I noticed that many of the dancers still wore costumes from the ballet. Lots of ghouls and demons in wispy rags. Jason wore his spark costume from the “Ritual Fire Dance,” a black unitard with red flames spiraling around his lithe body. He left off the wire headdress with sparkling red-and-gold wisps of chiffon. On stage, they mimicked more sparks, floating with every move that made the dance so effective.
After his ordeal with the headache worm, I wanted to keep stuffing high-protein food into my son. He did a pretty good job of demolishing an entire loaf of pumpkin bread and most of a platter of crackers, cheese, and salami. All this after an enormous dinner of spaghetti and meatballs. Heavy exercise on a full stomach didn’t bother him like some of the dancers.
The sound effects switched to the music from the ballet. Night on Bare Mountain and Danse Macabre competed with joyous laughter in the attic.
But I heard other voices. Ominous voices outside.
And real flames flickered outside the windows.
Growling, angry voices and flickering torches turned to shouts and a steadier blaze in the backyard.
My greenhouse!
I ran for the staircase, not sure what I could do, but anxious to be there.
G stopped me with a firm hand on my arm. “Mundanes. Mundane distractions only. Let Zeb and the local authorities handle it. They haven’t and won’t breach the fence. Our presence is not required as long as they stay in the alley. Zeb and Gayla will handle it.” He looked and sounded calm.
Sure enough, sirens whoop-whooped close by, soon followed by the sound of gravel crunching beneath tires in the narrow passage behind the back fence.
“But . . .”
“Let them handle it. It’s a distraction designed to get us outside and vulnerable. Concentrate on keeping the party happy.” He moved away to refill someone’s punch cup with the spiked mixture. So far, he was doing a good job keeping the underage guests from dipping their cups into the wrong bowl.
I scanned the crowd and found Ted and Tiffany in a heated discussion. He made motions to gather several of the dancers and retreat with them. Tiffany’s eyes looked bright. She still wanted to party. She had a lot to celebrate. Some of the dancers were attempting to tango in the middle of the pentagram to the exotic music. George and Ted had both confirmed that since the spell only the family could actually see the paler wooden inlay in the floor. The clock edged toward eleven. Time to close this all down.
Jason and Belle helped me carry the trays full of crumbs and the empty punch bowls back to the kitchen. The gingerbread house was reduced to the puddle of royal icing. Not even a single pastillage bat remained. Shara had crawled into the maze of boxes and discards at the far end of the room and curled up for a well-deserved nap. I decided to leave her there until we needed her to anchor one point of the pentagram. She could probably do that still asleep. For the spell G had designed, her body coursing with Deschants blood was more necessary than her mind.
With the absence of food and drink, the guests drifted downward toward coats and hats and car keys. Any younger guests without a ride ended up in my van with Raphe at the wheel. Tiffany stifled a yawn behind her still angry confrontation with her father. He laughed and gathered her into a hug, easing her toward the stairs.
I pitied schoolteachers on Monday morning who had to deal with still exhausted children with a sugar rush hangover.
One last look around the now empty attic room. What had I missed?
“Mom, why is the junk stacked into a maze?” Shara asked, crawling out from under a Chesterfield chair with mouseholes in the velvet upholstery and a listing leg.
“Because, sweetie, it leads to the back exit,” G replied, picking her up and letting her head loll on his shoulder.
I knew there had been a door there. “The outside staircase has been gone since before I moved into the house. You boarded up the door on both sides.” My maze-runner daughter should have found it. A testament to G’s ingenuity.
I captured my broom before George could put it with the other discarded decorations and began cleaning up crumbs and other detritus. Sing and George dismantled the folding tables.
“I rebuilt the stairs last week. But they and the door are hidden behind an illusion so that we don’t have uninvited guests using it,” G said, turning his back on the old furniture. “Shara, that’s an emergency exit. You only have to navigate the maze and open that door if I tell you to run. You are to take Belle and Jason with you. But opening the door will shatter the illusion, and we don’t want that to happen unless we absolutely have to.” He carried our sleepy daughter back to the tilting chair and set her down.
She curled into a ball, with her head on the armrest and closed her eyes. I half expected her thumb to creep toward her mouth as if she were still four.
I returned to my sweeping, concentrating on the center of the pentagram. I felt more than saw the pale glimmer of the outline beneath my feet. My point, on the north side, right of G’s east-pointing anchor point beckoned to me with the allure of safety.
Jason and Belle returned to the attic with the tray of the special cookies—much depleted. Belle waved her jade charms over them, enticing unsuspecting visitors to finish them off.
It doesn’t take much marijuana to dull responses. Smoke is faster. Ingestion is trickier and slower. Especially since I hadn’t added any magic to the blend. Our enemies would be able to smell that and be wary. No one expected a strictly mundane remedy stashed in the most likely hiding place in the pantry.
As always, I counted the cookies. As expected, at least a dozen of them were missing. I raised my eyebrows at Jason. He shrugged in response. He knew what they contained and what they were for. I trusted him to not have touched them, or led his friends to them.
Someone else had crept into the house and hidden. Probably in the midst of a big crowd of friends.
Shadows moved in the corners.
Forty-Three
I TOOK A DEEP breath and turned to face John Mooney and D’Accore. The five minions behind them were all nibbling absently on the special cookies.
G smiled at the newcomers and took his place at the head of the pentagram. “I presume you crept in and hid in the pantry while we were busy with other guests arriving and leaving,” he said as he pulled his wand from one of the bullet holsters on his gun belt.
“You really should be more careful, G. Now that you’ve overloaded and destroyed the pentagram, just anyone can walk in,” Mooney sneered. He still limped but had lost the cast.
The smoke that always clung to D’Accore began swirling and reaching out tendrils as if seeking someone.
Jason took up his place on G’s left, bending his knees and flexing his feet.
Belle returned her hair stick to the bun below her cocked hat. “Come here, boys,” she purred in a very adult and sultry voice. “Come and have some more cookies.”
Then she sidestepped away from the treats and into her place in the family pentagram.
That left only Shara. She still slept in the big Chesterfield. I looked anxiously toward G.
He shook his head slightly, pursing his lips into a silent whistle.
Slowly, she stretched and yawned. The only thing that gave away her true readiness was her fierce grip on the silver key dangling from her necklace.
D’Accore bent to lift my little girl into her arms.
“Do not touch my daughter,” G and I yelled at the same time.
D’Accore whirled to face us, flicking her old Zippo lighter rapidly. It sparked, but no flame leaped from the wick.
Shara used the distraction to scoot out from under the woman’s arms and into her place between Belle and me.
The minions kept eating, oblivious to the rest of us. I hoped they didn’t throw up and negate the effectiveness of the drug.
Mooney surveyed the room, checking our positions. He frowned and narrowed h
is eyes.
Zeb’s deep voice echoed up the staircase. “I enclose you and guard the entrance!” The door boomed shut and the latch clicked.
Mooney looked about in alarm.
Outside, Sing’s flute and George’s drum accented their chants as they marched around and around the house, widdershins, reversing the spell that hid the pentagram and allowed outsiders in.
“Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly,” Belle chanted. She moved her head about, making the jade charms rattle together; one more instrument in the magic we wove.
Mooney struggled against the compulsion to move into the center of the pentagram. He knew the danger that lurked there.
D’Accore flicked her Zippo again and again, bracing her feet. “All I want is my son’s eyes. I need his eyes to restore my sight. Give them to me, and I’ll let the rest of you go!”
She lied, of course.
“My son’s eyes won’t help you!” I screamed, afraid she might convince someone with her pitiful demands. She even leaked a tear that dripped mournfully down her cheek without smudging her exotic makeup. “You fried your brain when you lost your sight. Your eyes would work if your mind was intact.”
“Give me your eyes, little boy. I’ll take your headache away. You’ll be free of pain. Just Give. Me. Your. Eyes.”
“My mom already rid me of the headache. We killed your worm, lady.” Jason leaned forward and nearly spat at D’Accore.
The blonde whipped her head around and speared me with her sightless gaze. Her smoke tendrils reached toward me.
I raised my fully extended spurtle, and the smoke retreated.
D’Accore hissed.
“Come, come to me,” Belle whispered. She sounded desperate and scared.
The minions had no problem picking up the tray of cookies and bringing it with them. The lead boy held out a partially eaten one toward Mooney. “I’ll share, but you’d better come quick ’cause they’re almost gone.”
“Stupid fool. I knew you recruited idiots when you should have taken more time to find the right boys,” he snarled at his partner. He, too, had braced his feet while he rubbed a gold coin where it lay in the palm of his hand.
So that was how he’d replaced his wand/flute when G broke it during their fight.
Mooney still held his weight off balance, favoring the ankle he’d broken. I didn’t think he’d taken advantage of Judi’s healing hands, and he’d discarded the cast too soon.
I smiled at the thought that his impatience would make him limp for life.
Jason noticed it at the same moment. He nodded to me.
“Oh, just get on with it!” Raphe called. He ran forward from the maze of discards and shoved Mooney until he stumbled into the pentagram. He wasn’t so gentle with D’Accore as he planted his foot in the middle of her shapely butt.
In the heartbeat they crossed the line, the protection spells snapped shut, capturing them within a wall of energy controlled by G’s wand.
Raphe threw his arms over his face with a gasp of pain. He fled back through the maze, thrashing obstacles out of his way to the hidden exit. With a crack and a crash of magic shattering, the illusion dropped away.
My heart stuttered in fear. G bit his lip in concern.
The sound system quit. Silence filled the attic . . . except for a hint of a heartbeat accented by the distant flute and drum outside. The rhythm of the house fell into alignment with G’s familiar and beloved heartbeat.
Jason shouted a triumphant war cry, ululating a primitive call to action. Then he launched himself into flight. Two steps and he leaped at the minions. Right foot to a gut, left foot to a temple. Two down. He landed lightly in front of G, spun around bending his knees, and rose in a whirlwind of fists and feet. He landed back where he’d begun, blowing on his knuckles as if clearing smoke from a gun barrel. “They have hard heads, typical of bullies with more testosterone than brains.”
G raised his wand. Mooney rushed him, holding his arm up and away from the center.
D’Accore stumbled toward Jason, still flicking her wand. Not even sparks responded to her magic in the Deschants pentagram. “I am one of you! My magic has to work here.”
“Not anymore,” G replied. He whipped out his foot and caught Mooney behind his weakened knee. As he stumbled, G lowered and circled his wand, catching the minions in his stasis spell.
Shara jumped forward with a fistful of plastic zip ties from Ted’s tool box. She barely had to touch her key to lock the restraints around minion wrists behind their backs.
D’Accore screeched and shoved her Zippo toward Jason’s face. “Give me your eyes,” she demanded.
“Not this time!” I jumped toward her, wand extended, and slapped her across her temple with it. She collapsed into a snarling, scratching, and biting Tasmanian devil.
Oops. That might be her true form, but too dangerous for the moment. Another rap with my spurtle and she shrank further into a black cat, also snarling and spitting. Shara snapped a zip tie around her neck and yanked until the cat could barely breathe. She clawed at the plastic, loosening it slightly but exposing her paws and gaining another restraint around them. She writhed and bit at this new enemy, rolling around the floor.
Mooney stared at his partner aghast. “You can’t do that! You’re only a kitchen witch.” He lifted his gaze toward me. Something akin to admiration crossed his face. “With you at my side, we could conquer the world.”
“Not likely,” Belle said. She pulled the hair stick from her bun, releasing her mane of flowing hair, no longer frizzy but as wavy and silky as her father’s. From its depths tumbled a flash drive. She tossed it to G. “Shara and I found this in the bottom of Mom’s flour canister. He must have hidden it there the night he came for the bake sale flyer. The IRS and Interpol should find it very interesting.”
“No!” Mooney tried to pluck the device out of the air. His not-quite-healed ankle gave way as he reached out and grasped the drive. He tucked it beneath his body as he stumbled to the floor.
“I’ve had enough of you!” I said and stalked toward his shivering body. “What are you really? A snake?” Visions of a rattler crossed my inner vision. “No, too dangerous. We’ve defanged you. Now you’re just an ugly little horny toad.” One rap with my wand and he disappeared.
“Ribbit,” a frog croaked, bulging neck covering the flash drive.
G snapped a stasis spell around him and grabbed the flash drive before the frog could swallow it and hop away.
“Never underestimate the power of a mere kitchen witch,” I said. “Especially when you involve her family.”
Epilogue
G’S HEART BEAT STRONG and solid beneath my ear. Post-coital languor turned my muscles to liquid. But my brain still spun in the aftermath of using magic to foil the woman bent on stealing my son’s eyes.
My son, like his sisters, slept soundly and deeply, all of them restoring their bodies after using a lot of magic. They’d not stir until late morning.
I shivered involuntarily.
G stretched and draped his arm across my shoulders. His warmth instantly settled my twitches. With his other hand he pulled up the tangled blankets to cover us.
I was too comfortable. This was too familiar.
G sighed deeply and heaved himself onto his side. He ran his hands up and down my naked back. “This proves that we belong together.” He nuzzled my ear.
“Um . . . It’s been fun.”
“Why does that not sound like an invitation for a repeat performance?” His hands stilled. He opened his eyes. For once, he didn’t use his powers to subdue my objections.
I saw love, honest love in his gaze. “Does this mean I can move back home, be a part of this family again?”
This time I sighed, only partly from regret. I rolled over and slid off the bed, grabbing for my robe. “You will always be part of this
family. But this, all this,” I gestured to the same tangled bedding and our naked bodies, “means you need to be gone before the children wake up. I don’t want to instill false hope in them.”
“But we just had the best sex ever, and we’re ready for more.” The look of surprise on his face was priceless. So he had been trying to manipulate me.
“We just had fabulous sex because we cast a whole lot of magic saving our family. I needed to burn off surging hormones and so did you. I’m going to take a shower before I start cleaning up and returning this house to normal. Ted will be by later to clear off any residual magic.”
“Daffy? What is behind all this?” He looked thoughtful and vulnerable.
“I was very young when I first met you. You were my first true love. You rescued me from emotionally abusive parents. You protected me. You sheltered and supported me. I’ve never been on my own, learned from my mistakes, or known if you are my one true love because I’ve never known anyone else. G, I need time to grow up inside of me and not just pretend to be a grown-up because I am an instinctive organizer.”
I shrugged into my long flannel robe and sat on the bed beside him.
He drew in a deep breath and captured my hand, drawing it to his lips. “When I first met you, I’d barely healed from D’Accore’s betrayal. Her power and her insanity scared me to my bones. When I sensed your latent power, I almost walked out of that coffee shop before you finished making my drink. You frightened me. I was afraid to fully love you. And though I needed you to manifest, I think I couldn’t let you. Because then we ran the danger of you becoming another D’Accore.”
I think that might have been the first truly honest thing he’d ever said to me.
“I’m surprised you fell for her in the first place.”
“I was young, too, when I first met her. Twenty-six. She fascinated me. And with the naiveté of youth and youthful hormones, and the triumphant alpha male instincts of having stolen her from my best friend, I let her manipulate me into believing in love.” He kissed my fingertips again.
A Spoonful of Magic Page 32
