Page 10 of It All Started with a Bite

We entered Temple Heights. I could practically smell the trust funds in the air as I drove us past mansions that made my apartment building look like a garden shed. The Subaru chugged painfully up to the top of the hill.

I turned onto a private cul-de-sac that screamed old money and rolled Ethel to a stop in front of a pair of wrought-iron gates. My eyes found the statues atop the stone pillars bracing them.

They were wolves. Big, bad, dangerous-looking wolves. My gaze dropped.

“Whoa, look at the size of his—” Ellie started hoarsely.

“Holy ding-a-long!” Bo’s jaw had sagged open.

I wrinkled my nose at the left wolf’s impressive privates before addressing Hugh in the mirror. “Was someone trying to compensate for something?”

He shook his head with a sad expression. “I wish I could say yes, but that’s an actual real-life representation of my great-great-grandpa Russell. Poor wolf died a terrible death.”

Bo, Ellie, and I shared an uneasy glance. Bar a well-appointed silver bullet washed down with a wolfsbane tonic, I didn’t know of any other way a werewolf could die.

“How did it happen?” I said cautiously.

“He got run over by a coven while chasing the newspaper truck. Dreadful thing.” Hugh shuddered. “Those witches are a menace. Air traffic control means nothing to them on Sabbath night.”

Ellie sucked in air.

I blinked. “Wait. Witches exist?!”

“Yeah,” Hugh muttered. “Amberford’s full of them.”

“I knew it!” Ellie hissed with righteous triumph.

“He’s right,” Bo said. “Mrs. Chen is a witch. Her cat Mimi is her familiar.”

“Mrs. Chen’s a witch?!” I gasped.

Ellie clutched her chest. “Mrs.—Mrs. Chen?!” she spluttered. “Our Mrs. Chen? You mean, the little old lady in 1B with the beatific smile and the deadly garden shears?!”

“The very one,” Bo huffed. “Saw her sneaking onto her broomstick in the rear garden once. She was wearing red bloomers.” He sniffed. “I bet she was wild in her heyday.”

I translated for Ellie, my eyes glazing over a little at the mental picture of our mostly harmless neighbor riding a broomstick while sporting red underwear.

The gates rolled open, distracting me from my mildly hysterical thoughts. Hugh stiffened in the back seat.

“Looks like they know we’re here,” the werewolf mumbled.

“Is it some kind of special power?” Ellie’s eyes sparkled with the enthusiasm of someone who’d just discovered the dark side of her town and was fully committed to relishing it. “You know, like a wolfy sense?”

Hugh pointed. “There’s a security camera on the gates.”

Ellie visibly deflated.

We drove up a winding driveway lined with ancient oak trees. The trees thinned before giving way to extensive, immaculate Victorian gardens. I was wondering what it cost to maintain them when an imposing Gothic mansion came into view.

The walls were dark red brick and draped in places in climbing roses and ivy. The facade was a myriad of leaded-glass windows, decorative buttresses and corbels, and ornate stone carvings, most of them creepy-looking gargoyles. A steep pitched roof crowned the rambling structure, the gables decorated with intricate wooden trimmings and finials. Chimneys with decorative pots populated the roofline.

My gaze found a majestic central tower with a crenellated parapet.

It looked like the kind of place princesses went to die.

I experienced a sudden urge to run for the hills and wondered maniacally if this was a werewolf thing or an Abby thing.

“Nice place,” Ellie said tentatively.

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