“Sooo would,” the husky voice crooned with a tone screaming devilish glee. “I’d damn well grin from ear to ear while I did that shit, too. Now what’s going on? Spit it the fuck out now.”
Calamity rolled to her back, inching along the bricks to scratch her spine, her response rather cavalier, considering the magnitude of the alleged incident. “So there was an accident at a party I’m at, and as a byproduct of this accident, something happened. Not a big deal, really. Nothing I can’t handle.”
“What accident, Calamity? And why the fuck are you crashing parties? What did I tell you about that shit?”
“As I recall,” Calamity drawled. “You said no wedding crashing. There was nothing about party crashing in general.”
“Don’t you mince motherfluffin’ words with me, Calamity! Now knock it the shit off and—”
There was a muffled sound, as though someone was trying to wrestle the phone from Nina, and then a much sweeter, far more affable voice came on the line. “Calamity, honey? It’s Marty. You know the one. The blonde with all the lipstick and hair bleach? Talk to Auntie Marty, Precious, and tell me what happened so we can help. Maybe it’s not such an emergency after all.”
“That’s Marty. Super nice, fashionista, not very brainy. A werewolf, by the way,” Calamity whispered as though no one but Poppy could hear. Clearing her throat, the cat continued. “So here’s the prob in a nutshell. I think. Nothing for certain here, mind you, but I think I turned the party DJ into one of my own.”
“A cat?”
“No, Marty—a familiar. I think I turned the DJ into a familiar.”
“You think?” Auntie Marty repeated, her tone still almost as sweet with only a hint of an angry tremor.
There was more rustling and another muffled, “Give me the damn phone, Ass Sniffer,” before the mean one named Nina was back on the line. “Location!” she bellowed, making Poppy wince. “Now, Calamity!”
As Calamity The Talking Cat rattled off the location, Poppy looked at the inside of her wrist and ran a finger over the raised picture now on her flesh, growing more dazed and confused by the second.
Sure, there was a half-moon tattoo-ish looking thing with a sprinkle of stars across the center of it in a place she had no recollection of ever getting a tattoo. In fact, she didn’t have any tattoos at all. Her mother would kill her if she got a tattoo, but this was what had convinced the cat, er, Calamity, that she was now a familiar.
Whatever one of those was. She vaguely remembered watching Charmed as a teenager and the mention of familiars, but that had been a long time ago, and the definition of one and their place in the witch world were both very vague.
Holding her wrist up, she inspected the mark in question under the light of the streetlamps. Maybe it was one of those temporary tattoos, and this was all a joke? Licking her finger, Poppy scrubbed it over her skin, but the half-moon remained clear as day.
All right. So this wasn’t some kind of joke.
“What in the fresh hell are you doing?” Calamity asked, dancing over the garden wall, swatting at dust particles.
“Trying to figure out if this is all some elaborate prank played on me by my BFF.”
“You mean the skinny one dressed up like Kanye West, guzzling that cheap bottle of Boones Farm like it was her last night on earth while she rocked back and forth pressed up to the guy dressed like Kim Kardashian, who was at least ten years younger than her and stoned half out of his gourd?”
Poppy smiled briefly. Her pal Mel had never graduated college-level drinking. Even at thirty-four, she was still boozing it up like she was twenty. In fact, she was still dating like she was twenty.
She sighed in resignation. “Yeah, that’s her.”
Calamity snorted indignantly, the small puff of air turning to a cloud of condensation. “She couldn’t even make decent appetizers—Triscuits and Vienna sausages in a can do not a party make. Even a heathen troglodyte would turn their nose up at that crap. That in mind, do you really think someone dressed as Kanye West is capable of pulling off some shit like this?”
Poppy put her arm back at her side and looked directly into the cat’s mesmerizing eyes, trying to rationalize—or maybe the better word was minimize—what was currently happening.
“What exactly is this shit? I just have a tattoo I don’t remember getting. So what? Lot’s of people have tattoos they don’t remember getting. In fact, half my night-school college class has tattoos they don’t remember getting. Big deal.”
Calamity cocked her head as though assessing her. “Well, sure. That’s true. You could sweep this shit under the carpet with some implausible, farfetched explanation. But you’re also talking to a cat like Dr. Doolittle’s spirit took possession of your body. So there’s that. What more proof do you need?”
Poppy winced. “Like you said, maybe I’ve been drugged?”