Free Witched to Death by Deanna Chase Page B

person I ever loved, and we would’ve been married if it wasn’t for you.”
    I threw myself at her, bringing my clasped hands down on top of her head, knocking us both to the floor.
    “You bitch,” she sputtered.
    “Gold digger,” I shot back and grabbed her long blond hair, pulling viciously until she cried out in pain.
    Footsteps barreled down the stairwell, followed by light flooding the room. “What the hell is going on down here?” I heard Sassy yell.
    But neither Ophelia nor I stopped to pay any attention as we wrestled on the floor, each of us going for the other’s throat.
    “You did this to him, didn’t you?” I said and rolled, straddling her, one hand on her throat, the other still yanking at her hair.
    “All he had to do was ask me for help,” she got out between gasps of air. “Instead he summoned you. And now you’re going to pay.”
    Her eyes narrowed and a second later, I received a solid punch straight to the gut. I rolled, still hanging on, but gasping for air. I dug my fingers into her throat, satisfied when her eyes started to bug out.
    “That’s enough!” Sassy cried.
    Icy water came out of nowhere, soaking both of us straight to the bone. It was enough to break our holds on each other, both of us scrambling in opposite directions.
    “Sorry about that,” Sassy said, moving to stand next to me. Without missing a beat, she sent out blast after blast of magic, counteracting the ones Ophelia kept lobbing our way. “Had to do something to stop her, and blowing you both up wasn’t an option.”
    “I appreciate that,” I said, tracking Ophelia as she made her way toward the front door. “We have to stop her before she gets out of here.”
    “How?” Sassy tossed out another ball of magic, blowing a hole in Zelda’s beautiful wood floors. “All I can do is blow her up.”
    “And Jeeves?”
    “He took off to find Diesel.”
    “Crap.” And I had no magic. All I could do was hurl lamps and insults.
    “Your time here is running out,” Ophelia called, standing in the doorway. “You were never meant to return from the dead.”
    “Oh, ouch,” I said sarcastically. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
    “He never loved you,” she spat.
    “Well, one thing’s for certain. You’ve lost your chance now, Crazytown. If you think this is going to get Diesel to run into your waiting arms, you’re insane. Worse than insane. Delusional even. And when Baba Yaga finds out about this, you’re going to have a nice comfy spot inside a brick cell for a very long time.”
    “Yeah,” Sassy added. “And there’s no haircuts. No razors. No color for that tacky, brassy hair color you’ve got going on. Good luck with your hairy legs and unibrow. Should be good times all around.”
    Ophelia let out a frustrated scream that made the house shake and pictures fall off the walls, then hurled a fireball right at my feet.
    I jumped back, barely keeping my toes from being burned to a crisp while Sassy, in a moment of quick thinking, grabbed a quilt from the back of the couch and extinguished the flames.
    When we looked up, Ophelia was gone.
    “Oh, baby Jesus,” Sassy said, sinking into a nearby chair. “Zelda’s going to kill me.”
    I glanced around at the destruction with a heavy heart. “This isn’t over.”
    Sassy shook her head. “No, it’s not. Not until Baba Yaga gets here and hauls her ass off.”
    “No. I mean it’s not over now. She’s out there. Waiting for him.”
    “Who? Diesel?”
    I nodded. “Now that her secret’s out, she can’t risk me telling him. She’ll have to find him first.”
    Sassy shot to her feet. “Then we have to stop her.”
    I flashed my friend a grateful smile and took off through the front door.
    The sky had just started to lighten with the first signs of daybreak. But that was no help when we entered the canopy of the forest. Even in the winter with the deadening of leaves, the trails were dark, hidden in shadows.
    “Where do you think they