“It’s I—I don’t even know what to say. I should have told you the truth about me. I’m not sure why it happened. The change. I can normally control the bear in me. And I didn’t know you were some kind of sorceress.”
“Witch. We are all witches.”
Gabe realized everyone had gathered around and they had a good look at his backside. He picked up the blanket, loosely wrapping himself up. “Let’s talk later.”
“Of all the things to burn, sis. I can’t believe you’d scorch such a nice ass. Better hope it doesn’t leave a scar,” Randy remarked. “Hey, Gabe. Do you have any hot werebear friends?”
“Hush, Randy. Can’t you see the poor man is sufferin’?” Gertie gave him a little shove and I heard her whisper, “He does have a cute arse, doesn’t he? And there’s not a hair on him. You’d think a werebear’s arse would be as furry as a llamas.”
“Are you sure llamas have asses?” Randy asked.
“Of course. But I know one thing, they don’t look as nice as Gabe’s arse.” Gertie and Randy laughed hysterically.
“I’m right here, you guys!” Gabe chastised. “Kelly? Can we go inside? I’m feeling a little weak. And a little weird about having my ass so thoroughly examined by complete strangers.”
I helped pull the blanket a little tighter around Gabe and together we went up to the mill.
Chapter Twenty Eight
Healing the Werebear
“…and that’s everything. That’s Karma, Inc.” I had just explained to Gabe all about our witchcraft and what we’d been involved with from the beginning. “And just like you weren’t about to advertise the fact that you’re a werebear, I couldn’t just throw the witchcraft out there.”
Gabe was laid out face down on my bed. A sheet covered him, except for the burned butt cheek. “I completely understand. I hope you can forgive me for scaring you like I did this morning. It must have been one hell of a shock.”
“Yes, and no. Of course, I was shocked to wake up to a six hundred pound bear in bed with me. To be honest, there are few things that surprise me anymore. Since I’ve been hanging out with these witches, I’m aware of the entire magical world around me. I’ve seen things I never thought were possible. Finding out about you being a werebear seems to make you fit into my world that much easier. We don’t have to hide these things from each other.”
Ezzy and Gertie strolled into the bedroom. Gertie had a towel over her shoulder and carried a large mixing bowl with a big wooden spoon sticking out of the smelly concoction she stirred up. Ezzy held her wand in one hand and a lit white taper candle in the other. “We walked around the woods, scrounging up the ingredients for a magic poultice. We’ll cure that burn for you in no time,” Ezzy said as she pulled the sheet off Gabe. “Bear ass naked.” She didn’t offer an apology for the pun. “Oh, man. That is a nasty burn, too. This will hurt. No two ways about it, but only for a minute, then you’ll be all patched up.”
Ezzy traced a circle around the burn with the tip of her wand while she whispered in a strange language. Next, she held the candle over the burn and tipped it so a few drops of hot wax landed right on the blistered skin.
“Oh Christ! That burns!” Poor Gabe clenched his ass cheeks so tight the skin shined.
“Beeswax. Not just any beeswax. It’s from India,” Ezzy said proudly. “You may want to bite down on a pillow or something for the next part.” She nodded to Gertie. “Take a handful and smack it right down on the burn. Don’t be a wimp about it. I want to hear it!”
“Umm. I’ll try.” Clearly out of her comfort zone, Gertie scooped up a handful of the dark green mud. Just before applying it, she closed her eyes. “Here it comes.”
“Remember what I said, Gertie. Smack that ass! Do it!”
Gertie raised her hand high, then she brought her palm down with a full force slap. At the same time, Ezzy whacked her wand on Gabe’s uninjured ass cheek. My three little Chihuahuas had been sleeping in a miniature dog pile in the corner of the room, oblivious to all that went on around them. Suddenly, the loud crack caused by Ezzy’s ancient wand on Gabe’s smooth ass cheek startled my tiny dogs. They bounced up and down, barking with excitement.
“Argh! Oh, fuck! Son of a bitch! Goddamn you!” Gabe shouted…and then, he bit down on a pillow.
“I’m so sorry, Gabe.” Gertie was nearly in tears. Gabe didn’t make another sound. We waited almost two minutes before he finally spoke.
Gabe took the pillow from his mouth. “Hey! It quit hurting! Did you heal me?”
“Can I clean off the ointment?” I asked. Ezzy nodded and I took Gertie’s towel. Amazingly, his skin looked completely unharmed.
“See? That’s some old school stuff there. Can you believe they once burned witches at the stake for healing people like that? Idiots,” Ezzy lamented.
Gabe sat up. “Thank you so much. Now that we’re all out of the paranormal closet, there’s more to Caldron Falls than just my…bear condition. I knew of one other witch.”
“Knew? You said that in past tense. Did something happen to her?” I asked.
“Yeah, just before you arrived here, in fact. She was a reporter, and a writer, too. She died in a freak accident in the bookstore. Some sort of disturbance…a rowdy crowd or something. She freaked out, climbed up on top of the bookshelves, and then…splat. Those big shelves came down and squashed her like a bug.”
“Oh…shit. Don’t tell me. Her name was Bella. Bella Smithers,” I said.
“Okay, I won’t tell you. But it’s obvious you’ve heard of her.”
I sat down on the edge of the bed and held my head in my hands. What had we done?
“I’m sorry, Kelly. You knew her?”
“No. I never met her. But she was the target for the Karma spell we cast for Gisele. We have the video. We saw her fall, but we didn’t know what happened after that.”
“Damn it!” Ezzy shouted. “See? She tricked us into killing someone here. What else is magical or paranormal about Caldron Falls? What is Gisele, really?”
“I don’t know anything about Gisele. Those bear cubs Gertie picked up, they’re my nephews. And the mother bear is my sister. We’re the only bear shifters left in the area.”
“What about her husband, assuming she’s married? Isn’t he a werebear?”
“No, he’s just a regular guy. He works at the sawmill. He’s probably the only other person who knows about us being bear shifters. Then you have the owners of the mill. The Vodniks. I’ve always suspected there is something very different about them, but I’ve never been able to figure it out.”
Ezzy listened intently and she questioned Gabe. “What was it that made you think the Vodniks were different? Are you saying they’re paranormal creatures of some kind?”
“I suspect they are. I don’t know what, though, because they’re very old. If you saw them, you’d think they were in their nineties but still in great shape. And they look just as old as when I saw them back when I was just a kid. They just stay the same.”
“So, they never age?” I asked.
“No. They should be dead by now. It’s odd for sure. The other thing that’s just weird about them is they disappear for years at a time. Old people don’t normally trot around the globe like that. Just to be clear, I’ve never felt uneasy about them. They seem nice. At least to me.”
“What about that story, about the monster under the mill? Were you just trying to ease my worries with the explanation you gave me last night? Or is there more to it?”
“Sweet Mary! A monster! In here?” Gertie yelped.
“No…maybe. I’ve never wanted to believe there could be a monster. Back when I was in my teens, some kid from out of town—Boy scouts or something—anyway, the kid went swimming in the mill pond and his friends swore he was pulled down by a creature of some kind. They said it looked like a human-salamander hybrid. Whatever that means. The boy was never seen again. I decided to snoop around and find out for myself. I shifted and sat in the woods above the mill pond. I
watched the mill for two days and two nights.”
“And…did you see it? The creature?” Gertie’s voice trembled.
“Not really. I thought I saw something the second night. It was hard to tell. I saw a shadowy figure. It could have been in the water, or at least right on the edge of the pond. It was short and stocky. It just sort of rose up and moved around. Then it was gone. And after I saw that, so was I.”
“Maybe that’s the thing that’s been making the loud thumping sounds in the machinery room,” I wondered out loud.
“Kelly! Don’t you dare say that! You’re scaring the hair off my neck!”
“I wouldn’t be too afraid, Gertie. I said I saw something, but I was young, and it was dark. It was probably just a deer walking along the pond. Besides, if you want to believe the stories, you should have nothing to fear as long as you don’t go swimming in the pond.”
“Gabe, you’re not consoling me,” Gertie replied tersely.
Ezzy waited for the clamor over the monster story to subside before making her announcement. “Gertie, don’t worry. I’ll set up a protection spell around the mill, just in case. Kelly, just so you know, we’re done handling anymore Karma clients in Caldron Falls. Besides the two dead bodies in the river, and the dead witch in the bookstore, we now have some more incidental victims.”
“What? Who?”
“Last night, when you were getting busy putting out fires with Smokey the Bear, we took the client who called. Randy took your place during the spell. If I’d have known all of this new information Gabe just told us, I never would have went forward with it.” Ezzy shook her head with regret. “Some guy named Mike. Mike Chrystal. He had a problem with some jerk of a boss named Greg.”
“Hey! I know who Mike Chrystal is. He works at the sawmill with my brother-in-law. Not exactly with him. This guy, Mike, works up in the office, accounting or sales…or something. My brother-in-law, Kurt, operates machinery.”
“Well, apparently this boss of Mike’s has been giving the office secretary quite a bit of overtime to work with him on her shorthand in private, if you know what I’m saying. And it just so happens the secretary is Mike Chrystal’s wife.”
Gabe looked shocked and a bit amused. “No shit! Wow!” Then Gabe laughed. “I’m sorry, but this is typical Caldron Falls’ drama. Mike and Kurt graduated from the same class at Caldron Falls High. And Sherelle, too. Mike has always been a super nice guy and why he ever married Sherelle is beyond me. I don’t want to sound mean, just being honest when I say she has a face that makes you want to look the other way.”
“Oh, we know. We saw her on the video.” Ezzy’s face puckered up like she just shoved a handful of Lemonheads in her mouth.
“That’s exactly the same look most people have after getting an eyeful. And she is a screamer…but not in the good way.” Gabe winked at me. “Any time you’d see Mike and Sherelle out in public, she’d be yelling at him, belittling him, and generally being an ass to the poor man who always bent over backwards trying to please her. And Kurt? He’s the guy who was born into a family of jocks. He basically inherited the job as starting quarterback on the varsity team. Just another one of those people who feels like they are better than anyone. Kurt’s daddy owns the sawmill and made him the boss of the whole operation. It had to be hell for Mike to put up with Kurt the jerk all day. Not only that, the poor dude had to deal with Sherelle all day at work then go home to her each night. I can’t even imagine that kind of torture day in and day out. Mike should have been glad Sherelle was cheating on him. Then maybe, he’d finally get mad enough to stand up to her and get out of their unhealthy marriage. You know, Kurt and Sherelle really deserve each other. It’s like they’ve already brought Karma to each other, just by being together!”
“Yeah, well, Mike didn’t see it that way. He felt betrayed, hurt, and angry,” Ezzy said.
Gertie nodded. “And he was right to be! I told him he needed to man up and tell the bitch they were done. He said he wanted to, but he was afraid. Afraid! Of his own spouse! It makes me so sad to see good men treated that way.”
“I think a lot of people would find Sherelle frightening.” Gabe chuckled. “So he came here hoping you could lay down some revenge? According to Kelly, it’s what Karma, Inc. is all about, right?”
“That’s precisely what Mike wanted. Revenge. Apparently, Sherelle and Kurt had quite a large bill to settle with Karma because that bitch didn’t hold anything back on those two. As I’m sure you both noticed, there was quite a storm last night. There was a tornado and it made a direct hit on the sawmill.”
“Oh my God!” I shouted, glancing at Gabe. I could tell he shared my fear. “Was anyone hurt?”
“Fortunately, no. Since it was Saturday night, the office was shut down and none of the equipment was in use at the time. The only two people in the entire place were Kurt and Sherelle. And let me tell you, the tornado leveled the office building. It’s only by pure luck they managed to survive. The fire department showed up, and several of the firemen made a point about those two cheaters being in the office together on a weekend when the mill was closed. They gave them hell. Kurt denied that anything was going on between him and Sherelle. He was even nice enough to say Sherelle was so damned ugly she couldn’t turn on a light switch. Of course when she heard Kurt’s vicious little denial, Sherelle went out of her mind, telling everyone on the scene the only reason she was even bopping Kurt was because he had some very unusual fetishes and she was happy to oblige.”
“Like gettin’ his Randy Johnson stomped on with one of those stiletto shoes! And gettin’ his yam bag kicked like a football! Can you imagine? Kicked! Hard!” Gertie added, happy to see Gabe wince. “And there was more, but I’m not as well versed in those sort of perversions as Ezzy. I’m still a bit confused on the balloons and baby diapers Sherelle screamed about.”
Ezzy rolled her eyes. “Yeah…well, you get the picture. Kurt was into some pretty extreme stuff. Sherelle certainly didn’t hold back on broadcasting Kurt’s kinky passions. It rapidly escalated to an ugly shouting match while they tore each other apart. That was the end of the video.”
“I don’t see how that was any different than a dozen other outcomes we’ve seen with our Chicago clients,” I pointed out.
“You’re absolutely right, it was the outcome we normally expect from those cases. The real surprise came this morning when the bodies of Sherelle and Kurt were found in the river—bludgeoned to death…just like Clyde and Sadie,” Ezzy said it in a dark, dramatic voice. Only she wasn’t trying to be theatrical, she was deeply concerned. She walked toward the door, then stopped for a few seconds. “Let’s all gather in the kitchen in an hour, we need to have a meeting.”
She walked out and Gertie hurried after her. “Fantastic idea, Ezzy! I’ll see what I can scrounge up for lunch.” Gertie made it into the hallway before thoughtfully turning back, flashing me a knowing smile, and shutting the door.
Chapter Twenty Nine
Morning Kisses
Gabe caressed my shoulders, kissing the back of my neck. Gently, he pulled me next to him on the bed. The sheet that had covered him was cast aside and his arm curled around me, drawing my head onto his chest.
“This is how I expected to wake up,” I said softly.
“Hmm…something like this,” he replied in a deep satisfied voice.
The warmth from his breath on my bare shoulder instantly filled my head with little memory flashes of the night before. He ran his fingers through my hair, then down under my bathrobe, expertly working it away from my body. We both responded to the feeling of our bare skin against each other. I lightly traced his muscular chest. Gabe whispered, “Last night was incredible. It was just so…”
“Hot? Yeah, I feel the same way.”
“More than that. I mean, it was extremely hot, but it was more. I felt something.”
“Of course, you probably felt all of your fur popping out…among other things,” I teased, but only because I was stalling from g
iving an honest reply. I didn’t want to start spouting off the thoughts rushing through my mind. Otherwise, it would have come out wrong, and the message would be completely misconstrued. For example, I might have said, “I’ve enjoyed super great sex more than just a few times before, and last night ranked right up near the top of the list, possibly even the number one or two spot.” And that would have been a big fat lie. Yes, I’d had some pretty memorable sex, but only a time or two, and certainly nothing like I had with Gabe. I would have said those words reflexively as a self-defense mechanism for my heart. I was afraid to admit the truth.
I continued running my finger across his chest. Without even thinking about it, my finger slowly, lightly ran down over his abs to where the perfectly groomed short hair started. He was excited, and I raised the palm of my hand up to glide over it, barely touching it. I was lost in my thoughts about Gabe, not even realizing how it began to physically throb. He was right. There was something deep connecting us. The other thing I wanted to say was, “Yes, I know. I felt like our very souls were making love. Every kiss, every touch between us felt magical. Last night was beyond the physical, it was spiritual.” The voice in my head said the words, but I was convinced if I said those words out loud, it would be too much, too soon, and I would scare Gabe away. Or I’d scare myself away.
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