Free Something Wikkid This Way Comes by Nicole Peeler Page B

snarls.
    I nod obligingly.
    “If you hadn’t come along—”
    “Yeah, yeah, it’s been said before,” I interrupt. “This is what we do, Frankie. We stop bad guys. You’re a bad guy.”
    “Right, like you’re so good. You think you’ve done these girls a favor. But what have you done, really? I gave those girls pride. I gave them something to believe in. Everyone in that school treated them like garbage till I came along. They love me, and I love them.”
    I feel Moo’s power blossom behind me, and I take a quick step back to place a hand on my friend’s shoulder. I make her meet my eyes and breathe with her until she calms down. Moo gets kinda upset when men like Frank claim they do what they do out of love.
    She’s heard it before.
    When I know she’s not going to slay him where he sits, I turn back to Frank.
    “See, my friends and I have to disagree with you. You can’t say you gave these girls anything, when all you did was lie to them. They believed in something false, something you created.”
    “And they were vulnerable,” Moo snarls. “You knew they were vulnerable, and you preyed upon their weaknesses. You’re a parasite.”
    Moo’s mojo swirls, and Frank has the good sense to look nervous.
    “They love me,” he insists.
    “No. They loved your lies. They loved your drugs,” I say.
    “They loved the revenge you offered,” Moo continues.
    “Don’t forget the twofer!” Shar sings out from our left, making a lewd gesture with her fingers. We ignore her.
    Frank’s changed his mind and now won’t look at us. The only safe place for his eyes is apparently the ground, but he’s still defiant.
    “They did so love me,” he mutters to his shoes.
    I sigh, then walk behind him and grab his hair. Yanking his face up, I make him turn to the girls.
    “If they love you for real, Frankie my boy, they’ll love you even now. Ladies!” I call, so they can hear me. “How do you feel about Mr. McEachern here?”
    The looks on their faces are answer enough. Various combinations of emotions play across their drugged faces, but they’re all of the same ilk: humiliation, anger, and accusation. If they can get that irate while still stoned, I can only imagine how they’ll be sober.
    None of them is a big fan of our Frank.
    To give him credit, he must have believed his own delusions. The sobs that tear through him are real. Stacey the gnome tries to comfort him, but he shrugs her off in violent repudiation. The only girl who really does love him, and he doesn’t love her back. It’s almost tragic.
    Almost.
    Not so tragic is seeing Stacey and Frank carted off by the supernatural police. They’ll both be going away for a while, although in Frank’s case I wonder if “away” isn’t going to be a shallow grave somewhere. Our justice is harsh, especially for those who involve the human authorities in our shenanigans.
    Definitely not tragic is calling up Father Matthews and seeing the parents of the girls come pick up their children. It’s going to be a boom time for local psychotherapists. Although, after Moo makes a few careful wipes of their minds, the girls won’t remember much except randomly bonding together to become Satanists. All memories of a “real” Satan are expunged, and no connection will be made to Frank or Stacey.
    It’s harsh, in that the girls will probably have to pay for their human crimes without being able to blame magical influence. But I don’t feel too badly for them. The only influence Frank exerted over them was offering them power. We probed their minds and he never seemed to have actually glamoured them to follow him.
    Which means the girls willingly took him up on his offers of revenge, so they deserve some punishment. Just because someone’s feeling unpopular doesn’t mean she gets to slaughter a goat for some poor bastard making minimum wage to clean up all by herself…
    All right, I’ll admit to feeling a little bitter about the goat. Scrubbing blood out of