Page 23 of The Vampire and the Case of the Cursed Canine

‘Yeah, she was my nurse after the … incident.’ The incident she was referring to was when we’d rescued her from black-ops drug dealers, her ex and a terrifying kushtaka.

‘Oh yeah, you mentioned that, but I didn’t know you’d stayed in touch.’

‘We hit it off. She’s really cool, and she doesn’t have a lot of friends. Like me.’

The door opened and April Arctos walked in. She frowned when she saw Sidnee. ‘Have I got my shifts wrong?’

‘I’m not supposed to be here,’ Sidnee said cheerfully.

‘You’re all workaholics,’ April muttered. ‘You’re young, you should be out having fun, not loitering here.’

‘We like loitering here,’ Sidnee objected. ‘There’s free coffee.’

‘Good point.’ April nodded and sat at my desk. ‘I’ll check on things.’ She logged into the system. ‘Ooh – curses! They’re always exciting. I remember once when my brother paid a witch to transform my other brother into a fish.’ She laughed. ‘Mum was furious. My youngest sister kept trying to eat him whenever she was in bear form. It cost a pretty penny to uncurse him, which my brother had to pay back in full. He had to pull double shifts at Kodiak Kitchen for years.’

‘What did the fish brother do to get himself cursed?’ Sidnee asked.

‘Oh, he kissed my cursing brother’s girlfriend. They’re married now.’

‘The cursing brother or the fish one?’

‘The fish one. It was true love. Cursing brother is over it – turns out he was gay and was very much in denial about it. He’s happily married, too. Grant is perfect for him.’

Sidnee was grinning. ‘Your family sounds fun.’

April beamed. ‘Thank you. They sure are something.’

‘Talking of curses,’ Sidnee said, ‘Fluffy is cursed too!’

‘Oh no!’ April bustled round to Fluffy to check him over.

‘Apparently he’s not in pain,’ I assured her.

‘What’s the curse doing to him?’

‘We have no idea.’ I admitted, but my head wasn’t really in the conversation; it was on Fluffy and going beyond the barrier. I was determined to go but I was already pooping my pants at the prospect.

Sidnee shook her head. ‘Fluffy is the absolute bestest boy. I can’t imagine how he was cursed!’

‘Me neither,’ I said. ‘Maybe someone on a case did it and we never noticed. But I’m worried. I don’t want anything to happen to him.’ Thinking about losing him was making me sick to my stomach. I wanted to run home and shove him into a cocoon of blankets. I needed a distraction – fast. ‘I’m going to update Gunnar before we clock off,’ I said. Besides, we were due at Sig’s for dinner shortly.

I went into his office with Fluffy on my heels. Gunnar was leaning back in his chair, his feet up on the desk, scrolling through his phone. ‘Busy?’ I asked a shade sarcastically.

He looked up. ‘Nope.’

‘We have a lead on a way to help Jeff.’

His eyebrows shot up; he put his feet down and leaned forward. ‘But?’

‘Anissa Popov, the shaman, said her elders have a cure but it requires a hard-to-get ingredient.’

‘How hard?’

‘Beyond-the-barrier hard.’

Gunnar gulped. The last time we’d been beyond the barrier, we’d barely escaped the beast and Gunnar had ended up with both shoulders dislocated. It wasn’t an experience either of us was in a hurry to repeat.

‘Is there a way we could helicopter in or something?’ I asked optimistically. ‘I know they’re expensive and we don’t have much of a budget, but it would be the easiest way by far.’

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