The Accidental Werewolf 2: Something About Harry (Accidentally Paranormal Novel) Page 8

  Marty. While he’d listened to the outlandish tale of her “accident” he couldn’t help but wonder whether there was any hard-core, recorded proof to back up the fact that everything would be fucking right as rain. That he wouldn’t experience any backlash just because Marty hadn’t. What if something in him was irreparably damaged now—and just as Marty was the first case of eventual adjustment, maybe he’d be the first case of not so great adjustment?

  What if.

  No. He wanted this problem solved and he wanted it solved now.

  Thanking whoever was in charge that he’d forgotten to lock his car when he got home tonight, he popped the door open and gave it another push until he’d rolled all the way down the small hill of his subdivision and hopped in.

  Turning the key in the ignition, he clicked his phone on and looked at the ad on Craigslist again, fighting the impulse to label it ridiculous with his haughty science.

  But, hello, he was a werewolf. That didn’t get much more ridiculous.

  Who was he to say that this witch doctor that advertised on Craigslist, touting his ability to reverse all curses, was any less real or useful than the ladies of OOPS? Who knew the ladies of OOPS would really have been useful until they actually were?

  Okay, so the witch doctor didn’t have a flashy website with glitter and a dozen testimonials like the women, but he’d been the only person to answer his email after a dozen or so inquiries to other alleged witch doctors and their ilk.

  And he was open twenty-four-seven.

  If he had any hope of getting away from those women who were convinced he couldn’t change this, now was the time.

  As he hit the highway, heading toward the rural area where Guido the Witch Doctor was located, he had one thought.

  Holy shit. I’m a werewolf.

  Bet Anson Swarkowski wishes he were me.

  * * *

  “OH, dude. You’ve done it now.” Nina pinned the man in the colorful headdress, whom Mara assumed was Guido, up against a wall with one hand, holding him by his throat to secure him there. His petrified face, thin and long, glowed white in the light of his establishment’s sign hanging just outside his shack.

  Their arrival at Guido’s House of Witch Doctoring, after a long, torturous journey through the most rural areas of Buffalo, with Nina racing at breakneck speed to get to Harry before he did something stupid, had left Mara rattled. She’d finally fallen asleep, wedged into a corner of Harry’s very uncomfortable couch, only to be awakened an hour later to Nina’s colorful brand of swearing at Harry’s disappearance.

  After skimming the history of his computer’s browser, in which her favorite genius had forgotten to clear his cache, they’d found a vast array of purported witch doctors’ websites and become privy to yet more information.

  Not just on Harry’s whereabouts, but about Guido himself. According to Darnell, the resident demon and overall teddy bear of their OOPS group, whom Nina had texted the moment they knew Harry was gone, Guido was real. He wasn’t very good at what he did. In fact, some in the paranormal world compared him to a hack. Nay, Darnell had outright called him a hack.

  Ting-tang-walla-walla-bing-bang.

  But he was certainly real, and he did garner results. The results were just questionable and sometimes ugly. That information had sent Nina and Mara on the SUV ride from hell to get to Harry before he did something stupid.

  As Mara cornered Harry, who appeared a little rough around the edges, the moment she burst through the door, she heard her heart throbbing in her ears. Something had happened. She smelled it.

  She came to a halt just outside the room where this witch doctoring had likely occurred, screeching to a halt in front of his large frame. “Harry?” she huffed, fighting for breath. “In all of your,” Mara threw up her hands to make finger quotes, “‘logical reasoning,’ what made you think coming to see Guido the Witch Doctor was logical and/or reasonable? Setting aside his festive costume, I don’t know about you, but my first clue the gentleman wasn’t on the up-and-up might have been his name. Which is Guido, Harry. Guido. Not Mustafa, or—”

  “That’s The Lion King,” Nina interjected, tightening her grip on Guido to make him stop squirming and clawing at her hands. “I know because I watch a lot of kid’s shit with Charlie now. For example, Dora the Explorer. Ever wonder how the fuck she fits all that shit in her backpack? It’s unrealistic and teaches kids to have unrealistic expectations.”

  “Hakuna matata,” Mara replied dryly, pushing her way past a large urn with vaporous tendrils of steam rising into the stale air of Guido’s dank yet colorful shack to pin Harry with her angry eyes. “Either way, it just doesn’t ring very witch-doctor-ish, does it? I don’t want to discriminate against poor Guido, but it’s a stretch. Clearly, you didn’t think this through. Witch doctors heal people, Harry. They don’t reverse something irreversible. You’re not cursed.” And quite frankly, she was beginning to feel exceptionally slighted by his attitude toward her kind.

  Harry’s eyebrow rose, arching with a haughty swell he had to fight to hold onto, but fight he did. “Says you. Guido and his whiteboard say otherwise.” He pointed to the large rectangle filled with prices written in scrawling red Magic Marker for Guido’s services.

  Mara almost gasped when she saw the eraser marks where Guido also apparently catered to your witch doctor needs on a whimlike basis.

  She stomped over to the spot on the wall reserved for Guido’s pricing and pointed at his list with a shaky finger. “Harry? Do you see here where he’s erased TURN YOUR EX-LOVER INTO A ZOMBIE at the bargain basement price of two thousand dollars into TURN A WEREWOLF BACK INTO A HUMAN? Does that look fishy at all to you?”

  Harry’s chin lifted. His lovely, covered-in-a-lot-of-hair chin. “How do you know it says that?”

  “Because I have amazing eyesight.” She yanked the board off the wall, taking some of the cheap paneling with it, and shoved it under a perturbed Harry’s nose. “See? You have amazing eyesight, too, Harry. Look with your amazeball eyes and see what he erased!”

  Harry jammed his hands into the pockets of his thick, hooded sweatshirt. “He said he could lift the curse.”

  Mara sighed. For all of Harry’s cute, he was getting on her nerves with the quest for reversion. “Harry—you’re not cursed! I’ll grant you, some might call it a curse. But it didn’t happen because it began as a curse. It was an accident. An accident of epic proportions, but an accident no one—not a soul on this earth—can fix. I swear it. What do I have to do to make you believe me?”

  Harry’s jaw went stony again—reminiscent of Fletcher and his petulant attitude. “Nothing. If it can be created, why can’t it be uncreated? Riddle me that, baby-maker.”

  “You!” Nina roared in poor, frightened Guido’s elaborately made-up face. “What the hell have you done to him? And what the fuck is that smell?”

  Guido, pale even beneath his witch-doctor makeup, trembled and sputtered, “Grilled cheese? Look, lady, please let me go. Don’t eat me, please, please, please don’t eat me! I was just doin’ what I said I’d do!” He pulled at her hand to no avail, the large feathers of his headdress bobbing wildly with his struggle. “I can’t breathe!”

  “Then you get the point I’m makin’?” she snarled.

  Harry put his hand on Nina’s, the tic in his jaw pulsing. “Be a nice Crypt Keeper and put Guido down. He didn’t do anything I didn’t ask him to.”

  Mara’s stomach plunged to her feet. Oh, God. He had let Guido do something. What had he let Guido do? She pulled at Nina’s fingers to loosen her grip on Guido’s neck while she begged Harry with her eyes. “Harry? Please tell me you didn’t let Guido do anything to you.” Please. Please. Please.

  Harry’s large frame stiffened as he, too, helped her tug at Nina’s fingers. He rolled his wide shoulders and shrugged as he successfully pried one of Nina’s fingers from Guido’s neck, only t
o have it snap back into place. “I can’t do that.”

  She gulped. There was no stopping the pleading look in her eyes. “Could you lie to me—just for now? I’m on empty here. I’ve had almost no sleep and your couch is the pits in terms of comfort. It’s been a rough day.”

  Harry stopped pulling at Nina’s immoveable hand and shot her a look of astonishment. “Yeah. It’s always rough when you turn someone into a werewolf. Need a massage? Maybe a nice foot rub?”

  Her shoulders slumped. “Will you always grudge like this?”

  “It could be a good, long while.”

  “Estimated time of arrival?”

  “Unknown.”

  More panic rose by way of an almost uncontrollable wave of chills racing along her spine. She let go of Nina’s hand, too, pulling the sleeves of her jacket over her cold fingers. As per Darnell, if they didn’t find out what Guido had used on Harry in exact detail, things could get hinky. “What did you let him do, Harry?”

  “Why are you so worried about what I let him do if he can’t really do anything to help me, Mara?” Harry taunted down at her, smug and spiteful.

  Oh, this man! Her fed-up meter tilted. “Because while he can’t revert you, he can give you an extra appendage, Harry,” she hissed up at him, ignoring the shock on his face. “How do you feel about an extra leg? Or maybe a finger sprouting from your man garden?” Mr. Smarty McSmart.

  Harry blanched and shook his head. “Witch doctors can really do that? He’s really real?”

  Nina popped him on the chest with a flat palm, the clap sharp to Mara’s oversensitive ears. “Isn’t that why you’re here, dumb ass? Because you did the Harry again. You thought, in that big shit storm of a brain of yours, ‘If werewolves and vampires are real, then why can’t witch doctors be, too?’ Didn’t you, you big numbnuts? Jesus, Harry. Jesus Christ and Rainbow Brite.”

  Guilt washed over Harry’s lean face. Yet he held onto his defiance like a champ, eyes flashing, fists clenched. “Maybe.”

  Nina was right back up in Guido’s face, glowering down at him. “What did you give him, you fucking scam artist? Tell me or I’ll damn well make you scream for your mother!”

  Harry’s reaction startled an already fragile Mara, when he gripped Nina’s shoulders and ordered quite deliciously, “Let him go, Nina. Please.”

  Nina let her head drop back on her shoulders, her eyes glowing as she took in Harry’s face from her upside-down position. They narrowed. “You touchin’ me, Harry?”

  Mara had to admire how he stood his ground. Strong and steady, legs planted firmly, determination in his eyes.

  Nina was probably the scariest person she knew, and that was before she’d become a vampire. But his conviction was sigh-worthy and completely unlike her Harry. “I am. I apologize if that’s against vampire protocol, but Guido only did what I asked him to do. Nothing more. Now, please put Guido down.”

  Nina let her hand open, watching with satisfaction as Guido’s lean body crashed to the ground in a clatter of limbs and jars of something unidentifiable.

  She whipped around to eyeball Harry, but Mara jumped between them, trying with all she had to keep from placing a hand on Harry’s heaving chest. Because it would be warm and inviting and . . . “Okay, let’s all just calm down. Nina, this will get us nowhere. We need answers, not casts for broken limbs.” She let her eyes go round with pleading, knowing it was the quickest way to Nina’s weak spot.

  In unison, they each took a step back.

  Guido shimmied up the wall, grabbing a nearby broom, clinging to it with white knuckles when he raised it high above his head and waved it like a weapon. “You’re all crazy!”

  Harry snatched the broom from Guido with such dexterity even Mara was left in shock and even a little awe. “Guido—do not rile the beast. We’ll leave peacefully. I’m sorry for the trouble.”

  But Nina snatched the broom from Harry just as quickly and held it at Guido’s pointed chin. “The hell we will.” She whisked the bristles of the broom under his nose. “Now what did you give him to make the bad werewolf go away, Guido? Cough it the fuck up—do it fast, or I’ll knock your head off your shoulders like I’m knockin’ a baseball into left field.”

  Mara snapped—like a brittle rubber band, her guilt, remorse, anguish over what she’d done to Harry sent her right over the edge she’d tried so hard to cling to. “Nina, knock it off now!” Stalking toward the vampire, she yanked the broom from her hands with such force Nina actually stumbled backward.

  While catching Nina off guard with her strength was surely reason for internal applause, or possibly ducking for cover, Mara didn’t have time to consider the consequences. She just wanted them to stop quarreling and figure this out calmly. “Sit! All of you!” she ordered, pointing to the tipped-over chairs in the middle of Guido’s dingy storefront.

  Nina’s eyes glittered, but she did as requested.

  Harry’s lips had the audacity to curve into a smile—a saucy one at that. “Who knew meek, little lab rat Mara Flaherty was so take-charge?”

  She threw the broom over her shoulder and glared up at him. “Who knew quiet, unassuming, numbers guru Harry not Harold Emmerson was such a complete ass?”

  “Hot,” Harry said with a sexy growl, snapping his likely flossed-twice-a-day white teeth in her face while dragging a chair upward to sit down.

  She fought the surprise on her face. Harry was so arrogant and cocky with the change. In all the time she’d lusted for him, he’d never used the word hot unless he was referring to his coffee or the temperature outside. His hormones were rampant, and if they didn’t get him to at least try and get a grip, trouble could ensue.

  She’d seen this exact behavior in adolescent werewolves. When childhood met adulthood for a male werewolf, that pulsing rush of growth, their coming of age, was all consuming.

  Posturing and pushing the limits were all part of a process out of control, needing harnessing. Harry was displaying similar traits, and if anyone knew how wild things could get, it was Mara. She’d lived through Keegan and Sloan’s teenage years.

  Turning to Guido, Mara narrowed her eyes, urgency spurring her fears and her willingness to press for information. “What did you give Harry to make him think you could reverse his plight, Guido? Be specific—I want every detail. And don’t you dare tell me it’s some kooky secret practice, spawned from a long line of witch doctoring you can’t share because it’s some forbidden family secret—because your family lives in Staten Island and they’re Catholic, Guido. Not a Roman Catholic in the land believes in the spells and curses you say you can perform. You weren’t just hatched a witch doctor. And you’re definitely not the African witch doctor you claim to be. You’re half Italian, half Jewish. I know because I spoke to your mother, Angelina, on the way over here. She misses you, by the way. She said if you’ll just come home, she’ll make your favorite ziti and meatballs. So spit it out—or I’m going to show you I’m not so meek and mild.”

  Guido’s thin frame sank inward, slumping in the chair Nina swiftly slid under him. His face was full of sorrow. “My mom said that? I miss my mom. I really miss her ziti. Can’t duplicate it to save my friggin’ life.”

  “So why don’t you just go home, Guido?” Harry asked in a sudden sympathetic tone, much more like the Harry she’d fallen “in her mind” in love with.

  Guido put his bare, thin arms on the table, dropping his eyes to the rough-cut surface as though he were ashamed. “I can’t go home. I can’t ever go home. Look, this is how it went down. I’m just a Jewish guy from the Island who didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life. Ten years ago when I was twenty-two, I was in the Peace Corps in Africa. I met this guy. He was a little unusual . . .”

  “Pot, meet kettle,” Nina crowed, pointing to his lavish headdress with varying colors of feathers and beads, the red paint circling his eyes, and the white slashes just under his c
heekbones. “Now get to the point because all this stallin’ just gives me more time to decide how I wanna fuck you up.”

  “This,” he said, plucking at the feathers surrounding his headdress with bony fingers, “is just for the show. People aren’t going to show up and believe I can cast spells, et cetera, if I don’t look the part. So I play the part.”

  “But you don’t always cast the right spells, do you, Guido?” Nina sneered, tapping the splintered table with a finger. “My friend Darnell tells me you suck at this. He says you’re a hack, and you’ve screwed the pooch more than once. So what should we expect for poor, fucked-up Harry here? He’s already nothing like the dude I talked to on the phone. He’s currently pushy, demanding, thinkin’ he’s a real lady-killer, and hormonally out of whack—not the norm for our brainiac Harry, according to Mara here, his coworker and resident fantasyland dweller. So you’d damn well better tell me what else I have to prepare for. ’Cus if you made shit worse, I need to know how hard to beat your quack ass when the time comes for punishment.”

  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.