by Linda Wisdom
She stared out over the wooded area and thought of a life beyond that of an outcast witch.
But then what would I do?
“Come on, Jazz. Give us small town girls news of the big city.” Blair’s words drew her back to the present. “How is sexy Krebs doing? You need to bring him up here again.”
Jazz smiled. “He’s still designing websites for the Undead and recently set one up for a jazz club that caters to weres.” She went on to talk about her own latest clients. Stasi and Blair laughed at her story of the college girls turning the school jocks into pigs and begged for more stories.
“There was a very nice woman who needed to be rid of a curse placed on her by an ex-boyfriend,” Jazz said. “He was convinced she made a major mistake in breaking up with him and he set up a curse where she saw his image in any man she dated. He was convinced this would bring her back to him.”
“That’s just sick!” Blair sputtered.
Jazz nodded. “It wasn’t long before her nerves were shot to hell. She took a leave of absence from her job and hid out in her apartment. Luckily, a friend of hers knew about me and called. The poor woman was almost physically ill from the stress.” Her delicate features darkened with the memory.
“That’s not love. That’s disgusting.” Stasi shuddered.
Jazz agreed. “I could feel his obsession tainting everything, as if he’d come into her apartment and coated the walls. I think that’s what was making her ill. So I decided he needed a taste of his own medicine.” She grinned.
“Good!” Blair shouted, saluting with her macchiato cup. “Warts, boils, or oozing sores?”
Jazz shook her head. “Every time he looks at her, he feels something dark and nasty hovering nearby. It isn’t anything he can see. Just that sense of something there. It will wear off in about six months and I think by then he won’t even be able to think of her with affection. My own brand of aversion therapy.”
“People have no idea what harm can be done in the name of passion,” Stasi said. “Love shouldn’t be binding but freeing.”
“Says the resident romantic,” Blair teased.
“That’s why we love Stasi.” Jazz smiled warmly at the woman she considered closer to her than blood. “Yet, what some think are curses turn out to have nothing to do with magick. One man was convinced his dog was cursed because the dog constantly chewed up his clothing and shoes and even pretty much destroyed his furniture. He said his wife had a curse put on the dog because he won custody of the animal in their divorce. Turned out that wasn’t it at all. The dog was just stressed out about the divorce and they needed more quality time together.”
“Canines are so easy to understand—almost human,” Blair mused.
“Yeah, this was a sweet little pup. Except his idiot owner didn’t think he’d need to pay me since there wasn’t a curse to eliminate. I explained to him what would happen if he didn’t and he happily ponied up.” Jazz grinned.
Stasi idly turned the pages of the latest Allure magazine. “We wish you would come up here to live, Jazz. It isn’t as if there’s not enough room here for you.”
“I’m happy in L.A. Between the curse elimination and driving for Dweezil, I keep busy.” Jazz straightened out her jean-clad legs. Wearing black high-heeled boots, black slim cut jeans, an emerald green silk t-shirt and a black leather jacket along with a black Stetson shading her eyes; she looked like a sexy version of the Marlboro woman. She would have preferred wearing Fluff and Puff, but her slippers were banned from Moonstone Lake since an unfortunate episode with a squirrel.
“I don’t know how you can be happy working for that ghastly man.” Blair shuddered.
“Dweezil might be disgusting and …”
“Scary looking,” Stasi added.
“And a total perv.” Blair’s lip curled.
“Not to mention having a third arm and second dick,” Jazz reflected to a double set of shrieks. “But he does pay well.”
“He should.” Stasi pulled her legs up onto the chair so she could wrap her arms around her knees. Her skirt drifted down over her legs. “By working for him you have to drive all those disgusting creatures.”
“Someone has to do it and I’m better qualified than most.” She sipped her triple mocha macchiato thoughtfully. “Some of them even tip well.”
“Considering what they look, and smell, like they should.” Stasi wrinkled her nose. “You even have to drive that disgusting creature who requires a special car.”
Jazz nodded. “Tyge Foulshadow is about as gross as you can get.”
“Foul everything from what you’ve told us,” Blair said.
“The man farts smells that are unimaginable and in color, no less. The air recirculation system in the limo is top of the line, but my clothes still end up stinking like something horrible. Dweezil likes to remind me that the gas won’t hurt me, but he forgets I can still smell it.” She mimicked a gagging sound. “At least he’s a big tipper. He sort of reminds me of the Earl of Brambleton.” All three women shuddered at the memory of the man who was the cause of their banishment.
“For a member of royalty he was beyond repulsive. He never bathed, there were bugs in his beard and hair.” Blair wrapped her hands around her macchiato to keep them warm in the chilly morning air.
“That was nothing unusual back then. As I recall, we weren’t into baths all that much either until we entered the school.” Stasi propped her feet up on the railing and studied her toenails while looking at a magazine lying open in her lap. She waved her hand across her toes. The bright pink nail polish promptly disappeared. She looked down at her magazine, touched a nail polish bottle in an ad and in turn touched each of her toenails, promptly coloring them a rich shade of coral that matched the squiggly design on her knee-length flirty skirt and her coral sweater. An intricate gold chain circled one ankle, a tiny broom hanging from it. The same anklet graced Blair and Jazz’s ankles at all times, except hers displayed a creamy pearl while Jazz’s sported a deep purple amethyst and Blair’s a rich blue topaz.
“Honestly, Stasi. You do know you can actually go into a store and buy nail polish and manually apply it to your toes, don’t you?” Jazz asked. “Or you can go wild and even go to a salon where they’ll do it for you.” She held up her hands and wiggled her scarlet painted nails.
“I know, but sometimes it’s fun to try something out ahead of time.” Stasi did the same to her finger-nails and sat back to admire the effect. “That way I don’t end up with something I don’t like.”
“Jake is late.” Jazz picked up the binoculars resting by her chair and brought them up to her eyes so she could scan the landscape. Several houses were set nearby.
“Only by about five minutes.” Blair sipped her vanilla caramel macchiato. “He’s not known to over-sleep. It is so sad I’ve never had the pleasure of personally discovering if that little piece of information is true. More’s the pity.”
“He better get his cute, tight denim-clad butt in gear and up on that roof soon because I have to be on the road in the next half hour.” Jazz kept the binoculars trained on a cabin set a short distance away.
“Mrs. Benedict jokes that the minute the coffee is brewed and her first batch of biscuits come out of the oven, he’s on her back doorstep ready to work,” Blair said.
“Does she still make those incredible sourdough biscuits?” Jazz asked settling back in her chair with her leather-booted feet still propped up on the railing.
“Like clockwork every Thursday morning and sometimes she sends a batch over here. With him.” The yummy was unstated, but the image of hungrily licked lips fairly layered itself over the blonde witch’s provocative mouth. “The last time she sent him over with a jar of homemade raspberry jam along with a plate of biscuits,” Stasi said with a sense of reverence for a sexy male bearing homemade biscuits and jam.
“There he is!” Blair snatched the binoculars out of Jazz’s hands almost strangling her with the neck strap as she brought the lenses up to her eyes. �
��Good morning, sunshine,” she purred. “They are so right—a tool belt does make the man.”
“I want to see!” Stasi leaned over to grab the binoculars.
“No, me!” Jazz said, sliding her head out from under the binocular strap even as she reached from the other side. “Besides, I had them before you stole them!”
Blair kept one hand on the binoculars and the other batting back and forth at the women’s hands. “Three minutes,” she sang out. “The rule is three minutes each. And that means three minutes viewing time without any interference.”
Stasi collapsed back in her chair. “Whoever made up that rule was seriously disturbed.” She absently fiddled with the delicate coral hearts that dangled at the end of her gold earrings.
“You were the one who suggested the three minute rule. I voted for a five minute viewing time,” Blair felt obligated to point out as she settled back in her chair to enjoy the view. She set her cup on the small glass-topped table next to her chair.
“Bandanna?” Stasi asked. “Jeans or cut-offs? Is he wearing a shirt?”
Blair nodded. “Red. Tied neatly around his forehead with that one lock of hair draped artfully over it. Cut-offs and a dark green t-shirt.” Her shoulders rose and fell in a sigh. “Think it will be hot enough for him to take his shirt off today? How long do you think it will take before he gets all sweaty?” She looked up at the dim morning sun as if she could use her magick to heat up the orb.
“Never fool with Mother Nature.” Anticipating Blair’s wish, Stasi shook her head reprovingly. “She doesn’t have a sense of humor.” Her bare foot gently nudged a small ball of fur lying by her chair. A tan-colored head raised and looked up with canine delight. She leaned over and picked up the small dog that uttered a high-pitched yip and covered her face with Snausage-scented kisses.
“Okay, your three minutes are up. My turn.” Jazz twiddled impatient fingers in front of Blair’s magnification-enhanced vision, demanding her shot at the binoculars. She settled the lenses in perfect viewing position. “Oh my, almost as good as a nice hot cup of coffee for a wake-up call. Have you seen what incredible hands the man has? And doesn’t that give the imagination a lot to work with.”
Stasi counted off the seconds to three minutes. As she handed over the binoculars, Jazz plucked the dog out of the other witch’s lap and cradled the small canine against her breasts.
“One day, you need to get a real dog,” Jazz said, handing the little beast over after Stasi reluctantly passed the binoculars back to Blair.
“Bogie is a real dog,” Stasi said, stroking the dog’s head and scratching him behind his ears. “He’s a Chihuahua/Yorkie. Both are very old and respected breeds.”
“Just because the AKC says those are dog breeds doesn’t mean this critter is a dog,” Jazz said.
“Stop making fun of my Bogie!” She hugged the small canine against her chest and received a sloppy kiss. “He’s a wonderful dog!’
“Is not a dog.”
“Is so.”
“A dog barks. That thing yowls like a scalded cat. A dog licks its ass. That critter licks his paws as if a speck of dirt on them was something downright disgusting. Only cats do that. Do you think he can land on all four paws too? Let’s see if he can.” Jazz plucked him out of her lap and held him a small distance above the ground.
“Not nice!” Stasi snatched him back.
“He is more like a doggie dust ball than a real dog,” Jazz argued.
With a regretful sigh at the distant male figure walking the length of the sloped roof with sure-footed grace, Jazz pushed herself out of her chair. “I need to be off.”
“We mean it, Jazz. Move up here with us. Work would be no problem.” Stasi said, following her down the stairs that led from their flat-topped roof to the ground. Her small dog trotted happily at her heels, but if anyone looked closely they’d realize the dog’s paws never touched the ground. “There’s plenty of room in the building to open any type of business you wish. Think how wonderful it would be if more of us settled back here.”
“You’d be amazed at all the cute guys that stop by on their way to the resorts,” Blair tempted.
“While I enjoy visiting Moonstone Lake, I like where I am now, and I’m doing well there,” Jazz assured her. A faint image of Nick lingered in the back of her mind before she ruthlessly banished it. “Who knew there were so many curses in the L.A. area that needed to be eliminated.” She chuckled, as they stood near the small parking area behind the building. “Especially in Hollywood.”
“It’s about time you showed up! A body could die of old age waitin’ on you!” A woman’s querulous voice drifted toward them.
Jazz rolled her eyes. “Your watch stopped working in 1956!” she snapped.
“You should be nicer to her,” Stasi said under her breath. “She hasn’t had it easy all these years what with being unable to leave the car.”
“Her? I’m the one stuck with her.” Jazz glared at the gray-haired woman. Ghost, she amended irritably. Ghost, ghost, ghost! Irma’s flower trimmed hat bobbed up and down with her head as she continued criticizing Jazz’s social skills and lack of concern for others. Jazz stamped her foot. “You’re dead, Irma! Time is not a problem with you!” She muttered a few choice curses under her breath but nothing magickal. Not that any spell could have affected the victim in mind.
“You’ve been able to eliminate every nasty curse thrown your way,” Blair said. “Why haven’t you been able to zap Irma out of the car?”
Jazz shook her head. She pulled her keys out of her jacket pocket. “I wish I knew. No other curse gave me this much trouble. It’s as if she’s under some damn spell that keeps her safe. I’ve gone through so many spell books and I’ve never been able to find anything that works.”
“Are we leaving or not?” Irma shouted. A stream of cigarette smoke floated out the window.
Jazz cast her eyes upward as if seeking help and then hugged her friends.
“Safe journey,” Stasi murmured in Jazz’s ear. Blair repeated the same words when the two women hugged.
Jazz smiled at both of them and then turned and stalked toward her car. “I told you no smoking in my car!” she shouted.
“It’s not as if I have to worry about lung cancer.” Irma held her cigarette to her Tangee-colored lips and blew out a perfect smoke ring. “And you forget, it was my car first, which is why I don’t see why I cant have a pet to keep me company when you leave me alone here. It could also protect me.”
“No pets allowed,” Jazz insisted. “And the only reason you consider the car yours is because you died in it.”
Stasi and Blair stood shoulder-to-shoulder watching the snazzy T-bird roar out of the parking lot. The two women walked around to the front of the building to their shops.
“If Irma wasn’t already dead, I fear Jazz would gladly accept any punishment as long as she could zap her somewhere unimaginable,” Stasi said.
Blair chuckled. “If Irma wasn’t dead, Jazz would just turn her into a seat cushion and put it in that special limo for Tyge Foulshadow to use.”
Stasi looked over her shoulder in the direction the small car had taken.
“Did you notice something when Jazz told us what’s been going on with her lately?”
“Nothing new, other than she still isn’t dating, why?”
Stasi shook her head. “She may have thought she made us think she told us all, but I could tell she didn’t. Our Jazz kept something back and if she did…”
“That can only mean one thing,” Blair finished for her.
They faced each other. “It has to do with Nick!”
Ten
What do you mean you haven’t stopped by there yet? You promised me you would go by the shop and pick it up for me. They’ll be closing in a couple of hours!”
Jazz winced at the accusation in Krebs’ voice. She really should have checked caller ID before answering her cell phone. Krebs in a snit was not easy to deal with. And her Witch’s Code wouldn’t
allow her to conjure up a harmless li’l ole spell to allow him to forget her promise. A promise, mind you, she’d given when she was desperate for coffee that morning and he was holding the pot hostage until she agreed to pick up some computer equipment he’d special ordered.
“A promise you extracted from me before you told me exactly where I had to go. They don’t like me coming in there.”
“That power outage wasn’t your fault, so don’t use it as an excuse. Just run into the store, tell them you’re there to pick up my order, sign the paper, and get out. They’ll even load the boxes in the car.”
Jazz’s mouth opened then closed when she realized he’d already hung up.
“Fine,” she muttered, dropping her cell phone into her jacket pocket. Her boot heels clicked loud in the almost empty parking garage. She frowned as she passed a large number of parking spaces devoid of the minivans and SUVs she was used to seeing when she came here. With it being a mega sale day at the mall she would have expected the garage to be filled by this hour. Numerous cars rolled past, the drivers each looking for that all-elusive parking spot closest to the store entrances, but they ignored the nearby empty slots. Echoes of traffic sounded muted in the concrete structure.
Her T-Bird was in sight when an overpowering wave of a suffocating sensation engulfed her. Her footsteps faltered for a moment. She instinctively knew that increasing her speed would only slow her down as she crossed through an invisible threshold that felt like a gooey sticky barrier.
As she stared at her car parked at one end of the deserted section, she knew exactly why drivers subconsciously left this part of the garage alone even if they would have been only a few steps away from the parking garage elevator. She wouldn’t have wanted to park here either.
As she walked forward with her eyes trained on her car, which any mortal would see as a dingy sedan, a tall figure separated itself from the shadows near the front bumper and now stood near the tail-light. There was no doubt the man had been waiting for her. Irma sat frozen in the passenger seat wearing an expression Jazz didn’t think she’d ever seen on the cranky ghost. Fear.