Dakota Cassidy - The Accidental Werewolf 2 - Something About Harry

Harry, at war with the clothing peeling from his body, frowned. “Huh?”

“Dude, your head spun around on your flippin’ neck? Truth?”

“Yes!” he all but roared as he lost the battle with his trousers and they split apart, falling away from his lower body, leaving small clumps of thread.

There was excitement in Nina’s response—he smelled the emotion as sure as he smelled someone’s AKC registered Rhodesian Ridgeback but two miles away. On a farm. Yes. It definitely lived on a farm.

“Jesus Christ and Linda Blair. No fucking way. Marty can’t do that shit. I’m all atwitter, Harry. It’s like Dracula’s birthday and a Stephanie Meyer’s hootenanny all at the same time.”

“To have piqued your interest leaves me humbled and awed, Crypt Keeper. So does this mean you’ll come help now?” Hell. He hoped so. If someone didn’t help him soon, there’d be no sticky-hair-remover-device in the universe big enough to clean up the pile of fur he was leaving in his wake.

“Only because it sounds like you got some new whacked ability Marty doesn’t, and it means I can poke the shit out of her with it. But that’s the only reason, Harry. Otherwise, I’d just call Wanda to come brush out your hairy ass and throw you a sirloin. So where are you, my brotha?”

When the crunch of bone began and his fingers sprouted long, black claws, things began to get fuzzy. Heh. Fuzzy. What an ironic play on words. “Like my location?”

Nina’s response was full of exasperation. “Duh, dude. Somebody has to come out and investigate this shit. But I’m gonna remind your ass one last time, so don’t say I didn’t warn you, if you’re fucking with me—even though my vampy senses lean toward not so much—I’ll kill you from a hundred paces. Like boom, baby.”

The screech of metal ripped through the large room when Harry fell forward on his knees, knocking into the heavy table and toppling it. His eyes scanned the room with a hazy red film covering them, gripping the phone to his ear like a lifeline.

Nina’s urgent tone jolted him from the wonder of his uncanny vision. “Dude! What the hell is going on? Give me your location!”

The last words he was able to mutter before his face did sort of split apart and he acquired a gen-u-ine muzzle were, “Pack! I’m at Pack Cosmetics!”

“Hoo boy,” Mara Flaherty heard her sister-in-law, Marty, mutter just as she jumped off the elevator. She was skimming her phone and probably the urgent tweets she’d received from Nina, who, according to Marty’s text to Mara, was manning the OOPS phones.

Mara skidded to a halt, stopping just short of her sister-in-law, scanning the halls to be sure Astrid, one of her closest friends at Pack, hadn’t followed her. When Marty had texted there was trouble in the lab, she’d said Mara should come alone.

She huffed a breath, peering down the maze of halls leading to Pack Cosmetic’s labs. “What’s with all the hush-hush? I was just down here an hour ago, and everything was fine. What’s wrong?”

Marty’s smooth, beautiful features scrunched up in a scowl. She gave a quick glance over her shoulder. “Are you alone? Or did Astrid and the rest of your pocket-protecting brigade tag along?”

Mara rolled her eyes at Marty’s reference to the small group of women, assorted lab techs and IT whizzes, she spent much of her time with at Pack. “Everyone’s gone home to complete the final piece of the puzzle in the jigsaw we jokingly call world domination.” She held up a hand. “Swear it. Now what’s up?”

“We have trouble, sunshine.”

Mara’s stomach clenched. She hated trouble—especially at Pack. She was always sure it was her fault—even when it had nothing to do with her department. “No. Please tell me it’s not Doreen from production again? I told her, if she didn’t quit speeding up the conveyor belts just to mess with the new employees, I’d put her in the filing room.”

“Nope, it’s not Doreen this time.” Marty held up her phone for Mara to see, the clang of her silver bracelets slapping together making Mara smile. Her sister-in-law and all her flashy bling made Mara happy. She was always dressed brightly, her hair was always perfect, and her clothes were to die for. But most of all, Marty’s fun personality had changed so much about their pack’s dynamics and rigid rules that there was hardly anyone in it who didn’t love her—or eventually fall in love with her.

No matter how bad a mood you were in, you could count on Marty to mother you. She was milk and cookies, a sympathetic ear, a soft vanilla-scented shoulder to cry on. She was home to Mara after four years of marriage to her brother Keegan.

Marty shoved the phone in her face. “Read.”

Noting Nina’s use of Twitter to convey her messages with Marty, Mara frowned. “Why does she tweet you instead of text? Aren’t you worried other people will see?”

Marty’s smile was sly. “Silly. Us solving a paranormal crisis right in front of all eighty-four of our followers makes for good marketing.”

Mara nodded with an encouraging grin. “Wow. Eighty-four now? Last count was at thirty-six. Go, team OOPS.”

Marty shoved the phone back at her. “So read.”

Mara focused on Marty’s phone. Her eyes went wide when she read Nina’s tweets.

OOPS@MissClairol#222 “911 at Pack. Go to lab. See Hairy Harry. Rawrrr!”

MissClairol#222@OOPS “WTF, Team Edward? Busy here. English, pls!”

OOPS@MissClairol#222 “ Situation in ur lab at Pack. Go downstairs. Meet u ASAP.”

MissClairol#222@OOPS “???”

OOPS@MissClairol#222 “ Harry Emmerson says he’s trapped in Pack lab. Called me on hotline w/crisis. Go!”

What did Harry have to do with an OOPS emergency? It didn’t matter. She couldn’t read any more of the tweets because of the subject matter.

Harry.

Mara bit the inside of her cheek as her eyes flew to the lab doors. Please, God. Not the Harry Emmerson.

Marty planted a hand on her hip and peered into the doors of the dark lab, her brow furrowed. “I checked with personnel on the way down, Mara. We do have a Harry Emmerson working at Pack. In the accounting department.”

Mara’s nod was stiff. Yep. They had a Harry Emmerson in accounting. Harry Ralph Emmerson, to be precise. Born on May 18, 1973. Thirty-eight, six feet one, probably about two hundred pounds of fit, yummy, goodness. Size eleven shoe, FYI.

Loved all things sci-fi, running, working out at the Pack gym while totally unaware he was making all the female employees fan themselves because of his geeky hotness, lover of numbers and order, with a brain like a human calculator.

Driver of a conservative, but still attractive Jetta Volkswagen—diesel, for anyone who cared to know, and no stranger to a tennis court. The object of more fantasies amongst the unattached women at Pack than he’d ever realize—or maybe even believe. Oh, and single, single, single.

Marty waved her hand in front of Mara’s eyes and snapped her fingers. “Do you know him?”

Know him . . . not in the biblical sense of her choice. No. As a valued, and one of the few human employees of Pack Cosmetics? Yes. “Sort of,” she offered, vague and noncommittal, her eyes straying to the tile floor. “I see him sometimes in the cafeteria.” And in my dreams. And in my daydreams. And in all sorts of places I shouldn’t.

Marty blew out a breath. “Well, apparently, Harry Emmerson’s had a little bit of an accident, and it happened here on Pack’s turf. So c’mon, let’s go see what the problem is.” She hooked her arm through Mara’s and tugged her toward the lab doors.

Mara frowned, pulling at her ID tag. An accident? She still wasn’t making the connection to how Harry’s Pack accident correlated to an OOPS accident . . .