But Marty shook her head, the mile-high hair on the top of her skull never budging. “Nope. Not until you promise to use your manners. I absolutely will not have your chaos erupting all over the place like so much vomit until we know what’s going on and where we are. And I won’t have you threatening to beat anyone up until we need you to.”
Wanda leaned into Toni, smoothing one of her long white gloves over her elbow as though it had always been there while her friends continued to bicker. “Very impressive show there. I can’t remember the last person who stood up to Nina, other than one of us or her husband, Greg. Clearly, your fear factor is high, Kimosabe. I like that in a girl,” she said on a chuckle.
Toni turned to look at her, still visually trying to block out Candyland while people peeked out from behind trees and stood at the doorways of their charming, snow-covered cottages. “Question?”
“Certainly.”
“Did that woman—um, Marty, is it?—just call the angry pale lady a vampire?”
Wanda nodded, her hair equally as unmoving as Marty’s. “Marty it is, and she did call Nina a vampire. I fear we’ll have some explaining to do. Your world’s going to be rocked in more ways than one today, I’m afraid. But bear with me until we work out this little kink?” She waved an elegant hand at the ball of limbs and taffeta dresses Nina and Marty had become.
Toni nodded, also refusing to acknowledge that her own hair was now swinging at her waist. “Let’s table that for a little while and focus on,” she swept her hand around at the landscape, “um, this. You seem really reasonable compared to your friend, so I’m going to appeal to you. I swear I don’t know how this happened. Swear it on my life. I’m just a salesclerk at a stupid designer outlet mall store, making just above minimum wage. I don’t know anyone who’d do this. I don’t even know what’s been done, but if at all possible, I say we blame my boss Bree. She’s a horrible human being.”
Wanda nodded again and patted Toni’s arm, her long fingers giving her flesh a squeeze. “You know, I noticed that. Kind of pushy and power-hungry for someone so young, huh? You’d think she was ruling a kingdom, not an outlet store.” Then she giggled, like they weren’t in the middle of some whacked fairytale. “Sorry. Pardon the pun.”
“You heard Bree say those things to me?”
Wanda pulled at her earlobe with the shiny cascade earring attached to it. “Half vampire, half werewolf. Good hearing is one of the tricks of the trade. Though sometimes, it’s a curse.”
Werewolf… Toni gulped more air into her lungs while her heart raced. “Not ready to acknowledge that just yet either, if that’s okay.”
“Oh, of course, Toni. I understand. You have bigger fish to fry right now. We can talk later about that part of this—whatever this is. For now, I have to wrangle the twins. So if you’ll excuse me?”
Now Toni nodded, unable to do much else. “Of course.”
Wanda lifted the hem of her gorgeous champagne-colored gown and hopped over a patch of ice as though she always wore ball gowns and stopped to assess the two quarreling women as they tussled.
Looking down, she said, “Marty, I’m going to suggest you get off Nina and hand her back her glasses before she explodes into a pile of ashes. I know she makes you want to choke her out, but you’d regret the loss of her black soul. I know you would. You’d cry, and quite frankly, you’re a messy crier. Nina? Shut your big fat flapping lips until further notice, or it won’t be Marty you have to worry about.
“Now, the two of you will get up off this ground because you’re ruining your magnificent gowns in the dirty snow; you will introduce yourselves to Toni, who is as freaked-out and in as much a state of shock as we are; and you will do it with your manners intact and your indoor voices. Are we all in agreement?”
Nina’s jaw clenched tight, her face a mask of anger. “Wanda, the fuck—”
Wanda’s fingers snaked out and clamped Nina’s lips together. “Shhh! Now. Don’t speak. Wag that razor-sharp tongue of yours again, lose your sunscreen.”
Marty let go of Nina’s wrists and rasped a sigh, shoving off from her friend’s lean torso to sit upright. “Fine. But one wrong move in Toni’s direction and it’s curtains for you, Dark One. Oh, and nice ball gown, Cinder-Nightmare. Very, very bright and sunny, just like your sparkling personality,” she taunted, letting her head fall back on her shoulders to laugh out loud.
Nina growled and with a flat palm to Marty’s chest, knocked her on her back. Scooping up her glasses to prop them crookedly on her nose with an aggravated hand, she shoved the stems of them into the nest of her triple-tier, wedding-cake-like hair.
“You watch yourself, Werewolf, or I’m gonna spin that color wheel of yours until you puke.”
Marty took Wanda’s hand and allowed her to help her up, but Nina dismissed the offer, slapping at the yards and yards of constricting yellow material around her legs when she rose.