by Sam Cheever
“Is she a witch?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Then, yes.”
I hit the button and set the phone down on the table between us. “You’re on speaker.”
“Lea,” said a deep voice that wasn’t LA, “Have you ever tested Naida’s kitten for black magic?”
My friend and I shared a horrified glance.
“Why are you asking?” I demanded angrily.
Deg sighed. “Stay calm, sorceress. You wanted to get to the bottom of this, right?”
I fought my impulse to argue. He was right. But I really didn’t like the direction the conversation had taken. “Yes. But what does Wicked have to do with this?”
“These kittens…” Deg hesitated a moment and then seemed to gather his thoughts again enough to speak. “They’re not normal cats.”
I rolled my eyes.
“I saw that,” Deg said smugly.
All the color left my face and Lea giggled behind her hand. “You think they were specially bred for Magicke Noire?” she asked the other witch.
“I do. And they’re exceptionally gifted. I’d almost say they were better witches than most witches.”
Lea looked startled. “Consciousness Infusion?”
“Maybe, but I’m almost thinking it’s bigger than that.”
“Bigger how?”
“Have you ever heard of Energy Entrapment?”
Lea paled. Her gaze skimmed to mine and something ugly twisted inside my belly. I lifted my hands. “Can somebody please speak in something other than witch gibberish?”
“We believe someone’s been stealing magic, probably from several magical species, and infusing it into these cats,” LA said.
My knees gave out and I dropped heavily to my chair. “But I thought they were just stealing souls and transferring them into frogs.”
Wicked jumped onto the table and sprawled over my computer, batting playfully at my hand as I reached to scratch his belly.
“I think that’s one phase of the process,” Deg said. “They need the essence because that’s where the magic is stored. But they don’t want the whole, human consciousness. They only want the magic. I believe they’ll strip your Mr. Slimy of his magic and leave him trapped inside that frog. Eventually, even his humanity will leave him.”
The dark something inside my chest flared oily and cold, making the room suddenly feel like a freezer. “But that’s…”
“Horrific. Yes. I know,” Deg said. “It goes against everything witches believe in. They need to be stopped.”
Tears burned my eyes. Poor Rustin. Whatever he’d done, or been as a Quilleran, he didn’t deserve to be forever trapped, magic-stripped, inside a slimy old frog.
My gaze slid to Wally. By all accounts, he’d been in that form longer than Rustin and, since Lea and I’d had access to him, he hadn’t shown himself to us in any other form. Had he already been stripped? The additional fact that the Quillerans had been willing to trade him for Mr. Slimy didn’t bode well. He clearly had no value to them.
I suddenly wondered what type of magical creature he’d been.
“We need to help these people,” Lea said. She was staring at Wally’s basket across the room. Apparently, she hadn’t come to the obvious conclusion. It was probably too late for poor Wally.
Then I had an even more terrifying thought. “Sebille!”
Lea flinched as if I’d struck her. “Oh, my goddess!”
“Yes, your friend is in terrible danger,” LA said. “Sprite magic is particularly potent. And her royal blood gives her an extra edge. They initially might have taken her to force your hand, but they’ve no doubt figured out what she is by now. Even if you do whatever they ask, they won’t be returning her to you. At least not in her sprite form.”
Stars burst before my eyes. Rage replaced horror and fear. “How do we stop these monsters?”
“That’s why I asked about your kitten,” Deg said gently. “If he’s been used in one of these rituals, there’s a pathway in his mind we might be able to follow to find where they’re keeping your friend.”
I glanced down at Wicked. He had one of SB’s colorful feathers between his paws and he was kicking at it with his back feet. He looked adorable.
He looked like a sweet, harmless kitten.
But I’d seen him outsmart me on several occasions. And, while outsmarting me wasn’t exactly proof of stunning intellect, it was definitely a sign that he was more than he appeared.
“Will it hurt him?” I asked softly, reluctant to even go down that road.
There was the briefest hesitation. I closed my eyes, suddenly unable to breathe.
Finally, Deg said. “I just don’t know. If we’re very careful, hopefully not.”
My head was already shaking. I just couldn’t. I sat silent for a long moment and then sighed. “I’m sorry.” I disconnected, knowing I was letting everyone in the magic world down by rejecting a chance to save the Quilleran’s victims. But I just couldn’t sacrifice Mr. Wicked to help them.
Lea and I sat silent for several moments. I could feel her indecision across the space. She wanted to ask me to do it. But I was certain she understood why I couldn’t.
Finally, she said. “We’ll find another way.”
I nodded, knowing that was a fool’s hope. But it was the only hope this fool had.
I grabbed the book from inside the car and carried it over to the table.
Lea frowned. “What are you doing?”
“The only thing I know to do at this point. I was hoping to use this to pull Wally out and question him about the ritual.” My heart hurt as I realized he might no longer have the humanity to do what I needed. “I have to try.” I hated that the words came out tinged in desperation.
Lea nodded but didn’t say anything.
I grabbed Wally’s basket and settled it on the table. Touching a page in the book, I thought about what I wanted the pages to show me. If Wicked had called for the cloaking fog earlier, then voice commands weren’t necessary. I pictured the clock tower in my mind and, to my delighted surprise, the pages started to flip.
A moment later, they drifted open on the familiar depiction of the clock tower. As before, the clock read eleven forty-five pm.
I took a deep breath and reached for Wally, picking him up with two hands. Though I grimaced when my fingers touched the oversized amphibian, he didn’t feel nearly as repulsive as I expected.
I was apparently getting used to handling frogs.
Disturbing.
With a happy meow, Mr. Wicked dove for the page, disappearing into the picture. I was aware of Lea’s gasp of surprise as I reached out and placed my palm over the image from the past.
As before, the magic grabbed me top and bottom and magically wrung my limp form like a wet cloth. A beat later, it ripped me out of the warehouse room and into the world depicted on the page.
My feet slammed down on the cobblestones but I kept my balance. Also like before, a thick fog swirled around me, disorienting and oppressive. I jumped when Wicked found my ankles, winding his soft warmth comfortingly around them.
The familiar rhythmic ticking of the big clock sounded like a heartbeat, reverberating through the fog until it gained a life of its own. I glanced up, seeing that the hour had already moved forward five minutes.
I didn’t have much time.
I glanced around for Wally. No man-shaped shadowy forms existed in the fog with me.
It was me and Wicked, and nothing else.
No frogs or people.
I tried to remember if the frog had come through with me the last time, or if it had morphed into Rustin instead.
I remembered seeing Wicked, but I couldn’t remember Mr. Slimy.
Footsteps suddenly reverberated through the fog and I tensed. Too late, I realized the folly of jumping back into the book. I had no way of knowing who might be in there with me. It could just as easily be Jacob Quilleran as poor Wally.
Wicked’s head came up and he gave a
hiss, but then he trotted into the fog, his tail high and the hair on his back smooth.
“Wicked! Come back here,” I whispered harshly, hesitant to draw any attention to myself, just in case.
A silhouette was etched in the fog several feet away. I took a step backward, panic rising. Where was my cat?
The shadows writhed and lightened until a familiar form stepped out of the fog.
I almost forgot to breathe.
Rustin!
“How did you get here?” I asked the cursed witch.
He hurried forward, a plea in his gaze. I fought the urge to recoil. After all, I’d come to get answers and Rustin could give them to me as easily as Wally. “Where’s Wally?”
Rustin frowned. “I felt the void in the spell and filled it. But my power is waning. I won’t be able to come again.”
Void? Was he verifying what I already suspected? Was Wally…gone?
Rustin glanced up at the face of the clock, which had moved another four minutes since he’d appeared. “We don’t have much time. I need to tell you this because I doubt I’ll get another chance.”
“I’m listening.”
He nodded, pacing away from me, wringing his hands. Mr. Wicked curled up around one of my feet and fell asleep, immersed in the fog swirling around our ankles. “I can’t tell you how they performed the ritual. I was unconscious. They told me I was hit by an errant jolt of energy and knocked out. The fact that I didn’t remember didn’t surprise me. My head had been killing me just before my memories fled. I remember Candace giving me a cup of tea…”
My eyes widened. “You drank tea they’d infused with the artifact?”
“That was my memory. Only…I’m not sure that’s right now. They might have placed that recollection in my head. I only remember a flash of light. And then a stomach twisting sensation of falling. But I never really landed. I finally opened my eyes and looked around. The world was much larger, and my view of it was distorted.” He glanced at me, humiliation filling his handsome features. “And then I…” He gagged, covering his mouth with a hand. “I ate a bug.”
I rolled my lips to keep from smiling. I mean, it was funny that the bug-eating was the thing that bothered him most. But I was pretty sure he wouldn’t appreciate my amusement. “You were a frog?”
“Yes. And no. I was definitely in a frog’s body, with a frog’s instincts. But I was still me.”
I made a sound of sympathy, and his jaw tightened. “I watched them carry me…my body…out of the room and tried to follow, but someone grabbed the frog and threw me into a box. I remember being carried for a while. It seemed like a long while, but I have no idea if my perspectives on time were mine, or the frog’s. They shut me in a room with a small pool and lots of bugs flying around.” He grimaced. “My mind...” He shook his head. “I was losing whole chunks of time to the frog. That was when I realized I needed to start forming a plan fast, before I lost myself for good.”
“How did you end up at my house?”
He skimmed me a quick look, humor glinting in the depths of his eyes. “I found the book. Someone had left it in the room and, when I approached it, the book seemed to recognize me. It opened right up without my touching it. When the pages stopped flickering, there was a picture of Croakies.”
I opened my mouth to ask more questions, specifically about why the KoA book hadn’t recognized me while it had apparently recognized my cat, but he shook his head, striding closer and grasping my forearms, his gaze filled with urgency. “There’s no more time for talk. I must tell you.”
I nodded, realizing I couldn’t stop him even if I wanted to. A quick glance upward told us both we had about a minute before we’d return to our respective worlds.
“There’s a way to fix everything. But you must listen carefully. The Enforcer is the key. The soul magic was her idea. She loves tea and visits the tea shop down the street every morning for her special blend. She’s too strong to defeat in the usual way, but her ego is her weak spot. She doesn’t take precautions because she believes she’s invincible. You need to use that against her.”
Gong.
The first stroke of midnight throbbed high above our heads, the sonorous tone reverberating through the fog and vibrating beneath my feet.
Rustin’s grip on my arms increased to the point of pain. “You must convince her she’s been transformed into something that would weaken and terrify her.”
Gong.
His hands trembled against my skin. “Once she believes she’s been transformed, convince her you’ll make sure she loses herself to that form if she doesn’t help you find where they’re keeping me and tell you how to return me to my body.”
Gong.
Sweat broke out on his smooth brow. “She knows how to reverse the spell.”
Gong.
“The Enforcer is the key.”
Gong.
“But how will we convince her that her essence has been stolen?” I asked.
Gong
“You won’t. She knows the artifact is safe wherever they’ve hidden it. You have to convince her that you’ve changed her form completely.”
Gong
I frowned. “What’s the difference?”
Gong
“There’s no time to explain. Ask your friend the witch.”
Gong
“But…”
The fog lifted from the ground, quickly consuming Rustin’s tall form.
Gong
His gaze blazed with intensity and fear. “You must do this, Keeper of the Artifacts or the artifact and I will be lost forever.”
Gong
The fog rose above his neck, obscuring all but his blazing eyes. When he spoke again, his voice burned an imprint in my mind. I’m counting on you, Naida.
Gong
All the air left the space where I stood. The fog surged upward, bathing me in moist chill. At my feet, Wicked stirred. I panicked. What would happen if I wasn’t holding onto him when the magic grabbed me? Would Wicked be left behind?
With a desperate cry, I bent double, immersing myself in the fog. I’d barely gotten hold of his tiny, soft body before the magic grabbed hold, twisting me like laundry on a wind-battered clothesline.
Pain razored through my body. My mouth opened on a silent scream. And the world around me was ripped away. Only the last, mournful reverberations of the final gong were left sifting through my mind.
19
Avast! Ye Cockroach Ye
When I landed back in the hidden warehouse room, Lea was pacing around the table, holding the book. Her knuckles were white against the dark leather. She gave a relieved cry as she saw us, running over and grabbing me into a hug. Lea’s desperation earned her an alarmed hiss from Wicked. “I was terrified. As soon as you left, the book slammed shut so hard I thought it was an evil portent of what had happened.”
I waved off her concerns. “I have a plan.”
She let me go, much to Wicked’s relief. With an impatient yowl, he jumped from my arms and stalked away, tail snapping with irritation. “Wally was there?” My friend looked so hopeful it made me sad. “No. I’m really afraid it’s too late for poor Wally.”
She sighed, nodding. “I have the same feeling.” We both glanced toward the basket on the table, frowning. “He didn’t come back with you? Is that normal?”
I shook my head. “I have no idea what’s normal in this mess. Hopefully, he’ll show up. Rustin always seemed to pop up where I least expected.” I realized I was speaking about the witch in the past tense, and that made me sad too.
But I shoved the energy-sapping emotion aside and quickly outlined Rustin’s idea to Lea.
Her expressions ran the gamut from shocked to dubious to carefully neutral. I was afraid she was going to tell me that it couldn’t be done. I frantically searched my mind for arguments to counter her expected resistance.
She was silent for a long moment when I’d finished. I chewed my lip and forced myself to wait. Lea was a very deliberative witch. Sh
e didn’t do much of anything on impulse. The scenario I’d outlined for her would take some careful thought. I didn’t know if a spell even existed that would make it work.
Finally, she lifted her gaze to mine. I saw sadness there and my stomach twisted. But her words belied her gaze. “It can be done…”
I narrowed my eyes. “Then why do you sound as if someone just pooped in your cornflakes?”
She grimaced, whether from my fecal metaphor or her own reservations I had no clue. “It’s very complex. So many factors and facets.”
“Is there a spell? Or would you have to create one?”
She shook her head. “Contrary to human fairytales, witches can’t turn people into bugs and other things. But suggestion is a powerful thing, and we can create something called a four-dimensional glamour that looks and feels real enough to fool even the person who’s been spelled.”
I nodded, optimism a slight but tentative sweetness in my mouth.
“We’re going to need help. Lots of it,” Lea said, frowning.
“Just tell me what you need.”
She thought for a moment. “How soon do we need to get this pulled together?”
“Tonight. Sebille’s in danger. And after the appearance of the waning moon, Rustin remains permanently as a frog.” Despite Rustin’s urgent plea to save him from turning into a frog, I fully intended to find out about Sebille before I even broached the subject of Rustin with Margot. My priorities hadn’t shifted.
Lea paled. “Well, that’s definitely a challenging timeline.” She shook her head. “But it can be done.” She turned to my computer, dropping into the chair in front of it and wiggling her fingers to open a Notes application. She traced her finger quickly over the document on the screen, making a list with her energy. “You pull this stuff together while I start planning the magic involved.”
Mythic Specialty Teas was owned by a local sorceress named Alissia Gibbon. Alissia seemed a harmless enough woman. Like all sorceresses, her abilities were mostly limited to her magic legacy. In her case, on her enchanted tea blends. Like me, she was very limited in the magic she could do outside her legacy, so learning that we intended to take on a powerful witch, Alissia had been understandably reluctant. It had taken some serious discussion to get her to cooperate on our sting.