“Your nephew? He calls you mama,” I asked.
“Yeah, it’s because me and my sister accidentally mixed up our babies one day and decided it didn’t much matter because then at least they’d be raised by their biological fathers.”
“Jesus.”
“Oh, it gets worse. Damn those DNA tests, worst thing for families since the internet. But I won’t bore you with that. Speaking of DNA, Kelly, you’re the spitting image of Kate Upton. Dang, you could be her clone. It sure would be great if you’d be willing to swim a few laps in the compound’s gene pool, if you know what I’m saying. Ian’s been looking for a wife for years now, but it hasn’t worked out. They keep escaping.”
“Just unlucky in love, I reckon.”
“Or maybe because you’re a creep,” Ezzy said.
“Um, let’s be nice, Ezzy,” I grumbled. “No thank you, Ann. We have to get going, you know how we witches are. Since we can’t expose our magic identities, you and your neph-son should be the ones to call the authorities on Horowitz and his partner, Pinky. Please, take all the credit. You’ll find them tied up in the basement.”
“And what about the statue? We need to lock that demon in the safe room on the compound.”
“That won’t be necessary. We have an associate who is an ancient Assyrian witch, a good witch, and she is already on her way to permanently seal it in the earth.” I lied, of course. Alice was in the limo with the statue in her lap.
“Damn! You better be telling the truth. All right, we’ll take care of those criminals. We’ve got something we call deprogramming. In time, an archaeologist will make a good addition to WOW. I don’t know what the hell uses we’ll have for his partner, but I suppose we’ll think of something. Come on, Ian. Let’s bring out the trash.”
Ezzy and I quickly hopped into the limo. I thought about the WOW deprogramming and wondered if it would’ve been more humane to turn Horowitz and Pinky over to the mafia.
Johnny had called Hamster and said something about a problem with the delivery truck. Needless to say, Hamster was itching to leave. As soon as I sat down, Hamster hit the gas and drove the limo like a meth fueled car thief.
I frantically pawed through the contents of my oversized purse, hoping to find my mini-broom, or at least my wand. If our magic had finally been restored, I wanted to get us out of that limo before Hamster got us all killed. He steered the speeding behemoth down an alley behind the church and locked up the brakes. We screeched to a halt.
Johnny waited next to the rear overhead door of a large Franchetti Enterprises delivery truck. “It’s locked and the key isn’t on the ring, Hamster. Carmine had some other flowers delivered, but he told me to bring these in when I got it opened.”
“I’ve got the universal key,” Hamster said, drawing a shiny black pistol from under the jacket of his Adidas running suit.
BLAM!
I wasn’t prepared for the gun’s thunderous bang and the simultaneous crash of the bullet smashing through the lock. The vibration made my heart skip a beat.
“Unlocked,” Hamster said, blowing away a whiff of smoke from the gun’s muzzle.
Johnny lifted the door, and stared into the dark cargo area. Hamster scratched his head and said, “You brought the wrong truck, Johnny. And if this isn’t the one with the flowers…”
He was cut off in mid-sentence by a stampede of two muskoxen. The buffalo-sized beasts raced down the alley, heading for the main road. Waving his arms, Gabe called out, “Hey! Over here!”
I suppose they recognized his voice from all those intimate moments shared on the frozen tundra. They stopped, turned around and lowered their heads. It wasn’t until their front hoofs began pawing at the pavement when I realized what was about to happen. Chalk it up not to bull fighting experience, but to Saturday morning cartoons. I knew those animals were about to charge at Gabe.
The pair of hairy monsters rushed ahead, building steam as they came toward us. Before long they were moving at a remarkable speed. Barney lost his composure and ran from our group, heading toward the church. Gabe shifted into bear form and ran after him, trying to draw the animals around the limo and into the alley’s dead end.
“Holy matrimony! The back door of the church is open. They’re heading for the smell of the flowers!” Gertie yelped.
Being the closest, if certainly not the bravest, I ran to the door, ready to close it. Father Leo surprised me. “Kelly! Good to see you again.”
“Uh, I thought you were…”
“In the nuthouse? Carmine sprung me for the weekend,” Leo said.
I glanced over my shoulder and caught a glimpse of Barney zigzagging in front of the muskoxen. Just before they trampled his little green body, Barney jumped. He landed on one of the animals, straddling its neck and grasping handfuls of fur where I assumed muskox ears were concealed.
“Jupiter help me!” he screamed.
His repulsive steed barreled directly toward me and Father Leo. We wasted no time running into the church. Pews were left in splinters, carpeting was ripped to shreds, and statuary was reduced to shards by the pair of muskoxen.
“I hope this thing works.” I whipped out my wand and leveled it at the animals. Mumbling a short spell, I flicked the wand. The green fireball that shot out was a welcome sight. Magic was back! However, my aim still hadn’t improved. The fireball smacked Barney right in the back, knocking him off the muskox and propelling him through the air. He screamed out a tirade of obscenities so vulgar and so crude it made me sick.
Father Leo bravely swung a crucifix in one hand and threw holy water from the other as he shouted, “Return to Hell!” The water hit Barney just before he crashed through a stained glass window. “One demon down!” Leo cheered.
I steadied the wand and revised my spell. It was time for the muskoxen to go home. Two green glowing plasma balls flew out, each one hitting an animal. Leo hit them with his holy water head on, while my fireballs nailed them from behind. They disappeared instantly.
“Aha! I just got two devils with one shot! I’m getting good at this. I might become a full time exorcist,” Leo cheered. Thankfully, he never noticed what I had been doing from the other side.
After I rejoined my friends, I removed six bundles of hundred dollar bills from the trunk and snuck into the church. I placed the money behind the altar with a note that read ‘anonymous donation for repairs.’
It was time to leave. I made some calls and apologized for a sudden illness which kept me from attending the wedding. After all, with fifty-eight first cousins, I doubted there would be a shortage of volunteers for stand-in bridesmaids.
“Magic is back and I have my broom! Let’s go back to the hotel and unwind.” In a flash, we arrived back in the penthouse with enough money to go around.
Chapter Thirty-Five
A Promise Kept
“I’m really sorry about your car, Kel. Let me make it up to you,” Randy said, handing me a bundle of cash.
“I’m not even worried about it now. I suddenly find myself in the market for one of those four-wheel-drive trucks. Something that can make it down Gabe’s dirt road driveway any time of year.”
“You’re seriously going to live in a cabin in the woods? You?” Randy lifted his chin and squinted. It was his you’ve-got-to-be-joking look.
“Absolutely. And guess what? I made that decision when I wasn’t sure if I’d ever have magic again. Of course, now that magic is back, a certain amount of anxiety is out of the equation. Nothing like magic to take care of the little things.”
Ezzy came into the lounge and joined us. “Well, kids, our last client’s request worked out after all. Sure, we took the long route. If she would’ve just told us what was really going on from the start we’d never had such an ordeal.”
“Things happen for a reason,” I said.
“True. Speaking of which, it’s time to get Barney’s new body ready.” Ezzy flicked her mini-broom and vanished in a puff of green smoke.
I thought about wha
t I’d said. Do things work out for a reason? Or do we just say that so it’s easier to accept our situation? I came to the conclusion: it’s fine either way. Even if you have to really stretch logic to find a reason, you’re better off. I would find my existence very sad and small if I imagined everything in life is the sum of events as random as a roll of the dice. Whether it’s magic, fate, or something more, I’m the kind of person who needs to feel like this life is part of something bigger than all of us.
By the time I was done spacing out, Ezzy had flashed back, and she brought the one-armed Apollo with her. As soon as Barney saw the statue, he lost it.
“One arm? Really? Did you have to get my body at the scratch and dent sale?” he whined.
A bell chimed. It sounded like the timer on my oven and it seemed to be coming from George Cloney. He stood perfectly still, like he’d been frozen stiff. There was a shimmering glow to him as he became more and more transparent. The chime stopped and the clone was gone.
“When your time’s up, it’s up, I guess,” Gertie said.
“He was cloned earlier than Gabe 2.0. We don’t know when he’ll vanish so we have to go back to the museum. No time to explain.”
Ezzy flashed me, Barney, Alice, Randy, Gertie, and Gabe 2.0 along with the statue, to Horowitz’s office in the museum.
“Clear that desk,” she ordered. Once cleared, we placed the statue face up on the desk. “We need the professor’s clay and plaster. Anything he would use to make his forgeries.”
“Got it!” Randy said, setting down a crate filled with supplies.
“Alice, can you summon that guardian spirit from the basement?” Ezzy asked. “I have a job for her.”
Alice placed two fingers in her mouth and whistled like she was calling a dog. Less than a minute later, a green-robed ghostly figure glowed in our presence.
Ezzy, very matter-of-fact, said to Alice, “Command the spirit to turn Gabe 2.0 to stone. Do it before his time is up too.”
“What?” I said. “You’re really doing this to him?”
“Yeah, I really am.”
Alice spoke with the spirit in an unfamiliar language. The spirit acknowledged the order and immediately zapped Gabe 2.0 into stone. The statuesque clone fell backward onto the floor. When her task was done, the spirit vanished.
Ezzy dug through the box and took out a hammer and chisel. I nearly threw up when I saw her break the stoned clone’s arms off. “There, now to remove the statue’s arm.” She busted it off and tossed it on the floor. With Randy’s assistance and a lot of clay, she fitted Apollo with new arms compliments of Gabe 2.0.
“I knew it! That’s why I brought this,” Barney announced, opening a box. “Randy, remember when I asked you to use the Clone-a-Willy do-it-yourself dildo kit? Well, here’s my new pecker! Look at this beast!” He pulled out a huge rubber dong.
“Oh my God,” I said, looking at my shoes. I did not need to see what my brother had created for Barney.
“Sweet baby Jesus!” Gertie remarked.
“This is what you want? Um. No,” Ezzy said, handling it. She dug around the box until she found a large knife.
“Don’t do it, Babycakes! Don’t hack my new pecker like you’re chopping a cucumber!” Barney begged.
THUNK! Followed by THUD! And THUD!
The sound of the knife hitting the desk was enough to make me glance up. A three inch hunk of rubbery material bounced along the floor like a squished tennis ball. The next two thuds were Barney and Randy passing out at the sight of Ezzy’s penis butchery.
“Well, that’s something you don’t see every day,” Gertie said.
Ezzy admired her work. “That’s more like it. Still freaking big, but doable. Now, for a little clay here and there. Then smooth this spot out… whatever the hell is going on there. And done. Fasten it to the statue and we are now ready.”
Alice picked up Barney’s unconscious, limp body and placed him on the desk. Ezzy poured a bottle of her homebrewed animation potion on the statue while circling the tip of her wand over the bodies. She chanted a spell, repeating the phrases until the bodies glowed. The greenish light became so bright I could no longer see. It pulsed, like a heartbeat. Suddenly the room was dark.
When the lights flickered back on, the beautiful Apollo stood before us. Tall, tanned, lean, and muscular. He had the unmistakable face of a Greek god. In place of the fig leaf, he held a resin garden statue—a caricature of a biker frog.
Tossing the frog over his shoulder, he wrapped his arms around Ezzy. “Thank you, Babycakes. I love you.”
Too bad Barney still sounded like Steve Buscemi,
Ezzy looked up into his eyes. He placed one hand on her cheek and wiped away a single teardrop, something I’d never seen Ezzy produce. Then he kissed her. It was the sweetest, most loving kiss I’d ever witnessed.
She whispered to him, “I love you too, Barney.”
More tears flowed down Ezzy’s cheeks and I knew—that was the moment the wall around her heart crumbled away. After hundreds of years, she had allowed herself to fall in love.
I was crying, and when I looked next to me, I saw Gertie, Alice, and Randy crying too.
“Why don’t we leave these two lovers alone? I have my broom with me, they can catch up later.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Just Us
Randy, Brad, and Gertie needed to get back to the paranormal creatures on the plantation and Alice flew off to visit her old haunts in the Middle East as well as to drop Pazuzu in the ocean.
I zapped Gabe and myself up to the Arctic and administered the perfect aphrodisiac to the muskoxen: witches’ brew. I had no doubt the muskox population would soon be breeding like rabbits.
Finally, Gabe and I got the chance to have our own naked time in the hot tub. “When we get to the cabin I am installing one of these on the back deck. Imagine looking up at the Northern Lights while we make love.”
I reached over the side of the tub and picked up my wand. Pointing it to the ceiling, I dimmed the lights and created a shimmering luminescent green light above us. Watching the swirls, I asked him, “Will it do for tonight?”
Gabe leaned back. I turned to face him, placing my leg over him until I was happily resting on top of his waist with my arms around his neck. We kissed, while I sensually rocked my body against him, feeling him harden with arousal.
A bright flash in the darkened room nearly blinded me.
“Looks like fun. We’d love to join you, but I just need to pick up a suitcase full of cash. We’re on our way to Florence to do a little shopping. Barney’s wardrobe currently consists of the tux I picked up for him. By the way, avoid those stores on Michigan Avenue. I walked through the fragrance section in one of them. Let me tell you, I was immediately the target of a perfume bukkake,” Ezzy said.
I blinked until I could see again. Barney was very handsome in his tux and Ezzy was knock-down gorgeous in a Ralph Lauren dress.
“Despite that unfortunate event, you two look awesome,” I said. “I’m so happy for you both. Have fun!”
“We will. See you in a few weeks. I have big plans for Karma, Inc.. Now, go back to playing cowgirl. Ciao!”
The happy couple flew off to Italy. As for myself, I was quite content to be right where I was.
My dreams were recharged because my next adventure was going to be with Gabe.
Epilogue
Gwendolyn, toying with her gavel, leaned back in her chair. “Quite a story, Witch Franchetti. But completely unbelievable. Esmeralda gets a happily-ever-after with that miscreant, Barney? Now that’s a whopper.”
“They seemed happy enough to me,” Kelly replied, shrugging her shoulders. “I suppose the ever-after part will be up to Ezzy and her imp, Barney.”
“Humph. Perhaps. Hand over one of those cloning kits and you can leave without charges. I’d like to study a few football players,” Gwendolyn said.
Kelly retrieved a small box from her purse and handed it to me. “Annabel, this one is for Gwend
olyn. Would you like one too?”
“Absolutely not. Certain cats, the most annoying ones, seem to clone themselves. Why compound the problem? I do have one question. Whatever happened between Gertie, Brad, and Randy? I’m intrigued by the possibilities.”
“You know what, Annabel? Some things are better left unknown, even at a hearing before the Supreme Council.”
“Then I’ll let my imagination run wild.”
“Good idea, Annabel. The best stories are still waiting to be told.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
New York Times & USA Today Bestselling Author Melanie James is the author of more than two dozen books. She grew up in western Pennsylvania before heading off to Chicago, seeking new adventures. She found life in a big city fun for a while and even met the love of her life there. Melanie quickly tired of the hustle and bustle of the concrete jungle and settled down with her one true love in northeast Wisconsin.
Melanie has two kids, three step-kids, a beautiful daughter in-law, and the cutest grandbaby. She also has two dogs and two cats that often make appearances in her books.
She loves to hear from her readers and fans. You can connect with her online:
http://www.authormelaniejames.com
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Shame of Clones: A Paranormal Romantic Comedy (Karma Inc. Files Book 3) Page 18