Page 9 of Plaidypus
The quartet of trouble didn’t leave. Instead of hunting for vampiric foxes, they took up residence in my front yard to keep the zombie moose company. Not only did they keep her company, they studied her using a strange white, rectangular box with a digital display.
“Matthieu, what is that box they’re using? It’s driving me crazy.”
I wanted them to get the hell out of town sowecould get the hell out of town, but until they left, we couldn’t make a break for the car. I planned to ditch the vehicle at the nearest rental place, a two-hour drive to reach, assuming the weather stayed clear and nothing went wrong.
All things considered, I expected everything would go wrong.
“It’s a medical scanner, and they’re evaluating the zombie moose’s general health.”
“Her general what?” I demanded, glaring at my brother, who had joined me in the bay window to watch the festivities outside. “Do zombies have health?”
“Apparently, yes.” Matthieu glanced at his phone. “You know, you haven’t asked me how much we funded to get out of here.”
“We have enough to get a rental, and I’m choking on the damned long-distance return fee before we grab a bus to get to the United States. We don’t need the crowdfund right now.” I glared at Leonard, who led the charge with his fancy white box. The zombie moose cooperated with him as long as he let her chew on his hair every now and then, which his vampire companions seemed to enjoy. “It’ll be useful when we try to get an apartment, though.”
“Well, after the video started doing well, I may have taken one of the pictures of you with your truck and notified the world you were still grieving over its loss, which is really part of the reason we couldn’t just drive out of here. Then I took a picture of our beater, and I was appropriately grateful we get to use it.”
“Tabernac!You’re evil. You’re absolutely pure evil.” There were so many pictures of me fawning over my beautiful, lost truck, and all of them counted as embarrassing.
My brother snickered. “I must be to get you to curse in French at me. You don’t even speak French.”
“Sometimes, only invoking holy objects to express true anger will do,” I replied, and I gestured in Leonard’s direction. “Do you see that? He’s studying the zombie moose in our front yard, unrepentantly, with his harem of vampire women.”
“Jealous?” Matthieu asked, and he dared to raise a brow. “I mean, they’re pretty, and if you hadn’t told me they were vampires, I wouldn’t have had a clue.”
I slumped, grabbed my hot chocolate, and took a sip. “Maybe. Just look at him, pulling off the sexy lumberjack look. That he hasthreevampire women with him? I can’t even get one boyfriend, Matthieu. And they’re all almost as pretty as he is.”
“His hair is too neatly trimmed and he’s clean shaven. He’s just wearing a plaid shirt. That is not impressive for around here, Nadine. I’ll give you he’s not bad looking, but he’s probably a vampire, too. You already told me you were done with vampires.”
Damn it. “He’s not a vampire. He’s a wolf of some sort. I can’t tell if he’s a shapeshifter or a lycanthrope, but he definitely smells of male wolf.”
Both my new virus and my platypus adored the scent of male wolf, probably lycanthrope, and their influence would drive me crazy within a few hours.
“Uh oh. And now you’re heartbroken because your lycanthropy virus finds the scent of male wolf to be interesting?”
Damn it, damn it, damn it. “That’s a possibility. And it’s not just the virus.”
“Ah, the platypus likes what she’s seeing, too?”
At least I didn’t have to explain to my brother that each animal had her own personality and interests. “Apparently, she’s into plaid.” I definitely liked the plaid, and I blamed our father for my tendency to fixate once a man caught my eye.
The instant Dad had spotted Mom, he’d been a goner. The instant Mom had learned Dad could turn into a pint-sized pony, she’d fallen into his trap.
I blamed them for how I’d turned out. I pitied my brother, who was more like our mother than he cared to admit. One day he’d get blindsided by either a lycanthrope or a shapeshifter, and he’d be a goner, too.
I’d suffer through self-inflicted misery after indulging in admiring Leonard, who already had three women and likely did not need or want a fourth following him around.
In my defense, unlike the three vampires, I wouldn’t bite him unless he wanted me to.
Yep. I was a chip off my father’s block, but unlike my father, I would not dote on the handsome stranger in town.
My brother snickered. “I mean, he did himself some serious justice when he got dressed this morning. Hey, you have a shirt similar to his, don’t you? Why don’t you get changed and see if he has a plaid fetish, too. You might snag him away from his vampire harem that way.”
“I am not coming between three vampires and their lycanthrope. There is stupid, and then there is doing that. I’m trying to figure out why there are three vampire women here—and why they’re so interested in our zombie moose.”
“Now she’s our zombie moose?”
“She snuggled with me. She’s mine now. I’m trying to figure out how to smuggle her into the United States. She’s actually quite sweet. I feel bad for being afraid of her,” I confessed.
