Chapter Twenty-One
Samantha smiled. "At this point, I'd be willing to do just about anything if I thought it would improve the standard of some of the writing."
"Great!" Fiona sat down, and leaned in conspiratorially. "Now, what I'm going to say might sound a bit weird to you, but hear me out before you decide I'm nuts, okay?"
"Okay, that's fair," agreed Samantha, taking another forkful of delicious chocolatey kirsch-soaked goodness.
Fiona grinned. "Tell me, Samantha, what do you know about Wicca?"
"Wicca?" Samantha's eyebrows rose. "You mean, as in, white magic?"
"Exactly!"
"Actually, I read a lot about it when I was younger," Samantha continued, "My, er, uncle was something of a practitioner, and he let me read some of his books, I never really tried anything much, though."
"Well," Fiona beamed, "There's a group of us with the local organising committee will be doing a working, asking for the blessings of the goddesses, and for inspiration and improvement for all our writers."
"What goddesses?" Samantha wanted to know.
"We invoke Brigid, the Celtic goddess of poetry and inspiration," Fiona enthused, "And also make appeal to Saraswati, Hindu goddess of poetry and prose, and to the Muses Calliope, Erato and Melpomene, for their domains of epic poetry, love poetry and tragedy."
"Well, that's pretty much got it covered." Samantha's expression became cautious. "Uh, I never practised, really, but I do know that tryin' to cast a spell on somebody without their knowledge and agreement is considered very bad manners and poor, um, sportsmanship, bad karma, so to speak, and if you're petitioning a Hindu goddess it might not be a good idea to do anything that might provoke karma to bite you in the ass…"
"Oh, we don't do workings on anybody," Fiona explained indulgently, "We ask the goddesses to look kindly on our writers and bless our gathering with their wisdom, and offer inspiration and improvements to anybody who yearns for it."
"Oh, well that's okay, then," Samantha smiled, alarm bells ringing in her head like armoured gerbils on meth slam-dancing in metal buckets, "I'd love to help, if I can."
"Excellent! So, this is what we're gonna do…"
...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...
"Finally, we get a break," muttered Sam, peering at his laptop, "This has to be it – a group of people who sound like they have no idea what they're dealin' with, casting a damned spell, with no particular target in mind." He frowned at the screen. "It's like standing on a balcony and throwing water balloons at the crowd below, hoping you'll hit somebody who's thirsty."
"I thought it was bad manners, if not actually dangerous, to go casting spells on people without askin' 'em first," commented Dean, recalling the educational lecture (and even more educational thrashing) Bobby had given him when he'd tried to work a minor curse on a bully when he was at high school.
"It is," Sam said grimly. "I have no idea whether they're actually managing a working, or just playing at it, or if they think it's worked but it's backfired, or if they've just managed to piss off some entity somewhere enough to set women to wanting to kill."
"Magic is like lawnmowers," Dean intoned grimly. "It don't kill people – people kill people."
"Uh, yeah," Sam eyed his brother dubiously. "So, first of all, I gotta work out if they're the real deal, then we gotta figure out what's goin' wrong: is it an evil spell, or is it some sorta cosmic comeuppance for humans who are getting too uppity for the liking of some goddess in particular, or karma in general?"
"I don't like you going by yourself," Dean scowled.
"You can't come with me," Sam stated firmly, "I'm the one who's been asked, you gotta stay with RJ, and I will not be party to your kid getting anywhere near a working that could go horribly wrong. Anyway, I won't be alone," he grinned. "I'll take Lars. Or Lara." At the mention of 'her' name the feminised Cockapooed dog looked up, and did a brain-explodingly cute head tilt of 'her' fluffy little face. "You don't fool me," Sam told 'her', "You just want some of my chocolate cookie. Well, you can't have any."
'Lara' ratcheted up the Big Brown Eyes.
"Oh yeah, you're the same little asshole in there, aren't you?" Sam grinned. "You might be even more convincing in your Cockapoo disguise, but you're not having any. I am immune to your emotional blackmail. It's for your own good; chocolate is bad for dogs."
"Ordinary dogs, maybe," Dean mused, "But given that these guys – or gals, sorry – are three-quarters Hellhound, I'm pretty sure a bit o' chocolate won't hurt 'em."
"Dean," Sam fixed his brother with an authoritative Bitchface #9™ (I Know What I'm Doing, Jerk), "In this plane of reality, they are dogs, and they are mortal. Chocolate is toxic to dogs. The theobromine in it is a mythylxanthine, very similar to caffeine, which it may also contain, and dogs can't metabolize it the way humans do. Feeding a canine chocolate can result in severe central nervous system effects."
"Well, what about Ronnie then, huh, Mr Chemistry-Talk?" Dean barked in triumph. "She eats chocolate cake like you eat lettuce. How come she's not dead?"
"Dean, she's a werewolf, nobody's ever studied werewolf metabolism!"
"Why not?"
"Because, because… look, for most of human history, humans have been more concerned with killing werewolves so they don't get torn to pieces, okay? It's pretty damned difficult to do any sort of systematic biochemical study of something that's trying to punch through your sternum and tear your heart out!"
"Well, maybe somebody should," suggested Dean. "I mean, how good would that be, if we had to kill a feral werewolf, and we didn't actually have to track it down, and stake it out, and bait it, and kill it with silver, all we had to do was bake it a big enough chocolate cake?"
Sam's Bitchface™ morphed into #8 (You Are Now Officially Talking Complete Shit, Dean). "Are you suggesting that werewolves could be strategically dealt with by tactical chocolate poisoning?"
"All we have to do is figure out how big a cake we'd need," Dean seemed to be warming to his theme with the worrying enthusiasm of a small child inventing a Perpetual Ice-Cream Machine.
"You're clearly the one with severe central nervous system effects happening," Sam rolled his eyes, "Your brain is obviously damaged."
Lara watched 'her' Alpha and his brother do the Upright equivalent of a companionable growl-wrestle, and since treat soliciting was clearly not going to happen, she let out a philosophical humph, and dropped her head to her paws.
"At least 'she' will be a good distraction, goin' around and behaving like a complete slut for pats and treats," chuckled Dean. "And we know that she'll have her nose for evil shit on the job." His face turned serious again. "Have any of the organisers been amongst the women who've been perps or victims at previous conferences?"
"That's a good question – I'll see if I can find out. I'm gonna pull together a charm for protection anyway, just in case there's blowback from this, and I'll need a couple of things to help me work out exactly what they're doing."
"You do that," muttered Dean, "Because if you come out spoutin' nothin' but tragically epic love stories I will salt and burn you myself. So, when does this inspirational working happen?"
"Later this afternoon."
"Well, me and 'Lennie' will be in the car, right outside," Dean stipulated in a voice that brooked no objection, "And the second his nose so much as twitches, we will both come in with guns and eyes blazing."
"What about RJ?" worried Sam.
"He'll be safe in Baby," Dean grunted. "She might be wearing a Volvo meatsuit, but her wardings are all still there." He sighed. "It's amazing she hasn't just seized with embarrassment," he said wistfully, "I seriously owe her, big time, after this, I'll have to make it up to her with some quality time…"
"Right," observed Sam tartly, "Make it up to your car. Your machine. Your inanimate object. What did you have in mind, some flowers, some chocolates, a bottle of vintage French engine oil, just the two of you…"
"A full detailing," Dean sniffed dismissively, "And I don't expect you to understand. He's got the gall to call me a philistine. He just don't understand cars, right, RJ? He don't understand about my Baby, the Impala?"
RJ (who was absorbed in a game that looked suspiciously like he was trying to get Stanley the knit toy honey badger and the wooden toy replica Impala that his father had made for him to entertain intimate congress) looked up and smiled. "Pala!" he enthused, beaming. "Pala! Voom voom! Wren'!"
"You tell him," Dean smiled back indulgently.
"Huh, insanity is hereditary," humphed Sam, looking at his watch, "I gotta get onto my research and charms."
"We can go back to the room," suggested Dean, "And I can keep working on my writing."
"Oh, God," groaned Sam, "Can't you do something less, less, vexatious?"
"Like what?"
"I don't know. You could start by trying to explain to your son that honey badgers don't, as a rule, uh, mate with cars."
"Hey, this is Stanley the honey badger," Dean reminded him, " He once stuck the head of a dead dog on the end of his dick and then used it to rape a fighting dog called Lucifer who was five feet tall at the shoulder with swastikas shaved into his sides to death…"
"Yaaaarg!" Sam yelped in outrage, glaring at his brother with a beautifully feminine version of Bitchface #13™ (You Are So Totally Gross I Don't Have A Bitchface Adequate To Convey My Utter Disgust).
It spoke volumes about his brother, he mused, that Dean could motivate him to think 'Hey, maybe a honey badger molesting a toy car isn't so bad after all'.
...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...
Dee drove Samantha to the street of the nondescript house where the spell working was to take place, and, with her bestie's imprecations to be careful and yell for back-up at the slightest hint of weird shit, Samantha headed up the sidewalk and to the front door.
In the Volvo!Impala, Dee took out her laptop, and started working on her story.
Samantha recognised some of the women there from the conference as general introductions were made. It was once again a social gathering, with drinks and snacks and the inevitable knitting.
"So, how long have you guys been practising Wicca?" asked Samantha pleasantly.
"Oh, Rachel here is really the one who practises," Fiona indicated a beaming young woman who was wearing the sort of 'occult' jewellery that a truly serious practitioner of The Craft would not be seen dead in, "But I kind of did some stuff at school."
"Well, you'll have to explain to me what to do," Samantha volunteered, watching Lara deploy the Big Brown Eyes on the unsuspecting in a shameless attempt to wheedle tidbits out of the other women.
"I've got the exact spell written down right here," confirmed Rachel, waving a sheet, "It's not that complicated. I've got all the ingredients, and all the artefacts we need, all we have to do is form a circle of power, and do the working."
"Sounds good," Samantha smiled, watching with resignation as Lara sneaked her muzzle onto yet another lap and, with the power of expression alone, managed to convey the fact that she was The Hungriest Dog In The World.
"It's totally harmless," said Rachel with the sort of confidence of somebody whose final words were 'Hey, hold my drink and watch this!'. "And let's face it, given some of the writing that's been submitted, nothing we could do could make it any worse!"
There was a general round of giggling at that.
As it turned out, Rachel knew more than her appearance and Samantha's first impressions would suggest; it quickly became apparent that this was a real spell, 'not very complicated' because it had been devised by somebody who really knew what they were doing. Whilst following along with the chants and required participation, Samantha kept a bunch of neurons monitoring the charms and the gris gris bag in her pockets for any indication of evil intent.
She'd have to go back over the exact details of the spell later, but it did seem to be a genuinely sincere appeal to a number of deities traditionally associated with inspiration and writing.
"Aaaaaand, we're done," pronounced Rachel as the final sage leaves smouldered out in what was being used as a 'chalice' but actually looked as if it was the sort of exquisitely ugly vase that an elderly maiden aunt might give to a young lady who was still unmarried in her thirties with the pointed explanation 'This is for your glory box'. The women cheered, and high-fived each other. "Now, who wants a Cosmopolitan!"
By the time Samantha was able to excuse herself without arousing suspicion (and, she estimated, Lara had eaten half her own bodyweight in purloined treats), she packed up her knitting, waved goodbye, and headed out to where Dee was waiting in the car, with RJ and Lennie curled together and asleep in the back seat.
"So, how did it go?" asked Dee.
"It was a true and sincere working," Samantha replied, pulling her cell from her pocket where it had been recording the entire event, "Pulled together by somebody who really knows their spellcraft. To be honest, I didn't think the Magrat Garlick cosplayer had it in her."
"So it was real, then?" pressed Dee.
"Yeah, but still no clear target - I don't think it had any evil intent, not a peep from Lara. Except to whine pathetically for treats." The dog's face indicated that she was completely unrepentant about that. "But being so non-specific, whether it actually worked or not remains to be seen."
"Well, back to the room, then," Dee decided, putting the laptop aside and starting the car, "I guess we'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out. So, let's get food, I've been starving out here waiting for you."
"I couldn't leave too early," Samantha protested, "I had to stay and socialise." She hiccupped gently. "And drink Cosmopolitans."
"Huh, figures," grumped Dee, "You get changed into a woman, and your drinking preferences don't have to change at all."
"Jerk."
If you are not yet acquainted with the Action Figure Therapy channel on YouTube, and the ongoing battle of poor Ranger to do his job and stay more or less sane in a world clearly gone completely mad and vexing him terribly, do go and check it out, in particular the episode titled 'Honey Badger Blood Orgy' – you will receive an introduction to the character who inspired the name for RJ's favourite toy, in the Jimiverse and in Real Life. It's also the series that gave RJ and Connor the immortal phrase 'Moustache with titties'.
Meanwhile, leave reviews, but they'd better not have too much chocolate in them, because rabbits also are susceptible to theobromine intoxication if they eat chocolate, and we don't want little Alfie-Con the plot bunny to be at all unwell, we want him nice and healthy and fighting fit. So we can stomp him at the end of this fic.