She was sleeping when I called; she answered very groggy, as though she had been and was still drunk. Sophie it’s me, The Locator. “Who the f—k is the locator?”
      “You know me,” I said.
      “Who the f—k is me?”
      I had to say it as much as I hated my name, “Herman, it’s Herman the locator,” I said. She laughed, “Herman where in the hell have you been? I haven’t seen you for ages.”
       “Look Sophie I need your help, can I come over?”
       “If you bring a dime bag you can.”
       “I’ll be there soon,” I said and hung up.
       Sophie was up and about when I got there and she had her works on the table and a candle burning, ready to melt the dime bag down to a soothing liquid she could inject. I threw her the bag; she smiled and asked what I needed from her. I told her the story about Sandy. She didn’t appear to be surprised at all. “Well have you ever heard of anything like this?” I asked her. “Those dirty bastards, they sold out,” she shouted.
      “Can you tell me who sold out what?”
      “There’s a Coven down on the East side that has been selling spells on line, and that’s no big deal. Witches sell spells, good and bad all the time. But what you’re talking about can only be performed by a high priestess and they’re the only Coven that has one.”
      “You’re telling me this story I told you is actually true?”
      “Sure, it started with minor spells, like convincing someone to buy something off a web site. Then the dating services hired them, and people started falling in love before they ever saw the person on the other end of the computer. You remember the stock bubble of 2000? The spells cast by these witches caused that. I know they must be responsible for what happened to your client.”
      “Is there some way to reverse the body swap?” I asked.
      “If we can exchange bodies again, it’ll have to be done before the next full moon. If you let it go past one moon then the swap becomes permanent. She looked at the calendar and told me I had thirteen days to figure out how to do something to change the situation or else, forget it.”

      I’m feeling pretty good, because I’m making progress. Now I need to find out who has Sandy’s body. I look at the picture she had given me in the office and I’d recognize that body anywhere, but I hadn’t seen it lately. It dawned on me that the perpetrator of this swap looked exactly like Sandy looks now. This person really stands out so I figure if I get a picture of her I should be able to track her down. I stop at the drugstore to buy an instant Kodak camera and rush to Sandy’s hotel to get her picture.

      I turn the knob to enter her room, but there’s something against the door. I give it a shove with my shoulder and a food cart turns over and crashes to the floor where Sandy was sitting with a huge piece of meat in her hands. She tore off chunks with her teeth and swallowed them without chewing. I wondered why she didn’t choke to death eating like this?

       “I need some clues on who owned this body before, can you think of anything that’ll help me find out?” I took a few pictures while she was thinking this over. She continued chewing the meat while she thought, and I was reminded of feeding time at the zoo. She couldn’t talk with her mouth full, yet she couldn’t bear to let it get empty, because each time she’d chew what was in her mouth down to a negotiable size, she’d rip off another piece of meat like a starving animal.

       I call Sophie and explained Sandy’s behavior to her. She thinks possibly along with the body swap a spell was cast to make her behave like this. We agreed Sophie would do an Internet interview with Sandy.
     I called the hotel desk and was reassured every room had a high speed Internet connection. I went down and retrieved Sandy’s computer from the trunk of my car. The doorman lent me a four-wheeled cart so I could wheel all the parts up to the room. I knocked and entered the room; there was another fully loaded food cart in my way and Sandy was already stuffing more food in her face. I knew I was going to have to tie her hands to get her to stop eating. I arranged the computer on the writing desk located close to the outlet for the hookup. Once plugged in and fired up everything seemed to be working OK. I turned around and saw Sandy had finally stopped eating.  

     She was staring at the computer with a look of utter fear on her face and was slowly backing away from it when she tripped over one of the depleted food carts and hit the floor hard; hard enough to knock her out which was a good thing. If she hadn’t tripped I was sure she would have turned and run from the room because of her fear of the computer. I guess after what happened to her she had every reason to fear one.
      I Instant messaged Sophie and told her what happened and she agreed it was a good thing she was knocked out because now that she was lying still I could cast a spell that would calm her and help her to stop eating. “The first thing you do is cast a mandella around her.”
      “What the heck is a mandella?” She told me a mandella is a geometric figure, a square within a circle.
“Casting a circle is the beginning of altering one's consciousness,” she said. I grabbed a sugar bowl from one of the food carts and made a square around her bulging body; then I walked around the square enclosing it in a circle. “OK I told Sophie I made the mandella, what next?”

      “You'll need a green candle and a crystal, and I sent a messenger to the hotel with all the other ingredients you’ll be needing for this spell. Here’s what you need to do once you have everything.” As she was telling me what to do I found a green candle that was used to warm food on one of the carts and I removed a crystal from the chandelier. “Once the ceremony is over be sure she wears the crystal everywhere she goes. This will help stop her urge to eat.” I wear a thin gold chain with a St. Christopher medal on it and I knew it was long enough to fit around her fat neck so I attached the crystal to the chain and put it on her neck. “Alright walk around her counterclockwise three times repeating these words,” I did as I was told and she told me to now walk around her three time clockwise repeating different words. I did as I was told even though I felt like an idiot. “What’n the Hell have I got myself into?” I wondered. I personally see nothing wrong with spell-work to break someone of an unhealthy and destructive addiction. There was a knock at the door; I opened it to find a small cardboard box filled with containers of oils, incenses, powders and creams. I guessed these were the supplies Sophie had sent over.,

        When I questioned her she told me they were what I needed then explained I needed to start with a blessing spell for Sandra, and make it my prayer that she be healthy and sound in mind and body, then to do a "Cast Off Evil" spell” she told me what oils, powders and creams to apply while the candle burned down. Then she told me where to rub the cream on Sandy to make the spell complete. This part went way beyond my job description, but I figured I had gone to far to wimp out now. “OK.” She Instant messaged in return after I sent her a message telling her what I had completed. “Here’s the chant, she told me what it was. “Now you need to circle her repeating this until she wakes up. Write it down you’ll never remember it all.”

      I did as I was told and now I’m walking in a circle around and around Sandy repeating what she told me to. All the while I’m wondering if maybe Sandy died she has been lying still for so long. I repeat these words over and over, ”I call on the gods and goddesses of the old days as well of those of the new. Break this spell that they call a binding with your power. I repeat many verses of prayers and request to the Goddesses. Unlock the binding appetite that was placed on my friend and awaken her power and body to never be locked again.

      Sandy moaned and rolled over as I was finishing the chant. She looked me directly in the eyes. I immediately saw the change in her. She was still fat and soiled with food stains and particles of food stuck to her face, but her eyes were clear and her jaw firm. She pulled her shoulders back as she stood up with a little help from a nearby food cart. This was the same person that had been terrified of the computer. It’s just unbelievable how mannerisms can change a person. She no longer appeared pitiful but gave off an aurora of a confident positive woman who knew exactly what she wanted.

      “Excuse me, I need to use bathroom.” She said, and went into it and closed the door. I heard the shower running. I silently thanked the priestess for helping this poor woman.

     “Please get a sheet from the bed and give it to me,” she asked. I pulled the top sheet loose and handed it to her. She exited the bath with the sheet wrapped around her. It’s a good thing there was a king-size bed in this room or the sheet wouldn’t have fit. But she looked so much better already; she looked as though she had lost some weight.

      I saw she no longer feared the computer so I sat her down and told her to explain everything that had happened to Sophie while I checked out another idea I had. I knew somebody with an appetite like Sandy had displayed would do a lot of grocery shopping or restaurant hopping, or both. I had taken four instant pictures of her while she was devouring the meat and they all showed a savage woman, but I figured this might make it even easier to identify her if this was the way she ate all the time. If she wasn’t rich I knew she would have had to frequent the all you can eat places to satisfy that appetite. I looked in the phone book and found half a dozen all you can eat restaurants in town. I went to them all showing her picture around; no one had ever seen her and most asked me when I do find her, please don’t tell her where they’re located. They knew if she ate there often the restaurant would be bankrupt in no time.

      Next I tried the discount food warehouses and there were three of them in town. No one had ever seen her shopping in their store and I was assured they would have remembered her if she had been in. Now I’m stuck and I remember I jokingly asked Sandy if she had notified missing persons. This is probably a good place to start because somebody probably missed her.
I show her picture at the police station and the sergeant at the desk asked, “Hey Kowolski, isn’t this a picture of your wife?” Kowolski walks over to look and I see the anger in his face that the sergeant would say his wife was so fat and ugly. “F—k you sarge,” he said. A policewoman was walking by while I held up the picture for Kowolski to see. “I know her,” she said, “I gave her a ticket a few weeks back for unsafe driving. She was using two hands to eat with while she was driving.”
“Can I get her name and address?” I asked showing her my Locators license. I look at the address and see it’s in the wealthiest neighborhood in the city. “What was she eating that attracted your attention?” I asked the policewoman.
“Raw meat,” I saw a woman driving with blood all over her face. When I pulled her over she claimed her doctor had her on a raw meat diet. “I told her she needed to drive safely no matter what the doctor told her.”

     Things are getting weirder and weirder I thought as I drove to the address. I was duly impressed by the opulence of the estate she lived in. The nameplate said, The Henderson’s, a name that meant nothing to me until I noticed his trademark carved in the nameplate. A distorted computer was his trademark and it adorned many computer programs. He was one of the first mega-millionaires of the Internet age. He had written many of the first programs available, and now made so much money from royalties no one knew how much he was worth.
I pushed the button and heard a musical tone reverberate through the house and a Mexican maid soon opened the door. She didn’t say anything; just stared at me until I said, “Is the missus home?”

     She smiled as she said, “Yes Missus Gloria is home,” and invited me in with a wave of her arm. I stepped into the entryway and was impressed by the multiple paintings and sculptures spread around this very large adobe.

     I almost fell over when I saw her coming toward me. It was the original Sandy, and seeing her in person was thrilling, just to watch her walk toward me was an unexpected pleasure. Until she opened her mouth and spoke; she may have changed bodies but the voice evidently stayed with the original, and it sure fit the body back at the hotel, because it was loud and heavy. Not the sound one would expect from a small delicate woman standing in front of me. I introduced myself and showed her the pictures I had taken earlier.

     She burst out crying and said, “That bastard, I don’t know how he did it, but that picture you’re showing me is how I used to look until I woke up in this skinny ass body last week. Why I can’t even eat a dozen eggs for breakfast now without getting sick,” she complained.

     Now I know she’s not responsible. It’s her husband that did it. Not that I blame him. Hell I think any man with a wife that looked like the old Mrs. Henderson would trade her in for one who looked like the new Mrs. if he could. I thank her for seeing me and leave as she’s trying to eat a banana and is having a problem swallowing so much food.

      I call Sophie and tell her Henderson is responsible for doing this to Sandy. She said she would “Throw some bones,” and see what she could find out. I went home and Googled Henderson and got about twenty pages on him and his accomplishments. There was a lot of information but none of it was helping me until I saw a photo taken of Mr. John Henderson standing out front of the strip club where Sandy worked. I printed the photo and headed for the club.

       The doorman was the first I showed the picture to. He immediately recognized him, “Biggest asshole in the world, the only reason he came here is because he was obsessed with Sandy.”

      “Did she go out with him?”

      “Naw, she couldn’t stand the guy no matter how many presents he sent her she always sent them back.” Now I’ve got a guy with motive and as far as ability to commit the crime goes, a few million bucks meant he could probably hire anyone to do his dirty work. In this case I’ve a good idea that the people he hired was The Eastside Coven.

      I go to Sophia’s apartment and bring a couple of dime bags to thank her for the spells she cast today. She opens the door and a cloud of incense smoke mixed with an aroma of marijuana floats out the door. Her eyes light up when she sees the dime bags and invites me in. There are seven candles burning around a pentagon drawn on her kitchen floor. She goes around blowing them out and I’m attracted to her curvaceous body that shows through the light silk gown she is wearing. I’m thinking a little sex is just what I need, but she’s already melting the first bag and that means she has other pleasures on her mind. I wipe my mind clean and pay attention to the problem at hand. “What did you find out about Henderson?” I asked.

      “He’s a warlock.” She said.

       “Do you mean sorcerer?”

       “Whatever, they mean the same thing. That’s how he was able to design all those software programs, he used magic for his own needs, and we Wicca’s call that Black Magic and we try to prevent anyone from doing this. That means you have our support in this instance.”


      “Did he do this alone or is The East side Coven helping him?” She wasn’t sure about that and hoped they weren’t. If they had any part in this there was bound to be a major conflict between the Wicca factions. I suggested we put a spell on Henderson and try to reverse what he had done. She needed to wait until she consulted the high priestess of all the Covens before she could cast a spell on another witch.

      He’s able to do all these amazing things; I wonder how he got stuck with his wife in the first place? That thought reminds me I’d better go to the hotel and see how Sandy’s doing.

       I’m amazed when I open the door, there’s not a food cart in sight and Sandy is lying on the floor doing sit ups. She easily stands up as I enter the room and it’s obvious she’s happy to see me. “Herman,” she said, and coming from her it didn’t sound as bad as it usually did. Normally I cringe when someone uses my name. “How’s it going Sandy?” I greet her while I’m looking her over and see an enormous difference in her appearance from seven or eight hours ago.

      “Herman, I’m starting to think whoever exchanged bodies with me did me a favor.” I could hardly believe my ears, how could she think like this unless maybe that fall earlier had knocked a screw loose. She saw the disbelief written all over my face so she attempted to explain. “Before I may have been attractive to men, but I was a weakling, Hell I couldn’t even carry my own grocery bags. Lucky for me there was always someone to carry them for me. Just look at me now.” She grabbed a barbell with fifty-pound weights on each end; she easily hoisted this over her head. That’s not the only thing, now when someone is nice to me I know it’s because they want to be nice. Not because they’re hoping to get laid. You can’t imagine what it’s like going through life being a so-called beauty queen, because people are always bending over backwards to be nice. Men and women both, but all the time I know this attention is insincere and I wouldn’t be getting any attention if it wasn’t for my good looks.”

      I’m impressed with her attitude and appearance and I know she’s speaking the truth about how far looks go in getting what you want. I tell her to be sure and wear the crystal I placed on her neck at all times and explained the spells I had help cast on her. She was so grateful to Sophia and her Coven for what they’ve done for her she decided to join the Coven so she could help others in whatever way she was able.

      Sophie arranged a meeting at her place with many high priestesses of the Wicca religion and the one from the Eastside Coven was in attendance too. I was invited to observe and Sandy now being a novice Wicca was able to attend. The big question was how did Henderson do what he did? I raised my arm and was acknowledged by the speaker. I asked, “Why don’t you just ask him? He’s a witch just like everyone else here. Isn’t there some sort of sharing of techniques agreement among witches?” I asked.
“Excellent question,” said one of the priestesses “Lets just bring him here and ask how and why he did what he did.”
      Like magic, he was located and walking to the speakers spot within half an hour. “Fellow Wicca’s,” he started,  

      “our religion has been hidden for thousands of years and I thought if I could modernize some of our rituals I would be helping the old natural religions to be popular once again. I thought of new and inventive ways to use some of our spells. By using the ancient alchemy formulas and mixing in modern technology and a little biology, then casting the proper spells enabled me to build my software empire. I wanted to do more. All Wicca’s know everything is made from energy and energy is easily transferable over power-lines. In the beginning I tried teleportation but my results weren’t satisfactory. I was watching a Fax come through my telephone line when the idea of teleportation over an Internet connection dawned on me. If an identical copy of a document could be made, why couldn’t a copy of a human be transmitted? After I experimented by casting spells and reading the secrets of the ancients. I succeeded in transferring two dogs from in front of one monitor to another monitor by reversing the polarity of their energy fields. The energy was drawn positively and negatively at the same time. The hard part was shutting the fields down at the right time. I had many three and five legged dogs until I perfected it.”
      “What gave you the right to steal Sandra’s body?” I asked.
      “That was an accident, this was the first time I tried it on a human and my wife was the perfect experimental subject. I never figured on just transferring bodies and not minds. I stopped my experiments until I can conclude how that happened.”
      He was lying; I knew it, but not what he was lying about. “OK,” I said, “How about teleporting Sandy’s body back to her.”

      “Hold on,” Sandy said, as she jumped to her feet when I mentioned changing her back to her old self. “I own this body I inhabit now and I’ve been working on it; working hard to get it in shape and I’m not giving it up.”
There was a hurried conference and the priestesses agreed with Sandy, the body belonged to her now. “I have one more thing to say,” Sandy said, “Ms. Henderson has my sympathy, the fact that she has my body is no fault of mine and I now believe the Goddesses arranged for this to happen,” There was a lot of mumbling from the gathering because the thought she was being arrogant to think the Goddesses would have done such a thing.  

     “Wait, let me finish,” she said in a loud voice. The reason I say I got help is because I prayed everyday, asking for a miracle and when I became a woman who weighed so much I didn’t appreciate what had been done for me until I started thinking clearly that it was advantageous to live in any body than not to live at all.”

     Where’s she going with all this I wonder as she drops the bomb shell. “I had ovarian cancer and the doctor had given me three months to live. Again my sympathies to Ms. Henderson who only has a few weeks left to live.
Instead of being upset Mr. Henderson said, “That’s great, I never thought of that angle, we can transfer sick bodies to healthy ones. What a goldmine I’ve invented,” he shouted.
      Appalled at his narcissism, the senior priestess stood up and started chanting the chant off death and the whole assembly stood and chanted with her. I never saw anyone die like that before he just kind of melted from the feet up. By time they stopped chanting there was only a small puddle where he had stood. One thing this demonstration did for me was to warn me to be careful of which witch to screw with!