by Martha Carr
Leira closed her eyes. Just let it be. Let it come through me. Lean into it.
“So far, all I’ve got are clichés running through my head.” She opened her eyes in time to see Correk roll his. He looked exasperated. “Stop judging everything. Clichés are fine. Let loose of the controls a little.”
Leira shut her eyes again.
“Relax your shoulders. You’re too tense. It’s not like chasing a criminal. It’s the opposite, in fact. Let the magic do the work. It leads, you follow. Not the other way around.”
“Wait, there’s something familiar here. I can’t quite place it.”
“Let it come to you. Confidence plays a big part in magic, too. The more you believe, the more you’re able to let things happen. The magic knows what to do if you get out of the way.”
“Then why are spells necessary?” Leira opened her eyes again.
“Stop resisting. It’s not your mother, I’m sure of it. We can call the hospital to be sure, if that’s what it takes.” He held up a hand to stop the next question. “Because I was there when your mother reached out. A very distinctive magic trail, similar to yours. I would have recognized it instantly when I pulled the last of the battle energy from you. It’s not your mother.”
“Then who is it?”
“Stop asking so many questions. Find out who it is. We need information. Focus,” he admonished.
Leira lay back against the padded headboard and closed her eyes again. She started counting backwards from one hundred, tricking herself into not thinking quite so much. The energy started to gather around her legs, churning slowly as it spread up her body. Relax into it. Let the magic do its work. Seventy-seven, seventy-six, seventy-five…
Then it happened. It felt like it was flowing through her veins and up her neck, behind her eyes, filling her skull. “The necklace. The necklace is in play.” She sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. “I recognize the magic. You’re right! It came to me!” She stood up, excited. “I could feel it. It was like hearing a familiar voice. You just know it.”
“The necklace. That can’t be good for anyone.” Correk’s forehead wrinkled and concern spread across his face.
The importance of what she had just said came to Leira as she let the excitement of mastering a little more of her magical abilities subside. “The necklace,” she said in a low voice. “Prince Rolim’s powers encased in a crystal.”
“That damnable necklace.” Correk drove his fist into the palm of his hand.
“So, you do get angry.” Leira instantly regretted saying it. “Sorry, I know he was your friend. How do we figure out where this all happened?”
“We’ll need more help.”
“Back to the rock.”
“Correct. But we’ll have to be careful. We’re dealing with something malevolent and large…”
“Which means a group with bad intentions and we don’t know how many or who it is yet. I get it. Trust but verify.”
“There’s a full moon tonight. They’ll be gathering to celebrate it. Magic comes up from the center of the Earth more easily during a full moon. It’s a reason to come together…”
“And party. I heard Toni talking about it. We’ll need to bring a dish. It’s something humans call a potluck. No, Cheetos don’t count. We’ll actually have to make something. Or make Whole Foods make it.”
“Jim said they meet at a place called the Jackalope.”
“Know it well. It’s on 6th Street.”
“He said the owner is a wizard who retired from the Order.”
“Didn’t know that was a thing. I thought once you were in something like that, you were in. You know, Masons for life.”
“He’s still a member but at some point, everyone is allowed to stop serving and go have a life, even if not many take them up on it.”
“You have to change before we go. That’s not a good look on you. Or anyone.”
“I see your kind wearing these everywhere.”
“Which should have been enough of a visual to clue you in why you’re changing before we go out in public. Your pants have to have a zipper, or your olden days pants that lace up. No elastic band. Slippery slope to fatdom, my friend.”
“We take Yumfuck.”
“We take Yumfuck.”
“Someone will have to peel him away from Game of Thrones. He’s only on the second season.”
“You started him on that drug. You break the news to him.”
“It may take a spell to pull him away.”
“You mean me.”
“You rescued him. Still your troll.”
“Hurry up and show me. We need to figure out this puzzle and none of the pieces are coming together fast enough to suit me. That damn necklace is in play again but we don’t know who has it, or where it is now, or if that’s good or bad news. And I want to see if an idea comes up for how to rescue my mother. She can’t be the first magical being trapped in a psych ward.”
“Okay, let’s get the troll and get out of here.”
“You’re going to love Whole Foods, but you can’t buy anything in there. I can’t afford it. The place should be called whole paycheck.”
“What’s a pay check?”
“Never mind. Come on.”
“You don’t cook at all, do you?”
“I microwave with the best of them.”
“Nice to see you’re not bringing your gun.”
“It’s a potluck and I’m off duty.”
“And you have magic.”
“That crossed my mind. Next thing I want you to show me how to do is make a mean fireball.”
“Of course you do.”
Hagan sat on his old red Troy-Bilt riding lawnmower in his backyard on the north side of Austin, firing it up to mow his quarter acre, made smaller by his wife’s flower beds in the back, still blooming in the warm winter sun. He was wearing his favorite old blue jeans that were soft with age and his worn Sperry boat shoes from his canoeing phase years ago. Rose was not fond of the look but tolerated it if he was doing chores around the house.
He pulled his Cubs baseball hat down, securing it firmly on his head and prepared to mow, hurrying to finish before it was dark. His old black poodle watched him from the back porch, his eyes closing despite the noise from the mower.
The sky was purple with ribbons of red in between the clouds.
“Not much longer, better hurry old girl,” he said, steering the tractor into the first pass around the yard.
He mowed a nice straight line, and came back the other way, glancing back at the perfectly straight lines. There’s a certain satisfaction to doing a job right. Leira was right. I don’t need magic. I got this.
He turned and made another pass, working his way toward the back fence, careful to turn before he got to the flowerbeds, leaving a small margin for error that he could cut later with the weed whacker. Back and forth he went, falling into the routine, daydreaming about what he would eat when he was through with the mowing. Maybe make a sandwich. I earned it. This is still physical labor. I had to start the mower. All this vibrating. He could hear Rose telling him no in his head. Maybe just a pickle.
A rabbit poked its head under the fence near the gate, not seeing the large poodle at first. The poodle lifted its head, spotted the rabbit and jumped up, barking madly as it took off for a chase. The rabbit streaked across the yard in front of the mower, pursued by the dog.
Startled out of his daydream, Hagan gripped the steering wheel of the Troy-Bilt, his foot hitting the gas as he jerked the wheel, turning the mower straight into the flower beds. It was over in seconds.
He turned the mower away as quickly as he could, steering back onto the grass, and shut it off, turning in his seat to get a look at what was left of the flowers.
A large U-shaped swath was cut into the flowers, mowed down to green stubs with a colorful band of chopped confetti spread out around them.
“Fuck me,” Hagan groaned. He was already trying to figure out how to buy h
imself enough time to go get more plants and hide this from Rose. He looked at his watch and realized the local Lowe’s was closing in just a few minutes. The poodle trotted up, panting, a smile on his face.
“I’m glad you’re happy. Make room for me, will ya? I’m going to be in the doghouse for sure.”
He started up the mower again, shooing the poodle away, so he could finish the lawn and buy himself some time. There was a chance Rose wouldn’t notice the flowers that night but she’d see it through the back door in the morning. A half-finished job would make her come out and take a closer look. Better to calm down enough to finish. He figured it would give him more time to think of a plan or plausible denial, anyway.
Hagan pursed his lips as he carefully turned the mower again, determined not to mow over any more of the flowers. I’ll have to ask Leira to get me out of this one, he thought. Do some of that hocus pocus.
“Or they will be investigating my homicide next. Woo boy,” he said, making another turn. “Leira’s got to understand this one.”
Outside the Chicago Avenue Pumping Station there was a sign on the sidewalk that said, ‘Closed for Renovations. Check back soon.’
The run of the play, Peter Pan was quietly moved to the Broadway Playhouse at the nearby Water Tower with the explanation that there was an unfortunate gas leak, mimicking the story in the press. The crew of the play scrambled to figure out sets and lighting and quickly forgot about the explosion at the Pumping Station, except to complain about their bad luck.
Inside the Pumping Station, the elders of the Order of the Silver Griffins picked through the rubble, occasionally stopping to turn over fallen debris and examine the burn patterns from a fireball. The dead and wounded had all been removed and the enemy combatants identified. The bodies were returned quietly to their families who came up with alternative stories about dying from an illness or in a car accident. A witch in the coroner’s office agreed to help with the cover up, according to previously approved protocol for this extreme situation.
This was the first time in recent memory that anyone had to pull the protocols out and give them a read through.
“I think we have enough,” said a witch, straightening up, placing her hand in the small of her back and stretching. “Let’s convene in the theater.”
The other five witches and wizards followed her without comment, walking toward the theater that sat over the northern side of the vault. They sat in the folding chairs in a tight circle on the stage and waited for the witch to begin speaking. Nothing about her gave the impression that she was in charge of an Order hundreds of years old that kept human beings from finding out about magic and looked out for everyone’s well-being.
She wore her usual outfit of jeans and a t-shirt with a puffy coat and thick socks tucked into Crocs. If it was snowing or icy, she would have changed into Uggs.
“Where to start,” she said solemnly, licking her lips. The whole thing gave her pause and made her feel older than her years. “Well, has anyone found Hannah yet? No?” The young witch had disappeared during the fighting and her mother and grandmother were frantic, wondering if she had been dragged off by the darkness that had invaded the Pumping Station.
The witch knew better. She pulled out her wand and uttered a short incantation, swirling the wand, drawing up images from the fight. The others recoiled. No one wanted to see the fighting again and watch friends struck down.
The witch waved her wand again, enlarging just a portion of the image, pouring light into the background. There was Hannah, sliding along the wall, doing her best not to attract attention.
The witch waved her wand one more time, helping everyone to see what she had spotted the first time she watched this, enlarging Hannah’s pocket. The corner of a black velvet box was sticking out.
There was a chorus of gasps and one witch put a hand to her mouth, gasping, “No!” A wizard sat back hard in his chair, exclaiming, “Bullshit!” Others shook their heads and leaned in closer, trying to be sure, not wanting to believe what they could clearly see.
Hannah was a traitor.
“We were done in by a third-generation member who handed over the prize. No, we don’t believe she went so far as to lead them here. She still has some integrity intact and perhaps it’s possible she had a reason for what she did, but there it is. I haven’t told her family yet. We need to know more, first.”
“You saw the traces upstairs. The marks on the rubble,” said a wizard with short silver hair, slicked straight back. “We all know whose old magic they were using. Rhazdon.”
“They’ve improved on it, if that’s what you’d call it. Added tracking to it. Did you see how some of those bolts turned when we ducked?” asked another wizard, still wearing his woolen topcoat over his suit. His face was ashen. “I’ve known Hannah since she was a little girl,” he said quietly.
“She’s not little anymore, and she chose to betray us,” the other wizard said angrily. “She knew every one of us and chose her path anyway.”
“Hannah will be dealt with, like any other member who works with the dark side,” the witch said tersely. “There is already a team out searching for her and no matter what charm she’s placed on herself to hide her whereabouts, it won’t work. She’ll be found.”
“Unless they’re hiding her.”
The witch glared at the silver-haired wizard. “Let’s hope it didn’t go that far. But to your point, we will find them, as well. They have dispersed, back into their communities spread out across the United States but we all know that magic leaves a trail as singular as a fingerprint.”
“Are they followers of Rhazdon’s?”
“It would appear so, and that there was yet another cache of powerful, dark magic hidden by the original cult, just waiting for a rebirth. We don’t seem to be able to completely rid ourselves of that damnable Atlantean,” the witch spat. “But dark magic leaves its own trail, even if they have yet another artifact from Rhazdon’s collection to hide them.” The witch turned toward the far exit and called, “You can come in now!”
A young woman pushed open the heavy door and stepped into the theater. She stopped at the top of the stairs that led down to the circular stage-in-the-round.
“Come down here and meet everyone.” When she reached the stage, the older witch said, “Meet Katie Toler, our new secret weapon. She’s been appointed as a special agent to find the new uprising of the cult.”
She was a young woman with blonde hair to her shoulders and striking blue eyes behind brown square glasses, wearing tights and a long puffy coat, with boots up to her knees. Nothing about her seemed formidable.
Everyone looked skeptical, but no one said anything.
“Good evening, everyone. I know there’s a full moon tonight and most families like to celebrate so I’ll keep this short. I have a small demonstration that will explain why I was chosen as a special agent for the Order of the Silver Griffins.”
Katie pulled out a retractable wand, letting it unfold and snap into place automatically.
“Transformalia.” She waved the wand above her head, the shooting sparks flowing down around her. As they fell her hair transformed into long, thin tentacles and her eyes took on distinctive slits instead of round pupils. “Beautiful, aren’t they?” She ran her fingers through the tentacles as they wound around her fingers, the small suction cups clinging to her. “As you can see, I’m half Atlantean and half witch. Not human at all. My great grandfather was even in the original cult. Not to worry,” she said, holding out her wand to stop anyone from getting up from their seat. She was used to this reaction and found it best to push back right away. Let everyone get to know her later. Make a stand first.
“We aren’t all arrogant bitches. Oh, I’m a bitch alright. Fortunately, I’m on your side this time. I know normally this much Atlantean blood would disqualify me for the Order…”
“Which is why she’s been appointed as a special liaison to the Order as an agent to be used on assignment as needed.”
<
br /> “And dear ones, it looks like there’s an assignment. I’m not fond of what my ancestor started and not happy that some whack jobs have picked up where he left off. Just when people were starting to get over what my kind had done. Well, half of me at least,” she said, winking at one of the wizards, who gave her a cold, stony look in return.
“My usual reception. Don’t worry, I grow on you. In the meantime, I know a little about these artifacts. Family lore passed down through the generations and I have contacts and access you don’t have and can’t get. Even better, a skill set that combines your powers,” she said, waving her wand to transform herself back into the pretty young blonde, “with theirs. Pretty sick, right? They won’t see me coming.” She pulled out a strand of her hair and waved a wand over it, turning it back into a coiled tentacle. She moved her wand above it, whispering into it, swirling the air around it faster and faster, until it disappeared into the stream. She meticulously folded up her wand and put it away.
“I should have something for you later tonight. You bitches stay up that late?” She smiled broadly. “Don’t worry. I’m mostly harmless.” She dropped the smile. “Unless you cross one of mine. And the wizard who got his leg broken last night and lost a lot of blood? That was my father. Cold reckoning is coming for some foolish elves out there.”
“This isn’t about revenge,” said a witch.
“I don’t get even, honey. I just get it done.”
Chapter Twelve
Correk and Leira walked into the Jackalope Bar and stopped, staring at the loud party already underway.
“Come on,” said Leira, “Let’s find the food table so I can put this down.” They veered around the three-foot high statue of an antlered brown rabbit sitting square in the middle of the entrance to the bar. Hanging from its neck was a sign that read, ‘closed for a private function.’
Leira was carrying a large plastic container full of three-bean salad she had bought at Whole Foods. In the car, she poured it into the container she brought from home while Correk watched her with a bemused smile. “It’s a thing, trust me,” she said. “Don’t judge.”