The Incompetent Witch and the Missing Men Read online

  Text copyright ©2017 by the Author.

  This work was made possible by a special license through the Kindle Worlds publishing program and has not necessarily been reviewed by Robyn Peterman. All characters, scenes, events, plots and related elements appearing in the original Magic and Mayhem remain the exclusive copyrighted and/or trademarked property of Robyn Peterman, or their affiliates or licensors.

  For more information on Kindle Worlds: http://www.amazon.com/kindleworlds

  Thanks, Robyn Peterman, for letting me into your world. And for knowing that porkenschwǻngers should end with ‘s’.

  Chapter 1

  The magical marriage counseling session wasn’t going well. My clients—a warlock named Graham Dolph and his wife, Kitty, a feline shapeshifter in human form—sat on opposite ends of my vintage funeral-parlor couch, arms folded, lips taut.

  “The problem,” he said, “is that she can be so hostile.”

  Kitty snarled, bared her teeth and dragged her nails along the couch arm, leaving tracks in the black velvet. “Dr. Pru, he thinks he can bend me to his will just by waving his little wand!”

  Warlocks need wands to effect magic, but I was pretty sure she meant another kind of wand. Warlocks are also notoriously dickish in bed. And not in a good way. Don’t look at his crotch, don’t look at his crotch. I’m not really a doctor, but one thing I learned during eight years I spent at a semi-reputable school of witchery earning a counseling certificate was to just say no to crotch-gazing.

  I also had to resist taking sides. My experience with warlocks was, well, let me sum it up this way: Fuck warlocks. Plus, my new boyfriend, Hunter, was a feline shifter.

  “You’re cold and self-absorbed,” Graham said, “just like—just like—”

  “A cat?” Kitty’s eyes flared.

  “Yes! A mean, cold, self-absorbed cat.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Kitty sneered. “You’re just like your mother, the old witch.”

  I sprang from my chair, stomped my feet and bellowed, “Now do you see the pattern?”

  They turned to me, eyes wide.

  I glowered at Graham. “Your wife has a cat nature! She can’t fucking help it if she acts like an oblivious ice queen. Deal with it, for Goddess’ sake.”

  A smug look crossed Kitty’s face. I put my hands on my candianapoli—that’s “candy apple” to you non-Italians—and snarled, “Maybe you could try a little TLC. Curl up next to him, whisper in his ear about what a fucking stud he is, and show him you don’t give shit one about the size of his ‘wand.’”

  It sounds crass, but that’s my style. I berate magical lovers into accepting each other’s faults and appreciating their strengths. And it works. Goddess knows how, but since I suck at magic—especially healing magic, which was supposed to be my destiny—I’m glad it does.

  After a moment of tense silence, Kitty said, “I’ve given the wrong impression. His wand isn’t puny.” She gazed into her husband’s puppy dog eyes. “It’s really a very nice size. Exactly right. More or less.”

  Graham’s expression softened. “You’re not just saying that?”

  “Well, I’m pretty sure I am saying it”—her face lightened—“but not just saying it. Does that make sense?”

  “Yes! You really mean it!”

  “You’re my Big King of the Jungle,” Kitty purred. Graham glowed. They fell into an embrace and kissed. Then jammed their tongues down each other’s throat. Kitty pawed at his Little King of the Jungle, which was clearly getting up off its throne.

  I ahemmed. Graham threw Kitty back on the couch and ripped open her shirt, scattering buttons to the room’s far corners, and pushed aside her leopard-print bra. She unzipped his pants and dug her hand into his Superheroes for Magical Men® briefs.

  “Hel-lo-o!” I singsonged. No response. I twitched my nose and stomped to make the couch jerk left, then right.

  Their necks snapped as they looked at me. “What?”

  “Nice you two lovebirds had a breakthrough,” I said, “but please do this part of the therapy at home.”

  They continued staring as if I were speaking a language they didn’t understand. “The couch,” I said. “It’s vintage. All original materials. I’m sure you’d feel bad if you messed it up.”

  Graham cocked his head. “Not sure I…”

  Kitty blushed. “Graham, honey…” She clasped her shirt shut as her eyes darted toward his kinglet.

  “Oh, right.”

  Kitty stood and extended her free hand toward me. The pants hand. I didn’t want to even look at it, much less touch it. Goddessdamn that business protocol class. I gave her the weakest handshake in the history of human- and shifterkind—then immediately wiped my palm on the lace single-sleeve disco shirt I’d thrown on that morning after a shower-time boomp-de-boomza with Hunter knocked me off schedule.

  I love this shirt. Now I’ll have to burn it. “Have a nice day,” I said through a forced smile, but the couple were back in each other’s arms—and out the door.

  “Prudenzia La Strega strikes again,” said a voice from under the couch. The voice belonged to Abigail Fucking Barker, a misshapen ball of fur who also happens to be my familiar and annoyingly constant companion. She jumped onto the seat and sniffed the cushions.

  “Knock that off!”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re grossing me out.”

  “Nothing happened,” Abigail said. “Besides, I’m a dog. I can’t help myself.”

  “You’re a cat.”

  “If I’m a cat, why am I sniffing the cushions?”

  “Because you’re a pig!”

  “Make up your mind.”

  I snatched her into my arms and walked toward the window, moving her as far from the couch as possible. “What if I tossed you into the parking lot?”

  “That’s two floors down.”

  “You’ll be all right.” Because you’re a fucking cat.

  “Not if that creepy old lady gets me.”

  “What creepy old—” But then I saw an old woman wearing a low-cut dress with frilly sleeves at least three centuries out of style wandering around near the dumpster, a few feet from where I’d blasted the Orgasmism into a million droplets of love juice less than a week before. “Who’s that?”

  “I don’t know. She’s been there a couple hours.”

  “Why’s her mouth moving?”

  “She’s talking.”

  “She looks confused. You think she’s all right?”

  “What part of ‘she’s been wandering the parking lot and talking to herself for two hours’ do you not understand?” Abigail turned her head a bit. “Scratch behind this ear.”

  I dropped her—to the floor. “Scratch your own ear. I’m going to see what’s up.”

  ***

  The woman was still muttering as I approached. Every now and then she’d pause and hold up her hands, sighting various parts of the building where I worked—which included a magical wind chime and gargoyle lawn ornament store, an artisanal potion shop and a gluten-free, sugar-free, nut-free, extra-expensive bakery. Then she’d drop her hands and mutter some more.

  I stopped at what I considered a safe distance away. “Can I help you?”

  She whipped around with her fingers extended, ready to blast me with stinging witch rays. Instead I was nearly blinded by the sun reflecting off the white blobs of flesh oozing from her too-tight bodice. Lines on her face and hollow spaces around her eyes suggested she was at least three hundred years old, yet her hair was fiery red.

  A healer.

  In the witching world, only healers have red hair, and anyone with red hair is a healer. I come from a line of Italian healers th
at goes back to Roman times, but I have only a few streaks of red mixed in with my raven locks. I’m more or less a squib; when I try to heal something, things go badly. Like the time I went to the aid of a buck who’d been hit by a car and managed to fasten his rack to his chest instead of his head. As embarrassing for him as it was for me. As was the turn signal blinking red from his butt.

  “Who the fuck’re you?” she said.

  I stepped back and looked down to show I meant no harm. “Prudenzia La Strega, the—”

  “Prudenzia La Strega who vanquished the Orgasmism?”

  If by “vanquished” you mean “healed it into oblivion.” “I guess you could say that.”

  She bounded toward me and clutched me to those oozing blobs of flesh. “I’m honorated to meet ya!” She continued hugging me for a very long time, squishing her pale bubia grossa into my olive-colored ones.

  And gyrating.

  “Are you doing that on purpose?”

  She ground against me even harder. “What?”

  I gently pushed her away. “Nothing.” She stared at my chest, and since my soon-to-be-burned lace top was designed to make people do that—I love slutty clothes because they show off my curves—I shouldn’t have been surprised. Then again, who thinks she’s going to turn on a granny who was born before the Salem witch trials? “Are you looking for something?”

  “My orifice.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You know. Where I’m ’spose ta work.”

  Thank Goddess, cuz I was really hoping none of your orifi were missing. “What is it you do?”

  “I’m the new healer.” For such an ancient gal, her eyes sparkled with life. “More like the old new healer, if ya know what I mean.” She leaned in to shake my hand.

  First Kitty and now this. I’m going to have to burn my hand, too.

  “Name’s Dorothea Pieterfrissen. Most folks call me Dot. A lucky few call me ‘Hot-to-Trot Dot,’ if ya catch my drift.” She tugged her bodice even lower.

  Okay… “Your predecessor, Brigid, worked out of her home.”

  Brigid de la Glace—a.k.a Frigid Brigid—had been healer for the secluded West Virginia hamlet of Deau de Chenieux, a bumpkin magnet I usually refer to as Douchecanoe. She left in a huff—and a hail of lavender-colored sparks—after I was acquitted of practicing dark arts, foiling her jealous attempt to humiliate me as revenge for her unrequited love of Hunter.

  “Home’s as good a place as any,” H-T-T Dot said. “As long as it’s got a front door and a back door and a big ol’ bed in between, if ya follow what I’m saying.”

  I’m followin’. Unfortunately. “I’m not sure about the floor plan,” I said. “I’ve never been to Brigid’s house. I can take you there, though.” I looked around. “Do you have luggage?”

  “Fer what?”

  “Personal items. Books. Clothes.”

  “Don’t need books. Everthin’ I need to know’s stored right here.” She pointed to her temple. “As far as clothes, I only need them when I ain’t nekkid—and that’s almost never!” She guffawed and jabbed me in the ribs.

  I forced yet another smile, wiggled my nose and transported us to the former home of my former nemesis.

  ***

  Brigid’s house was just outside the village limits. Like all the buildings in places witches inhabit, the exterior was a broken-down mess—peeled paint, hanging gutters, missing porch steps. Witches do that to encourage so-called regular people to move along quickly. So none of that bothered me. Instead, the first sign that I wasn’t going to like this house—other than that it had belonged to Brigid—was the yard full of perky larkspur, freakish purple buttercups, giant violet velvet roses and, of course, overly femmy lavender. Lavender was Brigid’s thing. Everything I’d ever seen her wear was lavender. And whenever she teleported, she left and arrived in a puff of watered-down purple smoke.

  “Flowers up the hoovenhaffer here,” Dot said. “Lotsa birds-’n’-bees-in’ goin’ on in them bushes, if yer trackin’ my line of reasoning.”

  I am, and I wish I wasn’t. “The front door’s open.”

  “I get the impersonation yer friend Brigid left in a hurry.”

  “You could say that.” But you can’t say she was my friend. I led the way inside.

  The interior was nicely kept up—by which I mean, it was nothing like the exterior. But I wouldn’t say it looked good. The color scheme of the yard carried over into every room. The walls, the woodwork, the curtains, the artwork, the knickknacks—it was Fifty Shades of Purple in there, and it made me queasy.

  Dot grimaced. “A few twinks of the schozz’ll make this joint livable. Guess I’ll have to put up with it. All in all, not bad for a short-term gig.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m a temp. Retired seventy-five years ago, but when Babagoogoo needs someone in a pinch, she calls on me.”

  She was referring to Baba Yaga, the queen of witches. As I examined a purple-on-lavender rendition of Cezanne’s Pommes et Oranges above the fireplace, I said, “Why would Baba Yaga bother to appoint a replacement healer for pitiful little Douchecanoe?”

  “Me and her go way back.” Dot held up her hand and sort of crossed her gnarled fingers. “We’re like this, if ya—”

  “Yes, I know what you mean.” I kneaded my brow in hopes of fending off a headache. “Think you’ll be all right here? Is there anything I can get for you?”

  “I can get my own, if ya savvy,” she said. “Just point me to the nearest night scene. Somewheres loaded with horny studs and skanks ready to rumble.”

  “There’s a bar on Salem Street. The Cozy Coven. Kind of a dive.”

  Dot slapped me on the back. “My kinda place—where a gal can get snockered—I mean monumentally, six-miles-up-in-the-atmosphere shitfaced—and find a few like-minded pickle-brained folk or three who’s got low standards and a hankerin’ to get down and dirty—and then get the fuck outta my house as soon as I’m done with ’em.”

  “Men folks, or women?”

  “Is there a difference?”

  Ummm…

  “Cuz my philosophy,” Dot continued, “is that if it’s human and it’s got skin and genitals, I’m ready to party. The more skin, the merrier.” She gave me a leering once-over. “Maybe ya’d like to join in one of my fishin’ expeditions. Ya got just the kind of tietzen und hippen to snatch a night’s worth of gafloomzen fer us both.” She thrust her hips.

  “Tietzen und hippen?” Baba Yaga sent me some kind of Teutonic redneck? “Thanks,” I said, “but I have a boyfriend.”

  “Bring him, too! I ain’t choosy—and I don’t mind sharin’!”

  Good to know. “I’d like to help you settle in, but I have clients coming in.”

  “Comin’ in!” She slapped my shoulder and winked. “I see what yer sayin’. Me and you are gonna get along.” She tapped her temple. “Great minds, and all.”

  Temporary is already starting to feel like a really long time.

  I smiled meekly, then zapped back to my office.

  Chapter 2

  My last couple of the day were a witch who could control weather and a warlock who could see the future. She complained about his second-guessing her; he said her unpredictability drove him nuts. I tore them new ones with a spiel about going with the flow and the joys of being surprised—and sent them home lovey-dovey. Then I scooped up Abigail and zapped home, eager to see Hunter.

  Well, I went to my home. Hunter wasn’t there.

  Shifters have options the rest of us don’t. Some reside in houses and spend ninety percent of their lives in human form. Others take up residence in trees or burrows or nests and live and sleep according to their animal natures. That said, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that some of my canine shifter clients live in houses and sleep on the rugs. To each his own, I guess.

  Hunter’s outdoorsy. A child of nature. A wake-up-and-lick-the-chiggers-off-your-pelt kind of guy. He’d described to me his cabin in the woods, a single room with a stove
and a bed that doubles as a couch, but made it a point to note that as a lion, he’s just as happy sleeping under a tree. I did that with him once. I’d been knocked unconscious in a failed attempt to take out the Orgasmism and woke up with sticks poking my butt and a furry arm wrapped around my shoulders. That last part was nice, but I’d decided after my first Triple Goddess Girls overnight that I’d sooner get fried in a cauldron of boiling oil like my great-great-great-great aunt Maria Bafangoola la Strega than ever camp out again.

  Hunter had been great about that over the past week, spending nights at my place even though at first the dark grey sheets made his human skin itchy. Not ideal for a guy who sleeps in the nude.

  On this day, though, when Abigail and I materialized in the living room, we were greeted by a note. All it said was, “My place tonight. Dinner and…”

  I smiled and shook my head. “I guess it’s only fair.”

  Abigail’s ears—or whatever she calls the pointy things that protrude from her head at odd angles—shot up like a porcupine’s quills. “You’re not going to make me sleep in that horrid garage in the woods!”

  “You don’t know that it’s a horrid garage. You’ve never even seen it.”

  “You haven’t either. As far as you know, it could be a horrid garage. Or a sewer. Or a den full of vicious cats.”

  “You’re a cat.”

  “I’ll freeze to death.”

  “It’s the middle of summer.”

  “I’ll die of heat exhaustion.”

  “You won’t cook or freeze.” I put her on the floor. “You’re staying here.”

  “Alone? In this house of horrors?”

  She had a point. My decorating taste is best described as “funeral-home chic.” “You’ll be able to sleep on my bed.”

  “Are you accusing me—”

  “I know that you sleep on my bed when you’re here alone.”

  “What if somebody steals me?”

  “No one will steal you.”

  She jumped onto a windowsill and scanned the neighborhood. “What about crooks and pirates—and accounts receivable clerks?”