50 Ways to Hex Your Lover (6 page)

“Hi, Mindy. Is Dweezil back there?” Jazz nodded toward the rear office.

The woman nodded, “But he’s on the phone right now. Do you want to wait?”

Jazz wished she could just ask Mindy to mail the money to her—except that Dweezil tended to “forget” to pay his people unless
they came by in person to collect. Jazz’s resume might be lengthy, but it didn’t list the usual 9-to-5 jobs that many employers
liked to see. Plus Dweezil paid well and he also, quite desirably to someone who liked to stay off the income tax radar, paid
in cash. So Jazz avoided headaches by showing up for her pay. And while Dweezil made her crazy, his antics also entertained
her. Even after all these centuries wandering the world, Dweezil was in a category all by himself. At least, she hoped so—she
hated to think there were more Dweezils running around somewhere.

“Nah, too easy for him to try to sneak out the back door. I’ll just go in and wait.” She headed for the closed door.

“What do you mean that car wasn’t clean? My fuckin’ cars are cleaner than your arse!” The growl that greeted Jazz was as pleasing
to the ear as fingernails on a chalkboard. The faint burnt almond scent that always clung to Dweezil’s leathery olive-green
skin stung her nostrils. That was another reason why she tried not to piss him off. The angrier he grew, the more burnt-almond
stench came off his skin. “You’re sayin’my people don’t clean the cars so you can get out of paying the bill. You don’t pay
the bill, you never use one of my fuckin’ cars again. You got it?” The sound of cracking plastic indicated the call was finished.

Jazz dropped into the leather chair placed in front of the L-shaped mahogany desk meant to impress and intimidate anyone who
ventured into the inner sanctum. A wide variety of vintage sex toys graced a floor-to-ceiling cabinet and erotic artwork lined
the walls. Jazz hadn’t been daunted the first time she’d seen the collection, although she wondered about the bedlike antique
vibrator a woman had to lie on in order to use. She wasn’t curious enough to try it though. Dweezil had offered to loan her
the device as long as he could watch. She wasted no time turning down his oh-so-generous suggestion.

She returned his glare with a sunny smile.

“What the fuck is your problem?” Dweezil’s voice was a combination of growl, rusty cough, and ground glass. He dropped the
broken phone into the wastebasket and pulled out a replacement from the bottom drawer. Several phones lay there in wait for
his next tantrum.

“You really need to work on your interpersonal skills, D.”

“Why should I change what works for me?” he growled.

“Yeah, why bring in more business when you can so easily drive it away with your charming personality?”

The skeletal creature known as Dweezil—whose last name was unutterable by any human tongue—was a good seven feet tall and
immaculately attired in a charcoal Armani suit. When she called him olive-skinned, she did not mean someone of Mediterranean
heritage, but a preternatural creature with skin the color of a ripe green olive. While it was a good look for the fruit,
it wasn’t all that good for anything remotely humanoid. An unruly thatch of mud brown hair flew every which way on top of
his football-shaped head. As if he wasn’t ugly enough with the thin skin stretching over his bones—at least she thought they
were bones—the overbite of yellowish-green teeth didn’t add a thing to his lack of looks. His black eyes snapped at her, showing
his usual ill humor.

Even though Jazz had worked for Dweezil for almost five years, she still hadn’t been able to figure out his lineage. He was
too short to be a giant, not ugly enough to be a troll, and most definitely not a goblin. She settled for seeing him as a
combination of all three. She had heard rumors he paid his tailor extra to make sure his third arm was well hidden from the
world. Gossip also hinted there was a second dick hiding somewhere in there too. Confirming the rumors wasn’t anywhere close
to the top of her to-do list.

“Damn vampires. First they complain my cars aren’t clean, and then they demand some kind of protection ’cause so many of ’em
have gone missing. Like that’s my problem?” he grumbled. “Everyone knows they’re not missing. They took some kind of weird
cure and became mortal again.

They’re all probably at the beach working on their tans. Plus, they want any kind of protection, they’re gonna have to pay
for it, and it won’t come cheap either.” He looked up with his usual glare. “So what’re you here for?” The burnt-almond scent
became stronger. He smelled like he wasn’t happy with the way the day was going and she was about to make it worse. Dweezil
could make Ebenezer Scrooge look like a philanthropist.

“It’s the end of the month.” She lifted her eyebrows. When he didn’t move, she abandoned the cute smile. “Pay day.”

The staring contest lasted all of fifty seconds. Dweezil dropped his gaze first. He mumbled a few choice curses as he reached
inside a desk drawer and retrieved a long white envelope. He held it between the two fingers that topped his left hand and
tossed it across the desk.

Jazz picked it up and quietly made sure it was the amount he owed her. She tucked the envelope into her jacket’s hidden inner
pocket.

“Got a job for you for tomorrow night.”

Her first thought was of a man with dark brown hair and eyes the color of the sea. Except she knew for a fact he already knew
how to drive and was smart enough to not request her services as a driver. “I’m off tomorrow night.”

“He asked for you specifically. And he’ll pay extra just to have you.” He wiggled his caterpillar eyebrows at her. For all
she knew the hairy appendages over his eyes were fashioned from real insect fuzz. Something else she never cared to investigate.

“Just to have me? Eeuuww factor, Dweezil!” Jazz mimicked gagging.

“I’ll pay you double your fee,” he tempted.

“Hot date, hot man, ocean view, candlelight, fine dining,” she fibbed. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been out
on an actual date. As for sex … well, that was another subject better left in the land of Not In This Lifetime.

Dweezil attempted to display a smile on his bony face. His expression was guaranteed to scare the dead. Jazz swore she felt
worms crawl up her flesh when he smiled.

He threw his arms in the air. Something shifted under his jacket. “All right, I’ll pay you triple.”

Jazz’s mind raced at the idea of a triple fee. It could only mean this client was very special. Which meant it was someone
who Dweezil didn’t want to piss off and who was willing to pay him a lot of money. This sent all her senses on full alert.

“Who’s the client, D?”

“He’s a very well-connected member of our community,” he said so quickly Jazz was sure he had rehearsed the speech in anticipation
of her refusal. “He also likes that you can conjure up a strong protection spell if he requires one while he’s out.”

“
Who,
D?” Her voice hardened just a fraction. “And, for the record, those protection spells are extra and I get 100 percent of that
extra.”

“The job is for all evening, so we’re talking a lot of money. It’s not like he’s demanding you go topless or something. But
it wouldn’t hurt, ya know. Get you bigger tips.” He chortled at his twisted sense of humor. Jazz didn’t join in.

“
D.
” A scattering of purple, black, and gold sparks sprinkled down around her. A sign she was
so
not happy!

Dweezil muttered a few words that Jazz guessed were curses in his language. He had already learned the hard way not to direct
any at her. The one time he had it had taken him three weeks to pick all the maggots out of his flesh. An equal amount of
time was added to her banishment. It had been worth it.

Just like the time the Witches Council added on
for what you did to Nikolai,
muttered that pesky gargoyle, sometimes doubling as her conscience, residing inside her head.
He wants your help. So give
it already!
She wasted no time mentally stuffing a wad of cotton in its vile mouth.

“All you have to do is drive him to his favorite club and back to his house,” he muttered. “No biggie.”

“No.”

He slammed his hands on the desk surface, causing a jade dildo to roll around on the polished wood. “You agreed to drive him
for a triple fee!”

Now she knew she didn’t need to hear the name to know exactly who the special client was, and as far as she was concerned,
even a triple fee wasn’t enough.

“I didn’t agree to anything. Besides, he’s disgusting! Find someone else.” She instantly dismissed his demand.

“Tyge Foulshadow pays in gold bars!” There was nothing Dweezil loved more than money, but a client who paid in gold bars earned
a special status in his avaricious little mind. He made
Star Trek
’s greedy
Ferengi
look like spendthrifts. “Do you know how hard it is to get clients who pay in gold? Just about fuckin’ impossible!”

“His farts are noxious! Literally!”

“Which is why it’s good that you’re one of the few who can survive them,” Dweezil happily pointed out, his hands lifted upward
as if to say
See
what a good deal this is for both of us?

“I can never get that disgusting stench out of my clothes! I have to throw them away because I couldn’t dare give them to
a charity. And I can’t burn them because the smoke is revolting. Only the Fates know what the clothes are doing to the landfills!”

“His tip alone will cover a replacement wardrobe.” He paused. “I can’t tell him you’re turning him down, Jazz. He only wants
you to drive him. Master Foul-shadow doesn’t take rejection lightly.”

Jazz narrowed her eyes at the hint of vulnerability edged with fear written on Dweezil’s face. She did not think anything
could deflate her employer’s mega-confidence, but the thought of losing Tyge Foulshadow’s business seemed to. It was interesting
to watch avarice compete with fear on his repulsive face. She wondered just why fear, though. What did Tyge have on him? She
knew Dweezil was greedy, but was he so greedy he’d push her into taking a job he knew she didn’t want?

“Then you have to foot the bill for my clothes,” she stated.

“I’m already paying you a triple fee and he always tips well.”

She stood up. “Try Vasal. He’ll do anything for money. Put a red wig and high heels on him and maybe Foulshadow will think
he’s me.”

Dweezil jumped to his feet. “All right, I’ll pay for your fuckin’ clothes! But you’re cutting into my profit.” He adopted
the stance of a man teetering on the threshold of poverty. “It’s no thanks to bi—,” he quickly backpedaled as more sparks
flared up around Jazz, “drivers like you who take advantage of my generosity.”

Jazz knew better. She was positive that if her employer offered to pay her a triple fee the client would be charged much more
than Dweezil’s usual percentage.

“I am so out of here.” She didn’t need any more time added to her banishment, which would happen if she stuck around much
longer. The idea of maggots once again covering Dweezil was growing more appealing by the minute. But that extra sixty days
because of Nikolai still left a bitter taste in her mouth.

“Pick Master Foulshadow up at ten tomorrow night,” Dweezil called after her. “And wear something sexy. Show off the assets.
If you’re going to be paid triple, you might as well earn it.”

Jazz walked out, waving her extended middle finger over her head.

“You
must
show me respect! I still pay your salary!” he shouted after her. The sound of his agitation shattered a glass sculpture sitting
on the reception desk. Mindy didn’t flinch as she calmly picked up a brush and dustpan to sweep up the shards. If Dweezil
didn’t throw a tantrum at least once a day, those around him figured he was at death’s door.

Jazz muttered a few of her own curses as she headed for her car.

“Those disgusting little men were staring at me,” Irma sniffed as Jazz started up the T-Bird. “I just know they were imagining
me with my clothes off.”

“One, they’re too busy to stop and stare at you. Two, there is no way in hell they’d think you were Snow White, with or without
clothes.” If she was lucky, her appointment at the sorority house would be long and involved and she would have an excellent
reason why she didn’t make it to the grocery store and why she was serving pizza for dinner.

Four

What are those strange-looking letters on the house?” Irma asked. She squinted up at the two-story house they were parked
in front of. Jazz wondered if there was a pair of glasses tucked away in that handbag that usually rested in Irma’s lap.

“The letters are Greek because that’s a sorority house,” she replied, looking at the dwelling. She was positive she’d been
here in the early 1930s. All the homes were that vintage, and if she recalled correctly, several minor film stars owned homes
out this way. In fact, if she wasn’t mistaken, she had met Clive Reeves at a party here. She could not stop the involuntary
shudder that ran down her spine at the thought of the man who’d almost destroyed her soul and her life. She’d done her best
to forget one fateful night, but some memories weren’t easily erased.

Damn that man, he’s moldering in his grave
where he belongs, so why can’t he leave me alone?

“Ah,” Irma nodded. “I know about those groups. They’re nothing more than girls just looking for a good time. They never bothered
to learn anything when they attended college. They only went there to look for a husband to take care of them. Then once they
got caught up with the campus activities, they joined sororities and acted like tarts, thinking they were better than the
girls who didn’t join one. All because they lived in a special house and wore one of those fancy little pins on their sweaters.Well,
they were no different then, and I can tell you now, they’re still no different than the rest of us.”

“Bitter, party of one,” Jazz muttered.

Irma’s glare could have stripped paint. “Just because I hold myself to a higher standard doesn’t mean you can make fun of
me.” She sat back in the seat with her arms crossed under her generous breasts.

“Tell you what. One evening I’ll come out to the carriage house and we’ll watch my DVD of
Animal
House
,” Jazz offered, to placate the grumpy ghost. “You can see a sorority tart get what she deserves.”

“Don’t let those hussies try to give you something funny to smoke,” Irma advised as Jazz started up the driveway. “I’ve heard
it can make you do all sorts of crazy things.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” She adjusted her cropped aqua leather jacket that topped snug-fitting white jeans and a white silk t-shirt.
An ornate moonstone pendant set in gold rested comfortably in the middle of her shirt. She thought too much black would scare
the girls off, so she decided she would go with her version of witchy college girl chic.

Earsplitting squeals emanating from inside the house warned Jazz that what she found inside wouldn’t be pleasant. She rang
the doorbell, waited, and when no one appeared right away, she rang it again. Each time she rang the bell the squealing inside
grew louder and more frantic. The sound was eerily familiar.

“Fates preserve me,” she muttered. “Don’t tell me they did what I think they did.”

“Just do something about them! The smell is getting so gross I’m ready to hurl!” A high-pitched exasperated feminine voice
hit Jazz just as the front door swung open. A petite brunette wearing grubby denim shorts and a lilac tank top stared at her.
“Can I help you?”

“I’m Jazz Tremaine. You called for my services.”

“Thank God, you’re here.” She reached out and grabbed Jazz’s hand, pulling her inside. “We don’t know what to do.” She lifted
her hands in a helpless gesture. “You have to save us!”

Jazz’s first warning of the approaching tornado was a flash of pink and a series of squeals that hurt her ears. She jumped
to one side as a pig raced past her with two girls on its heels. When they saw her they skidded to a stop while the frightened
pig kept on running, its cloven hooves sliding on the hardwood floor. She wrinkled her nose against the barnyard aroma that
permeated the entryway.

“Bloody hell,” she whispered, looking around at the chaos with horrified fascination.

“You have to watch where you step,” the girl who let her in warned with an apologetic air. “They, uh, aren’t housebroken and
we can’t get them to go into the backyard to do their business, so… .” Her voice drifted off as she looked around at the disaster
area.

Jazz ignored her and the other girls who now crowded around her as if she was their last hope. From what she sensed in the
air, they weren’t far off the mark. She could feel the tangled threads of magick clouding the air like a crazy quilt, emphasis
on the crazy.

There was no doubt that whatever they did here had gone very wrong, and she didn’t need to look at the small herd of pigs
to know that the girls had messed up big time.

“When the Wizard was passing out brains did any of you ever think about standing in line to get one?” she asked, not expecting
an answer and not receiving one.

Jazz gently pushed away a curious pig chewing on her jeans. If she’d been warned about the pigs she definitely wouldn’t have
worn white.

“What did you do?” Her voice was low with the same dangerous edge she had displayed earlier to Dweezil.

The girls fell back. At that moment, their fear of Jazz was as thick as the magick filling the air.

“It was a joke,” the first girl whispered. Her wide eyes were wary, but she still had the courage to face Jazz. Jazz gave
her points for bravery even if her common sense appeared to be on hold.

Jazz took a deep breath and reminded herself that the girls didn’t realize they had fooled with something dangerous.

“What kind of joke would involve all this?” She stalked toward the living room and found four more pigs running around. The
sharp stench of offal was everywhere. For a moment, she was taken back to her childhood. Then her memories became more recent
as she realized just what kind of mess the girls had conjured up. A wave of her hand brought the girls tumbling one after
another into the room, whether they wanted to be there or not. With another swish, she froze time.

The wallpaper and furniture were different, but she knew this was the same house Josh Levine had owned back in 1931. For a
moment, old memories swamped her and she saw the house as it had been. The debonair Clive Reeves had been out back naked in
the swimming pool with five giggling starlets and not one of them was doing the backstroke. That should have been her first
clue that the charismatic film star wasn’t exactly the happily married man profiled in
Photoplay
magazine. But she always had a weak spot for tall, dark, handsome men, which was why she’d been so excited at the prospect
of attending a party at the film star Clive Reeves’ mansion. She only wished she could go back and redo that night.
But Nikolai
… . She clamped her lips shut to stop the curse that threatened to erupt. The way she felt at the moment, she would probably
turn the girls into sheep and this area of the city wasn’t zoned for livestock. She brought her mind back to the problem at
hand, namely, pigs running all over the place. She waved the room to life again and cocked her head at the leader of the group.
As she waited for an explanation, she wondered if she had ever been that young.

“It was ‘Get Even Night,’” the petite brunette murmured, her gaze flitting everywhere but at Jazz. “We all know guys who have
been mean to us or acted like total shits.” She started to gain some confidence and stood a bit straighter and then met Jazz’s
gaze more openly. “They thought they were coming over for a party.”

Jazz had no doubt what the boys expected to happen at said party. “And … ?”

A girl with a wide stripe of pink running through her white blonde hair piped up, “A girl in my Psych class is a witch and
she goes to these awesome parties at some mansion up in the Hollywood hills.” She faltered under Jazz’s withering stare. “She
gave me a spell she got there. She said it would make the guys act like pigs. We thought it would be funny if they ran around
thinking they were pigs, when they actually are, so to speak,” her words drifted off.

For a minute Jazz thought the top of her head would explode. She took a few deep breaths. “And you called me because?”

“Something went wrong with the spell,” the brunette explained. “They were only supposed to act like pigs. You know, run around
on all fours and squeal. They weren’t supposed to,” she cringed as a pig nudged her bare leg, “like, turn into pigs!” Jazz
held out her hand and snapped her fingers. “Give me the spell.”

The girl with the pink-striped hair dug into her shorts pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. She gingerly stepped
forward and handed it to her.

Jazz unfolded the paper and scanned the words. She mentally vowed to find the idiot who gave the girls this spell and give
her a taste of her own medicine.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen!” one of the girls wailed, kicking out at a pig who was trying to climb up her leg.

Jazz looked down at a once lovely rug that even a major shampoo job wouldn’t rescue and furniture that had been shredded by
tiny hooves. Nearby, one pig was happily munching on a bouquet of silk flowers that lay scattered on the floor.

“Eight hundred dollars. Cash only.” The look of horror on their faces told her they didn’t have that amount between them.
No surprise there.

“We pooled our money together, but we only have four-hundred and eighty dollars.” The brunette walked over to a table and
opened a small drawer, pulling out the bills. “Unless you take Visa or MasterCard.” Her smile grew faint at the expression
on Jazz’s face. “I guess not.”

“Good guess.” Jazz hesitated just long enough to make them worry. “All right, but …,” she tucked the bills into her jacket
pocket and then she paused as their smiles quickly dimmed as she finished her sentence, “you have to do something for me.”

“You can really turn them back?”

“What? You want references now?”

“No, no!” One other girl punched the disbeliever. “What do we have to do?”

“First you better make sure to clean this house from top to bottom yourselves. No finding a way to bring in a cleaning service
to handle a mess that all of you are at fault for. If you want my spell to work, you have to clean this place yourselves.”

A bunch of noses wrinkled with disgust. “Clean it? With what?”

“It’s easy. Try buckets of hot soapy water, scrub brushes, and mops,” she said firmly. “And last, you allowme to put a binding
spell on all of you to prevent this ever happening again.” She made eye contact with each girl tomake sure they understood
her conditions. If she knew her manner and stance mirrored Eurydice, Headmistress of the Witches Academy, she probably would
have screamed in horror.

“How long will this binding spell last?” one girl asked.

“Forever.”

A horrified silence followed her words.

“But midterms are coming up,” one girl whispered.

Jazz’s eyes sliced through her. “Be original. Study.” Her anger at the girls was as palpable as the barnyard aroma in the
room. “What you girls did was dangerous. Magick is not something you play with like a board game. You have no idea what you
could have wrought last night with this badly written spell.” She stalked past them, unconsciously echoing the headmistress’s
lofty arrogance. “If I told you what could have happened, you would suffer from nightmares for the rest of your thoughtless
lives.”

“We didn’t know.” The brunette’s lower lip trembled as a tear trickled down her cheek.

“And now you do.” She crumpled up the paper and with a flick of her fingers, let it burst into a bright orange flame. The
girls gasped and stepped back. “From hence on ye shall do no harm.Ye shall speak no charm. From now on, ye shall retreat from
all that hovers on the edge of your lives. Because I say so, damn it!” She waved her hand over each girl’s head and a shower
of multi-colored sparks fell over them. The air suddenly felt cleansed. She turned on her heel and walked to the center of
the room. As if understanding it was now their turn, the pigs wandered into the room and milled about her. “Little boys go
to a party. Little boys don’t leave. Little boys turn into piggies. Little girls don’t grieve. Now piggies must return to
former selves and little girls will….” She paused for effect. “Behave. Because I say so, damn it!”

“That doesn’t rhyme,” one of the girls whispered. “Ouch!” She rubbed her arm, where she had been pinched hard.

A thick vapor drifted along the floor snaking itself around the pigs that squealed and tried to escape, but the fog was not
to be denied its victims. As the mist floated upward, the girls screamed and the squealing grew loud enough to shake the ground
underneath them. Then the sound transformed gradually into something deeper and more human. As suddenly as the fog appeared,
it slid away leaving a dozen naked young men lying sprawled on the carpet.

“Shit!” One boy with a jock’s beefy build leaped to his feet. He quickly grabbed a pillow off the couch and held it in front
of his lower body. “What kind of drugs did you bitches give us?” He shouted at the girls, moving forward with retribution
burning in his eyes. There was no doubt he was furious and intended to inflict some serious damage on the first girl he could
grab.

“Okay, no reason for that.” Keeping her gaze determinedly set above his waist, Jazz walked over and tapped his forehead with
her fingertips. “Forget,” she whispered. A look of consternation formed on his angular face. She moved among the boys, repeating
her instructions. She looked over her shoulder at the girls. “If their clothes are destroyed, I suggest you find something
for them to wear fast and get them out of here. You have a lot of cleaning up to do.” She walked toward the front door.

“Uh, Jazz?” The brunette almost ran after her. “Does this mean they won’t remember they were pigs?”

“It means they won’t accuse you of drugging them,” Jazz said. “You were idiots to mess with a spell you had no business using,
but it’s still no reason for him to call you bitches.” She opened the door and looked at the girl. “That binding spell I cast
will make sure you never try or go near magick again no matter how tempting it is,” she warned. “Trust me, you don’t want
to even try reversing my spell. The consequences would be nasty.”