Zinnia called up to Rob, “Is it okay if I take a phone call?”
He grunted what sounded like sure.
Chapter 7
Zinnia relocated herself to her office and answered the phone with a sweet, “Hello, dear. How lovely to hear—”
Zoey launched straight into a story without even saying hello. According to the sixteen-year-old, her mother had been having quite the day. After a kerfuffle at work with Frank Wonder turning into a flamingo, Zara had taken Zoey to the beach. Zara had then stripped off her clothes and walked into the ocean. It wasn’t exactly swimming weather, but Zara was apparently possessed by another ghost. Already. And it was a powerful one who had changed Zara’s physical properties.
When Zinnia found out the name of the ghost, she clutched her throat. Chessa Wakeful. The woman who was currently in a coma. The news was a shock, and yet it wasn’t really a surprise. It had been inevitable. Of course Zara would channel a Wakeful. The woman had a knack for getting herself into the worst kinds of trouble.
As Zoey relayed the story, her usually sweet voice had a hitch in it, as though she was struggling to keep from crying. What a day, Zinnia thought. First Liza had been crying, and now poor Zoey was upset. Zinnia was supposed to be able to comfort the people who came to her. She was their elder, and she was supposed to know what was going on. But she’d never felt so powerless as when faced with the tears of a person she loved.
Zoey was saying, “And now she’s been underwater for at least five minutes. You need to come here, I think.”
Outside Zinnia’s office, there was a crash. She peered through the doorway, her free hand cupping blue lightning energy in case she needed to protect herself or Rob. The crash had apparently been Rob, falling through the ceiling and narrowly missing Margaret’s desk.
Rob jumped up from the floor. “I’m okay,” he said.
Zinnia pulled her phone away from her mouth and asked him, “Any nests up there?”
Rob spat debris from his mouth. “I don’t want to alarm you, but there are some nasty creatures living inside your ceiling. That’s probably what drew the wyvern.”
Zinnia glanced up. The same drop ceiling was over every part of the office. “I’ll just stay here in the doorway,” she said, as much to reassure herself as to let Rob know.
Zoey’s voice came over the phone sounding panicked. “Auntie Z? Are you still there?”
“I’m here,” Zinnia said. “I was just dealing with... a tradesman.”
Rob snorted. “A tradesman? Way to kick a man when he’s down.”
Zinnia motioned for Rob to pipe down and fulfill the secret part of his secret agent status.
Zoey asked, “What sort of tradesman? Is that a code for necromancer or something like that? Are you out doing exciting witch stuff with your coven that you won’t tell us about?”
Zinnia cleared her throat. “Never mind about that. Is your mother still underwater?”
“She just waved at me, so I guess she’s all right.” Zoey sighed into the phone. “Sorry I called you. It’s not an emergency after all. Sorry I bothered you.”
Zinnia felt her tender heart break a little at the sound of Zoey’s voice. “Don’t apologize,” Zinnia said. “You were right to call me.” In a brighter tone, she asked, “How are you doing? How do you like your new school?”
“I’m fine. School’s good. I like school.” Zoey sounded chipper, happy to be talking about regular kid stuff. “What more do you want to know?”
Zinnia leaned back and looked at the surge detector, which was still glowing blue with the occasional aquamarine pulse.
Zinnia asked her great-niece, “Have you noticed anything unusual happening around the school? Any sightings of creatures that shouldn’t be there?”
“Not me, but some kids were out on a nature walk this afternoon in that forest park, the one where Mom fought off the giant bird, and they saw something.”
“Another giant bird?”
“No. Just a bat. But they said it was a red, glittering bat.”
“Interesting,” Zinnia said. Wyverns were able to use glamour magic to hide their true appearance from non-magical people. Perhaps red wyverns didn’t have that ability? Or perhaps the wyvern was injured from its journey between worlds. Either way, Zinnia was pleased to hear outside corroboration of what she and Margaret had seen, even though it wasn’t good for the non-magical residents of Wisteria to be seeing mythological creatures. It was the sort of thing that sparked witch hunts.
Zoey asked, “Should I be worried about anything, Auntie Z?”
Zinnia chuckled. “No more than usual, dear.”
They chatted for a few minutes about Zoey’s teachers and classes, then Zoey said, “Here comes Mom. She’s just walking out of the ocean like it’s no big deal. She’s so weird! Do you want to talk to her?”
Zinnia paused, and the silence was punctuated by Rob cursing at whatever was living in the ceiling.
Zoey said, “You don’t have to talk to her now if you’re too busy. She looks annoyed that I’m on the phone.”
“I’d be happy to talk to your mother,” Zinnia said.
“Hang on.”
Zinnia waited, listening to Zoey talk to her mother while attempting to dry off her mother’s hand and ear with a sweatshirt.
Zara came on the line sounding exuberant. She sounded fine, but Zinnia couldn’t relax yet. Zara always sounded exuberant, even when supernatural entities were trying to electrocute her.
“Zara, did you shift into another creature? Zoey said you were underwater for a long time. Longer than five minutes.”
“Something happened, but I couldn’t have shifted.” There was the sound of movement, of the phone receiver dragging across Zara’s damp chin. “I’m still wearing my underwear,” she said with a chuckle. Something jingled.
Zinnia tried to understand what her niece meant but couldn’t. “Your underwear?”
“I mean I’m still wearing my bathing suit,” Zara said, sounding very much like a teenager telling a fib. “It would have fallen off if I’d turned into, say, a sea lion.”
“Zara, shifting is not an organic change, like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. It’s magic, and magic has a mind of its own. The clothes can shift with you, and then back again.” In fact, Zinnia knew that some shifters found themselves wearing a different change of clothing—either their own or someone else’s—when they shifted back to human form.
Zara asked, “Are you sure about that?”
Zinnia bit her tongue. Her niece was always questioning her. It was as if Zara knew how insecure Zinnia was about being the mentor in their relationship. Zinnia found herself answering in her own mentor’s all-knowing tone. “The only thing we can be certain of with magic is that it’s uncertain.”
“Maybe I did shift,” Zara said excitedly. “Do you think it’s permanent? Like, I’m a shifter now? Witch plus shifter. I’d be a double threat.”
Zinnia frowned. No shifter would be happy to hear about a witch who had their powers. “We ought to conduct some controlled experiments,” she said.
“It’s not totally dark yet. I could go dive back in.”
“No! Don’t!”
“Okay. I’ll wait.”
“Zara, you must resist your impulsive urges to dash madly into the face of danger. Safety should be your top priority.”
“Absolutely,” she said, with the tone that meant she was rolling her eyes at Zinnia’s perfectly sensible precautions.
“Stop making fun of me,” Zinnia said.
“Can you see me?” There was the sound of seagulls in the background.
Zinnia sighed. “Were you even listening?”
“Yes. You were saying it would be a disaster if I accidentally cast two conflicting spells on myself and got killed, like that time you killed me.”
Zinnia fought down the guilt that twisted her stomach into knots. “I know you’re attempting to give me a hard time, but I’m afraid that particular incident only unders
cores my point about safety.” She rubbed her aching shoulder at the seam where the creature who’d briefly inhabited Zara Riddle’s body had yanked it off.
“Safety first,” Zara said, sounding agreeable. “Hey, thanks for comforting Zoey today when I went underwater, and thanks for being our mentor. Let’s meet up soon, okay?” She must have been shivering, because Zinnia could hear her niece’s teeth chattering.
“What’s that sound? Are your teeth chattering?”
“No,” she said, but her teeth chattered even louder. “Yes,” she admitted.
Just then, Rob yelled out something that might have been a cry of danger or a whoop of joy. Something dark and drippy came down from the space over top of Dawna’s desk. It plopped with a wet sound, oozed off the desk onto the carpet, and began to slither its way toward Zinnia’s feet. Zinnia immediately jumped up onto her desk, her cell phone in one hand and a ball of blue lightning in the other.
Zara was saying something about the sun going down and having human skin. It was hard for Zinnia to focus on her niece’s problems with a slithering black pile of goo heading her way.
“Great to hear,” Zinnia said with forced cheerfulness. The dark, drippy, slithery thing entered her office. “Go home and get warm,” Zinnia said hurriedly. “I have to run. Talk to you soon.”
She ended the call just as Rob crashed through a different ceiling tile and launched himself on top of the slithering thing.
Zinnia said, “Roll aside and I’ll blast it.”
“No need. Just hand me a container. Glass, preferably.”
Rob sounded calm, so Zinnia responded with equal calm. “What size? Would a baby food jar suffice?”
“A baby food jar? Sure. Do you have two of them?”
Zinnia reached into her purse, which was, handily enough, sitting on her desk. She pulled out two empty jars and handed them to Rob. He used his hands to scoop the dark, drippy thing into the first jar. He fastened the lid. Some of the entity remained on the carpet, pooling together again like liquid mercury.
Rob laid the second jar on its side and gently shooed the shadowy thing inside, the way a person might capture a house spider for release in the garden.
“There you go,” Rob said tenderly as he screwed on the second lid. He tucked both jars into his utility belt.
Zinnia slowly climbed down from her desk. “What was that?”
“Unclassified creature number three hundred and eleven.”
Zinnia crossed her arms and tapped her foot. “Is that all you can tell me? Agent Rob, I thought you were the fun one.”
He made an exasperated face. “I’ve told you everything I know. That thing isn’t from this world, so it doesn’t even have a name. We call it number three hundred and eleven because it’s the latest in a long list of creatures that don’t have names.”
Zinnia glanced up at the ceiling with suspicion. “Are you telling me that in the last month, since we’ve been having these power surges, you’ve detected three hundred and ten other unidentifiable creatures?”
His eyes bulged. “I wish! Nah, only about a dozen, but we just keep one list, and our organization has been around a while.”
“If that creature is unidentified, how did you know how to deal with it?”
“That’s a good question, and I’d love to answer it, if only I wasn’t restricted from doing so by certain security protocols.”
“I have a right to know what’s infesting my office ceiling.”
“Your ceiling is clear now. The wyvern, if indeed there ever was a wyvern, shouldn’t be back now that its prey has been removed.” He looked down at the pieces of broken ceiling tile on the floor as he moved toward the door. “Sorry about the mess. A cleanup crew will be along shortly. You know them already. They put in the new carpet after the Scholem homicide.”
“Those were your people? I thought they were sent by the mayor herself, by Paula Paladini.”
Rob shuddered at the mention of the mayor’s name. “Shh,” he said. “That’s a name you don’t want to say too loud.”
They were interrupted by the arrival of Knox. The big guy bounced from one foot to the other. “We gotta go,” Knox said. “There’s another call. An urgent one.”
Rob tapped his utility belt. “Thanks for the jars, ma’am. Call us if you see any more vermin.”
And then the two agents were gone.
Zinnia looked down at the busted ceiling tile. She walked around the office, surveying the mess. Bits of ceiling tile, dust, and construction debris were all over everything. She might have cast a dusting spell, except she didn’t have the appropriate supplies, let alone a feather duster.
There was a tap at the door, and it squeaked open. “Cleanup crew,” someone called out hesitantly. “Okay to come in?”
Zinnia went to the door and waved in a small crew of what appeared to be City Hall’s regular cleaning crew, plus a few people she recognized from the carpet installation in January.
“Sorry about the mess,” she said.
“It’s okay,” said the older man who appeared to be the foreman. “It’s not a dead lady this time, is it?”
“No,” Zinnia said icily. “It’s not a dead lady.”
“Then it’s okay,” the foreman said. “We get paid overtime for this. Are all the rats gone now? They told me it was rats.”
“Yes,” Zinnia said. “It was rats. And they’re gone now.” She glanced up at the ceiling. “I hope.”
Chapter 8
It was dark when Zinnia finally left the office that night. There was a chorus of frogs croaking in the nearby forest’s ponds. Their chorus was so loud, it sounded like a generator was running. And then, all at once, the frogs went silent.
Zinnia stared in the direction of Pacific Spirit Park. Was that red glinting over the treetops moonlight bouncing off the scales of a red wyvern? Or just Zinnia’s imagination?
She clutched the surge detector to her chest protectively. She could have left it in the office—the cleaning crew wouldn’t have disturbed it—but she had an idea about using it for research.
After a moment, the chorus of croaking frogs started up again. Zinnia let out her breath and stopped straining her eyes to watch for the magical creature. If the wyvern wanted to make itself known to her, it would. Wyverns and witches went way back, and even if she couldn’t see it, the wyvern certainly knew where she was.
Zinnia strapped the surge detector into the passenger seat of her car, and climbed into the driver’s seat. She tuned the radio station to classical music, and drove around the town of Wisteria in random, looping patterns. She kept an eye on the glowfish in the globe, watching to see how the tiny creatures reacted to different areas of town.
After two hours, she’d learned that the globe was the brightest and greenest when she was near City Hall. Whatever was causing the power surges and creature outbreaks, it was centered on her workplace. The agents from the DWM were probably well aware of that, with all their technology and agents.
She considered calling her old friend Vincent Wick to see if he’d picked up any information with his own surveillance system. She even pulled out her phone to call, but decided she was in no mood to talk to Wick. She was still cross at him for electrocuting Zara with his van. The man had a tendency to shoot first and ask questions later. Zinnia didn’t need him adding to the trouble at City Hall.
Zinnia returned home, had a light snack to help her sleep, and went straight to bed.
Unfortunately, the events of the day came back to haunt her in her dreams.
The next morning, she awoke early, sweating and agitated, patting herself to make sure she still existed. It seemed Liza Gilbert’s nightmare about nonexistence was contagious.
Zinnia got ready for work, dressing in her usual clothes—a dark purple pair of slacks and a pretty floral blouse with blue and violet irises. While checking her makeup in the mirror, she noticed two thick white streaks at her temples. Had those been there yesterday? She had a few white hairs, sure, but didn
’t remember seeing streaks like these. But then again, Zinnia wasn’t the type to spend a lot of time staring at herself in the mirror.
She held the white streaks between her fingertips, closed her eyes, and sent a pulse of energy along the hairs to the roots. Her scalp tingled as the hair pigment blossomed and spread itself down through the hair shaft by magic.
Zinnia opened her eyes and smiled at herself with approval. Much better. If she was going to keep up with the younger Riddles, it wouldn’t hurt to look the part. In the back of her mind, she heard her mentor chiding her. Witches must never use their magic for vanity or to alter their physical appearance!
In her days as a novice witch, Zinnia had questioned her teacher. Why not fix a couple of minor flaws? Why not remove a few freckles? She would never do more than a good dermatologist with a variety of lasers could do. Her mentor pushed back. Fixing “a couple of minor flaws” was a slippery slope. It could start with freckles but expand to other things. Once upon a time not too long ago, there was a witch who wanted to be taller. Just a few inches. Only the same amount of extra height a pair of heels would give her! For her vanity, the witch had suffered a severed spinal cord, yanked apart in three places. Her body had eventually recovered, thanks to magic, but she was never the same. The story had given Zinnia the caution she’d needed at the time, but she was older now, better able to draw the line.
Zinnia fluffed her long, red locks and smoothed the no-longer-white hairs along her temples back into place. She shrugged off her feelings of guilt. It was just a few white hairs. And besides, almost every witch did it. Margaret Mills, who’d let her locks turn completely gray, was the rare exception.
Zinnia proceeded downstairs, ate a hearty breakfast, and checked the time. She was early for work, so she decided to take the pulse detector for a morning tour of town.
Zinnia was driving around in more looping patterns when a strangely dressed person on the sidewalk caught her eye. She did a double take. Had she slipped through a time portal and landed in 1955?
The strangely dressed person was a redheaded woman who could have walked off the set for a stage production of Grease. She wore a bright-pink blouse tucked into a black skirt decorated with a pink poodle. The skirt flared out voluminously, thanks to the full crinoline underneath.
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