SonofaWitch! Page 11

  The car would likely reek for a long time, but she did her best and then threw away Jo’s mats along with the paper towels and rags she’d used. She’d buy her new ones, just one more expense on top of the debt Rex had fetched her at the grocery store.

  As soon as she entered the house, Rex’s voice rumbled from the kitchen. He’d recovered from the incident faster than she had, it seemed.

  “Rowan almost never lets me have bacon at all, and bacon is one of my favorite things.”

  “I’m not giving you any bacon.” JoAnna sounded far less enthusiastic. “Hold still so I can wipe that off your shirt.

  “She never gives me bacon.”

  “Maybe because it makes you throw up?”

  “Maybe. But she didn’t let them take me to the pound. Do you think she’s still mad? Is she going to take me to the vet?”

  “I doubt that.” Jo let out a heavy sigh.

  She closed the door as softly as possible and didn’t take a step. She’d just cleaned up enough vomit for a lifetime.

  “Rowan took me to the vet when I threw up after Mr. Milligan gave me the cookies that tasted bad.”

  “Uh huh. Turn around.”

  “I didn’t throw up as much as today, though. Today was the most throw up I’ve ever made.”

  “Stop moving.”

  “Sorry.”

  Rowan sighed and walked into the kitchen. Rex’s head snapped up, knocking a spray bottle out of JoAnna’s hand and dribbling stain remover all over the floor. His face was clean, and he’d managed to miss his clothing except for the front of the t-shirt. JoAnna had been working at that, but when she saw Rowan, she gave up and returned to the books on the table.

  “He’s all yours.”

  “When did Mr. Milligan give you a bad cookie?” Rowan retrieved the Shout and examined her t-shirt. “Maybe we should just change you into different shirt.”

  “Mr. Milligan gives me cookies all the time,” Rex hunched his shoulder and curled in as if expecting a reprimand. “They make my stomach hurt but he puts peanut butter on them. Peanut butter, Rowan. I love peanut butter so much.”

  Well, that was alarming. If her neighbor was trying to poison her dog, Rowan would have to watch the backyard a lot closer. Maybe, she’d have to send Old Mr. Milligan some enchanted cookies while she was at it.

  “Come on.” She waved him toward the living room. “I’m going to change his shirt, Jo. Be right back.”

  “Do you have any mugwort?”

  “Have Julie bring it.” They’d gotten past the cops, but they’d need the whole coven to unweave the spell without the moon’s help. Rowan only hoped it would be enough.

  She guided Rex down the hall to her bedroom and thought of another complication, one she didn’t need but most definitely had to sort out.

  He’d have to agree to it.

  Rex had free will, and Rowan’s magic had already screwed with that. Inconvenient or not, she wouldn’t cast on him knowingly without his consent. The repercussions could be a lot worse than just turning her pet into a person.

  “Take that shirt off, Rex.” She rummaged through her closet and found an oversized sweater. “Were you scared today?”

  “Oh yes.” He’d crawled up on the bed on all fours and sat, tail thumping. “There were a lot of people and everyone was screaming.”

  “It’s kind of hard being a person.”

  “It’s very confusing.”

  “I know. Here.” She held the sweater out and when he put his arms up, helped him get the soiled t-shirt off. “That’s why—no this arm—we were going to see if we could get you back to normal.”

  “Normal?”

  “Back to being a dog.” She found the sweater sleeve, but his hands had dropped back to his sides. He stared at the mattress. “What?”

  “You don’t want me to stay like this?”

  “Oh, honey. I just miss the real you.”

  “But I can’t talk to you when I’m a dog.”

  “No. I know you can’t.” She gave up on his shirt and sat next to him on the bed. He scooted aside, but didn’t look at her. “Don’t you miss being a dog?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you want to stay like this?”

  “I love Rowan.”

  “I love you too, Rex.” She tried to picture the dog, but he looked at her with an expression that had less of Rex about it than usual.

  His eyes twinkled with mischief. They darkened, and he leaned forward so that their noses almost touched. Rowan went rigid, torn between the urge to smack his nose and the desire not to hurt him further. Before she could lean away Rex flung himself onto his back and howled.

  “Rub my belly!”

  Rowan rolled her eyes and sighed. She reached with one hand, and rubbed his very human stomach. Disturbing as hell, but then Rex sat up abruptly and she was off the hook.

  “It doesn’t feel as good like this,” he said.

  “Interesting.”

  “I’ll miss talking to you.”

  “I’ll miss that, too.” Rowan looked into sad brown eyes and realized she actually would. “I can still talk to you?”

  “Will you rub my belly longer?”

  “Longer? Are you crazy?”

  “Longer, longer, longer!” He bounced the mattress and sent her sprawling onto her back.

  “Okay, Okay. Longer belly rubs.” Rowan caught her breath, rubbed her watering eyes, and pushed him away when he tried to lick her face.

  “I want to be a dog again, Rowan.”

  “Good.” She couldn’t take much more of him as a man. “If I promise more belly rubs, you have to make a promise, too.”

  “Okay, okay.” He bounced again.

  “Rex! This is important.”

  He sat very still and gave her the most serious expression a Golden Retriever-turned-beefcake could manage. “Anything.”

  Rowan held back a laugh. It was important. “Don’t ever eat anything Mr. Milligan gives you again.”

  They turned off all the lights in the house and double checked the drapes. Rowan shoved her coffee table under the front windows and cleared the center of her living room. They lit candles around the room, and made a bed of pillows in the center for Rex.

  JoAnna had chosen a spell from Rowan’s books, one she believed relied less on moon phase and could be satisfied by an hourly correspondence. That, it turned out, put them right before dinner, and Rowan had to placate her dog-man pet with another package of hot dogs to keep him on board.

  He sat on the pillows, surrounded by the coven, and gnawed on the end of a floppy, cold, off-brand meat stick.

  “It really stinks.” Across the circle from Rowan, Julie scrunched up her nose. She’d been a vegetarian since high school. “I can’t even smell the incense.”

  “Wait till he yaks it up,” JoAnna said. “Way worse.”

  “That was bacon,” Rex corrected.

  “Can we begin?” Megan had been High Priestess for the past eight months, and judging from her attitude since arriving, she didn’t appreciate being left out of the “my dog’s a man now” loop until the last minute. Even though Rowan had apologized… twice.

  “Was I bad?” Rex whimpered.

  “No, honey.” Rowan patted him on the head and threw her grandmother’s afghan over him. “Just stay still, okay?”

  He bit into the hot dog a little too enthusiastically and glared at Julie. Great. My dog is passive aggressive. She’d heard about dog aggressive, and food aggressive, but had no idea how to train a bad attitude out of him.

  In the end, he finished the snack, curled up under the blanket and closed his eyes. Perfect.

  Their fifth member, Alicia, couldn’t get out of work on short notice. That left them off the moon and one witch short, but with enough bodies to do quarter calls and with any luck, toss off a spell that worked. Rowan closed her eyes and grounded with the others, but her mind chanted. Work, heavens please let it work.

  For Rex’s sake if nothing else.

  JoA
nna’s spell required a raw egg, a black cloth, and a mixture of herbs that included Julie’s powdered mugwort, as well as sage, basil, and a black twig they’d made Rowan grind in her mortar and pestle before casting the circle.

  Once they’d breathed together and raised enough energy that her skin tingled and the little hairs on her arms stood up, Jo ordered her into the center with Rex. The others would keep the boundary and add their will to hers, but Rowan had to do the work, as she had with the spell they meant to undo.

  “Mix all the herbs in the bowl,” Jo said. “Then add just enough oil to make a paste.”

  “Got it.” She used her fingers to mix it, and drizzled the basil-infused olive oil over it until the herbs clung to her fingers. “Okay.”

  “Now rub it all over the egg.”

  Rowan suffered a horrible thought that Jo might be wrong, that there was no way to reverse her stupid spelling. She imagined living with Rex-man forever, taking him for walks to the park, never dating again.

  “Concentrate on what you did before,” JoAnna’s tone had nothing funny about it, not even the barest trace of mirth or mischief. “Relive it in your mind, each step you took, the list you read, how the dog got involved.”

  Her fingers traced over and over the smooth egg. The oil mixture was slick and clumpy, but Rowan coated the fragile shell with it, and she did her best to replay the Perfect Mate fiasco while she did. The dog hair floated everywhere. She’d been so specific, tried so hard to do it right. To not think of…

  “Now put it on the floor.”

  “What?” Rowan jerked to attention.

  “Set it down beside him.”

  Rowan set the egg on the corner of the afghan. The oil darkened the yarn, and she said a silent apology to Grandma. Rex had pulled the fabric up over his head. He slept, digesting his hot dog, with only his feet poking out the far edge.

  “All right, ladies.” Megan took charge, and didn’t bother to hide the triumph in her voice. “Let’s fix this.”

  Julie started the chanting. She had the best voice, and did a good job of keeping them all on pitch. They joined in one-by-one with Rowan being the last. By the time she started to chant, her whole body tingled. Under the afghan, Rex whined and shifted position. The energy built inside them, wove between them, pulsed and danced, and when Megan’s voice rang out, fell like a hammer onto the egg.

  “Now!” Meg’s shout signaled the release.

  “Smash it!” JoAnna directed.

  Rowan lifted her foot and brought it down with a crack on the egg, the oil, and the corner of her grandmother’s crochet.

  Yolk splattered everywhere. Rowan stared at the pattern, at the streaks of viscous yellow, the specks of shiny green from the herbs. Had it worked? She couldn’t look, instead hoping to find an answer in the mess they’d made, in the splay of kitchen witchery gone wild.

  Rex’s whine drew her back from the post-spell fugue. His tail thumped, lifting the afghan over and over. She couldn’t see his feet anymore. That was a good sign, right?

  “Did it work?” JoAnna had less patience, or possibly less to lose. “Is he?”

  The afghan shifted. Rex’s tail continued to thump, but a slick black nose emerged near Rowan. It sniffed, and then Rex poked his head out, his glorious, fully canine head and began to devour the remains of the egg.

  “You’re going to be sick again,” Rowan said. Then she burst into tears.

  The girls cleared out once they’d cleaned up the living room. Even Meg softened when Rowan lost it. She brought her a tissue and patted her on the head like a dog. It was even a little bit funny. The lingering scent of snuffed candles and smoke evicted Rex who, after cleaning up every speck of the egg, used the same nasty tongue to express his undying affection all over Rowan’s face.

  She didn’t even smack him on the nose.

  He dreamed on the foot of her bed, no doubt chasing evil squirrels. Rowan had a moment to breathe, and she used it to sink into her couch and slip halfway into a coma. Until someone knocked on the front door.

  Rowan groaned and got up. She stumbled to the door, while Rex woofed and bounded down the hall to stand guard. If a tail-wagging ball of yellow fluff bouncing inside the doorway could be considered a “guard.”

  “Good boy.” She opened the door and choked on her greeting. Her neighbor stood on the step, and he held a flat pizza box in one hand. She hadn’t ordered pizza… or a man.

  “Hi,” he said. Then he looked past her to where Rex waited, suddenly shifting to protective mode. “Did you find him?”

  “Huh? Oh yeah. Yeah.” She brushed a hand through her hair nervously. “Thanks.”

  “I got an extra pizza.” He brandished the box a little and looked past her. “Thought maybe you and your boyfriend might want it.”

  “My… who?”

  “The guy with the tail?”

  “Oh no.” No. Definitely no. “That was, um, not my boyfriend.”

  Rex growled.

  “That was my cousin. He’s gone. He went home. Just missed him.”

  “Ah. Good. I mean, not good really.” He changed hands on the box, and looked at Rex again. “Really glad you found him. I love dogs.”

  “You want to come in?” What the hell? If the universe sent me a man with a pizza, who am I to send it away again? She stepped back and shushed at Rex. “He’s had a rough day. Sorry.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “I don’t know your name.”

  “Phil.”

  “Hi Phil. I’m Rowan.”

  He smiled, handed her the pizza box, and approached Rex like someone who knew dogs, low and slow and with his voice soft as butter. “Hey buddy. Did you have a hard day?”

  Rex, her mighty guardian, flopped to the ground and rolled over, tongue lolling and eyes already glassing happily.

  “He likes his belly rubbed.” Rowan shook her head. “I’ll get some plates.”

  She left them there and dropped the pizza on the kitchen counter. Her plates were in a top cupboard, but when she pulled two down, her eyes drifted to the altar pushed up against the pantry. The spell from the night before. Ashes in her cauldron.

  Maybe it had worked after all.

  She leaned back and peeked into the living room where Rex and Phil continued a marathon of affection. Longer belly rubs. A guy who liked dogs. A neighbor who poisoned them. She’d never have known about that if the spell hadn’t gone astray.

  “Plates are by the box,” she called back as she picked up the cauldron. “I’ve gotta check on something real quick.”

  “We’re good.” Phil’s voice was a lot deeper than Rex’s. Rowan still liked the sound of it.

  She carried the pot of ash into the center of the yard. Overhead, the barely waning moon lit the world a ghostly blue. The wind stirred, and Rowan nudged it just a little, put some energy into it and overturned the pot just right.

  The ashes caught on the breeze, lifted into a silvery dance, and fluttered up, up, and over the fence into Mr. Milligan’s yard. A little extra protection, a binding on the old fart should keep his cookies away from her dog.

  Maybe the spell hadn’t failed. Maybe, in a weird way, everything had happened exactly how it was meant to.

  Frances Pauli is a hybrid author of over twenty novels. She favors speculative fiction, romance, and furry fiction. She frequently crosses genre barriers, believes in a hearty dose of humor, and has been known to experiment with serials, text novels, flash, and micro-fiction.

  A Matter of Perspective

  Mara Malins

  Chapter One

  From twelve ancient, wooden desks, silvery smoke curled towards the ceiling where it hovered in a dense but mystical cloud. The thirteenth desk—Olyvar’s—was emitting a thick, black smoke that shot upwards in irregular bursts like a backfiring car. He had flinty sparks and the occasional slurp as one of the muddy bubbles in the pewter bowl burst… but no silvery curls.

  He wasn’t surprised at the catastrophe brewing over his Bunsen burner. By
the looks of it, neither was anybody else in the room. His teacher, the hands-off Mr. Carruthers, was dunking a biscuit in his mug of tea, a thin hand-rolled cigarette perched between two nicotine-stained fingers. He kept his broad face forward as he surveyed the room, as if deliberately avoiding Olyvar’s failure until he absolutely had to.

  Carruthers once said out loud that having a student like Olyvar was “punishment for his sins.” Olyvar didn’t know what his sins were, but he knew he was a bad student. In a group of thirteen lads, he was definitely the unlucky mascot. He was a Cauldwell and he belonged to the finest family of witches in the world. He was a witch. As was his mother. And her father before her. And his mother before him. On and on it went, through the generations, all the way back to the First.

  Yet he couldn’t even make a peripeteia potion. “One of the easiest potions to make,” Carruthers had told them at the start of the lesson, shooting Olyvar a dark look.

  The same kind of look he was giving Olyvar now.

  “Cauldwell!” he barked. His head was straining to look over the front row of students. With his fluffy white hair and beard, and his little black eyes, he looked like a curious meerkat. “What’s going on over there?”

  Olyvar swallowed and tentatively poked the thick brew with a long pewter spoon. Was it his imagination or was the metal… softening? “Nothing.”

  Carruthers glared over the sea of heads, his lower jaw tensing until it was as hard as an anvil. “You mean, ‘Nothing, sir.’”

  “Yes,” Olyvar agreed. “Nothing, sir.”

  Carruthers grunted. “Well, it certainly looks like nothing. Where’s the silver smoke? The roasted pumice should be smoking nicely by now and yet I don’t see any from where I’m sitting.”

  Olyvar opened his mouth to answer but was interrupted when a bubble the size of a large Christmas snow globe popped with a wet slap. His shame doubled when a chorus of low sniggers from his classmates broke out. Olyvar wanted to say that the day was warming up to be hellish but–to be fair–it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. “That’s because it’s not going well.”

  “Sir!”