by Lori Ryan
“I’ll be right back,” Gideon said, and before Gwen could object, he vanished.
“Boo!” she heard from inside the house, followed by a very unladylike shriek from Sassy.
“Excuse me a minute,” Gwen heard Gideon say before the front door opened and he ushered her in with a smile that was all mischief, and just a little too panty-melting for her to handle.
“Thank you,” she said, before realizing it came out in a breathless pant that might have given away the state of her panties. Damn.
Gideon’s grin only broadened as he winked at her, then turned to Sassy. Well, color me confused, was all Gwen had time to think before the other two began to argue.
“How did you get in here?”
“The chimney,” Gideon said calmly.
“The chimney? What are you? Santa Claus?” Sassy was really shrieking now, and it wasn’t all that pretty.
“Nope. You know full well who I am or you wouldn’t have slammed the door in my face. Now, section five hundred and seventy-two, clause eighty-three, paragraph fifteen of the Boguman code says I can enter the dwelling of any witch or warlock who needs scaring straight.”
Gwen was fairly sure there wasn’t really a code for the Boguman, and she also thought he was only supposed to enter homes where a child was in need of scaring straight, but she didn’t say anything.
“Well, I don’t need scaring straight!”
“Don’t you?” Gideon did that one-eyebrow-raised thing and waited while Sassy squirmed.
“Fine.” Sassy crossed her arms over her very ample chest and half glared, half pouted at Gideon, before glancing at Gwen. Her face brightened. “Hey! What size clothes do you wear? I think we’re about the same size.”
Gwen was a little thrown by the change in both topic and demeanor as the other witch eyed her up and down. What a very strange witch.
“Um.” Gwen crossed her arms over her own not nearly so well-endowed chest. “I don’t really know. The mice have been dressing me. I didn’t look at the size.”
“The mice are what?” Gideon roared. Sassy screamed again and jumped a few feet back, but Gwen just rolled her eyes.
“Not like that. I mean, they wanted to help me get dressed, but I drew the line. They drop my clothes off at my door for me each morning.” Gwen actually felt a little awkward about it.
If she had any real witch magic of her own, she’d be able to conjure her own clothes. Having the mice provide her clothes was a daily little reminder that she wasn’t quite good enough in the witch department.
Gideon continued growling for a minute, but eventually turned back to Sassy when Gwen stared him down. Sassy now stood with her back to the wall, all talk of clothes and shared sizes gone.
“Sassy,” Gideon said after taking a deep breath, “we’re here on a little assignment for Baba Yaga.”
“I haven’t done anything wrong since I left the magic poky,” she said, raising her hands in defense. “Well, unless you count zapping these noxious hairballs on occasion, but that shouldn’t count because they’re really unbearable to live with and the zaps just come back at me anyway.” She rubbed her ass, which Gwen noted was still smoldering a bit as the three fat cats laughed and made lewd gestures.
“Wow, that’s just…” Gwen didn’t know what to say. She’d never seen a cat use its tail in quite that manner before. “That’s, wow, um…” She trailed off lamely as she looked toward Gideon for help. He was laughing at her.
“So, Sassy,” Gideon said, wiping the smile from his face and jumping back into his intimidating Boguman mode again. “You haven’t been doing anything lately that Baba Yaga needs to know about? Maybe using magic you shouldn’t be using? Anything you want to tell us about?”
“No!” shouted Sassy, a little panicky now, but she seemed to be telling the truth. Besides which, Gwen couldn’t see any sign of extra magic in Sassy. She had her own and nothing more.
Sassy shook her head. “For the last week, I’ve either been here babysitting Zelda’s smelly familiars or out on a date with my boyfriend, Jeeves. He likes to cook for me,” she said, all smiles again as she looked at Gwen. “He’s a Kangaroo Shifter. Powerful legs. Comes in handy, if you know what I mean. I can see if he has a friend for you.”
“What the Goddess is it with all you witches dating Shifters? She doesn’t need a Shifter. Kangaroo or otherwise.” There was a protective growl to Gideon’s tone that would have sent Gwen into a giddy schoolgirl crush all over again if she hadn’t wised up a bit in the last two days. Sure, she was young and naïve and new to this whole having-a-body thing, but she was growing up quickly. Gideon might like to flirt, but that’s all he was doing. Just messing with her mind and her heart.
Sassy scoffed. “Who else would she date? I hope you’re not suggesting she date a warlock.”
“Yes! She could date a warlock. We’re not all selfish A-holes who don’t know how to make a woman—”
“Aaaand, that’s enough of that,” Gwen said, cutting Gideon off with both her words and a hand clamped over his mouth. “What we really need to know, Sassy, is if you’ve seen anything unusual lately. Heard about anyone using magic they shouldn’t be? Maybe suddenly having a lot more power than they should?”
Sassy ignored Gwen’s question and shifted her gaze from Gwen to Gideon and back again before wiggling her eyebrows. “Oh, I see. I guess she doesn’t need me to introduce her to any single guys after all.”
Gwen gritted her teeth. This was not a conversation she wanted to have. “Sassy, focus. Anyone new around? Or anyone using magic they shouldn’t have?”
Sassy shrugged. “Nope. I haven’t seen a thing. Like I said, I’ve either been with Jeeves or here with the wonder triplets.”
“Great. Thank you.” Gwen tugged a still mumbling Gideon from the house as she said her goodbyes. “Thank you so much, Sassy. Let us know if you see anything!”
Chapter Eight
“Well, that wasn’t useful,” Gwen said in an exaggerated tone, proud of herself for using sarcasm for the first time.
Gideon stopped and looked at her. “Gwen.”
“What?”
“I think you meant to say that was useful.”
“But it wasn’t. She didn’t know anything.” She wrinkled her nose at him. Maybe her tone hadn’t really been sarcastic after all.
“Yes. I know. It’s just you said it in a sarcastic way, but if you’re trying to be sarcastic… You know what? Never mind. It doesn’t matter.” Gideon turned and walked toward the truck. “It doesn’t matter at all.”
“What does that mean?” Gwen said, climbing into the passenger seat.
“What does what mean?” he said. Exasperation. She recognized that tone.
“That it doesn’t matter,” she said, her own exasperation lacing the words “What doesn’t matter?”
Gideon put the car in reverse and backed down the drive, focusing just a bit too much on the task at hand instead of answering her. Honestly, she didn’t know why they were even driving everywhere. She didn’t have any magic of her own for spells and things, but she could teleport. That was a power that was innate to being a witch. In fact, it was the only power she had. The least he could do was let her use it.
When Gideon didn’t answer her, she blinked and poofed herself out of the car and onto the side of the road.
Ooomf.
Okay, so it turned out poofing oneself from a moving car to a standstill on the side of the road created a bit of a jerk, for lack of a better word. Gwen wheeled her arms like a windmill to try to stop the fall, but all she succeeded in doing was looking like more of an idiot on the way down to the ground.
Screw it. She sat up and pulled a clump of grass from her hair. Maybe she should just leave. She could let Baba Yaga and Gideon handle this. She could go back to just being herself. Just being an anchor.
Don’t you mean anchored? Bound? a little voice in her head asked. Because that’s what she was. She could pretend she was this all-important anchor for magic
, but when it really came down to it, all her role as the anchor of magic really did was trap her.
She had very little conscious awareness when she wasn’t corporeal. No awareness of the passage of time. She could catch occasional glimpses of what was going on in the world, but other than those, she was basically alone in an empty realm with nothing to keep herself company.
No one, you mean, the little voice piped up. Yes. That was it. No one to keep her company. That wasn’t even quite accurate. It was Gideon. If she left…when she left, she wouldn’t have him. In fact, she wouldn’t even have any memory of him. She knew that now. And as much as being around him without him wanting her sucked, wouldn’t it suck much more to not even remember him?
Gideon appeared in front of her. “Are you crazy? What the hell are you doing?”
Oh hell no. She didn’t need this.
She poofed herself back to her hotel room, landing a little ungracefully on the bed. She really needed to practice poofing.
Gideon appeared a second later, landing casually, completely unruffled by the whole poofing thing. Figured. He would have to be an expert at something she sucked at.
“Go away!” The last thing she needed was him here while she had her pity party. Because let’s face it, that’s what this was. A full-blown pity party. And it wasn’t pretty.
“No. Tell me why you’re running away from me. What the hell is wrong, Gwen? Don’t you want to solve this mystery so you can get on with your…your…” He seemed to be struggling, and she knew why. Because the word he wanted to say was life, but he was realizing what she was. That she didn’t have a life to go back to. She had an existence, but she was truly without life when she wasn’t in this corporeal form.
“No. I don’t want to go back. What would I go back to, Gideon? To empty space? Is that what you think I should be so excited to go back to?” She turned away, looking out the window. Anything to not look him in the eye right now.
“Well, you sure as hell hightailed it out of here without a backward glance last time!”
Gwen whipped around and glared at him. “I didn’t want to leave! I had to, Gideon. There’s a difference.”
Both of them froze and Gwen realized what she’d said. Judging by the shock registering on his face, Gideon realized it, too.
“What did you say?” he asked, stepping closer, seeming to search her face for a clue.
“I…I didn’t want to leave.” Now she searched her mind for some clue herself, trying to figure out how she knew that. She still had no memory of being with Gideon in the past. But she did know she hadn’t wanted to leave him. It was an extremely odd thing to both know something and not know it at the same time.
“What does that mean, Gwen?” Now he stood toe to toe with her, his hands on her arms, and she lost her breath for a minute. He smelled so good and his hands felt so right. Everything about him was so familiar. So good. So…everything. He was everything to her.
“I don’t know,” she whispered, shaking her head slightly as she watched him. Her gaze dropped to his mouth and she wanted what she’d had a tiny taste of at the Komolvo camp. She wanted to kiss him, to be kissed and loved and held by him.
Holy crap! Gwen toppled backward onto the bed as a man appeared in front of her. No, not a man. One minute he was a man with dark hair and green eyes, and the next he was a…creature. She didn’t know any other way to describe him.
Gideon didn’t seem overly alarmed by the winged thing standing in front of him. He had a hooked tail, the head of a horse, and wings to rival any dragon she’d seen. He was magnificent. Then in a flash, he was man again.
“Who invited you, Leeds?”
“Since when do I need an invitation to drop by and check on a friend?” The man spoke in a silky voice before dropping down into the only chair in the room as if he owned the place. He raised a brow in Gwen’s direction. “And it looks like I’ve arrived just in time. Getting a little sucked in, Gideon?”
“That’s none of your damned business.”
“Um, hello,” Gwen said, waving her fingers at Gideon. “Still here.”
“Aren’t you going to introduce us, Gideon?” The man seemed to dwarf the chair, but Gwen couldn’t quite figure out what he was. He wasn’t a warlock, yet he’d clearly teleported in. She’d only gotten a quick glimpse of his animal form, or whatever that had been, but he also didn’t seem to be a Shifter.
“Gwen, this is Leeds. Leeds, Gwen,” Gideon said curtly. “Gwen, Leeds is the Jersey Devil.”
“The what?” She turned and looked at Leeds, who now appeared to be almost preening before her.
“The Jersey Devil,” Leeds said, with a grin. “The only one of my kind in the world.”
“How is that possible? I mean, you’re not a warlock.” Now Gwen approached, her curiosity piqued. “What…well, what I mean to say is…I mean, that is, well, what are you?”
Now Leeds laughed long and deep, causing Gideon’s scowl to harden his face into an even angrier mask.
“Nope. Not a warlock. I’m the result of so many humans believing in my existence, I simply came to be one day.”
“That’s possible?” Gwen asked, coming to sit down in the chair across from Leeds.
“Extraordinarily rare, but possible.” His smile was smug, and he seemed glad to have stumped her. She had to admit, she was a little bothered that she hadn’t been able to see what he was.
“But I saw you shift. So, are you a Shifter of sorts?”
Leeds shook his head. “Nope. It’s a glamour. You simply see what I want you to see.” He vanished from sight in the blink of an eye, but his voice continued coming from the chair. “Or what I don’t want you to see.”
“Yeah, yeah. It’s all fascinating. Now he haunts the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, just like everyone’s always believed he had,” Gideon groused. Gwen wasn’t sure why he was so unhappy at his friend’s arrival, but she was fascinated. If Leeds could come to be simply by people believing in him, couldn’t she somehow become a real witch?
“I don’t haunt it,” Leeds scoffed. “I provide a very valuable service.”
“Oh? What is that?” Gwen asked, wanting to know all she could.
“When I came to exist in the early 1900s, local Shifters decided it was the perfect opportunity to set up a Shifter retirement community. I now guard the largest retirement community for Shifters in the world. The only humans that come around nowadays are the ones who actually want to catch a sighting of me on film. The key is to scare the pants off them without letting them document it in any verifiable way. Which is easy, really. You just have to know what you’re doing with technology.” He shrugged a graceful shoulder. “All they end up with is some fuzzy video or garbled audio.”
Gwen nodded, unwilling to admit she didn’t have a clue about technology, not to mention a lot of other things in the world. But she liked this Leeds guy.
“A word outside, Leeds.” Gideon wasn’t asking a question, and he didn’t bother to wait for a response. He hauled his friend up by the back of the shirt and headed to the hotel hallway, Leeds grinning playfully the entire time. With a wink at Gwen, he and Gideon disappeared out the door.
***
Mickey stopped short just before opening the stairwell door. He waved to Mighty and Moose, gesturing to them to be silent, then shifted into his mouse form. His friends followed, each shifting silently before scurrying forward to look through the crack between the door and the wall. With Moose as their base, Mighty and Mickey could stand on his shoulders so all three could see easily into the hotel hallway where Gideon stood outside Gwen’s room talking with a man they didn’t know.
Mice had excellent hearing. Even though Gideon and the man with him were speaking quietly, the three mice could hear everything.
“What the hell are you up to, Leeds?” Gideon didn’t sound the least bit happy.
“When you didn’t come right back, I decided to check up on you to be sure you were all right. And it’s a good thing I did, didn�
�t I? That’s her, isn’t it? That’s the Gwen!”
“Yes, that’s the Gwen. Don’t make more of this than it is. I was drunk when I told you about her. I should have kept my damned mouth shut.”
Leeds shook his head, but Gideon continued. “I’m helping my sister, nothing more.”
“Oh, I know. I hung out for a bit in the woods on my way over here. The Shifter community is all talking about this mission of yours. Finding out who’s siphoning magic. How do you know she didn’t just make that up?”
“You’ve taken to spying now?” Gideon asked without answering the question. The two men had forgotten to whisper now.
“It wasn’t spying. I needed a rest. Flying here all the way from New Jersey without being spotted wasn’t easy.”
“Uh huh. You teleported here, you idiot.”
“Look, Gideon, I’m just saying, maybe you need to walk away from this before you get hurt again. Let Gwen deal with this supposed magic thief on her own. Or tell Baba Yaga you need someone else to handle things here. Before you get sucked in and fall for Gwen again.”
Gideon shook his head. “You’re overreacting. I’m not getting sucked in and I’m not falling for Gwen. I’m helping my sister. That’s all.”
Gideon teleported out, leaving Leeds standing in the empty hallway. The mice waited until he’d walked away before shifting into human form and knocking on the hotel room door.
“It’s us, Gwen. Open up,” Mickey called, but then almost wished he hadn’t. It was a very tear-stained Gwen who greeted them when she did open the door, and Mickey had a feeling she’d just listened to the same conversation they had.
Chapter Nine
Gideon stood outside Gwen’s door for more than an hour before raising his fist to knock. He’d walked for three hours before showing up back at the hotel. What Leeds had said got under his skin. But when he really thought about it, he knew there was no denying it. He’d lied to his friend. He was falling for Gwen.
