"This is a strange-looking thing." Edna held up Anica's wand. "Is it a pen? I don't see any point."

Anica laughed. "Oh, that. Just a piece of driftwood I picked up and polished because I thought it was pretty. Then I saw something on TV about using a st.u.r.dy pointed object for self-defense, so I decided to carry it." The more she had to lie, the less comfy she felt.

"We wouldn't need to defend ourselves if men were all neutered," Edna said darkly. Eventually she located Anica's keys and opened the door to her apartment. Orion was at the door, paws prancing in delight. Then he sniffed the air and backed up, growling. Obviously he'd smelled Jasper.

"Don't forget. First thing, get him fixed," Edna said.

"To be sure. Thanks for the help, Miss Shoumatoff." Anica stepped into her apartment and shoved the door closed with her hip. Orion was gone, probably hiding in the cupboard underneath the kitchen sink.

As she began to lower her bundle to the floor, Jasper gave a mighty heave and broke free, wiggling out of his confinement. Dropping globs of chocolate mousse on her beige carpet, he streaked toward the nearest open door, which happened to be her bedroom.

She ran after him. "No! Don't go under the . . ." A smear of chocolate mousse on her white Belgian lace bed skirt marked Jasper's pa.s.sage. She dropped to her knees beside the bed. She thought he might be black, although the mousse all over his coat made it hard to tell.

She'd forgotten all about the mousse, but the take-out carton must have been under the pile of clothes. She'd scooped up cat and mousse together. Someday she might have the distance from this horrible experience to laugh about that. But this wasn't that day.

Lifting the bed skirt, she peered under the bed. "Jasper, please come out."

Jasper was nothing more than a dark shadow hunkered under the exact middle of the double bed.

"We have to clean that mousse off."

He didn't move.

"I can't work a spell to change you back to a man unless you come out."

No response.

"Look, I can see why you wouldn't trust me. You may not believe this, but I've never turned a person into an animal in my entire career as a witch. I'm not proud of losing my temper like that, but what's done is done. Now I have to fix you."

Jasper growled.

"Sorry, bad word choice. I have to transform you. I won't let anyone near you with a scalpel, I promise. Now, come on out, like a-" She stopped herself before she called him a good kitty. Jasper was not a cat, no matter how much he might look like one at the moment.

Or act like one. That maneuver of running under the bed was very catlike. While she was mostly horrified at what she'd done to another human being, she couldn't help being curious about how this transformation had affected Jasper.

Would he still think like a man or would he think like a cat? Would he develop a taste for cat food or would he crave a human diet? Would he hate the idea of a bath and prefer to lick the mousse off himself?

Yikes. Chocolate was fine for people but potentially bad for cats. "Listen, Jasper, if you feel the urge to lick that mousse, don't. Some cats have a severe reaction to chocolate. It makes them very sick."

She believed he understood human speech, so she decided to add a clincher to the warning. "If you ingest the chocolate, you could end up at the vet, and I'm sure my vet would insist on vaccinating and neutering you."

Jasper hissed his disapproval but didn't change positions.

She was getting nowhere. Maybe she should go to her living room bookshelves and find the musty old book where she'd first read this transformation charm. She could research the counterspell while sitting here minding the cat.

"I'm leaving to get the book I need to help you, Jasper." She stood and took off her coat. "I'll only be gone a minute, and I'll close the bedroom door so Orion can't get in." Laying her coat on the bed, she walked toward the door. "And remember, don't lick."

Lick himself? Eeeuuuwww! Jasper was convinced he was in the middle of a sickeningly real nightmare and he'd wake up any minute safely lying in his king-sized bed in his condo, with his clock radio playing his favorite rock station. But even though none of this nonsense was actually taking place, he wouldn't lick the mousse coating his fur. Gross.

He liked the idea that he had claws, though. He wouldn't mind using them to scratch the h.e.l.l out of the woman who had put him in this condition.

But he was dreaming. Of course he was. His dash under the bed had been pure self-preservation, and now that he was under here, he wasn't coming out until he woke up.

The whole date with Anica must have been part of this crummy bad dream. He could hardly wait to wake up so he could laugh about it. The part about Sheila being at the restaurant-he could figure that out. Apparently he had a secret fear that she'd arrive unannounced and mess up his deal with Anica.

As for Anica being a witch, maybe it was the black coat that looked like a cape. Or maybe it was that chance remark his buddy Fred had made the other day at work that Anica seemed to have cast a spell over him. The brain was amazing. Somehow it had put the cape and Fred's remark together and come up with witchcraft.

The cat transformation wasn't so tough to decipher, either, now that he thought about it. He'd always considered himself something of a tomcat, a man about town. All that talk about neutering was pretty scary, though. A shrink would probably have a field day with that part.

The door opened and closed. His hearing had improved considerably in this dream, and his sense of smell was outstanding. He knew Anica was in the room even before she spoke.

Her spicy perfume had seemed faint in real life. The scent was so much stronger now. Other smells a.s.saulted him, as well, but two caught his attention. One he identified as belonging to another cat, the one he'd sensed when he'd first arrived in the apartment, and the second distinctive aroma was Anica's. It came across as strongly as if he'd had his nose buried between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

"Still under there, Jasper?" She was in her nylons, so she must have taken off the s.e.xy black heels.

Kneeling down, she lifted the lace bed skirt and peeked under the bed. "I brought the book." She laid something as big as an unabridged dictionary on the carpet. "I should be able to find the counterspell, no problem."

Now that his panic had eased, Jasper felt like making some sort of response. What came out was a very ordinary meow. It didn't sound particularly manly, either, so he tried again, determined to make the sound deeper. Still too high-pitched for his taste.

"So you're talking! Does that mean you're ready to come out?"

No way, Jose.

"When I start to do the spell, I'm sure you'll want to be somewhere other than under my bed. I don't think you'll fit once you're human again. Plus you'll be-uh-naked. You might want to be somewhere you could grab a towel, like in the bathroom."

Maybe this nightmare could turn into a good dream, after all. If his cat self transformed into his naked man self, and Anica was still part of the equation, they could have dream s.e.x. Sure, she'd turned him into a cat, but it was all a dream, so he could forgive her.

"Jasper? Come on. Don't be stubborn."

On the other hand, this spot under the bed had served him well so far. Tucking his paws under his body, he prepared to wait her out.

Cats were good at waiting, he discovered. The s.p.a.ce under this double bed was very small. He smelled old wood and lemon oil. It was probably an antique. This dream was the most detailed one he'd ever had.

"I really can't leave you under there. I'm going to levitate the bed."

Holy c.r.a.p! Could she do that? She was a witch in this dream, so anything was possible. Jasper tensed, his tail twitching, as he wondered if his hiding place would rise up to the ceiling. He'd run again if it did. There had to be other hidey-holes in this apartment, and he'd find them. A cat, he was discovering, could fit in very small s.p.a.ces.

Anica murmured something in Latin, but the bed didn't move. "Huh. That always worked when I needed to vacuum up the dust bunnies." She chanted again. Still the bed remained on the carpeted floor.

She sighed. "All right. For some reason that spell has a glitch in it. I might as well quit fooling around and do this the normal way. Be right back."

Jasper didn't know what the normal way entailed, but when Anica returned, he found out. She shoved a broom under the bed.

He freaked. Rationally, he shouldn't freak. It was a broom, for chrissakes. As a man, he didn't have a single negative reaction to a broom. As a cat, he hated brooms. He hated this one in particular, which had a thick, round handle with carvings on it. Without knowing for sure, he decided it was a witch's broom.

"I need you to get out of there," Anica said. "Come on. Go." She moved the broom back and forth under the bed.

Jasper tried to hold his ground, but in the end he bolted. He ran for the bedroom door, but that was shut tight. He tried to squeeze under her dresser, but no dice. The sliding mirrored closet doors were closed, too. The only escape was through the bathroom door, and that was a dead end.

He knew that but he had no choice. Racing through the door, he leaped into the tub and hid behind the shower curtain, which was, he belatedly noticed, decorated with glittery stars. The bathroom door closed and he was trapped.

Her voice took on a crooning, seductive quality. "Poor Jasper. You were a louse about Sheila, but no guy deserves this." She peeked around the edge of the shower curtain.

He cowered in the corner, hating that he cowered, but he couldn't seem to help it.

"Looks like you're an all-black kitty, with the most beautiful golden eyes. That makes sense, I suppose, with your natural coloring. Well, enough chitchat. Let's see what counterspell I need to invoke."

The sound of Anica flipping through pages of her book was the only noise in the room, except once when the heat switched on. That was the other thing Jasper had noticed when he'd transformed-the bitter cold of a Chicago March night. He'd been covered by a pile of his clothes, but even so, the sidewalk had felt like ice under his paws.

Of course, that hadn't stopped him from struggling to escape when Anica had picked him up to take him home. Better to be freezing and in charge of his life than to be a prisoner sitting in a warm apartment, depending on someone else to provide food and shelter. Jasper hadn't liked that feeling as a kid and he didn't like it now as a cat.

His parents had controlled his every movement until he turned eighteen. He realized now it had been out of concern, but he'd felt smothered and had rented his own apartment the minute he could save enough money. Staying in control was important to him, which made this dream his ultimate nightmare.

"Hm." Anica flipped a few more pages. "Maybe in the index," she murmured to herself.

Jasper didn't like the sound of that. He hadn't heard an aha of discovery yet. What if she couldn't find a counterspell?

Then he chastised himself for being a fool caught up in this fantasy. Whether she found a counterspell or not, he would eventually wake up and all this would be forgotten. A nightmare might seem to last forever, but they all had to end sometime. The clock radio would click on at six thirty and he'd hit the snooze b.u.t.ton to give himself another five minutes.

Then again, he might not hit the snooze b.u.t.ton this time. Not if going back to sleep meant returning to this wacko dream.

"That's weird," Anica said. She sounded puzzled.

Despite knowing that nothing really mattered, Jasper felt his gut tighten. Without him willing it, his tail twitched from side to side. The tail part intrigued him. Swishing his tail was a much better stress buster than drumming on the table with his fingertips.

He became aware of Anica's breathing, which wasn't as steady as it had been when she'd first settled down to read the book. He would bet a hundred bucks that she wasn't finding what she'd expected to, and she was becoming agitated. When she closed the book with a bang, he knew for sure.

"I'm an accomplished witch." She said it as if trying to convince herself. "I can create my own counterspell. Okay, Jasper. Showtime!"

The curtain swished aside and he stared up at her. She held a pointed wooden stick in one hand. The thing she'd used on him before had been more compact. This one measured at least eighteen inches and was made of some light-colored wood that had been polished until it gleamed.

She raised it like a conductor about to signal the beginning of a symphony. Then she pointed it directly at him and started in with the Latin phrases. They sounded very official, and if anything could do the trick this stream of Latin should. He became mesmerized listening to her.

After about five minutes of constant chanting, she lowered the wand and put both hands on her hips, the wand sticking out to one side. "This is one stubborn spell, Jasper. But I'm going to beat it." Taking a deep breath, she raised the wand again, pointed it at his nose and resumed chanting.

He decided to help. Lifting his head, he began yowling in time to her chanting.

"Great!" She paused for breath. "That's excellent! Keep it up!"

She spoke Latin and he spoke cat for at least another ten minutes, but nothing came of it. He kept expecting his body to stretch and the fur to fall away. He'd already picked out the towel-a light green bath sheet-that he'd use to cover himself once the transformation took place.

Except it never did.

Anica stopped chanting. "Let me test this wand. I'm not sure it's working." She pointed the wand at the toilet and muttered something. When nothing happened, she jiggled the toilet handle and tried again. No response. "Flush, d.a.m.n you!" She was clearly getting upset.

Jasper hopped to the edge of the tub and stared at the toilet, willing it to flush.

"It's the wand. I'll try my other one." She stormed out of the bathroom, leaving the door open.

Jasper could have run out, but he didn't see the point. If her other wand worked, then he'd be transformed any minute. There still could be time for some dream s.e.x before the alarm went off, which just might salvage this awful nightmare.

From the door of the bathroom, Anica pointed her short wand at him and chanted with more intensity. After several minutes of chanting with no observable result, she lowered the wand. "I have a bad feeling about this."

She wasn't the only one. He'd been looking forward to dream s.e.x with her.

"Jasper, I'm not sure what's going on here, but my magic seems to be on the fritz."

b.u.mmer.

"I hate, hate, hate doing this, but I have no choice. I have to call my sister, Lily."

Because she said it as if delivering a death sentence, he was immediately afraid of this Lily person. Hopping back into the bathtub, he scrunched down in the corner.

"Oh, Lily's not that bad. It's just that I'm usually the responsible one and she's the screwup. We've had our issues over the years, and although we're not enemies, we're not fast friends, either. Seeing what I've done to myself-and you," she added hastily, "will send her into gloat mode. But she's pretty good at magic, so she might be able to take care of this problem."

Jasper marveled that he'd had dozens of conversations with Anica over the past three weeks and she'd never mentioned a sister. They couldn't be very close. Then again, this was a dream. The real Anica might not have a sister at all.

She closed him in the bathroom while she went to get her cell phone. He made use of the time to hop up on the counter and look at himself in the mirrored wall above the sink. He'd been wondering what he looked like, and if he was as sleek and elegant as he imagined.

Not so much. The creature staring back at him looked like it'd been put through a food processor. Dull black fur, about a half inch all over, was matted with dried bits of chocolate mousse. He had globs of it clinging to the tufts in his ears. In fact, he was the ugliest cat he'd ever seen. f.u.c.kin' A.

He hated the idea of licking his fur. Hated it. But he hated looking like a Dumpster diver even more. He pawed at the faucet and managed to turn it on. Then he wasn't sure what to do next. Stick his head under it? Climb into the sink?

Just at that moment Anica opened the door with the phone to her ear and spied Jasper. "Wait, Jasper." She picked him up from the counter. "I'll give you a bath instead."

Like h.e.l.l. He wasn't about to trust her to do that without somehow drowning him. He felt his claws sink into her arm as he launched himself away from her and out the bathroom door. He didn't feel bad about scratching her. She'd brought it on herself.

He scampered through the bedroom and romped down the hall, loving the freedom, ready to do whatever it took to get himself out of this h.e.l.lacious mess. Then he skidded to a halt.

Blocking his way was the cat he'd sensed earlier when he'd first come into the apartment. He was an orangey color and looked enormous with his back arched and every hair sticking straight out. He was the cat from h.e.l.l, and if Jasper wanted his freedom, he had to go past him.

Chapter 3.

Anica barely heard her sister's promise that she'd be there ASAP. Leaving the phone on the counter she rushed through the bedroom and out into the hall, where Orion and Jasper had found each other and were circling like prizefighters, each trying to out-hiss the other.

"Orion! Jasper! Cut it out!"

Neither cat paid any attention. Ears back, tails swishing, they crouched and circled, ready to rumble. Anica ran back to the bathroom, filled a water gla.s.s, and made it back just in time to see Orion and Jasper lunge at each other and go down in a rolling, spitting ball of black and orange fur.

Anica tossed the water on them. With a screech, Jasper abandoned the fight and raced for the living room. Orion followed, and a loud crack signaled that one of them had broken something. Anica arrived to find Jasper on top of the bookshelf. Orion, who couldn't leap that far, waited at the bottom, growling.

Anica's very expensive, impossible-to-replace crystal ball, which she'd put on top of the bookshelf to keep it out of Orion's reach, lay on the floor in two pieces amid smears of chocolate mousse on the carpet. The crystal must have split when it bounced off the marble-topped end table, which now had a large chunk broken off the right front corner.