Dangerous Girls 2, page 2
“I take it that’s a yes.” I grinned.
“What do you think?” She looked at me with an anxious expression on her face. “Do you like it?”
“I like it,” I assured her. “It suits you. And I think it’s a pretty name.”
“Chanterelle,” she murmured to herself, and then she spun around in a circle with her arms outstretched. “I am named! I may be referred to as Chanterelle! Hot fuck! Hot fuck Chanterelle!”
“Uh, okay, maybe not that,” I said.
“Yeah,” Artemis said. “‘Fucking hot Chanterelle’ makes more sense.”
“Don’t encourage her,” I groaned.
“Fucking hot Chanterelle,” the mushroom girl whispered.
I chuckled softly.
It had been a wild month since the three-day storm had swept through the town. So many things had changed. My life looked very different now from how it had looked before.
But I wouldn’t trade any of it for the world.
I hung back a little so I could watch Chanterelle and Artemis on the trail ahead of me. They were both so different. Artemis was almost as tall as I was, lean, strong, and fierce-looking. Her Docs stomped through the leaves and mud like she was the Terminator on a mission.
Chanterelle was almost a foot shorter than Artemis, and she darted here and there to look at everything they passed. She kept on pausing to pick up snails so they wouldn’t get stepped on or examine a feather or leaf that blew across her path.
It was amazing to think that only a month ago, I’d been living my life without them.
Artemis held a tree branch out of the way so Chanterelle could walk underneath it. She was about to let it go when she stopped and stared at it instead.
“You alright?” I asked as I came up to her.
“Yeah.” Artemis nodded slowly and pushed the branch toward me.
The branch was studded with small buds. Before my eyes, the buds unfurled into tiny leaves and slowly began to grow to full size. Blossoms burst out along the branch’s length and even more leaves shot out from underneath the bark.
I met Artemis’ dark eyes in amazement. She grinned with a mixture of excitement and uncertainty.
“Holy shit,” I whispered. “Are you doing that?”
“Yeah.” She released the branch, which sprang back to its original position with a shiver that sent some of the new flower petals falling to the ground like pale confetti. “It’s crazy, isn’t it?”
“You couldn’t do that before?” I asked. “Could you?”
“Nope.” She shook her head. “Only since David.”
“Whoa,” I said.
“Jealous?” she teased.
“No,” I said with a mock scowl. “It’s fine. I don’t care at all that I still have no idea what the fuck is going on with…”
I gestured vaguely at myself to encompass whatever it was inside me.
“You have a power, that’s for sure,” Artemis said.
“Yeah, but what the hell is it?” I sighed in frustration. “What can it do? How do I access it? Is it dangerous? Why can’t I control it like you can?”
“Well, I’ve had a lot of practice at managing magic,” she pointed out. “This is brand-new territory for you. It’s a whole mental adjustment to get used to before you can figure out the physical aspect of it.”
“What, you mean I won’t be a master at it right away without even trying?” I made a face. “Shit, why did no one tell me?”
Artemis laughed. “Sorry, Wainwright. Did you try those breathing techniques I suggested?”
“Yeah, I did,” I said. “But I don’t know if they did anything.”
“Well, try it now,” she suggested. “Let’s see if I can sense anything.”
“What, right now?” I looked around at the trees.
“We’re in the middle of the woods,” she pointed out. “There’s no one else around to see. It’s the perfect time to experiment with what you might be able to do.”
She had a point.
I sighed, closed my eyes, and stretched my hands out in front of me with my palms down like Artemis had shown me.
I tried to clear my mind of thoughts and focus instead on my breathing and heartbeat.
The wind rustled the treetops overhead. The cool May wind cut through my jacket and chilled the skin on the back of my neck. The smells of damp leaves, wet earth, Artemis’ smoky perfume, and my own deodorant wafted around me.
I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. The insides of my wrists tingled and burned. I focused on that sensation and channeled all of my concentration onto that feeling.
The tingling spread from my wrists into my palms and reached around my hand into my knuckles, and then it ran along my arms. My wrists fizzed like the blood in my veins had been replaced by sparkling water.
The wind got colder and stronger. My jacket flapped against my body, goosebumps broke out on my arms and legs, and a shiver ran down my spine.
The tingling in my wrists, in my palms, and in my fingers seemed to rush all over my body. Or maybe it was just more goosebumps.
And then a single fat raindrop hit my forehead and broke my concentration.
“Ah, shit.” I opened my eyes and looked up.
Beyond the canopy of the forest, the sky had gone completely dark.
The wind was picking up, black clouds raced over the treetops, and rain began to fall in earnest.
“Oh, great, thanks, Mike,” Artemis said in a tone that was only half-joking.
“I didn’t do this!” I protested. “At least… I don’t think I did.”
“That would be the perfect power, wouldn’t it?” Artemis chuckled.
“What?” I grinned. “The power to bring rain in a place that already gets more than the national average of rainstorms?”
“Yeah, exactly,” she said.
“Perfect,” I joked. “I thought having magic was meant to make me feel special, not make me feel totally redundant.”
“The rain, it raineth every day!” Chanterelle cheered.
She flung her hands toward the darkening sky and giggled as the raindrops fell on her upturned face.
“Okay, that’s it for today.” I held out my hand to her. “Come on, Chanterelle, we should get back.”
“Chanterelle,” she whispered, and she skipped over and grabbed my hand.
Artemis was already heading back down the trail, and we hurried after her.
I’d left the car in what had become our normal place, but we’d walked a bit further than usual, and the hammering rain made the walk back to the road seem even longer than normal.
If I’d made the rain happen, and if my power was connected to the weather, then I hoped I’d be able to reach a point where I could make the sun come out. It was true what I’d said to Artemis: Wormwood already enjoyed its own weird little microclimate that was primarily based around the fact that there was a thunderstorm at least every other week.
The rain kept running into my eyes and blurring my vision. I kept my gaze on the blurred shape of Artemis ahead of us on the trail, so I saw the exact moment when she suddenly halted.
“What is it?” I called.
Artemis flung out her hand behind her, and as I came up, she fumbled blindly for me without taking her eyes from the trail in front of her.
I swiped the rain out of my eyes and reached for her hand.
And then I froze as I saw what was in front of us.
There was a wolf on the trail.
The rain poured off its shaggy gray coat and droplets of water splashed onto the sodden ground by its huge paws. Its golden eyes looked past Artemis to me and then past me to Chanterelle.
Before I could stop her, Chanterelle pulled her hand out of mine and held it out to the wolf.
“Hello, there,” she said in a very gentle voice.
And the damn wolf walked right up to her.
If it had been anyone else, I would have dragged them out of the way and thrown myself at the wolf with my bare hands. But the confidence in Chanterelle’s voice assured me there was nothing to fear here.
The wolf ignored Artemis and me, and it walked up to Chanterelle and sniffed her outstretched hand.
“There you are,” Chanterelle whispered softly.
The wolf’s golden eyes flicked up to Chanterelle’s face. Then it pressed its huge body against her in an affectionate-looking gesture. It dwarfed her, and it could easily have thrown her to the ground and torn her throat out. But it just pressed its flank against her thigh like a faithful dog. She ran her hands through its coarse gray fur.
What did I say about her being a goddamn Disney princess?
After a moment, the wolf shook itself and trotted away down the trail past us.
Chanterelle let out a little sigh.
“He was happy to see me,” she said.
Artemis and I stared at her, but the rain was still hammering down, and this wasn’t the place to ask questions.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s get back to the car.”
I led the way back down the trail, and after another few minutes of slipping and sliding along, the dark shape of my car parked on the side of the road came into view.
We ran toward it, I unlocked the doors, and we all got in. Artemis was in the back seat with Chanterelle, and as soon as I’d gotten my breath back, I turned around in the driver’s seat and stared at both of them.
“Um, Chanterelle,” I began.
“What the fuck?” Artemis finished for me.
“Hot fuck,” Chanterelle murmured.
“It’s hot damn, babe,” Artemis sighed. “Or holy fuck. Not hot fuck. That’s something else.”
“Sex?” Chanterelle guessed. “Intercourse?”
Artemis looked like she was about to explode.
“Yes,” I said quickly. “Sex. But, uh, about that wolf back there…”
“There aren’t any wolves in Maine!” Artemis burst out. “That’s why I can go out into the woods without crapping my pants!”
“This isn’t normal?” Chanterelle frowned, then raised her eyebrows. “Oh! Wolves were eradicated from Maine by the 1890s! Currently, no established wolf populations live in this state!”
“Okay, okay,” I said quickly. “Don’t go searching for the information, just trust us on this one. Normally, there would be no wolves in Maine, and certainly none in the woods around Wormwood.”
“He came to see me,” Chanterelle said with a nod. “From Canada.”
Artemis stared at her with her mouth open in amazement.
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” Chanterelle pushed her dripping bangs out of her eyes. “But he did.”
I didn’t know what to say to that.
“Are there going to be more wolves coming to see you?” Artemis asked.
“I don’t know,” Chanterelle said.
“Giant moths I can handle,” Artemis said. “That’s, like, weird but okay. But wolves? What’s next, dragons? Do we need to prepare for manticores or phoenixes or shit like that?”
“I don’t know.” Chanterelle sounded a little sad. “I’m sorry. There may be more. But it’s because I’m here now… when I wasn’t here before.”
“That does make sense,” I said. “We know your arrival in Wormwood sent out a huge spike of magical energy that witches and magical practitioners were able to sense. So it tracks that other creatures would have been able to sense it as well. And, uh, come to see you.”
“But a wolf?” Artemis demanded.
“Don’t you like wolves?” Chanterelle asked her.
The corners of Artemis’ mouth turned down.
“Maybe I watched a lot of werewolf movies as a kid,” she muttered.
“He wasn’t a werewolf,” Chanterelle assured her. “He was just a regular wolf.”
“Wait,” I said. “Are werewolves real? Like, moon-based shifting werewolves?”
“I don’t know,” Artemis sighed.
“If they are, he wasn’t one of them,” Chanterelle said in a tone that seemed like it was meant to be reassuring.
I heaved a sigh and scrubbed my wet forehead with my dripping sleeve. I needed some caffeine and a hot shower.
I started the engine and drove back to town. I dropped Artemis off outside her shop, then drove to my place, parked on the street outside, and hurried up to my apartment above the shop.
“Chanterelle, you can use the shower first,” I said as I unlocked the door.
“I am clean,” she said. “I am just wet. I will find some dry clothes to change into.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’m going to get in the shower, and then I’ll make us a cup of coffee and some dinner. You good with mac and cheese?”
“I love mac and cheese,” she declared with a smile. “You make it just perfectly.”
“Well, thank you.” I smiled back at her. “It comes with years of practice.”
Chanterelle went into the bedroom, and I headed for the bathroom. I turned the water on, peeled off my dripping jeans and t-shirt, and stepped into the hot water.
I groaned softly as the shower pummeled my chilled skin, and my body relaxed almost instantly. I reached for the shampoo and lathered up my hair. I always kept my dark hair pretty short because it was easier to deal with, but ever since I was a teenager I’d loved using way too much shampoo and covering my head in a halo of fragrant bubbles.
The smell of lavender and cedar filled the bathroom, and I began to sing “Man In Black” under my breath. Johnny Cash was always a comfort-listen of mine, and for some reason, it always relaxed me to sing his songs in the shower.
“Mike?” Chanterelle’s voice suddenly broke into my thoughts.
And then she pulled the shower curtain wide open.
My hair was full of shampoo suds and everything was on display.
But that wasn’t why I froze.
Because Chanterelle was standing in the bathroom right outside the shower without a single scrap of clothing in sight.
Chapter 2
Chanterelle was as naked as I was.
Maybe even more so, because she didn’t even have an attractive Ferris Bueller-style crown of scented shampoo bubbles in her hair.
When she’d first come out of the wall, she’d been wearing a ragged piece of clothing like a long shirt that hung on her like a sack. Since then she’d been wearing a combination of my clothes, which were too big for her, and Artemis’ clothes, which were too long for her short frame and too tight in the chest and shoulders.
Nothing had properly prepared me for the sight of Chanterelle’s body on full display.
The mushroom girl’s skin was a pale olive-brown. Everything about her was soft and graceful. The flare of her hips perfectly matched and balanced the soft lines of her rounded shoulders.
My gaze followed the hills and valleys of her body like the swoop of a bird in flight.
The heavy swell of her breasts. The coffee-brown buds of her nipples. The soft plane of her stomach. Her round thighs and the gentle folds of her pussy lips between them.
She looked like a statue of a Greek goddess that had been carved in miniature.
“There are no clean, dry clothes in the closet,” Chanterelle informed me.
“I– you–” I stammered.
She cocked her head to the side and regarded me with a confused frown.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
She wasn’t teasing. Genuine confusion was painted all over her face.
I recovered enough to grab the shower curtain and drag it halfway closed again. I swallowed hard and stuck my head around the corner.
“I thought I locked the door,” I said in a voice that was almost calm again.
“Yes, you did,” she replied. “I absorbed through it.”
“That’s…” I cleared my throat. “That’s not– that’s not polite, Chanterelle. If a door is locked, you shouldn’t absorb through it unless you have permission from the person on the other side. And especially if it’s a bathroom door.”
“But I knocked, and you didn’t hear me,” she said with a slightly hurt note in her voice. “So I couldn’t get permission to come in.”
“Then you need to wait until I’m done,” I said.
I tried not to sound patronizing, but it was a weird feeling to have to explain basic privacy to a naked mushroom woman in my bathroom.
“But there were no clothes,” she said. “And previously you have stressed the propriety of being sensibly clothed at all times.”
That was true.
In addition to the conversation about shoes in the forest, we’d also had to discuss the importance of not wandering down into the store wearing nothing but one of my old shirts. That behavior was fine in the apartment, but I didn’t want it to look like she was a one-night stand roaming about the store.
“You’re right.” I took a deep breath. “It is important to be sensibly clothed. But right now, neither of us are sensibly clothed.”
Chanterelle frowned.
She looked down at herself, then up at me. I was three-quarters covered with the shower curtain, but the sight of my bare shoulders– and maybe the memory of everything else– seemed to suddenly make things fall into place for her.
“Oh!” she gasped.
Her hand flew to her mouth, and her eyes opened wide with shock.
“We are naked!” she cried.
“Well, yes, we are.” I allowed myself a chuckle at the horror on her face.
“Oh, no!” she gasped. “Naked and alone together as if we are lovers!”
Her blue eyes darted to my face, and a very pretty pink flush sprang into her cheeks. She gave a little squeak and absorbed down into the floor.
“Chanterelle?” I shouted.
There was no response, so I guessed she’d either gone back into the bedroom, or she’d traveled over to Artemis’ place. Either way, I was going to finish my shower.
I ducked back underneath the hot water and quickly washed the rest of the suds out of my hair. A few minutes of lathering and scrubbing later, I hopped out of the shower and wrapped myself in my bathrobe.
When I came out of the bathroom into the lounge, Chanterelle was sitting on the sofa wearing one of Artemis’ sweaters over some skin-tight yoga pants. Artemis always wore sweaters several sizes too big for her, so it hung to Chanterelle’s knees but still managed to look snug across her chest.
