Poppy swallowed, smoothing the leggings she wore as part of her Paul Stanley costume over her knees. “Just one question? That’s all I get? That seems wholly unfair. This is a crisis hotline, isn’t it?”
“Is that how you want to spend your one question—in negotiations?”
She blinked and came to her senses almost instantly. “No! Sorry. Okay. My one question. Why does your cat talk, lady? Why am I sitting here, outside what was supposed to be a fun, easy DJ-ing gig for some extra vacation money at my best friend’s Halloween Party turned waking nightmare, with a talking cat?”
“Put the GD talking cat on the phone, Cupcake,” Nina’s husky voice demanded.
Poppy paused with a frown and considered how exactly to do that. “Like, hold the phone to its ear? Are you serious?”
“Is the cat talking to you, Princess?” Nina snarled.
Poppy squirmed on the uncomfortable garden wall of bricks she’d perched herself on after this series of unfortunate events had all gone down. “Well, yeah…”
“Then is it a stretch it would talk to me, too, Kumquat? Now put the cat on the GD phone!”
Poppy pulled her cell from her ear and held it up to the cat, putting the phone on speaker. “She wants to talk to you. As in you, the cat. The talking cat.”
There was just no way around this. This was really happening. Or it felt like it was really happening. Maybe someone had dropped acid in her drink? A roofie? No. She’d be passed out if she’d been roofied. Right?
Besides, she was always careful about where she set her water. Even at a party hosted by a friend, she took precautions, because that’s just how Poppy McGuillicuddy rolled. Cautiously.
The cat blinked its overly large, utterly mesmerizing eyes and cocked its head, leaning closer to the phone. “That you, Pale One?”
“That you, Catastrophe?”
“It’s Calamity, you ridiculously, unfairly gorgeous waste of a great ass. We got some shit. Some deep, dark, murky shit going on here.”
“Like?”
Poppy heard the tension in this woman Nina’s voice. She sounded really mad. It almost sounded as if she were the parent and the talking cat was her toddler.
“Calamity? Answer the flippin’ question!” the woman roared in such a forceful way, even the leaves on the trees shook.
The cat, possibly named Calamity—Poppy couldn’t be sure because the woman on the other end of the phone had used two adjectives when addressing said cat—rasped a sigh of full-on exasperation.
“Don’t get your fangs twisted, Blood Lover Lite. Just get here and bring the ditzy blonde with all that lip gloss and hair bleach. Oh, and the nice one who sneaks me the real tuna, not that crap in the can packed in water.”
“Wanda. That’s Wanda, and if she’s sneaking you tuna, I’m going to kick her perfectly mannered ass. What have I told you about tuna, Calamity? What?”
Calamity The Talking Cat lifted her chin. “Oh, blah, blah, blah. Tuna is too rich for my touchy tummy. Blah, blah, blah. Makes me puke all over the carpet in the castle. Blah, blah, blah. You hate cleaning up the chunky effin’ puke. Blah, blah, blah.”
“Exactly. Now, tell me what’s going on, C, or I’m gonna make you wear those stupid sweaters with the glitter on them from the Martha Stewart Collection at PetSmart every day for a GD week.”
Calamity rocked back on her hind paws and gasped in outraged horror. “You wouldn’t! Fuck, those are ugly, you monster.”
“Sooo would,” the husky voice crooned with a tone screaming devilish glee. “I’d damn well grin from ear to ear while I did that shit, too. Now what’s going on? Spit it the fuck out now.”
Calamity rolled to her back, inching along the bricks to scratch her spine, her response rather cavalier, considering the magnitude of the alleged incident. “So there was an accident at a party I’m at, and as a byproduct of this accident, something happened. Not a big deal, really. Nothing I can’t handle.”
“What accident, Calamity? And why the fuck are you crashing parties? What did I tell you about that shit?”
“As I recall,” Calamity drawled. “You said no wedding crashing. There was nothing about party crashing in general.”
“Don’t you mince motherfluffin’ words with me, Calamity! Now knock it the shit off and—”
There was a muffled sound, as though someone was trying to wrestle the phone from Nina, and then a much sweeter, far more affable voice came on the line. “Calamity, honey? It’s Marty. You know the one. The blonde with all the lipstick and hair bleach? Talk to Auntie Marty, Precious, and tell me what happened so we can help. Maybe it’s not such an emergency after all.”
“That’s Marty. Super nice, fashionista, not very brainy. A werewolf, by the way,” Calamity whispered as though no one but Poppy could hear. Clearing her throat, the cat continued. “So here’s the prob in a nutshell. I think. Nothing for certain here, mind you, but I think I turned the party DJ into one of my own.”
“A cat?”
“No, Marty—a familiar. I think I turned the DJ into a familiar.”
“You think?” Auntie Marty repeated, her tone still almost as sweet with only a hint of an angry tremor.
There was more rustling and another muffled, “Give me the damn phone, Ass Sniffer,” before the mean one named Nina was back on the line. “Location!” she bellowed, making Poppy wince. “Now, Calamity!”
As Calamity The Talking Cat rattled off the location, Poppy looked at the inside of her wrist and ran a finger over the raised picture now on her flesh, growing more dazed and confused by the second.
Sure, there was a half-moon tattoo-ish looking thing with a sprinkle of stars across the center of it in a place she had no recollection of ever getting a tattoo. In fact, she didn’t have any tattoos at all. Her mother would kill her if she got a tattoo, but this was what had convinced the cat, er, Calamity, that she was now a familiar.
Whatever one of those was. She vaguely remembered watching Charmed as a teenager and the mention of familiars, but that had been a long time ago, and the definition of one and their place in the witch world were both very vague.
Holding her wrist up, she inspected the mark in question under the light of the streetlamps. Maybe it was one of those temporary tattoos, and this was all a joke? Licking her finger, Poppy scrubbed it over her skin, but the half-moon remained clear as day.
All right. So this wasn’t some kind of joke.
“What in the fresh hell are you doing?” Calamity asked, dancing over the garden wall, swatting at dust particles.
“Trying to figure out if this is all some elaborate prank played on me by my BFF.”
“You mean the skinny one dressed up like Kanye West, guzzling that cheap bottle of Boones Farm like it was her last night on earth while she rocked back and forth pressed up to the guy dressed like Kim Kardashian, who was at least ten years younger than her and stoned half out of his gourd?”
Poppy smiled briefly. Her pal Mel had never graduated college-level drinking. Even at thirty-four, she was still boozing it up like she was twenty. In fact, she was still dating like she was twenty.
She sighed in resignation. “Yeah, that’s her.”
Calamity snorted indignantly, the small puff of air turning to a cloud of condensation. “She couldn’t even make decent appetizers—Triscuits and Vienna sausages in a can do not a party make. Even a heathen troglodyte would turn their nose up at that crap. That in mind, do you really think someone dressed as Kanye West is capable of pulling off some shit like this?”
Poppy put her arm back at her side and looked directly into the cat’s mesmerizing eyes, trying to rationalize—or maybe the better word was minimize—what was currently happening.
“What exactly is this shit? I just have a tattoo I don’t remember getting. So what? Lot’s of people have tattoos they don’t remember getting. In fact, half my night-school college class has tattoos they don’t remember getting. Big deal.”
Calamity cocked her head as though ass
essing her. “Well, sure. That’s true. You could sweep this shit under the carpet with some implausible, farfetched explanation. But you’re also talking to a cat like Dr. Doolittle’s spirit took possession of your body. So there’s that. What more proof do you need?”
Poppy winced. “Like you said, maybe I’ve been drugged?”
Calamity made a clicking noise in the back of her throat. “You won’t be able to use that excuse when you wake up tomorrow, and you’re in the same boat. Because you’ll still be a familiar, and I’ll still be talking.”
Pulling off the Paul Stanley Afro wig, Poppy ran her hands through her hair and sighed again. “Okay, so if I’m not drugged, and this isn’t some version of Punk’d complete with sound effects and live animation, what is this shit?”
“This shit is bullshit. That’s what this shit is,” a familiar voice from the shadows groused.
As if out of nowhere, three women appeared, their hair billowing about their shoulders in the frigid winds of Staten Island, their strides confident, their eyes focused and glimmering in the night. Like some new millennium Charlie’s Angels, they strode toward her with confidence, all long legs, beautiful clothing, expensive perfume and glittery jewelry.
Well, except for the dark one. She had long legs and the billowy hair for sure, but she wasn’t dressed like she was going to the same party the other two women were. She wore work boots, a thick black hoodie, low-slung black jeans and a big ol’ scowl on her utterly perfect, scarily pale face.
“You Poppy?” she demand-asked, coming to stand in front of her, arms crossed over her hoodie-covered chest.
She gulped, looking up into this woman’s flashing coal-black eyes. “Will a brutal beating follow if I say yes?”
The blonde woman with loads of swirly hair and clacking jewelry nudged the dark-haired woman in the ribs with a frown. “I’m sorry for how abrupt Nina is. You’ll adjust as we move forward. Forget her and focus on me. I’m Marty Flaherty, this ogre is Nina Statleon, and this,” she pointed just over her shoulder to the tall chestnut-haired lady with mahogany highlights, “is Wanda Jefferson. We’re OOPS, and we’re here to help.” Then she smiled, dazzlingly white and perfect.
As though the wind had re-inflated her sails, Poppy jumped up, putting a defensive hand in front of her. “Help with what? This is all crazy. Look, I don’t know what the cat told you or why it even insisted I call you. Forget about the fact that it can speak and has the ability to use a phone. We’ll get to that later. Now, I looked at your website online, and it says you help people in paranormal crisis. I don’t know if that means you host drug interventions for ghosts—do ghosts become addicts or were they addicts before they died and need ongoing afterlife care? For that matter, what does ‘paranormal crisis’ even mean and why am I supposedly having one?”
The woman named Nina reached for Poppy’s wrist so fast, so freakishly fast, Poppy gasped. “I’m gonna ask you to chill the fuck out, okay? Stop gettin’ all jenky with your hands because you don’t want to get defensive with the likes o’ me. Now breathe, Petunia.”
It was almost a relief to have someone give her some direction. Bending at the waist, she let her hands rest on her knees, and her head hang low. “Maybe we should start over and reintroduce ourselves?”
Nina put a hand on the back of her head, keeping her face pointed downward at the driveway. “I said breathe, Rock Star—great costume, by the way. Paul Stanley’s no fucking Barry Manilow, but you killed the makeup. Now, get your shit together. While you do that, I’m gonna kick the living crap out of my damn familiar for ignoring my house rules, and then we’ll make nice, and I’ll explain what we do at OOPS and all that bullshit.”
Poppy blinked as the blood rushed to her head in a swoosh of pounding waves. “The cat’s yours?”
Nina snorted. “It sure as fuck wasn’t my idea, but yeah. She’s mine.”
“It talks.” She realized she kept saying that, but c’mon! Wasn’t anyone else as in awe of that fact?
Nina clucked her tongue in admonishment. “Been down this road, Poppy. You’re getting repetitive. A sure sign you’re playing possum.”
She tried to lift her head, but Nina’s hand was like a vise grip, forcing her to keep her eyes level with her feet. “Possum?”
“Yeah, it’s when everyone says they’re fine while they beat their panic down, bottle it the fuck up or whatever so they can give good face, which always leads to total meltdown. It’s pathetic and ugly, and usually involves tears and loads of the sympathy I’m working really hard to get better at giving because my therapist says I suck ass at it.”
“This is your version of sympathy?”
“This is me working on being sympathetic. Don’t fuck up my flow.”
“So you’ve done this before? This crisis thing?” If that was true, that almost made her feel better. Almost. Though, she still couldn’t quite connect the dots between what had happened back at the house to needing a crisis counselor. Still, she didn’t sense these women were dangerous.
In fact, she was very clear about the notion they weren’t dangerous. Though, why the feeling was so vivid, she couldn’t say. She possessed her own kind of intuition for sure, but it was a very average sort of intuition. This? Well, this sort of intuition was different.
Nina’s patted the back of her head before her cool fingers clasped her neck. “More times than Marty’s got lipsticks. Keep breathing.”
“I’m really dizzy,” Poppy complained, her spine beginning to ache.
“It’s those pants,” Nina commented. “Always wondered how Stanley managed to squeeze into ’em without popping the top of his head off.
A soft hand reached down and grabbed Poppy’s, pulling her up and holding her firm when she stumbled from lack of blood flow. “Let her up, Nina.” The lady named Marty righted Poppy and smiled. “So tell us what happened so we best know how to help you.”
Poppy stared at the woman with eyes of cornflower blue and hair in more shades of blonde than she even knew existed, and thought about her request. She wasn’t quite sure how this had happened…or if anything had really happened at all.
Marty pressed with a warm smile, “Poppy, honey? How did this happen?”
Words escaped her.
But they didn’t escape the cat. It hopped down from the garden wall and wound its long tail around Marty’s legs. “Ask me, Bleached One. I know how it happened.”
The woman named Wanda bent and scooped the cat up, snuggling her close to her porcelain cheek with a smile. “What kind of mischief have you been into now, Miss Calamity?” she asked, her tone oozing indulgence.
Calamity purred in return, curling into Wanda’s arms. “It was an accident, I swear, Wanda.”
Nina tweaked the cat’s ear, her face stern against the backdrop of the dark night. “Quit coddlin’ her like she’s some baby, Wanda. She was out way past curfew, which is bullshit. She damn well knows better. And lay off the tuna when I’m not lookin’. It makes her puke.”
Wanda flapped an irritated hand at Nina before resuming her cuddle with the cat. “Hush. She’s just acting out because you’re so hard on her. Now, tell Auntie Wanda what happened here, Calamity, and I promise there’ll be some warm milk tonight before bed.”
Calamity purred and brushed Wanda’s cheek with her paw. “Okay, it went down like this. M to the C to the Guill-i-cudd-E was spinning records at this lame Halloween party—”
“A party you didn’t ask fucking permission to go to,” Nina growled, her black eyes narrowing as she jammed her hands into her hoodie pockets.
Calamity stopped purring and gave Nina a hard glare. “You don’t ask permission to crash a party, Beastmaster. It’s not a goddamn crash if you ask for entry. Anyway, I was chillin’ to Poppy’s beat and I got a little carried away when I broke out my smooth MC Hammer moves. I tripped on a glass of water, knocked it over on the wiring for the speakers, which I’m pretty sure weren’t up to code, and wham! Almost electrocuted Poppy. So I try to do the right
thing by knocking her wee sprite ass out of the way with my magic, but I slipped and fell into her, and then we both fell—”
“Into the puddle of water!” Poppy spat as she retreated from her fog, the entire episode coming together in a clatter of memory. “That’s exactly what happened! When the cat jumped on me, she dug her claws into my shoulder, and I tripped and fell into the water where the speaker wires were. See?” She pulled her pleather jacket with the stars she’d bedazzled on herself away from her shoulder, pointing to the scratch marks to show the women.
Marty winced, leaning in closer to inspect her wounds.
Nina swished a hand at Marty, pointing to her purse. “Dig around in your mom bag there and get this kid some Neosporin, Blondie.”
But Poppy waved a hand in dismissive fashion. “I swear I saw stars and a big flash of light. Then there was this tingle…like a weird shiver that raced all along my limbs, and then the cat was freaking out and yelling at me to come outside and call you before someone, I can’t remember who, came and picked me up—”
“That bitch Cecily from Familiar Central,” Calamity interjected with a scoff. “Swear, she can smell a newb from a realm away. She’s gonna show up here and demand to take DJ Puts The Needle On The Record back to the realm so she can claim her as her own, and I’ll be dipped in cow dung before I’ll let that happen.”
“Claim me?” Poppy squeaked, scanning the dark neighborhood for this woman named Cecily.
Calamity tilted her head so Wanda could scratch her neck. “Yeah. She gets like frequent flier miles for every newb familiar she sucks into her dark void or some shit. If she gets enough miles, she gets to go to some familiar retreat in Baja. Why the fuck should she get all the miles? I did this to ya, I win. That’s how it works with all familiars who are found or made—in your case, accidentally made—rather than born into the realm, by the way. If one of us finds you, it’s our duty to turn you in. Also, if that crazy hag Cecily gets her hands on you, who knows who the hell you’ll end up with. She just doesn’t care the way I do, and because this was my fault, the least I can do is try to make sure you get a good witch.”
Bad Case of Loving You Page 12
