by Susan Hayes
The message from her parents haunted her, too. What darkness threatened? Who was this enemy she needed to face? And what was that line about meeting again? They had moved on to the Next Adventure thirteen years ago, so how could she see them again unless winning this battle meant she had to die, too? What kind of victory was that?
Until the guerilla glitter assault had kicked off her birthday, her life had been a long string of wins. Magic and money were a potent combination, and she’d thought she’d been blessed with a generous share of both. She’d been half right. Magic, she had. Money… after a long night going over all her financial records, it was clear as a flawless diamond that the money her parents had left for her was untouched. So, who the hell was financing her Witch and Famous lifestyle? Tiff wouldn’t give her a straight answer on that, either, and eventually the cat had gone into hiding to escape all her questions. Coward.
Now, it was almost time to go. She had whittled her life down to four suitcases and an overnight bag, with everything else getting zapped off to storage.
Tiff appeared from whatever closet she’d retreated to and padded over to her side, eyeing the collection of matching luggage with open amusement. “Only taking the necessities, I see.”
“I needed to pack for a wide variety of possibilities, since no one,” she shot a glare at her cat, “was willing to share any useful information on what to expect when I get to this Black Fin Bay place.”
Tiff-Tiff’s ears drooped, and she lowered her head. “I’ve told you all I can. It’s a small place on the West Coast. Rural. No humans live there. The town is a sanctuary for all sorts of supernatural beings but mostly Shifters. At least it was. I’ve had no contact with anyone there since you—I mean we—were taken away.”
“I tried to look this place up on the internet and you know what I found? A dot on a map. That’s it. Just a dot. No descriptions. No mentions. No nothing.” Fern waved her hands. “It’s like the town doesn’t exist.”
“Oh, it exists.” Tiff sat down and curled her tail around her paws. “And we’re already late getting there.”
“How can I be late when no one knows I’m coming?”
Tiff mewled in feline frustration. “I can’t tell you that.”
“You are the worst familiar in the history of witchcraft.” She snapped her fingers and conjured a soft-sided kitty carrier. It was forest green, adorably cozy, and had Tiff’s name embroidered in gold across the top.
Tiff-Tiff arched her back and hissed.
“Get your fluffy ass inside and quit whining.”
“It’s undignified!”
“You’re a cat. That’s a cat carrier. I don’t see the problem.”
“Fern. Come on. I know you’re mad at me but this?” Tiff swiped at the green material. “It’s humiliating. I’m your familiar, not a pet.” She uttered the last word with enough venom to make a cobra jealous.
“You haven’t been much of a familiar lately,” she snapped and then checked her tone. Yikes. Time to dial back the bitchiness before someone offered her a spot on a reality TV show. “Sorry.”
“I know you’re scared.” Tiff wove herself between Fern’s ankles. “Nice shoes, by the way.”
Fern glanced down at her strappy white heels. “Thanks. And yeah, I’m nervous. I mean, how is this going to work? I’m just going to appear in town and say, ‘Hey everyone, you don’t remember me but I’m here to save you all from some dark threat I don’t know anything about. Can you please point me toward my house? I just need to unpack first.’”
“Maybe start smaller. Like, ‘Hi, my name is Fern Summers. Nice to meet you.’”
“Seems like a terrible waste of a good line. I mean, how many times in my life am I going to be able to walk into a place and say, ‘I’m here to rescue you’?”
“Don’t forget. You’re not doing this alone. There’s supposed to be three of you.”
“Right, I’m the second of three,” she said, making air quotes as she spoke the line from her parents’ message. “Which means I don’t even get top billing in this insani-ganza I was dropped into. Do you think there’s already someone in town who knows what the fuck is going on? ’Cause that would be fantastic. Hell, maybe they’ve already got this all figured out and I can just show up, say hello, and spend a few weeks figuring out the rest of the weirdness that is my life now.”
Tiff shook her head. “I wish it was that easy.”
“You and me both.” Fern banished the carrier with a wave of her hand and then reached down to pick up Tiff-Tiff. “Ready?”
“I think so.” Tiff sounded more unsure than Fern had ever heard before, which did nothing to calm the host of hyperactive butterflies already swirling in her gut.
She tucked her bread tin of treasures into her oversized purse, spelled her luggage to follow her, and teleported the lot to Ass-endville, British Columbia.
One look at her new town and her butterflies morphed into large, flappy moths the size of fruit bats. “What in the name of the Goddess’s gumbo happened here?” She was on the outskirts of the little town, which looked like it was about thirty seconds from spontaneous demolition. The buildings were all the same sun-bleached shade of grey as the sand, and every breath she took was tainted by the reek of dead fish and rotting seaweed. “If this is the place I’m supposed to save, Tiff, I think we’re about a decade too late.”
She was about to turn around and teleport her shapely ass right back to Toronto when something caught her attention. It was a glimmer of magic. Subtle, but unmistakable.
Once she saw that, she understood. The town was glamoured by layers of spells designed to make any casual observer do exactly what she’d almost done—take one look and decide to go elsewhere.
“Oh, that is clever,” she muttered, admiring the work that had gone into creating the elaborate illusion.
She waved a hand in the air, leaving a glittering arc of green sparks to mark the gesture.
“Unveil our eyes,
The truth to see.
Beyond the lies
So mote it be.”
The illusion melted like cheap mascara in a rain squall, revealing something quite different beneath. Oh, the place still looked like the set of a movie, but it had gone from post-apocalyptic to a small-town drama about love, loss, and priceless gifts of good wine and dear friends.
The sad little sign that had welcomed her to Black Fin Bay had turned into a festively painted one welcoming her to Wyrding Way.
“Something else you couldn’t tell me?” she asked Tiff while pointing to the sign.
“Yes. Honestly, Fern, it was for—”
“I know. I know. For my own protection.”
She snapped her fingers and watched to make sure all her luggage fell into line before heading into town. The place looked more familiar now, like pulling on a pair of old jeans that had fallen to the back of the closet. The buildings were in better repair, and the stench of dead sea-life had been replaced with the tantalizing aromas of fresh bread and… waffle cones? She took a deep breath. Definitely waffle cones. Fresh out of the oven judging by the smell.
A memory came to her fully formed and perfect. A hot summer day. Fingers sticky with ice cream drippings. Cold root beer and the smell of the sea. Someone leaned down to wipe her hands. Green eyes. A soft voice. “You’re my gooey little lovebug.”
That single recollection heralded the opening of the floodgates, a surge of memories pouring into her mind, swirling by so fast she couldn’t make sense of most of it, but the scene in front of her shifted from a place she didn’t know to something more familiar.
She knew the corner shop run by Mr. Ollison with all the jars of candy lined up on the counter and the hardware store that always smelled of wood shavings and new nails. She could remember going there with her father, listening to him talk to the other men while she’d wandered the aisles looking at all the strange and wonderful things for sale.
“I’m home,” she said.
“Yes, you are. Is i
t all coming back now?” Tiff asked.
“Some, yeah. But not much of it makes any sense. It’s all tangled up, like that time I tossed my fishnet stockings in the wash with my bras.”
“It’ll come back. Just give yourself some time.” Tiff patted her arm with a soft paw. “The spells used to manipulate your memory were potent. They’re going to take some time to fade.”
“The…what? What spells? You never said anything about my memories getting zapped.”
“I couldn’t. Not until you were safely back in Wyrding Way.”
“And now I’m here in the town that time forgot?”
“All my promises were kept and all the compulsions I was under are gone. Goodbye to the ball-gag whammy that lost-in-the-eighties Baba-bimbo slapped on me. I can finally talk freely.”
“About time.” Fern eyed the bakery and ice cream shop for a moment and then her gaze moved on to what used to be a diner. According to the sign, it was the Watering Hole Pub now. It only took a second to make up her mind. Drinks first, ice cream later. She set off at a quick march with her luggage bobbing along behind her and her cat in her arms. She was a one-woman parade as she marched down the street, garnering curious looks and growing interest as she went.
“Is that…”
“Call Breeze…”
“I swear she looks just like…”
“…Summers. That’s got to be her.”
By the time she reached the Watering Hole, she was being followed by more than a dozen townsfolk, all garbed in outfits that ranged from the West Coast casual style of well-worn jeans and T-shirt to “I woke up this way.” And they were all whispering amongst themselves. She did her best to ignore them, but she’d seen enough movies to know what happened to big city witches who wandered into the wrong Podunk town. Pitchforks. Mobs. Or worse, small town makeovers. If she stayed too long, she might end up wearing sandals with socks or even, Goddess forfend, plaid flannel.
She walked into the cool interior and was met with a blend of tantalizing scents she wouldn’t have expected in a common pub—rosemary and roasted chicken, a tang of something briny and sharp, and a hint of lemon.
The décor wasn’t the standard dark wood and brass taps setup, either. Bright windows brought in plenty of summer sunshine, the booths and tables were all made of yellow cedar, and the whole place was done in warm, welcoming colours. She liked it.
Fern waved a hand and sent her luggage to stack itself out of the way in the back and took a seat at a table in the center of the room. Then, she lifted Tiff-Tiff until they were eye-to-eye. “Drinks first. Then we’re going to talk and you will spill your fuzzy guts. Got it?”
Tiff nodded. “I didn’t want to keep this from you.”
“Ball-gag whammy. Right. I can’t believe she did that to my familiar.”
“Yeah, well… she’s not the most trusting—”
A bone-chilling yowl came from nowhere and everywhere. “Noooo! Be gone you counterfeit fiend. That’s my witch, you fucking bitch!” A rumpled looking Siamese cat staggered out from under one of the booths, his unkempt fur standing up and his tail puffed out like a toilet brush.
“Crap,” Tiff-Tiff muttered. “Shaz, hold up. You don’t understand!”
Shaz? Holy Goddess in gumboots. Her Shazzy was real? That couldn’t be right.
“Tiff, what the hell is going on? And why do I keep having to ask that question?”
The unsteady Siamese yowled again. It was a sound that made fingernails on a blackboard seem like Handel’s Water Music by comparison. “Fern! I’ve been waiting for you for fucking years. How could you forget me? I’m your familiar, Shazam-alanga-dingdong, loyal servant and beloved companion. Who the fuck is this charlatan?” he growled and lowered into a pounce.
Tiff hissed and twisted in Fern’s grasp. “You better put me down. This is going to get ugly.”
“What the fuck did you do to my witch!” He flew at Tiff-Tiff, all fur, fury and F-bombs.
The two cats came together on the tabletop, knocking cutlery and condiments flying. Fern tried to grab them, but all she got for her trouble was a nasty slash across the back of her knuckles as the two tumbled to the floor and kept fighting.
Fern jumped to her feet, hand stinging. There was so much here she couldn’t quite remember, memories that danced just out of reach. Shaz was someone she knew…but who? Had she named the stuffed toy after him? Was he really her familiar? If so, who the hell was Tiff-Tiff?
As the screams and cursing reached an ear-shattering crescendo, she switched mental gears. She’d worry about all that in a minute. For now, she needed a quick little spell to break up the carnage.
“Before tempers flare up any hotter,
Let’s cool things off with lots of water.
And once their yelling finally stops,
Tidy this place with some magical mops.”
A swinging door flew open, and a tall, dark and insanely handsome guy boomed, “What the hell is going on out here!” just as she finished her spell.
She could only watch in horror as two buckets of water appeared in a swirl of green sparks. They upended themselves over the two fighting cats and the hot as hades man who had just walked in, turning Mr. Fantasy into a literal wet dream. By the Goddess’s G-string, he was gorgeous. And tall enough she could climb him like a jungle gym.
She was so distracted by his looks it took a second for her hormone-clouded brain to notice one other thing about the new arrival. He was drenched, dripping, and seriously pissed. Oops.
Chapter Four
Orion was closest to the door when a ruckus kicked off in the front. That damned cat was at it again. He’d left the others prepping for the dinner rush and gone out to deal with Shaz’s latest outburst. He was going to have to call Snuffy and Breeze to come and get the forlorn feline. The poor fellow wasn’t coping well with the fact that his witch was a no-show.
Five seconds later, a few things struck him. The first was that a blonde angel in a white mini-dress was standing in the middle of the room. The second was a deluge of ice water that soaked him to the skin, which took all the fun out of the first realization. With teeth chattering and his balls trying to retreat back inside his body in search of warmth, he bellowed, “What the fuck?”
The blonde clapped her hands to her mouth in wide-eyed dismay, but before anyone could explain, a flash of light and an explosion of crimson sparks sizzled as they hit the still-wet floor. Lights danced in his vision and afterimages did a psychedelic shimmy before fading away again. By the time he could see clearly, another woman had appeared. She was wet, naked, covered in scratches, and holding a soggy, pissed off Siamese in one outstretched hand.
“For fuck’s sake, Shaz. Stop it. It’s me, Tiffany Summers. Bobby’s sister,” the other woman, a brunette, snapped at the Siamese, who stopped mid-tirade and blinked at her.
“Oh,” the familiar muttered. “Well, hell’s bells, witch. Why didn’t you fucking say so?”
“Wait, what? I don’t…” The gorgeous blonde trailed off into an incoherent wail and sank down into her chair as a half-dozen mops materialized out of thin air, whisked away all the water pooling on the floor and vanished again.
Orion hit his breaking point and blew right past it. All he needed was for the health inspector to pay a surprise visit right now and he’d be fucked six ways from Sunday. It looked like he was running a combination strip club and catfighting ring at the moment, and half the town was peering wide-eyed through the windows like they’d paid for tickets to this madness.
“That’s it! Everyone take a seat. Do not talk. Do not even breathe loudly.” He turned to yell back to the kitchen. “Someone tell Breeze to get her ass down here as soon as possible. I think I found our missing witch. Hunter! I need clean towels and a first aid kit out here, too. Please and fucking thank you.”
When he looked again, everyone was sitting down, and the only sounds were the soft sniffles from the pretty blonde who appeared to be at the centre of the chaos. He grabbed a
clean cloth from under the bar and strode over to her, ignoring the squelching noise coming from his waterlogged shoes.
“I’m going to climb out on a limb here and assume you must be Fern Summers.” He offered her the cloth. “So, uh, welcome home.”
A pair of luminous green eyes peered up at him, framed by a tumble of white-blonde hair. He’d been wrong before. She wasn’t an angel. She was a fucking goddess. All soft curves and long limbs, like she’d just walked off the page of one of the calendars his old man had pinned up in whatever place they were calling home that week. They’d been the centrepiece of every teenage fantasy he’d ever had, and now one was sitting in his pub, looking at him with a face that could tempt the saints themselves to sin.
“I’m Fern Wilk—Summers. At least, I think I am.” She gave him an uncertain smile and took the cloth from him, their fingers touching for just a moment.
That tiny bit of contact was enough to make his heart do a two-step and send half the blood in his body flying south faster than a flock of geese at the first sign of frost. Thank the Goddess, he was wearing an apron, which did a nice job of hiding the tent he’d popped in the front of his jeans.
“Fern. You’re my Fern. I know it,” Shaz insisted. His fur was plastered to his skin and his usual look of disdain was gone, replaced by a plaintive hopefulness that made Orion feel sorry for him. On the plus side, at least he was sober-ish now.
Without a word, he leaned down and scooped Shaz up in one hand, depositing him on the table in front of Fern.
Hunter rushed out of the back room with his mate only two steps behind him. Jim was carrying enough towels to soak up half the Pacific Ocean, and Hunter was lugging a massive industrial first aid kit. “What happened! Who got hurt?”
“And who needs a towel?” Jim asked.
Orion raised a hand. “I need towels over here for Shaz and me, and so will the wet witch over…” he trailed off. He’d only had his back turned for a few seconds, but the woman who’d called herself Tiffany had managed to transform herself. The drowned rat look had been traded for a flirty red sundress, shoes that could probably pay his heating bill for the whole damned winter, and a tumble of glossy brown tresses. The only proof it was the same woman were the scratches that crisscrossed her bare arms and legs, as well as a still-bleeding slash across the bridge of her nose.
