CHAPTER#25

"Last week. Got in a fight with a witch. She lost."

"Does that have anything to do with the full pod? I noticed that one of them seemed swollen. Normally, when the Mandragora feeds, it drops morsels of foods into those pods, but I've never seen one sealed shut before." Zel was frantically scribbling. "It wasn't a standard digestion either. One morning, I saw that the pod had been absorbed by the main plant, and the colors on the bud had changed."

"I think it transformed the witch." Mike reached into his pocket, pulling out the necklace. "The plant was wearing this."

"Of course, it makes sense. The Mandragora was struggling to survive and couldn't be bothered to develop a fully mature body for incubation. Therefore, rather than completely digest its food, it used the skeletal structure of its previous prey as a base to build off of." Her pencil was scribbling frantically. "Amazing. The plant is already capable of low-level human intelligence, which means, in some aspects, the part of the Mandragora that left is both human and plant!"

"Yeah, well..." Mike's stomach rumbled. "I need to get back home. I'm starving."

"Nonsense. I made plenty for both of us." Zel closed her journal, clapping her hands together. "Afterward, I can walk you home!"

"I'm not in much condition for walking," he informed her. "Last time this happened, it took me forever just to get back to the cliffs, and that was after a full night of sleep. I'm actually wondering if I can talk you into making the trip for me? I know someone who can pick me up."

"Oh, it really isn't any trouble, you'll see!" Zel stood, her blanket falling to one side. Mike's eyes widened at the powerful legs that emerged from beneath the fabric. Four long, muscular limbs with hooves on the end. Zel walked over to the fire, leaning over the pot to stir the soup with a stick, her horse tail flicking back and forth contently as she poured some into a bowl.

"I should have known," Mike muttered to himself. The centaur smiled, handing him a bowl of food to eat.

…

The drive to the storage unit took over an hour. Staring at the fields on the edge of town, Beth couldn't fathom why Emily would insist on a storage unit so far away from civilization, especially when there were several good ones within fifteen minutes of her home.

"Fries," she said, and Lily, acting as her copilot, held up the small red fry cup like an offering to the gods. Beth grabbed a few, stuffing them in her mouth carefully to avoid smudging her lipstick. They had grabbed a bite to eat at the edge of town on Lily's insistence. Beth almost told her no, but suddenly realized how hungry she was. It was as if the intern was a mind reader.

"Are you sure you don't want any ketchup? Fry sauce? Anything?" Lily held up an open container.

"Rookie move. You don't want to drip sauce on your blouse. It makes you look unprofessional, and then people stare at your breasts all day, which can be distracting to everyone involved."

"I think I would rather pack an extra shirt than go without fry sauce." Lily stuck a pair of fries in the tub, pulling out a large glob of the pink stuff, sticking her tongue out to catch it before it fell. "I would pack an extra set of work clothes for some good fry sauce."

"You sound like you damn near worship the stuff," Beth said, grabbing a few more fries.

"It's a bit awkward to talk about, but my last boyfriend didn't let me eat what I wanted." Lily hooked another large blob of the stuff on a thicker fry, her tongue wrapping around the crisp potato skin before pulling it in her mouth. "It was a pretty bad relationship. He was a huge dick, very controlling."

"How long ago was this?" Beth asked.

"Long enough for me to be in a new relationship. Seriously, do you want any of this?" Lily held up an unopened fry sauce packet.

"Knock yourself out." Beth watched Lily hook her fingers in the current tin of fry sauce, licking her skin clean. There was something dirty about the way she did it, her tongue making slow, long licks along her digits. It was a terrible thought, but Beth briefly wondered how many dicks Lily had had in her mouth.

"A hundred and forty six," Lily said. Beth stared straight ahead, suddenly afraid that Lily could somehow read her mind. Several seconds passed in silence, and Lily pointed to the side of the road. "Exit one forty-six, you're about to miss it!"

"Oh." Beth swerved her car, jumping across two lanes, someone honking at her in protest. They came to the end of the long exit road, waiting at a red light to turn left. "Is the new relationship good then?"

"We're still in the beginner's stage. You know, figuring each other out. Seems like he might actually be a good guy, but I guess I'm a little afraid that I could be wrong. I would hate to get my hopes up only to get burned for it. Wow." Lily's eyes settled on the vast expanse of land before them. "Why would anybody want a storage unit in the middle of nowhere?"

"There's an agricultural town down the road a way. The storage place, I believe, is largely for them. No idea why Emily would get a place out here. She must have gotten a killer deal or something."

"Could be super valuable stuff maybe? Crimes of opportunity don't happen when you have to drive an hour to break the lock on a storage unit." Lily pulled out some papers. "From what I can tell, she paid for the most expensive unit. Climate controlled, anti-pest, you name it. What would you need all that storage for?"

"A comic book collection. I had a client years back who kept all his comics in a space like that. Kind of sad when he died, they quickly became money that his heirs fought over, not a single one of them gave a damn about the golden age of comics." Beth tapped her fingers on the steering wheel, ignoring the sound of Lily slurping fry sauce straight from the container. At what point did materialism become an unhealthy obsession? She remembered his face, but not his name, the comic collector. He hadn't visited his comics in over a decade, wanted to keep them in mint condition. But for what? She still remembered handing the check over to his children from the sale of the collection. Not a tear had been spared for their father, and they hadn't even bothered looking to see if there was something in his collection they would want.