"That's not my dog," said Veronica the witch.
Jacklyn looked at the dog. The dog looked back at her. Veronica was right. This wasn't Toby.
Veronica was a woman of indeterminable age, anywhere in the span from hardened 35 to Hollywood 70. She wore a uniform of crisp white business suits that matched her snow white hair. Her ancestry was as hard to pin down as her age. High cheekbones, hawk like nose, dark eyes on a thin wiry frame. She seemed to be the descendant of a Roman empress, an Egyptian pharaoh and an Aztec High Priestess. Veronica may not have a witch look – no black pointy hat, no striped socks, no warts – but Jacklyn's horsey sense definitely picked up a strong vibe of someone not to be messed with.
"They gave me the wrong dog! Why did they give me the wrong dog?"
She told Veronica Toby had shifted and made a run for Pantzer's Sausage shop.
"Oscar Panzer?"
"You know him?"
"He has a thing for me," Veronica said.
Her tone made it clear it was not a good thing.
"How?" Jacklyn asked.
"He started out in a biker gang, moved onto the Arian Brotherhood. Drugs, trafficking, that sort of thing. Lately he's been expanding his business with magic. Pantzer wants me gone."
She studied Jacklyn for a moment.
Jacklyn waited.
She'd be fired for sure, losing Toby to some Nazi sausage sorcerer.
Veronica walked over to a drawer. She dug a phone out of her purse.
"It's not the first time Toby's shifted and made a run for it," she said. "I had him micro chipped. But I thought you of all people could catch him."
Jacklyn had told Veronica she was a shifter in order to get the job.
"I would have, but I was hit by a Ferrari," Jacklyn said, glumly.
Veronica's eyes narrowed.
"A yellow Ferrari?" she asked.
Jacklyn nodded. "I think I broke it. I shifted. Had to. Came back to this—" Jacklyn gestured at her human form, "—naked on the ground."
"Did you get a look of the driver?"
"Very blue eyes," Jacklyn said. She could have described him down to the golden scruff on his chin, but clammed it. "Why do you ask?"
"Someone bad hired someone notorious to steal something special that can never end up in the wrong hands. That special thing was last seen in a yellow Ferrari."
He was a thief.
"Something special from your line of work?" Jacklyn asked, hoping not to sound too interested.
Veronica was the founder and CEO of Corporate Magic, the only corporate magic company on the west coast. She'd worked with every major company in Silicon Valley, doing her white witch thing and doing it well. Rumor had it she could counter any curse the Chinese had coming.
Jacklyn could feel the weight of the mysterious knobby object in her pocket. She needed to get rid of it.
What the hell had hot blue eyes saddled her with?"
"I liked him," Jacklyn said. She could hear the disappointment in her voice. He'd used her, a total stranger, to keep his loot safe. He'd been sure she'd show up Thursday.He'd been right.
"He covered me with his coat. I didn't have to run here naked."
At least there was that.
"His coat?" Veronica said.
Jacklyn turned around in front of her, hands in the black coat's pockets, holding it out so there wouldn't be a mysterious bulge from the thing in the pocket.
Veronica gave her that thoughtful look again.
Could she read minds?
"Here, take the phone," Veronica said.
Jacklyn looked at the phone's small screen. A grey map of city streets and blocks and a pulsating red dot.
Toby.
"He's still at the sausage shop!"
"It's safer for Toby if you go get him. You can fix this."
Veronica's voice suddenly had a special timbre. One that made Jacklyn desperately want to prove her right. She'd do anything. She could fix this. It was suddenly very simple: She'd do anything to save Toby, or die trying.
She had no choice.
On some level Jacklyn was aware there was an impossibly strong thread of persuasion bonding with Veronica's words, feeding off Jacklyn's guilty conscience over losing Toby.
Whoever said white magic was harmless was dead wrong.
On the way out, Jacklyn dropped the knobby thing in one of the potted plants in the lobby of Veronica's apartment building and hoped for the best.
YOU ARE READING
Shifting Life
Paranormal[COMPLETE] Magic is all about the rules. You mess up, you fix it. Or pay the price. Not that Jacklyn Morse has a choice. She's a new shape shifter paying the price for saving a notorious thief who is as hot as the supernatural loot he's stolen. To J...
