Page 55 of Wicked Hungry

“Maybe you should wait out here for us,” Enrique says. “Me and Jonathan, we can handle it.”

“I said I’m just fine,” I growl, my whole body stiff.

“Dude,” Jonathan says. “It’s no big thing. Just relax.”

“And don’t touch the door,” Enrique says.

Jonathan opens the door, and Enrique walks in, me right behind him. There is a gut-wrenching feeling as we walk through, and then we’re in.

It’s dark and dank in here. Like we’ve entered another world, like the walls are made out of hard packed earth instead of drywall. There are herbs being burned too, and I catch a whiff of one that makes my throat burn. I cough.

“Wolfsbane,” says a woman walking up behind us. “It’s supposed to protect us from angry enemy werewolves. I find it kind of irritating, myself.”

She smiles at all three of us and I just barely avoid her eyes.

“I am Morgan,” she says. “But in here you can call me Morgaine.”

She looks just as beautiful and longhaired as she was at Carolina’s party, but now there’s a pentagram around her neck and bracelets around her wrists. Her bare arms are covered with tattoos. Or are they sigils drawn on her skin? They seem to glow and move in the dim light.

I can’t hear the storm outside anymore. This seems like a very bad sign, somehow.

“It’s very quiet in here,” Enrique says.

“We are completely soundproofed, cut off from the world as you know it,” Morgaine says. “Here, no one can hear you scream.”

Enrique and Jonathan freeze up next to me. The air is suddenly muskier, and Enrique makes a low growl.

Chapter 22: MORGAINE AND BLAINE

Then Morgaine laughs, and there is a man behind her, balding with circular spectacles and a frown on his face. “Hi, Stanley, Jonathan, and friend. I’m Blaine Whelan,” he says. “I’m sorry, but Morgan likes her bit of fun with newcomers to the store.”

“Is she really High Priestess in my mom’s coven?” I blurt out.

“Yes,” Blaine says, “And I’m a werewolf.”

I stare at him, but then he’s laughing, too. Was that a joke, or what? Enrique glares at me, and Jonathan too.

“I am many things,” she says. “As you are, too; I can tell just looking at you. But tell me, boys, what are you looking for? What can I interest you in? How can I help you?”

“We were looking for something,” I say. “Enrique and me.”

“And what is that ‘something?’”

Looking around, I recognize nothing. There are herbs, and bottles full of colored liquids. And lots of very old-looking books. But nothing that looks like the board that Enrique described.

“Un Tablero. De Ouija,” Enrique says. Now it’s my turn to stare at him. Sometimes Enrique is like this—he forgets what language he’s speaking. But Morgaine seems unfazed.

“A Ouija board? We might have one of those around here somewhere.”

Blaine nods. “I’ll take a look in back.” And he goes through another door.

You can hear him rummaging back there. Morgaine smiles at us and it’s really hard to avoid her eyes. “So,” she says. “Are you all homeschooled?”

“No,” I say. “We go to Lansfeld High School. We’re all freshmen.”

“That wasn’t the type of schooling I was referring to. Have you been trained?”

I look at Jonathan, then at Enrique. They both shrug.