for us like the pinchers of undead giant lobsters.
Shrieking and howling, the gnashing of what was left of their teeth, the clicking of the bones of what used to be there fingers clacking and clinking, they shrieked and howled and made the most Goddess-awful sounds as Vanessa cheered, "Eat them, my babies. Eat them all except the tall, hunky one. Him, bring to me. Him, I shall have my wicked way with first."
"Oh, hell, no," I roared. Jumping sideways to stand in front of Tank, I threw both my hands into the air. "Hold your shit right there. You don't get to bring your bony ass down to my Swamp, terrorize my Mate and his sister - my new bestie, tear up their house then eat all of us without so much as 'How do you do.'"
Rolling her eyes, Vanessa snapped her fingers and gave a shooing motion with her hands as she sighed, “Stop where you are.”
I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t have seen it with my own eyes. It surpassed the insanity erupting all around us by a factor of fifty-five. It was something not even Stephen King could dream up. (Yep! That weird.)
No sooner had Vanessa snapped her bony fingers, I meant that very second than the hundreds and hundreds of her grossly beasties just stopped. No, wait, that's not right. They did more than that. It was way more dramatic. Them some bitches froze like they were playing the nastiest ever game of Freeze Tag.
And that was precisely the minute that Cora chose to whisper directly into my brain, “See what being nice gets you?”
Chapter Ten
Yeah, at that point, I kinda wanted to turn around and kick that cranky, old Crane right in the shin. However, there was a more pressing, more murdery idiot staring me right in the face. And, just to put a fine point on it, I was not trying to waste time by questioning the crazy bitch trying to bring Hell to Earth through the hole under the peach crates in the root cellar of Thomas Manor. I really did want to know what crawled up Vanessa's scrawny ass and died. I mean, it's not every day that you wake up, have a cup of coffee, and decide to open a Hellmouth. Am I right?
So, I asked again, “What is your problem, Vanessa? Were you not swaddled? Did your momma not breastfeed you? Did daddy not buy you every damned pony in the shed? Did somebody else get the last diamond tiara at Brats-R-Us?”
(Oh shit, a point I might have forgotten. The Vandermere family are rich- obscenely, massively, think that dude that founded Amazon plus the smarty-pants computer guy and add the heiress to WalMart right on top. Yeah. That wealthy, and now, I know that it's most likely because her daddy is a Voodoo Priest. Once again, Clem Cooper is late to the party. Okay, I'll hush up and get back to my story…)
Arching her right eyebrow, throwing out her left foot like she was standing right beside me instead of hovering twenty feet above me, and tapping her toe on thin air, Vanessa the Vexatious deadpanned, “I don’t have a problem. Unlike you, if I want something, I go after it. I wanted to be the Queen of Hell without having to live in that nasty pit…” Throwing her arms open wide and grinning from ear-to-ear, she ta-da’d, “And now, I will achieve both.”
Hands right back on her hips, that beyotch then took the opportunity to bend at the waist, tweak my cheek with her gnarly fingers, and talk to me like I was three years old. “Don’t you wish you had the balls to get what you wanted without having to work so hard, Clemmy Lemmy?”
At that point, I was ready to yell, “Burn this bitch to the ground, Zelda!” But that would've been premature. Because you see, my Flock, plus Cora and Zelda minus a very preggers Max had come prepared. And by that, I mean, the Almighty Shifter Wanker had a plan, and everybody else was following her lead. (Which, when you think about it, is one damned fine strategy.)
Also, because I have the great Psychicness from my dear old dad and I can hear people's thoughts, the Witch next in line to be the Baba Yaga had everybody thinking about that same plan VERY HARD and pointing those thoughts right at my brain! The first step was…. Yep, you guessed it – me