Chapter 1

“Well it’s not a just a game anymore,” Leanne murmured as the woman rose up between them. Leanne saw that slut from four days ago: the black haired bimbo in the shredded jeans and greasy t-shirt. The clothes were gone. Flawless skin was dappled by moonlight. Perky breasts rose from her chest, standing as tall and confident as their bearer. Her perfect eyes scanned over Leanne as soft lips easily curled into a sarcastic smile. Leanne’s stomach turned. Goosebumps skittered up over her skin.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Whimpered Eiko.

“We won’t give you our souls,” Avery declared from the top of their pentacle. The witches, who were five teenaged girls, were cloaked in black robes. Underneath, they all claimed to be naked but only Avery truly was. Natalie, following the pentacle around clockwise, had retained her bra and underwear. Gia was wearing just her panties; she had been determined to be truly naked but had needed to wear a pantyliner. Eiko wore the tank top and shorts she would wear to any slumber party. Finally, there was Leanne. She was wearing full-on flannel pajamas under her robe, she held her robe closed tight around herself, terrified she might give away her secret.

“Oh, I have no use for five souls,” The demon slowly turned and examined the girls. To Leanne, she seemed to dismiss her and scrutinize Avery. Leanne was thankful for being the unremarkable one for once, “If a little demon like me had five souls, a bigger demon would just come and take them away.”

“You have to give us what we ask for,” Leanne forcibly explained. The book, Gia’s book, was on the ground behind her. The old woodcut rituals drawn out, the squiggly handwriting and hurried notes in the margins, were just as Leanne had imagined in a real magic book. She had loved it. She was beginning to feel differently.

“And you have to pay me my price,” The demon grinned, “Capitalism.”

“We can just banish you if you ask too much!” Eiko threatened.

“I wouldn’t have appeared if you were going to do that,” The demon sighed, “That’s three of five. So what about you black girl? Do you need to show that you’re all tough and in charge?”

“No,” Gia shook her head, “You already seem to understand.”

“Good, so that just leaves big blondie,” She turned to Natalie, whose natural blonde hair was dyed completely black, “What about you?”

“Let’s just get this done,” Natalie pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders.

“Let’s get this done, indeed,” She pointed at Natalie and followed the circle anti-clockwise to Gia, “You want to be beautiful. You want power. You want love. You want your father to care and you want a baby.”

“I want to be a famous successful actress,” Retorted Gia. She seemed disgusted at the accusation of being a mother at 16.

“Then be sure to state your wish very clearly,” The demon looked deep into her eyes.

“What?” Eiko worried.

“You’ve read the book,” Avery laughed derisively, “She’s acting like a bad pulp fiction genie. That I wished to jump really high and she turned me into a frog bullshit. This spell was to reveal a creature who will grant what we desire, as we desire. She’s a hell of an actress, isn’t she? I love the Black Widow look.”

“What?” Gia looked to Avery.

“Our ScarJo looking demon here,” Avery waved. Leanne goggled at Avery. Eiko blushed angrily. Natalie shrunk into herself. Gia grew angry.

“I see Regina Windsor,” Natalie explained.

“I see that new girl,” Leanne admitted.

“There were magic mushrooms in the potion we drank,” Eiko explained looking at a very not-Scarlett-Johansson Motoko Kusanagi, “We could be seeing anyone.”

“Yeah,” Gia sneered, “Anyone.”

“My ears are burning,” Singsonged the demon.

“I wish to be thin and beautiful!” Natalie declared.

“Good, now you,” The finger turned to Gia.

“I wish to achieve success and fame as an actress.”

“I wish for freedom from my overbearing mother,” Eiko whispered.

“I wish,” Leanne had to dig her fingernails into the meat of her forearm to keep talking audibly, “For him to love me as much as I love him.”

Avery smirked at her friend’s crush. The others didn’t know and Avery didn’t get it. Her younger brother’s best friend was as sexless to her as Curtis was. She looked at the demon and said clearly and with far more confidence than anyone else, “I wish to be respected and obeyed.”

“Oh, I really like you,” the demon turned to Avery, “Your wish will take the longest.”

“Why would some wishes be quicker?” Eiko asked.

“Everything you desire is ready to fall into place,” She explained to Eiko. The others didn’t question.

“But what is it you want?” Leanne was scared but she had to know. Could love be too expensive? Love was everything.

“I want your cruelty,” Laughed the demon. Leanne flinched at the girl’s perfect voice. Maybe she should have asked for something more monetizable? Something she might have given up on, “There’s another potion you’re going to brew and you’re going to feed it to an enemy. As soon as that potion is consumed your wishes will be begin on the next sunrise.”

“What kind of potion?” Avery demanded.

“Poison,” The demon chuckled.

“I won’t kill someone,” Gia said. Leanne agreed. Natalie considered it.

“Don’t be silly, the purpose isn’t to hurt her,” The demon grinned, “I want you to see who you all really are. In a way you’ll never forget.”

The demon then described their next project. No girl heard more than their part. Leanne went grey. She could do it. She’d have to do it tomorrow. She would hate herself. She would hate herself until David loved her. Gia laughed, hers was illegal but it was trivial and riskless. Eiko seemed relieved. Avery knew hers could be an embarrassment and she looked disappointed in that. Natalie had the task to coalesce the potion.

“Does it have to be a big cake? Can it be a cupcake?” All the girls turned as Natalie asked, understanding that they were all on different paths. Leanne breathed out. None of them would have to know what she was doing.

“That would be better, unless you want to feed it to a whole party,” The demon chuckled, “And, by all means.”

“It might not taste the best.” Leanne grumbled.

“I always thought a dollop of honey helps the medicine go down,” The demon suggested to Eiko.

“The song is a spoonful of sugar...” Eiko murmured. She was always quiet, no one noticed she was more quiet.

“Sure it is, dear,” The demon dismissed her.

“Then we banish you,” Avery declared. Rain struck immediately at her words. Wayward drops evolved into a downpour. The girls squealed and pulled their cloaks tighter. The demon faded. Leanne collapsed to her knees.

“That was fun,” Gia laughed, “I can’t believe this magic stuff is real!”

“Who are we going to give the potion to?” Eiko pulled the hood of her cloak up. Eight teenaged eyes turned to her with a blank flat stare.

“Persephone.”

Kristi was giggling when it started to rain. That didn’t help. She was on her back, her mouth wide open. She collected the sudden downpour with remarkable efficiency. Curtis exacerbated the problem by moving his head aside and letting the full bore access to her face.

“Is the rain going to fuck this up?” David lifted his windbreaker over his head. He hunched far over the latest brew stirring it with a glass rod.

“Try and keep the water out,” Sputtered Kristi.

“Jesus, Curtis, roll her over,” David laughed.

“I just need a couple more...” Curtis thrusted harder. The redhead girl flopped like a fish as she tried to breathe, feel and fuck all at once. Curtis folded, he pressed his forehead into her collarbone and started grunting. She wrapped his head with both arms, “Thanks, babe.”

“None of that shit,” Kristi pushed Curtis away and squirreled out from under him. She reached up to her t-shirt and rolled it back down over her breasts. Curtis pulled his jeans up from below his knees.

“If it wasn’t raining so bad, I’d make you eat me out right now.”

“With cum in your pussy?” Curtis grimaced.

“Yeah, there’s my Charming Prince...” She mocked. The boys had, at one time or another, as a boy or as a girl, tasted the other’s semen. It was in one of the three potions they had made since they had met Kristi. Tonight’s experiment needed to be mixed under the stars, but the rain clouds had come out of nowhere.

“Do you think it’ll work?” Curtis ignored his hypocrisy.

“Did it get too diluted?” Kristi snuck over to her shorts and panties. They were next to the swingset where David was sitting as bare assed as she was.

“I don’t know how diluted is too diluted,” David mumbled, “But I stirred it and covered the mouth with my wallet when my phone beeped.”

“Oh my God! My phone!” Kristi dragged up her shorts and dug a hand into the pocket.

“It’s in here,” David tapped his windbreaker pocket, “But maybe we should go to the dugouts or something?”

The three ran from to the baseball diamond just beyond the monkey bars and hurried to the closer home team brick dugout. The rain was getting in under the lip but it wasn’t torrential and it could be avoided by sitting on the bench facing the wall. Kristi sighed relief when her phone seemed ok. She then lifted her shorts.

“Oh God, these are so gross,” They squelched and gripped in her fingers.

“Then leave them off,” Curtis said with a handful of her ass, “David left his jeans over by the swingset.”

“Oh shit!” David realized.

“Not important,” Kristi tossed her shorts into the driest corner she could find. David handed her a small sports bottle of Cold Womb. Curtis took four steps away from the smell to the far wall, “Let’s check on our magic spell.”

The concoction in David’s hand, capped by his zippered wallet, sloshed in its beaker. Since they had met, four days ago, the trio had made The Blossoming Beauty which was Kristi’s pretty potion and turned the boys into girls, The Charming Prince which turned the boys in irresistible cads or the girls into boys, The Cold Womb which was Kristi’s contraceptive and really made Curtis nauseous and in David’s hand was, hopefully, The Hunter’s Light.

Under the stars, in a bath of rum, swirled a compass needle, dog’s hair and David’s fingernails. Except there was a ceiling of clouds tonight and rainwater contaminating the mixture. Kristi held it up to her phone’s flashlight app.

“Alright,” Kristi sighed, “Maybe right now isn’t the best time to play hide and seek.”

Curtis’s phone started ringing. “Shit!” He struggled it up to his ear and grinned a silly grin, “Mom! How are you?”

“Curtis, where the hell are you?”

“I’m with,” He looked at Kristi and gestured for her to be quiet, “David.”

“Except I just talked to Michael and he says you’re not over there.”

“Actually, we were just walking about, we got caught in the rain and ducked into the dugouts at the park up the street,”

“Put David on.”

“Sheriff,” David did his smug best to greet the Shannon matriarch.

“What the hell are you boys up to?” She sounded more than exasperated.

“Underage drinking, premarital sex and witchcraft,” David replied as flippantly as he could. Kristi’s face burnt red and her eyes widened as far as they could.

“Fine, don’t sacrifice any goats,” She huffed.

“Oh, we’re still only on the green book,” Kristi hit David for that one.

“Do you want me to send a squad car to pick you boys up? Or can you walk the three blocks home in the rain.”

If Kristi wasn’t with them, it’d be an absolute yes. David laughed as genuinely as he might. “No, I think Curtis deserves a little more misery.”

“You’re a true friend,” Mrs Shannon replied, “I’ll call your dad and let him know you’re on your way home.”

“Thank you,” He handed the phone back to Curtis. Kristi looked crossly at David but he tossed her drenched hair and danced away from her grumpy swattings.

“What are you angry about mom?” Curtis sighed as he was chewed out for a good minute, “You had no problem letting Avery go out with her friends.”

“I’m going to grab my pants,” David laughed loud enough that Curtis’s mom might hear.

“And the cooler bag,” Kristi whispered back into David’s ear. She squeezed his thigh and he smiled.

“Goddammit, David is a silly nut,” Elizabeth Shannon sighed into the phone, “Avery asked to go out with her girlfriends. Days ago. You just up and left at 11 at night. That’s unacceptable. You’re coming home, you and David can do your little sleepover some other weekend.”

“But--”

“If you’re not home in 30, I’ll be Sheriff and not Mom. Understood young man?”

“Good night, Mom.”

Curtis hung up as David loped back into the dugout. He threw his pants next to Kristi’s shorts and dropped the unzippered Truce Spring Barbecue cooler down next to the redhead.

“Looks like I’m out, girls,” Curtis sighed, “Mom’ll probably be calling your dad too.”

“She’s a bit of a ballbreaker isn’t she?” Kristi grinned.

“And she taught my sisters,” Curtis moaned pathetically, “How are you getting home?”

“What?”

“Well, we figured we could smuggle you into David’s later but if mom alerted his Dad we better just all head home, yeah?” Curtis shrugged.

“That’s easy for you two, it’s just a couple blocks in the rain. I’ve got a 40 minute run ahead of me.”

“I’ll show you how to break into my room,” David suggested, “You can clean up and get dry at my place.”

“My parents will kill me if I’m out all night with a boy.”

“Good thing you’re out with two boys.”

“And you can’t be killed twice.

Kristi held Curtis’s elbow as she rushed along the side of David’s garage. They could already hear the ghost of David’s father’s unhappiness as his son was greeted at the front door. The first flicker of lightning illuminated the backyard. Kristi jumped and Curtis counted in his head.

The deep roll of thunder came thirteen Mississippi later. They stopped to the side of David’s cobblestone patio. Curtis gestured with his hands.

“Just talk quietly,” Kristi sneered.

“Alright, you need to step up on the railing, then you can use this,” he gestured to the power meter, “As a step up onto the eave. David’s window is right there. He’ll be up quickly to open it.”

“Oh my God,” Kristi shivered in the rain not trusting the footholds or the heights.

“Come on,” Curtis said cupping Kristi’s ass and swirling her into a tight embrace, “I’ll catch you if you say good night well enough.”

“Knob,” She laughed and punched him in the chest. She let him stroke her body as she tightened the cooler strap over her shoulder. She made a sarcastic kissy face at him and he sunk down and motorboated her. She was biting her cheek to keep from laughing too hard.

“OK, OK, before I drown,” She growled. She started to climb and Curtis balanced her hips as she could confirmed a foothold. She balanced her muddy Reebok on his shoulder, “You’re higher than the electrical meter.”

“Next time wear a skirt,” Curtis said to her butt as Kristi levered herself off his shoulders onto the roof.

“I’ll call you tomorrow! Go!” Kristi waved him to run through the backyard, through the thin copse of trees, to his own house. He saluted and she found David’s room with the window already cracked. She winced as it slid up with a little squeak. She slipped into the bedroom.

David’s room was big and in disarray. His dresser was stuffed haphazardly with unfolded clothes. His hamper was just the general area around the wicker basket. His bed was unmade, his closet was awkwardly open, his laptop sat on a desk surrounded by dirty glasses and unfinished papers. Kristi dragged over the empty wastebin and rang out her hair into it. She stopped dead at the sound of water pittering into the rubber, even if the rain and thunder outside dwarfed the noise. She decided to wait, shivering, out of sight of the bedroom door, for David. Two minutes felt like half an hour.

“Yeah I’ll probably just grab a shower in a few minutes and get some sleep. Good night, Dad,” David grumbled as he got into his room, “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” He whispered as he rushed past Kristi, over the bed to yank up the window, “I thought I left it open enough for her to get in.”

“You did,” Kristi whispered making David jump and bump his head under the pane, “Why are you so panicked? I thought you wanted me to break in?”

“You’re right, if I didn’t want you in my room, I’d have locked my windows,” He grumbled and rubbed his head, “Let’s give dad about 45 to get to sleep and then we can get a shower or something.”

“Ah, thanks,” Kristi sighed and unzipped the cooler bag. She pulled their phones out of it. They were mostly dry, “Mom’s been texting me...”

“Shh!” David gestured. Kristi heard his dad’s footsteps just a moment later.

“Night buddy,” Came the grizzled voice through the door.

“Night dad,” David replied. There were a few more steps and the sound of another bedroom door shutting. Kristi was waved down from talking for a few more minutes. David sighed, “Alright. What?”

“I told mom I was staying over with a girl named Dee,” Kristi flashed a smile and David’s agreed upon alterego, “I’ve got a bit of Blossoming Beauty in the cooler. We’ll have to find you something to wear to walk me home in the morning.”

“Sure,” David shrugged and pulled off his shirt, “But we still got tonight.”

“David ... Remember we promised, no Curtis, no sex, no falling in love.”

“You sure? Just a quick shower,” He needled.

“David...”

“You’re going to get out of those clothes anyways, right?”

“David...”

“C’mon before you get pneumonia or something.”

“Then what? We come back in here and cuddle in bed until I sneak away in the morning?”

“If you’re that worried, I can use the sleeping bag and camp out on the floor,” David shrugged. He turned away quickly after he spoke and pulled off his jeans, boxers and socks.

“No, I’m taking the sleeping bag,” Kristi asserted upon seeing him with yet another erection. She had already dealt with six between her two friends.

“Dad wouldn’t be happy about me letting a girl do that,” He worried.

“Would he be happy about me being in your bedroom?” She lifted an eyebrow.

“Yeah, if he knew you,” His easy answer sent a shiver through Kristi.

“David...”

“C’mon, let’s get you out of those clothes,” He leered.

“Alright, but after this, no Curtis, no nothing,” She couldn’t help but like how he lit up as she pulled off her t-shirt.

“Never any nothing,” David put a hand over his heart, “I promise.”

“Alright, we’re set up!” Gia announced with a broad smile.

“There’s just this last tray,” Leanne’s hands shook when she put the orange tub with the pale plastic top on the table.

“Yellow frosted.” Avery reminded the group.

“So how do we get it to her?” Eiko asked.

“I say, we take the tub and give out samples to tables in the cafeteria,” Natalie suggested, “Persephone always sits at that second table. It’ll be easy.”

“OK,” Avery nodded.

“Um, can I stay at the table?” Leanne asked. They looked at her. It was clear they felt she had done the most. Gia nodded.

“I’ll do it.”

“Better send two of us,” Avery picked up another tub and opened the orange one. She transferred half the cupcakes to the other, “It’ll look better.”

“The quarter’s not still in the cupcake, right?” Eiko blanched.

“No, it’s buried with the rest of the unused batter,” Natalie assured everyone.

“Alright, Leanne you sell. Eiko you man the money box. Gia and I--”

“You stay here,” Natalie interjected lifting the tray with the yellow frosted cupcake, “I got this.”

“Alright. No mistakes.” Gia declared taking the second tray.

“No mistakes.” Everyone agreed.

Kristi and David arrived in the C-Tower early into the lunch break. School life was better now. Kristi loved to cook and better to impose upon a friend than to wait in the fiendish line for blandish food. Fuck the cafeteria. They migrated to find a spot for their circle of friends. A small circle, a triangle really, where was Curtis?

“Thank you,” David grinned and accepted the sandwich. A lightly toasted grilled chicken with a dijon mustard sauce. No tomatoes on his. Fuck it was good. He passed her a can of Diet Coke, “Seriously, what did I do to deserve this?”

“Its that curl of your tongue thing,” Kristi whispered enjoying David’s blush, “It’s chicken sandwich worthy. But you should see what I packed for Curtis!”

“Ha. Ha.” David bemoaned, “Where is the hottest girl in school?”

“He’ll be here,” Kristi promised with too much emotion ruined by a giggle, “Hey, have you thought about it any further?”

“A little, I mean, I get it.” David scratched his head, “But I’m not really sure I--”

“We don’t want to be picked apart by boyfriend-girlfriend bullshit,” She repeated herself.

“But we’re not giving up the magic?” He shook his head.

“God no,” She shook her head, “It’s why we have to.”