“Let’s get something straight right now,” Bermangoggleshitz said, barely able to keep his eyes open. “My name is Roy Bermangoggleshitz—not Bermangogglecrack, Bermangogglehole or Bermangoggleskank. Am I clear?”

“What about Bermangoggleturd?” I asked wondering what the heck was wrong with him. He looked exhausted.

“No.”

“Bermangogglemerkin?”

“What does that even mean?” he asked, getting exasperated with me.

Goddess this might just turn out to be fun…

Sassy and I had arrived at nine AM on the dot, wearing designer combat gear from head to toe. My ensemble was hunter green to compliment my red hair and Sassy was clad in hot pink—kind of an odd choice for ass kicking lessons, but she pulled it off with her long blonde locks. We waited patiently outside my office, just in case Marge and Roy were doing something inside that would take thousands of years of therapy to remove from our brains.

Bermangoggleballs was late—fifteen minutes late and he was dragging his sorry, mostly evil butt. His eyes were squinted almost shut as if the bright morning sunlight offended him… or maybe it was the unflattering plays on his name. Whatever. If I had to be here this early so did he.

“Bermangogglemerkin is Greek,” Sassy told her father. “I think it means vagina wig.”

“Oh my Goddess,” I shouted and slapped Sassy on the back in congratulations, sending her flying about ten feet into the bushes. “That was actually correct.”

“Holy shit,” she squealed with delight and skipped back over to me. “I guess I speak Greek and didn’t realize it!”

“So if I’m to believe my daughter speaks Greek,” he said looking iffy. “I then have to believe that you just called me a vagina wig?”

“Yes,” I said.

“And you find this amusing?” Bermangoggleshitz asked, narrowing his one blue and one beady black eye at me.

“Yes.”

Pressing his temples and clearly trying to hold his crap together, Bermangoggleshitz sighed. A small tendril of glittering black smoke wafted out of his nostril and he waved it away. “Why a vagina would need a wig is a mystery to me. You will call me Mr. Roy. If you so choose to mangle my name further, I will be forced to turn you into whatever horrifying moniker you bestow upon me.”

Sassy raised her hand.

“Yes, Sassy?” he inquired, looking somewhat fearful.

“I’d like permission to call you Dad or sperm donor. Calling you Mr. Roy seems cold.”

“Yet you’re fine with calling me a toupee for feminine privates?”

Sassy looked perplexed and I realized she had no clue what her father had just said.

“Yes,” she answered decisively, going with her gut and a covert nod from me.

“Dad for you,” he said pointing at Sassy. “And Mr. Roy for you,” he finished pointing at me.

“You have no sense of humor,” I muttered.

“I’m a recovering evil warlock—a sense of humor isn’t exactly in my repertoire. And I’m slightly off my game today as my roommate played the drums all night,” he snapped.

“Marge plays the drums?” I asked with a laugh.

“Apparently she took it up last night,” he hissed. “I’m working on no sleep and that makes me cranky. I’m unpleasant to begin with so I’d suggest you play by my rules or I’ll change my mind about staying in the Goddess forsaken place and training your disrespectful asses.”

“I’m gonna call you Rad,” Sassy announced with an excited clap of her hands. “It’s a combination of dad and Roy. It feels right and it’s a Greek word. I speak Greek, French and English. I’m learning Chinese.”

Roy nodded in confusion at his nutcase of a daughter and then eyed me expectantly.

Shit. I needed him. He knew it and I knew it. I hated losing.

“Fine, I’ll call you Mr. Roy, but it will be really hard for me,” I told him. “Reeeeealy hard.”

“I’ve got it,” Sassy yelled, making both of us jump. “You can call him Mr. Roy and all other words that rhyme with Mr. Roy.”

I watched Roy consider Sassy’s suggestion. His expression was alarmed, but he clearly couldn’t think of anything that rhymed with his name that would be too offensive.

That was fine. I could come up with plenty.

He hesitated and then nodded cautiously. “That will work.”

“And you won’t turn me into anything?” I asked sweetly.

Again he nodded, but this time he looked wildly unsure if himself. I almost felt bad. Almost.

“Great,” I said, giving him a thumbs up. “Let’s get started, Blister Buttboy.”

To his credit, Roy laughed—a big belly laugh. And when he laughed I was able to see a little more of his beauty. I was also secretly relieved he found my rudeness amusing. I’d hate to find out what he thought turning me into a Blister Buttboy would look like…

“Fine Helga,” he said with an evil smirk. “Let’s get started.”

“It’s Zelda,” I told him, my eyebrow raised high and a smile pulling at my lips.

“That’s what I said, Esmerelda.”

“I see what you’re doing there, Sister Soy,” I said, losing the futile war with biting back my grin.

“Then you’re smarter than you look,” he shot back and walked out into the grassy field to start our training.

Our property was huge. It was mostly wooded with gorgeous old trees, but there were several lovely wide open fields. It was a safe haven for the shifters to shift and run without fear of being discovered by humans or more importantly human hunters.

As it was part of my job to keep the freaks of Assjacket safe, I’d warded the perimeter of our entire area against unwelcome visitors. Humans often drove through our little dump of a town, but more often than not they just kept on driving. The ward and the glamoured appearance of Main Street was very unappealing to outsiders. All magicals lived very secret lives in a public world.

The field we were to train in surrounded my office and was covered in wildflowers and long fragrant grasses. I loved looking out the windows of my office at the natural beauty that the Goddess had created. It calmed my witchy soul and made me happy.

However, I wasn’t exactly happy right now. With my shitty grasp on my dark magic there was a very fine chance the beautiful field would end up a charred shit show.

“Your dad’s a dick,” I told Sassy with a groan as I followed the huge man who would hopefully teach me to harness my dark magic in a way that wouldn’t hurt anyone or create excess genitals.

“I know,” Sassy said with a happy sigh. “I just love him to bits.”

* * *

“Pretty sure I hate you with the fire of a thousand suns,” I griped as Roy made me do a hundred pushups for calling him a motherhumpin’ shit monster.

“Feeling’s mutual,” he said flatly.

I wasn’t too fond of Sassy at the moment either. She’d harnessed her dark magic in the first five minutes of training. It was so not fair. Sassy could be as daft as a bag of rocks, but she’d understood what to do immediately.

I, on the other hand, had blasted a crater the size of an SUV right in the middle of the field.

“Tell me again how you pull on your dark magic,” Roy asked as he sat down on the ground next to me.

I huffed and puffed since I was only halfway through with my punishment. I really wanted to flip him off, but if I lifted my hand off the ground I would face plant for sure. My arms were shaking like leaves at the moment due to the pathetic fact that I was clearly out of shape. Not being able to use my magic was an enormous eye opener.

“I just get really pissed, let it rip and fake it,” I snapped.

“Interesting,” he said as he stared off into the distance.

I finished my hard labor and let my body fall to the ground. With my cheek in the dirt, I got up close and personal with my tormentor’s footwear. Goddess, his boots were freakin’ awesome.

“Are those custom?” I asked, still gulping in air.

Glancing down at me, he gave me a blank look.

“Your boots. They’re rockin’. I want a pair.”

His grin was contagious and as much as I wanted to turn him into a frog with feathers and boobs, I grinned back.

“I designed them.”

“Shut the fuck up, Twister Toy. You did not. You are so lying,” I said, crawling closer and examining them with my trained and very materialistic eye.

Bermangoggleshitz’s boots made my Doc Martens look downright wimpy. The leather was gorgeous and the design was impeccable. His boots put the shit in shit kicker.

“While lying is most definitely a favorite pastime of mine, I shit you not. I’ve been designing for Prada, Jimmy Choo and Manalo Blahnik for decades,” he admitted with a careless shrug.

I went silent. Sassy went silent. And then we both dropped to our knees and bowed to Bermangoggleshitz.

“It can’t be this easy,” he muttered with a laugh. “So now I get your respect because I draw pretty shoes?”

We both nodded in unison and then went back to our prone positions.

“Up,” Bermangoggleshitz directed. “If you don’t piss me off, I might let you take a peek at next summer’s Prada collection.”

Sassy hopped to her feet and danced around. “Rad, I loved you when you were really freakin’ bad and as ugly as shit on a stick. But now I actually respect you, which is weird since you’re still pretty much of a semi-evil asshat with horns. But honestly, I’m happy to keep you even if you stay half butt ugly—I don’t care. I mean, my mom was a total bee-otch—dumped me at an orphanage when I was tiny and left me for dead. So the fact that you want me and make shoes I salivate over is total icing on the motherhumpin’ cake. My birthdays are so gonna rock now. And don’t you worry your hideous head, I’ll work very hard to learn Chinese so I can interpret for you. You seem to be a little smarter than me, but not by much—must be hereditary. And to think I married Jeeves so I wouldn’t be stuck with your farked up last name and…”

“Wait.” Roy waved his hand and rendered Sassy mute. “You married a man—a kangaroo, no less—so you wouldn’t be Sassy Louise Bermangoggleshitz?”

Sassy’s mouth was moving a mile a minute, but no sound came out.

“Might want to undo the mute button,” I suggested to Mr. Roy.

“Right.”

“He’s fabulous in bed. Jeeves staying power is unreal and he’s huge. Just last night he…”

Quickly, Roy waved his hand again and re-muted his oversharing daughter.

“Just tell me she loves him,” he said, looking pained and a bit nauseas after hearing about Sassy’s sex life.

“She loves him,” I promised, grinning. “Your girl was quite the wild child before Jeeves. She was more lost than I was and I was fucking lost.”

“How did you two meet?” he asked still watching his daughter with curiosity.

“In the magical pokey. We were roomies,” I replied, hoping he’d leave Sassy mute for the rest of our session.

“Why does that not surprise me?”

“Because you’re smarter than you look,” I shot back using his own line on him. “However, I will share that Sassy went into a meltdown when she realized Jeeves’s last name was Pants.”

“So Sassy Pants is more desirable than Sassy Bermangoggleshitz?” he asked, truly puzzled.

“I’d say it’s a draw. They both suck.”

He nodded absently and then glanced back at his daughter. A flash of pain and regret passed over his half beautiful- half frightening face, but he quickly masked it.

“Is it safe to let her talk?” he inquired, warily.

“No, it’s never safe, but you’ll get used to it.”

With a brusque wave of his hand, he freed Sassy’s voice. It was a risky decision, but it had to be done.

“I told him doggie style would work the best,” she finished her diatribe and then heaved in a huge gulp of air as she’d clearly kept talking without breathing for at least four minutes.

“Are you done?” he asked her, trying to sound neutral.

He failed. Bermangoggleshitz sounded terrified.

“I am,” she assured him. “I just wanted to say, I love you and I might hyphenate my name.”

“And this is because I design shoes?” he asked, confused.

“Nooooo,” Sassy said with an eye roll so large her eyes should have gotten stuck in the back of her head. “I was thinking about it before I found out you were a fucking genius. If I take on your name too, it moves Pants farther away from Sassy. You know… Sassy Louise Bermangoggleshitz-Pants. Plus all those syllables make me sound smarter. You feel me?”

As Mr. Roy was mute himself at this point, he nodded and gave his deranged offspring a weak smile.

“Okay,” Sassy said, doing a few jumping jacks and landing on her ass. “Let’s keep training.”

“Yes,” Bermangoggleshitz said, finding his voice. “Let blow some more shit up.”

“Like father like daughter,” I muttered, wondering how much longer we were going to have lessons this morning.

A warm wind smelling distinctly like chocolate chip cookies blew through the field and Mr. Roy screamed like a girl at a Justin Bieber concert and dove behind a pile of boulders. I just laughed and hoped the perpetrator of the wind hadn’t brought her drums. The pushups had given me a serious headache. Crappy percussion would be a bad addition.

“I’m here,” Marge announced as she appeared in a blast of delicious smelling smoke. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

“Shit,” Bermangoggleshitz grumbled as he emerged from behind the rocks trying to act like he was in control and in charge.

“What’s wrong, Roy?” Marge asked sweetly. “You look a little peaked.”

“Nothing, Marge,” he snapped. “However, I see no reason for you to participate. You have no dark magic and are therefore useless.”

No one could miss Marge’s swift and furious intake of breath. Sassy and I moved behind a big tree, but Roy just grinned. Apparently pissing off Marge was fun for him.

He was an idiot with a death wish—or at least someone who didn’t fear lack of sleep.

“I’m your keeper, Roy,” she informed him in a tone that clearly made him regret his impulsiveness. “Your decision, not mine.”

“Yes, well,” he said, trying to figure a way out. “I might have made a mistake on that.”

“Too bad. So sad, Evil Boy. You make your bed and you lay in it. And for your information, magic doesn’t solve everything,” Marge hissed. “I know things that you don’t.”

“Like hideous drum playing?” he inquired rudely.

“Yes. Just wait… I brought my tuba over for tonight,” she shot back with such an evil little smirk, Sassy and I laughed.

“Pushups. Now,” Mr. Roy snapped at us. “Two hundred.”

“My dad is a dick,” Sassy whispered as she dropped to the ground and began to count.

“Yep, total and absolute dickage,” I agreed as I hit the ground beside her.

“Is that Chinese?” she asked.

“No, it Penislandian.”

Sassy stared at me for a long moment, slowly smiled and then nodded. “Interesting. I think I might already speak that one.”

I laughed and shook my head. “Yep. Yep, I believe you do.”