“Sassy,” Roy said, completely ignoring Marge who was also studiously ignoring him.

Although, I did notice the covert longing looks he gave her when her head was turned. Bermangogglebutt had it bad for Cookie Witch. And call me crazy, but Marge’s utter obnoxious rudeness might just mean she had it bad too. Only time would tell or possibly Roy would lose all his hearing due to Marge’s new musical talents—or lack thereof.

“Describe dark magic,” he instructed.

“In words?” Sassy asked.

“Umm… yes,” Roy said.

I was pretty sure he was curious how else his daughter would explain it, but thankfully stopped himself from asking. If I had to guess, it would have been interpretive dance. She usually damaged herself when she danced—concussions, broken limbs, gaping, bloody wounds. Sassy could damage herself just walking. Dancing was a total nightmare. And since I wasn’t healing anyone at the moment, it was good that Bermangoggleshitz was able to cap his curiosity. We already had enough of a shit show going on. I’d just accidentally blasted off the side wall of my pretty office trying yet again to harness my dark voodoo.

Marge laughed with delight since it was on Roy’s side of the building. Lister Coy simply grunted and repaired it with an eye roll and a wave of his hand.

“Well,” Sassy said, wrinkling her nose and thinking hard.

I was surprised smoke didn’t come out of her ears.

“For me, dark magic is Cupid’s tears, witch veins, sirens’ screams and fairy laughter.”

Marge stared at Sassy in shock. My mouth hung open in awe and confusion. But Bermangoggleshitz simply smiled and patted his daughter’s head.

“Did I get it right?” she asked with wide eyes.

“Everyone’s answer is unique to its owner, my child,” he said with a shrug. “For me, it’s the Devil’s laugh, black cats, Mermaid tails, and flower petals.”

Sassy nodded in understanding. “I like that.”

“Wait a motherhumpin’ minute. What in the Goddess’s thong are you people blabbering about?” I demanded.

Roy turned his attention to me. “What do you think dark magic is?”

“A fucking pain in my ass,” I snapped. “It produces multiple weenies and craters in the field—not to mention it blows off the sides of office buildings.”

“And that’s your problem,” he said. “Learn to love what is yours. If you hate it, it will hate you back.”

“Look dude, I just learned to love myself. And let me tell you something, that was not easy—at all. So if you’re telling me I have to learn to love evil on top of all the other shit I’m supposed to love, you’re a bigger crusty knob tyrant than I thought you were.”

With a snarl and a shake of his head, Bermangoggleshitz crossed over to me. I shrank back and wished for the ten millionth time I had a fucking filter. He’d made me do pushups for calling him a shit monster. I was probably going to have to run a freakin’ marathon for this one.

“Don’t think,” he instructed harshly. “Describe dark magic. NOW.”

“Vampire bites, nightmares, Demons fire, and pentagons,” I shouted and then shuddered.

“Pentagons?” he questioned.

“Five penises,” Sassy clarified. “She gave Roger five badoinkadoinks. I likened it to a pentagon of penii.”

“They’re connected?” Bermangoggleshitz asked, aghast.

Little sparks of pissed off black magic bounced off of me and singed the grass. “No,” I shouted and stomped my foot creating another unfortunate large hole in the ground. “And thank the Goddess for that small, puny favor—penis pun intended. Roger would have had a very difficult time taking a leak if they were. However, if you keep being such a large gaping douche canoe asscracker, I might have a go at yours and see if I can make it happen again. You feel me, Fever Blister Toy?”

“Calm down, Zelda,” Marge said in a no-nonsense tone. “We will not be reshaping any male appendages on purpose. It’s bad karma. I understand what Roy means, and if you stop and think for a moment, you will as well.”

Goddess, I hated it when everyone was right and I was wrong. It was happening far too often lately for my liking.

“Can I just pretend I love it?” I asked, searching really hard to find a quick fix.

“No,” Roy said. “It will know.”

“How do you love evil?” I snapped. “That seems more like bad karma than a pants-full of peens.”

Roy jerked forward to protect his package and gave me a stern look that scared the hell out of me. It was easy to forget how powerful the warlock was since he was trying to leave his villainous ways behind. But only a fool would underestimate him. I was many things, but I wasn’t a fool.

“You have to find it within,” he growled. “I can’t do that for you.”

“Then what good are you?” I demanded, at a loss for anything to do but yell at him. “I can’t exactly do my job if I’m a genital risk.”

That one left him speechless. It kind of left me speechless too.

I was worthless if I couldn’t protect and heal my ragtag tribe of dumbasses. I’d finally found a home, happiness, a purpose… and love. And now I was screwing all of it up because I had no clue how to get lovey-dovey with the dark magic I didn’t want in the first place.

“I’m not gonna let her win,” I muttered, walking about a fifty yards away from Roy, Marge and Sassy. If I was going to try again, I needed room.

“You’re not going to let who win?” Marge asked.

I glanced back at her and frowned. “My mother. She didn’t love me, which almost derailed my happiness. Now I have her dark magic and it’s on its way to derailing me again.”

“If you give your mother that much power over you, then your failure is your own fault,” Marge said flatly, with an odd expression on her face I couldn’t quite read.

She really needed to shut her cakehole. Cookie Witch had no clue what my mother had been like or what I’d had to do to end her reign of terror. Marge could spout witchy wisdom all day, but until she could tell me she’d punched her fist into her mother’s chest to remove her magic and got stuck with uncontrollable dark magic that gave her therapist five peens, I didn’t want to hear it. Besides, I was pretty sure she and her sister Baba Yaga had been hatched—not born.

“Yep,” I snapped with an eye roll. “You didn’t have my mother.”

“And you didn’t have mine,” she shot back.

If we were going to get into a who had the worst mom contest, I was going to win. I was sure of it.

“She hated me,” I said.

“Ditto,” Marge shot back. “Mine used Carol and me horribly.”

“Ditto,” I snapped. “She turned my father into a cat when he found out about me and tried to find me.”

“I have no clue who my father was,” Marge said. “My egg donor was a horridly unhappy woman and took great pleasure in making sure Carol and I were miserable.”

“Fine. It’s a tie,” Bermangoggleshitz said, ending the one-upping. “I can confirm Marge’s mother was hideous. However, it’s a choice,” Bermangoggleshitz said, clearly not up for listening to a pity party about our mommy issues. “Your choice. Blame is as useless as a one-legged warlock in an ass kicking contest.”

“Good one, Rad,” Sassy congratulated her father who looked pleased with her approval.

I just rolled my eyes. “Why was it so easy for Sassy?”

Sassy stepped forward and took her father’s hand. “I was born with dark magic, Zelda. It’s always been part of me. Pretty sure that’s why I enjoy blowing up buildings so much. But I’ve had my whole life to deal with it. I can safely say I haven’t always been successful, which is why I ended up in the pokey.”

“Dating Baba Yaga’s former boyfriend didn’t help either,” I reminded her with a small grin.

“This is true,” Sassy said with a giggle. “That whiney warlock was such a wad. Anyhoo, it really wasn’t until I found you… and then Jeeves… that I truly had a handle on it. Now whenever I want to blow the shit out of something, I just blow the shit out of Jeeves.”

There was a long, puzzled and uncomfortable silence while everyone let Sassy’s words sink in. Roy studied the ground at his feet as if was the most interesting thing he’d ever seen and Marge’s hand flew to her mouth. She was either trying not to laugh or gasp.

“Did she just say what I think she said?” Bermangoggleshitz asked, paling considerably.

“Yes. Yes she did,” Marge answered him with a pained laugh.

“Intellectually, I understand,” I conceded, deciding to ignore that Sassy just announced that she funneled her need to detonate buildings into giving her kangaroo husband blowjobs. “However, it took therapy with Roger—the rabbit I gifted with multiple dongs—and doing the musical of Mommie Dearest to make me learn how to love myself. Don’t know what it’s gonna take to make me love my dark doodoo.”

“Voodoo,” Sassy corrected me.

“I like doodoo better.”

“Is that Chinese?”

“No, it’s Profanican.”

“Got it,” Sassy said with a delighted laugh. “I’m fluent in that fucking shit.”

“I understood very little of that exchange,” Bermangoggleshitz whispered, running his hands through his hair and probably regretting taking us on. “Are you saying you need therapy and a Joan Crawford musical to get a grip on your power?”

“I’m saying I don’t know,” I replied, feeling defeated. “I just don’t know.”

“Wait,” Roy said, still stuck on what I’d revealed to him only moments ago. “Mommie Dearest is a musical?”

“Yep. Huge no more wire hangers number,” I told him.

“That’s...” He was at a loss for words.

As anyone should be when they learned the stupefying news of what Assjackians considered art.

“Wrong,” I finished for him.

“On so many levels,” Marge added with a laugh. “I so wish I’d seen that.”

“No you don’t,” I told her grinning. “It was all kinds of awful and cringey.”

“I disagree,” Sassy cut in. “I was fabulous as Christina even though Bob the beaver sucked ass as Christopher. I think if he’d plucked his unibrow the production would have been much better. Also I think a huge mistake was made when Fabio took Jeeves out of the Christopher role. I thought the underlying sexual tension between Christopher and Christina made the musical have bigger, hairier balls.”

“Aren’t they brother and sister?” Bermangoggleshitz choked out with a horrified wince.

“Adopted brother and sister,” Sassy corrected him.

Again Sassy caused shocked silence. She was so good at that.

Marge clapped her hands and conjured up three wooden chairs and rope. “Well, Zelda, while you figure out how to love the darkness, I’m going to teach you two how to defend yourselves without magic. And Sassy dear, this will work better if you don’t speak.”

“Roger that,” Sassy said with a nod and a clueless thumbs up.

“You’re going to have them beat on each other with chairs?” Roy inquired with a sarcastic snort.

“No, we’re going to beat on you with chairs.”

“Seriously?” he asked, not liking the direction of what was supposed to be his teaching lesson.

“Very,” Marge replied with an innocent smile. “Certainly you’re not afraid of three witches not using their magic.”

“Should I be?” he asked warily.

“Yes. Very.”

* * *

“Why am I tied to a chair?” I asked, unable to move much more than my mouth and feet.

“It ensures you can’t use your hands to perform magic,” Marge said as she checked the knots she’d tied on both Sassy and me.

“Okay,” I said with an eye roll. I didn’t need my hands to perform a spell. I just needed my mouth. Marge knew this, but she did have a point. Waving my hand and fixing something with enchantment was second nature. “Why aren’t you tied to a chair?”

“Because I’m teaching you.”

“As shocking as it may sound, I have to agree with Zelda on this one,” Roy chimed in with an evil little smirk on his face. “I’d be happy to tie you to the chair and gag you while I’m at it.”

With a wiggle of her nose, Marge gagged Roy with a huge wad of goopy pink frosting. It was perfect since he couldn’t remove the gag. He had to eat it. That would take at least ten minutes. I really did love Marge’s style.

“You can move your legs below the knee,” Marge pointed out.

“Yep,” Sassy said, leaning forward and kind of standing up only to land flat on her face.

Quickly Roy righted his daughter as he worked his way through the frosting. The vicious glare he gave Marge would have been terrifying if half of his face wasn’t covered in the bubblegum pink sugary confection.

“Zelda, if I told you to take Roy down right now what would you do?” Marge asked.

“Umm… laugh at you?” I answered.

“Nope,” she said with a chuckle as she waved her hand and magically tied herself to her own chair. “Watch. Attack me, Roy.”

“Really, Marge?” Roy questioned sarcastically, finally done eating his frosting gag. “You can’t be serious.”

“Oh, but I am, Roy,” she replied calmly. “Come at me. No magic this time.”

“Sounds kinky,” he replied with a grin, making Marge blush with fury.

“Your daughter is present,” she snapped primly and shot him a glare that made his smirk disappear fast. “You will come at me as if I was your prisoner.”

“If you were tied up, I wouldn’t need to attack you,” he pointed out logically.

“This is true,” she said, frowning and agreeing with him. “I guess we can’t do this. Can you please come untie me?”

What was happening here? Was Cookie Witch that much off her game? All of this felt like a massive waste of time at this point. Bermangoggleballs couldn’t tell me how to love my evil parts and Marge had tied all of us to chairs for apparently no reason.

Freakin’ awesome.

And what happened next proved yet again how wrong I could be…

As Bermangoggleshitz approached Marge with a delighted yet obnoxiously condescending expression on his face, Marge leaned forward on the front right leg of her chair. It all happened so freakin’ fast I wasn’t sure I even caught all her moves.

Spinning on the front leg of her chair, she knocked the feet from under the shocked warlock who landed on his back with a thud while spewing a string of swear words that I needed to write down for future use. It was awesome, but Cookie Witch wasn’t done.

As her back was now facing the prone and confused Bermangoggleshitz, she leaned forward and sprang off her feet, throwing her body and the chair backwards. She rose up about four feet before she landed with a sickening crunch on top of Roy.

Roy then of course let out another string of profanity that was even better than his first. It did come out a bit garbled since Marge had head-butted him upon her landing and clearly broken his nose.

What should have been the end wasn’t…

Marge twisted like some ninja on speed and landed back on the bleeding Bermangoggleshitz with her knee planted firmly in his crotch. This time his cussfest came out ten pitches higher than the last two, but it was no less colorful.

Bermangoggleshitz could cuss me under the table and that was no small feat.

“And that was for trying to steal the secret recipe and screwing around on me for hundreds of years,” she hissed, nose to bloody nose with the most badass warlock I’d ever come across.

“Holy shit,” Sassy said. “That was impressive, but I kind of feel sorry for my Rad.”

“No, no,” he said, lifting Marge off of him and gently setting her chair on the ground. “I’m afraid I deserved that and more. Marge has every right to pay me back. I welcome it.”

Instead of looking victorious, Marge looked aghast at what she had just done. Her lovely chin dropped to her chest and she appeared to be crying. What in the ever lovin’ hey hey was going on here?

“I’m sorry Roy,” she mumbled as she wiggled her nose and freed all of us from our ropes. “That was uncalled for.”

“But it worked,” Sassy pointed out thoughtfully as she removed her combat jacket and started mopping the blood from her father’s face. “You took him down without magic.”

“Yes, but he didn’t use any magic to retaliate,” I argued. “This could have gone really wrong if it was real.”

“Possibly,” Roy said. “However, with Marge tied up, I didn’t see it coming. Surprise was the element. Split seconds can make the difference between life and death. Not that I particularly enjoyed that exhibition, Marge was correct to show you how it could be done.”

“Nevertheless, it was a bit excessive,” Marge admitted, still unable to make eye contact with any of us. “Being mean and vengeful doesn’t feel good.”

“My point exactly,” I said so loudly I startled myself. “Evil is mean. It doesn’t feel good. How in the Goddess’s booty shorts am I supposed to love it?”

“Let’s tackle that tomorrow,” Roy said with a grimace smile, still trying to stem the blood pouring from his nose. “I do believe I need to pay a visit to Fabio for a healing.”

“Zelda could give it a try,” Sassy volunteered.

Jackknifing forward in a universally male protective stance, he shook his head. “Umm… not today. I’ve had all the disfigurement I’d like for now.”

“You’re smarter than you look,” I said with a laugh.

“So I’ve been told,” he replied dryly. “Shall we go?”

“Yep,” Sassy said, wrapping her arms around her father’s waist and walking him off the field.

“Are you coming?” I asked, looking back at Cookie Witch who stood frozen in her spot.

“No, dear. I have some thinking to do. You go ahead. I’ll see you later.”

Marge graced me with a distracted smile and then disappeared in a cloud of gingerbread scented wind.

This was a weird day and I had a weirder feeling it would only get more bizarre.