Chapter 5
Yep. He slithered right down the side of the bed like a graceless, slithering snake and landed on his fanny. Thankfully, there was a beautiful shaggy throw carpet to soften the blow, but it certainly didn’t soften his mood.
As he tried to pull himself up, with Bel ordering Whiskey to retrieve Win’s cane (which, by the by, he despised having to use), a trick my faithful familiar had taught him, Win groused and cussed, his teeth clenched together.
Whiskey, who hadn’t quite perfected the task of dropping the cane at Win’s feet just yet, hurled the wooden stick at him, clocking him on the side of his head.
“Ow! Whiskey! Bloody hell!” he yowled as he reached for the cane, wrapping his fingers around it and using it to push his way back up along the side of the bed.
Bel was there in an instant, ready to soothe and cajole. “Now, now. Don’t blow a gasket, Winterbutt. He’s still a little awkward is all.”
“A little?” Win seethed when he managed to settle himself back in the bed.
Belfry chuckled and conceded, “Okay, a lot. But it’s all done with love, isn’t it, Whiskey buddy?” he cooed, landing on Whiskey’s broad back and kneading it with his small feet. “Who’s a good boy? You are, that’s who. Nice try, buddy. Maybe a little less spin on it next time, okay?”
Whiskey tilted his head back and opened his mouth, letting out a resounding bark to confirm he was, indeed, a good boy.
I very clearly saw how little it took to tire Win. His chest heaved, his muscles strained, and there were dots of perspiration on his forehead from the effort to get back on the bed. Not to mention, the damage to his dignity.
If nothing else, Win was prideful to the point of ridiculous. He hated how out of shape his host body was, and he hated when I saw him struggle even more, but the first thing he’d want to do is investigate what happened to me. He couldn’t do that from his bed.
Yet, he was in no condition to run off to Seattle to find out what had become of me.
Maybe this had been a mistake. I know that sounds silly. I mean, how could I avoid telling him where I was? I guess I couldn’t exactly hide it from him, but maybe Arkady and I could have figured it out on our own.
“He’s so weak, Arkady…” I whispered, my voice trembling as I leaned into his strong frame.
“Dah, but how to fix if we do not involve Zero?” he whispered back. “There is nothing we can do up here. Now my malutka sees how helpless we feel sometimes.”
Win looked upward with a scowl, the one he used when he was really displeased. “I can hear you both, you know, and I’m not weak. I simply slipped.”
“Are you kidding, Winterbutt? You crumpled like a house a cards,” Belfry scolded, using his tiny yellow snout to push the blankets over Win’s legs. “You’re in no condition to be running around. Quit carrying on about it and accept it. It’s the only way you’ll get better. Now get back in bed where you belong, mate.”
Win flapped a dismissive hand. “Bah! I’m fine,” he deflected, straightening the blanket. “I feel a fool for not knowing you were on Plane Limbo. It should have been my first thought, but I shan’t berate myself at this point. My brain is still full of cotton. Now, let’s get down to business, shall we? Why do you think you’re dead, Stephania?”
“Because I’m on Plane Limbo with Arkady. If I’m not dead, I’m sure something that isn’t living.” Right then a thought occurred to me. “Ohhhh, maybe I’m in a state of stasis or something? You know, like a caterpillar before it turns into a butterfly?”
“You are already beautiful butterfly, malutka.”
I blushed, the heat of my cheeks making me smile. I grinned up at Arkady and tweaked his cheek. “Aren’t you the sweetest thing ever?”
“Stephania!”
I scowled down at him, knowing he couldn’t see me, but scowling nonetheless.
“Stop yelling at me, for the love of grape juice. Jeez. You’re so grouchy. I don’t know what happened to me, okay? One minute I was ready to devour a Givenchy circa 1970, at least I think that was the year, and the next, I was in this black void of nothing until Arkady found me and brought me here to Plane Limbo. And that’s all I remember. I don’t know where my purse is, or even my car, for that matter. I don’t know what happened, period.”
With a ragged sigh, Win ran his hand through his hair again and straightened his shoulders.
“My apologies, Dove. I am indeed, as you say, quite grouchy. My new body isn’t cooperating in conjunction with my brain, and it’s quite frustrating. That aside, let’s focus on what’s happening. You’re on Plane Limbo with Arkady and you believe that means you’re dead.”
When he said it out loud again, it really hit home. I sat down on the bench with a defeated sigh.
“Winner-winner-chicken-dinner. I mean, what else could I be, Win? Though, something to note that I think might be important…”
I explained to him about the fact that I was a solid mass and everyone else, including Arkady, was transparent. I really felt as though that meant something.
He paused as I watched him absorb my words. Then he ran a hand over his stubbled chin. “Isn’t that the strangest thing? I don’t know that I ever noticed we were transparent, did you, Arkady?”
Arkady sat back down next to me and shook his head. “Nyet, Zero. Not until my malutka show me. Then I see difference. I never notice this peculiarity either. But what do you think this mean?”
“I don’t know, old chap, but surely it means something.”
Belfry flew around the room, his wings flapping wildly, making a ferocious whirring buzz. “Hold the phone, folks! I think I might have an answer. Stevie? When you were spitting out spell after spell during the period in time I shall forever refer to as The Dark Days of The Great Winterbutt Famine, didn’t you do some kind of whacky, totally mixed-up spell for bringing someone back from the realm? Like every other spell you spat that day, maybe you really messed it up? Maybe you did the exact opposite of what you’d intended?”
My mouth dropped open, my jaw unhinged. Sure, I’d considered I might be responsible, but for that to really be true? It really could have been my spell that put me here?
Crazy, right?
Still, much like Win, there was a certain amount of pride I’d had as a witch. I didn’t love remembering that day and how erratic and irrational I’d been.
It was enough that some of my spells had lingered and turned up later to drop like a steaming pile of poo, but it left me feeling inadequate and, worse, incompetent that I was incapable of remembering some very basic incantations.
I didn’t know every spell by heart, and with no book to go by, it made it that much harder to remember them. But sheesh, I’d royally screwed them up—so much so, the consequences were still happening over a week later, and that was almost more than I could bear.
I think I’d so thoroughly begun to accept I was no longer a witch, I’d blocked out all things witchy, and as it turns out, it had been to my detriment.
I glanced sheepishly at Arkady. “I said a lot of things that day, Belfry. I spun a bunch of spells I tried to summon from memory because we were in a pinch. Clearly I messed a bunch up, as we’ve already seen by the stinkin’ glacier in the backyard.”
“Right. Listen, Boss, I’m not attacking your skills as a witch. That you managed to do what you did and some of it actually worked, even if it was a dumpster fire, means something. It means you still have some sort of magic in you, and maybe it can be honed again. The average human can’t cast a spell, even if it’s a bad one, you know? But we’ll think about that and all the ramifications later. For now, what this could mean is you were under insane pressure in that moment in time, and you probably cast a spell that called a spirit to the earthly realm, but it backfired and now it’s working in reverse.”
I frowned. I guess it was entirely possible. I mean, look, my number one on my list of hopeful boyfriends (second only to Tom Ellis, mind you), who was once a ghost, had somehow plane-hopped, manage
d to get to the earthly plane and crawled inside his twin brother’s body.
Surely there wasn’t much that was impossible.
“So what you’re saying is, I shipped myself off to Plane Limbo? I did this?”
“Maybe, and that means we can bring you back. I mean, I think. I hope. This transparency thing and you being solid definitely means something’s not right. But for now, it’s the only theory we have to go on.”
“Will wonders never cease,” Win muttered with a shake of his head. “Bloody amazing is what that is, if it’s true. Imagine if we, as spies, had this kind of technology, Arkady? Do you remember that mission when we ran across each other in Madrid?”
Arkady threw his head back and laughed with the slap on his hands to the tops of his thighs. “The one where we share the little dishes of food in that restaurant with the muslin tablecloths?”
“Yes!” Win confirmed with a laugh. “Tapas, my good man. It was called tapas.”
He wiggled his eyebrows. “I don’t remember food, but Arkady Bagrov do remember who we share it with. All those pretty—”
“Boys!” I yelped with a stomp of my foot. “Save another episode of the Death-Defying Escapades of a Spy, part eleventy-billion, for another time. We have to figure out where I am.”
Belfry whistled. “She’s right. But there’s something else, something much bigger.”
“And that is?” Win asked.
Bel sighed. “If the spell Stevie cast yanked her soul out and threw her upstairs, that’s fine. Her soul’s good and mostly protected up there. If she did it even half right, she’s essentially in stasis; that’s also true. But where’s her body, guys? Her physical form? If her soul’s not in her body, to anyone on the outside looking in, she’ll appear dead to the average human.”
I winced. I’d forgotten about that. Details, schmetails, right?
Win’s face froze. “Dead, you say?”
Belfry ran a tiny finger claw across his throat. “Dead, mate.”
Chapter 6
I gulped hard. I’d forgotten that part.
“And what happens once we find your body, Stephania? More razzamataz witchery to put your soul back into your body?”
Wow. He said that with such animosity—such resentment—I felt a little like he was bashing my witchy roots. I mean, they did help me find him because I called on Baba Yaga, hadn’t they?
I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I answered quietly.
Win’s chest heaved as he pushed back the blankets and swung his legs over the side of the bed again, this time keeping a good white-knuckled grip on the edge of the mattress.
“Do you know, Belfry?”
“Er, nope. But I’m sure there’s a way. You hopped into a body, why can’t the boss?”
“Because I don’t know if it will have the same affect if had for me, Belfry,” Win said.
“Well, maybe we worry about it when the time comes, Grumpy Gus,” Bel retorted.
“Then we must find out where her body is, mustn’t we?”
“Are you cuckoopants, Winterbutt? No!” Bel yelped, swooping toward him to land on Win’s shoulder. “We mustn’t. I must. You must not. You must rest.”
But Win shook his head with a sharp turn on his neck, his lips thinning, his face hard. “Bollocks, Belfry! However do you plan to find out what happened to Stephania? Will you just turn up at the shop she was last in and introduce yourself as her talking bat?”
Belfry took flight and buzzed around Win until he clipped his ear with a wing. “Oooo, that’s a cheap shot, International Man of Mystery! What are you gonna do, Big Man? You can’t even get outta the bed without breaking out in a sweat. How do you plan to get all the way to Seattle?”
Win clenched his teeth and dropped off the bed, his knees buckling momentarily before he righted himself, taking his cane with him. “Need I remind you, I’m not a poor man, Belfry. I’ll simply hire someone to drive me.”
Win might have forgotten a lot of things since he’d been away, but he sure hadn’t forgotten how rich he was.
“Need I remind you, Fancy Pants, all the credit cards are in Stevie’s name because technically, you’re dead,” Bel fired back.
I blanched and Arkady hissed.
“Doesn’t Stephania have Apple Pay on her phone? I’ll use that!” he said with a triumphant gleam in his eye and a smirk on his face.
I winced. I had some bad news. “Weeell, it’s like this. Um, the credit card I was using expired three days ago. I tried to use it the other day at the market and it pinged me. I had backup, of course, but I totally forgot to enter a new one…”
“Hah!” Belfry shouted. “Now whaddya gonna do, Winterbutt?”
Okay, enough was enough. It was time to take a modicum of control here.
“Boys! Stop this right now. Do you hear me? I might not be down there, but I can be as much of a pest from all the way up here. So knock it off and let’s come up with a plan. A rational plan. Not some harebrained scheme like Win going off to Seattle alone.”
“Funny you should mention the word harebrained, Stephania. Do you remember when you—”
“Oh, hush! I don’t need to be reminded of all the crazy stunts I’ve pulled since we met, Win. I remember them all. I still have some of the aches and pains from them if the day is chilly and raw enough. And might I remind you, I was healthy and physically capable of being harebrained. You are not. You just possessed a body, and while you don’t like admitting it, you’re weak as a kitten. Now quit making things worse and listen to me. The first thing we should do is call the store. No one’s going anywhere until we at least do that. It could save us a lot of time.”
“Good point, dove. What’s the name of the store?” he asked, reaching for my phone.
But Belfry was already on it, using his little snout to look it up on Google. As Win took the phone from him and dialed the shop, he leaned against his dresser, hiding his face from me.
I knew he was out of breath from merely leaving the bed and walking across the room, but he wasn’t going to let me see that.
As he spoke to the shop clerk, I heard how tired he sounded, and I looked to Arkady, who whispered, “You do know there is no stopping Zero when he wants to do something, malutka. How do you think you ended up with pizza oven in kitchen you use only to dry socks?”
I fought a giggle. There was that. He was as hardheaded as they came, but this venture was insane. We had to find another way. He’d collapse before he ever made it to Seattle.
Win clicked the phone off and threw it on top of the bed with a sudden flick of his wrist, raking his hand through his hair with an exasperated sigh.
“Bad news?” I asked.
“According to the shop clerk, who remembered you because of your, and I quote, ‘super-cute outfit’,” he mimicked in a ridiculous Valley Girl voice, “you entered the shop, but she only caught a glimpse of you before she turned around to grab a twenty-percent-off-your-entire-purchase coupon she’d planned to offer up for your shopping pleasure, and the moment she turned around, you were gone. Also, I inquired about your car, and it isn’t even outside.”
“Maybe it was towed?” Belfry provided.
I clucked my tongue in disappointment. Forget the car. I’d lost one of those before. “There were coupons? Dang it all. I love a good deal, but I love it even more if it’s twenty percent off.”
Win put a hand on his hip. “Is that really the point, Stephania?”
Phew, he’d been using my full name a lot lately. That meant I was in deep kimchee. “No, Win. It’s not the point. But did she really like my outfit? I was undecided about whether the red worked with the royal blue.”
I looked down at my black leggings, cute thigh-high royal-blue boots, coupled with a black turtleneck and finished off with a red blazer. On paper, you wouldn’t think they’d work, but they did, and the shopkeeper validated that.
“Stephania…” Win growled out a warning.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry. I was just looking for the br
ight side. So she doesn’t know what happened to me after that. Now what?”
Why couldn’t I think of what to do next?
Win shook his head as he headed toward the beautiful antique dresser made of walnut he’d found on Overstock.com, pulling open drawers.
“There’s no other way, Stephania. Someone has to physically look for you, and Belfry simply can’t do that. Now, for heaven’s sake, where are my clothes?”
“You don’t have any street clothes, Winterbutt. When Stevie offered to shop for you, you said you’d rather have Justin Bieber do it than let her find you bargain-basement underwear. Remember?” Belfry sang out. “So you have pajamas. Guess you’ll just have to sit this one out.”
That was true, he had said that. I’d been so insulted by the insinuation I’d ever buy used underwear, but worse, that he’d let Justin Bieber do his shopping.
Win narrowed his eyes in Bel’s direction. They glittered with something I didn’t quite understand, and were it anyone else other than my Spy Guy, I might have been a little afraid.
“Like bloody hell, I will. Someone needs to go to where Stephania was last seen, we need to find her, locate her car. Maybe there’s a clue there. For all we know, she’s still in the car. Technically, I’m the only one who can physically do it, Belfry. Unless you’d like to alert the authorities? If we involve them, how would we explain her disappearance? As you fly up to their desk and plant your wee backside on top of it, will the conversation go like this: ‘Hello, Officer, my friend Stevie’s soul has gone missing. She used to be a witch and she cast a spell that has apparently gone rogue. But fear not, we’ve been communicating with her from on high. However, one small thing. We need to locate her body so we can put her soul back into it. Can you help?’”
Okay, these were all valid points, but maybe there was a way around that.
“You’re oversimplifying, Winterbutt!” Belfry yelled in his ear. “There are ways around this if you’ll just let us put our heads together and stop rushing off to save the world. The police don’t have to know we’re looking for her body because we can hear her, dummy.”
Witches Get Stitches Page 5
