“No thanks,” I replied.
Leonor whipped her head around and glared at me. “I wasn’t talking to you, I was talking to Stazia.”
“Leonor, these are my friends,” Stacy reminded her.
Leonor grumbled, but turned away and shambled over to a trunk on the far side of the table. She unlocked the heavy lock and opened it. “Now what exactly were ya wanting?”
“Three male costumes and two females. Also, did you have any masks to go with them?” Stacy asked her.
“I’m sure I can scrounge some up, but why are you needing them?” Leonor wondered.
Stacy smiled and shrugged. “You know me. If there’s a ball I can’t resist attending, and there’s a masked ball coming up tomorrow that I’m dying to attend.”
“I hope that’s not the price of admission,” I murmured.
Leonor paused and glanced over her shoulder with a look of suspicion. “That masked ball? The one my son’s going to?”
“I expect him to be there,” Stacy replied with a sly smile.
Leonor tapped her long nails on the edge of the chest. “This doesn’t have anything to do with your sneaking around in your silly little Underground, does it?”
“It might,” Stacy teased.
Leonor frowned and slammed the lid shut. She locked the trunk and dropped the key into her bra. Nobody would ever want to go scrounging around in there. “I’m not helping you get yourself hurt,” she refused. That’s when things got ugly. Stacy quivered her lower lip and her eyes took on a shine that warned of an oncoming rush of tears. Leonor cringed. “Now don’t go giving me those. I know you’ve got your mother’s and grandmother’s talent for acting, and I won’t believe a single one of those tears is real.”
Stacy stepped toward her and clasped her hands together in front of her. “Please help us with the costumes. We need these costumes to help my father,” she pleaded.
The old woman scoffed and her voice took on a flat, indifferent tone. “What do I care about him? Your mother should have married better.”
Stacy frowned and put her hands on her hips. “I know you care more about him then you’ll admit, and I know you’ll help us help him.”
“What do I care about him who goes around on his high horse without stepping a foot down and ignores all of us down here. Even my son visits me every now and again,” Leonor argued. “He’s a lout, but he’s a lout I see.”
“Leonor, you know my dad has important duties to attend to and can’t visit you whenever you like,” Stacy shot back.
That ruffled the old goat. “What would I want for him to be visiting me in my old age? When we were such chums as kids and now that he’s all high-and-mighty as a lord he doesn’t have time to even call.”
“Um, if we’re intruding on something then we can leave,” I spoke up. Stacy shot me such a glare that I squeaked and ducked behind Luke.
Stacy looked back to Leonor and folded her arms. “Leonor Luciana, I can’t believe how pigheaded you’re being.”
“You should. I’ve been this pigheaded for longer than you’ve been alive,” Leonor growled. I noticed her gummy mouth now had a few sharp, nasty-looking teeth and her eyes had taken on an orange color. Luke stepped back and took me with him.
Stacy straightened, and I noticed her hands were long and ended in sharp nails. “Don’t be so stubborn, Leonor. We need those costumes to save my father, and I won’t let your strange love-hate for him to get in my way.”
“Perhaps we can talk this over outside,” Luke suggested. The women whipped their heads over to him and both growled. He grinned and held up his hands. “I only wanted to save the place from damage,” he told them.
“Why don’t you mind your own business, you cross-dresser!” Leonor snarled.
Luke spun around, grabbed my shoulders, and marched me into the shop. I pulled out of his grasp and faced him. “What are you doing? They’re going to kill each other over nothing!” I protested.
He shook his head. “I haven’t heard all the details, but I do know some of this Leonor’s past history,” he admitted to me. “She was a great friend of Stacy’s mother, almost like a mother to her. When Stacy’s mother passed away Stacy was raised by Leonor while her father took over his position as lord from his father. The Stevens are a long line of lordly idiots.”
“So why does Leonor hate Stevens that bad?” I wondered.
“Stevens took Stacy away when she reached maturity and educated her himself. Leonor never quite forgave him for doing that, but she still wanted to remain friends with her adopted daughter’s husband. Stevens refused to let Leonor near the house, so Stacy snuck out and visited her. There was a big fight when he found out, and they’ve never forgiven each other.”
At the end of his tale my mouth was open and my head tilted to one side. “What details didn’t you learn?” I asked him.
Luke sheepishly shrugged and smiled. “That was pretty detailed, wasn’t it?”
“Um, yeah. I don’t think the village gossip could have given better detail,” I replied. At that moment there was a great crash from the apartment and something went flying over the desk. Luke pushed me to the floor and covered his body with mine as half the merchandise fell on top of us. We whipped our heads over to the crash-landed thing and found it was a wolf in Stacy’s clothing. It snarled, dove over the desk and back into the trouble in the back room. “You think maybe this might attract unwanted attention?” I pointed out.
Luke pursed his lips and nodded. “I think you may be right,” he agreed. He stood and helped me up, then scurried around the desk and into the apartment. In a moment he returned, but stumbling backwards as though he’d been pushed. His back knocked into the desk and he scowled at the beaded doorway. I hurried over to his side, but didn’t see any marks.
“I’m guessing they don’t care,” I guessed.
“They’re working out a lot of pent-up aggression,” he replied.
“Is that another way of saying they’re really mad at each other?” I mused.
“Yep.”
“So what do we do? Wait for them to tear the whole place apart?” I suggested.
“I’d rather not, but two female wolves in blood lust are two too much for me to handle in that packed a room,” he told me.
I grinned. “Then what about a female helping you?”
He looked at me and smiled. “That might not be such a bad idea. Get transformed and we’ll get in there.”
“All right, here goes.” I closed my eyes and focused on the picture of me as a werewolf. Those sharp fangs, the long claws, that vicious howl, those damn puffy bits of fur springing from my cheeks. I felt the fur pop out first, followed by the changes I actually wanted. My hands lengthened and my knees turned backwards for ease of traveling on all fours. I stooped over and felt my clothes rip and fall to the floor. I opened my eyes and saw the world with a vision so bright and sharp that I could see the termites climbing the wood walls. “Leonor needs to fumigate this place,” I commented. My voice was now a deep growling sound. I looked to Luke and saw that he was transformed beside me.
“We’ll have to tell her later. Right now let’s get them back to their senses,” he advised me.
We dove into the room and found the place a mess. There wasn’t a pillow with its stuffing intact, the small table was overturned, and the curtains were pulled down. In the middle stood two full wolves ten yards apart. They snarled at each other and leapt at each other, but Luke jumped forward and slammed his heavier body into their heads. They were shoved into the far wall, but sprang up like indestructible toy clowns, the ones with the rounded bottoms.
Luke sprang at Stacy while I took Leonor. She fought like a wild cat-er, dog, and I got my share of bites and scratches from her. We tumbled head over tail in one corner of the room while Luke wrestled Stacy in the other. Stacy’s voice broke through the noise. “What in the world are you doing, Luke? Get the hell off me!” she growled.
“And get off me!” Leonor demanded. Her voice was even, but angry.
Luke and I scuttled back and bumped backs in the center of the room, each looking in confusion at our opponents. “What do you mean what are we doing?” Luke asked her. “We’re trying to get you two to stop fighting.”
“And destroying the building’s foundations,” I added.
Stacy and Leonor looked at us with blinking eyes, and then they burst out laughing in a strange, guttural way. Stacy shook her head. “We weren’t fighting for real. This is what we always do after we haven’t seen each other for a while,” she told us. She glanced around the room and sheepishly smiled. “Though I admit sometimes we get carried away with the performance.”
Luke and I glanced at each other, then back to Stacy. “Did Luke hit you too hard?” I wondered.
Stacy sat on her hunches and transformed into her human self sans clothing. She grabbed a fallen curtain and wrapped it around herself before Luke celebrated her birthday suit. “I’m fine, and so is Leonor. This is just our way of greeting each other.”