Very Bad Wizards

by Stunich, C. M.

  I’m not expecting the wild surge of power that rises between us, making my skin burn with heat, my tongue sliding between his full lips. Toto is the first to pull away, pushing me back at the same time that he swings around to face the kelpie.

  It’s dancing across the top of the water. No joke. The horse with the shark teeth is prancing over the surface of the creek, leaving ripples in its wake. It tosses its mane of slimy green kelp and snorts in frustration, pawing at the water with a sharp hoof.

  There’s this energy crackling around us, like the air’s infused with electricity, a cool breeze picking up where there was none before, stirring the tops of the trees. I look up as the sky darkens, gray clouds sliding across the sun to block out its light.

  Glancing back down, I catch a glimpse of Toto’s forehead—and a shimmering green star mark in the center of it.

  He gives me one last look before he turns back to the kelpie, and then rips his jeans off. Like a fucking stripper. It’s both sexy, cool, and totally insane all at the same time.

  The muscles in Toto’s body contract, shifting beneath his skin like living things. Ebon black fur sprouts along his spine as he drops forward to all fours with a howl that makes me think of cold graves and rainy cemetery days. My hands clamp over my ears as he shakes himself out, lifting his head up, dark eyes focused on the kelpie. The edge of his lip lifts in a snarl, a long feathered tail trailing out behind him, a pair of horns on his head. In the center of his forehead, a single emerald eye opens up with a snap, and a small sound escapes me as I stumble away from him.

  How the hell did he get so big?! I wonder, studying the pony-sized dog in front of me, hooked claws digging into the earth.

  With a growl that shakes the canopy and sends yet more birds flying, he launches himself at the shimmery white flank of the kelpie, claws raking its flesh. Lines of red blood follow his swipe, just before the pair of them disappear beneath the water with a splash.

  “Toto!” I stumble across the grass and fall at the water’s edge on my knees, desperate to help but totally bereft of ideas. My fingers dig into the muddy ground as my eyes scan the dark surface of the water, searching for my last and only friend in the world—this world or any other.

  I do not want to be left alone here.

  Even if it is just a coma-induced delusion.

  “Toto!”

  Water explodes in front of me, like a bomb’s just gone off underneath the surface, soaking me from head to toe. Toto appears with the kelpie’s neck clamped between his jaws, and then, like a lion carrying a gazelle, drags the corpse up the side of the bank and tosses it aside.

  The kelpie flies through the air, smashing into one of the trees with a spray of bark, and then collapses to the ground in a pool of blood. It lifts its head up once, whinnies, and then collapses with a finality that makes my heart thunder in my chest.

  It’s dead.

  I turn around, only to find Toto’s giant head right in front of my face, his dark brown eyes as familiar as my own, the green one in the center of his forehead unblinking as it looks into my soul.

  “I’m … glad you’re okay …” I whisper, scooting back to put some space between us. Toto pads forward on paws the size of a lion’s, following me. I don’t like the way he’s studying me, like he’s not sure if I’m a friend … or breakfast. “Hey, uh, are you feeling alright?”

  “Ozora,” he growls out, his giant jaws moving with the word. “The Great and Terrible.”

  “Um, okay …” I glance over at the dead kelpie, lying at the base of the ruined tree in a pool of its own blood. Jesus. Flicking my attention back to my family dog-turned-beast, I swallow a lump in my throat. “Do you think you could turn back into a dude now? Or even, you know, your regular form? I could use a sloppy German shepherd kiss right about now.”

  Toto nuzzles the side of my neck, snorting and making my skin prickle with goose bumps as his warm breath chases across my flesh. This feels weirdly intimate, and I’m not sure that I’m comfortable with that.

  This is my dog.

  Right?

  There’s no way your mind would come up with this crap on its own, I think, but I’m not prepared for any reality except the one I was born and raised in. Giant dog monsters do not exist; kelpies do not exist; houses do not lift up in cyclones and crash down in other worlds.

  “Mine.” Toto snuffles my hair and then pulls back, staring at me with all three eyes. “Mate.”

  “Mate?” I choke out, wondering what the hell is happening here. “You just said I wasn’t allowed to find you sexy. And now you’re talking about mates?”

  “Breed.” He sniffs the side of my face again, and I swat him away. His jaws snap in my direction, and I jerk my hand back against my chest, heart pounding.

  Breed.

  What the hell does breed mean?

  “No breeding. You were lucky not to get neutered back home. Dad advocated for it, but Mom—” Toto cuts me off by grabbing my hair in his jaws. Gritting my teeth, I reach up and try to pry him off when he starts to drag me across the grass, kicking and screaming. “Toto!” I shout, when I hear a bored sigh from the trees.

  Out steps Bain, the Witch of the North, balancing his pointed cap on one finger.

  “Really? I can’t leave you alone for all of sixty minutes? Some Oz the Great and Terrible you are.” Bain flicks the cap forward, and it shifts midair, becoming a leash. The clasp hooks around the metal loop on Toto’s collar—which, by the way, shouldn’t reasonably fit him anymore. Bain yanks back on it and Toto drops his grip on me, howling in rage as he’s pulled away. “The collar keeps him contained, but it’s no good if you don’t issue firm commands.”

  “Firm commands?” I ask, reaching up a shaking hand to touch my brunette hair.

  “Sit, stay, heel, play dead? Do you people not have dogs back in Kansas?” Bain asks as Toto attempts to attack him, lunging with muscular precision in the witch’s direction. It seems to cost Bain little effort to just step out of the way like he’s avoiding an oblivious patron in a buffet line. “Well, are you just going to lie there like a lump, or are you going to help me out some? I’d hate to have to put your little dog to sleep.”

  I sit up the rest of the way and shake the disbelief from my head. Doubts are not welcome right now. Later. I’ll worry about the logistics of this all later.

  “Toto, sit and stay!” I shout out, shoving up to my feet.

  As it did inside the house, the words seem to have a nearly supernatural effect on him.

  In an instant, Toto goes from a lunging, snapping beast to a … well, he’s still snapping and snarling, but a much calmer beast.

  Panting, I take a few steps closer to Bain, and when he hands me the leash, I take it.

  “Oh, fresh kelpie meat. That’ll cook up into a lovely stew,” Bain observes as that little fairy light flutters around his head. It lands on his shoulder as I lick my lips and stare Toto’s three eyes down.

  “Shift back into your human form,” I say, and he shudders, like the command is causing him visible pain. He stands up and shakes out his fur, that glorious tail lying on the ground behind him like a peacock’s folded feathers. As Bain and I watch, Toto shivers, his claws digging into the ground as the ebony black of his fur slides into his skin, his muzzle shortening, his pointed ears drawing back down to the sides of his skull.

  In less than a minute, I’m staring down at the naked man I met earlier today.

  “Goodness. Trying to mate your mistress already? Canid really are the dumbest race in all the land of Oz—obviously.”

  “Canid?” I ask, glancing over at Bain as he snaps his fingers, and the leash in my hand turns into his pointed white cap again. He plucks it from my hand and tucks it onto his shimmering golden hair. It’s metallic, nothing at all like you might see in the real world.

  “Did I stutter? You certainly ask some stupid questions,” he says, sighing as he looks over at me with those slanted lavender eyes of his. “Shouldn’t you be skipping down the
Y.B.R. with a basket full of bread in your hand? That’s what Dorothy did, you know, when she arrived in Oz.”

  “Well, I’m not Dorothy,” I grind out, desperate to show this asshole what I can do with my fists. When I first moved to Kansas, the local farm boys thought I’d be easy picking. I very quickly showed them how a Seattle girl can fight. “What’s the Y.B.R. anyway?”

  “Yellow Brick Road,” Toto says softly, lifting his head up, his expression tight with frustration. “We’ll be leaving shortly.” He pushes up to his feet, grabs the discarded and dented bucket, and fills it with water from the creek, like he didn’t just change into a monster and kill a kelpie.

  Speaking of, I look back over at the creature, but its still form hasn’t moved.

  “Toto, what the hell just happened here?” I ask, and Bain laughs, touching those glittery gold fingers of his to his chest.

  “Did you just call him Toto?” he asks incredulously, ignoring the little fairy woman on his shoulder as she slaps at his face with hands the size of pencil erasers.

  “That’s his name,” I snap back, gritting my teeth and fantasizing about murdering this good witch motherfucker.

  “Toto means slave in the language of the Munchkins,” he tells me, leaning in close, and then throwing his head back with howling laughter. “Ooooh, you’ve been calling your guardian ‘slave’ all these years?! That’s priceless!”

  “That’s enough, Bain,” Toto snaps, turning to look at him with a murderous expression that sure as hell would get me to shut up if I were the good witch. Did this idiot not just see what Toto did to the kelpie? Or … what he looked like he might do to me? Whether that was screw me or kill me, I’m not exactly sure, and that freaks me the fuck out. “Ozora can call me whatever the hell she wants.”

  “His name is Taavi,” Bain tells me, leaning over conspiratorially. “It means beloved in his people’s language. Though I imagine his parents must’ve named him before they got to know his personality. Surely, it’s some sort of ironic twist of fate that he turned into such a monster?”

  “Tah-vee?” I ask, sounding out the name.

  “The Munchkins call him Taavi Toto, or beloved slave. Fitting, isn’t it?”

  The two men study each other before Bain flicks his hat off, covering up the fairy girl. He scoops her into it and puts the hat back on his head.

  “You are not needed here, Good Witch,” Toto … or is it Taavi? … says as he stalks toward us with the bucket clenched in his right hand, his erect cock standing at attention between us.

  Well.

  Guess that answers my question. If this were a game of fuck, marry, kill, I know which one he’d pick.

  “I’m not? You almost bred your mistress. Isn’t that a death sentence among your people? You’d be drawn and quartered, your head put on a pike for all the rest of your useless race to see. Shifting into a barghest to kill a kelpie seems like a bit of overkill, don’t you agree?” Bain lifts his chin up in a haughty manner, and smirks. “I—obviously—would never make such a mistake.”

  “Get out of my way, witch, before I make you,” Toto—err, Taavi, this is going to take some getting used to—snarls.

  “Gladly,” Bain says, stepping back, turning three times on his left heel, and disappearing again.

  “Can you please explain how you know that guy?!” I snap, because even though there are about a million things I’d like to know right now, this is the first question that pops up in the frenzied race of thoughts flying through my addled brain.

  “He’s been the Witch of the North for quite some time,” Toto—Taavi—says, scowling as he starts up the gentle sloping hill toward the house. He doesn’t even bother glancing in the direction of the dead kelpie. Frankly, I’ve been friends with death for long enough. I have no interest in looking at the corpse again.

  “He’s been the Witch of the North, and where the hell have you been? By my family’s side, if I remember correctly.” My face scrunches up as I think about Toto’s presence in my life. I can’t remember a time when he wasn’t around, meaning he’s at least as old as I am. Pretty old for a dog, huh?

  This must be my unconscious mind trying to protect me from Toto’s inevitable passing. Dogs don’t often live longer than seventeen years, right?

  “Your mother selected which of my people would breed, to produce the perfect pup to be your guardian,” he says, exhaling sharply and pausing at the top of the hill. It takes a considerable amount of effort not to look at his dick, but I manage alright, focusing instead on the pained expression on his face instead. “So, yes, I’ve spent my life where I was intended to: by your side.”

  “That’s … interesting. Creepy, but interesting. Still, it doesn’t answer my question,” I quip, squeezing the bottom of my shirt to get out some of the excess water. I’m going to have to find a change of clothes inside. That is, if there’s anything left. Most of the drawers on my dresser are hanging out, and the clothes are nowhere to be seen.

  “We should get going. We can’t stay here: when a witch dies, the other cardinal witches always know. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Wicked Witch of the West were to show up. Then again, the land of Oz after dark …” Taavi Toto or whatever the fuck his name is, shakes his head and continues inside.

  “If what you’re saying is true, then you came from here then? From Oz?” I question, unwilling to let this go. “Well then, how did Mom get here and why the hell would she think I’d need a guardian? And what’s that mean anyway? I figure my mind is just adjusting your presence of guard dog to—”

  “Your mind?” Taavi asks, looking over at me like I’ve lost all control over my mental faculties. “You don’t believe any of this is real, do you?”

  I shrug my shoulders loosely, holding my hands out in a placating gesture.

  “Would you, if you were me?” He doesn’t answer, opening the hall closet and yanking out my gym bag. I’m surprised it’s still in there, considering the state of the rest of the house. Back in Seattle, I used to be on the swim team.

  Fat load of good that did me. When my family was drowning, where was I to help?

  I’ll never swim again, I swear it.

  And yet, I couldn’t bear to get rid of the bag.

  Taavi digs out a few of my old metal and glass water bottles, in varying colors and designs. Mom was big on sustainability; we only ever used reusable water bottles. I have dozens of them.

  My throat gets tight, and I find myself struggling to take another breath.

  “You need to take this seriously, Ozora,” Taavi scolds, like he’s not just a dog, but a parental figure of some sort. How annoying. “Wizards who play games don’t last long in Oz.”

  “And this is what I’m talking about. This land is named Oz? My name is Oz? This is all some sort of narcissistic delusion I’ve cooked up to escape the trauma of whatever it is that Henry did to me and Aunt Em.”

  “Henry is likely dead,” Taavi says, his voice never changing in pitch or tone, “but Emily is missing. That’s concerning. As far as I’m aware, she’s nothing but human. She won’t last long, if she’s wandered out into Oz by herself.”

  “Can’t you sniff her out or something?” I ask, forgetting about the whole mom/guardian thing in light of my aunt’s disappearance.

  “What does it matter? This is all in your head. Surely, you can just imagine Emily back into existence.” Taavi fills all the water bottles with the bucket, barely spilling a drop, and then zips them back into the duffel bag.

  “Touché,” I growl out, crossing my arms over my chest as he stands up and moves back over to Aunt Em’s darning chest, finding another pair of jeans to put on. I consider asking him to don a shirt, but what’s the point, if he’s going to just spaz-out and rip them when he changes shape? “So, can we please try to find her before we leave for Emerald City?”

  “I’ll see if I can’t pick up her trail,” Taavi says, looking me over in my wet clothes and grimacing slightly. We’re clearly not going to talk about the mate t
hing just yet. Fine by me. I’d rather not talk about that at all. Clearly, I must have some repressed sexual desires floating around in my crazy brain. “You should change. Pick something comfortable. We’re going to be doing a lot of walking.”

  Taavi sets the duffel bag on the floor near the front door, and then heads outside, leaving me in the ruined cottage I’ve hated since the moment I first saw it. With a sigh of frustration, I head up to my room.

  There’s a sock here, a pair of panties there, a bra dangling from the edge of my bed frame, but as far as actual clothing? Most of it is gone. I drag open the stuck drawer on the bottom of my dresser, the only one still left in place. But there aren’t any of my clothes in here.

  Instead, there are some of Mom’s old things.

  After my family passed, I was allowed two suitcases to take to Kansas. Two. So the remnants of my old life are few and far between.

  “Mom.” The word feels stilted and strange in the chaos of the attic bedroom, like a joke told to the wrong audience. I don’t get to say Mom anymore. I have no Mom. I’m an orphan. My teeth clench as I drag out a blue and white gingham dress. I remember Mom wearing this every year, on her wedding anniversary with Dad. Even though the fabric was faded from so many washings, this was the one she always wore.

  I decide to put it on. Why not? I don’t have a lot of choices; the cyclone took most everything I had.

  There’s a pair of bike shorts still jammed into one of the drawers that’s strewn across the floor, so I slip those on underneath, put on some socks, and search around for a pair of matching shoes. Unfortunately, I can only find a single random shoe here or there.

  Guess the soggy, bloodied sneakers I was wearing earlier will have to do.

  I take the extra pairs of underwear, socks, and a single hoodie downstairs with me, stuffing them into the duffel bag.

  Taavi must’ve righted the overturned kitchen table while I was upstairs. The silver shoes are sitting atop it, their sparkles dimmed with the rusty-red color of old blood. Swallowing hard, I move past them and pad outside in bare feet to find Taavi waiting on the porch, his head lifted to the wind.