Page 69 of The Vampire and the Case of the Hellacious Hag

I was trying to keep my mind off dragging my friends with me into danger. Even though Matilda seemed willing enough to help, she was still an unknown – and we had no idea what was going on with the ‘mean men’ under the mountain.

Gunnar cleared his throat. ‘I got the toxicology on Helmud this morning.’

I sat up. ‘And?’

‘Fisheye,’ he said grimly.

Sidnee whistled. ‘Damn.’

I shook my head in disbelief. ‘He really did stumble on them. I’d bet a paycheck it was simply a case of wrong time, wrong place.’ The cogs in my brain were whirring. ‘AndAlfgar,’ I murmured. ‘Maybe the MIB were trying to cover their tracks, trying to pin it on Matilda.’

‘They know the dwarves are scared of her,’ Sidnee agreed. ‘When Alfgar’s death didn’t get the result they wanted, they tried a little more obviously with Evgard.’

‘I think they’re trying to run the dwarves out of the mine,’ I mused. ‘When their attempted purchase fell through, maybe they decided another method was in order.’

‘And this time the method was murder and intimidation,’ Sidnee said.

I frowned. ‘Butwhy?Chromite isn’t that expensive. Surely they can buy it easily enough.’

Gunnar tapped his hands on the wheel. ‘Maybe it’s a component of the drugs they’ve been creating – fisheye or somnum, maybe.’

I couldn’t help noticing we were using a lot of maybes but my gut told me we were on the right path.

Thomas shook his head. ‘If they think they can run the dwarves out of the mine, they’re wrong.’

‘The explosion was a real escalation,’ I said. ‘I bet they’re on a timescale and somehow, we’re fucking with it.’

Sidnee grinned. ‘I’m always happy to fuck with the MIB’s schedule.’

We pulled into thecar park. More debris had been cleared and some workers were getting ready to leave for the night. We climbed out of the SUV, girded our loins – or chests – with our vests, picked up our backpacks and weapons and headed up the hill to our rendezvous spot with Matilda. I led the way.

When we were in the spot where I’d talked to Matilda the previous day, I made sure everyone was ready and that the bakery box was visible in my outstretched hand. I called out clearly, ‘Matilda, Matilda, Matilda.’

Instead of making me wait, this time she appeared quickly, coming up through the ground like she was on a lift. She reached out her hands and I thrust the box into her impatient claws.

Matilda shoved doughnuts into her mouth at warp speed and it didn’t take long for her to devour a full dozen. Yikes, that girl needed to learn to savour her food. When she was done, she licked the last of the icing from her fingers and metal nails with a surprisingly pointy tongue. It looked a bit serpentine and I suppressed a shudder. She thrust the empty box back at me and I folded it flat and shoved it under a rock for retrieval later.

‘Rabbit bring good sugar snack,’ she declared.

I squelched a glare at the use of the moniker ‘Rabbit’. I didn’t think she wastryingto insult me – she did thatwithout any effort. ‘I’m glad you enjoyed the doughnuts,’ I managed, glad that Stan wasn’t there to hear her refer to me like that.

‘We go secret place,’ she declared. At least she was direct and on a mission.

‘Thank you, Matilda. I appreciate you helping us.’

She looked at me for a moment with her black eyes then turned. The mountain opened to her, revealing a tunnel tall enough for Gunnar to walk through without stooping. She walked into it and we followed.

Like my previous trip into the earth with Matilda, the tunnel looked like it had always been there, yet it was forming instantly as she moved. It was fascinating – but again I was disorientated, not knowing in which direction we were going in other than downwards.

The weight of the mountain started to bear down on me as my newly discovered claustrophobia kicked in. I didn’t realise I was gasping for air until Connor’s hand pressed into my lower back. His breath warmed my neck as he whispered, ‘It’ll be okay, Doe. Just breathe.’

I nodded and tried to concentrate on breathing normally. As a vampire-witch hybrid, Ineededto breathe whereas Connor did not. It was one thing I’d missed out on by not being a full vampire.

Matilda stopped suddenly. ‘Bad magic,’ she grunted, pointing ahead.

All I could see was an earth wall in front of me. ‘Matilda, how do we get past this spot to where the mean men are?’

She shook her head then squinted at the end of the tunnel we were facing. The mud fell away to reveal a cement bunker. She backed up until we were almost touching. ‘Mean men!’ she hissed.

---