Shayna screamed, uncertain whether my claws or the rats raked against her skin. My eyes scanned the laughing witches. There were six now, all laughing, all spinning, all covered with rodents. All resembled each other. Except one. The talisman of the one furthest to my right flickered. She was the one I needed to stop.
I whispered into Shayna’s ear as tiny teeth cut through my shirt and legs wrangled their way into my hair. “The witch at three o’clock. Do you see her?”
Shayna didn’t respond. I shook her hard and swatted away a few more rats crawling against her neck. She nodded. “We take her talisman and this goes away.”
I’m not sure if she heard me over Emme’s screams for me or Taran’s swearing, but I left her and lurched forward.
Someone rammed full force into the door. A three-hundred pound bouncer barreled his way in. “The f**k!” he hollered, his voice sounding more like a Girl Scout selling cookies than a big, hulking male. The rats snaked around his limbs like ribbons. His lids peeled back, and his head jerked in horrified disbelief.
The horde spilled out into the hall and into the club. The shrieks informed me Sandy’s silencing spell and camouflage screen hadn’t carried past the bathroom. The bouncer screamed, falling into a live bed of flea-infested fur.
Emme’s cries bordered on hysteria. She stood on pipes anchored into the wall. “Celia! Celia! Celia!” she sobbed.
That’s when my tigress had enough. The terror searing my brain stood no chance against my anger and need to protect. I leapt across the floor of tiny scampering bodies, changing as my arms and legs stretched out. My clothes and shoes shredded and fell from my body as my four-hundred pound tigress emerged.
The witch stopped laughing then. In fact, it was her turn to scream. My roars forced her into a stall. I tackled her into the floor, ignoring the angry balls of fur that leapt on my back and punctured their teeth into my hide.
My fangs bit into her talisman and yanked it off with one hard pull. The witch screamed and snatched wildly at the chain hanging from my maw. It had little effect. Her magic was strong, but her physical strength was no match against mine.
The rats vanished one by one in poofs of yellow dandelion dust. I backed away from the witch, her expression both furious and panicked. “Give me back my power,” she hissed. “Give it back to me now!”
The witch lunged at me, only to freeze as the tip of Shayna’s machete angled against her throat. “Don’t move, dude.” Shayna’s voice shook with leftover fear, but her tone made it clear her typically cheerleader persona wouldn’t stop her from slicing the witch’s head off.
I changed as I stood, dropping the heavy gold necklace with the green stone into my human hands. My sisters gathered around me. The bouncer lay on the floor convulsing, the whites of his eyes bleached under the light.
“Taran, would you do the honors?” I asked.
Taran’s smile returned once more. “Hell, yeah.”
I threw the talisman in the air. The restroom charged with Taran’s magic as she released a blue and white spray of fire dead center into the stone. It hovered in the air and flickered. The witch charged. I crouched, thinking she’d attack. She didn’t. Instead she hauled ass through the large hole in the wall and kept going, across the now-empty club and in the direction of the exit. Rats, freaky diseased-coated rats. Now there was an original way to clear a dance floor. I didn’t complain, though. The humans were safe and out of harm’s way.
Taran angled her head to look through the hole. “Damn. Why did she—”
The talisman sparkled above us and spun, breaking apart into large shards. The chunks imbedded into the ceiling and began to blink, slowly at first like soft, twinkling Christmas lights, then faster and faster, similar to a Vegas sign. No, not like a Vegas sign. More like a—
Every hair on my body saluted our impending doom. Oh, shit. “Bomb!”
“Wh-what?” Emme stammered.
I tackled my sisters, slamming us on top of the bouncer. I shifted us into the basement as the club exploded above. The ceiling caved in a landslide of rubble. I shifted us again through the foundation, breaking up our bodies into particles so minute we passed through the cement and dirt as easy as sand through a colander. Cool ability, huh? No. Not so much. I couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe, when I shifted. Neither could anyone else. Any wrong movement and I could resurface in Lake Tahoe and drown us.
Luck and I weren’t the best of friends. But this time she cut me a break. By some miracle to end all miracles I resurfaced behind the club in a small grassy section overlooking the lake. My sisters gagged and choked, gasping for much-needed oxygen. I slumped na**d over the bouncer with my head spinning, trying hard not to throw up on his “Tahoe Babes Like It on Top” T-shirt. I’d never shifted that many people before. My spinning vision and pounding head told me I never should again.
I clutched the bouncer, trying to stay warm as the cold February breeze rushed against my back and flung my hair in all directions. For the first time in years, I could say I got na**d and horizontal with someone. Although I wished I knew his name, and that it had meant something, and that it didn’t have to involve an army of rats.
The world spun in a blur of red and black. When the nausea-inducing teacup ride I’d forced my body into grounded to a halt, I realized the club had transformed into a literal inferno. The loud blasting of a fire truck horn forced me to a kneeling position. Police officers shoved club patrons back as the spray from several hoses tackled the flames lifting into the skies. My shoulders slumped with relief. Thank God the rats had scared the clubbers out.
“We have to get the hell out of here,” Taran spat. She shook my shoulder as she stood. “Celia. Ceel, are you okay?”