A few steps down, there was a rocky pool carved out of the stone. A pretty mermaid, blue haired and generously curvy, sat there, eager face turned toward an animated Lily. That must be Jonquil’s partner, Mélusine, and Lily catching her up on everything that had happened in the last thirteen years. Rimelda was perched on the stone equivalent of a poolside chaise lounge, fanning herself with her fanny pack and complaining about the heat to two rather fuzzy middle-aged guys—Ed Quatch the Bigfoot and Roberto the werewolf.
Sarmine was smiling, for a wonder, and looked—well, not twenty or anything, but not sixty, either. She hugged me, too, and then she said, “You two can do more catch-up later. The first thing is to get out of here. Camellia, did you bring the teleportation ingredients? We had some here”—and she flicked a glance at Ed—“but not the quantity that we’ll need to rescue everyone.”
I unbuckled the fanny pack and held it out.
“Excellent. I knew I could count on you.” Sarmine took a deep breath. “This isn’t going to be easy. We are deeper in demon territory than any witch has ever gone. It’s going to take every bit of this mixture, everyone’s concentration, and a whole lot of luck. But there is nothing to do but make the attempt.”
She combined the whisker and attar of roses and the precious claws that Sam—and Ed, apparently—had sacrificed for us. It made a good-size quantity, but I knew how quickly it would burn up if we got off the trail. She smeared some of the oily mixture on everybody’s palms and kept the remainder in her fanny pack, ready to distribute again when necessary.
“Ready?” she said. “Don’t let go.” We linked hands, and she touched her wand to her palm.
Nothing happened.
Sarmine tapped her wand, shook it out. Tried again.
Nothing.
A snort from Devon, and Sarmine whirled, fear and anger on her face. “What is this? Are you who I think you are? What do you know about this?”
“All you witches think you’re so clever,” sneered the demon. Hudzeth contorted Devon’s face with anger. “You tricked me in here”—he pointed at me—“and now we’re all stuck. Sure, you’ve got your ingredients to cast your spells. But spells don’t work in this pit. You can’t cast anything. Malkin had me build that in when I set it up.”
Sarmine’s face was white with fury. “You never mentioned that.”
“You never asked.”
The others, who had been looking hopeful, were now looking worried. Mélusine the mermaid was clutching Lily’s hand, despair in her expressive face. Rimelda’s grumpy expression said that she had always expected something like this. She handed her fanny pack to Ed Quatch and flapped her hand at him till he started fanning her.
“Are you saying you can’t leave, either?” said my dad.
“Not unless I leave this body,” said Hudzeth. Devon’s face bore a most un-Devon-like grumpy pout. “Humans can’t do anything in this pit.”
And Hudzeth didn’t want to give up his body.
I was hopeful that the demon actually could get us out of here. But would he?
“Hudzeth,” I said slowly. “I’m beginning to think you’re not quite as weak a demon as you claim to be.” This was not flattery but truth, and I meant it.
The anger melted away. He blushed Devon’s blush and looked down. “More of a nerd than a thug,” he admitted. “Spent the last thirteen years studying things. When I wasn’t writing music.”
“This pit is impressive,” I said. “Malkin told you to contain them. And to make it so they couldn’t cast spells. But you also—what? Slowed down time for them? Banked the fires so it wouldn’t get too hot?” It felt like a hot summer day, all right. But I wasn’t dying.
“Didn’t want them to suffer like I was,” he muttered. “Hated being stuck in a lamp.”
“I think you have the same problem as Devon,” I said calmly. “You’re afraid.”
Both halves of Devon looked at me mutinously. “Not afraid,” they said.
“You want to coast on Devon’s talent,” I said to Hudzeth, “and you, Devon, want to coast on his charm. When I think you both have those qualities, all by yourselves, if you can learn to trust in them.”
“Well…”
“You said it to me right at the beginning,” I said to Devon. “Before all of this happened. You said you couldn’t make the audience care about something so silly.”
He furrowed his brow. “And…?”
“You’re not self-conscious when you believe in what you’re doing,” I said. “That’s the missing piece. Sure, relying on the demon makes everything easier. But that’s not why you were able to make those videos. I heard the song. You were singing about something you cared about. That was important to you.”
“But I feel like I should be able to sing about butter,” said Devon, with a wistful expression. “Nnenna does.”
From the hot tub, Mélusine pronounced dramatically, “You are an artist. A true artist does not waste their time on fluff. An artist follows their vision.”
I caught my mother rolling her eyes.
My dad, more gently: “Everyone is different.”
“You said it in the car,” I said. “It’s something you have to do by yourself. Not with the demon.” I made a face. “Also, you will literally be stuck in this hot pit forever if you don’t.”
Devon breathed. His eyes changed color.
And then, quite suddenly, he was standing next to a hobbity Hudzeth, who looked dejected about the whole thing. “Please?” he said to Devon, and he tried to poke his finger into Devon’s palm.
“No,” said Devon firmly.
I squatted down next to Hudzeth. “And now, how would you like to try this app?” I said. “Free rein over the Internet. Super easy to go viral when you already live there, and everything is virtual anyway.”
Hudzeth looked up at me. “I don’t think you understand,” he finally admitted. “It’s not just the hordes of adoring fans. Fans aren’t the same as … Oh, you don’t understand. I’ll be alone.”
As he had been alone for thirteen years in that lamp. And maybe, in spirit, before that. “You’ll be in Poppy’s phone,” I said. “And it sounds like you have a lot of knowledge about shifters that could be invaluable for us to help them. If you want to help us in the future, I don’t think you’ll lack for friends again.”
He reached out to Poppy’s phone.
And then the demon poured in through the port, into her phone, into the app. All the words and numbers on the screen rippled in front of me, and I imagined the demon trying to find what set of coding meant “avatar.”
I wondered if I needed to pull up the app and somehow guide him into it with my voice, but before I could, Poppy’s cute avatar popped up on the screen. He smiled at us, and the rakish smile was million-watt. This guy could be a phenom, was all I was saying. He strutted completely off the screen of the phone and then came back on the other side.
“How does it feel?” I said.
“Pretty good,” he said. The robotic sound was gone from the voice now. He nodded a few times, shook his ponytail, considered everything. “Really good.”
“But can you access all your power from there?” said Dad.
“If I can’t, I’m getting back in the boy,” said Hudzeth.
“You just try it,” said Devon.
“You had all your power when you were in Devon, on the surface,” I said. “You would have had it in that mannequin Sarmine made for another demon once.”
“The theory is sound,” agreed Sarmine. “What?”
“Everyone grab hands,” I shouted. “We’re getting out of here.”
I held my hand out for Devon. Ed Quatch took his hand, and Sarmine took his, and then Dad, and then Lily. Lily linked her other arm with Roberto, who carried Mélusine in his arms. I held the phone aloft. “Everyone think of Sarmine’s backyard!” I shouted.
“I don’t know what that looks like!” shouted somebody.
“Then think of me!”
The roc
ks shook threateningly around us. The fire blazed, not wanting to let us go. The phone nearly slipped from my grasp as the demon shot us all up, straight through all the layers, straight out of the oubliette.
It was hot and horrid and miserable and I could feel my sweaty palm loosening its grasp. “Don’t you dare,” I told myself, and clung on with all my might until all eight of us, plus a possessed phone, popped out of the air, one by one, rolling across Sarmine’s backyard and gasping.
Dad swept me into another bear hug. Then he seized Mom and whirled her around, kissing her. “I thought I’d never see this place again,” he said. “Never see either of you.”
“Oh, Jim,” she said, and her face was the happiest I had ever seen it.
Ed Quatch found the garden hose, turned it on, and began gulping water from the nozzle. He doused Mélusine’s tail and held the nozzle to Roberto for his turn. I could see they were going to be doing that for a few minutes.
Me, I hurried back to the garage.
Poppy and Sparkle had been holding down the fort admirably in the ten minutes we were gone. I strongly suspected an all-day filibuster would never fly in the witch world, as witches would get bored and leave, and to heck with the rules.
But Poppy and Sparkle had held them for ten minutes, apparently by the time-honored trick of getting the villains to elaborate on their plans. Ingrid probably also thought the demon would come back after he had completed his task, despite what she had let slip about contractually leaving him in a lamp.
I figured it would be reasonably hard for Hudzeth to be forced to fulfill the rest of that terrible contract to tag all Sentient Magicals if Ingrid wasn’t around to make him.
I looked around to see who I could spare. Ed Quatch was well watered now, shaking droplets out of his black hair. I motioned for him to come join me. Then I flung open the door to the garage.
All the witches turned.
You know, it was really a delightful moment, to see the look of shock and dismay on the faces of Ingrid and Ulrich and Claudette. I was back, and nobody had expected that. And behind me—Ed Quatch, who nobody had seen since he crossed them, thirteen years ago.
“It can’t be,” said Ingrid, dumbly.
“Merde,” said Claudette.
Maybe it was kind of fun wielding power. For good, anyway.
I handed Ed the phone. “Ed,” I said, and pointed dramatically at Ingrid. “Will you and Hudzeth please take this wicked witch and drop her in the demon’s oubliette.”
“Gladly,” Ed said, and from the phone I heard the chortle of a vastly amused demon.
Ingrid shrieked, “No!” But before she could do anything, Ed seized her arm with one hand, and with his other hand, held the phone high. Hudzeth guiding them, they vanished into N-space.
Roberto, shaking water from his hair, put a comforting hand on Ingrid’s pet werewolf, calming him. I was glad he would be around to help rehabilitate Rover and the two puppies.
Claudette stepped backwards. “I, euh, have been meaning to abdicate anyway,” she said. “Quite busy … dedicating my life to my gardening.…” She snapped out of the garage in a puff of rose smoke.
Only one left to worry about. I turned my contemplation to slimy Ulrich, looking at me wide-eyed from his crutches. “This was Jim’s spot,” he said, groveling. “I was just holding it for him. It’s all his again.”
“No more swimming pools?” I said to him.
“I’ll turn it into a splash pond for the unicorns,” he promised. He limped out the door as fast as his crutches could go.
That took care of them—for now, anyway. But some of the original coven was back from the oubliette now, and not all our changes would stand. My head was spinning and I couldn’t keep track of who was in and who was out. The witches were standing around in clumps, everybody catching each other up on things. Lily was returning Poppy’s wand to her, and I definitely caught the words “proud of you.” Pink was hugging her grandmother fiercely.
A freshly rewanded Poppy came to my rescue. “Everyone take your places,” she said. “Let’s see where we are now.”
We arranged ourselves in the original circle. Sarmine, Valda, Pink, my dad. The three Canadians. Rimelda, Sparkle, Lily. Me. Everyone else crowded into the corners of the garage, among the brooms and paint cans, while Mom and Dad beamed rather foolishly at each other from across the circle.
It was a lot better and, at the same time, it wasn’t. Poppy wasn’t on it, the one person most qualified to wield a spot righteously and well. And we had lost all the Sentient Magicals that had been the true beginnings of a more inclusive coven.
I looked at Sparkle and Poppy in despair. I knew this was the psychological moment to make changes. But now the makeup of the group had shifted again. And while I felt reasonably sure we had formed a group whose majority would not actively hunt down Sentient Magicals, would their tolerance extend to inviting them into our group?
“Hey, Leo,” said Sparkle. Her voice sounded kind of funny, in a don’t say anything and I can get through this real quick sort of way.
He bounced to her side.
“So, I’d like to abdicate in favor of you,” Sparkle said. It sounded super offhand, but I was sure this was not the case. “I suppose I can nominate you in my place? I mean, you’ll take it?”
“Are you sure?” said Leo.
She shrugged it off. “You’re the shifter, not me,” she said. “You’re already in jeopardy, since everyone saw you. You’d better keep the benefit of helping change things. It’s pretty tedious and all.…”
She wasn’t fooling Leo. He looked in her eyes and said, “Yes. I will.”
Sparkle made the nomination and it passed. I could see the shifting expressions on the faces of the old coven members who had just returned from the oubliette—confusion quickly changing to acceptance, as their votives lit up green.
I sneaked a look at my dad and saw far more than acceptance. That was definitely pride on his face. I was following in his footsteps. He grinned at me, and I beamed back.
The room was silent, and everyone was staring at me. Why was everyone staring at me? I looked at Sarmine to confirm Leo’s nomination, but she raised her eyebrows expectantly at me.
Right. I was the one who had called the coven.
And Sarmine believed in me enough to let me finish what I had started.
I took a deep breath. Nerve-racking, doing something when the master of it all is standing right next to you. “Eight to three,” I said. “Motion carries.”
Sparkle took Leo’s hand, and together they placed their hands on her votive next to the cauldron. The glow changed from white to green and back to white. Sparkle drew back, giving Leo room to stand by himself in the circle. She really was serious about a new path in life. It was too bad; this Sparkle would be an asset to the coven. But I respected her for what she was doing.
Rimelda raised her wand. “Primella told me there was one other Sentient Magical who joined the coven, in my place, while I was away. Who was that?” She peered around until Sam stepped out of the corner, raising his hand, with its beginnings of new nails. “What’s your name, young man?”
“Sam Quatch,” he said warily.
“Very well, Sam. I’m old and cranky and tired of doing nonsense like this when I could be relaxing by the pool, thinking up hexes for people who actually deserve it, like politicians and reality TV stars. I’m abdicating in favor of you, so you’d better do a good job, young man.”
“I—I will,” he said, startled. We voted him in, he took Rimelda’s place next to Leo, and she went and sat on the piano bench to enjoy the rest of the proceedings.
After that, the numbers were in our favor again. We took a vote and quickly installed Roberto the werewolf in Ingrid’s old place, and then we tried to elect Mélusine, but she absolutely would not.
“I trust Roberto to look out for our interests,” she said, in her dramatic way, “but the thing I am doing next is going home and asking Jonquil to marry me. You may el
ect a mermaid the next time a space opens up.”
“I promise,” I said, and then, with glad heart, I turned to the one person I wanted to be on the coven more than any of us. Honestly, if Mélusine had wanted a spot, I might have stepped down for Poppy. And yet I was glad it hadn’t come to that. Because I thought we could do more good together.
We elected Poppy easily, and then I yielded her the floor. This was her area of expertise.
“And now,” said Poppy, and there was a smile playing around her lips, “we call for the vote again.”
The thirteen of us gathered around.
“But first,” she said, “masks.” I reached for my nonexistent mask, and then I realized she was gesturing at the older witches, who were pulling them on out of habit. “No more masks,” she clarified, and reluctantly the masks went up and off. They could see which way the wind was blowing.
“Lights,” she said.
The garage lightbulb had gotten broken at some point in the scuffle, but now, all around us, witches raised their wands, lighting the old garage.
Poppy spoke in a strong, clear voice. “I move to grant full protection to Sentient Magicals; that the sale of nonvital items such as hair and scales shall be strongly regulated; that the sale of vital items such as bones shall be completely prohibited, and their possession punishable by dewanding.”
It carried, ten to two. Valda was never going to be anything other than nasty, but it was possible we could work on Leggings, I thought. I wondered if we needed to find a way to recall terrible witches, next, or if we were just going to have to accept a few of them in the name of democracy. Though, in that case, we really needed to establish an election process.…
“Pledge with me,” Poppy was saying, “that we will all work together to end this violence. End this destruction. We can do better.” And all around the circle the young voices rang out.
I will!
Seriously Hexed Page 26
