Third Time is a Charm

by Cate Martin

  But I squinted until I did see her. Blond hair in a bob with the curls arranged to frame her face just so, eyes of an icy shade of blue that was quite distinctive, a little mole just below the corner of one eye.

  "Little witch," she said as she stopped walking to stand over me.

  I realized I was shading my eyes as I looked up at her and forced my hand back down.

  "What's a witch doing here?" one of the men asked.

  "I really have no idea," she said in a singsong voice.

  "Tommy won't like it," he said.

  "Tommy doesn't like lots of things," she said with a shrug. "Perhaps it's not even his affair. Perhaps I should just take her to my employer."

  "Not without Tommy's go ahead first," he said with a warning tone.

  Two of the other men were standing near the door as if guarding it, although whether to keep us in or someone else out, I couldn't tell. The other two were both standing over Otto with guns drawn. Otto had his hands raised to show he was unarmed.

  "Vinnie, that's Otto Mayer," one of the other men said.

  "Otto Mayer?" the man next to the witch said, this shifted his attention from me to Otto. "Never heard of him."

  "You know him," the other guy insisted. "He runs that gang of thieving brats."

  Vinnie swept his gaze up and down Otto's sprawled form. "I don't think so. That gang is run by a teenager, and this is no teenager."

  "Your buddy has old information," Otto said. "I did run that gang when I was younger."

  "Oh yes?" Vinnie asked with exaggerated boredom. "And now?"

  "Now I run the Greasy Spoon," Otto said.

  "That's the speakeasy behind the-" the other man started to say.

  "I know what the Greasy Spoon is," Vinnie snapped. Then he turned back to Otto. "It's a terrible name."

  "I just took possession a few days ago," Otto said with a forced laugh. "Give a guy a chance to get his feet under him before he goes changing the nomenclature."

  Just then my stomach clenched into a hard, hot knot so tight and painful I couldn't draw a breath. I gasped as black stars exploded before my eyes.

  "What's with her?" Vinnie asked.

  "I can't even imagine," the woman said, looking down at me with a smile. She waited for my vision to clear, for me to see my wand in her hands before she tucked it away in her coat pocket.

  My wand. She had my wand.

  She had touched my wand. Wow, Brianna had said letting another witch touch my wand would be upsetting, but she hadn't told me the half of it.

  "I really should take her to my employer," the witch said, turning to direct all of her attention on Vinnie. He flinched but didn't look away.

  "Not until Tommy says okay," he said. I could see him steel his resolve, but it wavered again the moment she rested her hand on his arm.

  Her lips parted, but whatever she had been about to say, or whatever spell she had been about to cast to make poor Vinnie do her bidding, I would never know. Because just at that moment the door swung open again and a final man stepped into the front hall.

  One of the other men rushed forward to take his cane and hat, another to help him shrug off his coat. He was dressed much like Otto, in all the finery but with an air of not being used to it. The clothes were all new, and they must have been tailored just to his frame because they fit him exactly. Which couldn't have been easy to pull off; he was built like a wrestler: short but muscled all over in great bulging masses, with a chest like a barrel.

  "Hello, Tommy," the witch cooed as she moved easily from Vinnie to this new arrival.

  "Evanora," he said coldly. He didn't like her, was, in fact, a little afraid of her, but was trying not to show it. Probably the smart move.

  "What needs my okay?" he asked, barely sparing a glance at Otto and I still sprawled on the floor.

  "My employer will be very interested in this little witch," Evanora said, waving a hand my way. Tommy fixed his gaze on me. His brown eyes were so dark I couldn't tell pupil from iris.

  "That's a witch," he said as if he didn't quite believe it. "What's she doing here?"

  "I'm sure we'll find out soon enough," Evanora said. "You know my employer doesn't hold anything back with you."

  "Erm, yes," Tommy said, still gazing steadily at me. But then he looked up at Evanora, and his eyes hardened. "No, I'll question her. She's in my house. That's my business."

  "But Tommy-" she started to object.

  "No, I insist," he said, and she closed her mouth and gave him an indulgent smile. "Just until I get to the bottom of all this. When I'm done with her, she's all yours."

  "When you're done with her, is there going to be anything left?" Evanora asked, her voice almost a purr.

  Tommy laughed. "A few scraps, I'm sure," he said. Evanora just kept smiling at him with that enigmatic smile until his laughter died away. "Tell your employer I'll turn her over to you just as soon as I know what's going on here. Unharmed. Tell her that. My promise." He touched a hand to his chest where his heart ought to be.

  Evanora gave a little nod and turned towards the door.

  "Hold on," Vinnie said, stepping in front of her and holding out his hand.

  "Why do you detain me?" she asked with false sweetness.

  "You took something from her. Give it back," he said, thrusting his hand at her.

  Evanora sighed and looked to Tommy.

  "Hand it over," Tommy said without looking at her. He was looking at Otto, or more specifically Otto's chest. He leaned over and thrust Otto's coat aside to retrieve the ledgers. He gave Otto a triumphant grin and started paging through the first ledger when he noticed that Vinnie and Evanora were still having their standoff. "I gave my word. This girl and everything she has with her will be your employer's soon enough."

  Evanora mulled that over for a moment, then pulled my wand out of her pocket.

  Another stab of liquid heat and searing pain through my guts as she placed it in Vinnie's hand. Vinnie stuffed it in his own pocket and only then could I draw breath again.

  "What's with her?" Tommy asked, looking at me with a frown.

  "Unharmed, Mr. Nielsen," Evanora said.

  "Yes, yes, enough already," Tommy said, waving her away dismissively. "I gave my word once. Saying it over and over doesn't make it any more binding."

  "Are you sure about that?" Evanora asked. Then that Cheshire cat grin spread over her face again and she slipped out of the door, disappearing into the winter night.

  "Amanda?" Otto called to me. I had curled up on my side, arms wrapped around my still-aching middle.

  "I'm okay," I said.

  I wasn't though. Neither of us were.

  "Bring them into my study," Tommy said, eyes once more on the pages of the ledger. He crossed the hall towards Danny Bannon's office. Vinnie made a waving motion, and the other four guys split up, two each grabbing Otto and me by the arms and dragging us to our feet.

  The two guys holding my arms pushed me into a chair near the door and used my own scarf to tie me to it so tightly my hands and feet started to go numb at once. Then they tipped the chair back on its back legs and pivoted it around so that I was staring at the wall, the rest of the office behind me.

  I had a brief glimpse of Otto being tied to the chair across the desk from where Tommy stood, and of Vinnie stoking up the fire in the fireplace along the far wall, and then I was looking at nothing but dark wood paneling and a painting of a fox hunt back in Merry Olde England.

  I heard the sound of the ledgers snapping shut and then Tommy said, "Otto Mayer."

  "Tommy Nielsen," Otto sneered back. "You've killed Danny Bannon."

  "Did I?" Tommy said blandly.

  "We're standing in his house, which you keep referring to as yours," Otto said.

  "Only one of us is standing, boyo," Tommy said.

  One of the men who had tied me up walked out of the door. I could just see it out of the corner of my eye. The other leaned against the wall with his arms folded, his shoulder just brushing a
gainst the hunting painting. He wasn't watching me, or at least not closely. His eyes were on his boss.

  "You know what I mean," Otto said, his voice a low rumble. There was a rattling sound, and I imagined him rocking his chair as he tested his bonds.

  "No, leave him," Tommy said, I imagined to one of the other henchmen. "You're not wrong about this being my house," he went on. "As I'm sure you worked out from the ledgers - honestly, what's the point of using a code if it's one everyone who's ever worked under you knows? - Bannon owed me really a frightful amount of money. So I took his house. Fair's fair."

  "He was lying about how much he owed you," Otto said.

  "Yes, he was," Tommy said, and some of the jocularity had faded from his tone. "So yes, I took his life."

  I heard a low moan and realized it was coming from me.

  But there was no way this gangster was going to confess to murder and just let us go.

  Or I suppose he was going to let me go, turn me over to Evanora's mysterious employer. I didn't know what that would entail. I sensed nothing good.

  But I knew that Otto would be dead.

  "That was a bad call," Otto said. "Bannon was worthless, had been for years, but he played by the rules. But you? You broke the rules. And you'll have to pay."

  "I broke no rules," Tommy said.

  "You murdered Bannon. You just said so," Otto said.

  "I said no such thing," Tommy scoffed.

  "You murdered him here, in his house. Then you stole this house. This house which lies nicely within the boundaries of the city of St. Paul," Otto said. I had no idea why that was important, but from the way the man leaning against the wall in front of me just stiffened up, it was important.

  "I did no such thing," Tommy said, whispering now.

  "You broke the rules," Otto said with a humorless laugh. "You broke O'Connor's rules, and when Dapper Dan finds out, you'll be a dead man."

  "That's what the two of you were doing here? Digging dirt for Dapper Dan?" Tommy asked.

  "You killed Bannon. Dapper Dan had a soft spot for Bannon," Otto said.

  "You have no proof," Tommy said.

  "You killed Bannon and his wife and his wee lad. How old was he? Nine? If that?" Otto asked. No one answered him, but the silence in the rest of the room was oppressive. "You killed them one after the other. Bam, head smashed. Swish, throat slit. Tick, tick, tick, all of you getting a stab in on our friend Bannon."

  "You have no proof," Tommy said, a dangerous edge to his voice.

  But Otto wouldn't take the hint to stop talking. "You ditched the rug, good call. No evidence there. But you stuffed them all in that wardrobe, and that was really your mistake, wasn't it? How long was it before you discovered those bodies were gone?"

  There was a crash of noise, and I had no idea what was going on. I tried to get to my feet, to turn my chair around, but the man near me leaned a hand on the back of my chair, pinning it back down.

  Then Otto started to scream.

  Chapter 18

  The sound of that scream, filled with fear and pain that I could never imagine coming out of Otto; it was like it just pushed me out of my body.

  I don't think I even closed my eyes. I didn't grab the threads to connect to my body either. It was like the form of me that inhabited the web world was running in crazed panic.

  I stopped in front of the wardrobe and only then managed to get a hold of myself.

  The wardrobe couldn't help me. It didn't have a mind of its own. I was without allies.

  But I didn't need it as an ally. Not when I could use it as a tool.

  I slipped inside the glow of its living threads and gathered them around me. Then I started swinging my doors open and slamming them shut, over and over. I clattered my drawers. I even made my feet dance heavily on the floor.

  The bedroom wasn't over the office where everyone else was, but it was close enough. They could hear me. Someone would come to investigate.

  And someone did. One of the nameless henchmen was in the doorway, looking in at me, his fear palpable. But he didn't give in to it. He crept forward, gun at the ready for all the good it would do.

  I stopped moving. I was an inert, completely normal wardrobe, just standing there with my doors open invitingly.

  The man came closer, keeping the gun raised as his other hand reached out to close my doors.

  He didn't trip. I don't know quite what happened, but in the next instant he was tumbling into me, falling into the space inside that was barely large enough to contain him.

  And in the instant after that, he was quite gone.

  I searched every thread, but I saw no sign of where he had disappeared to. He had left a few bits of himself behind, clues that he had been there, that he had existed, which only I could see. For the rest of the world, he was erased as if he had never been. Like Danny Bannon and his family.

  I started up the noise again. At some point, someone was going to come up the stairs with an axe or something, but until then every man I lured away was another man not making Otto scream.

  But something funny was happening. I kept feeling like I wasn't sure if I was there or not. One moment I was perceiving the web world, manipulating the threads of the enchanted wardrobe around me. Then the next was nothing but blackness.

  I tried to focus, to keep myself anchored where I chose to be.

  Oh, anchored. The thing I hadn't done with my corporeal form.

  The darkness closed around me as if I were slowly being plunged into a cold mass of thick goo.

  Then I was awake, horridly awake, every detail around me too sharp. I tried to push away the thing under my nose, but my hands were still tied.

  I glared up at the man standing over me. He took the vial away and put it back in his pocket. Then he looked past me to I supposed either Tommy or Vinnie.

  "She's back," the man said. "Unharmed."

  "Was she doing…?" Tommy started to ask, then changed his mind. "Forget it. Vinnie, get back to work."

  Otto had been taking loud, jagged breaths that whole time. Now he was screaming once more. His voice was already sounding hoarse. Broken, really. If his voice couldn't hold out much longer, what about his body?

  And they weren't even asking him any questions.

  Otto inhaled sharply, and I thought I heard the sound of someone moving closer to him. I twisted my hands, trying to squirm my way free, but my captors had too much experience with knots even using scarves.

  "Tommy Nielsen," Otto said through gritted teeth. "Don't you want to know where those bodies went to? They could turn up anywhere, and then where would you be?"

  "Boss?" one of the other henchmen asked. "Where did those bodies go?"

  "Shut it," Tommy snapped. "He's messing with your head."

  "Those bodies just disappearing like that is what's messing with my head," the henchman grumbled. "That wardrobe was never out of my sight, not even for a second. But when we opened it up on the bridge, it was empty. Not even a drop of blood. And there should have been a lot of blood."

  "I told you to shut it," Tommy said again, more loudly this time.

  The henchman standing over me made eye contact with someone behind me and gave a little shake to his head.

  "But what if they trace them back to us, Stu?" the henchman asked. He was standing just out of my sight, whispering to the man in front of me.

  "Come on, Mikey. The boss has this under control. Why do you think he brought the witches into it?" Stu whispered back.

  "Oh, yeah. Right," Mikey said.

  "Why don't you just let me shoot him?" Vinnie asked.

  "Because he threatened me," Tommy said in a low growl. "No one threatens me. I'm going to put his head on a pike for all to see what happens to fellas that try to threaten me."

  "Boss," Vinnie said in his most soothing voice. "He's threatening to go to Dapper Dan because you broke the O'Connor rules. If you put his head on a pike, you'll be doing that message-sending for him. We can't kill him here."

&
nbsp; "Fine," Tommy snapped. "Rob, bring the car around."

  "Right, boss," Rob said.

  "Wait," Vinnie said, and I heard a scuffle as if he had caught Rob by the arm before he could leave. "Where are you going?"

  "I'm not going anywhere," Tommy said. "You five can take him out to some nice, quiet little township out in the middle of nowhere, finish him off, and leave the body. That's the O'Connor rules nicely observed."

  "People know I'm here," Otto said. "They'll come looking for me."

  "Well, since your most powerful friend was Danny Bannon, you'll pardon me for not quaking in my boots."

  "You four," I said. It seemed to take a tremendous amount of energy to get those words out. What I had done with the wardrobe had taxed me greatly. I couldn't let it mean nothing.

  "What'd she say?" Tommy asked.

  "She said 'you four,'," Stu said, looking around the room. "She's right. There's just four of us besides you."

  "Johnny is in the hall watching out the front door," Tommy said. "You can take him with you when you go. I don't need a babysitter."

  "Are you sure?" I asked.

  "Stu, can't you shut her up?" Tommy asked, exasperated.

  "Without harming her?" Stu asked.

  "Don't be such a namby-pamby. There's harm, and then there's harm. An attitude-adjusting smack isn't harm," he said.

  "Don't touch her," Otto said. "You'll regret it."

  "Says the man tied to the chair," Vinnie sneered.

  Otto grunted in pain. Then the grunt became a continuous groan that finally broke free into a scream.

  The only thing growing faster was my own anger. I could feel it in my chest like some hot-blooded, pulsating parasite that was squeezing my heart and making my vision turn a lurid shade of red.

  I had had enough. I focused on that anger and let it drive the weariness out of my bones. It burned the fog from my brain. My thoughts were suddenly clearer.

  But I couldn't take another second of Otto's screams of pain.