by Karen Ranney
Two shapeshifters in a tiff.
I was not in a mood to be trifled with. I’d gone through just too damn much in the past two weeks. Hell, the past couple of months. I had put up with Alice's shenanigans, her rudeness, her unkindness, and now I recognized that she’d been a Class A backstabber. And some kind of cat.
"I don't know what you're talking about, Torrance. Go away. I'm busy." She moved away from the reception area, and I blocked her. I stretched out both hands, touching the walls.
Even though her expression was one of contempt, I could hear her harsh breathing and her heart beating like she’d just run a marathon. I could even hear the beads of sweat traveling down her back.
"What do you know about us?" I asked.
I honestly didn't expect her to answer. I thought that she would remain silent, but she only smiled that creepy smile and said, “Nothing that everyone else isn’t going to discover soon enough, Torrance.”
She turned to the left, heading back into the reception area. I would have gone after her except that I heard some of the vet techs enter the clinic. I couldn’t afford to have a confrontation about werewolves in front of everybody.
What the hell had she meant?
Chapter Three
She had set me up
We had an emergency a few minutes later and in one way I was glad for it. Not that poor dog was hit by car, but that it took my mind off of Alice. The dog was incredibly lucky, escaping with only a broken leg. No internal injuries, but I was going to monitor him closely for the next several hours. He wasn't chipped which was a pet peeve of mine. It doesn't cost all that much to chip your dog. At the very least dog owners should know that their pets needed to be wearing a collar and a tag whenever they were outside.
It wasn’t the money that kept people from doing the right thing. That was one of the revelations in my first year of practice. It was the inclination. Most people had the few dollars a month to pay for heartworm medication or the cost of chipping their dog. They just didn’t bother.
It took me a little while to get over my disillusionment. But to counterbalance those kinds of pet owners, there were the ones who would gladly have mortgaged their house to pay for cancer treatments. They would do everything in their power to keep their pet alive and give them the best quality of life possible.
I can't tell you how many times I had to sit down with a pet parent and explain that while they may wish to continue the treatment, it wouldn't be the best thing for their beloved animal. There are times when we simply had to face the end.
I was just glad this dog wasn’t one of those. Now all we had to do was find his owner.
Vets are superstitious. At least the ones I’ve known are. Most of my co-workers had some habit they performed on a routine basis. We never said that the day was quiet. Nine times out of ten chaos developed within an hour of saying that. The one time someone said, “Isn’t that dog of Mrs. Thenapolis the cutest thing?” was the day that Fluffy lunged at your face and tried to tear your nose off. I had superstitions about strays. I never said, “We’ll find your owner soon.” Whenever I said that, the poor dog was never claimed.
As certain as the dog was stable, I went to look for Alice again. I wasn't going to ignore the situation like I’d done for the past several months. I was in a new proactive mood. I think it had something to do with my brother trying to drain me dry. It’s amazing what happens when you face death at the hands of a sibling.
I didn't get the chance.
Derek was waiting for me. The managing member was in his white doctor’s coat, crisp and starched to a fair thee well. He changed coats at least three times a day. Not for the first time I wondered if he’d wanted to be a doctor and only segued into veterinary medicine as a second choice. That irritated me if it was true. People and animals weren’t the same. And I wasn’t just talking about the fact that vets were the lowest paid of all the medical professionals. You had to have an empathy for animals that wasn't necessarily important when treating people. Trust me, I’ve met lots of good doctors with lousy bedside manners.
Derek was in a mood right now, witness the one finger gesture toward his office.
Eighty-five percent of the veterinary profession is female. In our practice, however, there was an equal number of male and female vets. Because Derek had been the founding partner he was also in charge of all the administrative aspects of the practice. He was probably not the best choice, but he didn’t relinquish power easily.
When I entered Derek's crowded office and saw Alice standing there a combination of dread and anger washed over me.
Alice was wearing that wise ass smile. She had set me up. I knew that instantly.
“What’s this about, Derek? My calling in sick? You know I had the time.”
“It was an imposition, Torrance. We weren’t prepared to lose one of our vets without notice.”
Well, I wasn’t prepared to be drained nearly dry, either, a comment I didn’t make. In all honesty, I’d needed those two weeks to recuperate, as much physically as emotionally and possibly mentally.
“We’ve been receiving some complaints about you, Torrance. Alice has been fielding them for months.”
“Complaints?”
The anger I felt wasn’t entirely unexpected. I’d been what I considered a valuable member of the staff. I never fussed about having to work late. For a whole month, I’d manned the emergency clinic by myself and still showed up for work during the day, getting by on four hours of sleep. I never complained about Derek’s idiotic rules, like my cell phone being in the locker during the day. I never responded to any of the emails he sent me praising Alice and other vets and being very sparse in his nice comments about me.
“What kind of complaints?”
“Clients not satisfied with the treatment that their animals received,” Derek said.
“Who?”
He shook his head and moved behind his desk.
“These past two weeks, when you left us in the lurch, Torrance, has given me time to contemplate our relationship. I don’t think this is working out. As managing member, I have the right to cancel your contract, and refund your money. That’s what I’ve decided to do.”
“You’re firing me?”
I loved my job. I enjoyed working with the vet techs, most of the other vets, and although Alice and Derek were annoying, I was able to avoid them most of the time.
Not anymore.
I wanted to ask if it was because I was a Furry, then realized that was a question that couldn’t be voiced. Derek might not know about me.
Alice’s smile meant that she recognized my dilemma and delighted in it.
Okay, so she wasn’t a witch. She was just a bitch.
I stood there for a minute, my arms folded in front of me. I was feeling remarkably calm, which was surprising. Or maybe it wasn't. Because of my grandmother’s trust, I didn't have to worry about money, a fact that I hadn't bragged about to anyone. However, I didn't like the idea of putting “terminated” on my CV.
I could always fight Derek and take my case to the other vets. He wasn’t universally beloved like he thought. We could outvote him, but what kind of working relationship would that mean? I didn't want to dread coming to work every day.
Besides, Alice had probably gone behind my back and done what she could to poison the other vets against me.
“A mutual decision," I said. "It's the only way I'll agree. You have no right to terminate me otherwise.”
“Your contract states otherwise,” he said.
“Fine, we’ll let arbitration handle it.”
He stared at me. Did he see the resolve in my eyes? I was more than willing to fight him in court if I had to. I didn't want him to be able to say he'd fired me.
"All right,” he finally said. “I’ll have the paperwork finished by tomorrow. You can come back and sign everything then.”
In other words, if we’d had a security guard, he would've escorted me to my car right about now. I pushed back
the anger that crawled up my throat, nodded again, and started walking toward the locker room.
“That was easier than I thought it would be," Alice said.
The door to Derek's office was closed, but I didn’t have any problems hearing them.
“You handled that well, Derek. Now take off your clothes.”
Veterinarians have an endless capacity for ick, witness all the procedures we have to do. I wasn’t willing to hear any more of that conversation, however.
I changed, gathered up all my belongings in my locker, loading them into a few of the plastic bags we normally gave clients when we sent their pets home with medicines.
Two of the vet techs looked at me curiously, but didn't say anything. Betty, however, came and gave me a hug. That meant two things: she hadn't allowed Alice's words to change our relationship and it was already common knowledge that I was out.
"I'm going to miss you so much," she said. "There's nobody else here like you."
"Maybe that's a good thing," I said pulling back. There were tears in Betty’s eyes and that startled me. "It's okay, really."
It wasn't and we both knew it, but I didn't want to stand there and badmouth Alice. Not because I'm such a great and perfect person, but I didn’t want Betty to get in trouble. Plus, I’d just been terminated — despite what Derek and I had agreed to call it — and I wanted to get out of here. My pride demanded it.
There was only one thing I had to do before I left. When that was finished, I got in the car, put the plugs back in my ears, and sat there looking around me. I'd only been at Alamo Veterinary Clinic a little under a year, but I'd thought I would be here for the rest of my working life.
In all honesty, I hadn't given my contract all that much thought. I hadn’t realized I could be terminated so easily. Maybe I thought that the amount of money I’d spent to buy into the partnership would earn me…what? Respect? Conviviality? A feeling of belonging? I had thought that my expertise, such as it was, would be valued. I thought that I’d be respected as a peer.
Well, that hadn’t happened.
All this time, Alice had been working against me. Okay, so she was a shape shifter. Maybe. Why did she dislike me so much? What had I ever done to her?
I was going to have a lot of time to figure that out.
Chapter Four
He Skypes?
For a few minutes I sat in the car with the box I’d taken from the clinic beside me. My hands were on the standard ten and two position, but I was gripping the wheel so tightly I could feel the plastic beginning to crack beneath my hands. Not good, destroying your own car, Torrance.
I consulted my watch. It wasn't too early to go to the castle. I had a three-pronged reason for doing so. Number one: I wanted to check on Marcie and make sure she was fine after the transfusion. She and I had talked on the phone, but that wasn't as good as seeing somebody up close and in person. Secondly, I wanted to deliver my birthday present to Antonia who was turning six this week. And thirdly: maybe one of the doctors at the castle could help me out with my acute hearing problem. I didn't want to go around wearing earplugs for the rest of my life.
I had to go through two circles of security to get into Marcie’s home. I wasn't surprised. After my encounter with Niccolo Maddock, rabid vampire, I understood the need for precautions. I imagined that at night it was even more difficult to pass through the gates.
For the last two weeks, whenever I had to leave Graystone, I made sure I was home by dusk. I’d never worried about vampires before. I'd never given them any thought. Now my entire life had been upended and changed and it was all because of Maddock’s obsession with Marcie.
I didn't like that the Master Vampire knew where I lived. I especially didn't like the fact that whenever I woke up in the middle of the night and heard something strange my first panicked thought was, “Vampire!”
My Brood wasn’t any help, either. The three dogs had been terrified by Maddock and I couldn’t blame them one bit since I’d felt exactly the same way. They stuck with me like they were attached by Velcro. None of them ventured very far away even when we went for a walk. They’d never been that timid before.
I parked in the guest parking lot in front of the castle, grabbed the box, and left the car.
Arthur's Folly had been built by Marcie’s grandfather in law, I guess you would call him. Arthur was her husband’s grandfather and the founder of Clucky’s Fried Chicken.
Not only was Dan the heir to a chicken fortune, he was also an ex-Ranger. I wasn’t sure you could be an ex-Ranger. I knew there was no such thing as an ex-Marine. What most people didn't know about Dan was that he was also a powerful wizard. I'd learned that when I’d won the lottery and had first come here.
People either called the building in front of me Arthur's Folly or the castle because that's exactly what it looked like, a gray stone medieval castle in the middle of the Texas Hill Country. The structure was huge, but there were also two sublevels that I knew about. I suspected there were more.
I didn’t know how many people were employed at the castle. The few times I had asked Dan some pointed questions, I’d gotten generic answers in response. In other words, don't go on a fact-finding mission about the castle. They weren't all that eager to share statistics.
All that I was certain of, from information I’d gleaned from my original meeting and subsequent visits, was that the security and protection arrangements were done to safeguard Marcie and her children.
Before my transfusion I’d had to sign a contract that I, too, would aid in their protection should I ever be called upon to do so. It was the price I paid for being Pranic. The transfusion bound me to Marcie and her family. I’d agreed to come to their aid if the castle was ever under siege by vampires. At the time I hadn't fully understood all the ramifications of that agreement. Two weeks ago I’d discovered how bone deep terrifying a vampire siege would probably be.
In the past two weeks I’d been determined to learn a little bit more about Maddock and I’d done a number of Google searches. All I’d accomplished was to learn enough to spark even more questions.
If Maddock was infested with rabies, why hadn’t someone supplanted him as the head of the Texas vampires? Were people that loyal to him? How loyal could you be to someone who was foaming at the fang and might pop off and do something bizarre at any moment?
For that matter, why wasn’t there any information about Maddock having rabies anywhere? Believe me I’d looked, but there was nothing about his medical condition. He was lauded for his gifts to charity, his civic mindedness, and his recent donation to the City of San Antonio of a section of land near the old cement factory. It was to be used for a city park and a petting zoo, with accessibility for handicapped children.
Yep, he was a veritable Saint Nick all right.
The crunch of gravel beneath my feet sounded like boulders dropping from the sky, thudding against an asphalt mountain road. I walked slower, hoping to mitigate some of the sound, but it didn't make any difference. Maybe I should just sprint across the courtyard. A little hard to do with the box in my hands.
I heard an airliner overhead and tilted my head back. I couldn't see it, but it was there, probably climbing, coming out of San Antonio International Airport. The breeze whistled around the castle turrets at the top, slapping the pennants there like sheets on a clothesline.
One of the massive entry doors opened and a small figure raced over the drawbridge, heading directly for me.
“Did you bring him? Did you? Oh, Torrance, I’ve been waiting ever so long."
I looked beyond Antonia to where Marcie stood in the doorway.
“Let me talk to your mother, first," I said.
“Oh, Torrance, you don't need to. We talked about him morning. I've named him Jack. Because he's a Jack Russell, you see.”
I shouldn't have been surprised. With all of Antonia’s talents, of course she’d seen me bringing the puppy to her. Unless, of course, she was the one who’d given me the idea in the
first place. I wouldn’t have been surprised about that, either.
But she’d saved my life two weeks ago, so I was inclined to forgive her a lot.
She stood there in the bright light of a perfect autumn Texas day, her eyes sparkling as she looked up at me.
In all honestly, I hadn’t been around many five — almost six — year olds, but I knew Antonia was well above her age range in comprehension and conversation. I wondered, however, if she ever acted like a child. I’d never seen her play. Or appear with a stain on her clothing. She’d never had a grape juice mouth or a candy green tongue. Now she was wearing a pale yellow dress with embroidered daisies, her hair flowing down her back and ending at her waist.
She’d always been as polite as she was perfect, and when I said that to Marcie once, she laughed.
"Not perfect, Torrance. She can be stubborn with a mind of her own. She’s almost perfect, however.”
I didn't give Antonia the puppy. I meant when I said. I needed to talk to Marcie first.
Jack, however, was peering over the edge of the box, staring down at his potential new owner with joy in his eyes. I’d treated the puppy for Parvo a few weeks ago. Now healthy, he was ready to go to a new home. I’d sincerely considered incorporating him into my Brood, but three dogs were enough.
I reached Marcie, still holding the box. Jack didn't look away from Antonia who walked beside me. It was love at first sight.
"I'm about to break my rule," I said. “I advise all of my clients not to do this. Pets aren't really good presents. You should take time to consider the person and the animal and try to make a good match.”
Marcie was dressed in jeans with a faded blue shirt rolled up at the elbows. She stood there with her arms folded in front of her, a faint smile gracing her face.
"But?"
"I don't remember seeing a dog at the castle," I said.
“We have dozens and dozens of labs and Dobermans," Marcie said.
