by Angie Fox
Contents
Preface
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Also by Angie Fox
About the Author
Praise for The Transylvania Twist
5 Stars! “This second MASH book is even better than the first!”
5 Stars! “It has all the right touches—love, laughter, suspense, action and surprise twists!”
5 Stars! “Finished this in one night!”
5 Stars! “The cast of characters is amazing, the world Petra lives in is fascinating. You cannot read this book fast enough to learn what happens next.”
5 Stars! “Love Love Love! What else can I say?”
The Transylvania Twist
Angie Fox
A shaky truce. A pregnant Medusa. And a dedicated doctor who keeps legends alive.
Even during a truce, I have my hands full as a MASH surgeon to an army of warring gods—especially when Medusa herself turns up pregnant. I frankly have no idea what to expect when a Gorgon’s expecting, but I have an even bigger problem when my presumed-dead former-fiancé sneaks into my tent with enough emotional baggage to fill a tank.
He’s been fighting for the other side, which technically makes him my enemy, and now he needs me and the power I’ve kept secret for so long: I can see the dead. It’s a blessing and a curse. Literally. Because the gods will smite me in a second if they suspect.
But the other side is developing a terrible new weapon, and the only person who can stop the carnage was just murdered in a covert lab behind enemy lines. So I have no choice but to pull on my combat boots and go AWOL with my ex and a moody berserker to confront a ghost with a terrible secret.
Too bad uncovering the truth could make me enemy #1…
Warning: This book contains a Star Wars-obsessed werewolf, an adorable hellhound, demigods in peril, action, romance, and friends who put each other first—in a MASH camp where everybody knows your business.
Chapter One
Medusa, serpent goddess, executioner of men, scourge of Kisthene’s plain, stabbed a clawed finger in my direction. “Tell me the truth, human,” she hissed. “No more lies.”
I straightened my spine and fought the urge to rub my temples in a most unprofessional way.
Why did the gods have to be so dramatic?
Medusa coiled on the examination table in front of me, wearing a light blue open-backed gown. She stared at me, her eyes glowing red as her clawed hands shredded the white sanitary paper.
“I am outcast,” she said in a gravelly voice. Her rattlesnake’s tail swished, nearly taking out my freestanding EKG unit. “I am the damned,” she declared, face twisted with fury. I held on to my clipboard as the examination tent vibrated with her power. “I am the destroyer!”
I nodded. Some patients took longer than others to adjust, but it didn’t change the fact. “You’re also pregnant.”
“Impossible,” she spat, even though we both knew that wasn’t true.
I made a few notes in my chart while she threw her head back and let out a screech that shook the tent.
Ouch. I tried not to wince.
In my professional opinion, screaming often did help.
“Doctor,” she hissed, smoke curling from her nose. For a moment, she was unable to form the question. Her perfectly sculpted brows knit as she brushed a hand through the wild mane of snakes on her head. “How?”
I gave her my most reassuring smile. “The old-fashioned way, I assume.”
She should know. The Gorgon was nearly three thousand years old. And from what I’d seen of the ancient Greeks, they certainly knew how to party.
She drew her hands slowly, almost reverently, down her green-scaled torso to the perfectly flat stomach under her examination gown. “I’m cursed,” she hissed. “I’m barren. My body is poison!”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself.” Sure, my fingers went a bit numb when I was checking her blood pressure, but all in all she was far less dangerous than the ancient Norse dragon in need of an enema this morning.
That had taken us two doctors, three orderlies, a set of ambulance drivers, and Jeffe the guard sphinx. Although to be frank, all Jeffe did was warn us not to set the motor pool on fire.
I whipped out form 3871-K, which was actually a little slide wheel designed to help me calculate the Gorgon pregnancy cycle. “I’d estimate you’re fifty-three days along, which is seven weeks and three days pregnant. Your gestation time is slightly shorter than the average human, longer than the average goddess.” I slipped the chart back into the pocket of my white coat. “Still, I don’t think we need to see you again until the end of your first trimester.”
I opened a drawer in the medical cart next to the examination table where we kept basics, including samples of prenatal vitamins. “Because you’re over thirty-five years old,” I said, handing her a pack, “we’ll want to do an ultrasound at your next appointment, along with a few other routine tests.”
The pale skin on her neck and arms flushed as she took it all in. She growled low. “My parents are going to kill me.”
Well, I couldn’t offer her any advice on ancient marine deities. Besides, the grin tickling at the sides of her mouth told me more than I needed to know. Once she recovered from the surprise, she’d be tickled pink. Or at least a light green.
“It’s just that”—her gaze wandered as she nibbled on a talon—“I haven’t talked to my mother since I turned her lover to stone.”
“About that,” I said, setting her chart on top of the medical cart. “You’re going to want to try to control your temper. Stress isn’t good for the baby.”
Medusa snarled at me, then caught herself. “I’ll try,” she muttered.
“Do,” I told her.
Ever since the cease-fire in the war of the gods, we’d converted our MASH unit into one of the premier (and only) supernatural clinics in the area. That was saying something, considering we were located in Limbo, just north of a major hell vent.
We were known for taking in all patients regardless of their origins or ability to pay. Which was the way it should be. It was also why we got a few of the interesting cases.
“Go ahead and get dressed. I’ll see you in five weeks,” I told the Gorgon. “The nurse out front will set your appointment.”
I ducked out of the examination room and handed the chart to our charge nurse, Holly, who was one of the only full humans in our unit.
She tilted her head, flipping her blond ponytail to one side. She’d gone from red streaks in her hair to pink. I liked it. It softened her up.
“Rough one, Dr. Robichaud?” she asked.
“Nah, everything’s going to be fine,” I replied. “Even so, you’ll want to keep your eyes averted when our patient comes out,” I warned her. Just in case.
Flesh-t
o-stone injuries were painful and time consuming to treat. We needed Holly on her feet.
I followed her to the front, where she had her desk.
We’d converted the front half of the surgery recovery tent into a makeshift clinic, with an intake area and curtained rooms—eight on each side. At the front sat the nurses’ station, which was basically a red metal desk with a portable file cabinet behind it.
“It’s quiet around here,” Holly said, slipping behind the desk and starting a new file for Medusa.
“I like quiet. Quiet is good.”
Peace had broken out exactly three weeks, one day, and six hours ago. It was an uneasy truce. We all knew it wouldn’t last. Still, at the MASH 3063rd , we were going to take what we could get.
The younger gods had revolted against the older gods right around the time Troy had fallen. Before this month, neither side had even called for so much as a cease-fire in the last seven hundred years.
A lot of them didn’t want peace now, but my hot Greek boyfriend and I had fulfilled a prophecy and forced their hand.
Thinking about that—and him—made me smile.
Holly had refilled her M&M jar, the foul temptress. I stole a handful.
The prophecies came in sets of three, and shockingly enough, they were about a healer who could see the dead. Me. They gave nebulous warnings about disasters and opportunities, sending me scrambling as fate came crashing down. If I passed the test, we were spared. For a while. If I failed, well, let’s just say it hadn’t happened. Yet.
To make things worse, my involvement had to be kept secret from everyone, including my closest friends and colleagues. The gods had outlawed my particular gift. Exposing myself would mean a slow, painful death. If I was lucky. More likely, I would be tortured eternally by something creative and mythical, like being tied to a rock while a python devoured my small intestine or set on fire upside down while spiders nested under my toenails.
Still, I was glad I’d taken the latest risk and bought us a little peace. At the moment, patients were living instead of dying.
If they survived their injuries, immortals healed fast. The last of our soldiers in recovery had gone back to their units a week after the cease-fire began.
So we’d adapted. We’d changed. Now we were treating real problems instead of endless battle injuries. We were making our patients’ lives better. As far as I was concerned, that was the way things were supposed to work.
Of course, there was no telling when the gods would start up again, or who would fire first. I leaned against the edge of the desk, finishing off my M&M’s.
Holly eyed me, as if she knew what I was thinking. “The colonel has us stocking up on everything.”
“Good.” We’d kept our heads on our shoulders this long by being prepared, fast, and more than a little lucky.
Unfortunately, luck can only get you so far.
Once Medusa had made her way out, with her vitamins and all of her questions answered, I signed out of the clinic. Technically, I’d been coming off duty when I’d grabbed her chart. Still, it seemed like the Gorgon had needed a friendly female ear. Or at the very least, someone who wasn’t squeamish around snakes.
I banged out the door and into the heart of the MASH 3063rd. I’d gotten into medicine to make a difference, to treat the creatures that others couldn’t—or wouldn’t.
Then representatives from the New God Army had shown up at my door. I’d been drafted, forced to leave my practice in New Orleans, for this.
It was hard to believe sometimes that it had been only seven years ago. Most days, it seemed like a lifetime.
The suns set low over the Limbo landscape, throwing off brilliant oranges and purples. A wide desert stretched beyond our MASH unit.
Underfoot, and as far as the eye could see, rock littered the barren red landscape.
It was how I’d pictured Mars as a kid.
The entire place was flat save for the cemetery. We had a hard time digging into the Limbo rock, so it was more efficient to make a dirt hill for the bodies.
“Hold up!” I heard from two buildings down. Shirley was stubbing out a cigarette in front of Colonel Kosta’s office. She worked as the commander’s private secretary. “Have you heard?” she asked, red hair sticking every which way out of her bun as she jogged toward me.
“What? That the USO is sending us a Sycion lyre quartet?” I’d heard. “I wish the gods would appoint somebody new to the entertainment committee.” I’d settle for anybody whose idea of a good time went beyond lutes, fire eating, and ancient plays. My life was already a Greek tragedy.
“No.” She stopped in front of me, her eyes swimming with sympathy. “Galen just got called back.”
Cold apprehension seized me. I knew this was coming someday, but that didn’t stop my stomach from turning to lead. Galen of Delphi was the commander of the Green Hawk Special Forces team and, well, let’s just say we’d been enjoying the break in the fighting a little more than most. He was on leave from his unit, due to a paperwork mistake that I’d hoped it would take the army a long, long time to rectify.
My throat felt tight. “Where is he?”
She glanced toward the shadows past the cemetery. “I think he went out to Father McArio’s.”
Father McArio was our unit chaplain. “Okay, thanks.” I headed straight across the common area. Father lived past the graveyard and through the junk depot, in a little hutch on the very outskirts of camp. He claimed to enjoy the solitude. I suspected he was secretly ministering to the lost souls of Limbo.
I scrambled up the rise toward the cemetery, almost thankful for the energy burn. My mind raced. It was too soon to lose Galen. We’d barely dated. I didn’t know where this was going.
Wooden grave markers of all shapes and sizes stood at attention. These were the doctors and the nurses, the mechanics and the clerks. People like me, who would never make it out of Limbo. Not unless the war ended for good.
“Petra,” Galen called, emerging from behind a tangle of burned-out Jeeps. He strode toward me, and I took off in a run.
He wore black combat fatigues with a Ken rune etched in red on his left shoulder. It was the symbol of flame, action, and heroism, and the man had it all in spades.
“I just heard,” I said, dodging graves, rushing into his arms. He held me tight and squeezed. God, I was going to miss him. I closed my eyes. “When do you leave?”
“In an hour.”
My eyes flew open. “What?”
That was ridiculous. He had to pack, prepare. We had to say goodbye.
He stood in front of me, all brute force and power. He was built for combat, but he couldn’t fight this. “You know the army.”
Did I ever. I understood it the moment I’d sat in my little paranormal clinic in New Orleans and opened the New God Army draft notice.
My dad couldn’t even see me off as they led me out into the depths of the bayou to a portal that hung like a misty cloud amid a tangle of cypress trees. Before I could say bad idea, I was in the flat red wastelands of Limbo.
Still, Galen should have been different. He was with an elite unit that took on the most important, and deadly, missions. In the past, he’d been given special consideration. He was one of them—the immortals—until a risk he took for me drew the ire of the gods.
They’d stripped him of his immortality. Now the demigod was as good as human, and he was leaving to fight immortals.
I might never see him again.
“It’s too soon,” I said, running my hands down his uniform. I wished there was something I could do to stop this, to buy more time.
He lowered his mouth to mine for a sweet, soulful kiss that was like coming home. I needed this. I needed more time.
He was set up in the VIP tent, which was a slice of heaven. We’d spent most of my off-hours laughing and talking and feeding each other fruit from the incredible daily ration they gave him. He had to keep up his strength, after all.
He drew a breath. “Gods, you’re b
eautiful.” He leaned his forehead against mine. “I could stay here for eternity and still never get enough of you.”
“I like the staying-for-eternity part.”
“I know.”
We rested for a moment. There were no right words. Nothing either of us could say would make this better.
He drew me close and stared out over the darkening cemetery.
I traced my fingers along his bicep, a few inches below his unit patch. There was a scar there, crisscrossing over to his chest. I couldn’t see it, but I knew it was there. I knew every inch of him. “It’s going to be okay,” I said.
“No, it’s not,” he said into my hair. His posture was stiff. As he pulled back, his face was a mask of pain and regret. “Petra.” The agony was clear in his voice. “We can’t see each other anymore.”
For a split second, I didn’t understand what he said. “What?” He hesitated for a moment, and I knew. I knew. My ears buzzed and my brain threatened to explode. “You’re breaking up with me?”
He winced as if I’d slapped him. “I don’t want to.” He took me by the shoulders, as if he could somehow will me to understand. “I received my orders this morning. What I’m going to do—” He stopped and shook his head. “What I must do could expose you and your secret. I’m not going to take that chance.”
Expose me? “What’s going on?”
He stiffened and dropped his hands. “It’s classified.”