“You’re supposed to look menacing,” Aunt B told her. “You’re Eduardo’s stand-in.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “Less laughing, more looming.”
Keira crossed her arms and pretended to scowl.
“We should’ve brought the werebuffalo,” Aunt B said.
We walked into the café. An older woman with gray hair smiled at us from behind the long counter and called out in a lilting language. Aunt B pointed to some things, money was exchanged, and suddenly we were sitting at a table with some pastries filled with apricots. We had been sitting still for about fifteen minutes when the kid walked through the door. He carried a rifle. A backpack hung off his shoulder. He saw Aunt B and Keira and halted.
“You have friends.”
“Yes.”
“It’s okay. Did you bring the money?”
“We did,” Aunt B assured him.
“Are you ready?” Volodja asked.
“Ready if you are,” Aunt B said.
The steep trail curved south, away from the castle. Blackberry bushes flanked the path, stretching thorny branches across the gravel and dirt. Our guide hadn’t said a word since we left the city behind about an hour ago. I did my best to turn my brain off and concentrate on memorizing the way back. Thinking about anything inevitably led back to Curran. I wanted to stab something. Failing that, I wanted to pace around. None of that would be helpful. Emotional raging just tired you out.
“How do you know where the orange shapeshifters nest?” I asked. Any distraction in a pinch . . .
“I’ve seen them.” Volodja shrugged, adjusting the rifle on his shoulder. “It’s not far now.”
I couldn’t wait to find out who pulled his strings.
“Come on, dear,” Aunt B said. “Where is your spirit of adventure?”
Midway up the trail, the magic wave drowned us. We paused, adjusting, and moved on.
One hour later the trail brought us up onto the crest of the mountain. Straight ahead the sea sparkled. Behind us, low in the valley, lay the city. A tall cliff rose to the left and within it gaped a dark hole.
“Cave,” Volodja explained. “We go in.”
“You first.”
Volodja took a step forward. The bushes on our right rustled. A dark-haired man stepped in the open. Around thirty, with a short beard, he carried a rifle and a dagger and wore a beat-up version of a djigit outfit. A bundle lay across his shoulder with mountain goat legs sticking out of it. A big gray-and-white dog trotted out and sat next to him. Broad and muscular, she had a dense shaggy coat. She might have been some type of Molosser—she looked like someone took a Saint Bernard and gave it a German shepherd’s muzzle and coat.
The hunter squinted at Volodja and said something. The kid answered.
The hunter waved his free arm. I wished I had a universal translator.
“What is he saying?” I asked.
“He is . . . crazy.” Volodja put his index finger to his temple and turned his hand back and forth.
The hunter barked something. The dog at his feet woofed quietly. I missed Grendel. I wished I could’ve brought him. Maybe he’d bite Hugh and Curran for me.
Volodja waved at him, like you would at a mosquito, and started to the cave. “We go.”
“Plokhoe mesto,” the hunter yelled.
Accented Russian. That I understood. “He says this is a bad place.”
Volodja pivoted on his foot, his gaze sharp. “You speak Russian?”
“I do. I also get very angry when people try to trick me.”
He raised his hands. “No trick. You want orange things or not?”
“We do,” Aunt B said. “Lead the way.”
“Agulshap,” the hunter said. “Don’t go into the cave.”
Agulshap didn’t sound like a Russian word. “What does agulshap mean?”
“I don’t know,” Volodja said. “I talked to you: he is crazy.”
Keira shook her head. “I don’t like it.”
I didn’t like it either.
“Come along,” Aunt B said. Her face still had that pleasant, sweet-as-sugar smile, but her eyes were hard. Suddenly I felt sorry for Volodja.
He pulled a torch out of his pack and lit it.
The mouth of the cave grew closer with every step. A few more seconds and it swallowed us whole.
The cave stretched on and on, tall, giant, vast. Stone steps carved into the living rock of the mountain led down below, and my steps sent tiny echoes bouncing up and down from the smooth walls.
“Little far,” Volodja explained over his shoulder.
“Clear as mud,” Keira muttered.
The stone steps ended. The only light came from the torch in our guide’s hand. We crossed the cavern floor to a rough arch chiseled in the rock. Volodja stepped through. Aunt B followed, and then I did, with Keira bringing up the rear. We stood in a round chamber, about thirty feet wide. Another exit, a dark hole, yawned to the right.
“We wait,” Volodja said.
We stood in darkness. This wasn’t filling me with oodles of confidence.
Keira touched my shoulder. Something was coming.
The kid dove forward, through the second opening. I lunged after him and ran into a metal grate that slammed shut in my face. The second clang announced another grate slamming into place over our only exit.
I pressed against the wall, between the two exits.
“I thought so,” Keira said.
Aunt B sighed.
We just had to figure out if this was a straight robbery or if someone had hired them to do it.
Someone shone a light through the grate. “I have crossbow,” a deep male voice said. “Silver bolts. Give money.”
“I don’t understand,” Aunt B said. “Where are the orange shapeshifters? Volodja?”
“No shapeshifters.” Volodja laughed, a little nervous giggle. “You give money and you can go. Human girl stays.”
“Don’t I feel special.”
“You trapped with us. Give money!”
“You have it wrong, dear,” Aunt B said. “We are not trapped here with you.” Her eyes sparked into a hot ruby glow. “You are trapped in here with us.”
The happy dress burst. Her body erupted, as if someone had triggered the detonator, but the explosion of flesh swirled, controlled, snapping into a new form. A monster rose in Aunt B’s place. She stood on powerful legs, her flanks and back sheathed in reddish fur spotted with blotches of black. Her back curved slightly, hunched over. She raised her arms, her four-inch claws held erect, like talons ready to rend, and great muscles rolled under her dark skin, promising devastating power. The monster snapped her hyena muzzle, the distorted, grotesquely large jaws opening and closing, like a bear trap.
Keira’s dress flew. A werejaguar rammed the grate. The crossbow twanged; the shot went wide. The metal screeched and the grate flew past me and crashed into the wall. Men screamed. A body flew, like a rag doll hurled by an angry child.
I kept my place, staying clear. There was room for only one of them in the passage and I would only get in the way.
Aunt B dashed after Keira, yanked a struggling man, and slammed him against the wall next to me. Volodja’s glassy eyes stared at me in sheer panic. He hadn’t turned, which meant he likely couldn’t hold the warrior form.
Aunt B’s hand with fork-sized claws squeezed his throat. She snapped her teeth half an inch from his carotid. A deep ragged growl spilled from her throat. “Who hired you?”
“Nobody,” he squeezed out.
“Who hired you?” Aunt B pulled him from the wall and slammed his head back against the stone.
“Kral! Jarek Kral!”
Aunt B squeezed. Her claws drew a bright red line on the kid’s chin. “What were you supposed to do?”