The man certainly rolled his eyes, and they went opaque for a moment. Fear struck me. I wasn’t a rule breaker. Who knew what the consequences would be for straying out of our village? He was about to scream ‘human’ and commence the body ripping.
“A shifter.” He pointed at me. What the fuck? The only thing I shifted into was a new decade.
“A white witch.” He pointed at Maggie. “And… you. Whatever you are.” He pointed at Fallon, who just smiled back.
Maggie cackled. She loved that. She always pretended to be a for-real witch with all her crystals and castings. “I think this one would rather be a demon.” She pointed at me and I elbowed her in the ribs. “Or a cave troll.”
The man grabbed my hand, his gaze focused inward, and a sharp spark of energy arced between us right to the center of my chest. “Nope. A shifter.” He turned back to our waitress.
Did the room feel hot? I wasn’t attracted to that guy, but holding his hand ratcheted up my temperature to heated. Was that zap some kind of magic?
“It’s as busy as half-off Friday at The Clamouring Clam. Just get them their drinks, Ruby, and help Emrys mix kelp martinis for the pod of selkies.”
Fallon ordered us, well, them, another round as I nursed my one whiskey and Ruby and her guy moved off.
Maggie turned to me with a grin. “See? He thought we fit in just fine. You didn’t have to worry.”
“How exactly did you find this place again?” I asked as I took a sip. The nerves must have been getting to me. My mouth was as dry as the sandlot in the center of our town.
“I consulted my horoscope and yours for a birthday reading. It confirmed your Venus is in Sagittarius, meaning your romantic side is curious and easily bored. You enjoy your independence and aren't willing to compromise that freedom for a relationship that doesn't expand the boundaries of your world, which is really what I’ve been telling you all along, and it directed me here. The boundary between worlds.”
All those words made me dizzy. Maggie drove me up the wall with her readings and moon signs. She claimed that’s how she got healthy and changed her body, but I only saw the mask covering her need for control. Nothing I said shook her belief in those stupid candles and affirmations. The dizzy part had to be her blathering on, or the whiskey, because the bar couldn’t be undulating before my eyes. Right?
I looked down at my glass of scotch. “Did you put toad in this?” I asked Fallon.
“I told you I would never do that again. I didn’t appreciate hauling your ass into your house by myself.” Fallon sucked down the last of her drink, giving me serious eyes.
“How many of these did I have?” My stomach lurched in the most unlady-like fashion.
“Too few,” Fallon said.
“I’ll be right back.” Clambering out of the booth, I rushed to the bathroom. I would not spew alcohol everywhere. I pushed past some sort of neon tentacled blob and a hot, dark-haired guy with bat wings and purple eyes. Everywhere I looked only made my head spin. It was hard to hold on to panic and my stomach at the same time.
Thank Godds there was a proper washroom because I wasn't puking in the hall. It was bad enough I stumbled forward, retching, but then I fell down, down, down until my head swam in a kaleidoscope of color and nothingness that cushioned my brain with a cool pillow and ripped my mind apart at the same time. I panted with total grace—on the floor. I must have been on the floor, because Mags came charging in and looked right above me.
“Damn,” she said.
Here. I was right here, and she turned to leave. My voice caught in my mouth as I heaved myself up and followed her out the door.
“Has anyone seen Evie?” Maggie said.
I was too far down the hall to shout at her. I walked faster, ready to give her a piece of my mind for not helping me off the bathroom floor. Suddenly, a woman with long black hair and void-like eyes looked my way and screamed, “SNAKE!”
A snake! I jerked forward, trying to see it. I hated snakes. What was supposed to live without legs?
Pulling my legs up off the floor so it wouldn’t bite me, only hurled me into the crowd. People behind me screamed, and I fell backward with no one to run into. I skidded to a stop. Faces looked down at me in horror.
Wait. In horror? Regaining my balance, I stood on my tiptoes, looking for Fallon or Mags. I tried to call to them but my throat wasn't working. Fallon popped out of the milling crowd, and I rushed at her. We did not go to bars with snakes in them! That was the last straw for this adventure. We needed to get out of here. Fallon screamed and someone pushed her forward in the panic.
With me moving toward her, we collided, and Fallon had her hands all over me, pushing, flinging me into the air. Why wasn’t that right? I landed hard on the bar top, rolling out of most of the action on the bar floor.
“Kill it, Dane!” someone in the crowd shouted.
“Emrys. Just spell it or something,” someone else yelled.
More opinions. More noise filled the background of the bar. I laid face down, wheezing. Just the privacy of my own thoughts for a second. My snake thoughts.
It was me. I saw myself clear as day in the mirror behind the bar. My reflection showed a long, legless, black-scaled tube draped across the dark wood. I pulled my knees up, and they brought a tail with them. A cute, shiny tail, but a tail nonetheless. My brain was failing at processing what I was seeing. Sitting up felt wrong when my whole body was a stomach.I’m never going home.It made me want to curl into a ball and solve everyone’s problem by just dying.
