Caladenia

- Frankie -

Frankie chugged his last bit of coffee and eyed the carafe. He looked outside, noting that the morning sun hadn’t even peaked over the horizon. Who the hell gets up at this hour? “Should I leave any for August?” He asked Mat.

Mat sipped on his coffee and scratched Dude’s head. He wore a finely pressed pale blue button-up and tan slacks that screamed department store corporate indoctrination starter set. Definitely not the attire Frankie would catch himself dead in. Even now, heading into a vet’s office, he wore his embroidered jeans and oversized bright-ass yellow geometric knit sweater.

“I wouldn’t. Who knows when they’ll get up,” Mat said, gazing into his mug.

“Fair point, lucky little shit.” Frankie pulled himself off his seat and grabbed a thermos, topping off the rest of the coffee. “You ready for your first day, Dr. Mandrake?”

Mat looked over his shoulder for a moment, his face paling before he blinked and looked at Frankie. “Yeah. Anything that will get me out of this house.”

Frankie looked over to the empty corner in the kitchen and frowned. “What, first day jitters got you seeing things?”

“You could say something like that. I can’t wait for this week to be over. Dr. Denton wants me doing paperwork the first week until she’s ready to hand new clients to me.”

“Riveting. I’m sure you can handle it, sweetie. My life will be paperwork and puppy breath for the next six months, anyway.” Frankie’s phone dinged in his pocket, a message from Remmy. “My ride’s here. Are you sure you don’t need one?”

“Yep,” Mat said. “Demetri said he’d pick me up and take me over to get the Green Machine later today.”

Frankie grabbed his coffee and planted a kiss on Mat’s cheek. “Have a lovely day at work.” He then snapped his fingers and said, “Come on, Dude, let’s go to work.”

Dude perked up from Mat’s side and trotted behind Frankie, tongue hanging out.

Frankie opened the front door, and the potent scent of smoky whiskey hit him before he noticed the tall Black man standing in the doorway. “Uh, Demetri, hi.”

Demetri smiled, a grin that made Frankie weak in the knees. He spoke in a low baritone, “Hey. I tried calling. Is Mat up?”

“Of course you did,” Frankie said before turning around and shouting. “Take your phone off silent, doofus. Your ride’s here.”

Frankie heard a jingle coming from Demetri, and when he turned, the man was holding out two rings filled with keys. “I come bearing gifts for you and August.”

“Aw, you shouldn’t have,” Frankie said, grabbing them from Demetri. A twinge of electricity surged up Frankie’s arm and throughout his body, and he looked down at the two sets of keys. The sets were identical, except for a little charm. Both were a shiny copper, but one was in the shape of a Monstera leaf, while the other was an eye.

He placed the ring of keys with an eye on one of the coat hooks near the door and tossed his own set up in the air. “Thanks.”

Demetri stared at Frankie, his eyebrow raised. “Any time.”

A familiar tiny car pulled up to the front of the house behind Demetri’s black sedan, and Frankie shouldered past Demetri, snapping his fingers for Dude to follow. “Well, my ride’s here. You two have fun.”

Demetri smiled. “Tell Remmy I said hi.”

“Excuse me,” the old woman holding her toy poodle in her arms in front of the check-in counter said. “I have been standing here for five minutes. Are you going to check me in?”

Frankie blinked a few times, pulling his eyes away from Remmy, who was outside at the moment, fawning over a giant mastiff who had outright refused to enter the vet’s office. “Uh, yeah, sorry about that. What was your name again?”

“Appleton. A-P-P.”

“Penelope Appleton, got it. And this is Henry?” Frankie asked, nodding to the poodle.

The poodle huffed and glared at Frankie with the same Karen energy that Mrs. Appleton had.

“Yes,” the woman said. “Henry here got into something last night and hasn’t been acting himself. I called ahead so I could drop him off.”

At that moment, the little dog looked up, and a thick tongue slithered out of his mouth like a tentacle and licked the woman under her chin. Frankie leaned back in his chair, eying the now innocent, doe-eyed Henry. “Oh. I see. Well, uh, have a seat and we’ll get you all checked in.”

Mrs. Appleton frowned, then slowly shuffled away to the waiting room.

“Actually,” a voice boomed from behind Frankie. He turned and saw the head vet tech, Denise, a short Black woman with thick, red-rimmed glasses. She smiled at Mrs. Appleton. “Frankie here will take Henry into room two and prep him for Dr. Lupin.”

Frankie frowned, eyeing Henry, whose eyes blinked out of sync, and whispered, “What, why me?”

Denise picked up a chart from the table and flipped over the papers, muttering, “Because you are a vet tech in training, and you want a good recommendation from me.”

Frankie sat up from his chair and beamed at Mrs. Appleton. “Alright, I’ll take Henry and get him all checked in.”

She looked at Denise and smiled before handing Henry over. “Be nice to the poor boy. He gets nervous around strangers.”

A wet tentacle lolled out from Henry’s mouth and wrapped around Frankie’s wrist. He did everything he could to not throw the dog as far away from him as possible. “He’s—” Frankie swallowed. “He’s in excellent hands.”

Frankie carried Henry quickly into room two, wincing at the strong smell of bleach, and set Henry down on the scale. A normal tongue hung from his mouth as he panted and stared up at Frankie.

“Alright, what the hell are you?” Frankie asked.

The dog’s eyes flashed pitch black for a moment as Henry tilted his head from side to side, then huffed.

Frankie’s heart beat heavily in his chest, and his fingertips numbed as every sane voice in his head told him to run. “Show yourself, weird tentacle thing.”

As the words left his lips, a ripple of electricity ran down his back and the scent of dirt filled the room.

The dog sniffed the air and yawned heavily, then the coiled white fur retracted, leaving behind a rather hideous hairless dog.

“What the fuck?” Frankie said, backing up.

The hairless dog transformed again, losing its rigid shape as the surrounding light contorted and shifted into a mass of dark shadows. Blackened tentacles stretched in all directions.

Frankie couldn’t help but scream as Henry tripled in size, shadows and darkness overtaking the scale and spilling out onto the counter.

The door burst open, and Dr. Lupin raced into the room. He looked at Frankie, then at the blob formerly known as Henry. “Are you alright?”

“Uh, no, there’s a fucking shadow monster,” Frankie said, pointing.

Dr. Lupin paused, sniffing the air, and his eyes widened. He slammed the door shut, his back to Frankie.

“Well, thanks for saving everyone else from the Thing, but I’m about to jump out the window,” Frankie said, fumbling with the lock on the way-to-small window.

Remmy’s back muscles bulged, tearing his lab coat, and a tuft of white hair curled out from his lab coat collar. “Frankie, I’m going to need you to be cool with something really quick, okay?”

Shadow Henry lifted a tentacle toward Remmy, and a patchy white-haired hand batted it away.

“Uh, what the fuck is going on?” Frankie said.

Remmy turned, and his dark eyes were now a bright yellow. His nose was now flat, with slits on either side, and his scruff was filled with patchy white fur. A mouth full of sharp teeth spoke, “Please, don’t scream.”

Frankie felt the blood drain from his face. “I—I think I’m beyond screaming. What. The. Fuck?”

Remmy sniffed the air again and looked at Frankie. “What spell did you cast?”

Frankie blinked and stared at the blob of darkness. “What?”

Remmy groaned, his lower jaw protruding more from his face. His shirt ripped completely free, along with his lab coat, as he became a massive half-man, half-wolf. “You said or did something. You need to undo it. Reverse whatever spell you did. Before . . .”

Remmy fell onto all fours, his body shrinking and reshaping into a patchy white wolf that bared his teeth right at Frankie.

Frankie shut his eyes and fell into the corner of the room. “Oh fuck. Uh, undo whatever the fuck I said. Please? Whatever witchy thing out there is listening.”

The earthy air vanished, and the scent of bleach and sanitizer filled the air once again.

Frankie opened his eyes, spotting the toy poodle sitting happily on the scale, and a very naked Remmy on all fours.

Remmy stood up, wrapping himself around the waist with his tattered lab coat.

Frankie pushed himself up off the floor and eyed the scars on Remmy’s chest. Frankie bit his lip. “There are usually drinks involved before something like this happens.”

“Well, I’m sorry to break it to you, but I’m not usual.” Remmy blushed.

“What? Hot werewolf guys aren’t common around here? Shocker,” Frankie said, rubbing the back of his neck.

Remmy shook his head and laughed, looking down at the heap of clothes. “Maybe, but I’ve got the whole trans werewolf thing all to myself.”

Frankie eyed Remmy, tracing his body before shrugging. “You’re probably all the same. A bunch of smelly frat bros.”

“Yep, you caught me. Smelly frat bro, right here.”

Frankie laughed, then looked over at the innocent-looking shadow monster who sat happily on the scale, wagging his tail. “So, the fuck is that?”

“A pooka,” Remmy said, sticking out a hand to let Henry sniff it before scratching him behind the ears. “Pretty sure it ate the old Henry.”

“Um, what?”

“As long as Mrs. Appleton feeds it, it should be fine,” Remmy said.

“Sure. So . . . question. Shouldn’t we be worried?”

Remmy shook his head. “It knows you can command it. The thing is pretty smart, so it shouldn’t do anything too drastic.”

“Great,” Frankie pointed a finger at the new Henry. “Well, you’d better behave or I will get you, my pretty.”

A faint earthen scent rose in the air, followed by the smell of roses, then vanished. Henry simply stared, blinking out of sync.

“So,” Remmy started. “Mind getting me some clothes? I have an extra pair in my office.”

Frankie raised an eyebrow. “Depends. Do you want to grab a drink after work?”