by Linda Wisdom
“The letters are Greek because that’s a sorority house,” she replied, looking at the dwelling. She was positive she’d been here in the early 1930s. All the homes were that vintage, and if she recalled correctly, several minor film stars owned homes out this way. In fact, if she wasn’t mistaken, she had met Clive Reeves at a party here. She could not stop the involuntary shudder that ran down her spine at the thought of the man who’d almost destroyed her soul and her life. She’d done her best to forget one fateful night, but some memories weren’t easily erased.
Damn that man, he’s moldering in his grave where he belongs, so why can’t he leave me alone?
“Ah,” Irma nodded. “I know about those groups. They’re nothing more than girls just looking for a good time. They never bothered to learn anything when they attended college. They only went there to look for a husband to take care of them. Then once they got caught up with the campus activities, they joined sororities and acted like tarts, thinking they were better than the girls who didn’t join one. All because they lived in a special house and wore one of those fancy little pins on their sweaters. Well, they were no different then, and I can tell you now, they’re still no different than the rest of us.”
“Bitter, party of one,” Jazz muttered.
Irma’s glare could have stripped paint. “Just because I hold myself to a higher standard doesn’t mean you can make fun of me.” She sat back in the seat with her arms crossed under her generous breasts.
“Tell you what. One evening I’ll come out to the carriage house and we’ll watch my DVD of Animal House,” Jazz offered, to placate the grumpy ghost. “You can see a sorority tart get what she deserves.”
“Don’t let those hussies try to give you something funny to smoke,” Irma advised as Jazz started up the driveway. “I’ve heard it can make you do all sorts of crazy things.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” She adjusted her cropped aqua leather jacket that topped snug-fitting white jeans and a white silk t-shirt. An ornate moonstone pendant set in gold rested comfortably in the middle of her shirt. She thought too much black would scare the girls off, so she decided she would go with her version of witchy college girl chic.
Earsplitting squeals emanating from inside the house warned Jazz that what she found inside wouldn’t be pleasant. She rang the doorbell, waited, and when no one appeared right away, she rang it again. Each time she rang the bell the squealing inside grew louder and more frantic. The sound was eerily familiar.
“Fates preserve me,” she muttered. “Don’t tell me they did what I think they did.”
“Just do something about them! The smell is getting so gross I’m ready to hurl!” A high-pitched exasperated feminine voice hit Jazz just as the front door swung open. A petite brunette wearing grubby denim shorts and a lilac tank top stared at her. “Can I help you?”
“I’m Jazz Tremaine. You called for my services.”
“Thank God, you’re here.” She reached out and grabbed Jazz’s hand, pulling her inside. “We don’t know what to do.” She lifted her hands in a helpless gesture. “You have to save us!”
Jazz’s first warning of the approaching tornado was a flash of pink and a series of squeals that hurt her ears. She jumped to one side as a pig raced past her with two girls on its heels. When they saw her they skidded to a stop while the frightened pig kept on running, its cloven hooves sliding on the hardwood floor. She wrinkled her nose against the barnyard aroma that permeated the entryway.
“Bloody hell,” she whispered, looking around at the chaos with horrified fascination.
“You have to watch where you step,” the girl who let her in warned with an apologetic air. “They, uh, aren’t housebroken and we can’t get them to go into the backyard to do their business, so… .” Her voice drifted off as she looked around at the disaster area.
Jazz ignored her and the other girls who now crowded around her as if she was their last hope. From what she sensed in the air, they weren’t far off the mark. She could feel the tangled threads of magick clouding the air like a crazy quilt, emphasis on the crazy.
There was no doubt that whatever they did here had gone very wrong, and she didn’t need to look at the small herd of pigs to know that the girls had messed up big time.
“When the Wizard was passing out brains did any of you ever think about standing in line to get one?” she asked, not expecting an answer and not receiving one.
Jazz gently pushed away a curious pig chewing on her jeans. If she’d been warned about the pigs she definitely wouldn’t have worn white.
“What did you do?” Her voice was low with the same dangerous edge she had displayed earlier to Dweezil.
The girls fell back. At that moment, their fear of Jazz was as thick as the magick filling the air.
“It was a joke,” the first girl whispered. Her wide eyes were wary, but she still had the courage to face Jazz. Jazz gave her points for bravery even if her common sense appeared to be on hold.
Jazz took a deep breath and reminded herself that the girls didn’t realize they had fooled with something dangerous.
“What kind of joke would involve all this?” She stalked toward the living room and found four more pigs running around. The sharp stench of offal was everywhere. For a moment, she was taken back to her childhood. Then her memories became more recent as she realized just what kind of mess the girls had conjured up. A wave of her hand brought the girls tumbling one after another into the room, whether they wanted to be there or not. With another swish, she froze time.
The wallpaper and furniture were different, but she knew this was the same house Josh Levine had owned back in 1931. For a moment, old memories swamped her and she saw the house as it had been. The debonair Clive Reeves had been out back naked in the swimming pool with five giggling starlets and not one of them was doing the backstroke. That should have been her first clue that the charismatic film star wasn’t exactly the happily married man profiled in Photoplay magazine. But she always had a weak spot for tall, dark, handsome men, which was why she’d been so excited at the prospect of attending a party at the film star Clive Reeves’ mansion. She only wished she could go back and redo that night. But Nikolai … . She clamped her lips shut to stop the curse that threatened to erupt. The way she felt at the moment, she would probably turn the girls into sheep and this area of the city wasn’t zoned for livestock. She brought her mind back to the problem at hand, namely, pigs running all over the place. She waved the room to life again and cocked her head at the leader of the group. As she waited for an explanation, she wondered if she had ever been that young.
“It was ‘Get Even Night,’” the petite brunette murmured, her gaze flitting everywhere but at Jazz. “We all know guys who have been mean to us or acted like total shits.” She started to gain some confidence and stood a bit straighter and then met Jazz’s gaze more openly. “They thought they were coming over for a party.”
Jazz had no doubt what the boys expected to happen at said party. “And … ?”
A girl with a wide stripe of pink running through her white blonde hair piped up, “A girl in my Psych class is a witch and she goes to these awesome parties at some mansion up in the Hollywood hills.” She faltered under Jazz’s withering stare. “She gave me a spell she got there. She said it would make the guys act like pigs. We thought it would be funny if they ran around thinking they were pigs, when they actually are, so to speak,” her words drifted off.
For a minute Jazz thought the top of her head would explode. She took a few deep breaths. “And you called me because?”
“Something went wrong with the spell,” the brunette explained. “They were only supposed to act like pigs. You know, run around on all fours and squeal. They weren’t supposed to,” she cringed as a pig nudged her bare leg, “like, turn into pigs!”
Jazz held out her hand and snapped her fingers. “Give me the spell.”
The girl with the pink-striped hair dug into her shorts pocket and pulled out a folded pi
ece of paper. She gingerly stepped forward and handed it to her.
Jazz unfolded the paper and scanned the words. She mentally vowed to find the idiot who gave the girls this spell and give her a taste of her own medicine.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen!” one of the girls wailed, kicking out at a pig who was trying to climb up her leg.
Jazz looked down at a once lovely rug that even a major shampoo job wouldn’t rescue and furniture that had been shredded by tiny hooves. Nearby, one pig was happily munching on a bouquet of silk flowers that lay scattered on the floor.
“Eight hundred dollars. Cash only.” The look of horror on their faces told her they didn’t have that amount between them. No surprise there.
“We pooled our money together, but we only have four-hundred and eighty dollars.” The brunette walked over to a table and opened a small drawer, pulling out the bills. “Unless you take Visa or MasterCard.” Her smile grew faint at the expression on Jazz’s face. “I guess not.”
“Good guess.” Jazz hesitated just long enough to make them worry. “All right, but …,” she tucked the bills into her jacket pocket and then she paused as their smiles quickly dimmed as she finished her sentence, “you have to do something for me.”
“You can really turn them back?”
“What? You want references now?”
“No, no!” One other girl punched the disbeliever. “What do we have to do?”
“First you better make sure to clean this house from top to bottom yourselves. No finding a way to bring in a cleaning service to handle a mess that all of you are at fault for. If you want my spell to work, you have to clean this place yourselves.”
A bunch of noses wrinkled with disgust. “Clean it? With what?”
“It’s easy. Try buckets of hot soapy water, scrub brushes, and mops,” she said firmly. “And last, you allow me to put a binding spell on all of you to prevent this ever happening again.” She made eye contact with each girl to make sure they understood her conditions. If she knew her manner and stance mirrored Eurydice, Headmistress of the Witches Academy, she probably would have screamed in horror.
“How long will this binding spell last?” one girl asked.
“Forever.”
A horrified silence followed her words.
“But midterms are coming up,” one girl whispered.
Jazz’s eyes sliced through her. “Be original. Study.” Her anger at the girls was as palpable as the barnyard aroma in the room. “What you girls did was dangerous. Magick is not something you play with like a board game. You have no idea what you could have wrought last night with this badly written spell.” She stalked past them, unconsciously echoing the headmistress’s lofty arrogance. “If I told you what could have happened, you would suffer from nightmares for the rest of your thoughtless lives.”
“We didn’t know.” The brunette’s lower lip trembled as a tear trickled down her cheek.
“And now you do.” She crumpled up the paper and with a flick of her fingers, let it burst into a bright orange flame. The girls gasped and stepped back. “From hence on ye shall do no harm. Ye shall speak no charm. From now on, ye shall retreat from all that hovers on the edge of your lives. Because I say so, damn it!” She waved her hand over each girl’s head and a shower of multi-colored sparks fell over them. The air suddenly felt cleansed. She turned on her heel and walked to the center of the room. As if understanding it was now their turn, the pigs wandered into the room and milled about her. “Little boys go to a party. Little boys don’t leave. Little boys turn into piggies. Little girls don’t grieve. Now piggies must return to former selves and little girls will….” She paused for effect. “Behave. Because I say so, damn it!”
“That doesn’t rhyme,” one of the girls whispered. “Ouch!” She rubbed her arm, where she had been pinched hard.
A thick vapor drifted along the floor snaking itself around the pigs that squealed and tried to escape, but the fog was not to be denied its victims. As the mist floated upward, the girls screamed and the squealing grew loud enough to shake the ground underneath them. Then the sound transformed gradually into something deeper and more human. As suddenly as the fog appeared, it slid away leaving a dozen naked young men lying sprawled on the carpet.
“Shit!” One boy with a jock’s beefy build leaped to his feet. He quickly grabbed a pillow off the couch and held it in front of his lower body. “What kind of drugs did you bitches give us?” He shouted at the girls, moving forward with retribution burning in his eyes. There was no doubt he was furious and intended to inflict some serious damage on the first girl he could grab.
“Okay, no reason for that.” Keeping her gaze determinedly set above his waist, Jazz walked over and tapped his forehead with her fingertips. “Forget,” she whispered. A look of consternation formed on his angular face. She moved among the boys, repeating her instructions. She looked over her shoulder at the girls. “If their clothes are destroyed, I suggest you find something for them to wear fast and get them out of here. You have a lot of cleaning up to do.” She walked toward the front door.
“Uh, Jazz?” The brunette almost ran after her. “Does this mean they won’t remember they were pigs?”
“It means they won’t accuse you of drugging them,” Jazz said. “You were idiots to mess with a spell you had no business using, but it’s still no reason for him to call you bitches.” She opened the door and looked at the girl. “That binding spell I cast will make sure you never try or go near magick again no matter how tempting it is,” she warned. “Trust me, you don’t want to even try reversing my spell. The consequences would be nasty.”
Her head bobbed up and down. “Thank you.”
Again Jazz wondered if she had ever been that young. “Just don’t do anything so stupid again. And clean up those rooms until they can pass the white glove test!” She walked out.
“How was it?” Irma called out. A flicker of light flew out of the car.
Jazz sighed. She knew Irma wouldn’t have been able to go too long without a cigarette.
“A bunch of Twinkies with no brains thought they could use a spell to make idiot boys act like idiot pigs.” She secured the money in the glove compartment.
“Nothing unusual about that. When boys drink too much they always act like pigs.”
“Only this drink actually turned the boys into real swine.”
“Oh, my!” Irma patted her breast in ladylike shock. “That is not very sanitary either.”
Jazz thought of the smell that had seeped right into the walls. She was positive the girls would never get it out of the house.
“No kidding.” As she started up the car, she realized her next destination wouldn’t be as easy. She swallowed the groan that threatened to rise up her throat. “And now I have to shop for groceries.”
“You’re a witch. Why can’t you just wave your hands and let the food appear in the kitchen?”
“Because I’d be punished for it.” Jazz thought of the produce manager who always leered at her while he fondled the melons. She couldn’t imagine the council would tack on an additional sixty days for an exploding grapefruit … or five. Not when the man deserved it. “Today, he just might find out what it feels like to be sprayed by a grapefruit,” she whispered to herself.
Sometimes, the punishment was worth the crime.
The coming of dawn pulled at Nick’s power, reminding him it was time to rest. He caught a last glimpse of the full moon, which the weres revered and gave them strength, and wondered why the same full moon would also have a centering effect on Jazz. Admittedly, with her energy level that said a lot.
Damn that witch!
After a frustrating night of tracking down a dead-beat vampire—even the undead were required to pay their bills—Nick was ready to spend the daylight hours resting. He had been a vampire long enough that he didn’t have to sleep the day away and could even go out on sunless days without fear of bursting into flames. But he spent bright days like today in the sha
dowed darkness of his office, where he either caught up on paperwork or took a nap. After the night he had, today was definitely a day for recharging his batteries.
The two-story building near the boardwalk was as antique as the nearby carousel. He took the cagelike elevator to the second floor and headed for the office at the end of the hallway marked Gregory Investigations. The moment he stepped into the reception area his senses detected he wasn’t alone. Just as quickly he knew that his uninvited visitor was a welcome one. He did not bother turning on a light. Neither of them would require one.
“You’re very trusting, my friend. Even a mortal child could pick that sorry excuse for a lock.” A blond-haired man uncoiled his lean length from the chair in front of Nick’s desk and approached him. His broad smile pronounced him friend rather than foe. “By the sign on your door I see you have also modernized your name. I must say that Nick Gregory suits the vampire facing me more than Nikolai Gregorivich did.”
“Flavius!” Nick threw his arms around the man in greeting. “When did you arrive in L.A.?”
“Last evening. I had some meetings to attend out this way and thought I would stop by to see you.” He glanced around the office filled with 1940s era furniture that fit with Nick’s casual clothing and contrasted greatly with Flavius’s sleek Italian cut suit, Egyptian cotton pale blue shirt that mirrored the color of his eyes and tasteful black diamond cufflinks. “I see you still think you’re Sam Spade.”
“And I see you still view yourself as James Bond.” Nick’s grin revealed a hint of fang. “Where are you based now? New York City? Paris? Rome?”
“I’ve been based in Madrid for the past few years.”
“Making use of the Protectorate’s private jet again, are you?” Nick teased.
“As befits a company executive. As I recall you once had free use of any jet in the fleet.”
Nick silently admitted that giving up some of the perks of the Protectorate did hurt. Every jet in the fleet was set up to handle a vampire’s every need from protection from daylight to blood on tap whether bottled or fresh from a willing vein.