Death Becomes Her

by Michael Anderle

  Alexi would have held his breath if he was human. For Nathan to be forward enough to suggest a vampire go against one of Michael’s laws on keeping humans as ignorant as possible regarding the UnknownWorld was pretty chancy, and gave Alexi a little insight into Nathan’s thoughts about his niece.

  That’s when the wolf started coming around.

  —

  Bethany Anne checked on the woman in the werewolf’s arms. He obviously was caring for her, so she didn’t felt uncomfortable leaving the woman there.

  His question was a little off-putting. Would she ‘wipe’ her? Obviously that was some kind of rule or a suggestion or something about the UnknownWorld. She had heard the UnknownWorld term used a couple of times, but without the context of werewolves, and werebears or maybe she should just say Weres and leave it at that? No matter, she wasn’t wiping anybody.

  It was an easy decision; people shouldn’t have chunks of their lives wiped clean. She didn’t know how to wipe anyone anyway. Although she could ask Tom, better to be ignorant if she talked with Michael.

  The wolf was starting to move and fidget. She stood up and walked over to the head so she could be seen when it opened its eyes.

  She listened to the heartbeat, to the breathing and was enjoying the fact that the wolf was trying to continue the act of pretending it was asleep. Probably to continue to heal, she surmised.

  No worries, she walked over to the fire and pick out a small limb that had been part out of the fire and wasn’t too hot. She casually pulled it free from the fire and spoke to the bear, “You’ll want to hold him still for this,” and flung the limb onto the wolf’s flank.

  That woke him right the hell up. What violence the wolf was promising with its growling and barking. Too bad it couldn’t move worth a damn with more than a thousand pounds of bear holding it down.

  Bethany Anne walked back over to the wolf, who followed her with its eyes and slowly stopped its useless struggling.

  “You have two options, you can change back, or I can continue to cause pain until you die. If you try to hold out on me, I’m going to get my pound of flesh off you whether you choose to give up early or late. So, what is it going to be?”

  The wolf looked like it wanted to bite her, but a second later, there was a naked man under the bear’s paw.

  Bethany Anne looked over at the guy holding the girl. “You got anything for him you don’t mind loosing?”

  The guy looked back at her a little confused but then aimed his head towards a tent. “Back in my tent, black bag, there is another pair of pants and a shirt.”

  Bethany Anne walked over to the tent, dug out the bag and grabbed some clothes. Walking back to the Were, she flung them at his feet. “Put those on, I don’t want the condemned to be naked.”

  The guy acted affronted, “Condemned? I’ve not done anything wrong. That guy is in our territory without permission! I’m just protecting my area. Stephen has been OK with us protecting our area for the past four centuries. It is how it always has worked.” The bear had released him to get the pants on.

  The other guy just stayed silent. He seemed a lot more respectful than this guy, she thought.

  Stephen was Michael’s child who lived somewhere near here. Towards the water, she thought. Not that she cared a wit what Stephen thought. If he allowed a travesty such as this to occur, he would be getting a visit from her soon enough. If he wasn’t awake, well, she would wake him the hell up by putting him in the sun until he chose to open his eyes, then they would be able to talk like sensible supernatural adults – right before she kicked his ass for being a careless twit. Unless of course Stephen was the one who could walk in the sun as well. She couldn’t remember if that was Stephen or David. Either way, they would have a discussion after a proper introduction.

  “You have a name?” Bethany Anne chose to sit down on a log. It helped the guy feel more comfortable, standing up and being in a higher position. It allowed her to setup a perfect and rational demonstration.

  “I am the Alpha of the Brasov Pack, Algerian. You and these trespassers need to get off our land before I speak with Stephen and he speaks with Michael.”

  This guy really seemed like he wanted to eat his own leg.

  Calmly, Bethany Anne started the object lesson. “Algerian, you need to sit down.”

  “I’ll do no such…” He landed on his ass before he could finish the sentence. Bethany Anne was back on the log, sitting there like she had never left.

  “Good of you to sit. If you choose to get up, I’ll find a few limbs to impale you with until you choose to continue staying on the ground. Do you understand the conditions, Algerian?”

  He nodded his head, sullenly.

  She looked over to the bear. “You need to get that silver out, I can smell the reaction with your flesh. Come here.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Carpathian Mountains, Romania

  Alexi was startled. He had stayed, mostly, out of the limelight due to the wolf’s antics.

  Now she was looking at him. Part of him was still put out that all of this went down on his ground. He had been lord of this domain for the last thirty or more years, only to have been close to death because of the silver in the bullets from what he thought was a powerless pack. Now, he was taking orders from a woman that couldn’t weigh more than about one hundred and fifty pounds.

  Considering that the silver was hurting, he decided that going along was a good choice.

  He walked over towards the vampire who had stood up. He considered taking a bite out of Algerian on his way over, but he consoled himself that werewolves probably didn’t taste too good.

  She came around to his injured side and looked at the wounds. She cocked her head while looking at his wounds and seemed to go inside herself for a few seconds before placing her left hand on his back and looking at him straight in the eyes. “You ready for a little pain? Because, if you bite me, I’m going to make you regrow your whole arm instead of a little meat that I’m going to pull out with the bullets. You understand?”

  Alexi nodded his head in agreement. While he wouldn’t have believed it when he was on his way over this morning, he knew now that no matter what, if this little woman said she would pull his arm off, he would be losing it. Well, he figured, she wasn’t that petite for a human, but in his bear form she seemed tiny enough.

  The pain was sudden, it was sharp, it was excruciating, and then it was over. She had jumped into her super-speed and apparently reached into his wounds and found the pieces and pulled them all out. He carefully kept his legs locked as he roared his pain.

  “Give it a rest, you big brown baby. Now change.”

  Alexi lay down on the ground, his side slowly mending. His desire to turn his head and bite her in the ass was fortunately overwhelmed by a desire not to get his ass kicked by a girl. In a second, he was naked.

  “God, a year ago I couldn’t find a good man. Now I keep getting all kinds of hunky guys laying around naked. Now find something to cover yourself up. Ask your lady friend, if you need to, she’s awake.” She walked over to Algerian.

  He looked over at Ecaterina and noticed the guy holding her looked down in surprise, he had been watching what was going on with the vampire and hadn’t noticed her waking up in his arms.

  —

  Ecaterina was being held in someone’s arms. Her head was pounding, but manageable.

  The last she remembered, she was being held down by the guy over there in the jeans that looked a little too small on him. There was a woman next to the biggest brown bear she had ever seen, her eyes widened. She was talking to the bear and then, suddenly, it just appeared to become less solid and the bear roared in pain, but its legs stayed solid.

  She talked to the bear as if it could understand her. She watched in fascination as it lay down, and then, suddenly, a naked man was in its place.

  Her breath caught in her throat. The woman told the bear to get some clothes, since she was awake.

  Nathan jerk
ed and she could tell she was now the focus of both the bear man and Nathan.

  The man with no clothes was familiar. “Uncle Alexi?”

  She really got knocked on the head. Her uncle was rarely seen. He was a favorite of hers, but she hadn’t seen him in, what, eight years?

  “Yeah, it’s me, Ecaterina. Do you happen to have anything that I might wear?”

  Nathan, his voice from above her, spoke instead. “Hey, I’ve got the pants I had on earlier this morning. They might be a little big, but there about 100 meters away. If you want to, I’ll go get them.”

  The woman stopped, turned and looked over at Nathan, “Which direction?”

  Nathan took an arm from around Ecaterina and pointed to behind his tent. “Back that way, there is a ravine about forty yards in and a trail that way. There is a dead wolf, the clothes will be about thirty yards downhill from there.”

  The woman was gone, the man, Algerian, seemed to come out of his lethargy and jumped up and started in Ecaterina’s direction. Ecaterina could feel Nathan tense up, getting ready to do something when Algerian seemed to fly back to his original location and a big bowie knife appeared in his hand going into the dirt. He screamed in pain. The lady appeared at his side, pushing the knife further into his palm ignoring his useless effort to pull it out.

  She tossed the clothes to Ecaterina’s uncle, who stood up to put them on, Ecaterina averted her eyes.

  She looked down at Algerian. “You really don’t learn very quickly, do you? I explain what I’m going to do, if you don’t remember, or you decide that you have other, more important things to do, I provide that object reminder to keep you focused. Now, I had promised you tree limbs, but I really liked the bowie knife. So, let’s keep this right where it is or I’ll use it to find a five inch round tree to use as my next stake, do you understand me, Algerian?”

  Her voice was so calm, as if she was discussing the fact that they might get a little shower later in the afternoon.

  The man was sweating now, no matter how cool it was, and his hand was swelling up.

  She got up and walked over to Ecaterina, She could feel Nathan’s arms tense around her. He seemed to know more about this woman and certainly seemed concerned for Ecaterina’s safety. So far she wasn’t sure why. Well, except for the whole disappearing, stronger than she should be, soft talking as she stabbed people’s hands into the dirt part.

  Yeah, maybe this knock on Ecaterina’s head wasn’t allowing her to think clearly. She knew she should be terrified.

  Ecaterina looked up into her eyes, they seemed soft, caring. She took a knee in front of Ecaterina. “My name is Bethany Anne, how are you feeling?”

  Ecaterina’s voice, a little weaker than normal, answered her question. “Fine, mostly. My head hurts, but a bigger issue is that I’m confused. Why is my uncle a bear? Why does that guy have his hand impaled in the dirt and I can see a wolf with a missing head over there.” Ecaterina raised her chin in the direction of the wolf’s body and was reminded that sudden movements caused unreasonable pain. She closed her eyes.

  Bethany Anne looked where Ecaterina was trying to point and returned to face her. “Well, to tell you the truth, he is a werewolf like our friend Algerian over there.”

  Ecaterina could feel Nathan tense again, a motion that wasn’t lost on Bethany Anne. “Is there a problem with me explaining that to Ecaterina? You know, I never got your name?”

  “Nathan, Nathan Lowell.”

  “Ah, a fellow American. So, care to share why you are so tense?”

  “It’s, ah…” Nathan dragged the word out searching for a proper way to say it wasn’t a normal vampire command coming from Michael.

  “Mr. Lowell, I’m not very politically minded amongst the vampires. In fact, I think you will find that I’ve had about as much bullshit from Michael as I care to take, and since he left me to clean up some of his mess, my words, not his, I don’t have any rats’ asses left to give about what any of the rest of his children think.”

  Nathan seemed to become completely befuddled from Bethany Anne’s comments. Ecaterina could feel his jaw open and shut at least three times.

  Hell, Ecaterina was taking it better than the werewolves, even that her uncle is a werebear, than he was about her being upset with her some guy named Michael.

  Nathan seemed to get it together on the fourth try. “It is standard procedure, dictated from Michael through all of his children that any human coming into contact with the UnknownWorld would have their experience wiped. You’re saying that you won’t do that?”

  Bethany Anne stood up and walked over to the man and pulled the knife out of his hand, he grabbed his bleeding hand to slow the bleeding. Bethany Anne calmly reached down and wiped it clean on his jeans.

  “Mr. Lowell, it sounds like you are someone I want to talk to. Someone that has a more intimate knowledge of how things were working around our little ball of sunshine before Michael decided to change the tune.” She turned back to look down at Algerian again and continued. “However, to answer your question, no, I am not going to do that. I doubt a woman of Ecaterina’s caliber is a problem for me.

  “Algerian, why did you really try to kill my good friend Nathan over here?” She waved the bowie knife, catching his attention. Without saying it, she was suggesting that anything less than the truth would probably end in something painful.

  “I was told to do it.” She got down and stared at him harder at eye level.

  “By whom, Algerian?” Her voice went soft over steel. Ecaterina wanted to answer the question, she felt compelled to answer the question but didn’t have a clue what they were talking about.

  “Petre.”

  “Who is Petre, Algerian?”

  “He is the second son of Stephen, he has responsibility for this area, he is the one who says he would help protect us against Stephen if he woke up.”

  “So, Stephen doesn’t know that Petre is encouraging your pack to behave this way?”

  “No.”

  “And did you have a legitimate concern with Mr. Lowell being here?”

  “No, he called and got permission to visit. Petre was in our offices when it happened and told us to approve the request. Petre figured he was searching for Michael and his new child candidate.”

  “Do you know why that would be important to Petre, Algerian?”

  “They are vampires, it is best not to be too curious.”

  “Hmmm, good to know that is a universal consensus, although it speaks to a general feeling of a group known for being bullies if you ask me, which you weren’t.”

  Bethany Anne stood up, cocked her head for a few seconds and turned over to Alexi. “Do you have any questions you might want answered?”

  Alexi answered, “Not from him, but if I can be so bold, one from you?”

  “If I can answer it, sure.”

  “What are your plans for Algerian?”

  “He has been condemned by his own actions in the fight earlier. He was told to change back to human or die. He chose death by trying to strike down Mr. Lowell here.”

  “Do you need to be the executioner?”

  Bethany Anne thought about that for a moment. Did she? It was her word that he would die if he failed to follow her commands. However, did she need to personally carry it out, or would it be OK if she confirmed it was accomplished?

  “Do you have an outstanding issue with him?”

  “He came on my land, he attacked and hurt my family, his pack shot me twice and if something hadn’t interfered, I would probably be dead right now. However, if you mean before today, then no.”

  “Well, you getting shot happened before he ignored my command, so I’m OK if you want to take precedence on implementing your desire for retribution. However, he must die now or I will take care of it.”

  Alexi started getting undressed again. Bethany Anne turned back around to the man who seemed to not be listening to anything going on around him. “Algerian.”

  “Yes.”

&nb
sp; “I want you to prepare for combat in the bushes where I found you. When you hear a bear’s roar, change back into your wolf form and you may fight until your dying breath, do you understand my command?”

  “Yes.”

  “Make it happen, you have provided me with the information which stayed my hand earlier.”

  Alexi had finished undressing. One second he was a man, the next he was a huge brown bear again. He walked calmly off into the bushes ahead of Ecaterina . The other man walked into the bushes after him.