by Laura Kirwan
Which meant they were hiding something. It was either more occult crap or they were sleeping together. Since the big secret had already been revealed, Meaghan was betting on sex. Just so long as he doesn’t propose, Meaghan thought. I don’t need my office manager and head witch to be another ex-sister-in-law.
After Matthew almost fell asleep at the table, around eight thirty, Russ and Jamie helped him up to bed.
Meaghan chased lightning bugs with Liddy for a little while, then the Smiths headed home, Liddy sound asleep in Jamie’s arms as he carried her to the car. Ben was likewise asleep. Jamie and Patrice made the rounds, saying good night to Russ and Meaghan, the Troon, and Natalie who bolted out the door right behind them.
“Are the Troon staying here tonight?” Meaghan asked Russ.
Russ shook his head. “Nah. They’re going home. I need to drive them out to their gateway.”
“Gateway?”
“Some standing stones out in the woods.”
“Is that the hole in the reality fence?”
“One of them,” Russ said. “I’d bring you along, but somebody has to stay with Dad in case he wakes up. And you can’t drive them out there alone because you don’t know the woods well enough to get back on your own.”
Meaghan simply nodded. After her drive through the forest the day she arrived, she was no longer inclined to argue.
Melanie and the “boys”—Meaghan couldn’t help thinking of Sid and Wally that way despite their pan-gender status—cleaned up the kitchen while Meaghan and Russ put the folding tables and chairs back in the garage.
The Troon said their goodbyes, Melanie promised to return the following weekend to do more indexing, and they and Russ were out the door.
Chapter 25
Meaghan took a couple of ibuprofen, refilled her water glass, and headed out to the front porch. She wasn’t drunk, not really, but she’d had a lot of tequila throughout the evening and knew from experience how crappy she’d feel the next day if she didn’t drink a few glasses of water before going to bed.
This was the first time she’d sat outside at night since arriving in Eldrich. She shut off the hall and porch lights to see the fireflies better. The only light came from the kitchen at the back of the house. The moon hadn’t risen yet. No one else on Holly Lane had their porch lights on, and there were no streetlights in this part of town. Meaghan was surprised by how dark it became once night descended.
She stepped off the porch and gazed up at the stars. They were softer here, twinkled more. In Arizona, the dry air made the stars look like holes of light punched into black painted steel. Hard stars. No nonsense.
Meaghan felt a sudden, overwhelming pang of homesickness for the desert. In June, Phoenix was only beginning to experience the full heat of summer and it would stay that way until early October. For now, Eldrich was a fine place to be. But she dreaded the cold and dark of a northern Pennsylvania winter.
Maybe she could sneak away for a January visit, but she wouldn’t be living in Arizona again anytime soon, she suspected. Meaghan couldn’t imagine Phoenix had much magical activity going on. Phoenix seemed as impervious to magic as Meaghan herself. Too much new stuff.
With a heavy sigh, she sat on the porch steps. You never really want to be somewhere until you aren’t there anymore, she thought.
As Meaghan’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, she began to see more than the flashing fireflies. After a few minutes, she realized that what she had assumed was a shrub, sitting next to the driveway four houses down across the street, was actually a figure. Crouching motionless, watching her. A figure in a dark cowled robe.
Her heart lurched. The tequila fuzz evaporated as adrenaline surged through her.
The Order. The women-hating bastards were staking out her house. Her eyes darted around trying to spot more of them as the panic rose within her.
And like a loyal fierce dog, the anger rose with it. The bastards were watching her house. With her father asleep upstairs. They were stalking her. They were coming after her in her own home.
“I see you,” she whispered. “I know who you are and I see you watching me.” She wasn’t sure why she knew, but she knew he could hear her. The dark figure, startled, scuttled away and dissolved into the night. If there were any others around, she hoped they had also heard her and fled.
Feigning calm, Meaghan picked up her water glass and strolled into the house.
Once inside, she shut the door, twisted the deadbolt, and closed and locked every open window she saw on her way back to the kitchen, flipping on lights as she went. Heart pounding, she rushed to the kitchen door, slammed it shut, and locked it. She pulled a giant chef’s knife from the block next to the stove, and, shaking, sat at the table to wait for Russ.
Cell phone, idiot, call his cell, she thought after a few frozen moments. Warn him. Hands shaking, she dialed his number on the kitchen wall phone. After five rings it went to voice mail.
“Russ, the Order, I think it’s them, are watching us. Get home now. I’m locked in the house. I think I scared away the one I saw, but I don’t know if there’s more. Hurry. Please. Call me on the landline.”
Meaghan hung up and returned to her seat at the kitchen table, clutching the knife in her trembling fist. After two very long minutes, she called Russ again. She got a recording this time saying the phone was out of the service area. The panic bubbled back up until she remembered that Russ was driving through a forest where cell phone coverage was notoriously spotty.
“Get a grip,” she told herself in a stern voice. “Think it through.” She forced herself to take several slow deep breaths. Panic wouldn’t help.
She’d seen one guy, only one, and he fled the moment he knew she’d seen him. That suggested reconnaissance, not attack. Besides, why come after her and Matthew? In his addled state, Matthew was no threat. Neither was Meaghan, for that matter, this early on the job. Besides, both of them were impervious and the house was filled with Natalie’s protective hex bags. If they couldn’t attack Meaghan, why watch her? And why tonight?
Jamie, she thought. Emily had attacked Jamie. What if her actions had been about more than scaring Meaghan away? If Emily had simply wanted to pull the rational world out from under Meaghan’s feet, she could have turned someone into a toad or whatever the hell it was bitchy witches did to show off. But, she’d gone after Jamie. With borrowed magic. Emily knew that Matthew and Meaghan were both impervious. Yet, she’d been visibly shocked when she couldn’t hex Meaghan.
It made no sense. Unless somebody told her the borrowed magic would overcome Meaghan’s imperviousness. The Order were mercenaries. But who had hired them? Between Emily and the unnamed baddy that Natalie had sensed, Meaghan’s bet was on Big Bad.
Natalie said that Matthew’s absence had made some bad actors bolder. Was Fahraya blowing up again? Although Meaghan didn’t know the details, there’d been a power struggle and John, the king, had lost. He could never go back without his wings, but Jamie was still intact and the rightful heir to John’s throne. Which made him a threat to somebody.
Heart in her throat, she ran upstairs for her cell phone. She didn’t know Jamie’s home number, but had his cell number programmed into her phone. Before heading back downstairs, she looked in on Matthew. He snored, his breathing soft and steady, sound asleep.
Meaghan crept back downstairs to call Jamie. She got one ring, then right to voice mail. She hoped he was on the other line and hadn’t shut the phone off for the night.
“Jamie,” she said, walking into the kitchen. “It’s Meaghan. Russ is taking the Troon home and I’ve got a little trouble. We’re okay, but call me as soon as you get this.” She didn’t mention the Order because she wasn’t sure he knew about them.
But Natalie knew about them. And Meaghan really needed to hear a familiar voice right now, to calm her down if nothing else.
More voice mail. Considering how weird Natalie had been acting earlier, she might be screening.
“Hey, Natalie, it
’s Meaghan,” she said to voice mail. “I’ve got a problem. One of those Order guys is skulking around—”
The back door exploded open, the glass inset shattering with the force. Meaghan screamed and dropped the phone.
A figure in a dark gray robe stood in the broken doorway. The deep cowl hid his face. She could tell it was a he by his large hands, which he held out in front of him. He laughed, the sound cruel and full of malice.
A mistake, she reflected later, always made by bad guys when dealing with those they perceived as weak. Her rage rose up like a monolith, smooth and huge.
“Get the fuck out of my house.”
Instead, he stepped further into the kitchen, muttering and waving his hands. Time seemed to slow in the same way it did when Emily attacked Jamie and Natalie in the conference room.
With detached calm, Meaghan observed every detail of his appearance. He was about the same height as Meaghan, but thin, his forearms bony where they protruded from the sleeves of his robe.
She even had time to remember the old trope about vampires requiring an invitation to enter a home. Something to do with the protection provided by a threshold.
So much for that idea. The man in the gray robe strolled in like he owned the place.
Which angered Meaghan even more. Her vision began to get red around the edges, but not the red she sometimes saw behind her eyelids if she stood up too fast or looked at the sun too long. An angry red, a murderous red, framed the wizard.
So that’s where the cliché comes from, she thought, watching the man come closer. The rage left no room for fear. Meaghan surveyed the kitchen for a weapon. The cowled figure stood between her and the knife she’d left on the kitchen table. Judging by his scrawny arms, the man took his asceticism to heart. He was a skeleton with skin. And because he relied on magic, she bet he didn’t make much effort to take care of his body, while Meaghan ate well and kept fit. In a physical confrontation, she knew she could take this guy.
He continued chanting and waving, seemingly unaware that magic didn’t work on Meaghan.
Time to clue him in. She grabbed a small saucepan out of the dish drainer. Russ only used high-grade commercial cookware, solid stuff made out of stainless steel. With riveted handles and heavy, reinforced bottoms. This particular saucepan had a copper disk in the bottom, sandwiched between two thick steel layers. It was a lot heavier than it looked, but small enough for Meaghan to wield with ease.
The hooded figure, now standing directly in front of her, finished his chant with a guttural cry and one last flourish of his hands.
Nothing happened.
He gasped and stepped back fast.
Meaghan stepped forward. “Nice try, Mr. Wizard,” she snarled. With a firm backhand, she slammed the bottom of the saucepan into the center of the cowl. She felt a satisfying crunch and heard a bubbling gasp of pain. He bent over, face buried in his hands.
Broken nose, she thought. Not good enough. With a savage, wordless cry, she swung the pan with both hands, hitting him square on the temple.
He crumpled to the ground. Meaghan kicked him a few times until her rage began to wane. She pulled back the cowl and looked at a half-starved boy of about seventeen, his face covered in blood from his mangled nose.
Meaghan’s anger evaporated. He was only a scrawny kid. What the hell?
With shaking fingers, she checked his pulse. It was strong and steady. At least she hadn’t killed him. She rolled back his eyelids. Both pupils were the same size.
Now what? First thing, she had to restrain him. The strong pulse and equal pupils assured her she didn’t need to rush him to a hospital. She wanted some questions answered first, while she still had leverage.
Meaghan’s cold pragmatism startled her. What if he was seriously injured? She realized she didn’t care. He attacked her in her own home and she defended herself. She decided she could be appalled by her callous indifference later. Right now she had more urgent things to worry about.
She yanked open the junk drawer. Duct tape. Perfect. She pulled out the roll and stared at the body on the floor, considering the best way to proceed when another bang, accompanied by a flash of light, shook the kitchen.
This time it was Natalie. And Kady. And several women Meaghan didn’t know. All suddenly materialized around the table.
“Wow,” Meaghan said. “That was fast. Help me duct tape this guy to a chair, okay?”
Kady, her eyes wide, said, “What did you do?”
“Hit him with a saucepan,” Meaghan said.
One of the other women, older with a tidy silver bouffant, stared at Meaghan, somewhere between impressed and disbelieving. “You did that with a saucepan?”
Meaghan shrugged. “It’s a good saucepan. My brother only buys the best.”
Chapter 26
With the help of the witches, Meaghan got the unconscious wizard into a chair. A half a roll of duct tape later, he wasn’t going anywhere.
The witches cast some spells to reinforce the duct tape and block any spells he might try to cast. Natalie held her hands to his head to feel for serious injury but didn’t detect anything. Meaghan declined Natalie’s offer to fix his nose.
“Not yet. Let him suffer a bit,” Meaghan said. At Natalie’s raised eyebrow, Meaghan said, “Don’t look at me like that. I’m not going to torture him or anything. We can do the good-cop bad-cop thing on him when he wakes up. I’ll yell at him, scare him a little, and then one of you can offer him some comfort by putting his nose back together.”
Natalie and Kady took off to check on Jamie after Meaghan shared her concerns about him. Two other witches left to find Russ and escort him home.
Several derogatory comments were made about the Order’s general magical abilities, but it was clear to Meaghan that the witches were not taking any chances with this guy. The incident with Emily and Jamie had shaken them.
“Borrowed magic,” said Lynette, the witch with the silver bouffant, shaking her head. “I can’t believe Emily was foolish enough to use someone else’s magic.”
“Is that really bad?” Meaghan asked.
“Well, it’s dishonest,” Lynette answered. “And kind of icky when you get right down to it. Like wearing shoes from thrift shops.”
“What’s wrong with that? I wear thrift shop shoes all the time,” said Marnie, a younger witch about Kady’s age. Tall and slender, she had a ring in her nose, black hair cut in a severe angled bob, and wore a Harley T-shirt and plaid bermuda shorts.
“It’s like wearing jail underwear,” Meaghan said.
“Jail underwear?” asked another even younger witch. With a start, Meaghan realized it was Emily’s plump, ponytailed receptionist.
“Um, yeah,” Meaghan answered. “I have a friend back in Phoenix who’s a municipal court judge. She says the best way to scare female defendants straight is to tell them if they do time they’ll have to wear jail underwear. Bras and panties. Laundered but worn by other prisoners.”
The three witches in the kitchen pondered this a moment. They shuddered.
“Yeah,” the ponytailed witch said. “It’s kind of like that. If jail underwear made you crazy powerful.”
“Does she do that as a habit? Use borrowed magic?” Meaghan asked.
The young witch shook her head. “Not that I’ve noticed. I’ve never seen her that powerful before. If it’s a habit, she’s hiding it well. At work at least.”
“And she was out all week after the thing on Monday?”
The witch nodded.
Meaghan said to her, “You know, I’m sorry, I don’t know your name. We didn’t really have a chance to chat when we met last week.”
The girl beamed at her. “I’m Sarah. That was totally awesome how you stood up to her.”
“Thank you. Your coworker, the blond girl, is she a witch too?”
Sarah shook her head. “Chloe? No, but she says she’d like to learn how to hex Emily.”
Marnie and Lynette burst out laughing.
“Y
eah, I’ll bet,” Meaghan said. “So what’s Emily’s deal? Why does she hate Jamie so much?”
At that moment, Russ appeared in the hole where the kitchen door had been, flanked by Anna and Emma, the two young witches assigned to protect him.
“Holy shit, Meg, what did you do?” he asked, eyes wide.
She snorted. “I didn’t do it, dumbass.” She pointed at the wizard taped to the chair. “Voldemort here did it.”
Russ walked towards the unconscious wizard. His jaw dropped. “Then who did this to him?”
“I did.” She held up the saucepan, which she had kept close just in case. “With this.”
Russ goggled at her. “You took him down with a saucepan?” He thought about it a moment. “It is a solid pan.”
“Perfect for gentle simmering and personal defense,” Meaghan said.
“Wow,” Russ said, circling the bound wizard. “Damn. Remind me not to piss you off in the kitchen.” He looked up at her. “Is Dad okay?”
“Slept right through the whole thing. He’s still asleep. Natalie and Kady are over at Jamie’s keeping watch.” She glanced up at the clock. “We should probably check in. Would somebody call them and make sure everything’s okay?”
“I’ll do it.” Marnie pulled a cell phone out of the back pocket of her shorts and walked into the living room.
“Jamie?” Russ asked. “What’s he got to do with it?”
“Nothing, I hope,” Meaghan said. “But Emily got her extra power last week from these guys and used it against Jamie. And they’re working for somebody we don’t know. It seemed prudent to keep an eye on him in case hometown politics were involved.”
Russ ran his hands through his hair. “What a freaking mess. Bastard couldn’t pick the lock?” He sighed and sat down across the table from the wizard. “Hometown politics?”
Meaghan shrugged. “Jamie’s heir to John’s throne. It’s fair to assume the guy who tossed John out hasn’t forgotten that. I don’t know much about Fahraya, but I do know politics.”