by Hattie Hunt
Joe stared at her incredulously.
“Chuck.” Because the silence had to mean they didn’t know what she meant. “I told Chuck.”
“You what?”
Ripley had expected that reaction. She didn’t know how she’d fare in a fight with a bear, but she was ready for it.
Tyler’s voice rose behind her in a rather loud song.
Her nerves calmed. The clouds of anxiety cleared from her head. She shook out her hands.
Juliet leaned to the side and looked at Tyler with a confused frown.
“Bard,” Joe barked. “That’s a misuse of your powers.”
Griff stepped into Ripley’s view. “Not as I see it. You’re going to fight and he can keep it from getting too far.”
Brett looked like he’d been hit in the face with a pry bar.
Ripley swallowed hard. “I had to. It’s my job.”
Joe’s jaw ticked as he breathed through his nose. “I asked you not to.”
Ripley widened her arms.
“Tyler,” Joe said calmly. “Stop.”
“Are you done trying to kill each other?” Griff asked.
Juliet gripped her fiancé’s shoulder. “We won’t hurt each other.”
Tyler stopped singing, sagging next to his friend.
Ripley flicked her eyebrow. She’d never seen singing take so much out of a person. “I had to.”
“And?” Juliet asked, her voice small.
“He issued a kill order.”
Brett sank to the windowsill, his expression blank.
Joe’s rage quelled to a quiet numbness.
“But, I got it postponed.”
Joe looked up, startled.
Ripley raised both of her shoulders, looking only at Joe. “Just because I had to tell him doesn’t mean I wanted to.”
“How did you get it postponed?” Joe asked. His gaze slid to Tyler and things started to click into place. “Snow said there’s a cure.”
“And she also said it didn’t work, and my padfoot tends to agree.” Though, her padfoot had been oddly quiet since she’d met Leslie. No. Wait. Ever since Aunt Myrtie told her it shouldn’t have this power. Huh. “As did Chuck. He says the cure doesn’t work.”
“Then, how?”
Ripley couldn’t believe she was about to say this out loud. “Leslie said she’s going to try and help.”
Juliet looked up, her ice-blue eyes wide with hope.
“She’s a witch,” Ripley told her, wanting to comfort Joe some way, knowing how stupid it was.
He nodded once and looked up. “What do we need to do?”
“We need to get to Leslie’s shop.”
Griff frowned at Tyler. “We’re going to need a diversion.”
“Why?” Ripley asked.
“Because,” Juliet said quietly, “we’re getting married tomorrow and neither of us are allowed to leave this house until it’s done.”
Ripley turned to Tyler. “Yeah, kid. We’re gonna need a diversion. These two have got to get out of here. What do you got?”
He put a finger to his lips, his eyes sagging and tired. “I might have an idea.”
Chapter Thirteen
The kids’ diversion was juvenile in the extreme, but it still worked.
They filled each of the toilets with poop and toilet paper.
Ripley wasn’t going to ask where all the poop came from. Technically, only two of the toilets had that in it, but it was still pretty amazing to Ripley that they could just poop on command like that.
While everyone else scurried to fix the toilets, Joe, Brett, and Juliet slipped out the window, shifting into bear form as they hit the ground. They needed to move quickly.
Ripley and Tyler walked right out the front, a backpack full of clothes slung over her shoulder.
In the truck, Tyler’s expression radiated pride. Griff sat next to him, refusing to be left behind after helping pull that off.
Ripley frowned at the new kid and pulled her phone out of her pocket, dialing Tuck.
“Chief Tuck,” he said gruffly.
That didn’t sound good. “Are you in the middle of something?”
“Oh, Rip. Yes, but what do you need?”
She didn’t want to bring stupid things to his door. “Eh, it’s nothing.”
“Did something happen?”
“Well…”
He sighed. “Rip, I don’t have all day.”
Crap. He was short. “I now have two kids. Is this considered or can it be misconstrued to have kidnapped either one of them?”
“Do the parents know?”
“No. Well, one of them.”
Griff raised a finger and punched a button on his watch. “Press the call button if you want to call…your dad,” the pleasant female voice said over the watch.
“It’s kidnapping if you don’t have permission.”
She didn’t know anything about kids. “Thanks, Tuck. Have fun.”
“Make sure I don’t have to arrest you.” He hung up and the screen went blank.
“Hey, Griff,” a male voice said over the watch. “Where are you?”
“In the truck with Tyler. I forgot to ask if I can go to his place.”
“Right now?”
“I’m bored.”
Someone else yelled over the phone, but it didn’t sound like it was at Griff or his father.
“Okay,” Griff’s dad said. “Just be good, keep the phone on, and let me know if you need a ride.”
“Okay. Love you, Dad.”
“Love you, too. Don’t be a jerk.”
Griff set his hand in his lap and looked up at Ripley.
Well, at least that was one thing, but how she kept getting saddled with kids was completely beyond her.
They talked amongst themselves on the way to town. Tyler gave Ripley directions, which was good because it wasn’t as easy as Leslie had said. She wasn’t right across the street from the new sandwich shop, or if it was, there was another sandwich place that Ripley couldn’t see.
She met three naked people in the rear parking lot to Leslie’s store. She tossed the backpack at Brett’s feet, not able to take her eyes off Joe.
He looked ama—
Holy fucking Jesus. What the hell was she doing? “Tyler!”
He wasn’t even paying attention. He looked up, glancing around like she’d just screamed, “zombies!”
“Naked people?” she whispered.
He relaxed and closed his eyes for a long moment, taking in a deep breath as if preparing to have a long conversation with a kid. “I live in a town of shapeshifters. Naked people happen all the time.”
Ripley opened her mouth and then shut it. Why was it okay for shapeshifters to raise their kids like that, but not okay for others who happened to live with them? And kids didn’t care about naked bodies. It wasn’t until they hit puberty and started having puberty thoughts that naked bodies were even an issue. “You’re very mature.”
“You’re not.” He hiked his backpack up on his shoulder and walked past the trio as they dressed, his head down as he talked to Griff. The two walked into the back of the shop with barely a glance at the shifters.
Juliet and Brett had turned away, as if turning their backs to the person still standing there fully clothed made things better.
Ripley should go in. She knew that.
But she stayed.
Staring at Joe.
He didn’t look away from her, his expression set in an angry mask as he slipped on his clothes, almost as if he was in slow motion. Juliet and Brett finished dressing and went in before he was done.
She couldn’t take his silent, hot gaze any more. “On a scale of one to ten, how mad are you right now?”
His eyes narrowed as he breathed.
Crap. So, probably a ten. Great. She was dead.
“Do you even care?” he asked finally.
“I don’t want to,” she heard herself say, cursing silently, wishing she’d said something else.
“Don’
t want to.”
“No.” She pressed her ring fingers down with her thumbs. He deserved a little honesty. Didn’t he? He’d earned that. She took a step toward him, blinking. “I want to want to leave. I want to want to go back to my old life.”
He straightened, frowning, not saying a word.
Ripley stepped in front of him, her fingers reaching out, but not touching. “You make that hard,” she whispered. All she wanted was to touch him. Lightly. Just to feel the warmth of his skin on her fingertips, to feel the strong thump-thump-thump of his heartbeat.
He took her fingers and pressed her palm against the red flannel of his shirt. “Then, stay.”
“Why?” she whispered.
He didn’t have any other answer. “For me.”
She snorted. “And put up with your mother?’
“We don’ have to live with her.”
“You haven’t been away from her.”
“It’s just the way of the bear clan.” And it was. They were very close.
Ripley clamped her lips closed on whatever she might have wanted to say, because none of it was good.
“Everyone else seems to accept you.”
Ripley nodded. That was true.
“Don’t forget that you showed up to a bear den with a witch’s kid trailing behind you.”
She still couldn’t believe she’d done that.
“And not all the bears hate you.”
“No,” Ripley said, wanting to take a step back. “The Yazzies respect me, but guess where they’re going as soon as the wedding is over.”
Wedding.
They both went still as that thought hit them. There might not be a wedding.
“I’m sorry,” Ripley said, wishing there was something better to say. There just wasn’t.
He nodded. “I—” He went silent for a moment, eyes down. “I may not be able to stay, after.”
She knew how that felt. Staying in town after her parents had passed and her brother found the bottle had been pure hell. Her padfoot hadn’t helped with that.
“What if we left together?” he asked, staring at something over her head.
That might be what he needed, but she didn’t want to get into a relationship just to heal him. That was selfish, but she didn’t care. She took care of herself first. That’s how she’d survived. “Where would you go?”
“Montana?”
He didn’t pick up on her word choice, but that was okay. “Canada,” she said. “I hear it’s beautiful.”
He nodded slowly. “Don’t we need passports?”
“You’re trying to tell me you can’t slip over the border without one?”
He winced. “We wouldn’t need one once we got in?”
Ripley shrugged. “I have no idea.”
“Me either.” He lowered his gaze, studying her face. “Momma—could I leave her?”
“Personally, I couldn’t care less about that woman.”
“I know you two don’t get along.” He clamped his lips shut. “I mean, that she treats you badly.”
She raised her eyebrows at his save. At least he wasn’t completely oblivious. “I’m not staying here with her.”
He pressed his hand on her fingertips, glancing at the entrance to the shop. “Do you think this could work?”
Ripley thought about it and then shook her head. “I don’t know. Leslie made a good point. The last time this cure had worked was in the time before witches slipped from the paranormal community. She might have something.”
Another car pulled up and a tall, bald man stepped out of it. He smiled at them both, pushing up his thick, dark framed glasses as he walked into the back of the shop.
“It looks like someone is setting up a party,” Ripley said. Just how many people were coming to this?
Joe let go of Ripley’s hand and opened the door for her.
The back of the shop was a huge workshop. On the far side was a long bench housing various soap making accouterments.
On the other side of the shop were several wine bottles.
And in the middle, there was a large, wooden table where Leslie sat with several books spread out in front of her, each laid open to random pages.
“…the local paranormal coroner,” the bald white man said. “Name’s Barn.”
Brett stared at him like something was wrong with his head.
Ripley could understand. “You invited the coroner? I thought we were trying to save him.”
“And we are,” Leslie said, one finger raised as she read. “He’s also the best person to understand the anatomy and the science. I got the magick. He brings the science and, maybe, if we’re really lucky, together we’ll find a cure.”
Really lucky. Not exactly a confidence building statement.
“I don’t like this,” Brett said.
“Me, either,” Joe said beside him. “We stick with our own.”
Leslie pulled her attention away from the book she was reading and stared at the two brothers in turn. “You stay with your own.”
Joe had been brought up to believe that witches were bad same as Ripley. Was he as nervous about this as she was?
Did they really have the luxury to not listen?
They really didn’t and Ripley hoped to hell that Joe understood that, too.
Joe held up a calming hand to his brother.
Brett clenched his teeth and lowered his head, looking more like a pissed off bull than a bear.
At least there was that.
“Do you realize how hard I’ve been fighting to get the chance to just help you?” Leslie asked, her voice quiet.
Joe and Brett leaned forward to hear her better.
Ripley leaned back, knowing what scary quiet-mom-voice sounded like.
Juliet did the same.
Apparently, Cheryl didn’t use scary-quiet voice. Good to know.
“All I’ve done since I came here is try to help. With the soaps. With the wine.”
Ripley raised an eyebrow.
Juliet actually sounded the question, though. “How does soap help?”
“It’s spell soap.” Leslie pinned Juliet with her gaze for a brief moment. “Washing away bad luck, money troubles, breaking hexes. That kind of thing.”
Juliet quirked her lips, her expression thoughtful, as she nodded slowly.
That didn’t sound too bad.
“And there’s the other thing,” Leslie continued. “The thing that Barn and I have been trying to set up for months now.”
“And what’s that?” Brett asked with a sneer.
Ripley really didn’t like him. She didn’t know what Juliet saw in him, but she hoped there was good in there. Somewhere. Ripley just couldn’t see it.
Then why was she fighting so hard to keep him alive?
For Joe. Only for Joe.
“This.” Leslie spread out her arms. “Barn and I have gathered every single piece of literature we could find from all around the world. Some of it was found rather…well, it wasn’t good. Some of this is crap. Absolute crap. We’ve got witchcraft, shapeshifter, and paranormal lore from around the world.”
Which sounded amazing, but Ripley was really hoping she’d get to the point.
“All in the vain hope that one of you idiots would allow us to help.”
Joe flinched.
Brett’s hackles rose.
“All we need is one chance.”
“I think,” Ripley said quietly, “that you picked the wrong case to start with.”
Leslie met Ripley’s gaze and held it for a long moment before looking away.
“What happens if we lose?” Ripley needed to know because this was big. “What happens if you can’t find a cure?”
“We’ll find another way,” Joe said, but he wasn’t convincing.
Juliet stared at Brett.
Ripley nodded. “We need to prepare for the worst.”
Leslie took in a deep breath and set her palms on the table. “No. We need to hedge our bets on finding a cure, and then
?”
Ripley shook her head.
Leslie looked up, meeting the gazes of everyone around the table. “We find the goddamn cure.”
Chapter Fourteen
Barn started by taking several vials of Brett’s blood and then left, leaving everyone else to pour over really old books that weren’t even all in English.
“Hey, Leslie,” a male voice called from the front of the store. “Babysitting detail. Arrived freaky fast.”
“If you call that freaky fast, you need a new watch,” Leslie muttered before yelling, “We’re back here!”
Bootsteps sounded from the front and a man stepped through the curtained doorway separating the store from the back room. He was tall, dark hair, slight beard, well-muscled. He looked like he could take care of himself in a fight.
Ripley’s padfoot stirred.
She frowned and looked at the man again. He was a shifter, but what kind? She’d never felt a spirit animal like this one before. It felt ancient.
Which didn’t make sense. Weren’t all the spirit animals pretty much ancient?
Her padfoot retreated without providing an answer.
“Ah,” he said with his eyes widening. “It’s study hall back here. The Buffy kind?”
Leslie rolled her eyes, but didn’t look up from what she was reading. “Kids are in the front.”
“Saw them.” He didn’t make to leave.
She sighed and turned around. “What, Dexx?”
He gave her an angelic look and then folded his hands in front of him and leaned against the doorframe.
“I hate you.” She leaned back and gestured to the newcomer. “Dexx Colt, leading up the Red Star Division.”
Brett scrambled to his feet.
Joe straightened, his heart racing, his bear rising to the forefront in furry ripples.
Dexx didn’t move, though his light expression disappeared.
Ripley didn’t move from her stooped position. Her padfoot was telling her to be calm. That was a first.
Juliet narrowed her eyes at Brett.
Maybe she was finally seeing him for the turd he was.
“I take it you have a sticky situation,” Dexx said carefully.
“You could say that,” Leslie said.
“Need help?”
“We might.”