Just when I thought the situation couldn’t get worse, there was a cacophony of noise. Three terrifying beasts entered the hairdressing salon. A wolf, an enormous bird, and another enormous bird. They were flanked by armed soldiers with weapons drawn.
All the floating objects fell to the floor with a clatter.
All the hairdressers and clients in the swivel chairs became unfrozen. Their screams blended together in one horrible chorus.
And then the genies detonated.
Chapter 40
Someone or something grabbed hold of me by my shoulders and yanked me backward. The hair salon filled with a sound that was so piercing, it was pain itself. My insides felt like they were being liquefied in a blender.
I couldn’t get up. I could barely lift my head to see what was happening.
Someone tall and speedy grabbed a weapon from an armed DWM agent as easily as one might take a candy gun from a baby. Through the haze, I saw dark hair and a familiar profile. Either it was the male genie who called himself Archer, or Chet had returned to human form. I had a bad feeling it wasn’t Chet.
The man pointed the gun at Morganna, took aim, and shot her in the chest once. Twice. Three times.
There’s no nice way to describe what happened next.
The tiny woman immediately liquefied, spraying her surroundings. Once again, as had happened inside the medical examiner’s van, dark liquid splashed into my open eyes, blocking my vision.
On top of the liquefied genie exploding, the room was hot and the air was heavy and the noise was unbearable. There was so much screaming and confusion.
I tried rubbing the goo from my eyes, but I was only smearing it around. I knew I was near the hair-washing sinks, so I made my way over to them by feel. I splashed water on my face. Someone joined me, pressing their body against mine and hogging the clean water. I had just cleared my vision and was about to turn around to see how I could help when I felt a wave of energy pass over me.
Everything got quiet again.
I looked down at my hands in the sink. My right hand was being held by another person. Detective Bentley. We stared into each other’s eyes for a second, and then we both slowly turned to face the room.
Everything and everyone else was frozen again. Except us. Why not us? I could understand me being immune, due to my witch powers, but why Bentley? He let go of my hand and reached for a towel. He must have been spared the freezing treatment due to us having been touching during the blast.
He narrowed his eyes at me and said, “I knew it. I knew there was something different about you. What have you done?”
“Bentley, I didn’t do this.”
He gave a quick shake of his head. “I must be dreaming. This is a nightmare.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “Theodore, just hang in there. You shouldn’t have had the gooseberry wine at dinner. It was too tart, and you know tart wine gives you weird dreams. In a few minutes, you’ll wake up. You’ll open your eyes, and you won’t see Zara Riddle covered in the splattered remains of some type of supernatural creature.” He took a deep breath, let it out, and then slowly opened his eyes.
“Still here,” I said. “And these splattered remains aren’t just any supernatural creature. It’s a genie.” I leaned forward until our foreheads were almost touching. “Genies are real.”
He took a step back and nodded slowly. “Genies are real.” Another nod. “I’m not sleeping.” More nodding. “Okay. I can work with that. By the way, why is it so quiet in here? I thought maybe the explosion made me deaf, but I can hear you just fine.”
“See for yourself.” I waved at the salon behind him.
He slowly turned around and took it all in. The creature nearest us was an enormous wolf, hanging in midair, frozen.
“That’s Chet Moore,” I explained. “You can shake his paw if you’d like.”
Bentley made a soft grunt I interpreted as no, thanks.
“Those are Agents Rob and Knox.” I waved at the two giant birds who were similarly frozen in the air, looking like a pair of artifacts at a museum for extinct creatures.
“Agents? Are they FBI?”
“More like Men in Black, only they don’t call themselves that.”
Bentley pinched himself on the arm and then gave me a sheepish look. “Had to be sure.”
“Come on. Let’s get out of here and…” And what? I didn’t know.
Bentley didn’t ask. He started moving, pausing only to pull up the leg of his trousers and retrieve a gun from his ankle holster. I hadn’t thought to check his ankle, and I was glad I’d missed the weapon because now we had one.
There was a scream somewhere nearby. Bentley and I exchanged a look, and then began to run.
We ducked underneath the sharp talons of the bird shifters and moved toward the salon’s exit. We approached a shimmering curtain of safety glass spraying out from where the large windows overlooking the courtyard had been. There was another scream, coming from beyond the broken gems of glass.
“The genie,” I said.
“The suspect,” Bentley said.
Bentley put his arms up to shield his face as we walked through the glass. I used my magic to sweep it away like an invisible broom.
We got out to the courtyard just as the exterior lamps flickered on, bright yellow against the dark blue sky.
Two women were huddled together, glancing around nervously. They were the two loud-mouthed women who’d drawn my mother’s ire in the ballroom the day before. The one who’d been strangled by my mother now clutched at her throat as her eyes bugged out at me. Her friend looked at Bentley and made a spluttering sound.
Bentley tucked his gun into the back of his trousers and walked toward the huddled women with his hands up. “Ms. Waldorf and Ms. Nebbins, it’s me, Detective Bentley. Did you see a man come running through here?”
Ms. Waldorf turned her bugged-out eyes from me to Bentley. “Yes,” she answered. “He took her. He said he wanted a hostage.”
Ms. Nebbins chimed in. “He took a woman.” She pointed in the direction of the parking lot. “He took her that way. I don’t know her name, but she’s beautiful. Indescribably beautiful.”
Bentley’s eyes widened. “My blueberry muffin?”
I clapped him on the shoulder. “We’ll get her back, Bentley.” I asked the women, “Which way did he go? The parking lot?”
They both nodded vehemently.
We got to the parking just in time to see a silver-gray sedan skidding sideways on loose gravel as it left the castle grounds.
“My car,” Bentley said, stupefied. “That genie took my girlfriend, and my car!”
“The nerve.” I paused for only a second before I knew what to do next. I ran over to the vintage Cadillac convertible and jumped over the door into the driver’s seat. “Hop in,” I called out to the detective.
He hopped into the passenger seat without a word.
I flipped up the floor mat and grabbed the key, which was right where I knew it would be. The car started up like a dream.
“This isn’t your car,” Bentley said.
“Nope. But it does belong to my buddy, Nash, and he promised I could drive any Lucille I wanted, just as soon as I got my driver’s license. It’s taken a few years for our paths to line up, but—”
“Drive,” Bentley said, and he tucked his gun into his lap before pulling on his seat belt.
I hit the gas, and we peeled out of the parking lot. We drove over the wooden roadblock sign the previous car had knocked over, and then I pushed the gas pedal down as far as it would go. The old Cadillac rumbled with excitement. The wind whipped my hair around. The narrow road away from the castle seemed even more narrow after dark, with the thick treetops blocking out the moonlight.
“He didn’t even need a hostage,” I said.
“No, I imagine he didn’t.”
“I bet he took her just to mess with us. He’s a genie! He could have gotten away no problem on his own. Look how easily we left.”
“A
ll true.”
“Also…” I trailed off. There’d been that time Archer had disappeared in the blink of an eye, when we were in the stairwell together. He must have frozen me then. That meant my witch powers didn’t make me immune to his powers. Not unless he’d used a witch-specific variant that time in the stairwell. Was that even a thing? Or had he wanted me to be moving around freely after he froze everyone else in the salon? Was I, at that very moment, playing right into some master plan of his? Was I driving myself and Bentley right into a trap?
Probably.
But what other choice did I have? Let the bad genie take my mother and keep her?
We reached the main road, and the Cadillac skidded to a stop.
“I can’t see tail lights in either direction,” Bentley said.
I turned to look at my mother’s boyfriend. “Do you love my mother?”
He gave me a confused look. “Your mother?”
That wasn’t going to work. He knew about genies, but he hadn’t yet got on the clue train with his creature-of-the-night girlfriend. That was some powerful voodoo, all right.
I tried a different tactic: “Do you love your car?”
He continued to look confused. “I like my car, I suppose. Why?”
“Take my hand, and think happy thoughts about your car. There’s no time to explain.”
He was skeptical, but he did as he asked. My spell for locating objects only worked on things I had a personal connection to, such as my purse or my cell phone, but I hoped I could link into his feelings in order to locate his car.
I felt a pull to the right. It had worked.
I hit the gas and pulled onto the main road.
After a minute, he said, “I thought genies granted wishes.”
“Good work, Detective! Very smart.”
He grumbled, “I’m trying.”
“I wasn’t being sarcastic. I meant what I said. Genies are supposed to grant wishes, which gives me an idea. Take the wheel, will you?”
I clambered up onto my seat, gripped the top of the windshield with both hands, and yelled at the distant red tail lights of the car in front of us. “Hey, Mr. Genie! I wish you would pull over and let your hostage go! Do you hear me, Archer Caine? Or whatever your name is? I said, I wish you would pull over! And for my second wish, I wish you would let my mother go!”
Our car continued at top speed, thanks to my telekinetic magic holding down the gas pedal. I probably could have steered without Bentley’s help, but I wanted him to feel useful.
I yelled some more wishes, but the car up ahead showed no signs of pulling over.
I settled back into my seat, and we kept going.
After a minute, I said to Bentley, “Is it wishful thinking, or are they slowing down?”
“Brake lights,” he said. “They’re slowing.” He lifted his gun and took aim.
“Easy now!”
“I’m aiming for the tires,” he said.
The distance between us and the tail lights closed rapidly.
Suddenly, the silver-gray car swerved to the right and launched off the road, into the ditch.
“Good shot,” I said.
“I didn’t fire.”
“Then what’s happening?”
“You tell me. You’re the one who knows about giant wolves and monster birds.”
I slowed the car and steered toward the tracks in the dirt made by Bentley’s car. “We can’t chase them in Lucille,” I said.
“Lucille?”
“The Cadillac,” I said. “Jump out. We’re going on foot.”
I didn’t have to tell him twice. He was out ahead of me and running after the red tail lights of his car, gun raised.
“They won’t get far, either,” Bentley.
Sure enough, they didn’t. The car mowed down a few small saplings before coming to an undignified resting spot on a large stump, both front wheels off the ground. The vehicle wasn’t overturned, yet it reminded me of an upended tortoise.
The driver’s side opened. A dark figure stepped out and then disappeared in the blink of an eye.
“The genie,” I said.
“I don’t see him,” Bentley said, pivoting left and right, scanning with his gun at the ready.
There was a long creak. The passenger-side door was opening slowly.
“My mother,” I said.
Bentley lowered the gun. “Who?”
“Your blueberry muffin.”
He gave me a stunned look. “She’s here? Now? Why?”
Behind him, Zirconia Riddle stepped out of the passenger side of the car and straightened up.
She pointed at Bentley. “Teddy B, go to sleep,” she commanded.
Good ol’ Teddy B buckled like tin foil and went down in a heap. So much for having a partner, or backup, or whatever Bentley was.
“Mom,” I said. “I’m so glad you’re—”
And then she crossed in front of the beams of light coming from the Cadillac parked at the roadside.
I stopped breathing. She’d been wearing a white shirt and tan slacks when I’d seen her in the courtyard.
Now the shirt was red.
The slacks were red.
The bottom half of her face was red.
The coppery scent of blood hit my nostrils.
I stumbled toward her, fell to my knees, and looked down. As long as I didn’t look up and see that red shirt and red slacks, it wasn’t real. It didn’t have to be real.
I rubbed my hands together, harder and harder. Where was the flicker? Nothing sparked. Not even a glimmer. Only blackness and night. My healing powers were as flatlined as my defensive lightning. I cried out in frustration and slammed my palms against the ground, willing the magic to flow into my palms. It had to work. It had to. If I couldn’t heal her…
No.
It had to work. I kept slamming my hands into the ground. Come on, Mother Earth. Give me just a little of that juice.
A hand landed on my shoulder.
“Don’t,” she said softly. “You’re hurting yourself.”
I shrugged the hand away and kept focusing on limbering—or hammering—the joints in my hands.
“Mom, I can heal you. I know I can.”
“Heal me? It’s too late for that,” she said. “I’m already dead.”
I blinked through my blurring vision and kept beating my hands on the ground, rubbing them together, beating the ground.
It had to work. I had to be able to heal her. Why else would I be given powers, if I couldn’t use them to save my family?
“Save your energy,” she said softly. “You’ll only tire yourself out.”
My vision kept blurring. There was so much blackness, so much night, so much nothingness. Like being buried. I blinked harder.
“Look up,” she said. “Look at me, my child.”
“No,” I said with grim determination. “I don’t want to see you like this. I’ve seen you in a coffin before. I’m not a fan. It’s not going to happen again.”
“You don’t want to see me as I am?”
I shook my head and kept facing down, even though I couldn’t see anything through my stupid blurry eyes. “I won’t let you go. I refuse. That’s all.” That was the key. I heard my new reasonable lightness reflected in my voice. “I reject all of this.”
She knelt beside me.
The scent of blood was even stronger now. I gagged on the stench of death. No.
I searched around inside myself. Josephine was gone. It was only me there.
But I was a witch, and I did have some powers that were still working.
I cast the bluffing spell, for lack of a better idea. “You aren’t dead,” I said, weaving in the Witch Tongue commands. “You aren’t going to die today, Mom. We are going to walk out of this field, get into Nash’s convertible, and drive somewhere civilized.”
“What’s done is done,” she said. “Look at me.”
“No.”
She seized my wrists with surprising strength and yanked me
up to standing.
I was looking into her eyes, so much like mine, yet so cool and dark in the moonlight.
“Look at me,” she repeated.
“I’m looking.”
“See me.”
“I see you.”
She smiled. “See me.” She released my wrists. I inhaled, and my body felt as light as air, as though the spells I’d tried to cast on my way out of the bell tower had finally kicked in. Except it was just a feeling, not a real change. I stumbled backwards awkwardly with my full weight.
And then it happened.
I saw her.
She was still smiling, the same as before, except now I saw something I hadn’t noticed before. Where she’d once had a pair of normal canine teeth, there were now two very long, very sharp fangs.
No way! My mother’s a…
I understood. The blood covering my mother from the mouth down was not her own. It was that of Archer Caine.
My mother was… a thing with pointy teeth. The sort of thing that bites people on the neck and sucks their blood. She was one of those things. A creature of the grave. The kind who sleeps in a coffin in the movies.
Not a zombie.
Once more, for clarity.
Not a zombie.
“Zarabella, don’t be scared,” she said.
“You’re a va—” My throat closed. I swallowed and tried again. “A va—” The word caught in my throat like a sharp bone.
She tilted her head to the side and kept smiling. “What’s wrong, Zara? Are you worried that all your oh-so-funny zombie jokes are going to be wasted? You’ll have to think up some new material now.”
“Va—” I still couldn’t say it. This wasn’t simple shock keeping me from saying the word. It had to be magic, powerful magic.
My gaze went to her necklace, to the pendant with the glowing amber stone. I used my magic to unclasp the chain and remove it. She flicked her gaze down and watched with amusement as I yanked the magic pendant toward myself.
With the magic pendant in my hand, I gave her a defiant look and said, “Zirconia Riddle, you’re a va—”
Nope. I still couldn’t say it.
She smiled even more broadly. As she did, her fangs retracted. Her teeth were normal again, and she was just my mother again. With genie blood on her chin.
Wisteria Wyverns Page 30
