“I’ll stop him,” Benjamin said in a steely voice. “I’ve taken on werewolves before.”
“No way. What if he kills you, too?” I asked, horrified at his suggestion. The last thing I wanted was for Liam to go all “hulk-smash” on my best friend.
“And now you know what it’s like to be me,” the Rottweiler said. “This is what we do, Natalie, as Martha reminded me yesterday. We take risks if it means someone gets to live.” The Rottweiler widened his stance, ready to fight. “I won’t die, if you won’t, Deal?”
“Be careful,” I begged.
Benjamin gave me a nod.
I turned to Liam. “Do it. It will be OK. Benjamin will stop you from hurting Lola,” I said softly.
“Oh, I’d love to see that,” Sarah yelled from the rooftop. “A werewolf and a familiar battling it out right here on Shifter Hollow. What a fitting place for a fight.”
“Fine,” Liam said. “Just, please, bring her down here.”
“No, no.” Sarah Honeycutt wagged a finger at Liam. “Not until you hold up your end of the deal.”
Liam gave Benjamin a miserable look. “Don’t let anything happen to her.”
Then Liam Evans let go.
He reared back, his arms bending in unnatural angles. Then fur sprouted all over his body. He grew larger, ripping his clothes until there was nothing left of the Liam I know.
In his place was a slobbering, rabid wolf with shaggy black hair and the eyes of a predator.
The shapeshifter gave a whistle. “That is one ugly, hound. Take a good look, Lola,” she said. “That’s the man you love. This is what he’s been going to great lengths to hide from you. This is who he really is.”
Then Sarah lunged forward and wrapped her arms around Lola, sending both of them free falling down to the ground. Then with a twist of her torso, Sarah landed softly on her feet and gently set Lola down on the grass.
Lola stared at Liam in his werewolf form. She stumbled back, opening her mouth to scream, but no sound came out.
Sarah knelt down and touched her shoulder. “If by some miracle they don’t pump you full of memory dust, remember this face.” She pointed at herself. “This is the face of Sarah Honeycutt, your sister. Ask them what they did to her.”
Liam leapt toward the two women.
The shapeshifter reacted fast, speeding off to the other side of the house, out of view.
Lola covered her face with her hands, bracing herself for the werewolf’s attack.
But Benjamin was faster.
The brave Rottweiler launched himself onto the wolf and the two of them tumbled onto grass. They were a tangle of legs, teeth and fur.
“Please, be OK,” I said under my breath. “We had a deal, you big, stupid dog.”
With that, I scrambled around to the back of the house to end this once and for all.
21
On this side of the house, the grass was brittle as if it hadn’t been watered in weeks. In fact, most of the ground over here was dry, cracked mud. Martha’s mirror spell had appeared to have permanently sucked the life out of this place.
“Show me who you are!” I yelled.
I needed her shift back into her true form for the mirror spell to work. I needed her to face me as Lenny Holmes.
“You’re such a hypocrite. You go around forcing everyone else to air out their dirty laundry, all the while you hide who you really are. You made Liam turn in front of Lola. You stood there pretending to be Blake while I shared my insecurities. It’s your turn to show yourself, Lenny Holmes.”
“Now where’s the fun of that?” A silky female voice slithered from a dark corner of the dilapidated back porch. “I’d rather keep showing you who you are.”
I swallowed, willing my hands to stop trembling. “I know who I am.”
“Do you?” A figure stepped out from the dark porch into the moonlight. It was Savannah Silver in all her sparkling, beaming Hollywood brilliance. She had the exact same outfit as me—a simple black cocktail dress with spaghetti straps and black patent heels.
I looked down at my dirty, banged up feet. I’d kicked off my heels at some point during the chase.
If this were one of those gossip columns, it would have been a “who wore it better” sort of thing.
Spoiler alert: not me.
“That’s right, let’s take a good look at yourself,” the Savannah-shifter said. “Who is Natalie Wilder?” She twirled her shiny hair. “She’s the less-talented, less-beautiful, less-interesting version of your boyfriend’s ex, Savannah Silver.” The beautiful woman tipped her head to the side and tapped her finger to chin. “I’d say if Savannah Silver was an Italian espresso, I’d compare you to the stale drip coffee at that terrible gas station off the exit.”
“OK, is this really necessary?” I asked. “I get it. I have some self-esteem issues.”
Lenny Holmes sure knew what to say to inflict maximum damage.
“Oh, I’m just getting started.” The air around Savannah rippled and a new form took shape.
Now I was staring at the spinning image of my late Aunt Martha.
“That’s not all you are, Natalie. You’re also the busy-body niece who spends her time running a lodge because she’s too scared to study her magic.”
“I’m not scared,” I protested. “I’m just better at public relations and marketing, and that lodge isn’t going to run itself.”
The shapeshifter was really starting to get to me. How did she know my deepest insecurities? How did she know my secret fears? And, seriously, how the heck did she know that I appreciated Italian espresso?
I thought about how she made Liam do the thing he was most afraid to do—turn into a werewolf with Lola around. Then I remembered how she had pretended to be Savannah Silver to lure the producer to Banshee Overlook, and how she shapeshifter into his deceased just to mess with him in his last moments on earth.
This shapeshifter knows things about my friends and me. She might have known us better than we knew ourselves.
She’d even managed to separate me from my familiar—to leave him to keep Liam from hurting Lola.
This all seemed so pointless. Was this her plan all along—to infiltrate our lives so she could force us to make impossible choices at the cost of our loved ones?
The air around Aunt Martha shimmered again, and yet another form appeared.
Me—and not a very flattering me at that.
There I was, standing there in the grass in my bare feet and mud-caked dress. My blonde hair had twigs and leaves caught in it. My face was streaked with mascara like I’d been crying.
Had I cried? I must not have realized at the time.
Then Shifter-Natalie stepped forward. “Most of all, you’re the woman who looks at everyone else just to see how she measures up. You hide behind your sass or your duties at the lodge, but I see who you really are. You wake up every day terrified that it’s the day everyone will find out you’re not good enough.”
I didn’t want to think about what she was saying, but her words knocked the breath out of me.
She was right. Becoming a witch and taking on the responsibility of everyone’s safety was the most terrifying thing I’d ever done.
“You’d be scared, too, if not being good enough led directly to someone’s death. I’m the person who is charged with protecting this place. I’m supposed to be some kind of hero.”
“You don’t look like a hero. Heroes don’t constantly second-guess themselves.” Shifter-Natalie stepped closer. “I’ve spent all month watching you. I know you worry about doing the right thing. You’re different from your aunt in that way. Maybe if you had been the witch on the mountain eight years ago, none of this would have had to happen.”
“Martha did it to save lives. The shapeshifters who lived here before were violent.”
“Were they? Were all of them? Martha Wilder cast her mirror spell on every living soul in that house including the children.” The Natalie Imposter laughed darkly. “How were those s
hapeshifters any different from Martha? Those shapeshifters were protecting their home. They were protecting me. My entire family was killed here, and because of that, I’m going to have to kill yours.” She went back into the shadows and dragged out another form. “I’ve already taken care of Liam, that baker friend of yours, and your faithful familiar—and yes, I figured out early on that he was your familiar. You go around talking to him like he’s a human, for all the world to see. You have no idea how lucky you are to have a place you can be yourself—where you’re not constantly looking over your shoulder.”
She emerged into the light again, leading Blake into the grass.
Blake looked worse for wear. His face was nearly as white as the moon and his eyes were unfocused. He stumbled, appearing to barely have the strength to keep himself upright.
“Blake, are you OK?” My voice cracked. “What did you do to him?”
With another shiver in the air, the shapeshifter transformed into her true form.
Lenny Holmes, a small, slender woman with bright blue hair and a nose ring. She reminded me of a punk-rock Audrey Hepburn.
And she didn’t look anything like a serial killer.
Blake’s words from the other day came floating back to me: Looks can be deceiving.
Wasn’t that the understatement of the year? I thought bitterly.
“I came to Blake in the form of his vampire brother, and proceeded to drain almost every drop of blood out of his body. To be honest, it’s a wonder the man is still standing. If you try anything, end his life right now.” She heaved a heavy sign. “I’ve waited so long for this. I’m sure you’ve figured this out by now, but this place was my home.” Lenny motioned to the rundown house. “My birth parents abandoned me days after I was born because I scared them. I was different. I was a shapeshifter. By some miracle, I was found and taken in by other shapeshifters who didn’t want to live in isolation. They taught me how to use my abilities, and showed me that if I really wanted, I could pretend I wasn’t special. I could live a life like everyone else as long as I could control my powers.”
Lenny sneered at Blake. “Then the unthinkable happened. Some of the younger shapeshifters who had been taken didn’t have control of their powers, and several people working on the movie reported seeing actual shapeshifters on the mountain—paranormal activity, they called it. I was twelve at the time, and I was one of those kids who got caught shapeshifting. My family couldn’t let our secret get out, so they did what had to be done. The only way to guarantee safety for our group was to silence anyone who had seen anything.”
“So you killed them?” I said.
She nodded. “Just like I did with the producer. If you make it look like an accident, one will look too closely at it.”
“There must have been another way to keep your family safe. You could have worked with the sheriff or my aunt. They know how to wipe memories and keep things quiet.”
“Don’t you get it?” Lenny balled her hands and brought them to her forehead, visibly frustrated. “We don’t trust you. All you other supernatural creatures have an understanding. You help each other and cooperate. We are hunted by others. We don’t trust anyone because we can’t. It gets us killed. Martha believed we shouldn’t ever use our powers. She said no good could come from our abilities—only tricks and misinformation,” Lenny said. “When she heard about what had happened on set, she gave us an ultimatum—to have our powers stripped, or leave Wolf Mountain. Before we made our choice, Martha snuck into our home and performed her magic. No one escaped, except for me. I’ve been biding my time, waiting for the moment I could come back, destroy the Wilder coven line and rebuilt the shapeshifter community.”
“Why go after Blake and my friends? They had nothing to do with what Martha did to your family.”
“Because I want you to watch the people you care about suffer, and I want you to know what it feels like to not be able to stop it.” Lenny turned to Blake, slapping him on the cheek. “Keep your eyes open a little longer, Director-man. I want you awake for this.”
Lenny let go of Blake and he fell to his knees.
“Natalie, run. Get out here,” Blake pleaded.
“She’ll kill you,” I said.
“But I’ll know you’re safe,” he said. “Natalie, you’re the Wilder witch. This whole mountain needs you.”
Lenny rolled her eyes. “He’s brave, but it’s not going to do either of you any bit of good.” Lenny stepped back and held out her arms. She closed her eyes and shifted back into the one person I knew I wouldn’t be able to defeat.
Me, but the better version of me—a me who wasn’t scared to use her powers.
Electricity flew down from the sky and into her hands. With a grin, she pushed her palms out toward me, sending the electricity flying into me.
I held up the mirror, hoping that maybe, just maybe, it would deflect the stream of power.
It didn’t.
The electricity poured around the mirror and through my body, paralyzing me. I’d dabbled with my ability to manipulate electricity, but I’d never had the courage to let it loose like Lenny was doing.
Still, the glowing currents weren’t killing me—not yet anyway. I was made to withstand that kind of energy, but boy, did it sting. It was like someone had injected straight-up fire into my body.
Lenny moved toward me with purpose, pumping up the wattage of the electricity. “Look at all this power you have that you take for granted. Look at all the magic you could do if you just stopped being scared.”
I fell to the ground, convulsing uncontrollably.
She was winning. I hadn’t even gotten one decent magical punch in. How pathetic was it that I was literally being defeated by the better version of myself? Talk about self-sabotage.
The world grew faded and wobbly then, and I sensed I was losing consciousness.
I gripped the mirror for dear life, not knowing why, but sensing I should. I was much too weak to perform the mirror spell on her to trap her.
The better Natalie had prevailed.
An ear-splitting crash cut through the air.
Glass shards shot out of the mirror, sprinkling over my arms, getting caught in the fabric of my dress, and scattering all over the dry dirt-covered ground.
As the mirror broke, a circle of light reverberated in all directions like ripples in a pond.
The whole plateau began to tremble.
Lenny Holmes had used the Wilder power to crack that ancient magical mirror.
It looked as if the power that was held in the mirror had escaped as was now causing an full-fledged earthquake.
The electricity pinning me down vanished abruptly, and I found the strength to push myself up to my feet.
The air around Lenny shimmer as she transformed back into herself. Wide-eyed, she threw her arms out for balance.
And then the strangest thing happened.
All that electricity Lenny had generated when she had shifted into me came flowing back to me in a dazzling array of light like a cosmic boomerang.
I felt it buzzing all around me inside me, and this time I wasn’t going to push it away or take it for granted.
I was going to use the heck out of it.
Lenny stumbled backwards. I kicked my legs out, tripping her up, so she came crashing to the ground.
And I saw my chance. “It doesn’t matter if I’m scared,” I said. “That’s what courage is for.”
I grabbed one of the remaining shards of the broken mirror and pointed at Lenny.
I focused every ounce of energy on making this spell work.
I blocked out everything around me.
I put aside all my self-doubt.
I let go of trying to be as good Aunt Martha.
I focused the power I had and the love I had for my friends, family, and the people of Wolf Mountain.
And finally, the magic took effect. Lavender light burst from the mirror, cascading over Lenny like a waterfall.
Lenny screamed, rolling onto
her side, desperately trying to crawl away from the light.
But she was too late. With a blinding flash, Lenny was gone.
I looked into the broken piece of the mirror to make sure it had worked.
Reflected in the glass was the faded image of Lenny Holmes, curled up in the fetal position in the middle of a white room. She was crying into her hands, and I was struck by how young she looked.
It broke my heart to think that maybe this was what twelve-year-old Lenny looked like the night her family was torn apart.
The ground was still shaking violently and I fell to my knees. In the distance, I noticed that the magical tremor from the mirror knocked a huge boulder loose from higher up on the hill—the same one Benjamin and I had taken selfies on. It began to roll down the mountain Indiana-Jones-style.
In some random corner of my mind, a thought surfaced. So boulders really do come rolling down when you break an ancient object.
Blake managed to get to his feet. He made his way over to me and gave me a hand up. “I think I hear Angie and Dean on the other side of the house,” he said.
Even though he was standing, his face was still terribly pale.
I clutched the mirror shard in my hands and trudged along with him. He had his arm around my shoulder but I wasn’t sure if I was helping him walk or vice-versa.
Weak as I was, I felt a bubbly giddiness. I guessed it was from the excess power I’d taken in. “Don’t ever tell me to leave you behind to save myself,” I said.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” Blake said stubbornly. “Just because we’re dating doesn’t mean you can boss me around.”
My voice was choppy as I fought for breath. “Are you DTR-ing me right now?”
Though Blake’s navy eyes were heavy lidded and bloodshot, his whole face brightened at my words. “I’ve been wondering when you were going to bring it up.”
I heard the familiar voices before I saw them. Angie, Dean, Lola, Liam and Benjamin were dealing with the aftermath of Lenny’s attacks.
Angie cradled Lola in her arms, rocking her like she would hold her five-year-old son. Lola trembled uncontrollably, but she wasn’t crying. She was staring out into space. Her chest rose and fell as she took shallow breaths. Angie murmured reassuring words to her.
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