by Linda Wisdom
But Maggie had already seen enough. She threw out a hand, extinguishing the candles that circled the girl, and broke the circle with her foot.
“You stupid child! What do you think you’re doing?” Another wave of her hand sent the clothes tumbling away from what Courtney had tried to hide.
The girl scrambled backward, alarmed by Maggie’s fury. “Me? What about you?” She made her way onto her bed. “And those are mine!” She looked at the doorway where Declan stood looking at the scene before him. “She’s gone nuts!”
Maggie snatched up the cloth doll and tore off the small photograph glued to the face. She crumpled up the picture of Troy and stared at a tiny dot of red on the cloth. Her rage was so great, she was shaking.
“Who taught you this?” Her voice was hoarse with her anger.
“No one.” The teen retreated into her sullen self as defense.
“Courtney, you have to tell her.” Declan stepped inside the room and almost shuddered from the energy still roiling in the space. “This is very bad.”
“What? It’s a joke. I was just going to send it to Troy with a bunch of pins stuck in it. Who knows? Maybe it would even work.”
Maggie swooped down and picked up a black silk bag, tucking the doll inside. She’d have to deal with it later. “This is a poppet,” she said in a low voice. “And it isn’t something you play with lightly. This isn’t a toy. In the right hands, it’s very powerful, and in the wrong hands, such as yours, it’s a disaster in the making. Now tell me who told you how to do this.”
Courtney recoiled from her. Maggie’s magick sent a thick cloud through the room, making it hard for them to breathe. Maggie was past caring.
“Maggie, you need to calm down,” Declan said softly, still keeping a bit of a distance from her. “If you don’t, we all could implode. It’s obvious she has no clue how serious this is. Please, Maggie.”
“What the hell is going on?” By now Courtney was plastered against the head of her bed as magick translated itself into electricity, sending sparks into the air and their hair flying around their faces.
Declan spun around. “The wards. You could destroy them,” he warned Maggie.
“The wards will hold,” she said grimly as she stared down the girl. “Are you going to tell me?”
“Mick! Mick gave it to me. He told me if anyone ever really pissed me off, I could use it to make their life miserable!” she shouted. “He said it was a joke. One of those things where you can mess with their minds. I could send it to the person I meant it for, and they’d think I was really going after them. They’d think something really bad would happen to them. No big.”
“No big?” Maggie loomed over her. “Courtney, a poppet is not a toy! It’s dangerous magick. Not only could you have killed that boy, but it would also direct itself back to you because the magick would know you were doing a wrong thing. And you added blood to it! Bad enough with the poppet, but blood takes it to a whole other level.”
Courtney started to straighten up. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about. Is this what you did in Europe? You practiced all that supernatural stuff?”
Maggie breathed in deeply through her nose, doing her best to bring her temper under control. She knew if she didn’t do it soon, she’d be fighting a losing battle.
“I told Mal I wasn’t mom material,” she muttered. “I told him someone else should do this.”
“Do what? Who’s Mal?” Courtney looked from Maggie to Declan. “You’re not really my cousin, are you? You lied to that judge. And who are you really? Someone tell me what’s going on!”
“I am the person who’s taking care of you.” Maggie bent down and picked up the candles. “If I ever catch you trying any form of magick again, I will lock you away in a tower that will make Rapunzel’s prison look like a resort.”
She flexed her fingers, finally slowing down the magick that was seeping out of her pores. She shook her head and turned away. “I can’t do any more of this right now. We will talk later.” She left the room with Declan following.
“You just scared the shit out of that kid,” he told her.
“Good.” She muttered a layering spell for the wards to ensure Courtney wouldn’t sneak out of the house.
“You need to sit down and talk to her.”
“I need to give her a good spanking,” she snarled, throwing open the back door and walking outside into the large fenced-in yard.
“She’s a teenager who didn’t understand what she was dabbling in.”
“You’re defending her?”
He held up his hands in defense. “Not when you’re pissed off like this. I remember that waterhemlock threat.”
Maggie circled the yard. “You don’t understand, either. All you are is a nightclub owner,” she spat out. “What do you know about danger and wars and the magick that feeds it?”
Declan crossed the yard in a few steps and grabbed her wrist so hard, bruises would be left behind.
“You think I don’t know what it means?” he hissed. His temper had risen to the point where a shadowy mist swirled around him. They both felt the sensation of flames flickering around them. “That every day in my father’s house wasn’t a battle just to stay alive? That there weren’t beatings and other punishments you couldn’t even comprehend?
“My father didn’t reach his position by being an easy mark. If you looked at him wrong, you could lose a limb. If a slave dared say a word, he’d cut out their tongue. The only reason I don’t bear the scars from my childhood is because he knew I would rise further in this world if I didn’t have them. If you saw the real me, you’d turn your head away in disgust.”
Her brow furrowed. “He beat you?”
“On a good day. He had a special dungeon built for playing his sadistic games. Three of my brothers didn’t survive his actions.”
He could see her fury subsiding. He only wished it hadn’t happened at a cost to himself. He’d told her more in those few lines than he’d ever told another woman.
“What about Anna? Was she beaten, too?”
“She was largely ignored until she grew of age to be useful,” he replied. “Then she was groomed for a position that would further our father’s aspirations. When she refused to go along with his plans, she was beaten to within an inch of her life, healed, and beaten again.”
“How did you get her away from there?” she asked curiously.
“I called in a lot of favors and told a lot of lies. There’s no way he will ever know where she is, because he’d see that as his chance to infiltrate the Guard.”
Maggie shook her head. “Not possible. Not even demons can do it. There are too many protections on us. Plus the Ruling Council would step in then. The treaties might be few, but they are there.” She took a deep breath. “So in essence you’re saying I need to go easy on Courtney even if she almost did something incredibly stupid?”
“No, I think you need to sit down with her and explain just what was stupid about it.”
“What do you think I just did?”
“You just yelled at her, scared the shit out of her, and almost strangled her with magick. Not a good thing for a girl’s guardian to do when you need to keep her on your side.”
She looked off to the side. “I really hate it when people are logical.”
“I thought all Nordic types were calm and collected.”
“Yeah, well, I missed that chromosome. I lost my temper. I almost lost all control, and now there’s a teenage girl in there who probably hates and fears me.”
Declan wrapped his arms around her and brought her against him, enfolding her in the warm embrace. She buried her nose against his shoulder and sniffed loudly.
“I’m no expert on teenage girls, except as a former boy who chased them on a regular basis, but what I do remember is their moods changed like the wind.” He rested his chin on top of her head, inhaling the soft fragrance of her shampoo.
“She’ll destroy her room to punish me,” she mumbled a
gainst his shirt. “Or shave her head. Or find a way to sneak out and get a tattoo.”
“Says the witch with her own tattoo.” He tapped her right hip where he’d found a colorful sketch of a witch’s hat riding a broom. “And here I thought the spider was your only one.”
“Elle likes to think of herself as part of my jewelry. I’m of age for a tat. Courtney’s not.” She sighed. “And no age jokes either.”
“You need to go in there and talk to her.”
The way she relaxed in his arms told him she knew he was right.
“I don’t suppose you want to come in and help.”
“I have to get to the club.”
“You wouldn’t use that excuse if she was still at school. You’d be trying to seduce me in the kitchen or on the stairs or in the family room.”
Declan smiled at the sound of her grumbling. His Maggie was back.
“Why don’t you let me out of here, and if all goes well, give me a call, and I’ll come back tonight with a pizza,” he suggested.
“All right, but no anchovies.”
“No problem there.” He kissed her briefly and waited while she made an opening in the wards. He wasted no time going past it and waited while she returned the wards to normal. “I’ll talk to you later.”
As she watched Declan drive away, the glass-shattering sounds of Evanescence’s “Haunted” roared from upstairs.
“Sound so loud. Sound in air be taken away,” she said, waving her hand at Courtney’s bedroom window. Silence coated the patio except for the twittering of birds using the birdbath. “Better than earmuffs.”
She went inside, not prepared to face the wrath of a teenager but knowing if she didn’t do it now, she would never do it—and she would have to leave Courtney locked in her room until after the date of the ritual.
***
“She’s crazy,” Courtney babbled into her cell. After five minutes of loud music, she turned it down so she could call Mick and relate the events of the day starting with the fight with Troy. He laughed when she told him what she did to the jerk.
“Yeah, she took me out of that lousy school and that’s a good thing, but now she’s acting really weird. I think she lied to the judge, too.”
“Why?” Mick’s voice rumbled in her ear.
Courtney settled back in the disaster known as her bed. “First she tried to be my friend and now she’s got this guy here and she just does this stuff.”
“Courtney, you’re not making much sense,” her boyfriend insisted. “Calm down, okay? Do you want me to come over?”
“The way she is now? She probably wouldn’t let you past the front door. I just needed to talk to you. I don’t know why Maggie got so pissed about that little joke doll you gave me.”
“Adults can get bent out of shape over stuff they don’t understand.”
“But she acted like she did understand. She said it was really bad stuff.”
“She probably saw some movie that said that or read a book. If you want to give Troy a good scare, I’ll get you another one, and this time you’ll be more careful that she doesn’t find it. In fact, if you want, I’ll go have a talk with the asshole myself.”
She was so tempted to let him. She knew Mick would go after Troy and beat the shit out of him in her honor. The idea was appealing.
She had been flattered the first time he showed interest in her. It had only been in the last year or so that she started to look more like a girl than some little kid other kids made fun of.
With his sun-warmed skin and dark shaggy hair, Mick was the kind of guy moms warned their daughters about. Except Courtney didn’t have a mother to look out for her. Not that it would have mattered where he was concerned. She was in love with a guy who treated her like she was the most precious thing in his life.
She already had the idea that Maggie didn’t like him, even though she hadn’t met him. But Courtney wasn’t giving Mick up for anyone. Once she was of age, she was outta there and with Mick full time. And if Maggie really was totally crazy, then Courtney would be gone even sooner. She could look older and get a better job. It wasn’t until then she heard Mick shouting her name.
“I’m here. Just thinking.”
“I’m coming over. You’re worrying me, babe. What if she does something bad to you?”
“I don’t think that will happen.” She conveniently forgot her first accusations that Maggie could be a white slaver. “I don’t think she’s so keen on me having a boyfriend, although hello, you and I’ve been going together like forever. So let me talk to her about you more. Maybe you could come over tomorrow night for dinner. Or we could meet at the mall tomorrow.” Again, conveniently forgetting she’d have to ask permission.
“Since I’m expelled, I’ve got a lot of free time.” She examined her nails. “At least I do until Maggie dumps me in a new school, which will probably be as bad, if not worse, than the one I just left. Hell, for all I know, she’ll send me away to a boarding school that’s more like a high-security prison.”
“Don’t think that way, baby. I’ll talk to you later.”
Courtney disconnected the call just as Maggie walked in.
She warily watched the woman formerly called her guardian, whom she now called her jailer, circle the room.
“I’ll get it cleaned up,” Courtney told her.
“I’m sure you will,” Maggie said softly, picking a top and jeans off a chair and tossing them to Courtney before she sat down. “I apologize for coming down on you so hard earlier, but what you were doing was so risky that I feared what would happen if you completed the ritual. Some things shouldn’t be trifled with.”
“I understand that,” Courtney said, wanting to reassure Maggie that she knew the risks and wouldn’t have done anything to harm anyone but the intended victim. “Mick told me exactly what to do, Maggie. He’s done stuff like this for a long time, and he said as long as I’m careful and don’t use Latin or anything, I’m okay.”
As she spoke, she noticed the older woman’s moonstone ring start to give off an eerie glow. She put it down to the sun coming in the window and returned her attention to Maggie’s face, but it didn’t stay there long. She found herself distracted by the spark of gold on Maggie’s ankle. Some kind of charm hung from the chain, but she couldn’t figure out what it was.
“Courtney!”
She almost shot off the bed. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. And I’m not one of those kids with ADD either. It’s just that I don’t know how many times I can say Mick taught me how to be cautious so that I wouldn’t really hurt anyone or myself.”
She paused, searching her brain for how to say what had been bothering her since Maggie’s meltdown. Plus she was really curious about Declan. The guy might be old, but he was really hot.
“Did… uh… Declan think I was doing black magick or something? I could tell you guys are close and all, but is this really something he’d know about? I mean Mick’s parents taught him, and they were really good. They live in New Orleans,” she added, as if their location added to their credibility.
“And that means they know what they’re talking about.” Maggie knew she sounded sarcastic, but she couldn’t help it. She knew of warlocks and voodoo queens who lived in small towns in other states. “And that Mick knows what he’s talking about.”
“Yeah.” Courtney brightened, pleased Maggie understood.
Maggie nodded, as if listening to a voice deep inside. “So when you finished your spell and sent the poppet to Troy, he’d think something bad was going to happen to him. You’d find out his reaction from friends at school, and you’d be one happy kid, right?”
“Yeah.” Except for her using the kid word. “No harm, no foul. I don’t want you thinking bad of me.” She was honest about that. While she hadn’t known Maggie for long, she realized she did like her. Her new guardian hadn’t treated her like a little girl or talked down to her.
She had even stood up for her at the school and didn’t automatically think it was a
ll her fault, the way Mrs. Whitney would have. If Mrs. W had been around, Courtney would have been grounded for two months and had kitchen duty for three. Maybe that was why she didn’t want Maggie to think she was some crazy teenager who went around wearing black all the time and thought it would be cool to hold a black mass or something.
She also wanted her to like Mick. Mrs. Whitney hadn’t and didn’t allow Mick inside the house. She claimed that he was too old for Courtney, and she was positive he was nothing but trouble. All because he owned a motorcycle instead of a car and he looked dangerous. That’s why Courtney loved him. Because he wasn’t like the boys at school.
“Courtney, you’re in another world again.” Maggie sounded amused.
“It hasn’t even been one day, and it’s like you’ve only seen me as some kind of troublemaker. I know Mrs. Whitney told you I have ‘problems.’” She made air quotes. “Mr. Turner told you I have behavioral problems, and then there’s what happened a little while ago. I bet you want to take the next plane back to Europe.”
“Amazing. You’re making yourself sound like Public Enemy Number One,” Maggie quipped. “Let me explain something. There’s nothing you can do to scare me off. Trust me on that.”
Courtney’s brown eyes lit up. There was nothing the girl loved more than a dare.
“Really?”
Maggie nodded. “Definitely. There’s nothing you can do to put me off. Nothing you can come up with that I won’t figure out. And if you’d managed to finish that ritual, I would have vanquished it. I wouldn’t have been happy, but I would have done it.”
“Uh, Mick’s stuff is really good, and there’s no way to do that,” Courtney said knowingly.
“Oh, but there is.”
“And you know because…?”
“I know because I’m a witch.”
Chapter 13
Maggie hadn’t dropped the W bomb on anyone in some time. She waited for one of the usual reactions: eyes bugging out, jaw dropping in shock, and so on.
This time, she was able to add a new response to the list as she watched Courtney roll around laughing so hard, the bed shook under her. It took her a few minutes to gain control.
