Dying For You (17 page)

That thought shocked her—she had never thought of Burke as an animal. Not once. She was the bad one. He was—he was Burke.

She rested her head on his shoulder and watched as his reliable blue Ford ate up the miles.

“Party town,” she commented, staring at the throngs of people, the dozens of cars crammed taillight to headlight all along the streets.

“Yes,” Burke said, illegally parking the truck. “It’ll be like this until Labor Day.”

“Provincetown. P-town?”

“There you go. You sound like a local.”

“I’m not moving out here after—after. I can’t stand the accent.”

“Yah, sure, you betcha,” he teased. “Because you don’t have an annoying twangy Minnesota accent. You sound like an extra from
Fargo
.”

“Shut up. I hate that movie. And can we focus, please?” She opened the door and hopped out of the truck, but he was already out and coming around the front. He took her
hand in a firm grip and led her to the front door of Eat Me Raw.

“Wait! Shouldn’t we…uh…be subtle?”

“We’re here to kill the beast,” he said. “It’s best to get it done.”

“So we’ll just go in there and ask for him?”

“That was the plan, right?”

“What if he’s not here?”

“If he’s like most restaurant owners, he’s here seven days a week, two-thirds of every day. Night, I mean. Good place to troll for victims. And here?” He gestured to the teeming crowds, the bars, the bright lights, the chaos. On a Tuesday night, no less. “Who would notice a vampire here? Or a missing girl right away?”

“Nobody missed me,” she admitted. “I didn’t have any family, and nobody believed Maggie. The cops assumed I’d hit the road. Maggie wouldn’t let it go and they finally listed me as a Missing Person.”

He scowled. “That sucks. I would have knocked over houses to find you. Strung men up by their balls.”

Touched, she said, “That’s so sweet, Burke.”

He shoved open the door of the restaurant and walked in. She felt as though they were actually pressing against the noise from the bar. It was a typical New England raw bar—bright lights and dark wood and yakking tourists. Burke shouldered his way past them and walked up to the hostess stand.

“I’m sorry,” the hostess practically screamed, “but there’s a ninety-minute wait!”

“We’d like to see the owner!” Burke bellowed back. His voice climbed effortlessly over the din and several women (and not a few men) turned to look. “Tell him an old friend from Minnesota is here!”

“Scream a little louder, why don’t you?” she muttered, knowing his werewolf hearing would pick it up. “I’m sure the cops will never be able to find a witness or ten.”

As the hostess yelled into one of those cell phone/walkie-talkie things, he turned to her and replied, “We’re here to kill a dead man. Tough case for the cops to solve. His birth certificate, assuming they can I.D. him when we finish, is probably just a bit out of date. Legally, he probably doesn’t exist.”

“He
shouldn’t
exist,” she muttered.

“I’m sorry!” the hostess yelled. “He’s not in the bar right now!”

“She’s lying,” he said. “I can smell it.”

“Well, let’s—”

“It’s all right, Annie,” a stranger said, materializing beside the hostess. “No need to cover for me this time. I’ll be glad to talk to these people.”

Serena felt Burke jump, and knew why: no scent. She looked at Pete and was a little surprised. The boogeyman, the monster, the thing that haunted her dreams and stole her rest was a balding man in his early forties. Well. Who looked like he was in his early forties. What little hair he had left was going gray. His eyes were a light mud brown, and his nose was too small for his face. He was neatly dressed in a dark suit the color of his hair. He looked like a nurse shark: harmless, with teeth.

He smiled at her. She was startled to see he knew her at once. “Sorry about your friend.”

She tried to speak. Couldn’t. And she knew—
knew
—why he was smiling. He thought he was safe. His turf, his town. All these
people
. He thought they wouldn’t touch him. And he was
old
. For vampires, age meant strength. He thought if worse came to terrible, he could take them.

“Let’s step outside,” Burke said, and seized Pete by the arm.

“I don’t think so,” the old monster said loudly. “I’m needed here. I—hey!” They tussled for a moment, and then Burke literally started dragging him toward the rear of the restaurant. Serena could see shock warring with dignity on Pete’s face: make a fuss and get help? Or endure and get rid of them outside?

She could see him try to set his feet, and see his amazement when Burke overpowered him again, almost effortlessly. She could also see the way Burke’s jaw was set, the throbbing pulse at his temple. It wasn’t just werewolf strength; Burke was overpowering the monster with sheer rage.

“Killing girls,” Burke was muttering, as the armpit of Pete’s suit tore. He got a better grip. “Killing girls.
Killing girls!”

A few people stared. But this was P-town and nobody interfered. New Englanders were famous for minding their own business.

“What the hell are you?” Pete yelled back. “You’re no vampire!”

“I’m worse,” Burke said through gritted teeth. They were in the kitchen now, the smell of sizzling chicken wings making Serena want to gag. “I
have
to kill to eat.”

Before any of the staff could react—or even notice, as hard as they were all working—Serena hurried ahead. She figured she might as well contribute to the felony kidnapping in some small way, so she held the back door open for them. Burke dragged Pete out, past the reeking garbage rollaways, past the illegally parked cars, past the boardwalk, onto the beach. Serena bent and picked up a piece of driftwood, one about a foot long and shaped, interestingly, like a spear. She could feel the splinters as she held it in her hand; it was about two inches in diameter.

Pete swung and connected; the blow made Burke stagger but he didn’t loosen his grip. “Your pack leader didn’t authorize this,” he said. “You’ll start a war.”

Ah, the monster knew about werewolves—that was interesting. Of course, it made sense…Pete would want to know who he was sharing the killing field with.

“Serena’s my pack. And you’re all rogues. Don’t pretend you’re Europe. Nobody will miss you.”

“Nobody missed you,” Pete leered at her.

“Not then. But now, yes.” She hefted the driftwood, then hesitated, hating herself for it but unable to resist. “Why? Why me, and why Maggie?”

“And Cathie and Jenny and Barbie and Kirsten and Connie and Carrie and Yvonne and Renee and Lynn and so many I’ve lost count. Why? Are you seriously asking me that? Why? Because that’s what we do, stupid. You’re—what? Fifty-some years old and you don’t know that?”

“We don’t do that,” she retorted, and gave him a roundhouse smack of her own. “We don’t
do
that! We don’t have to!
You did it because you
wanted
to!” Each shout was punctuated with another blow; Burke and Pete were skidding and sliding in the sand. The sea washed over their ankles. She had to scream to be heard over the surf. That was all right. She felt like screaming. She was, literally, in a killing rage. “You wanted to! She never did
anything
bad and you wanted to!”

“It’s what we do,” Pete said again, black blood trickling from his mouth, his nose. “The king won’t stand for this.”

“Who do you think
sent
me, bastard? He’s getting rid of every one of you tinpot tinshit dictators. He won’t stand for your shit and neither will I!”

“Then why,” Pete said, and spat out two teeth, “why are you still talking?”

Good question. She kicked him in the balls while she thought of an answer. She had the stake. She had the anger. She even had a henchman. So why was the monster still alive?

“We don’t do that,” she said at last, and dropped the stake. She was condemning who knew how many more women to torture and death…Maggie was counting on her, wherever she was, and—and— “We don’t do that and I don’t do that.”

“Ha,” Pete said, and grinned at her through broken teeth. “All the way from Minnesota. Long trip for nothing.”

“Not nothing,” Burke said. “She came for me. She just didn’t know.” Then he broke Pete’s neck, a dry snap swallowed by the waves. Pete’s mouth was opening and closing like a goldfish in a bowl, and then—Serena couldn’t believe it—and then Burke literally ripped the monster’s head off and tossed it away like a beach ball. The sound it made was like a chicken leg being pulled from a thigh. Times a thousand.

She spun away from their little group of evil and tried to be sick in the sand, but couldn’t vomit. The sound—and the look on Pete’s face when his neck broke—and the
sound
—

Burke briskly washed his hands in the surf and knelt beside her. She leaned against him and wiped her mouth.

“I knew you wouldn’t,” he whispered into her ear. “I told you: I’m the beast, not you.”

“I just—couldn’t. He was smirking at me and he knew I couldn’t and he just—I just—” She closed her eyes and heard the snap of Pete’s neck breaking again. This time it didn’t make her feel sick. This time it made her…not exactly happy. More like…peaceful? “Oh, Burke. What if you hadn’t come? What if I’d never met you?”

“But I did. And you did. And Maggie can rest. No more bad dreams.”

“How did you know I—?”

He kissed her on the temple. “How could I not know my own mate?”

She clung to him, ignoring the surf wetting their legs, their knees. “Your mate? You still want to—?”

“Since you were in the hole and told me to go away. I couldn’t leave you then. How could I leave you now? You’re for me and I’m for you.”

“Just like that?”

He shrugged.

“Just like that,” she answered herself. The events of the past two days flashed across her mind: all he had done. For her. Had anyone ever…? Who else could have done so much for her, but the man she was destined to be with?

“I’ll outlive you,” she said tearfully.

“On the upside, I can’t knock you up.”

“No kids,” she said, cheering up.

He kissed her again. “No kids.”

They rose as one and walked to the truck, not looking back when the surf covered Pete’s body—both pieces—and took it away.

As predicted, nobody missed him, except the liquor rep, and she quickly found a new client.

No one in the bar who saw Burke and Serena ever forgot them, and no one in the bar ever saw them again. Drifters, in and out of P-town, two of several thousand tourists who came through Cape Cod each summer. Nothing special about them.

No, nothing at all.

To my husband,
who is my opposite in every way:
politically, religiously, economically, and neurologically.
Do I believe in love at first sight? You bet!
Do I believe opposites attract?
I have two children (both look like him)
who would testify to that fact.

Thanks again to Cindy Hwang at Berkley, who never clutches her head (at least in my presence) when I pitch a new idea. And thanks to the fabulous cover artists and the flap copy techs; I could never sum up a book (or four novellas) in two paragraphs, but those bums make it look easy.

Not all witches were bad. Not all witches were even witches, particularly during the madness of the Salem witch trials.

But some were. And they got pissed. That’s all I’ve got to say about that.

Tucker Goodman did not take his hat off, a whipping offense if anyone else dared try it. He pointed a long, bony finger at the witch in the blocks and said, in a voice trembling with rage and age, “You are an unnatural thing, cast out by the devil to live among good people—”

“Good people,” the witch said, craning (and failing) to look at him, “like the Swansons? You know perfectly well the last three littluns born on that farm weren’t got on the missus, but instead, the eldest daughter. Not to mention—”

“Liar!” Farmer Swanson was on his feet, his face purpling, while Mrs. Swanson just huddled deeper into the bench and cried softy into her handkerchief. “That
thing
filled my girls’ heads with lies!”

“Silence, Farmer Swanson!” Silence reigned, as the witch knew it would. There was no reasoning with a mob. Unless you were the leader of the mob.

“I think we can all agree—”

“That you’re a creaky old man who likes having marital congress with fifteen-year-olds to keep the evil spirits away.” The witch laughed.

“—that since you were sent here, there has been naught but wickedness afoot.”

“Except for all the children I cured of the waxing disease,” the witch pointed out helpfully.

No one said anything. The witch wasn’t surprised. Say just the wrong thing at the wrong time, and things like guilt or innocence didn’t matter. Defend a witch, and you’d be burned alive, too. Just a handy scapegoat to roast and dance about. That’s all they really wanted.

“You will die in agony, yet cleansed by fire.”

“Terrific,” the witch muttered.

“And in penance for your evil deeds, your children and your children’s children, down through the ages, will be persecuted and hunted until you share your powers with your greatest enemy.”

“I see no logic in that order of things,” the witch commented. “Why not just kill me and get it over with?”

“Because you keep coming back,” Goodman said, clearly exasperated. “My great-great-grandfather told me all about you. You bring your mischief to the town and have your fun and then are burned and show up in another town a few years later.”