by Bailey Cates
“Stop yowling,” he said, and suddenly the knife was within inches of my throat.
Heart thudding against my ribs, I swallowed and limped into the other room As I did so, I slid my hand into the pocket where my phone was.
When we were beside the Hepplewhite desk, he gave my arm another jerk. “Oh, no, you don’t, you clever witchy girl,” Speckman said, and held out his hand. “Give me that.”
Frowning, I handed him the phone. Quickly, he thumbed the screen. “What’s your passcode?”
I didn’t say anything.
The knife, which had fallen to his side, came up again, almost casually. “Passcode!”
Sighing, I told him.
He tapped on the screen a few times, nodded, then grinned. “Just as I thought. You didn’t call 911 at all, you little liar. That gives us more time together. Lovely.” He moved aside, and I saw Malcolm Cardwell lying on the floor beside one of the long display tables. He was unconscious, but I didn’t see any blood.
“Why’s he here?” I asked.
“He’s out of a job and needed a little cash, so he agreed to sell me a few of Kenny’s pieces that he conveniently left off the insurance list. Unfortunately for him, I never intended to pay him, so . . .” He waved his hand toward the unconscious man. “He won’t say anything after he comes to, though. Can’t tell the police what he was up to, can he?”
“My fiancé and father are outside,” I said. “They called the police.”
He laughed. “Boyfriend and daddy? Goodness. That’s laying it on a bit thick, don’t you think?”
I licked my lips and considered. “Okay,” I said. “It’s you and me. And you obviously have the upper hand. Will you tell me why you took my magic?”
He shrugged. “Because you had it, honey. Because I needed to see if the spell would work before I tried it on a Dragoh. After you and your friend came to see me, and she tried to use her Voice on me, I knew you had real power. I was watching your bakery, waiting for you to leave, when I saw her walk in. Soon enough some other ladies came along, too. It was after hours, so I guessed it was a coven meeting. And where there’s a coven, there’s probably some magic going on, which was supposed to feed my anti-magic spell.” He whistled. “Boy howdy. I had no idea.”
My lip curled. “What kind of a powerful sorcerer needs an anti-magic spell? It’s like crippling an athletic opponent. Bad sportsmanship.”
He gave a little laugh. “There’s no sportsmanship in magic. And I’m not very powerful. Oh, you look surprised. Well, I know it, and I don’t like it, but with the ability to take away my competitors’ magic, I can level the playing field. Finally, the Order is fully funded, and I can really go to war with the Dragohs.”
“Why?” I asked. “What’s your problem with them, anyway?”
Something flared in his eyes. “They wouldn’t let me join. Not enough power, I suppose.”
I almost laughed. “They wouldn’t let Dante in, either. What is the deal with everyone wanting to be a Dragoh druid? They aren’t all that and a bag of chips. Besides, one does not join the Dragohs,” I said, mimicking Steve’s serious tone. “One is born into the Dragohs.”
Caesar wasn’t laughing, though. In fact, for the first time since he’d caught me in the garden, he looked truly angry.
I’d been scanning the room for options. Now I spun away from him and managed to put one of the tables between us.
“You’re stark raving mad,” I said.
“No. I just know what I want, and for once in my life, I’m going to get it.”
Gritting my teeth, I flipped open the glass top of the case. It turned out to be the display of ceremonial athames.
Great.
But I steeled myself and grabbed one of them. It was the one Caesar had described to me in his shop—beaten pewter with Celtic designs on the handle. He slammed the lid back down from his side. The glass cracked with a sharp report.
But I had a weapon of my own now. It wasn’t the least bit sharp, but it was heavy.
“Katie!”
Caesar whirled.
Declan stood in the doorway of the inner office. Dad was right behind him.
A string of expletives erupted from Caesar.
“Told you my fiancé and dad were outside,” I said.
My smugness was short-lived, though. Fast as a snake, he came around the table toward me, knife thrust toward me. I twisted and brought the butt of my athame’s handle down on his wrist. He shrieked and dropped the knife, then grabbed me with his other hand.
Declan ran toward us. Halfway across the room, he suddenly stopped and grabbed his head with both hands. Then he bent forward with an oomph. The sound came out on a whoosh of air, as if he’d been hit in the stomach.
Caesar bent to retrieve his knife from the floor, so I stomped on his instep.
He growled and tried again, so I stomped on his other foot. His breath sucked in, and he gave me a hard shake.
Declan straightened and looked right at me.
And I was pretty sure it wasn’t Declan behind those baby blues. My suspicion was confirmed a split second later.
“Ah, naw yer don’t, y’ black rat. Let the lass go!”
Caesar ignored Connell, and we continued to struggle.
“We need th’ man’s blood, lass! Stab him with the wee knife!”
“What are you talking about!” I shouted.
“To trigger yer magic. Blood for blood,” Connell called.
The thought would normally have made me feel faint, but my adrenaline was working overtime—and he seemed to be talking about getting my magic back.
Finally, I managed to turn toward Caesar enough that I could jab at him with the athame. He arched away, but not before the pewter blade made contact with his arm.
“Ouch!” he roared, and followed it with a string of expletives, most of which were directed at me and my gender.
It was only a scratch, but the wound welled. A drop of blood fell through the air, and I watched it as if it were in slow motion. I reached out and caught it on the back of my hand at the same time Caesar howled.
“Let go! No! You can’t take it! No!”
Suddenly there was a bright flash of light. Time seemed to slow to a crawl, and my senses were filled with the roar and light of raw power. I felt it flooding over me, flooding into me.
My magic! It was back!
Without thinking, almost without effort, I reached out to the power that coursed through so many of the objects in the room, drawing it together into myself. My wrist, held in Caesar’s painful grip, took on an eerie iridescence. His mouth dropped open as my skin glowed brighter, and he let go as if I’d burned him.
I unleashed the power I’d gathered, and his knife flew across the floor, out of his reach, and embedded deeply into the wall.
Caesar staggered backward, then stood panting. “You . . . what did you do? Who was that, that creature that returned your magic . . .” He trailed off, then muttered a word under his breath. It sounded an awful lot like begorrah.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about, and don’t care,” I said, advancing toward him. “I’ve got my magic back, and you’re going to prison for a long, long time.”
“Well, you seem to have recovered from whatever happened to you,” Detective Quinn said from the doorway. He sounded wry, but he looked shaken by what he’d just witnessed.
My smile was so wide it almost hurt. “I guess you could say that!” I crowed. Then I sobered. “Are there paramedics outside? Malcolm Cardwell is hurt. Declan . . . ?” I looked around.
And finally saw Dad leaning over my fiancé, who was prone in the middle of the floor.
“Declan?”
I rushed past Quinn and fell to my knees next to my dad. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. There was that crazy flash, and then he just slumped to th
e ground.”
“He fainted?”
“That’s what it looked like.”
Other people were coming in now, from the front of the house. A paramedic beelined to Cardwell, and another came over to Declan just as he opened his eyes. He waved him away and sat up.
“Are you okay, honey?” I asked. “What happened?”
He took a deep breath and looked around with a bewildered expression. “He’s gone.”
“Who’s gone?”
“Connell.”
“Well, I’m glad he showed up for a while there, though. I’m pretty sure he helped me get my magic back.”
“He wrestled it away from Speckman. Once Speckman lost his hold on your fire, it found its way back to you through the catalyst of his blood.”
“Connell did that for me.” I felt my throat tighten, and gratitude flooded into every cell of my body. “Please thank him for me,” I said.
Declan shook his head. “I can’t. There was a backlash, and it pushed him far away. Connell’s gone. Really gone. I don’t know where.” Tears filled his eyes. “I can’t feel him at all.”
Chapter 23
Declan refused to go to the hospital, even though he’d briefly lost consciousness.
“It’s not physical,” he said. “Katie knows.”
I did know or thought I did. Losing Connell must have felt like it did when I’d lost my magic. Different but the same.
Quinn had questioned Declan, Dad, and me in turn, then told us we could go. We all went back to Ben and Lucy’s. Now we were gathered around the table on their rooftop with a box of wine and five jelly jars.
“Now, tell me again what happened,” Lucy said.
We did, for the second time, filling in our own perspectives as we went. When we were done, she turned to Dad. “So, you knew about Connell already.”
He nodded. “But I hadn’t known for long. I met the gentleman, as it were, during Katie’s shamanic journey. However, I didn’t know who he was until Declan told me on the way to help her this afternoon. Apparently, this Connell character was urging him to hurry. I’ve never seen anyone drive so quickly.” He grinned at my fiancé and shrugged. “Or so well at the same time.”
“Thanks,” Declan said.
He was being awfully quiet. It worried me, but I understood.
“And thank goodness for the little guy,” Dad said. “Connell, I mean. He saved the day and recovered Katie’s magic for her. Then she was able to defeat that Speckman character without any trouble.”
“The athame helped with that,” I said wryly. “I never thought I’d willingly wield a knife against another person.”
Lucy wasn’t done. She poured a jelly jar of wine and handed it to Declan. “How are you, dear?”
In some ways Lucy was a kind of surrogate mother, though Ben more surely filled the role of surrogate father. But they’d known Declan a lot longer than I had.
“Connell sacrificed himself,” he said, and suddenly grasped my hand. “He told me he was going to do something I wouldn’t like, then the next thing I know, I have the sense that he’s in some epic battle on another . . . plane?”
Dad nodded. “He met the rat—Speckman—who had Katie’s magic in the lower world. He might have returned there to get it back for her. There would need to be a portal, though.”
“That one drop of Caesar’s blood?”
Dad nodded. “Apparently.”
Declan frowned. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand any of that.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “I’m not sure I do, either.” I glanced at Dad. “Not entirely.”
He smiled.
Declan let go of my hand and sat back. Looked around the table at all of us. “I don’t know if he’s coming back.”
Tentatively, I said, “I think I know how you feel. At least partly. Connell was your magic, and now he’s gone.”
He slowly nodded. “I guess it is kind of like that.”
“And it’s my fault.”
There were murmurs of disagreement around the table, but I still knew the truth. I had my magic back, but at the cost of Declan’s.
And Declan’s was a sentient being.
* * *
* * *
A week later, Iris, Lucy, and I stood around the stainless-steel countertop in the Honeybee kitchen. It was covered with cupcakes. There were carrot and German chocolate, red velvet, strawberry, and devil’s food. Lemon-soaked orange cupcakes were frosted with chocolate ganache, whirls of caramel buttercream topped the bourbon-pecan version, and whipped-cream clouds nestled on top of the pineapple-and-banana goodness of the hummingbird cupcakes.
“Is that enough?” Lucy asked. “No holds barred, Katie.”
Nodding, I said, “I think so. For now, at least. I can always add more.”
Iris did a little two-step, her grin almost too big for her face. “This is such an awesome idea, Katie! A wedding cake made of cupcakes!”
“Well, four tiers of cupcakes. I can still decorate with gerbera daisies, and this way we don’t have to cut the cake. Everyone just takes whatever kind they want. We’ll make it easy to know what they’re getting. A slice of strawberry on top of the strawberry ones, a twist of candied orange peel on the orange cupcakes—like that.”
“Genius,” Lucy said.
“Not mine. Mama’s.”
Her eyes widened. “Really?”
“Credit given where credit is due. She came up with this idea.”
“Well, that sister of mine is full of surprises.”
“And ideas. Lots of ideas. Not all of which I love or even like. But this one? This one I snapped up without a second thought.”
Iris giggled.
I shook my head and set her to filling the display case with our morning’s experiments—the Honeybee customers might as well benefit from the baking samples for my wedding “cake”—and went to check in with Dad and Randy.
They were sitting at a table in the corner of the bakery, plates scattered with crumbs and coffee mugs drained to the dregs. I refilled both mugs, then settled into the third chair at their table and peered at the statue that sat in front of Randy.
“Golly, I see why that Ginegosh statue fascinated you so much. That looks awfully similar.” It was about the same size, a little over a foot high, and carved from a dark hardwood. The head of the fox was very similar to the fox in the Ginegosh statue, but instead of a snake, Randy’s figurine had the tail of a beaver.
Dad nodded. “I think it might be from the same artist, or at least in her carving tradition. Maybe an apprentice or someone in her family. I couldn’t tell much from the picture of the statue in a plastic bag, of course, so I hope to be able to see the actual Ginegosh after the trial.”
Because, of course, the statue would be evidence in the trial against Caesar Speckman. After his arrest, he’d given a full confession but still claimed he wasn’t guilty. That he was under the influence of magic. Which had set him up for a nice insanity defense, but one that Jaida felt wouldn’t hold up in the end. It would help that Malcolm Cardwell had made a deal with the district attorney to testify against Speckman.
Dante Bundy had decided to sell the family collection and donate the money to the other charities Bosworth supported. However, he was of course going to keep the money his uncle had left him, and I had a feeling he was going to keep at least a few of the paranormal pieces from the collection. The most powerful ones. Why did I think that? Because he’d agreed to meet with Steve again. This time Steve reported that Dante had been a lot more friendly, but when Steve had come right out and asked about the status of the Hermetic Order of the Silver Moon, he’d suddenly become dodgy.
So. There was that.
Bringing my thoughts back to the discussion at hand, I said, “I’m not sure the Ginegosh statue will be available even after the trial. Don’t they ke
ep that stuff around afterward? You know, just in case?”
Dad and Randy shrugged at the same time.
“Maybe,” my dad said. “Anyway, at least I was able to tell Randy a little about his family totem. As you already know, fox represents cleverness and strength, and beaver is all about creativity, cooperation, and motivation. It’s a heck of a combination.”
I looked at Randy, who hadn’t said a word. He’d seemed quiet, almost sheepish, ever since the incident at Mr. Bosworth’s house.
“That’s great, Randy. You must be proud to have that as part of your family tradition.”
He nodded. “Oh, I am. Yes.”
“What’s wrong with you?” I asked. “You should be happy as a clam now that the police don’t consider you a murder suspect.” Then a horrible thought occurred to me. “Oh, gosh. Tell me this whole thing hasn’t messed up your relationship with Bianca. She hasn’t said anything, but—”
He held up his hand. “No, no. It’s nothing like that.”
I waited. Dad looked on with interest.
“It’s just that I feel bad, you know? Bianca told me you lost your ability to cast spells or something? I don’t really get your Wiccan stuff—sorry, I know I should, but it’s just not my . . .” He trailed off. Then, “All I know is that something bad happened to you because you were trying to clear my name, and—”
“Okay, stop,” I interrupted. “Stop feeling bad. Whatever happened was my choice. And it’s all good now. You’re out of jail, I’m in a good place, you found out about your totem, Olivia Gleason has a new job with Mrs. Standish and Skipper Dean—all positive things.”
He hesitated.
I gave him a fake glare.
Finally, he smiled. “Yeah. Okay. And, Katie?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
“You are most certainly welcome.”
* * *
* * *
It was almost eleven. Declan had gone to bed, but my old sleeping habits had returned, so I was still up. I sat on the firehouse-rescued sofa wearing my usual nightwear of soft yoga shorts and a spaghetti tank. The door to the balcony was open, and a warm breeze carried in the heady scent of the jasmine tobacco that grew in the courtyard below. It mixed with the aromas of peppermint and chamomile that drifted from the cup of herbal tea on the table by my elbow. The light was low, cast by the single reading lamp next to the teacup. Someone tinkled the keys of a piano in another apartment, barely audible beneath the sound of my own breath.
