by Linda Wisdom
She stared up at the RV. It looked 100 percent better than the first time she had seen it.
“Is this the same piece of junk that limped into town?”
“Isn’t it wonderful?” A paint-smudged Agnes—wait a minute, Agnes?—walked around the front of the RV. “I suggested they cut their ties with that odious Mickey Boggs and go out on their own. Marva even helped them set up a website.”
“We promised her no peeing on the trees, no going around naked, no cussing, no getting drunk, and no belching in public.” Alberic didn’t look pleased with that, but there was something a lot more likable about him that wasn’t there before. “And Thaddeas has to stop scratching his balls, which doesn’t make him too happy since he’s way too fond of scratching his balls.”
“Good to know.” Blair couldn’t stop smiling. “Agnes, I don’t know what to say. I mean, I’ve always known how wonderful you are with organization and getting us to work on your various committees, but this goes way beyond anything you’ve done in the past. You’ve caused an incredible transformation in these elves.”
“Our website’s already got a few hundred hits and some gigs! Our settling in here is the best thing we’ve done in centuries.” Alberic hitched up his sagging jeans. He turned around and frowned. “Hey, you can’t make those mountains look like tits! Whadder’ya thinkin’?” He shook his head and returned to the RV where he and a fellow elf got into a heated discussion.
“Settling in here?” Blair wasn’t sure she could handle Weres and elves on the same mountain, much less the same town.
“They’re very much like children. They need stability.” Agnes looked over at the elves indulgently, then fixed Blair with a penetrating look. “What I want to know is, where’s Jake Harrison? He’s supposed to be helping, and he knows how much I rely on him, but I haven’t seen him all day. I was hoping we could finish up with the booths by tomorrow.”
“He was called away on family business,” Blair lied. “I’m sure he’ll be back in the next day or so.” She mentally crossed her fingers. “Well, I better get back to my shop. I’m glad to see the elves didn’t turn into the fiasco we were afraid of.”
“I admit I was very worried when they first showed up considering what all happened that first day, but I’m beginning to see that if you give them some direction, they’re perfectly reliable.”
Blair looked over Agnes’s shoulder and watched one of the elves weave a path between the trees until he faced one and obviously unfastened his pants. Evidently not all of them were keeping their promises, but she wasn’t going to point that out to Agnes. She was too proud of her accomplishments and the elves were behaving a lot better than they had at the beginning.
“And they love my lasagna,” Agnes confided. “Floyd always feels my lasagna is too spicy, but they prefer it that way.”
Blair walked back toward home, deep in thought, mulling over a spell to release Jake from his collar. The first thing she did was run up to the second floor, where Jake met her at the door, tail wagging slowly.
“You look better!” she said with relief, as he leaned his head into her hand. “Feel like coming with me while I check on the shop?”
Jordan, a tall, gangly young man, was just ringing up a purchase when Blair and Jake walked in.
“I sold one of those wooden toy trains you pull along,” he told her with his shy smile, brushing his dark brown hair out of his face. “And you got some messages.” He nodded toward a few slips of paper.
“Would you be able to work until closing? I’d like a chance to catch up on paperwork.”
His face lit up at the idea of making the extra cash. “Sure.”
Blair retreated to her office, where Jake curled up in a corner of the room, his bright eyes following her.
Right now, my life totally sucks, he thought. He longed to be able to walk with Blair and hold her hand, steal some kisses, maybe sneak back to his cabin for some private time. Instead, he was lying on the floor at her feet, without much to look forward to besides the beef bone Stasi had promised to bring him for dinner.
Blair sorted through bills and tugged off her boots, wiggling her toes in their thick socks before pulling them off to give Fluff and Puff some air. They immediately began jabbering, but she did her best to ignore them.
Except once she was seated at her small desk, she couldn’t concentrate on bills and invoices. She ignored her laptop and rested her chin in her cupped hand, elbow braced on her desk as she studied Jake. He stared back at her sadly.
While he was a gorgeous dog, she really missed seeing flesh and blood Jake. Her anger at Roan grew the longer she thought about the collar around the dog’s neck, and she wasn’t all that happy with Jennifer for being unwilling to help. She knew it had to do with the Pack mentality. Roan was much higher up in the hierarchy, and Jennifer wouldn’t dare mess with the status quo, but Blair didn’t really care about anyone’s feelings. She wanted Jake back.
“I told that asshole Roan we’re our own Pack now, so he better back off,” she told Jake. “The bastard wouldn’t give me the release spell.” Then she yelped as something dug painfully into her ankle. “Hey! Stop that!” She pulled her leg out and glared at Fluff and Puff, whose tiny fangs were buried deep in her skin. “For a tattoo, you guys sure inflict a lot of pain!” Both bunnies started chattering away. She was not in the mood to listen to their rants and raves, but Puff’s insistence finally sank in and she listened more carefully. “Cursed.” She rolled the word around in her mouth like a sip of fine wine. “Cursed!” She laughed and jumped out of her chair.
“Blair, is everything okay?” Jordan stuck his head through the doorway.
“Everything is fine.” She danced around the office then hugged the young man, bringing a dark flush of color to his cheeks. She returned to her desk and retrieved her socks and boots. “I have to go upstairs.” Jake stood up, ready to follow her.
“Aren’t you going to put your boots and coat back on? It’s really cold outside.” Jordan trailed after her.
“I’ll be fine!” She fairly skipped outside, ran around to the rear of the building, and raced up the stairs with Jake at her heels.
She glanced at the note on the refrigerator door that told her Stasi and Trev had gone down the mountain to do some shopping. She pulled a Diet Coke out of the fridge and a bag of pretzels off the counter.
“A curse. I should have thought of it that way from the very beginning, because that’s just what it is. It’s not just a spell, it’s a curse on you,” she told Jake, opening the hidden door to their magick supplies and rummaged through the books there. “If Jazz weren’t on that rafting trip, I’d call her and ask for her advice. Eliminating curses are her specialty, although I’m better known for creating them. I was looking for a way to release you from an enchanted collar, and yes, it’s enthralled, but instead of looking for enchanted objects, I’m going to search for cursed items and believe me, there’s a big difference. So let’s work backwards on this, shall we?”
Jake allowed himself to be cautiously optimistic and stretched out under the table, allowing Blair to use him for a footrest. Bogie hovered around him, half sympathy, half jealousy.
“Curses to trap a being,” Blair muttered, leafing through a spell book. “Why can’t that work?” she asked, even though she didn’t expect a reply. “You’re trapped—although, I guess in a sense you’re not trapped, not like when Horace was turned into a gargoyle, because you’re merely in your other form. Ah, here’s one.” She munched on pretzels and took a long swallow of her Diet Coke. “Wow, a lot of ingredients here. I hope we have them all. But if we don’t, I’ll call Stasi’s cell and have her do some shopping in town. Some of these I’m not familiar with, so I hope maybe Stasi is, or even Trev.” She lightly danced her toes over Jake’s thick, soft coat. “This is it! I feel it in my bones.” She left the kitchen long enough to get her iTouch and load it in the speakers. Celtic Woman’s mellow voices streamed through the room as Blair gathered up the necessary
ingredients and made a list of the ones they didn’t have.
“I have an idea how we can get the collar off Jake,” she told Stasi without preamble when her friend answered her cell. “We’ve been saying it was enchanted while we really should have considered it cursed. All we had to do was see it as eliminating a curse, not ending an enchantment. I’ve found a spell that looks as though it will work, but we need some items.” She read the list to Stasi, who repeated it back to her.
“We’ll get everything you need,” she could hear Trev’s voice. “Just be ready to work up the spell when we get back.”
“No problem.” She disconnected and looked down at the spell book and the small glass bottles and jars she already had set out. She crouched down and ruffled Jake’s ears. He snorted and tossed his head around, dislodging her touch. “Hey, you wear the fur, you get the doggy treatment,” she teased, feeling lighter at heart than she had since this all started. “We’ll have you back to your gorgeous self in no time.”
Blair’s impatience grew with each tick of the clock until she heard the sound of an engine stop by the building and Stasi and Trev’s voices.
“We’ve got everything!” Stasi announced, carrying in canvas tote bags with Trev likewise loaded down behind her. “I can’t believe we didn’t think of that before.”
“Jazz would have, and I really have Fluff and Puff to thank for coming up with the idea.” By now Blair was practically dancing on her tiptoes.
“Okay, Blair, take a chill pill, because you’re almost flying,” Stasi laughed.
“Where’s the spell you found?” Trev asked, setting a canvas tote on a chair. He leaned over to read the page, then carefully closed the book and read the title. “You do realize these spells are more appropriate for wizards than witches?”
“And isn’t it wonderful we have a wizard in our midst?”
“Could that have been our problem?” Stasi asked, moving over to stand next to him and read the spell. “They used a wizard’s power, not a witch’s, to bind the power to the collar?”
“And by doing that, they’d think we’d be shit out of luck for breaking the spell,” Blair decided. “Except we have a great and powerful wizard. Well, we do!” she defended herself when Trev cast her a wry look.
“Don’t lay it on too thick, Blair.” He pulled off his leather jacket and rolled up his sleeves. Power started flowing over him, sending his dark blond hair lifting up as if static electricity zapped it, and his blue eyes glowed with an unearthly light.
“Wow,” Blair whispered. “I mean, we know you have power, but this is way past cool. I am so very impressed right now.”
Stasi laid out the items they purchased in the order needed and stood back.
“First, I want to further examine Jake’s collar to make sure we won’t be making any mistakes.” Trev stepped back and bent down to Jake, who walked forward and lifted his head to reveal the metal collar. Trev’s fingertips sparked as he passed his hands over Jake’s head and the collar, but keeping them a safe distance from the metallic band. He winced as sparks flew off the collar and hit his palms. Jake whined and backed off, his head ducked down.
“That’s what happened to me,” Blair said.
“Because it’s a wizard’s spell that’s been layered with an additional spell to deter any witch from breaking it. I’m sure we can easily assume why that was done,” he murmured, continuing to examine the collar. “Once it’s off I should be able to examine it more thoroughly and maybe even find out who did this.”
Trev straightened up. “I’d say the spell you found has a good chance of working.”
“It better, because otherwise, I’m going back up to Snow Farms and turning Roan Thorpe and his crew into Chihuahuas that will be neutered before I drop them off at the shelter.” Blair’s snarl was as dangerous as any wolf’s.
“And I’ll help,” Stasi’s grim declaration caused Trev to wince.
“She used to be such a sweet witch, too,” he muttered. “Okay you two, stand back and watch the master at work.”
Blair and Stasi did just that and watched Trev cover the table with a white silk cloth, set a bowl in the center, then carefully begin to measure each item into the bowl. Wisps of smoke rose up and circled around him before drifting down to hover over Jake. Once he finished, he poured the contents into another bowl and set it down in front of Jake.
“You’ve got to drink it all down,” he told him.
Jake sniffed the bowl and backed off, shaking his head as the acrid fumes assaulted his nose.
“Drink!” Trev’s no-nonsense voice pushed the dog back to the bowl and even appeared to lower his head.
Jake lapped up the liquid, snorted twice, then tentatively returned to the bowl and drank it—without much relish.
“What binds him will release him. What binds him will free him. What binds him will return him. What binds him was wrong and that wrong will now be made right,” Trev intoned.
Blair held her breath, fearing it wouldn’t work. That her crazy idea was just that—crazy. It wouldn’t be the first time, but it was the first time it had truly mattered. She knew that Trev was powerful; but she worried that he still might not be powerful enough to break the curse on the collar. She felt Stasi’s hand slip into hers and grip it tightly, but she could only keep her eyes on Jake.
The mist that had hovered over Jake thickened like morning fog and lowered to blanket him as he lapped up the last of the potion.
Once he finished drinking, he started shaking and fell over onto his side in convulsions, whining and whimpering as the pain gripped his body
“Jake!” Blair started toward him, but Trev grabbed her arm and held her back.
“Don’t touch him. You could get caught up in a backlash,” he warned her.
She stood there helplessly watching Jake howl and quiver, until his form shimmered and gradually lengthened out, the fur receding and being replaced with skin, hands and feet taking shape instead of paws. His skin was slick was sweat and his hair matted against his scalp. He never looked better to her.
“Jake!” Blair cried and laughed at the same time as he slowly rose to his knees then carefully stood up, still quaking from the spell.
“Wow,” Stasi murmured, looking at him in all his naked glory. Trev quickly placed his palm over her eyes, and all her pushing at his hand wouldn’t budge him an inch.
Jake was pale and shaking as he turned to Blair. He didn’t say a word, but stepped forward and hauled her into his arms, hugging her tightly before he framed her face with his hands and kissed her as if it would be their last kiss on earth.
“Wow for me too,” she gasped once he allowed her to catch her breath. “But it was Trev who performed the spell.”
“No big. I’m fine with a simple thank you,” Trev said with a grin as he held up his hands.
Jake continued to cup her face with his hands and stared at her with a gaze that seemed to warm her all the way down to her soul. “That was for never giving up on me. For telling Roan we are a Pack.”
She smiled through her tears. “Trust me, we’re a lot more fun, even if we can’t grow fur.”
“We need to get you some clothes,” Trev said.
Jake looked down and grinned. “Yeah, I guess so. We Weres don’t have a problem with nudity. Although usually when I return to my human body my clothes come back. I guess the collar took them away.”
“I don’t have a problem with it,” Stasi muttered slyly.
“I do.” Trev grabbed her shoulders and turned her around.
“Spoilsport,” she grumbled, but she didn’t turn back around for another peek.
“I was positive we’d lick this thing, so I picked up some of your clothes in case you needed them,” Blair explained to Jake as she brought out jeans and a blue plaid flannel shirt.
Trev bent down and used his handkerchief to pick up the collar, which now lay on the floor striated with charred black marks. He carefully folded the cloth over the collar. “I want to have th
is checked out to see if there’s a chance we can find out who was behind the spell.”
“Wizard forensics?” Blair asked.
“Something like that. This shouldn’t have been done and charges could be brought against the wizard who crafted this.”
Blair reached up to smooth back Jake’s hair. “I’ll bet you want a shower, too. There’s everything you need in the guest bathroom. There’s even disposable razors and shaving gel in there.” She felt the air in her lungs whoosh out as she looked up at him. “I’ll fix you something to eat.”
Jake paused long enough to lay his hand on Trev’s shoulder. “Thanks.”
Trev nodded. “I’m sure you would have done the same.”
Jake’s footsteps were still shaky as he adjusted to walking on only two feet instead of four and made his way down the hallway.
Blair’s legs finally gave out from under her and she sank down into a chair and burst into tears. Stasi wasted no time moving to her side while Trev did what most men did in the face of tears and busied himself with clearing off the table and making sure the stoppers were secure in all the bottles and jars.
“I was so afraid,” she confessed. “You and I had looked and looked and it didn’t seem anything would work. And now I want to drag out my special spell books and find something truly nasty for the Pack and any consequences be damned.”
“We’ll think on that one,” Stasi soothed her.
“I’d rather do it.”
***
While a shower revived Jake, it hadn’t eased the fury that had been simmering inside him for the past few days. He wasn’t the only one to suffer from the spell. He’d seen firsthand what it did to Blair. How she had worried over him and fussed and fumed, while never losing faith that he’d be free of the collar. And how she had kept sane by plotting some nasty revenge on the Pack. That part he was only too happy to let her do. But he knew that revenge wouldn’t solve the problem.
He noticed he still had cuts and bruises, but they appeared to be slowly healing and he felt stiff from walking on all fours for so much longer than unusual. Still, it was good to be dressed and feeling more like himself.