She didn"t know what breaking a crystal ball signified, but it couldn"t be a good thing. The carpet could be cleaned, but the green marble-topped table was an antique she"d saved for months to buy.
She glared at Jasper. "Keep this up, fur face, and you"ll be eating Cat Chow for the rest of your life."
With a sigh, she went to the kitchen and got a sponge and a bucket of water. She wasn"t much good at cleaning because she"d always used magic for that. Sponging up mousse from the carpet sounded disgusting, but for the time being, she had no choice.
She was still on her hands and knees when Lily used her key and came through the door. Anica had given her the key after renting the apartment, probably in some vain hope they"d grow closer. It hadn"t happened. Apparently they were too different. Dropping the sponge into the bucket, Anica got up.
Dear Zeus, how she hated to let Lily see her in the middle of such a major screwup. She forced herself to be gracious. "I appreciate you leaving work, Lil."
"Are you kidding? I wouldn"t have missed this for the world." She glanced around and quickly took in the disasters. "Whoa! Your boyfriend looks like s.h.i.t. What"s he been rolling in?" Lily took off her backpack and black leather jacket.
"Chocolate mousse from La Boheme."
"Was that before or after the transformation?" She was wearing her bartending outfit-a low-cut black knit shirt and skinny black pants. Her dark hair was piled on top of her head in a loose arrangement. With that hairstyle and platform shoes, she was at least six feet tall. Anica was not pet.i.te at five-eight, but Lily was almost five-ten in her bare feet.
"After the transformation."
Lily surveyed the living room. "Uh-oh. Is that what"s left of your crystal ball?"
" "Fraid so. Do you know what happens when you break one?"
"No." Lily crouched and picked up the two pieces. "Do you?"
"Nope."
"I"m thinking Super Glue might not be the answer." She laid the pieces on the carpet again and stood.
"Probably not. I"ll research it later. Right now, we have to deal with the cat situation. I"d rather the Wizard Council didn"t find out."
"I"ll bet." Lily"s brown gaze was smug. "Who would believe that my perfect older sister would one day break a rule. How does it feel, sis?"
"Not so good, if you must know. Can we get going here? I hope you brought your wand. My two don"t seem to be working."
"I always carry one in my backpack." Lily walked over and unzipped a side pocket. "But I have to ask, what sent you over the edge and made you zap this guy-what"s his name?"
"Jasper Danes."
Lily pulled out her wand, which was dyed deep purple and covered with glitter. "He can understand everything we say, can"t he? I mean, he"s a cat on the outside but still a man on the inside, right?"
"I think so." Anica glanced over at Jasper, who stared at her with accusing golden eyes. "It"s hard to tell since he can"t talk."
"That could be a plus. Want me to try and keep that feature in when I change him back?"
After the lies Jasper had told, Anica was tempted. But it would violate wizard law. "Lily, we can"t mess around with people."
"Don"t be all sanctimonious with me." Lily pulled a reference book on spells out of her backpack. "You"re the one who turned a man into a p.u.s.s.y."
From his perch on the bookshelf Jasper growled.
Lily glanced up at him and smiled. "Yep, he can understand us, all right. You still haven"t told me why you wanded him, sis."
"I"d rather not go into it."
"Was it because you discovered he has a teeny-tiny d.i.c.k?"
"No, it wasn"t!"
Jasper hissed, which made Lily laugh.
Anica scowled at her. "You"re enjoying this way too much."
"Yes, indeed I am. For all my twenty-six years, I"ve been the screwup in the family and you"ve been the model of perfection. I finally, finally have something to hold over your head. Unless you were planning to come clean with Mom and Dad."
Anica thought of their highly respectable parents, who"d taken a year"s sabbatical from their teaching positions at the International Magical Academy to research ancient herbal remedies in Peru. "I"d rather not."
"Good choice. My silence can be bought, but it"s not cheap."
"Lily! You"re d.i.c.kering over terms while a man"s existence hangs in the balance!"
"Who put him in that position, hmm?"
Lily had her there. Oh, how Anica regretted that split second when fury and frustration had wiped out years of discipline. "You"re right." The words tasted like vinegar in her mouth.
"Music to my ears, big sis. Music to my ears. Okay, I found something that might work. Stand aside, and let the responsible sister take a shot. Oh, how I love saying that! It"s never been true before, but looking at the mangy alley cat perched on your bookshelf, you have to admit it"s true now."
Anica closed her eyes and envisioned a lifetime of being blackmailed by her younger sister. "Just do it so we can all go back to our regularly scheduled programs."
"If you insist." Lily sighed. "I would love to stand here and poke fun at you for another hour or so, but-"
"Lily!"
"Okay, okay. I suppose there"s some reward in that he"ll appear naked. That could be fun. Did you want to get him a towel or something?"
"Yeah, hold on." Anica hurried to the bathroom and pulled a towel off the rack. When she returned, Lily was waving her wand like a symphony conductor, but Jasper was still in cat form. Anica hadn"t watched her sister do magic in some time and had no idea how she worked these days. "You didn"t start, did you?"
"No. I"m limbering up the wand. I like my men and my wands flexible."
Anica groaned. If she hadn"t been desperate for help she wouldn"t have called Lily. But she hadn"t been able to think of anyone else who could come at a moment"s notice and could (she prayed) be trusted, or bribed, not to tell.
Lily cleared her throat. "I"ve given up on the Latin chants. Too hard to remember. English works fine for me."
"You can chant in Portuguese if it"ll break this spell. Go."
"I"m ready." Lily raised her wand. "Mangy tomcat, full of grime, tiny d.i.c.k your only crime-"
"That wasn"t the problem, d.a.m.n it!"
Lily paused, took a breath and started over. "Mangy tomcat, full of grime, flaccid d.i.c.k your only crime-"
"It had nothing to do with his d.i.c.k!"
"I find that so hard to believe. In my world, men either have what it takes or they don"t. I can"t imagine turning one into a cat unless they come up short, so to speak."
Anica didn"t dare look at Jasper crouched on the bookshelf. "I have no idea whether he would come up short or not."
Lily stared at her in disbelief. "No nookie?"
"Not yet."
"What"s wrong with you? You"ve known him for weeks! Okay, I have the chant for this. Don"t interrupt this time." She rolled her shoulders and shook out her hands. "I need to concentrate."
"Okay." Beggars couldn"t be choosers.
"Mangy tomcat, full of grime, low s.e.x drive his only crime, re-create his form sublime. With harm to none, so mote it be."
Anica doubted that Jasper had a low s.e.x drive, not if Sheila wanted him back on any terms. But Lily was incapable of working a spell without throwing something funky into the mix. Anica had forgotten that until now.
She held her breath and waited for Jasper to appear before them, naked and covered with chocolate mousse. If that happened, it could settle the tiny-d.i.c.k question once and for all. Anica didn"t believe that supposition of Lily"s for a minute. Fate wouldn"t be so cruel as to make a man as gorgeous as Jasper and give him substandard equipment.
The two women and the orange cat gazed at Jasper, waiting for something to happen. Anica and Lily hoped to see the cat become a man. Orion obviously expected that Fate would deliver this interloper to him once again so he could whip his a.s.s. No cat could stay on a bookshelf forever.
Nothing happened.
Lily examined her wand. "I don"t know the problem. It was working before I came over here. I used it to change the TV channel in the bar from ESPN to American Idol."
Panic tightened Anica"s muscles. "Test it on something else."
"Good idea." Lily pointed her wand toward the kitchen. "I use this one all the time at work. Tequila smooth and lime so tender, dance a tango in the blender."
From the grinding noise that followed, Anica concluded that Lily"s wand worked just fine. Her spell must be wrong. "Can you try another spell?" She was almost afraid to ask, for fear the next chant would be even more embarra.s.sing, but they had to keep trying.
"Let me see what I can find." She grabbed the book and flipped through it. "Maybe this one. Mangy cat so discontent, sorry you are impotent. Change thy form and be a gent."
Anica groaned. "Do they all have to insult his s.e.xuality?"
"Actually yes. They recommend getting the transformed being angry, which acts as a kind of catalyst to help reverse the spell. That"s a.s.suming the spell is similar to those in this book. It must not be, since we haven"t changed a whisker on that cat so far."
"Can I see the book?"
"Be my guest." Lily handed it over.
Anica read quickly and with increasing despair. "These spells are much more elaborate, involving pieces of hair and stuff. I didn"t do any of that."
"Where did you get the spell in the first place?"
"Remember that old History of Magic text I found in the used bookstore right next to campus?"
"Not particularly. You were the one who went gaga over that musty old thing, not me."
"I"ll go get it." Anica walked back to the bathroom and returned with the book, which she opened to the page with the incantation on it. "I memorized this for fun back in my freshman year. I thought it sounded cool. I didn"t even know if it would work."
Lily came to read over her shoulder. "Anica, there"s no counterspell listed under it."
Worry made Anica impatient. "Don"t you think I know that? If there had been one, I"d have used it."
"So why did you use a spell with no counterspell?"
"I forgot it didn"t have one! And the spell was a reflex, something I did without thinking it through, a knee-jerk reaction."
"Amazing. That"s so unlike you. He must have been a gold-plated a.s.shole to make you lose it like that."
"Well, he was, but that doesn"t mean he deserves to be a cat for the rest of his life."
"Or that you should lose your magic for the rest of yours."
"What?" Anica glanced up at her sister.
Lily squeezed her shoulder. "I read it in my spell book just now, but I didn"t want to tell you. It said clearly that if a witch or wizard transforms a person into an animal, no matter the reason, they must reverse the spell within ten minutes."
"Ten minutes?"
"That"s all the time they have before they lose their magic abilities. And those abilities won"t be restored until the person is restored to his or her original form."
Anica slammed the cover on the History of Magic and laid it on a chair. "Show me where it says that."
Lily retrieved her spell book and thumbed through until she found the pa.s.sage. "Here."
Anica"s hands trembled as she took the book and read the pa.s.sage Lily pointed to. Sure enough, that"s what it said. "No wonder my wands don"t work! My stupid History of Magic might have said something about this little side effect!"
"I hate to point this out, but it"s a history book, not a spell book. I doubt they expected you to work magic from it."
Anica wailed. "I didn"t mean to! It just happened! What are we going to do?"
"What do you mean we?"
Anica had no choice but to humble herself. "I can"t do it by myself. My magic is gone. I need you to help me figure this out, Lily. Please."
"How sweet it is. But I don"t seem to have any immediate answers. Maybe we should call in some experts."
Anica shook her head so hard she felt like she popped a vertebra in her neck. "I have other references we can consult." Returning Lily"s book to her, Anica walked over to her bookshelf and pulled out three different volumes. She"d bought them on sale and hadn"t used them much, but something was better than nothing.
"I"d feel better if we had an experienced witch or wizard on the premises," Lily said. "Not Mom and Dad, of course. I know you wouldn"t want either of them to see this c.o.c.k-up, but-"
"I don"t want anybody to see this except you and me." Anica walked over to the sofa and set the books on the coffee table in front of her. If she consulted anyone besides her sister her transgression would be spread all over the wizard world by tomorrow morning. Lily might have the impulse to blab, but Anica had dirt on Lily. Lily could be contained.
"Okay, but this really cool witch and wizard came into the Bubbling Cauldron the other day. He"s a little flaky, but she seemed pretty sharp. We talked magic a little, and she knows her stuff. They live in Southern Indiana, and I have their number. They could be here in a few hours."
Anica picked up the first book and turned to the table of contents. "I"d need more information on them than that. For all I know, they"d report me to the Wizard Council the minute they heard what I"ve done."