Gram Croakies

by Sam Cheever

  I nodded. “Great.”

  Mandy held her fingers up and showed me a small capsule. “This is for you. If this woman is as powerful as you believe she is, your normal keeper magics might not work with her. She’ll be able to offset them to keep you from retrieving the artifact. This will enhance your power twenty-fold.”

  I took the capsule with a grin. “Any chance you could make me up about a hundred of these?”

  Mandy didn’t laugh. “No.”

  I blinked rapidly, staring into the witch’s humorless, caramel gaze.

  Awkward Aardvark!

  “Alrighty then.” I popped the capsule into my mouth and swallowed, feeling it burn its way down my throat and sizzle in my belly.

  After a moment, I felt a surge of power that brought heat to my cheeks.

  “Be careful with that. You’re not used to the kind of power you have right now. Don’t hurt yourself with it,” Mandy said with just the tiniest bit of condescension.

  I managed a nod at the surly witch and then watched her move over to the edge of the platform to begin pouring the contents of the green jar, which was less gaseous than I’d first thought and more granular.

  “Ignore Mandy,” LA told me, her blue-green gaze sparking with good humor. “She’s kind of a sour-puss, but she’s got a kind heart.”

  “I’ll take your word on that.” I glanced worriedly up at the sky as another bank of clouds moved in. “I hope the moonlight doesn’t let us down at the moment of truth.”

  LA frowned. “The pavilion depends on the moonlight?”

  “That’s my understanding.”

  The dark deepened until I couldn’t see into the yard anymore. A cold, musty breeze slipped past, bringing gooseflesh up along my arms.

  Something tugged in my center, like a warning, and I felt LA stiffen beside me.

  “Deg,” I heard her whisper.

  His response came from nearer than I’d expected and I jumped. Somewhere out in the hazy dark, there was movement.

  “We need light,” LA told her witch.

  “I’m on it.”

  Another wave of moist, musty air slipped past. Wicked wound around my ankles, his soft warmth jolting me from my rigid fear.

  Who’s the woman? Slimy asked.

  My chest tightened. “What woman?” I asked softly.

  The one standing in the grass. She’s got our friend Hobs with her.

  The frog could see through the deep, unnatural dark.

  “Is Hobs all right?” I asked him in the softest whisper I could.

  He doesn’t seem happy, but he doesn’t look hurt.

  A slow clapping sound cut through the thick, oozing black air. A faint light bloomed about fifteen yards from the pavilion, illuminating a slender form wearing a long, black dress. “I’m impressed, Naida Keeper,” the woman said, her voice distorted by the fog swirling around her form. My gaze slid upward, looking for the source of the light that almost illuminated her but not quite. I thought I could make out a blonde halo of hair on her head, but I couldn’t see her features through the mist. “I didn’t think you’d have the gumption to take me on.”

  I stared at her for a moment, stalling for time and, hopefully, a return of the moonlight. Then I forced my stiff lips to smile. “I just want the figurine. Give me that and you can go on your way.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that, dear. I’m not quite done with it.”

  “What exactly are you trying to do? Why did you kill those women? They didn’t do anything to you.”

  “An unfortunate outcome, I’ll agree. Would you believe me if I told you I never intended to kill them? They were merely guinea pigs. If things had worked out I’d have made them supremely happy. They’d have been young again.” Despite her words, there was no regret for their deaths in her voice. Only disappointment that it hadn’t bought her the desired goal. “I’m having a bit of trouble getting the formula just right. But I’m very close now. After tonight I believe I’ll have what I need.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. Clearly, she’d come to the clearing with the idea of harvesting us for her deadly experiment. “Formula for what? Hasn’t Hebe Industries already cornered the market on anti-aging creams? Are you trying to make more money? Because, if that’s what you’re doing, you’ve been going about it all wrong. Killing your target market isn’t exactly a winning strategy.”

  Her laughter hit the dense, wet air and died before it fully bloomed. “Hebe Industries is a joke. Geras enjoys being ancient and wizened. He has no idea what he’s done to me.”

  Something about what she said set off warning bells, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was. “What has Mr. Geras done to you?”

  “Isn’t it obvious, dear?” She lifted her arms and the haze surrounding her swept away.

  I gasped.

  She raised her fingertips, running them over her wrinkled cheeks and touching the dark circles under her eyes. “He’s taken away the thing that makes me what I am. He’s using my very essence to create in others what he’s taken from me.”

  Sebille was suddenly standing beside me. “Isn’t that…”

  I nodded, shocked beyond words. She’d been right under our noses the whole time.

  “I’m a little dense,” I finally choked out. “Tell me exactly what he’s taken from you…shall I call you Franny? Or do you have another name? Like Hebe?”

  “Since the beginning of time, I’ve been Hebe, the Goddess of Youth,” she said, through gritted teeth. “Until that wrinkled gremlin of a man stole my youth magic from me.”

  21

  Oopsies!

  Franny Clauss was Hebe, the Goddess of Youth? I was gobsmacked, shocked beyond words. I would have never guessed. But seeing her there, it made perfect sense. She’d hidden in plain sight among the people she planned to use to regain her youth.

  I wondered if there were others we didn’t know about, who’d given their lives to her experiment. I found it hard to believe her rampage of thoughtless killing had started and ended in Enchanted.

  “So, are we to assume you’re draining these poor people to regain your youth?”

  “I’m only trying to take back what’s mine.”

  “And is it their fault you lost it? Why don’t you try to get Geras to return your youth instead of killing innocent people?”

  She shrugged. “He has proven immovable on the subject. I’ll have to take my pleasure from ruining his company once I’ve gotten my youth back.” She smiled. “It will be a shame when the world finds out what his creams have done.”

  I frowned. “You can’t make it public knowledge, and you know it. The Société of Dire Magic will be all over you like caterpillar panties. They’ll take you down.” Then maybe they’ll leave me alone, I thought unhappily.

  Her smile was mean. “They can try.”

  “One thing has been bothering me,” I told her, hoping my delay would give the others time to figure out how to get the moonlight back. “Where did the cream go after it poisoned those people?”

  She flipped her fingers dismissively. “It is quite useful to have a hobgoblin of one’s own, dear. They can get in and out unseen where others couldn’t.”

  That explained the missing boxes of product Mrs. F and the imposter had told me about. “You’re diabolical,” I said, no longer able to hide my anger.

  Franny stepped closer, her eyes narrowing. “Do not presume to lecture me, child. I’ve walked this earth and many others since well before you were even a possibility in someone’s mind. I can extinguish you like a bug.”

  “Yes. You probably can. But if I’m going to die today, rest assured I’m going to take your artifact with me.”

  Power thickened on the air. Clogging, biting power that chewed on my nerve endings and made it suddenly hard to breathe.

  The very atmosphere throbbed against my skin, creating a deep whomp, whomp, whomp of sound that swirled the thickening mist through the clearing but never seemed to blow it away.

  It
wasn’t until Hebe looked up that I realized the throbbing sound was coming from wings beating the air.

  Hebe lifted her hands and sent actual lightning through the mist, spearing a Brock-shaped form above her head as he dropped right onto her, his claws clasping her wrists and tugging her off the ground.

  She shrieked, but the sound had nothing to do with pain and everything to do with rage. Fresh bolts of lightning speared from her fingertips, hitting Brock in the chest and shoving him backward. His wings pounded hard against the air, holding him in place as smoke rose from his dark clothing. “Hurry!” he yelled.

  I shook off my horror and threw a bolt of seeking magic toward Hebe, enveloping her in a cocoon of charcoal gray light that lifted her off the ground and pulled her attention back toward me.

  Something drifted upward from the folds of her gown and hung on the air for a moment before bolting toward me. I recognized the ballerina figurine and smiled, my hand outstretched to claim my prize.

  Hebe roared in rage and seemed to give Brock a shove, sending him flying off into the charcoal sky, where he disappeared from sight.

  I had no time to worry about his fate. Hebe had refocused her considerable energy on taking back the artifact I’d managed to pull from her grasp. She lifted a hand, bright gold light pulsing around the outstretched limb, and the figurine started to slide back her way.

  There was movement down at Hebe’s feet. In the midst of feeding every bit of keeper magic I had into holding onto the artifact, I allowed myself to glance quickly downward to see what fresh nightmare was heading my way.

  It was Hobs! He was running toward the artifact, oversized eyes locked on it and his long fingers stretching toward the sky.

  A moment of panic hit me. Was he going to take it back for her? Had his allegiance swung back to the evil goddess?

  I had no way of knowing, but my gut told me he wouldn’t turn against his new friends, even if she’d threatened him with his life.

  I had to trust that instinct.

  “Grab it, Hobs!” I screamed. “Bring it to me.”

  The hobgoblin jumped into the air and wrapped his long fingers around the ballerina, hitting the ground and rolling toward the platform with his tiny body wrapped protectively around the figurine.

  Hebe prepared to turn her rage on the little creature. I couldn’t let her do it. I jumped off the platform and started running, grabbing him up and screaming to my friends on the platform. “Catch!” I threw the hobgoblin into the air and turned away, praying my friends managed to get hold of him before her magic hit.

  Hebe’s roar of pure rage blasted upward like an explosion, searing the trees at the edges of the clearing and setting the leaves on fire. Smoke billowed from the flaming branches, mixing with the goddess-created mist to further block the moon.

  If we didn’t get some moonlight we couldn’t use the trap Rustin and Deg had created for Hebe.

  But I had no idea how to make that happen.

  All I knew was that I had to do something. So I gathered up what little energy I had left, and ran at the goddess, hoping to take her down and hold her until the others could come up with a plan to help.

  A creature that was low to the ground and light on its feet shot past me. Then another. And another. And a fourth.

  I realized as the last one brushed past me with a yowl that it was Wicked and his littermates.

  Panic for their safety surged up and the energy inside me flared, burning through my veins.

  I was two long steps away from Hebe when the night shifted behind her and Deg appeared. He slammed his palms together and an intricate web was illuminated just above her head. The web shimmered, spinning once, and then dropped over her, tightening until her hands were locked at her sides.

  I’d seen the magic once before, used against Jacob Quilleran. It had ultimately failed then, and the breakage in the strands as Hebe struggled against it told me it would fail again. But the cats arrayed around the goddess, their tiny chests alight with their individual magical sigils.

  Deg began to chant in Latin. Mandy and LA joined him, the three of them standing around Hebe with their eyes closed and their fingers dancing on the air. Two more webs, one silver and one gold, formed in front of their hands and dropped to cover the goddess.

  The kittens walked in a circle around their prisoner, their sigils pulsing with the rhythm of their steps and their eyes glowing orange.

  The second and third webs snugged down over the first and Hebe appeared to be well and truly caught.

  I started to relax.

  The ground beneath my feet rumbled. Then rumbled again. And shifted so violently I stumbled sideways.

  The two witches and the human familiar stumbled too. When they fell, the webs they’d created started to blink away in whole patches.

  The ground next to me ruptured violently. Dirt and rock shot upward like a geyser. All around me, new ruptures made it impossible to stand, let along perform any kind of magic against the goddess.

  “The cats!” I screamed to the witches. “Get them out of here!”

  Wicked ran to me, but they grabbed the others and ran for the platform.

  Hebe’s arms flew up into the air and magic pulsed around her, thick and oozing and white against the night. “Give. Me. My. Artifact!” Her voice boomed around us, each word emphasized by a new eruption in the once-smooth grass of the park.

  The ground rumbled again. And again.

  Hebe stumbled slightly.

  That was when I realized the rumbling wasn’t coming from her.

  The trees around the clearing seemed to sway. The magic-induced flames extinguishing like candles on a birthday cake, and the night above Hebe sparked with the color of the extinguished flames.

  Fire blasted downward, the flames reflected in a thousand glossy scales. The dragon’s fire enveloped Hebe, forming a column of flame that turned the ground beneath her feet to char, but seemed only to slither around her like a trap made of fire.

  Birte shot past the goddess, her massive silver form barely clearing Hebe’s fiery prison. A powerful stroke of her wings carried her back into the sky like an arrow shot from a bow. Hebe rounded her lips and filled her cheeks, and a cool breeze, thick with moisture, consumed the imprisoning column of fire.

  As Birte came around for another attack, Hebe threw her hands into the air and sent two thick bolts of lightning spearing toward the dragon.

  The bolt hit the beautiful creature in the chest and she threw back her head, screeching in agony as she plummeted toward the ground.

  “No!” I screamed, taking a step toward the dragon before jolting to a stop.

  Birte was heading right for me. If she crashed into me at that speed, and weighing several thousand pounds, she’d ground me into the dirt before I even had time to scream.

  I took off running, praying I’d have time to make it to the pavilion before she hit.

  The trees behind me crackled as if struck by more lightning, and the top of one sheared off, collapsing in my direction. It hit the earth right behind me, flinging me to the ground as it bounced into the air from impact and struck the grass mere feet from the platform.

  I shoved to my feet again, coughing on the dirt and debris the impact had sent into the air, and stumbled toward the structure.

  The ground shook under the force of Birte’s hit, throwing me the last couple of feet to the pavilion. I hit the wooden platform and skidded across until I smacked into the picnic tables.

  A bolt of lightning hit the protective magics encompassing the structure and the energy was immediately repelled, firing back toward Hebe and sending her soaring backward on a scream. The energy flowed over and through her, turning her muscles rigid and creating a bright, silver aura that flared out around her as she fell to the ground. She didn’t stay down long, shoving to her feet, she stood there looking dazed for a beat and then lifted her hands again.

  I didn’t know if Mandy’s repelling spell would work a second time, but judging by the wor
ried expression on the witch’s face, I assumed it wouldn’t.

  “The trap!” Deg yelled as Hebe prepared to hit us again.

  A new roar filled the park, deeper and more guttural.

  Behind me, someone muttered a heartfelt swear. I turned in time to see Sebille buzzing back to the pavilion. “Where’s Rustin? We’ve been waiting for his okay to light it up.”

  The clearing was alive with tiny, buzzing figures. Their multi-hued lights sparkling like colored stars across the night sky. The Fae came in for multiple attacks and then danced quickly away as Hebe retaliated.

  Rustin appeared next to Sebille. “They need to do it now. Before that arrives.” He nodded toward the sky-scraper-sized form swaying toward us above the trees.

  It was Theo Gargantu. In his true Giant form. Tyrannosaurus Trousers! “He’s giantnormous!”

  Sebille snorted out a laugh. “I have to admit, he gave even mother pause when she first saw him. And when that Itch with a large B took out his dragon girlfriend, I thought he was going to level this whole park. I wouldn’t want to be in her ugly, sensible shoes when he reaches her.”

  “Which is why we need to set the trap sooner rather than later. If he gets caught up in it we’re dead. It will never hold them both,” Rustin said.

  Sebille buzzed off to rally the Fae.

  I was dying of curiosity about what they were going to do, but Rustin was a ghost-witch with a mission. He’d already stormed across the pavilion.

  Wicked rubbed against my ankles and I picked him up, nuzzling him against my face. “You guys did good work out there, little man.”

  He purred happily. The other cats ran toward the trap and Wicked shoved me away, jumping down to join them.

  They scampered over and spread out, each cat finding the sigil that corresponded to the designs in their chests. I smiled. Deg had helped Rustin design a trap that the cats could amplify with their power.

  Now, if we could only get some moonlight on the party…