Were-Geeks Save Wisconsin Page 21

  Now came the hard part: talking about the disaster that had killed his team. Over the past five and a half weeks, they’d discussed everything but that. The minute Josh brought the subject up, Nero found a way to distract him, usually with sex or a wolf romp in the woods. Eventually Josh had learned to avoid the subject, though he knew Nero daily tracked the expansion of what he’d dubbed the Wisconsin Cyanide Hole. He said he was looking for data on the creature. Plus, he occasionally slipped and made a reference to some deal with a fairy. He’d immediately deny having anything to do with those magical bastards, but Josh knew he was lying. His voice lost its resonance when he lied, but Josh hadn’t pushed. He knew how delicate the subject was.

  So instead of talking with Nero, Josh had studied the images, Stratos had dug up every weird fable or tale relating to demons who could blow fire, and Wiz had given him a crash course in magic.

  “It works like this,” Josh said. “Plasma fire eats living tissue the same way fire eats wood.”

  “We know that—”

  “But we didn’t realize that it concentrates on tissue, burning in one direction, until it eats up the fuel. Then it continues on in the same vector.”

  Nero stared at him. “What?”

  Josh grimaced. There was only one way to explain this. He squeezed Nero’s foot. “Do you think you can look at the pictures of the blast radius? After your team—”

  Nero tapped twice on his computer and the images popped up. Which meant he had them cued up and available whenever he wanted them. At Josh’s surprised look, Nero shrugged.

  “Yeah, I look at them. Whenever….” He sighed and his gaze wandered over to that stack of team pictures still piled in the corner.

  “Whenever you start to feel happy?” Josh asked. “Like you could move on without them?” He knew he was a temporary body for Nero, a way to feel good while still grieving. And maybe they’d grown to be friends. He certainly felt friendship—and a whole lot more—for the guy. So it hurt to realize that every time Nero started to move to a different place emotionally, he purposely dragged himself back into despair. They’d never grow to be more than friends if Nero kept himself stuck in his grief.

  Nero’s gaze snapped back to Josh. “I need to kill that demon.”

  “And will that make you feel better?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know it doesn’t work that way. Revenge—”

  “It’s not revenge, it’s a second chance.” Nero picked up his laptop and dropped it on the bed between them. “Now show me want you want me to see.”

  What he wanted was for the guy to feel better, but obviously that wasn’t happening. So with a grimace, Josh tapped through the images until he found the one he wanted. It was the picture of a black ash smear in the vague shape of a wolf and the silhouette of greenish grass behind him.

  “Coffee.”

  Josh nodded, knowing that the smear had been the werewolf codenamed Coffee. He pointed to the image and explained what he’d figured out. And it had only taken him weeks of staring at that stupid patch of grass when everything else had been scorched earth. “I couldn’t figure out why this grass was still alive when everything else was dead. But then I realized that the fire concentrated here, where there was fuel.” He pointed to where Coffee’s nose would have been. “It continued down this way.” He stroked his finger down the length of what would have been Coffee’s body. “And then burned outward from his tail, leaving this part untouched.”

  He looked up at Nero’s face, hoping to see understanding there. Instead, the man just shook his head. “I don’t—”

  “Try this.” He started tapping on Nero’s laptop, pulling up his own files from the server and then scrolling through them as he talked.

  “This is how the fire burned from the instant of explosion.” He tapped a key and showed a slow-moving progression of the blast, complete with arrows. “See how it concentrates over everyone’s body, burns through them, then continues on in a narrow point from the back side?”

  He looked to Nero. Shit, the guy was about to lose it. Watching in slo-mo as his entire team was decimated had to be brutal.

  “Never mind—” he said, but Nero grabbed his hand.

  “What does it mean?” he rasped.

  “That the fire concentrates over tissue and leaves what’s underneath it untouched. So the grass here is clean. And here. And here.”

  He pointed at every single gray-greenish patch. They were all hard to see because the heat of the fire had torched the grass, but it looked different in those vague smears. Like the echo of a shadow. And it had led to his realization.

  “Okay, now look. If we put a dense tissue in front of Coffee, angled up and back, then the fire will burn—”

  “Over him.”

  Josh added a heavy, thick arrow-shaped thing to the simulation and set it directly in front of Coffee like a shield. Sure enough, the fire burned through the arrow, then sheeted over Coffee, leaving the wolf scorched but alive.

  “It’s a one-shot deal, of course. Once the compound is consumed, there isn’t any more protection.”

  Then he clicked back to the slo-mo simulation. This time Josh put a shield thing in front of each of the wolves. He hit a key and the blast began again, but this time the fire got really intense in front of the wolves, but then sheeted over them. Every single one of the team remained alive.

  The simulation finished, and Josh looked up at Nero, hoping to see understanding. Nope. What he got was a slow, silent blink before Nero tapped the key.

  The simulation started again, burned through, and once again, the team was left standing.

  Again. And again. And again.

  Over and over, he stared at what had never happened: a team who survived the attack.

  “Stop torturing yourself,” Josh whispered as he tried to bring the laptop around. Nero grabbed his wrist, stopping him from touching the computer. “Nero—”

  “Thank you,” Nero said, his voice cracking. Tears were shimmering in the guy’s eyes, and the air felt thick with emotion.

  “I know it’s too late for them, but—”

  Nero shook his head, cutting off Josh’s words. Then he pointed at the screen. “Build,” he ordered.

  “It’s already cooking. I’ve made it as dense as I possibly can, but we need to test it.”

  “There isn’t time. Make as much as you can. We’ll figure out the rest in the field.”

  “No, you won’t.” Josh was horrified by the thought. Computer simulations were one thing, but actual tests were a thousand times better. “Besides, that’s not the only problem. The heat will be intense. The wolves will have to be covered head to toe in something heat-resistant.”

  “Volcax.”

  Josh’s stomach clenched at the mention of his father’s fabric. On some level, he’d always known that any type of fire protection would involve his father’s fabric. But to be faced now with the reality gave him a punch to the gut, because anything having to do with his father gave him that reaction.

  “Yes.” No use denying the obvious. There wasn’t anything better. He should know—he’d spent years in the university trying to invent something better. “But the military has his stuff locked up tight. He can’t sell it to anyone else without risking prison.”

  Nero shook his head. “He’ll give it to you. To his son.”

  Josh snorted. “No, he won’t. He didn’t give the stuff to my brother, Bruce, and Bruce is a firefighter.”

  Nero wasn’t listening. He had tapped the keyboard again and was watching his entire team survive. Josh sighed, his heart twisting in his chest. This was too much for his trainer/lover/alpha. He should have brought it to Captain M first. But he’d been so happy to have finally figured it out that he’d naturally gone to the one who cared the most. The one he cared about the most.

  “Never mind,” he said as he pushed up from the bed. “I’ll go talk to—”

  “I’m thinking,” Nero said as he grabbed Josh’s arm. “How do we d
eploy this? Is it just a digital arrow-like thing, like here?”

  “I’ve got the specs.” He clicked on his design. “I put the compound on a lightweight structure. Think of it like a cone-shaped shield. Carry it to where you want it and plop it down.”

  “Like a small shelter.”

  “Yes.” Josh clicked over to some graphs that Nero didn’t bother reading. “You said you felt the buildup in energy right before the blast.”

  “Yes. I was already shifting then, but it definitely took a few moments for the blast to go off.”

  “This is a picture of what it looks like when Wiz shoots off a fireball. See the readings build here? My guess is that the right equipment can see the blast coming as much as twenty seconds before it goes.”

  “Twenty seconds? A werewolf can cover a lot of distance in that time. If I can warn them ahead of time, then they can get behind the shield.”

  “Exactly. Then the worst of the blast will shoot over everyone.”

  “And your father’s fabric will keep us alive through the heat.”

  Right. Except that they’d never get their hands on the fabric, but rather than repeat what he’d said before, Josh focused on the other complications. “Then there’s all the normal fire blast problems, plus a zillion other problems I haven’t thought of. But this is the beginning—”

  “How long? How long do you need to get these shields built?”

  “I’ve got one that should be cooled enough now. Just one. To test.”

  “Then what we need are blankets of your father’s material.”

  “Not a blanket. Long jackets like a doggie sweater with a hoodie. It’s too hard for a wolf to flatten out beneath a blanket in twenty seconds.” He should know. He’d tried.

  “But your father can make that, right?”

  “Of course he can. But he won’t—”

  “He will. We’ll pretend to be from the military.”

  Josh sighed. “Fine, you work on that.” Let Nero find out the hard way that it was a useless endeavor. His father triple-checked everything and wasn’t one to be duped by fake papers. “I’ll go back to testing—”

  “No. We’ll go now. Best if we surprise your father with an urgent demand from a desperate son.”

  Ice slid hard and sharp through Josh’s veins. “No,” he said flatly. “I’m not going, and I’m not talking to him about this.”

  “Why not?”

  Josh struggled to put his objection into words. Unfortunately, every response was clouded by emotion. As a kid, he’d admired his father’s efficient business discipline. The man was precise and had an iron fist of control that didn’t allow for mistakes. But that was also coupled with constant criticism about how Josh had never measured up. He wasn’t fast enough, strong enough, manly enough—by his father’s own definition of manliness. He didn’t even want to imagine the guy’s response to finding out Josh was gay. It would probably be something along the lines of how it made sense because Josh had always been a prissy, finicky, indoor boy.

  What he’d actually been was a kid with a delicate stomach who didn’t like getting beaten up by his older brother, Bruce, and his friends. “Take someone else if you have to. Believe me, he won’t give me anything but grief.”

  “What happened between you and your father?”

  “He’s an asshole! He hates everything I am. I’m finally happy, and he’s going to find a way to ruin it!” It was a childish reaction, but that didn’t make it any less real. All he’d have to do was step through the front door and he’d be seven years old again, being scolded because he’d let another boy take his new Colts baseball cap. The kid had been two years older, twice his size, and apparently had a real hard-on for a football team that hadn’t found Peyton Manning yet. “I do not want him in my life!”

  Of course, Nero had no problem pointing out the ridiculousness of still letting his father destroy him emotionally. “You’re a full-grown adult, Josh. More important, you’re a werewolf now—”

  “And a wolf doesn’t let anyone push him around, right? A werewolf stands tall and doesn’t take shit from anyone. And if he does, he makes the bastard pay, right?”

  Nero frowned, obviously not understanding Josh’s bitter tone. “Uh… yeah.”

  “That’s exactly what my father used to say about being a man, and it’s bullshit. A man ought to be able to think of a better way of living than beating up anything he doesn’t like.”

  “So think of a better way to deal with your father.”

  “You said I could never reconnect with my family. That I should just cut them out of my life. Was that bullshit?”

  Nero swallowed and his gaze canted away. “It’s truth, but we need that fabric, Josh. And FYI, I’ve been trying to get it for weeks now. You’re my last hope.”

  “Then you’re screwed.” Josh pressed his fists tight to his chest to keep himself from punching Nero in the face. “My father responds to one thing: force. And unless you’re going to let me go wolf on him and scare the shit out of him, then I suggest you start looking for a different way to get the fabric you want.”

  Nero’s gaze went cold. “Look at you, Josh. You’ve got more power than you’ve ever had before in your life. More strength, speed, and stamina. You’re a living magical creature. And yet here you are, reduced to a child throwing a tantrum at the thought of asking your father for help.”

  “This from the man whose family still thinks he’s in lockup!” Josh leaned in and got straight in Nero’s face. “You told me to ditch my family. You told me that it wasn’t worth the pain—”

  “And you said you weren’t going to cut them out of your life entirely. You said you would find a different way.”

  Josh shook his head, feeling betrayal cut deep inside. “This isn’t about me at all,” he said. “This is about you getting the fabric. About your revenge and being too impatient for a better—”

  “We’re out of time.” Nero’s voice dropped to a deep tone all the more frightening for how calm it seemed. “I’m out of time.” He took a deep breath as he pushed to his feet. “You’re more powerful than you’ve ever been before in your life, but that’s dangerous unless you control yourself. Not just physically but emotionally. Face your demon father, Josh, so I can take out the demon that killed my team.” He tossed Josh his pants. “We leave in an hour.”

  “And what if I don’t control myself?” Josh asked. “What if I go wolf and rip out the guy’s throat?” It was a real possibility. There’d been times in his life when, if he’d had the ability to kill his father, he absolutely would have.

  “I’ll be there to stop you. And then we’ll have to convert the rest of your family to werewolves to keep the secret contained.”

  Josh snorted. “Sure you would,” he drawled. “Because anybody can be a werewolf.”

  Nero’s brows raised in a mocking gesture. “Think, Josh. Use that big brain of yours. How did we know that you were a werewolf?”

  It took a moment for him to remember, and then his eyes widened in horror. “No.”

  “Yeah. You’re a direct descendant of werewolves, most of whom don’t even know what they are. So no, we can’t convert anybody, but we’ve got a pretty good shot with your father, your brother, and your sister.”

  Hell, why hadn’t he thought about that before? When he looked at his family tree, why hadn’t he realized that every single one of them could be a werewolf like him? “But you’ve got a less than 30 percent survival rate. If you convert them, two will likely die.” And with Josh’s luck, the only one to keep breathing would be his stubborn ass of a father. “You can wipe their memories.”

  Nero shook his head. “It doesn’t work well on werewolves, even the ones who have never manifested.” He arched a brow. “Does that make you think twice about going wolf on your father?”

  Of course it did.

  “Then maybe you should think of a way to get his help without reverting into a sullen, stubborn child.”

  Chapter 22

&n
bsp; WHEN HAD he become one of those do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do people? Nero stared out at the Indiana freeway and tried not to feel like a shit as Josh glared out at the same flat landscape. Nero didn’t know if forcing Josh to face his father was the right thing to do. Every recruit had family issues, and generally, Nero thought it was best to leave them in the past. But over the last six weeks, he’d realized how very ugly Josh’s childhood had been. For some unknown reason, he’d been the family whipping boy. His father had blamed him for everything, his brother had enjoyed tormenting him, and his mother and sister had turned a blind eye to it all.

  Which meant Josh’s family wound was a great deal bigger and darker than anyone had guessed, and maybe it needed to be confronted instead of swept under the table. Because stuff that big never stayed under the table. In short, Josh had to face down the demon of his father’s bullying before he could step into everything he was meant to be and do.

  But the real reason he was pushing Josh so hard was because Nero needed to save his team now. He had a few more days until the fairy mulligan disappeared forever. A couple more days and all of this would be over, one way or another.

  Plus, he’d already tried to get the special fabric. He’d done the research weeks ago and realized that the only stuff that had a prayer of working was Volcax. Except every attempt to get his hands on some had been rebuffed. He had to admire the company’s security measures. Even the burglary attempt was foiled. Which meant the only person who could get some under-the-table Volcax was Josh.

  So Nero had used the nearest excuse he could find to force that to happen. Just because it might be good for Josh didn’t change the real reason Nero was doing it.

  If only he could tell Josh the truth. If only he could break the thrice-cursed fairy contract on this one issue alone. He needed to tell someone, because lying to Josh was killing him. He needed to tell Josh the truth about why he was pushing so hard. He needed to say that despite all intentions, he’d bonded to Josh. No one had said the L word, but it was there like a big, fat accusing finger pointed straight at Nero.