The Yellow-Bellied Scaredy Cat

by Amy Boyles

  Since there was some time before dinner would be served, I headed upstairs to change and to call Kimberly. I still couldn’t shake the feeling that Samson was somehow on to us, and it worried me. I never thought that in my life I would be worried about a carnival worker, but I supposed there was a first time for everything.

  I climbed the stairs and reached my room, shutting the door behind me and pressing my back to the wood. I exhaled, letting some of the worry from the day dissolve.

  When my back loosened a bit, I pushed off and grabbed my phone, dialing Kimberly’s number. The call went straight to voice mail.

  “Hey Kimberly, this is Charming. I saw your act today with Samson, and I have to tell you, you’re a natural. It was great and I was so proud of you. Anyway, I wanted to check in and see how things are going—in your love life and anything else you want to share. Call me back when you can.”

  I hung up and tossed the phone on the bed. Hopefully Kimberly would reach out soon. I raised my hands over my head and, stretching, got a whiff of my armpits.

  “Ew. Time for a shower.”

  I showered and put on a robe that the house had left for me on the bathroom door. After that, I headed to the standing wardrobe, which in my opinion was where the house worked its real magic by finding the right outfit for me to wear on any given occasion.

  “Okay, House, I need a dinner outfit for tonight.”

  I grabbed the wardrobe’s handles and opened. The hangers were full to bursting with garments. I pulled the first one off the bar and inspected it.

  The hanger held a black dress covered in sequins from top to bottom. “A bit much, at least for tonight.”

  I placed it back and found another choice—a red tube dress. “I’m not going out clubbing,” I murmured.

  The third selection was a silver pantsuit. The silky material shimmered in the light. I contemplated the outfit. The jumpsuit factor made it casual, but the material stepped it up a notch, giving it more of a fancy dinner vibe.

  Dinner at the house wasn’t necessarily fancy, but it certainly wasn’t casual. When Mama said we were having dinner, she meant everyone was to look nice.

  Deciding this was the best option, I threw off my robe and slipped into it. The material glided across my skin, and I ran my fingers down it, reveling in the luxurious feel.

  After I finished admiring the outfit, which I did for a good five minutes, I brushed my hair, applied some makeup and headed back downstairs, ready for dinner.

  When I reached the dining room, I did not feel overdressed. Apparently Axel and Pepper had both gotten the memo that you were to dress for dinner. Pepper wore a simple black dress with a rope of pearls around her neck. Axel wore the same dark suit he had donned earlier. Leopold greeted Axel and Pepper both with glasses of amber liquid.

  “From my own cases,” he said.

  Axel took the glass and thanked him.

  Rose and Betty hurriedly set the table, filling it with covered dish after covered dish. It all smelled heavenly. Where Pepper and Axel had heard that we were supposed to dress for dinner, it appeared that Betty had not quite received the same bit of information.

  She wore a leather pantsuit that reminded me more of something the Village People would wear while singing “YMCA” than you would don for dinner.

  But you know, to each his own, as folks say.

  The doorbell rang. “I’ll get it,” I said.

  Mama entered the living room wearing a golden chiffon dress. “Thank you, Charming.” She moved to join Leopold, Axel and Pepper while I headed for the door.

  Broom greeted me when I arrived, bobbing up and down, ready to clean up the footprints of whoever entered. I yanked the door open and there stood Thorne, hair still damp from his shower and the smell of leather soap wafting off his skin.

  My mouth became a desert as I stared into his eyes. “Hey,” I said huskily.

  “Hey, yourself,” he said. The words came out seductively. I wasn’t sure if he did that intentionally or not. It didn’t matter because either way, desire throbbed in my girlie parts.

  I stared up into his eyes and couldn’t stop staring. The urge to throw myself at Thorne and kiss him was overwhelming. I wondered if he felt the same way.

  “Am I going to stand outside all night?” he asked.

  “Do you want to?”

  “No.”

  That was when my brain woke up and I remembered that we had a dinner party that we were supposed to be attending. I stepped aside. “Come on in. Everyone’s in the dining room. The men are smoking cigars and drinking some sort of amber liquid.”

  He drifted past me and turned. “Amber liquid? Did Leopold bring it?”

  I nodded. “He sure did.”

  Thorne chuckled.

  “What’s so funny?”

  He raked his fingers through his hair and winked. “Whatever you do, don’t drink any of that stuff, okay?”

  “Why not?”

  He shook his head. “Just don’t.”

  I stopped him as he started to enter the dining room. “Why not? Will you just tell me?”

  He glanced inside the dining room before pulling me aside. We walked down the hall and passed Mr. Jingles, who scurried by.

  “Did you get a cat?”

  I groaned. “Yes, no—sort of. Rose brought it back from the carnival today.”

  “It looks like the same one that scared the strong man.”

  “I think it is.” Pig dashed out of the kitchen, squealing up a storm. “The problem is, Mr. Jingles and Pig don’t get along—at least they don’t yet.”

  Thorne’s brows rose in amusement. “Mr. Jingles?”

  I slapped my thigh. “That’s what Rose named the cat. I had nothing to do with the naming, so don’t look at me.”

  “I won’t.”

  We were inside the kitchen. I folded my arms and studied Thorne. “Now,” I said, lowering my voice, “what’s all this secrecy about? Why am I not supposed to drink that stuff?”

  “Because it’s made from poke salat.”

  I stared at him, waiting for the punch line, and then my brain started working and I remembered something about poke salat. “You’re saying that liquid is made from a toxic plant.”

  Thorne nodded. “That’s right.”

  “So…what does it do to you if you drink it?”

  A whimsical smile coiled on his face. “Let’s just say it’s potent.”

  In other words it would make me soused. “So stay away from it.”

  “Unless you want to wind up drunker than you can imagine—yes, stay far, far away from the stuff.”

  I cringed. “I hope everyone else got the memo, because he was handing it out in there.”

  “Let’s go see.” Thorne took me by the hand. I started to walk off, but he tugged me back.

  “What is it?”

  “This,” he said darkly.

  The next thing I knew, my lips were on his and we were kissing. My body churned, thrumming and humming. I tangled my hands in his hair, coiling the strands around my fingers.

  He slowly broke away and I smiled. “Ready to go inside?” Thorne asked.

  “Let’s go join them.”

  When we entered the living room, I noticed that everyone held a glass of the amber liquid. They were all laughing and smiling, their cheeks pink from the drink.

  Leopold sailed over, holding two glasses filled with the stuff. “Cheers,” he said.

  I brought the glass to my lips, taking only the smallest of sips. “Cheers,” I replied. My gaze wandered around the room, and I thought that this would be an interesting dinner.

  Charming

  My instincts were not wrong. After drinks, we sat to enjoy the dinner that Betty and Rose had created.

  “Axel,” Leopold said, “I’m sure you’ve got your fair share of scars from being a werewolf.”

  Axel, his face red and his eyes a bit glassy, leaned back in his chair and boasted, “I would bet any vampire at the table that I have more scars, ev
en though I’m not nearly so old.”

  Thorne’s jaw twitched. “I will take your wager.”

  Now, Thorne had only taken a few sips of the poke salat liquor, which had been replaced with glasses of water for everyone at the table, but just because the liquor was gone, that didn’t mean Thorne wouldn’t accept a challenge. He was always ready to win a competition. I wasn’t sure if that was due to the fact that he was a man or a vampire.

  In the end I suppose the why really didn’t matter.

  Axel undid the top two buttons of his shirt and revealed his bare shoulder, showing off a two-inch scar. “This is from a fight with another werewolf.”

  Thorne rolled up his cuff and showed off a round, silvery scar. “This is from another vampire.”

  Axel smirked. He shrugged off his jacket and rolled up the sleeve of his left arm, revealing a long, thin sliver of an old wound. “This is from barbed wire that a wizard threw at me.”

  Thorne scoffed. “You call that a wound? This is a wound.” Thorne hiked his leg on the table and pulled up his pant leg, revealing a long pucker of skin. “This is when a vampire decided to slice my leg up.”

  And on and on it went.

  Pepper leaned over. “I thought that vampires healed and didn’t get scars.”

  I clicked my tongue. “You know what? I thought the same thing. Maybe it depends on how the wound is made as to whether or not it scars.”

  She nodded. “Maybe so.”

  Betty rolled up her own sleeve. “You two namby-pambies ain’t got nothing on me. I got this from a witch who liked to bite,” she said, pointing to two small puncture wounds. “This one is from a magical leech that was a pain to pull off once it got ahold of me, and this one,” she added, pointing to a long scar on her arm, “is from a knife fight.”

  Pepper sucked air. “A knife fight?”

  “I used to be a hellion in my younger days,” Betty said proudly.

  Pepper turned to me. “Do you want to go get some air? Maybe by the time we return, they’ll all be done comparing scars.”

  “I’d be happy to.” I leaned toward Mama and whispered, “May we be excused from the table?”

  She scoffed. “You might as well be. With the way this conversation is going, soon we’ll all be down to our skivvies, showing off old wounds.”

  I smiled to Pepper. “Let’s go.”

  We quietly left the dining room and headed outside, where the night air was fresh and sweet and the wind blew softly. The lights from the carnival cast a warm glow over Witch’s Forge, and even with all the turmoil going on, I smiled.

  Then as quickly as I smiled, I pulled my phone from my clutch purse and glanced at it. There still wasn’t a call from Kimberly. Surely she would have received my message by now, unless she was out on a date with Samson, that was. But Samson was probably too busy with the carnival to be taking Kimberly out for dinner.

  I nibbled at the inside of my cheek, unable to shake the feeling that something was wrong. I would have bet a hundred dollars that Kimberly would have called me by now to gush about how wonderful Samson was, or wasn’t.

  “I hope Axel was nice when y’all went to the carnival,” Pepper said.

  Her statement pulled me from my thoughts. “He was, he was great, thank you. It seems you’ve married a nice werewolf.”

  She laughed delicately and pointed to a nearby bench. “Want to sit?”

  “Sounds good.”

  She led us over, and we sat, our feet swinging, and watched as folks streamed in and out of the carnival. “I suppose we’ll stay up and hit the place in the middle of the night.”

  “It would make more sense if we go in before it closes and hide. They will have to clean up, and that’s Arnold’s job. If we mill around when there are less folks to get in the way, we’ll have an easier time locating him.”

  “But then we’ll be spotted easier, as well,” Pepper countered. “The last piece of the heart fire that we collected came hard to get. The power itself seemed to become more volatile as the owner used it more and more. I’d like to reclaim the piece that’s here before we face a situation like that again.”

  “We’ll have to be careful,” I murmured. “I also had the feeling that the carnival owner was on to us—to Axel and me.”

  “Why?”

  I rubbed my arms as a chill swept down them. “It wasn’t anything specific, just the sort of unease that knots your stomach and makes vomit edge up the back of your throat.”

  “Oh, that sounds like a serious feeling,” she said.

  “It was—and it wasn’t because Axel did anything that would have tipped Samson off,” I said quickly, not wanting her to think it was anyone’s fault in particular. “No, everything went great, it was just…a feeling.”

  “Well, I suppose we’ll find out,” Pepper said. Then she stopped and pressed a hand to her head. “I do not know what was in that stuff that Leopold handed out, but it sure as heck is making my head swim.”

  I chuckled. “It’s got poke salat in it.”

  Her eyes widened. “Poke salat! You mean that stuff that grows wild and that some folks eat?”

  “After they cook it down for a few hours,” I added. “That’s the one.”

  “Ugh,” she complained. “It’s making me feel all dreamy.” She shook out her head and exhaled. “I’m gonna need to get this out of my system before we head over to the carnival.” Pepper tapped her fingers on the bench. “Now why would Leopold go and give mortals a potent drink before we did dirty deeds like what we’re going to do tonight?”

  I laughed. “Because he isn’t a mortal and doesn’t remember what it’s like, maybe? I don’t know. My guess is that the truth is that Leopold didn’t think it would be a big deal. Y’all are witches, so he may have figured a little bit of loosening up was needed on a night when things could get heavy. He’s also been a vampire for a long time, maybe he just wanted to have some fun.”

  She cocked an eye at me, and I could tell that Pepper was doing it so that she could focus. “Did Thorne tell you all this?”

  I nodded. “He did.”

  “So you didn’t drink much of it?”

  “No.”

  She sighed and leaned back onto the bench. “I don’t think I can move.”

  I laughed. “Do you want me to get Axel? You cannot get stuck out here because yes, you will have to move at some point.”

  She giggled and pointed to the moon. “I think I’m getting worse the more I sit here.” Pepper sighed and sank farther onto the bench. She dropped her elbows onto her knees. “Yes, I think I might need Axel to help me. That’s if he’s finished showing off all his scars, that is.”

  “Don’t you think Betty has them all beat?”

  Pepper shot me a look, and we both broke into a thousand giggles. “You know what, I like you, Charming Calhoun.”

  “I like you, too, Pepper.”

  “You have a big, intimidating boyfriend. I like that, too. You know, Axel can be sour as well.”

  “You don’t say,” I said mockingly.

  “No, I mean when we first started dating. I know he can be sour now. After all, he wanted to fight Thorne. But he could be that way in the beginning. Y’all kind of remind me of us.” She raised her left hand to the moon and cocked an eye at the rings on her finger. “And you see how that turned out.”

  “A werewolf and a witch are different from a vampire and a witch.”

  “How so?” she asked.

  “Vampires live forever.”

  “That is a problem,” Pepper admitted. She made a little “oh” sound and nudged me with her knee. “All you have to do is become a vampire and your problem is solved.”

  I groaned. “It’s really not that easy.”

  “Isn’t it?” She shrugged. “Seems to me it might be. I guess the idea of forever is a bit gothic. I mean, you might not want to live forever, and I could understand that. It’s a very long time. But then again, you might want to give it a try.”

  “I don’t think
it works like a car. I’m not sure you can take ‘forever’ for a spin and see if you like it.”

  She laughed again. “Good point. It is intimidating, but the alternative is simple—you just break up, let him go off and live forever while you do something else.” She paused and turned to me. “You don’t know if he’s your soul mate, do you?”

  I felt my stomach coiling. “I can’t see my own soul mate. Trust me, I’ve tried to touch guys before to see, and it doesn’t work that way.”

  She gasped and grabbed my arm. “Maybe that’s because you haven’t touched the right person. Have you thought about that?”

  I squirmed. “I don’t know.”

  “It might on Thorne. You never know until you give it the good old college try.”

  I snorted. “Thorne would kill me if he thought I was doing that to him.”

  She clicked her tongue. “Would he? If you discovered that he was your soul mate, would that give you peace of mind? You wouldn’t have to tell him, after all. It could be your little secret, and then, if things got pretty far along with Thorne, as I think they will, it might make it easier for you to figure out what you wanted to do—become a vampire or stay a witch.”

  I had to admit, it was tempting. Thorne wouldn’t have to know what I was doing. In fact, he wouldn’t have to know at all. It would only take a second. I could walk up, brush his arm and see who my soul mate was, or I could see his soul mate.

  Ugh. That might be worse. What if I looked into him and saw another woman? I would not like that. But if I kissed him and focused on myself, would the matchmaking power work in that way? Would I finally be able to see who my soul mate was?

  And what if it wasn’t Thorne? My heart constricted at the thought. If it wasn’t Thorne, then I would feel terrible. After all, I would have knowledge in my heart that our relationship wasn’t going to work. That would darken our encounters, knowing in the back of my head that we would never be together. Simply having access to that sort of information would make me want to end the relationship.

  But I didn’t want to end my relationship with Thorne. I cared about him.

  It wasn’t a difficult decision, really. Touch Thorne and be disappointed or don’t touch him and…wonder for the rest of my life what the truth was?