“PG13 would be fine.” Nancy Lee was a wild one.
“What did the oak tree say when she lost her friends on Spring Break?”
“I’m stumped,” I told her. I’d heard the joke a million times, but there was no way I was going to hurt her feelings by ruining her punchline. Trees took their jokes very seriously.
“Where my birches at?” Nancy Lee said as her big wooden body rocked with laughter. “Get it? I replaced bitches with birches. I’m just so silly!”
“You are silly,” I said with a giggle. “I’d like to go all the way to your highest limbs, if that's okay. Would you give me a branch up?”
“With pleasure, Willow,” Nancy Lee said. “Do you have a funny joke? It will be easier to shoot you to the top if I’m laughing.”
“Of course,” I told her. “Umm… how about this one, why are Christmas trees so bad at sewing?”
“Tell me,” Nancy Lee squealed, already giggling.
“They keep dropping their needles.”
Nancy Lee shook with laughter from her roots all the way to her highest bough. “Keep going. More! PG13 please.”
I felt myself being sucked up higher in the tree. Keeping Nancy Lee in stitches would get me to the tippy top even faster. My fear for Zorro made it hard to joke, but we needed to find him fast before Mae Blockinschlokinberg did anything heinous to him—if she hadn't already. So, if telling Nancy Lee a few zingers would launch me to the highest vantage point in the shortest amount of time so I could locate my BFF, then zingers it was.
“Ask and you shall receive,” I promised the oak.
Nancy Lee’s laugh was so high pitched, I could feel it in my stomach.
It tickled and made me giggle. “What did everyone say about the drunk Christmas tree?”
“I don’t know,” she said, quaking with anticipation.
“They said it was lit every night.”
On a peal of Nancy Lee’s uproarious laughter, I shot straight to the top of the tree. Getting my bearings, I let my mind open up so I could see beyond the safety of Nancy Lee.
And what I saw was devastating.
“No,” I whispered. “No, no, no.”
Zorro was slumped over the edge of a huge black cast iron kettle. His face was obscured, but there was blood-encrusted his blond hair. His pink assless chaps were filthy and torn. My anger made me short of breath. My need to protect my dear friend overwhelmed me.
The minions shoved him the rest of the way inside the cauldron and stacked firewood beneath it as Mae Blockinschlokinberg sipped on a glass of dark red liquid. The bile rose in my throat. Oh Goddess, no. The slug was doing what Henrietta Smith had done to stay young and powerful—drinking the blood of magicals—the blood of Zorro. Very soon, she would join Henrietta Smith in hell.
Mae Blockinschlokinbitch was about to die.
“What is it, my dear?” Nancy Lee asked concerned.
“My best friend Zorro,” I cried out. “They’ve put him in a kettle and are getting ready to start the fire. I have to leaf. Now.”
“As you wish,” Nancy Lee said and shook her wooden body with such force I was certain Zach and Fabio would be buried in her leaves. “Take this. It will make you stronger.”
“Take what?” I asked, as I freefell back to her trunk. Was this the message I had been looking for?
“Close your eyes, little one,” Nancy Lee instructed kindly. “It will only hurt for a moment.”
“Hurt?” I asked, confused as I followed her directions and squeezed my eyes shut. A burning sensation shot through my body like a hot knife through butter. “Holy shit.”
I felt Nancy Lee’s magic enter me and mix with my own. My power fought hers until it decided it was a gift—a very powerful gift. As soon as I gave in to the invasion, the pain disappeared.
My head wreath tingled, and I felt breathless and wild. I wasn’t exactly sure what Nancy had given me, but there was no time to ask.
“Thank you, Nancy Lee,” I said as I burst from her trunk and back to Zach and Fabio.
“You’re welcome, Willow. It’s fated, my dear. May the forest be with you,” she whispered.
“We have to poof,” I insisted frantically to Zach and Fabio who were eyeing me strangely. “Now.”
Neither man moved an inch.
“What?” I asked.
“You,” Zach said with wonder in his voice. “You’re glowing. You’re ethereal.”
“Quite fetching,” Fabio agreed. “Like an angel from the Next Adventure. What exactly happened in the tree?”
“Nancy Lee gave me a little power boost,” I said sharply. Zorro didn't have time for me to explain more. “While the compliments are flattering, we have to poof. Immediately. Those batshit crazy freaks are about to boil my bestie.”
“Fuck,” Zach snarled.
“We could poof, but we’d be at a disadvantage if we landed in the stream or popped in with our backs to the slimy monsters,” Fabio said. “How fast can you run?”
“Like the wind,” I told him.
“As fast as my mate,” Zach said. “Can you run, old man?”
Fabio grinned. “I can leaf your asses in the dust.”
“We’ll see about that,” I challenged, taking off at a sprint that rendered me invisible to the human eye.
The boys were right behind me.
Everything would be okay.
Everything had to be okay.
The alternative was unacceptable.
Chapter Fifteen
“Stay low,” Zach instructed tersely.
We were crouched in the bushes, casing the scene. Mae Blockinschlokinberg had more than just the handful of mini-mes who had attended rehearsals with her. At least twenty slug Shifters wearing black socks and beige sandals scurried around, readying the fire about to be set under the kettle where Zorro was held captive. The excitement at the impending death of an innocent was macabre and all kinds of wrong. Zach’s eyes had narrowed to slits. He was reliving his nightmares… except this time he was awake and could possibly end the horror.
“Oh my Goddess,” I choked out and pointed to a pile of dead bodies that had been drained of blood and left to rot. “Are they from Assjacket?”
Fabio
