Page 18 of Wind with a Chance of Wolfsbane

“You’re being extra weird,” said Dwayne. “What gives?”

“Nothing,” said Jonathan as three police cars came rushing down the street toward them.

Dwayne shook his head. “All right. Showtime. Let’s all put on our best this-is-totally-normal-don’t-look-harder-into-us-or-we’ll-have-to-kill-you faces.”

Jonathan groaned.

“What? I’m not wrong,” added Dwayne.

Leo pointed to Jonathan. “You should stay far from them. That way, they won’t put together you’re who hunts these idiots later and ends them.”

“Boss, he’s not wrong,” stated Dwayne.

ChapterSix

Willa

The Carpathian Mountains,two weeks later…

Mina looked me up and down, clearly fighting a laugh, acting likeIwas the one wearing something ridiculous. Dark green was smeared just under her eyes like war paint. She was in a pair of black jeans, a matching long-sleeved top, and a pair of shiny black boots that seemed like they’d come straight from a military base.

I’d been with her at the mall when she’d purchased them from a trendy store that had nothing to do with the armed services. She just fancied herself a badass in them. “If your goal is to intimidate me, you are kind of failing right now. You have on two different socks, your shirt has the world’s cutest gargoyle on it, and your sweatpants are on inside out—andbackward. And I’m going to be nice and not point out the absurd amount of tape that is holding your glasses together right now.”

“Gee, way tonotpoint out my glasses.” I used that moment to adjust my glasses, which were taped together. Not only that but my lenses were still cracked. As I’d feared, I’d not packed a backup pair.

Mina grinned. “The glasses do kind of explain why your sweatpants are on inside out.”

I thought she was joking about my sweatpants being on inside out, only to realize that she was right. They were. “Gee, maybe I’d be dressed properly if I hadn’t been jerked awake from a dead sleep and then dragged outside in the middle of the night. This is not how I wanted to spend our birthday.”

For dramatic effect, I motioned my free hand first to the woods surrounding us and then toward the inn we’d been staying at for the past two weeks. It was in the middle of nowhere, nestled in the forests of Romania. Saying it lacked modern comforts was an understatement.

It was a few steps above a shack. Though, that was kind of mean to say about shacks everywhere. I was pretty sure the place was held together by moss that was growing from the split boards at its base.

A small exterior light was fighting a losing battle to illuminate the front entrance. Two timeworn, rickety rocking chairs flanked the weathered wooden front door. Paint that I was sure at one point had been green was curling in some spots and missing in others. Above the door hung a string of garlic and a small mirror. Every window had the same items hung above it as well as old wooden shutters that were drawn closed at sundown.

A hand-carved wooden sign was affixed to the inn’s exterior that I was pretty sure announced there were no vacancies. Since I didn’t speak or read the local language, I wasn’t sure. Could have said, “Here is where you’ll be murdered.”

If Mina got her way tonight, we might very well meet our maker. She was determined to rush out into the forest to hunt for demons, and nothing I’d said thus far had sunk in or swayed her otherwise. She had a bug up her backside about hunting for whatever it was our aunt was looking for. Like we had any business being involved with something at that level.

“This is going to be awesome,” said Mina. “Best birthday ever!”

“Depends on your definition of awesome,” I countered, clutching my copy ofDracula. I’d fallen asleep reading the book (which had been easier said than done considering the state of my glasses) and had been dreaming about it, which I attributed to being in the area where the novel was supposed to have taken place. The details of the dream were fuzzy, but I remembered bits and pieces of it.

For a while, it had been a good dream. Then it had gotten dark, to the point where I should have been thanking Mina for waking me. I’d been dreaming about Jonathan Harker—my favorite character from the book. My mind had made White-Shirt Guy from the airport incident into the starring role in my dream.

I was smart enough to put together that it had probably happened because someone had called him Harker that night—or at least I was fairly sure they had. And the man was English, like the character.

Mina had kept her word to me and not said anything about the attack to Helen or Lester.

When we’d gotten to the terminal at the airport, I could have sworn Lester seemed surprised we were there. It made me wonder if I’d been right and if the men who had made an attempt on us were his buddies. If so, was he the one Jer had mentioned who paid them? And why? Did he really hate us so much that he’d pay someone to abduct us?

“So, so awesome,” Mina added, drawing my attention to her.

“Awesome to me is going back to bed and getting more sleep. And cake. We should totally have cake since it’s our birthday.”

“Boring,” she returned.

“Yes, but less likely to leave me being eaten by a bear or something,” I said, glancing around at the forest surrounding us.

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