Ice Flue Chapter 11

After they’d climbed the stone steps of the castle, feral Elizabeth Dracula shifted back into mousy Cheryl Chillingsworth. The bedroom doors swung open, silk drapes ushering them inside. But the view overlooked the sea and the floors were white carpet rather than stone. The walls were colored eggshell. The opposite window revealed a quaint cul-de-sac.

Cheryl stepped out of her lab coat and smock. She lit a blue crystal at the end of a vial. She exhaled the smoke slowly and proffered the makeshift pipe to Stan. “Would you like some Flue?”

Her condo was empty except for a series of glass cylinders and tubing by the window with the sea view. A purple liquid bubbled and cooked, worming through her invention. “While you’ve been brewing your Ice Flue, I’ve been fiddling with a liquid diet of my own.”

A man with green skin and the head of a Dracun Lizard was tied to a chair in the corner, his wrists slashed and his teeth grinding as he clenched his eyes as if being administered a shock treatment.

Someone knocked on the front door.

“Pardon me, neighbor, but have you any butter?” Heiferwaith wore a silk nightie. His face went pale. “Murderer! MURDERER! I’m calling the police officer.” He stormed off.

Stan raced after him, yet as he coasted above the wooden steps to Cheryl’s condo they shifted back to the stone steps of the castle.

The police officer waited at the bottom, his face still blurring between male and female as his now wooden arms with white gloves revolved like cranks. “Where have you been? You’ve missed detail for a week. All the new recruits have been talking about it. I know it was just us before, but there’s lots of others now too. And since we started off as partners, Dayglo Arnie said we’d BOTH be punished.”