Chapter 22
When morning came, Duke strolled from the library into the mansion, proudly carrying the Corpse Plant in full bloom.
“Pee-yoo! What is that smell?” Magda asked and then made gagging noises.
Duke held out the plant with one hand and held his nose with the other. “One corpse plant. A gift from the Goddess,” he said, nasally.
With the Corpse Plant in play, the witches and Duke would be able to complete the spell and return the women to their rightful bodies—he hoped.
Unfortunately, Magda told him that when the Victoria-looking dry cleaner awoke, she told Crystal an unbelievable story, which could change everything.
“She says she didn’t cast the spell,” Magda said, scrubbing her hands like she could wash off the smell. “Claims some mystery sorceress handed her a talisman. One-use, body-swap special. Redeem whenever you feel like ruining someone else’s life.”
Duke snorted. “And she just picked Victoria? At random?”
Magda’s look said, obviously not. “Apparently, she thought a prettier face and a better body would fix everything.”
When they joined Victoria and Crystal in Victoria’s bedroom, Rosa confirmed this information.
Duke groaned. “I hate to tell you this, ladies… The spell might not work.”
“There's no way this woman could be telling the truth,” The short Victoria protested. “She claims she'd lost the talisman. Just like she claimed to have lost my magical dress! She has both hidden somewhere. I just know it.”
Interrogations weren’t new. Interrogating someone tied to a bed? Not standard operating procedure.
“I wish the truth chair were handy,” Sahara said. “I don’t feel like dragging it up the stairs. Instead, I can whip up a truth spell…”
Joell smirked. “We could do this the easy way.”
Lioness cracked her knuckles. “Or the fun way.”
Sahara didn’t even look up. “I’ll prep a truth spell. Try not to kill her before I’m done.”
Standing over the immobilized woman, Lioness bumped Joell with her elbow. “It might be fun to torture her a little first. Wouldn't it? I’ll bet we can break her without a spell.”
Joell shot her friend a sly grin. “Absolutely. We could save our spell for another time if she caves and tells us the truth to stop the torture.”
“Shall we hang her by her toes until the blood pours out of her ears?” Crystal asked.
“Oh, that sounds good,” Rayna added. “But it might take too long. Victoria has been waiting on this bitch to give her back her body long enough. I say we try death by a thousand cuts, but speed it up with deeper cuts, so only a hundred or so will do the trick.”
“I'll get the ritual knife,” Magda chimed in.
“No! Please don't! I'm not lying,” the woman pleaded.
“Very well. A truth spell it is.” Joell sighed dramatically.
Soon they were joined by the rest of the witches.
Sahara began the spell, casting a magic circle around the bed.
Then she chanted something in an ancient language.
The witches watched as a glowing ball of light began to form in the center of the room, its energy radiating off the walls.
The light seemed to be in search of something, and it wasn't long before it found its target.
The body-snatcher was engulfed in the light, and as the witches watched, they saw her face contort with pain. She was under their spell now.
The woman started to speak, her words coming out in a rush. “I admit I had the talisman! I did, but the sorceress who gave it to me appeared a few minutes after I used it and took it back!”
“She just appeared after you left in your car?” Victoria asked.
“Before. She was sitting in my passenger seat. I gave it up readily, thinking I'd never need it again. I had planned on keeping Victoria's body forever.” She broke after that. Crying. Babbling. Promising anything if they’d just make it stop.
Between sobs, the story spilled out in pieces. Found the talisman in dry cleaning. Tried to return it. Sorceress said keep it. Use it. She’d be back for it when Rosa was done.
“Done?” Crystal echoed. “Like it’s a library book?”
The witches prodded her for more information, especially concerning this sorceress.
She didn’t seem to know a lot about her, only that she had found the talisman in the woman’s dry cleaning.
The sorceress told her what it was for and said she would come back for it if and when Rosa, the dry cleaner, was finished with it.
When the L.A.W. witches were satisfied with her confession, they released her from the spell. The woman blubbered gratefully for their mercy, then said she had to pee.
Keeping Rosa, the body snatcher, confined to a bed was inhumane. Rosa sagged against the restraints, wrecked but breathing.
Joell eyed the scarves. “We can’t leave her restrained like this.”
“No,” Rayna agreed. “But we’re also not handing her a juice box and a bus pass.”
“Middle ground,” Magda said.
They couldn’t trust her because she had lied, cheated, and stolen before. But they wouldn’t keep her tied to a bed.
They needed to call Bas and admit their need for her help, as much as it galled them. They also had to let Chad know they weren’t ready for any new jobs. Anything requiring more than one or two L.A.W. members would have to wait. Victoria was their priority now.
Eight witches with double the strength of ordinary witches were more than enough. But with one woman carrying the wrong DNA, thus non-magical, the whole coven was less stable and vulnerable.
Duke didn’t look thrilled. “Hate to say it, but this isn’t over. We still need the original spell-caster.”
A collective groan circled the room.
“Of course we do,” Crystal said sarcastically. “Because anything else would be convenient.”
Rayna crossed her arms, already shifting into strategy mode. “We start in Long Island. That’s where this mess kicked off. Odds are, she’s still lurking in the area.”
“Fantastic,” Joell muttered. “Let’s go hunt a mystery witch with a body-snatching hobby. What could possibly go wrong?”
No one answered. Because historically? Everything.
The witches nodded in agreement, knowing they had to track down the powerful sorceress to reverse the original spell and restore their unit’s fighting strength.
Knowing the mansion would return to Long Island soon, and the sorceress might be in that vicinity, they brainstormed and came up with a plan.
By morning, the mansion had settled back onto Long Island as if it had never left—no mountain air, no Tennessee twang, just coastal calm and a faint salty breeze that had been politely installed overnight.
“Alright,” Rayna said, clapping once. “Field trip. We have to find this other sorceress.”
No one argued.
They spread out across the kitchen, coffee in hand. No charts. No whiteboard. Just instinct, experience, and the shared understanding that somewhere on this very large island, a sorceress with questionable hobbies was living her best life.
“We split up,” Sahara said, “and cover more ground.”
Magda nodded. “There’s nothing much north of here, is there?”
“Well, she’s not going to hide in the middle of Hicksville,” Rayna said. “Witches sisters, use your inner magic scanners. Anyone that powerful will leave a trace.”
“I’ll go North,” Sahara confirmed.
Joell stretched like she was about to go for a jog instead of hunting a body-snatching sorceress. She made a fist and waved her thumb between Crystal and herself. “South is ours.”
Crystal grinned. “Road trip. I’m in.”
“That leaves East and West,” Rayna said, glancing at Victoria.
Victoria lifted her chin. “I’ve got it.”
No hesitation. No pity.
“Good.” Rayna gave a quick nod of approval. “I need to check on my pets, but I’ll circle back and join Victoria later. Try not to start a magical turf war without me.”
“No promises,” Joell said.
Lioness leaned against the wall, arms crossed, already slipping into that distant, focused look. “I’ll stay here, keeping eyes on all of you with my remote viewing.”
“And keeping us all coordinated, I hope,” Crystal said. “We don’t want to waste time by overlapping.”
Lioness smirked. “Think of me as your extremely efficient GPS.”
“Perfect,” Joell said.
Within minutes, they were moving. Doors opening. Energy shifting. The mansion exhaled as its witches spilled out into the day, each one tuning their senses outward, searching for that telltale prickle of active magic.
Somewhere out there, someone was using it.
And they were going to find her.
Duke stayed behind in the library. Not because he wanted to sit this one out. Because his part of the puzzle was different.
He paced the length of the library, the Corpse Plant now safely contained but still offensively fragrant.
“Alright,” he muttered. “Let’s find a woman I’ve never seen, with a name no one remembers, who hands out cursed party favors for fun. Easy.”
Rosa was still in the mansion, though “their containment spell” was doing some heavy lifting.
The spell allowed her to move through the common areas, just not anywhere that mattered.
Doors to private rooms and all the windows stayed firmly shut, no matter how many times she tested them.
And just for extra insurance, Crowe was following her everywhere she went.
Duke found her near the sitting room, hovering like someone who knew she was one bad decision away from being re-cuffed to furniture.
She straightened when she saw him. “I told you everything.”
“Not quite,” Duke said, folding his arms. “You told us what happened. I need the details you didn’t think mattered.”
She swallowed.
“The talisman,” he said. “You said you found it. Where?”
“In the shop,” she said quickly. “In a bundle of clothing. All black. Someone dropped it off—not a name I recognized.”
“All black,” Duke repeated. “So not your usual ‘dry clean this stain and don’t ask questions’ situation.”
“No.”
He nodded slowly, filing that away. “And the woman? The sorceress. Think…”
“I am thinking!” Rosa snapped, then immediately flinched. “I was about to call the number on the slip when she just… appeared. She told me what it did. Said I could use it. That she’d come back for it when I was finished.”