look in Nadia’s eyes said it all. Kyle slunk back towards his gym bag and grabbed his shirt and sweatpants. Soon he and Paige were jogging from their Thirty-Third Avenue gym towards the nearest L station that would get them to Michigan Ave. Paige growled as her tail tried to slip above her waistband, but she managed to make it onto the train without an incident.
“Why are you coming with me?” Paige asked.
“All the research is backed up at the house. My sister made sure of that. I’m sure Nads and Toy will have that lab covered before I even boot a computer. Plus, if he is gonna make a play on Grandpa, I’d rather be there to try and talk some sense in him before you rip his head off.”
“You think I’m going to kill him?” Paige growled.
“I’m just saying you have a track record with your temper. You know that hitting things is pretty good at relieving tension. I need to do it more often.”
“Yeah,” Paige sighed.
“Damn, I need to get laid,” Kyle said as he sunk against the window.
“No shit,” Paige said flatly in return. “Nothing’s stopping you.”
“Nothing’s stopping you, kiddo—”
“Oh yeah, because nothing caps off a fun session of foreplay like explaining an extra limb,” Paige muttered as she stared out the window.
“Oh, yeah,” Kyle said, and they rode the rest of the way in silence.
Paige and Kyle sniffed the lobby and elevator carefully but detected nothing more incriminating than the faint stink of cigarettes and dog poop mixed with the air freshener. Lorcan’s apartment door and the inner lab remained blissfully intact, while a redheaded gal perched on the sofa with no fewer than three laptops and two tablets. She tossed one of the smaller screens at her brother.
They huddled around to watch one Dr. Kunal Langer grab a bunch of samples and shove them in his man purse. He then started fiddling with his computer before running out the door with papers in his hands. Kayleigh zoomed in to the edge of one of the white slips and shook her head in shame.
“Who gets paper tickets in the twenty-first century?” she sighed.
“Unfortunately, I can only get ORD off the camera. I really hope I can get into his email to find a destination, but I already sent this over to Nadia. Let’s hope he gets stuck in TSA hell.”
“I thought he was just innocently mind wiped. I mean we worked together almost every day, and I didn’t suspect him of being a traitor
—” Kyle said.
“You totally tipped us off,” Paige said flatly.
“I know, but I really hoped. If he’s not on our side, there is no hope for Nads,” Kyle said. “Sometimes I’m a hopeless romantic.”
“One day, I’m going to have to get the whole story; but for now, I’ll check on sleeping beauty,” Paige said. “Kayleigh, are you—?”
The female redhead snatched a laptop and vanished before Paige could finish her sentence. Kyle shrugged and picked up computer number two.
Paige slipped into the darkened lab and did a cursory check on the vampire’s IV and vitals. His temperature had settled to the room temperature of seventy-five, and all of Kyle’s monitors had little green dots to give any nursemaids a quick glimpse of the patient’s status.
She took the chair next to his bed and started putzing on her phone. As she flipped through the latest pictures of her mom exploring the Italian countryside, she smiled.
“You’re wasting your time on a sick, old man,” a wheezy voice said from the bed.
“Lorcan!”
The vampire fluttered his lashes a little and smacked his cracked lips. She immediately went to the lab fridge and yanked out a bag of fresh blood. He snatched the plastic and tore into it with new fangs before she could even open it.
After a few undignified slurps, the vampire finally opened his crusty eyes and gave a weak grin. “Did you miss me?” he asked.
“Let me get—” she started.
“Please, just stay with me for a moment,” he said. “Indulge me.”
“Well, you have been asleep for a few months,” she sighed. “I suppose that gives you a little bit of a hall pass.”
“How much have I missed?”
“I learned how to gene sequence and roundhouse kick,” Paige offered. “Nadia is back in town; and Toy found a cheating spouse for some meatpacking plant owner, so we’ve had a freezer full of steaks for weeks—”
“You’ve been busy,” Lorcan said with a little cough. Paige raised his bed to a forty-five-degree angle. “How long have you been sleeping with Kyle?”
“Excuse me?” she said turning pink.
“He forgot to shower last time he changed my IV. I’ve been waking up for a few days now,” the vampire said.
“It’s complicated,” Paige growled.
“How complicated?” Lorcan asked.
“I felt fat and lonely. He had just watched a bunch of those sappy movies with Toy and was feeling bad too. We had a bottle of tequila
each and vowed to never speak about it again. Of course, I just totally failed that.”
“My parents were siblings. I really have no right to judge,” he sighed. “Is this turning into a thing, though?”
“No, it is most definitely not a—”
“Not a what?” Kyle asked as he peeked his head into the lab. “I thought I heard something cranky and British from this room, and why are you looking at me like that, Grandpa? Oh, for fuck’s sake, Shorty, you told him before he even got out of bed?”
“Technically you gave it away—” the vampire muttered.
“Don’t get any ideas, Grandpa. This is not a sudden life change. I was totally imagining Channing Tatum the whole time. Sorry, Paige, no offence—”
“None taken. I was totally imagining him too. Now, if you would excuse me, I’m going to go eat a pint of ice cream and reflect on my questionable life choices, while you help him get on his feet.”
“Why am I doing this?” Georgia muttered as she swirled her lychee-flavored martini around in its glass. Across the VIP booth, Mina chatted up a hot, young stud to her left and an equally attractive filly to her right. Thumping music and bright lights made Georgia rub her temples, while Mr. Lambley shook his booty with a herd of blondes.
“You don’t look well, dearie. Do you need some sort of pharmaceutical?” Mina asked. “Believe me, if I don’t have it, I can certainly get it for you.”
Georgia tossed back the remains of her drink. “Just going to the bar,” she said.
Mina burst out laughing. “Dear, we’ve got an army of wait staff—”
Georgia stood up anyway and walked straight for the velvet rope.
A small crowd of dancers kept looking over to get a peek at the gorgeous Indian woman in a scandalous pink dress. They paid no mind to the tall blonde slinking her way to the bar. As she
approached the neon-lit temple to all things alcoholic, something green flickered in the corner of her eye. She stopped cold.
The noise faded from Georgia’s ears as she saw a jet-black ponytail and tailored white shirt. Her heart leapt into her throat as she took a timid step towards the bar. “It can’t be—”
Her heart plummeted as the stranger turned and showed off his stubbly jaw and decidedly Caucasian, if handsome, face. He gave her a little smirk as he caught her checking him out.
“Sorry,” she said softly as she slid past him. Before she could open her mouth again, a bright blue drink landed on the counter in front of her.
“A tsunami for the lady,” the bartender said. Georgia stumbled back onto the dance floor.
“No,” she muttered over and over as she started scouring the room. “It can’t be—”
She saw another black ponytail, this time attached to a Japanese stranger with brown eyes and a goatee. She ran for the door and didn’t stop running until she was all the way down Tremont Street and entering the bright lights and heady aromas of Boston’s Chinatown. Her nightmare intensified as everywhere she looked she saw dark hair. She stumbled down an alley between some restaurants and a discount cell phone store. No sooner had she caught her breath than her stomach turned.
Two martinis and an otherwise empty stomach came back to haunt her as she lurched behind a dumpster. Just as she wiped her mouth, the shadows flickered further down the alley. Her head swirled again.
“Who are you?” she asked the flickering form. She took a few tentative steps back and kept her eyes locked on where the creature’s head should be.
“Ni keyi kandao wo—” The voice echoed from down the alley.
She started back towards the street. In true horror movie fashion, however, her formerly sturdy left heel decided to snap at that exact moment. Her voice failed her as the shadows peeled away from a young man in a white hoodie and track pants. His black and blue striped hair fell over his pasty face.
“I don’t want any trouble,” Georgia stammered. She pushed against the wall. In a single blink, the stranger stood right next to her.
“You can see me,” the creature said in a guttural voice. He stared at her with jet black eyes. “How can you see me?”
“Please, I know what you are, but I don’t—”
A hand snapped around Georgia’s throat. The creature blinked, and the black eyes turned an acidic, inhuman green. In one more blink, they turned brilliant blue. She struggled for air as the monster squeezed.
“You can’t see me,” it hissed.
The world began to spin as she went limp. Georgia stared at her attacker and smiled. Just before she could close her eyes and sleep, another hazy form crashed into the hooded monster. Involuntary reflexes took over, and she gasped for air.
“You don’t touch her!” a familiar Brooklyn accent said as a fist slammed into the creature’s chest. Georgia watched in awe as her rescuer planted himself firmly between Georgia and the stranger.
“Steve?” she gasped.
“Gan!” the stranger snapped. Both Georgia and Steve watched in awe as the monster jumped onto the dumpster and then scrambled up a fire escape in record time. They saw a white streak leap across the rooftops above and then disappear.
The vampire ran to her side. Georgia fell into the steady, strong arms of Steven J. DeMarco before promptly passing out.
19
GEORGIA FLUTTERED OPEN her eyes as she smelled the delicious mix of coffee and pastries. She felt silk against her skin and stretched as she pressed her head into a delightful down-pillow. Her eyes then widened in horror as she saw a decidedly man-shaped lump filling out the other half of the expensive bed.
“Oh shit,” she gasped as she saw familiar brown curls and a nicely tanned, toned back. “Talk about doing something I’ll regret.”
Steve rolled over and flopped his arm squarely across her chest.
Georgia gingerly lifted both the arm and the covers to confirm that she was indeed quite naked under it all. “Meep,” she said softly.
