Hoodoo Blue

by Katalina Leon

  Hoodoo Blue

  Katalina Leon

  Second edition

  Author’s note: Hoodoo Blue was originally published with Fated Desires Publishing in January of 2015 as part of the Special Lines, “Set-up Dates” series. This is a reedited and expanded edition of the story and part of my continuing series Sorcery By The Sea.

  Copyright second edition January 2016

  Supervising Editor: Becky Johnson, Hot Tree Editing.

  Content Editor: Liv Ventura, Hot Tree Editing.

  Proofreader: Kristin Scearce, Hot Tree Editing.

  Cover Art by Andy Atkins aka Jackman.

  Hoodoo Blue

  Katalina Leon

  Hoodoo Blue, book 1, Sorcery by the Sea.

  So, a blonde BBW witch with attitude and a hunky lumberjack of a lycan walk into a bar…

  Fredi is a passionate witch with a scorching hot secret. Every time she has a sexual thought, green fire blasts from her fingertips. Gus is a gorgeous lycan who scares women away with his wild wolf-shifts. Not the best way to find relationships.

  Both have vowed not to date until they get themselves under control, but a witchy friend thinks differently. The pair get tricked into sharing a frosty pitcher of “Hoodoo Blue” and fall prey to a wayward love potion that has them blurting out every lustful thought. Worse, it won’t allow them to walk away from each other. They’re stuck together until dawn under the devilish effects of a time-released hoodoo that makes them do outrageous things. For everyone’s safety, Fredi is forced to take Gus home and tie him to her headboard and only some very witchy lovemaking can calm the storm.

  Fredi and Gus might find themselves on the set-up date from hell, but even a hilarious cascade of disasters can’t keep a plus-sized blonde witch with attitude, and a hunky lumberjack of a lycan from seeing the other would be the perfect mate.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Epilogue

  Dedication

  This story is dedicated to my sweet Border collie, Molly, who passed away from lymphoma during this re-edit. Molly was a mixed breed from a rescue shelter and the gentlest-tempered companion I’ve ever had. She was scared of cats, loved long walks, and liked to sit behind my writing chair where she could keep an eye on me. If I exit my chair too quickly, I still automatically step over the phantom dog.

  “Hoodoo Blue”

  Katalina Leon

  Chapter One

  Fredi gazed into the depths of the crate and whispered in her softest, most reassuring voice, “How’s everybody doing? Everyone seems a lot less agitated than they were a few minutes ago. Do you think you’re all ready to take the next step?”

  The four marmalade kittens in the crate stared at her with calm green eyes, round as table grapes. The meowing, clawing, and general franticness of the dreaded bath had passed. The kittens were now clean, toweled dry, and their coats fluffed.

  “See? The bath wasn’t so bad.” She reached into the crate and petted the warm balls of fur. “You kitties really needed it. Now you smell fresh, look good, and that makes you much more adoptable. We're on track, but there’s an important final step we must take.”

  She reached into her handbag and removed a slender glass vial sealed with crimson wax. With a broad sweep of her hand, she waved the vial over the kittens and muttered a brief incantation in Latin. “Ut verum se mutuo corda inveniet. May true hearts find each other.”

  Unimpressed with her showman-like presentation, the kittens exposed their tiny pin-like teeth and hissed in unison.

  “Oh, hush. This won’t hurt a bit.” She twisted the cork to snap the wax seal, removed it, and sprinkled several drops of pale pink, rose-scented water on each kitten. They meowed in protest and huddled together in a corner of the crate, forming a single dejected lump of misery.

  “So much drama! It’s hardly a flick of blessed water. Trust me, you want this. I’m casting a ‘forever home’ spell so the right people will find and keep you. I’m doing you a favor and trying to magnetize good homes for you, so please don’t hiss and piss about it.”

  With care, she dipped her hand into the crate to comfort a trembling kitten. The office’s ancient landline phone rang at the volume of a fire alarm. With a jolt, she turned to stare at the old-fashioned telephone that was the same weird shade of red as raw liver. It boggled her mind that sometime during the Reagan era, someone had deliberately chosen that color and perhaps paid a little extra for the privilege. She reached for the receiver and held it to her ear. “San Buena Animal Shelter.”

  Deep grunting filtered through the receiver. “Uhhh, uhhh, uhhh...”

  She held the phone away as heavy breathing poured forth. It wasn’t unusual at this time of night. This was when the prank calls started. “Who is this?”

  A gruff voice rumbled, “What color panties are you wearing?”

  “I’m not wearing any panties on my plump ass that makes Jennifer Lopez look like a skinny little boy scout.” She paused. “Estele, I know that’s you. Your impression of a pervert is terrible.”

  “Why is it terrible?” Estele chirped in her own girlish voice.

  “The real perverts are never that obvious. They’ll waste hours of your time acting normal and sounding sane before you catch on to them.”

  “Oh boy. You’re referring to my cousin, Giles the warlock, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, I mean your goddamned cousin, Giles from Marseilles. I hope I never lock wands in a plasma firefight with that man again. The entire night was a disaster.”

  “That set-up date was months ago. I meant well. I had no idea. Fredi, when will you forgive me and unblock your phone? I want us to be friends again.”

  “Estele, you’ve known me forever. What the hell were you thinking when you tried to match me with that French warlock?”

  “Giles was in town for only one week, and I thought he was so cute. In truth, I don’t know him all that well. I hadn’t seen him since we were little witchlings at International Sorcery Camp. Cross my heart, I had no idea the two of you would rub each other the wrong way. I’m so sorry the date went sour, but, please, don’t take it out on me.” Estele’s voice cracked with emotion. “I miss hanging out together, and I want to make it up to you. You never call or go out anymore. Everybody says you’ve been living like a hermit, and I blame myself. When will you be ready to talk about that night? I need to hear it. Please tell me exactly what happened. I saw how it ended on the news. The shattered windshields on the overturned police cars and the damage to downtown businesses. But how did the trouble start?”

  “Do you really want to hear it? I’m so embarrassed. I had to apologize in front of San Buena’s city council and do a ton of community service. Every weekend for the next six months, I’m expected to wear a fluorescent-orange safety vest and pick up trash on the side of the highway. I promised everyone I’d rein myself in and work on controlling my passionate witch’s temper.”

  “What did Giles do to provoke you so badly?”

  Fredi’s gut twisted as she braced for the harsh confession. “The date started off fine. We spent the entire afternoon talking. There was a lot of flirting and fun. Things were moving along smoothly, so we decided to get dinner.”

  “That sounds reasonable.”

  “No. That’s when it went bad. At the restaurant is where I got the first glimpse of Giles’s pushy side. He was so certain I was already charmed by his good looks and accent that I had to keep slapping his grabby hands as they crept under my skirt. I’m such a queen bee about boundaries. You know how I feel about that.”

  “Uh-oh,” Estele grumb
led.

  “It got worse.” A welling storm of bad memories sparked a tension headache. “If Giles wasn’t rubbing his thigh against mine, he was reaching for the buttons on my blouse. He wouldn’t take a hint and slow down. It was like dining with an octopus in leather pants.”

  “Okay, I agree. He was rude.”

  “But, wait, the ultimate insult came when Giles tried to slip a lust-slave mojo into my drink.”

  “What?” Estele squeaked.

  “Yep. I caught him red-handed—and I mean that literally. He tried to wave a fully activated lust spell over my Mojito, but he lacked finesse. I saw it glowing crimson in his palm, and I can’t imagine how he thought I could miss something as obvious as that.”

  Estele groaned like a squeaky door, “Fredi, I feel so stupid for setting you up with Giles. I swear, I didn’t know.”

  “You didn’t know a conceited French warlock would have a dark side? Please.” She huffed. “Giles’s sexual shenanigans aren’t your fault. He’s the one who showed some serious stupidity attempting to cast a lust spell on a professional spellster. Did he really think I wouldn’t question why I was unsnapping my bra in a pizzeria? It was so disrespectful. I lost it. I grabbed my wand and started blasting. After I was finished, Giles’s pants looked like a pair of butt-less chaps, and I didn’t stop there. He’s so vain about his flowing hair. I zapped his raven locks into a smoldering mess. The smell of fried hair clung to my coat for days.”

  “Geez, that could have been a pay-per-view event.” Estele giggled.

  “Estele, it’s not funny.”

  “It sort of is,” Estele grumbled.

  “I lost my temper and my dignity in public.”

  “God, I wish I’d been there to see you in full-throttle wrath-of-fury mode. It must have been breathtaking. I can only dream of doing something like this.”

  She picked at her fingernail with a sneer. “But wait, there’s more. Giles tried to dash to freedom, but I chased him down the street, screaming curses. He wasn’t expecting me to pursue him wearing high heels. I fought him hard and let my superheated, witchy-poo, Wiccan-fire plasma bolts fly. Now my insurance company hates me for having to replace every plate-glass window on Main Street, and a few windshields, too.”

  “Oh, Fredi, I’m so sorry I laughed.”

  “Don’t be.” To spare the kittens the loud conversation, she carried the phone with her into a far corner of the room and paced. “I learned my lesson. The sad part was that, until the point I caught Giles trying to slip me a mojo, I was enjoying his company. I was flattered a European warlock could be so interested in a West Coast witch, and I thought he was super cute in a brooding rock-star sort of way. Honestly, I was overexcited and amped up to be out on a date in the first place, and when he pulled that underhanded warlock bullshit on me, I got blind-rage mad. I had no control over my actions. I took aim with my wand and kept blasting. Cross my heart, I couldn’t stop myself. I’m lucky only Giles got zapped in the pants. An innocent resident of San Buena could have stepped onto the scene and been killed. The whole incident completely threw me off balance, and I can’t afford to repeat it. I know now I can’t date outside the enchantment community, and I’m certainly not ready to face the consequences and date within the community. So I’m taking a social breather until I can trust my judgment and reactions toward the opposite sex. I don’t want anyone to get hurt. Maybe in five or ten years I’ll risk dating again.”

  “Five or ten years? Are you trying to be a martyr? Everyone knows the witches in your family lose their tempers now and then. No biggie.”

  “No biggie?” She gulped. “Are you kidding? Who can forget how Aunt Edwina blew up a shipyard? We’ll never live it down. That’s the sort of shit that sticks.”

  “Giles was in the wrong. Don’t punish yourself by becoming a recluse.”

  She toyed with the phone cord. “It’s too soon. I’ve sworn off dating until I understand what’s going on with me. I owe it to the citizens of San Buena to never again go witchy Rambo on them.”

  “No permanent damage was done. It was just stuff and a lot of broken glass, some panic in the streets, mild physical harm to Giles, and a wrecked patrol car or two. Okay, that is a lot of stuff. On the lighter side, I heard Giles’s hair grew back lush and black, so there’s nothing to feel guilty about in that department.”

  Fredi snuffled into the receiver. “You don’t get it, do you? I’ve changed. I’m not what I used to be. Something permanent happened. If I get angry, I completely lose control. I grab a wand and start firing. It’s not safe for me or anyone else in the vicinity. If I get excited… well, let’s just say excitement makes it a thousand times worse.”

  “Do you mean hopping up-and-down, squealing like a piglet, game-show-level excitement? I once had a puppy that peed on himself when he got too happy. It was cute and a little smelly.”

  She strolled across the room, returning to the kittens. “I’m not peeing on myself.”

  “That’s good. Is it good? You sound grouchy.”

  Fredi released a heavy exhale. “I’m not talking about game show excitement.”

  “Ah! You mean sexual excitement? Relax. Everyone loses it when they get excited. That’s part of the fun.”

  “Not like me. I’m different. Lately, when I get worked up, sparks fly out of my fingertips.”

  “Whoa!” Estele shrieked, a high-pitched, unsettling giggle that sounded like someone had startled a rabbit. “You mean real sparks, like elf fire? How long has this been happening?”

  Wincing, Fredi held the phone away from her ear. Her head throbbed. The kittens meowed and seemed startled by Estele’s cry as well, so she reached into the crate to calm them. “It started around New Year’s.”

  “So the sparks started about the same time you decided you were ready to settle down with a real man who wasn’t afraid of being in a relationship with a witch?”

  “Yeah, that’s about it. It’s complicated. When I say ‘sparks,’ I don’t mean festive Fourth of July sparklers. I mean emerald-green electric bolts that light the night like an industrial-sized Tesla coil.”

  Estele wailed with excitement. “Witches be bitches! It sounds awesome. I wish I could do that. How have you kept this a secret?”

  “I haven’t, not really…”

  “I didn’t hear about it.”

  Her voice rose. “It’s not the kind of thing I’m eager to share with anyone. I want it to stop.”

  “What happens? What provokes it?”

  “I found out by accident when I was watching Cinemax late one Friday night—”

  “You mean Skin-a-max?” Estele giggled.

  “You know what I mean. Pretty people stripped to the waist. Exotic locations…”

  “I think it’s safe to say the exotic location is Vancouver standing in for New York.”

  “No, no, the movie I was watching was filmed in Spain, and besides, that’s not the point. The point is the moment I began to enjoy myself watching a handsome man peeling his shirt off to reveal a patch of silky dark hair on his chest, I slipped into a fantasy state and thought, ‘God, I wish he was looking at me with that smoldering dirty-dog expression.’ I started to feel warm all over, and all of a sudden, my hands tingled and a blast of green fire rocketed from my fingertips across my living room, zipped out an open window, and set my neighbor’s porch ablaze. A wooden rocking chair burst into a fireball. I was so startled I screamed like a banshee, jumped to my feet, grabbed a fire extinguisher, and ran next door to put out the flames. There I was, in my bathrobe, stomping on green embers and swearing like a sailor. I made a fool of myself in front of everyone on my street. My poor old neighbor, Mr. Plotkin, was so polite about the entire incident, too, even though I blackened his favorite chair.”

  “Holy Hecate! That’s terrible. Why didn’t you tell me about it?”

  “I was embarrassed. That incident with the porch wasn’t the last time either. Please, don’t even ask what happened when I tried to use my waterproof vibrato
r in the bathtub. I blasted through the porcelain and flooded the kitchen. That was the last time—” Silence hung in the air.

  “The last time you what?”

  “The last time I attempted to… you know.”

  “Get off? You haven’t stirred the honey pot in six months? Geez, you poor thing, you must be dying!”

  “I don’t dare try. The destruction could be devastating. If I gave in to my fantasies, San Buena would be under the care of FEMA! I can’t allow myself to daydream or get excited. Nothing. I can’t be trusted. I’ve had to learn to reroute every sexual thought and squelch it before things go boom! Hopefully, this situation won’t last. Maybe this is some sort of horrible phase I’m passing through.”

  “Is there anything I can do?” Estele sounded genuinely sympathetic.

  “Probably not, but I’ll ask anyway—how are your hexing spells coming along? Has there been any improvement?”

  “I’m not doing too well in the Master Magi program. Can I tell you something in confidence? I’m on academic probation. Madame Dahlia called me the most ‘vexatious’ adept she’s ever taught. My magic keeps taking weird twists. I can’t cast a clean spell that goes from A to B to C. My spells go from A to J to Z, with totally unpredictable results. I’m so frustrated.”

  “I was ready to ask you for help, but never mind.”

  “Fredi, you’re like my big sister. I’d love to help. Earlier this week, Madame Dahlia taught us a couple new incantations that might be worth a try.”

  “Forget it. The last thing I need is a wayward spell cast on me.”

  “Maybe you just need to relax and learn to cope with a little excitement.”

  “I don’t think so. My little beachfront house and all the houses next to mine have wooden steps, shake roofs, and hardwood floors. Everything’s flammable. I might turn the neighborhood into a bonfire on the beach. I’ll consider exploring my personal issues when I have three fire trucks and a construction company at my back.”