by Hailey North
The cat had settled back onto the bed, where it kept watch on him. He thought if the animal’s eyes grew any bigger they would fall out of its head. Funny, but the cat reminded him of Penelope the other night when they’d been at Chris’s camp. She’d looked at him with the same wide-eyed wonder when he’d eagerly cast off his shorts.
Only to have to retrieve them a few minutes later.
Don’t think about Penelope now, he told himself. Do your job.
Trying to assure himself that, based on the phone messages he’d heard, she had other friends looking for her, Tony headed toward the front of the house.
The phone rang.
“Nuts,” he said. Where had he left the portable? He remembered the mess in the kitchen and traced his earlier path to the back of the house. The machine came on; the caller hung up.
With a shrug, Tony collected the phone anyway. He usually left it near the front of his house, in case he got a call while porch sitting, something he liked to do after the temperature finally cooled enough and the early evening mosquitoes gave up their search for fresh blood.
He’d made it almost to the front room when the phone rang again. The cat, following him, arched her back at the sound, then continued on.
At the same time, a knock sounded at the door.
He pressed the talk button on the phone, glanced outside, identified Pretty-Boy as he expected, then said, “Olano,” into the phone at the same time he opened the door, stepping slightly to the side, a habit hard to ignore after his years on the force.
“Don’t go—” said the voice on the phone.
The cat hissed and leaped straight at Pretty-Boy’s face.
A blast of gunfire slammed into the room.
Tony yanked the gun from the waistband of his pants and fired point-blank at Hinson’s underling. At the same moment, the cat dashed between his legs and Tony tripped and crashed to the floor, blood seeping from his left arm.
The last thing he saw before he passed out was the orange cat standing over him, licking him on the face. Then, as pain overtook him, he imagined he saw not the cat, but Penelope leaning over him, kissing him, and saying in the fiercest voice he’d ever heard, “Don’t you dare die, Tony Olano, or I’ll be mad at you forever.”
Alistair had used one of his most powerful candles for the spell of retroactivity.
The spell was never performed except in the most extreme circumstances, such as undoing spells gone awry or to counter evil too strong to be handled through more routine channels.
The flame of the purple, black, and white candle continued to bum. He’d finished the secret ritual, barely whispering the words. He certainly didn’t want Mrs. Merlin imitating this spell and getting it wrong!
Bent slightly toward the altar, Alistair continued to gaze into the flame, watching for any indication of success or hint of failure.
Suddenly the healthy blue-white center sputtered and, to his dismay, glowed blood-red.
Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead.
From the doorway, Mrs. Merlin finally found her tongue. “Something’s wrong, isn’t it? I can just feel it—”
He nodded. Since he figured she’d stayed silent far longer than she ever had in her life, he didn’t object to her joining in.
The candle began to smoke.
Alistair tugged on his ponytail and considered the situation.
Mrs. Merlin tugged at his elbow. Her carroty hair stood at all angles, as if she’d been running her hands through it over and over. Concern showed in her eyes and Mr. Gotho felt genuine sorrow for her as she worried over her friends stuck in altered bodies.
Thanks to her messing with magick beyond her power, he reminded himself, suddenly not so sympathetic.
The candle continued to smoke.
A siren sounded.
Both Alistair and Mrs. Merlin jumped.
The noise came from over their heads.
Glancing up, he spotted the smoke detector ringing lustily.
The door burst open and the potbellied officer stuck his head in. “Are you two still in here?” Then he must have spotted the candle because he said, “And causing more trouble, are you? I’ve a good mind to arrest the both of you. Where’s Steve?”
Mrs. Merlin started to answer, from the looks of her about to launch into a tirade, so Alistair said, “Steve locked us in. No one came to our rescue, so we used the items we had at our disposal to get someone’s attention.”
The officer gave him a sour glance and popped an antacid tablet into his mouth. “Ever heard of the intercom?”
“Oh, silly me,” Alistair said, leaning over and snuffing out the flame, offering, as he did so, a quick prayer to the stars for the safe return of Penelope and Mr. M.
“Well, if Steve locked you in here, he must have had a reason, so I guess you have to stay here or in a cell.” He crossed his arms over his gut. “Which one’ll it be?”
“I think,” Alistair said, beginning to pack his materials back into the duffel bag, careful not to spill any wax, “you ought to be asking yourself why a fellow policeman was so foolish as to detain two citizens without probable cause or even the courtesy of an explanation.”
The officer scratched his head, turned, and headed down the hall. No doubt in search of someone to tell him what to do.
“After you, Mrs. Merlin,” Alistair said, holding open the door.
The emergency medical techs had Tony on a stretcher, preparing to strap him in for a ride to the hospital when he came to.
He jerked upright, wincing at the pain in his arm and the back of his head.
“Easy there,” the EMT, a pretty redhead, said.
“Forget easy,” Tony muttered. He looked around, piecing together what had happened. Officers swarmed his living room; he heard more people outside, including the voice of his next door neighbor. Mrs. Sanderson rattled on about how she’d called 9-1-1 and how she’d suspected something bad was going down when she’d seen that fancy car coming around the neighborhood.
Fancy cars, Mrs. Sanderson explained, meant only one thing—drug dealers.
And drugs meant violence.
Tony pretty much agreed with Mrs. Sanderson’s logic. And he figured from the way the officers milling around his house avoided his gaze they assumed he’d gone all the way over to the other side.
Then Roy appeared in the doorway.
“Tony!” He rushed to his side. “Shit, man, you don’t listen. There I am on the phone trying to warn you and you walk right into a bullet.” To the EMT he said, “He’s probably not going to want to go with you right away.”
“Not exactly your model patient,” she said. “But a lucky one. A bullet nicked his arm and he suffered a blow to the back of his head.”
“Yeah, I fell,” Tony said, embarrassed at his lack of grace under fire. Then he remembered the cat, picturing it going for the assailant’s eyes and most probably saving Tony’s life. “Hey, anybody seen my cat?”
Mrs. Sanderson stuck her head in the door. “Your cat died last year, Tony. And if you tell me you’re in with those drug dealers, why, I don’t think I could stand to believe such a thing of you.”
Tony shook his head and smiled at her. “Don’t worry. But I do have a cat. It showed up here today. Orange, with blue eyes.”
“He must have hit his head harder than he knows, poor boy,” Mrs. Sanderson said as a uniformed officer led her away from the door.
Roy waved the EMT away, following her retreat with an appreciative glance. “Yeah, you must have taken quite a conk. I don’t think you even noticed the beauty working on you.”
Tony shrugged, then he remembered his vision of Penelope leaning over him. She was the only beauty he was interested in. “What went down?” he said to Roy in a low voice.
“Two characters came into the Eighth District station looking for you—”
“What kind of characters?” Tony pressed his hand against his arm, checking the bandage.
“At first I took them for some of t
he Quarter loonies, but when the woman mentioned you and Hinson in the same breath, clearly something more than met the eye was going on.”
“From that, Pretty-Boy decides to take me out?” Tony shook his head.
“Oh, there’s more, and it’s not pretty at all.” Roy made a face of disgust. “Steve sold out.”
“What?” Tony shot forward, groaning as he jerked his arm.
“Yep, and if I hadn’t overheard him with my own ears, I never would’ve believed him capable of such a thing.”
“Why did he do it?” Tony knew there could be only one answer to that. “Or should I ask what was his price?”
Roy grimaced. “Plenty. Not that he’ll get to spend any of it now. I followed him after he questioned this old woman and the guy with her. He called Hinson at the restaurant. That much is on tape. He met him outside, but I was on him like a flea on a dog. Seems he planned to tip Hinson all along, but waited until you were going under with them.”
“So why kill me? Why not just feed me bad info and use me?”
“No doubt that’s what the old man would have done,” Roy said. “But Steve told Hinson that his fiancée was in love with you. The guy went nuts.” Roy chuckled. “The best part was, he waited till he got back to the restaurant, argued with the old man, then ordered the hit himself.”
“So we’ve got him on tape?” Tony forgot about the pain in his arm and the throbbing in the back of his head.
“Yep.” Roy looked supremely satisfied.
“What happened to Steve?”
“I tackled him, got him handcuffed inside my car, then tried to call you.”
“Thanks,” Tony said, mulling over what Roy had said. “Hinson’s ego finally found him out, didn’t it?” One thing the old man had never done was order a hit in anger. His rules might be odd ones, but he’d followed them for years.
Feeling sick, and not from his wound, Tony put his head in his hands for a moment, then said, “So the operation’s over before it starts?”
“Oh, but that’s not a bad thing, buddy,” Roy said, rubbing his hands together. “Your cover’s blown, so that puts an end to your vacation, but we might get the old man as an accessory to this one, and to the attack on Squeek, too, plus I have a feeling Hinson will sing to try to save himself.”
“Yeah, the pretty ones usually do,” Tony said, struggling to his feet. “And some vacation, having my friends and family think I’m nothing but a bum who took a bribe.”
Roy chucked him on the shoulder. “You held up okay, Olano, and I think the department should be proud.”
“Thanks,” Tony said, testing his balance, knowing nothing would keep him from searching for Penelope.
“Where do you think you’re going?” The EMT rushed up to him.
“To find the woman I love,” he said. “So don’t try to stop me.”
She grinned and threw him a flirtatious look. “Ah, a romantic. Too bad I didn’t arrive on the scene earlier.”
“I’ve got a pain,” Roy quipped, eyeing the woman.
“Call a doctor,” she said, and started packing up.
“Oh, my, just look at all those police cars,” Mrs. Merlin said. “You were right for us to come straight here to check on the outcome of the spell.”
Mr. Gotho swung the car to a halt in the middle of the street behind a row of cruisers, all of them with blue and red lights flashing. He nodded, his face grim.
They made their way to the front gate of the address the same helpful relative had given them for Tony Olano, only to be blocked by a patrolman who refused to let them pass.
“But it’s a matter of life and death,” Mrs. Merlin said, knowing in her bones that it was, even though she sensed the danger had passed over like a thundercloud that scurried by without dumping its burden of moisture.
The patrolman shook his head.
“Oh, that’s him,” Mrs. Merlin said, spotting the man with bedroom eyes walking toward them on the sidewalk, accompanied by a man in blue jeans and T-shirt. “The one—oh, my, the one with blood on his shirt, that’s Tony Olano.”
Mr. Gotho nodded. “That explains the blood-red flame,” he said, half to himself.
“Oh!” Mrs. Merlin clasped her hand over her mouth. “For a moment there I was glad it was his blood and not Penelope’s or my dear cat’s. That was selfish, in quite the wrong way.”
Mr. Gotho smiled. “I’m sure Olano would have stood in the way of any bullet rather than have one hit Penelope.”
“What sense tells you that?”
“Sense? That’s just from listening to you talk about the two of them.”
Tony had reached the gate.
“Mr. Olano,” Mrs. Merlin said, “we need to speak with you.”
“I told you to leave,” the patrolman said.
“It’s okay,” Tony said. He glanced at them, an expression almost like recognition on his face. “Mrs. Merlin and Mr. Gotho, I presume?”
Mrs. Merlin clapped her hands together. “No wonder Penelope likes you. You’re so smart! Now, where is she? And where’s my cat?”
Mr. Gotho stood watching Tony with an assessing look. Mrs. Merlin realized her mentor was probably reading Tony’s aura, trying to determine whether any damage had been done to him by the spell. He seemed to find none, because his face relaxed and he nodded pleasantly to Tony, then said to them, “I think we should go to Penelope’s home.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Tony said. “Hold down the fort, Roy, till I get back. Hey, first give me your shirt.”
“What?”
“Come on, this one’s a bloody mess. I can’t go looking for my girl like this. You can grab another one from my house, but we’ve got to leave now.”
The other man nodded, though he grumbled as he unbuttoned his shirt.
Mr. Gotho looked at the bandage swathing Tony’s arm. “Why don’t I drive?”
Chapter 25
Penelope woke up unsure of where she was. She blinked her eyes. The altar on the table came into focus. Home, on her own sofa. She patted her arms, marveling that she’d fallen asleep in her suit, still wearing those silly high heels.
She kicked them off, straightened her skirt, and yawned. Pushing her disheveled hair from her face, she rose from the couch and stretched, arms high above her head. She felt as if she’d slept around the clock.
And such dreams she’d had!
Then, as her memory flooded back, she stared suspiciously at the candle altar. “Mrs. Merlin,” she said aloud, “if you’re here, come on out and tell me if what I think happened really happened.”
“Meow-ow-ow!”
The demanding, almost grouchy cry sounded from behind Penelope. She jumped and turned. A large orange cat stood staring at her.
“You’re not Mrs. Merlin.” Feeling more empathetic toward this cat than she’d ever felt toward a feline, Penelope knelt and held out a hand. The cat sniffed the air, then approached with caution.
She stroked him behind his ears, just where she knew it would feel good, then looked at the tag hanging from his purple velvet collar. “Return to Mrs. Merlin,” she read, smiling. Next best thing to finding the mishap-making magician; she had a feeling Mrs. Merlin would soon come looking for her cat.
Remembering the shrimp Tony had given her in the dream in which she had been a cat, Penelope crossed to the kitchen in search of a kitty treat. The cat followed at a safe distance.
The intercom buzzer rang as Penelope dumped some albacore tuna onto a saucer. She carried the saucer to the table, then answered the ring.
Several voices sounded at once, but the only one she heard clearly was Tony’s. With a cry of delight, she pressed the button to let them in.
She’d had the worst dream that someone had shot Tony. Penelope glanced at the cat, happily licking the tuna. But if she hadn’t dreamed transmuting into a cat, then she hadn’t dreamed the gunfire, either!
Penelope opened her door and Mrs. Merlin and Mr. Gotho spilled in. But she had eyes only for the man who walked slowly
behind them.
He gave her a crooked smile, one side of his mouth curving slightly higher than the other, and gazed at her with fire in his dark eyes.
She stood gazing at him, suddenly shyer than she’d ever been.
“Penelope, what a beautiful sight,” Tony said, and opened his arms.
Glancing down at her wrinkled suit and her stocking-covered feet, and fingering her messy hair, she wondered how he could describe her as beautiful, but she didn’t quibble.
Instead, she moved into his embrace, as easily as she had when she’d been a cat on four legs, and snuggled against him. Then she realized he wore a bandage around one upper arm. “I didn’t dream that gunfire!”
“Mr. M!” Mrs. Merlin advanced on the orange cat, now sitting next to the altar washing its face. “My baby!” She lifted the cat and cradled it in her arms.
Mr. Gotho walked to the table and examined the altar. Shaking his head, he set about dismantling it.
Penelope led Tony to the couch, insisting he sit down, but not letting go of him. “Now, will someone tell me what happened?”
Mrs. Merlin glanced at her, guilt in her eyes. “Oh, I’m afraid I caused another pickle. And when I tried to fix things, somehow they only got worse.” Her face brightened. “You might say they went from a sweet pickle to a sour one! But Mr. Gotho came to our rescue.” She ruffled her cat’s hair. “Didn’t he, Mr. M? Even though I think he was fairly well put out with me.”
Mr. Gotho piled the pieces from the altar in the duffel bag he’d brought with him. “No problem, Mrs. Merlin,” he said. Smiling at Tony and Penelope, he said, “All’s well that ends well.”
“And was I really a cat?” Penelope knew, even as she asked the question, that she had indeed inhabited that furry orange body.
Tony whispered in her ear, “And what a cat! I loved petting you.”
She blushed.
Mr. Gotho lifted his bag. “Mrs. Merlin, I think we can leave these two alone to finish the explanations.”
“Oh, yes, I can see they’re no longer in need of my help,” she said, throwing a wink at Penelope. As she headed for the door, she said, “Remember, my dear, it’s all right to be selfish.” And to Tony, she said, “Call me when you want that special spell for your friend Squeek.”
