by Jason Beil
bedraggled, unfurnished mess of old carpet and torn tapestries. Around the room were various out of place items: an old anchor, a musket rifle, a space helmet, and a dishwasher being the main things that stuck to his consciousness. He sauntered over to the musket and reached out a hand towards it.
“Do not touch that! It’s Deidre’s!” the old woman screeched.
“Right, well who are you?”
She threw her arms dramatically wide as she announced herself.
“I am Deidre! The Exorcising Enchantress of the East!”
“Erm… so you’re Deidre?” He frowned and pointed with the fish. “And all this belongs to Deidre?” He wafted the fish around, almost releasing it. “So… all this is yours. Yes?”
“Everything around you belongs to Deidre! Deidre shall soon be the one true magical ruler of Satya!” She strutted towards him. “With that blithering, useless Warlock of the West is gone, and his brother from the North banished, only my sister and I remain to contest for the honor!”
“So you’re nuts then?” he sighed. “Look. I have to sort out some gifts and a cake and—”
“I’ve already told you,” she growled, “Harvey is a gutless, useless excuse for a giant! It’s been his birthday for years! He’s sent hundreds of worthless imbeciles into the kingdom hunting for his cake and presents!”
“So… what happened to them?” Bob asked, edging away from Deidre. Daffy Deidre, his brain screamed. Deidre the… Deadly.
“Who knows?” Her hands fluttered like birds released from their cages. “Who cares? What’s important is the war!”
“What war?”
“The war, you idiot! Haven’t you been listening at all? Mortals!” Deidre spat the word, making it sound like a curse. “A universe full of choices, and I’m stuck with a mortal!”
There was a thunderous rapping at the door.
“Don’t open it!” screeched Deidre.
But Bob, figuring anything bad for Deidre was good for him, turned the knob and flung the door open. A tall lean figure stood there, scowling. Bob stood transfixed. Surely he had seen this face before, but how? Where? The man’s cane came up and hit Bob’s chest with a meaty thunk!
“Where,” Lupo thundered, “is my daughter?”
“Your… daughter?” Bob blinked at the man.
“Are you hard of hearing?” the tall man demanded. “My daughter! Sara! Where is she?”
“Oh! Sara’s your daughter!”
The tall man’s mouth twisted in a snarl, exposing canines bigger (and pointier!) than they should have been.
“Didn’t I just say so? Where is she?”
Bob shook his head. “I left her at the house.”
The man frowned but allowed the cane to drop. For the first time he seemed to notice Bob was not alone.
“Well, Deidre?” he purred. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
“Might as well come in now that you’re here,” spat Deidre. “Whoever you are.”
“You know her, Mr. North?” Bob was horrified to find his voice going into a squeaky timbre, but couldn’t stop himself from speaking. “Where are we, and what’s going on?”
“Please allow me to reintroduce myself to both of you. I am Lupo, the Werewolf Wizard of the North!”
Almost instantly on hearing the name, realization dawned on Deidre’s face, quickly followed by terror.
“Lu… Lu… Lupo?” Deidre stammered. “Aren’t you dead? I mean… we saw… we were there… all those years ago! Your Northern Fortress is long destroyed. How can this be?”
Lupo and Deidre launched into a huge argument over how his fortress had been destroyed and what part Deidre herself had played in the events. Carefully, still carrying the fish, Bob managed to withdraw strategically through the door and out of the castle. He jogged down the path and turned up a street that appeared to lead towards the centre of the city. Ignoring the rain, he headed away from the still audible raised voices behind him.
Sara’s anger accelerated her transformation. As she grew to almost seven feet tall, the witch turned, and a wide grin broke out across her face.
“Now that’s what I’m talking about!” she exclaimed, clapping and hopping from foot to foot.
She suddenly produced a large leather collar from thin air and threw it magically around Sara’s neck, “And that should make certain you do as you’re told!”
Sara grabbed at the collar, but her hand suddenly became a paw. She batted frantically but ineffectually at the collar that stretched and changed shape as she did. The Change did not come upon her in the common way. It was faster. It felt awful. Her stomach roiled and emptied itself in a spew of liquids. She thought she lost consciousness for a time.
When she came into herself, she was not the wolf she was accustomed to becoming. She was… something else. She turned her head, surveying such parts of her body as she could manage. Shock changed to fear which became outrage.
“You… you witch!” she cried.
At least those were the words she’d intended. But her voice came out in a shrill yapping that set her tormentor into shrieks of laughter.
A poodle! The old b— witch had changed her into a freakin’ teacup poodle!
But the witch’s lisp had let her down. The incantation had only halfway stuck; the other half of it was part of a spell the old witch didn’t even know. Or maybe a little of many spells all slopped together. Who could tell? Most of the gods were just trying to avoid getting sprayed.
Peeling her lips back from her long fangs, Sara the freakin’ teacup poodle in heat advanced on the uneasy witch with her purple-assed baboon butt forward, demanding an attention that she was determined, with a feral ferocity, she would not be denied.
Unfortunately for Vivian, she was laughing too hard to issue any commands. She back-pedaled furiously, bumping into chairs, tables, mysterious chests, and the corner of the hearth, before she stopped, trapped in a corner. The frustrated and feverish teacup poodle ran up to her growling and yapping, squatted, and peed on Vivian’s foot.
Vivian shuffled back, but not fast enough. A stream of liquid struck her ankle, burning like acid on the witch’s flesh. A hastily-muttered incantation nullified the damage but did not diminish the pain.
“You…” Vivian’s lips quivered as a thousand things fluttered through her mind. “You… dog!”
“You made me, baby!” Sara somehow managed to make the dog’s yaps into semi-coherent words. “You get what you pay for!” Her lips pulled back, exposing her tiny fangs in a horrible parody of a smile. “You don’t mess around with the daughter of the Werewolf Wizard of the North and not pay consequences.”
“Pah! That mangy flea-bitten excuse for a wizard has been missing for years!”
“Just where do you think he’s been,” Sara snarled in a high pitched voice, “and where do you think I came from? He’ll be looking for me, don’t worry.”
Vivian just stood there frozen looking at Sara.
“You mean he’s… he’s not missing? He’s still alive?”
Vivian tried to move but couldn’t. Her eyes rolled back in her head. Her mouth dropped open, a gaping oval of… what? Surprise? Fear? Her face had gone a shade that Sara hadn’t seen since she stumbled across Old Man McPherson’s recently-killed corpse a couple of years ago. That had been Lupo’s doing.
Sara shook the stray thoughts away. If she was going to get away, now was the time. A teacup poodle … Oh, H-E-double toothpicks! No time to Shape-change, and no guarantee she could change anyway since the witch had screwed with her abilities.
Too late to worry about that now. Daddy would know what to do… if she ever found him.
She gathered herself and raced past Vivian. The witch collected her wits enough to make a lunging grab. Just for an instant, her fingers caught a tangle of poodle hair. Without breaking stride, Sara snapped her head around and sank her tiny teeth into the witch’s hand. A screech—equal parts rage and pain—signaled success in a most gratifying way. Sara pulled free, mouth cont
orting around the sour tang of witch blood, and ran from the house.
Hugo (or Westie, as he was sometimes called), stepped through the apartment quickly, finding some clothes in the wardrobe in Bob’s room. He stretched for what felt like the hundredth time.
“Nine Earth years trapped inside that dog’s body!” he growled to himself. “Nine! Who knows how many decades have passed in the old realm!”
He returned to the kitchen. The firemen, having found no fire to fight, had left the house. But looking through the window Hugo saw a group still gathered outside. Ignoring them, he scanned the room and found the laundry chute with glowing traces of the “olde magicke” still showing. He smiled a knowing smile. He had found a way home.
His only regret was leaving Jane. She had just about fainted when he had used a stick to point to the magnet letters on her refrigerator door. Once she had accepted his story as true, she never talked down to him, or forgot who he really was. She had been a good companion, but she knew someday he would return to his homeland, and his power.
Regrets or no, he had business to attend.
“Time for a little payback,” he snarled, launching himself into the abyss.
Harvey sat at his kitchen table, pouting sadly. “Little man won’t bring cake and presents!” he sighed. “Harv got no friends!”
He looked silently at the calendar. It was indeed the forty-first of Antrakky. It was indeed his birthday!
“RIGHT!” he growled, banging the table and catapulting a fork, which embedded itself into the cupboard door. “Harv find own cake… and own
