Hoofin’ It: A Magical Romantic Comedy (with a body count)

by RJ Blain

  With two tense werewolves to worry about, I found it a lot easier to control my nerves. I was too busy convincing my parents I was alive and mostly well to think about how my career had come to an abrupt end. Mom cradled me in one arm and waggled her claws in front of my nose, an invitation to play I failed to resist.

  “He’s otterly adorable, isn’t he?” Mom cooed.

  Of all the tricks for my mother to grasp without lessons, why did it have to be mastery of English in her hybrid form? While I was still dealing with the realization I wouldn’t be spared from her tongue, everyone else in the vehicle groaned.

  Why did my mother’s first words as a full lycanthrope have to be a pun? It also explained a few things; I’d become something disgustingly cute, an otter, instead of a vicious and feared lion, tiger, or bear. I tried my best to glare at her, but she was unimpressed. She grinned a toothy, werewolf grin and waggled her claws at me.

  A more dignified man would have protested his mother’s affections, but I was too tired to fight her, and I enjoyed the attention—and the certainty if I did land a bite, her virus would take care of the injury in short order. I wondered if Ernesto had meant to bolster my mother’s virus enough to trigger her first shift.

  Knowing him, it could go either way.

  Hospitals were a terrible place for lycanthropes, especially one still riding the high of her first shift. Since holding me would keep Mom out of trouble, Dad put her in charge of making sure no one thought about touching me.

  Dad annoyed me sometimes. The arrangement kept me and Mom from doing anything Dad didn’t want us doing, leaving him to play guard and lead the way. Two hybrid werewolves in the same place were more than most Chicagoans could readily handle, and they gave us plenty of room. A single snarl terrified the woman behind the glass at the ER’s entry.

  “Let me,” Pierina murmured, patting my father’s arm and sliding between him and the nurse. “We’re here to see Marian Peterson. She is with my brother, Quinton Saven, and has a broken wrist. We’re family.” The vampire twisted around so she could point at me. “He is her partner, which can be verified by the CDC or through an incubus or succubus.”

  The nurse paled enough I was worried she’d faint. “The CDC arrived ten minutes ago,” she squeaked.

  “Good. Where are they?”

  Pierina took several minutes to cajole the information out of the nurse, who tried to protest we had no proof of our relationship with Marian. Dad looked the other way when the vampire resorted to using her preternatural charms. Mom followed Dad’s lead, but I squirmed in my mother’s hold to watch.

  I wasn’t sure what Pierina did, but she stared the nurse in the eyes. Within a minute, the nurse’s posture relaxed, and a dreamy smile spread across her lips. Within two minutes, she was answering the vampire’s questions in a murmur too soft for me to hear.

  “They were going to operate on her wrist, but someone intervened; they’ve taken her to a recovery room on the fifth floor. The CDC has a few people here, so they can check your wife’s virus levels and make sure everything’s going well with her shift, Mr. Gibson.” Pierina dared to approach my mother, which made my parents growl. “They’ll also be able to check Gibby.”

  My father huffed, and after a few moments, I realized he laughed. “Gibby?”

  “Blame my brother. He started it.”

  Turning to me, Dad poked my nose with a claw. “We will have a long talk over your choice of friends, pup. And once we are done talking about that, we are going to have another long talk about why you were dining at an exclusive restaurant with your woman instead of coming to visit us.”

  While Mom was smart enough to keep her hands out of my reach, cranky, formal-mode Dad either thought I wouldn’t bite or didn’t care if I did. I latched onto his finger behind his claw, clamped down, and held on. He flattened his ears and bared his teeth at me.

  I bit him harder.

  Pierina cleared her throat. “Perhaps if you wouldn’t poke him, he wouldn’t bite you?”

  “He needs to learn to control his teeth,” Dad growled.

  “But he’s otterly adorable, Justin. Look at him! How can you resist that face?” Mom lifted me up, forcing me to choose between clinging to Dad’s hand or being the rope in a game of tug-of-war. I released Dad and sighed while my mother rubbed her muzzle against mine. “We should take him and his woman home with us.”

  “We can’t take home an FBI agent because we feel like it.” Dad sounded rather disappointed, which worried me—and might benefit me later when I told them I intended to kidnap her so she’d have to marry me and wear tight jeans whenever I wanted.

  Then again, if they found out my side of the bet, they might join forces with her. I’d have to be careful about how I presented my case.

  “We’ll see about that,” my mother swore.

  It took half an hour to cross the hospital; every security guard we met believed they could take on a pair of lycanthropes and win. Any other day, I would’ve found the situation amusing. However, my mother’s hold on me was the only thing between the well-meaning but prejudiced idiots and a very messy death, so I really hoped they got their shit sorted out before someone got hurt.

  Dad handled their behavior better than I expected. He didn’t bite a single person. The first security guard to seriously challenge him was a woman who didn’t hide the fact she knew was pretty and thought she could charm my father into leaving until she got a good look down his throat. Brandishing a gun at a cop was stupid in my opinion, and she deserved to have her weapon crushed into a useless hunk of scrap metal.

  A lot of bystanders learned a valuable lesson about cranky werewolves: they didn’t need a gun to be dangerous.

  “It’s not my fault she pointed a gun at me,” Dad growled. I’d lost count of the number of times he’d presented the same argument.

  “It’s probably better she pointed it at him and not you, Mrs. Gibson. We’d be picking bits of security guard out of our hair for months,” Pierina said, grinning at my mother. “I haven’t had this much fun in centuries.”

  Another pair of security guards approached us as we neared Marian’s room, both men, both old enough they should have known better, and neither looking happy to see us. “Excuse me, but you’re not supposed to be here.”

  Dad twitched and turned to Pierina. “Is everyone in this city stupid?”

  “Yes. I’ll handle this.” Pierina opened her mouth, showed her fangs, and hissed. “You’re in the way of a man visiting his future daughter-in-law. He’s very protective and has violent tendencies when provoked. You’re provoking him. He’s also a visiting cop from a different city. Unless you want to be ripped to pieces, remember you have no right to bar visitation based on species alone. I recommend you move, or you will be moved.”

  “This is a hospital, not a zoo.”

  If I’d been human and able to speak I would’ve begun giving the old man his last rites. Pierina lunged forward, captured the man’s throat in her hands, and squeezed until he choked and gasped to breathe. “Fortunately for you, this is a hospital. If I’m delayed one more moment, you’ll be occupying the ICU ward for much of your remaining lifespan. Should I drag you with me so others might remember lycanthropes aren’t the only dangerous species in this city, human?”

  If I’d been human rather than an otter shifter, I would have been a lot more insulted by the way she spat the word, as though every last one of Earth’s problems began and ended with my species. Then again, she made a good point. Humans caused problems for everyone, especially themselves.

  Maybe the guards had an issue with werewolves, but messing with a vampire was enough to break the second one’s nerve, and he held his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “It’s dangerous for the other patients…”

  The last sound I wanted to hear was Ernesto’s rumbling chuckles directly behind me. “If you want your patients to be in danger, you’re going about it the right way. Dear daughter, do put the nice man down. It wouldn’t do to crush hi
s windpipe. The doctors here would be oh so inconvenienced should something tragic happen. It would sting their pride if they had to send one of their employees to a different hospital.”

  Ouch.

  “Papa,” Pierina complained, although she eased her hold on the guard. “But I was just starting to have fun with him.”

  “It’s rude to play with your dinner. If you’re going to have a drink, drag him off and have a drink, but don’t do it in the hallway. I taught you better than that. If you need bail money, call me. I’d also like to point out I received a call that not one, but two of my beloved children were in the hospital after someone bombed my daughter’s restaurant, where my dear boy and his lovely lady were dining. Do you know what that might be about, Pierina?”

  If the guards could have paled any further, they would have.

  “Papa!”

  “Pierina,” her father replied in a perfect mockery of her complaint. “Put the human down. Wouldn’t it be much faster if you let them show us to Miss Peterson’s room? Then you can tell me why I received such a phone call.”

  I enjoyed knowing I wasn’t the only one stuck with a parent able to go from reasonable to bat-shit crazy and scary in less than ten seconds flat.

  After shooting a glare at her father, Pierina turned to the guard. “Miss Peterson’s room. Take us there.”

  “Politely,” Ernesto chided.

  “Please.”

  The ancient vampire sighed as though his daughter tested every last iota of his patience. “Please forgive my daughter. If you wouldn’t mind, sirs, could you please show us to Miss Peterson’s room?”

  “Suck up,” Pierina muttered.

  Ernesto grabbed his daughter in a head lock and tucked her close to his side. “Now would be nice.”

  The security guard rubbed his throat and exchanged a long look with his partner, who gulped and gestured down the hall. “This way, sir.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Dad took me from Mom, and before anyone thought to stop him, he chucked me through the doorway into Marian’s room. I squealed, hit the bed, and bounced off, smacking into the floor and sprawling in a stunned heap.

  Aiming me towards the head of the bed rather than the foot would have increased the probability of an intervention. Then again, I probably deserved to be tenderized a little, but did Dad have to make it hurt so much? Groaning, I struggled to remember which end was up.

  “Is there a reason you threw our son across the room?” Mom asked, her tone deceptively calm.

  I would miss Dad if Mom decided to murder him over my short flight across Marian’s hospital room.

  “That won’t kill him.”

  I’d remember those words when I planned my revenge for being tossed around like a toy. Getting up was too much work, so I stretched out, sighed, and indulged in feeling sorry for myself.

  “I believe Mr. Gibson meant for you to catch him, Miss Peterson,” Ernesto said. “I believe his judgment regarding your current ability to intercept flying otters is impaired.”

  The bed squeaked, and Marian giggled. “Flying otter.”

  A man cleared his throat, and I recognized Dr. Yasolovic’s voice. “Please forgive Miss Peterson. She was recently given painkillers so one of my colleagues can properly fuse the bones in her wrist. The CDC doesn’t want her to suffer any impairment. This hospital has an unfortunate reputation concerning the care of humans with talents others perceive as inconvenient or unwanted.”

  No kidding.

  “Tiny flying otter,” the FBI agent contributed, still giggling.

  Hands—human hands—grabbed me around my middle and lifted me up. I blinked at Dr. Yasolovic. He made a thoughtful noise and set me on the bed at Marian’s feet, poking and prodding at me. “Perhaps throwing the otter was not the wisest of choices, Mister…?”

  “Gibson,” Ernesto answered. “The otter’s father. The red werewolf is his mother, and it’s her first shift.”

  “I trust you’ll keep your mate contained, Mr. Gibson. Should you need sedatives to keep her calm, I can prescribe them. I’ll have to call in someone else to handle Shane’s examination. I wouldn’t know what a healthy otter looked like if you slapped me in the face with one.”

  “I’m fine,” my mother growled.

  “Oh! Communicative already? That’s excellent. You may as well come in. There’s no reason to lurk in the doorway. Make yourselves comfortable, procure some chairs, have a seat.” Dr. Yasolovic pulled out his cell and made a call, requesting for a vet able to do a full physical on an otter of unknown species, adding I was probably injured in some fashion or another. When finished, he pocketed the device, took hold of my head, and held me in a firm grip while he examined my right eye. “I find it intriguing the glass eye shifted with him.”

  Everyone came into the room and found places to sit or hover, something done in relative quiet while Marian watched, her gaze slow and dulled from painkillers. Mom leaned over the FBI agent, sniffing with one ear pricked forward and the other twisted back. I watched, tensing but waiting to see what my mother would do.

  Mom licked Marian from chin to hairline, and I sighed over the embarrassment of having two overly affectionate werewolves for parents.

  “Gross,” Marian complained, waving her left hand in front of her face, as though the flopping, feeble motion would somehow make the smell of wolf breath dissipate faster. She had a lot to learn about werewolves, like the fact she’d be smelling wolf breath for at least an hour.

  Instead of backing off, Mom licked her again.

  I sighed.

  “Patsy, you’re embarrassing our puppy.”

  Dad’s words only encouraged Mom to upgrade her tokens of affections from licks to nuzzles, resulting in the oversized red hybrid werewolf half crawling onto the bed. Drugged and with her right arm in a sling, Marian was unable to fend off my mother, and her giggle-laden protests didn’t help matters, either.

  Of the two sane people left in the room, Ernesto would add fuel to the fire to watch it burn, so I turned to Dr. Yasolovic.

  “Don’t look at me. I’m not coming between a new werewolf bitch and the target of her affection. Be grateful it’s not you.”

  “He already had a round,” my father said, coming to the foot of the bed and scooping me up. “How long until Marian’s wrist heals?”

  “Four to seven days to be safe; she doesn’t benefit from lycanthrope blood quite like your son does. While we could speed her recovery a little with the virus, it would cause high fevers and general discomfort. Your son’s recovery rate is essentially a talent—a rather impressive one. There aren’t many natural-born shifters around, but he’s the first I’ve seen with the same general resilience as a werewolf. There aren’t many with his parentage, either. Werewolf children are either infected at birth or are resistant to the virus. Should you two decide to have another child, I’d be interested in monitoring the pregnancy and development. We might learn more how to identify shifters who haven’t undergone their first shift.”

  With the current chaos in my life, I didn’t want anyone encouraging my parents to have another child. I squeaked and squealed, waving my paws at Dr. Yasolovic in my desperation to change the subject.

  “Shane, behave,” Dad growled, tapping the top of my head with a knuckle. “Should we decide to inflict a second child on our son, I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “Please do. I look forward to visiting an area that isn’t infested with overly haughty humans lacking basic common sense.”

  “Onto more important business. Someone tried to kill my son and his woman. How can we get involved and can the CDC help?” Dad passed me over to Pierina, who decided I was best worn draped across her shoulders.

  Dr. Yasolovic smiled. “That depends on a few things, Mr. Gibson. Someone close the door.”

  Ernesto reached it first. “My children and I will be assisting, as will my brother. We have three theories about the attack, and I’m very interested in aiding the investigation.”

 
; Although the FBI hunted the vampire with more enthusiasm than the CDC would ever invest, I suspected the CDC had their reasons to either want Ernesto gone—or acquire his cooperation. Since vampires counted as sentients—formerly human ones—they received benefits demons and other races didn’t. On a DNA level, vampires classified as human despite the magic granting them unlife and a thirst for blood.

  “Once my colleague arrives and handles fusing Miss Peterson’s wrist, we can get more details from her about the attack, but I don’t think either one of them noticed anything. Everything she told me before I had her dosed with painkiller gave me the impression they were focused on each other and little else. Shane was seated with his back to the canal, so he wouldn’t have seen anything. I believe he gave her the seat with a view of the third level; a section of the wall there is translucent so diners may see events. Is that correct, Miss Saven?”

  “Correct. Gibby was seated facing the restaurant, and yes, where Marian was seated is the ideal viewing spot of the entry to the abyss. I had the table set that way in the slim hope she might see something interesting. Gibby’s not really interested in that sort of thing, so whenever he’s on the balcony, he’s usually facing the restaurant.”

  Dr. Yasolovic grunted, pulled a slim book from his pocket, and jotted down a note. “How often does he go to your restaurant?”

  “Every couple of months, but it’s been a while; I’d say maybe five months—he hadn’t been in since the accident.” Pierina scratched under my chin, and I enjoyed it more than I probably should have. “It definitely looks like they were the targets; the explosive went off right beneath the balcony, destroying its supports.”

  Mom straightened, set her clawed, furry hand on the bed beside Marian, and twisted to face Ernesto’s daughter. “You’re certain?”

  “Positive. I know my building like the back of my hand—I helped build it, I helped design it. I would guess some sort of grenade was used, tossed from the sidewalk. Quinton? Did you see anything from the front?”