“Stay away from me!” Michael squealed, in a high falsetto that may or may not have been connected with my footwork.
“Let him go, Finn. I doubt very much he’s going to try to get tangled up in Council business or any direct contact with the supernatural world again,” I said, smirking at my former boyfriend, who had turned the color of overripe Brie. “He obviously doesn’t have the finesse required for it.”
Suddenly, Michael’s knees gave out from under him, and he flopped down onto the ground face-first. He groaned.
“Finn, I already kicked him in the balls. I don’t need you to hurt him further.”
“That wasn’t me,” he scoffed, as Michael pushed to his feet.
When he opened his car door, he misjudged the distance between his head and the window, smacking himself in the face.
“That was me,” Finn admitted, the gray draining from his eyes as Michael tumbled into his car and peeled out across the grass. I watched his taillights disappear in the direction of a gravel road, smiling to myself. It probably said something terrible about me that taunting Michael and kicking him in the junk had given me such a sense of closure. But I felt better than I had in years, freer, lighter, as if I’d been wearing a lead suit since my grad-school days and had finally managed to shrug out of it.
When I turned to Finn, he was looking at me, his face expectant. “So . . . this turned out better than I expected.”
“So . . . you should probably go,” I told him, imitating his glib tone. “Jane is not going to be happy with you for switching the Bible out with the book. In fact, she said she was unhappy with you for switching the Bible out with the book.”
“I meant what I said earlier. I am sorry that I took the book from Jane. I know that hurt you, and I told you that wouldn’t happen. My only defense is that I had to get the Kelleys the book to get them off my back. And you and Jane and the rest of the brute squad showed up right on time to get it back. It all worked out. Also, not to claim complete credit, but I did make sure you were able to turn the book over to Jane!” he exclaimed. “You completed your job. You got the book to Jane. It wasn’t your fault that Jane didn’t hold on to it.”
“You know, somehow that doesn’t make me feel any better,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.
“What’s it going to take to get you to trust me?”
“I don’t know,” I told him. “When I realized you’d disappeared from the inn, that you’d taken the book after all we’d been through to get it to Jane, and left me alone holding the bag, it really hurt me. And not just in a ‘wounded pride’ sort of way. I thought I was building toward something with you, and you used me, and—what the hell is Jane doing?”
The brawl between the various monsters raged on. The shifters were slowly losing their advantage. Sure, they had speed and strength, but they couldn’t keep up with highly trained werewolves and cranky vampires.
Jane had a Cthulhu facedown on the ground, with his forelegs pinned behind his back, as she yelled, “Just call your family down so we can take you into custody and get out of these godforsaken woods!”
“No!” the creature yelled back. “You vampires are so arrogant, you think you own everything! Well, that book belongs to the shifters! And we won’t stop.”
“Why are shapeshifters so stubborn?” Jane growled, as she slipped some plastic zip-tie handcuffs around the Cthulhu’s webbed paws. “And by the way, that book does belong to me. So your point is moot!”
“Jane, I’ve got the book!” I yelled. “You can stop fighting now!”
“Oh, great!” Jane beamed at me, her fangs shining bright in the headlights. “You see, Mr. Kelley. I have the book back. I have no reason to keep your family alive anymore. But if you stop resisting arrest, I will be far less annoyed with you, which will greatly decrease the chance of me killing you.”
The Cthulhu, who I assumed was the Viking leader, groaned and dropped his face to the ground.
“Fine, fine,” he growled. “Kelleys! Stand down! Stop fighting before somebody gets hurt.”
There was a collective groan from the nonvampires, who transformed back into their blond human shapes. Except for the giant great white shark, who was running a victory lap around the clearing. In a move that did not look at all like pouting, the shifters dropped to the ground, on their butts, and allowed the vampires to handcuff them. Jane allowed the lead shifter to sit up in a more comfortable position.
A black SUV rolled into the clearing. I turned to Jane, handing her the book. “Who’s that?”