Page 19 of Batty About You (Pine Ridge Universe #23)

I try again to undo the fiddly little locks on the cage, but they’re immovable when you only have two thumbs attached to leathery wings to work with. Pedro the parrot was a clever fiend, and apparently, he required extra security, curse his brainy little beak, deceased or not.

Just when I think I’ve got the top latch ready to slide free, Kelly comes bursting in, phone up to her ear. “No, I didn’t see him, but I’m going out on foot once I get out of this dress.”

I flap, squeak, and carry on like my feet are on fire, throwing the late Pedro’s seed dish around, ringing his stupid jangly bells, and making enough ruckus that Kelly hangs up and turns towards me.

Her eyes are streaked with mascara and tears, pink and puffy. I let out a miserable chirp. It’s all my fault.

“Oh, little guy, you can get out now. If you’re well enough to make a disaster, you’re well enough to fly home, I hope.

I...” Kelly looks around like she’s trying to decide what to do, and I keep making a racket, hoping she hurries and lets me out.

She can just open a window and stick the cage out of it. I’ve got it from there.

But instead, she chucks off her beautiful heels, tall and chunky, almost iridescent, and slips her bare feet into thin canvas tennis shoes. Then she grabs a windbreaker from the closet, a flashlight from under the kitchen sink, and my cage.

As she carries me outside, her phone rings again, and she answers it at once. “Hi. Did they find him?” she demands.

I can hear the voice on the other end of the phone.

“No, a bunch of people are searching the house, and some men went off to search the grounds and the hedge maze. Since his car is here, they thought maybe he wandered around the grounds before coming in. Maybe he got lost in the maze. I mean, it’s a very simple maze, but it could happen if you panic. ”

“Thank everyone for me. I’m heading out on foot now.”

“Ardy Walsh said you should wait at your apartment. He’s coming to walk with you. He doesn’t want anyone walking alone across campus or over the footbridges in the dark. At least not tonight.”

“This is the safest place I’ve ever seen,” Kelly huffs. “Two years here, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard a single police siren.”

“Well, they keep it safe by being proactive. Just wait for him there.”

“Okay. Boggie would want me to be safe.”

Oh, thank God. She’s not cursing my name. She still thinks I care about her.

When we get outside, Kelly beelines for her car and rests the cage atop of it with a grunt.

She’s so strong, despite being on the petite side.

“There you go, batty,” she says with a wet sniff as she opens the cage door.

“I hope you have a nice little bat girlfriend who’ll be relieved you’re safe.

Maybe you’re a wishing bat, like the fish the man saved in the old fairytale?

If I free you, can you make my wish come true and give me back my boyfriend? ”

I don’t know if it’s desperation to help her, to stop her from crying, to hug her and wipe away her tears as they start to fall again, or the fact that I’ve been trying to force myself into my humanoid form for hours, but the second both wings touch free air—I shift.

I can’t even prepare Kelly for the shock, all I can do is hold in the painful yowl that tries to rip from my throat as I go from six inches (wing to wing) to six feet in two seconds, ending up in a panting heap at my girlfriend’s feet as she screams—and then hits me on the head with a flashlight.

Thank God this form is pretty strong. “Kelly! It’s me!” I shout as the second blow catches me on the arm.

The flashlight stops in mid-upswing. “Boggie?” she lets out a terrified whisper.

“It’s me. It’s me, sweetheart.” I say, straightening up and stepping several feet away.

“But... But you were a little bat. In a little cage,” she whimpers, flashlight still held like a cudgel, ready to strike.

“I know. I know, and that’s the secret I never wanted to tell you. I just wanted you to think I was in a costume,” I plead, still backing away. “I didn’t want you to know I was this monster. This ugly thing. I can go, Kelly, but I didn’t want you to waste any more time looking for me.”

Kelly blinks, wide-eyed and pale. Her lips tremble. The beautiful smile is gone. I’ve made the woman I love cry and scream in terror, not in excitement or pleasure, and now I have to leave her with the memory of her best friend, her boyfriend, as a freak and a monster.

Oh, yes. The curse is very real.

“Don’t go!” I don’t know why I scream it, but I do.

The thing in front of me talks with Boggie’s voice. It knows my name, and it has his cadence and speech pattern. I can tell that from just a few sentences.

But it’s fucking huge man-bat. It was a little bat with wings—and now it’s the size of a professional wrestler with fur-coated rippling muscles and wings, and bright red eyes that are overflowing with tears.

Tears.

Red and blue lights flash behind Bogdan, and he looks like he wants to run, but I shake my head, thoughts a cloudy mess.

Officer Ardy Walsh—dressed like someone who escaped from the Ren Faire—steps out of his personal car and turns off the little stick-on siren. “Is the guy we’ve been looking for? Mr. Bogdan Lupescu?”

I manage a nod, but my face must show my terror and confusion.

The officer steps forward, face grim. “I see you’re already in costume, sir. Is there a problem?”

My mind races. I don’t know what to do, but some instinct is still to protect my best friend.

If I don’t, maybe something horrible will happen to him.

Would the officer shoot him for being some sort of monster?

Does the officer even have something to shoot him with since his uniform has been replaced by a baggy tunic and poofy pants that lace up around his ankles?

“I’m leaving, officer. I didn’t mean to upset anyone. I just need to get my car. It’s parked back at the party,” Bogdan says sadly, backing away, his arm held up defensively in front of his face.

I can see all the veins in his wing as it stretches thin, his eyes squinting against the harsh glare of the flashlight I’m still aiming at him. I can see his fur—thick and smooth, every little strand of it.

“Oh. Okay. Well. Sorry that you can’t stay.” Officer Walsh looks between both of us, face uncertain. “Let me tell the folks back at the house that you’ve been found. I—”

“Ardy! Is that the missing guest?”

I look up—and practically faint.

The man in the mothman costume—Cindy’s husband—is flying above us, swooping low to shout to Ardy.

“We’ve got him, Lennox! Just about to call Minegold and tell him to call off the search.”

“Oh, thank God! Thought he was lost in my maze, and I would have never lived that down.” The big guy waves and swishes back up. “I’ll head back and tell everyone he’s safe!”

“Thanks, Len!”

My mouth is hanging open. “He flies.”

Yes, I know it’s an obvious statement, but the world feels woozy right now.

Officer Walsh cocks his head at me. “Well, yeah. He’s a mothman. We have him and Genesis doing an aerial scout.”

“Genesis is another mothman?” I whisper. Funny. The starry sky is losing its stars. The furry black and red shape is blurring out.

“No, he’s a gargoyle. No offense, fella, but I don’t think I’ve met someone like you before. Ahool?”

“No, just... just a hybrid between wolf shifters and vampires, back in the day. I got all the bad family bloodlines.” Bogdan is speaking, his voice nervous.

It sounds like a badly tuned radio, breaking apart and fading in and out. The sky is doing the same thing.

“Catch her!”

The policeman in the Renaissance Faire get-up gestures frantically towards Kelly, who suddenly pitches forward in a faint, her eyes fluttering, her beautiful hair falling askew.

“Ohh. Oh, sweetheart,” I whisper, catching her just in time, cradling her in my arms while my tears start to fall. “This is all my fault. I should never have come.”

“She didn’t know you were the real deal?” The officer says in a surprisingly sympathetic tone.

“No. I thought that tonight, with everyone being in costume, I could kind of gradually work my way up to this point. But... I can change into a bat. Like, a normal little bat. Well, it’s not normal, but it looks like a cross between a fruit bat and a little brown bat, and anyway—Kelly hit me with her car. ”

“Oof.” Walsh winces.

“Tell me about it. She stuck me in her roommate’s old birdcage. Not that her roommate was a bird. She had a bird. A parrot. The parrot died—oh, not tonight, of old age, a few weeks ago. But the cage was still here, and she put me in it.”

“Right.” The officer nods patiently, brows drawing together as he tries to work out what I’m babbling.

I continue with a semi-relieved sigh. “I’ve been worrying that she’d think I stood her up, and here it turns out she thought I was missing.”

“She found your car on the property by the catering truck, but there was no sign of you. People have been searching the house and grounds. Kelly came back to get sneakers and a flashlight. She told her friend that she thought maybe you walked across the campus and footbridge to get to her apartment.”

“Walked, no. Flew, yes.” I give a sigh. “Wait... There are other monsters here? At the party?”

“Yeeees.” The officer’s eyes squint, and his head cocks. “You just met one of them. And me. I mean, I’m a pooka. That’s a monster to some, not to others. All the monsters in this town live a nice, peaceful life with our human neighbors—not that most of them notice the difference.”

“Did you say ‘all the monsters’? How many are there?”

“Oh. Hmm. Well, that’s tricky. Do we count the people who are part ‘monster’? And you want to watch how you use that word. Around here, we tend to use the terms paranormal or supernatural.”

I stroke the hair away from Kelly’s face. “You mean she’s been living with monsters hiding all around her and never knew? I guess everyone comes out on Halloween?”