Nero eased back enough to impress his next words onto Josh. “Now imagine you’re at the dinner table and your asshole of a father starts calling you weak. You’re a screw-up because you hide in a lab and don’t do shit for real work.” Josh’s father owned a factory that made special heat-resistant fabric. It was one of the many reasons Josh had been on the top of the recruit list. But though the business pulled in a shit-ton of money, the family lived like laborers of the heaviest, hardest kind. Josh’s sister was an Army medic, and his brother was a fireman. Everyone worked physically demanding stuff except Josh, who had gone into academia. His hands were soft and his shoulders narrow. He binge-watched the SyFy channel and put his leisure time into cosplay. “What are you going to say to him?”
Josh didn’t answer, but his growl was enough. And Nero kept going.
“How many times have you imagined impressing the shit out of your father? Maybe throwing him against the wall or busting the table with your bare hands? Not science shit, but raw physical power like the kind he respects?”
“Every fucking minute of my childhood.”
“You have that power now. You could throw down with your brother and sister at the same time and best them both. You could shut your idiot dad up with your wolf speed and your animal instincts. Most people can’t control their gun hand enough to shoot you. They’re too frightened. And yeah, your dad would be shit-his-pants terrified.”
Josh’s mouth pulled into a grin. “Yeah,” he drawled. He was loving the image Nero painted.
“You’ve got confidence now like you’ve never had before. And with training, that’s only going to build. You’ll be able to take out monsters he’s only imagined in his nightmares.”
Josh’s breath came quicker in excitement. He wanted that future, and it was possible for him. It was possible for all werewolves. Now it was time for Nero to drop the hammer.
“But you can’t tell him that, Josh. You can’t show him the man you are. You have to appear weak and useless in front of him. You have to hide in his fucked-up image of you and not break it. Because he can’t know the real you. He can’t be trusted with the knowledge. It would endanger you, me, and everything we know.”
“Bullshit—”
“Not bullshit.” He rolled away from Josh, grabbing tissues in one smooth move. And while they both started to clean up, Nero continued with the paranormal facts of life. “Do you know what the most powerful force in the universe is? It’s not nuclear fusion, solar whatever, or even a neutron star.”
Josh frowned. “Black hole?”
“Human belief.” Nero held up his hand to stop Josh’s immediate reaction. His science brain was not going to accept this easily. “I don’t understand it, but I’ve seen it happen. Every single paranormal creature was created from human belief. Someone believed in fairies strong enough for them to appear. Werewolves and vamps became popular in literature, and suddenly, wham, here we are.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” Josh argued. “You had to show up first and then humans started talking about it.”
“You’d think that, but that’s not what we’ve seen.” He threw his mess into the waste can with a quick flick of his wrist. “Vamps were mean, vicious monsters until suddenly they show up in romance novels as sparkly and sensitive. We stopped taking out the usual bloodsucker ten years ago because now they’ve all got tragic pasts and hate themselves for what they are.”
Josh shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“I’ve seen it happen. Stupid things like that fucking doll Chucky. No one was fighting psycho toys until after that movie appeared.” He surged off the bed so he could pull up his sweats. Then he plopped back down and faced Josh. “It was more obvious before movies and the internet. A new monster would appear in a place that had just created a fairy tale about such a monster.”
“Monster first, tales second. It’s the only logical—”
“No. First, some really good storyteller thinks up a monster. He invests it with his passion and his belief and tells it to a community who come along for the ride. They talk about it, they think about it, they love it. And then pretty soon, the monster shows up for real because they created it.”
“You can’t think something into existence.”
“You can if you think hard enough, if you believe hard enough, and if enough people come along for the ride. What do you think a demon summoning is? Black magic rituals?”
“By that logic, Jesus would be walking the earth and angels would be among us.”
“Jesus was crucified on a cross and, if not exactly dead, he’s hanging out in heaven with all the angels.”
Josh was obviously struggling with this concept. He shook his head as he stared at the twisted bedsheets. And when he got uncomfortable doing that, he reached for his jeans and pulled them on with quick, jerky movements.
“Belief doesn’t create reality,” he said.
“You so sure about that?”
“Yes!” And then after a moment, he hedged, “Well, obviously, if you believe you’re good at something, that helps your performance. And insecurity has the opposite effect. That kind of belief.”
“But believing something into existence can’t happen?” Nero argued. “That the ‘think yourself thin’ meditation only goes so far without diet and exercise?”
“Right!”
“Wrong. I don’t have the diet industry answer. There’s obviously a whole lot of conflicting beliefs about weight loss, so that probably plays a part. But Josh, listen to me. I’ve seen it happen. Belief created us. Belief created our enemies. Belief created magic.”
