Her cousin Jenny and all the other self-loathing shifters believed that if they managed to track down a true blood relative of Madame LaBelle who also practiced Hoodoo at her level – meaning that this relative actually 'had the gift' so to speak, being powerful on par with Eve herself – then they could force that person to lift the curse.
The fight within the Guyette family, however, revolved around the fact that it was an all-or-nothing deal. Either ALL the Guyettes and ALL the other families would cease to be shifters, or NONE of them would. Most Guyettes wanted to keep things the way they were. They liked being shifters, despite some major drawbacks.
“Jenny thinks she has found someone out your way, actually,” Aunt Josephine said.
Brandy laughed.
“We've been down this road before,” Brandy said. “LaBelle is a common name, and most have no relation to Eve LaBelle.”
Madame LaBelle hailed from Baton Rouge, the daughter of freed slaves who had chosen their own surname. She was a bit French herself, being Creole, but she was NOT part of the mainstream LaBelle family tree tied to that region. Her first two husbands had disappeared under mysterious circumstances, and some say that Eve LaBelle was barren and so she could never have children. Others strongly disagreed over this last fact.
Marianne was starting to stir awake. When she overheard Brandy's statement, she lashed her tail. Marianne immediately knew what was up, and she didn't like it one bit. She, too, had heard this story before. Marianne shifted back into human form, angrily putting on her thong and her shorts and stretching on a tiny T-shirt over her bra-less cleavage. Marianne was pretty and genuinely likeable enough that she made trashy look cute, even when she was pissed.
Ray was enjoying himself. This was the real reason he was hanging out with them. He was a bit of a jerk, and he was always waiting for the quick shift of a female to get a glimpse of something he liked. He preferred a woman who looked like Brandy, but more than once he had propositioned the two of them for a threesome.
“What the hell?” Marianne hissed, close to Brandy's ear.
Brandy reached out and covered Marianne's mouth with her own hand. She shook her head 'No' to make Marianne shut up.
“You know,” Josephine said. “I never minded being a shifter myself. Although, we don't age well. Having dry skin when you're young is one thing, but I wrinkled up fast in my 40s. Thank God for Dr. Renoux. But all and all, it's been fun so far.”
Dr. Renoux was a plastic surgeon whose clients were all shifters. The Renoux, like the Guyettes, the McAlisters and the Cliburns were among the cursed. The remaining families included the Slaters (Marianne's people), the Powells, and the Quackenbushes.
A curse is like that,Brandy thought.It traps you because you make a deal with. You get something out of the situation, and so you're willing to go along with the bad as long as there's a smidgen of good. Then you become lazy about trying to break free from it.
Life could be good as a shifter. For her it was exciting, and it brought her respect and mobility. It kept things interesting and distracted her from what otherwise would be a very boring, working class life. The only downside was the chronic eczema, AND the risk of being the mother of 20+ kids, AND the premature wrinkles. If a female shifter was vigilant about taking care of her skin and not getting knocked up by some horny yee-haw, she could have a swingin' time.
Life could be great all the way up until your very last moments just before you died, when the other shifters of your family had to eat you alive. Being the one eaten alive, however, wasn't always the worst, since you would be on your deathbed anyway. What was horrible, is how many times you yourself had to be the cannibal and eat your loved ones whom you weren't ready to let go of yet. Brandy had not ever expected to have to cannibalize her own brother at such a young age.
This is why it was a challenge to hang out at any bar or restaurant that served fried gator tail. This part of the curse repeatedly traumatized even the most hardened, heartless shifter – like Hugh Cliburn, for example.
“So tell me about this potential Floridian candidate,” Brandy said.
Shit-this-person-is-HERE? Marianne mouthed to her.
Ray's own interest was perking up now. He LOVED being a shifter, and he would not take too kindly to anybody trying to take that away from him. In prison, he already had experienced what it was like NOT being able to shift no matter how badly he wanted or needed to in a dangerous situation. He even took up Zen Buddhist mediation to try and control the urges behind bars, which in one sense made him a stronger man, but he still never wanted to go through a gator-less existence again.
Ray now also had shifted back into human form, but he didn't have the decency to cover up. He stood up and faced Brandy and Marianne in his full glory. Ray was forever hoping Brandy would see something she liked, since she apparently had liked it on two previous occasions over the years.
Brandy turned away from the intruding part of Ray that was at eye level. It was, indeed, distracting.
“Well, it's a woman,” Josephine said. “And Jenny says their sources have confirmed that she's a conjure woman. They've tracked her visiting supply shops for ingredients.”
By ingredients, Aunt Josephine meant a variety of herbs and the ground bones of various animals to be used in the casting of spells and the creation of talismans. Quite frankly, some of the stuff you don't have to buy. For example, a number of Hoodoo spells require the inclusion of human excrement. Menstrual blood might come in handy, too.
The most nefarious rumor among Brandy's family members involved the idea that Eve LaBelle COULD and DID have a child, and that it was a Guyette who knocked her up and then abandoned her. What the other Southern families did to her, who really knew. You'd have to ask THEM about the rumors floating around in the family lore of THEIR kin.
According to this tradition that assumed true Guyette guilt, that's what got Brandy's family into trouble. A variation on this tradition further insisted that as long as Eve LaBelle had living descendents, the Alligator Curse remained in force for everyone. If her family line was snuffed out, the curse would be lifted.
If the worst case scenario were true, and that a Guyette had gotten Eve LaBelle pregnant and then abandoned her and the child, that meant that the rogue anti-gator Guyettes would going after one of their own kin, not just one of Madame LaBelle's descendants.
Brandy's opinion was that the easiest way to see if the curse could be broken would be for a Guyette to be willing to undergo an exorcism, just to see what happened. But even though there really seemed to be nothing to lose, no Guyette had been willing to step foot in a church since 1884.
“Jenny plans to be up your way in a few weeks,” Josephine told her niece. “How would you feel about putting' her up at your place?”
Oh, that could be tricky, if folks know what she's up to, Brandy thought.
“I'm not sure that's such a good idea,” Brandy said.
“Look,” her aunt said. “You said it yourself, this is probably another wild goose-chase. And really, it's a long way from a rumor to reality. I need you to watch out for her. She's gonna be involved in this anyway, and I don't want anything bad to happen. Not at the hands of a LaBelle, and not at the hands of any shifter.”
Jenny was blood, and Brandy knew she was obligated. So she she agreed to let her cousin stay with her as she hatched her plan. Maybe she could actually talk some sense into her if she was under her roof.
“Who else is involved?” Brandy asked.
“I'll let Jenny give you the details,” Josephine. “I try to stay out of it for the most part.”
Not long after, Brandy ended the call.
“No, no, NO!!” Marianne insisted. “Who is this? Let me guess - you're cousin Jenny. She's looney tunes.”
“Yes, it's Jenny,” Brandy said. “And she's coming to stay with me for awhile.”
“I can't believe we're back to this again,” Ray said, adding his own two cents. “Seriously, Brandy, this is nonsense.”
&
nbsp; “Ray,” Brandy said, “you're more afraid that it might NOT be nonsense.”
Brandy didn't think that any potential success could come of her cousin's plan. But, if there was even a chance of something here, things would get ugly real fast. There could be a real feud, worse than the Hatfields and the McCoys (and the states of West Virginia and Kentucky almost went to war overthatfamily fight). Shifters who wanted out – those who wanted the curse lifted – were a small minority among all the families.
“Well, it's a good thing most of us don't support this bullshit,” Marianne said.
“Except for the Powells,” Ray said.
The Powells of Alabama were the wealthiest family out of the seven, heavily invested in industry and national politics. Being shifters was now causing significantly more inconvenience for them than the rest of the community, since many of them increasingly were in the public eye. Frankly, their public existence made everyone nervous.
“The Powells won't do the dirty work themselves,” Ray said. “But I bet they're financially backing the efforts of breakaway dissenters.”
Brandy understood what he was saying. Everyone knew that the Powells would sell them all out in the end, if they had to.
Chapter 10
Brandy showed up for her first day at Animal Sphere. This involved filling out paperwork, getting a uniform in her size (which did not happen right away), and getting a tour of the inner-workings of the whole theme park. Four hours had gone by, and she still had not seen McEvans
When he finally showed up, he told her to meet him out by the gator pit after her late afternoon coffee break.
When Brandy went looking for her boss, she found him mending a wire fence with a couple of maintenance guys on the eastern side of the manmade swamp. He was pushing against the fence, telling the guys that the fence was not strong enough to withstand a wily/angry gator who wanted to lam it.
“Someone's gonna push his snout under this thing and lift it up,” McEvans told them.
It was a scorcher that day, 100 degrees in the shade. McEvans was shirtless, with sweat glistening all across his torso.
Brandy was transfixed.
He has a set of abs that are begging to be slathered with barbecue sauce and thrown on a grill,she thought. Brandy often confused good food with good sex. They were both sensual experiences, after all.
He finally turned around and saw her standing there.
“Guyette!” he said. “Good to see you!”
He walked over to her, picking up his shirt from the grass. He put it back on, but didn't button it up yet. Those abs continued to sizzle right before her very eyes.
“Are you ready to meet our crew?”
McEvans meant the gators.
Brandy definitely was ready. Primarily, she was wondering if the Cliburns were still around.
“I heard that you had to shoot some of them not too long ago,” Brandy said. “A nasty fight or something. Did you have to put them down?”
McEvans did not look to pleased at being reminded of that night.
“Three of them went after Shirley,” he said. “There was something really wrong with those gators. They weren't behaving normally.”
He sighed.
“You've been on the bridge, I'm sure,” he said. “Let me show you the view from the other side, where only employees are allowed.”
He wasn't answering her question.
“So did you put them down?” Brandy repeated, as they walked together.
“One of them died,” he said. “The other two were okay, and the vet gave them a clean bill of health. We kept those two separate for a couple of days, and then reintroduced them back into the main population. I'd put them down if I could, but there are protocols. It's one thing if a gator attacks a human. But it's another thing if it’s just another gator. I know that something's wrong with them, but then again, they're reptiles. They're primal. They didn't actually commit a crime.”
Like hell they didn't, Brandy thought.
“The really creepy thing,” McEvans continued, “is that two that survived cannibalized the one that didn't before we could get him out of there. All we have left was a chunk of his lower jaw.
Brandy panicked. Was this a section of ahumanorgatorjaw? McEvans didn’t sound like he was suspicious about the jawbone, so either it had to be a small chunk of human bone, or a large chunk of gator bone.
Brandy also wondered which one had died. The other two were trapped, and she'd be coming face to face with them soon. She knew that the Cliburns would be out for her scaly ass for real this time.
She had to figure out a plan to get rid of them as soon as possible. Knowing that McEvans had kept them alive against his better judgement, this meant that he wouldn't be so sad if something 'accidentally' happened to them on Brandy's watch.
“Do you still have the jawbone?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Can I see it?”
“Uh, sure,” McEvans said. “Why?”
“I told you, I've been around gators my whole life. Just humor me on this.”
McEvans took her outside of the swamp area, back to his office and the indoor kennel facilities.
When he handed her the jawbone, Brandy was relieved. It was definitely a large chunk of gator bone. But she also could tell that the gator who died wasn't Hugh. And it wasn’t Bob, since there were no missing teeth. This was the jaw of a gator that measured maybe seven feet. That would be Jesse, the youngest brother.
Well, this was poetic justice. It was not what she had intended, but it was kin for kin, and Jesse was no innocent. After all, it was Jesse who had messed up her ankle.
“What do you see that I don’t?” McEvans asked her.
Suddenly, Brandy felt compelled to do something that would be very, very bad if anyone knew about it. Somehow, though, her gut told her it would be okay to go ahead and do it anyway.
“Okay, I'm going to tell you something that most people don't know,” Brandy said. She was about to take a big risk here, but she owed this man her life. And she figured that what she was about to explain to him would NOT betray the shifter community, but it could save some lives, both human and shifter, assuming that increasing numbers of sloppy and careless shifters (okay herself included, she had to admit) kept getting caught by wily trappers.
“This was not your typical gator,” she said. “This is a rare species.”
McEvans looked at her quizzically. She was making this up as she went. Her thinking went something like this:
She wanted to somehow explain that there was a 'mystery' species out there with a different pattern of behavior than regular alligators, without giving away any information about the Hoodoo curse and exposing the seven families. McEvans would be intrigued. She could teach him how to deal with shifters, without hisknowingthey were shifters.
“See how this jawline is pretty oval for the most part, but then his snout is actually is not rounded, but suddenly becomes triangular?”
McEvans studied the jaw, and then realized she was right. There was something about this that didn't match the skeletal structure of the typical snout of a normal alligator. Actually, upon closer inspection, it shared some similarities to that of a crocodile.
“Now that I’m looking at this, it looks like some type of alligator-croc half-breed. What do you think?” he asked her. “You understand why I’m asking that, right?”
Brandy did. And suddenly she was relieved. He had given her an out – the proposition that somehow alligators and crocodiles had interbred and created a unique subspecies. Crocodiles were more aggressive and could handle salt and brackish water. And Florida was the only location in the U.S. that still had a small population of Crocodiles.
“You might be onto something there,” Brandy encouraged him. “I hadn’t thought of that. But they still prefer fresh water to salt.”
“Their teeth also are a little sharper like a crocs,” McEvans said. “But they still are arranged like an alligator.”
Bran
dy pointed out something else to him.
“These alligators also often have a thin strip of white along the edge of some of their scales. It’s very hard to see unless you look for it up close. Normal gators also have a lower I.Q. This type of gator does not. They can be as smart as dolphins. Even though they still rely primarily on reptilian instinct, they behave differently than other species. They are more social, for example.”
“How is it possible that we never even noticed this whole unknown species out there before?” McEvans was perplexed. “What do, or would, you call these gators?” There were only two alligator species on the planet, officially: the American Alligator (Alligatoridae Mississippiensis) and the Chinese Alligator (Alligatoridae Sinensis).
“I don't call them anything,” she said.Aside from Mainstream and Hatchers, she thought. “There aren't too many of them considering the overall alligator population, but my parents pointed them out to me when I was a kid. You have to handle them differently. It's almost like they have feelings. You can't get frustrated with them – you have to reason with them.”
Reason with them? McEvans looked at her like she was crazy.
“Shirley is one of these gators,” Brandy said. “She has the telltale snout and personality.”
THAT got to him. McEvans doubt melted away, because now the theory made sense based on his own experience. He had experienced what it was like to actually interact with one of these gators. Shirley truly was different, and he missed her desperately.
“How about between you and me we call them theAlligatoridae Shirlensis,” McEvans teased Brandy. He was only half-kidding, though. He was actually willing to be at least half-serious about this concept.
Smart gator wrestlers and wildlife specialists like McEvans respect an unexpectedly smart gator. They like the challenge, and if there is ever a hint of relational reciprocity, this makes an ethical wrestler happy. This is why Evans had felt such a connection with HER/Shirley.
But many trappers are sadistic, don't care anything for gators and think they are a nuisance (which, yes, they can be). When they came face to with a shifter, the shifter might outwit them, but if not, the trapper would lose his temper and shoot to kill when it wasn't appropriate.
Big Gator: A BBW shape shifter paranormal romance Page 5
