The Blue Amber Spell

by Amanda Hartford

  I may have given you the wrong impression. You’re probably picturing an archetypal warrior with muscles on his muscles and a frame like a Humvee. Barry is only five-and-a-half feet tall, a skinny little guy with a chip on his shoulder.

  What makes Barry very dangerous is that he has no filters; when his fuse gets lit, the fireworks go off until the powder’s all been burned. He’s an unguided missile, and he needs a cooler head to direct him. Barry listens to Mark, and together they are unstoppable.

  Barry’s roots in the American Southwest go deep. He was born in South Texas. The family name was once Alejandro, but an ancestor way back anglicized it when Mexico ceded what is now Texas to the U.S. in 1848. Barry once mansplained to me that his family did not cross the border: it crossed them.

  The first time I met Barry, I was having a quiet drink with a friend in a bar in Fort Worth. Barry was working security at the stockyards at the time, and he came in with a much larger buddy from work. This is Texas, remember, so the boys were decked out in boots and Stetsons. Barry’s black hat was so big it made him look like a cartoon character—and if that didn’t quite draw enough attention, he’d stuck a pink feather in the hat band.

  I’ll say it one more time just to be sure you’re getting this: this was a cowboy bar in Texas. It was the kind of place where the band is protected from the airborne beer bottles of their audience by chicken wire across the front of the stage.

  The band was cranking their way through a Waylon Jennings set when Barry and his buddy came through the—I kid you not—swinging doors. The big guy spotted two stools at the end of the bar and broke trail through the crowd. Barry took off his hat, brushed a little imaginary lint off the brim, squared the hat back on his head and swaggered along behind.

  A few steps in, the inevitable happened. Somebody with more beer than sense on board made a crack about the pink feather. Let your imagination take it from there.

  I learned later that Barry called that particular Stetson his fighting hat. Whatever he needed to blow off a little steam, he’d dust it off and head for the rowdiest bar he could find.

  Enough said.

  ◆◆◆

  Mark commandeered the basement as his research space. He began by tossing out a small incantation that dissipated the stale reek of tiger urine, for which I thanked him profusely. It was immediately replaced, though, with the stench of sulfur and ash from his experiments.

  Lissa and I were banned from the vault for the duration. Mark said it was for our own protection. When I asked him why he couldn’t just work at home, he reminded me that my vault had concrete walls three feet thick, and the ceiling—which was the floor of the showroom above—was reinforced with steel beams. For two days, they came and went, sometimes carrying large books or mysterious packages. Once, Barry had a small bamboo cage covered with a towel. I didn’t ask.

  At the end of the third day, Mark seemed to be in better spirits, but he still wouldn’t talk about his research. “It’s coming along—it’s coming along,” was his standard response as he strode through the front door and dropped into the Eames chair.

  Lissa and I went on about our business. She said her mother was still pressuring her about the blue amber, but so far she’d been able to hold her off by promising to get Penelope access to the shop again over the weekend.

  I hoped we’d be ready.

  ◆◆◆

  Mark’s task was pretty straightforward. If you think of the universe as a computer, then magic is the operating system. Witchcraft is the app you use to get things done. Mark needed to make sure that Penelope and Simon were logged in to that app when he triggered our trap. To do that, he needed to attach them to the spell.

  Lissa had provided one of her mother’s favorite handkerchiefs, and Mark had successfully integrated it into the incantation. “Now, I need to tie Simon to the spell,” Mark said. “Can Hannah give us something of his—clothing, maybe, or something he’s handled recently?”

  I rummaged in the bottom of my desk drawer and came up with the small parchment envelope Simon had given me. I opened it and pulled out the charm.

  Mark scrutinized it. “This is not as old as it looks,” Mark said, peering at the vellum with his loupe. “The language is wrong, too.” He smiled. “Do you recognize it?”

  I hadn’t paid much attention to the words of the charm, but now they nearly leaped off the page at me. “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,” I read aloud. I looked up at Mark in wonder. “It’s that scrambled Latin that typesetters use as a sample text in mock-ups.”

  Mark nodded. “It’s a nonsense take-off on Cicero’s essay on the extremes of good and evil. Whoever made this, he has a sense of humor.”

  Mark examined the document more closely. “There’s no charm here, but I think there’s some kind of spell on the paper itself. Come take a look at this.”

  Mark held his hands together a few inches above the vellum. “I think it’s ordinary calfskin vellum, nothing exotic, but look at the edges.”

  I watched the edges of the sheet as Mark moved his hands apart and back together. When his hands were the edges, they glowed.

  “What’s it doing?” I asked. “Is it sensing your hands?”

  “No.” Mark looked grim. “Think of my hands as a camera shutter. When I pull them apart, light falls on the middle of the vellum. That’s what’s making edges glow. When I bring my hands back together again, I’m blocking its vision.”

  “Its vision?” I gasped. “It’s watching?”

  Mark held the vellum to the light. “It would take some formal testing to be sure, but I’m guessing that Simon put I spell on this to keep an eye on you.”

  Okay, now I was seriously creeped out. “Burn it,” I hissed.

  “Oh,” Mark said with a grin, “we will.”

  ◆◆◆

  We were working against a deadline.

  The negative power of the first night of the waxing moon on Friday night was critical to the success of Mark’s spell. By Thursday night, Mark, Orion, Daisy, and I were practically vibrating, hyped up on the power of the full moon and anticipation of the battle coming tomorrow. None of us was willing to admit how much of that was fear.

  We’d had only two appointments at the alley shop on Thursday, and they were both early in the evening. Lissa helped the first customer, a woman from Brazil who was picking up a pair of mittens knitted from sheared beaver fur by an Inuit woman in the last century. The cultural disconnect intrigued me, so I peeked at the pawn declaration to see what powers the mittens might have, but the space on the form was blank. I’d have to remember to get on Lissa about that.

  My other appointment was Charlie, just checking in to see how I was doing with the baboon tooth. Just fine, thanks, I told him, but no buyers yet. He was disappointed. I offered to return the item to him so he could arrange his own private sale, and I was amused at how fast he declined my offer and scurried out of the shop.

  Just as I settled at my desk with a fresh cup of coffee, I felt a thud under my feet, followed a beat later by a tremor—never a good sign.

  Barry suddenly popped up into the Eames chair in front of my desk.

  There was a smudge of blue and red dust across his cheeks, forehead, and the bridge of his nose, outlining the shape of where his safety goggles had once sat. The tips of his boots were singed, and I thought his hair might be smoking just a little bit.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” he mumbled as he passed me on the way to the coffee pot.

  One day, and counting.

  ◆◆◆

  Mark and Daisy had been meeting for lunch at the vegetarian place every day. He indulged her addiction to avocados, and she advised him on the nuances of the magic he was crafting. Mark was grateful for her help and experience, but Daisy was frustrated that he wouldn’t let her get anywhere near the vault. I was okay with that; I didn’t want him blowing up my favorite aunt.

  I joined them on the last day: the trap was to be sprung that night. They were so deep in conve
rsation that they didn’t even notice me until I sat down on the other side of Daisy.

  She was reassuring him. “You’ve been over every piece of this a dozen times,” Daisy was saying to him in a soft voice. “You’ve done all you can do.” She gave him a gentle smile.

  Mark still looked worried, but he gave her a peck on the cheek, and he lumbered off in the direction of the alley shop.

  “I hate to bring this up now, sweetie, with everything else that’s going on,” Daisy said when Mark had gone, “but I had another little note from Aaron.” She sounded apologetic but insistent. “Have you decided what you’re going to do?”

  My first instinct was to hex Aaron into the bottom of the Marianas Trench. I’d always been a good little witch, but the idea was tempting.

  Before I could shake it away, Daisy saw it in my eyes. She grinned. “Newton’s third law,” was all she said.

  Oh, fine. But she was right; I certainly didn’t need any negative karma floating around right now. I had to clear my mind for the coming battle, and I couldn’t divert any more energy to my crazy family. I called Aaron’s lawyer and asked to have his paperwork sent over.

  The paralegal was professionally polite, and a few hours later a thick sheaf of legal documents was delivered by courier to Bronwyn in the front shop. The paralegal could have dropped it off herself on the way to lunch—their office is only a few blocks away, after all—but that messenger probably cost Aaron a hundred dollars. The legal profession warms my heart.

  I read through Aaron’s paperwork and made myself a copy. My only concern was that Aaron and the rest of the clan would have no claim to my operation in Arizona. He had anticipated my reservations and included a clause that gave me a license to use the name Pentacle Pawn in Arizona only, retaining it for his own company elsewhere worldwide. Fine with me. I signed every place it was tabbed.

  I meant what I said to Daisy: I’m done with Aaron and the rest of my family. Maybe someday my mother might be speaking to me again. Or not. I just couldn’t expend any more energy thinking about it.

  But just in case, I decided a little ritual was in order. I keep a small apothecary in the storeroom in the back, and I fetched a bundle of dried white sage. I plucked off a single perfect leaf and dropped it into the package, mumbling the appropriate protection incantation to cleanse it and remove it from my control. I was hoping the paralegal wouldn’t notice the leaf at the bottom of the envelope. If she did and removed it, at least the paperwork would smell lovely. But if she missed it, and that leaf made it to Aaron, he’d absolutely get the message.

  The paralegal had promised to send a courier once the paperwork was signed, so I gave her a call. She seemed surprised that I’d finished so quickly. I left the envelope with Bronwyn to be picked up. I had carried the bundle of white sage in my pocket, and as I walked back down the alley, I fired it up. I let the sweet smoke drift into the alley, all the way back to the door of my shop, mumbling a protection spell as I went. If anybody noticed me, they must’ve thought I was smoking pot out there.

  The law is one thing, but dealing with my family is quite another. It never hurts to cross all the Ts.

  As soon as that envelope was out of my hands, I felt better. My mind and my desk were clear. It was time to prepare.

  Chapter Twelve

  Mark was still trying to understand the nuances of how the blue amber influenced the protection spell, and he was running out of time. Barry literally stumbled into the solution.

  One of Barry’s tasks was to design physical restraints for our trap. I hoped it wouldn’t come to that, because if we needed the physical restraints it meant that Mark’s magic hadn’t worked, but Barry was my fall-back plan.

  Barry was prowling around the perimeter of the vault, looking for places to secure ropes and chains, while Mark studied the amber on the small writing desk in the horseshoe of the cages. Barry came around the corner just as Mark finished reciting a short experimental incantation. Suddenly, Barry was airborne. He flew backward and slammed against the far wall.

  Anybody else would have taken that as a sign to be cautious. My boys, on the other hand, were delighted. They immediately repeated the experiment, this time with Mark closely watching Barry as he turned the corner. They used a piece of chalk to mark the floor at the exact spot where Barry took flight. Then they did it again, and again. In a few minutes, they had marked a perimeter around the small desk. They had also managed to create a small impact crater exactly Barry’s shape in the far wall.

  “We need to try it with someone more powerful,” Mark explained to me when they came upstairs, dusty and delighted. “I think the amber is turning the witch’s power back on him or herself. Barry is kind of a wimp”—he brushed off Barry’s rattlesnake glare—“no, I mean magically—so we need to try it with somebody closer to Penelope’s skills.”

  He looked pointedly at me. I heard Lissa snicker behind her hand.

  “I have a better idea,” I said to Mark. “Why don’t I read the spell, and you mark the perimeter?”

  Barry liked the idea of watching Mark get slammed against the wall just fine, but Mark declined. “What about the pretty boy?”

  Mark was right: Orion’s skills were nearly equal to mine, and he was still waiting to learn his role in the coming battle. Apparently, his contribution would be as a crash test dummy. Mark and Barry were inordinately pleased with themselves.

  ◆◆◆

  Orion showed up for his task dressed in a bulletproof vest over full motorcycle leathers. His crash helmet was festooned with a wraparound decal of silver wings.

  Barry, Mark, and Orion popped down to the vault. I tried to ignore the violent noises coming from beneath my feet.

  An hour later, all three emerged. Barry and Mark were jubilant. Orion looked a little the worse for wear: one strap of his bulletproof vest had been torn away, and one leg of his leathers was ripped open from knee to hip. The angel wing on that same side of his helmet had been scoured away, in what looked suspiciously like road rash. All three of them were grinning.

  We were ready.

  ◆◆◆

  Lissa was anxious about crossing her mother, and she was right to be worried. The girl was very new to magic and had been sheltered both in her personal life and in her craft. There was no way she could confront Penelope directly.

  But there was another way she could contribute. Penelope had been using Lissa as a mole into my shop, and now we turned that against her.

  “Does your mother know that we’ve found the blue amber?”

  Lissa shook her head. “I’m done with all that. I told her I won’t spy for her anymore. She was really mad, but I said...”

  “Tell her.”

  Lissa looked confused. “Tell her I found it. Tell her exactly where it is. And then make sure she has the vault incantation.”

  “What?”

  “We’ll be closed tonight for inventory. Tell her you’ll leave the door unlocked for her. I’ll change the door key tomorrow so that none of the customers stumble in on this accidentally.”

  “Stumble in on what?” Lissa asked quietly, but from the look on her face, she already knew.

  “We’re going to end this, once and for all.”

  ◆◆◆

  I reached the shop an hour early the next day and stuck a Closed for Inventory sign on the door. I hoped Lissa’d had the strength to do what I had asked her.

  Daisy and I had met for a late lunch, and the talk had turned to ethics. Did we have the right to take this into our own hands?

  Did we have the right not to?

  I was sure that it was Penelope who had killed Deborah and Michael. It was easy for me to picture her standing in the shadows outside Deborah’s door. Why did she kill Michael? Was he trying to stop her or help her? Did he get cold feet? Maybe he thought he could walk away and go on with his life. That very bad idea got him killed.

  Daisy took my hand, and when she moved her hand away, I found her tortoiseshell comb resting against my
palm. “We protect those we love,” she said.

  “I can’t take this,” I said in a quiet voice. “Anyway, you know I can’t work the magic. It’s yours.”

  “It’s yours for the day. I know I promised to stay away until this is over, but I want you to know that I am always with you. It’s not for magic—it’s for love.”

  Big girls don’t cry, right?

  ◆◆◆

  All I could do now was wait.

  I had ordered Lissa to stay off the property for her own safety, and I was not happy when she walked through the door at exactly the time she usually reported for work. “I thought I could help,” was her lame excuse. Her eyes told me that she was there to try to put things right.

  I didn’t have time to chew her out, but I knew that I had to get her out of the line of fire. I had no idea what Penelope might do once she realized she’d been duped.

  Frank came out from under the counter and draped himself across Lissa’s ankles, begging to be petted. He was besotted with Lissa, but it wasn’t an excellent time for him to suddenly decide to behave like a house cat. I realized that he wanted to protect her.

  I handed Lissa the keys to the street-front shop. “Go down into the basement over there and stay put,” I said. “Take Frank with you.” I was hoping that the solid brick wall that divided that basement from our vault would be enough to keep them both safe.

  Frank’s head snapped around, and he looked at me with alarm. “My place is here with you,” he hissed.

  “Your place is where I tell you to be,” I said. “You are my witness.”

  Frank understood. If this thing went sideways, he would be the only one left to tell the tale. He didn’t struggle as Lissa picked him up and went out the door. I was hoping that they had enough sense to keep their heads down until it was all over.

  ◆◆◆