Pentacle Pawn Boxed Set

by Amanda Hartford

  So, a younger woman. I was beginning to suspect that I knew who was up there on that footbridge. One more question might tell me for sure.

  Because of that pheromone thing, Edgar judges whole families based on whichever member he meets first. He had an instant crush on my aunt Daisy because he likes me.

  On the other hand, there was Lissa. She thought Edgar was so cool, but, no matter how much she tried to make friends with the raven, he wasn’t having it. I had to assume that his feelings extended to her kin.

  I pointed at the tree once more before I folded my hands over my heart. “Which one like? “Maggie? Lissa?”

  Edgar lowered his head, dropped his body down over his legs and hunched his shoulders, making himself small. I’ve seen birds behave like that when a larger predator flies overhead.

  “Lissa,” he said. He sounded exactly like her. And Lissa sounds very much like her mother, Penelope.

  ♦

  Time to call the cavalry. I speed-dialed Mark, but down here in this concrete cave, I had no bars. Life in the 21st century: my precious cell phone is waterproof and shockproof. I can use it as a camera or an egg timer. I can play every song I’ve ever downloaded. I just can’t make a phone call.

  If it was Penelope up on that footbridge – and, thanks to Edgar, I was pretty sure now that it was – I was in big trouble. I am very skillful in my craft, but nobody takes on a witch as powerful as Penelope without a lot of planning and preparation. I had fought her to a draw twice before, but always with the help and support of my friends.

  This was different; this was an ambush, and I was alone. Confronting her was out of the question.

  That left escape.

  All of Penelope's efforts so far, all the attempts on my life, had been for one purpose: to gain control of Pentacle Pawn. Or, to be more precise, to gain access to the items in my vault. This wasn’t personal, or, at least it hadn’t been when she started out. Since then, she’d been in the care of her husband Alex (she’d probably tell you she’d been his prisoner). Who was her anger and her frustration focused on now?

  I wasn’t going to hang around to find out.

  Penelope had the high ground. Down here on the lower deck, I was hidden from her view, at least for the moment, but I was also stuck. Either of the walkways that led off of this deck would take me directly in front of her. I’d never make it to the canal bank.

  Edgar was watching me, waiting for instructions. Maybe he could help one more time, after all.

  “Send help GPS.” I clapped with it and worked the rhythm like that old high school football chant “Send. Help...G.P.S – Send. Help...G.P.S–Send. Help...G.P.S.”

  Edgar eyed me. It was something he never heard before, and he was intrigued.

  “Send help – GPS.” I said it twice more.

  Edgar cocked his head at me. Aha! I could almost hear thinking. A new game! He listened intensely as I repeated the phrase.

  “Send help – GPS.” I said, trying to give him exactly the same pronunciation and inflection every time.

  “Send help,” he said right back in my voice. I waited for the rest of it before I’d praise him.

  “Send help,” he said. I was disappointed; it could take weeks to teach him a new phrase, but I’d been hoping for this long shot.

  “Send help send help send help,” he said, trying to please me.

  I guess I just have to figure out something else, I thought, letting my forehead fall into my hands. “Good bird!” I said to Edgar anyway. He’d really tried.

  He cocked his head. “Send help – GPS,” he said, plain as day.

  I snapped my head up. “What?”

  “Send help – GPS.” He did his raven dance, rocking from foot to foot and shuffling his wings.

  Excellent!

  I know I was beaming. “Oh, you darling bird! I owe you a jar of peanut butter!”

  I said it to him one more time, and he repeated it back word-perfect.

  I pointed in the direction of home. “Fly John,” I said.

  Edgar lifted off.

  The good news was that the cavalry would be coming, after all. The bad news was that Edgar fell in love with every new phrase he learned. We’d all be hearing that one for a while.

  I usually keep the location turned off on my phone; where I’ve been is nobody else’s business, especially the big data companies. Now I turned it back on so the GPS would track me and stowed the phone back in its zippered pouch. It was time to go.

  I stayed low and kept my back tight against the retaining wall as I worked my way back out to the end of the viewing platform. I was counting on the angle of the slope to keep me out of Penelope’s sight, but when I peeked around the end of the wall, I could see the far end of the footbridge. I didn’t see anyone there, but she could step back into view at any moment.

  I ran across the viewing platform before I could lose my nerve and went over the fence with a single leap. I landed flat on my stomach, on a rough step about five feet below the deck. The foaming rapids were just below my fingertips as I lay on the step, listening.

  The roar of the water blasting out of the spillway was much louder here. Don’t think about it, I told myself. Just do it.

  And I did.

  ♦

  Edgar flew straight back to my condo and landed on the patio decking next to his Manzanita branch. He waddled over to the glass patio door.

  The drapes were open, and he could see John sound asleep on the couch. Edgar used his huge beak to tap on the window.

  John rolled over and put his arm over his head.

  Edgar ruffled his feathers in frustration. He tapped again, louder this time, but John didn’t move.

  Edgar had a full repertoire of human speech, snatches of overheard music and stolen birdsong, but when he wanted to get someone’s attention, raven’s caw is one of the most annoying sounds on the planet.

  Edgar stood very close to the glass door and unleashed that caw at John. It was raspy and raw, a sort of strangled trumpet that was the raven equivalent of fingernails on a blackboard.

  John got up. He stumbled to the door, rubbing at his tangled hair.

  Edgar kept it up until John stopped right in front of him and looked down through the glass. “Go away,” John mumbled. “She’s not here.”

  Edgar banged on the glass again.

  “Stop that!” John yelled. “I told you: she’s not here.”

  “GPS,” Edgar said.

  John yawned.

  “GPS,” Edgar said. “Help.” He tapped furiously on the glass. “Send help send help send help.”

  John snapped alert. “What are you talking about?”

  “Send help – GPS,” Edgar said, finally getting it right.

  The color drained from John’s face. Well, it would have if he hadn’t been a ghost. “That’s Maggie’s voice. Did Maggie teach you that?”

  “Maggie,” Edgar said in my voice, cocking his head. “Send help – GPS. Send help – GPS.” Edgar was on a roll.

  John dove for the computer to text Mark.

  Chapter Thirteen

  People die every year in Phoenix’s canals, and I was about to become one of them.

  The green water blasting out of the power plant was turbulent. I wasn’t swimming in a pool; I was caught in a blender. I was going to drown.

  I bobbed my head up to catch a breath of air. I had no time to flail my arms around like you see in movies. All I could do was keep popping up above the froth until I got far enough downstream from the rapids that I could get some control. I just had to stay alive that long.

  The rapids weren’t my only problem. As the water spun me, I got glimpses of the falls behind me. Penelope was no longer on the footbridge. On the next rotation, I spotted movement on the lower level. The next time around, she was standing on the viewing platform, looking downstream.

  Looking right at me.

  I grabbed a big breath and let the water take me down. It carried me along for a few seconds – minutes? Ho
urs? – until my lungs were ready to burst. I had no idea how deep the canal was, but the water level was high and there was no bottom under my feet, nothing to push off from. My running shoes felt like lead weights, but I didn’t dare shuck them off in case I needed to run for my life once I was out of the water. I used my arms and legs together to thrust toward the surface, hoping I wouldn’t overshoot and breach like a whale.

  The water was less chaotic now as I got farther away from the falls. That meant that I was able to keep my head above water longer, but it also meant the white foam had dissipated, and I was being carried along in a glassy stream. I use my arms to turn myself around and get one last view of the falls.

  Penelope was gone.

  ♦

  That cereal I’d wolfed down for my mid-afternoon breakfast was taking its revenge. The sugar high had crashed, leaving me groggy. Thrashing and swirling currents had left me exhausted at the very moment when my life depended on making good decisions. I needed to get control of my trajectory before then, or I’d get tangled up in the gratings and safety rails beneath it. If I was underwater when that happened, I was done.

  A small school of nosy sunfish appeared near my fingertips as I rotated my arms underwater, trying to stay submerged. The tons of water moving downstream were carrying me towards the bridge at 56th Street.

  As I bobbed up for air, I could see the top of a city bus stopped at the curb just beyond the intersection and busy city traffic clunking across the low bridge. The slope of the canal was more gradual now, and the banks were just above street level. Just ahead of me on the left, molded into the concrete canal lining, were yellow-painted emergency steps. If I could make it up those steps and climb the shallow dirt bank, there would be people around. I could see the bushy fronds of a grove of palm trees, and I knew that they surrounded my favorite Starbucks on the far corner. I could call the cops. I’d be safe.

  I scanned the bridge and the banks as I grabbed one more gasp of air and submerged. I’d only had a split second to look, but I hadn’t seen anybody looked like Penelope. But that didn’t mean that nobody had seen me.

  A couple wearing fashionable running togs were up on the canal bank, pacing me as I was carried downstream. The woman held a cell phone up to her face. With any luck, she was dialing 911.

  Witnesses! I had witnesses! Penelope wouldn’t dare take a shot at me – or whatever it was she had in mind – with civilians around. At least, I hoped so.

  I allowed myself to break the surface and tried to wave at my would-be rescuers. They waved and yelled back. The man was shouting something to me, but I couldn’t understand him. He was pointing at the bridge – no, he was pointing at the yellow steps. He was going to try to pull me out.

  Other runners on the canal path had noticed the commotion, and three young guys were running toward the steps. They wore the burgundy football jerseys of an exclusive prep school in the neighborhood.

  The linebacker broke away from his buddies and took a flying leap into the canal.

  He belly-flopped right in front of me; green water went down my throat and gagged me. He surfaced and wrapped one massive arm around my waist. This kid was six-two, maybe 200 pounds. If he wanted to rescue me, then I was about to be rescued.

  While all this was going on, the linebacker’s buddies and other bystanders had formed a human chain from the canal path down to the yellow steps. The linebacker effortlessly kept my head above water as he hauled me to the foot of the steps. He turned me around, put both enormous hands under my butt, and shoved me up.

  His buddies grabbed me by the wrists and brought me up the rest of the way while the crowd cheered. And there was a crowd; the runners from the path had been joined by a stream of people emerging from the city bus. As I reached the top of the embankment, a police car with lights blazing pulled around the corner into a parking lot on the far side of the canal. Two cops came running back to help. This was turning into quite an event for a sleepy summer afternoon.

  I thanked my rescuers profusely, praising their quick reflexes and prompt action to save my life. I wasn’t sure that I’d actually been in mortal danger, but that’s what they needed to hear and I was grateful for their help. The football guys gave their statements to the police and headed on down the canal bank. They looked pretty pleased with themselves; they had a great story to tell.

  The cops were kind but concerned. Where did I fall in? Had I lost my footing on the canal path above the falls and gone over the spillway? Was anyone else with me, and were they in the water, too?

  I wasn’t about to tell them that I had entered the water voluntarily. The explanation for that would have been, well, complicated, and I didn’t think the Phoenix Police Department – with no experience with the magical community – had much chance of catching up with Penelope.

  Paramedics showed up, but I refused treatment. They made me swear to update my tetanus shot: the water in the canal is untreated. They must’ve asked me a dozen times to let them transport me to the emergency room. I assured them that I was fine, just a little shaken up, but honestly, that wasn’t my primary emotion. I was pissed. This had to end.

  ♦

  The paramedics reluctantly went on their way. Once the cops understood that I was okay, they agreed to walk across the intersection with me to Starbucks, where we could sit in the air-conditioning and enjoy a cold drink instead of taking my statement out in the heat on the canal bank.

  The cops waited patiently as I ordered a frozen latte and offered to buy anything they wanted for themselves with my phone app. The one who looked like he was near retirement declined for both of them, and paid cash for their sodas. They joined me at a quiet corner table.

  I didn’t lie to them, really. I mostly told them the truth: that I had been out for a run by myself and made my usual rest stop at the falls. I may have stretched the truth a little about slipping on some loose, wet sand at the bottom of the ramp and slipping over the edge. It was a bit of a stretch, since there are those wire fences all over the place at the falls, but anybody who knows me will be happy to attest to what a klutz I am.

  Like I said, what I told the cops was mostly true. I just left out the part about sensing Penelope up on the footbridge, and I failed to mention Edgar. They seemed happy enough with my statement and left me the corner table when they picked up their sodas and headed back to their patrol car.

  Oh my gosh – Edgar! If he’d done his job, then at this moment John and Mark would be rallying the troops to come to my rescue. I unzipped the pocket in my shorts and reached for my phone again to head them off.

  I never got the phone out of my pocket. I was distracted by the gun that Penelope pointed at my face as she slid into the chair across from me.

  “Hello, Maggie,” she said. “Let’s go for a little ride.”

  ♦

  Neither of us said a word as Penelope marched me down the alley to Pentacle Pawn. My clothes were still damp and my shoes squished when I walked, but I paid little attention. I was focused on the gun in Penelope's pocket.

  I hesitated in front of the door, knowing it wouldn’t admit her and unless I gave permission — and that the door would kill if I ordered it.

  “Don’t,” she said simply.

  I put the idea out of my mind. This wasn’t just me against Penelope. In the past, she’d always used her followers to help her get what she wanted; even if she was dead, they would exact revenge against everyone I love. I’d just have to let this play out.

  We were in and out of the alley shop in less than fifteen minutes. Penelope didn’t need to give me any orders; I knew exactly what she wanted.

  Frank peeked out from behind the counter, his ears twitching in alarm. I gave him a tiny shake of the head, hoping Penelope didn’t notice. His eyes blazed, but he retreated to his cubbyhole.

  I walked straight to the Eames chair in front of my desk.

  “I’m going down with you,”Penelope said.

  “It doesn’t work that way. The spell is set up fo
r one person.”

  Penelope shot me a reptilian smile. “Fix it.”

  I sat in the chair and extended my arms straight out to my sides. As I recited the incantation, I re-defined the perimeter of the spell to include the diameter of my fingertips. A transparent green sphere surrounded me for a moment, then blinked out.

  “Stand behind me and hold on to the chair,” I told Penelope.

  She placed her hands on the top of the chair back, her fingertips brushing my neck. I felt the small hairs at my hairline rise.

  I muttered the password, and we popped downstairs.

  “Where are they?” Penelope hissed, her voice charged with excitement.

  I unlocked the bin that contained Violet’s puzzle ball and spellbooks. Penelope scooped them up.

  “Let’s go,” she ordered, sitting in the downstairs Eames chair.

  Back upstairs, Penelope headed straight for the door, but I remained behind. Never get in a car with a kidnapper. That’s what they say, right? Not that I had much choice, but I stood my ground. I might not be able to fight back, but I wasn’t going without some answers.

  I saw Frank, peeking around the counter again, eavesdropping.

  "Where are you taking me?" I demanded.

  She smirked. "We're just going for a little walk in the mountains."

  “So you’re finally going to kill me?” I demanded, meeting her eyes. “Just leave me out in the desert someplace?”

  “Oh, I ‘m not going to kill you. You’re going to bear witness.”

  I just stared at her, waiting. This was her big moment.

  She couldn’t resist. “All my life, I’ve been somebody’s daughter, somebody’s wife, somebody’s mother — and, in the end, they all abandoned me. Well, today, I come into my full power. Today, the world will know what I’m capable of. The world will know who I really am — because you’re going to tell them.”

  You’re nuts, I thought. That’s who you really are. But for once, I had the good sense to keep my thoughts to myself. I got in the van.

  ♦