Alpha Bear (6 page)

“You saw this?” Urse was shocked. Nonna had
occasional bouts of clairvoyance. It wasn’t her greatest gift, but
when the visions came, they were strong and eerily accurate.

“
Si.
You cannot defeat the leviathan
yourselves. Neither you nor your sister. But you can protect those
innocent people on the land…and some of those in the sea. Your
spells will help the land dwellers, but your sister must seek a way
to assist the sea creatures. All creatures who serve the Light
suffer when the leviathan is near.” Nonna paused, and Urse met
John’s gaze. She was glad he looked as stunned as she felt. “Three
will come to fight the leviathan. They will each play their role,
but it will be the unexpected that finally banishes the creature
from our realm again. Watch for them. They will come when the time
is right, and not before.”

“Nonna. Did you just give him a prophecy?”
Urse could hardly believe it. She knew for a fact that her
grandmother didn’t just hand out prophecies lightly. Usually, it
involved all sorts of rigmarole—probably because it didn’t happen
often.

“I did,” her grandmother confirmed. “And you
can just lift your jaw up off the floor, Ursula. Things have
changed in the world. Dark times are coming. We must all band
together to help one another at such times. This feuding and
distrust between our races must end, or else we’re all doomed.”

Urse gulped. “Doomed?”

Now, she knew her granny had always had a bit
of a dramatic flair, but this was going above and beyond. Never
before had she said anything so dire.

“
Si,
figlia mia
, doomed. It is
no less than the truth.”

“Wow.” Urse slumped where she was sitting.
She’d never heard anything like that from her grandmother before.
This was bad. Really bad.

“
Si.
Now you understand.” Her
grandmother paused before continuing to speak in her
heavily-accented English. “Now listen well. You will need all your
skill and strength to do what must be done. And you must do it
soon. Prepare tonight for the breaking dawn ceremony of Light. You
must do this tomorrow. Continue the day after, at noon, and the
following day at sunset. You will be at your strongest when the
Light shines upon you. Unfortunately, it is winter now, and the
days are short, but there is still hope, for the moon will be at
its fullest in four days’ time. You must conclude your part in
protecting the town with a full moon ceremony on that last night.
It would be best if you can get some of those brave bears to watch
over you while you work, and perhaps lend some of their strength,
if they are willing, to enhance your wards.”

“Oh, I don’t think it’ll be any problem to
get at least one of them to watch my back. The mayor has already
informed me that he’s not willing to let me do magic without his
supervision.” Urse was still annoyed by the mayor’s insistence.

“
Si.
That is good. You will need the
Alpha bear behind you if this is going to work. He will stand for
all his people during the daytime ceremonies, but at night, it
would be best to have a small gathering in a sacred place, as close
to the beach as you dare. I saw…” Nonna trailed off,
uncharacteristically uncertain. “There was a circle of stones. Not
big standing stones, but something that looked more natural, but
wasn’t. A sacred circle, hidden in plain sight. On a rocky point
where sea spray can reach, but not consume—at least not normally.
You must be careful. It is a dangerous place that calls to good and
evil alike. You can use this power for good. The evil thing will
seek its power to devour it. It will attack, but you must stand
strong. You
all
must stand strong. Or you all fail.”

“Fail?” Urse croaked. Failure in magical
circles often equaled death.

“We will not fail, ma’am. Not with my town on
the line. Not with my people holding the line. You should know that
most of us are retired soldiers,” John revealed, surprising Urse.
“We never run from a fight.”

“Seems I wasn’t the only one keeping
secrets,” Urse muttered. “Do you know the place Nonna is talking
about?”

John looked grim as he nodded. “I know it.
It’s not an easy hike, and it’ll be dangerous at night.”

“But you must go there,” Nonna said
stridently through the phone. “It is the only way to fully protect
your land-based shifters from the leviathan. It is the only place
that can channel enough power. Ursula, make him understand. Teach
him about our ways, if you must, to convince him.”

John’s eyebrows rose, right along with
Urse’s. Never had her Nonna instructed her to divulge family
secrets to a non-mage before. This was serious.

“Are you sure?” Urse double-checked.

“Positive. It is the only way,” her
grandmother said at once.

“Well, if you say so,” Urse agreed somewhat
reluctantly. This was big. Bigger than she’d even imagined.

“And get Amelia to call me tomorrow morning.
I have instructions for her as well, though it is not yet time for
her to participate,” Nonna ordered quickly. “Now, you have
preparations to make. I send all my love to you, Ursula, and to
you, Johnny. If all goes well, we will meet one day, and I will see
your handsome face in person.”

John’s lips quirked up in a crooked smile.
“Yes, ma’am. I look forward to it. Thank you for your help.”

“All of us who serve the Light must help each
other now. I will pray for you,
figlio mio
, and all of the
people you protect and serve.”

Urse was surprised by her grandmother’s warm
tone for the man who had so easily gotten under Urse’s skin with
his attitude about magic—or more specifically, his distrust of her
now that he knew she was a
strega
.

“
Ciao, Nonna. Ti voglio molto bene.
I’ll call you tomorrow and let you know how the dawn ceremony
goes.”

“See that you do,” Nonna said with mock
sternness.

She gave Urse a few more words of caution and
encouragement before she let the call end with a long-distance
blessing that called on the Mother of All and a few of her favorite
saints thrown in for good measure. Nonna had a strange way of
looking at the two religions the
strega
had blended
together, but she made it work. Somehow.

Silence fell in the front office of town hall
for a moment after the call ended. Urse had punched the button to
end the call, then sat back, nonplussed. So much had happened in
such a short time. When she’d risen this morning, she hadn’t
expected all this excitement. And now she had a mission—and a heck
of a lot of magic to do over the next four days.

She looked up to find John staring at her.
She did her best not to fidget under his warm chocolate gaze,
remembering belatedly that she still wasn’t wearing any makeup and
she was probably a mess from both the dust in the store and her
headlong flight across the sand.

“Sounds like we’ve got our work cut out for
us. Tell me what you need from me, Ms. Ricoletti, and I’ll see that
you have it. Within reason, of course.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t be asking you to find
eye of newt or anything like that,” she quipped, hopping down from
her perch on the desk. “Though I can’t vouch for my sister on that
score.” She tested out her knees to find that they were much more
stable. Talking to Nonna had helped calm the last of her reaction
high. Nonna had given her a plan…and marching orders. There was
work to do. “Right now, I have to get back home. There are a few
things I need to gather and prepare before dawn tomorrow. You’ll
need to do a few things too.”

“Like what?” he asked, a bit of wariness
entering his gaze.

“Nothing too hard, mayor. First, you’ll need
to take a shower before you join me. Just water. No soap. No
fragrances or anything fancy. Just the water and you, to wash you
clean of the night and prepare your spirit for the work at hand.
Then you have to dress in natural fibers. You own jeans, right?
Cotton? And maybe a cotton shirt or wool pullover? Natural colors
are best, if you can manage that. Browns, greens, black, white. You
get the idea. Also, don’t eat before you meet up with me. The
fasting period of the night will break with the dawn, and after I
cast the wards, we can have breakfast. Not before. No casting on a
full stomach for me, or for those observing. We’ll need a lantern
or other source of open flame. I have a little brazier we can use,
but we might need a windbreak depending on where we set up and
weather conditions.”

John frowned. This sounded a lot more
complicated than he’d thought it would be.

“Where do you want to start? Geographically,”
he clarified when she just blinked at him.

“Oh. Yeah. I think we should start at the
apex of the cove. Right across the street from the bakery. That’s
pretty much the center of town, right?” John nodded. “Where is the
circle of stones Nonna mentioned?”

John stepped over to the wall, where an
artist’s rendering of the cove hung. Some of Tom’s finest work,
John thought, and handy for this discussion.

“The stone circle is at the point,” he said,
directing her to the southern point where the ocean was separated
from the cove by a small triangle of land that jutted out into the
sea. The northern point was a little less pronounced, but shaped
somewhat the same. Between the two points was the mouth of the bay
that formed Grizzly Cove.

“Hmm.” Ursula walked over to stand next to
him, examining the painting. “That changes things a bit. We have
four days and four ceremonies. We should spread them out in the
most sensible pattern. I wanted to start here in town, but since
we’ll be ending at the southern point, we’ll have to readjust a
bit.” She seemed to ponder the problem a moment before nodding.
“Okay. This is what we’ll do. We’ll start here.” She pointed to the
northern edge of the town. “I’ll be facing east as the sun rises,
but turn west when it shines over my shoulders. The first part of
the ceremony will be the most dangerous. We need to start as close
to dawn as we dare, without missing the critical moment.”

“Can we start away from the beach and walk
closer after the sun rises?” John asked, considering the tactical
aspects of what she planned to do. She looked at him with what
seemed like surprise before nodding slowly.

“That might possibly work, if I cast my
circle on the large side. It would protect more of the town as I
work too. I’ll need a lot of salt. Can you rally your troops and
get them to donate all their salt to the cause? Sea salt is better,
but I’ll take any ol’ table salt too. The more, the better.”

“How about rock salt? We have a stock of that
to de-ice the roads.”

“That could work. We’ll need to start early
so I can cast a big enough circle, and we could probably use a few
guards to make sure nobody messes with it. Just in town though. I
don’t want anybody on the beach, in the danger zone.”

“I’ll get Brody and Zak and a few of the
others,” John promised, already thinking ahead, planning the
mission. It was one of the strangest ops he’d ever planned, that
was for sure, but it might just be one of the most important—if it
would help keep his people safe.

They kept working on the plan for about an
hour. Eventually, Brody came back, and John pulled him in to help
keep track of what they would need, laying out the problem in
impressively few words. John really knew how to boil things down to
the basics, and that was something Urse could respect.

He’d even sent someone over to the bookstore
to keep Mellie company, though Urse didn’t quite know how to feel
about that. Was the man sent to keep her safe or to keep the town
safe from the mad
strega
on the loose? Was the guy intended
to be a companion or a jailer?

Urse figured she wouldn’t find out ‘til she
got back to the store, and she couldn’t do anything about it at the
moment. John probably wouldn’t even consider starting to trust her
again until she proved herself in some way. Maybe after he saw her
in action tomorrow at dawn, doing her all—and giving all her
energy—to safeguard the town and its people. Maybe that would help
win back his regard.

She found it mattered. A lot. And that was
weird. It had been a long time since a man’s opinion of her had
mattered quite this much to Urse. Not since Tony Albernoni had
broken her heart in high school when she’d started acting weird
because her power had been coming to life and she hadn’t known how
to handle it back then.

Since then, in fact, she’d steered mostly
clear of human men. There was the occasional passing warlock, but
those guys weren’t really interested in long-term commitments with
someone of her level of power. Her bloodlines were too diluted with
the shifter blood—even as far back as it went—to interest any of
the really powerful mages.

When it came down to it, the magical
community was filled with snobs. Every last one of them.

Only among the
strega
did she and
Mellie fit in. A sisterhood that traced its roots back to Italy and
a small group of women who kept the magic alive in their families
and their descendants. They had welcomed her, regardless of the
shifter blood that others said
tainted
their line. Among
strega
, the Ricoletti name was well respected for its past
deeds and unwavering service to the Light.

That seemed to count among shifters as well,
which Urse liked. They weren’t snobs. At least not that she’d seen
since moving here. They were good, honest, sometimes irreverent
people who seemed to judge people on their actions.

Which was why she had a lot to prove to John
tomorrow morning. She’d hidden the truth from him. She didn’t think
it qualified as an outright lie, but it was something that
definitely stood between them now. And more and more, she realized
she didn’t like the distance between herself and the hunky
mayor.