Bitch Witch Read online

  Can good triumph over evil…when evil runs in your veins?

  The problem is Sarah Elizabeth Archer doesn’t have to put up with anybody’s crap.

  Coming from a long line of witches who lost their souls to dark energy, Sarah is determined to change her fate. Turning her back on her birthright, she smothers her natural instincts with a boring job and quiet life.

  But when Sarah gets pissed off, all bets are off. And anything can happen when you piss off a witch.

  BITCH WITCH

  Copyright © 2016 S.R. Karfelt

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Published by

  Votadini Publishing/Horace Tupper Books

  Library of Congress Control Number:

  2016900325

  Print edition ISBN numbers:

  ISBN-13: 9780989534758

  ISBN-10: 0-9895347-5-8

  The Covenant Keeper Novels

  Kahtar—Warrior of the Ages

  Heartless—A Shieldmaiden’s Voice

  Forever—The Constantines’ Secret

  Multi-Author Collections

  A Winter’s Romance

  In Creeps the Night

  Through the Portal

  Call of the Warrior

  For Brian

  A fellow night owl.

  Plastic bags of crispy crust pizza and monthly supplies twisted around Sarah Archer’s wrists, cutting off her circulation. She fumbled with her frozen Coke, catching it between a bag and her sweatshirt. The icy concoction oozed out the top of the cup, spilling over her fingers. Resisting the urge to cast them clean and feeling a bit saintly about her amazing willpower, Sarah paused outside Target’s automatic front doors to lick the mess off her hand.

  A blaring horn made her jump and the drink hit the ground in an explosion of frozen ice, splashing her from bare toes to chin.

  Dammit! I wanted that stupid thing! Mourning the icy Coke melting between her toes, Sarah ignored the driver and considered going back into the store for another drink. But there’s no way I can stand in that slow line again without casting to speed things up.

  The horn blared again.

  Just breathe. Don’t get mad. You dropped it.

  And you are standing in the middle of the damn road.

  Sarah almost moved. She shifted one sticky wet flip-flop toward the brightly lit storefront when a mom with a cart and little kids shoved around her, heading for the darkening parking lot. The driver laid on the horn and swore at them through an open window.

  Sarah changed her mind about moving.

  She looked through the windshield, directly into the eyes of the driver. The pretty blonde glared back and lifted her middle finger off the steering wheel. Despite the size of the pickup, Sarah stood her ground. Somewhere in the back of her mind she tried to reason with herself.

  Don’t, don’t, don’t.

  But Sarah wasn’t listening.

  It’s when she got pissed off that the problems started.

  Sometimes she got pissed off easier than others. Like now.

  The blonde stared at Sarah across the hood of the shiny white truck and screeched, “Fuck you, fat bitch!”

  Customers in the vicinity protested, and someone swore back at the driver.

  The vehicle swerved around Sarah, moving half onto the sidewalk in front of the store and almost clipping one of the giant red concrete balls put there to keep cars away. People scattered. An old man holding a cup of Starbucks’ coffee dropped it in his scramble to retreat back into the store, while younger people hurried out the doors to watch. The pickup squeezed between a bench and a trash can before bouncing off the curb and fully regaining the roadway.

  The encounter would have pissed off even a powerless fat bitch. Sarah Elizabeth Archer wasn’t powerless. The retreating truck accelerated so quickly the back end fishtailed as it made its getaway. Too late. The damage was done. There was no way to escape witchy karma.

  A ball of heat sparked to life in Sarah’s chest, hot against her ribcage, like whiskey torching the esophagus. Tums couldn’t help this, but she knew what could. She eyeballed the tricked out pickup speeding away.

  “Fat bitch this,” she whispered, setting the hot anger free. It felt good not to tap it down, a hot rush of release better than any sex she’d ever had. The spell tracked the pickup like a heat-seeking missile as it shot down the strip mall, catching up with the platinum tantrum trash next to Moe’s Grill.

  Sarah heard it hit, like a meteorite dropping through the engine and tearing the driveshaft out. An aftershock with a noise similar to a sonic boom blew out the front windows of the nearby wireless store and ricocheted across the parking lot, setting off car alarms in its wake.

  “Oh, shit!” Sarah half-walked, half-ran toward her Jeep as people gaped in the direction of the explosion.

  What goes up must come down, and for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction. The aftershock headed her way so fast and hard Sarah thought she heard the high pitched whine of its approach. She forced herself to turn and face it. This is what separated the men from the boys, the good witches from the bad. At least she hoped it counted for something. One thing she’d learned long ago was to pay the cost of her own mistakes. She certainly wasn’t going to ever be one of those witches that lured cats, or heaven forbid neighbors, to the house so they could pay the piper. Not that she wanted to be a witch at all. She’d renounced it, for Pete’s sake! But it was hard to stick to her resolve when she got upset; harder than trying to give up sugar or caffeine.

  It’s kind of ironic that the road to hell and the road to fat pants are both paved with good intentions.

  The aftershock slammed into Sarah, lifting her off her feet and shoving her into the back of her Jeep, against the spare tire. The bulk of the spell’s reverberation rolled off her and against the car, pushing it into the car parked nose to nose with hers. Sarah heard the crunch of the vehicles as she hit the ground like a celebratory football slammed from the hands of a scoring quarterback. The impact jarred every bone in her body. It felt like her ribs had collapsed and her spine now rested between her breasts. Lying flat on her back and staring up into the darkening sky she noticed not the panic around her, but the full moon. A blue moon.

  “No wonder,” she moaned, tasting blood on her lips. She would have known better than to cast if she had taken two seconds to think before reacting. A full moon, a blue moon, PMS, a witch who hasn’t cast in—what—seven months?

  Talk about falling off the wagon.

  “Ma’am?” said a voice that made her think of cowboys and rodeos, and people interviewed on the news talking about how a tornado sounded like a train.

  “Ma’am?” the accented voice repeated.

  Ma’am? Oh, screw you! She didn’t look that old! Okay, technically she was wearing flannel pajama bottoms—but they could pass for yoga pants! Kinda, sorta. No, she hadn’t showered or brushed her hair today but ma’am? Who in all of New England said ma’am? Although the truck driven by the blonde jackhole had already proven there were rednecks even outside of Boston.

  “Ma’am, can you hear me?” A man knelt beside her. “Are you all right?”

  Sarah focused on him and the shouts and noise around her seemed to go silent. Don’t, don’t, don’t! You’re in enough trouble!

  She wasn’t listening. An actu
al real-life cowboy leaned over her, complete with faded jeans, a pristine white t-shirt, and a black cowboy hat. A fair amount of tattoos covered muscled arms, and because the universe found her situation so funny, her rescuer wore a necklace with a religious icon.

  Ah, I can’t just slide to the dark side and be done with it, can I?

  Every other moment just has to be a painful learning experience, doesn’t it?

  Sarah reached up and took the pendant between her thumb and two fingers. It scorched like she’d grasped the wrong end of a stick roasting marshmallows. Penance. She held on as long as she could bear it, mere seconds, and let go with a shout that returned the sounds of people and car alarms to her ears.

  “Ma’am, hold still. I’m going to call an ambulance,” Cowboy said, yanking a cell phone out of his back pocket and running a thumb across the screen.

  “No.” Sarah shoved to a sitting position, the bag with pizzas still attached to her wrist. The other must have been thrown against the car too. Playtex Gentle Glide Super Plus tampons littered her lap, and the pills from bottles of St. John’s Wort and Evening Primrose Oil spilled over the blacktop, peppered with Hershey Kisses and Dove Dark. Some practical part of Sarah’s brain noted that the chocolates were foil wrapped and therefore still good.

  “You best not move. I’m an EMT and I think you might have a head injury.” Cowboy leaned closer as though to study her eyes, giving her a close-up view of the face shaded by his hat. Brown eyes with thick lashes, sharp nose, sculpted lips, stubble—pretty much man perfection. Please be gay, or married, or really turned off by menstruating single witches who’ve never had good sex.

  “I’m fine.” Sarah yanked the pizza bag off her wrist and wiped her hand across her mouth. She studied the blood on the back of her hand and tentatively touched her lip with her tongue. She’d bitten it, but not too badly. “I just fell,” she lied, and added for atonement, “Believe me, there’s nothing wrong with my head that doesn’t run in my family.”

  “Can you tell me what eight times seven is?”

  Sarah blinked, counting in her head. Crickey, really? Do all EMTs give pop quizzes? Eight times five is forty, plus two more eights. “Fifty-six?”

  He didn’t look convinced.

  “Seriously, I’m okay. I have a math deficit that has nothing to do with this. I was an English major. Couldn’t you give me a random Longfellow fill-in-the-blank? Or maybe Thoreau?”

  Those lips rubbed together, and for a moment those lips completely distracted Sarah. Leaning his body weight onto one knee, Cowboy said, “‘And seeming to whisper all is well…’”

  It took Sarah a moment to place the obscure line from The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere and settle her brain on the next line in the poem. But she had gone to school in Massachusetts, so the entire poem about the patriot lived in her brain somewhere. At last she found it, and said with triumph, “‘A moment only he feels the spell.’”

  No sooner had the words left her lips than the power of them hit, tangling with the residual aftershock of the spell just cast. Shit! Magic slipped from her with her next breath and blew over the cowboy as an incantation. He blinked at her as though only now focusing and noticing she wasn’t a fat old lady, but a young one, with eyes the color of his faded Levi’s and hair as dark as a night sky. He swallowed and his Adam’s apple moved with masculine perfection.

  Shit! But he spoke it first, I didn’t! Sarah fought the urge to yank his cross off the chain and stick it into her mouth, swallow it maybe. She hadn’t cast a love spell since one teenage moment of insanity in high school. Is it only love spells you’ve cut out? You’re not supposed to cast at all! Surely this cowboy was part of the aftershock of her spell. The payment is always higher than you imagine! This is what happens when you’re in debt to the dark side! Compound interest was invented in hell.

  “Are you two okay?” An older woman gazed down at them, her eyes focused on Sarah. “Oh! You’re bleeding!” She straightened and waved to someone, calling, “Over here!”

  “No, I’m fine! I’m fine.” Sarah scrambled to her feet, dodging the cowboy’s hand when he stood quickly to offer it. Oh, hell no! A touch will seal the deal. Gaining her feet, Sarah took several steps backward, almost tripping as one of her flip-flops folded in half. If she avoided his touch it would be much easier to break the spell. Easier? No love spell breaks easily. She looked around, spotted her keys on the pavement and grabbed them. “I’d better get home, I need to…” get the hell away from you. She didn’t bother trying to finish the sentence with a lie. She had enough penance to do.

  “I think we need some help over here!” the lady shouted across the parking lot.

  Shut up! “I’m fine!” Sarah grabbed her bags and bent over to stuff the ripped tampon box into one. Cowboy picked up a couple tampons and her credit card. “I can get it. Don’t bother,” she said.

  Ignoring her, Cowboy dropped them into her open bag. Sarah yanked her hand away before they could touch, but accepted his help. She was going to need all the chocolate and probably all the damn tampons after this. Bending to gather more chocolates, she kept an eye on him.

  Shouts and someone crying drew Sarah’s attention. With her mind on her own problems, she had forgotten the other injuries in the parking lot. Judging by the amount of people standing around in the near darkness, and the flashing lights of an approaching ambulance, Sarah knew she wasn’t the only one knocked over.

  Shit! This is going to take some serious penance to fix. Seven months of good behavior down the toilet! Again!

  “I suppose we’re going to need to exchange insurance information too.” Cowboy straightened and pulled his wallet from his back pocket.

  Sarah recalled the crashing sound as she’d hit the ground, and hurried to look at the front of her Jeep. It rested against the crumpled front end of a BMW Series 6 convertible. Black, of course. It matches his hat. It looked like her Jeep had driven across his hood. Even his windows were cracked. Her Jeep didn’t appear to have any damage. Sarah’s shoulders slumped as she turned to the cowboy. “That’s yours?” Of course it’s his. Perfect man, perfect car. He probably adores his mother and has lunch with his sister every week too.

  He frowned, using his wallet to push his hat back further. “Just picked it up today, up in New Hampshire. I swung by here to grab some stuff for the road. Supposed to have that back home by Tuesday morning.” He said Tuesday like Toos-dee.

  “Texas?” Of course.

  “Oklahoma.”

  Close enough. “I’m sorry,” said Sarah.

  He smiled at her with toothpaste ad teeth and was that—Sarah narrowed her eyes at his chin—yep, a dimple in his chin. Seriously?

  “It weren’t your fault.” He took off his hat to run strong fingers through dark hair that the universe surely had created for the sole purpose of that gesture. “I thought that was a bomb when it took out those windows, but it sounded different—meteorite maybe? I could hear the whistle before it hit.”

  “Hmmph,” snorted Sarah. Lies had a cost too, not like casting and knocking down innocent people in the parking lot, but enough lies could slowly bind one to the dark side before they ever knew they were going. Sarah figured she was already sitting on hell’s riverbank dangling her feet into the river Styx. She certainly wasn’t going to tie an anchor to them with lies. Shoving her key into the ancient Jeep door, she creaked it open and said, “Do you have your insurance card then?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  If she was going to touch him, it would be to smack him. She wondered if he felt the same urge to touch, to make physical contact. To be safe, Sarah tossed her bags onto the passenger seat, climbed into the driver’s seat and leaned over to open the glovebox. “Massachusetts has no-fault insurance. Do you know what that is?”

  “Not really, ma’am.”

  Sarah paused in her digging to look out the driver’s door at the cowboy. He leaned against the open door—it was a good thing she’d climbed inside so far—still holding his wal
let in hand, fishing for his insurance card while studying her. Sarah wished she’d worn a bra, but at least the frumpy sweatshirt mostly hid that faux pas.

  “I think it’s supposed to keep things simple, especially when no one gets hurt,” she explained.

  “You were hurt,” said Cowboy in a hushed voice.

  Sarah sensed he was going to touch her. She felt him reaching before she lifted her eyes to see the hand, tattooed with what looked like a horse’s nose under the bright parking lot lights. She leaned toward it, because she was the stupidest woman who never wanted to be a witch. But no touch came.

  “Here.” His hand hovered inches above both of hers, offering his insurance card. “Do you have a pen? To copy the information down with?”

  That was close! And I wanted him to! She had to get away.

  “No. I don’t have a pen. Move.”

  “I’m sorry?” he said.

  “Quit leaning on my door.”

  “Oh!” He immediately moved. “Sorry, ma’am!”

  “And stop calling me ma’am!”

  He apologized again, and Sarah grabbed the door handle and slammed it shut. Just that much metal and glass separating them hurt her, as if she had been closed off from oxygen inside the car. Damn! It’s strong! Sarah fumbled to hit the button to roll the window down, which was inconveniently located beneath the radio. As the window slid open her breathing came easier.

  Cowboy waited, patiently holding his insurance card out. “I thought you were going to hit and run on me,” he teased.

  Sarah leaned back against the seat and took a deep breath. His essence came with it. He smelled—Sarah considered a moment, inhaling again, trying to place it—good. Not good as in attractive, although he had that, too—body wash, deodorant, and just a slight hint of sweat or anxiety. No, he smelled good.

  Honest.

  Physical, but has a penchant for history.

  Soldier.

  Fuck.