Page 12 of Mistletoe Wishes and Dragon Kisses

Pausing when most of the Others she was talking to chuckled, giggled, or outright laughed, Glo waited exactly three seconds before continuing.“I know we’ve only ever used the All-Call once before during a crisis. However, I think we can all agree that it was nothin’ like what we’re facin’ right now. No, the All–Call wasn’t an overwhelming success that first time. We had our share of hiccups, and it took me a month–even with Magic–to get my eyebrows to grow back–but never fear. The times, they are a-changin', and this time, I believe we are due some good luck, and boy, howdy, did we get some from some fantastic friends. Just check it out! Super Em and Wonder Noss have come to our rescue. Look at the one–of–a–kind, extra–special tracking map they created for us.”

Turning toward the map, Glo opened her eyes and her mind as wide as they would go just to be sure all her people could see everything. Waiting for a second until the oohs and aahs subsided, she explained, "Every one of those blinking, red lights is one of your Greenhouses, Nurseries, Tree Farms, Hydroponic Hothouses, Great Oak Forests, and the likes. There's some good and bad news. The good news is that those lights will normally be green and glowing steadily. The bad news is…."

But that was as far as she got before a gigantic, colossal collective gasp filled her mind and the room all around her. It felt like every molecule of air had been sucked from the atmosphere all over the world. For a moment–way longer than she'd ever thought possible–it was as if her lungs no longer worked.

Worst of all, it felt like her mind was a balloon hooked to an industrial shop vac on reverse. The vision of a balloon losing its air at a high rate of speed, zigging and zagging forward and backward through the air as the horrific hiss of escapingair sounded louder than the roaring of Taranis, the Celtic god of Thunder and Lightning when he’d stubbed his toe on the bedpost.

Black spots danced before her eyes. Flashes of deep green and bright white mixed with splashes of blinking and twinkling incandescence bled into a muddy brown that had the alarms in Glo’s mind clanging and banging like the iron bell outside Granny Esta’s when the fried chicken was ready at a Brown Family Coven Reunion and Skyclad Under the Full Moon Celebration every April thirtieth through May first–or as some called it, Walpurgis Night.

She'd seen that ugly brownish red before. She knew it just as sure she knew her name was Gloria Angelica Brown, just as sure as she was the Brown Witch of Peace, Protection, and Eternal Love, and absolutely just as sure as her Mate was Christopher Alexander Archer.

But from where? Why couldn’t she remember? What the hell was…?

Robbed of all thought, the only thing she could do was gasp, “What in all the holy fuckinations?” as Em and Noss’s beautiful, glorious, and perfectly wonderful map of the world wavered and morphed and twisted and turned into all manner of inconceivable, incomprehensible images right before it went completely black.

Ready to explode, implode, and Magically blast out of existence whoever or whatever dared to fuck with the best present anyone had ever given her, Glo got as far as, "Whoever the hell you are, I’mma gonna…”

Unable to finish her threats as the map snapped, crackled, and popped back to life, everything felt wrong in more ways than she could count. Glo’s jaw dropped, her mouth hung open in the most unattractive of ways, and she was sure her eyes were going to spring from her head then bounce back and forth like all thecharacters in all the cartoons she loved as much as an adult as she had as a child.

The red lights were gone. The fluorescent white backdrop flashed like a strobe light in a cold gray hue that made her think of death, and it only got worse from there.

The perfectly drawn lines of continents, countries, parishes, townships, counties, and borders of all descriptions were gnarled and broken and fading fast. At first glance, they looked like nothing but eraser shavings–but then they moved, and Glo thought she might barf up what little coffee she'd swallowed since she'd been awakened less than two hours earlier.

Slithering across the Magical, Mystical Atlas with a mind of their own, they resembled roaches scrambling when the lights came on in a dirty kitchen somewhere she never wanted to be. Bumping into each other and then bouncing in every direction, Glo swore she could hear the eerie tipping and tapping of their little buggy feet on the Enchanted screen. The longer she listened, the louder it got until the tiny little curls at the nape of her neck straightened out and stood on end with such fervor it was as if they were trying to jump from their follicles. The sheer force had goosebumps sliding down her spine and dancing the bunny hop–emphasis on the–all the way back to where they'd started.

Unable to move, she couldn’t even acknowledge Em when the Fey Dragon squeezed her hand, pulled on her arm, and whispered into her mind.“Glo, Glo, are you…?”

“What the…?” Glo interrupted with a shout as the eraser shavings that had turned into bugs were marching to their own tune and forming an image she’d never imagined seeing. It was her very worst nightmare, developing in living, breathing, digital color right before her eyes.

“No, that can’t… She’s been dead for… No fuckin’…!” But no matter how many times she blinked her eyes, shook her head,and denied what she saw with her very own eyes, there was no mistake. The beautiful map created by her bestie had turned into the most heinous creature the Brown Witch of Peace, Protection, and Eternal Love had ever known.

“I swear, I thought she was…”

“Me, too, girl,” Hillary commiserated as she and Noss returned from the kitchen. “Me too.”

“Who is…?

But Glo couldn't hear the rest of her bestie's question. Hell, she could barely breathe. It was too horrible to imagine, but there it was, right before her eyes.

Antennae at least six feet long rippled and rolled as they undulated from the top of what resembled a helmet that covered the head of the nastiest Shifter she'd ever known. The rolled and curled edge of that icky hard hat, part of her exoskeleton, covered all of her frons, or forehead, and, worse yet, highlighted the millions of shiny black and creepily beady little lenses that made up her huge, bulbous eyes. Right below, and even more icky, grotesque, and disgusting, were hundreds of thousands of setae–dark, prickly, and spikey stubbles of thick, coarse hair that moved up and down, as the only living Twig Beetle Shifter in the entire world raised and lowered the sharp point of her mandible and the little pinchers on either side.

“This makes no sense. It just can’t be. There’s just no way.”

“Oh, but it does, and it can be, and oh, yes, yes, yes, there is a way, Gory, Gory, bo bory, banana fana fo fory, fee fie mo mory, Gory Gory Gloria," the Beetle sang with such gusto that her off-key nasally tune almost made the Witch's ears bleed. "As old Samuel Clements used to say, 'the reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.'" Throwing back her capsule-shaped head and letting her long, black hair that was neither as silky nor as shiny as it once had been but was still such dark ebony that it looked highlighted with blue, even her maniacal cackle wasn'tenough to distract Glo from the jagged, thin and elongated fangs shooting from the corners of her orangey-red gelatinous labium or the hairy little wiggly leggy-things that shimmied and shook.

“You just know those nasty little tusks are filled with venom,”Hillary hissed directly into her mind.“Black Magic does not play fair.”

“No, it does not,”Glo breathed, as images of her time at Cora Killjoy’s Correctional Commune for Precocious Paranormal Prepubescents came flooding back.

“It won’t be forever,” Molly assured. “Give me a week or two. I promise I’ll convince Auntie Eleanor that you didn’t blow up the shed. That you weren’t even there when it happened.”

“I didn’t,” Glo huffed. “It was…”

“I know who it was,” her cousin nodded. “And I’ll make her admit it.”

“I know you will. Just…”

“Don’t worry.” Pulling her into a hug, Molly whispered, “The girls and I have an idea. Helena Hatfield won’t know what hit her when we get done with her.”

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