Page 36 of There's No Place Like Oz

“I do.”Wait, what? Why?“I know it very well.”Is he fucking with me?“I can grant that wish as well.”Great. Woohoo. Err, I mean great! Woohoo!“But in order to give you what you seek…”Ah, there it is. I was waiting for that. “You must first do something for me.”Of course we must.It’s not like I thought there was ever such thing as a free lunch.

“Anything.” I said, despite not being remotely willing to doanythinganything. Not forthatprize anyway.

“As I’ve said, the Witches of Oz are powerful, and their curses cannot be easily broken. To break these spells, I’ll need a piece of each woman’s soul.”

“A piece of their souls?” I scrunched my nose.

The phantom particles confirmed with a jerk of its chin. “Each witch will keep an artifact that channels their powers. If you can steal this enchanted object, you can deliver me their magic, and I can combine them with rituals that will undo the curses they’ve dealt.”

“I see.” I frowned. I figured it was safe to say that the witches wouldn’t be voluntarily handing over these artifacts. This was probably going to get a bit violent if they were anywhere near as heartless as my companions implied. But then, it’s not like I could say no, either. I’d promised to help them, and I couldn’t get home to the safe and sane world of humans again without doing this. I just had to hope, when push came to shove, if a witch had to die, my friends could do the dirty work for me. They deserved to have that revenge personally anyway. “And what about my wish?” I asked, just to confirm this was non-negotiable.

“Once I’ve broken each of their curses, only then will I be able to help you return to the Kansas of your heart’s desire.” When he put it that way, I’ll admit I cringed a little.

“Thank you, Wizard.” I said with a bow of my head.

“I have spoken. You will take your leave now.” No sooner had those words boomed off the walls did five attendants appear to shove us from the throne room.

“I was going to leave of my own free will.” I protested, as a brute of a man threw me over his shoulder and hauled me back to the guest rooms. We were all returned our old, though now clean, clothes, and the moment we were changed, we were kicked out onto the street.

I turned to each of my companions, befuddled by this whirlwind of an audience, and I asked: “Alright, well, who wants to go first?”

Chapter 26

Gwen, the Wicked Witch of the West. She was the twin sister of Grunhilda, Crowe’s favorite witch, and cousin to Tobias’ Eloise, and Talos’ Sasha. It was a brief debate as to who we would face first.

The fact that the Wicked Witch of the East was already dead meant that Crowe could have his curse cleared on the spot if Dorothy gave up her silver shoes. There were a number of cobblers in the Emerald City who could have made her new footwear, after all, so the sacrifice wouldn’t hinder our travels.

But Crowe was quick to dismiss the idea, figuring he might need his callousness for the task at hand. Emotion and understanding were enemies of indiscriminate slaughter, after all. Dorothy wasn’t dumb, so I knew she understood as well as the rest of us that our real task was tomurderthe witches, and not to just barter for magic wands. There would be no other way to get these objects. A witch always kept her power close. And Gwen’s magical artifact? Well, I’ll just say I knew it closer than I wanted to think about.

I was willing to wait my turn in favor of the more pressing afflictions, honestly, but Tobias wasn’t terribly interested in regaining his memories or his ability to shift—which I couldn’t blame him considering he’d just gotten his first taste of Dorothy’s pussy—and Talos felt we should have a trial run before Sasha. As Crowe had explained for the class, the “Good” Witch of the South was not for the faint of heart, and we may need to be a touch stronger and more desensitized before we stood to raid her kingdom.

I couldn’t say if Talos had actually said that, or if Crowe had spoken in his place. I didn’t trust the scarecrow in the slightest, quite frankly. He had motive to keep the big guy all to himself. I suspected they had a bit of a bond, and I also suspected Crowe had some possessive tendencies, despite how much he pretended he didn’t care about anyone or anything.

Talos hadn’t visibly protested, however, and I’d heard enough about Sasha to feel he was likely right either way. I couldn’t imagine that Dorothy was particularly ready for what we were about to put her through for us, so to start with a mild psychopath like Gwen was a good starter murder.

Plus, the sooner I could regain my lion form, the easier it would be to tear the other witches limb from limb. It was a service to all of us for me to get my strength back.

“Gwen’s Castle is approximately…” I pointed to the dark mountains in the distance that were permanently cloaked in black clouds. I waved my finger about until I landed on a small, narrow crevasse in between the two peaks. “There-ish.”

It was a good and strategic position. Her throne room was not only perched high enough that she could easily see over the tall pines and evergreens, but it was surrounded by incredibly challenging terrain that made an ambush near impossible. Not only would she see us coming, but she would have the element of surprise if she chose to attack first.

The only advantage we might have in this assault was that she didn’t know we were coming for her. Witches never expected anyone to challenge them, and when they did, well… that’s how a shifter loses his Pride, a hulk loses his tongue, and a zombie gets a lobotomy.

I lead the way as we entered the heavy forests of pine. The Blue Brick Road in the west was barely stitched together. Much of the continuous path had been lost to frost heaves, fissures, and wash outs from the heavy rains over the years, and Gwen never bothered to make repairs. She could have fixed them with a snap of her fingers, but much like her sister andhercobbled together mess that was the Yellow Brick Road, these two didn’t care much for infrastructure. Not the least of which because they travelled via flying broomstick. If it didn’t hurt them, the rest of us be damned.

Besides that, giving her subjects an easy escape route to the Emerald City, where they might seek a better life, was counterintuitive to being a soulless wench.

“So what do we know about Gwen?” Crowe walked beside me and was first to ask the important questions. “I can tell you a lot about her sister, but she never spoke much about family. Nothing useful anyway.”

I met his red eyes and contemplated in silence for a moment. He likely wasn’t interested in hearing about the kinds of toys she enjoyed. Her love of whips, chains, and phallic objects weren’t terribly relevant to taking off her head, and he probably didn’t care about that eye twitch she had when she orgasmed. “She’s playful.” That would suffice for that part. “And she has a fairly large collection of beast men at her disposal. My Pride is dead, but the monkey shifters she enslaved were painfully loyal. She’s not terribly powerful herself, but she keeps strong company.”

“She sounds a lot like Grunhilda then.” Crowe looked to be reminiscing. “Mortal strength with an undying army that makes her appear stronger than she is.”

“It should be easy if we can get close to her.” I said in confirmation of that assessment.

“More like if we can gettoher.” Tobias said as he was helping Dorothy over a large fallen log. He lifted his chin toward the distant mountains.

“I didn’t think it was possible to build a pathway even shittier than the Yellow Brick Road,” Dorothy frowned as she was placed softly on the ground by her doting dog.

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