The Accidental Werewolf 2: Something About Harry (Accidentally Paranormal Novel) (10 page)

Harry grunted his displeasure in Nina’s direction, but Mara placed a hand on his arm to prevent him from baiting her. “How did this happen to you, Guido?” she asked.

“You’ll never believe it,” he groaned.

Nina rolled her eyes in impatience. “Dude, I’m a goddamn vampire and they’re werewolves. What the fuck kind of statement is that?”

Guido dropped his chin to his chest. “Point,” he said on a sigh. “Look, the guy that handed this off to me, unwillingly on my behalf by the way, just wanted out. I don’t know how he did it—I just know he did. One night, me and a bunch of guys in my group are drinkin’ some pretty rare scotch in a place where water is scarce, let alone booze. You know what it’s like, far away from home, you meet a guy—a native to Africa—one you think has connections, one who offers you stuff you haven’t had in a year. Like hot dogs and Fritos, you get to thinkin’ maybe he could hook you up.” He shook his feathered head, his eyes, dark slits beneath the red makeup, held a pain that touched something deep within Mara.

Nina? Not so much. She shook her dark head. “Nope, I don’t know what that’s like, but you’d better get to tellin’ me what it’s like before I get impatient. Ask Harry how I feel about waiting.”

Guido’s face went slack. “The next thing I know, there were chickens and blood and a mortar and pestle and the sweat of a thousand Namib Desert beetles. At least I think that’s what he called all those marching, squiggly things with a hundred legs.” Guido shuddered violently. “Anyway, it was loud, there was shrieking and praying, and it felt like he was dragging my insides outside of my body, then stuffing them back in again. I blacked out. When I woke up the next morning, under the hot-ass African sun in a lump of elephant shit, people were gathered around me praying. A villager who spoke English told me the juju was now mine. I beat feet out of there I was so scared. By the time I figured out what the hell the juju was, I was on my way home to New York, and I was like witch doctor out of control. I turned a guy on the plane with me into a mute, for Christ’s sake. I know it was me who did it, too. I
felt
it happen.” He shook his head, his makeup-masked face full of regret. “That poor son of a bitch still can’t speak because of me. I keep tabs on him, you know. Because I’m not the dick everyone in your nutbag world thinks I am.”

“How altruistic,” Mara muttered. “Yet you keep right on practicing.”

His look matched his sarcastic tone. “Look, lady. I gotta make a living. When I joined the Peace Corps, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. But while I was in Africa, I figured it out. I was all jazzed to do my time and come back home and go to culinary school. I wanted to be a chef. Not some flippy witch doctor. Then this happened. I didn’t ask for it. I sure as hell don’t want it, but I’m not fit for public consumption because believe me when I tell you that culinary school I went to, for less than a week mind you, will never be the same. I do shit I don’t even mean to do to innocent people every time I try to leave this hell. It’s like I’ve got some kinda invisible chains on me, and when I finally break free, bad shit happens. It’s not like I can just quit or go home to my mother’s. What if something happened to her because of the whacked-out stuff I can’t control? I’d never forgive myself. In the meantime, somebody’s gotta pay the rent on this dump. I have to eat, too,” he finished defensively, pushing his thin chest forward only to expose his rib cage.

“So you offer a service you know will go awry? You tell people you can help them, knowing your spells are bad?” Mara asked, incredulous.

Guido made a face at her, comical under all his stage makeup if not for the fact that he was a madman. “Oh, stop with the ‘I’m so moral’ look. It was you who did this to poor Harry, wasn’t it?”

Harry was up and in Guido’s face in a heartbeat, his long arm reaching out to clamp a hand on his thin shoulder. “Back off her, Guido.”

Mara’s pulse raced at Harry’s defense of her. This was almost like the fantasy she had about him defending her against the evil Malfoy. Well . . . it wasn’t a lot like that, but he was taking up for her honor. That was as close as she’d gotten in a year’s time of infatuation.

Guido’s hands shot up in the air just as Harry shoved him back into his rickety chair. “Peace, brother. I’m just pointin’ out the facts, man. Look, the spells I cast are mostly just bullshit. Yeah, yeah, I take their money because like I said, I gotta eat. But I’ve only had three incidents. Three times where I really tried to do this right by readin’ from that hokey-ass book. Shit went kooky, but they were all accidents. Kinda like your hot girlfriend and her accident.”

Harry growled in response, a low hum Mara recognized as menacing.

She put her hand back on Harry’s shoulder and squeezed it, telling herself it was to settle him down rather than just experience the firm, round muscle of his flesh beneath her fingers. “Finish, Guido. Hurry. I make no promises he won’t shift at this point. It could get hairy—literally.”

Guido gripped the edge of the table. “Since then, I just fake it. I’m not in this to hurt anyone. I make everyone sign a disclaimer, all legal-like, so I don’t have to deal with the repercussions if the spell actually works. Most times, it doesn’t work well because I don’t know what the hell all that mumbo jumbo in that book I inherited means. Or if it does work, I can’t pinpoint how I made it work. I just know I don’t guarantee shit.”

Harry bristled, sitting up in his chair. “So I’m guessing this means I paid you to trick me so you had grocery money? That’s a lot of grocery money, man . . .”

Guido gave him a guilty look and, reaching into his pocket, he dropped a wad of bills on the table using his fingers to push them at Harry.

Mara grabbed the wad of bills with a gasp. “Guido! This is an indecent amount of money for probably nothing. Shame on you.”

“So no go on the werewolf reversion after drinking what tasted like toxic waste?” Harry asked, shoving half the wad back at Guido because the Harry she knew had a good heart.

Guido toyed with the bills, finally looking at Harry, gratitude filling his eyes. “Probably not, but you never know, right? The mishaps like the mute guy happened in the adjustment phase of this crazy. Since then, I’ve stayed away from the general population, and I guess whatever this thing I was given is, it evened out. As long as I’m around all this stuff that was mysteriously shipped back from Africa with my personal belongings—” he pointed to the mason jars, and dried skulls hanging from the ceiling “—the voodoo crap, or whatever it’s called, seems to stay quiet. It’s just when I try to leave everything all behind and start a new, voodoo-free life things go to hell in a fruitcake. So I stay to protect everyone else. But I need to have food and shelter. I won’t apologize for that.” He pulled his shoulders back tight, shooting them all a defiant look.

“So what did you give Harry?” Mara was suspicious again. And afraid. Very afraid.

He shot a dismissive hand up. “Just some dirt from my garden, and some fresh herbs with some banana seed oil. I think. I mix it up with coconut milk and a Capri Sun to hide the flavor.”

Harry chuckled. “You need to work harder. It was disgusting.”

Mara finally felt comfortable enough to sit. She grabbed the last toppled chair, her anger passing and sympathy setting in. How awful to never be able to see your family again because you might turn them into a mute—or a toad. “So what about all these experiments gone wrong we heard about. If you’re so innocent, how’d they happen?”

“I’ve screwed up pretty royally a few times now, but it wasn’t on purpose. I really was trying to do what I’m supposed to do—my destiny, as the villagers called it,” he defended with a scoff.

Though it was with a defeated air to it. One that left Mara sad.

“But after Carl, I learned my lesson and stopped trying to fulfill my destiny. I’d rather be a crappy witch doctor than screw up like I did with Carl. Now, mostly, I fake it. I jump around—shake some maracas, make stupid noises, and dance like I saw some tribal dudes do on Nat Geo. Then I take the cash so I can afford to eat canned ravioli and, sometimes when the greens are right, a can of tuna. I’m livin’ the witch doctor life, people.”

A loud scraping noise from the back of Guido’s shack startled them all. When the noise groaned and snorted, Nina was on her feet, leering down at Guido. “What the fuck?”

“Jesus, what is it with you and all the snarling? Relax, lady. It’s just Carl.”

The moaning and grunting became louder, almost enraged.

“What the fuck is a Carl?” she roared seconds before a large, grayish blue figure with stringy hair and hands the size of slabs of meat stumbled into view.

Harry was up on his feet and shoving Mara away in an instant, his strong hands forcing her behind him. “Is that what I think it is?”

Oh, sweet heaven. Mara nodded, but words eluded her. She didn’t even have time to appreciate Harry’s forceful touch on her body.

“It is not,” Harry mumbled, shaking his head as if doing so would make it all go away.

She cleared her throat after a gulp. But it was . . . “Oh, yes. Yes, I believe it is.”

“Do you think Daryl’s got some free time on his hands?”

Mara’s eyes widened as the thing identified as Carl, arms ramrod straight, his gait hindered by a limp, headed straight for Nina. “I’d even settle for Andrea right now. I know that sounds lame, because really her libido does most of the talking, but she was pretty righteous with a knife.”

“You watch
The Walking Dead
?” Harry yelled, sounding surprised as Carl broke tables and howled a pitiful wail in his effort to get across the room.

Who didn’t watch
The Walking Dead
? “Like it’s my religion!” she screamed back when Carl launched himself at Nina.

Where was Rick when you needed him?

CHAPTER

6

“Carl? When Auntie Nina says stop slobbering on her, knock it the fuck off. And dude, something has to be done about your death-breath.”

“We have a zombie,” Harry mumbled, obviously still dazed.

Mara clucked her tongue, rooting in her purse for the keys to her front door. “We do, in fact, have a bona fide sorta zombie.” Sorta because, well, there had been some glitch no one could explain when Carl became a zombie. A glitch Mara still wasn’t sure she understood, and instead, decided to accept at face value.

Nina, on the other hand, had dubbed Guido unfit to parent his massive mistake gone wrong. After Guido had explained Carl was mostly harmless, and the parts of his mind still in working order liked vegetables, not brains and flesh, she’d declared Carl unkempt and mismanaged and had all but snatched him from Guido, daring him in her colorfully, loud, frighteningly scary way to tell her she couldn’t have him.

Carl had latched onto Nina in much the way Fletcher and Mimi had, and when she’d tried to leave, he’d moaned and groaned loud enough to make Guido’s shack of witch doctoring tremble with his unhappy distress.

After seeing the state of the room Guido had tried without much success to contain him in, and the complete disarray of his appearance, Nina was convinced Carl was helpless, trapped in a body that, while not in tip-top physical condition, was still useful and worthy.

And that had been that. She’d loaded Carl into her SUV like he was Charlie and made Mara drive so she could sit in the back and bond with him.

Nina flicked Harry’s head with two fingers. “Look, Harry, I wasn’t going to leave him with that asshat Guido. If it weren’t for you, I’d be heading for a fucking bag of O neg and some shut-eye with my fam right now. You were the dipshit who thought you could be turned back into a human, which led us to poor Carl. Who, I might add, is a perfectly good half-assed zombie. He just needs a little fucking attention and some rules. Like all kids. So shut the fuck up and suck up your werewolf fate. ’Cus I’m tired of your pissy-ass whining.”

“You brought a zombie home,” Harry repeated, a mixture of horror and wonder in his voice. “Like you went to the pound and adopted a puppy.”

Nina flicked another finger at him again. “He’s not a full zombie, Harry. You heard Guido. He’s only three-quarters dead. When Guido found him on his doorstep, dead or some such shit, and tried to fix him, he performed one of his lame-ass spells, fucked it up, and only half turned him into a zombie. Carl’s just like you. Like me.
An accident.
Wanna sing
‘
We Are The World’?” she asked on a cackle, slapping Harry’s back as they made their way along the winding, cobbled path of dormant rosebushes and various hedges leading to Mara’s beloved guesthouse-turned-cottage.

Mara unlocked her periwinkle blue front door, taking no pleasure or solace tonight in the calming color she’d spent two solid “will it be welcoming enough?” weeks deciding upon. She propped the door open, letting Nina lead Carl into her house with Harry right behind them.

After Guido had assured them what he’d said earlier was true and all he’d really given Harry was a mixture of coconut milk and herbs mashed up in a grape Capri Sun, and that his intention had been to merely bilk Harry out of two thousand dollars, Nina had read Guido’s mind to be sure the acrid scent they’d encountered when they’d arrived really was just a burnt grilled cheese sandwich.

Satisfied he was telling the truth, they’d driven home with Harry following close behind under Nina’s eagle eye—oh, and more than one threat that if he tried to make a break for it, she’d hunt him down and eat his testicles like foie gras on toast points.

Harry—large, painfully lost, and much tamer than he’d been back at Guido’s—stood in the middle of her living room, looking ridiculously out of place amongst the large planters stuffed full of silk blue, white, and purple hydrangeas.

His mouth opened as he backed up against the moss green wall with the bleached white wainscoting she’d just painted, but no words came out. He slammed his lips shut, compressing them into a tight line.

Carl gave him an awkward thump on the back and a misshapen crooked smile as Nina led him into Mara’s kitchen and opened her stainless steel refrigerator in search of fresh vegetables for the zombie she’d apparently adopted.

This, much like the scenario she’d created about Harry’s house, was not how she’d pictured him in hers. He definitely hadn’t been a curmudgeonly werewolf, and his clothes were never on for longer than the two seconds it took to rip them off. Before ripping off hers, that is.

Harry ducked under the copper pots hanging from the thick block of whitewashed wood above his head and leaned on the counter, his beautiful eyes a little dull, probably on overload with still more paranormal crazy. “Carl is a zombie. But not a flesh-eating zombie, a vegetable-eating zombie.” His words were wooden, but still calm. That was good. Calm beat sassy.

“Half zombie,” Mara corrected, looking down at her feet, noting she still had some work to do on her newly installed barn wood floors. She just couldn’t seem to get the right color throw rugs for it.

“Who doesn’t eat people.”

Her head bobbed. To Harry, this was clearly nuts. For Mara, it was just another day in the life—and in this moment, a distraction. A sweet, adorable, if not smelly one. “Right. Just vegetables, broccoli being his favorite. Lots of broccoli, according to Guido.”

She lifted her eyes in time to catch Harry cocking his head. “But if he’s a zombie . . .”

“Half zombie, rocket scientist. Stop stereotyping, dude,” Nina quipped with a grin as Carl consumed a package of carrots, plastic wrapper and all. She thrust a napkin at him, showing him how to wipe his mouth with gentle hands.

“I don’t understand,” Harry responded, limp and almost lifeless, as he looked on at the scene unfolding before him.

“What’s to fucking understand, dude? Guido told you—Carl was near dead and bleeding out. He was gonna die in a matter of seconds anyway. There wasn’t time for nine-one-one or any of that shit. Guido just tried to save him. Decent, considering he’s a shyster.”

“This,” Harry pointed at Carl’s discolored skin and toddlerlike eating habits with a grimace, “is saving him? What kind of life can he have? Leaving him like this, with no ability to communicate and only a small portion of his brain functioning, was considered a save in your world? I don’t like your world.”

Nina gave him the finger, her eyes angry. “You don’t like anything today, do you, widdums?” she cooed. “Guess what? That’s too bad, pal, ’cus here the fuck you are. You heard what Guido said—he tried to help him. I know he’s telling the truth because I read him. Carl’s the result of a botched spell to save him gone wrong. An accident. Just like you, Harry Emmerson. Not all the facts add up, blah, blah, blah.”

“But,” Harry began another protest, one Mara was sure was filled with quality-of-life stats.

Nina’s face went angry, her eyes flashing at Harry. “Who the fuck are you to decide, dude? And what’s the point? Carl’s here—right now. It’s already done, ass-sniffer. If you don’t like that I decided his life, no matter how insignificant to
you
, is worthy, ask me how much I give a fuck. Or better yet, you take him out and end his insignificance, why don’t you? You got the balls for that,
Harry
? ’Cus you’re gonna have to go through me to do it. Good luck, Chuck.”

Instantly, Harry’s face held an apology mingled with horror. “No!” he immediately responded. “That’s not what I meant. I mean . . . I don’t know what I mean—it’s just . . . I don’t get . . .”

Nina’s mood instantly changed, her tone held disgust and impatience. “Yeah, yeah. You don’t get it. We’ve done this already tonight. We told you some shit just can’t be explained. But did you listen? Nah. Why the fuck would you listen to us bunch of brainless twits whose collective IQ doesn’t total even half of yours? ’Cus you know better. Right, Harry?” Nina asked, handing Carl a head of cauliflower. “And if you touch my zombie, I touch you. Trust when I tell you it won’t be like your mother’s touch.”

Mara’s hand flew up before Harry’s calmer state became riled again. She liked this Harry much better. He was easier on her shattered nerves. “Stop. Both of you. Please. Harry’s exhausted, Nina. He’s saying things I’m sure he doesn’t mean due to situation normal all effed up. I’m exhausted, too. Please, let’s not bicker anymore. Let’s not beat Harry up for trying to make sense of all this. Let’s just agree to let this sit until tomorrow. Which is in two hours for lab geeks like me.”

Harry’s delicious ass found one of her padded stools at the breakfast bar. He ran his hand through his unkempt hair when a revelation clearly dawned on him. “Work . . . I forgot about work. How the hell am I going to work?”

“Just like I do,” she said, tamping down a new rush of irritation. “You know, you get up, grab a shower. In my case, throw on some lip gloss in a lame attempt to gussy up, blow-dry your hair. Have some coffee, pack a lunch, get in your car, drive, park it in the parking lot, take the elevator—”

“I meant as a werewolf!” he yelled down at her, slamming his fist against the counter, his face again rigid and red.

Carl shuffled, mewling a small groan at Harry’s angry words, hiding behind Nina.

Nina took his enormous, gray blue hand and patted it to comfort him before slapping Harry on the head. “Quit goddamn well upsetting my zombie, you loudmouth. He’s already freaked out by all the extra stimulus. Stop making it worse. Jesus, Harry. Get it together. You go to work and play with all those stupid numbers just like before you were a werewolf. Stop being a pansy.”

“And I hide this”—he tugged at the fringes of his freshly grown, albeit scraggly beard—“how? I get the feeling if I come in clean shaven and by the time lunch rolls around I look like ZZ-Top, I dunno, but I think there might be some uncomfortable questions!”

Nina was in his face in an instant, growling a warning to ease up.

Harry backed right off, as though he were trying to contain himself and his newfound rage. “Apologies,” he offered, contrition clearly written all over his face. “It just happens.”

Mara let her forehead rest on the cool granite of her counter, her grainy eyes sore. Shit. He was right. His hair growth was out of control, not to mention his mood swings. What if someone added some numbers on an invoice incorrectly, and Harry went ballistic on them?

Worse, everyone werewolf would smell his change. How were they going to hide that? “Did Marty say how long the adjustment period takes, Nina? I forget . . .” Good, God. She’d ruined this man’s life. Intruded, invaded, disrupted his world and completely taken it over. Hell wasn’t fit for her.

Nina took Carl by the hand and led him to a stool next to Harry, shaking her finger at him to warn him he should sit and stay. When he reacted appropriately by grunting and giving her that almost endearingly crooked smile, she stroked his stringy hair and smiled back before saying, “Longer than know-it-all Harry has.”

“I have to work. I have to take the kids to school. I have to be there for them.”

Mara immediately melted again. His dedication to his sister’s children outweighed his shitty mood shifts. Sympathy and more remorse than her gut could handle overwhelmed her. “I’ll take care of it. You have sick days, right? Call in werewolf and I’ll handle everything else. Okay?”

Harry swallowed hard, rolling his thick shoulders. “And the kids? How am I going to explain what’s happening to me to them? They’re smart enough to know I can’t grow a beard overnight. And the car-pool ladies? They’re always asking personal questions about me, bringing me casseroles, trying to help with the kids. How do I explain this to them?”

Mara fought a sarcastic, maybe even jealous snort. She’d just bet the car-pool ladies were very interested in Harry. He was single, struggling with two children who’d lost a parent, and he had no idea how ungodly hot he was. He was the perfect prey.

“Don’t you worry about shit, Harry. I’ll handle the chicks in minivans with the tuna casseroles, and the kids, too. Marty and Wanda’ll help. You’re gonna stay the hell put here at Mara’s, and shut your yap until we can figure this out.”

Harry’s face held concern. “Will handling them involve crude language and cracked ribs? The ladies of the Cedar Crest Elementary car pool are the only people who actually like me these days. And they bring me food. Sometimes, it’s even edible. I don’t want to risk a shutout because you beat one of them up. And there are the kids to think of . . .”

Nina chuckled finally, relieving some of the tension between them. “I’ll let Miss Clairol Number Two-twenty-two deal with the broads. She’s good at shit like that. I won’t fuck anything up for Fletcher and Mimi. I like ’em. But I don’t like you. Remember that.”

“Don’t vampires need to sleep during the day?” Harry asked, then made an odd face with a look that said he couldn’t believe he was actually asking something so absurd.

“Don’t kids go to school during the day, Harry? Marty and Wanda’ll take the day shift. I’ll handle the night shift. Plus, I got a kid of my own so I’m used to losing sleep. Especially with a vampini who’s teething.”