Werewolves Don't Wear Cowboy Boots

Chapter 12: Redheads are scarier than werewolves

Bridget pressed "end" forcefully as yet another call went unanswered. "I'm going to kill him," she muttered as she tossed the phone down and picked up a French fry instead.

James watched her with one eyebrow raised, then slowly pushed his own fries toward her in a pacifying gesture. "Who are you going to kill?"

She looked at him through narrowed eyes, then seemed to relax a bit. "Rory. He's .... He's infuriating, that's all. I threaten him at least once a week." She tossed the rest of her food into the bag and wiped her hands off. "You should take me home now. Maybe, if I borrow my brother's phone when he's not watching, they'll answer a call from him."

"When you say borrow...?" James suspected he knew what she meant, but ever the optimist, he posed the question anyway.

She offered him a brilliant smile in return. "He won't mind. But I can't tell him why I'm calling, so I can't ask. You can distract him, can't you?"

James sighed and started his truck. "Yeah, sure. Seems like a shame to lie to him, though. You're brother seems really nice."

"Mmm. That's why it's best he doesn't know any of this. He would just worry."

He glanced at her skeptically but shrugged and pulled out of the parking spot.

Bridget, bright and talkative and giving hardly any indication she was agitated at all – save the way she was drumming her fingers restlessly against the door of his truck – never gave him an opening to suggest maybe it was time she explain recent events to her brother, or really to say much at all. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye in a brief lull, noticing the way she was chewing her lip when she thought he wasn't watching.

When they were nearing the little farmhouse in the country, she said, "What if you disconnected something on your truck and asked him to help you fix it? Then he would go outside long enough for me to call."

James shook his head, imagining just how well that would play out if Colum knew anything at all about cars. "Maybe not. I can handle it, though. Don't worry." Well, at least he thought he could handle it. He was still trying to think of something convincing enough as they parked in the drive and walked up to the house. He was so lost in thought, he nearly ran into Bridget, who appeared to be stalled in front of the door. He peaked around her, thinking maybe he needed to reassure her that even if he hadn't come up with a distraction yet, he was really very good at working under pressure.

A small plastic baggy was nailed to the door, with a piece of paper tucked inside. Bridget was still and pale as she stared at the note, then suddenly pulled the door open and rushed inside, calling for her brother.

James pulled the baggy from the door to inspect it. Inside was a shiny, silver bullet and a note that said, "One down, five to go. If you want the wolf to live, you'll return our vampire. You have one day. We'll be in touch."

It had taken Bridget very little time to run from room to room, and in no time at all she was standing in the doorway again, looking out at the yard and the horizon with a helpless, panicked sort of expression. "He's not here."

She looked as if she might start hyperventilating or crying or something equally as bad, so James put a hand on her shoulder and said, "Hey, it's going to be OK. Let's just go inside and breathe and try to figure this out with calm heads. Alright?"

The look she shot his way was mildly terrifying, but she turned and walked back into the house, pacing around the kitchen table a few times before sitting in one of the chairs and lowering her head between her knees, taking ragged breaths for a moment.

He glanced around the kitchen helplessly, then said, "Can I get you some water or something?"

"You can get me a fecking...." She trailed off, as if she were at a loss for what to say, then straightened back up and pushed her hair out of her face. Her cheeks were wet, but her expression was granite.

James pulled out the chair opposite her and sat, slowly reaching into his pocket and putting the baggie on the table between them. "Do you know what it means?"

"I think," her words were clipped and held none of their usual musical cadence, "that should be clear enough. The fecking vampires took my brother."

"How do you know? I mean, maybe he's ... maybe he's gone out with friends?" Her eyes narrowed, and he added, as if the car in the driveway were the only problem with that theory, "They might have picked up him. Anyway, the note didn't mention him. It just said, 'the wolf,' which is pretty weird. I don't remember you all having a dog." She looked away with a strange expression – guilt? fear? He wasn't sure, so he started to read the note again, and then remembered the bullet. He stared at it for a while, then looked up at her and said, "Bridget .... Is this ... is this a silver bullet? Actual silver?" She didn't reply, but the look on her face spoke volumes, and James leaned back in his seat, feeling as if he'd been punched in the gut. "Wait .... Wait ..." He was almost afraid to speak his next thought out loud, but there was no way around it. "Bridget ... is your brother a werewolf?"

She'd appeared worried and almost contrite until he said those words, and then she sat forward and looked at him with fiery eyes. "He is. And I swear you to, James, if you start spouting some shite about werewolves being unholy right now, I will stomp your arse into the ground."

That, he thought, was no idle threat, and it stopped him dead in his tracks for a while. He found himself at war -- part of him wanting to say something and part of him telling him it was a very bad idea. The stupid part won, and he said, almost timidly, "But ... you know he's never in church with the rest of the town on Sundays."

"He is not in your church on Sundays," she said between grit teeth, "because you're all useless fecking Protestants and he's a Catholic, you absolute steaming pile of fetid shite."

Her temper in that moment was truly something to behold, though James would have liked it if someone else were the one beholding it. He held his hands up in a "don't shoot" sort of gesture and spoke as calmly as possible, "Alright. OK. I just ... I've never met a werewolf before. So ... what do we do now?"

Bridget tapped her fingers against the table, breath still somewhat unsteady, then said, "They want their friend back. We should give him to them."

James paused before answering, then said, "You ... want to dig up a vampire's body and dump it at their house?"

"Of course not." She said, and he was mid-sigh of relief when she clarified, "We can't go about with entire bodies in your truck. Just his head."

".... Right." James nodded slowly. "Only ... maybe we shouldn't antagonize the vampires?"

"They antagonized me." Her eyes were scary as she said that, and James was a little relieved not to be on the receiving end of that anger.

He said nothing in reply, trying to think of a way to say something like, 'Yeah, but they have your brother, so pissing them off is maybe not the best plan right now,' without upsetting her.

The thought must have occurred to her first. Before he could decide on the right words, the anger seemed to flow back out of her and she slumped down in her chair, then pulled out her phone and slid it across the table to him. "Can you .... can you call Bran?"

*****

Note: I'm always so late at posting things, and it was rough not letting myself put this one off another day. But the way my entire state is freaking out about severe weather tomorrow, it's probably best I didn't procrastinate. (Not let's hope there are no tornadoes or softball sized hail!)

I'll be back again next week.