“I know the party line,” Wednesday replied.
“Party line!?” Raven said. To Charisma, she added, “She’s insane.”
“No. I’m not,” Wednesday insisted. “The warlocks aren’t pinned down in a colony. They go where they want. Do what they want.”
Again, the other four stared at Wednesday for a few beats processing that before Rachel said, “Warlocks? When did you become an authority on warlocks?”
“I wouldn’t call myself an authority per se, but when I went to that thing in Aspen, some were there.”
“I see,” Rachel said. “There’s just one problem with your comparison.”
“What?” Wednesday cocked her head.
“What comes to mind when you hear the word Inquisition? Do you get an image of warlocks being tortured? Let me help. That would be no. Wonder why these phrases aren’t part of the lexicon? Warlock hunt. Warlock trials. Burning warlocks at the stake. Not suffering warlocks to live?”
“Yeah,” Harmony said. “They get away with murder.” Everyone stopped and looked at Harmony. “I didn’t mean that literally.”
“If we’re ever discovered, try telling some robe-wearing human that you didn’t mean that ‘literally’,” Rachel said in a less hysterical tone. “Wednesday, I get that you want to save the world and I know you’d never do anything to hurt us intentionally, but you could expose us accidentally. The reason this works,” she waved at the air, “is because we band together and use our powers to uplift the humans in the village we protect. We have to trust each other and not take unnecessary risks. Please tell me you understand. It’s not just about what each of us wants individually. We have to think about the collective.”
The smirk that formed on Wednesday’s face said she wasn’t buying it. “I heard a story about a witch that went chasing off to Colorado in pursuit of a man she wanted individually.”
Raven quickly came to Rachel’s defense. “There’s a difference between personal business and a political cause.”
“It’s not a political cause. It’s a fight for our lives.” Wednesday narrowed her eyes. “Is this a gang up?” Her forehead formed faint creases between her brows as she looked around at the other witches. “It is, isn’t it? You didn’t ask me here for mojitos and pre-rites sex talk. You asked me here to bully me into abandoning my plans.”
“Merciful Mage, save us all.” Raven drew a mystical symbol in the air and then looked at it as if it had become visible.
Rachel held a hand up. “We asked you here to try to persuade you to make a slight adjustment to your plan. Let us throw you a lingerie shower. Life is good here, Wednesday. For all of us and the people in the town. If you feel the need to expand the reach of our beneficence, we’ll support you. So long as you do it from here and do it anonymously.”
Wednesday nodded with a frown on her face. “I do get what you’re saying. What you don’t get is that there’s not going to be any life to be ‘good’ if somebody doesn’t do something now. It’s not an unnecessary risk.”
“Have you talked to the Elders Council about this?”
Wednesday looked down at her lap. “No,” she said quietly. “If y’all don’t understand what I’m saying, what are the chances that those bureaucrats are going to be open minded?”
“Witch gods preserve us,” Harmony said just before taking a large gulp of mojito and waving a counterclockwise motion in the air in Wednesday’s direction. “For your own good, I’m withdrawing those soundwaves from the atmosphere and putting them in the septic system so the Council,” she said the word pointedly, “never find out that you called them bureaucrats.”
“You don’t need to protect me, Harmony. I’m just telling the truth. And you know it. Does the Council need to be protected from the truth?”
“You’re acting like the worst version of a hormonal, angsty, immature sitcom teenager,” Raven said.
To Raven, Rachel said, “Nice, Raven. We can always count on you for tact.”
Raven shrugged. “She says she’s into truth telling. Cuts both ways.”
“Leave her alone,” Charisma said. “We don’t do pile ons. It’s not right.”
Rachel sighed. “What about a compromise. If you agree to work on your project from the protection of the colony, we’ll agree to help you with it.”
“Wait a minute,” Harmony protested.
Wednesday’s tone and features softened. “Thank you, Rachel. I’m grateful for the offer.”
Thinking maybe they’d gained some ground, Rachel seized on the positive moment and grinned. “Great! Let’s be optimistic about what the boys have been up to and get started on the fixings for fish tacos.”
When Raven opened her mouth to say something, Rachel said, “Raven, I’ve got bags of ice in the freezer in the mudroom. Will you grab a couple and put longnecks on ice?”
Raven pressed her lips together in protest, but took the hint.
CHAPTER THREE Always On My Mind
When the fishermen returned from the sea, or rather the river that would be considered a creek in many places, they brought raucous excitement with them. Wednesday took the opportunity to slip away unnoticed. Walking back to her house, an image of the warlock, Rally, flitted across her mind, which irritated her to the bone. The moment that was fixed in her memory was at the witches’ event in Aspen. She’d looked across the room at a group of warlocks standing at the bar talking and laughing. Suddenly one of them looked her way. She’d wanted to immediately shift her gaze to something else, to show that the eye lock was accidental and of no consequence, but there was something about him. They’d looked at each other from across the room until one of the other warlocks grabbed him, laughing, and dragged him away. She reaffirmed, for the hundredth time, that she wasn’t interested in Rally. He was some random good time warlock who was cute, but shiftless and immature. Or so she imagined.
Her internal judge, the one who corrected her when she tried to lie to herself, objected to the word cute. Looking down at the imperfections in the blacktop road, she silently admitted that cute was an understatement. Perhaps he wasn’t the prettiest male alive, but he was a contender. Oddly, the magnetic pull she’d felt when he was around wasn’t about perfect symmetry of features, the sharp cut of his jaw, or the exotic look of hazel eyes so pale they were almost yellow. The contrast of those eyes with blue-black hair that fell onto his brow might cause a lesser woman’s breath to catch. But not Wednesday. Or so she told herself.
When Rally had shown up at the colony the previous month, uninvited and asking around for her, she was surprised, flattered, and at a loss to understand why. Somebody who knew her well enough to know where she was had told him to look at the Crossroads Tavern in town.
Wednesday had been sitting on a stool at a high table eating a hickory cheeseburger with her friend, Bell. When Rally walked up, she was arguing country music with Bell because of the jukebox fare in the tavern. She was just telling Bell that Johnny Cash had been a walking testimonial to persistence over talent and that a panel of contemporary singing judges would laugh him out of the room.
At first Rally didn’t say anything. He just stood there, staring at Wednesday without sparing Bell so much as a single glance.
Of course Wednesday recognized him immediately. They’d never spoken a word at the event in Aspen, but the repeated eye locks were memorable. The one friendship that had developed as the result of that get together was with Opal, a Lapland witch with near-white hair and icy blue eyes who looked like she could be a living goddess of winter.
Opal had seen the shared stare between Wednesday and Rally at one point and said, “That warlock is interested in you.” With considerable effort, Wednesday had torn her attention away and pretended not to care. Opal wasn’t fooled. “His name is Rally. Go talk to him if you want.”
Wednesday had just shaken her head and looked the other way. Pretty warlocks didn’t figure in her plans.
At length Wednesday broke the silence by saying, “What are you doing
here?”
“Looking for you.” His answer was immediate, simple, and direct. And, dammit, she liked that.
“Why?”
When Rally didn’t answer, Bell said, “I guess you two know each other?”
“Bell. This is Rally. Rally. This is Bell.”
He hid his delight that she knew his name. Since they’d never been introduced, that meant she’d asked about him.
“Hey,” he said without taking his eyes away from Wednesday. “Bell, I’ve come a long way to see Wednesday. Is there any chance that I could have a minute with her?” All this was said without looking at Bell, which might have been seen as rude, but Bell, for one, thought it was romantic.
“Sure…” Bell was in mid-motion getting down from her stool, when Wednesday stopped her.
“Wait just a minute. Did you notice I’m having supper with my friend?”
“I did see that,” Rally said. “I’m not hijacking your night. I just need a minute. And Bell doesn’t mind. Do you, Bell?”
“No. I don’t mind…” Bell began.
“I don’t care whether she minds or not.” Wednesday was getting irritated. “I mind. We’re having hamburgers.”
Rally’s eyes flicked down to the baskets on the table. “I see that.”
“The TWO of us.” Wednesday accentuated the word ‘two’, just in case her message wasn’t clear enough.
“Okay,” Rally said. “We’ll do it your way.” Rally looked down at the basket in front of Wednesday and pointed at an enormous onion ring fried to golden perfection. It was so beautiful he was actually salivating. “Can I have one of those?”
“Get your own,” Wednesday said.
“You are one hostile witch,” he replied. “You know that? Especially since I’m the injured party.”
Wednesday blinked three times. “You’re injured?”
“You look okay to me,” Bell supplied.
Rally turned a smile on Bell so dazzling she forgot who she was. “Why thank you, ma’am.” His head swiveled back to Wednesday as his smile faded. “How about you, Wednesday? Do I look okay to you?”
“I don’t know what you’re getting at or why you’re here,” Wednesday said.
“C’mon. Sure you do,” Rally drawled.
“I’m just gonna go over…” Bell was pointing at the bar as she was sliding off the stool for a second time.
“You’re not going anywhere!” Wednesday snapped.
Bell didn’t bother to argue. She knew Wednesday too well for that. She just picked up her cold glass mug of root beer and her burger basket, slid off the stool, and headed for the bar.
Without missing a beat, Rally took Bell’s place on the stool. As he was getting comfortable, one of the local kids, working the tavern for the summer, rushed over. “What can I get ya?”
Rally looked the kid over. “Piña colada. Blended. Not shaken. And a double order of onion rings like the ones she got.” He nodded toward Wednesday’s food.
“Yes to the onion rings. But I don’t know about the piña colada,” the kid said.
“You don’t know?” Rally cocked his head.
“I’m not sure, I mean.”
“Go back and tell your bartender what I want. He may surprise you,” Rally said just before he turned and winked at Wednesday.
She pulled her chin back, frowned, then leaned forward and did something that was a cross between hissing and whispering. “Did you just put a spell on the bartender?”
Rally rolled a shoulder gracefully and said, “Every bartender needs to know how to make a good piña colada. I did him a favor.”
“Look, you arrogant, selfish, overbearing ass, we like things the way they are here complete with bartenders who do not know how to make piña coladas. So why don’t you get down off that stool and go back to wherever you and your friends were causing mischief?”
“First, that’s just a lie. Nobody wants to live in a place where bartenders don’t know how to make piña coladas. Second, I’m stuck here for now.”
“Stuck? Why?”
“Because I have business with you and this is where you are.”
“You do not have business with me.”
“Do.”
She huffed. “What kind of business?”
“I need a spell removed.”
Wednesday stared for a few beats and then barked out a laugh. “Well, you’ve come to the wrong place. That’s like the furthest thing from my specialty.”
“Really?” He seemed suddenly interested. “What’s your specialty?”
“None of your business.”
After a brief stare down that rendered nothing productive, the kid showed up with a grin and a drink that looked a lot like a good piña colada.
“Looks like you were right. It turns out that Charlie does know how to make piña coladas.” He set the drink down in front of Rally, but didn’t leave.
After a few seconds Rally realized his young server was waiting for a reaction. So Rally took a practiced pull on the straw, swallowed then smiled. “Perfection.”
The kid beamed. “Onion rings comin’ right up.”
“Perfection?” Wednesday asked. Rally chuckled silently as he took another drink. “Didn’t anybody ever tell you that real men don’t order pastel-colored drinks with straws?”
Looking aggravatingly nonplussed, Rally said, “Whoever said that obviously doesn’t know anything about real men.” There was something in Rally’s eyes that said he knew his way around a woman’s body and was decidedly confident about his masculinity. He punctuated that telepathic message by slowly running his eyes over every inch of her that could be seen above the table top.
Wednesday felt her teeth grinding together. Baiting with taunts intended to trigger masculine insecurity obviously wasn’t going to make the annoying warlock turn tail. “If you came to ask me to remove a spell, you got bad information. My spell removal skills are ordinary at best. But even if I was an expert, I wouldn’t be for hire. By you.”
Rally got sidetracked by that. “Have I done something to offend you?”
“No. It’s not personal. We don’t work for outsiders.”
“Maybe it’s not personal, but it feels like you’re going out of your way to send a message that you don’t want me anywhere in your line of vision.” She shrugged. “That’s not an answer. Are you the sort of person who ducks for cover when confronted about her behavior?”
When Wednesday’s gaze jerked up, he caught a flash in her violet-tinted eyes that almost looked like a tiny lightning strike. “I’m not interested in confrontation or in prolonging this encounter. You say you want a spell removed. I told you I’m not the person you’re looking for. End of story. Why are you still here?”
His eyes slid lazily to hers. “Because that’s a lie. You are the perfect witch to lift this particular curse. We both know that the best person to remove a spell is the one who cast it.”
She looked confused for a second before her face cleared of all emotion. “You think I cast a spell? On you!?!”
“Yes, beautiful. That is what I think.”
Looking more amazed than confused, Wednesday said, “Why would I put a spell on you, Rally? Until a few minutes ago we’ve never so much as exchanged a single word. Not even a hello.”
It was Rally’s turn to shrug. “I don’t know, Wednesday. Maybe you saw something you like.”
She blinked repeatedly. “Something meaning you?”
He gave a sharp and singular nod then sat back in his chair as if to analyze her reaction.
Wednesday ran through a hundred different responses in her head before concluding that the best way to end this very unflattering exchange was to simply end it and refuse to play.
She smiled, shook her head, slid off her stool, said, “Think what you want,” and walked away.
Rally practically gaped as he watched her make her way to the bar. She stopped and said something to Bell before quickly disappearing by way of the front entrance.
“He
re you go.” Rally’s attention was brought back to the table by the heavenly smell of hot onion rings and the cheerful voice of the server. The kid looked over at Wednesday’s half-eaten burger and said, “Will that be one check?”
When Rally realized that Wednesday had racked up two firsts in ten minutes, he grinned and shook his head. “Yeah. One check.”
Rally had never before had the experience of watching a woman run from him. It was usually the other way around. There would be something strangely exciting about that even if she hadn’t also stuck him with the bill. Add both of those things together and it was becoming clear why he’d thought she was oddly fascinating from the moment he saw her.
Indeed, watching the woman leave before he was ready for her to go caused the essence of masculine principle, a primeval hunter’s instinct, to bloom to life in his solar plexus. The desire… no, the need to chase. At the same time, the twitch in his crotch made clear what his body wanted if he caught her.
And if she hadn’t put a spell on him… Well, that could only mean one thing.
He quickly scarfed down two of the onion rings, even though they were still too hot to eat, when his eyes landed on her burger. He reasoned that, if he was going to pay for it, he might as well eat it, and he was curious about how Wednesday liked her burgers.
Medium well. Cheddar cheese. Lettuce. Tomato. Pickle. Red onion. Hickory sauce. Mayonaise. No ketchup. No mustard. A little bit of everything and a quirky combination. Just like Wednesday. He finished his onion rings and her burger then ate the rest of her onion rings, too.
“Judging from the amount of onion rings you’ve consumed, I’m guessing you’re not planning on getting any tonight.” The voice was Bell’s. She was standing next to the table.
“Kind of personal, don’t you think?” His expression said he was amused by her observation.
“You upset my friend. That’s kind of personal. To me.”
“Huh,” he said as he ate half an onion ring.
“You after her?”
Rally let his head loll back while he contemplated that question. He seemed to reach a conclusion, lowered his chin, and looked at Bell as he thought over the advisability of sharing that conclusion. The pursuit of a witch like Wednesday required finesse and strategy. His mouth slowly reshaped into a smile. “Yeah. I think I might be.”
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