Bearing It All (Alpha Werebear Shifter Paranormal Romance)

by Lynn Red

  Leota pursed her lips. “Again, I ask you to stand up. At least have some shred of dignity about yourself, you pitiful mess of a... what are you? An alligator? What is it that inhabits your—oh, no,” she said. Her lips pulled into a vicious smile. “A crocodile. Slippery, self-assured with no reason for being so. I see it now.”

  Marlin inadvertently grinned. She’d just listed half the things that he liked the best about himself. “Yes ma’am,” he said, grunting as he pushed himself to his feet. He dusted off his slacks, buttoned the third button on his shirt, and then adjusted the cigar into the corner of his mouth again. He gave Leota his best yellow-toothed grin. “Yes, I am.”

  It was only then that Marlin realized he’d called her ma’am. He didn’t call anyone ma’am, not even his own mother. It took a second before he noticed Leota was tapping her pointy boot toe on the linoleum floor of his trailer.

  “You think you’re cute,” she said. “You find yourself witty and cunning and wise, yes?”

  “Well,” Marlin said, “I—”

  Leota glared again. Marlin felt the air tighten in his throat. All he could manage was a light squeak. “You speak when spoken to, little lizard. Do you understand?”

  He nodded, clawing at his throat like he was trying to pry someone’s fingers off his neck. “Y... yes ma’am.”

  “Good,” she said, releasing him.

  Marlin fell to a knee, hard, and groaned in pain. “Why do you keep doing that?” he asked, sputtering between the words. “I’m just trying to be friendly.”

  “I’m not interested in friends,” Leota said. “I’m interested in competent help. Which just now, you are not. I asked for eight girls, pure as the driven snow. I believe I made that clear, did I not?”

  Her eyes swept the dingy, sweat-and-smoke scented trailer. They settled on his novelty joke calendar, one he’d gotten for himself. The front page had a bawdy joke on it about bowel movements. Leota was not impressed. Next, she looked at his computer. It was an old, out of date machine. The case matched the color of Marlin’s teeth.

  “Such impurity,” she said in a low, dangerous voice. “Such decadence. This sort of behavior – smoking, and drinking, and sexual,” she hissed out the ‘s’ sound in sexual as though it burned. “Sexual deviance. This is what brought down Rome, you know. And laid low other empires. Decadence and—”

  “Wasn’t it actually some kind of economic problem, and political upheaval that ruined Rome?” Marlin asked. He felt very proud of himself for having something to say.

  Leota narrowed her eyes again, and Marlin waved his hands in front of his face. “Sorry, sorry! No, I mean of course you’re right. The, uh, economic problem wasn’t...”

  “Be quiet,” Leota hissed. “Or I’ll turn you into a potion. Though I haven’t any idea what I’d do with a potion made out of the likes of you. Maybe poison toads.”

  Marlin, sufficiently cowed, looked down at his toes. “I’ll get those girls for you,” he said. “You won’t be sorry. Oh, and uh, I have the fifth. She’s...” He turned his head in the direction of the trunk in the corner of the room. Leota snapped her fingers and then fished a pouch of some kind of really smelly tincture out of her pocket. She walked across to the crate, and opened the lid.

  From inside, a young, wide-eyed, innocent looking girl peered up at her. The young woman was exhausted, obviously, judging from the circles under her eyes. The corners of her mouth were red, and her fingers were rough from where she’d scratched the box.

  “Oh, I see,” Leota said, with haunting tenderness in her voice. “You’ll do just fine. Can you still talk?” she reached down and slipped her finger between the cloth gag, and the girl’s face. “Don’t scream, or you’ll regret it.”

  “L... Leota?” the girl stammered. “Wh... what’s happening? Why...?”

  The witch stroked the girl’s face with the back of her hand. “Ah,” she said. “So soft. So pure and innocent. Yes, child, you’ll do wonderfully. Don’t worry, young one, nothing will hurt you. No, no, nothing will hurt. You’re going to help me. This foul man is only my tool. Do you understand?”

  “B – b – but,” the girls lips started to tremble. Spittle gathered in the corners of her mouth as tears welled up in her puffy, blood-shot eyes. “But you were always so nice, and... and... why am I here? I don’t even know where here is.”

  “Hush now, little girl,” Leota whispered. She moved her thumb and forefinger under the girl’s chin and turned her face upward, to the light. “As I said, everything will be fine. You won’t be in any pain. I’ll put you to sleep now, all right? You need your rest if you’re going to help me save my step-daughter.”

  “Your... your step-daughter?” the girl asked. “Jasmine? What is wrong with—”

  As Leota passed a small vial of something underneath the girl’s nose, she instantly fell unconscious. The witch quickly crossed the trailer and poked her head outside. “I’ll send a car for her shortly.”

  “Y – y – you won’t be sorry, I’ll get it done this afternoon.”

  The old woman took a step closer to Marlin, and then another. Their toes almost touched when she reached out and brushed her gray skinned hand along his quivering cheek. “I know I won’t be disappointed,” she whispered. “Because I terrify you. And for very good reason.”

  Her voice was more a suggestion of sound than actual speech. “You’ll give me what I paid you for. You’ll bring them to me, and you won’t ask any questions. And if anyone catches you, what do you say, you wretched creature?”

  Marlin opened and closed his mouth a few times. He kept losing whatever he was going to say right when it was on the tip of his tongue.

  “Answer,” she said. She drew so close to him that he could smell her strange, herbal, vegetal breath. It reminded him of green tea that had been brewed for far too long.

  “I say...” he trailed off, trying to decide what to say. “That... uh... help me out?”

  “You say that you are kidnapping them. You’ll say you killed the others, and you killed the panther girl. I don’t care if it’s Clinton police, Jamesburg police, or the United States Army, you say the same thing. Understand?”

  “What are you doing to my chest? Why do I keep feelin’ like I’m gonna crater?”

  Leota narrowed her eyes again. “Do you want me to give you another heart attack?”

  Marlin closed his eyes, and lifted both his eyebrows and his hands. “Just making conversation.”

  “I don’t want conversation,” Leota spat. “I want an answer. Tell me what I want to hear.”

  Marlin took a deep breath. It felt an awful lot like he was giving away his entire life at this point, for a few bucks. He had to smile a little at the thought of being offended at that notion. “Sure, sure, if I get caught – which I won’t – I’ll tell them it was my fault. But, there’s a problem.”

  Leota answered with an arched eyebrow.

  “What if they want evidence? I mean you can’t just say you murdered someone and have the police believe you. There’s got to be bodies and so on.” He shrugged. This was not entirely new territory for the croc. “They’d ask questions, you know? They’d want me to take them to the bodies, or torn up clothes or something.”

  “Here,” she said, pulling a ripped up shirt out of her billowing dress and tossing it at Marlin. “The last one struggled some.”

  His hand was shaking as he took the cloth. “So, she’s...”

  “No,” Leota said. “Not dead. Just struggled. None of them are dead. You have to have living people to extract life essence. If I’m ever going to save my daughter from the dark path she’s decided on pursuing, it’ll take eight. I’m counting, slime. You said we’d have them in a month, and your time is almost up.”

  “Ah... right,” he said. “About that. I’m gonna need more time.”

  Leota’s lips thinned to a cynical smile. “Of course you are. Yes, of course you are wanting more time. Your kind always does. Carny con-men always ask for more time. St
ill,” she began to move toward the door. Not a moment too soon, as far as Marlin was concerned. “You’ve proven you can get some results if prodded enough. Fine, another month it is.”

  “It’s, uh, it’s just because we’re going to come back through in a little under a month, you see,” Marlin licked his lips and squeezed his hands together. “So if I’ll gather them and then get them to you when we come back through, right? That way it don’t look so... suspicious.”

  Leota closed her eyes. She took a deep breath and grabbed the ring-shaped doorknob, then pushed it open. “Explain it however you like. If you don’t have my girls when you come back, I’ll use someone else for my potions. You.”

  Marlin watched the old woman descend the trailer steps. In the sun, her skin seemed so thin that it was almost translucent. She began to float, then she cackled, and shot off into the sky.

  “Jesus Christ,” he said, rubbing the crown of his head with the flat part of his palm. “Jee-zus Christ. What did I get myself into this time?”

  As he spoke, his cigar fell to the ground. He’d completely forgotten it was there. Marlin bent down and picked up the half-eaten stogie, and groaned as he went back up the steps and into his dingy, yellowed office. His eyes immediately fell on the envelope standing up on his desk.

  “Oh yeah,” he said, smiling. “That’s why I’m doing it.”

  He opened the envelope and ran his thumb along the stack of bills, inhaling the dirty scent. “This.” He licked his lips, partially out of habit and partially out of greed. “Right here. That’s why I’m doing it.”

  -10-

  Leota Barlowe, Jamesburg’s Most Dangerous Citizen

  “Dear, please put those away,” Leota sneered, her eyes pointed at the fur-cuffed boots in her step-daughter’s hand. “Those aren’t something you should wear in public.”

  Slowly, the old woman’s eyes moved up Jasmine’s arm to her low-cut top, and her awful bobbed hairstyle. The girl was beautiful to a fault, willful and intelligent – she was in her third year at the University a couple of hours away – and Leota pitied her for all those faults.

  Willfulness, youthful indiscretion... and worst of all, those short-pants she wouldn’t stop wearing.

  They were traits Leota didn’t understand because she possessed none of them. Her childhood was almost five hundred years in the past. Remembering being full of youthful indiscretion wasn’t very likely.

  That is, if she ever had it in the first place. Jasmine watched as her step-mother turned back to the cauldron she insisted upon keeping in the fireplace that she insisted upon using. There was a perfectly good gas stove in the kitchen, which was just great for cooking up potions and elixirs and tinctures. Better even, Jasmine thought, because you could control how quickly your newt eyes were boiling.

  She bent over and pulled her boots on. It was a little cold out, and with the shorts she was wearing, it was pretty much imperative that her boots were warm and high. The shorts certainly didn’t help anything.

  “You don’t have to treat me like an idiot all the time, Leota,” Jasmine said. “I’m a pretty successful pre-veterinary student at the biggest school for a thousand miles. I don’t know why you care so much about what shoes I wear. I never comment on yours.”

  Leota pulled her lips back in a silent snarl. She took a big whiff of her concoction, and jabbed at a frog eye that had floated to the surface, sending it back into the thick, bubbling liquid. In two more days, maybe three depending on the humidity, the test run of her potion would be finished.

  She’d be able to see if all that money she gave that wretched little crocodile was worth the effort. More than the money, she’d find out if going to see him was worth the effort.

  “Leota?” Jasmine said again. “Why do you always do that? Criticize me and then ignore me? What’s that supposed to do? Just give me a complex?”

  “Hmm,” Leota exhaled, examining the recipe. An amount of innocent, virginal life-essence commensurate with the lasciviousness which needs curing; two frog eyes per essence; a pinch of cardamom; two sprigs of turnip greens; a dash of oregano; a heavy pinch of cinnamon to flavor and perfume the broth to make it easier to trick a person into imbibing. “What was that? Did you say something?”

  Jas let out an exasperated sight. “Always with the damn potions! Why can’t you pay any attention to anything else? I wish dad were still alive. I almost kinda-sorta liked you when there was a buffer between me and your crazy-town stuff.”

  “Very good,” Leota said, obviously not paying a lick of attention. Her test dose was very small – she’d not even killed the girl she drained so little essence. But, if she gave it to Jas and then the girl began wearing more reasonable clothes, Leota would take that as a sign that there was hope after all. “That’s fine, dear. Leave those horrid boots.”

  “You’re so... just...” Jasmine was getting frustrated. She balled up her fists and stuck them into her hips. When she did, the part of her shorts pockets that extended past where she’d cut off the legs flapped a little. “UGH! You’re impossible! You know what? Fuck this! I have class. Enjoy your soup or whatever you’re making. I’ll be home at eight. Or maybe not. I don’t know.”

  “Hmm, yes,” Leota said, trailing off and taking another whiff. “Very good.”

  The door slammed behind her, and she didn’t react at all. The only thing that could bother her now was that vile crocodile not delivering the girls he’d promised. Well, that or the tincture failing to do as Jenga, the witchdoctor who lived down the way, had promised her.

  This purity potion, meant to return her step-daughter to what Leota considered, proper, was by no stretch of the imagination the witch’s first foray into the darker parts of magic. But, she’d never done anything quite like this.

  Inter-state kidnapping? Draining the life force from eight people? She knew the danger, but she thought there was simply no way she’d fail. After all, she’d spent her life doing the things all self-respecting, cranky, reclusive witches did – luring children into her house and almost getting them in her oven was just the beginning of her rap sheet.

  She stirred the pot a little faster, inhaling the acrid scent.

  Then again, like she’d told that foul little stooge, she’d do whatever it took.

  Whatever it took.

  Outside her house, Leota heard a jingling sound, then her step-daughter started the car and drove off. A moment later, another jingling sound – this one accompanied by shuffling feet and a rattling cough – approached the door.

  The rickety knock irritated her, but there was nothing to do for now with the potion, so Leota gave it one final stir and turned to glance out the door. Her shoulders slumped. Why did he have to come by so often? And why did he have to bring that awful zombie?

  Jenga knocked again, so eagerly that Leota’s door shook. At least he didn’t have Atlas knocking for him still – the last time that happened he had to stay around for three or four hours repairing the damage.

  “Leota!” he called excitedly. Ever since he had his jail sentence reduced to a tremendous amount of community service hours, he’d re-opened his “medical” practice, and it seemed like every time he got some time away from picking up trash at the school playground, he figured out some reason to visit. “Leota! Are you in there?”

  He stuck his face right up to the window, pressing his bone-speared nose to the glass. His beard – or rather, all of the stuff tied in it – clanged loudly against the doorframe. “Leota!”

  “I’m coming, Jenga,” she replied. “Please, could you calm down? Some of us spend our hours in decent pursuits instead of simply vegetating in front of that television of yours.”

  Leota forced a strained smile as she pushed open the door.

  “Atlas smells... less offensive than normal,” she remarked, as the giant re-animated werebear shambled into her house. Her floorboards creaked as he did, but the creature smelled vaguely of lilac. “In general, I don’t approve of perfumes as they’re markers of decad
ence and a desire for lascivious attention. Outside of a bit of rosewater about the collar, of course. In the case of him, though, it’s a marked improvement.”

  Atlas turned to her and smiled broadly at the compliment. “Thank... You...”

  “Did you... use lilac water?” Leota asked.

  Atlas smiled again. When he exhaled, the scent was unmistakable.

  “Well, you know,” Jenga began, “seein’ as Erik let me off with community service as long as I kept my practice running and didn’t steal anything, I’ve been taking the new zombie cleanliness town ordinance seriously. I tried just dousin’ him with the stuff, but he drank the whole jug. I agree though, it is a lot nicer than his normal breath.”

  Jenga smiled at her. Then, he picked a piece of... something from between his yellowed teeth. A moment later, he rubbed his nose, which set the bone stuck through his nose to wiggling. Leota allowed herself a moment’s indulgence to smile before regaining her composure.

  “By the by,” he started in a second later, “what’s all that noise I keep hearin’ from your cellar. Sounds like banging.”

  Leota shook her head dismissively. “I’ve got a problem with raccoon infestations. They seem to make their way into my—”

  “Ain’t the Newsome bunch is it? They got into my back house a while ago. Creswell – that’s the dad - ate right through my television cable in my workshop. I got so mad I chased one of them off with a fetish doll and burned an effigy of another.” He laughed. “Then I got to feelin’ so guilty I let them all back in. Guess I’m goin’ soft in my, er, extreme old age.”

  Leota closed her eyes tight and pushed her thumbs into her aching temples. “No, Jenga,” she said. “I don’t believe it’s the Newsome family having taken up residence in my cellar.”

  She couldn’t believe that one obnoxious little teenager could make that much noise. And now that she was getting another shipment, she made a mental note to put more sound dampening fluffy stuff down there.