SonofaWitch! Read online

  Instead, Rowan squeezed behind her kitchen door, head against the cool glass and eyes pressed shut against the nightmare. She breathed from her center, hid like a coward, and just let him finish.

  “That’s your dog?” JoAnna pointed one witchy finger to the couch where Rex sat, cross legged with one of the throw pillows clutched to his chest. Her eyes and her horror remained fixed on Rowan, however.

  “Yeah. It’s Rex.” She’d gotten him back in the house, explained the toilet to him, and calmed him down by letting him eat a whole package of cold hot dogs.

  “Rowan?”

  “Stay there, Rex.”

  He gave her the sad eyes.

  “You always did like blonds,” JoAnna said.

  “That’s not funny, Jo.” Rowan grabbed her covenmate’s arm and dragged her into the kitchen. “I’ve got to find a way to change him back.”

  “Are you sure?” Jo tilted her head, her long red locks swinging free, and peeked back through the open doorway. “I mean, he’s pretty enough.”

  “He’s a dog!” They stared at one another for a second before Rowan’s grin got the best of her. “Oh, you know what I mean.”

  “Okay,” Jo said. “Don’t panic. We can work this out.”

  They moved to the kitchen table. Rowan had gathered all her spell books into a pile while she waited for JoAnna to arrive. She had the grimoire where she’d found the Perfect Mate spell on top of the heap, and she flipped to it and handed it over with a flutter of embarrassment. Jo wouldn’t judge her. They’d all done love spells at one point or another—with mixed results—but it wasn’t the most respected of magic either.

  “This is the one I used.” She watched Jo examine it with a growing sense of relief. JoAnna was the studious one in their coven of five. Jo had the level head, was always the one to clear any group working for ethics and feasibility. In hindsight, she probably should have run the Perfect Mate by JoAnna in the first place… before she’d turned poor Rex into a beefcake.

  “It looks okay, Rowan.”

  “So you think it was the dog hair?”

  “Maybe. Did you write the list with a clear mind?”

  “Yes. I did it right, Jo. No secret target, no accidental images of people who I might like to fling it at.” She had. She’d been sure of it, so careful, but then why did her head fill with images of the guy across the street stretching his hamstrings? “I’m sure I did.”

  “Must have been the hair then. Hair has a lot of magical baggage.”

  “I know, hon. I took Wicca 101 too.”

  JoAnna ignored her sarcasm. “Did you make a copy of the list?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Can you remember it exactly?”

  “Maybe?” Rowan tried to recite her list of perfections in her mind and only made it about a third of the way down. “In time, maybe? No. I couldn’t be sure it was exact.”

  “Then we’re not going to have much luck reversing this.”

  “No!” Rowan wailed and dropped her head into her arms, resting her face against the Book of Shadows for Dummies. “Don’t tell me that, Jo. We have to do this. I can’t… He’s already terrified my neighbors and possibly done permanent damage to a missionary.”

  “You’ll have to tell me about that one sometime.”

  “I’ve got to get rid of him.”

  “Okay.” JoAnna shifted through the books. “Relax, Superspell, I didn’t mean we can’t fix it. We just can’t reverse that particular spell. A simple break of enchantment should still do the trick.”

  “Oh, thank gods. I mean, thank you for helping.” Rowan sat up and let out a breath. She shifted in her chair and something bumped against her foot. “That’s weird.”

  “What?” JoAnna barely glanced up from the book she flipped through.

  “Rex’s ball. I thought it was in the other room, but I just found it by my…” Rowan checked the doorway. Empty. Maybe he’d brought it into the kitchen when she was moving books around.

  “Okay, this one’s good, but we should do it on the new moon for best results.”

  “That’s two weeks, Jo. I don’t think Rex can make it that long.” She pushed her chair from the table and listened for any sound from the living room. “I couldn’t even keep him hidden for one day.”

  “Well, we can try it before then. Maybe find an hourly correspondence that’s favorable.”

  “Sure.” Rowan crossed the kitchen with lead feet. The draft reached her long before she saw the open front door, the empty walk outside. “But correspondences won’t help us much now.”

  “Why?” Jo finally looked up. “What’s wrong?”

  Rowan stared at the vacant sidewalk, her empty lawn. What had he heard? Which part of the conversation had spooked him? She tried to remember what they’d said before the ball hit her foot, and the only thing that echoed over and over was, I have to get rid of him.

  She’d always had a big mouth. A stupid, unfiltered big mouth.

  “Rowan?”

  “I think my dog just ran away.”

  “Ah shit.” JoAnna ran past her. She checked the hallway and then the bath and bedroom. Rowan should have, maybe. But the second she’d seen the open door, she’d known Rex wasn’t in the house any longer. After her inspection, Rowan’s covenmate confirmed it. “He’s gone.”

  “He’s going to get into trouble, Jo. He doesn’t know how to be a person.”

  “He can’t have gone far.”

  Rowan nodded and unfroze. She ran to grab her keys and her purse. She locked the house and followed JoAnna to her car as fast as she could, but no matter how many times Jo chanted, “We’ll find him, we’ll find him,” Rowan couldn’t stop picturing that tiny, helpless yellow puppy she’d brought home.

  She couldn’t help but remember that he was her dog.

  “Which way now?” JoAnna drove, and they’d already circled through the blocks surrounding Rowan’s house without any sign of Rex. They sat at a stop sign, at the intersection that led to downtown, too many blocks of houses, and in one direction a freeway she didn’t want to think about. Which was stupid, of course. How often did grown men get hit by cars on the freeway?

  Even if they were too naïve to get out of the way.

  “I don’t know.” The panic made her voice squeaky. “If he gets hurt…”

  “Don’t think about it, Rowan. Someone has to have seen him. It’s not like you don’t notice a big dude with a tail, right?”

  “Right.” She nodded, but the knot in her stomach only grew larger and chillier. “Head toward town then. We can ask around.”

  It wasn’t like she could post fliers. Lost Dog. It wasn’t like Rex would end up at the pound either, but she imagined him dropping his sweats to pee in the public park and leaned forward in her seat, as if she could speed the car up with her body.

  “There’s someone.” JoAnna hit the brakes, slowed and pulled up next to Rowan’s jogging neighbor.

  “Wait.” He was on Rowan’s side of the car, but Jo went right ahead and rolled down the window.

  “Excuse me.” Jo hollered across her. “Hello?”

  The sidewalk ran between a manicured strip of grass dotted with anorexic trees and the square, middle-of-the road housing. They’d stopped in front of a gray home with a sloping lawn, and Rowan’s gorgeous neighbor stood outlined by suburbia. His dark hair slicked around his face a little, and when he bent over to peer inside JoAnna’s vehicle, his brown eyes widened.

  “Oh, hi.”

  “I lost my dog.” Rowan blurted it. Jo coughed at the blunder, doing her best to drown out Rowan’s stupidity. “Sorry.”

  “Have you seen a guy with a tail?” Jo put a hand on Rowan’s leg and leaned across her. “He’s about your height and blond.”

  “Sorry, no.” He squatted, and crossed his arms over the lip of Rowan’s door. “Is Rex lost?”

  “No. Um. How did you know his name?” She realized how dumb she sounded and cringed. He smelled good, even after jogging.

  “I
’ve heard you calling him.”

  “Oh.”

  “Great.” JoAnna eased the car forward. “If you see a wandering furry, can you send him back to Rowan’s house for us?”

  “Uh. Sure.”

  “Thanks.” Rowan mumbled it, but Jo had already pulled away. She looked back, and caught the confused expression, the concern. He knew her dog’s name, and she’d never gotten his. “Dammit.”

  “We’ll find him,” Jo said.

  They came to another four way stop, and Rowan spotted a group of kids on skateboards. “Go right.”

  “Got it. I see them.”

  The pack of teenagers clustered on the far side of the street, but JoAnna pulled across and parked backwards. She rolled down her window and stuck her head way out. Rowan couldn’t see them, but the clicking of their wheels against the sidewalk clattered above the car’s idle.

  “You guys seen a man with a tail?”

  “Hells yes.”

  Rowan opened her door, stepped up, and leaned on the roof. The skateboarders had huddled closer together, five or six of them, all male and dressed like a futuristic cast of West Side Story. The leader had green hair and piercings that made Rex’s ears look tame. They’d seen him, and they couldn’t have looked more beautiful to her. “Did you see where he went?”

  “That dude is on crack,” Green Hair said. “Psycho let the Willard’s dog out. Thought Mrs. Willard was gonna shoot him the way she screamed. Man, she totally flipped out.”

  “Ye gods.” Rowan scanned the street to either side. “Where did he go?”

  “Took off when she started hollering. Mr. Willard’s dog ran after him and they had to chase it for three blocks.”

  “Which way?” JoAnna asked them, but the kid was obviously enjoying his story, and he parried the question with one of his own.

  “You know that guy?”

  “Yes.” Rowan sagged against the car. She knew him. She’d dragged him home as a puppy, and now, she’d dragged him into danger.

  “Where’d he get that dope tail?”

  “It’s Japanese.” JoAnna didn’t miss a beat. “He bought it online.”

  “Cool.”

  The roof of the car was warm. Rowan pressed her cheek against it and did her best not to cry.

  “Did you see which way he ran?” Jo pressed the kid, and one of the others called out an answer.

  “Toward town.”

  Perfect. Just amazingly perfect. Rex had let someone’s dog out, nearly gotten shot, and now he’d headed for town. What could possibly happen to him there? Rowan dove back into her seat and slammed the door.

  “Thanks guys.” JoAnna pulled away, and the skaters all waved them off. A few of them flipped the bird for good measure.

  “Hurry,” Rowan said. “I have a horrible feeling.”

  “It’ll be okay.” Jo revved the engine anyway, and they ran the next stop sign, speeding toward downtown.

  Rowan chanted the reassurance in her head. It’ll be okay. It’ll be okay. Despite the words on repeat, knots twisted in her belly. In her mind, she could picture far too many ways it wouldn’t.

  The police cars didn’t bode well. Three of them had parked sideways in front of Howell’s Grocery, and the spectacle of the old building painted in red and blue lights had already drawn a crowd. They didn’t have to discuss whether or not they’d found Rex. JoAnna just drove straight for the chaos.

  “I’ll park and be right behind you.” She stopped as close to the front doors as they could get and waited for Rowan to climb out before seeking out the closest parking space.

  Rowan hustled to the back of the crowd. It closed ranks, barring her from the scene as surely as a wall. She’d had about enough of the way her day was going. She closed her eyes, visualized a clear passage through the bodies, and put some energy into it.

  Her skin warmed. The magic tingled up and down her legs, and she pulled on it, pressed her will into the imagining, and opened her eyes just as the guy in front of her shuffled aside.

  “Excuse me.” She only had to use her shoulder once. The rest of them just let her through. In front of the automatic doors, the pallets of wood, and the rusting ice cooler, the police had cleared a wide circle. An officer moved around that, keeping the onlookers at bay while two of his partners handcuffed Rowan’s dog.

  “Rex!”

  When she hollered, the blond head came up, ears perked and dangerously obvious. What would they think of him when they worked out the tail was not battery operated? He struggled a little and then yelped in a canine way when the men holding his arms tightened their grip.

  “You with that guy?” The crowd control officer swooped in on Rowan. He was broad and stout and carried a black club in one hand.

  “Yes. He’s my…”

  The officer’s eyebrow raised.

  “He lives with me.” She didn’t miss the judgmental look, or the way his eyes hardened. “What happened? He has special circumstances.”

  “Special circumstances?” The lines around his eyes suggested she was of interest too, that she may as well have done whatever it was that Rex did.

  “He’s different.”

  “Do you believe he’s a danger to himself or others?”

  “Of course not! What did he do?”

  “Come on.” He put his hand on her elbow, not harshly, but firm enough that resisting it wouldn’t have been a wise move.

  Not that she meant to resist. Rowan wanted to get to Rex, and a police escort only got her there faster. The fact that half the town watched her didn’t help, but if a small town witch didn’t get used to being a spectacle, she didn’t last long. Not without having to change towns.

  “Rowan, Rowan!” Rex started wiggling before she got in range, and the police officers had to earn their wage keeping him in their grip.

  “Don’t fight them, Rex,” she commanded and he stilled, his head hung low. Rowan closed the last few steps and the cops didn’t try to stop her when she laid a hand on his head, gently pressing his ears into a less conspicuous position. “What happened?”

  “I was bad.” He sniffled, hanging in the cops’ grip with his knees bent so deeply they were probably holding his entire weight aloft.

  “Freak here ate half the produce aisle and ripped into a case of bacon,” the officer twisting his right arm answered. “Raw.”

  “Why did you leave the house?” Rowan focused on her dog. She focused her energy on dulling the weirdness of his ears and tail, blurring a bit of illusion into the air around him. “You know you’re not allowed out without me.”

  “I’m sorry, Rowan. I love you.” Sad eyes. He had big brown, dopey eyes, even as a dude. “Please don’t get rid of me.”

  “I’m not getting rid of you.” She knew it. He’d heard them in the kitchen. Gods, she was stupid. “I promise, Rex. I’m not.”

  “He needs medication.”

  Rowan didn’t see which cop said it, but the one who’d brought her from the crowd picked up the thread. “He’s got no ID and he won’t give us his full name.”

  “Right.” That one would take some work, she knew, and Rex wasn’t helping things by thumping his tail against the nice officer’s leg. Nor had eating half the grocery store done any good for their case. “I’ll pay for the damages, officer. And anything else. He just gets confused, and shouldn’t be out unsupervised.”

  She put as much will as she could into the words but could practically see them bouncing off of his blue uniform. He crossed his arms and glared from her to Rex and back. “Who is he?”

  “My cousin.” Did the star or the vest protect him? It seemed as if her energies swirled to the sides, unable to penetrate. “He’s only visiting for a few days.”

  “There you are.” JoAnna appeared at her elbow and subtly placed her palm against Rowan’s. Power sparked between them, lending her a little boost. “How’s Rex?”

  “Rex is bad,” Rex whimpered.

  “He won’t get out again,” Rowan said. In her mind she chanted, th
is isn’t the dog-man you’re looking for. You don’t want to arrest him. He should just go home.

  The crowd mumbled in the background. The lights flashed red to blue and back again. The two cops holding her dog continued to frown, but the one she’d guessed was in charge changed subtly. His grimace softened, and the lines around his eyes faded into resignation, maybe pity.

  “I should book him,” he said.

  “He’s afraid. He wouldn’t understand what was happening.” Jo’s words joined hers, braided together with double the intent and effect.

  “Keep him home.” The officer shook his head, but he smiled, too. “I don’t want to see him again.”

  “I will. You won’t.”

  “And I’ll need your contact info for the damages.”

  “Of course.” Rowan smiled and nudged Jo toward the two cops who now stared openly at their leader. “Rex, go to the car with JoAnna, please.”

  “My stomach hurts,” he said.

  All three cops snickered. They let him go though, and Jo swooped in to guide him back toward the crowd. Rowan gave the officer her full name, address and phone number, and his buddies went to work shooing the crowd back to their ordinary lives.

  “Make sure you keep him in.” The cop gave her a final warning. “And I hope you get him some help.”

  “I will. I am.” Rowan turned and scooted away, crossed the parking lot, and caught a glimpse of a familiar jogger standing at the back of the crowd. Fantastic. She ducked her head and hurried to the car in time to see JoAnna jump out of it again.

  “Ye gods!” The other witch shivered and tossed her a look that could only mean one thing.

  “He threw up in your car, didn’t he?” Rowan knew the answer before Jo nodded.

  “It’s everywhere.”

  “Yup.” Rowan sighed. Of course it was.

  Rowan hosed out the car while Jo got Rex back inside the house. She hoped they went straight to the bathroom to wash him up, but so long as he was safe and home, she didn’t really care about the mess. That had been too close, and if it had proved anything, it was that they couldn’t wait for the new moon.