Chapter 27: Magic Hates Me

My toenails clicked on the floor with urgency as I raced to the kitchen in a panic. The gloves lay innocently on the kitchen table. Addison would be furious. He’d probably disown me.

Purrberus was on a new rampage in the office with the filing cabinets, judging by the sudden giant whoosh of paperwork and metal falling over. Gods only knew where Clyde was hiding.

There was no dignity in this. But here I was, grabbing them off the table in my mouth, slobbering all over them.

My hopes were pinned on the gloves delivering a giant shock to Mister Gentry. Then I could try to escape and go for help...but where? Who would or even could? Nobody. I was on my own.

I skidded to the office’s doorway and saw the full scope of the damage Purrberus had wrought so far. Mister Gentry’s face practically split in two when he saw me standing there with the gloves in my mouth. All I smelled was bacon.

A plate of it materialized in front of my snout. I dropped the gloves and snapped up the hot, salty, fatty pieces, seemingly in one motion.

A moment later I looked up. Impossibly, he was wearing the gloves.

“How are you not getting shocked?” I barked.

“Addison isn’t the only one who knows how to corral a magical item,” he said, admiring them from every angle. “It’s not that impressive, although it did take me a few hours. How do they look on me?”

“What do you want them for?” I whined. “You don’t even need them.”

“Perhaps I’d like a souvenir to remember our time together by,” he said. “They’re very nice gloves and you don’t appreciate them.”

I started shaking. “I’m going to be in so much trouble. Addison will kick me out.”

“Why would he? He’ll enjoy having a dog around, if he decides to keep you.”

“I knew it. You never intended to change me back!” I howled. Purrberus joined in.

“Unless you’re right of course,” he said, “and he decides you’re too much trouble.”

I buried my head in my paws. “I’ll be a stray dog on the streets of Jenelle.”

“Now now Coralie, it won’t be that bad. Between tourists and everyone else, there’s plenty of decent garbage overflowing around here. I’m sure you won’t starve.”

I howled the most mournful howl I could dredge up from the pits of despair in my stomach.

“Just kidding,” he said, with his awful, sharp grin. “But there is one more thing you must do before I change you back.”

“Why are you doing this to me?” I felt like throwing up all the bacon.

“It might have something to do with the fact that I am a nightmare, and also because you have another artifact that I want. Where’s that little blue marble?”

I gasped and said I didn’t know. I couldn’t let him have that too; not that I knew what it did, other than have a weird, transporting effect, and that it had gotten unfathomably large.

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“I know you know where it is,” he went on. “It’s close by.”

“Please don’t make me give it to you,” I whined. “Why do you want it?”

“The longer you argue with me, the longer you will remain a dog. It may even be too difficult to change you back if you waste any more time,” he said.

“Addison will be able to do it!”

“Why should the burden fall on him as he recovers from a heart attack? Magic will exhaust him,” he said.

I knew it was true. Deflated, I told him it had gone under the chair.

He rolled it between his fingers, examining it as though expecting it to do a trick right then and there.

The phone rang. Before I could make a sound, Mister Gentry grabbed the receiver and answered-- with my voice!

“Hello? Yes, this is Coralie. Oh, thank you for calling, Dr. Lowe. Yes, okay. Thank you, that’s great. Home in two days? Expect him at around ten in the morning? That’s great news. Oh, okay...yes, I guess he must be exhausted. What? Oh, a ride has already been arranged? Thank you...what? Yes, okay... thank you for telling me that too. And I will make sure the house is ready. Thank you again, goodbye.”

Mister Gentry hung up. “Dr. Lowe passed on a message for you: Addison understands if you can’t make it to visit before he’s released. Now, what exactly does this marble do?”

Purrberus destroyed two floor lamps and a vase in the short time it took me to admit I knew nothing other than it grew larger and that I had been told it was a kind of ice cube.

He shrugged. “Purrberus seemed to like playing with it, so we will keep it. Speaking of, we should get going. More people to haunt. I suppose I should begin the process to de-canine you. Stay there.”

My tail thumped with apprehension. Was this some kind of trick?

He rummaged through his robes, muttering to himself as he worked. From one of his robe pockets he brought out a small black dish, the same ominous black as the pendant. CORALIE it said on the side.

Other puzzling and grotesque items followed: small bundles of what looked like rotting cabbage and slimy cheese, a vial of dark red liquid, and a wet-looking, bumpy pink blob that plopped revoltingly into the dish. I was sure I saw it moving on its own.

Then he emptied a packet of sour-smelling dark powder on top of it and stirred the whole, gloppy thing together with a spoon from another pocket as though he were mixing cake batter made of the worst ingredients. Brown smoke that reeked of rotting trash billowed out of the dish.

“And now for the most important part.” He called Purrberus over and brushed a single, loose hair from her tail.

He placed the hair into the dish. The mixture bubbled and glowed as though lit from within from one of the hell realms while noises like tortured screams blasted from it.

The screams faded and the smoke cleared. The stuff sat in the dish like a rude-smelling pudding with chunks in it.

He placed it in front of me. “Eat it.”

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