After the call, I turned to Gertie and told her of the plan for the day. “Seems like we have a cookout to attend at Lindsey’s. And I hate to say this, I also need your help with a little magic.”
“Magic! Now we’re talking! What do you have in mind?”
“Remember the super stalkers that Kelly and Lindsey were dealing with?”
“The hot roofers?”
“Yep! That’s the guys. They are also the werewolf hunters in Four-Bitten Fangtasy. Because of their characters in the story, they became completely devoted and obsessed boyfriends. The other day I decided to write some more and have Luke and Derek get an urgent message to go after some wolves. You know, get them onto something other than the girls. Well, what happened to them is a real mess. In any case, Lindsey and Kelly actually liked having the guys around. They want them back, just not in restraining order style. They want them to be normal, if that is even a possibility. I’m thinking of having them return to the girls, now that they’ve completed their mission. I just want you to look over what I write to see if you can spot any possibilities that it could be taken the wrong way.”
“Sounds simple to me, Leigh. Let’s do it.” Gertie said. I led her over to my desk to watch as I continued the story of Derek and Luke.
Derek and Luke had successfully completed their wolf hunting expedition and now had their girls, Kelly and Lindsey, back on their minds. Things had changed. Perhaps it was the danger they encountered on their adventure, or maybe it was just the time they spent away. Whatever the reason, Derek and Luke both agreed they had been too obsessed with their girls in the past. They wanted to still date them at a completely normal and natural pace. They vowed to be polite, well behaved, and courteous to Lindsey and Kelly while still being very romantically interested in them.
“There. Done. Now read this over very carefully. Look for anything, anything at all that could go wrong.”
Gertie silently read it over and then she read it out loud. “No. I don’t see any problems at all.”
I didn’t either, but it pays to have a proofreader. “Good. Then I guess we’ll just see how well it works out!” With that, Gertie and I got ready for the cookout at Lindsey’s. Hunter finally called and he gladly offered to pick Gertie and me up on his way. Just before it was time for Hunter to arrive, Luna stepped out of the hallway, carrying a little scroll of paper in her mouth. She jumped up on my desk and dropped it.
“Now what?” I said as I picked up the little scroll of parchment. It had a wax seal that said Witches Union Local 1313, and it was addressed to Gertie.
“Thank you, Luna.” She bent down and gave her a kiss on the head. Gertie unrolled the scroll, which inexplicably seemed to grow much longer than the little rolled up piece of paper she started with. “Wow.”
“Wow what? What is it, Gertie?”
“It seems they have sent a list of certain characters they expect to have in your book, as well as what I assume is a basic plot they expect you to follow. Including how it ends.”
She handed me the scroll and I read through it. “Are you kidding me? And did you read this note on the bottom? There’s a deadline. Two weeks from today they will be expecting a completed manuscript.”
“I saw that, too. Do you think you’ll be able to write it by then?”
“In their dreams! They can all just get in line to kiss my ass. This story was my idea to do, anyway. To be honest, I don’t even know if I feel like writing it anymore. What’s the worst that could happen if I don’t have it done and the way they want it written?”
“No! No, no, no, no, NO! You don’t understand. Those old witches don’t just make suggestions. They issue commands. And the worst that could happen? Need I remind you what an angry old witch can do? And those witches are old and they are always ready to flip into all out bitch mode at the drop of a hat. You’ll have to do it, and I’ll help you any way that I can.”
“Well, we can talk about it later. Hunter should be here any minute. I’m not letting this bother me today. Not yet.”
Chapter Fifteen
An Enchanted Afternoon
As promised, Hunter arrived and the three of us traveled over to Lindsey’s. Kelly was already there, and she had brought along two of her little nephews. I sometimes had a hard time keeping the progeny of Kelly’s siblings straight. She was the youngest of seven children, and her three sisters and two of her brothers were now all married with children. When I say children, I mean they were the offspring of Satan and his evil concubines. Everyone lived in close proximity to each other, and the children seemed to be completely interchangeable among families. The last time I was able to get a full count, Lucifer had managed to procreate sixteen times. Although there were at least two sets of twins in the mix. That was certainly a cruel joke to make it more difficult for people like me.
Kelly’s single brother, Randy, had arrived at the cookout and Gertie became very excited when she saw him. I remembered there were still a couple of things that I needed to talk to Gertie about concerning Randy. For the moment, I was occupied with defending myself from the onslaught of a demon attack brought on by Kelly’s twin six year old nephews. Gertie skipped across the lawn and shouted out, “Hey! Randy! Randy Johnson!”
“Oh. My God. She didn’t just say that out loud.” Lindsey threw her hand over her mouth.
“I believe she did. I don’t think she knows the whole story.” Kelly added.
“Let me talk to her when I get the chance.” I just had to wait for the opportunity. The sooner the better it would be.
Now I have a problem I know many other elementary school teachers have as well. It seems we can all agree, within the confines of the classroom or even the playground, we are able to tame even the worst of the little ogres. If you should take everyone outside of school and put them in a family gathering, we suddenly become nearly powerless. It should be surprising, but in fact we are used to it. Even with three elementary school educators present with all of our combined experience and training, we may as well be trying to tame some of Gertie’s paranormal beasts. Still, I envied Kelly’s big and boisterous family, the one she always referred to as a “mixed” family. To her a mixed multicultural family was part Italian and part Jewish Russian.
The real surprise occurred when Luke and Derek showed up. At least Hunter and I were quite surprised. Before long they had paired up with Kelly and Lindsey. Lindsey winked at me and gave me a thumbs up in gratitude for fixing the issue. I was pretty well planted in one place with the weight of a baby demon hanging on each leg. Thankfully, Hunter pried the vermin away and took them to play with a ball he spied lying in the grass. I saw Gertie temporarily break away from Randy and I seized the opportunity to give her a fair warning.
“Gertie, I need to talk to you about something. It’s about Randy.”
“Oh! Isn’t he just the sweetest? He always dresses so well and he is just so outgoing and funny.”
“Exactly. Have you noticed his well-manicured nails? And was his friend Mark with him last night?”
“Those guys were pretty drunk last night. They were so funny. You should have seen them goofing around and grabbing at each other. They were hilarious.”
“Okay, first, Randy’s last name is not Johnson. That’s more of a—nickname that I suppose his friend Mark gave him. And before you get your romantic little heart set on Randy, you need to know that he is gay.”
“Oh, isn’t it great? That is exactly what he said. That he was gay. I told him I’m gay, too. I think everyone should be gay. He asked something about me, kind of strange. Somehow or another he must have found out about how I accidentally appeared in your coat closet. I don’t recall what he said exactly, but he asked me how long I’d been out. I had no idea what he meant and then he said that he meant out of the closet, how long have I been out of the closet. So, obviously he knew about that. I told him you were the one to help get me out of the closet and that you were my special friend. I even told him I was spending the weekend with you at
your place.”
“You didn’t! What did Randy say?”
“He said that it explains a lot about you! That he never sees you with a guy. But that must have been the alcohol talking, because it didn’t make a lick of sense to me.”
I looked up and saw Randy give me a smile and a little wave and nod from across the yard. The problem here was that Randy and I knew each other for many years. I completely embarrassed myself with him when I was in high school. I literally threw myself at him and he rejected me. The thing was, at that time, Randy hadn’t figured out what was going on with himself, so he never told me why he rejected me. For the longest time I thought he despised me. It took a while until the awkwardness finally wore off.
“Gertie, what I’m trying to say here is that Randy isn’t attracted to girls. He likes boys. Mark is his boyfriend. And the word gay nowadays means somebody that is attracted to a person of the same sex. Does this make any sense? I have to add that it is perfectly acceptable for people to feel that way and live that way. Just saying that since I know you are from an entirely different time when it may not have been.”
“Oh. Oh! I get it. Yeah, that kind of thing happened then, too. It just wasn’t talked about outside of certain circles, of course. Now I know what Mark meant when I said everyone should be as gay as us. He said that at least there would be a lot more bars to hang out in.”
“Just be his friend. He’s a nice guy. Remember though, you’re only going to be good friends. That’s all. And that’s okay.”
“All right. Just my luck. Well, I’ll just have to keep my eyes open. There’s plenty of fish in the sea!” Gertie shrugged off her disappointment in her usual bubbly fashion and went back to Randy. I thought about what she said and looked at Hunter, who was busy kicking a ball around with the little twins. I don’t know about the other fish in the sea. I don’t see myself throwing this one back in. Ever.
The afternoon went by wonderfully. Everyone mingled and mixed, Lindsey’s grilling was incredible. We were all relaxing on the patio, talking and listening to the radio, then something happened that made all of us ladies freeze solid, each with completely shocked faces. The DJ provided us with a news update.
“Some pretty bizarre news today from Arlington International Racetrack. There was some excitement when an apparent prankster replaced two of the thoroughbreds with, now get this, a unicorn and another with Pegasus! That’s right, a one-horned unicorn and the winged horse of ancient Greek mythology, Pegasus! Perplexed officials have actually described the animals as a mythical unicorn and the other as Pegasus. Now don’t be too alarmed. I’m sure it was just a horse with some sort of a fake horn somehow strapped on its head like a party hat. The other with a set of corny foam wings. My guess is that this is some sort of publicity stunt, but I, for one, am not buying it.”
I finally wiggled my index finger and motioned for the girls to pull closer to me. “We’ve got to talk about this. Meet me in the kitchen.”
Once Gertie, Kelly, and Lindsey filed in through the back door, we gathered around the island heaped with half empty serving bowls of various sides and salads. “I don’t even remember seeing a third of these today.” Kelly observed. She then swept her finger through another bowl that had the remains of chocolate frosting. “You did? You made your chocogasm cake? Where is it? Bring it on before all the men get their paws on it!”
“In time, Kelly. In time. Why rush it? I want to make sure everyone has a chance to settle down from everything else.”
“Food foreplay before chocogasm. Sounds ideal.” I brought everyone down a notch and said, “Well, what the hell do we do now? A unicorn and a flying horse? Anyone?”
“I can’t change them back. I don’t know how. I just hope that the union doesn’t find out about this. They really frown upon public displays of magic, at least as extravagant as putting mythical creatures in a horserace—and with my record—I hate to think of what they would do.”
“That’s another thing. As long as they had them there, why didn’t they just race them? Imagine the publicity mileage they could have gotten out of that?” Lindsey remarked with complete sincerity.
“I say we don’t do a thing. Deny, deny, de—” Kelly was interrupted by a loud crack and a puff of black smoke.
Chapter Sixteen
Let’s Go, Witches
“All right, witches. Who was the comedian at the horse track?” It was none other than Esmeralda. She had swapped her many-sizes-too-small business suit for black leather pants and a black leather bodice trimmed with darkened gold and blood red paisley panels. All of it was so tight, she looked as if it may have been painted on. Her hair was wildly let down, it had curls, and it was big. She finished off the look with high heeled, black leather boots.
Lindsey didn’t faint this time when a witch appeared of out thin air. “Would it hurt for you people to knock or something? It’s more than a little unnerving to have a paranormal dominatrix just pop up in your kitchen.”
“Dominatrix,” Esmeralda said slowly in a low tone. “Dominatrix,” she said again as she walked closer to Lindsey. She eyed up Lindsey, feeling her hair. “Well, well. If that’s what comes to mind, you know what that means?”
Lindsey shook her head.
“It means, Dorothy, I get to be the wicked witch that finally gets to inflict some punishment on a very naughty farm girl.”
“Huh?” Lindsey really was the poor naïve farm girl and it took her a few minutes to grasp what Esmeralda had said. “Oh!”
I silently agreed with Lindsey. I thought to myself, all you need is a riding crop. You would make a textbook dominatrix.
Esmeralda snapped her head towards me and looked me over. “Oh, I have one, sweetie. Maybe next time I’ll bring it along and you two can be my witches for the night.”
“Oh shit! Sorry. I forgot about the mindreading skills. And I’ll pass on the whipping. Thank you.”
“I’m going to cut to the chase. We have a little problem with a unicorn and a flying pony. The very problem that the union abhors. I’m willing to make it go away, but it’ll cost you.”
Kelly was still in self-preservation mode and she had no idea who she was addressing. “We? You have a mouse in your pocket? This sounds like a personal problem to me.”
Esmeralda hissed at Kelly. She actually hissed. “Listen, I know it was one of these two buffoons.” She pointed at Gertie and me. “And I’m guessing it had to be Miss O’Leary here. It would be just like a girl that farts rainbows to transform race horses into My Tiny Pony lookalikes.”
Gertie was slightly upset. “Hey! I was drunk at the time!”
“Oh, that will definitely be a great excuse.” The sarcasm dripped from Esmeralda.
“Did they really turn out looking like My Tiny Pony toys?” Lindsey asked.
“Yes, in all of their fucked up rainbow and butterfly glory. Like I said, this goes away under one condition. You two witches are going to help me out. As much as it nauseates me to say this, I need allies. Unfortunately, you two are the only ones I can trust—or blackmail if you prefer that.”
“What do you mean? What is it that you need us to do?”
“The old bitches on the union board have a plot. They want to take control of everything supernatural. And there are all sorts of supernaturals out there that they have never told you about. One dangerous type that no longer exists are the vampires. Not for a hundred years. Even before that, they were very rare. I don’t miss them at all. They were nothing but a bunch of moody crybabies and drama queens if you ask me.”
“Why were they so dangerous then?”
“They were the only supernaturals that had the ability to kill other supernaturals. They weren’t invincible of course. You could take them out with a fucking toothpick, they were afraid of garlic, they couldn’t be in the light. They had more rules than you could count. Still, they were feared by everyone, including mortals. It is because of them that the Yetis vanished just for their fur. Unicorns? Vampires feasted on them.
Dragons, history. Mermaids? Nearly wiped out, and they are just now making a comeback. Smelly bitches. I could go on. Anyway, the union wants a vampire. A very powerful vampire that they can create and control. The only way to do it is through the use of the very rare literal magic that you have stumbled upon, Leigh. And, Gertie, as much as I dislike everything about your wardrobe and your disgustingly happy personality, you are the only witch with the ability to recreate supernatural creatures that have been extinct for centuries. The union wants those creatures back, and they want to be the supreme leaders of all supernatural creatures. Their plan is to have you, Leigh, write what they want to happen and they want to maintain control through fear. Fear of their very own powerful vampire. I don’t know about you, but I have no desire to be under their thumbs.”
“So, why don’t I just refuse to do what they want?”
“They will make you, Leigh. You have no idea what and who they will go after to make you write what they want. This is where we have to work together. I plan to take over the board. I’m going to be the Chair and you two the other officers. It will take very careful and very secret planning. I’ll be listening in to all of their plans, and I will go over every piece of your story as you move along. Those witches won’t know what hit them.”
From her expression, Gertie must have thought Esmeralda had completely lost her mind. “Take control of the union? What are you thinking? You know how old and powerful those witches are.”
“Listen, Sunshine, don’t doubt me. None of you witches better doubt me. I’m an original, old school badass. Straight outta Salem.”
“Ooh, gangsta witch!” Kelly laughed. “Listen, I applaud you for trying to bring in the gangster attitude, but it doesn’t mix at all with your sophisticated, condescending, and sardonic alpha bitch shtick.”
Esmeralda gave Kelly a scathing look as a response. “Enough of this! I’m here for Leigh and Gertie. They’ve got what I want and need.”
Serious Leigh (Literal Leigh Romance Diaries Book 2) Page 9