“We don’t have time to worry about it,” Ally said as she took my hand, “if someone dissected my thoughts, I’m sure there’d be all kinds of weird shit in there. The brain makes connections we can’t control. C’mon, let’s get to the wardrobe.”
“The wardrobe?” I asked as Ally led me across the storage parking lot.
“Trish made contact with a transporter on the dark web,” Ally explained as we neared the orange door to a storage unit, “She’s apparently a C.S. Lewis fan, and put a portal inside a wardrobe. She left it here for us so that we could beat the heat.”
“And it goes…where?” I asked nervously as Ally punched in the locker code.
“Vegas, Baby.” Ally smiled back.
The metal garage door creaked up and stopped in a clang of rusted metal. Ally and I ducked beneath the door before she clanged it shut behind us. I pawed for the light switch and flipped it when my blind hand found it. Fluorescent lights crudely illuminated the room in a white glow. Behind boxes of junk and old car parts, stood a wooden wardrobe that looked ancient and out of place. The dark oak monolith loomed over everything else, its doors beckoning and warning simultaneously.
“Alright,” Ally said, her fingers linking with mine in a shaking grasp, “let’s do this.”
“Are you scared?” I asked her.
“Terrified,” she smiled, “but terror is better than boredom.”
“You really have been talking to Trish,” I grumbled as we stepped toward the wardrobe, “she’s a corrupting influence.”
“Yeah, she is.” Ally agreed with a chuckle, “But she’s so much fun.”
We opened the door to the wardrobe and stepped in, hand in hand. The door closed behind us without our doing, and I caught the last glimpse of Michigan I’d see for the rest of my life.
CHAPTER TWO: CIRCUS CIRCUS
The wardrobe opened to a well-lit hallway. Deep red paint covered high walls, with a faux-marble trimming decorating the bottom. A sign with a clown hovering over a large tent read: ‘Slots-o-Fun at Circus Circus Hotel and Casino.”
“Jesus,” I said as I examined the inside of the corridor, “whoever your meeting could have at least set us up in Caesar’s Palace.”
“I never said we were meeting anyone.” Ally replied.
“Don’t…”
“…bullshit a bullshitter, I know, Jake.” Ally laughed, “We’re going to a convention here, but we’ll be meeting only a select few.”
“This cryptic bullshit is wearing me thin, Ally.” I said, “Just tell me why the fuck we’re here, and what Trish has to do with it all.”
“Let’s wait until we get to our hotel room,” Ally said as she rummaged through her purse and pulled out a keycard, “where prying ears can’t hear us.”
“If the feds were on to you,” I said as I pushed the ‘up’ button on the elevator, “they’d have the room bugged.”
“I’m not worried about the feds anymore.” Ally said in a half-whisper. Her grave expression worried me, but I kept my mouth shut. The elevator door dinged, and we stepped inside.
Ally pressed the twenty-fourth floor on the west tower elevator, and pushed the ‘shut’ button as a flustered Chinese man tried to race to the closing doors.
“That wasn’t very nice.” I frowned down at her.
“I don’t want to be in a confined place with strangers,” Ally said, “Jake, the people I’m afraid of…they’re everywhere.”
“You have some filling in to do,” I said to her, “I’m being left in the dark, and Trish has receded to her cage for now. I need some information, Ally, or I’m taking a Greyhound, and you can shoot me in the back as I leave.”
“Hotel room,” Ally reaffirmed, “hotel room, and I tell you everything.”
I looked at a sign that advertised the events at this once-great Vegas hotel. “August 30th 2017: Witches Convention, all magic beings of all classes mingle and seminar about the future of our kind.” That explained the convention at least, but who were we meeting, and why? The elevator door opened with a ding, and we stepped onto the twenty-fourth floor of the west tower.
“She couldn’t afford a two-bed room,” Ally said as we walked passed the vending machines and turned to the corridor, “so we’ll be in the same bed.”
“Does that bother you?” I asked, obviously thinking about the fantasies of my subconscious.
“No,” Ally said, “we used to sleep in the same bed when we were kids, I don’t see how it could be different now.”
She slipped the card into the slot of our room and opened the door. It occurred to me as she closed it, that we didn’t have any traveling supplies with us. Fortunately, someone had stocked the room with bags of clothes.
“We’ll be staying here for the duration of the convention,” Ally said as she pawed through the clothes left for us, “and we’ll be doing it under assumed names. I’m Becky Larson, and you’re Brian Larson.”
“We’re in the hotel room, Becky,” I said with an impatient twirl of my fingers, “explain what this is all about.”
“I was hoping Trish would tell you,” Ally (now Becky) frowned, “but it seemed all she did was rant at you for a while.”
“She had a lot to get off her chest,” I sighed, “and I suppose I deserved some of it. Get to the point.”
“We’re both witches, you and I,” Ally said, “well, at least the female half of you is. But we’re not normal witches. There are three classes-”
“And you and Trish are Class Three,” I said, finishing her thought, “which means people want you; I’ve seen this movie before.”
“Actually, Jake,” Ally said, looking up at me gravely, “it’s you they want.”
“Because…?” I asked, feeling my nerves stand on edge.
“You’re a male witch,” Ally replied, “the first ever wizard.”
“Trish is the witch,” I replied, “I’m nothing special.”
“You have a dick and balls, and the sperm that carries magic DNA,” Ally said, “and that makes you worth billions. Trish is female, but she’s stuck in a man’s body. For all intents and purposes, she’s a male witch, and so are you.”
The pieces started to fall into place as my mind made the connections.
“All of this,” I said, gesturing to the hotel room, but meaning the entire situation, “our escape from home, our transportation to Vegas, the assumed names and the cheap hotel room, all of this wasn’t to get your regulators off, was it?”
“No,” Ally said, “I wanted them off like nothing else, but I had excepted my situation in Michigan. Once Trish spoke in my mind for the first time, everything changed. No government protection, no military, could save you if word got out that there was a wizard. We needed to get you underground.”
“Couldn’t we have just…not told anyone?” I asked, “Wouldn’t that’ve been easier?”
“Until you took a drug test, or a blood test, or someone swabbed your cheek,” Ally said, “and then everyone would know, and you’d be fucked.”
“Literally,” I smiled, “they’d have an assembly line of witches just waiting for me to breed. Shit, Ally, I could have just contracted myself out and become the richest gigolo in the world!”
“They would have sedated you, extracted your semen and cloned your DNA,” Ally said, not returning my smile, “and then put a bullet in your head so that another company couldn’t have you.”
“Do these companies know about me?” I asked, my smile fading.
“Not yet,” Ally frowned, “not that I know of, but we can’t be too careful. We’ll be meeting some other class threes tomorrow, and then we’ll get you even deeper underground.”
“Is this going to be my life now?” I asked, “Running from place to place, looking over my shoulder, picking up my tissues so that I don’t leave DNA evidence?”
“Yeah,” Ally said, giving me a sad look, “it’s only a matter of time before someone sniffs you out, Jake. They’ll hunt you forever, and we need to stay three steps ahead of them at all times.”
“You didn’t have to put yourself into this situation,” I said, “you could have just told me what was going on. I’d stop my meds, let Trish out of the box, and then use her cunning and my caution to stay off the trail of those that would hunt me.”
“Bullshit,” Ally laughed without humor, “Jake, I mean no offense, but your caution would never let you free Trish. You’re…kind of a pussy.”
“Hey!”
“It’s true!” Ally giggled, this time with humor in her voice, “I don’t mean it in a bad way, but ever since you locked up Trish, all of your daring and bravery disappeared. I still love you, Jake, but let’s be honest: you’re a pussy. I had to shoot you just to make you get in a car.”
I didn’t have a retort for that, and I knew Ally was right. Even if I had believed a word she said, I would have simply barricaded myself in my room, popped my pills, and hoped nothing bad would happen. At least, I knew that much about myself.
“You’re right,” I sighed, and sat down on the bed next to Ally, “I’m a pussy. That’s what happens when you let someone else take control of you when things get hairy. I let Trish take the wheel in every adverse moment of my life, and I never learned how to do anything myself.”
“Well, Jake,” Ally said, putting her arm around me, “you’re in the deep end now, and it’s either sink or swim. How long until your shock therapy and the pills wear off?”
“A few days at the most,” I said, “and then Trish will be back with a vengeance. I’m afraid she’ll try to take complete control.”
“We won’t let that happen,” Ally said, “you two can work out your differences. I’ll be the mediator for our little group therapy session, and you and Trish will find common ground.”
“She made you shoot me out of spite,” I grumbled, “I don’t think she’s looking for negotiation. I put her in the darkest corner of my mind, and let her fester for years. She’s not the same Trish we used to know.”
“Give her time,” Ally said, “let her detox from all the shit you shoved back there, and she’ll come around to her normal self.”
“Maybe.” I said, not believing for a second that Trish would be merciful on her return. And that night, I found out I was right.
CHAPTER THREE: OUT OF THE BOX
Hey reader, it’s Trish. Guess what I’m looking at right now? Ally Bronston, in her bra and panties, sleeping right next to me. Every dark fantasy Jake had about his sister is flying through my head right now, and it’s making me randy. This is what you came for, isn’t it? I mean, you’ve been reading this far, waiting for Jake to finally plow is hot, curvy, blonde, teen sister, haven’t you? Well, Jake is too much of a pussy to fuck his twin sister, even if he subconsciously wants to. He thinks it’s too depraved, too disgusting, too taboo, and it is. And all those reasons he won’t do it, are the exact reasons I’m going to.
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