“Holy just-like-Disneyland,” one of the women whispered before she whistled.
Disneyland?
Aw, c’mon, Toni. You gotta open your eyes, you big ol’ wimp. It’s Disneyland! When have you ever closed your eyes? You didn’t even close them when Stas had his hand around your throat while he used you like a punching bag at the gym and the barrel of his gun was stuffed clear up in the roof of your mouth. Man up, pantywaist.
She forced her eyes open. Then they opened wider.
And her mouth quickly followed their lead as her jaw dropped and her brain buzzed to life.
Toni rubbed her sockets with her knuckles and reopened her eyes. Just in case she’d been drugged—or was hallucinating due to her recent sleepless nights.
Naturally, it changed nothing.
But she tried again just for good measure, giving her eyeballs one last good scrub with her fist. Forcing them open one more time, she took a good, hard look around.
Yeah. She could see the Disneyland reference making sense.
Maybe it was the enormous gray stone castle and drawbridge off in the snowy distance, or the ornate, carved carriage with white horses. Or maybe even the quaint cottages with thatched roofs and men dressed in roughly sewn breeches and matching vests, all staring down at her from a safe distance as though she’d just dropped out of the sky.
Wait. She sorta had just dropped out of the sky.
Oh. My. Hell.
Toni sat up fast, making her head swim. She scurried away from the warm lump beneath her and rose to her haunches, letting her head hang between her knees.
That was when she noted her breasts felt like two freshly popped cans of dinner rolls, squeezed to maximum capacity. Not to mention, her ribs were surely in a vise of some sort.
A vise made of the most beautiful silver taffeta with the prettiest lavender undertones she’d ever seen.
Her hands flew to her chest, feeling for her nametag and the buttons of her pink jacket from the store. But they were gone, replaced with yard after yard of material whispering across the tops of her feet.
“Oh, save us all—she’s killed her!” someone shouted.
Someone British—maybe Welsh? Toni’s head popped up to find a long, thin finger pointing down at her with accusation. She slammed her eyes shut as small feet scuttled away.
Huh.
“Is she dead?” another voice cried, evoking a round of loud gasps.
“Brenda’s not going to like this!”
Toni looked again at the shiny material and gulped. Why did this scenario seem so eerily familiar? And who the hell was Brenda?
Dropping down to the cold earth because her thighs were killing her, she opted out of giving any more credence to the billowing silver tulle beneath the shiny fabric bunched between her thighs.
Then Toni felt a hand at her back, easy yet insistent. “You’re the salesgirl from the store, right?”
The voice sounded as though it came from the woman named Wanda. She couldn’t be sure because there was no exuberant squeal to her tone like there’d been when she found the scarves for sale.
Toni nodded her head, forcing her eyes back open, but she kept them at ground level, risking only quick glimpses because if she looked up, and allowed her brain to register what she thought she’d just seen, she’d lose her mind.
“I don’t know what happened. I heard you all screaming and I went to investigate. The next thing I know, I fell into something. A hole or a vortex…or a vacuum that felt like a Dyson was sucking the organs right out of me or…I think—I don’t know—and then I landed here on top of…something…”
“I’m Wanda Schwartz-Jefferson. What’s your name?” she asked, the beautiful, shiny wings between her shoulder blades softly pumping.
Wings. This woman had wings. Genuine wings.
“Your name? Talk to me so I know you’re coherent.”
“Antonia Vitali. Toni is fine, though.”
“Do you want to know what you landed on?”
She stared hard at the snow beneath her feet. “I want to know a lot of things. Like why you have wings, and hair so big I don’t know how you’re still holding your head upright. But for the moment, I vote we wait. I’m sure that’s cruel and callous, because I’m thinking it’s not a stretch to say it was a person I landed on, but I can wait on confirmation if it’s okay by you.”
“You’re in shock. I get it. So for now, give me your hand, Toni. Let me help you up. It’s cold down there on the ground and your new outfit, while absolutely stunning, definitely is not suited for this kind of weather.” Wanda’s voice was warm and reassuring and tinged with kindness, making Toni suspicious.
No one had ever been this nice to Toni Vitali. Not in a long damn time.
They’d just fallen into Cinderella’s lair—was it called a lair? No. It was a forest, wasn’t it? Did Cinderella have a forest? She shook her head. One of those God-awful princesses, with the lush hair swinging around their waists, trust issues out the wazoo and a lack of fortitude, had a forest. She just couldn’t remember which one. Either way, who remained calm and reassuring at a time like this?
Wait. Had Stas sent these women? Had that maniac and his crew finally found her? Had they drugged her back at the store? Given her some kind of hallucinogenic? Was she really in some padded cell back at Stas’s House of Horrors and she was just under the influence of drugs?
“Promise I won’t hurt you, Toni. Take my hand.”
Toni did so, but with great reluctance. Wanda snatched her shaking fingers and yanked her up, gripping her shoulders. “Look at me, Toni.”
She did as Wanda demanded, her eyes adjusting to her surroundings in slow increments. Snippets of the big picture flashed to her brain then retreated due to their surreal nature.
No. Effin’. Way.
Then some of it began to sink in. Okay, so thus far she seen a castle far off in the distance and snow-covered trees and a crooked signpost she couldn’t read without her glasses with the name of wherever they were, down at the end of a broad, muddy road winding endlessly into the surrounding forest.
There were horses tethered to wagons, cottages with thatched rooftops, and people all milling about in a cautiously wide circle around them, dressed in outfits right out of the Renaissance fair.
What the hell?
“Where?” she finally managed to whisper to Wanda. “H…how?” It was all she could sputter as she gripped the woman’s cool hand.
The woman named Nina popped into her line of vision, making Toni’s mouth fall open when she saw what she was wearing, but that didn’t stop her from stomping over to Toni and Wanda, the rustle of more yellow chiffon and taffeta than Joanne’s Fabrics had on an entire store’s shelves swirling in the crisp air.
“What in the ever-lovin’ fuck is this?” she demanded of Toni, flicking her almost-black hair.
Toni winced. It was a wonder she didn’t lose a fingernail with the amount of hairspray it must have taken to keep all that hair in place.
It was piled atop her head in a riot of sausage curls, at least three layers’ worth, spilling down her back and dotted randomly with bright yellow bows all around her head. This was the gorgeous woman who’d been wearing a hoodie and jeans just moments ago?
Naw.
But it had to be. She had on the same pair of sunglasses. She had the same scary attack-mode stance.
“What…what happened?” Toni murmured, her fingers covering her mouth to keep from gasping.
“Yeah. I’d like to know that, too,” she said, kind of growly and suspicious as she pushed a long, raven sausage curl from her eyes with the back of her hand. “So why don’t you tell us, Toni? Who the fuck are you and why the fuck am I here? Who sent you? You’d better pony up or you’d better get right with your maker!”
“Sent me?” Toni repeated, utterly flabbergasted at the level of uncontained anger this woman was displaying.
Was this snarling, irate woman blaming her for their landing here? She’d taken the
blame for a lot of things in her time—laundered money, snitching, even murder—but time travel to a place that looked like an amusement park set in a storybook? That was too damn far.
Nina, her pale skin like a soft glow against the buttercup yellow of her elaborate gown, now seethed. Like, opened her mouth and flashed her teeth.
“You heard me—who the fuck sent you, and what the fuck do you want with us? Did that crazy bitch Hildegard escape from Hell again? If you don’t start talkin’, I’m gonna start swingin’. Now warm that tongue of yours up with some answers before I snatch it from your pretty head, girlie.”
Wow. This woman was as scary as Stas had ever been, if not scarier. But Toni stood up to him once, gun to her throat and all.
And then she remembered something.
Crazy. Stas had once told her, always be the craziest fucker in the room and everyone would back down—which was how she’d managed to escape him three years ago.
So she let her eyes go wild as she stuck her face right back in Nina’s, her finger finding its way just beneath her nose. “Blow me, you crazy bitch! Don’t you threaten me! You have no idea who you’re screwing with. Got that? I’m gonna tell you once, back the fuck off or I’ll rip your throat out! We clear, girlie?” she bellowed.
Silence fell over the group of women and the small crowd of villagers backed up, clinging to one another.
And then Nina exploded.
Maybe Stas’s advice had been a mistake.
Clearly, Nina held the reigning title of Craziest Bitch In The Room.
Oh dear.
Chapter 2
Nina let out a hiss just before she lunged for Toni’s throat, her wings fluttering angrily behind her.
But her friend Marty soared through the air in a leap to rival that of a pole-vaulter, her enormous ball gown in a lovely shade of sky blue twisting around her legs.
She landed in front of Nina so fast, she rammed into her, making them tumble to the ground, the two women tangling up in each other’s elaborate dresses. Nina reached around her and yanked one of Marty’s wings.
“Ow! That’s my wing, Nina! I swear, I’ll poke your eyeballs out with my hair if you don’t knock it off!” Marty yelped and managed to wrestle Nina to her back, securing her by mounting her hips and pulling her glasses from her face.
Gripping Nina’s wrists, Marty planted them above her head as a small crowd of villagers gathered, passing a bag of coins and placing bets. “Knock it the hell off, Vampire! Why in all of the universe would you think this woman’s responsible for us falling through that hole in the dressing room, you violent, un-trainable, testy beast?”
Vampire? Had she said vampire?
No. This day wasn’t happening. It was not.
“Get the hell off me, Blondie, and give me back my damn shades or I’m gonna eat your face off!” Nina screeched with her closed eyes.
But Marty shook her head, the mile-high hair on the top of her skull never budging. “Nope. Not until you promise to use your manners. I absolutely will not have your chaos erupting all over the place like so much vomit until we know what’s going on and where we are. And I won’t have you threatening to beat anyone up until we need you to.”
Wanda leaned into Toni, smoothing one of her long white gloves over her elbow as though it had always been there while her friends continued to bicker. “Very impressive show there. I can’t remember the last person who stood up to Nina, other than one of us or her husband, Greg. Clearly, your fear factor is high, Kimosabe. I like that in a girl,” she said on a chuckle.
Toni turned to look at her, still visually trying to block out Candyland while people peeked out from behind trees and stood at the doorways of their charming, snow-covered cottages. “Question?”
“Certainly.”
“Did that woman—um, Marty, is it?—just call the angry pale lady a vampire?”
Wanda nodded, her hair equally as unmoving as Marty’s. “Marty it is, and she did call Nina a vampire. I fear we’ll have some explaining to do. Your world’s going to be rocked in more ways than one today, I’m afraid. But bear with me until we work out this little kink?” She waved an elegant hand at the ball of limbs and taffeta dresses Nina and Marty had become.
Toni nodded, also refusing to acknowledge that her own hair was now swinging at her waist. “Let’s table that for a little while and focus on,” she swept her hand around at the landscape, “um, this. You seem really reasonable compared to your friend, so I’m going to appeal to you. I swear I don’t know how this happened. Swear it on my life. I’m just a salesclerk at a stupid designer outlet mall store, making just above minimum wage. I don’t know anyone who’d do this. I don’t even know what’s been done, but if at all possible, I say we blame my boss Bree. She’s a horrible human being.”
Wanda nodded again and patted Toni’s arm, her long fingers giving her flesh a squeeze. “You know, I noticed that. Kind of pushy and power-hungry for someone so young, huh? You’d think she was ruling a kingdom, not an outlet store.” Then she giggled, like they weren’t in the middle of some whacked fairytale. “Sorry. Pardon the pun.”
“You heard Bree say those things to me?”
Wanda pulled at her earlobe with the shiny cascade earring attached to it. “Half vampire, half werewolf. Good hearing is one of the tricks of the trade. Though sometimes, it’s a curse.”
Werewolf… Toni gulped more air into her lungs while her heart raced. “Not ready to acknowledge that just yet either, if that’s okay.”
“Oh, of course, Toni. I understand. You have bigger fish to fry right now. We can talk later about that part of this—whatever this is. For now, I have to wrangle the twins. So if you’ll excuse me?”
Now Toni nodded, unable to do much else. “Of course.”
Wanda lifted the hem of her gorgeous champagne-colored gown and hopped over a patch of ice as though she always wore ball gowns and stopped to assess the two quarreling women as they tussled.
Looking down, she said, “Marty, I’m going to suggest you get off Nina and hand her back her glasses before she explodes into a pile of ashes. I know she makes you want to choke her out, but you’d regret the loss of her black soul. I know you would. You’d cry, and quite frankly, you’re a messy crier. Nina? Shut your big fat flapping lips until further notice, or it won’t be Marty you have to worry about.
“Now, the two of you will get up off this ground because you’re ruining your magnificent gowns in the dirty snow; you will introduce yourselves to Toni, who is as freaked-out and in as much a state of shock as we are; and you will do it with your manners intact and your indoor voices. Are we all in agreement?”
Nina’s jaw clenched tight, her face a mask of anger. “Wanda, the fuck—”
Wanda’s fingers snaked out and clamped Nina’s lips together. “Shhh! Now. Don’t speak. Wag that razor-sharp tongue of yours again, lose your sunscreen.”
Marty let go of Nina’s wrists and rasped a sigh, shoving off from her friend’s lean torso to sit upright. “Fine. But one wrong move in Toni’s direction and it’s curtains for you, Dark One. Oh, and nice ball gown, Cinder-Nightmare. Very, very bright and sunny, just like your sparkling personality,” she taunted, letting her head fall back on her shoulders to laugh out loud.
Nina growled and with a flat palm to Marty’s chest, knocked her on her back. Scooping up her glasses to prop them crookedly on her nose with an aggravated hand, she shoved the stems of them into the nest of her triple-tier, wedding-cake-like hair.
“You watch yourself, Werewolf, or I’m gonna spin that color wheel of yours until you puke.”
Marty took Wanda’s hand and allowed her to help her up, but Nina dismissed the offer, slapping at the yards and yards of constricting yellow material around her legs when she rose.
Marty approached Toni as she brushed the wet snow from her gown, heavily embroidered with dark-blue and gold thread along the bodice. “I’m Marty Flaherty, by the way. So nice to meet you.”
Toni stuck out he
r frozen hand and offered it to the pretty blonde. “Toni Vitali. I’m really sorry about this. I’m as confused as you are—”
“No apologies necessary,” Marty cut in on a smile as warm as Wanda’s voice. “If you had any idea what we’ve seen…Well, let’s just say, we’ve seen a lot. We’ve also kicked some ass while we’ve seen a lot. So we’ll figure this out and kick some ass if the situation deems necessary.”
Wanda jammed a finger into the spot between Nina’s shoulder blades. “Speak, Cavewoman. Talk pretty. Make words.”
Nina popped her lips, crossing her arms over her chest, her stance defensive. “Nina If-You-Ever-Stick-Your-Face-in-Mine-Again-I’ll-Rip-it-Off Statleon.”
Wanda’s lips thinned as she drove two knuckles into Nina’s back. “Can it, Bruiser.”
“Well, all right then,” Marty said, a bright smile wreathing her face when she looked to Toni and tucked her clasped hands under her chin. “Let’s figure this out, huh, girls?”
Was it just her, or were these women behaving as though they’d landed on some movie set and a stagehand was going to come along at any second and whisk them off to their dressing rooms? Because they didn’t appear at all phased by this utterly implausible, completely insane turn of events.
Simply saying they’d seen things, as Marty had, could imply a wealth of scenarios, most of which were probably nothing like what was happening right now. But who’d ever seen something even close to this?
Toni finally looked down at her clothes and really absorbed her garb, her worst fears confirmed as she plucked at her incredibly tight, unbelievably itchy gown and held up the flouncy-trouncy skirt for the women to see. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing? I mean, we really are…um, we have on…we were just in the outlet mall and now we’re in…”
“Shamalot. You’re in Shamalot. Welcome, welcome!” said a tiny, tinkling voice full of cheer.
Accidentally Ever After (Accidentally Paranormal Novel Book 11) Page 2