by Renee George
Fall leaves fell from the large trees looming over the yard. A cool breeze whispered over my skin, raising goosebumps on my arms and legs. I needed warmer clothing than a body-con mini dress. “Do you all have a Walmart?”
“A Wal-who?”
I sighed. Heavily. “That will be a no then.” I shook my head. “Let’s just get this over with.”
I walked over to where the porch stood and pressed my feet into the dirt. Nothing.
“I need more of a focus,” I said. “It feels like nothing was ever here.”
“That’s how it felt when Helen disappeared,” Reginald, who’d followed us over, said. “Like she was never there.” He paced back and forth, his skinny, white tail standing straight up and crooked a little at the top. “But she’s definitely here now.”
“Can you hone in on her?” Chav asked.
“I’m not Google maps,” Reginald said. “But I do sense her near.” He darted his eyes back and forth. “It’s as if she watching us right now.”
I looked around. Bob, Kurt, Wanda, DeeDee, Roger, Chunk, Chad, Chutney, and Chip, plus the four cats, and half the town, but I didn’t see a strawberry-blonde witch in the bunch.
Absently, I stroked Jango Fett’s belly. “I’m not getting...” My tongue went numb, and my sight grew fuzzy.
Oh crap, oh shit, oh Goddess. This is worse than not being able to leave this goddess-awful place.
I am in a blue room with a flat-screen television on the wall and a mauve couch.
What have I done? I should have just fucking stayed where I was. I think I’ve torn the fabric of space, and if I can’t figure it out, I’ll end up back in that magicless-fucking place, and all of Assjacket will end up there with me. I look down at the bound woman squirming at my feet. She can’t say anything because I’ve shoved a gag in her mouth, but she stares up at me with her large, hazel eyes.
“If I can’t figure this out,” I tell her, “neither one of us is getting out of her unscathed.”
I drop Jango Fett on the ground, and he lands with a loud and angry meow!
I look at DeeDee. “You’re in danger,” I tell her. “The witch. I saw her with you.”
“What did you see?” the deer shifter asked, clear alarm on her face.
“For some reason, she targets you. You have to keep yourself safe.”
“Always travel in packs of two,” Chip said.
“Even when you’re going poo,” Chad added.
“There is safety in numbers,” Chunk sang out.
“Even in slumbers,” Chip went again.
“Walkalonediealoneit’sboundtohappenandifyouwalkalonediealonemommagonnagettoslappen.”
Chad smiled. “It’s a rhyme our mom taught us, so we remember to never do anything alone.”
“That’s sweet,” Ruth said.
Willy rolled her bobcat eyes. “Those naked fools are idiots, but they’re not wrong. DeeDee, you should stay next to someone at all times. Sunny’s visions are reliable.”
I flashed Willy a smile. “Thanks.”
Chav trotted over to me. “You okay?”
“I have a whopper of a headache, but I’m fine.”
“We should go back to the diner,” Wanda said. She took DeeDee’s hand. “Like the boys said, there is safety in numbers, and with things disappearing around Assjacket, I think it’s time we call in the big guns.” She looked at her husband. “Don’t you agree, Kurt?”
The raccoon alpha nodded. “Unfortunately, I don’t think we’re going to be able to handle whatever magic is happening here without her.”
The three house cats nodded their heads. “It’s time,” Fat Bastard said.
I could feel my butt cheeks tighten at the thought of meeting this Shifter Wanker. On one hand, excitement and intrigue. On the other hand, possible death and dismemberment. It was a roller coaster of emotions.
A woman with fiery-red hair that rivaled Willy’s, you know, when she wasn’t a bobcat, materialized in the in the center of the crowd holding a baby boy on one hip and eating a powdered donut. White sugar caked her lips as she looked at the gathered group.
“What the ever-loving fuckity-fuck-fuck is happening here?” Her gaze went past the naked chipmunk Shifters and landed on naked Victorian. Her eyes widened in horror. “Sweet Goddess on a two-day bender, I’m going cut some nutsacks if someone doesn’t tell me exactly what the hell is going on.” Sparks flew from her fingertips. “Don’t make me start zapping some asses.”
I cleared my throat. Chav whacked me with her tail. “Uhm, your, uh, what the hell am I am supposed to call you?” I asked with as much respect as I could muster. “Shifter Wanker seems really strange. Peculiar, even.”
“Why don’t we start with who you are,” more sparks flew, “and why you dismantled my home.”
I pointed to my chest. “Me?” I barely dodged a bolt a fire she launched in my direction. Chav, Ruth, and Willy had all scattered out of the way as well. “Wait!” I shouted before she could try again.
“The first shot was a warning,” the red-head said. “The next one will zap your ass to kingdom come.”
“Zelda,” Fat Bastard said. “It wasn’t Sunny.”
She looked up at the gray, cloudy sky. “I can see it’s not sunny,” she said. “What does that have to do with the price of knockoffs in Malaysia?”
“The blonde chick. She’s Sunny. She and her pals aren’t the culprits of this here porch heist.”
Zelda clenched her fist. The baby on her hip giggled. “I’m sorry, Henry. Mommy gets cranky when she’s yanked away from a perfectly nice vacation.” She looked at me. “Mac is not going to be happy. I promised him two weeks without any witchy business.”
She took a bite of her donut then spit it out. “Yuck. Charred. Damn it!”
Henry’s lower lip jutted out and my boobs instantly hurt.
“Ow,” I said, smooshing them down.
Zelda raised her brow at me.
“I just weaned my youngest, but I still get the sensation that my milk is dropping every time I’m around babies.”
“Yikes,” Zelda said. “Is that what I have to look forward to?” She stared down at her amazing breasts. “No.” She shook her head as she bounced the boy on her hip. “Don’t distract me with your mommy talk. Tell me what’s going on in my town, and tell me quickly before I lose my shit.”
****
An hour worth of explaining later, we found ourselves in Zelda’s spacious kitchen. At least this witch knew how to properly host. She laid out more donuts that she popped in from who knows where, and she brewed a fierce cup of coffee.
“So, let me get this straight,” Zelda said. “You guys were having a girl’s weekend in Reno, you went to see a fortune teller named Jane Tennison, who was probably this witch, Helen Mirren, and the next thing you know, you’re in Assjacket, your friends are all animals, you have no recollection of where you’re from, and shit from my town is disappearing. Did I leave anything out?”
“We have plenty of recollection about our town. We just can’t remember its name.” A strange notion popped into my head. “I might be wrong, but I think...I think our town doesn’t exist. At least not in your world.”
Zelda slowly stirred her coffee as she brought her gaze up to meet mine. “Go on...”
“In my vision, this Helen, and I’m assuming it’s Helen because it’s not like she’s introduced herself to me, is elated at first. She’s happy to be back and happy to have her powers back. But then, when she tries to leave town, she can’t, because she’s being pulled back to where she came from. At first, I thought she meant Reno, but now I’m not so sure.” I looked at the Shifter Wanker. “What if the reason your Bubba Yoga—”
“Baba Yaga,” Zelda corrected, then winced as if she ate something sour.
“Yeah, her. According to Reginald, the big-eared cat—”
“Helen’s familiar,” Zelda said.
“Yeah, him. Well, according to the familiar, she disappeared off everyone’s radar, and from
what I’ve been told, that’s pretty hard to do when this Baba Yaga is after you.”
Zelda took a sip of her coffee and shrugged. “True.”
“So, what if she didn’t hide in your world.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, and I’m still not one-hundred percent sure we’re not all dead, but just in case this is real, that your world is a parallel world to mine. We don’t have witches and vampires and such in our reality. And we have therianthropes who shift, but you guys have Shifters. I think the reason we can’t remember our town is because, in your reality, our town doesn’t exist.”
Ruth gasped. “I cannot live in a world where Ed and my kids don’t exist.”
Zelda stared at Ruth, her mouth slightly agape. “I can’t get used to words coming out of an animal’s mouth. You know, that aren’t familiars. It’s just too peculiar.”
“I think it’s a byproduct of our realities getting mashed together. Helen did something to us in that room in Reno. It changed us and sucked us into this world with her.”
Fat Bastard skittered across the kitchen floor. His large stomach heaved as he tried to catch his breath.
“Calm down,” Zelda said. “What’s wrong now?”
“Jango,” Fat Bastard said on a breath. “And Bobba. They’re gone. Just... gone.”
“For fuck’s sake! This is getting out of hand,” Zelda exclaimed.
A titter of hope waffled through me. I looked at Chav. “What if the things disappearing in this world are showing up in ours?”
Her dark eyes widened as what I said sunk in. “Then we could go home.”
“Yes.” I shrieked as a sharp pain pierced my butt cheek. I turned quickly to see a scorch mark surrounding a hole that had burned clean through my undies down to my skin. Zelda’s fingers were still sparking. “That was my clean pair of underwear,” I said, trying to remain calm, so the crazy witch didn’t zap me again.
“Then stop talking nonsense.”
“I don’t care whether you get back to your little Ozarky town or not if it means losing my home and my people. So, pretend you’re the little Dutch boy and help me plug this dam of leaky reality shit, or I will make sure that none of you get home.”
Chapter Nine
Once again, we were back at DeeDee’s kitchen, and I was sorely grateful I’d washed my other pair of underwear the night before. They had been red to match my outfit, so they sort of disguised the hole in the backside of my dress. Walking around in heels turned into flats had given me blisters on my blisters.
“That Zelda chick is intense,” Willy said.
“That’s the God’s honest truth,” Ruth agreed. “For a moment, I thought we were goners.”
“I don’t think she’s as bad as she acts,” Chav said.
We all glared at her.
“Don’t you dare say this is a case of a bark being worse than the bite,” I told her.
The black wolf snorted. “Would I do that?”
DeeDee cleared her throat. “So, Willy, you and Chav are getting married soon?”
“You are a ninja at changing the conversation,” I told her.
Wanda, who sat next to her friend, smiled. “There isn’t much we can do until Zelda consults Baba Yaga.” She sighed. “Frankly, we’re used to waiting until she’s ready for us to do our part. You get used to it.”
Willy jumped up on the counter. “I’m not a fan of waiting around.”
“Oh, come on now,” I said to Willy. “Tell Wanda about Brady.” I turned to the raccoon Shifter. “Willy here stole Brady’s heart. She knows how to make a coyote howl.”
Ruth and Chav snickered. Willy purred. “He knows how to make me howl,” she said.
Wanda gave us a peculiar look. “Isn’t Brady a bobcat?”
“No. He’s a werecoyote.”
“But you’re pregnant,” she said to Willy.
“If you all say so. It’s not like I’ve taken a test or anything.”
“How is that possible?”
“Well, usually it involves a penis being inserted into a vagina,” I said.
DeeDee and Chav snorted. Wanda and Willy glared at me. Ruth, as usual, ignored my jibe. Living with teenagers had made her immune to my antics.
I held up my hands. “Just trying to be helpful.”
Willy shook her furry head. “She’s not wrong.”
“But Shifters from two different species can’t mate,” Wanda protested. “It just isn’t possible.”
“Tell that to Lyla Connolly. Her daddy is a squirrel shifter, her momma is a bear. She exists.” I frowned. “At least, I hope she still exists.” Lyla was a cutie-patootie. She’d shifted into a kitten on her first full moon, making her folks very happy.”
“The bear had kittens?”
I laughed. “No, she had a baby girl who turned into a baby squirrel, and she is the sweetest squirrel in the world.”
“True story,” Chav said wistfully. “She’s one sweet baby.”
“Then it must be true. You all are from a totally different reality. In this place, Shifters never mate outside their own species.”
“Not even if they’re attracted to someone other than their own kind?”
“That wouldn’t happen.” Wanda leaned forward. “Once a Shifter finds his or her mate, they are marked by a scent that only the other can smell. It binds them together in love and marriage and mating. Forever.” She smiled. “I remember the first time I smelled Kurt. I knew I’d never want anyone else as long as I lived.”
The kitchen grew quiet. “I remember the first time I saw Babe. He was naked on the floor of my new diner. Passed out, smelling like alcohol, and...” I shook my head. Not all of that memory was nice. Turned out he’d been canoodling with a psychopath the night before, and she’d knocked his ass out with the bottle they’d been drinking. However, he had looked super hot. It was not, however, love at first sight. “Anyways, it took me a while to fall in love with him.”
“That’s not how it works with our kind.”
“I’m getting that.” I sniffled. “I miss my kids. Like all kinds of crazy bad. I don’t know what I’ll do if I can’t get back to them and Babe.”
Chav, Ruth, and Willy bobbed their heads in agreement.
“I’m sure Zelda will figure something out. And hopefully, no one will die in the process,” Wanda said.
Somehow, I wasn’t reassured.
“DeeDee, can you get Sunny some tissue?”
DeeDee got up and started opening cupboards one at a time. Wanda got up and opened a long door. Inside was paper towels, cleaning supplies and several boxes of tissue. She grabbed one, opened it, and handed it to me. I thanked her with a honking blow of my nose.
Willy, trying to lighten the mood, said, “When I met Brady, I thought he was the most handsome man I’d ever laid eyes on. He was a widow, so he was less than easy to corral, but we finally got there.” She licked her paw and rubbed it against her belly. “I have to get home. We have to get back to him.”
“Ruth, what kind of Shifter are you mated with?” Wanda asked.
“My husband Ed is a weredeer like myself. He wasn’t my first crush.” She gave Willy a meaningful look. “Brady had that honor, but he was certainly my last. We’ve been married for over twenty years now, and we have nine beautiful children.”
“You have a lot to lose,” DeeDee said.
Ruth nodded. Her lashes sweeping down in a slow blink. “I certainly do.”
“So, let me get this straight.” Willy stood up on all fours. “You guys can smell your mates. It’s distinct to only you and the person you’re supposed to be with, right?”
“That’s true,” Wanda said.
“Then how did Helen Mirren kiss Chuck the Bear. If Hildy was his mate, why would he allow Helen to get that close?”
Wanda tucked her chin in thought. “I have no idea. Chuck only had eyes for Hildy. He loved her some much he tried to kill himself several times after she died. He couldn’t live without her.”
“Maybe we should ask someone who was around at the time. I think we need to speak with Reginald.”
“He’s an asshole,” Willy said.
“Yes, but he’s an asshole who might hold the answers to our freedom from this place,” I countered.
****
The streets were chaos with people and animals running around chattering and shouting about things missing. Street signs, doors, furniture, even some of the people from town had disappeared. I hid my disappointment that the four of us weren’t included in the mess of things moving into our reality...if that’s what was happening.
Wanda came with us to search for Reginald. DeeDee wanted to check on the diner to make sure it was still intact. We spotted the white, big-eared familiar near the town square where the statue had gone missing.
“I know she was here,” Reginald quipped. “I can feel her power here.”
“Maybe ‘cause she blew shit up last night,” Fat Bastard said. He sounded as if he were about to explode on someone. “Now, quit telling me fuck-all and find your crazy witch before we all go poof. Because, let me tell you, if I lose anyone else, I will slice you from your throat to your butthole.” He flicked out a wicked looking claw for emphasis.
“There’s no need for violence,” Reginald said, his proper English getting stiffer by the second. “I want to find Helen as much as you do.”
“You couldn’t possibly,” Fat Bastard said.
“Yo, Reggie.” I waved at the arguing cats. “Can we have a word?”
“Not now, toots,” Fat Bastard said. “Ol’ Reggie here is helping me hunt witch.”
“I’m assuming he was here when Helen tried to use dark magic on Hildy. I just have a few questions.”
“What could you possibly want to know? You don’t even understand magic,” the English twit said. “Simpleton.” The added insult pissed me off.
Chav pounced in front of him, all seven feet of her growled as her lips curled to expose two-inch canines. “No one talks about my BFF like that unless it’s me. Get it, kitty? Keep it up, and I will eat you up and shit you out like the fertilizer you are.”