Page 4 of Batty About You (Pine Ridge Universe #23)

I had just finished when Kelly’s call came in, and then I was back in the car, much closer to her little town than she thought.

I was hoping I’d get to Pine Ridge before sunset so I wouldn’t have to drive in my man-bat form, but a broken-down tractor-trailer and an abnormally long stop for gas ruined that.

Now, I have my windows open and my seat as far back as it can go as I rush through mountain roads, passing ominous yellow signs bearing the warning “Watch for Falling Rocks” every five hundred yards.

Maybe that’s how the curse will get me.

Or maybe one of these sudden, sharp fall breezes that seems to have pumped itself full of steroids as it comes whistling down the peaks into the foothills will just tip my ancient fifth-hand Honda down the mountain.

I know what you’re thinking. Shut the windows, you idiot.

No can do. To hold the wheel, my left elbow has to poke out through the window, and my right arm billows like a broken sail into the driver’s seat.

You think this is bad? Try driving after dark in the winter. I hate driving at night in the winter.

Why?

Because my wings are attached all the way down to my hands, because that’s how cursed seventh sons of seventh sons Lupescu hybrid shifter messes are.

Whew. Okay. I needed to vent.

See, I planned to fly to visit Kelly—it would be easier and faster, honestly, but then I wouldn’t have all my stuff to spend the weekend.

Plus, she’d be like, “How did you get here, Boggie?” And how would I take my gorgeous girlfriend out to Saturday brunch after our magical night together?

(I hope to God it’s the good kind of magical.) So, I’m driving in a car, with my small suitcase in the back and my grandmother’s prayerbook in a net bag full of garlic and silver crosses dangling from my rearview mirror (currently acting like one of those speedbags that boxers practice with, swinging wildly in the wind as I zoom along).

My phone rings again. My heart leaps. Maybe it’s Kelly, calling back to tell me again how excited and nervous she is.

I think I have her beat in the nerves category.

But no. It’s my other grandmother, the one who doesn't live with us, the one who still lives in the Carpathian Mountains (and the 1800s, apparently).

“Why is she calling me now?” I mutter and jab the phone as best I can with my bony fingers, wishing I’d had money to fix the radio in this old wreck of a car, or that my wireless headphones would work when my ears are “batty.”

Oh, right. It’s Halloween. Time for my annual lesson on how not to die. “Hi, Bunica!” I say cheerfully.

“What is this that your father tells me? You are not safe at home? You are out on this night, the night of the devils?”

“Nice to hear from you, too,” I sigh.

“De?teptul lui pe?te!”

“I’m not being a know-it-all!”

“Don’t waste your last breaths. You must turn around now! Or find a holy place and hide until morning.”

Maybe if I count to ten. Think about Kelly’s face. Stare at the beautiful fall foliage—ooh! And a road sign that says my exit is just fifteen miles away! “I can’t stay long, Bunica. I have to use my GPS once I get off the exit,” I say as sweetly as possible.

“You should not be exiting unless you are exiting into a church!”

“Kelly goes to Pine Ridge Non-Denominational. She said we could go together to services on Sunday before I go home. I have six more weeks of my internship at the music school, and then I’ll be done with all my music major credits. Isn’t that great?”

“My nepot, you are thinking with your trousers and not your head. Listen to the old ones. Our family has run all our lives to avoid the devil and the bargains he made with our ancestors not so long ago. You are the curse-bearer, the seventh son of a seventh son. You alone of your kin transform into a beast that has the vampire’s ability to change at will into a bat, the demon-wolf’s ability to walk in the day, and the curse binds your hideous form to the moon! ”

I look in the mirror. Okay, so I’m not human-looking right now. My nose is like a snubby upside-down heart, my ears are long, I’m covered in fur, and my eyes are red. Does that really equal hideous, or just... different?

I’m praying Kelly will think it’s just different.

“Grandma,” I use the American word for bunica because sometimes that irritates her to silence.

“I’m twenty-three, and nothing bad has happened to me on Halloween or any other night except that I’m forced to either be in my man-bat form or a little brown bat.

I can’t be human between the hours of sunset and sunrise—I get it.

I’ve missed a ton of parties. A ton of school events.

My parents have had to write a lot of excuse notes for marching band night games, and Dad finally had to get some quack doctor off the net to give me a diagnosis of night blindness so I could get out of any work or school requirements at night.

But on Halloween—everyone looks like something else, whether it’s a monster or a beauty queen.

The devil made deals with my stupid ancestors—”

“Don’t call them stupid, Bogdan!”

“I think they were stupid!” I shout over her, twenty-odd years of politely biting my tongue boiling over. “They did evil things for power or to cheat death, and they gambled away pieces of their soul, more and more pieces every time they did evil things, right?”

There’s silence. That means I’m right.

“A long time ago, someone in Mom’s family and in your family made decisions to stop killing and hunting, stealing and mauling, and God knows what else.

They had that monster blood, and they still chose to escape.

Mom and Dad are the best people I know. I’m going to be a doctor—well, probably a physician’s assistant, but whatever.

I’m going to heal and save lives. I make music. Kelly teaches children.”

The silence grows. Did I lose signal?

Shit, did I kill my grandmother by telling her too many truths at once? Or with my disrespect? “Bunica?” I whimper.

“I want you to be happy, son of my son. I believe you have a good heart, and the woman you want is a good woman. But if you meet her, you will see that she cannot love you, and it will hurt you. In your hurt, you may be preyed upon by the devil, because he knows how to sneak into our souls and speak to us in our despair. Listen to me, because I have seen it in my own grandfather and his brothers.”

A shiver runs through me that has nothing to do with the driving October wind. “She loves me.”

“If you believe that... Go to her tomorrow. In daylight. Go to her on any other night, but not this one. For this night feeds the devil, at least in your God-forsaken country.”

I shake my head, knowing many Americans would call her small rural village where only a few people have cars or modern conveniences the “forsaken” country.

“Belief gives power, Bogdan. Tonight is a night for wickedness, and the curse will come to claim you. You will no longer be my dear, sweet boy,” she weeps.

“Yes, I will, bunica! I will, I promise it. I vow it. If Kelly rejects me, well... I guess I’ll grow old alone, and there won’t be any more seventh sons coming from me, at least. I’m not going to go evil if she doesn’t like me.”

I’ll just die inside.

Learn to live with a broken heart. Maybe that’s the curse.

Yep. It’s probably the curse. The one night I can freely show Kelly who I am will end with her screaming and throwing things at me as I flee, sobbing and trying to fly straight.

.. I’ll crash into a tree. Break my neck.

Kelly will grow old and alone, afraid to date anyone else in case they’re also a horrifying monster.

I suddenly feel like everything in my stomach has turned to liquid, and I can’t wait to shift into my smaller bat form and release a load of anxiety-guano.

“Our family members are experts at storytelling. Why do we always tell the story of the worst-case scenario, though?” I demand, hunching over the wheel.

“Because we’ve lived long enough to know that you don’t mess with a curse. When you mess with a curse, it messes with you. Please stay inside tonight, or in some holy sanctuary, Bogdan! Your parents are beside themselves.”

“Bunica, I have to grow up and live on my own at some point. They can’t always watch me on Halloween night like I’m some ticking time bomb!”

“But you are not at home, alone, on your own. Then, you would be safe!”

“What, the devil can get into forests in Romania, but not apartments in Hoboken? Sounds pretty weak-assed to me.”

There’s a flurry of frantic Romanian prayers for my soul and for God to remove my stupidity. “Why would you say that?” she hisses.

“Because I wanted to! I will not be ruled by fear!” I might be bullied by it and crap my pants if I don’t pull over and shift soon, but I’m not going to be ruled by it.

“ I love you, and if you don’t want the curse to be that I crash my car, you’ll let me hang up and just say a couple of extra prayers that tonight goes well. Okay?”

At last, after a shaking, heaving sob, she says a whole litany of blessings and fervent prayers for protection over me, tells me to make sure the girl I’m meeting is not some internet Jezebel like the one who duped my cousin Vasile out of five thousand leu, reminds me to call her tomorrow if I’m still alive, and hangs up.

“Happy freakin’ Halloween,” I whisper to myself, and narrowly avoid missing my exit.