Switching Witches

by Robyn Peterman

  “Are you fucking serious? There are cat hookers?” I snapped, wishing I’d left the fleshy, horny idiots at home.

  “Jango was a gigolo for a decade back in the 1930’s,” Boba announced as Jango preened.

  Jango Fett marched back and forth in front of us with his tail held high and his tubby belly dragging on the ground. It was all I could do not to laugh. If there ever really was a cat gigolo, Jango didn’t exactly come to mind.

  “I’m gonna pretend I didn’t hear any of that shit,” I said, giving them a look that made them zip it. “We are here to find some freakin’ shenanigans. We are working. I have no clue who we’re looking for or what we’re doing here…”

  “But it’s not pooping,” Sassy added, interrupting me. “You have to hold your poop until we get back to Assjacket. My guess is that there are no toilets in Rump Arena… or litter boxes.”

  “Rupp Arena,” I corrected her. I wasn’t even going to touch the bathroom thing.

  “My bad,” she said, holding her hands up. “I’d suggest a liquid diet while we’re in town. Peeing in the parking lot is far more couth than dropping the kids off at the lake on Vine Street.”

  “Are you done?” I asked, pressing the bridge of my nose.

  “I am,” Sassy replied. “You can finish now. You were doing great. I just wanted to be clear about the poop thing.”

  This was going to be a really long three days. Hopefully, we could find the shenanigans in the first hour and put an end to it. Standing in for Baba Yaga and Cookie Witch was hard and we’d barely begun. I was so not taking this job.

  “Okay,” I said watching a line of horribly dressed fake witches file into the venue. “I believe I can safely say this is going to suck ass. Only use your power if you have to. When we get inside, we’ll split up and case the joint.”

  “Hot Pants,” Fat Bastard said with a wide kitty grin. “Youse is soundin’ like a wise guy.”

  “Thank you. I think,” I told the porcine dummy with a grin of my own. “I just want to say up front, I have no fucking clue what I’m doing. I have no plan. If we need one, I will yank it out of my ass and we’ll wing it. Cool?”

  “I’m in, dollface,” Fat Bastard said. “And if weese sees a feline hooker, weese will walk right past.”

  “Weese will?” Jango asked, appalled.

  “Let me amend,” Fat Bastard corrected himself. “After weese give her our business card and flash our giggle berries, weese will walk on past.”

  “That was entirely too fucking much information,” I said, shaking my head and wanting to zap them. However, I was smarter than that.

  Any magic shot at my crotch goblins came right back at the person who shot it. My fat, hairy ball lickers were the most amazing shields in the Goddess’s Universe. But they were also gross.

  “Just sniff around and see if you detect any real magic in the arena.”

  “Goddess in gauchos,” Sassy squealed. “This is gonna be fun!”

  “Fun isn’t the word that comes to mind,” I muttered, watching more faux witches, mummies and vampires enter the building. “But I can tell you this. We’re dressed really wrong.”

  “Holy shit on a sharp stick,” Sassy said with a laugh. “You’re correct. Baba Yoleaveinformationout forgot to tell us to bring our Halloween costumes.”

  “She most certainly did,” I grumbled. “You ready?”

  “I was born ready, BFF.”

  That was the answer I wanted to hear, but it terrified me at the same time. Sassy and I were a good team, but she wasn’t exactly stable. And since I wasn’t either, it was anyone’s guess how this was going to play out.

  “Let’s do this.”

  Walking across the street in our brightly colored designer dresses that made us stick out like a sore fucking thumb, we entered the Witchypoo Convention. My portly familiars were immediately drawn to a magician sawing a woman in half. Whatever. They’d catch up soon enough.

  It was shenanigans time.

  Chapter Eight

  Back at the Witchypoo Convention…

  * * *

  Dealing with Verruca Trotcackler while checking in had almost made me break my promise not to use magic. My cats had all but disappeared and Baba Yoidiot hadn’t registered us. A teeny tiny bit of magic had been necessary. If Baba didn’t like it, she could kiss my butt. At least I hadn’t enhanced Verruca with warts—and she was asking for it. The asswipe had threatened to send us to the cauldron of eternal flame in Hell until we were fucking crispy, of all things.

  If Verruca was anything like the freaks we were going to encounter, it would take an act of the Goddess to keep me from zapping every person dressed in a black robe and pointy hat.

  The Witchypoo Convention was a hot mess… and someone was dealing in blood.

  “Witches don’t deal in blood, Verruca,” I snapped. “Ever.”

  Verruca’s eyes narrowed and she pursed her black lips unattractively. “How would you know? Someone dressed in Prada is not a real witch. I know a real witch when I see one.”

  Sassy grunted and raised her hands high in the air. Verruca was about to lose a body part—or gain one. I could never tell with Sassy. Shooting Sassy a look that made her reconsider barricading herself back under the table, she reluctantly let her hands fall to her sides.

  Breathing in through my nose and slowly out through my mouth, I got up in Verruca’s face. She was treading on some very thin ice. I took my fashion very seriously. “It’s Stella McCartney. Not Prada. I only wear Prada on Tuesdays, Valencia Snotcracker.”

  “Ohhhh, good one,” Sassy congratulated me.

  “Thank you,” I replied. “And Veronica… you should seriously get your eyes checked.”

  “Why?” she snapped.

  “Because you clearly can’t tell the difference between a real witch and a fake one.”

  On that note, we entered the sacred realm of Magical Mystery and Mayhem. It was a shitshow of epic proportions. There were enough counterfeit witches, vampires and mummies walking around to give me nightmares for the next century or two—but there was also real magic somewhere in the mass of ridiculousness.

  Maybe there really was a reason to check this out. Or, maybe Baba Yaga was right out of her debatably sane mind. But then again, what the Hell did I expect? She did send us to the Witchypoo Convention at Rump Arena in Hexington, Kentucky…

  Let the witch-hunt shenanigans begin.

  “Oh. My. Goddess,” Sassy gasped out, trembling from head to toe.

  “What?” I hissed, frantically looking around for the illusive shenanigans that were freaking Sassy out. “What’s wrong?”

  “Brooms,” she squealed. “They have an enormous broom display.”

  “Dude,” I snapped, whacking her in the head. “Do not do that. I thought you found the fucking shenanigans.”

  “Sorry,” she apologized. “My bad. At least it wasn’t someone pooping.”

  Sassy’s eyes were laser focused on the massive and ridiculous broom display. Fake witches were running around in a big circle with bushy sticks between their legs. I would have laughed if it wasn’t so alarming. How in the Goddess’s name did we get this kind of reputation? Witches were nothing like this.

  “I want the blue one. It matches my eyes. I would look so hot zooming around on that,” Sassy announced.

  “Fine,” I said, giving up. Sassy would be useless unless she got to see the brooms. “But don’t even think about actually flying around the convention hall. There is no way to play that off as a magic trick. If you do, it will result in a permanent Mohawk. You feel me?”

  “Yes!” Sassy squealed as she sprinted over to the brooms, knocking at least six mummies, two vampires and a magician over in her rabid excitement.

  Since Sassy would be there for a while and my cats were probably now searching for feline floozies, that left me to actually do what we were supposed to do. Of course, I had no idea what that was, but I was going to do it anyway. I decided to just take a stroll around and see if
I could find the real magic at the assbaggery event.

  It was like one cavernous indoor garage sale of “magic” crap. The irony was that true magic didn’t need any props—no brooms, no wands. Magic came from the Goddess and the earth she created. Real magic was everywhere. You just had to believe.

  Even humans had their own special kind of magic—not at all like what I had—but many had a true connection with nature and spirituality. There was none of that here. Movies and TV had created the shitshow I was wandering through.

  Booths lined the thirty or so aisles with charlatans hawking their wares. Although I was tempted to buy the t-shirt that read If the Broom Fits… Ride It for Sassy, I passed. The vials of potions were hilarious. I bought three for Baba Yaga and three for Marge… and then I caved and bought the damn broom t-shirt for Sassy. The attendees were taking themselves faaaar too seriously as they pushed and shoved to get to the latest in shitty witch-wear. There were chanting lessons, tables full of crystals and even a custom pointy hat booth.

  I may or may not have caused the hat display to cave in on itself…

  I was literally ignored because of my Stella McCartney dress. That was fine by me. Little did the black lipstick-wearing weirdos know that there were a few real witches in the building… or at least two of us. The egotistical side of me wanted to whip up a windstorm and scare the pointy black hats off the fake idiots, but that would be a bad thing. I knew it was a bad thing… a really bad thing.

  But Goddess, I still wanted to do it.

  Nope. Not gonna do it. I was mature. I was a mom. I healed Shifters, witches, and even my crotch goblins when they needed a tune-up.

  I was above petty destructive violence even if it felt good sometimes to let it rip. However, I had no intention of going back to the pokey. Nine months for mowing down my cat slash dad with my car was enough for me. Thank the Goddess he had nine lives.

  My fingers itched to do just a little something. But there was no reason to blow my cover. If there were shenanigans here, I needed to stay focused and find them.

  And then the Goddess stepped in. Well, maybe not, but what happened was entirely out of my control… for the most part.

  Verruca sauntered by with her posse of nerds dressed in black polyester robes and laughed at me. No one in a shitty Party City witch costume that called herself Trotcackler was allowed to laugh at me. Ever.

  “Her last name is Houstonordallas. Can you believe that?” Verruca asked her freak brigade as they all laughed and pointed. “She thinks she’s a real witch. Have you ever heard anything so stupid? We’re the real deal. That hot mess is a pretender.”

  “Loser with a capital L,” one of Verruca’s buddies announced in her outdoor voice while making an L with her fingers and positioning it on her forehead.

  My mouth twisted at the irony. Goddess in Spanx, high school wasn’t even this bad.

  They formed a tight clump and chanted something that sounded like a stuck pig in agony. Waving bottles of what I assumed was eye of newt but looked more like cricket turds, they proceeded to cast a spell. If I wasn’t mistaken… and I wasn’t… it was a spell aimed at me.

  Of course, Verruca—the most powerful spell caster in Hexington—took the lead. I expected no less. Closing her eyes and doing a jig that made her look like she had to pee, she raised her wand high as her dorky minions dropped to their knees and began to chant in front of her. The milling vamps and mummies stopped their shopping to watch.

  “Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble,” Verruca grunted, swaying her hips and summoning her inner stripper.

  “She thinks she’s a witch

  But she’s only a double.

  Out with the one who makes us sicken…

  Only real witches here, not some fashionable chicken.”

  The mummies applauded and the vamps wandered off, clearly bored with Verruca’s gyrating sideshow. I had to hand it to her—at least it rhymed.

  “I find a couple of profanities helps my spells,” I informed the flabbergasted quartet who were either shocked I hadn’t turned into a chicken yet, or they’d never been called out on the rug for crappy spell procedure. “It didn’t exactly suck, but you could use some work, Verruca Hotcanker.”

  “Verruca Trotcackler is a spell goddess,” a short, squat one sneered. “You should kiss the ground she walks on, skank.”

  “How does riffraff like that even get in?” a tall, gawky one demanded. “I say we kick her out.”

  Done. I was done.

  Baba Yaga was going to owe me big for dealing with this shit. I was beginning to think her and Marge’s lack of attendance had nothing to do with getting recognized by any real witches creating shenanigans. Sassy and I had been punked.

  The rules that Baba Yoashtonkutcher had put in place were now moot. There was only so much a real witch could take. Plus they’d cast a bogus spell on me. As far as I was concerned, this was now a tit for tat situation.

  “Wicked chickens lay deviled eggs,” I said as I waved to the now confused group. The wave was sheer brilliance on my part. It looked like a social greeting… it was anything but.

  “Say what?” Verruca asked, pointing her wand at me.

  “Nothing at all, Verruca Squatcrapper,” I shot back with a smile.

  It was all kinds of awesome when the foursome began to lay eggs—dozens of brightly colored eggs. The vamps were interested again. The pointy-hatted buttholes were now in unladylike squats on the floor feeling like the chicken they’d stupidly tried to turn me into. Verruca’s spell had backfired into an omelet machine. A few magicians circled the shrieking quartet and tried to figure out how they were doing it. Again, I may or may not have been responsible. Walking away quickly, I was grinning from ear to ear.

  And then I wasn’t.

  The shot was discreet. The shot was precise. The shot hurt like a motherfucker. Holding back a stream of profanities took super witchy effort. I just hoped there wasn’t a large burn hole in the butt of my fabu and wildly expensive dress.

  “What the fu…” I hissed as I slapped my own ass to put out the fire and slammed my backside up against a wall so my flaming butt wouldn’t be noticed. Granted it was a small fire, but it didn’t feel good. Clearly, the Goddess wasn’t down with humans laying eggs even if they had called me a skank and had horrifying taste in witch-wear.

  Shitballs.

  I was training to be the next fucking Baba Yaga. Right now the fact that I had no intention of taking the job was irrelevant. At least the Goddess had only given me a tiny ass zap. Normally I was on the ground cursing like a sailor after one of her little lessons. She was actually being nice, if you could call shooting fire at someone’s butt nice. I got the message loud and clear. Responsible witches didn’t make humans lay eggs no matter how rude or poorly dressed they were.

  Glancing back over my shoulder, I snapped my fingers and halted the poultry show. Thankfully, the room was teaming with magicians. If I got busted, I could play it off.

  “What the heck?” a female voice shouted as I felt someone whack the back of my head.

  First my ass and now my head? What the hell was happening? The temptation to turn around and zap whoever had the balls to whack me was high. However, my ass was still smoldering.

  “Excuse me?” I snarled as I whipped around and my eyes landed on one of the most exquisite women I’d ever seen.

  She was my height and had wavy jet-black hair that fell in fabulous layers almost to her butt. Her eyes were redonk—the brightest and most crystal green I’d ever seen. She was dressed in a drop-dead green linen Prada dress that matched her otherworldly eyes.

  The woman wore a wreath of sparkling green leaves in her hair—a seriously strange fashion choice, but she made it work. The hair ornament was so freakin’ cool that I wondered if I should get one. It was far superior to all the fucking pointy hats at the convention.

  And she was pissed. At me…

  “Don’t play games with me, Zach,” she snapped. “I have no issues if you like
to cross-dress, but it might have been something you wanted to share with me in private instead of at a public event.”

  “Lost here,” I muttered, wondering what the heck she was and who the heck Zach was.

  She wasn’t human by a long shot. However, she wasn’t a witch and definitely wasn’t a Shifter. I’d never encountered anything like her. The angry woman packed a punch. I now had a headache and a singed ass. Not turning out to be my day so far.

  “Oh, puhleeese,” she said with an eye roll worthy of one of mine. “Playing hard to get is one thing. Pretending to be a woman is a little much. Don’t you think, Zach?”

  “I’m so fucking confused,” I muttered, wondering if this one was causing the shenanigans.

  “But I have to compliment you on the dress. Stella McCartney is the bomb and you look like a freakin’ supermodel in it, but…”

  And then she started to cry. I was still completely bewildered by the conversation but she pulled at my heartstrings. Why? No clue. Goddess, being happy was making me soft. The old me would have zapped her bald and moved on. The new me wanted to help. Shit.

  “Umm… I’m not Zach,” I said, snapping my fingers and handing her a wad of tissue.

  “Yeah, right,” she said, taking the tissue and blotting her eyes. “If you don’t like me, just tell me. I’m fully aware that I’ve been chasing you for years and you haven’t caved, but I was beginning to think you might like me a little bit.”

  Squinting my eyes at her and glancing around, I sighed. Whatever she was had now made herself one of my problems. The Zach dude was a fucking idiot. This gal was gorgeous, gave excellent eye roll, and had incredible taste in clothes. Under different circumstances, I would ask her to go shopping with me. However, I didn’t think that would go over real well at the moment.

  “Okay, if you promise not to hit me again, I promise not to turn your hair purple and give you a mullet,” I told her, backing away just in case.