Page 89 of Mage Massacres

“They wouldn’t have worked, anyway,” Annette told us. “You’ve already sealed your bonds.”

Palmer cocked his head. “What do you mean?”

“We don’t care what she means, Palmer,” Novak growled.

Her glamor melted off her skin, dripping wax that pooled on the floor around her feet in a luminescent blue puddle. A young woman stood before us, her blonde hair bouncing with beachy waves as she adjusted the purple-frame glasses perched on her nose.

“Ellen?” my mage questioned with disbelief.

“On Tuesdays and Thursdays, but only for the first semester because you wouldn’t let me retake your boring class. How can you teach folklore and not have supernatural creatures on your syllabus?” she ranted. “Some of us have been around for centuries. Some of us started those rumors you drone on about.”

“Your class isn’t boring,” Novak chimed in. “I actually enjoyed it.”

I raised my brows, tilting my head as I tried to keep up with Annette and her... Uhm, different bodies?

“I’m really mad that you guys didn’t wait for me.” Annette pouted, her body bouncing like a child beginning to throw a fit.

Vaughn coughed. “I’m sorry?”

“Don’t feed into her bullshit,” my demon urged.

Her skin peeled away again, adding to the puddle at her feet. The cute woman transformed into a middle-aged man in a white jacket, the top of his balding head reflecting the single lightbulb in the room.

Stone shook his head. “You’re Dr. Cafferty, too?”

What the fuck is happening?

“I have no idea,” York conceded.

“I told you to call me Allen, but then you fired me,” Annette simpered. “I had a plan, you know? I was supposed to help my father reclaim his stolen title.”

“Listen, Annette,” Briggs began, his tone clipped in his irritation.

As she sloughed off yet another skin, I started studying the puddle at her feet. It was solidifying, turning to ice, and I’d already fallen for that trick once before.

My eyes traveled up the length of her bare legs to a black skirt and apron. The Blue Plate name tag attached to her cream blouse read Penny. Her lush cherry lips and platinum hair were vaguely familiar. She had worked with Briggs, too.

“I’d been adding magic to my cookies, just like he’d asked of me. But not all of you liked my sweet treats.” Her green eyes widened as a frown created harsh lines around her mouth. “I took the apartment next door to you and used the old woman’s appearance to fool you. She wasn’t as friendly with you as I’d hoped.”

“Annette wasn’t always you?” my fae questioned.

“Of course not. I wouldn’t choose that appearance of my own free will. I glamoured myself to look like her so I didn’t raise suspicion.”

Her posture changed as her voice grew whiny. The woman standing before us was in her forties, makeup flaking across her prominent cheekbones. Vaughn straightened in surprise, his back ramrod and hands clenched.

“If you hadn’t forced John to escort me out of work, then we wouldn’t be here today. He was such a disappointment to our father, though I did try to tell him that coupling with a human was a bad idea.”

“Susan Harris?”

Vaughn’s icy blue eyes met mine for a split second before bouncing to the puddle at Annette’s—Susan’s?—feet. It wasn’t getting wider, but it was thicker.

“Susan is in jail, Vaughn. She’s distracting us,” I reminded him.

“You’re right,” he responded aloud. “Susan Harris is in jail.”

Laughter filled the small room, grating on my nerves as I tried to stay calm. My guys had questions, and whoever the fuck this was had the answers. It felt wrong to keep calling her Annette, as if the lie was taking away a dead woman's identity; but I didn’t know what else to call her.

“Yes, she is. I didn’t kill her, just stashed her away for safekeeping. She was fun to play with, but she’s mentally compromised now. When Kadence called me for a favor, I thought that was the ideal time to pawn her off on someone else. I’ll probably go back and kill her, though. She knows too much, even if they do think she’s insane.”