Elijah was lucid enough by the time I’d finished tending his wound and was cleaning up to hold an intelligent conversation with me.
“It was bad, wasn’t it, doc?” he said in a soft tone.
“How did it happen?” I asked.
“I’ve got a farm about ten miles from here. I heard the animals going crazy, so I went out to check on them. This… thing… came at me from out of nowhere.”
“Thing?” I said with confusion.
“It was like a wolf, but it stood on its hind legs like a man and had long arms and huge hands with claws. It was half-man, half-wolf… a werewolf.”
“We had them back when I was a kid, but they were chased out. It looks like they’re back,” Max said with a shake of his head. “I was making my rounds when I found Elijah stumbling down the road all bloody and such. I debated about bringing him here, but I couldn’t think of anyone else who I could trust with such a secret.”
Just then, Angela popped her head into the room and said, “I don’t mean to interrupt. I have excellent hearing, as you know, and I couldn’t help popping in to make sure that we’re all on the same page. You do realize that he’s going to become a werewolf, don’t you?”
Elijah’s eyes went wide. “No!”
“The werewolves were driven out when I was young. I have limited knowledge of them,” Max said, thoughtfully.
“That’s what happens in the movies,” I said, “but that doesn’t mean it happens in real life. I’ve learned that much.”
“Sadly, Hollywood got this one right,” she said. “Depending upon the type of werewolf that bit him, if he doesn’t turn by the next full moon, he’ll turn on the moon after that.”
“It’s not a full moon, is it?” I asked as I ran to the window and peered through the blinds. To my surprise, and dismay, the moon hung like a spotlight amidst the glittering stars. “I can’t believe it.”
“Yesterday was a bit of a blur for you,” Angela said, sympathetically.
My eyes darted to Elijah as I gave a silent plea for her to keep the topic away from vampires and zombies. I had no idea how much this man knew, even if he was sitting on my examination table with a shoulder wound from a werewolf bite.
“We have at least one full month before that happens though, right?” Max asked, eagerly. When Angela closed her eyes and nodded, he turned to me and whispered, “Maybe you should change the focus of your research, doc.”
“Even if I did, I don’t know if I could possibly find a cure within a month,” I breathed.
“I’ve got a feeling that Elijah won’t be the only one coming for treatment before this is through,” Max said with urgency.
I thought aloud. “I still have an immunity to zombism in my system. I have no such thing for werewolfism.”
“What makes you immune to zombism?” Max asked with wrinkled brow.
“A low dose of vampirism,” I confessed.
“What happens if you die with that in your system?” he asked with concern and a raised voice.
“I’d become one, I guess,” I said with hesitation.
“Not cool, Vickie,” he growled.
“It kept me safe from being infected when they captured me, and I don’t plan on dying anytime soon.”
“No one plans on dying,” Max grumbled. “How long will this stay in your system?”
“It should be just about out by now,” Angela interjected. “It’s usually about a year.”
Max’s face turned a purplish red as he complained, “As if I don’t have enough shit to worry about.”
“Easy there, sheriff,” Angela said with a knowing grin. “She’s lived through the year and I’m guessing that the vampire virus is out of her system by now. We can test it if you like, but I believe she’s safe.”
“I want her tested,” Max demanded.
“What about what I want?” I asked with a raised brow.
“Who’s a vampire?” Elijah asked with confusion. “There’s vampires too?”
“It’s just a figure of speech for some private business,” Max assured him. “No need for concern.” He looked at me and then at Angela. “I’m going to take Elijah home, but this conversation isn’t over.”
“Yes sir,” Angela giggled.
I pursed my lips together and said nothing as I watched Max guide Elijah out of my office and into his sheriff ‘s car.
“He’s got a major hard-on for you,” Angela sighed as she stood next to me as we watched the sheriff ‘s car drive off into the pre-dawn night. “Want some coffee?”
I looked at my watch. “I might as well. It’s going to be time to get up soon.”
“It’s Saturday. I didn’t think you worked on Saturdays.”
“It’s Saturday?” I exclaimed. “When did that happen?” I asked as I followed her into the kitchen and watched her fill the coffee filter with coffee.
Angela said nothing as she putted around the kitchen in preparation for us to enjoy a mug of morning coffee and a toasted English muffin.
“Peter’s leaving really affected you, I think,” she finally said as she slid my mug in front of me; followed by a hot English muffin.
“I guess it did,” I said as I slathered an unhealthy amount of butter onto my muffin. “He asked me to go with him, but I was worried about my practice.” I set my knife down and looked at her. “I mean, maybe if I wasn’t drowning in school loans I’d have considered it, but what would I do about paying them back? We wouldn’t stay in Africa forever. What would I come back to? I’m just getting my practice to where it looks promising and I’ve only now started to see a nice dent in the loans.”
Angela stared at me with disbelief until she finally said, “He asked you to go to Africa with him?” When I nodded, she added, “He’s either crazy or he knew that you wouldn’t go.”
I swallowed an unchewed chunk of muffin. When it threatened to stick in my throat, I quickly washed it down with hot coffee.
“What do you mean?” I finally managed to say.
She looked at me as if she was debating about what to say. Then, with a sigh, she asked, “Did Peter tell you that he has a wife and two children in Africa?”
The world buzzed around me as my peripheral vision slowly shrunk until Angela was encased in small round frames. Seeing that I was about to faint, she reached across the table and slapped me back into my senses.
“Sorry,” she said as I rubbed my reddened cheek. “If I’d had smelling salts, I would have used them.” She shook her head and took a long drink of the dark aromatic liquid in her mug. “So, Peter didn’t share that with you. I wonder if he thought I had and just kept it as a taboo topic?”
“How old are his children?” I stammered.
“Simon is ten and Dannell is eight,” she said.
“Boys,” I mused.
“Boys to which he’s very attached to,” Angela said with a scowl. “I can’t imagine how he planned on keeping them a secret if you returned to Africa with him. Did he suddenly turn Muslim and think that he’d keep a few wives? I was surprised that he stayed away from them as long as he did to begin with. The sex with you must be fantastic,” she smirked. When I didn’t smile, she said, “I figured that you two were having a fabulous lover’s romp that you both knew would eventually end. It had to end. Can’t you see?”
Tears flowed freely down my cheeks. “He said that he loved me. He said that I was his life.”
“I imagine that he does and that you are. I never saw him so attached to a woman before. I’ll admit that. But, he has a family back in Africa. He should have told you that.”
“Yes,” I said as I wiped at the flood on my face with the palms of my hands. “Yes, he should have.”
“When he first hooked up with you, I pulled him aside and warned him that he needed to tell you. Not all women are into love affairs on the side with a married man. I didn’t know you well enough to know if you’d be okay with it. He promised me that he’d tell you. So, when you two became the happy couple, I figured that he’d confessed all and that you were cool with it.”
“I had no idea,” I sniffed as I rose to get a refill on my coffee.
Seeing that my legs were threatening to fail me, she grabbed my mug and filled it for me. “Why don’t you head back to bed and stay there as long as you need while you process this news. I’m guessing the sheriff will be returning to finish his conversation. Evan and I can handle him.”
“That’s right. Evan’s in the house, isn’t he?” I said with a weak smile. “Sometimes I forget.”
“He does keep himself scarce,” she chuckled.
“He’s a writer. They’re solitary people,” I offered.
“Vickie, are you okay?” she asked with concern. “You do remember that the writer thing is just his cover for the vampire army job. Just like the traveling social worker is mine. Right?”
I looked at her as if I was just seeing her and said in a light, distracted voice, “Yes. Yes. A cover.”
She stood up and walked around the table to where I sat. Putting one hand under my elbow, she nudged me to my feet. “That’s it. Time for you to go snuggle back into your bed.”
I allowed her to lead me back into my bedroom and remove my robe. I made no move to cover my nakedness. Her compliment about my breasts being so big and beautiful and my waist so small that my figure could rival Dolly Parton sounded more like a female admiring another female in the same way she’d admire a hairdo or an outfit than as coming from a place of lust, so I paid it no mind as she helped me back into my bed and pulled the covers over me until they were tucked neatly beneath my chin.
When I finally opened my eyes to brave the world again, I discovered that I’d slept through the night and into the evening of the following day. Trauma could be a debilitating thing.I wasn’t hungry, but I craved the taste of a fresh cup of coffee, so I slipped on a pair of sweat shorts and a tee shirt and headed downstairs. I didn’t bother with panties, as I often went commando, and I decided against a bra, since it was dark out and I doubted that anyone would be in the kitchen at that hour. Of course, the only person in the house that I needed to show a bit of modesty to was Evan and he barely came out of his little two room suite.As I pulled my lightweight tee shirt over my breasts, I cupped one of them and lightly squeezed the nipple while memories of Peter doing just such a thing overwhelmed me. I stayed like that for an undetermined amount of time until my senses returned to me and I shook him from my brain.I qui
As I stood, naked, in his embrace, the realization of what we’d just done in the back of my house -for all the world to see- struck home. I gasped with horrified dismay as I clambered for my clothes.“I can’t believe that we just did this out here,” I sputtered as I pulled my clothes on. “What if someone saw?”He stood with his pants still down around his ankles and chuckled while he pulled me close again. I could feel his warm, sex laden manhood against my body as his hand slid under my tee shirt and his thumb found my tender nipple. I couldn’t believe it when my body started to respond again. I clenched my thighs together as my stomach reacted to his suckling. “I’ve been craving a taste of these bulbous beauties since the first day that we met,” he said as he squeezed my nipple between his thumb and forefinger. “I wouldn’t care if we were in
I thought about how foolishly we’d behaved by ignoring the rawness that occurred to our body parts as we crammed in as much sex in as many diverse ways as we could think and perform as I watched Max walk toward the elevator in a way that told me that he was suffering. He was going to the morgue so that he could sneak out of the house unseen. I was equally as raw which resulted in my limping as I headed downstairs to the kitchen. I had just enough time to have a cup of coffee and a bagel before my first patient would arrive.Rawness aside… I felt like I’d won a million dollars as I practically skipped off to the kitchen. It had been my intention to have Max sex Peter right out of me and I felt he’d done a mighty fine job of it.“Well, you look happy this morning,” Angela mused with a raised brow as she poured coffee into a mug and handed it to me. “You recovered from Peter fairly fast, I’d sa
I returned to my book. More than ever, I was determined to get a handle on this werewolf situation. Max may have been a shit about having sex and then dumping me, but his idea of finding a cure for werewolfism was a good one that I intended to work on. Why not? The zombie problem was no more and my contest with Peter was vapor. Focusing on finding a cure for werewolfism was just the thing to focus my bruised and confused mind on.Angela stepped onto the porch just as I’d finished the in-depth description of the book’s werewolf; its looks, its habits, its laws.“I’m leaving tomorrow for about a week,” she said as she sat in the rocker next to me.“Evan told me,” I said. “Please be careful.”“Evan was here?” she said with a scowl.“For a minute, yes,” I replied.“He told you?”“Yes, he did,” I said, t
We spent the next hour talking men, good sex, and laughing together. Then, the topic switched to something more serious.“I discussed the werewolf situation with the sheriff. He’s been asking some of the elders in the area about them. Like him, I was just a girl when they were here before,” Megan said. “I don’t remember much about them.”“You were raised around magic, weren’t you?” I asked.She nodded. “We’re a magical family.”“It’s so difficult for me to wrap my brain around things sometimes. I think it would have been easier before I went to medical school. They’re so anti anything that isn’t science.”“It must make your brain wrestle at times.”I chuckled. “I just had a visual of that.”“That must’ve been a doozy.” She stood up and stre
After a moment of silent contemplation on both our parts, we turned to face the creature that lay stretched out on the gurney.“Should we call Max?” Megan asked.“Is he going to dissect that thing?” I asked with a hint of hostility.“If you want to be able to work with him, it might be a good idea to tone down the hostility and offer an olive branch.”“I don’t know why I need to be the one who offers one.”“You wouldn’t,” she muttered as she stepped up to the creature and cautiously inspected its face. “I can see a hint of human amidst this animal’s snout.”“Really?” I said as I rushed forward to stand next to her. “Damn, it’s creepy looking.” My involuntary shudder emphasized my feelings. “I’m a little sorry that Evan left.”“Are you really that dependent on Evan?” she asked
Since the creature was an enormous bulk of dead weight, Max had Megan and me fetch the gurney while he held vigil over its fallen body. We took the elevator to the morgue; not because it was faster, but because neither of us trusted our legs to be steady enough to carry us safely down the stairs.Megan was just as shaken as I was by the ordeal. She leaned against the wall of the elevator as we descended to the morgue while she focused on controlling her breathing.It surprised me to see her so shaken by the creature after the confident and courageous way that she’d battled the zombies, but I said nothing. Who was I to comment or judge her reaction after the way that I’d just broken down into tears like a frightened little girl?She must have known my thoughts because she mentioned the fact that she’d fallen apart on her own. She guessed that it stemmed from her childhood years when she’d witnessed the effects
We talked for a few hours, had a light breakfast, and, then, I sent Max home to shower and cool off after the heated remarks and jabs that he kept slipping to Evan. I could understand his desire to keep me safe, but I felt that he’d taken it too far with my boarder; especially when I knew it was coming more from jealousy than concern.Evan offered to go with me to pick up the supplies that I’d need to study the creature and I gladly accepted his company. We checked on Megan to make sure that she was doing well before we securely locked the house and hopped into his van.He’d barely closed the door and started the engine before the stench of werewolf overwhelmed me. Although his offer to drive me was considerate, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to tolerate being in such a stinky vehicle for the hour ride to and from the supply place. So, I strongly suggested that we use my car. He flashed me one of his handsome