Page 41 of To Kill a Badger (The Honey Badgers Chronicles #6)

“W hat do you think you’re doing?” Nelle quietly demanded once she’d stepped onto the sidewalk in front of Charlie’s rental house and faced the She-badger she was beginning to truly dislike.

“What am I doing? I’m trying to have a discussion with Charlie.”

“That’s what I thought, and that’s unacceptable.”

“Unacceptable? Who are you? My mother?”

“I can already tell that you are a problem-causer, and I’m not going to let that happen.”

“Ugggghh! What did I do now?” Rutowski asked, sounding like a disgruntled teen.

And, yet, there was something about the woman that was so elegant; so solid and comfortable in who and what she was.

From her expensive haircut that perfectly framed her face because she’d allowed her hair to naturally go gray and silver, to the designer jeans covering her ass.

Nelle had a pair of the same ones from the designer herself, and one could only purchase them in Milan.

Still . . . there was a part of this elegant, married mother of four, who ran a mega-successful global art business, that was still a sixteen-year-old girl.

A whiny, annoying sixteen-year-old girl.

“Do you know what my job is?” Nelle asked Rutowski, glancing over as Keane came to stand by her side. She was a little surprised he’d followed her.

“I don’t know,” Rutowski replied, as if she had just been caught behind the high school locker rooms smoking cigarettes. “Something with a ball and your friends?”

“No. My job is to keep the world in balance. Not just my world, but the entire world. And do you know how I do that?”

“With obvious delusion? Because I don’t think you have anything to do with keeping—”

“By managing Charlie, Max, and Stevie.”

“How did that become your job?”

“From my family’s earliest ancestors, we have been maintaining balance in the world.”

“Are you talking about that emperor’s concubine? Because I don’t think she really had anything to do with—”

“And because that’s also my job—”

“Being a concubine?”

“—I take this very seriously.”

“I . . . I’m sorry. What’s your point exactly?”

“My point, Ms. Rutowski, is that you don’t come to Charlie with whatever crazy bullshit plan you’ve come up with while high off your ass.”

“Who says I’m high?”

“I can smell the weed leaking from your pores.”

“Grade-A weed, thank you very much.”

Nelle leaned in a bit, took a sniff. “With vodka infused with... ?” She sniffed again. “Barba amarilla venom?”

“We didn’t start drinking that until after I got my brilliant idea.”

“See?” Nelle straightened; circled her forefinger at Rutowski. “This is what I’m talking about. This insanity is unacceptable. You can’t go to Charlie with half-baked—”

“Baked,” she laughed.

“—ideas and think that you won’t cause problems. You will cause problems, and I can’t have that.”

“So . . . what does that mean to me ? Because it’s a great idea! I promise!”

Nelle didn’t want to do this. She didn’t want to have this conversation.

This . . . person was irritating. More irritating than Nelle’s mother, and that was saying something, because her mother drove her insane.

But her mother, at least, was an adult! A full-fledged, smart adult. Not a teen in an old She-badger’s body!

But she knew if she didn’t step in now . . .

“Fine. Tell me your idea.”

“Are you suggesting that you are going to vet my idea?”

“I’m not suggesting anything. That’s exactly what I’m doing.”

“I don’t think—”

“It’s either me now or Max later. And I can assure you that you do not want to deal with Max.”

“I wouldn’t, no.” She smiled. “But Ox would. She hates that kid.”

“Do you want my help or not?”

Another dramatic eye roll. “Fine,” she said on a long sigh. “So what I’m thinking—”

“Is my uncle . . . hitting on my mom?”

Both startled out of their conversation, Nelle and Rutowski looked over at Keane. He was turned away from them, his gaze leveled to the other side of the street, where one of his uncles and his mother were quietly talking.

“Yes,” Rutowski said, now on her tiptoes to see over Nelle’s head. “I believe he is hitting on your mom. I recognize those old-school moves,” she said to Nelle.

“It’s his brother’s widow!” Keane snarled. “And he’s married! My aunt just took off to pick up her grandkids from day camp an hour ago!”

“Based on the body language alone, kid, I don’t think your uncle cares where his wife is at the moment.”

Keane growled, taking a dangerous step forward, before Nelle grabbed his arm and held him in place.

“We don’t have time for any of that,” she said to the cat, hoping he didn’t get excessively angry. She could never hold him back if he released the true resentment he had toward his father’s family.

“I wouldn’t worry, kitty,” Rutowski told Keane with a pat on his shoulder. “From what your father told me about your mother, I’m sure that She-cat knows exactly how to handle her in-laws.” She smiled at Nelle, but it slowly faded. “Wait . . . what were we talking about?”

“Dear God.”

The female really didn’t remember. It had been five seconds, and she’d already forgotten! Was this caused by old age or Russian vodka infused with goddamn snake venom?

“Oh!” Rutowski snapped her fingers, her smile returning. “I remember now. My great idea.”

“Fine,” Nelle sighed. “Tell me your ‘great idea.’ ”

“I don’t think the air quotes were necessary, but this is too important to debate that point at the moment.” Raising her hands, she announced, “We combine forces against the de Medicis.”

Nelle gazed at the woman and waited for more. But when she kept smiling and saying nothing else . . .

“That’s it? That’s your great idea?”

“It’s a wonderful idea.”

“Lady, we’ve already combined forces with each other. The drugged-out old crones and the young, gorgeous She-badgers working together! It’s like a romantic comedy.”

“I’m not talking about us ,” she said with a tone that suggested Nelle was the stupid one.

“Then what are you talking about?”

“Them.”

“Do you understand that at this point, I simply want to beat you to death? Because you’re being quite vague.”

“I am?”

“Yes.”

She pressed her fingertips to her temples. “I should have had more coffee. You know, rather than the funnel-web spiders.”

“That is not the hair of the dog that bit you, if that’s what you were going for,” she told Rutowski. “You should have had orange juice infused with cottonmouth instead. Wakes you up, but doesn’t . . . you know . . .”

“Kill you?”

“Yes.”

“I think I remember that.” She moved her hands from her temples and rubbed her eyes. “Anyway, what I’m talking about is uniting all honey badger families to fight the de Medicis.”

Nelle stared at Rutowski a brief second before she couldn’t help herself—she burst out laughing.

“Are you fucking insane?”

* * *

Keane was about to shake Nelle off and go beat his uncle until he was nothing but a stain on the sidewalk when her loud, nearly hysterical laughter caught his attention.

“What?” Rutowski demanded. “What’s so funny? That is a great idea.”

“What that is is an idea that will never happen. There is no uniting all the badger families. That’s not humanly possible.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Why can’t you unite them?” Keane asked, actually curious. He figured he should know at least a little more about this species since his baby sister was half-badger, though he often pretended she wasn’t.

“We’re just not set up that way,” Nelle explained to him. “We usually work with full-humans or one or two other badger families. For instance, my parents often help Streep’s parents with their Vatican acquisitions.”

“You mean the Catholic stuff they steal?”

“You say tomato. I say to—”

“I really think this could work,” Rutowski cut in.

“It hasn’t worked for millennia,” Nelle replied. “Why would it magically work now?”

“Because now we have a badger-specific threat. The de Medicis are trying to decimate our entire population.”

“So did Alexander the Great. They didn’t join forces then.”

“We also didn’t have planes. Or the Internet. Times are different. Circumstances are different. And without the other organizations helping us—”

“You need to let that go.”

“How do I let that go? I mean, I understand Katzenhaus not helping. Or BPC. But The Group? They were created to help all shifters. Are we not shifters? If you cut us, do we not bleed? If you punch us, do we not cry out? If you shoot us in the head—”

“Do we not get up and walk away with little to no brain damage?”

“True. But we’re not immortal. My great-great-grandmother eventually died.

She was one hundred and sixteen at the time, and one of her aunts is continuing to go strong in Poland, but still .

. .” She waved her hands around. “It doesn’t matter.

We don’t need The Group. We don’t need the cats or BPC . . .”

Rutowski’s words faded away, and she suddenly looked off into . . . nothing. She stood like that for nearly a minute, just staring at nothing. Finally, when it seemed Nelle couldn’t stand it anymore, she waved her hand in front of the female’s face.

“Hello?” she said. “Anyone still in there? Do I need to get you that orange juice infused with cottonmouth? I put some in Mads’s wine-cellar fridge.”

“I hope that’s clearly marked,” Keane told her, horrified.

“It is. Calm down.” The She-badger was still staring off, so Nelle clapped her hands together. “Rutowski! Hel- lo !”

She blinked; came back to the moment. “Yes. Right. I’m here.”

“What just happened?”

“Nothing.”

Nelle’s eyes narrowed. “Really? Because it seems as if—”

“High. Still high. I’m still high. That’s all.” She shook her head. “Right. Okay. So you’ll handle it,” Rutowski told Nelle.

“I’ll handle what?”

“Getting the agreement of the most important families.”

“Oh, I see,” Nelle said, folding her arms in front of her chest. Keane knew that smug look on her face. He’d seen it often. The woman could be quite smug when she wanted to be. “You want me to corral my family into this ridiculous idea of yours, is that it?”