The magic found me first.
I didn’t have the best track record with magic that sought me out. It happened twice on our last mission and both times by magic that tried to kill me. But this felt different. Like it was just as surprised and curious about me as I was about it. The magic whispered along my arms, through my hair, and then I felt a little push from behind, urging me to come find it.
I glanced back at Ryerson.
“You brought what I asked for?” Isadora was saying.
In answer, Ryerson pulled a small bag from his pocket and laid it on the table between them. She pulled it to her and opened it.
“Shavings of the kokia cookei tree root,” he said. “As agreed.”
Isadora held the bag out. One of the men by the door strode forward, took the bag, and left the room.
“The Grimoire?” Ryerson prompted.
“First,” she said, “some tea.”
Ryerson shook his head. “Just the book.”
“Once my botanist confirms the root is what you say it is, I will give you the book. Until then, we drink tea.”
Ryerson didn’t look happy about it, but he nodded stiffly. The magic tugged on my sleeve with wispy, invisible fingers.
“Can I use your bathroom?” I said.
Ryerson frowned. Isadora considered me for a long moment and then waved a hand toward the door. “Fourth door on your left.”
I started toward the door and the remaining guard moved to follow me, but Isadora snapped at him in Portuguese, and he fell back into position by the door. Which I supposed meant of the two of us, she considered Ryerson the bigger threat. Fine by me.
I found the bathroom easily enough and hurried past it, following the gentle tugs and nudges of the magic. Most of the doorways were warded, with the exception of the bathroom and one other door farther down the hall. Probably a linen closet or something. The deeper into the house I went, the stronger the magic. It was close now. Just around the corner. I could feel it.
I’d almost reached the bend when voices around the corner stopped me cold. They grew louder. Heading this way.
There wasn’t time to make it back to the bathroom before they rounded the corner and caught me snooping, so I ducked inside the only other unwarded room I had passed—the linen closet—to hide out until they were gone.
Only it wasn’t a linen closet.
It was an office and, like every other room in this house, felt big enough to fit my entire apartment plus part of Mr. Wong’s Chinese restaurant inside. The style was more masculine than I expected from Isadora—all dark wood and leather and even a few animal heads stuck to the walls. Alvarez’s office then. Wide swathes of hardwood floor separated a leather couch from a sleek, mahogany armoire squatting next to a matching desk. Wondering why, of all the rooms, the office wasn’t warded, I wandered over to the desk and the map of Brazil that hung on the wall behind it. It was covered in pushpins, some red, some yellow. The red were centered more around Sao Paulo, the yellow around Rio de Janeiro.
I stared at it for a while but without more context, I couldn’t make sense of what the pushpins represented. I had also been gone a long time and Isadora was bound to send her thugs to find me soon, if she hadn’t already. I turned to leave and bumped into the desk.
“Ouch.” I glanced down at the offending furniture and frowned. A stack of paper sat next to a laptop, and I read the cover page. I didn’t know Portuguese, but a quick Google search on my phone told me it was an addiction study. Hmm. I flipped through the stack, but everything was written in Portuguese so I gave up and reached the door just as familiar voices echoed down the hall. Isadora and Ryerson, headed this way.
Crap in a cauldron.
I whirled around, and my gaze landed on a closet. I dove across the room and slipped inside, closing the door just as Isadora, Ryerson, and two of her thugs stepped inside.
“I hope your partner is all right,” Isadora was saying. “She’s been in the bathroom a long time.”
I put my eye up to the slats in the door, peeking into the room.
“I’m sure she’s fine,” Ryerson said, but his glance flicked to the doorway and the men standing on each side of it.
Isadora nodded. “Yes, I’m certain you are right. Still, my men will check on her.”
At her words, one of the men peeled away and stepped into the hall. Ryerson tensed. He looked like he wanted to go after him, but he stayed put.
Great. Just bloody great. Any minute now, Isadora’s thug would come back with news that I wasn’t in the bathroom. Then what? Needing to think, I stepped farther into the closet, and my heel caught on something soft and heavy. My arms pinwheeled but I managed to right myself, heart hammering in my chest. That was close.
Thin rays of light filtered through the narrow slats in the door, and I squatted down to see what I’d almost tripped over. It was a pile of clothes. Suits, actually. Strange. I shifted, and the light fell across something else.
A hand.
I swallowed a scream as my eyes struggled to make sense of what I was seeing. Four hands, actually. And two faces. Dark close-cropped hair. Asian features.
The Chinese team. And they were both dead.
6
I stared down at the dead men and tried not to hyperventilate. Turns out trying not to hyperventilate is not so easy, and I ended up with my back pressed against the closet wall, relearning how to breathe.
Focus, Ainsley. Think.
But all I could think was, We’re in so much trouble.
Maybe the Chinese team had tried to steal the Grimoire and got killed for their efforts. Or maybe, the dark part of my brain chimed in, Isadora met with the Chinese team after all. Maybe after she got what she wanted, she killed them. Maybe that was exactly what she planned to do with us.
Noise from the other side of the closet door dragged my attention away from the dead guys at my feet, and I pressed my face to the slats. Isadora’s henchman had returned, and he’d brought friends. Three of them. All armed. At least all of the traffic explained why she hadn’t bothered to ward the room: wards were meant to keep people out, and apparently this room was thug central.
Ryerson eyed the newcomers carefully. One of the men said something to Isadora in rapid Portuguese. She nodded and turned to Ryerson.
“My botanist has confirmed the plant is what you claim it to be. Thank you for bringing it to me.”
Ryerson’s gaze never left the men standing between him and the door as he said, “Great. And the Grimoire?”
Isadora shook her head. Ryerson’s mouth tightened, but he didn’t look particularly surprised when her men pulled their weapons and aimed them at his head.
Panic tore through me.
“I appreciate the plant,” Isadora said. “It would have been such a nuisance to acquire it myself. The same could be said of another ingredient for my spell: a stone from the headwaters of the Irtysh and Ob rivers in central Asia, which the Chinese attaché were kind enough to bring me.”
Ryerson tucked his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels, as if the conversation bored him. “I assume then you have everything you need to complete your spell. The Grimoire will only provide you with one spell, so it is of no further use to you.”
Even I knew that wasn’t true—she could still sell or trade it—which meant Ryerson was stalling. But why? It was six against one, and he wasn’t armed. He didn’t stand a chance.
On the tail of that thought, my pocket buzzed. With trembling fingers, I pulled my phone out and shielded the screen glow. One new text. From Ryerson.
Get out.
Ryerson was stalling to give me time to escape.
I frowned at the message. Like he expected I would just leave him behind when trouble started. He should know me better than that by now.
“I do have all the ingredients I need to complete my spell,” Isadora said, “but I’ve already promised the book to someone who’s paying me rather well for it. Your offer was simply too good to pas
s up. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a spell to perform.”
She gave instructions to her men in Portuguese before she strode out the door. I don’t speak Portuguese, but somehow I doubted she was telling them to offer Ryerson more tea.
Moose drew his gun.
Out of time, I drew the first rune that popped into my head, flicked it through the slats, and whispered the incantation. The rune stuck to the armoire and I shoved magic into it, then glanced worriedly at Ryerson. Moose cocked the gun and aimed it at Ryerson’s head, and I sucked in a breath.
Bang bang bang.
I jumped, my heart trying to beat its way out of my chest, but it wasn’t gunfire. It was the armoire. Something inside of it was knocking. Hard. Like it wanted out.
The men froze, glancing at each other.
I smiled.
The armoire knocked again. Once. Twice. Three times. Louder. More insistent.
“Is one of you going to get that?” Ryerson asked.
“E a garota,” said Moose. I couldn’t be sure, but from his annoyed tone I suspected he thought it was me in the armoire. So I was super insulted when he emptied his gun into it.
Ryerson’s eyes flashed and his jaw clenched. The room stilled except for the dust motes floating around the bullet holes. Then …
Knock knock knock.
Unease settled over the room as the thugs glanced at each other, silently arguing over which one of them had to investigate the creepy wardrobe.
Finally, Moose grumbled under his breath and marched across the room. He traded his empty gun for the semi-automatic one slung across his back, grabbed the armoire handle, and yanked open the door.
Then a lot of things happened at once.
See, I had a plan. Sort of. Distract the goons, grab Ryerson, and get the hex out. Okay, so it wasn’t a very detailed plan. It was a good rune, though. Took the whole summer after sixth grade to perfect it and two minutes to use it to scare the hex out of my brother that Halloween. Totally worth it.
Especially now, when Moose opened the armoire door and an evil clown leapt out. It wasn’t actually an evil clown or a clown at all. Just wisps of magic stitched together to look like one. I’d gone a little heavy on the length of his fangs and claws and the blood dripping down his grimy yellow jumpsuit. Oh, and he was transparent, a fact Moose didn’t seem to notice as he screamed and sprayed bullets at the clown, spinning to follow the apparition as it brushed insentiently past him. But the clown was held together by magic and will, and the bullets passed straight through it, sending everyone else in the room diving for cover.
I took advantage of the melee to slip out of the closet. Ryerson—or maybe Moose—had already dropped one of Isadora’s guys and stolen his gun and was trading fire over the back of the couch he was crouched behind. A new guy stepped through the door and leveled his aim at the couch. No one seemed to notice me. Goody.
My fingers danced out a rune, and I tossed it at the new guy’s feet. The ground bucked, not as violently as it had when Aunt Belinda had shown me this trick last night, but enough. His shot sailed high over the couch as he toppled to the floor.
“Ainsley, down!” Ryerson yelled.
I didn’t think, just dropped as bullets sailed through the air where my head had just been, and I heard the thump of a body hitting the floor behind me.
That left only Moose, who was ignoring the evil clown ghost making faces at him in favor of looking spectacularly pissed off, and the horde of men with guns who chose that moment to storm into the room.
I combat-crawled the last few feet to Ryerson’s hiding spot behind the couch. “What now?” I said.
His expression was not reassuring. Neither was his silence. But when the first booted foot rounded the couch and aimed a gun at us, Ryerson shot him in the chest. Then he whipped his aim around the couch, and two more bodies hit the floor.
Despite Ryerson’s deadly aim, more booted steps rounded the couch. Moose. His eyes were a little wild, and his lips tipped up in a grin as he looked down at me over the barrel of his gun. Like he was going to enjoy this.
“No more bullets,” Moose said smugly, nodding at Ryerson’s stolen gun.
I should have been scared out of my mind, but it was hard to take him seriously with an evil clown ghost in his personal space, making faces at him.
Then a snarl from the doorway snapped his attention up, and his eyes widened. Ryerson didn’t hesitate. He threw himself at Moose’s legs and they went down, covered in wispy cobwebs of the evil clown they’d fallen through.
Ick.
I poked my head around the couch, but from all the screaming I already knew what I’d find.
The cavalry was here.
Sort of.
7
Alec made a beautiful wolf.
Nearly twice the size of a normal wolf, his thick fur was dark gray, nearly black, with white-tipped ears. His eyes were an icy blue and the only feature he shared with his human half.
His fur rippled smoothly as his muscles bunched before he leapt at the nearest gunman, a mesmerizing blur of fur and teeth. The gunman barely had a chance to scream before Alec tore into him, and then he was on to the next.
But as fast as wolf-Alec was, bullets were faster. And everyone in the room except Moose (who was still grappling with Ryerson) had forgotten about me and Ryerson and were focused on the werewolf instead.
Most of them held handguns, but the guy closest to me and farthest from Alec picked up the semi-automatic that Moose had discarded earlier, probably when he realized he was hitting more of his friends than evil clown ghost. If he wanted to kill Alec with that thing, he probably could, but he’d take some of his buddies out with him.
The fear in his eyes said he was willing to risk it.
There was no time for a rune as he lifted the gun to his hip, so I jumped up from behind the couch and did the only thing I could think of.
“Hey, stop that!”
Startled, the man’s head, and his aim, jerked toward me. I yelped and dove behind the couch again, fat lot of good that would do me. But before he could pull the trigger, a bullet tore into his shoulder. He stumbled backward and dropped the gun.
I spun around in time to watch Ryerson—who had given up trying to wrestle the gun from Moose’s hand in favor of squeezing off a round at the guy who was now howling and clutching his shoulder—get punched in the head for his efforts. My eyes narrowed, and magic sparked angrily around my fists as I pushed to my feet and stepped toward Moose.
“Suficiente!”
Isadora’s voice boomed through the room, and everyone froze. Even Alec. But it wasn’t surprise or even fear that stunned them into silence—it was magic. I could taste it in the air.
Every witch’s magic has a unique scent. Mine smelled of the forest: rich earth, spicy cedar, and fresh air. Isadora’s magic smelled like licorice: pungent and sweet, with a lingering aftertaste. I felt it curl around me, making my legs feel leaden and weighted to the floor, arms heavy at my sides.
It was an impressive trick, but one with limitations. For one, her own people were just as frozen as we were. For another, she was starting to sweat. The spell was draining her. She would have to release it soon, and then what?
We didn’t have to wait long to find out. She dropped the spell so abruptly that Moose and I stumbled into the couch. Ryerson recovered more quickly. Not one to waste an opportunity, he swept Moose’s legs from under him and followed him down, but there wasn’t much left for him to do after Moose smacked his head on the hardwood and knocked himself out. Ryerson looked disappointed and then aimed the gun he’d stolen from Moose at Alec.
“Ryerson …” I warned, and his gaze flicked to mine. He didn’t pull the trigger, but he didn’t put the gun down either.
I glanced up in time to see Alec recover and reverse course. He leapt at the witch, jaws snapping.
Isadora did not appear the least bit concerned. She held her ground, eyes riveted to the wolf. Her lips were moving.
“Alec, no!” I said, but it was too late.
The spell caught him mid-leap and he dropped like a furry stone, curling in on himself. Writhing.
I dashed around the couch.
“Ains—” Ryerson called, catching himself before he said my full name. “Damn it, stop!”
But I was already halfway across the room. No one was shooting anymore. They were all too busy watching the werewolf writhe in pain. Ryerson caught my arm and pulled me to a stop before I reached him, which was probably a good thing. I didn’t know how to help him, and his claws sliced through the air like knives.
I thought about hexing Isadora, but her spell was already cast and while it would make me feel better, it wouldn’t do Alec any good. So I watched, hating Isadora and hating the helpless feeling that had settled into my gut even more.
Just when I’d decided to hex Isadora on principle, the air around Alec shimmered, and fur and claws gave way to smooth skin and blond hair. The suffocating scent of magic slowly faded away, leaving a very naked, very human Alec panting on the floor.
I blinked down at him.
Bloody hex, she’d turned him human.
I didn’t know much about werewolves. Nobody did, because they weren’t supposed to exist. Alec was the only werewolf I knew. Since the curse that made him this way came from a Grimoire that had vanished fifty years ago, there was a good chance he was the only werewolf, period. Assuming it was even a curse at all.
So how did Isadora know how to force his shift? She had the Grimoire, so maybe Alec was right: it did hold the counter-curse. But according to Andersen, witches could only use one spell from the book, and Isadora clearly had her sights set on another spell. And just because she’d forced his shift didn’t mean she had broken the curse.
Whatever she’d done, it had clearly been painful.
I shook off Ryerson’s hand and hurried to Alec. His normally tanned skin was pale, and he was shaking. I helped him stand and lean against the wall, hands braced on his knees, his breathing heavy and uneven. He was hurt, so I tried to ignore the way his muscles glistened with sweat. I turned a glare on Isadora, but she only had eyes for Alec.
You Only Spell Twic Page 6