Shame of Clones: A Paranormal Romantic Comedy (Karma Inc. Files Book 3)

by Melanie James

  “Cloned him? Hypnosis? Cooking dinner with a clone? Ugh! His brain will never come back from the mental torture you two are inflicting upon him.” Throwing my hands up in the air in defeat, I did an about-face and went out the door.

  The drive downtown gave me time to think. I told myself, “One step at a time and I’ll get through this wedding, solve the problem with magic, and bring Gabe home from the Arctic. Simple.”

  I exited the Eisenhower Expressway and immediately spotted Gertie on a corner. She was facing a group of young men, her hands fluttering in a vaguely familiar pattern. “Gertie! Get in!” She obeyed, just as Randy leapt into the back. “What’s that all about?”

  “I was communicating with those young men. They use a strange sign language,” Gertie explained.

  “Ugh.” Randy slapped his forehead. “She saw them throwing gang signs so she thought they were saying hello. Only she was replying by doing the itsy-bitsy spider.”

  “Jesus.”

  Brad jumped over the back, landing in the seat next to Randy.

  “So what’s the deal with broom magic? We had no idea it was messed up. Now it doesn’t work at all. We’ve been trying for an hour. Calling you was the last resort.”

  “Witchcraft is completely unpredictable. Until we get it sorted out, we’ll have to get by the old fashioned way,” I replied.

  Something was wrong. All three of them seemed unusually quiet. I had my suspicions, of course. Namely, tensions caused by the spider web of triangular romance they must be trapped in. But I figured that drama could wait. I had enough on my mind.

  “Gertie, would you mind putting your skills to work on my dress for Saturday? And I need to let you know, I have a few house guests. Ezzy, Barney, a deranged professor, and Gabe’s clone.”

  “My, my, you have been a busy witch, Sis,” Randy sneered.

  I spent the rest of the drive home explaining everything and how I’d gotten into such a mess.

  “Well, I’m glad we’re not alone. A witch can sure get herself into a pickle these days,” Gertie said.

  I wasn’t certain but I thought Randy poked Gertie, as if she had said too much.

  “Hmm, I guess,” I replied in agreement, but I knew there was more to her pickle than an accidental arrival in Garfield Park.

  Chapter Twenty

  Randy the Hypnotist

  Gertie completed my fitting and went to work on my dress, and I was determined to have a talk with my brother. Unfortunately, Ezzy had already conscripted him.

  “Randy, meet the nutty professor.”

  “Smerdy, smerd.”

  “Normally, I would whip up a truth serum and a clarity spell. But with magic being in such a dismal state and all, we need to go out on a limb and try something more unconventional; psychiatry. Randy, you said you’ve actually seen a hypnotist in action? And he didn’t use any magic?”

  “Sure, I saw a hypnotist at a show. I remember it perfectly. After getting a volunteer on stage, he swung a pendant in front of her. He had totally hypnotized that woman into thinking she was a dog. And the next volunteer was a guy who gave an entire account of his previous life.”

  “Really? What was he before? Someone cool like a secret agent or a fighter pilot?”

  “Naw. In his previous life he filled pot holes for the Minnesota Department of Transportation. Didn’t find out how he died though. The woman who thought she was a dog bit him in the leg. It was pretty traumatic. Still, it seemed like an easy enough trick to do.”

  “But, can you put Professor Q-tip under hypnosis?” Ezzy asked, unfastening a thin silver chain from her neck. From the chain hung a delicate pentacle-shaped charm. “You can use this pendant.”

  “Can’t hurt to try,” Randy shrugged, taking the necklace.

  “Famous last words,” I mumbled.

  “Professor, keep your eyes on this shiny silver star,” Randy said, speaking in an uncharacteristically low and calm voice. The professor’s eyes rolled from side to side, tracing the arc of the swinging pendant. “That’s it, professor. It’s so relaxing, isn’t it?”

  “Smurdy, smur.”

  “Yes, and it’s making you very, very sleepy. So sleepy that you’re going to fall into such a deep sleep. But you’ll still hear us asking you questions. You’ll be able to talk again and you’ll answer all of them. Now go to sleep.”

  “Smurrrr.” The old man’s chin dropped to his chest.

  He wasn’t the only one knocked out. Gabe 2.0 must have been paying attention. Like a felled tree, he crashed down face-first on top of Barney.

  “Ow! You fucking beast!” Barney squealed. “Help! Someone get this big ape off me!”

  Brad rolled Gabe 2.0 over, allowing Ezzy to drag Barney free. While they attended to the commotion, I sat next to Randy, ready to interrogate his subject.

  “Professor, why are you afraid of the little bronze statue of Hecate?”

  “She wants them back.”

  “What does she want back?”

  “All of them. The pieces of her temple. She has been trying to find me. Build temple. Statue becomes the spirit woman. Hecate.”

  “You know, I was afraid that would be the case. So this spirit woman is Hecate, and she is making you reassemble her temple? You have the pieces in the museum?”

  “She wills it.”

  Ezzy, leaning close to the professor, took over the questioning. “She must be a very dominant woman. Do you know why she wants her temple rebuilt?”

  “She wills it.”

  “Pshh. Come on professor, you can do better than that. Why did you have all that money in your office?”

  “Business is booming.”

  Barney hopped in, joining the cross examination. “Business? I bet you are into some monkey business. Come on, spill it, Doc. Are you and Hecate in cahoots? Got some racket going on? Did you know that witch turned me into stone? I bet you know all about it, you sly bastard. You ain’t afraid of her, are you? It’s just an act! Why…”

  Ezzy stood straight up. She had an epiphany. “That’s it! It’s Hecate! She’s sucking up magic. Remember what you told us, Barney? She was running out of magic and had to recharge. She’s the reason witchcraft has been getting screwed up.”

  Ezzy’s hypothesis made perfect sense to me. “Exactly! And I bet she’s been using the professor as a pawn to rebuild her black magic temple.”

  Randy leaned back, swinging Ezzy’s necklace like it was a yo-yo. “See ladies? Aren’t you glad I’m here to save the day with my skills? My work here is complete.”

  Startled by Randy’s undisciplined phraseology, Professor Horowitz finally snapped out of his hypnotic state. “What? Who the hell are you people? Where am I?” His eyeballs darted around so fast they looked like they had become detached.

  Barney slapped his webby hands on the professor’s shoulders, shouting, “Whoa! Take it easy, Doc. You’re gonna hurt yourself.”

  “A frog! It talks!” he shouted back. Knocking Barney to the floor, the professor bolted straight for the front door.

  Fortunately, Brad scooped the little old man up and returned him to the living room chair. “It’s okay, Professor. Nobody is going to hurt you.”

  “Don’t look at me. I never make that sort of promise,” Ezzy added.

  The poor man visibly trembled. “Why am I here? What happened to me?”

  I pushed Barney aside. Kneeling beside the professor, I took his hand. “We found you in your office. You were in a stupefied condition. I mean, all you could do was shuffle your feet and mumble.” I had no intention of revealing that the cause of his condition was an errant blast of Ezzy’s shoddy magic.

  He took a deep breath, leaned back, and lifted his chin. “Who are you and what business did you have in my office?” he said with a defiant squint. Pointing an accusatory little finger at Ezzy, he added, “Weren’t you the sleazy fake maintenance woman I met in the basement? What were you really after?”

  “Sleazy?” Ezzy’s head recoiled. “I might be a lot of thi
ngs, but sleazy and fake aren’t included. You’ve got a lot of balls, saying that to a witch who’s already scrambled your brain once.”

  “A witch? So that’s what this is about? Her? Damn you! Damn all of you!” Without waiting for our response, the professor jumped up and sprinted for the door. Dodging Brad’s grasp, he found freedom.

  “What are you waiting for? Go catch his ass!” Barney yelled.

  “Nope. Just let him go,” Ezzy said nonchalantly. “Didn’t you see how he ran from us only after he found out I was a witch? I think we know enough. Hecate has been manipulating him, forcing him to do her bidding. He probably thought we were working for her.”

  I was dumbfounded. “So if Professor Horowitz has been cajoled into being her human lackey, don’t you think we should work with him to get close to Hecate? I think it would be a great strategy. I don’t usually say this, but Barney’s right. We should catch him and then we’ll try again to explain that we’re the good guys here. He could work for us, against her.”

  “Yeah! Like a double agent!” Randy cheered along.

  Ezzy wagged her finger at us as if we were unruly teenagers. “Listen, geniuses, you may have forgotten something. We are basically powerless, in the literal sense. Our magic powers have dwindled down to diddly-squat. Even combined, we’d be nothing more than a nuisance to Hecate. You think Professor Poodle Hair would be willing to throw his lot in with us? Hah! No. Forget him. To get to Hecate, and get our powers back, we have to rely on something completely new to us.”

  “Like a different, new kind of magic?” I asked, quite unsure of where Ezzy was going with her strategy.

  Gertie surprised me by her presence. She joined in, waving her arm. “Ooh, I think I know!”

  “You don’t have to raise your hand, kiddo,” Ezzy mumbled.

  “Okay.” She handed me the dress, offering her answer. “She means we’ll have to use our brains. Am I right, Ezzy?”

  “For those of us who have them, yes,” she replied. “Let’s all think this over. Sleep on it. We’ll talk again tomorrow.”

  Barney hopped up into her arms, holding one of my old college textbooks. “Is this the kind of art you were talking about earlier, baby?”

  She leafed through glossy pages filled with photographs of sculptures as they walked out of the room. “Come on, Barney, let’s take a look at some Renaissance art. When you eventually get a human body, I get to have a say in what form you’ll be.”

  I glanced up at Gertie and she gave me a wink. “You want to know something, Kelly? I don’t need a brain to know Ezzy’s fallen for Barney.”

  “I think you are absolutely correct.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Gertie’s Confession

  Gabe 2.0 sat up, shaking his head in an attempt to throw off the fuzziness from being accidentally hypnotized.

  “Gabe 2.0, please go to the kitchen and bring coffee for us.”

  “Yes, Mistress Kelly.”

  Randy, Brad, and Gertie silently watched Gabe 2.0 leave the room. “Mistress Kelly? What have you done?” Randy was beside himself, doubling over with glee.

  “No, you don’t understand. I can explain.”

  “Oh, I think I understand, but please, share your naughty story, Sis.”

  “Gabe was sent to the Arctic on a special assignment to jack… I mean to help Alaska with a muskox reproduction study. Ezzy thought it would be a good idea to clone Gabe and have them trade places. Then Gabe could be with me, attend the wedding, and so on. But with broom travel grounded, Gabe 2.0 is stuck here. And to make matters worse, Ezzy threw in something extra to make Gabe 2.0 a very attentive lover. Just to be clear, Gabe 2.0 is not and will not be my substitute lover. Ever. It was her mistake and we’re working around it.”

  “Working around it? Ha ha! I bet you are.”

  “Excuse me, Kelly. Didn’t Marie say the clones have an expiration date? You know, just poof! And they’re gone?”

  “Apparently that is not the case with Gabe 2.0.”

  “Weird. Because neither do ours—” Gertie suddenly covered her mouth with both hands.

  “Damn. Here it comes,” Randy moaned and walked out of the room. “I’m going to see what’s taking so long with that coffee.”

  “Ha! Spill it, Gertie!” I commanded.

  “We cloned Randy.” Gertie huffed and dropped her hands as she sat down. “Well. It all got started with an idea Brad and I had about having some extra help with the chores. Especially cleaning the dragon’s nests. It’s messy and nobody likes to do it.”

  “Okay. But why clone Randy?”

  “Umm. Well. You see.” Gertie’s face glowed like a red Christmas bulb.

  “I…” Brad coughed. “I’m going to give them a hand with the coffee,” he said, speed-walking out of the room.

  Gertie’s tongue flipped into overdrive as she tried to explain everything as fast as she could. I suppose she thought it would be best to get it over with. “You know our living arrangement. And being a young woman and all, living with two men. In love with one man, and being best of friends with another handsome young man, even though he’s as gay as a waiter. And, well, I’ve seen him, you know. Without his skivvies on and that. Doing some things boys will do alone. He didn’t know. Of course, my God. What kind of person am I to watch something like that? And so later I got some strange thoughts. They came in a dream I had, once or twice. No more than a dozen times. Actually, there was more to it. I dreamt about being with Brad and Randy, at the same time. Little tiny me, the focus of two handsome men’s unbridled passion. I was the center of attention. My God! What kind of girl thinks of these things? I’m terrible! I mean, they were taking turns, and taking me from both ends and—”

  “Okay, okay. You can skip the details. Trust me, I have a better idea than I care to have. I think it would be best if we take this conversation someplace more private. Follow me.” I led Gertie up to my room and locked the door. “I wouldn’t want Ezzy or Barney to hear any of this. Go ahead and finish your story.”

  “Now it was all just lust, mind you. I began to wonder what was happening. I was thinking maybe I was possessed by an immoral demon. So, then I asked Brad what was wrong with me for thinking of such… such a lewd and depraved situation.”

  “Oh no. Did he flip out?”

  “I was a bit worried too. But what do you know? He says it’s perfectly natural for our minds to run fantasies by us in our dreams. Brad said maybe because he has been my first and only lover, ever, maybe my subconscious, or whatever it is, was getting curious. He said maybe it’s because of having our best friend Randy living with us. That and the fact that I spied on Randy when he was bashing the bishop.”

  “I’m just going to pretend I didn’t hear that last bit of information. But I get it, Gertie. It’s perfectly okay to have a dream that surprises you once in a while. It’s a way for the mind to work out all the weird shit we come across on any given day.”

  “I was fine with forgetting the whole deal. But those boys, let me tell you what they did. A while back, I guess they plotted to indulge me a bit. I suppose having a little fun at my expense. It happened out on the porch one night, in the dark. Let’s just say more than one set of hands were giving me attention. Just hands, though. To be clear.”

  “Crystal.”

  “So things were all back to normal, but then something happened. First, I have to confess a naughty secret. Brad and I sometimes like to play around in the bedroom with some make-believe story time. One night, guess what Brad said? He said if Randy wasn’t such a good friend he would invite him in with us just one time. Well, I nearly passed out! But we agreed too many issues stood in the way. One being that Randy is gay, and secondly, it might ruin our friendship. So it was a silly idea and we pushed it aside.”

  “Of course! So that was the end of it, right? I hope.”

  “So I’m all good with it for weeks. But one night Kate and Wills—you know, our sasquatches—they brought Max’s silly bong pipe into the kitchen.
They stunk the place up fierce. For some unknown reason, Brad, Randy, and I became as dizzy as a bucket of squirrels on a roller coaster. We were beside ourselves laughing about nothing in particular.”

  “The Devil’s lettuce!” I said, trying not to laugh too hard.

  “I think it was. And being the fool I am, I told Randy everything Brad and I had discussed in private. I mean for no apparent reason, I blurted it out. Everything.”

  “Seriously, Gertie? Everything?”

  “No detail was left out. You could use the term ‘explicit’ to describe what I told him.”

  “Oh my God. Randy must have been seriously pissed off.”

  “Not at all. He teased us and said it was a great idea, but since Brad is straight as an arrow, he’d never ever take us up on the offer anyway. We all had a great laugh. I thought that was the end of it.”

  “Oh God. But wait, there’s more.”

  “Yes. After our recent trip to Marie Laveau’s, where we met her clones, Brad, Randy, and I hatched the idea of cloning some help with the dragons.”

  “Yes, like you said earlier. What does that have to do with this unholy story you’ve shared?”

  “Unbeknownst to me, Brad and Randy concocted another plan. They made Randy’s clone to be his substitute with a taste for women, if you know what I mean. They said he’d only be around for forty-eight hours. And it took me every last one of those forty-eight hours to consider it before I declined the offer of engaging in such depravity.”

  “Whew. I’m relieved you didn’t go through with it, Gertie. Clone or not, I just think there would be residual issues messing up your happy plantation.”

  “I know. But I still wonder sometimes. And to make it worse, Randy’s clone is still lurking around! Just like your Gabe 2.0, he didn’t disappear! Apparently, the clones aren’t reaching their expiration dates. It must be related to the rest of our magic problems. At least he is very obedient. We have him so busy with chores he doesn’t intrude. But I feel awful. What’s worse? Cloning your friend to use as a living sex toy or keeping him around like a beast of burden? Sweet Jaysus, just listen to me! I’m fairly certain the devil has a suite in hell reserved for the lot of us.”