Emma
We barreled in and got walloped by the weird right out of the gate.
It looked like a wizard’s fever dream had exploded in the middle of the room. Waves of light rolled across the ceiling, but it wasn’t the gentle kind, the sort of thing you’d find in a fancy spa. This stuff shimmered and snapped, pale blue and bone white, and every couple of seconds it pulsed so bright my retinas wanted to pack up and go home.
But it was the floor that really made my brain short-circuit.
Right there, dead center on the battered carpet, someone had painted a symbol. Not a cute Pentagram Lite, not the kind of thing that showed up on Halloween napkins. This was the big leagues. Circles, jagged lines, numbers or maybe runes written in a mess of red that looked too close to blood for comfort. And sitting right smack in the bull’s-eye, nose twitching, was Python.
The mouse.
Python just sat there, paws tucked under, whiskers quivering like he was waiting for a bus. Only, it wasn’t a mouse’s faceanymore, not exactly. His nose kept lengthening, almost like putty melting in the sun, and his eyes gleamed from deep sockets lined with a weird greasy shine.
“What the absolute hell,” Beth whispered.
Wade elbowed in beside us, blinking so hard I was worried he’d sprain something. “Is that — Is he?—?”
He didn’t even get to finish, because right before our shocked, sleep-deprived eyes, Python started to change.
Now, I’ve seen my fair share of movie werewolves, and a good handful of real-life shapeshifters, but nothing, and I mean nothing, prepared me for what happened in Beth’s office.
Python swelled. First his limbs elongated, back arching like a puppet on strings. White fur melted away, peeling back to reveal skin so pale it looked painted on. His skull stretched and thickened, rodent teeth dissolving into a thin hard mouth. And then, with a horrible, bone-scraping crunch, the mouse was gone.
In his place stood a man. Or maybe “stood” was optimistic, since the guy crouched low, naked as the day he was born, knees bent in a prowler’s squat.
His hair was blinding white, like the keys on a brand-new piano. His skin was so pale I expected bats to flee from it. And his eyes? Black and bottomless, more shark than human.
He didn’t bother introducing himself. Then he ran. No dramatic monologue. No cackling or “catch me if you can.” The man shot upright with a speed that made my knees wobble, ducked behind Beth’s client couch, and sprinted toward the back hallway. Weheard the crash of the exit door before anyone even managed a decent curse word.
For a split second, nobody moved. The light in the room throbbed, then faded, like someone yanked the batteries out of a particularly deranged lava lamp. I just stood there, mouth open, air burning in my lungs.
Daniel found his words first. “Did he just?—?”
“Yeah,” I said, because that about summed it up. “He did.”
Beth winced, rubbing at her forehead. “That was Python. That was Python in a mouse suit. I’m going to need therapy after this.”
The silence that followed was jagged and ugly. Outside, a car alarm kicked in, like the world wanted to add ambient noise to our breakdown, and I almost welcomed the distraction.
But then, somewhere behind the couch, came a sound that made every hair on my neck jump to attention.
A terrible, desperate meow.
Forget whatever just happened with the world’s worst science experiment. I knew a cry for help when I heard it. I leaped over a stack of case files and yanked the couch out of the way, and there, under the collapsed weight of what used to be the “True Crime and Coffee Table” bookshelf, was Buster.
Not moving. Not even sassing.
Time slowed. My stomach turned ice cold.
Beth dropped beside me, hands scrabbling at the edge of the shelf. “Help me, help me get this off!”
Wade and Daniel heaved the bookshelf up and away. It toppled sideways with a thud that rattled my teeth. I knelt in the mess, barely breathing, as Beth scooped Buster into her arms.
He didn’t protest. That’s what scared me most.
“Hey, hey, buddy, are you— Buster, are you okay?” Beth’s hands shook so badly she could barely keep a grip. “Oh god, please tell me you’re not?—”
One limp paw smacked her cheek.
