The curtain swished aside and he stared up at her. She held a pointed wooden stick in one hand. The thing she’d used on him before had been more compact. This one measured at least eighteen inches and was made of some light-colored wood that had been polished until it gleamed.
She raised it like a conductor about to signal the beginning of a symphony. Then she pointed it directly at him and started in with the Latin phrases. They sounded very official, and if anything could do the trick this stream of Latin should. He became mesmerized listening to her.
After about five minutes of constant chanting, she lowered the wand and put both hands on her hips, the wand sticking out to one side. “This is one stubborn spell, Jasper. But I’m going to beat it.” Taking a deep breath, she raised the wand again, pointed it at his nose and resumed chanting.
He decided to help. Lifting his head, he began yowling in time to her chanting.
“Great!” She paused for breath. “That’s excellent! Keep it up!”
She spoke Latin and he spoke cat for at least another ten minutes, but nothing came of it. He kept expecting his body to stretch and the fur to fall away. He’d already picked out the towel—a light green bath sheet—that he’d use to cover himself once the transformation took place.
Except it never did.
Anica stopped chanting. “Let me test this wand. I’m not sure it’s working.” She pointed the wand at the toilet and muttered something. When nothing happened, she jiggled the toilet handle and tried again. No response. “Flush, damn you!” She was clearly getting upset.
Jasper hopped to the edge of the tub and stared at the toilet, willing it to flush.
“It’s the wand. I’ll try my other one.” She stormed out of the bathroom, leaving the door open.
Jasper could have run out, but he didn’t see the point. If her other wand worked, then he’d be transformed any minute. There still could be time for some dream sex before the alarm went off, which just might salvage this awful nightmare.
From the door of the bathroom, Anica pointed her short wand at him and chanted with more intensity. After several minutes of chanting with no observable result, she lowered the wand. “I have a bad feeling about this.”
She wasn’t the only one. He’d been looking forward to dream sex with her.
“Jasper, I’m not sure what’s going on here, but my magic seems to be on the fritz.”
Bummer.
“I hate, hate, hate doing this, but I have no choice. I have to call my sister, Lily.”
Because she said it as if delivering a death sentence, he was immediately afraid of this Lily person. Hopping back into the bathtub, he scrunched down in the corner.
“Oh, Lily’s not that bad. It’s just that I’m usually the responsible one and she’s the screwup. We’ve had our issues over the years, and although we’re not enemies, we’re not fast friends, either. Seeing what I’ve done to myself—and you,” she added hastily, “will send her into gloat mode. But she’s pretty good at magic, so she might be able to take care of this problem.”
Jasper marveled that he’d had dozens of conversations with Anica over the past three weeks and she’d never mentioned a sister. They couldn’t be very close. Then again, this was a dream. The real Anica might not have a sister at all.
She closed him in the bathroom while she went to get her cell phone. He made use of the time to hop up on the counter and look at himself in the mirrored wall above the sink. He’d been wondering what he looked like, and if he was as sleek and elegant as he imagined.
Not so much. The creature staring back at him looked like it’d been put through a food processor. Dull black fur, about a half inch all over, was matted with dried bits of chocolate mousse. He had globs of it clinging to the tufts in his ears. In fact, he was the ugliest cat he’d ever seen. Fuckin’ A.
He hated the idea of licking his fur. Hated it. But he hated looking like a Dumpster diver even more. He pawed at the faucet and managed to turn it on. Then he wasn’t sure what to do next. Stick his head under it? Climb into the sink?
Just at that moment Anica opened the door with the phone to her ear and spied Jasper. “Wait, Jasper.” She picked him up from the counter. “I’ll give you a bath instead.”
Like hell. He wasn’t about to trust her to do that without somehow drowning him. He felt his claws sink into her arm as he launched himself away from her and out the bathroom door. He didn’t feel bad about scratching her. She’d brought it on herself.
He scampered through the bedroom and romped down the hall, loving the freedom, ready to do whatever it took to get himself out of this hellacious mess. Then he skidded to a halt.
Blocking his way was the cat he’d sensed earlier when he’d first come into the apartment. He was an orangey color and looked enormous with his back arched and every hair sticking straight out. He was the cat from hell, and if Jasper wanted his freedom, he had to go past him.
Chapter 3
Anica barely heard her sister’s promise that she’d be there ASAP. Leaving the phone on the counter she rushed through the bedroom and out into the hall, where Orion and Jasper had found each other and were circling like prizefighters, each trying to out-hiss the other.
“Orion! Jasper! Cut it out!”
Neither cat paid any attention. Ears back, tails swishing, they crouched and circled, ready to rumble. Anica ran back to the bathroom, filled a water glass, and made it back just in time to see Orion and Jasper lunge at each other and go down in a rolling, spitting ball of black and orange fur.
Anica tossed the water on them. With a screech, Jasper abandoned the fight and raced for the living room. Orion followed, and a loud crack signaled that one of them had broken something. Anica arrived to find Jasper on top of the bookshelf. Orion, who couldn’t leap that far, waited at the bottom, growling.
Anica’s very expensive, impossible-to-replace crystal ball, which she’d put on top of the bookshelf to keep it out of Orion’s reach, lay on the floor in two pieces amid smears of chocolate mousse on the carpet. The crystal must have split when it bounced off the marble-topped end table, which now had a large chunk broken off the right front corner.
She didn’t know what breaking a crystal ball signified, but it couldn’t be a good thing. The carpet could be cleaned, but the green marble-topped table was an antique she’d saved for months to buy.
She glared at Jasper. “Keep this up, fur face, and you’ll be eating Cat Chow for the rest of your life.”
With a sigh, she went to the kitchen and got a sponge and a bucket of water. She wasn’t much good at cleaning because she’d always used magic for that. Sponging up mousse from the carpet sounded disgusting, but for the time being, she had no choice.
She was still on her hands and knees when Lily used her key and came through the door. Anica had given her the key after renting the apartment, probably in some vain hope they’d grow closer. It hadn’t happened. Apparently they were too different. Dropping the sponge into the bucket, Anica got up.
Dear Zeus, how she hated to let Lily see her in the middle of such a major screwup. She forced herself to be gracious. “I appreciate you leaving work, Lil.”
“Are you kidding? I wouldn’t have missed this for the world.” She glanced around and quickly took in the disasters. “Whoa! Your boyfriend looks like shit. What’s he been rolling in?” Lily took off her backpack and black leather jacket.
“Chocolate mousse from La Bohème.”
“Was that before or after the transformation?” She was wearing her bartending outfit—a low-cut black knit shirt and skinny black pants. Her dark hair was piled on top of her head in a loose arrangement. With that hairstyle and platform shoes, she was at least six feet tall. Anica was not petite at five-eight, but Lily was almost five-ten in her bare feet.
“After the transformation.”
Lily surveyed the living room. “Uh-oh. Is that what’s left of your crystal ball?”
“ ’Fraid so. Do you know what happens when you bre
ak one?”
“No.” Lily crouched and picked up the two pieces. “Do you?”
“Nope.”
“I’m thinking Super Glue might not be the answer.” She laid the pieces on the carpet again and stood.
“Probably not. I’ll research it later. Right now, we have to deal with the cat situation. I’d rather the Wizard Council didn’t find out.”
“I’ll bet.” Lily’s brown gaze was smug. “Who would believe that my perfect older sister would one day break a rule. How does it feel, sis?”
“Not so good, if you must know. Can we get going here? I hope you brought your wand. My two don’t seem to be working.”
“I always carry one in my backpack.” Lily walked over and unzipped a side pocket. “But I have to ask, what sent you over the edge and made you zap this guy—what’s his name?”
“Jasper Danes.”
Lily pulled out her wand, which was dyed deep purple and covered with glitter. “He can understand everything we say, can’t he? I mean, he’s a cat on the outside but still a man on the inside, right?”
“I think so.” Anica glanced over at Jasper, who stared at her with accusing golden eyes. “It’s hard to tell since he can’t talk.”
“That could be a plus. Want me to try and keep that feature in when I change him back?”
After the lies Jasper had told, Anica was tempted. But it would violate wizard law. “Lily, we can’t mess around with people.”
“Don’t be all sanctimonious with me.” Lily pulled a reference book on spells out of her backpack. “You’re the one who turned a man into a pussy.”
From his perch on the bookshelf Jasper growled.
Lily glanced up at him and smiled. “Yep, he can understand us, all right. You still haven’t told me why you wanded him, sis.”
“I’d rather not go into it.”
“Was it because you discovered he has a teeny-tiny dick?”
“No, it wasn’t!”
Jasper hissed, which made Lily laugh.
Anica scowled at her. “You’re enjoying this way too much.”
“Yes, indeed I am. For all my twenty-six years, I’ve been the screwup in the family and you’ve been the model of perfection. I finally, finally have something to hold over your head. Unless you were planning to come clean with Mom and Dad.”
Anica thought of their highly respectable parents, who’d taken a year’s sabbatical from their teaching positions at the International Magical Academy to research ancient herbal remedies in Peru. “I’d rather not.”
“Good choice. My silence can be bought, but it’s not cheap.”
“Lily! You’re dickering over terms while a man’s existence hangs in the balance!”
“Who put him in that position, hmm?”
Lily had her there. Oh, how Anica regretted that split second when fury and frustration had wiped out years of discipline. “You’re right.” The words tasted like vinegar in her mouth.
“Music to my ears, big sis. Music to my ears. Okay, I found something that might work. Stand aside, and let the responsible sister take a shot. Oh, how I love saying that! It’s never been true before, but looking at the mangy alley cat perched on your bookshelf, you have to admit it’s true now.”
Anica closed her eyes and envisioned a lifetime of being blackmailed by her younger sister. “Just do it so we can all go back to our regularly scheduled programs.”
“If you insist.” Lily sighed. “I would love to stand here and poke fun at you for another hour or so, but—”
“Lily!”
“Okay, okay. I suppose there’s some reward in that he’ll appear naked. That could be fun. Did you want to get him a towel or something?”
“Yeah, hold on.” Anica hurried to the bathroom and pulled a towel off the rack. When she returned, Lily was waving her wand like a symphony conductor, but Jasper was still in cat form. Anica hadn’t watched her sister do magic in some time and had no idea how she worked these days. “You didn’t start, did you?”
“No. I’m limbering up the wand. I like my men and my wands flexible.”
Anica groaned. If she hadn’t been desperate for help she wouldn’t have called Lily. But she hadn’t been able to think of anyone else who could come at a moment’s notice and could (she prayed) be trusted, or bribed, not to tell.
Lily cleared her throat. “I’ve given up on the Latin chants. Too hard to remember. English works fine for me.”
“You can chant in Portuguese if it’ll break this spell. Go.”
“I’m ready.” Lily raised her wand. “Mangy tomcat, full of grime, tiny dick your only crime—”
“That wasn’t the problem, damn it!”
Lily paused, took a breath and started over. “Mangy tomcat, full of grime, flaccid dick your only crime—”
“It had nothing to do with his dick!”
“I find that so hard to believe. In my world, men either have what it takes or they don’t. I can’t imagine turning one into a cat unless they come up short, so to speak.”
Anica didn’t dare look at Jasper crouched on the bookshelf. “I have no idea whether he would come up short or not.”
Lily stared at her in disbelief. “No nookie?”
“Not yet.”
“What’s wrong with you? You’ve known him for weeks! Okay, I have the chant for this. Don’t interrupt this time.” She rolled her shoulders and shook out her hands. “I need to concentrate.”
“Okay.” Beggars couldn’t be choosers.
“Mangy tomcat, full of grime, low sex drive his only crime, re-create his form sublime. With harm to none, so mote it be.”
Anica doubted that Jasper had a low sex drive, not if Sheila wanted him back on any terms. But Lily was incapable of working a spell without throwing something funky into the mix. Anica had forgotten that until now.
She held her breath and waited for Jasper to appear before them, naked and covered with chocolate mousse. If that happened, it could settle the tiny-dick question once and for all. Anica didn’t believe that supposition of Lily’s for a minute. Fate wouldn’t be so cruel as to make a man as gorgeous as Jasper and give him substandard equipment.
The two women and the orange cat gazed at Jasper, waiting for something to happen. Anica and Lily hoped to see the cat become a man. Orion obviously expected that Fate would deliver this interloper to him once again so he could whip his ass. No cat could stay on a bookshelf forever.
Nothing happened.
Lily examined her wand. “I don’t know the problem. It was working before I came over here. I used it to change the TV channel in the bar from ESPN to American Idol.”
Panic tightened Anica’s muscles. “Test it on something else.”
“Good idea.” Lily pointed her wand toward the kitchen. “I use this one all the time at work. Tequila smooth and lime so tender, dance a tango in the blender.”
From the grinding noise that followed, Anica concluded that Lily’s wand worked just fine. Her spell must be wrong. “Can you try another spell?” She was almost afraid to ask, for fear the next chant would be even more embarrassing, but they had to keep trying.
“Let me see what I can find.” She grabbed the book and flipped through it. “Maybe this one. Mangy cat so discontent, sorry you are impotent. Change thy form and be a gent.”
Anica groaned. “Do they all have to insult his sexuality?”
“Actually yes. They recommend getting the transformed being angry, which acts as a kind of catalyst to help reverse the spell. That’s assuming the spell is similar to those in this book. It must not be, since we haven’t changed a whisker on that cat so far.”
“Can I see the book?”
“Be my guest.” Lily handed it over.
Anica read quickly and with increasing despair. “These spells are much more elaborate, involving pieces of hair and stuff. I didn’t do any of that.”
“Where did you get the spell in the first place?”
“Remember that old History of Magic text I
found in the used bookstore right next to campus?”
“Not particularly. You were the one who went gaga over that musty old thing, not me.”
“I’ll go get it.” Anica walked back to the bathroom and returned with the book, which she opened to the page with the incantation on it. “I memorized this for fun back in my freshman year. I thought it sounded cool. I didn’t even know if it would work.”
Lily came to read over her shoulder. “Anica, there’s no counterspell listed under it.”
Worry made Anica impatient. “Don’t you think I know that? If there had been one, I’d have used it.”
“So why did you use a spell with no counterspell?”
“I forgot it didn’t have one! And the spell was a reflex, something I did without thinking it through, a knee-jerk reaction.”
“Amazing. That’s so unlike you. He must have been a gold-plated asshole to make you lose it like that.”
“Well, he was, but that doesn’t mean he deserves to be a cat for the rest of his life.”
“Or that you should lose your magic for the rest of yours.”
“What?” Anica glanced up at her sister.
Lily squeezed her shoulder. “I read it in my spell book just now, but I didn’t want to tell you. It said clearly that if a witch or wizard transforms a person into an animal, no matter the reason, they must reverse the spell within ten minutes.”
“Ten minutes?”
“That’s all the time they have before they lose their magic abilities. And those abilities won’t be restored until the person is restored to his or her original form.”
Anica slammed the cover on the History of Magic and laid it on a chair. “Show me where it says that.”
Lily retrieved her spell book and thumbed through until she found the passage. “Here.”
Anica’s hands trembled as she took the book and read the passage Lily pointed to. Sure enough, that’s what it said. “No wonder my wands don’t work! My stupid History of Magic might have said something about this little side effect!”
“I hate to point this out, but it’s a history book, not a spell book. I doubt they expected you to work magic from it.”
Blonde With a Wand Page 4