by Martha Carr
“Yeah, I know. My dog’s one of them.”
The man frowned at her in amused curiosity.
“Totally different story.”
“Okay. How do you feel about skimming through this thing with me? Honestly, I wish I had the time to read through and memorize every volume in my collection, historical or otherwise.” Carl let out a huge sigh. “But life is just too short and sweet.”
Laura smiled. “Yeah, I can help look. I’ll take the left pages, you take the right?”
“Works for me.” He turned the book ninety degrees so they could peer sideways along the counter and read their designated pages.
After an hour of poring over the manifest—and twenty minutes after Carl had pulled up stools for both of them—Laura’s growling stomach interrupted her concentration. Yeah, feed all the creatures and forget to feed myself. Great start. “Do you still think we’re gonna find anything in here? I mean, the mechanics would be the best bet, right? But they don’t…they don’t really come up to talk to anybody, right?”
“Not in a long time, as far as I know.” Carl grinned. “You picked the perfect time to ask, though. I think I found the immortals you need.”
Laura smacked her hand down on the counter. “You have never let me down, Carl.”
“Well, I do my best.” He spun the book around and pointed at the top of the right-hand page.
She read the first paragraph before looking up in surprise. “I’ve never heard of Tree Folk before.”
“Well, I imagine that’s because they prefer to live in trees. Did you read the description?”
“‘An elven race similar in feature to several of Earth’s smaller primates. Hailing from their original homeworld of…’” Laura squinted. “I can’t even begin to pronounce that.”
“I don’t think it matters at this point.”
“True.” She kept reading. “‘The Tree Folk prefer arboreal homes to anything traditionally civilized. Despite this, they are known among the other elven races for their long memories, most notably with historical events and temporal repercussions.’ What the heck does that mean?”
Carl cocked his head. “You’re more of a scholar than I am.”
“I’m an archaeologist at an almost entirely human college. You’re the one with the ancient ship manifest.”
“Fair enough. If I had to guess, I’d say somebody back then figured the Tree Folk were skilled at reading or remembering the past to predict the future. Who knows how accurate those predictions were.”
“But it’s a start. Okay.” She skimmed the rest of the page. “Attracted to simpering melodies, huh? Pretty sure I know a witch who can pull that off.”
“Your sister?”
“Who isn’t talking about the twenty-first century’s new Queen of Blues?” Laura laughed. “We just need her to play something for the Tree Folk without bringing a huge crowd. You think it’s safe to assume these guys are still around? Here in the city?”
“It’s worth a shot. I mean, all the other races on this ship made their way to every corner of the globe, for lack of a better phrase. If you think you released the Gorafrex, I imagine a few immortals would stay relatively close to a threat like that should anything happen.”
“Right.” Laura pressed her lips together. “Looks like ‘anything’ already happened. Hey, thanks for going through all this with me. I appreciate it.”
“I wish I could’ve been more helpful.”
“You’re always helpful, Carl.” Laura turned from the counter and headed toward the door.
“Laura.”
“Yeah?”
“I understand if that dagger’s giving you buyer’s remorse. I’m happy to buy it back. At ninety percent, of course.”
“Are you kidding?” She grinned over her shoulder. “That thing’s never leaving my collection, my friend.”
11
Laura hadn’t been driving five minutes when she heard peculiar drumbeats out on the street. The hair on the back of her neck prickled and stood on end. She rolled down her window. The faint drumming grew louder, coming from across the street. The traffic light ahead of her switched from green to yellow, so she slowed to a stop at the intersection and scanned the sidewalk on North Lamar for the drumming’s source.
“Don’t write off buskers. That’s a thing here.” Yet, buskers didn’t play drumbeats that gave her full-body goosebumps, and they definitely didn’t show up mid-air over the sidewalk, shimmering in an oscillating mass of pearly energy. The thing she’d unleashed from that stone in the Greenbelt did, however. The ring on her thumb tingled warmth up her arm and down to her kneecaps.
“Hey, don’t get any ideas,” she told the ring, then peered at the shimmering energy over the sidewalk. “Oh, no.”
Shifting in the driver’s seat, she jammed her hand into her pocket and pulled out her wand. “Dang it. Too many people here…” Pedestrians went about their Sunday in downtown Austin. None of them buskers, and nobody playing drums. The shimmering energy moved behind a tall, skinny man in frayed jeans and a fringed leather vest, long dark hair pulled in a loose ponytail. For how tall he was, the man moved along the sidewalk slower than everyone else, taking his time, unaware of the Gorafrex creeping behind him.
“Guess nobody else hears the drums or sees that thing. Crap.” The ancient, familiar drumming beat louder from across the street, yet drew zero attention from pedestrians or drivers. It moved faster toward the man with the ponytail.
“Hey, watch out!” Laura shouted out her open window.
The man didn’t hear her. Though she drew stares from a few passersby.. The man lurched forward on the sidewalk with the force of the Gorafrex shoving its energetic self into his body. Laura watched wisps of that shimmering air disappear into the man’s back, and the drumbeat cut off.
“No, no, no. Not humans.” Laura lowered her wand by her thigh and watched the tall man straighten. Scowling, he turned his head. His gaze met Laura’s, and his eyes flashed a blink of silver light—almost blinding even from across the street. One ear-splitting crack of drums filled the air. No one noticed that, either.
“Nope. You’re not gettin’ this witch.” The second the traffic light turned green, she floored the pedal and put as much distance as possible between her and the Gorafrex-possessed human.
“It would’ve been really nice to know that thing also leaps into human bodies. If that guy’s peabrain was ready for action, he could’ve heard those drums.” She slammed her hand down on the steering wheel. “Okay. This just means we need to be quick about it.” Her legacy ring pulsed around her thumb, almost like a warning. “Yeah, fine. Really quick.”
It wasn’t safe, but she grabbed her phone from her purse and called Nickie. Her Bluetooth connected to her stereo speaker as she checked her rearview, watching for the human Gorafrex or anything else weird.
Nickie didn’t pick up even after a second phone call.
Laura gritted her teeth. “Come on.”
She threw on her right blinker and took a sharp turn into a gas station lot, waving absently at the dude behind her pounding on his car horn as he whizzed past her down the street. “You were following way too close anyway, jerk.” Her Taurus screeched to a halt in a parking spot. Laura turned off the engine, threw the keys and her phone into her purse, jammed her wand into her back pocket, and jogged into the store right past the clerk’s counter.
“Hey, there. How are you?”
“Fine, thanks. Just need the restroom.” Laura hightailed it toward the back hallway.
“Restrooms are for paying customers only,” the clerk called behind her.
“I’ll grab something on the way out.” She stormed into the bathroom and locked the door. What she wanted was the mirror that should’ve been mounted over the sink like any reasonable public restroom. “Seriously?”
Her gaze fell to the toilet without a lid and the shimmering reflection of the bathroom light on the water’s surface. “Oh, screw it.” Laura pulled out her wand and pointed
it at the toilet water. “Invenio Emily.”
The tip of her wand flashed rosy pink followed by a soft glow and a ripple along the toilet water’s surface. She took a step closer, peering down into the porcelain bowl.
At the potager station in the pristine, industrial kitchen of Meadowlark Tavern, Emily poured a finished watermelon gazpacho out of a huge blender and into the storage on the stainless-steel prep counter.
Anthony’s gonna love this. I love this. Thank god they moved me to soups today.
She set the blender in the massive sink against the wall, grabbed a plastic container lid, and admired the perfect sheen of her first soup. As a last-minute test, she grabbed a soup spoon and dipped a little into the tub for a taste. “Oh, yes.” She closed her eyes and smiled, then tossed the spoon into the sink. The loud clink didn’t even make a dent in the noise of Chef Ansler’s bustling kitchen.
She returned to the soup container and yelped. Emily clamped her mouth shut at the sight of her sister staring up at her from the rosy glimmer of soup.
“Laura,” she hissed. “I’m at work.”
“I know…” Her sister’s face rippled. “I knew you wouldn’t answer if I called your phone.”
Emily glanced around the busy kitchen. “If anyone sees me talking to this gazpacho, they’re gonna think I’m so in love with it that I wanna be at this station forever.” She frowned at the image in the tub and the view of Laura leaning over something. “Wait, are you…? Did you invoke Sister Soup in a toilet bowl?”
“They don’t have a stupid mirror in here. Listen—”
“I really don’t have time for this. I’m on prep this morning, and I have three more soups to make.”
“When do you get off?”
“I don’t know. Twelve, maybe.”
“Perfect. I’m calling an emergency family meeting, okay?” Laura frowned. “Without Mom and Dad…at least for now. When you’re off work, call me. This is serious.”
“Sure. Bye.”
“Wait, wait. You wearing your ring?”
Emily took a deep breath to calm herself. “Yeah. It’s fine.”
“Okay. This is important, though. I mean it. If it starts to tingle, like last night, you need to get out of there. Got it?”
“Laura, I’m not gonna bail from my shift just because of a tingle.” Emily’s voice almost rose over a whisper, her face so close to the gazpacho she could’ve stuck her tongue in it. “I’d love to ask you why you’re being so weird, but I—”
“Emily, just promise me you’ll leave if that happens.”
“Fine. Yeah. I promise. I gotta go. Get out of the toilet already.” She couldn’t help but grin after saying it.
Laura sighed, and a bright light flashed across Emily’s soup, which rippled with the end of the spell.
Emily peeped at the other chefs and assistants in the kitchen.
The chef looked at her with one eyebrow up. “Uh, how’s it coming with that gazpacho?”
“Chilling it now, Chef.”
“Okay. Double batch of cucumber bisque next? No talking to it.”
“Yes, Chef.”
Emily slammed the lid down on the storage container and took it to the walk-in beside her station. The cold air brought the heat down in her face.
“Laura’s gotta be the most literal witch in the universe,” she muttered, grabbing the tape and a Sharpie from the small hooks on the fridge wall. She scribbled the date onto the tape and slapped it on the container. “Calling Sister Soup in my actual soup.”
With a snort, she left the gazpacho on the shelf and headed back to her station. “This family emergency better be something important.”
Laura chanced invoking Sister Soup with Nickie, too, but it didn’t go through; wherever she was, apparently she had no reflective surfaces around her. “What the heck is she doing?”
With the feeling that the clerk was listening from outside the bathroom door, Laura flushed the toilet, washed her hands, and dried them before stepping back out. She grabbed a protein bar and a bottled water, which would do as a late breakfast. The clerk gave her a tight smile and rang her up. Like he didn’t think I’d actually buy something.
When she got to her car, she called Nickie one more time. Still no answer. So, she sent a text: ‘Family meeting. You, me, Em. 12:30. Anything weird with your ring, call me.’
“Guess that’s good enough for now.” She unwrapped the protein bar and munched on it, while trying to think of something productive she could do for the next two hours. “I mean, there’s always the library. Carl didn’t suggest it, but it’s not like he’s an encyclopedia on witch-killing energy creatures. Worth a shot.” Shrugging, she washed down the protein bar and started her car.
An hour later, Laura departed the library. It turned out the collection of magical volumes behind the otherwise normal wall in the library, which she and every other magical being could access—if they knew about it—didn’t have a single anything about Gorafrexes. The elf behind the tiny help desk didn’t even know as much as Carl, and Laura decided not to give the gorgeous immortal a run-down of what a Gorafrex was and why it was crucial she figure out how to catch one. The magical library was full of witches, anyway. “No need to start up mass witch-and-wizard hysteria with this.”
Stopping outside her car, Laura closed her eyes. “You can do this. Find that thing and put it back where it belongs. At least I’ll be able to recognize it by the tall-man body it’s wearing now. Poor guy…I bet he’s got no idea what’s happening. Jeez, I don’t either.” She stuck her keys in her purse and decided to take a walk. It was muggy, but when she stepped amidst some dogwood trees beside an open space, the shade and gentle breeze relaxed her.
“I don’t need my sisters to look for Tree Folk.”
She felt like a little girl again, walking through the trees and peering up into their wide, stretching branches for any sign of an elven race that apparently looked like monkeys. “Hello? Anyone, uh, up there?”
A large group of grackles screeched from some trees ahead.
“Think any of you could tell me where they are?”
The birds ruffled their feathers, stretched their wings, and squawked.
“Or maybe tell the Tree Folk Laura Hadstrom’s looking for them? I guess I’m asking for a little help here.”
The messengers of the magical world either didn’t hear her over their own screeching or just didn’t care. She turned around and headed back through the trees toward her car. They should care, though. Now that I let a possessive witch-hunter out of its cage. Nickie’s music-magic would be really useful right now.
She headed to her car and drove to Meadowlark Tavern. She figured she’d sit in the parking lot until Emily’s shift ended, which wasn’t much longer. “She can’t avoid me this way. And if that Gorafrex comes anywhere near the restaurant, I’ll know.”
What she didn’t know was what she’d do if it found her.
12
With a bare foot on the arm of the living room couch, Nickie played the hell out of her Fender Deluxe Strat. The first few chords rippled down her back. Usually, it was just sweat. Right now, it was all magic.
“You’re gonna go higher than I ever did, Nickie,” her dad told her more times than she could count. “Keep tapping your magic.”
This new song she was putting together had bluesy funk draped all over it. Her amp against the back wall vibrated the floor, and she either sang whatever words popped into her head or hummed, grunted, and growled in place of words she’d yet to write.
“Yep. That’s it.” She grabbed her wand from beside her foot on the couch’s armrest, pointed it at her lyric notebook on the coffee table, and wrote down what she had. Another downloading spell jotted down the chord progressions at the top of the page, and that was all she needed.
“Killin’ it.” She put her wand down on the armrest and dove back in where her magic was strongest. Everything else floated away into nothing.
Just after she’d finished playin
g through a fiery solo—no backing track necessary—the smell hit her. Her hand dropped from the strips, and she sniffed again. “Aw, Speed! Come on, buddy.”
For a few seconds, the only sound was the soft buzz of the amp, then came the telltale jingle of Speed’s approach. The short, chubby bulldog trotted into the living room from the foyer, his tongue lolling as he panted and gazed at her. “Dude, I’d say you need to get that looked at if you weren’t immo—”
A soft chuckle made her stop, and Nickie looked up from the family pet toward the front door. Chuck leaned against the dark wooden trim of the entryway into the living room, his arms folded, grinning at her. “If he wasn’t what?”
“Hi.” Without looking, Nickie grabbed her wand and slipped it down into the corner of the couch between the puffy cushions and the armrest. “I didn’t hear you come in.” She took her foot off the armrest and turned around to sit there, just to make it casual.
“It’s kinda hard to hear anything when you’re shredding like that.”
Nickie smirked. “Laura goes nuts when I have the volume up this loud. So, full-decibel practices happen when she’s not home. How was your meeting this morning?”
“The meeting went very well. I know I said I’d call you after, but I figured you might be home. Lucky me, I was right.”
She glanced down at Speed, who’d taken a seat right in front of her and stared up at her face. “How long has Chuck been standing there creepin’ on me, dog?”
“About five minutes.” Chuck pushed himself off the entryway and stepped into the living room. “Right before you started—man, Speed. That smells like a medical emergency.”
