“One step at a time, Nonna,” I said, escorting her to the door.
Marie raced past us, heading out the front door. She reappeared with a stack of cookie boxes she took from her red wagon. “Don’t forget your cookie order!”
“Thanks, Marie. Say, can I borrow your wagon for the day? It looks like you’re all done delivering cookies and I could sure use it.”
“No problem, Aunt Kelly. Bye.”
I waved them off and pulled the wagon into the house. It was just the thing to transport Ezzy’s tub of liquid to the museum. Gabe 2.0’s services wouldn’t be required for our next field trip to the museum, but I had to find something to keep him occupied.
“Gabe 2.0, we’re going to be gone for a while. I want you to stay here and don’t answer the door.”
“I will do as you say, my love,” he replied.
Ezzy turned on the television. “Here, watch this. Maybe you’ll learn something.”
Chapter Fourteen
Rescue Mission
“Stealing an artifact from a museum office in broad daylight seems like a fool’s errand to me, Ezzy.”
But Ezzy, convinced we were running out of time and characteristically over-confidently, insisted on an immediate rescue mission. “We’re just the fools to pull it off.”
We sealed the tub of potion and loaded it into my car along with Marie’s red wagon. Unfortunately, the nearest parking spot from the campus was blocks away. Without the wagon, we never would have been able to haul the sloshing tub to the museum. We managed, spouting a litany of complaints along the way.
“Finally! Professor Fuzzball’s office,” Ezzy said, rushing ahead. She carefully tested the doorknob and found it unlocked. I expected her to knock or something. Instead, she drew her wand and waltzed straight inside. A blue light flashed, accompanied by a noise that sounded like a crashing cymbal. Hurrying to the door, I leaned in. Professor Horowitz stood frozen in the corner, smoke rolling off his freshly burnt hair.
“Jesus, Ezzy! You didn’t have to fry him.”
“Oh, he’ll be fine in a day or two,” she said, gently poking his stomach with the tip of her wand. “I think.”
“I’m going to hell, and you’re leading the way,” I mumbled. Looking around the office, I noticed something strange. Several bags or satchels were lined up on the floor behind a desk. I opened one and nearly fainted. It was packed with cash. “Holy shit, Ezzy!” The other bags were also filled with cash. “There must be thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars here. What would the professor be doing with all this cash?”
“Selling drugs? Grades? Who cares? Come on, help me put the gargoyle in the tub.”
It was Barney, all right. Bug-eyed, mouth agape—sheer fright captured in the split-second of petrification. It was quite sad.
Lifting the gargoyle into the tub took every bit of energy I had. I swear Ezzy only placed her hands on it for show. I returned to the door to make sure the coast was clear. To my dismay, a thin trail of sizzling pink bubbles ran from the door along the entire path we’d traveled. And I wasn’t the only one to notice. People began to gather to observe the strange phenomenon.
“Ezzy, we might have a problem. We dribbled potion the whole way here.”
Ezzy joined me at the door and we watched as the fire department’s hazmat truck arrived. “We need to scram before they come here. Let’s stash the professor.” She pointed to an upright Egyptian sarcophagus.
Once we dragged the old man inside, I carefully closed the lid. Of course, I left it ajar so he wouldn’t suffocate.
“Smerda fump,” a voice mumbled.
“What’d you say, Ezzy?” I asked, astonished.
“You’re hearing things, Kel. Lack of sex will do that to you. You should’ve taken my offer this morning.”
“Seriously, Ezzy, I heard a voice. If it wasn’t you, it had to be…”
“Smarda furmer frum.” The mumbling was followed by a series of hollow thumps. I knew it could only mean one thing.
“Oh shit! He’s coming around.” I pried open the sarcophagus. Professor Horowitz shuffled out, mumbling gibberish.
Ezzy snapped her fingers directly in front of his glazed-over eyes. “Hey! Professor!”
“I’m afraid you fried him, Ezzy. He’s not coming out of it all the way. We can’t just leave him like this.”
Slapping her hands on his cheeks, she barked out commands. “You will follow us wherever we go. You won’t speak to anyone. You won’t even look at anyone but us. Understand?”
“Smerdy, smerdy, fump,” he replied.
With an appreciative pinch on his cheek, she replied, “Good boy.”
I spotted a dusty old fedora resting on a globe and placed it over his charred scalp. “Practically presentable. Now let’s get the hell out of here.”
We evaded the growing emergency scene by leaving in the opposite direction, avoiding the first responders by circling the campus.
I hoped taking such a circuitous path back to my car would be worth pulling the wagon a few extra blocks. A large Rubbermaid storage bin filled with magic elixir is heavy enough. Throw in a cement statue of a frog and, well, let’s just say Radio Flyer never engineered their little red wagon to safely transport such weighty cargo. Not to mention the time I figured we’d expended worrying over our stupefied company.
Ezzy and I both grasped the handle and, with our renewed effort, the wagon lurched ahead. Our chore was made more hellish by the sun’s white-hot death rays.
“I am the proverbial ant under a magnifying glass. Maybe the professor can help pull this damn wagon.” It only took a single glance over my shoulder to realize we were lucky the stunned man was still upright. “On second thought, I’m having my doubts about him.”
“Smerdy smur smur,” he mumbled.
“Same to you, Professor,” I replied.
Ezzy stopped to pull her hair into a ponytail. “I hate this time of the day, especially when it’s one of these unexpectedly hot fall days in Chicago. Give me the night. Or, if I do have to suffer in the sun, let me endure it on a nude beach on Saint Bart’s… with the Swedish Olympic hockey team.”
“Men’s or women’s?” I teased.
“Both, of course. Hell, throw in the Norwegians and Danes too. I’ve been craving Scandinavian fare at my next orgy.” Ezzy’s hungry green eyes told me she meant it. “A truly decadent smorgasbord.”
I pictured Ezzy lounging in a beach chair, wearing nothing more than sunglasses and one of those floppy-brimmed hats that Gertie loves so much, casually sweeping her wand like a conductor’s baton while a writhing mass of bare flesh, locked in every possible sex act, danced under her spell.
“Wow! The images you put in my head, Ezzy—they’re quite graphic. I can picture exactly the sort of shameless debauchery you’d whip up a spell for.”
Ezzy clutched at her chest, feigning a heartfelt reaction. “Aww, you really do get me, Kel. I’ll be sure to send you an invitation. Just promise me you’ll bring that studly werebear of yours along. I’ve been thinking of creating an erotic carousel—instead of horses, naked shifters.”
“Uh… that’s okay, Ezzy. A nude beach orgy sounds rather sunburny and sandy. And your carousel might be too dizzying for me. How about you just send me the video.” I jerked the wagon over the crumbling sidewalk. The sloshing and thumping sounds emanating from the tub sickened me. “Do you think he’s all right in there?”
“Barney’s never been all right.” Ezzy sighed. “I suppose we should check him out before he’s reanimated. Jupiter help us if he’s chipped or cracked. I don’t think I could handle one of his tantrums right now. His mouth is what got him in this condition, I’m sure of it. I bet the little imp forgot to engage his brain and insulted the wrong witch.”
I pinched my nose closed and mocked Barney’s Steve Buscemi-like voice. “No. You got it wrong, sister. It’s on account of my little frog dick! You know you could have put that magic wand of yours to work and set me up with some heavy equip
ment, but no. You let me suffer.” I actually got Ezzy to laugh and it spurred me on. “Yeah, that’s right. Suffer! You know how hard it is to rub one out when you’ve got a tiny frog pecker and big webby frog hands? Try grabbing a gummy bear with a catcher’s mitt sometime because that’s exactly what it’s like! Don’t get me started with—”
I wasn’t paying attention and stumbled. The wagon’s front wheels dropped from the curb, slamming onto the street and dropping the curtain on my improvised comedy act. Ezzy and I lunged at the tub, steadying it. If it wasn’t for our quick reaction, the jolt would have spilled the precious cargo. Unfortunately, it sounded like our petrified imp endured a few blows against the walls of the tub.
I caught a glimpse of a new, very unfamiliar look on Ezzy’s face. It was worry. And not just the “Did I forget to call and pay the cable bill” kind of concern. No, this was real, honest-to-god alarm.
“Whoa. Easy, Kelly. At this rate, there won’t be much of him left to reanimate.”
“Did I just detect… dare I say it… feelings, Ezzy? I think so. Maybe you care for Barney a lot more than you let on.”
“Of course not. Barney’s survival is a serious business matter. We need his skills if we want to have any chance at bringing back Karma, Inc.. Not to mention, we need him to figure out who’s been screwing up witchcraft.”
“Right. Just business.” I knew better than to push it. I guessed the words “feelings” and “Ezzy” haven’t been spoken in the same sentence for centuries.
“Do you actually think I have some sort of emotional investment in that creature? Ha! You forget who you’re talking to.” Ezzy’s last sentence was merely a halfhearted attempt to throw me off. I just smiled.
Chapter Fifteen
What Goes Up…
The tub filled with goo and a stoned Barney was heavy. “Are you sure we can’t use our brooms to transport him? What would happen if we defy the no-fly zone?” I hoped Ezzy would explain again why we were struggling to pull a kid’s wagon through town when we could simply use our brooms to go anywhere in a flash.
“Sure Kelly, we could do that. But you get to be the one to tell Barney it’s your fault that his ass is where his face should be. Even if broom travel were working perfectly we couldn’t. Despite Barney’s concrete body, his molecular structure is in shambles.”
“Ah, that’s it. Because he’s a living, but not living, thing right now and he’d get scrambled up by a trip through the space-time continuum. He’d end up looking like my two-year-old nephew’s Mr. Potato Head.”
“You got it,” Ezzy replied.
Eyeing the tub, I suddenly felt sorry for the poor little devil inside. “Alive but not. Locked up in a tub of toxic brew like a pickled egg. Hell of a place to end up, huh, Ezzy?”
“Schrödinger’s fucking imp,” Ezzy grumbled while assessing the distance to a narrow alley across the street. She nodded to the shadowy lane. “We’ll take him back there and check him over for damage.” Ezzy huffed as we tried to jerk the wagon forward. “You know what? I think at this point, it couldn’t hurt to give this wagon a wee magic boost. You win, Kelly.”
“I couldn’t agree more.” I happily took my wand out of my shoulder bag, but just as I tapped the wagon I noticed the tip of Ezzy’s wand land next to mine. “Wait! I thought you meant I should…”
“What? Oh…” Ezzy stammered.
We stared, horrified, waiting to see how badly we’d screwed up. Then it happened. Fueled by the accidentally delivered double dose of magic, the wagon rocketed down the street.
The show got even wilder when a purple flame engulfed the wagon. It was truly mesmerizing. After picking up speed, it became slightly airborne. The wagon’s meteoric flight left a glittery swath of destruction through Al’s Italian Beef, as well as every other building beyond it. Shocked diners, sandwiches in hand, scurried onto the sidewalk.
In the distance, the little wagon glanced off the tilted bed of an empty dump truck. A metallic thump echoed through the streets as the fireball suddenly shot skyward, reminiscent of the fireworks shows I used to go see when I was just a girl. Only this time, my childish amazement of yesteryear was replaced by shock.
“It’s now or never.” Ezzy steadied her wand with both hands and squinted, taking aim at Barney’s missile.
“Ezzy! What are you doing?”
She ignored my pleas and cast her spell. “Conjuro te Barnabas! Conjuro te Barnabas! Conjuro te Barnabas!” Her flying target erupted in a puff of pretty emerald sparkles. Even as the glowing cinders showered down, the wagon continued on its journey toward the stars “Bullseye!” Ezzy cheered.
“What? Ezzy! Did you just reanimate him mid flight?”
“Of course I did. Do you think a few more public displays of magic are really going to matter? Take a look around. More importantly, what goes up must come down. When he does crash down, he stands a better chance of survival as a live frog than as a piece of tacky terracotta.”
“I guess you’re right, assuming that puff of green smoke means it worked. Was he even in the potion long enough? What if your spell was affected by all the weird stuff going on?”
“Only one way to find out. He should come down close to the truck he bounced off of.”
Ezzy led the way, taking her time. Most bystanders were staring at the colorful trail spiraling upwards high above them, but those who weren’t gave us a wide berth. Ezzy didn’t bat an eye. In fact, she appeared completely casual as if she was invisible.
The path in front of us was a disaster. Maybe ‘devastation’ would be a better word to describe the scene. It was bad, incredibly bad. There was nearly a five feet wide gap running straight through Al’s place. We could see straight through the building, and through several other buildings beyond it.
By the time we reached the dump truck, Barney’s trajectory had reached its apex. Like a smudged rainbow, the smoke trail arced and shot back toward the ground. Halfway on its return to Earth, the green and purple ball broke apart into smoldering fragments which rained down on the neighborhood.
The sight made me absolutely sick to my stomach, yet I couldn’t force my eyes from watching Barney’s magic space wagon as it tumbled back to Earth. A small figure trailed a hundred feet behind the wagon.
“Look, Mama! Heaven sent me a teddy bear!” a little girl squealed with glee.
It most certainly wasn’t a teddy bear. At least not from this planet. “Oh. My. God.” I mouthed the words. “Barney.”
Above us, an obscenity shrieking frog tumbled to his certain death, his webbed hands frantically and futilely grasping at the air. “Son of a fucking bitch! Fuuuuuuuuuuck meeee! Ezzzeeeeee! Fuuuuuuck yoooouuu!”
A woman quickly scooped up the girl, covered her ears, and took her to someplace where the weather forecast didn’t call for a sudden downpour of profanity-spouting amphibians.
I literally jumped out of my shoes when the wagon crashed into the roof of a tall building, punching right through it. Barney closed in behind it.
By this point, Barney had resorted to shooting out his elastic pink tongue in an apparent attempt to grab something, anything, to break his fall. His efforts were wasted. He fell neatly through the hole in the freshly punctured rooftop.
“Kelly?” Ezzy asked, in between licking samples of Al’s savory Italian beef from her fingertips. “I believe Barney has touched down. What’s that building he just landed in?”
“Holy Family Church,” I mumbled, gazing at the roof with a zombie-like stare.
Ezzy cackled, “We just launched a demon into a church. Beautiful. Just beautiful. Do you know how many Union rules we’ve broken today?”
“Shit! Ezzy! Forget the Witches Union. My family is going to skin me alive! My great-uncle, Father Leo, is one of their priests. I can’t go in there. No way.”
“Hmm. Well, I’d like to see his reaction. Do you think he’d go all exorcist on us? Because that would be quite entertaining.”
“I wouldn’t even know what to say. ‘Hi,
Uncle Leo, let me introduce you to my friend Esmeralda. We’re witches—apparently pretty crummy witches. Anyway, we accidentally shot a demon through the church roof and we’re hoping to find him here. Maybe you’ve seen him? He’s in the form of a frog, about the size of my ass, and he’s wearing black leather chaps. You’ll probably hear him before you see him because he has a foul mouth and a very distinct New York accent, like Steve Buscemi.’”
“Sounds good to me, Kel. Then we could pretend to summon the little imp. Your uncle would really flip.”
“Ugh! Why don’t you seem to be worried about Barney now, Ezzy?”
“Just listen for a few seconds.” Ezzy tilted her head slightly and closed her eyes. “There. Did you hear that?”
“Only the sound of my panicked heart trying to bust through my ribcage and make an escape.”
“Try again. Listen for a muffled voice coming from just under the roof of the church.”
After concentrating for a minute, I heard him. Barney was alive and trapped somewhere in the rafters. I took a deep breath and decided it was time to make the best of it. “Might as well go get him before he tears the place apart.”
“This is going to be good,” Ezzy chirped happily, leading the way.
Chapter Sixteen
A Mobster’s Funeral
“Looks busy for a Tuesday,” Ezzy said as she watched car after car park along the curb in front of the church. When she spotted a hearse, she announced, “Oh, I see. Never mind.”
We walked through the open doors and I noticed a black sign with moveable plastic letters. Reading the name out loud, it seemed familiar. “Mike Litoris.”
“Uh. Okay, I’ll play along. Hmm, let’s see. Your clitoris is lonely? Itchy? Left the building?”
“No!”
“Oh please. Everyone goes through a dry spell now and then, Kelly. I wouldn’t pronounce it dead just yet. What you need is a good—”
Shame of Clones: A Paranormal Romantic Comedy (Karma Inc. Files Book 3) Page 8