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  All Hallows’ Hangover

  Copyright © 2015 by Annie Reed

  Published by Thunder Valley Press

  Cover and Layout copyright © 2015 Thunder Valley Press

  Cover art copyright © Dabrynna Alena/Bigstock.com

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

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  1

  Teddy opened one bleary eye to squint at the sunlight streaming in through his living room window.

  Of course. He’d forgotten to close the blinds last night before he passed out on the sofa. Brilliant.

  The early morning light only made the headache jackhammering away inside his skull worse. The city’s usual morning fog would have softened the blow, but no such luck.

  Just how much partying had he done last night anyway?

  He buried his face in the sofa cushion and tried to remember.

  Teddy hadn’t thrown a party since he’d graduated from college. Considering he was pushing thirty, that was a bunch of years ago. But when you’re the only single guy in a group of friends who’d all found “the one,” a guy could get kind of desperate.

  Not desperate in a “hey, I’m the biggest loser in the world, wanna date me?” kind of way. Just desperate enough to take your new roommate’s advice and throw a party.

  On Halloween.

  And let your new roommate invite a bunch of people you’d never met before.

  All Teddy had wanted to do was meet someone he might have a shot at being happy with. A woman who liked him well enough to put up with his quirks. Like the fact he loved watching movies on television but couldn’t stand going to a theater. Or that he thought most sports, and especially football, were highly over-rated. The problem was he’d already been introduced to—and been rejected by—most of the single women his friends and their friends knew.

  So when Teddy’s new roommate wanted to take over the guest list, it had sounded like a great idea. Especially considering he was dating the nicest, prettiest half-elf Teddy had ever met.

  Given the state of his head this morning, Terry wasn’t sure the party had been such a great idea after all. Sure, he’d met new people, but most of them had been in costume so he didn’t even know what they looked like much less remember their names.

  At least he was pretty sure they’d been mostly human. Teddy didn’t have anything against magical creatures. He’d just never been adventurous enough to date anyone magical considering he had zip all in the way of magical ability.

  And good lord did his sofa reek. His aching head was reeling from all the perfumes, colognes, and aftershaves, not to mention all different kinds of wine, beer, scotch, whiskey—and was that pot?— his nose was picking up.

  One of the scents on the cushion tickled the back of his mind like a memory just out of reach. An intriguing scent, like an exotic perfume mixed with wild grasses and some kind of mint. Teddy breathed in deep trying to figure out why this one seemed important.

  Green-gold eyes went with the scent, along with a deep, throaty laugh that was almost a purr.

  Teddy ignored the pain in his head as he chased the name that went with the memory.

  Terri. That was it!

  A tall brunette, absolutely gorgeous, and she’d told him her name was Terri.

  She’d been dressed in a slinky black cat suit complete with fuzzy ears and tail, and a cat’s eye mask that left her full lips delightfully exposed. When she’d introduced herself, she’d handed him a bottle of something alcoholic that bubbled and steamed when he’d opened it, and tasted wonderful when he’d poured them both a glass.

  A little too wonderful, because sometime after that, he’d completely lost his mind.

  Teddy wasn’t exactly a prude, but he’d been voted most likely to never get laid by the rest of the guys in his college dorm.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t like women. He liked them too much. And worse than that (according to his college buddies), he respected them. He never tried to do more than kiss a girl on the first date, always remembered to bring her flowers on the second date, and never assumed that a third date meant she was supposed to put out. He listened while they talked, didn’t mind when they got emotional, and liked how it felt to sit next to them and just hold hands.

  Not that he didn’t imagine how wonderful it would be to do all those things after a night of hot sex. He was straight, he worked out, and his face had never cracked any mirrors that he knew of. It was just that after going out with Teddy a few times, women seemed to fall into relationships with one of the other guys in the dorm, while Teddy seemed to be stuck in the “let’s just be friends” zone.

  Terri, now—she’d been different. And he’d been a jerk.

  He hadn’t been able to keep his hands off her. He tried to tell himself it had been the costume, but he’d also spent a good part of the evening staring at her ample cleavage. When he wasn’t downing drink after drink until the bottle she’d brought was empty, he was nibbling her earlobes. Dancing with her in a way that gave dirty dancing a whole new meaning.

  He doubted she’d ever want to see him again.

  Not that he’d asked for her number.

  He had no trouble remembering that part. She’d left him on the sofa and told him she’d be right back. He planned to ask for her number when she got back, but that was the last he’d seen of her. All that alcohol hit him like a brick wall, and the next thing he knew, sunlight was streaming in his window.

  He groaned. He was going to have to make a rule for himself: Never drink at parties again. Never, ever, ever. Especially not stuff that steamed and bubbled, no matter how great it tasted.

  He sneezed. Not a normal sneeze, but one that threatened to rip his head clean off his shoulders.

  The sofa was getting to him. He needed a shower, and then he’d find out if Daniel had Terri’s number.

  Which all sounded like a marvelous plan, right up until Teddy opened his eyes and got a good look at himself.

  His arms were covered with fur, and it wasn’t a costume.

  He had actual fur growing out of his skin! Long, soft, golden fur covered his arms and his shoulders and the sides of his nose

  But his nose was a snout!

  What the hell?

  He crossed his eyes trying to get a good look at the thing that protruded from the front of his face, but that made his head hurt more.

  He tried to rub at his face—this was the weirdest hangover ever—only to discover his hands had turned into paws.

  Paws.

  He let loose with something that sounded suspiciously like a yip and scrambled backwards off the sofa.

  Or at least he tried to.

  His arms behaved more like legs, and his legs didn’t want to work right, and he got tangled up in a blanket someone must have thrown over him at some point. He ended up falling on his ass between the sofa and his coffee table.

  Only it wasn’t quite his ass he’d fallen on.

  There, sprouting from where the seat of his jeans should have been (where, exactly, were his clothes??) was a tail.

  A fur-covered tail he could feel trembling as it tried curling itself around his trembling, fur-covered legs.

  Or it could all be a hallucination brought on by unfamiliar alcohol and a headache that just wouldn’t quit.

  Teddy concentrated on moving the thing that looked li
ke a tail. Unfamiliar muscles in his lower back bunched and strained, his glutes building up more of a burn than he got at the gym as he got his tail moving back and forth.

  Holy crap!

  He actually had a tail!

  2

  The little bell over the front door to Emporium Magique rang at exactly five minutes to six, jarring Tabby out of a light doze.

  Her arms ached and her neck was stiff, which served her right for falling asleep sitting on the stool behind the checkout counter with her head resting on her arms on the countertop.

  Outside the shop’s display windows the sleepy city just beginning to wake. Tabby shook the pins and needles out of her hands and rubbed the back of her neck, stifling a yawn. There was something just wrong about seeing the first glimmer of pink in the morning sky because you were at work instead of spending the night with someone special.

  Not that Tabby had time for anyone special in her life. Or at least that’s what she told herself to make up for the fact that she always spent Halloween working all night.

  Emporium Magique sold all things magical, from ready-made spells and potions to the supplies and ingredients practitioners needed to make their own. The store did bang up business on Halloween, even better than the traditional holiday shopping season or Valentine’s Day, when love potions sold like hot cakes. On Halloween someone always needed something at the last minute, even when the last minute was at four in the morning.

  Which used to be the shop’s closing time, until Tabby started letting her familiar have the night off. Now Tabby stayed at work waiting for her familiar to drag herself back through the door so she could go home.

  “Cutting it a little close, aren’t we?” Tabby asked.

  Tabby’s familiar, still spelled with the human form she wore for her night on the town, gave Tabby a long, lazy smile while she stretched her back in a way Tabby could only envy. “You’re using the royal ‘we.’”

  Tabby locked the front door behind her familiar and flipped the sign in the display window to “closed.”

  Their regular customers knew the store would be closed on November 1st. Tabby and her employees always took the Day of the Dead off. They needed the day to recharge their batteries from all the spell work they’d done the night before. If anyone else needed something magical on the first day of November, they’d be out of luck.

  Tabby and her employees not only sold magical spells and potions, they also cast them for customers who were willing to pay extra for the service. All that spell work in one night flat wore a person out. Tabby couldn’t wait to get home and take a long soak in her tub, and then sleep for about a million years.

  And maybe have a nice dream or two about the handsome, brown-eyed man she’d never met but had been fantasizing about for months now.

  “Long night,” was all she said.

  “You know…” Her familiar’s smile turned just the slightest bit wicked. “You could always let me wear this form for one more day.”

  Tabby was already shaking her head “no” as she started flipping the light switches off.

  Tabby’s familiar had been with her a long time. She’d started giving the playful spirit the night off as a way to keep her out from underfoot on the busiest night of the year.

  Unfortunately, it took more power than Tabby could afford to use on Halloween to cast a spell that would allow her familiar to retain her human form during the day.

  “Dawn breaks the spell,” she said.

  A rumbly purr—an entirely self-satisfied purr—rose up in her familiar’s throat. “Not all spells break at dawn, wizard.”

  Tabby froze, a sinking feeling taking hold in her chest. Something about her familiar’s tone. A spirit who spent most of her time as a cat had an entirely different idea of playful than most people did.

  “Did you do something I should know about?” Tabby asked.

  Instead of answering, her familiar curled the fingers of one hand and studied the nails intently. “How do you manage with these things?” She poked at one fingernail with the index finger of her other hand. “Claws that don’t retract.”

  “You’re changing the subject.”

  “I’ve always wanted to ask. I’ve never understood why you bother to paint your nails when you don’t file them into sharp little points. Useless. Although I do like the legs.” She turned her head to survey the backs of her legs, running one hand down the smooth black costume. “Nice and long. And shapely.”

  Tabby sighed. This year her familiar had taken Tabby’s own human form for her night on the town, which made having this conversation beyond weird. It was like looking at a mirror image of herself when the mirror wasn’t quite right. Her face, but not really. Her legs, but not really. And did she really have that much in the cleavage department?

  Last year her familiar had chosen Angelina Jolie for her human form. Photographers had hounded Tabby for days, convinced she was hiding the star in a back room.

  “At least tell me where you went,” Tabby said.

  The purr got louder. “To a party.”

  “Where?”

  “Downtown.”

  “Did you take something from the store with you?”

  The store had been crazy busy last night. No one would have missed a random bottle or bag of something.

  “Oh, you know. A little something for the host. I understand it’s the polite thing to do.”

  Green-gold eyes that were pure cat couldn’t quite hold the innocent look the familiar been trying for, and a giggle burbled up in her throat.

  “I think he really enjoyed it.”

  Tabby closed her eyes and counted to ten.

  Getting mad at her familiar wouldn’t do either of them any good. Like any self-respecting spirit—or cat for that matter—her familiar never took responsibility for any of the trouble she created.

  Trouble that Tabby would have to make right.

  Somehow.

  She opened her eyes just as the last pink in the sky gave way to the golden light of sunrise. With a faint sparkle in the air like tiny bits of glitter and a whiff of catnip and lemongrass, the human form her familiar had used winked out of existence. In its place stood a very self-satisfied, long-haired black cat, who proceeded to twine around Tabby’s ankles.

  “One of these days you’re going to be the death of me,” Tabby said with a sigh as she bent down to scratch her familiar behind the ears. “My little Terrique cat.”

  3

  Teddy stared at himself in the mirror on the back of his bedroom door.

  A golden retriever stared back.

  The full-length mirror had come with the apartment. Teddy had never gotten around to taking it down, mostly because he never thought about it. It wasn’t like he ever used the mirror to check himself out, but it sure was coming in handy now.

  “Holy crap,” Teddy said as he turned back and forth in front of the mirror.

  Or at least that’s what he meant to say. What came out of his mouth was something that sounded like a cross between a yip and a whine.

  He was definitely a dog. A brown-eyed, long-haired, black-nosed golden retriever, right down to the silly doggy grin that definitely did not match his mood and the tail that refused to stay still.

  No way in the world this should have happened to him. Not last night.

  Teddy had purchased a fairly expensive spell from what he’d thought was a reputable magic shop to prevent anyone from using magic during his party. Halloween and party tricks went hand in hand, and the last thing he wanted was someone playing magical tricks on his guests.

  Well, it seemed like someone had played a pretty nasty trick on him.

  As far as he knew, the spell he bought should have worked. Since he couldn’t cast it himself, he’d arranged to have one of the store’s own wizards do the honors. She’d arrived shortly after sunset in full wizard costume, complete with pointy hat and face makeup that made her look like a female version of Gandalf. She’d done something with a few bits of herbs, a c
ouple of fibers from the carpet, and a piece of Teddy’s hair. When she was done, she pronounced his apartment warded against all spells and incantations until sunrise on November 1st.

  The spell didn't prevent magical beings from entering the apartment. Teddy had been very clear about that, because otherwise the half-elf his roommate was dating couldn't have set foot inside the door. Which would have ticked his roommate off, since the two of them spent most nights behind the closed door of his bedroom.

  His roommate.

  Daniel.

  The hair between Teddy’s shoulder blades bristled. This had to be Daniel’s fault!

  Not only had he talked Teddy into throwing the party, he’d come up with the guest list. None of the people Teddy had invited would have cast a spell like this, so whoever had turned him into a dog must have been part of Daniel’s guest list.

  Daniel. The skinny little twerp who’d someone managed to land himself a beautiful half-elf for a girlfriend when Teddy couldn’t even get a date.

  A growl built up in Teddy’s throat and his upper lip lifted away from his front canines.

  His very sharp canines.

  The sight of himself in the mirror looking very much like a vicious guard dog startled him, and any anger he’d felt toward Daniel—justified or not—disappeared like the steam from his coffee on a warm, breezy morning.

  Daniel wouldn’t intentionally hurt him, he knew that. The two of them got along well enough, or at least they had so far. Daniel didn’t take any of Teddy’s food from the fridge, and while he wasn’t the neatest guy in the world, he kept the sloppy side of himself confined to his own bedroom. Blaming Daniel for his current situation was childish.

  That still left him with the question of who? And how?

  Teddy didn’t know a lot about magic, but like every kid back in high school, he’d had to sit through class after boring class designed to warn impressionable teenagers that magic was nothing to be trifled with. Hands Off Magic, they’d been called, which was just as stupid as Just Say No and about as effective for those already tempted.