“That’s a reasonable fear.”
“So?”
“You know there are rules that govern this sort of thing.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I can’t teach you spells unless you’re bound to me as an apprentice. We have a coda of laws. I helped draft them.”
“Why?”
“Because witches and wizards are not to give information out indiscriminately. Magic is dangerous in the hands of the uninitiated, as you’ve just seen. Young practitioners need mentors. Normally, your aunt or your mother would act as mentor.”
“Well, they’re not around.”
“I know.”
“Look, I can’t bind myself to you. I’m not even supposed to associate with you. I’m only here because this is an emergency. How about if you don’t tell me how to do it? What if you just cast the counterspell?”
“A normal spell wouldn’t work. Your magic did the damage. I can’t counteract it unless I’ve already got some connection to you or to the people that have been spelled or if there is some talisman that I could destroy. You know, something physical that the magic is tied to. Or unless I want to use an extremely powerful spell that would put me personally at risk, which I’m not interested in doing.”
I stamped my foot, stubbing my toe on the granite. “So what you’re saying is you won’t teach me how to fix it and you won’t fix it yourself?”
“I can teach you if you—”
“No. I can’t be your student.”
“Then you’re just going to have to wait and hope that the magic fades and that the spell dissipates before the people die of dehydration.”
“Arrg!” I choked out a strangled cry. “Who else could teach me? Or is there someone I could talk to about breaking the rule? It’s an emergency. People are dying.”
He was quiet.
“What? You know something. Tell me.”
He looked me over. “I’m not in favor of turning you over to another witch or wizard for an apprenticeship. They might exploit you.”
“And you wouldn’t?”
He smiled and shrugged. “The devil you know or the devil you don’t.”
“I can’t bind myself to you. It’ll have to be someone else. There must be someone you know who’s good. Someone you trust.”
“You realize that we’re limited in our choices. We need someone local. If those people are as ill as you say, they won’t last while we make the rounds to interview potential mentors.” He glanced at his watch. “I’ll tell you what, it happens that I have a meeting tonight with a group of practitioners. They’re not a ruling body, so they can’t vote to change the rules, but we can put it to them. If they support our breaking the law, then I’ll do it. It’ll improve my defense when I’m charged.”
“Charged?” I echoed, drawing my eyebrows together. Just what was I getting him into?
“I don’t have time to explain. If you’re coming with me, you need to hurry and change. You can’t go to a meeting of the Southwest Witches and Wizards Association dressed in my bathrobe.”
“SWWA?” Southwest Writers and Actors, my eye.
He nodded. “Do you have a gown like the peacock one you wore to the Halloween party? The New Orleans faction hails from the French Quarter. A sexy dress will go a long way toward winning them over.”
“You want me to flaunt my body to win votes?” I scoffed. “I’m not that sort of girl.”
“Would you rather sell your body or your soul?”
“Does it have to be one or the other?”
“Hey, you decided to play. No one forced you to cast that spell.”
I thought about the poison. I could tell them how the zombie had gotten raised in the first place and throw myself on the mercy of the court, but then what would happen to Doc Barnaby? He was an old man, a really foolish, irresponsible, tea-poisoning old man, but I couldn’t just tell on him. If Bryn Lyons was afraid of whoever was in charge of the witchcraft police, I sure didn’t want them coming to Duvall after a little old man.
“I don’t have any hooker dresses, but I know where I can get one.”
He smiled. “You don’t have to put it that way.”
“Hey, let’s call it like it is. You want me to come back here or will you pick me up?”
“I’ll pick you up.”
I walked away. “I’ll give you back your bathrobe when I see you,” I called over my shoulder.
“No rush. I like the way it looks on you.”
I sure hoped that Zach and the sheriff, afraid of exposing the rest of the town, would stay under quarantine with the sick folks until I got back with an antidote spell. And I sure hoped the witches and wizards at the meeting agreed to let Bryn help me. Well, I would have to convince them. That was all there was to it.
Merc met me at the door. He licked his lips and seemed to have some milk on his whiskers. I looked toward the hall he’d come from. Jenson was standing there.
“The feline has been fed.”
“Well, lucky him,” I mumbled. “Thanks for the socks and stuff, Mr. Jenson. When I get back to my regular life I’m going to bring you a real nice pie. You like pecan?”
“You have an excellent reputation as a pastry chef. I have heard that your black raspberry torte is exceptional.”
I beamed. Jenson, the sneaky pete, had just ensured that he would get tortes for life. “I’ll make you one. The market’s got good raspberries.” I waved, and Merc and I went back outside. The rain had let up and was just a slow drizzle. I walked to the car, snagging Bryn’s socks on the paved, stone drive. “Well, I sure like that Jenson, but the rest of the night wasn’t so hot, was it? I’m glad you had some dinner ’cause you’re gonna need your strength. We just skipped out of the freezer and into the fricassee, my friend.”
Chapter 8
Twenty minutes later, Bryn Lyons’s black limousine pulled into my driveway. He usually drives a black Mercedes, but I guess the Merlin set likes to impress each other. It was almost like being in Dallas.
I put a trench coat on over Aunt Mel’s 2002 “Lady of the Evening” Halloween costume that I’d borrowed. I tied the strap of my coat tight. Given that stepping outside was like getting into a sauna, only a nut or someone with something to hide would choose to wear an ankle-length coat. I was hoping that my neighbors would think I’d gone insane, but I worried they wouldn’t. They were most likely going to report back to Zach that I’d gone on and become a flasher, but there was no way I could climb into a car with tinted windows wearing a borrowed streetwalker outfit. Thinking about the potential gossip made me wish I lived in a big city where women were free to wear clothes that they wouldn’t want to be caught dead in.
Merc got to the car door, but stopped and hissed when it opened.
“Come on,” I said.
He didn’t budge.
“Get in the car, Mercutio,” I said, but I took a step back, wondering why Merc hesitated.
Bryn climbed out, looking like sin in a suit.
“You’re not coming with her?” Bryn asked the cat.
Mercutio looked at the door, hissed again, then circled my legs, bumping me back from the car.
“What’s in there?” I asked.
“Not what. Who. My father’s in the car, but I suppose Mercutio smells Angus. I let the dog in the house before we left, and my father petted him.”
I narrowed my eyes suspiciously. Bryn put his arms out as if to show he wasn’t hiding anything.
“See for yourself,” he said.
Mercutio sauntered away.
I moved forward and peeked inside the car. Lennox Lyons, normally a handsome man like his son, looked like he’d gotten on the wrong side of a celebrity diet. He was pale and thin, his cheekbones slanted like twin shards of glass under his skin.
I straightened up and looked at Bryn. “He doesn’t look well,” I whispered.
“He was ill. He’s recovering.”
“That’s recovering?” I asked with a half gasp.
/> Lennox spoke from inside the car. “Join us or don’t, but make up your mind. I’m not interested in basting in my own juice from this freakish heat.” His voice was startlingly strong.
I slid in, accidentally flashing a bunch of leg as I did. Bryn’s eyes didn’t miss the show.
“What color is your dress?” he asked when he sat down across from me.
“What dress?”
Lennox laughed, a rich, dark-chocolate-sauce kind of sound.
“You did say we’d get more votes if I showed off my body,” I added to Bryn.
“Gets her wit from her mother,” Lennox said. “Under the same instructions, her aunt Melanie would have worn a sweat suit. But Marlee would have worn a dress and then not let you see it.”
I stared at Lennox, his onyx eyes glittering in the low light. As far as I had been told, Momma and Aunt Mel had never associated with him. And, as a result, I knew more about compound interest than I did about him, which, given the state of my bank balance, you can bet wasn’t much.
The water poured down so hard the windshield wipers had to work overtime. The driver crept along, and Lennox rubbed his sunken eyes.
“The meeting should be postponed. Certainly, the weather witches will be out with their lightning rods. We won’t have enough members to conduct business,” Lennox said.
I chewed my lip nervously. I needed this meeting to happen.
“I said I would be there,” Bryn said, shrugging.
I went on chewing my lip as thunder shook the car every few minutes.
The rain slowed by the time we got where we were going, a small redbrick building in the middle of a field in the middle of nowhere. We parked on a square of gravel with a collection of other cars. I huddled under Bryn’s black umbrella and followed him to the building.
We went inside and brushed the water from our clothes. The earth tones of the anteroom were warm and inviting. I slipped the coat off my shoulders, and Bryn and Lennox looked me over. The black gauze dress hugged like second skin and its halter top was nearly as skimpy as a bikini.
Lennox cleared his throat and glanced at Bryn.
I blushed. “Too much? I can put my coat back on.”
“No,” Bryn said, taking the coat from me. “I’d sooner put a drop cloth over a Degas.”
“But after the meeting, the red-light district would like their wardrobe back,” Lennox added.
“What’s the red-light district?” I asked.
Lennox laughed and nodded for me to precede him through the door as he held it open for me.
I looked at Bryn, who shrugged. “Never heard of it,” he said, which made Lennox laugh harder.
“Have you ever been out of Texas?” Lennox asked, as I passed him.
“Sure.” To New Orleans, Nashville, and Puerto Vallarta. But I didn’t need to leave Texas to find out most stuff. That’s what someone invented the Internet for. I’d know all about this Red Light county by morning.
There were five big, round tables clustered together with real pretty flower arrangements of cream roses on them. The chairs at the tables were only on the outside, so everybody would be facing everybody else when we sat down.
I picked out the Cajuns easily by their guttural French. A craggy-faced guy who looked like he’d escaped from the Rolling Stones Voodoo tour had his shirt unbuttoned to reveal a menacing green snake tattoo. A woman with wild curly black hair and sallow skin leaned close to him. Her lipstick was bark-colored and she wore a bracelet of chicken bones and eerie red-violet contact lenses. They sized me up like I was a crawfish they wanted to drop in a pot of boiling water.
I shivered and stayed clear of their table. There was a trio of old women at one table. They wore long cotton skirts and turquoise jewelry. A parakeet with them hopped from one slightly slumped shoulder to the next.
Lennox led us to a third table where there was a woman so tall and slim her chest might have been mistaken for her back. She had smooth sepia skin with a tawny glow like she’d been dipped in caramel.
“How are you, Astrid?” Lennox asked.
“Muy bien. And you?”
Lennox nodded and sat next to her. Bryn pulled out my chair, and I sat between him and his father.
“This is Marlee Trask’s daughter,” Lennox said.
“Claro,” Astrid said briskly. The woman extended a willowy hand with another word of Spanish, but Bryn grabbed my arm and pulled it back before our hands touched.
“She’s untrained,” Bryn said to Astrid, like I was an unhousetrained puppy.
“How interesting for you both,” Astrid said, lowering her hand.
“What was that about?” I whispered to Bryn after Astrid and Lennox started talking.
Bryn leaned toward me, his hand still resting on my arm. “It’s common to push power from the palm during a handshake between witches and wizards, to test each other’s powers.”
“Sort of like dogs sniffing each other?”
He laughed. “Crude but accurate.”
“So what would have happened if I’d shaken her hand?”
“Probably just a mild shock or a burning sensation. Nothing more serious, unless Astrid meant to do you harm.”
“Why would she?”
“Witches suffer from the same emotions as human beings.”
“Meaning?”
“She likes to be the most beautiful woman in a room.”
I glanced at Astrid’s supermodel cheekbones. “Well, she should be happy here then.”
“It’s a matter of taste, of course, but if I were the magic mirror, I’d advise you not to accept any apples in that dress.”
I sighed and blew a strand of hair out of my face with a frustrated breath. “Listen, Abracanova, I’m not here to flirt with you.”
He grinned.
“Or to get the Witchcraft 101 lecture. I’m here to—” I cleared my throat. “Um, okay, I am here to learn some witchcraft, but just ’cause we’ve got magical families in common doesn’t make us compatible,” I hissed at him in a whisper. “So you can just cut out all that flirting. Our names aren’t Tim and Faith, and this ain’t Nashville.”
He laughed softly. “When you tell Zach to stop flirting with you, does he listen?”
“I don’t tell him to.”
“Never? Even during the divorce?”
I waved a dismissive hand. “That’s none of your business.”
“So you’ve said.”
“When are we going to ask them to vote?”
“We don’t have a quorum yet. The bad weather’s delayed things. We’ll have to wait to see if enough members come. Once the meeting is under way, there will be a point when the discussion is opened for new business.”
The chicken-bone gypsy narrowed her creepy red eyes at me, and the Cajun wizard, having caught me looking at them, flexed his pecs. The snake tattoo’s head jerked, and the man licked his lips with a tongue that was split like a lizard’s. A forked tongue! Yuck. Let me out of here.
My body convulsed into a shudder, and I leaned closer to Bryn. “If it comes down to me using my body to charm the Cajun out of his vote or all those poor people staying asleep, I want you to know that I’m going to buy them all some real nice feather pillows.”
Bryn laughed softly. “I don’t blame you.”
I sat quietly with my hands folded across my lap. I felt totally out of place, like a fly in a room full of long-legged spiders just hoping I’d make it out before they started spinning webs.
Our table fell into a discussion of the changes in the national bylaws. There was a general objection to something the wizards’ council, the Conclave, had pushed through requiring witches and wizards to submit to a test called the Highcrest Challenge.
“John Barrett’s way of trying to locate threats, those powerful enough to challenge his authority,” Lennox said.
“And yet, he must know that the challenge is effort-based,” Astrid observed.
“He’s counting on egos to make us all push ourselves to the limits
of our magical strength,” Lennox said.
“I think Mr. Barrett misunderstands the nature of some wizards. Take Bryn, for example.” She looked at Bryn, and he raised his eyebrows. “I heard you submitted to the challenge and only reached the fourth level.”
“The best I could do.”
Would-Be Witch Page 8
