“Petah, are you off your nut?” Davy said. “Mike’s not a monster!”
Sudden movement caught Peter’s eye; he twisted around and saw Micky approaching. “Micky! Get out of here! Mike’s the monster! Micky! Micky?”
Micky stared down at the pair with the same cold, vacant expression. “Gu-rah,” he muttered.
Peter screamed again. “MICKY’S THE MONSTER TOO!”
“Ouch! So loud!” a pained voice interrupted. “I don’t remember these two being quite that noisy, and their screams were . . . so much more musical.”
A long shadow fell over Peter and he found himself squinting up into the face of the man who’d attacked him. The cold, arrogant sneer on the man’s face sent chills down his spine . . . as well as hot stabs of anger. “What did you do to my friends?” he demanded, outrage deepening his voice.
The man reached down and grabbed Peter by the shirtfront, tossing him roughly into a chair. A few seconds later Davy was plopped down next to him.
“Who are you?” Davy demanded.
“Ivan Du—” Ivan stopped. “Just call me Ivan.”
“His name is Ivan Dumkoff,” Ella said. Peter twisted around in his chair. Ella was standing with her hands bound to a long rope strung from the ceiling. “He was once my uncle’s most brilliant student, but besides being saddled with the most unfortunate name this side of the Prime Meridian, he’s also an arrogant jerk.”
Ivan’s eyes flashed with brief but intense anger. “I am STILL Dr. Mendoza’s most brilliant student!”
“No you’re not,” she sneered. “He dumped you because you couldn’t keep your wild amibitions under control. How in the world did you get in here?”
Ivan walked over to her and gently stroked the side of her face. “My dear, you left the door unlocked, and there are thousands of places in this house to hide. I watched these fools arrive and just waited until it was time to strike.”
Ella jerked away from his touch. “Okay. Question number two—what do you want?”
“I already have what I want,” Ivan rumbled. “And once the three of you are dead I’ll continue Dr. Mendoza’s work . . . right here.”
“Dead?” Peter whispered, the blood draining from his face.
Ivan came back to Peter’s side and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Of course. My dear boy, I can’t have you running to the police, now can I?” Ivan looked up at Mike. “Dispose of them.”
Peter watched in abject terror as Mike slowly approached, his warm eyes suddenly so terribly cold. “Mike . . . Mike, please! Please don’t do this! I’m Peter! I’m your friend! Mike!”
Mike reached out, his long fingers grasping towards Peter’s neck. Peter could see the faint red lines on Mike’s wrists where he had been tied—the marks took on an odd sort of fascination for him as the hands loomed ever closer. Mike was mere inches away from Peter when he stopped dead.
“What are you doing?” Ivan demanded. “Get him! I command you!”
“Might I suggest that when you have two ‘monsters’ you try and keep your eyes on both of them,” Mike said mildly.
Micky crept up behind Ivan and brought his weapon—a chair—smashing down on Ivan’s back. He grinned evilly as Ivan collapsed. “Wow. It worked.”
“Yeah. It’s the first thing that’s gone right,” Mike said as he reached around behind Peter’s back and freed him.
“Mike? Is that really you?”
“Yeah, shotgun. Sorry we scared you, but I didn’t want to let sleeping ugly there know until he’d turned his back on one of us.”
“But Mike,” Davy said as Peter untied him. “We thought you’d been turned into a monster!”
“Yeah, so did we,” Micky said, keeping a watchful eye on the unconscious villain. “But after about ten minutes nothing happened, so we figured we’d play along since he came right out and told us the stuff was going to turn us into monsters.”
“You conniving . . . ” Ella said, shaking her head in wonder. “I’m impressed.”
“Are you okay?” Peter said, reaching up to release her wrists. He took her hands and rubbed the chafed skin gently. “Are you hurt?”
“I have a pretty good headache but I’m fine,” she said. “Now, I think it’s time that we do what you came here to do before anything else can happen.”
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