The horn’s rainbow aura meant that it was inexperienced. It also meant that it could be volatile. Barry’s multicolor glow changed with his moods, and I had to assume that it was the same for the horn. I needed to be careful with this one.
When I work with a new object, it’s a little like taking a dog to obedience school for the first time. There’s just no way to tell how it will respond. Some objects are immediately compliant, and it only takes a couple of sessions before I’m in complete control. Others take a lot more work.
I took the drinking horn from its case and placed it on my desk. It lay still, glowing softly. I didn’t want to spook it, so I moved slowly, cupping my hands on either side of the mouth, holding my fingers six inches away without actually touching the piece. Its aura diminished a little both in size and luminosity. That was a good sign. The drinking horn was open to training.
The next step was to get the leash on it. This part did not involve an incantation. It was simply a force of will: me, applying my power, my control, to the drinking horn. Sometimes this works, sometimes not. If it doesn’t, the results can be spectacular. Think of a missile leaving the pad or a pitbull snapping its rope.
Here goes nothing, I thought as I gripped my hands around the open end of the drinking horn.
I was surprised. I expected the horn to feel like old wood. Instead, the surface was smooth and a bit oily, like my thumbnail. Was I feeling the warmth that Barry had felt, or was it just my own hand reflected back to me? I wasn’t sure, but I understood that this was not some dead thing. The auroch horn had never been trained, but it was clearly aware — and it was powerful.
I needed to get a ward on it, right now. A ward is a special piece of magic, sort of a supernatural fence or container. A ward can keep things in, or it can keep things out.
There are many ways to create a ward, from simple spells to elaborate drawings and sigils. I have a quick, all-purpose spell that I like to use for new objects in the vault. It’s part of the larger incantation that shields the vault in the way that a concrete casing keeps radioactive gases from escaping from a nuclear reactor. I suspect Scottsdale’s city fathers would not be pleased if all the energy contained in Pentacle Pawn’s vault happened to be released at one time. It’s like I told Amélie: better safe than sorry.
My little spell doesn’t directly affect the object. It’s more like wrapping it in a protective blanket. The spell sounds like the first verse of a children’s nursery rhyme. That’s intentional. If I ever have to use it when I’m out in the world, anybody who is eavesdropping might think I’m a bit strange for singing a children’s song to myself, but they won’t suspect that I’m, well, a witch.
I kept my voice low as I cradled the horn like a baby and sang to it.
Gently come and gently keep
To your cradle, off to sleep
Moon and stars with you abide
Safely stayed ‘til morningtide
The horn seemed to enjoy the lullaby. The purple bands in its aura deepened to a deep plum color. That was a good sign. It meant that the horn was aware of me but not afraid. If it had been frightened of me, I’d have seen the bright orange glow of a flame — and, if I persisted, the flame itself.
The drinking horn was tolerating me as well as could be expected. I quickly finished the ward as I stroked the horn along its length, murmuring words of praise. The horn’s aura faded back to a soft rainbow glow.
Enough for today. I snapped the brass latches shut, stowed the case in a wire cage with a good lock, and popped upstairs. The horn would be safe enough in the vault for now — or, to be more precise, we would be safe from whatever the horn had in mind.
Chapter Three
Jerry the Uber Guy came in at the end of the evening. Ever since I started Pentacle Pawn, Jerry has picked up my alley shop clients at the airport, their mansions or their exclusive hotels. He’s guaranteed to get the call because of a small spell that I’d added to the code of his rideshare app, and I pay the fares.
My clients have built up a relationship over time with Jerry and trust him implicitly. We urge discretion, for obvious reasons. One movie star you’d recognize was just drunk enough late one night to let the paparazzi trail him into the alley and get a shot of him leaning hazily against my door, mumbling to himself. He was just asking the door to let him in, but the photos in the tabloids the next day were as good as mugshots. The door spanked him in the butt as it admitted him. It doesn’t care for publicity.
But most of the alley shop clientele prefer to stay out of the limelight. They guard their privacy like the reclusive billionaires that some of them are. They slip into town by private jet or first-class ticket, and they summon an Uber instead of a limousine. Limo drivers talk; Jerry the Uber Guy never does.
Jerry stopped by at the end of the evening, but he seemed subdued. He lingered, fidgeting, at the end of the counter while I finished helping a client. When I turned and greeted him, I saw him startle a little. Jerry was the most confident, outgoing person I knew. Something was off.
“Do you have a minute? I need to talk to you,” he finally managed to stammer out.
“Would you like to go around the corner and get a cup of coffee?” I asked, aware that he was keeping his voice low so that Lissa would not overhear.
He blushed, but he nodded.
I left Lissa to tend the shop, and we slipped out. Jerry was silent while I ordered each of us a hazelnut cappuccino with all the trimmings. He was clearly uncomfortable, and not hearing his usual steady stream of chatter was making me a little jumpy, too.
I watched as he stirred two more packets of raw sugar into his coffee before I couldn’t stand it any longer. “Are you okay?” I asked as gently as I could.
His reaction was the last thing I expected: he looked up at me and grinned.
“What on earth is going on, Jerry?”
“I’ve got some big news.”
I knew that he had to say it at his own pace, but the suspense was killing me. It took all my willpower to wait him out, and when he finally did start talking, he went so fast I nearly missed the headline.
“So, I always buy lottery tickets every week — I know, I know, it’s a tax on people who can’t do the math— but it’s fun, and as long as I don’t get carried away, it’s pretty harmless, right? Well, this week I didn’t even check my tickets because I was so busy, but then last night I finally got around to looking at them and... well, I won.”
“Won what?”
“The whole thing. The lottery.”
“The lottery?” Yes, I know it was redundant, but I was still playing catch-up here.
“The lottery,” Jerry almost shouted, banging his hand down on the table. “Three million, two hundred thousand and change.”
I looked at him, dumbfounded. “And change,” was all I could say.
Jerry leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes and sighed. “I still can’t believe it.”
I was having a little trouble with it myself. “Wow.”
Jerry laughed and nodded. “Yeah. It took me a while to wrap my head around it, too. But I took it to the lottery agency this morning and it’s true. Three-point-two. I’m rich.”
The whole thing took my breath away. “You certainly are.”
“Of course, I don’t get the whole amount,” Jerry was saying, lacing his fingers behind his head. “There’s taxes and stuff. I went to a lawyer, and he says that when the dust settles, I’ll maybe end up with half. But that’s still more than a million and a half.”
Hmmm. “Jerry, are you sure about this lawyer?”
“I’m sure. I think you know him; he’s one of your customers. Mr. Dobbins?” Enoch Dobbins was a senior partner in a major corporate law firm downtown. He was also a passable wizard with a fondness for spells involving ivory dice. I would never advise playing craps with him, but otherwise, Enoch Dobbins is a straight shooter.
“It was like getting hit by lightning,” Jerry said. “I figured I needed some good advice bef
ore I did anything. I’ve picked Mr. Dobbins up a few times for you, so I thought he might remember me. He did, and he was nice enough to talk me through it. He says he can get it set up so I never have to touch the winnings, just draw an allowance from this special account. He says I’ll never have to work again if I don’t get too carried away.”
I could see the relief that this win had brought to Jerry. He’d been driving rideshare since before I opened Pentacle Pawn. He always seemed to be available and on the road. He had told me once that he didn’t have an apartment, just rented a room from a friend because he was pretty much in his car all the time anyway. I was happy for him.
But, I realized, not quite so happy for myself. The magical community is very particular about who they trust, and Jerry had built a steady clientele among my customers.
I hadn’t been listening to what Jerry was saying, and I just caught the tail end of the next sentence: “...it used to belong to some rock star.”
“I’m sorry — what?”
“Mr. Dobbins said that, as soon as we get the money into the account, I can draw out enough to buy myself a motor home. I’ve done enough driving for other people — it’s time I get to do a little for myself. One of his other clients is a musician who is selling his old tour bus, and Mr. Dobbins says he can get me a good deal on it. I’m thinking I want to go see a little bit of the country.”
He was like a little kid on the best Christmas morning ever.
“Good for you! Where will you go first?”
Jerry had clearly given this some thought in the short time since his big win. “Maybe Los Angeles — I’ve never been. You gotta see the Hollywood sign at least once in your life, right? If I take Route 66 north from there, I can follow the good weather all the way up to Chicago, then out to New York and down the East Coast. Maybe next winter I’ll be in the Florida Keys. Who knows?”
“So how soon does all this happen?”
“Mr. Dobbins says the lottery people should pay the money into my account by the end of the week. I’ll probably be gone pretty soon after that. Not much to keep me here.”
Not much except his friends and clients, who would miss him dearly. I was going to have to start building a relationship with another rideshare driver — and fast.
♦
My husband John met me at the door when I got home that night. Well, make that morning — I don’t close up the alley shop until sunrise. “We had some excitement around here last evening,” he said as I dropped my purse and keys on the little table next to the front door. “There were fire trucks and an ambulance out on the canal road. The cops went through the whole building and asked everybody a lot of questions. I heard them talking to the guy across the hall — they were saying that somebody drowned.”
My pal Bop lived on the ground floor of our building. She ran on the canal path.
John dropped his eyes.”I’m so sorry, sweetie…”
Don’t say it don’t say it don’t say it don’t say it don’t say it…
“The cops said it was Bop.”
I sank down onto the couch, and John sat quietly beside me while I cried myself out. He didn’t have any answers, at least the ones I wanted. Mostly, I wanted my friend back.
After a while I got up, numb, and wandered into the kitchen to fix my breakfast. John doesn’t need breakfast. He’s dead, murdered a year ago in New Orleans. Six months ago he showed up here, and he’s been hanging out in my condo and underfoot ever since.
Don’t get me wrong: I love John — but he was starting to vegetate. We needed a better plan before we began to get on each other’s nerves.
“So, what are you going to do today?” I asked him. Change the subject, let it go, find the normal. But there was nothing normal about any of this, and I didn’t know how to get my mind around it.
“Maybe I’ll just go for a run,” I said. Bop and I often ran together on the canal in the early mornings when I was coming in from work and she was getting ready to go out.
John sighed. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“Why?”
John studied his hands. “Some of the questions the cops were asking…” I looked up at him in alarm. “What questions?”
“Bop was an experienced runner. The canal road was not very crowded when it happened, so they’re discounting the idea of an accidental collision, and they don’t think she just fell in.”
“So that means?”
“That means,” John said, “that you need to be careful if you’re going out there alone. Honestly, I’d rather you not run on the canal right now, at least until the cops figure out what really happened to Bop. Please?”
I wrapped my arms around my torso and turtled up. I needed a hug.
♦
“It looks like I’ll have a house guest for a while,” I said to my Daisy when I met her for brunch later that morning.
It was a gorgeous Arizona day, warm and dry. Daisy hired a couple of big guys last fall to install six huge concrete planters on her tiny patio, and now her herb garden was thriving. Three round pots each held a dwarf citrus tree, underplanted with fragrant mint: a Meyer lemon with peppermints, a blood orange with spearmint, and a kumquat with orange mint. Beautiful upright rosemary was thriving in a planter by itself. A silvery sage was taking over another pot. The last container held a rosebush, just now leafing out, carpeted in chamomile.
“Fetch me some mint,” Daisy requested as she brought out a steaming china teapot. She carefully placed the teapot on its matching trivet in the middle of the patio table. She gave me a wink, sharing our mutual delight that the teapot was in use again. The delicate rose-covered tea service had belonged to Daisy’s mother, my maternal grandmother Marie-Eglise, and had been a regular fixture at tea time back home in the French Quarter.
I reached behind me and broke off a sprig of peppermint, setting loose a burst of fragrance. I used the back of my teaspoon to gently bruise the mint leaves, releasing the oils. The delicious perfume scented the air.
Daisy was busy under the rosebush, harvesting a handful of chamomile flowers: tiny single-row whites daisies with lemon-yellow button centers. She let the blossoms fall from her fingers into the teapot, dropped the mint on top, and snugged the lid. She slipped the teapot into its matching quilted cosy.
“So tell me about your house guest,” Daisy asked as she swirled the teapot a couple of times to saturate the herbs, then set it back on the trivet.
“John’s back.”
Daisy looked up abruptly. She studied me, trying to read my face. “Is that good news or bad news?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer her. I thought about it for a moment. “Good news,” I finally said.
“But?” She let it hang in the air.
“Well, of course, it’s not the same. We’re adjusting.”
“He’s not yet — corporeal?” I noticed her raised eyebrow.
“Well, no, not exactly. He’s still figuring it out.” I took a breath. “We’re still figuring it out.”
Daisy came around the table and gave me a hug. “Every marriage requires adjustments, mon trésor.”
My treasure. Daisy had called me that since I was a little girl. She was more mother to me than my own mother Hazel, and her simple acceptance of John’s return meant a lot. I reached across the table and took her hand. She gave mine a gentle squeeze before she reached for the tea.
I’ve never cared much for chamomile — I’ve always thought the dried flowers brought an alfalfa aftertaste that I found unpleasant. But, it turns out, fresh chamomile flowers are something entirely different. The tea Daisy made from them had sweet notes of apples and honey.
“Unexpected,” Daisy said. I wasn’t sure if she was talking about John or the chamomile.
“But nice,” I answered, meaning both.
Daisy raised her teacup. “To pleasant surprises,” she toasted.
♦
I don’t believe in coincidences, so I figured it was just the universe doing its thing whe
n the first call I got when I arrived at the shop that evening was from one of my favorite former students.
Stella studied physics with me back in my professor days, on her way to becoming an astronomer. In an impossibly tight professional market, she’d managed to land work on a grant project at a big Arizona telescope. She was over the moon, to indulge in a pun, but it didn’t last. A regime change in Washington canceled the grant and stranded Stella 1,500 miles from home.
When she called me, she was networking. By that time, the universities had spewed out the next crop of bright-eyed baby astronomers, eager for any crummy entry-level job they could nail down.
“So where are you living now?”
Stella sighed. “I’m staying with my second cousin near ASU for a little while, just until I get my feet under me again, but I have to find something soon. Her twins are only three, and their apartment is pretty crowded. Her husband has been hinting about wanting their couch back.”
I felt a little bit guilty about taking advantage of her situation, but not enough to keep me from asking. “I think I know of a temporary gig, if you’re interested.”
She brightened right up. “What kind of gig?” But she didn’t give me time to answer. “Never mind — as long as it’s not illegal, I’m in. They’ll understand that it’s only temporary, right? I mean, just until I get another grant.”
“That’s up to you. Do you have a car?”
I could almost hear her shaking her head in frustration. “I bought a brand-new Prius five months ago. I picked it up the week before we found out that our money had evaporated. Now I’m stuck with the payments.”
I made my move. “Have you ever thought about driving rideshare?” I told her about my deal with Jerry the Uber Guy, and how his job was now up for grabs.
“So I’d mostly be dealing with your clients? People you know?” I explained how we vet our clients, how they only come to us by appointment and referral.
“Let me think about it,” she said, but I could hear young children screaming in the background and a man’s voice trying to calm them down. I didn’t figure she’d have to think about it for very long.
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