by Amy Boyles
Cordelia shut the door softly behind her. Princess swung her head to zero in on the desk. “Is that Cajun Shrimp–colored nail polish?”
Amelia grabbed the bottle and shook it. “Boy, you really know your colors.”
“Darling, I live for Cajun Shrimp. Will you put it on my toes?”
Without hesitating, Amelia thrust the bottle into my hand. The thought of touching those furry little feet made me cringe, but I had to remind myself that there was a person inside that bat’s body. She wasn’t some furry animal that could pass rabies from person to person. No, inside that sonic-yelling mammal lived Princess.
“I love Cajun Shrimp,” she said. “It’s the only color I ever wear. Wore. You know what I mean.”
Now for those of y’all who aren’t aware, Cajun Shrimp is mostly red with a hint of orange. It’s the perfect color for summer because it seriously looks good on just about everyone and you can also wear it in the winter because…well, red and Christmas.
Red and Christmas. Got it?
Good.
I unscrewed the cap and was about to start applying when Princess said, “Can I hang from someone’s finger? It’s so much easier to hang than it is to sit.”
I quirked a brow to Amelia. My cousin blanched but quickly cleared her throat and stepped forward. “Sure.”
Princess hooked her feet over Amelia’s finger, and I proceeded to paint her toenails.
“So, Princess,” I said, “what do you think about going out tomorrow night and hunting down the vampire?”
“You want me to look for Arnold?”
“That’s his name? Arnold?” I said.
“Arnold Carlsburg.”
I nearly dropped the cap. “Arnold Carlsburg? How do you know that?”
“Because he told me. That vampire talked all the time about himself. Said he was cursed because he was misunderstood.”
“How?” Amelia said.
“Oh you know, nobody in his family got him. They all thought he was a wild card who spent too much money and sucked too much blood. The usual I guess when it comes to vampires.”
“I guess,” I said. “But his last name is Carlsburg?”
“He told me it was a common vampire name.”
“Yeah, I think it is,” I murmured. Also a common name for a murder victim.
“So his family didn’t like him, that’s why he was cursed?” Amelia said.
“Oh no—well that was part of it. The main reason he was cursed is because he cheated his brother out of a whole bunch of money.”
“How much?” I said, thinking a few thousand.
“A million dollars,” she said. “That’s what he said.”
The nail applicator smeared over her toes. “What? A million dollars?”
“That’s what he said.”
Amelia and I exchanged glances.
“What is it?” Princess said. “Is there something wrong with my toe-sies?”
“No, there’s nothing wrong with your toe-sies,” I said. “It’s that a Carl Carlsburg was murdered this week.”
“Oh, another Carlsburg. That’s interesting,” Princess said.
“His family was from Transylvania,” Amelia added.
Princess glanced from Amelia to me. “Y’all are gonna tell me that the two are related, aren’t you?”
I blew on her toes. “We don’t know, but it sounds like they are. Thing is, lots of folks had a reason to want to get rid of Carl. He’d been hired by your Uncle Johnny to kill Donovan, but had also swindled the father of the Sensational Singers by selling the vampire bat to him to begin with.”
Princess whistled. “Well if that ain’t a cluster, I don’t know what is.”
I capped the bottle and set it aside. “That’s what I say. It is a cluster, with all these people invested in Carl in one way or another. Did Arnold ever tell you who his brother was?”
Princess shook her head. “No, he sure didn’t. All I knew was that there was money involved.” She suddenly gasped. “Uncle Johnny didn’t kill Donovan, did he?”
“No,” Amelia said.
“Whew, because none of this is his fault.”
“Princess, how come you sound Southern and Johnny sounds like he’s from a mob movie?” I said.
Princess blinked at me. “I guess because I am. I grew up in the South and he lives out West—a transplant from the East. We’re close, though.”
Princess unhooked her feet from Amelia and flew back to her post on the bed. She leaned over and glanced at her toes. “Ah, now I feel like a girl again. It’s amazing how a little spit and shine will make you feel a thousand percent better. Now, if I only had a naked cabana boy to give me a massage.”
I snorted with laughter. “Ha. No naked cabana boys here.”
“Shucks. Anyway, what changed my uncle’s mind? He’s pretty headstrong. When he calls a hit on someone, they’re usually dead within a few days.”
Nice.
Not at all.
I stretched my legs in front of me. The lengthening muscles felt good. I exhaled as the ropes of tendons relaxed. “Johnny’s girlfriend, Eva, changed his mind.”
“Eva? Who’s that?” she said.
I blinked. “His girlfriend. I said that.”
“I know, but I’ve never met her.”
I shrugged. “She must be new.”
“Must be because I never met an Eva. But why’d she talk him out of it?”
I explained the story about how Donovan saved Eva when she was young. “And that’s how it went.” I paused. “So when Eva fell from the bushes tonight, you’d never seen her before in your life?”
“Nope. Not one hair on that blonde girl’s head. I don’t know her.”
“They’re very close,” I said. “Anyway, how’ve you been feeling?”
She released the post and fluttered around the room. “I feel great. I mean, if I could stay a bat and still be human, I’d do that, but I do miss my life and makeup and a big bowl of pasta. I miss those things.”
I watched her carefully. “So you’ve been feeling okay?”
“Yeah. Why do you keep asking me?”
Amelia jumped in. “Because the vampire, Arnold, is waiting for the last part of the spell to be completed.”
“I thought it was complete. Look at me,” she said, performing a loop-de-loop. “I’m a bat. What more is there to change?”
I patted the air at Amelia, letting her know that I wanted to handle this part.
“The thing is, Princess, you can talk to us now, but at some point the vampire will need to either work one more part of the spell or wait for the entire transformation to take hold—I’m not sure which.”
“What happens then?” Princess said.
I twisted my fingers. Sheesh. I didn’t want to have to be the person to tell her this. I shot a look to Amelia, who shook her head. Great. What a scaredy-cat. Yes, I know I was being a scaredy-cat too.
But I digress.
“What happens then,” I said gently, “is that you’ll be completely changed into a bat and we won’t be able to turn you back into Princess. Right now Arnold is vulnerable. The transformation spell isn’t complete. But once it is—”
“I’m stuck like this forever?” she said, her voice rising in pitch.
“We’re afraid so,” Amelia said.
Princess’s gaze flickered to me. I nodded. “If you can find Arnold, we can work the spell that will place the curse back on him and free you. Forever.”
I watched Princess’s lower lip tremble, and I thought surely she’s not going to cry.
Then I watched as little bat tears streamed from her eyes. “Oh why? Why did I ever listen to that bat and believe his lies?”
Amelia shot me an anxious look. I nodded as if to say it would be fine.
“Princess,” I coaxed gently, “why don’t you tell us what happened.”
She hiccuped. “You mean how I became a bat?”
I patted her little furry head. “Exactly. How did you end up like this?”
The tears slowed from her eyes. Amelia handed me a tissue, and I dabbed Princess’s fur.
“Well,” Princess began, “I assume y’all know that I requested a vampire bat as a birthday gift.”
“We do,” I said soothingly.
“I always wanted one. Heck, I don’t know why. I’m a werewolf. Must be all the wolf blood running in my veins. We hate vampires, but I assume y’all know that. Witches aren’t much better, but we tolerate y’all.” Her gaze darted between us. “No offense.”
“None taken,” Amelia said.
“Well anyway, I got Arnold as a gift. At first he was a plain old bat. He ate crickets, he slept, that sort of thing. But then the dreams began.”
“What dreams?” Amelia prodded.
“Dreams where I would be lying in bed at night wearing nothing but a thin nightgown. All this mist would be in my room. It would be so thick I’d start choking on it. Right when I’d be about to have to get up and leave—you know, because I couldn’t breathe—I’d notice a figure outside the French doors leading to the balcony.”
Amelia gasped. “That is so romantic.”
I quirked a brow. “No wonder you don’t have a boyfriend.”
She scoffed. “What’re you talking about?”
“A stranger outside your door at night? Didn’t your mother teach you that sort of thing usually means there’s danger? Not a handsome prince but probably someone with bad intentions?”
“She might’ve,” Amelia whimpered. She smoothed her spiky blonde pixie cut. “Go on, Princess.”
“Anyway,” she continued, “I’d go to the door and open it. Standing on the other side would be literally the hottest guy I’d ever seen. He had these gold eyes, a beard, long golden hair and was wearing a designer shirt and jeans. He also wore all this gold jewelry and had the hairiest chest ever. I loved him at first sight.”
“And he was hairy?” Amelia said, confused.
I poked her in the ribs. “Some women like guys with a little fur.”
My cousin grimaced.
“It’s the wolf in me,” Princess said. “I love hairy men. But anyway, this guy would come in and talk to me. We’d sit on my bed and spend the rest of the dream talking about, well, everything. He’d talk to me for hours, and that’s what happened every night. I’d go to bed, have the mist dream and talk to the guy.”
“But something must’ve changed,” I said.
The bat fluttered her wings. “Oh, it did. One night he told me his name, and he said if I said the name aloud, that we would be able to communicate while I was awake.”
Amelia chewed her fingers. “Well? What happened next?”
“I didn’t do it for a few days because I thought it was baloney, but during that time I didn’t dream of the guy either. So after about three days, I thought ‘to heck with this’ and I said the name—Arnold.”
She paused. “Do y’all have some water I can drink?”
“Yes, dear Lord, let’s get you some water.” I unclenched my hands. I hadn’t realized I was even doing it until Princess stopped talking.
I was dying to know the rest of the story, but I waited patiently while Amelia filled a cap from a water bottle and let Princess lick it.
She smacked her lips. “Thank you. Now, where was I? Oh yes, I said the name, and suddenly I could hear the bat in my head. He started to tell me a story about how he had been a vampire prince and was cursed—trapped inside the bat body.
“Of course I knew he was a vampire, but I didn’t know he was a prince. Anyway, he went on to explain that the body I saw in my dream was how he really looked and that after he’d spent so much time talking to me, that he had a confession. He loved me. Loved me. The hot guy from my dream was real, y’all! He was real and he loved me. You can’t imagine how overjoyed I was to hear it.”
“Except he was a bat,” I said.
“Minor inconvenience,” Princess said. “At least that’s what I thought. But he told me he wanted to be with me. That was the only thing he wanted in the whole wide world. I realized I loved him, too, and that’s what I wanted—to be with him no matter what. Yes, I knew he was a vampire and I was a werewolf and we weren’t supposed to be together, but I didn’t care. Not because he was so hot, but because he understood me, y’all. He got me like he was starving and I was a frozen Snickers on a hot day. I mean, he was the white chocolate to my dark. We got each other. Y’all understand that?”
I smiled. I couldn’t help but understand it because that’s what Axel was to me. He completely understood and got me in that same sort of way. No, I wasn’t going to use food to describe how well we “got” each other, but we did.
And I loved it.
I clicked my tongue. “So Arnold reeled you in.”
“Y’all, it was hook, line and sinker. I didn’t even know it was happening; it just sort of did. One moment I was listening to how he’d been accused of stealing money and had been cursed to live as a bat, and the next thing I knew, I was letting him suck on my neck to get at my blood.”
I froze. This was it—the information we needed. If we were going to turn Princess back into a human, Axel had to know some of the inner workings of the original spell.
“So is that what changed you? The drop of blood?” I said.
“That and I kissed him. Next thing I knew I was shrinking to the size of an orange and the bat was growing into a big hulking shape that vanished as soon as he finished transforming. He left and I tried to follow, but he was too fast.”
She sighed. “So I abandoned the house. I was so embarrassed I didn’t want to face my family. I’d been taken in by a vampire. I’d never live down the humiliation. I flew into the night sky, joined up with a flock of bats and haven’t looked back.”
We were all silent for a moment. Amelia exhaled a deep breath. “And that’s how you ended up here in Magnolia Cove?”
“I guess so.”
I smirked. “My guess is that Arnold has been keeping track of you. Until the transformation is complete, like I said, he’s vulnerable and can still return to a bat. We need you to help us find him here in town. Can you do that?”
Princess nodded. “Of course. I can help however you need. But there’s something you should know about the vampire.”
“What’s that?” Amelia said.
“He told me that he can shift into almost any form. So what he looked like in my dream is probably not what he looks like now.”
I frowned. “So you’re saying it may be impossible to know who he is?”
Princess nodded her little bat head. “Unless Arnold wants to show himself, I’m afraid we’re going to be up a creek without a paddle.”
Amelia clicked her tongue. “Then we just have to get a new paddle.”
I nodded. “I know exactly who to ask.”
“Who?” Princess said.
“Betty Craple,” I said, smiling. “If there’s anyone who can help us reveal the true identity of a person, it’s her.”
SEVENTEEN
“I don’t know if there’s a spell that can reveal a person’s true identity,” Betty said the next morning as she stirred something that looked an awful lot like porridge in the big cauldron.
Not that I knew what porridge looked like, but the substance didn’t exactly look like oatmeal and it sure as heck wasn’t grits.
“But there’s got to be something,” I said. “Princess never really knew what the vampire looked like. How are we supposed to find someone if we don’t know who we’re searching for?”
My grandmother pulled the spoon from the cauldron, blew on the substance and tasted it. “Needs more salt.” She took a handful from a glass mason jar and tossed it in.
“What’re you making?” Cordelia said.
“A new mud mask.”
“And you’re tasting it?” I said.
She placed both hands on her hips. “You can eat it, too.”
I rubbed my forehead. “Okay, well, what about some magical eyeglasses that let you see
who someone really is under a spell?”
Amelia perked up from her chair at the table. “Do those exist? I would love a pair of glasses like that.”
Betty shook her head. “They don’t exist. At least not that I know of.”
“But there’s got to be a way,” I said.
Betty glanced at Princess, who hung from one of the fireplace bricks. “You remember what the bat smelled like?”
Princess stretched her leathery wings. “Like bat.”
“That may be the best place to start,” Betty said. “It’s not perfect, but it’s what we’ve got.” She stirred the mixture again. “Ah, perfect.” She slopped a spoonful into a bowl, turned to us and said, gleaming, “Now. Who’d like to try some on their face?”
My cousins and I exchanged worried looks. Cordelia glanced at her watch. “Oh, where did the time go? I’ve got to be at the inn.”
Amelia smacked her head. “The Vault just called. I’ve got to go in early today. That way I’ll be free tonight for the opening of Wicked Witch.”
Betty cocked a brow. “The nightclub?”
Amelia clapped with excitement. “Yes. I can’t wait. Bye, y’all!”
She exited like greased lightning streaking down the sidewalk, leaving me alone.
Betty smiled widely. “The mask has blackberries in it. They’re good antioxidants for your skin. It’ll keep you looking younger for years to come.”
Just then Uncle Donovan walked in from the back porch. Yes! Saved by a new arrival.
“Uncle,” I said, “you’re back!”
He waved the air. “Oh yeah. They only brought me in for questioning. It didn’t take too long. I was out in a few hours.” His eyes widened when he saw the bat. “Princess, is that you?”
She flapped her wings. “In the flesh.”
He crossed to her and touched her head. “I’m so glad to see you. You look well.”
“I feel pretty good, though I hear that vampire followed me into town.”
Donovan glanced at me.
I nodded. “Johnny Utah’s girlfriend was attacked last night. Said the culprit went for her throat.”
Donovan rubbed a cheek in thought. “Makes sense. If the transformation is not complete, then the vampire needs to either capture Princess to finish what was started or wait until a certain amount of time has lapsed.”
