Page 35 of Minnie: Double, Double, Toil and Trouble

So the fact that this all somehow involves me doesn’t bode well. Not to mention I have enough things to worry about—like trying to break the curse, and finding the chameleon shifter who may or may not be my mate. That and the fact that Natty could have been seriously hurt on my watch.

Chapter 18

Minnie

Zoe locks the door, sets out some raw meat for Snow, and drags me toward the couch.“We’re going to need wine for this.”

She flicks her wrist and a bottle floats out of the kitchen, followed by two glasses. The cork pops off, wine fills each glass without spilling a drop, and then the glasses float up to Zoe and me.

If Maude Montgomery had Zoe for a daughter, she would have been proud. Instead, she had me, a child without an ounce of Casting Magic in her blood.

Apparently, I inherited my powers from some distant relative my mother told me to never, ever mention. A great aunt who ran off to live in the forest with twigs in her hair and squirrels and birds for company. Or, at least, that’s how I’ve always imagined her. Truth is, she could just have easily gotten distracted talking to a bird, walked into traffic, and got hit by a car. My mother always warned me it would happen because my head was always literally in the clouds.

I grab my glass and down the whole thing in one gulp. It’s been that sort of day.

Formula M’s worn off enough to let me, but it still forces me to provide some tasting notes. “Blackberries, a hint of tobacco, and that oaky undertone. Perfect.”

I don’t taste any of the things I mention, but chances are I’m right. I also can’t get drunk while I’m on Formula M—and not for lack of trying—so I don’t protest when the bottle floats up and refills my glass. It’ll take several bottles just to get tipsy, and that’s in the evening, after the potion’s started to wear off.

Zoe takes a small sip herself. “Glad you approve. Now, on to business. Just give me a second.” She pops into the kitchen, and comes back with Snow. “Who’s a full little fuzzy? You are.” She gives the fluffball a scratch, settles her on her lap, and covers her fluffy ears. “Poor little fuzzy, she’s been through enough. She doesn’t need to hear this.”

Which is how I know it’s bad.

I lower my voice. Not because there is anyone around, but because if there’s one thing Formula M loves, it’s gossip. “Okay, spill.”

Zoe takes a deep breath. “The scientist who created Snow is in town. Dr. Ashok Reddy.”

I gasp. We’re gossiping, so Formula M doesn’t stop me. And it’s late enough that it lets some of my worries through. “He’s in Silver Springs Penitentiary?” Where Natty and I go to visit Zachariah? Where we might run into the monster who created and tortured my pet before Zoe finally freed her? “What does he look like?” That way, I can avoid him like the plague.

After all, I doubt he’ll have stained, disheveled clothes, dirty hair, or fangs in prison.

And I better remember his name, too. Ashok. Dr. Reddy. I hope I never, ever see you.

“He’s not in prison.” Zoe says, and my heart sinks.

She flicks her wrist, but instead of more wine, the closet bursts open. A broom and a washcloth fly out and start to work on the coffee table and ceiling. Which is the Zoe equivalent of wringing her hands or blowing into a paper bag.

Mine is Formula M. I yawn. “Then where is he?”

“In town, selling fuzzies.”

Selling fuzzies? As in he made more of them? After everything Snow’s been through?

I’m internally shouting, but can’t seem to get the words out. When I finally do, I lower my voice and sound all gossipy as I ask, “When did he get out?”

“I wouldn’t know. The agency doesn’t tell me anything.” She shakes her head. “It could have been yesterday, or maybe they never arrested him. I quit right after I brought him in, so I haven’t heard anything. And it’s not like I ever followed up on any of the crazies I captured. My job was criminal apprehension. What the agency did with them wasn’t my problem. Well, as long as it was ethical…” she adds. “I knew there’d be a trial, usually followed by a sentence at a magical maximum security prison, like the one here in Silver Springs. And sometimes I got called in to testify, but not for Reddy. I figured the victims he bit would have been enough. He always drank too much, and then dropped them off on the hospital doorstep, so they all survived. Their testimony would have been enough.”

I reach out and pet Snow as a heavy feeling settles in my gut. How can a man like that be free?

“I think…” Zoe takes a deep breath. “Well, more like… suspect… that the agency is funding his research. They wouldn’t have set him free, not unless he was rehabilitated, so they must be working with him. Or someone is. The guy was pretty near broke when I found him, but now he’s got ads running all over Screech.”

“Ads? For what?”

“Fuzzies.” Zoe pulls out her phone and hands it to me, then covers Snow’s ears again. “The asshole’s been making more of them. And now he’s selling them. To vampires. As food!”

My heart starts to cry.

When I first met Snow, she told me she was born in a lab. She grew up in a cage, she never bathed, and she barely ate. The mad scientist—Dr. Reddy—would head out at sunset with animal traps, then go check them just before sunrise, but they never yielded much.