From Rags to Witches

by Michelle Rowen

  I spun around when Damon released me, and his eyes had gone dark red.

  Proof right there that he was a warlock. While a hungry vampire’s eyeballs turned fully black, witches and warlocks’ turned red when they dipped into their arsenal of dark magic.

  “Look who we have here,” Damon growled.

  Alicia looked stricken. “Sarah, I wanted you to wait in the shop.”

  I spread my hands and tried to stay calm. “I seriously had to pee after all of those yummy espressos. Is there a bathroom nearby that I could use?”

  She slipped the flash drive grimoire into her handbag and grabbed the warlock’s wrist. “Damon, please calm down. She doesn’t mean any harm.”

  Oh, she was so very wrong about that. If they were conspiring to steal my husband’s body, I meant harm. A big, smelly, burning heap of harm.

  “What did you overhear, Sarah?” Damon asked evenly. His eyes hadn’t shifted back to normal yet.

  “Overhear?” I repeated. “Nothing. Nothing at all. Just the sound of my brand new heels clicking against the floor. Sweet, sweet clicking of some pretty shoes. So very pretty. I’m really so grateful to you both for these beauties.”

  I needed to find a way to get the grimoire away from Alicia. I needed to destroy it before she had the chance to use it.

  “Nothing at all, she says.” Damon’s voice held a sharp, mocking edge. “I find that hard to believe.”

  I shot a pained, beseeching look at Grimm, standing in the doorway. No one else seemed to able to see him other than me.

  “Sorry.” He spread his hands. “I’m an incorporeal spirit. Unfortunately, I can’t help you right now.”

  Yeah, great. Thanks, elf-boy.

  “Sarah,” Damon’s accented voice drew my attention. But this time, it sounded less abrasive. More…soothing. “Sarah, look at me.”

  I sent an apprehensive look at the warlock over my shoulder and immediately found myself locked in his red-eyed gaze. Shit.

  “Everything is fine,” he said. “There’s nothing for you to fear.”

  Even though I knew that was a big, fat lie, his low, even tone managed to calm me. I couldn’t seem to break eye contact with him, and part of me didn’t want to anymore. I felt sleepy, like curling up on the floor of the workshop to have a quick nap might be an excellent idea.

  Alicia regarded me with a tight expression, her arms crossed over her chest. She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Sarah. I didn’t want you to be a part of this. I’d asked Thierry to come and meet me in Assjacket alone, but he brought you. I thought he’d more favorably remember our time together, short as it was. I know I haven’t forgotten him—especially his incredible body. I’ll take very good care of it, I promise.”

  I’d told Grimm that I wouldn’t murder someone in cold blood. I was beginning to have second thoughts about that.

  “Are you going to kill me?” I forced the words out past the hypnotic magic as much as I could.

  “No,” Alicia said quickly. “Don’t kill her, Damon. She really hasn’t done anything wrong other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s my fault. I shouldn’t have brought her here.”

  “Then whatever shall I do with her?” Damon mused.

  Alicia pondered that for a moment. “Maybe you could make one of her dreams come true.”

  “And what dream is that?” he asked.

  She moved toward him and whispered something in his ear that made him smile. A thin, cruel smile that didn’t reach his frightening, blood-red eyes.

  And then he nodded. “How appropriate.”

  Before I had to chance to wonder just what dream was about to come true for me, the warlock snapped his fingers. And the world all around me went black.

  6

  I slowly came to, and my head throbbed and buzzed like it had been stuck in an iron vice made of angry bees. I glanced up, expecting to be on the floor of Rags to Riches, but instead, I was outside, beneath a tree with an enormous trunk and massive branches that blocked the bright sun.

  Grimm stood above me, looking down, with a pinched expression.

  “Try not to panic,” he told me grimly.

  I blinked a few times, attempting to orient myself. “What the hell happened?” I muttered.

  Then I frowned.

  There was something wrong with my voice. It sounded higher pitched and, oddly, squeakier than normal.

  I cleared my throat and shook my head before I attempted to push myself up to my feet.

  That was when I realized that something was very wrong.

  Actually, let me rephrase. That sounded far calmer and much more levelheaded than I felt about what had happened to me, not that it had totally sunk in yet.

  I looked down at myself, expecting to see the black shirt, Levi’s, and my brand new hot pink, comfort-chic shoes.

  Instead, I saw fur. Dark brown fur all the way down the front of me.

  I raised a hand to my face, but it wasn’t a hand anymore. It was…a wing.

  A black, leathery wing, which ended in what looked like a small claw.

  “Oh, my God,” I squeaked. “That warlock. He…he…”

  Grimm’s translucent, bearded face was set in a pained grimace. “He turned into a bat.”

  I stared up at him, shaking my head so hard I felt dizzy. “No, no, no. Wrong, you’re wrong. This isn’t happening. He must have knocked me out, and I’m dreaming. This is just a really bizarre dream, that’s all. Stuff like this doesn’t happen. People don’t get turned into animals by evil shoe-making warlocks. This isn’t Harry-freaking-Potter! This is my life!”

  And yet, even as I said it, I knew I didn’t speak the truth. I’d known a witch who turned her fiancé into a small furry animal as punishment every time he looked at another woman. So it was definitely possible.

  “If only Damon hadn’t caught you spying on them,” Grim said unhelpfully. “This never would have happened.”

  I glared up at him from where I lay, splayed out on the ground. Apparently, bats couldn’t just easily stand up and stroll around like they did in cartoons.

  At least I could talk. I rubbed my lips together, cringing at the bizarrely furry feeling.

  This was a horror movie, and apparently, I’d just been cast in the lead role.

  A bat. A bat, of all things! I couldn’t figure out why for a moment, but then I remembered chatting with Alicia about my expectations regarding being a vampire and how disappointed I was that I couldn’t turn into a bat. Which was a joke, of course. I wasn’t totally insane. At least, not yet.

  “Maybe you could make one of her dreams come true,” Alicia had said.

  That heinous bitch. I was going to Moulin her Rouge so hard she might never walk again.

  “Okay, Grimm, talk,” I said. “How do I fix this?”

  He pointed at himself. “You’re asking me?”

  “No, I’m asking the other ghost-elf named Grimm standing behind you.”

  “It’s good that you haven’t lost your sense of humor. That will help you survive this unfortunate situation.” He shrugged. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have the sort of magic that can return you to your former form.”

  “I don’t have time for this,” I hissed. “Alicia has a grimoire that’s going to make all hell break loose back in Assjacket, not to mention a magical poofing locket to get her there in two seconds, and I’m currently stuck in Paris.”

  “The most beautiful city in the world,” he added.

  “I’m afraid it’s a bit tainted for me now.” I awkwardly reached my clawed wings forward to see how fast I could move. Not fast at all. Snails might easily beat me in a race. “Oh, this sucks. This sucks so bad.”

  “I need Damon dead,” Grimm told me. “As long as he walks the earth, no matter what body he occupies, I will not have peace. And I want peace. I want heaps of peace.”

  “Despite my unexpectedly extreme makeover, I’m still not a murderer,” I gritted out. I’d moved an entire foot and was now completely exhausted.
“What I am, is highly motivated to stop Alicia from jettisoning her evil boyfriend across the ocean and straight into my husband’s body.”

  He nodded. “Then you need to return to where you came from.”

  I waited for him to continue. When he didn’t, I shot him a dark look. “I’m currently open to suggestions.”

  “You have wings? Perhaps you can”—he flapped his arms—“fly?”

  “Great. Let me just reset everything I’ve ever known in my entire life and take flight as a winged rodent.” I rested my furry cheek against the grass and sighed. “Even if I could figure out how to fly, Assjacket is thousands of miles away. Oh, my God. Okay, I need to think. I can figure this out. I need to poof back as soon as possible. Clearly, I won’t be taking Air Alicia, so I need another willing witch with that level of power. Do you know anybody who might be willing to help me out?”

  Grimm pondered this for a few moments. A squirrel ran past me and glanced in my direction before it seemed to frown and then scurried away.

  Shit. I was seriously acting like roadkill here. I had to pull it together. I pushed hard on the tips of the wings and managed to hoist myself up a bit so I could keep an eye on the ghost.

  “Yes. I think I know someone!” Grimm exclaimed after another tense minute. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “Wait, where are you—?” But he was already gone, leaving me in this little park, with the sound of the river nearby, the cool October breeze blowing on my bat-face. Through a couple of trees, I could see the Eiffel Tower in the distance. I focused on it and tried very hard not to give in to my rising panic. My panic had already hit the summit of the Himalayas but seemed to be heading a few hundred more floors upward.

  The pounding of large feet shook me as a group of people streamed past, taking photos and laughing. I scrambled backward in the shadows of dusk, like a tiny Nosferatu exposed to the sunlight, not wanting to be seen. I clung to the tree trunk where I’d woken up, trying to come up with some sort of feasible plan. I breathed in through my bat nostrils and breathed out through my bat mouth.

  A fly zipped past me and my gaze shot directly to it. All the muscles in my body tensed. And, disconcertingly, my stomach growled.

  Apparently, I had an appetite for delicious insects now. I would try to resist, thanks so much.

  After a small eternity passed, and the sun nose-dived toward the horizon, Grimm returned with a pretty redheaded woman wearing a dark blue coat.

  “Sarah?” he called out. “Are you still, um, alive?”

  “So far, so good,” I replied, crawling out of my hiding spot.

  The ghost peered down at me. “Excellent. True to my word, I found someone who might be able to help.”

  “Might?” I yelped.

  The woman braced her hands on her knees and gazed down at me. “Oh, a little talking chauve-souris,” she said in a thick French accent.

  “Sarah, this is Monique,” Grimm said. “Monique, this is Sarah.”

  “How cute and also terribly pathetic this Sarah creature is.” Monique nodded, smiling. “Thank you for showing me, mon petit fantôme. Now, let’s move on to other adventures, oui?”

  When she turned away dismissively, my outrage gave me the strength to rise up and flap my leathery wings. “Excuse me?” I said as loudly as I could. “I need help here. Do you understand?”

  She turned toward me, raising a brow, her gaze cast downward at the ground where I flopped about. “What is this about, Grimm? I thought you only wanted to go for a walk and discuss your painful situation, of which I can be of no help, alas. But you already know that.”

  Grimm’s shoulders slumped. “I know. But I thought you would be particularly interested in the fate of Sarah here. She has been bespelled by Damon himself only a short time ago.”

  She drew in a sharp breath, her eyes widening. “My truest love, Damon. How desperately I miss him.”

  “You brought me another of Damon’s devoted girlfriends?” I asked, annoyed. “Yeah, that’s going to help.”

  “Devoted, oui,” Monique whispered. “Girlfriend, non. I will always love him, but fate has succeeded in tragically keeping us apart. Perhaps, in the next life, we will find each other again.” She gazed down at me dreamily. “Do you want me to tell you the history of our love, ma petite chauve-souris? It is a fascinating story, full of twists and turns and drama, unlike anything you’ve ever heard before.”

  “I’m…absolutely sure it is,” I squeaked, my chest tight. “But I’m on a bit of a time crunch here, so I’m going to have to pass. Sorry.”

  Disappointment crossed her expression at not being given the green light for storytime, but, seriously. No, thank you, please.

  “That’s too bad,” she replied.

  “I’m assuming that you’re a witch?” I said.

  “C’est ça. Why do you ask?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “Just woke up after getting turned into a bat by your true love for overhearing his evil plans to take over my husband’s body in West Virginia. Really need to get back there ASAP and do whatever I can to stop it. That’s basically the gist. And, in case you’re wondering—yes, I am screaming on the inside.”

  She pondered this for a moment. “Damon is up to something.”

  “You think?” I tried not to sound too sharp, and thanks to my squeaky-bat voice, sharp didn’t seem within the realm of possibility at the moment.

  Monique shook her head. “I must say, I don’t believe I should get involved with any of this.”

  “Damon is having an affair with a vampiress,” Grimm said. “It’s shameful, really.”

  “The affair or the fact she’s a vampire?” I asked.

  He cringed. “Vampires are…deeply unsavory creatures.”

  “I’m a vampire,” I reminded him tightly. “Usually, anyway.”

  “I know.” He shrugged. “My observation stands.”

  Great. Well, at least that made one dead elf who probably wouldn’t be falling in love with me any time soon. Unless he had a really weird bat fetish.

  “Oh, Damon.” Monique mused, as she shook her head. “How very amusing you are as you try to replace the love we shared.” She raised a brow. “It is a truly amazing story if you’ve changed your mind...”

  I lifted a wing. “I’m good, thanks. Seriously.”

  “Very well.” She nodded. “I’m sorry, but it seems I’m unable to help you, ma petite chauve-souris.”

  I checked my teeth to find that they would be adequately sharp enough to take a sizable chunk out of her.

  “You’re the only witch I’ve found who can see me, Monique, so there’s no one else I can ask,” Grimm explained, wringing his hands. “This matter is very important. If Sarah manages to stop Damon mid-spell, I have the chance to be freed from my earthly bindings. Finally, after all this time.”

  “Such a spell as what you suggest will mean that Damon will perish,” she countered. “For such a bright light to be extinguished, I cannot be a part of it.”

  “Extinguished,” Grimm repeated. “But perhaps ready to begin a fresh new life. With you?”

  She twisted her finger through her red hair. “I must admit, such a suggestion is tempting. But, I don’t know.”

  “Please,” I implored. “I don’t know how much time is left before it’s too late to save Thierry. I just need you to help me transport back to the United States. That’s all. I’m not asking for miracles here, just a little magical poof across the ocean.”

  Monique cocked her head. “Did you say, Thierry?”

  “I did,” I squeaked.

  “Your husband’s name is Thierry.”

  “Yes. Thierry de Bennicoeur.”

  “Mon dieu.” Monique held a hand to her chest. “What an incredible coincidence this is. Destiny has once again shown her beautiful face tonight.”

  “You know him?” I asked with surprise.

  “I have not seen Thierry for more than a century when we had a very brief but memorable affaire de
coeur.” She smiled down at me. “And you are his wife! How marvelously lucky for you. He is an incredible man in so, so many ways.”

  After the day I’d had, I decided to roll with it. Add one more gorgeous French chick to the list of Thierry’s ancient conquests.

  “I am lucky,” I agreed evenly. “And just a reminder, that incredible man is the focus of a deadly body swap from an evil warlock. So…maybe you could rethink your position on lending a hand. Pretty please?”

  Monique sighed dreamily and cast a look toward the Eiffel Tower. “Yes, I suppose I can lend some assistance. It appears that Damon is quite over his head this time.”

  “Excellent,” Grimm said, clapping his hands. “Then let’s get on with it, shall we?”

  “Where do you need to go, again, ma petite chauve-souris?” Monique asked.

  I didn’t speak more than a handful of words in French, but I had a feeling she had nicknamed me “her little bat.”

  “Assjacket, West Virginia,” I told her.

  Monique’s eyes widened. “That is where a formidable witch named Zelda makes her home.”

  I remembered that Alicia had mentioned that name earlier. The Shifter Whisperer. “That’s right,” I said. “Is that a problem?”

  “Oui, a great problem indeed.” Monique's jaw tensed. “I had a rather steamy affair with her father some time ago and should do my best to avoid that family altogether if I can.”

  I waited.

  Monique waved her hand. “I will not stay but a moment. No harm done.”

  I released the breath I’d been holding in my bat-lungs. “Great. Can we go now?”

  “Yes, of course. Adieu, mon petit fantôme. Perhaps we shall meet again in the next life, and you will make me a fresh new pair of divine slippers.”

  Grimm gave her a shallow bow. “It would be my honor.” He flicked a look down at me. “Good luck, Sarah. The fate of my immortal soul is in your hands.”

  I sighed. “Yeah, sure. No pressure.”

  Monique studied me for a moment. “You may hang onto my foot for the journey.”