Page 18 of Midlife Shifter Unexpected

“All right, look. I need a touch of reality. I’m going to call my kid,” I said. “Do you have a signal up here?” I pulled my phone out and looked at it.

“The best,” Mae smiled, holding her finger up and letting her purple electricity fly out of it.

I let out a startled scream, before turning away and heading out the back door and to the backyard. “What the hell is that,” I said, nodding to the animated half dead, zombie like dog that was groaning and barking and growling in the backyard.

“Don’t mind Carl. It’s my dog,” Mae said. “Well, it was my aunt’s dog now –”

“– I remember Carl, but he’s dead,” I exclaimed. My nerves suddenly registered the craziness that was around me. “He’s dead. I remember when he died. The Hayes made a big thing of it with the Sherriff. Had him investigate the neighbors for dog poisoning. I know he’s dead.”

I felt Mae’s hands on my shoulder, stroking me lightly, and heard the smile in her voice as she spoke. “Carl was dead, but we needed the stone to go back to the cemetery to protect it from the vampires who attacked last month, so we removed the stone from Carl’s grave, and he came back to life.”

“You have a zombie dog,” I said, shaking my head.

“Well, yes, yes I do,” Mae said. “But it could be worse. My locksmith was a vampire. He tried to kill me.”

I whirled on her with a shocked expression, my mouth wide open. “Vampires? Seriously?” Just the thought of the blood sucking creatures brought the hackles up on the back of my neck. That age old rivalry between werewolves and vampires must be true. I could feel it in my blood. “How did you get away?”

“I didn’t.” Mae said. “I killed him.”

There were footsteps by the door of the kitchen, and I looked up to see Anita and Drake, Trina’s children. The kids, who were the same age as my son, Dante, had all gone to school together. It was little surprise that they had stayed home and close to their mother. It was no surprise they were part of the supernatural world.

“She stabbed him through the heart with a stake made of a piece of firewood. Can you believe it?” Anita said. “It was pretty amazing.”

“It’s never amazing to take a life,” Mae admonished.

“Vampires aren’t alive,” Drake countered.

“I’ll be back in a second.” I inched past the zombie dog trying not to get brains on my jeans. The zombie dog was going to take a little getting used to, although he was cute and his one eye that looked at me seemed happy and joyful enough.

Dante didn’t answer the phone. I was disappointed and was about to step back into the house when my phone rang. I grabbed it thinking Dante had called me back, but it wasn’t him. It was Jane, my best friend from college, calling me from Boston.

“Jane, are you there?” I asked, waiting for the video connection to work. I could see my own face just fine and assumed my connection was working like a charm. I had four bars and a 5G posted up by my full battery signal.

In a second, her bright face showed up on my screen. Her skin glowed with a tan warmth that I had always been jealous of, but she was so lighthearted and effervescent with her French accent

“Bianca, I got you!” Jane was full of excitement. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of you. I’m coming for a visit.”

“Um, no,” I said, suddenly panicked at the thought of my friend showing up. What if I turned into a werewolf while she was here? What if she saw? How was I going to explain that? And…

…Matheus. I mean, Jane was pretty open minded but Matheus and I were ten years apart. In fact, oh my gosh, he was ten years older than my son. He was the same distance from my son as he was from me in age. Now there was something wrong with that. I just couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was.

“What are you talking about, Bianca?” Jane asked. “I’m allowed to come home? Right?”

“Of course,” I smiled nervously, hoping I hadn’t said any of that out loud.

“Is there something going on that you want to tell me about?” Jane asked.

Clearly, I had the poker face thing down really, really badly. “No, no. When are you coming out?”

“I was thinking of coming out for Valentine’s Day?” Jane’s French accent made it sound so romantic.

“You don’t think that’s a little weird?” I asked. Though I was completely relieved it would give me about a month to figure out what to do with Matheus and then maybe I’d have a handle on being a werewolf too. There was no way I was not going to see one of my oldest friends.

“Just kidding,” she said.

“What do you mean just kidding?” I asked, my palms suddenly clammy.

She had had the camera close to her face and I could tell she was driving in the car, but it wasn’t until she held her camera out that I saw exactly where she was driving. “I’ll be there in 30 minutes, ma cherie. Surprise!”

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