Free Something Wikkid This Way Comes by Nicole Peeler Page A

something inarticulate and its manicured hands ball up into angry fists. They’re youthful hands, and feminine—it must be an incredibly young gnome. It starts to reach deep with its powers, trying to bond further with the land, extend its territory…
    “Shar, now!” I yell.
    With a powerful shove, our little succubus reveals she’s not just a bamboozled high school student. While I engaged with the gnome, Shar had crept up behind it. Using a combination of her own magical powers and the biceps she keeps toned in weekly sessions of Body Pump, Shar shoves the gnome hard, sending it flying toward me. Once the gnome’s over its own territory lines, its power fizzles with an audible pop and I’m left holding its robed figure.
    Those same manicured hands form claws as it reaches up to take a swipe at my face, but I’m too fast for it. I’ve got it turned around and in a choke hold before it can land a hit, tightening its hood down low over its face so it can’t see its target.
    Moo has Satan, and I have the gnome. Shar returns to heal Jodi, yelling that she’ll round up the girls. I’m just about to pull the gnome’s hood off when I hear an engine roar up behind us. I recognize one of the power signatures, and I’m pissed it took them so long even as I can’t help but feel smug, knowing we got everything taken care of before The Powers That Be could even mobilize.
    Tom pulls forward in a battered Jeep, along with two other supes whose power I can feel from here. One’s an ifrit and the other’s an incubus, and from their strength I reckon they’re the local investigators, or supernatural police, for Springfield. Moo and I herd our prisoners toward their fate, and Tom, the incubus, and the ifrit meet us halfway.
    “What do we have here?” Tom asks, eyeballing Satan. The Prince of Darkness looks defeated, his forked penis flaccid and no longer quite so impressive. Before we can respond, a seminaked cultist runs at Tom, holding a corncob like a spear. The incubus stops her in midstride with a negligible flick of his magic. Shar apologizes for the runner from where she’s rounding up the girls.
    “We’re not sure,” I say, once everything’s calm again. “We were just about to do the unmasking.”
    “Nahual?” Tom asks, pointing at Satan. I nod. Now that the gnome’s juice has been shut off, it’s easy to feel Satan’s power signature. Like Tom and my dad, “Satan” is really a shape-shifter, and a powerful one. But he’s no more Lucifer than I am, even when I don’t get my coffee in the morning.
    I gesture theatrically toward the couple but Tom shakes his head.
    “You do the honors,” he says, with a small smile I can’t help but return. The investigators shift impatiently, and I manhandle the gnome so it’s facing the crowd and me.
    We all gasp when I pull back the hood.
    “Stacey?” I ask.
    The girl’s vapid blue eyes blink up at me, registering a combination of confusion and anger. The ifrit takes her in hand as I turn toward Satan.
    “Well, if you’re the gnome, then I bet I know who’s under there. Come out, come out, whoever you are!” Satan’s yellow goat’s eyes blink mulishly at me, and I nod at Moo, who smiles ghoulishly and uses her Alfar power to crash through Satan’s power like it’s Styrofoam.
    “Hi there, Frank,” I say, walking forward to shake him by the shoulders as if greeting an old friend. “So that was you under there this whole time?”
    “Mr. McEachern?” babbles one of the girls, followed by a chorus of ew s. Frank’s face is beet red with anger and humiliation, as he vainly tries to break through Moo’s hold on his power so he can shape-shift back into Satan form.
    “It’s not so forked now, is it, ladies,” Shar chuckles, and at least one of the girls actually gags. They’re glaring so accusatorily at Frank, I almost feel sorry for him. Almost.
    He can’t meet their eyes, and I don’t blame him. But he can meet mine.
    “You bitch,” he