Page 92 of Hungry As Her Python

Eeek!

We crouched in the not-a-dumpster—seriously, it was a magically enhanced industrial compost bin, but fine, semantics—holding our breaths while the moonlight threw shadows across the alley.

My thighs were cramping, Donny’s hair was glowing faintly like a cursed neon sign, and Evie kept muttering about how she was “too nauseous for this nonsense.”

Then we heard it.

First came the hisses—long, drawn-out ones, like angry tea kettles—and then grunts that sounded furry.

Not your average raccoon-scuffling-in-the-trash furry, but something bigger.

Then came the voices.

Yep, they could talk.

So that was a big fat no to the whole wild animal theory.

“Hey yo, Razor Paws, this here new fan-dangled dumpster top is stuck,” an oddly deep voice mumbled, like a mobster raccoon who’d gargled gravel for breakfast.

“Quiet down, Two Fangs. We needs to set fire before the Draco camera tags our sumptuous round asses,” another replied.

I blinked at Evie.

“Sumptuous round asses?” I mouthed.

She shrugged. “Sounds architectural and decadent?”

“Why you two furry jackoffs still yapping?” a distinctly female voice chimed in.

“Hurry your fluffy asses up. These Witches gotta pay for what they did. No one messes with the Etherworld Fantastic Feline Familiar Union!”

“You got that right, Trashcan Sally. EFFFU is da bomb!” the first one added proudly.

Evie’s eyes went wide.

“FU?” she whispered.

“That’s it,” I said, my patience officially hitting the done button. “Now!”

We didn’t just hit them with magic—we blasted them.

A rush of teal, gold, white, and pink magic shot from our fingers, curling together into one massive wave that made the bin’s plastic lid shiver like Jell-O before lifting straight into the air.

The three on top—now fluffy flailing silhouettes against the moon—howled, hissed, and yelled things like “My tail!” and “Don’t look at me, I’m naked without my smoke cloak!”

We were just getting started.

Chapter Twenty-Eight-Bella

“Goddess of power,

Hear our plea,

Villainous hearts,

Shall never see,

Castor’s Corner as a place,