Page 42 of Be A Detective, They Said. It’ll Be Fun, They Said

Chapter Fourteen

I fought the urge to knock this fake Mrs. Goodfellow over and run to my baby—to all the children—but I needed to know what I was dealing with first. I had to know what kind of being I was up against in order to know how to fight it and bury it deep within the ground.

It had my child. It had to die.

Licking my dry lips, tamping down my absolute terror, I asked, “What are you. Who are you?”

Mrs. Goodfellow, or whoever this was melted before me, shedding her skin like a snake until her true form appeared.

So here’s the deal: I’m going to officially concur—aliens exist. And they can shapeshift.

Tall, lanky, gangly of leg and arm, bulbous eyeballs, enormous triangular head, green skin like that of some mint chocolate chip ice cream.

Yep. This was an alien, and Neerie had been right, and if we got out of this alive I was going to apologize to her for thinking her quite mad.

It chuckled then, a weird, almost electronic sound. “I know what you’re thinking, Mrs. Jefferson. As your friend Nina would say, holy shitballs, aliens are real. Am I right?”

I gulped. Nina would say that.

“What do you want? Why did you kidnap these children?” I demanded, as if I was some sort of authority figure it would bow down to. But Nina and Marty were always telling me I gave good stern nun. I was hoping it would work in my favor.

“You’ve been a busy little bee, haven’t you, Mrs. Jefferson? I’m surprised you didn’t figure it out. But it’s my understanding, you’re just getting your footing in the field of investigation,” it chirped, with a little too much glee for my taste.

Refusing to back down, I kept moving forward, pushing it back, getting closer to my son, who lay with eyes closed, pale green face curled into a pillow on a bed and hooked up to what looked like an IV.

What was this…this thing doing to my son? To all of these children?

Here’s the dilemma I’m currently having. How strong is this thing? Can I take it? Will I only end up making things worse if I rush it?

Talk. Do what you do best, Wanda, talk. Make nice.

I held up a hand, squaring my shoulders. “Can we pause here for a moment? Can you explain to me what’s happening? Why you’re doing this?”

It cocked its big head, its eyes assessing me from behind those orbs of black. “Of course. I’m not a heathen, Mrs. Jefferson. I am, after all, the more intelligent lifeform—or at least that’s what all you humans claim, isn’t it?”

“I’m not human…” I don’t know why I made that a big deal, but it was true.

It held up a long, skinny green finger. “Correct! You’re half werewolf, half vampire, even if those numbers make no sense. You’re actually a quarter vampire, a quarter werewolf and half human.”

By golly, it was right. I don’t know why we’d never noticed that egregious error. “You’re right. That aside, why are you doing this? Why do you have these children? Why do you have my son?” I fought the growl in my voice when I mentioned Sam, even though I wanted to rip its throat out.

“Well, it’s a simple explanation. These children, your son included, have a very important thing in their blood called seriguin. All paranormals have it. It’s a waste product of their magic. It excretes when they urinate. Rather the way humans excrete things through their blood and their kidneys.”

I looked up at this enormous being and decided ET had been a whole lot of bunk. “So you’re draining them of their magic?” I should have paid better attention in science class. Curses!

“Sort of. I’ve been draining their blood. Not enough to kill them, of course—not yet, anyway—and collecting it before it can be excreted. I’ve been removing it, waiting for their bodies to make more, so I can repeat the cycle until I have enough.”

“Enough to do what?” I squeaked, unable to keep the hysteria from my voice. “Why do you need their blood?”

Its head bobbed on its wide shoulders. “To make a group of superior beings, of course, Mrs. Jefferson. So I can take the blood back to where I’m from and use it to create super-assassins who aren’t only double the strength and powers of my species, but smart as whips. Then we’re going to come back here and wipe out Earth. Duh.”

Was I hearing this right?

“Yes, you’re hearing that correctly, Mrs. Jefferson. We want to kill all humans and take over planet Earth,” he said so calmly, I almost stopped breathing.

And it read minds. Perfect.

It nodded. “It comes in handy, for certain. I’m male, by the way. My name isn’t something you can pronounce, but you can call me Groot. You know that tree in the movie Guardians of the Galaxy? It cracked me up. You guys really know how to make a good story. Though, I didn’t love ET. He was a bit of a wimp.”

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