Once Bitten, No Longer Shy by Julie Steimle (to read list TXT) 📖

Since he was alone, he put things away then went into the lab to continue his research on the manuscript. Bobo did not return until later that evening, bringing in a roasted chicken for dinner along with his girlfriend Jandra who was talking to him about the last Black Lives Matter rally she had gone to in Baltimore.

“…You really should have been there.”

“No, I shouldn’t,” Bobo retorted, looking around for Troy. “Things like that can get dangerous. And I don’t want to be in violent situations.”

“I thought you said you were Superman,” she joked.

“I am,” he joked back. “But it would be bad for others. Not for me.”

They ate dinner for a while, quietly chatting together.

Setting aside his manuscript copy, Troy cleaned up his work and put it away into a locked drawer. He jotted down a list of things to buy before his next Bite Victims’ group meeting then stepped out of the Lazlo Holyfield doorway into the closet. When he emerged from the closet and walked to the couch to find the TV remote, Jandra jumped with a yelp. She slapped a hand over her mouth, staring at Troy. “Where did you come from?”

Troy just thumbed toward the closet and turned on the TV, sitting down.

“But that’s just a closet,” she said, eyes wider. “I saw it yesterday. I looked in. What are you doing in the closet?”

“Research,” Troy said.

Bobo chuckled and shook his head. “Hey, Jandra. Don’ worry about it. He has funny research.”

“By standing in the closet?” she stared at Bobo. “Damn, Bobo, your friend is weird.”

Troy laughed. It probably did look weird, him just coming out of the closet as if he lived there. He wondered if that had something to do with the name of the entrance. He really had to see that movie Hanz and Matthew had talked about—the one Art did not like. In fact, he decided to look for it on their Netflix options right then and there. The TV was hardwired with the internet.

He found it.

Bobo and Jandra eventually joined him in watching Real Genius, offering him some of their roasted chicken and getting out some chips and salsa to munch on when the chicken was gone. When he saw Lazlo Holyfield go mysteriously in and out of the closet, confusing that poor kid Mitch, he busted up, finally getting the joke. 

Once Jandra went home and Troy started to heat up his evening toddy, Bobo put on some jazz and prepared for bed also. When he went upstairs for the night, it was like going to sleep in the middle of a dream. His former life was as a memory.

The following day was almost a repeat—without the club members coming over, and with some business contacts stopping by instead. One of them was the famous Henry who worked for Mr. Deacon.

Henry stuck out his hand to Troy when he saw him. At the time Troy was wrangling a tray full of small comfrey plants into a bag so he could carry them all to the Bite Victims’ meeting group. The man, Henry, was in his early forties, Caucasian, still quite hale and dignified. He wore a suit and had a sober, strong gaze.

Troy set down the plants, took his hand and shook it. “Nice to meet you.”

Smiling cordially, Henry said, “I’ve heard your story. And I am sorry to hear they caught up with you.”

Chuckling weakly, Troy nodded. “So am I.” But then a thought occurred to him and he had to ask, “Have you really been working with the Deacon family a long time?”

“Since straight out of high school,” Henry said. “I’ve known Rick from before his parents’ divorce. I was practically his babysitter half the time—chasing after him and his friend when they were causing trouble.”

Troy stared. Nodding to himself, Troy then murmured with a peek to Henry, “I see. So then, you can confirm all the stories about them.”

Henry nodded with a smirk. “I know all the juicy details, yeah.”

With widening eyes, Troy then realized that Henry probably knew all about Daisy. He had probably also been there when Rick had his first transformation. Yet Troy asked, “So tell me, rumor has it Rick was totally different from the way he was at Gulinger. Is it true?”

The man’s expression changed entirely. He laughed outright, nodding. “Yes. I hear he was exceptionally well-behaved at Gulinger.”

“He did climb out windows,” Troy said.

“Well, that is an old habit. Hard to break,” Henry chuckled out. Nodding, he said, “Young Mr. Deacon was a real hellion before his parents’ divorce. Him and the pastor’s grandson both together.”

Troy’s eyes widened, knowing he was talking about Andrew. “The Holy Seven’s leader had been a hellion?”

Henry nodded, grinning. “Yep. But to be fair, they only wreaked havoc on the town witches. But Andrew didn’t know or rather didn’t believe they were witches. He just liked the fun. But Howie—uh, Rick—knew full well what they were. They were harassing his mother and he was taking revenge.”

A shiver rippled through Troy. That was a dangerous thing to do. Was Rick insane or just stupid?

Seeing his reaction, Henry nodded, whispering, “Yeah. Foolish. But back then young Mr. Deacon did not know he was a werewolf. I think he felt invulnerable.”

Staring more, Troy was shocked. So, Rick knew about the witches, but did not know he was a werewolf? Then he peeked to the others in the meeting with Bobo as they sorted out documents and computers. He lowered his voice. “Are they in the know about the Deacons?”

Henry nodded. “All of them know. Mr. Deacon does not bring in people as assistants unless they are prepared to handle the sticky details of being employed by uh… ‘persons of interest’.”

That made sense. Yet Troy said, “When did you find out?”

Sighing, Henry replied, “I found out ages ago. Like I said, I was initially hired right out of school, just after graduation. I was a foster kid living in Boston, you see. I would be out of the foster program and on my own soon, and I needed money for college. Around that time Mr. Deacon was looking for ‘worthy scholarship recipients’ he could help out.” He then chuckled. “It was part of the Deacon family pay-it-forward plan for what had been done for Mr. Deacon the First.”

Troy listened, mesmerized.

“I didn’t discover the werewolf situation until after the SRA unexpectedly visited me and forced me to take a blood test,” Henry said. “And even then I thought the SRA were just a bunch of lunatics. I complained to Mr. Deacon, who then helped me draw up a lawsuit for the assault. We won, of course, as you can’t just take blood from a guy.”

“Unless you are a vampire,” Troy murmured.

“Not even then,” Henry said, smirking at him with a wink.

Troy laughed, nodding. It was true. Vampires were just as in trouble for stealing blood as anybody.

“How did you find out Rick was a werewolf?” Troy asked.

Henry hesitated, thinking as if the memory was something that had saddened him. “Mr. Deacon told me it was a possibility, but he had hoped his son was completely human. I was to guard him from the witches.

“You see, Rick is an extremely rare form of werewolf,” Henry explained more, seeing Troy was intrigued. “It was possible he could have stayed human, but by puberty he was showing the signs that he would probably transform. However, I was not included in on the family secret until after Mr. Deacon decided I was trustworthy. At that time he had Lewis take me on to train me as the family butler and driver. By then I had my degree in finance and I could choose to leave the employ of the Deacons if I wanted. I didn’t know the legend that they were werewolves was true until after I came to Middleton Village and stepped into their house.”

Troy’s brow wrinkled, wondering what Deacon Manor in Middleton Village was like. Rick never wanted his friends to come there, saying the town witches would target them.

“You see, the walls of Deacon Manor are covered in wolf paintings and art,” Henry said. “A bit overkill, if you ask me. But for Mr. Deacon the First, it gave him the sense of being in a pack after his own pack had been slaughtered by the town witches.”

Every time Henry said ‘the town witches’ Troy got a shiver up his spine. He pictured twenty Silvias, all watching him.

“The pack of wolf art freaked me out, but I still had not suspected the truth about them being werewolves. When I finally got over the freakiness of their home—assuming it had to do with the Deacon family obsession with wolf conservation—I decided to stay.” He shrugged. “They were good people. And Mrs. Deacon needed someone on hand when their steward, Lewis Holmes, was busy with other work. As I said, Lewis took me under his wing and taught me the ropes—and when I was ready, he shared the family secret in a way that, well, I could digest.”

“Lewis?” Troy found that name familiar but could not place it.

“The man who was killed in New York on Howie’s second full moon there,” Henry said gravely. “A very good man. And a loyal friend to Mr. Deacon.”

Troy swallowed. The memory of that murder snapped back to him. It had been grizzly, bloody, and he had worked hard to forget it all those years. It was the same day Tom got the notion he wanted to see a werewolf hunt, and had dragged them all to the YMCA to watch Rick kill a rabbit. They never saw it, but instead found Rick’s Steward with heart clawed out. It was also the same day Bobo had taken a knife to the chest to protect Rick from the hunter who had killed the steward and was now trying to kill Rick.  

“Hey!” Bobo called out to them then gestured to the clock. “Don’t you have a meeting to go to?”

Seeing the hour also, Troy yelped and grabbed his plants again. “Right! Uh, see you later!”

And he rushed off.

Henry smoothly got the door for him like an expert.

Troy juggled his plants all the way down the stairs and straight to the park where the group was waiting. Most of them were there except for Dalton who was late. Cameron was also there.

“He should not be here,” Brandon snapped in protest, pointing to Cameron once he saw Troy. “You can be here because you were once bitten. But he has never been bitten!”

Troy raised his eyebrows, looking to Cameron while putting down the bag containing the plants.

Raising his hands, Cameron said, “I just wanted to see what was going on. You know, just in case I need to refer someone to this group.”

But Troy had a feeling that was a lie. He could see Cameron peeking to Nicole who was now talking with Dalton about something. Dalton had just rushed up. Cameron’s heart, for a slow beat as an almost-vampire, was faster. Matthew’s suspicions were proving unfortunately true. Nicole certainly was a flirt. However, when Nicole spotted him, she gave him a rebuking smile and quickly came up to him. “You didn’t call me.”

Blinking, Troy hesitated. “I… I didn’t know you wanted me to.”

She huffed, rolling her eyes and folding her arms. “Honestly. High IQ people have such a low EQ. Of course I wanted you to.”

He peeked once to Brandon who was eying him funny, then to Cameron who was also watching him with an almost startled expression, feeling flattered that she thought he had a high IQ. He didn’t want to spoil her delusion. “Um… maybe we should start the meeting and talk about this later.”

With a sigh she trotted off to her corner of the grass. “Fine.”

He realized then that he may have blown it with her. And she was clearly playing the field. But he did not have time to think about that. Troy raised his voice and said, “Ok, we need to call this meeting to