by Renée Jaggér
The one in the middle, whom Bailey immediately pegged as the leader, was about the same height she was, thin bordering on downright skinny, and slightly orangish-looking, with hair that draped over most of the right side of her face dyed a strange purplish-red color. She had her hands on her hips, and long nails the same hue as her hair stood out against her short silver dress.
To her right was a darker-complected woman with black hair in a high ponytail. She was about an inch taller, with large breasts and full lips. She wore a tight black top and knee-length black skirt with heels and had a tiny black crossbody handbag.
To the left was a shorter, curvy blonde with a pixie cut and heavy blue eyeshadow. She was wearing a white sports bra under a sapphire-colored windbreaker jacket, along with equally blue yoga pants and blindingly white sneakers.
Bailey guessed the blonde was about twenty-three and the other two more like twenty-seven or -eight, although it was difficult to be certain since they were all wearing a ton of makeup. And perfume. They looked like high-roller party girls on their way to a nightclub, about as congruous with the people of Greenhearth as an elephant in Alaska.
“So,” Bailey whispered, “Blonde, Brunette, and Fuchsia—a classic lineup.”
Roland cleared his throat. “Excuse me,” he said in a monotone, “you girls almost look familiar, I think, but you’re blocking the road.”
Fuchsia flipped her hair away from her face. “Shut up, Roland,” she snapped. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, running away like this? We miss you. Don’t you know that you’re needed back home?”
Somehow, she’d calibrated her voice in such a way that the inquiry came across as both deeply sincere pleading and a mocking sneer at the same time. Bailey’s skin crawled at the layers upon layers of complex dishonesty it implied.
The brunette spoke next. “You didn’t even leave us a message,” she cooed. Her voice had a slight foreign accent, maybe Indian or Middle Eastern. Her fingers curled around the edges of her handbag.
“Yeah,” the blonde added, loud and direct, “and who the fuck is that?” She gestured flippantly at Bailey without looking at her. “And why are you out here where cows aren’t even in burger form and you can smell their goddamn shit in the air?”
Roland blinked. “Wait, how many questions is that? I’ll need a minute to count them before I try to answer.”
Fuchsia stared at him. “Gawd, you’re so cute,” she replied, her voice low and insinuating. “And this town has so much…character. All that’s missing to complete the quaint little picture is some inbred-looking guy playing a fiddle and drinking moonshine.”
They’d barely paid attention to her, but now Bailey was pissed.
“That’s the South, you morons,” she shouted. “And cows are mostly a Midwestern thing. If you smell shit, it’s because it’s leaking out of your ears. This is the West. Of course, we do have moonshine, but you posers couldn’t handle a swig of it without ending up in the emergency room. And if there were a fiddle around, I’d shove it so far up your cooch that you couldn’t even scratch your itch with the bow.”
Not only the three girls but also Roland stared at her, bug-eyed and open-mouthed.
Fuchsia took a step forward and the other two followed her, the trio forming a sort of arrowhead pointing at Bailey.
“And, uh,” the leader commented, the softness of her voice emphasizing her dismissiveness, “who are you, again? If you’re going to talk to us like that, it seems like I should have, you know, heard of you.”
Roland seemed about to stand up for her and tell them off, but Bailey had made up her mind to handle this herself, regardless of what he’d said.
“I’m his girlfriend, you whores,” she stated.
The expressions changed on the three cosmetic-laden faces, and a tense silence blanketed the street. Bailey suddenly recalled a certain nasty old saying, something about a woman scorned.
Fuchsia, unsurprisingly, was the first to respond, although Bailey had to admit she was surprised by just how she chose to react.
“Oh, that is bullshit!” the woman shrieked.
Her voice bore no resemblance to the sultry, multi-layered oratory she’d used a moment ago. She extended a hand, her index finger with its reddish-purple nail sticking out like a bloody knife, pointing alternately at Roland and Bailey.
“He can’t get a girlfriend! He’s not some fucking alpha player, he’s just a geek with a pretty face, a couple of savant talents, and really good genes. We have business with him, and it’s none of your fucking affair. You wouldn’t even know what to do with him, you stupid little hick slut!”
Bailey recoiled, partly a reflex at the woman’s sudden deafening volume, but mostly out of shock at her stupidity. “’Little?’” she marveled. “You’re the same height as me and look like you weigh twenty pounds less. Is anorexia the new fad diet where you’re from?”
The blonde took a step forward. “Shut the fuck up,” she snarled. “You’re not even, like, relevant to this discussion.”
The dark-complected one meanwhile glanced between Bailey and the wizard. “I think we should let Roland decide, like a beauty contest. It would not be much of a contest, don’t you think?”
“Shit,” Roland interjected. “I don’t know. I mean, Bailey looks pretty good even without makeup. Or glamour spells.”
Fuchsia’s index finger went from horizontal to vertical, now indicating that he was not permitted to speak. “Be quiet, Roland. We’ll deal with you after we dispose of this little unwashed peasant woman who thinks she’s your girlfriend. She clearly has no fucking idea who she’s shooting her mouth off to.”
Bailey realized that things were about to get ugly. The polite young lady in the silver dress had used the phrase ‘dispose of,’ and the already tense mood was becoming downright dark. She admitted to herself that since she knew very little about magic, she had no idea what these witches were capable of.
Roland started arguing with the trio, urging them to grow up and leave him alone and so forth, but they continued to scoff at him and lob insults while slowly advancing a half-step at a time.
Roland’s hands had descended toward his belt, as he’d done just before whipping the shit out of Oberlin’s cronies, and without even realizing it, Bailey had shifted her feet into a defensive posture.
She and the wizard had just gotten out of one fight. They didn’t need to stumble right into another, especially not with the sheriff already suspicious of Roland as a potential lightning rod for trouble.
Then Bailey had an idea, something that could turn the whole situation on its head. She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket.
“I’m gonna call the sheriff,” she threatened, “unless you leave, right now. You’re blocking traffic. Doesn’t matter how much traffic a road gets, that’s still a crime. You’re also harassing us, and your behavior toward Roland here meets the official definition of stalking. Illegal and illegal. That’s a minimum of three things the sheriff can book you for, and he happens to be a personal friend of my family’s.”
The witches didn’t budge, but they didn’t move any closer, either; they just stood and fumed at her. She could feel their hatred, almost like the heat of the sun.
She continued, “At the very least, you’ll be detained. Put in the county jail while they decide what to do with you.” She paused. “That’ll earn you all an ass-kicking. Looking the way you do, in a country jail full of tough redneck chicks? Your pretty faces will get ruined, because, uh, witches get stitches for being little bitches.”
She’d made that last part up on the spot, but it seemed to fit.
Fuchsia crossed her arms over her narrow chest. “Oh, ha-ha,” she jeered. “Such wit. Rhyming, even.” Despite her sarcasm, though, Bailey’s words had gotten to her. It had finally occurred to the woman that she and her friends were not above the law, at least not here.
The witches exchanged glances, and Fuchsia went on, “Of course, you’d need time to make a call like
that. And dear, I don’t think you have that kind of time.”
Bailey tried not to let the dismay show on her face. The trio was going to try something after all.
Roland jumped in front of Bailey, yanking his belt from his waistband.
“Hey, check it out!” he exclaimed with mock enthusiasm. “I’m taking my belt off! Makes it that much easier for you to get my pants off. All you have to do is get past the belt.”
The witches bristled at the dual implications of what he’d just said, and while they were distracted, Bailey went ahead and made good on her threat. She speed-dialed the sheriff’s office.
Browne answered.
“Sheriff?” she said quickly. “I found Roland. You’d best come pick him up right away. We’re on North Ridge just off the highway. Oh, and there’s three city girls blocking traffic with their car and acting like they’re high on party drugs or something. Might have to deal with them, too.”
“Goddammit!” the blonde swore, overhearing the phone call.
As soon as Browne promised to be there directly, Bailey hung up and returned her phone to her pocket. When she looked up, the witches had retreated three or four steps toward the safety of their Jaguar.
Fuchsia glared at her quarry. “We’ll be back,” she promised. “Roland, you know we can track your ass anywhere. If your ass goes to Elko, Nevada, we’ll be there. If it goes to Charleston, South Carolina and boards a ship bound for South Africa, we’ll be there, too. And then, before you know it, we’ll have your ass in our hands.”
She turned her eyes to Bailey, letting the idea sink in that Roland’s ass would never belong to her.
The three began climbing back into their car. The tall, black-skirted brunette finger-waved at the wizard. “Bye, Roland,” she said as though wishing him well after a pleasant dinner date.
“Yeah,” the blonde added much more obnoxiously. “Bye.”
Then the silver doors closed around them, and the vehicle’s lights flashed on before it wheeled around away from them and vanished onto the highway.
Bailey exhaled. “Okay, now we need to leave double-time before the sheriff really does pick you up.”
Roland didn’t argue and both of them piled back into the truck, the Were starting it almost before the doors were shut. Bailey was pretty sure the witches had turned left, back toward Greenhearth, so unless they planned to double back, she ought to be safe to turn right toward Portland.
Traffic was a little thicker than usual since it was now “rush hour” and the highway had collected a few extra people going back and forth between civilization and the mountains. Still, it didn’t take long for Bailey to make her turn, and soon they were accelerating to fifty-five, and then sixty miles per hour, the lights of the town falling away behind them.
“We made it,” Bailey quipped, mostly to herself. “I half-expected to—”
Red and blue lights flashed in her rearview mirror.
Roland let out a sigh that quickly became a groan. “Well, we tried.”
For a moment, Bailey almost contemplated stomping on the gas. She was so frustrated that stomping on something would have made her feel better. Rational thought returned in time to stop her, however. She slowly pulled the truck off to the side of the road and came to a stop.
Behind her, the police car looked familiar. Out of it stepped none other than Sheriff Browne.
“Well,” she murmured, “at least it wasn’t some random state trooper I don’t even know.”
She rolled down the driver’s side window as the big man approached. “Hi, Sheriff,” she greeted him.
“Evening, Bailey,” he returned. “I didn’t see any car blocking North Ridge. I do see Mr. Roland there next to you, though. So glad you were able to collect him.”
Roland nodded vaguely in the man’s direction without making eye contact, and all at once, Bailey felt like she’d somehow betrayed him. She shouldn’t have made the phone call. They should have just taken their chances fighting the witches off and then made their escape as quietly as they could.
“Oh,” was all she said to the sheriff.
He waved a hand at her in a beckoning motion. “Could I get both of you to step out of the vehicle? Slowly. Keep your hands where I can see ‘em.”
Bailey narrowed her eyes. “I wasn’t aware we did any—”
“Step out of the truck,” he repeated, louder and harsher.
Sighing, Bailey did as she was ordered, wondering what the hell was going on. Roland shrugged and did likewise. If he was afraid of being hauled to jail, he was doing a pretty good job of hiding it so far.
Both stood in front of the driver’s side door of the truck, hands clearly visible, although the sheriff made no move to frisk or handcuff them—at least so far.
He gazed at them steadily, glancing briefly at Bailey’s ripped shirt and bruised face. “You’re not under arrest just yet,” he reported. “But you’re not going anywhere until I ask a few more questions.”
“Okay,” Bailey replied. “What do you want to know, sir?”
His mustache bristled. “What I want to know is, what the hell is going on? Not only did I have those three lovely ladies camping out in my station all day—I was on the verge of making up something to arrest them for myself—but now I got five Weres trying to press charges for assault and battery. And you’ve clearly been in a fight.”
Roland made a sputtering, snorting sound. The sheriff fired a sharp glare at him. Both he and Bailey knew he shouldn’t have done that, but apparently he couldn’t help himself.
“Sheriff,” Bailey stated, “you know full well that’s a steaming pile of utter horseshit.” Disgust roiled deep within her. Oberlin and his gang had tattled on them after starting the fight themselves.
Browne nodded, but not in a way that suggested he agreed with her.
“Dan Oberlin came into my office along with five of his boys. You know the ones, I’m sure. They were all beat to hell, and one guy’s ankle was twisted bad enough he might have to go to the hospital. According to them,” he inhaled slowly, “they were dropping by to say hello, when all of a sudden…”
The sheriff spread his arms as if in surprise, but his face remained expressionless.
“Roland here leaps out of nowhere and attacks them. They say he turned into the goddamn love child of Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris, whipping ‘em with his goddamn belt and beating their faces in, it being such a sneak attack that they didn’t have time to react.”
Roland neither confirmed nor denied this fascinating story, but it looked to Bailey like he was chewing on his tongue to keep from adding his two cents to her “horseshit” assessment.
“And,” Browne went on, “Dan tells me that you, Miss Nordin, threatened to castrate him with your teeth. Now, what do you have to say to that?”
She huffed. “That’s even more of a despicable lie if such a thing is possible. Five men who regularly cause problems around town went out of their way to follow me to my family’s farm and break in, and they’re saying that we attacked them? Come on, Sheriff. Just take a look at the barn door and you’ll see the truth. I never said anything like that, either. Like I’d want his balls in my mouth! I can’t read Braille with my tongue, for God’s sake.”
The sheriff’s composure cracked and he turned his head aside, barking out laughter, but he quickly regained control of himself. While he wasn’t looking, Roland reached out and patted her on the shoulder, and she smiled.
Browne turned back to her, his face stern once more. “Their story doesn’t add up, I’ll grant you that,” he observed, “but right now, I need you to cut the shit and tell me what’s really going on. Technically, any violence beyond the bare minimum needed to get away can be charged under assault and battery. You should have just shoved them aside, run away, and called us immediately, not hung around kicking the crap out of each other. That is, in fact, illegal.”
She frowned. The man usually was lenient with low- or mid-level fights like that, so his patience must have
worn thin. Maybe she should have called him after all, but not her brothers, for sure.
“So,” he continued, “why’ve I been so busy today? And what does it have to do with this guy?” He pointed at Roland.
Bailey locked eyes with the Seattleite for a brief second. Then, sighing, she looked at the sheriff.
“Sir,” she began, her voice low and serious, “you know well that there are things in the world beyond what the news talks about. Such as me, for example.”
He nodded. “Yes, I do.”
“Well,” she explained, “those three casino escorts or whatever the hell they are? They’re more of those types of things. Witches, in fact. Real ones. They’re after him for more or less the same reason that idiot Dan Oberlin and lots of other guys are always after me, and both of us are getting pretty tired of being treated like pieces of meat that need to shut up and get along to the butcher shop.”
The big man crossed his meaty arms and continued to glower at the pair. “Witches coming all the way from Seattle, just for a hot date? I’ll be damned,” he murmured, and something about him seemed distant and strangely old, even as cars zipped by behind him on the highway.
Roland piped up. “So, sir, I take it you’re, uh, aware of all the lycanthropy around here and such?”
“Shut up, boy,” he snapped. “I’m aware of what goes on in my community, or at least I was until you showed up and made a mess of things. I will say,” he looked at both of them, “that the last thing I want is a goddamn sorceress, let alone three of them, from out of state prowling around here and doing God knows what. But I’m still a sworn servant of the law, and you can’t expect me to bend too far.”
Bailey nodded. “We understand, sir. We were gonna skip town for a little while to let things cool off.” She decided to leave out the details of where they were going, just as she hadn’t bothered to mention that Roland was a wizard. Browne didn’t need to know that.