“So what do we know now?” Dad asked. “The man Quinn found—can we say for sure he was involved in the shooting?”
“Sgt. Shafer is suspicious enough,” Harvest said. “He’s not about to spill the beans to me.”
“The kid, George, was seeing a lion in his dreams, which led me to the body.” Quinn shrugged. “Zuri’s dreams of the shadow monster led Echo to the hideout.”
“And no person would invade a man’s house by climbing up the garage and busting through a second-floor window,” Harvest added. “And that trooper was the one who accidentally shot Barif Zambo.”
“It has to be Chelby,” Dad said. “We need to stop her.”
“How can you be so sure?” Quinn asked. “She seems like a normal teenager.”
“So does Echo,” Harvest jibed. “Almost.”
“Hey!”
“She’s got the magic, that’s for sure.”
Echo frowned. “How can you know that?”
Harvest made a reluctant face. When she looked at Dad, he gave her what-the-heck eyebrows. From her pocket, she removed the ugliest sunglasses Echo had ever seen. “They were Mom’s.”
“They still are. She may need them back one day,” Dad said.
Echo put them on. And gaped. “Holy moly, it looks like everyone is on fire.” Dad burned with a dark red flame, Harvest seemed lit from within by a bright, white light, Quinn glowed gold. Even the Grams had tiny yellow embers that circled them like bees. She looked over the tops, and again through the lenses. “Wow!”
“I’m responsible for all this,” Dad said. “If I hadn’t badgered the company into bringing the Zambos here, Barif would still be alive, Taka wouldn’t have been arrested, and Chelby wouldn’t be murdering his killers with magic.”
“You don’t know what would’ve happened if they’d stayed in Africa,” Quinn said. “They might all be on trial for witchcraft.”
“I can’t let what might have been sway me. Two men are dead, murdered by magic. I brought that here.”
“Dinner’s ready!” Echo watched Aunt Mary through the glasses. She pulled a meatloaf out of the oven as yellow sparks orbited her head. Gramma Em’s sparks were greener, and circled more slowly. Em whipped a wooden spoon through a bowl of mashed potatoes and expertly slapped servings out on plates.
They moved into the dining room. “I sure have missed home cooking,” Dad smiled, giving each old lady a hug.
“You could get it more often if you came home once in a while,” Em handed him a plate. “Or how about a phone call more than once a year?”
“And don’t give us that ‘oh, it’s so hard to make a call from Borneo’ crap,” Mary said. “You’re working for an oil company. You can afford a satphone.”
Dad stared at her. “A what?”
“A satellite phone. For heaven’s sake, you’re spending way too much time in the field.”
He chuckled. “I guess I’ll have to look into it.”
“So what’s our next move?” Quinn asked. “I don’t want to put this on Chelby unless we’re sure.”
Echo took her plate. “Why can’t we ask Uncle Nick to just zap the shadow monster back into the Twih?”
“Because he might get eaten,” Dad said.
“Oh. Didn’t think of that.”
“Well, she definitely has some kind of magic power,” Harvest said. “We’ll just have to catch her in the act.”
“Stake out!” Echo stood up. “I’ll brew some java.”
“Sit down and eat, young lady,” Gramma scolded. “You can go off on your adventure after dinner. You’re a bad influence, Cade. This family used to be so civilized.”
Chapter 13
Hours later, Quinn shifted in the driver’s seat, her butt tired from sitting. They’d taken her Tahoe because it was the largest vehicle and seemed to fit best in the neighborhood. Poplar was a brick street, the Zambos living in a red house with a wraparound porch set back from the road. Trees in the front yard made it hard to see anything. Not that anything was going on. “Maybe we should sleep in shifts.”
“Can we pee in shifts?” Echo sat next to Dad in the back. “I drank way too much coffee.”
Harvest looked over her shoulder...Mom’s wacky shades on her face. “Go to the gas station on Hickory. It’s not like you’re missing anything.”
Echo opened the back door. “You guys want a pop or something?”
Quinn gave her the stink eye in the rearview. “Really? More drinks?
“Oh, yeah.” As she was closing the door, a car roared by a block and a half behind them. A second followed. Echo jumped back in. “Police cars.”
“No lights or sirens?” Harvest took the shades off.
After the third police car zoomed past, Quinn started the engine. “Let’s see what’s going on.”
“Shouldn’t we leave a stakeout-er?” Echo asked.
“Are you volunteering?” Quinn put the SUV in gear. “You have to pee, anyway.”
Echo buckled her seatbelt. “It’s kinda cold and rainy. I can hold it.”
The fourth police vehicle blasted by, this time with lights and sirens. Quinn followed at a discreet distance, moving off to the side when yet another cruiser blew past. The police raced down Pennsylvania Ave West, taking Ludlow Street to U.S.6. Harvest fumbled with what looked like a walkie-talkie from her vest. In a moment, police radio chatter filled the car.
“This is the state police frequency.”
At this hour, there was no traffic. Quinn watched the strobe lights ahead. “The cops look like they’re heading for the barracks.”
“I can’t follow what they’re saying,” Echo said. “It’s all numbers and codes.”
Harvest listened. “Well, I recognize that an officer’s in trouble.”
Bearing down on the accelerator, Quinn kept her eyes on the road. “Nothing else?”
“They’re setting up a road block.”
Quinn sped on. “Where?”
“Right there!” Echo shouted. Just ahead, two of the police vehicles pulled across the lanes of U.S. 6 at an angle, blocking the road. The same thing happened in the oncoming lanes. Quinn braked hard, pulling off the road behind a parked trailer.
“That’s the barracks,” Harvest pointed across the highway. “What the hell is going on?”
A mob of state troopers converged on a two-tone gray car stopped in the barracks driveway—their weapons were drawn on one of their own intercept vehicles. In the flashing lights, she caught the red of blood on the ground and on the windshield. Quinn buzzed down the window, trying to hear what the troopers were shouting, but they were too far away.
“We’ve been spotted.” Dad pointed to one of the cars blocking the road. A trooper leaped out, flashlight in hand, heading back their way.
“Let’s turn around and get outta here,” Harvest said.
Shouts suddenly sounded urgent, panicked. Guns fired. The trooper who had been heading their way whirled around, ducking behind his car. Other blockade vehicles shined their lights on the melee in the parking lot. As they did, Quinn felt her guts plummet.
In the beams of spotlights, a large shape appeared on top of the surrounded vehicle. Cops fell back, firing their pistols. Although the form was utterly black, there was no doubt about its shape.
“Holy moly, that’s a frickin lion!” Echo shouted the obvious.
The circle of police fell back. A roar filled the air, loud and deep, bone rattling. Quinn backed up, tires sending up a billow of road dirt. The monster hunkered down, making the police vehicle rock on its shocks. Then it leapt into the air. Once out of the intense light, the animal vanished.
In a second, the police cars blocking the other side of the road slammed together. The hood of the closer car dipped dramatically as an invisible weight smashed it down. Quinn caught the shadow of claws, a tail, in the strobes of the cars in front of her.
“That trooper’s exposed,” Dad shouted.
A roar shattered the night, some ancestral memory in the primiti
ve part of Quinn’s brain made her freeze in fright. “What can we do?”
“It’s a cat. It’ll chase us,” Dad leaned forward. “Go, Quinn, drive!”
HARVEST HELD ON TIGHT as Quinn swerved across three lanes. Tires screeched as she floored it. All four of them shouted as an impact made the back end fishtail. She twisted in her seat, looking out the back. Through the crazy sunglasses, she could see the muscular black form and rippling mane. Luminous green eyes narrowed in menace. “Look out!” she shouted, inanely, as the silhouette lion swiped a massive paw.
Impact shook the SUV, knocking it half sideways.
“Hey, I need this car for work!” Quinn said under her breath.
“C’mon, Quinn! Floor it!” Echo cried.
“I am!”
As her older sister gained control, the Tahoe left the shadow lion behind. Still, it raced after them. Harvest didn’t know how fast a lion could run. Certainly not faster than a car. But a shadow lion?
“Okay, we’re losing him,” Harvest said. “Maybe we should slow down, to keep him chasing us.”
“Are you nuts?” Quinn gripped the wheel, leaning forward.
The rampaging lion vanished. No longer a clear silhouette, Harvest could still see its shadow on the road. How could an invisible lion cast a shadow? Soon, even that faded. She faced forward. “I think it’s gone.”
“You can see it with those terrible sunglasses?” Echo looked over her shoulder. “That’s so cool.”
“Now’s the time to catch Chelby in the act.” Dad’s expression turned grim. “Let’s get back to the Zambo house as quickly as possible.”
“But we didn’t see anything before, and a lion attacked a state trooper at the barracks.” Quinn sounded doubtful, but her foot remained down hard.
“Maybe we wouldn’t see anything, or hear anything. Kids see the thing in their sleep. Maybe she’s dreaming the lion into existence.”
“We weren’t dreaming,” Echo said. “The cop who got his car ripped apart wasn’t dreaming.”
Dad shook his head. “This is summoning magic. It takes a lot of energy. Drawing it into this reality would require a trance state. Controlling it, why, you’d need entrainment, proprioception.”
Echo’s face screwed up. “Need what?”
“An energetic dance,” Dad said. “For this kind of spell, you would have to enter an energetic, altered state of consciousness—a trance.”
It didn’t take long to return. Again, Quinn parked in front of the Zambos’ house. Harvest peered at it through Mom’s glasses. “Still nothing.”
“Maybe she stopped?” Echo shrugged.
“No, we didn’t detect anything when the cops started zooming by.” Quinn shut the engine off. “Maybe she’s in the cellar? Seems to me she’d want to hide out.”
Harvest tapped her fingers on the dashboard. “We can’t just bust in there and ask her. ‘Hey, Chelby, are you summoning a shadow lion in there?’”
“Oh, c’mon, girls. Really?” Dad looked at each of them in turn.
This caused the sisters to exchange looks. “What?” Harvest asked.
“You’re witches, for crying out loud. You don’t need to physically enter the house.” Shaking his head, he leaned forward. “Where’s your mother’s grimoire, Quinn?”
“In my briefcase purse by your feet.”
Dad fished it out. It looked like a cheap recipe book, covered in purple faux leather. He flipped it over and upside down. The motion made the book grow into a heavy tome, thick and ancient-looking. He held the book open on his lap. Pages fluttered and turned, as if a breeze blew through the Chevy. His index finger poked a title. “Here we go.” He turned to Echo. “This one’s gonna be on you, Squirt.”
Chapter 14
“We’ll all need to recite this together, but you have to really focus, Echo.”
“But I still have to pee.”
“You can pee later,” Dad said. “This has to be done right now. Focus.”
“Focus on what?” She leaned closer to the book, reading the spell. “Eew, what is that, bugs?”
Quinn took the grimoire from Dad’s hands. “We’re going to spy on the house through insect eyes?”
Echo pushed herself against the door. “Oh, I don’t think so.”
“Let’s just get this done, and then you can pee,” Harvest read the spell. “I don’t think I’ve seen this before.”
Dad smiled. “That’s the beauty of your mother’s grimoire. When you need a spell, it pops up.”
“Should we even do a spell? The Medicine Chicks might feed off it,” Quinn worried, “and come after us again.”
“I don’t think so. From what you’ve told me, the girls could shift into animal form. That takes a lot of power. What you did was take their choice away. They can no longer choose to become human again. They’ll need to do more than feed off residual spell energy to do that.”
“You know, we could just do that lock spell,” Echo said. “Sneak around inside.”
Harvest huffed. “You and that lock spell. It’s going to get you in trouble one day.”
She felt her face warm. “It’s one of the only ones I can do by myself.”
“No one is breaking and entering,” Harvest’s voice rose. “We’re lucky Sgt. Shafer isn’t locking us up as it is.”
“Fine.” Echo folded her arms, frowning. “I’ll go buggy.”
“Think about eyes, Echo,” Dad coached. “Think about having many eyes and many places—”
“Okay, okay, let’s just do the spell.”
The four of them leaned together in the car, reading over the quilled words. Quinn nodded.
Arachnid patience, scuttling dream
Above and around and in between
From floorboard cracks, and corners, and beams
I appropriate those eyes unseen
After the third recital, Echo watched as the interior of the car faded, replaced by confusing visions. She was at once looking up from a concrete floor, down from the corner of a door frame, through a narrow crack in a closet door, from a kitchen counter, a toilet tank, the pile of a rug, the toe of a shoe, from a furnace vent, a concrete wall, over the edge of a light fixture.
Each different viewpoint weirdly melted together. Echo found herself looking at every room of the house at once. A baby in a crib, a toddler in a tiny bed next to her sleeping mother in a canopy bed. A man slept in another part of the home, twisted in blankets and dreams. Dishes leaned in a drainer near the sink. The shower in a bathroom dripped. Hot air blew with hurricane force from the vents. Otherwise all was still and silent.
Echo saw no dancing, no ceremonial space, heard no music, experienced no witchcraft. From all angles, she could only see a peaceful, comfortable home. And then motion grabbed her attention. Vibration drew all her focus. She froze in place, waiting, waiting, waiting...
QUINN CHECKED HER WATCH. As time passed, she checked off the things she wouldn’t get done before work. Coffee in front of the TV news, no go. Breakfast, gone. Sunlight brightened the frosty eastern sky. Would she even have time to take a shower?
She twisted to see Echo sprawled in the back seat, snoring. “Is she really under a spell?”
Harvest put on those awful sunglasses. She nodded affirmatively. “Sure is.”
Dad had his arm around the sleeping girl, but his eyes were locked on the house. “I’m not sure why she’s been under so long. She should’ve snapped out of it as soon as she encountered something.”
“What if nothing is going on?” Quinn worried. She couldn’t afford to be late to work again. Maybe magic didn’t have a nine-to-five schedule, but she sure did.
“Any activity, any disturbance should send her back to her body,” Dad said. “Even a small thing.”
“Like the Zambos getting up for work?” Harvest folded the shades and put them in her tactical vest.
“If nothing else.”
“Trapped?” Echo’s eyes popped open. There was no recognition in them; just plain fear. “
Trapped? Trapped?”
Dad moved away as Echo flapped her arms violently, slapping his shoulder, the seat back, the roof liner. “Trapped! Trapped!”
“Echo! Echo! Hey!” Harvest tried to grab her younger sister, but ended up getting slapped. “Ow-ah!”
All motion left Echo’s body. Her eyes slit with evil intent. “Wrap it up and suck the juice.”
Quinn felt a chill run down her spine.
“Wrap it tight and suck it dry. Feed. Drain.” Echo drew her legs up and crawled into the cargo bed. She tried to crawl up the window and onto the ceiling but fell back with a thud. Then she crawled back to the second row of seats and tried to get into the front.
“Echo, for crying out loud.” Harvest pushed her back.
Echo lay on the seat in a fetal position. “I’m paralyzed by venom! The fangs of death approach! My life! My life! The eyes! The eight eyes!”
“Dad, what the hell is going on?” Quinn stared at her insane sister.
“She’s gotten locked into a life and death struggle. I’m guessing a bug got caught in a web.”
“So is she the bug, or the spider?”
“She’s both,” Dad said.
“Frail legs, frail wings, bound tight, ready for sucking. Bind, bind, bind!” Echo lay on her back, kicking her feet in the air. Her hands moved as if she were doing the breast stroke.
Quinn gagged. “Oh, ick, is she spinning a web?”
“Snap out of it!” Harvest yelled.
“No, stop, Harvest,” Dad said. “Ending magic will mean disaster, a broken spell can break the caster.”
“What?” Harvest sat back. “You sound like Mom.”
Cade Hutchinson nodded. “Something you should know. If someone breaks your spell, it can strip you of your powers. It can hurt you physically. Or worse, it can damage your mind. Let her come out of it.”
Quinn started the car.
“What are you doing?” Dad asked.
“Heading to the gas station. When she comes out of it, she’s gonna have to pee. And I won’t have her peeing in my car.” Besides, they had breakfast sandwiches and coffee there. Quinn could knock two morning rituals off her list.
Bewitched and Bewildered Page 6