Ruth looked more pale than usual, but Merlin had arrived just late enough to miss Frank giving her some of his blood again. While he knew he should probably do the same, he just couldn’t do that yet. Maybe if there was an emergency, he would do it. Until then, she seemed to be doing okay.

“Hey there,” Ruth said as he walked in. “Are you ready?”

Merlin nodded, then cocked his head as a thought suddenly came to him. “Uh. I know I should have thought of this sooner, but...how do you communicate with Lucas? Is it some type of vampire mental power, like telepathy?”

“No,” she said, taking out her cell phone. “I use this.” She gave him a look similar to that which a teacher might give a slow child who would never understand no matter how many times she explained it.

“Sorry,” he said. “Don’t you need to call your parents and tell them you are staying with a friend as well?”

Ruth looked embarrassed for a second, “Actually, I live with my grandmother. She’s so senile that she doesn’t even remember I live there half the time.”

It was Merlin’s turn to look embarrassed this time. “Sorry,” he muttered. “I didn’t know.” Apparently, there were a lot of families out there who didn’t have the same opportunities Arthur did. Then again, Arthur had been raised more by servants than by his father. In fact, thinking about it, Arthur’s mother had moved away years ago and hadn’t seen her son in years. Guess no one had a great home life anymore.

“Anyway, how are we going to get there? We don’t have Shirley’s brother to drive us. I don’t even know how you guys got to Little Rock,” Merlin said.

“Actually, I don’t need a car anymore. Lucas and Frank rode on my scooter,” Ruth said.

It took him a moment to visualize that. Wait, that meant he was going to ride on a scooter with Frank. Then another thought hit him. “What about when Belle was with you?”

Frank answered this one, “Actually, Belle has a scooter as well. The only reason we were able to get there before you guys was because Peter gave us a heads-up.”

Merlin nodded, taking in what they had told him. It had answered some questions he had not thought to ask. “What about the shadow? Why was Ms. White working with you guys?”

Ruth chimed in, “Peter’s shadow. Yeah, the scary thing, isn’t it?”

Frank answered Merlin’s question, “Peter sent the shadow ahead. We don’t know how she knew that it was there to help her. Then again, there are a lot of things we didn’t have time to learn.”

There didn’t seem to be much to say after that so walked over to where Ruth had hidden her scooter. Of course, he thought once he saw it. It was pink. Not just pink, but neon pink. On the positive side, both Frank and Lucas had ridden it together. He smiled at the thought. Then he realized that he would be riding with Frank. Not only that, but he would be hugging Frank for over an hour. Man, he really should have learned how to ride one of those at some point.

They would have really had some problems if Frank hadn’t known how to drive the scooter. As it was, Merlin spent the next two hours on the back of a scooter holding someone who had a recent head wound. Oh, and it smelled like Frank hadn’t had a bath since last weekend either. Yep, wasn’t he the luckiest person in the world?

By the time they reached Little Rock, he was starting to see how he would pay for his power. That ride certainly qualified as a curse in his opinion. While he had thought they would be going to one of the two previous places they had been before, they instead went to a different house altogether. Actually, it was more like a cabin in the woods.

A mist appeared from the darkness. Slowly, it started swirling together until soon a figure began to take form. After a few more seconds, Ruth was standing before them.

“So cool,” Merlin muttered before realizing what he had said.

“Yeah, it is.” Ruth said. “I’ll miss this, but not much else.”

Seconds later, Lucas walked out of the woods. He was even more wolf-like than before. Not only were his fingers clawed now, but Merlin could see his canines from a dozen feet away, even in the darkness. He was also much hairier than before as well. Of course, it was the blood on his face that really stood out.

Now that they were all present, all they had to do was head inside. He had thought once they arrived, he would know what to do, but Merlin really didn’t know what to do or say when they went inside. Should they burst in and take Ms. White hostage until they get a way to break the curse? No matter what, he was determined to find out how to break the curse.

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Knowing they were about to head inside, he checked his pockets one more time to make sure he knew where everything was. After he was satisfied, they all snuck up to the cabin. He was tempted to use the mask he had used last Halloween but decided against it for now. It wasn’t likely they were going to encounter anyone other than Ms. White.

Peeking into the window, he realized he had been wrong. Not only was Ms. White in the cabin, but sitting across from her was Mr. Prince, the old man who had told them where to find her. They seemed to be talking like old friends. Merlin wished he knew why Mr. Prince was there, being all friendly with Ms. White. What in the world was going on? He had thought they were enemies or something.

Merlin was thinking about casting a spell to unlock the door. While he was thinking about that, Lucas took care of the problem by kicking in the door. Uh, that works. A little too destructive for his tastes, however. Still, it was done now and there wasn’t much he could do about it so he might as well follow the others inside. Determined a bunch of these guys.

Neither Mr. Prince nor Ms. White seemed surprised by their abrupt entrance. In fact, they almost seemed amused as Frank stumbled over the door as he clambered into the cabin over the broken door. Of course, Ruth flowed over the broken door like the wind. Careful not to fall himself, Merlin went in last.

No one said anything until Merlin decided to break the silence, “Knock, knock.”

Ms. White didn’t seem amused, but Mr. Prince did break a smile. “Who’s there?”

Merlin was at a loss here. He hadn’t really prepared an answer. After a second of hesitation, he finally came up with, “Us?”

While he wasn’t certain, it sounded like Ms. White muttered something like, “Idiot.” He couldn’t really argue at that moment, however.

“We are here for the mirror pieces,” Ruth said.

“Of course you are, and so am I,” said Mr. Prince.

“And why should I give it to any of you?” Ms. White asked. “One of you kids already broke the mirror and took one of the pieces. Why should I help you?”

Frank spoke up, “Because you want us to leave you alone.”

“Oh, I’m sure I could make you leave me alone if I tried hard enough,” Ms. White said. “In fact, I know I could.”

Lucas was a little more direct, “You’ll give it to you if you ever want to make it out of this cabin.” Something about the way Lucas licked his canines after he said it made it all the more threatening. Hmm, Lucas was scary. Merlin had to remind himself they were on the same side, at least for now.

“From you, that threat has the ring of truth,” Ms. White said. “You can’t trust a beast to act like a man.”

Wow, she was asking for it. Was she trying to get herself killed? Lucas handled it well, however. He simply dragged his claws across the wood of the wall and left four long deep scars. Yep, don’t annoy Lucas.

Ms. White must have sensed at least a little of that. “I’m not about just giving you the rest of the pieces. If something happens to me, you’ll never find them. Or even if you do find them, you won’t find the pieces in time to help your friends.”

“Children, if she was going to give up the pieces that easily, she would have already given them to me,” Mr. Prince said. “Why don’t you let me take it from here?”

“If you could handle it, you would already have the pieces,” Frank said. “We can’t afford to wait any longer.”

“Fine,” Ms. White said. “I’ll show you where the pieces are.”

Everyone looked at Ms. White and her abrupt change of mind. Merlin was worried. Why had she changed her mind so suddenly? Was she planning on tricking them somehow? Either way, they didn’t have a choice but to see what happened.

Standing up, Ms. White moved to the back of the cabin and pushed aside a rug. Underneath, she pulled up a hidden cellar door. Looking at each other for just a moment, everyone gathered around the cellar entrance. Mr. Prince went down the steps first, followed by Ms. White. Ruth went next, followed by Merlin. Lucas and Frank brought up the rear. Clicking on their flashlights, they stepped into the darkness.

At first, Merlin expected the steps to end after a short distance. That didn’t happen, however. The stairs seemed to go down and down and down. He couldn’t imagine what it had taken to create the passage down into the depths of the earth. Magic had to have been involved. There was no way someone had dug all the steps as deeply as the steps were taking them.

Finally, after what seemed forever, the steps ended in a huge dark cavern. Not knowing where they were, everyone looked around with their flashlights. For a second, Merlin got a little dizzy from all the lights bouncing around the cave.

“Where are they?” Frank demanded. “I don’t see anything.”

“It’s right here,” Ms. White said, moving to one of the walls. Pushing on a rock, an opening in the wall developed as the rock rolled away. Not really trusting her, Merlin followed closely behind her. She seemed willing to give up the mirror pieces way too easily. Something was wrong. As soon as she stepped into the new passageway, she started running.

Good grief, he thought. Just his luck. The slowest one in the group was the one closest to her. Trying not to lose her, he almost didn’t notice her press another rock as she ran down the passage.

Immediately, the stones around them began to shake. Suddenly, the ground rose up from beneath him, tripping him and the others. Lucas and Ruth kept their balance, but neither one of them had time to do anything before the ceiling fell in on them. For the second time in a week, something hit him in the head and pushed him into darkness.