Blonde With a Wand by Vicki Lewis Thompson Page B

balls, you’re such a Goody Two-shoes! It’s nauseating.”
    Anica gazed at her sister. “Please say you’ll help me.”
    “Yeah, though it pains me, I’ll help you. But I want to go on the record as being opposed to this plan.”
     
    Jasper crouched by the closed kitchen door, trying to hear what was being said, but the noise of the blender drowned out most of the conversation. What he did hear made him quiver with dread. He’d distinctly heard Lily say after he’s neutered .
    He knew they were deciding his fate in there, and he had no idea how it would go. Sometimes Anica seemed to look kindly on him, but Lily was tougher. If she had enough influence over her sister, his ass could be in a sling.
    But wait! The computer was still on. They’d left the magic recipe on the screen, and he could memorize it. How he’d mix the ingredients he didn’t know, but if they decided not to brew that potion, he wanted the chance to make it himself.
    Trotting back to the desk, he hopped on the chair and with a whisk of his paw refreshed the screen. Then he looked at the ingredients. Gross. Anteater pee might be easier to swallow than this junk.
    Unfortunately it would take about eight hours to work. That was disappointing. Anica had been able to change him in the blink of an eye, so why couldn’t he revert back just as fast? Damn magic.
    Despite the drawbacks of the recipe, he memorized it, anyway, just in case. Anica was right. He was desperate, ready to do whatever he had to in order to become a man again.
    He missed everything about his other life—his condo with its king-sized bed, his walk-in shower, his big-screen TV, his ESPN, his Heineken. Anica didn’t seem to own a TV. How could someone live without such an essential piece of equipment?
    As he committed the potion ingredients to memory, he smelled something putrid coming from the kitchen. They were brewing a potion, all right, but was it the one to change him back or one to permanently seal his fate as a cat? They’d closed him out of the kitchen, so he hadn’t been able to watch them make it.
    God, this sucked. And he’d thought his worst nightmare would be a major loss in the commodities market. He looked at the time at the bottom of the computer screen. Still early. Nobody would miss him at the office for at least another two hours.
    He should find a way to remind Anica to call in sick for him. If the potion worked, though, he’d only miss one day. By tomorrow at this time he’d be back in his condo, ready to shower and get himself to the office before the market opened.
    Needless to say, he wouldn’t stop by the Wicked Brew for his usual latte. But to jump on the El and ride it to work would be heaven. He’d never appreciated how great his life was until it had been ripped from him.
    When the kitchen door slid open, Jasper leaped from the desk chair and pretended he’d been lying in the middle of the grungy carpet all along. No use tipping his hand. He’d considered sending out an SOS to one of his buddies, but what the hell would he say? I’ve been turned into a tomcat. Come rescue me.
    His friends would laugh and think he’d come up with the most outrageous joke yet. He knew that he had a reputation for being the cool guy who dated the hottest chicks. He was proud of that reputation and didn’t want to damage it. Crazy e-mails pleading for help weren’t a good idea.
    Anica approached him with a bowl. She still wore her terry bathrobe and the turban around her freshly washed hair. Not every woman could carry off that look, but she could, not that he cared. She was no longer a romantic interest. There was a gigantic understatement.
    “We have something for you, Jasper,” she said. “I can’t guarantee that it’ll turn you back into your normal self, but the information on the Internet site was promising.”
    He looked into her eyes and tried to tell if she was lying. He discovered that his cat instincts seemed to detect whether someone was