Chapter 5
Six weeks later in Wisconsin, sixty miles from Lake Wacka Wacka.
One week after the demon at Lake Wacka Wacka changed into something much better.
Six days into cleanup from that potentially world-ending disaster.
KANGAROOS WEREdead to him.
Bing used to think of them as adorable hopping mothers with joeys in their pouches and smiles beneath their Aussie bush hats. Now he knew the truth. They were vicious killing machines with legs that could break a man’s ribs and a tail that hit like a ton of bricks. Especially when they were ridden by small angry ghosts.
None of this made sense, but then, when had the paranormal ever clung to logic? Eight weeks ago he’d been changed into a werewolf. Since that time, he’d destroyed a golem, learned that the multiverse was real, and watched as love transformed a demon into a baby boy. And all of that made more sense than the past week he’d spent chasing phantom kangaroos ridden by jockeys with a destructive agenda.
He missed being an actor, where everything was make-believe. At the end of a day’s shooting, he could go home to his tiny apartment and ramen noodles, secure in the knowledge that nothing on film was real. As it turned out, the stuff created by Hollywood was just the tip of the iceberg. Worse, the weird stuff on film tended tocreatethe vicious monsters he and his werewolf pack were trying to stop. But who in the hell had dreamed up man-eating kangaroos?
Someone with a cruel sense of humor, that was who. And now he was face-to-face with three of the bastards and was about to be pummeled to death.
Death by kangaroo. Not the epitaph he’d wanted.
“I’ve got the one behind you,” said Cara, his partner in this kangaroo cleanup effort. She was a nice person, good with healing spells, but she couldn’t “get” the beast in any real way. The most she could do was hit the kangaroo on the tail with her mace and then run while it chased her.
Fortunately, he had more skill.
He settled into a quiet place in his mind and became a killing machine. He was a master in several martial arts disciplines, but this was a place beyond study, beyond practice. There was silence as his body did what it was trained to do.
Then he pummeled the crap out of the three jockeys controlling the kangaroos. They weren’t ghostly when they attacked—he wasn’t sure why. But that meant that as long as they were coming at him, he could hurt them. He knocked one off, and the ghost was flattened beneath a kangaroo tail. He broke the arms of the next one, who quickly lost control of his kangaroo. Bing’s next blow snapped the ghost’s neck, and the jockey unraveled before his eyes. Ribbons of gray energy dissipated, leaving the confused kangaroo riderless.
Cara got the third, just as she promised. He didn’t see what she did, just heard the whack of her mace and some prayer she was mumbling in a language he didn’t know. That was her special skill. Prayers that could heal or, in this case, destroy. When he spun around, rider and kangaroo were fading into nothing.
“You didn’t get them all,” she said, catching her breath. “And I’m out of juice.” Meaning the power she’d put into her prayers was gone. She would have to rest before she could banish the creatures back to wherever ghosts went.
“I got the jockeys. The beasts aren’t a danger with them gone. The energy that holds them together will dissipate eventually and they’ll disappear.” At least he hoped that was true. He’d learned that most phantoms faded over time. Only really stubborn ones with a steady source of power stuck around.
“Normally that would be true,” she said as she watched the two remaining creatures hop away. “But with all the weird juju left from Lake Wacka Wacka, they’re going to jump onto the interstate and cause a ten-car pileup.”
“It’s not named Wacka Wacka,” he mumbled, looking for something to argue about because he realized she was right. They would have to find those kangaroos and take care of them. “I don’t understand your need to give nicknames to everything.”
She held up her hands. “I didn’t name it. Your pack leader, Nero, did.” Nero was a big guy and their most experienced fighter. He also had a penchant for giving nicknames. She arched a brow at him. “Do you even know the correct name for Lake Doom?”
He didn’t. He’d forgotten it somewhere between fighting a lich and distracting some truly evil fairies. America was weird.
He and Cara were on cleanup duty after a demon and his poisoned lake nearly gobbled up the entire world. The demon was gone, the lake was all better, but Wisconsin was still teeming with paranormal energy, which drew all sorts of evil creatures to it. Bing and his werewolf pack (plus many others) were tasked with clearing them out. It wasn’t going well. There was too much paranormal energy around, and things like phantom kangaroos were thriving.
Meanwhile, Cara closed her eyes and settled her shoulders. She was a cleric in the old D&D sense, complete with the traditional mace, but she’d also been born with—or given—an incredible directional sense. Wherever she pointed, they’d find trouble.
Regular people would run the other way. Their job was to head straight for it.
She pointed. “That-a-way,” she said in a chirpy voice. Then her expression tightened. “Hurry.”
He nodded, then headed straight for their ATVs. Normally he’d have a great time riding these. There was power and speed in these machines as they jumped and bumped through the Wisconsin backcountry. But he was tired and melancholy, and he missed Walter. The man could always make him see the bright side of life, instead of gloom, doom, and pollution.
But Walter wasn’t here. He’d probably decided that Bing was never coming back. That meant Bing needed to put his best friend and greatest kiss out of his thoughts. Unfortunately, watching his packmates Laddin and Bruce declare their undying love for one another had caught him deep inside. It wasn’t a surprise. In the past eight weeks, he’d lost everything—his movie career; his best friend, Walter; his family; the man he adored most, Walter; and even his identity. He was a werewolf now, fighting real paranormal threats. And he’d never see Walter again.
Damn it, he really wanted his old life back.
In a week he was supposed to tell the Wulf, Inc. higher-ups exactly what he wanted to do with his life. Did he want to stay with the wolves or go back to acting? He could return to China and try to make up for destroying his family’s finances. Or maybe go back to Hollywood with a new identity from Wulf, Inc. He had an entire world of possibilities ahead of him, and what was he doing? Moping about how he missed the man who’d changed his world with a single kiss. Why? Because beyond being a great kisser, Walter was the one person who could help him make sense of his possibilities. Bing tended to brood without purpose. Walter liked to talk about things from every different angle until eventually he sorted things out.
And Bing definitely needed help with that.
