The Transylvania Twist: A dead funny romantic comedy (The Monster MASH Trilogy Book 2)

by Angie Fox

  Had I ever been that young? That happy?

  Marc drew close and I felt myself soften.

  I hated that he made me feel this.

  No matter how hard I tried to forget, I missed my old life and everyone in it, including Marc. And if I was truly honest with myself, I missed my old life because of Marc.

  I set the photo back down on the desk, harder than I’d intended. He’d made a decision for all of us—me, his mom, his family. He’d “sacrificed” without even thinking about what it cost the rest of us. “What are you going to tell them if the war ever does end?”

  He let out a sad, strangled sigh. “You know that’s not going to happen.”

  “It could.” It might.

  He remained silent, and for a moment, it seemed he almost wanted to hope. Then he slammed into clinical mode. “Don’t get your hopes up, Petra.”

  I hadn’t been the type before.

  But was I now? Maybe.

  Yes, we were enemies in an eternal war. But I had to think the fact that we were standing here, as unimaginable as it was, meant something.

  “I know I was never a big believer,” I said. All science, no art.

  How ironic that I was now in Galen’s old role as the one who wanted to have faith in something larger than myself. But I’d seen firsthand how it worked. I’d been changed.

  Marc drew closer. “I don’t believe in fate. I only believe in what I can see, what I can touch.” His fingers seemed to move of their own volition as he reached to brush the hair at the nape of my neck. “I missed you.”

  My breath hitched. I tried to ignore the way his fingers traced the sensitive skin at the back of my neck.

  I pulled away.

  “You need to get some rest,” he said, struggling to find that stoic mask that we’d both worked so hard to perfect. “Take my bed,” he said, retreating.

  No. I wasn’t going to steal his bed. “I’ll take the chair.”

  He stood, arms crossed. “Fine. I’ll sleep on the rug.”

  “You don’t always have to be the one to make the sacrifice, you know.”

  He pulled the chair away from his desk and dragged it in front of the only door. “We’ve been going all night. You skirted the Great Divide. Don’t tell me you’re not exhausted.”

  Yes. I was completely fried, but that didn’t mean I wanted to lie down on his bed, on his grandmother’s quilt.

  “It’s okay, Petra,” he said, taking a seat in front of the door.

  “No,” I said, forcing myself to sit, “it’s about as strange as it gets.” He stood and unfolded a knitted afghan at the foot of the bed. “Sleep,” he said, easing it over me.

  I watched him retreat. “What about you?”

  He returned to his post at the door and dropped into the chair. “I’ll be all right.”

  I lay stiff and uncomfortable. “You’re not going to watch me sleep, are you?”

  “As long as you don’t watch me read,” he said, picking up a book from the desk. I couldn’t see what it was. Probably one of those thrillers he liked so much.

  It wasn’t my problem. He wasn’t my problem. “Good night, Marc.”

  I settled into his bed, pulling the soft afghan up to my chin. It smelled like him, and of home. My body sank into the comfort as my mind scrambled to find a way to process it all.

  Sleep was smart. It would help me be alert and ready tonight. This was about the mission, not about me snuggled up in his bed, surrounded by his things.

  I’d lived without him and without any of this and I’d been perfectly fine.

  The light-blocking shades were down. He extinguished the lamp on his desk, and the room darkened.

  I was helping him for one night only. We’d get into the lab, see what Dr. Keller had to say, and then get out. No complications. No strings. No more Marc.

  He’d clipped a book light onto his paperback. He sat with his book open, but he wasn’t turning the pages.

  “I missed you,” he said softly.

  My blood felt heavy as it pulsed through me. I watched him through half-lidded eyes. “I missed you, too.”

  I didn’t even remember falling asleep, until a sharp pounding at the door jolted me awake.

  “Belanger,” a male voice called. The pounding grew more insistent. “Belanger!”

  Marc stood, his chair scattering as he held the door closed.

  I sat up, half dizzy with a head full of cotton.

  “I know you’re in there.” The door vibrated. “Open up,” the man ordered.

  There was nowhere to go. Panic shot up my throat as I scrambled off the bed, fighting the afghan. What was my spy name again?

  Marc held the door closed with the entire weight of his body. “I can’t do that, sir.”

  “Belanger!”

  “Colonel,” Marc gritted out, “trust me. You don’t want to do this.”

  I scrambled for my white doctor jacket. “Kate Gordon,” I murmured frantically to myself. I was Kate Gordon.

  The man outside cursed.

  It would be better if I wasn’t caught at all.

  I searched frantically in the dark for a place to hide, but I knew I was trapped.

  “Don’t make this difficult,” the man threatened.

  Maybe I could pry my way out the back.

  My fingers ached as I tried to wrest the canvas bottom away from the ground. Maybe I could crawl out.

  But it was tied down tight.

  “Belanger,” the voice bellowed, “now!”

  Chapter Nine

  I stood and faced the music with my back straight and shoulders held back. I could do this.

  We hoped.

  The pounding stopped. “You have a girl in there, Belanger?”

  He winced as he flipped on the lights. “Yes.”

  His cool gaze caught my wide-eyed stare. He’d still kept a hand braced against the door, but at that point, he might as well have swung it open wide.

  I was new to this whole pseudo-spy business, but I was pretty sure giving up one’s partner was a big no-no.

  The man outside chuckled. “She has a pretty voice.”

  And what did that guy outside have? Super hearing?

  It wasn’t exactly rare in the supernatural community.

  I retreated a step and felt the canvas wall at my back. Marc had admitted I was here. Mister Mouse Ears out there had heard me. I didn’t know what to do. The primitive, panicked side of me still wanted to hide.

  “She smells nice, too,” Marc’s superior officer commented.

  “He can smell me?” I hissed.

  Marc placed a finger to his lips. “So now you know,” he said to the man outside.

  He motioned for me to come up and stand next to him. I did, because, truly, I had nothing else to lose.

  “I’ll be damned—” the voice lightened—”that’s the first girl you’ve had in what? Ten years? How long you been here anyway?”

  My breath caught as Marc slid an arm around me.

  He hadn’t wanted to see anyone else in all that time?

  I took in my silent, sexy ex. A small, angry part of me was glad he’d suffered. He’d brought this down on us. He’d chosen to cut me out of his life.

  Now it seemed like he’d been just as paralyzed by it as I had. I wasn’t sure what to do with that.

  He moved the window shade aside just enough for a fat-nosed, red-faced man outside to see me.

  The stranger chuckled and gave us the thumbs-up.

  I forced myself to raise a hand and wave. I was both sad and weak with relief. If they were going to be sexist pigs, at least it worked in my favor.

  “Come see me later,” the colonel said, “when you’re not so busy,” he added with a chuckle.

  “Will do, sir.” Marc dropped the shade closed as we watched the officer’s retreating form.

  “Come on,” he said, “let’s get you away from the window.”

  As we stepped back, I almost tripped over a book on the floor. “You were still r
eading?” I wished he’d tried to sleep. I didn’t know how long I was out, but my head had cleared and I felt better for it.

  “I got distracted,” he said, blocking me as I reached down for the blue binder-style book. This wasn’t the thriller he’d picked up before. If I wasn’t mistaken, it was something I’d made for him.

  I ran my fingers along the worn cover.

  It was.

  He cursed under his breath. “I haven’t gotten that out in a long time,” he said as I carried it to the bed.

  “Why now?” I asked, sitting down.

  “Because I’m a masochist.”

  It was missing the photo I’d glued to the front, but I would have recognized it anywhere. I’d made this for him on our second anniversary.

  It had been a hellish year. Well, before I’d realized what that truly meant.

  I was in my third year of residency and he was in his doctoral fellowship. We didn’t have time to see each other as much. So I’d put together a memory book of ticket stubs, greeting cards, the stupid poem he’d written me on a Sam & Ace’s bar napkin.

  I intended to find that epic bar napkin, but instead opened the book on a torn notebook page he’d left on my door.

  Roses are red

  Violets are blue

  Don’t freak out

  I’m in your bed

  P.S. I have chocolate sauce.

  I broke out in a smile. “You’re quite the poet.”

  “You think that’s bad.” The bed dipped as he sat down next to me. He flipped a few more pages. They were soft-edged and worn.

  I knew it as soon as I saw it. “The bounce house!” I’d forgotten we had a picture. Well, it wasn’t of us. It was of the goofy, multicolored blow-up contraption with eighteen kids running around it. But still…

  He’d gone with me to my cousin’s fifth birthday party, and my aunt had rented it. The kids had jumped and ricocheted off the walls like Tasmanian devils and then run off somewhere—probably for cake and ice cream.

  Marc and I bounced until we were dizzy and then hung out on the air-mattress bottom and talked about the future—how we wanted a house in the Garden District, four kids, and a black lab who would eat his mother’s broccoli casserole.

  When the kids wanted their place back, we’d stuck around for cake, then headed off for a hike together. We’d found a small field by a stream and spent the rest of the day tossing wildflowers at each other, talking and laughing.

  My heart clenched.

  Despite my better judgment, I looked up at him. His face mirrored what I felt, bittersweet longing and regret.

  I swallowed hard. “I thought you were trying to forget,” I said.

  He gazed at me for a long moment. “I am.”

  Chapter Ten

  We spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on his bed, talking. And as we reminisced about all we’d left behind, it was almost easy to forget where we were—when we were. I’d give anything for the last ten years to be one long, bloody, awful dream.

  How many times had we just hung out like this back at my little bungalow on Camp Street?

  My stomach clenched. Merde. I was asking for it. He’d crushed me when he left for the war. It had almost killed me when word came that he was dead. It had taken years to get over this man. And now I was signing up for it again.

  Beyond this brief oasis, the menace of the Limbo desert hung like the blade of a guillotine.

  This wasn’t New Orleans, and Marc wasn’t my soon-to-be fiancé. We were five klicks off a hell vent. I was in enemy territory, taking a stupid crazy risk just so that I could stick my neck out even farther and confront a murdered soul.

  It would be time to leave soon.

  Before I could remind Marc of that fact, the hutch door rattled.

  “Stay there,” he said, launching himself out of bed as the chair that was still halfway blocking the threshold pitched forward and fell.

  My heart skipped a beat as the door crashed open and a looming shadow filled the entryway. “What is this?”

  “A rude awakening,” Marc said, moving to block the intruder. Moonlight filtered in behind the hulking form.

  I brought a hand to my chest as Marc lit the lantern. It was Oghul. If I’d been any more relieved, I would have hugged the hairy battering ram.

  The door smacked closed behind him as he strolled into the tent. “It is time,” he said, firelight playing off the individual plates on his chest armor.

  “Wait.” I sat up straight. “We need a berserker with us to sneak into the lab?”

  “We do.” Marc nodded. Then, ignoring my discomfort, he added to Oghul, “Give us a minute.”

  Oghul’s expression clouded. “There will be talk of me outside your tent. I do not blend well.”

  “Act natural,” Marc said, leading him the rest of the way.

  The Mongol looked a bit like a scared puppy as Marc slammed the door on him.

  “Act natural?” I asked, scrambling off the bed. “A berserker?”

  “At least nobody will mess with him.” Marc sat down next to me as I pulled on my boots. “I just wanted a minute to say thank you.” He sighed. “I know you didn’t have to do this. You didn’t have to trust me.”

  I’d always trust him.

  When it came down to it, I might as well admit to myself that I’d always love him.

  “It was a nice interlude,” I said, yanking my laces.

  “Why are you shutting down on me?”

  “Because there’s nothing else to say.” We were going on our mission, and then I might never see him again.

  I needed him to stop talking. I needed to stop thinking about him, us—everything.

  He sighed. “I’m going to talk to Oghul. Don’t be long.”

  What did he think this was? The senior prom?

  Next to the desk, I found the duffel I’d brought.

  Rodger and I had packed a flashlight and extra batteries. I stuffed them into my pants pocket. That left the other pocket for Marius’s tricked-out silver-and-bronze snub-nose pistol. I studied the exotic spiderweb-looking knob on the side. He’d called it an energy disruptor. I cranked it all the way up and slipped it into my pocket.

  There was no telling what we’d find in the lab.

  I left the rest of it behind.

  It was a dark, starless night. The torches lit both sides of the path.

  A chill bit the air. Oghul and Marc stood in the shadows between the tents, speaking in low, urgent tones.

  When Oghul saw me, he straightened. “It must be tonight,” he said to both of us.

  “I know that,” Marc said, scowling. “Let’s go.” He wrapped an arm around me as we headed for the main part of camp.

  I shook him off.

  “Are you annoyed with me or the situation?” he asked.

  “There was never any problem between me and you,” I informed him. We just couldn’t catch a break.

  But I couldn’t dwell on that right now. I had to stay focused, to feel my fear at what we were about to do, and the pain of what we’d left behind. I needed it. Anger was about the only thing that kept me from cracking wide open.

  “I had Oghul do some advance work for us,” he said, walking next to me. “It seems the emergency exit, which never has a guard, now has three.”

  Yikes. “Do they know we’re coming?”

  “I don’t know,” Marc said. It was plain that he was worried. “It may be new since the murder. It may be that they’re watching us.”

  My heart sped up.

  Nights in the desert were cool, but nevertheless, I was beginning to sweat. The torches lining the path cast eerie shadows.

  It would be easy for Old God Army security forces to hide in the darkness and watch. I could be caught and executed as a spy before I even had a chance to snoop. “What are we going to do?”

  He kept his eyes on the path ahead of us. “We have a backup plan to bypass the guards.”

  “Something you’ve done before?” I asked.

&nbs
p; “No.” Marc was strung tight. “One step at a time,” he said, his voice low. “For now, I’ll be happy if we make it to the main path.”

  I gave him my best what-the-hey.

  His eyes darted over the shadowy road ahead. “If they know something, they’ll arrest us right away.”

  Well now, that was a comforting thought.

  “Almost there,” Oghul gritted out behind us.

  I could see the lights up ahead. I looked over my shoulder at Oghul and the inky darkness behind us. Just a little bit longer. I returned my focus to the light. We could do this.

  A pair of soldiers stepped out from a side path. “Hey, you!”

  My heart leapt to my throat. No. We were so close. These were cyclops guards, MPs.

  Marc gripped my arm protectively. His other hand went down to his side, and I was suddenly terrified that he had a weapon. Cyclopes weren’t immortal, but they were extremely hard to kill. Especially in the middle of a MASH camp.

  They stopped in the path in front of us, blocking us.

  The one on the right looked me up and down. “By the blood of Cerberus,” he snarled then chuckled low in his throat. “You finally took a slave girl.”

  For Pete’s sake.

  “I can smell you all over her.” The bald one on the left grinned, openly leering. “It’s about time. Where did you come from, sweetheart?”

  “New Orleans,” I answered.

  The guard on the right barked out a laugh. “I think I need to visit.”

  His buddy nodded. “When you retire.”

  “What do you have left, Barak?” Marc asked.

  “Only eight years.” The cyclops grinned, showing a set of stubby gray teeth.

  Cyclops MPs were forced to retire when they turned six hundred. Lucky ducks.

  I stiffened as an entire squad of elite troops marched down the main path ahead of us. “What are they doing out so late?”

  “Is one man not enough?” Old Baldy leered a bulging, bloodshot eye, and his buddy joined right in.

  Marc’s grip on my arm tightened. “Too bad for you I don’t share.”

  “Gotta go,” I added as he ushered me past the guards.