by Erin Johnson
I froze. Had I been transported to a different reality? Who was this, and what had she done with Mrs. Kim?
I frowned. “Uh… what did happen, exactly?”
She studied me for a long moment, her expression hard and difficult to read. She shuffled in her sandals and half turned toward the beaded curtain, as though about to leave. “Ludolf’s little busybodies showed up, carved on door, wanted in!” She threw a hand up. “Ha! They think they own everybody.” Mrs. Kim narrowed her eyes at me. “I know what you’re up to. You think you’re so clever with your sound spell? Ha! I know you have animals up here, whole time.”
That was news to me. “Really? And you didn’t evict me?”
She paused a long time, her expression growing stony. Finally, she lifted her chin. “My father was a very good man. Ludolf took him from us. I have no love for the sea slug. I told Ludolf’s little errand boys that if they wanted in, they had to go through me.” She jerked her head to the side. “Gave your friend time to get everyone out through the fire escape.”
I pressed a hand to my chest, feeling as though I could breathe again. “Heidi got out? And the shifters, too?”
My landlady nodded. “She said to tell you they’re at Will’s now.” She shrugged. “Whatever that means.”
Tears welled up in my eyes, and I swiped them hastily away. “Thank you.” I let out a breath and with it all the tension and adrenaline coursing through me. I suddenly felt like I could collapse and take a long nap.
“Ha!” Wiley chuckled. “These guys ran away from a little old lady? We should probably just send Annie into the sewers after them.”
Mrs. Kim glared at him for a long time, then smirked, just the tiniest bit. “They didn’t run from a little old lady.” She drew herself up taller, though she still probably only came to my shoulder. “They ran from the dragon.”
Oh, shoot. I couldn’t wait to hear about this from Heidi.
“Sorry about your clothes, by the way.” Mrs. Kim shrugged. “Fire breath, couldn’t be helped.”
I curled my lip. “That was you?”
Mrs. Kim looked arch. “Yeah, well, you ask me, I did you a favor.” She looked me up and down. “About time you wore something not filled with holes.”
I nodded. Touché, Mrs. Kim, touché. Buying a new wardrobe was a small price to pay for my friend and all the shifters being safe.
Apparently, the prince felt the same way. He started forward, hands clasped, an earnest expression on his face. “Mrs. Kim, allow me to thank you on behalf of all—”
She whirled and shook a finger at him. “Don’t come at me with fancy words. You see this place? You see how we live? You want to thank me, how about you fix roads in the Darkmoon, huh? And you notice how all the buildings are crooked and that smell of sewer? How come it doesn’t smell like sewer on top tiers of island, huh?”
Prince Harry blinked at her, wide-eyed. “Um… I don’t know, actually.”
The dragon raised her brows. “You think I want to be a landlady of crabby apartments? No! But you think I can go get a loan like a nonshifter? Ha! And even if I could, you think anyone would sell building to me on upper tiers? Why you think you don’t know any shifters in the palace or in the government or in the fancy parties you go to, huh?”
Prince Harry blinked rapidly, then swallowed.
“Ooh!” Iggy burned bright. “She’s got you there!”
The prince looked to the princess, who pressed her lips together. “Uh—she makes some pretty good points.”
Rhonda the Seer munched on a piece of licorice she’d apparently found in one of my cupboards. “I like her!” She winked at Mrs. Kim, then pointed at my mostly empty cabinet. “By the way, there’s a cockroach in here.”
I nodded. “That’s Gary.”
The seer froze for a moment, then ripped off another hunk of licorice and shrugged.
A smile tugged at the corner of the prince’s mouth. “Mrs. Kim, you’ve got a lot of opinions.”
And shockingly, a lot of her points were pretty valid.
“How about, in a few days, you come up to the palace and tell us more about your concerns? I’d like to hear about ways the palace could make life better for our citizens here in the Darkmoon.”
Mrs. Kim gave the prince a long, hard look. Finally, she sniffed. “Yeah, okay. If you make it out of whatever scrape you’ve gotten yourself into with this one”—she threw a hand my way—“I’ll come share all my good ideas with you.” She pointed at me. “Remember—Darkmoonies stick together.”
I grinned and nodded, and Mrs. Kim pushed through the beaded curtain and tromped downstairs, the slap of her sandals on the steps growing fainter.
“And they never say die!” Princess Imogen grinned at all of us. “Come on—like the Goonies? Goonies always stick together, and they never say—” She waved it off as we all looked at her, dumbfounded. “Oh, forget it. I need some human friends—no one gets how funny I am.”
“Oh, Imogen,” her little flame said kindly. “I’m not sure it’d make any difference.”
“Uh!” She gaped at him, and Iggy devolved into cackles.
17
The Clinic
As eager as I was to see for myself that my friends were alright, I didn’t look forward to the lecture from Will that I was sure was waiting for me. As I led the royal group through dark alleys, I smirked. Then again, having the prince and princess with me might shock him into silence. I chuckled as I pictured my big bear of a friend. As if.
We soon reached Will’s back alley veterinarian clinic. I rapped on the metal door, and the eyepiece slid open. Heidi’s dark eyes blinked at me, smiling. “Jolene! You’d better get inside, the craziest thing hap—” Her gaze slid to the group waiting behind me. Her eyes grew wide, and she sucked in a gasp. “Sea snakes!”
Locks clicked and then the door was flung open, sickly fluorescent light spilling out onto the broken cobblestones. The waiting room inside teemed with animals, the trapped shifters from my apartment. Heidi, the sloth on her hip like a baby, peeked around the door and waved us inside. “Get in! Hurry!” Then she seemed to catch herself. “I mean—please hurry, your highnesses.” As we scurried past, she did her best to dip into a curtsy, wobbling and almost tipping over onto the sloth.
As soon as we’d all made it inside, Heidi slammed the door shut. Will, clad as always in his white lab coat, pushed through the swinging door to the exam room. I caught sight of the llama curled up on the elevated metal table, the monkey and the lemurs perched on the back counter.
“Jolene!” Will did not sound happy. His already enormous eyes bugged out of his head as he stalked toward me, shaking a long finger. “First you rob me of my assistant so she can babysit, then you put her life in danger with your escapades? Do you know what would’ve happened if your landlady hadn’t bought her time to skedaddle on out of there? Huh, Jolene? Heidi would be dead! Dead!”
He didn’t even pause long enough to suck in a breath before glancing around the room. “Oh my goddess!” He folded in half into the lowest bow I’d ever seen—and this from a man who had to duck through doorways. “Your highnesses, welcome.” He was still bent in half as his eyes slid to me. He bared his teeth and hissed, “Why didn’t you stop me?!”
I snorted. “Oh, now you yelling at me in front of the royals is my fault, too?”
He hissed, “Keep—your—voice—down.”
I smirked and leaned against the tall front desk that Heidi normally sat behind. A mouse scurried across it and nibbled at the corner of a piece of paper. I cleared my voice and spoke loud enough that everyone could hear. “Will! Am I embarrassing you in front of our special guests? Oof!” He stomped on my foot.
“These are my new boots!” I collapsed in pain onto Heidi’s stool. She, meanwhile, tried to shoo the peacock and the lion off the waiting room chairs while simultaneously curtsying and offering the prince and princess and their friends seats. I’d have chuckled—if my toes weren’t still throbbing so badly. I shot Will
a dark look, and he returned it.
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, for sand’s sake, stand up already.”
Will glared at me but straightened and tugged at the lapels of his lab coat. “Uh, welcome to my humble abode. Mi casa es su casa.” He winced but kept his strained smile on his face.
I gave him a double thumbs-up and mouthed, “Classy.”
The prince, princess, and their friends seemed stunned by the number and variety of animals—well, trapped shifters—that swamped the small clinic. They gaped at the packed room.
The princess spoke first. “Thank you. And I’m glad to see everyone’s safe.” She turned to Heidi, who immediately dipped into a curtsy—again.
Prince Harry lifted both palms and looked between Will and Heidi. “Thank you both for such… er… enthusiastic welcomes, but please, no more curtsying or bowing—we don’t need any special treatment.”
Iggy, the little flame, scoffed. “Speak for yourself.”
“Everyone’s alright, though?”
Heidi grinned and nodded. “Yeah, these dudes showed up at the door and tried to bang their way in, but your landlady turned into a dragon, and she breathed fire and everything!” She bounced the sloth on her hip and patted its back. “It was insane!” She grinned as I blew out a breath of relief. “We booked it down your fire escape and got here about an hour ago.”
I nodded, my stomach still tight at the thought of what might have happened if Mrs. Kim hadn’t saved the day. Never thought I’d be thinking those words about my scary landlady.
I told Will and Heidi how Madeline had gotten me into the palace and that I’d explained the whole situation to the royals.
The princess beamed. “We’re here to help! Hank and I can change into animals and Francis into a bat, of course.”
Will blinked at the princess, still apparently stunned to have royalty in his clinic. “Of course.”
Princess Imogen set Iggy’s lantern on the coffee table littered with old magazines. She settled into a hard chair beside the kangaroo. They looked at each other, then the princess turned back to Will and Heidi.
“We’re going to sneak down into Ludolf’s lair with Jolene—in disguise.” Her eyes shone—she was looking forward to this. “Then we’re going to help her steal the files for all these shifters.” She gestured at the flapping, hopping, and napping animals around the room.
Prince Harry nodded, his eyes darting to the baby alligator at his feet. “Mm-hmm… and then the palace healers should be able to brew up cures, once we know what ingredients originally went into the curses.”
Will nodded. “Sure, sure.” He looked to me, his lip curled back in a snarl. “And everyone thinks that taking the prince and princess and a celebrity vampire into Ludolf’s lair is a good idea, hm?”
I lowered my voice to a whisper and rested my only slightly throbbing foot on the bottom rung of the stool. “It’s obviously a horrible idea, but it wasn’t mine. They volunteered, okay?”
“Oh!” Will threw his hands up and took on a mocking tone. “Well, if their highnesses volunteered to go on a suicide mission, then we should definitely let them.”
I glared at him.
“Is this what we sound like?” Iggy used a little flame arm to gesture between himself and the princess.
Wiley shrugged. “Kinda.”
The princess and her flame flashed their eyes at each other. “Yikes.”
Heidi giggled. “If you think that’s bad, you should see Jolene and Daisy.” She turned to Maple and said as an aside, “That’s her boyfriend’s police dog.”
The two of them stood together. I followed Maple’s gaze upward and jerked, startled.
Will let out a strangled cry. “Gah!”
18
Parting Ways
Cat hung upside down from the light in the center of the ceiling, his bat wings extended and trembling. He craned his upside down head this way and that, his dark, globular eyes reflecting the room. He grinned broadly, all his sharp teeth bared.
Will threw himself against my side, cringing. “What in the shell is that?!”
The parrot and the bat flapped around Cat in a circle, over and over again, while a small group of animals gathered on the coffee table, straining to reach the monster, their eyes blank and mouths agape.
Heidi bounced on her toes. “They’re sooo cute, they love him.”
I leaned closer to Will, our eyes still glued to Cat and its group of worshippers. “From what I gather, it’s a mind control monster.”
I slid my gaze to Will and found him staring at me. “Oh! Is that all?”
I flashed my eyes at him and leaned close, barely breathing my words. “And I thought we were an odd bunch.”
“I heard that.”
Will and I jerked our heads up to find Francis the vampire staring at us and sitting on his girlfriend Rhonda’s lap. Well—almost. He hovered right above it.
Francis lifted one perfectly sculpted brow. “Vampire hearing.” He then leveled us with a look so cold, goose bumps prickled my skin.
I pressed my lips tight together, my stomach clenched. He wouldn’t eat me in front of all these people… would he?
Then he threw his head back and chuckled with his deep voice, Rhonda cackling along with him. She pointed. “You should’ve seen your faces.”
Francis pressed a long, pale hand to his middle as he laughed. Rhonda suddenly sobered and sniffed. “But in all seriousness, we should move all these shifters out of here and into the palace before the gangsters show up, yes?”
Heidi hugged the sloth tighter to her side. “You—you’re here to take the shifters?” She gazed into the sloth’s shiny black eyes.
“You’re both coming with us though, aren’t you?” Maple looked from Heidi to Will.
Prince Harry nodded his agreement. “You must come stay at the palace.”
Will held very still for a long moment. I could almost hear him telling himself to play it cool. “Well… if you insist.”
I smirked. Will had grown up in the lap of luxury, and I knew he missed his silk sheets and fancy imported soaps. He was probably doing a happy dance on the inside at getting to stay at the palace.
Prince Harry shook his head. “From what I saw of Jolene’s apartment, I don’t think you’ll be safe anywhere but the palace. At least until this Ludolf fellow is behind bars.”
Francis rose, hovering above the linoleum, and Rhonda stood after him. “I heartily agree.”
The princess put a hand on her hip. “I thought you got a vision that we could, quote, ‘trust Ludolf’?”
Rhonda shrugged, her brows raised. “I don’t decide the messages, I just receive them.” She put a hand to the side of her mouth and spoke in a stage whisper. “But if you ask me, I’m not sure the spirits have got the right information in this instance.”
Maple nodded and beckoned Cat back into her arms. As soon as he flapped over to her, the other animals seemed to snap out of their trances. “Rhonda, Iggy, Wiley, Cat, and I will escort everyone back up to the palace.” She pressed her lips together and leveled Princess Imogen with a serious look, a little crease appearing between her brows. “Please be careful down there.”
The princess gave her a soft smile. “We will.” She shrugged it off. “We’ve got Francis with us. What could go wrong?”
Maple made an unconvinced noise.
Will clamped a beefy hand on my shoulder and spun me to face him. He shook his index finger at me, inches from my face. “If you die down there, I’ll kill you.”
I rolled my eyes. “Gee. I didn’t know you cared.” Even though I glared at him for a moment, my expression softened, as did his. “I love you, buddy.”
He held up his palm. “Don’t! No goodbye speeches.”
I smirked. “Fine. But if I—”
He flashed me a warning look, his bushy brows lifted.
I took a breath and started over. “If I…” I searched for a way to avoid saying ‘never come back.’ “If I decide to go on vacation
and never return…”
Will looked prim but allowed me to go on.
“…please tell Peter that I love him and to make sure to buy Daisy some plain bone broth next time he gets ramen—it’s her favorite.”
After I spoke with each of the trapped shifters and told them the plan to get them up to the palace, we headed into the night. In the alley, before parting ways, Will pulled me and Heidi into a group hug.
“Be safe.” I pointed at them.
Will kept his arm around Heidi, who still carried the sloth, as they moved up the mountain toward the palace. “You, too, Jolene.”
Princess Imogen, Prince Harry, and Francis and I headed downhill toward the sewer grate that led to the secret shifter underground.
19
The Lair
We tromped through the sewers, our feet splashing in the few inches of murky water at the bottom of the tunnels. Rats scurried along the edges, clinging to a narrow, raised ledge.
“Can you understand what they’re saying?” It was odd to hear the princess’s chipper tone come out of Viktor’s mouth, his gold teeth glinting in the flickering torch light. While the prince and princess had never seen my old pal Neo and his subordinate, the wiry, tattooed Viktor, I’d described them well enough that with enough tweaks, they’d both convincingly transformed themselves into the two.
I listened to the rodents for a moment, then turned to the princess/Viktor. “One rat’s bragging about his kids to another—says they have the biggest front teeth he’s ever seen.”
The princess/Viktor smirked. “Cute.” Usually, Viktor was twitching and giggling uncontrollably. It was unnerving to see the princess embodying him, so calm and upbeat.
Princess Imogen and Prince Harry had explained that with their specialized swallow magic, they drew energy from other people, objects, or elements of nature and could therefore fuel more powerful spells than other magic folk, who drew their powers from within. This allowed them to use magic to convincingly disguise themselves as other people. I couldn’t fuel any spells, having lost my powers to the curse Ludolf had tested on me years ago, so I was impressed—and grateful to have them on my side.