Chapter 2

“Shut the fuck up, Rainbow Brite!” Nina roared at Esther, hiking her up on her shoulder as she stomped her way out the back door of the Y into the early fall air. “You’re killing me, for fuck’s sake!”

Still, she struggled against this woman who had to be as strong as Thor, her grip was so tight.

Then there was a hand on her bare back, soothing, warm. Wanda’s voice wafted to her ears. “Esther! Listen to me. Stop screaming. You’re going to draw attention to us, and you, and I’m thinking you’d prefer not to be seen this way just yet. Also, I don’t relish the idea I’ll go to jail for aiding in the kidnapping of a mermaid. Now, I swear to you, we’re going to help, but you have to stop screaming.”

“Wanda? I swear on my GD blood supply for the next year, I’m gonna sock her in the mouth if she doesn’t quit squirming! She’s damn slimy! I’m gonna end up dropping her headfirst if she doesn’t knock it the fuck off!”

“Esther!” Marty yelled into the near-empty parking lot, putting a hand on Nina’s shoulder to thwart her movement. She took hold of Esther’s face with both hands and lifted her head until their eyes met. “Stop. Struggling. Stop. Screaming. Understood? I’ve had a brutally long day. My head is pounding, which is crazy because I’m a werewolf and we don’t get headaches. My feet are tired, my eyeliner’s running, my back hurts, and my Spanx are too damn tight. Now, knock it off, shut your face, and let us help you!”

Whatever it was in Marty’s tone, whatever words she used, or maybe it was just that she was disgusted with herself for screaming like some hysterical, out-of-control girl, Esther instantly stopped struggling and blew out a breath, letting the cleansing, cool air of early fall seep into her lungs.

“Okay,” she murmured as they stopped in front of an enormous black SUV with tinted windows.

Marty patted her cheek and smiled a weary smile. “All right then. Now, let’s get you in the back of the car, and very calmly, you’re going to tell us what happened and how this came to be while we get you somewhere safe. Okay?”

She took in three or four more gulps of fresh air and nodded with a bit of difficulty, due to the weight of her new hair. “Okay.”

“No more screaming?” Marty asked as she pulled something from the back of the SUV and put the backseat down.

Esther shook her head, so heavy with hair, her body trembling violently. “Not a sound.”

Throwing a blanket around Esther’s shoulders, Marty opened the back of the SUV. “Nina? You push her through the back, I’ll pull her in, got it? Wanda, turn the car on and turn the heat up, please.”

Wanda sighed a pretty, delicate sigh. “I can help, you know.”

But Marty shook her head, along with her finger, her bracelets clacking together. “No—no you cannot. Bun in the oven means nothing arduous. Heath would plain eat our faces off if we let you get hurt. Or are you forgetting our last OOPS meeting, where he threatened to tie you to a chair and have Arch force-feed you so much of his delicious food you’d be too fat to walk, let alone chase after a client?”

OOPS? What the hell was an OOPS meeting? Some kind of acronym for a weird addiction?

Wanda chuckled, a sound so light and as pretty as her sigh; it almost made Esther smile. This Heath wasn’t just handsome, he clearly loved his wife, and she hadn’t seen that kind of love since her grandparents.

“I remember the conversation well. Didn’t that happen while I was stuffing my face with that insane smoked brisket he made on the Fourth of July?”

Marty’s nod was sharp as she tucked the blanket tighter around Esther. “It was, and OMG, that brisket. It’s still slathered on my thighs. Now, please start the car.”

Wanda made a face at her friend, but she smiled as she did, and it was warm and fond. “I rather feel like we’ve switched roles, and you’re suddenly the one with a level head on her shoulders and I’m the one who needs direction and patience.”

Marty tweaked her cheek. “Well, don’t get used too it. There’s only so much nice I have in me before Nina Hulk smashes it right the hell outta me.”

“Hey! Yippy and Yappy? I’m carrying a fucking mermaid on my back like a sack of GD potatoes from the Shop Rite down the road. Get your pats on the back out of the way before I beat your asses with her tail.”

Nina stalked her way to the back of the SUV and let Esther slide down the front of her body until they were eye to eye.

“You’re strong,” she commented. Yes, it was a silly thing to say in light of the situation, but now that she was mentally mostly back in the saddle, she couldn’t help but mention it as she stared at this woman with eyes so black, they looked like coal.

“I’m also deaf now, too.”

“I’m sorry. It just hit me all at once, and I lost it.”

“Well, pay attention. I’m gonna hit you and your yellowness all at once if you scream like that again. I have sensitive ears. You feel what I’m puttin’ out?”

Esther’s breath shuddered in and out, condensation creating small puffs of clouds that escaped her lips. “I do.”

And she did. This woman was formidable. Everything about her—her strength, her body language, her piercing gaze—all said she was a force Esther didn’t want to reckon with.

“Good. Now, I’m going to turn your sparkly rainbow ass around and shove you in there on your side like I’m stuffing a sausage back into its casing, and Marty’ll haul you inside. One peep out of your big-ass mouth—one peep—and I beat the shit out of you with your tail. I’m not gonna end up on Cell Block D, fighting my way for top-dog status and making shower shoes out of panty liners and duct-tape, because I tried to do the decent thing. Understand?”

“We have simpatico,” Esther agreed, then biting the inside of her cheek to keep from crying out. She wanted to ask where they were taking her, but at this point, she was beyond hysterical and well into shock.

It almost didn’t matter what they did with her.

Nina nodded, her swirly hair falling around her glowingly pale face. “Good. Here we go.” Repositioning her so that Esther was literally tucked under her arm like a 2x4 length of wood, Nina put her upper body into the back of the SUV, laying Esther on her side before rolling her onto her stomach with a grunt.

Marty crawled into the driver’s side and reached over the top of the seat, her cheeks red, a bead of perspiration on her lip, and grabbed her upper arms, pulling on them as Nina latched onto the lower half of her body. They lifted and shoved until Esther was almost all the way in.

“Marty? Hold up. Problem,” Nina said, and Esther heard the concern in her tone.

Marty blew a strand of hair from her face, the SUV lights revealing tired lines around her eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“Her fin’s hanging out the back of the SUV, dude. She’s too damn long to fit. We can’t drive around Staten Island with her fin hanging out the back. People will think we’re batshit.”

They didn’t already think that? Surely, with all this talk of werewolves and lifting cars, someone had labeled them crazy at least once.

Rising to her elbows, Esther tried to make herself as small as possible and scrunch upward, but the weight of the tail made it almost impossible to move the lower half of her body.

But Wanda had an answer as she held up something Esther couldn’t quite see. “Tarp. Nina had a tarp in the back of her car. We’ll wrap it around her tail and bungee the back shut.”

That settled, they made quick work of things while Esther stayed as quiet as promised, afraid to ask what was next—because really, what could be next?

A gig at Sea World?

Tamping down another wave of rising panic, helpless as a newborn kitten, she still didn’t say anything as Marty roared the engine and shot out of the parking lot, with Wanda in the passenger seat and Nina in her car, following behind them. The exposed part of her tail and her fins flapped like flags in a hurricane, but the women had done a pretty decent job of disguising her.

“Where do you live, Esther? Can we get you into your place relatively unnoticed?” Wanda asked as they drove away from the lights of the YMCA.

Now hold on. Whoa and Nellie. She wasn’t bringing these people to her house. Where she slept. Wasn’t that akin to suicide?

But then, what were her choices? For all the kooky conversations they’d had around her about werewolves and such, they appeared to know what they were talking about. They’d swept in and taken charge and she’d hardly said a word.

Besides, who the frick did you call when you suddenly had a tail and fins? Who? Who exactly was in charge of that department? Disney?

Not to mention, how did you call when you couldn’t move out of your own way?

But Marty assuaged her unspoken fear. “Esther? It’s okay to bring us to your house. We won’t rob you, or sell you to the government for scientific research purposes and a new Maserati. Or worse, give your story to Inside Edition. Oh, and we won’t murder you. I know this is all happening very, very fast, but if we can just get you somewhere you feel safe, where we can have some privacy, we’re going to help you. And you’ll understand why and how women like us can help you, but it’s going to take a certain amount of blind faith.”

The words fell out of her mouth before she could stop them at the thought of seeing her small cottage on the beach, of being around her things, and her dog Mooky and cat Marsha. “I live near South Beach—in a small suburb called Oyster Hollow. In a cottage that used to be my grandparents’ before they died. Ironically, right on the beach.”

Wanda leaned forward, her slender finger hovering over the navigation system. “Your address?”

“But wait! I don’t have my key or my purse or—”

Wanda held up Esther’s purse and smiled. “You mean this? I took the liberty of grabbing it from your locker. I hope you don’t mind.”

“But I locked that before…” She shook her head. If the woman could lift a car, surely she could pop a locker. Duh.

As Esther spewed her address and said a silent prayer these people were only superficially bananapants, not deep-seated-crazy psychopaths, Wanda typed in her address and sat back, the streetlights flashing over her classically beautiful features.

Marty looked into the rearview mirror, her bright eyes sparkling. “What do you do for a living, Esther?”

“I’m a freelance divorce mediator.”

“Oooh, fun times, I’ll bet,” Marty murmured, twisting a strand of hair around her finger.

Or not. Divorce mediation was a sad, sometimes exceptionally ugly job. She often wondered why marriage had ever been invented, for all the torture people put each other through over ridiculous things like leopard-spot ottomans and silverware.

One couple had fought so long and so hard over a single picture frame before they’d agreed to settle, Esther had come close to threatening to drop the stupid thing at the dump and set it on fire.

It was disgraceful—which was why she wasn’t a fan of marriage, other than that of her grandparents, who’d been married for fifty years until her grandmother, Consuela, had succumbed to Alzheimer’s. Her grandfather had died of longing for the woman he’d loved for over half a century.

But their love was rare, and almost inconceivable today, with so many things like the Internet and social media interfering, keeping people apart in worlds they’ve created on a computer rather than inspiring them to spend time together.

“It’s challenging. That’s probably a better word.”

Wanda threw her head back and laughed. “I can only imagine. I’ve been divorced. Years and years ago, mind you, but I just can’t understand all the fighting over useless things. I say just kill them and then you get to keep everything.”

Esther clamped her mouth shut, a shiver of fear running along her arms.

There was a short pause, where Wanda’s words hung in the air like ticking time bombs, before Marty laughed out loud. “She’s kidding, Esther. Promise. Wanda’s got a case of raging hormones these days. She just says whatever she thinks lately, but we’re all very happily married, I assure you.”

“Good to know,” she muttered.

As Marty took a sharp right on what felt like two tires, Esther didn’t budge, the weight of her tail holding her steady. When the surroundings became familiar, and she saw the lights of her tiny white beach cottage, set far apart from her neighbors, she almost cried.

Home was good. Home would at least make some of this better. Mooky and Marsha were there, and there was some leftover lasagna in the fridge from last night, and if they could make this tail go away, she’d send these people home and cuddle on the couch in front of a fire with her furbabies while she watched The Big Bang Theory reruns.

As Marty pulled to a stop, the women looked around, scanning her small front yard with potted mums she’d purchased last year and wind chimes hanging from the maple tree.

“Looks pretty quiet. How far away from your neighbors are we, Esther? Can we get you inside without them seeing?”

“Mostly everyone’s gone, now that summer’s over. The Reynolds are my closest neighbors, and they packed up and went home after Labor Day. I think we’re okay.”

And thank God, too. Little Stacy Reynolds would have a field day if she saw Esther had a tail and hair like a mermaid. Stacy loved a Disney princess almost as much as she loved vanilla ice cream with rainbow sprinkles.

Marty nodded her head and popped the car door open. “Then let’s get you inside. You good, Wanda?”

Wanda smiled an affable smile, holding up her hand and spreading out her fingers to examine them. “Oh, I’m fine. I thought maybe I’d do my nails while you and Nina do all the work.”

Nina knocked on Wanda’s window, her eyes blazing hot. “Knock it off, Wanda, and stop being a pissy bitch! We’re not treating you like the good china because we like it. We’re doing it because we want you to have a healthy baby. Now quit feeling sorry for yourself and haul your big ass out here and do what you do. Nurture. Listen to her cry. Pat her on the back, bake her some fucking cookies.”

Wanda lifted her middle finger at Nina and stuck out her tongue, but she popped the door open and hopped out of the SUV, stalking past Nina to Esther’s front door with her purse tucked under the crook of her elbow.

Marty, who’d come around the car, looked at Nina and blew out a breath. “She’s a lot these days, huh?”

Nina snorted her commiseration. “No shit. I swear, some days I wanna wring her dry of all these hormones flooding her brain cells like some kind of mad cow fucking disease. Maybe it’s because she’s half vampire, half werewolf?” Nina shrugged her shoulders. “I dunno what the fuck it is, but Christ in a bikini, I don’t know if I’m gonna make it to the end of this pregnancy.”

As Esther watched this all unfold, again, the words she was hearing—words like “vampire” and “werewolf”—fought to terrify her, really seep into her brain and make her lose it all over again.

They thought they were werewolves and vampires. Like, seriously creatures from mythology? No way was she letting these people into her house

Aw, hell no.

That was when she opened her mouth to scream.

Again.