Bears needed to be slowly introduced to things. Especially things like two-ton, tiger-striped honey badgers. He did think they could accept Stevie’s shifter form, but he knew they wouldn’t react well if she suddenly shifted into that form and then ate her cousin.
That, they would never get over.
“Pull back, Stevie,” he coaxed. “Please.”
Stevie looked down at her still-smirking cousin. She suddenly released her right hand and lowered it so that Shen could no longer see it. He didn’t know what she was doing until her hand came back up clutching a knife. She’d been wearing tiny shorts and a T-shirt that night, so he was sure the blade had been on the badger.
Raising the weapon over her head, Stevie brought it down in one brutal motion into the She-badger’s chest.
“Oh, shit,” Shen gasped when Stevie did it six more times, her grumbled roar turning into a pained—but human—scream.
On the seventh strike, she left the knife in the badger’s chest and slowly got to her feet, stumbling back from sudden weakness.
Shen ran out and caught her in his arms, pulling her away from the body.
When he had her a few feet back, with a group of suddenly naked bears surrounding them—they’d all shifted back to their human forms because they knew their bear form upset Stevie so—the body suddenly jumped up, the blade still sticking out of the crazed bitch’s chest.
The bears exploded in startled roars, a few returning to their animal forms.
The badger ran across the street and when she was on the other side, she turned around and screamed at Stevie, “You missed me heart, you dumb cunt!”
Stevie screamed in rage and tried to run after the badger, but Shen wouldn’t let her go and a few of the older She-bears helped him by holding her arms.
When the badger had disappeared, Stevie let out a desperate gasp.
“Benny!” she screamed and pushed everyone away, returning to the house.
* * *
Mairi stopped when she was a few streets over and took the time to pull the knife out of her chest. It wasn’t that the knife hadn’t hit her heart so much as it hadn’t hit anything major in her heart, like the aorta.
If she were not a shifter, she’d have to go to an emergency room and get emergency surgery. She definitely couldn’t keep running or pull the knife from her chest. But she was blessed. Because she’d been born one of the toughest, hardiest shifters there was. And that crazy girl must have been a leftie.
It was nice how the good Lord looked out for her.
Her twin aunts would be disappointed she hadn’t finished off cousin Max, but the message had been sent. Now she had some other things to do. And it wasn’t like she’d be able to sneak back into this neighborhood again. Those bloody bears would be on the lookout for her from now on.
* * *
“You need to stop crying,” Max growled at Stevie.
Max wasn’t growling simply because she was pissed. She was growling because her throat was still recovering from someone trying to strangle her to death.
Stevie, however, didn’t give a shit about that. “I’ll cry if I want to!”
“Because it’s your party?” Kyle asked and when they all gazed at him, he let out a sigh, and said, “Forget it.”
Shen grabbed a box of tissues from the table beside him and held it out for Stevie to wipe her eyes and blow her nose. They’d been at the emergency vet’s office for a couple of hours, but they still hadn’t heard anything specific yet.
“Want me to get you some water or something?” he asked.
“Come on,” Charlie said, standing up and stretching. “Let’s get everybody some sodas from the machine.”
She walked off and Shen followed her.
The vending machines were down the hall and around a corner near the bathrooms. Charlie began pulling singles out of her bag to purchase a few Cokes and a couple bottles of water.
Shen went to get the junk food.
As they both put in money, Charlie asked, “How did you do that?”
“How did I do what?”
“When Stevie was outside with Mairi. She was about to shift. But you pulled her back. How?”
“She was angry, not scared. And I figured it was worth a shot. I mean, she gets mad at Max all the time and manages to control herself. Her rage at her cousin was worse, of course, but that’s where I was working from. Plus, she’s been trying really hard to control her shifting since the event at the Jean-Louis Parker house, so I—”
Shen stopped talking when he realized that Charlie was standing right in front of him. And very close. Making him nervous.
“What?” he asked. “What did I do? What?”
Suddenly he was being hugged by Charlie MacKilligan. A woman who didn’t really seem like she enjoyed hugging.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you so much.”
“No problem,” he said, ignoring the weird feeling in his chest.
Charlie stepped away and Shen went back to pumping dollar bills into the machine and getting more junk food.
“So Stevie’s trying to control her shifting again?” Charlie asked.
“Excuse me?”
She gave a little laugh. “Oh? Are we playing that game?”
“I don’t think I understand—”
“Let me guess what she said to you. She wants to fuck with her DNA so she can never shift again. Never put anyone she loves in danger. And save the world from the horror that is her secret love of cat toys. Right?”
“What . . . no. That’s crazy talk. Why are we even discussing this?”
“I was wondering why she hadn’t said anything to Max about it. Now I see it’s because she went to you first. What did you say to get her to stop? Because usually that sort of thing lasts for days. Lots of obsessing. And research.”
Shen glanced down the hallway before admitting, “I told her I’d tell you.”
“Perfect. Everybody uses me when she starts getting those self-destructive ideas and they want her to stop. It should bother me that I terrify her so much, but not if it helps.”
With junk food and drinks in hand, they returned to the waiting room to find the veterinarian standing there, talking to Berg.
“What’s going on?” Charlie demanded, putting all the sodas and water down on a nearby table.
“I was just telling Mr. Dunn,” the vet said, “that Benny is going to be fine. The bullet hit a rib but didn’t go past it. The rib did break, though. Thankfully nothing major was damaged and the rib didn’t puncture the lung.”
“How do you treat a broken rib on a dog?” Stevie asked.
“Wait for it to heal on its own. We’ve removed the bullet, cleaned and sutured the wound. Now we’ll just need to watch the wound for a few days to make sure it doesn’t become infected, and in a couple of weeks, we should X-ray the ribs again. Make sure they’re healing properly. When you get him home, it’s really about restricting his exercise and general movement. Just potty breaks. We’ll give you pain meds, though. That will help. And antibiotics.”
“Can we take him home tonight?”
“It’s better if he stays here for a couple of days. That way we can drain the wound, if necessary, and keep an eye on him to make sure everything is healing properly.”
“Okay.” Charlie nodded. “Thank you, Doctor.”
“No problem. Oh. Do you need a report for the police?”
They all became quiet, gazing at the doctor blankly before Max rolled her eyes and said, “That would be great, Doc. Thanks.”
“It’s so horrible what some people will do to animals,” the full-human noted before motioning to one of the technicians. “Just unbelievable.”
“Yeah,” they all said in unison, which just sounded weird.
* * *
Stevie walked into her room. One or two of their nice neighbors had put a board over the broken window and removed the rug that had been stained by poor Benny’s blood.
But the scent of gun powder and
blood still lingered in the air.
Just thinking about poor Benny had her crying again, which made Max scream from her bedroom, “Stop crying! I was the one who almost died, ya know!”
Fed up with her sister ordering her around, Stevie started back toward the door, but Shen caught her just as she stepped into the hallway. He took hold of her hand and pulled her to his room. He drew her inside and closed the door.
Still crying but no longer in a mood to fight stupid Max and her stupid mean ways, Stevie just climbed onto Shen’s bed, curled onto her side, and let herself cry as much as she wanted to.
An hour or so later, she woke up. Her eyes were swollen shut from all her tears but she wasn’t alone. Shen, also fully dressed, was behind her, tucked in close. His arm was around her waist, his face buried against the back of her neck.
And asleep on her feet was Artemis. Stevie was relieved that all the snoring was coming from the dog and not the man.
Feeling safe and comfortable—despite Artemis’s heavy head like a concrete weight on her poor feet—Stevie smiled a little bit before going back to sleep.
chapter TWENTY
Stevie looked up from her bowl of oatmeal and frowned.
“What are you wearing?” she asked.
Max paused in the doorway. “What’s wrong with it?”
“Everything.”
Charlie rushed into the room, tugging on a pair of low-heeled black shoes. “Are you guys read—what are you wearing?”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“It’s red!” Stevie and Charlie said together.
“And a minidress,” Stevie added. “You look like you’re going to a club.”
“Or hooking.”
“I don’t hook anymore.”
Charlie slapped her purse down on the kitchen table. “That’s not funny.”
“I was just kidding,” Max laughed. “You guys are so serious. You already called the vet to check on Benny. He’s doing fine. The worst of my throat damage has healed, not that anyone asked about me.”
“We were more worried about the dog,” Stevie muttered.
“Thank you,” her sister sneered. “I just don’t see what the big deal is about this dress.”
“It’s a funeral!” Charlie barked.
“So?”
“You can’t wear red to a funeral!”
“Even for people we don’t like?”
“Yes! Even for people we don’t like! It’s tacky.”
“But you plan to wear red to Dad’s funeral.”
Charlie threw up her hands. “That’s different. Besides, you didn’t even know Uncle Bob.”
“Great-Uncle Pete,” Stevie corrected.
“Whatever. Go and change,” Charlie ordered Max. “Right now. We’re running late.”
Max walked out and Charlie sat down with a big mug of coffee.
“Are you okay?” Charlie asked Stevie.
“I stabbed her seven times in the chest.”
“Sweetie, you were angry.”
“As much as it pains me to say it, I don’t really care that I stabbed her.”
“Oh.”
“She hurt our dog. She deserved what she got. What I do care about is that Mairi didn’t die.”
“What did you expect? You know you need to either shoot her in the back of the head or carve that heart right out of the bitch’s chest. Otherwise, all you’re doing is pissing off a badger.”
“Think she’ll be back?”
“No. She’s not stupid. She knows all the bears on this block are on high alert. She won’t risk it. But that doesn’t mean those twin bitches won’t have her try something else.”
Stevie couldn’t help but smile. “Is this where you give me the ‘you have to be careful out there’ speech?”
“Nah. You already know it by heart. And you may not have killed her, but she’s well aware it wasn’t from lack of trying. She won’t want to go head-to-head again with you anytime soon.”
Stevie shoveled another spoonful of oatmeal into her mouth as the Dunn triplets walked into the kitchen. All three had on dark blue suits, Berg and Dag wearing ties and Britta without one. Instead, she had on heels, which was pretty bold since they made her taller than her grizzly bear brothers.
Kyle pushed past the triplets and ran into the room, making his way onto Stevie’s seat, and putting his arms around her shoulders.
“Please let me come today,” he begged.
“What?”
“To the funeral. I promise I’ll be good.”
“Who wants to go to a funeral?” Charlie wanted to know.
“I do,” he insisted. “I’m fascinated.”
Charlie cringed. “With death?”
“Of course not,” Kyle replied. “I’ve already decided I won’t be dying, so why would I need to know about it?”
“He has a point,” Berg laughed.
“I want to go to the church. To see the rituals.”
“Didn’t you once throw that Nazi quote at me about religion being the meth of the masses?”
Kyle rolled his eyes at Stevie, telegraphing how annoyed he was at having to deal with all these “normals” before replying to Charlie’s question, “It’s opium and it’s not Nazi, it’s Communist. A Karl Marx quote to be exact.”
“Is that the guy from World War T—”
“That’s Stalin,” he barked before focusing on Stevie again. “I promise not to engage any of your relatives.”
“It could be dangerous.”
“Do you mean the cult-like activity and belief in a higher power?”
“No. My family. Badgers at funerals are unpredictable. In other words, I don’t know what they’ll do.”
“I’ll bring the burly servant.”
Britta sneered at Kyle. “Do you mean Shen? Who is not your servant. He is the only thing standing between your ridiculous little ass and the bad guys.”
“In other words he works for me? Like a servant?”
Britta took a step forward but Berg quickly put an apple in her mouth before she could start yelling, and Charlie called out, “Shen?”
“Yo?” he answered from the second floor.
“Mind coming to a funeral with us?”
“I was planning to. Figured we could lock the boy in your dark, moldy basement. For his safety.”
Charlie grinned. “Ya gotta suit?”
“Already on it!”
“Great. We’re leaving in ten.”
“I’ll be ready.”
Max walked back into the kitchen. She was wearing black now. But it was still a minidress and it sparkled. Like the sun.
“Seriously?” Charlie snapped.
“What? It’s black.”
“She looks nice,” Stevie felt the need to point out.
“Yeah. Like a high-priced hooker.”
Max pointed at her. “But high-priced.”
“Are you trying to get the attention of Creepy Roy?”
“Who’s Creepy Roy?” Berg asked.
“He’s the married father of four who has always thought that the possibility of birth defects shouldn’t stop you from hitting on your own cousins.”
Max’s lip curled. “I forgot about Creepy Roy,” she said softly.
“He’ll definitely be there. He’s probably hoping to get something from the will.”
“And he will definitely misinterpret your outfit,” Stevie added.
Max nodded. “Yeah. I’ll go change.”
She walked out again and Dag shook his head. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen Max back away from anything.”
“You’ve never met Creepy Roy.”
Stevie pushed Kyle off her chair. “Are you planning to go to our great-uncle’s funeral in sweatpants?”
“I’m an artist, so—”
“Just go. You’ve got five minutes to find a suit and make yourself presentable.”
Kyle took off and Britta smiled.
“You handle him well, Stevie.”
“I’m the onl
y one he respects. And before you ask . . . he doesn’t respect any of you.” She motioned to her sister. “But he does fear Charlie.”
Charlie shrugged. “That still works for me.”
* * *
The funeral at the big Catholic church in Downtown Manhattan had already begun by the time their group arrived. Shen could hear the organ music. But people were still heading inside.
As they reached the stairs, a male voice from behind called out, “Wee little Charlie and her sisters.”
The three sisters stopped and looked left. Shen saw a group of male honey badgers a few feet away.
“That’s Will MacKilligan,” Berg said quietly to Shen. “The sisters’ uncle.”
And the head of a crime syndicate, which was a problem since the MacKilligan sisters’ father had stolen from him.
Black and white hair, cut short; untrusting dark brown eyes; and a sneer that was less than friendly. Will MacKilligan was staring at his nieces like he was meeting Al Capone to do a business deal. Like he felt that although he had to work with them, he didn’t have to trust them.
Dunn and his siblings moved in behind the sisters and Shen pushed Kyle behind him. But the kid was a good three inches taller now, so he just watched the action over Shen’s head, unable to keep his nose out of anything that appeared remotely interesting.
“If you see a gun,” Shen warned him, “run for the church.”
“Can’t I just hide behind your giant, round, panda head?”
Shen briefly thought about tossing the kid into moving traffic, but Max suddenly jerked forward—for no apparent reason!—and then there were all these people reaching for their weapons. In front of a church . . . in the middle of Manhattan. . . in the middle of the day.
Before Shen could grab her, Stevie jumped between the two groups, arms outstretched.
“No, no, no, no, no!” she begged. “Please. Everybody. Just calm down. Charlie?” she prompted. “Max?”
Charlie gripped a Sig Sauer behind her back, finger on the trigger. Max had blades in both hands, her arms resting against her sides. Casual, but no one was fooled. Not by Max.
“Stevie,” Charlie said through gritted teeth, “get your ass back over here.”
“Not until everybody calms down.” When no one moved . . . “I’m getting very angry.”
In a Badger Way Page 25