I darted through the kitchen to Rufus’s bedroom on the third floor. The door was open just a little ways, enough for me to see books and clothes strewn about on the floor and his unmade bed.

We were risking even more certain death if he’d cursed the doorway and the gloves weren’t impervious to whatever magic might be there. I prayed to all the gods and goddesses in every pantheon I could think of that this wasn’t the case.

I squeezed my eyes shut and kicked the door. A blast of pain shocked my foot, as if my toes had been crunched together. The door was made of hefigwood, which was as solid and heavy as steel, and not meant to be kicked open.

Slowly, I pushed it the rest of the way with my other foot and stood on the threshold. A fresh wave of dread settled over me as I realized I had no idea where the pendant was. It could be anywhere in this mess.

At least the bedroom wasn’t booby-trapped.

Yvette groaned and stirred in my arms.

“Yvette, are you okay?” I stepped over a bunch of dirty teacups and saucers, set her down on the bed, then quickly rummaged around for something to wrap her injuries with. The only suitable thing I could find was a crisply-folded, monogrammed handkerchief in one of the dressers, which I tore into strips.

“I hurt all over,” she grunted. “Ow, my paws feel burnt...and my tail...it’s busted! What happened?”

I explained the events after she had been thrown from the Chimbrelis as I wound the torn fabric around her paws and tail. “But we need the pendant, so Mister Gentry will free Roanna and Rufus can send me home.”

“Rufus is going to kill you when he finds out you ruined one of his hankies,” Yvette said. “They were a birthday gift from Roanna.”

“I know, but that’s the least of our worries right now. Where’s the pendant?”

Yvette pointed. On the opposite wall hung a collection of ornately framed paintings and shadowboxes. Next to these in a black lacquered cabinet were taxidermied specimens and other curiosities, including a variety of creatures floating in liquid, probably formaldehyde. More scary looking oddities cluttered a long mantel above the cabinet.

“On the mantel. It’s in the smallest glass box with the scorpion,” she said. “Be careful...it’s alive.”

The creeping willies came back with a vengeance. “There’s the booby trap. How am I supposed to get it without getting attacked?”

“At least you have the gloves,” Yvette said. “We shouldn’t waste any more time though. The basement will be in ruins by the time we get back down there if we don’t hurry.”

Reluctantly, I peered into the glass enclosure. It was not much bigger than a shoe box, with sand on the bottom and a few rocks. The scorpion was perched on a rock in one corner, stinger poised above its glossy black body. Thankfully, it was much tinier than I anticipated. I didn’t see the pendant anywhere.

“Where are its food and water?” I asked. “And isn’t it supposed to have a heat lamp?” I only knew because an ex-girlfriend of Addison’s kept pet tarantulas, scorpions, and a bunch of reptiles. The lizards and snakes didn’t bother me but the creepy crawlers with eight legs freaked me out.

“It doesn’t need them,” Yvette explained. “It’s an undead scorpion.”

Somehow, that was worse. “Ew, great. What if it stings me?”

“Don’t worry, it barely moves and I’m not sure it’s even venomous anymore,” Yvette said.

The hot and cold at the same time feeling surged over me. “I can’t find the pendant. Are you sure it’s in here?”

“I watched Rufus put it in there,” Yvette replied. “Ask the scorpion. Maybe now it’s hidden under a rock or something.”

I tried to ignore the awful pit in my stomach, and started to lift the wire mesh lid off the enclosure. Maybe the little creep was sleeping and wouldn’t pay any attention to me.

“Hurry,” Yvette urged, almost making me drop the lid.

“I’m going as fast as I can.”

“Talk to it,” Yvette said. “Ask it for the pendant.”

I set the lid down against the cabinet and peeked into the enclosure. The scorpion stood motionless on its rock. “Um, hi. Excuse me for bothering you, but have you seen a pendant in your enclosure?”

The scorpion remained silent.

“It’s black, rectangular...it’s on a chain.” I waited a moment, then turned to Yvette. “This isn’t working.”

“What do you expect, it’s undead. Try again.”

“It’s kind of important,” I said. “We need it...for a project. There’s a situation going on in the basement with a guy called Mister Gentry and a demonic three-headed kitten and--”

“We don’t really have time to tell the whole story,” said Yvette.

“Okay!” I said. “So, um, Mr. Scorpion, do you have the pendant?”

The scorpion clicked its claws.

“Is that a yes?”

Again, the scorpion clicked its claws.

“Oh, good!” I said. “Where is it?”

The scorpion waved its claws.

“In there? Okay Mr. Scorpion, do you think you could just hand it to me or--”

“Hurry!” Yvette screeched.

“You don’t have to yell!” I said.

The scorpion waved its claws again. I took it to mean “come closer”. With even greater reluctance, I stuck my hand inside the enclosure. Again, the scorpion waved its claws. I hated to but inched my hand closer to it.

Quick as a whip, the scorpion jumped off the rock, scurried up my arm, and pinched my nose.

“That’s Miss Scorpion to you,” she hissed. “Be glad I save my stinger venom for my enemies and not rude teenagers.”

I screamed and slipped on a stack of newspapers, flinging my arms out as I careened backwards. My elbow knocked a teapot and some teacups off an end table, dousing the wall and floor. I crash landed in another pile of dirty dishes.

Miss Scorpion didn’t let go. She held on and squeezed tighter.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please don’t kill me!” I shrieked. “Ow, ow, ow!”

There were several more apologies and expletives before the scorpion relieved her grip. She settled back and shook her stinger.

“Coralie, could you please try not to break anything else in here? And get the pendant,” Yvette said.

“I accept your apology, even if it was tainted by your profane tongue,” hissed the scorpion. “I am called Astrid. Who are you?”

“I’m Coralie,” I said rubbing my nose. “I have to get home to my father. He had a heart attack. I’m here completely by accident, from another continent. Could we please get the pendant before it’s too late and I’m stuck here forever? Rufus can’t help me.”

“Yeah, Rufus is getting killed down there by demons,” Yvette said.

“Rufus is no friend of mine,” Astrid said. “It is his fault I am an undead scorpion. Lift me back up into the glass prison and I will get you the pendant.”

I didn’t want to touch her but there was no other way.

I held her as far away from my body as possible until she scathingly corrected my method of carrying her to “use both hands, do not drop me, and it is insulting to behave as though you find me loathsome. Many humans are equally vile if not worse.”

“Of course, I’m sorry.” Without even turning around, I was sure of Yvette’s disapproving look.

Astrid dug in the sand and pulled the pendant out from under the rock she’d been sitting on. “Rufus commanded me to protect the pendant, but his orders mean nothing to me. However, there is one condition that must be met before I hand it over to you.” She flicked her stinger.

I wanted to scream. Yvette started to protest by I shushed her. My sore nose knew better than to try to bargain with an undead scorpion and I didn’t want to experience the stinger next. “What’s the condition?”

“You must promise not to return me to this glass prison. You must also free my undead brethren that are trapped on the mantel. It must be done now, in case we don’t make it back from the basement. We will assist with your Rufus situation.”

Thinking about a swarm of undead creatures running around the basement gave me even worse heebie-jeebies. I started to see that was my problem though. “You have my word.”

“Please, put me on your shoulder so I may have a better view,” Astrid said. I imagined Addison telling me that confronting our fears is a part of life, and did as she asked.

“And now, free the others,” she said.

A few minutes later, Astrid’s fellow undead creatures were freed from their enclosures and waited on the floor, stretching their many legs and chattering to one another in their whispery languages.

There were three other, much larger scorpions, five tarantulas, a bunch of of giant cockroaches, and the biggest millipede I’d ever seen. A married pair of hermit crabs decided to stay behind because “now it will be quiet and we’ll have a little more privacy.”

They told me that each of them had become undead as the result of Rufus’s botched experiments. “The lucky ones were met with real death,” said one of the tarantulas. “The rest of us linger in this state of being.”

Astrid dropped the pendant into my gloved hands. The hermit crabs wished us luck, and with Astrid perched on my shoulder, Yvette and I and our small army of undead invertebrates headed back to the basement.

As we reached the kitchen the doorbell rang, followed by pounding on the front door. The chaos in the basement clamored in the background.

It was a scruffy looking, amber haired guy in a green field jacket covered with Cailreth Army regiment patches, as well as others with weird symbols I didn’t recognize. A sprig of torrowroot stuck out of his mouth. He had a neyse perched on his shoulder, gray with tabby markings.

“Can I help you?” I asked, eyeing the torrowroot. People chew it and it makes them spit a lot. It’s absolutely disgusting. Rufus would have a fit if somebody did that in the house. I tried not to think about the disaster upstairs in his bedroom.

“Maybe I can help you,” the green-jacketed man said, and handed me a business card.

Jamison Bridger

Interdimensional Pest Control Services || Free Home Inspection

Licensed and Insured

“Banishing Infernal Critters So You Don’t Have To”

“Jamison Bridger? Were you sent by the emergen--” I started to say.

Yvette began hollering over me. “YOU! I know you! YOU are the one who turned me into an opossum!”

Everyone gawked at Jamison. He put on an innocent face, his mouth forming an O around the torrowroot.

“That’s a serious accusation,” the neyse said, his gold glittering eyes fixed on Yvette. “Is this true, James?”

Jamison stared at Yvette, then brightened in recognition. From where I stood, it looked like his green eyes twinkled.

“Oh my gods, the raskia raid.” He spat behind him.

“Yeah, that,” Yvette hissed.

“You’re still in town?” chuckled Jamison. “Thought you would’ve split like so many others.”

“Which reminds me,” she raged. “Whatever happened to the rest of the people I was with that night?”

“They’re in prison where they belong and I’m beginning to think you should’ve gone too. C’mon Tobin,” Jamison said to the neyse. “They probably don’t want our help now.”

Tobin was still staring at Yvette.

“Wait!” I said. “I do want your help. There’s something really bad going on--”

Screams erupted from the basement.

“Explain what’s going on down there,” Jamison said.

Quickly I described the events. “So will you help us?”

“Depends,” Jamison said. “I get fifty percent up front if I decide to take the job.”

My stomach sank. I’d forgotten about payment. I had no money. At least we were entitled to a free home inspection.

“No way,” Yvette fumed, arms crossed. “I don’t want him in my house. Let’s get somebody else, Coralie.”

“You didn’t seem to have a problem with being an opossum up until now. We have no other choice, and I didn’t get that stupid, cursed pendant for nothing. I have to get home.”

“What stupid, cursed pendant?” Jamison said.

“I said being an opossum hasn’t been too bad. It hasn’t exactly been great, either,” she wailed. “You don’t even care that I got hurt for you.”

Immediately I regretted what I’d said, but I needed to get to Addison. “Yvette, I’m sorry. That was mean of me to say. Of course I care you got hurt. Don’t you want me to get home, though?”

Her whiskers drooped. “Yes.”

Jamison spat. It landed on the brick steps, a brown, putrid-looking glob. “What stupid, cursed pendant are you talking about? This could affect my rate.”

I sighed and showed him. Maybe it was just my imagination but it seemed to radiate even more dreadful energy than before.

Jamison flinched. “Where the netherworld did that come from? What does it do?”

“It belongs to Rufus, who owns this house, and it comes from a different place. That’s all I know,” I said. “Could you please at least look at the basement, before it’s too late?”

“Lead the way,” Jamison said.

“Finally,” I said, and led the group downstairs, except for an inconsolable Yvette, who sat on the floor and sobbed.