Gayla handed him his cane. “Need a shoulder to lean on?”
“If you don’t mind.” He accepted her assistance, too grateful for the help to bother with pride.
Now I knew why so many marginal magic practitioners fell into the wannabe category. Magic took a lot of work and energy. My knees wobbled, and my head threatened to dislodge itself from reality.
There was too much to do and no me left to do it.
Oh, yeah. I was the only one who hadn’t eaten a substantial breakfast. I’d been cooking while the family scarfed down every calorie I put in front of them. I’d had a few bites of fruit. Not enough.
Gayla ran down the stairs and back up again in less time than I required to think where I could find food. My best friend and savior! She handed me a pancake drizzled with a little syrup and wrapped around three slices of bacon.
“Bless you!” I cried as I inhaled the improvised snack.
“I’ll go start cooking more of everything. You finish off the last of the fruit.” And she disappeared again.
The tang of the pineapple blended with the salt in the bacon and the thick gooeyness of the pancake. A new breakfast treat I could make for the shop!
Then I heard doors opening and feet clomping all around me. I spotted the cookie jar on the lamp table beside the door to my bedroom. Gayla must have left it there. I grabbed three cookies, took one bite and grabbed three more. Somehow, they were all gone by the time I reached the balcony and felt the cold wind blasting through the French doors.
G and I used to sit out there in the evenings, watching the sunset, sipping beer or wine. Just sitting and unwinding, often not even talking. Not needing to talk. Since G moved out, it was a barren place where I never had time to tend to potted plants or clean outdoor chairs. Or use. Now it housed only dead leaves. I may have swept it clear at the end of summer.
G stood out there with his hands on Shara’s shoulders. He spoke softly, following her mind into the heart of the maze that was the fire.
Another story up, on the widow’s walk on the main roof between the two towers, Belle coaxed the wind to follow her direction as if it were a puppy. “Come on, baby. This way. Just a little bit farther. Come meet your brother. You can do it. You can touch noses with your brother. Just a touch. That’s all I ask. Just a little touch. Then you can join forces again.”
Did the wind know its own chemistry? Right and left. Positive and negative. Base and acid. Would the wind willingly meet its other half if it knew the explosion to come?
I wanted my kids back inside before it did.
“Almost there, Shara. Almost to the center. One more twist, another turn, around and there! To the left. Get us around the pile of debris, and . . . Gotcha! You little devil.” He released Shara and stepped to the side. “Now Belle, dump the rain now.”
“To the right two degrees of arc,” Jason guided her. A light thump told me he’d landed beside her. How long had he been in the air spotting for her?
My knees threatened to collapse again. Shara and G showed signs of flagging. The tension in his back told me he needed to hang on a few more moments. Belle and Jason would need an extra boost about now, too.
My job, as mom, to keep them working together until the job was done.
Alakazam
Magic Slam
I whispered against the wind, slapping a rhythm against my thigh.
What’s you gonna do
When life gets too much
When the world is in a jam
Alakazam
Magic Slam!
Shara picked up the next line in her childish soprano. Then Belle followed in her maturing alto.
Jason added his lighter baritone,
Slay the monsters
Give them a wham
Alakazam
We all joined together in a rousing finish
Magic Slam!
We sang the song all the way through twice, as a family, working together to get the job done.
And the rain dumped, not just on top of the fire, but all over downtown Eugene, soaking the roofs, muddying the ground, replenishing the creeks that hadn’t fully recovered from the dry summer.
G raised his hands over his head and clapped three times. Lightning sparked from his fingers. Or was that the fire imp he’d banished to another realm?
Thunder followed right on top of his lightning. The entire world shuddered and trembled in fear of the mighty clash of competing air masses. Twice more, lightning filled the skies with an eerie bluish-yellow light, followed immediately by lessening booms of thunder.
Abruptly, the rain faded to a soft drizzle.
Sagging and flagging, we trooped downstairs for a second breakfast, just as hearty and filling as the first one. This time Gayla made sure I ate the first portion, standing up while the rest of them found places in the nook.
Jason pressed two fingers against each temple, as if trying to hold his brains in. I detoured to the bathroom medicine cabinet for over-the-counter pain pills and a big glass of water for him.
I wondered if he’d be able to dance tonight with one of his migraines.
On the television, the camera caught Bret Chambers clasping his hands in prayer and rolling his eyes heavenward, saying, “Thank God for his miracles!” as the camera panned the dying fire and the destruction left behind.
Of course, he took credit for it.
A satellite truck pulled to a stop on the street across our driveway, blocking it. Camera operators, sound engineers, and the blonde hopped out.
I foresaw a long day ahead of us.
Thirty-Six
I KEPT A CONCERNED eye on Jason until the tight lines around his eyes relaxed and he stopped squinting against the light. “The good thing about this is that Mooney and D’Accore can’t know that we stopped the fire, using natural forces. They don’t know our combined strengths,” G said, ignoring the doorbell for the third time.
A single press truck had been camped out front for an hour while we replenished our bodies. Why was the perky blonde here and not at the fire scene? That was the big news of the day.
Unless Bret Chambers had accused us of starting the fire. I flicked the TV back on. Sure enough there was BJ’s father accusing us, not only of inciting his precious son to violence, but of starting the fire as part of our diabolical plan to take over the world. But he and his church had countered us with their prayers. He and his people had brought about the miracle that contained the fire.
Give me a break!
G showed definite signs of itchy restlessness.
“Do all fires have imps at the core?” Shara asked. She didn’t look happy. In her world imps were cute little beings with smiles and manners and love in their hearts, just like the cartoon shows.
“No,” G replied. The sound of the doorbell had reached a higher level of annoying. He winced and his eyes flicked from his daughter’s face to the front door and back. “One of the magical talents D’Accore has acquired is from an elderly Welsh woman who communicated with and commanded imps—dyflyn in her language. A fire dyflyn will start a fire for her, even with wet kindling and allow her to leave the scene of the crime. The fire will continue to burn without human direction or control until all of the fuel is eaten. All of it. The entire city if left alone.”
G looked exhausted but exuberant at the same time. And he needed . . . a woman. I wasn’t about to provide the necessary service. Though a little . . . maybe just a quickie up against the wall . . . would certainly set me to rights again.
Nope. Not going to go there or do that. That was G’s thing. Not mine. I had better ways to use my aftermath energy. Like get this family moving again.
“G, run the gauntlet and get to your appointment,” I ordered.
He looked up at me in surprise. “Gayla’s car is in the way. And so is the satellite truck.”
“I have to get back home and survey everything, air things out to banish the smoke smell, that kind of thing.” Gayla fished her car keys out of her pocket, looking at the wreckage of my kitchen, then turned her back on the piles of dirty dishes. “If we drive out together and pretend we’ll run down anyone who stays in our way . . .”
“I have a better idea,” G said. He walked over to the landline telephone and dialed three numbers.
Then he counted to sixty. A siren erupted from mere blocks away. Even though every law enforcement officer, EMT, and firefighter within twenty miles should be at the fire scene, at least one patrol car responded to G’s alarm.
“What just happened?”
“A little alarm system I installed after Chambers tried to usurp Shara’s birthday party.” He limped toward the coat hooks along the wall of the mudroom.
Jason wearily heaved himself upright; his headache might be better, but he needed rest. By the time he got his feet on the ground, we heard the police siren whoop very close to the house. This was immediately followed by the slam of car doors and engines revving as the press sped away.
Oh, boy. I could just see tomorrow’s headlines asking what was so special about our house and my family that the police responded in moments to G’s alarm when they should be at the more important scene downtown.
“Jason, stay.” I said. He sank back down again gratefully. “Your father has to start driving himself now.” And answering questions. “You can go back to bed until eleven. Then it’s lunch, and I’ll drive you to the theater after we’re done.”
“If I’m not back by then, take the girls with you. I don’t want them left alone,” G ordered.
“Aye, aye, sir!” I saluted him backward. “How in the hell did you con the police into obeying your whims?”
“Interagency cooperation. I had a chat with the commissioner when I first took over this job, and they bow and scrape to do my bidding now.”
“Interagency?” I gulped. “Which agency?” I couldn’t imagine a normal law enforcement group working with the Guild of Wizards. Unless . . . “As in Interpol?”
All I heard in response was the slamming of the back door.
“Daddy?” Shara’s voice came through G’s cell phone, meek and hesitant. Not what he expected from his youngest. Ever.
“What, sweetheart?” He sat in the front seat of his car with his legs out the open door. Damn, that knee hurt. But Judi had worked her magic and tweaked and twisted it back into its normal position. She’d also instinctively known his other burning itch and helped him out, now that he was single again. He didn’t like having sex with people he knew. It complicated things afterward. Especially with Daffy so close but unavailable.
What had Daffy done to take care of her own problem? She’d pushed as much magic through her body as he had. He didn’t dare growl at the thought of Ted Tyler coming by the house to “help,” not with his daughters listening anyway.
When they finished, Judi had said he needed a few hours for everything to settle. But it still hurt like hell. And he was supposed to keep moving so it wouldn’t stiffen up again.
“I found it,” Shara whispered.
He stilled, thinking hard. “Did you get in?”
“Yes. Belle helped me once I figured out that the password was an algorithmic progression.”
Leave it to Belle to see the pattern and follow it through to its logical conclusion. Something D’Accore was never good at. Lately, she was even worse at completing a job, probably because she had only absorbed about half of each talent she stole. Did she use it all up with each spell she cast?
Doubtful. His luck didn’t run that way. He needed something more to bring her down.
He suspected that Mooney anchored her and coaxed her to complete as much as she did. That fire this morning was pretty thorough, even without the imp at the core.
What did she do with the wands she stole?
He thought she stripped them of any residual, but maybe she could absorb more if she used them a few more times.
“It looks like he’s funding domestic terrorists with that offshore account,” Belle interrupted his thoughts. They must have Shara’s phone on speaker. “But a lot of it is channeling back into a New York bank to fund travel and clothes and jewels. What do we do with it now?”
Domestic terrorists? A good way to describe his bribes and building an army of minions for D’Accore. But what did Mooney have to gain from that?
D’Accore. She’d push him to the illogical activity to gain chaos. She thrived on chaos, the euphoria of gathering the random energy. Mooney would then be able to con his real estate clients into installing “Safe Rooms” with either legit or scam artist contractors. He’d make a big profit on each deal regardless.
And he had D’Accore, his first love. She’d dumped him the moment she met G. But she’d returned to him for help just before her arrest. Could she have cast a slow-working spell on him that led to his amassing money any way he could and using it to gain her escape from magical imprisonment?
He wouldn’t put anything past her.
“Um . . .” G looked at his watch. His men should be landing any minute. George Red Hawk, the bird whisperer, Wu Sing Chen, the trap maker, and his foster brother Zebediah Macumbo, on loan from Interpol, totally mundane, sharp as a whip and a brick wall of muscle and quick fists. G had used them before, but rarely. Their oddball combination of talents often caught the guilty off guard.
He waited for them in the cell phone parking area. He needed to get off the line so the men could call him to fetch them from baggage claim.
And what were the girls doing home? Shouldn’t they be with Daffy about now delivering Jason to the theater?
“Mr. Tyler is with us until Mom gets back,” Belle answered his question before he asked. “He’s okay, Dad, just sort of boring. All he wants to do is sand and varnish the attic floor like it’s sacred ground or something.”
“It is sacred ground to us. Belle, do you have something to write with?”
“My tablet.”
“No. Paper. Then burn it when you’re done. Don’t let anyone see it, even your mom or Mr. Tyler.”
“Paranoid, much?”
“Yes.” And damn, he hated sharing that information, even with his brilliant and brilliantly talented daughters. But he had to. Tonight, he’d make sure he changed some of the protocols at that special website.
“Shara, while she’s looking for paper and pen, are you on my desktop computer with the secure modem?”
“Well, duh. How do you think I busted through six layers of firewall? My laptop doesn’t have enough juice to do that, even with the ten-terabyte external hard drive.”
“Okay, okay. I need you to go to the secondary browser labeled GoW. It’s in a subdirectory of my work notes.”
“Wow, you really don’t want anyone finding that,” she said, almost immediately. He had no doubt she’d located it in seconds. Belle would need a minute or two. Jason and Daffy half an hour.
“Back, Dad. What am I supposed to write down?” Belle asked.
He spelled out a long train of foreign words and symbols. “That’s the URL. The password to get beyond their firewall is [email protected].”
“Huh?” Belle came back. “I never knew . . .”
“Very few do. Now forget you ever knew it, or I’ll make you forget.” He couldn’t erase one specific memory and leave the rest intact remotely, only face-to-face, fingers of one hand on her temple, fingers of his other hand on his own temple as he erased the memory out of her mind and absorbed it into his own. But she didn’t know that yet.
“Okay, once you are in and you see the welcome-what-can-we-do-for-you page, click on the security badge.” He led her through a complex procedure. “Then type in the bank name, the account number, and his password as quickly as you can. It will blank your typing
as you go, so you have to be quick and accurate the first time. Then back out the same way you got in and log off at the welcome page. By Monday morning, Mr. Mooney should have an IRS auditor on his doorstep with a dozen federal warrants.”
“Is that all?” Belle asked, sounding disgusted. “What can they do to him?”
“Strip him of all assets and slap him in prison. Then I swoop in and make certain he can’t get out by magical or mundane means. I’ll make certain there is no bail.” His phone clicked and beeped. “Now burn that address and password. I’ve got to go. Tell your mom we’ll have three extra for dinner.”
“She’s not going to like that.”
G sighed. “Tell her to get used to it. She wanted all of us to work together as a family. Now she has to live with the consequences, like I do every day of our lives.” Every damn day.
I had enough stew and fresh-baked bread to feed the family for three days—even with Jason’s enormous appetite. Would that be enough for one night with the addition of Ted and G’s three mysterious friends?
And how was I supposed to deal with setting up the house for the Halloween Party of the decade when I had to cook for all these people? I’d made it as far as placing foam headstones around the front yard and draping them with fake cobwebs.
Ted had joined me after making sure Jason was prepared to defend himself at the theater. He knew what to look for and what to sense with magic. Neither Ted nor I wanted to face my jealous ex. I’d been trying to think of an excuse to get him into my bedroom since he drove up to the back door. So far, no luck. G’s ghost kept getting between me and follow through.
Inviting Ted to dinner was a risk. Maybe I could use the confrontation to push G out again.
I’d found Raphe’s house on the eastern edge of town, almost into Springfield. It was old and dumpy, a Craftsman bungalow. It was also huge, as if built for a large extended family. If Raphe slept during the day in the basement, that would still leave four or five bedrooms divided between the first and second floors.
“I got three strings of pumpkin lights draped around the front porch as well as finishing the attic floor. The pentagram is intact and glowing. How about I take some of that stew to Jason for him to eat between matinee and evening performances. That way he doesn’t have to break his concentration by coming home, and I can check on him and on Tiffany at the same time?” Ted asked coming up behind me where I chopped cucumber and tomato to add to the salad.
A Spoonful of Magic Page 27