Sugar Spells

by Dodge, Lola

  He gripped his knife and I gripped the wheel, but my heartbeat kept hammering in the silence after the locks clicked. “We can’t run away…”

  My baking stuff was somewhere in that kitchen.

  Had I put it away? In the pantry?

  A full-body shudder rocked me at the thought of scraping my tools clean. I rested my hot forehead against the steering wheel.

  “She’ll calm down.” Wynn was already scanning our new perimeter, with frequent gazes toward Girrar’s trailer off in the sage. “No one can stay that hysterical for long.”

  “No?” I might come close if it was my kitchen covered in bat—

  The porch door opened.

  Fiona zombie-shambled down the steps, staring at nothing.

  She’d swung from hysteria to shock.

  “I guess we get out?” I peered closer. Fiona didn’t look like a threat anymore, wobbling her way down the stairs.

  “I’ll shield you if she casts.” He slid out first and headed to meet me on my side of the car. But I was pretty sure we’d passed that danger.

  “I’m going to a hotel.” Fiona held herself rigid, staring straight ahead with the aura of a war survivor about to spill her last drop of sanity. “Someone else will oversee your contract.”

  “Okay.” I wasn’t sure what else to say.

  Instead of going for her car, she walked down the road. There were no hotels in the micro town that didn’t even have a stoplight, so I hoped she was headed to a bed and breakfast and just didn’t have the energy to say that many syllables.

  In the meantime, I had nowhere to bake or stay.

  We could at least change out of our pajamas. I’d dressed for Fiona’s sweat-box and in tiny shorts and a tank top, and fall mornings in Taos were breath-misting-in-the-air cold.

  Wynn wasn’t even shivering. Shirtless, I realized, finally looking at him. He was only wearing boxers.

  Had he been sleeping in my room like that this whole time?

  I gave myself a shake.

  I did not have time to burn wondering what happened in, with, or anywhere near Wynn’s shorts.

  I hustled back inside and then ducked, covering my head. A few bats had spread into the entranceway. It wasn’t guano-spattered yet, but it would be soon if I didn’t fix this problem.

  Except what did you even do about a bat infestation? Call an exterminator? Run around screaming with a broom?

  After I changed, I phoned my personal expert on weird animals. Gabi would know what to do. “We have a situation at Fiona’s.”

  “What happened?” Her voice tensed.

  “Bats. Lots and lots of bats.” I peeked out my bedroom door. They hadn’t made it to the hallway yet, but they were slowly taking over the living room and decorating its floor in a wet carpet. “Can you help?”

  “I’m grabbing Mom. We’ll be right over.”

  She hung up before I could say thanks.

  I tacked a few more goodies onto the list of things I was already planning on baking her. I already owed her whole family marshmallow rice treats and birthday cakes for life.

  Shooing out the bats took most of the morning. When the last one fluttered out, I slammed the front door closed behind it.

  “Poor things.” Gabi double-checked the couch was free of guano before flopping down. “They were so confused and scared to go outside at this time of day.”

  Vanessa flopped down next to her daughter, not even bothering to check her seat. She rubbed a temple. “What a magical workout. I can’t remember the last time we had that many minds chittering at us.”

  Gabi let out a breath, then hopped up. “Where does Fiona keep her cleaning supplies?”

  “No way.” I swung open the door again. “I can’t ask you to help with the clean-up.” My eyes watered at the thought of walking back into that kitchen, but it was my garbage heap to climb.

  “Anise. That’s—”

  “Gab?” Vanessa gently cut her daughter off. “As much as I’d like to help Anise, we have too much on the schedule today. We’ll have to let her handle the mess.”

  “Yes. Go.” I hurried them out before Gabi could argue. “You’ve already helped enough.”

  “I’ll text you,” Gabi said as her mother tugged her out the door.

  I waved, then locked the door behind them. My gaze slid to Wynn, who stood next to a fussy end table with his arms folded. Trying to ignore the stink radiating out of the kitchen, I filled my voice with sweetness. “Would you be willing to help me clean?”

  His head tipped ever-so-slightly to the side in an unspoken what do you think, genius?

  No surprise.

  It was my mess. I just wished I would’ve asked Gabi to lend me rubber gloves and a mask.

  I held my breath and peered into the kitchen. The brooms and cleaning supplies were stashed in the pantry. Thankfully that door had been closed overnight, but I was dreading my first step across the floor to grab the mop.

  The minefield of splatter was still moist.

  Did I mop first? Or wait for the floor to dry and then scrape? Or should I start with the counters?

  With buckets of bleach?

  The doorbell rang, pausing the need to make the nastiest decision of my life.

  Wynn was opening the door before I made it to the entryway.

  “What?” The word flew from his mouth like a bullet.

  Girrar stood on the stoop. “A problem this morning?”

  Problem was a crazy mild word the sanitation crisis.

  It was going to take days and a serious power-washing to make anything in that kitchen usable again. “I have to pause our deal. Fiona’s kitchen is wrecked.”

  “There’s no pause. On or off. Will you cancel?” He asked like he was curious instead of desperate like I’d feared.

  That eased some of my Girrar-suspicions, but I still wasn’t going to be able to hold my end of our bargain. “I’m not canceling, but I can’t bake here.”

  “My kitchen is free.”

  “Your kitchen? Where?”

  “There.” Girrar held out a palm, gesturing at his trailer.

  “You have an oven?” I probably sounded suspicious.

  I was suspicious.

  He didn’t really expect me to bake macarons in a Twinkie trailer?

  “You’ll find everything you need in my home.” He grinned his grin. “Come.”

  Wynn slammed the door in his face.

  I sagged with relief. “Should I quit the contract?” Because how many hurdles could I expect myself to jump? I was running out of energy for mishaps.

  “Like I told you.”

  “A told you so?” I shook my head.

  Really, Wynn?

  Today of all days?

  “Tell him deal’s off.” Wynn reopened the door.

  Girrar hadn’t budged. He stood with a blank expression, hands tucked in the pockets of his trench.

  I blinked.

  My brain wasn’t reacting fast enough after the morning of excitement. But the more I thought it through, the more I realized bowing out was my best option. Baking the death magic out of my system had gotten too complicated.

  After I gritted my teeth and hosed down Fiona’s house, I was out of here. I’d book myself an isolated mountain cottage away from all human and mannikin interaction while I figured out a new plan.

  A new plan for my magic and for Wynn’s Shield contract.

  I faced Girrar, squaring up my shoulders. “Sorry. I’m canceling the deal.”

  “Very well.” He bobbed his head in agreement. Not at all the reaction I’d been expecting. “Are you needing assistance?”

  “With?” The pitch of my voice drifted upward because I was honestly confused.

  Girrar asking to help me?

  “The cleaning. I can smell the smell from my home.” His nose scrunched.

  Was it really that bad? “What kind of help are you offering?”

  “I have many of the cleaning products. Under my sink.”

  I glanced
at Wynn, but his stare was its regular combination of suspicion and readiness to stab. He wasn’t giving me any hints about what to do with the suddenly helpful version of Girrar.

  I had my own suspicions, but if I could borrow rubber gloves and cleaner without having to dig them out from the layer of nightmare gunk… I was open to all kinds of help. “I’ll take whatever you’re willing to lend.”

  “Come.” Girrar whirled with a grin and cut a path through the shrubs to his trailer.

  I followed, sticking close to Wynn.

  “You want to go in there?” His watchful gaze fixed on the dented trailer.

  “I want rubber gloves.” And Girrar letting me bow gracefully out of our deal went a looooong way toward trust.

  At least I thought it did until Girrar unlocked his door. It opened to pure blackness.

  Not someone-turn-on-the-lights blackness.

  Sucking-up-all-wavelengths, swallowed by a whale, trapped in a coffin blackness.

  And a crackle of magic.

  I wouldn’t be able to tell what unless I touched the trailer, and I so was not sticking my fingers in that mixing bowl. I folded my arms and waited.

  Girrar’s grin widened. “An enchantment to block light. It stings. My eyes.”

  Stung his eyes?

  When he was standing in the noonday sun?

  No squint and no sunglasses?

  My gut clenched at the obvious lie. “Never mind.” I wasn’t that desperate for a few spray bottles.

  “Come.” Girrar’s voice dropped lower. His black eyes glittered.

  Aaaaaand I was officially backing away.

  Wynn caught the same vibe, sidestepping between me and Girrar. I was about to sprint for the house.

  Magic exploded from the gaping void of Girrar’s doorway.

  Strips of darkness stretched out from the doorway like rolls of fabric flung into the air.

  Arms of night-black energy that reached for me like grabby hands.

  Wynn slashed out. Shielding me. Trying to cut the arms away. His knives passed through, not stopping the shadows.

  Purple light burst from Wynn’s gauntlets. His magical shield flashed into being—a translucent purple field that covered his left arm. The reaching arms flinched away, then changed directions, zooming toward me again.

  Flames danced at the tips of my fingers, ready to burn, but Wynn was moving too fast, darting and ducking, and I didn’t have a clear shot. More and more arms of magic shot out from the doorway.

  I stepped back.

  And bumped straight into Girrar.

  He’d snuck behind me.

  Before I could flame him, before I could change direction, he gave my back a heavy, two-handed shove.

  I stumbled toward the trailer’s doorway of blackness. Shadows wrapped me. Cold and wet. They dragged me toward the door.

  No.

  Panic stomped my lungs, making it impossible to breathe.

  Wynn caught me. Wrenched my arm and swung me off to the side.

  Out of danger.

  But saving me cost him his defense.

  The shadow arms shot behind him, around him, twining his wrists and ankles like pythons.

  They pulled him through the gaping doorway, headfirst, swallowing him in the abyss.

  NO!

  His shoulders disappeared. His waist.

  I caught his ankle before his body disappeared. Using all my body weight, I braced my feet against the trailer. Tried to reel Wynn back.

  A shadow arm jumped from his leg to my wrist.

  More arms reached through the doorway. They caught my arms and legs and hair and waist.

  Wrapped every inch of me.

  Pulling me into the void.

  Eighteen

  I tipped, tumbled, and turned upside down. My grip on Wynn’s ankle was the only thing convincing me I wasn’t in a washing machine stuck on the spin cycle. I grabbed for him when the sickly motion spun me his way but swiped at nothing where the rest of his leg should be.

  When the motion stopped, it stopped hard.

  The grabby hands spat me out. I rolled a few times over stone, scraping my elbows, forehead, knees, but I couldn’t feel the bumps.

  I landed on my back.

  Staring at a dark, starry sky.

  I blinked. Blinked again.

  The stars winked in and out. And they were green.

  A cave?

  I was about to brave sitting up when a weight hit me like an industrial sack of flour.

  “Oof.” My head snapped back, should’ve hit stone. But fast hands cupped my skull.

  Wynn.

  The full weight of him ground me into the stone floor. Cave floor? I wasn’t sure yet but my lungs couldn’t fill with him on top of me.

  But why would I land before him?

  “Are you hurt?” Wynn’s mouth was so close his breath whispered over my lips.

  “Fine.” I tried to push him off, but he held my head in place, scanning me for injuries. Heavy. Hot. Suffocating. “Wynn. Need. To breathe.”

  He rolled himself off me and sprang up in a crouch. I moved like I was eighty years older and part tortoise, slowly flopping onto hands and knees, then pushing myself up in a chorus of joint creaks. That’s gonna hurt later.

  I couldn’t feel it yet.

  I was too busy gaping.

  A pinprick of light streamed in from high above. It was just enough light to reveal the walls of the biggest cave I could’ve dreamed in my nightmares. Stalagmites and tites. The choking metallic smell of minerals, mold, and mountains of guano.

  Because bats.

  So many bats.

  Chittering and screeching. Clinging to the uneven ceiling in a wriggling mass. Hundreds. Thousands. Maybe even millions of bats.

  I whirled toward the doorway or portal. Whatever effed-up rabbit-hole we’d just been kidnapped through.

  There was no door.

  Only bats and rocks in every direction I turned.

  A shudder slunk down from my shoulders, shaking each vertebra on its way to my toes.

  I’d been tricked.

  And now I was trapped.

  I knew it without seeing Girrar’s busted face.

  The frickin’ bats.

  All Girrar’s fault.

  I stepped closer to Wynn, for safety or comfort. I didn’t know anymore. “What now?”

  He was scanning at hyper-speed. “Three potential exits but we can’t run in the dark. We have no food or water. No torches.” Voice tight, he slipped a knife from his waistband. “I think we wait for him to show.”

  A blob of batshit plopped on my shoulder.

  Son of a—!

  What was Girrar’s plan?

  Why trap us in bat hell?

  “Welcome.” That traitor’s voice echoed through the cave.

  Wynn grabbed my shoulder, ready to pull me out of danger’s way, but Girrar’s voice wasn’t attached to a body. It rumbled, everywhere and nowhere. “Join me. The cave to your left.”

  My stomach churned, a lava pit of dread. “Do we have a choice?”

  “We can fight.” He grabbed a smaller knife from his pocket and pressed it into my ice-cold palm.

  I’d never fought with a knife before, but I’d stab a bat in the face at this point. “What about guns?”

  “I wasn’t packed for an alternate realm.” But going by the thread of iron in Wynn’s voice, he thought he should’ve been.

  “We couldn’t have seen this coming.” Whatever this was. I wasn’t sure if we’d been transported or if the cave was an illusion?

  I glanced at the plop on my shoulder. No way did Girrar or anyone else have the juice to run an illusion so elaborate it stank.

  We’d been transported.

  But to where?

  Another world? Somewhere on Earth?

  I couldn’t sense the Vortex, but that didn’t tell me anything beyond you’re not in Taos anymore, Dorothy. Wherever we were, I needed to find the magical keys to get us the hell out.

  I gri
pped my knife. “Let’s find Girrar.”

  I wasted a few steps trying to avoid stepping in guano, but the cave floor made the disaster scene at Fiona seem like a dream. My sneakers squelched through wet inches of nastiness.

  Wynn walked in front of me in calm, even steps.

  I was not calm because I didn’t dare take a full breath in this stink and my brain was starting to rebel from lack of oxygen.

  I was not calm because what the hell was this hell hole?

  Feet squelching all the way, we headed through the tunnel on the left. The ceiling dropped down until it was more claustrophobic than cavernous. We had to maneuver through a few tight squeezes. I closed my eyes through those, pretending every surface I brushed wasn’t dripping in dung.

  We popped out in a walk-in-closet-sized cave with three more tunnels.

  “Take the right.” Girrar’s voice echoed from nowhere.

  Fuming, I could only follow his directions. He coached us through the maze. I lost count of the endless tunnels and turning points full of bats, rocks, and more bats.

  “Are you keeping track?” I muttered to Wynn.

  “Trying.” His voice was tight.

  I’d left my phone in the house so I didn’t have the time but we must’ve walked for hours before popping out in a cave I could only describe as medium-sized compared to the others we’d passed. Maybe the width of a football stadium instead of a few city blocks? Its ceiling was low and bat-packed.

  But this cave had furniture.

  A metal lean-to filled with a few rickety patio chairs, a hammock, and a pile of lichen-pitted bricks that looked like they might’ve been some kind of hearth a World War ago.

  Why—

  Breath hissed through my teeth. “He wants me to bake here.”

  “Yes.” Girrar’s answer came from the shadows. He followed the word, oozing into being.

  Wynn twitched, something blurred, and suddenly a knife was buried in Girrar’s chest.

  Right in the heart.

  Holy…

  Before I could decide whether to celebrate or worry about being trapped in this fricking cave-maze, Girrar yanked out the blade.

  He wasn’t flinching. He wasn’t bleeding. And we weren’t close enough to see the if the wound had closed, but Girrar wasn’t doing anything but smiling when he tucked Wynn’s knife under his trench coat. “I’ll keep this.”