Page 82 of The HalloQueen

“They say that prey instincts exist to help creatures survive. Humans are not the apex predator so you poor things still jump, or feel nervous or get a sick feeling when you know you are unsafe, and you, my darling, are definitely unsafe.”

Her voice froze my blood. I could feel each cell solidifying and stopping in their tracks. I saw her then, leaning against my doorframe in my mirror. She was so pale she was almost green. She looked gaunt and the black bags hanging from her crimson eyes amplified the fact that this was a rabid animal. This creature was dangerous, and she, sadly, was my lover’s ex-wife.

I spun around, facing her, and assessed her, the only thing that still appeared like Monique was her white hair and ridiculously long legs wrapped in perfect skinny jeans. Even her nails had turned yellow and sharpened.

“Well, howdy friend. Uh…you’re not supposed to be in here.” I reached behind me hoping to reach my phone without drawing too much attention. “I cleansed the space while you were here and I uninvited you….you… you need to leave.”

She snarled, exposing red gums and stark white pointed teeth, “You think uninviting me can keep me out of your pathetic excuse of a home? I can do whatever I please!” She took a few steps into my room and assessed it, “Do you have any idea how boring it has been waiting for you to come home, though? You took your time, my sweet. I will admit that I was quite saddened to learn that you were not, in fact, dead, or undead, as it may be.”

“Well…life’s a bitch. You didn’t bring the right weapon to the fight. I’m apparently not susceptible to the bitey-bitey.” I glanced around her. Could I get to the stairs before Thomas needed an invitation inside? The cleansing must not have worked on her since she was in the house while I was simmering it. My mind raced trying to do the math and weigh the risks and rewards of running away from a rabid vampire. “I don’t know if you’ve heard,” I continued, edging along my wall as she began picking balls off my string of pearls plant, making me see red, “Hey! Hands off the plants, Mo-Mo. You want to kill me, not my plants. Don’t hurt them because you sucked at your job.”

She looked at me like a sullen cat and knocked the pot off the window ledge, sending it to the ground and smashing the pot.

“Wow! Okay, so that was rude. If I wasn’t going to tell the Coalition how crazy you were before this, I definitely am now that you’re fucking with a green witch’s plants. God, how sick are you? Who hurts succulents?! They’re fucking succulents!”

She bared her fangs again and picked up my fiddle fig propagation, tossing it and catching it repeatedly in one hand.

“Dude, not my fiddle! You know how touchy those things are? That one is just a baby and its mom has gone to rehab with my Mom three times already. Put it down and we can talk.”

She smirked, then hurled it in my direction in a flash, giving me only a moment to scream and duck before the ceramic pot shattered against the wall behind me.

“Jesus Christ, you crazy bitch! What the fuck is wrong with you?!”

One after another she picked up plants and threw them at me, one of the larger plants hitting me on the hip as I turned to run to the stairs. I was less than ten feet from them, tears in my eyes at the abuse of my poor babies and screamed when a burning sensation clawed into my spine and I was spun and smashed into the solid wood banister. She withdrew her hand from behind my back, licking the flood off her knife-like nails.

“You are positively terrifying, do you know that?”

“And you are a disgusting slutty little bitch, are you not? You have tried to steal my Thomas from me and I need him. I need him and Yusuf to come home so we can fix everything, and so I will get better. I can not get better if they don’t come home, and if I must kill you to convince him to do so, I will do it with a smile on my face.”

“One, I’m a witch, not a bitch, Two, I’m 99.9% sure that if you kill me, Thomas would be hella pissed. I don’t think he’d be ready to play house with you if you murdered his Untouchable.”

She hissed and jumped back, “No! You are not bonded! He would not have bonded with a mortal like you!” She tilted her head back slightly, eyes and nostrils widening as she tried to scent me for a bond, a grinch-like grin slipped into place, “You do not smell of his blood - you are not Handfeasted. He is mine, he would never bond with another.”

“Yeah, that’s not what he said. He said he specifically broke your bond because you walked out on him.” I tried to run down the first few steps, I didn’t know why I was antagonizing her, but I’d remembered from my crime shows that I needed to keep her talking. The more she talked, the more time I bought myself and the more likely I was to get out of here safely. If superhero movies taught me anything, it was that I just needed to get her monologing.

“He is coming home with me!” She snarled, grabbing for my hair and getting just enough of it to make me fall and slam my back into the top three stairs.

“Fuck! You have totally lost your marbles! Do you know who I am? I am the Coalition Green Witch! If you kill me they are going to come find you and you will die, Monique. No more chances. You kill the only heir to the Williams witch line and they will fuck you up!”

Her eyes widened and she leaned over me, close enough that I could smell the rotting flesh coming from her.

“God you’re like the creepy gatekeeper in Mordor! Brush your fucking teeth, bitch.” I shoved the heel of my palm upward, smashing it into her nose and causing a spray of greenish-black fluid to hit the wall of the stairwell. She howled in pain and I ran the rest of the way down the stairs, flinging the front door open and screaming, “Thomas!” as I ran back to the kitchen to grab my purse, knowing that my Mama had put some holy water inside of it along with a few other “helpful” things.

Monique jumped clean over the railing, landing without a sound, blood like slime gushing down her face and her snarl exposing the red stain on her fangs. She had turned into a creature too quickly for me to comprehend. She’d looked sick at the beach, but she certainly hadn’t been this hunched, growling animal thing - that would have been a dead giveaway to not socialize with her when she appeared that night.

“I will enjoy giving him your neck, little witch.” She swiped the top of the credenza in the hallway and ripped the lamp from the socket, smashing the glass against the wall, “And since biting you doesn’t seem to do the trick, I think I’ll have to remove it entirely.”

Lightning flashed again and Thomas appeared in the door, paralyzed as he assessed the chaos and destruction around us.

“Darling! Your ex is here!” I squeaked, “And, uh, she isn’t happy with me. Could you please come in and escort her off the premises? Please?”

He sniffed the air, “You’re bleedingamour- have you been bitten?” He inched into the house like he was approaching a skittish horse.

I shook my head, my body giving into the adrenaline and beginning to tremble as I held onto the butcher block, knowing that she could close the distance between her and me in a moment, regardless of the length of hallway and cabinetry between us. “No, she cut my back, I’m okay. No bites.”

He nodded, taking another few steps toward her, “Monique, love, you need to come with me, Yusuf is looking for you.”

She snarled at him, “This disgusting mortal claimed herself as your Untouchable! You belong to me.”

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