by Amy Boyles
ELEVEN
We reached the house at daybreak. I was sore, tired and ready to fall into my bed.
But there was no rest for any of us. The first thing we had to do was deal with Forbes.
As soon as we stepped inside, Betty pinned her steely gaze on the old man, pointed her finger at him and declared, “We went to your house. The window wasn’t broken, and Erebus was waiting for us.”
Forbes’s mouth went slack. “Did you really think I would leave my house with a shattered window?” he said snottily. “I fixed it before leaving.”
Betty shot Garrick a hard look. The sheriff ran a hand down his face. “Let me get this straight—you were under attack from a magic eater that broke your window, and you took the time to then fix said window before fleeing.”
“Obviously,” Forbes said.
But Betty wasn’t letting that excuse gain any traction. “Plus our magic was blocked. We got rid of the magic eater—for now—but we had to walk back here. That’s why we’re only arriving now.”
Forbes glared at Betty. “Why don’t you just go ahead and say what you want to say?”
“Okay, Mr. Henry, I’ll say it—you summoned that magic eater to kill us. I want you arrested for murder and attempted murder.”
Forbes’s face paled. He whirled on Garrick. “You’re not going to let this crazy woman talk like this about me, are you?”
“I’m not crazy. I’m the most sane person here,” Betty countered.
Garrick studied Forbes before dragging his gaze to Axel. “Can you corroborate this?”
Axel nodded. “Everything was as Betty said.”
Garrick slowly rose from his seat in the recliner. He stretched his legs and reached his hands over his head to work the kinks from his body. Then Garrick pulled a pair of handcuffs from his back pocket.
“Why don’t you come down with me to the station, Mr. Henry?”
“I will not,” Forbes said tightly. “I will not go anywhere with you because I am innocent.”
Garrick took a step forward. “Why don’t we talk about it?”
“I have nothing to discuss.”
Garrick took another step forward, and I can’t be sure of what exactly went through Forbes’s mind but his expression was a mixture of caged rat and cornered lion.
Garrick took one more step. “Just come talk.”
That was when Forbes cocked his hand back and let it fly forward, hitting Garrick smack on the chin. A loud crack sounded, and Garrick’s head snapped back.
Everything stopped. The air was sucked from the room.
Amelia spoke, saying what I’m pretty sure all of us were thinking. “That was a bad idea.”
Garrick slowly lowered his head. Rage burned in his eyes. He leveled his gaze at Forbes and said in a low voice, one filled with more anger than I knew Garrick was capable of, “You are coming with me.”
Forbes shook his head. “I can’t. I can’t come with you.”
“You just hit an officer of the law.”
“To save myself,” Forbes pleaded. “You don’t understand. If I come with you, I’ll be dead. The magic eater will get me. There’ll be no escape.”
“You should’ve thought about that before you hit him,” Amelia scolded.
Garrick shot her a dark look.
“Sorry,” she whimpered.
Garrick placed a hand on Forbes and pulled him forward. “Now. You’ll need to come with me.”
The old man clutched Garrick. “Please. You can’t take me. I’m sorry I hit you. I know my house looks bad, but I have nothing to do with this Erebus.”
“We can discuss it at the station,” Garrick said calmly.
Forbes’s grip tightened, but Garrick managed to get the handcuffs on him. The officer placed a hand on Forbes’s shoulder and heaved him toward the door.
“Please,” Forbes repeated, “I know things about the magic eater. A way to stop it. I can help. I promise I can. I’m not lying. You have to believe me…”
Axel held the door open, and Garrick pulled Forbes through. Betty placed a finger to her nostril, and a line of magic zipped from her nose, slamming the door shut.
“Good riddance,” she griped.
I nibbled my bottom lip. “He said he knew something that would help us.”
“Probably lies,” Betty said. She raked her fingers down her face and collapsed onto a chair. “How about we all get a little rest and then come up with a plan? Erebus’s power is stronger at night than it is during the day. I’m thinking he’ll stay away for a while.”
“Yeah,” Amelia seconded. “Y’all look like you spent all night walking through the Cobweb Forest.”
“We did,” Betty snapped. “I thought we already told you that.”
“You did,” Amelia whimpered. “I just thought I’d reiterate it.”
Suddenly the long night caught up with me. Every muscle in my legs hurt, my head swam from fatigue and I could barely keep my eyes open.
I stifled a yawn. “I’m going upstairs.”
Axel caught my gaze. “I’ll head home for a while. Come back at lunch. Unless anyone thinks they’re going to need me.”
“We’ll be okay,” Betty said.
CJ Hix rose. “That’s right, Mr. Reign. I got a good night’s sleep. I should be able to help however I can if something happens. Not that I think it will, but golly, I’m here and I’m an able-bodied man.”
Humor flashed in Axel’s eyes. I shot him a quick grin before climbing the stairs to my bedroom and collapsing on my bed.
Sleep overtook me as soon as I got my second sneaker off.
I awoke to a wet tongue licking my cheek. I blinked my eyes open to find Hugo, tongue lolled to one side, staring at me.
“Come here, boy. I’ve missed you.”
Hugo jumped on the bed, and I pulled him into a cuddle. The once-baby dragon was almost too large to cuddle, but I made it work. All I had to do was wrap one arm around his middle. We lay there for a moment until I realized there was a ton of work to be done.
We had to figure out a way to trick Erebus into going back into the book.
But how?
I jumped from the bed, nearly trampling Mattie the Cat on my way to the bathroom.
“Sugar, I don’t see no fire,” she said through a yawn.
“There’s a magic eater trying to kill Betty. If that’s not a fire, I don’t know what is.”
Mattie bowed her back and stretched out her claws. “Well, why didn’t you say so? Get on with your bad self.”
I quickly showered, changed and tromped downstairs to find all heck breaking loose.
Mint and Licky stood in the middle of the living room, arguing with Betty.
“But we want to help,” Mint said.
“We want to make it up to you,” Licky said.
Betty tapped a wooden spoon on the rim of the cauldron bubbling over the everlasting fire. “Y’all have done enough. If you hadn’t accepted that invitation from Snow to join the group, none of this would’ve happened in the first place.”
Sylvia Spirits glanced away from a book she had propped on the dining table. “Maybe you should listen to them. It can’t hurt.”
Betty’s face turned rose-red. “Can’t hurt? These two chaos witches will end up calling Erebus here and handing us over to him one at a time.”
Mint fisted a hand to her hip. “We aren’t going to do that, Mama. We’ve been researching ways to trick the magic eater back into his book.”
Licky stepped forward. “We have a plan. All you have to do is listen to us.”
“Could be worth a shot,” CJ said. “Gosh, I don’t want to die for some accident I did years ago. And I don’t want the good people of Magnolia Cove to suffer for me, either.”
Betty relented. “Fine. What have you got for us?”
Mint and Licky shot each other a victorious look. They hovered around Betty.
“We were reading up on ways to attract a magic eater,” Mint said.
“When we h
ad the idea that maybe there was something out there that would lure it in,” Licky added.
Mint nodded her head. “Like sort of what the insect world does.”
“The predators, she means,” Licky clarified.
Betty shook her head. “Will the two of y’all not speak at the same time and go slow. You’re making my noggin buzz.”
Mint took a deep cleansing breath. “In the insect world predators are oftentimes very flashy looking to attract their prey.”
“Like a Venus flytrap,” Licky said. “The plant looks like something a fly might like to eat. The fly thinks the flower is something it wants.”
“But then the fly ends up dead,” Mint added on. “Once the fly is close enough, the flower traps it and slowly eats it.”
“I ain’t eating no magic eater,” Betty snapped.
Mint’s eyes glittered with intelligence. “You don’t have to. We created something that will help. Something we think will attract Erebus and can be used to get him back in the book.”
Betty paused. I could tell she was dying to know but at the same time was afraid to ask. Mint and Licky’s plans backfired more often than not.
To be honest, I was afraid too, but we needed all the help we could get.
“What do you have?” I asked.
Mint tapped her fingers together with glee. “Now, it took some time to figure this out, but what Erebus wants more than anything is magic—to eat it, right?”
“Specific magic,” Betty said. “He was sent here for us.” She nodded toward Sylvia and CJ.
“That’s what got us thinking.” Licky dragged a finger down one side of her mouth. “We thought that he wants specific people.”
Mint tag teamed her sister. “So no regular magic will do.”
“Right.” Licky’s gaze flashed from Betty to the rest of us in the room. “So if we baited Erebus with Pepper’s magic, for instance, it wouldn’t work.”
“What wouldn’t work?” Betty asked impatiently.
“This.” From her pocket Mint pulled a golden dogwood flower.
I peered closer. “What is that?”
“It’s a pin for your blouse,” Betty said, unimpressed.
Licky poked the air with authority. “But under the right conditions, this golden flower could be more. If we seeded it with bits of y’all’s magic—a little of Sylvia’s, some of CJ’s and a teensy bit of Betty’s, the magic eater might find himself attracted to it.”
My eyes widened as I realized their plan. “And then if you placed the flower near the book, or even on the book, Erebus might not pay attention. He’d be so interested in the power residue he might just fall back into the book—being tricked by your plan.”
Mint clapped her hands. “Bingo! You’ve got it.”
Licky eyed me proudly. “You are one smart niece.” She turned to Betty. “Mama, do you think it’ll work?”
Betty rubbed her chin as she stared at Sylvia and then CJ. “Hard to say. It would take an awful lot of magic to charge up such an object.”
“But it can be done,” Sylvia said.
CJ brushed lint from his pants. “I’m game if y’all are. Heck, we’ve got nothing to lose. Unless Garrick gets a confession out of Forbes and forces him to call off the magic eater, we don’t have a better option.”
“And the sun is already beginning to set,” Sylvia said. “It’ll be night soon, and he’ll be powering up, ready to come for us.”
Betty’s expression was grim. “So I guess we don’t have another choice.”
“We’ve thought about it a lot,” Mint said soothingly.
Licky nodded enthusiastically. “It should work.”
“Unless it doesn’t,” Amelia said.
Betty shot her a dark look. “It’s as good an option as we have.” She squinted her eyes and glared at Licky and Mint. “Let’s get started.”
TWELVE
I left Mint, Licky and everyone else at the house and decided to go out and enjoy the little bit of sun we had until night fell.
The streets were deathly quiet. All I could hear was the wind howling. Betty had mentioned that people already knew about the magic eater and were holing themselves in their homes.
I believed it went beyond that. People knew who Erebus was after. They didn’t want to run into him, which was why many were still staying in town, but they also knew they were safe from him—at least for now.
Axel called while I was out. “You okay?”
I glanced around as if I wasn’t supposed to be okay. “Yes, I’m fine.”
“Where are you?”
I told him I was near Bubbling Cauldron, not far from downtown.
“Wait there for me. I’ll be by soon.”
“I’m totally safe. The magic eater hopefully won’t be back until nightfall.”
He huffed. “I’d rather you not walk alone.”
“Fine.
I found a bench and sat, waiting for Axel. A few minutes later he rolled up in his Land Rover and parked. Axel buzzed down the passenger window. “I’ll get out. We can walk.”
“What are we doing?”
“Keeping an eye out.”
“For the magic eater?”
He nodded. “That’s right.” Axel’s blue eyes scanned the street. “If we can find it before it finds Betty, we have a better chance of beating it.”
Axel buzzed the window back up and got out.
The idea mystified me. We were tracking something that was nothing more than mist, and we were simply going to walk on two legs instead of driving?
Strange.
Axel raked his hair from his eyes. “We can sense it better if there’s nothing between it and us. Besides”—he flashed me a smile—“it gives us a chance to talk.”
Even though we were under a stressful situation, Axel still threaded his fingers through mine and kissed the back of my hand.
“Things might be stressful, but we can still find five minutes to enjoy us.”
I smiled brightly, feeling my body shine from the inside out. “There are times when I wish the entire world could feel this way.”
Axel smiled sadly. “And then you remember that there are murderers and innocent people die.”
My smile faded. “Yeah, that would be it.” I paused. “Wouldn’t it be weird if the magic eater had his own family? What if he was trapped in the book, chained against his will, and all he wanted was to just return to his own Betty Craple?”
Axel laughed. “His own Betty Craple? Are you sure he’d want to return at all?”
It was my turn to chuckle. I elbowed him in the ribs. “He would want to get back to his family. Of course he would. That’s what life is all about—family.”
“And becoming one.” Axel eyed me knowingly. “Like I want us to become family.”
“Which we are—we just have to find the right spot.”
He shook his head and sighed. “I know you want a barn wedding, but you know we could create a barn right here.” Axel pointed to the park by Bubbling Cauldron. “Build it and instead of hanging lights, we can hire fairies to light the night. See if Garrick will suspend some of the rules on only witches being allowed into town and have a lot of other creatures.”
I smirked. “I don’t want anyone to bend the rules for me.”
“You helped save this town and change the Head Witch Order.” He tapped my nose. “You, Pepper Dunn. I’m pretty sure the town would have no problem helping us out.”
It just didn’t seem right to take advantage of my place in Magnolia Cove. I hadn’t stopped the Head Witch Order on purpose. The whole situation had come about because I was trying to figure out how to stay alive.
I linked my arm through his. “I’d feel better if we married in a small town where all creatures are allowed. Or even if we got married in a cornfield—as long as werewolves will be allowed same as witches, I’m all for it.”
Axel stopped and turned to me. I raised my chin, and he brushed a strand of honey-colored hair from my eyes. “Thank you
. That hair was really annoying me.”
“It looked like it,” he murmured before gently kissing me.
A spark lit in my core, and I sighed into the kiss, letting my body press against him.
When we parted, Axel whispered, “I don’t care where we marry. As long as we’re together, that’s all that matters.”
I grinned. “I agree.”
Axel jerked his head toward the street. “Come on. Let’s see if we can ferret out Erebus.”
But finding the magic eater turned out to be more difficult than we had originally hoped. There were no signs of him anywhere—I mean, if you call signs things like shattered glass and uprooted trees, that was.
And I did. Knowing the amount of destruction Erebus was capable of, I figured he would leave a trail of destruction in his wake.
But there was no trail.
Not even leading up to Snow’s house. Erebus had started at our house and then ended up at Snow’s without anything in between being ripped up.
I asked Axel why that was.
He shrugged. “Probably because he didn’t need to destroy anything because there wasn’t a person he was targeting between your house and Snow’s.”
“But Betty lives at the house.”
Axel shrugged. “He went for Snow first.”
“But why?”
“Because that’s where Forbes sent him.”
I trudged up a grassy slope on the other side of the park and came to a stop underneath a tall pine. I plucked a dead needle from the grass and twirled it between my thumb and forefinger.
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” I finally said.
We watched the sun burn down the horizon in silence until Axel finally turned to me. “Ready to get back?”
I nodded. “Yep. We’re setting a trap to get Erebus back in the book. Mint and Licky are in charge.”
Axel shot me a concerned look. “And Betty’s allowing this?”
“I don’t think she knows what else to do.”
Axel ran a thumb down his jawline. “Let’s get back—make sure Mint and Licky haven’t screwed anything up.”
Just then my phone rang. I slid it from my pocket and glanced down. “It’s Cordelia.” I grimaced. A knot twisted my gut.
