Page 28 of Wind with a Chance of Wolfsbane

She pointed to a spot that was centrally located on the map. “We’re here, right now. This is where the inn is.”

My interest was now piqued. As I stared harder at it, I realized it was familiar, I just wasn’t sure why or how. “Okay, then, what are the red circles?”

Mina glanced around and stepped closer, lowering her voice. “Places Helen has been paying special attention to.”

I wasn’t following, and it clearly showed. “Um, where did you get this from?”

“I swiped this map from Helen’s room early this morning after she left at first light,” she stated proudly, like it wasn’t the dumbest thing she’d done lately.

Helen wasn’t the type of woman you wanted angry with you. Being her nieces only cut us so much slack. We’d once seen her shoot one of the other hunters in the leg with a crossbow because he’d questioned one of her directives.

“You did what?” I demanded.

I certainly didn’t want to be on the receiving end of an arrow. Stealing a map from her room was a surefire way to end up with a target on us. I didn’t think she’d shoot us in the leg, but then again, I wasn’t entirely sure. It would depend on her mental state at the moment.

Mina jerked the map enough to snap my attention to it and off the fact that she’d stolen it from our aunt. “You know those guys who showed up here last night? The sophisticated ones?”

I nodded.

“I caught bits and pieces of what they were talking about,” said Mina. “Something about a Dragon, or maybe a Dragos, whatever that is, ghouls, werewolves, and superstitions of the area. And they had this map out.”

I stared harder at her while simultaneously wracking my brain for what she could be talking about. I’d read through the books and items in the Murray family vault enough to have committed a lot to memory. I couldn’t recall anything that focused on dragons or anything of the sort. “Let me get this straight. You swiped this map and thought hunting whatever they were talking about sounded like a fun way to spend our night?”

“Exactly.” Mina’s smile widened. “We can look around the areas marked on the map and maybe see if we can find anything she and the others couldn’t.”

I highly doubted we’d be able to crack the case seeing as how we were anything but experts, but Mina wasn’t going to let it go. I nearly brought up the fiasco at the airport with the men in the white van but left well enough alone for now.

“Honestly, Mina, this seems less than smart,” I said, hoping she’d give up on wanting to be adventurous.

“This is in our blood, Willa,” she returned with no malice in her voice. “We need to embrace our destiny.”

“I think I puked a little in my mouth,” I shot back. “You sounded like Helen for a minute there.”

She huffed and turned to face me once more. She looked me up and down and checked her watch. “There is still time for you to change into something the enemy won’t see coming a mile away, or at the very least, something other than that. And turn your sweatpants around and right side out. Is that how you say it?”

The T-shirt, which she’d apparently deemed unworthy of demon hunting, was for Grimm Cove College. It was Mina’s and my first pick for colleges. We’d only just gotten our acceptance letters and college welcome packets of information for admission before we’d left on our last-minute trip to Romania. She was right. The enemy would see me coming a mile away. I bit at my lower lip and rocked on the balls of my feet. “Mina.”

“Willa, please,” she begged. “Ineedthis.”

Giving in, I nodded. “Fine. I’ll change, and we can go for two hours. That’s it. Got it? And if we find anything creepy, you’re killing it. Not me. And there better not be spiders. If there are, you’re killing those too.”

Mina jumped up and down in place, pulling her hands close to her chest, an unreleased squeal looking to be on the edge of bursting free.

I laughed. “If you freak, someone might hear you.”

Instead of squealing, she grabbed me and hugged me, knocking the wind out of me in the process as well as making my book fall to the ground. “Thank you!”

“Don’t make me regret this,” I said, bending to get my book.

She drew back, beaming. “I won’t. This will be great. You’ll see. What’s the worst that could happen?”

I paused, my attention on the book, which had fallen open onto the ground. The map that was sketched on the inner cover was showing. “Mina?”

“What?” she asked, still excited.

“Can I see the map?” I asked.

“Sure,” she said, thrusting it at me.

---