Part 7

Next few days were like any other: dancers to coax, horny patrons to manage, and by Friday, I had almost forgotten the bad dreams until I walked back stage and saw Destinee crying as though her heart would break.

There were always tears backstage. Someone would have a fight with their boyfriend - or girlfriend as the case might be - or broke a nail or was PMSing and just needed to vent through the rage.

One part of being Show Manager is that you have to be a little bit of a cross between a Mother Hen and MacGuyver. This time, I figured Mother Hen would be more useful so I walked over to Destinee and she gasped “My boyfriend is cheating on me and I want to kill him!”

“No, you don’t want to kill him,” I cajoled. “You are upset and disappointed but killing someone is bad Karma.”

She gripped my hands and peered into my face.

“One of the girls said that you are a witch and that you could do all kinds of stuff,” she whispered.

I looked around. My status was known by a few - mostly people who had asked for help and I had accommodated with my little bit of magic had helped people through some jams.

That’s what magic is for though. It’s to help out your fellow human being and since you can do very few things for yourself supernaturally it evens out the playing field. Like I said, magic I can do, mundane things like cook or balance my checkbook? Not so much.

It’s not that I’m stupid. My Granny says that witches don’t think linearly like non-magical folks do and that math was designed and developed by people who can’t imagine their way out of a box. I could summon someone to do it but it would cause a lot of problems and is a real bitch to fix later. I know this from personal experience.

“Honey,” I said as I sat down. “I can’t help you kill someone. If you do that, you will pay for it three times. It never ends well. Trust me on this.”

I paused.

“I know, you move out of his house and I’ll give you a talisman that you can hide there that will make his peter limper than spaghetti that’s been cooked too long. Since it’s not permanent or dangerous, it won’t be too bad on your Karma.”

“What do you mean, Karma?” she said quietly.

“Karma means that whatever you send out into the universe good or bad, will come back to you. So if you send out hate and murder, hate and murder will come back on you. It’s like when the kids said ‘I’m rubber and you’re glue and whatever you say bounces off of me and onto you!’ to explain it. You’re a sweet girl and you are a beautiful dancer and I think I just decided not to hate you.” She looked at me strangely. I smiled.

“Come on, let Brandy make you a talisman and you move out of the pecker’s house tonight!”

I finally got her calmed down and then retreated to my office to make the talisman.

I keep a few things on hand for situations like this. My grandmother would be saying that for full effect I would need moonlight and holy water and a tablespoon of the offending man’s urine but I had found that just a simple binding spell worked pretty well on jerks like this.

I gave the trinket to Destinee and told her to hide it in his home while she packed. She had already arranged to go stay with one of the other dancers while I made the talisman. I was glad, I really didn’t want to take her home with me.