Making Magic: Books of the Kindling, Book 3

by Donna June Cooper

  Jake smiled. “I think we all could.”

  He returned to Thea and stooped down. “I think the best thing to get that off might be some vegetable oil of some kind. You’ll end up really slimy, but we won’t have to risk cutting that pretty face of yours.” He ran a finger down her cheek to the edge of the tape. “Would you rather do that, or attempt to cut it?”

  She mimicked pouring the oil.

  “I know how hard it is for you to keep your mouth shut, Matchstick.”

  Thea socked him in the arm, but her eyes were smiling. She was being much more patient than he expected with half a roll of strapping tape around her face and her dog missing in action.

  Motioning Aaron and Emmy over, he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket.

  “I need you to call your mom and dad and tell them that you are all right. Tell them that I brought you up here and I’ll explain everything when I bring you home.” He handed Aaron the phone. “Be sure to tell them you’re fine and I am bringing you home, so they won’t worry.” The last thing they needed was more people roaming around up here.

  But looking at Emmy, he could see that she wasn’t really fine. Her tics and blinking were worse. “You’re all right aren’t you, Emmy?”

  “She’s worried that I’ll be in trouble,” Aaron said. “About the babies.”

  Jake put his hand on Aaron’s shoulder. “We’re going to talk about that in a minute. I think we can avoid anyone being in trouble about the babies.” He glanced back at his mother and Sarah. “Or anything else that’s gone on tonight.”

  “C-Can I s-see the ba-baby?”

  Damn. He had forgotten the whole point behind Aaron’s baby snatching scheme. He looked over at Grace. She’d heard Emmy’s request and motioned her over. Taking the girl’s hand, he escorted her to the couch.

  “Hey, Emmy.” Grace said. “I haven’t seen you in a long while.”

  The girl hung back a bit, until Lily moved in her momma’s arms and those big eyes turned towards Emmy.

  Aaron was talking on the phone with his mother. Jake leaned down and put his hand on Nick’s shoulder. “I need a bottle of vegetable oil or something. If I don’t get Thea out of that tape soon, her head will explode.” Jake leaned closer to Nick. “And also, we need to talk.”

  “Sure.” Nick looked over at Thea. “But Grace still needs to deliver—”

  “Go on. There’s no rush. Once I start nursing her, it’ll happen,” Grace said.

  Emmy’s shaking hand reached out to the baby.

  “Okay, I need to stretch my legs anyway,” Nick said, standing up.

  As the two of them headed for the kitchen, there was a collective gasp and a thump behind them. Both Jake and Nick spun around, reaching for sidearms that weren’t there.

  Emmy was sprawled on the floor in front of the couch, out cold.

  “Oh no! Nick…” Grace gasped, trying to sit up, baby and all, and failing.

  Aaron was already beside his sister and Thea was about to join him, but Jake waved her back and stooped beside Emmy to check her pulse. It was strong and steady. Her color was good.

  He nodded at Grace. “She seems okay.”

  “Check her head,” Grace said. “I don’t think she hit it, but make sure.” Nick took Grace’s hand and whispered something to her.

  Jake ran his hands under Emmy’s neck and up into her hair. He knew what to look for, but she seemed fine. In fact…

  “Emmy?” he said in a quiet voice.

  She inhaled and her eyelids fluttered.

  “Sheriff?” she said and opened her eyes. Her pupils adjusted to the light.

  “Do you hurt anywhere, Emmy?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Can you move your toes and fingers?”

  She obliged quickly, then wiggled them again. A huge smile spread across her face. “Yes, sir.”

  “Good.” But he frowned. Emmy’s smile wasn’t crooked. Her features were smooth and even. Before, there had been creases in her face from the constant tics. Her words were clear.

  “It worked,” Emmy said. “The baby fixed me.”

  He couldn’t help but smile. “That’s good, but stay quiet for a bit. You took a tumble.” He rubbed her shoulder.

  From the dazed expression on Grace’s face and the way she cradled the baby’s head, Jake could guess why Emmy was so changed. Grace wouldn’t have done this. Not this dramatically or publicly. But what control could Lily possibly have?

  He looked at Greg, who was rubbing at his ankles, looking thoughtfully from Grace to Emmy to Aaron and back.

  Apparently Emmy was right. Grace’s baby was a healer.

  Nick tapped his shoulder. “Time for that talk now.”

  Jake rubbed Emmy’s shoulder. “Sit here for a minute. Thea, can you keep an eye on her?”

  Thea nodded.

  He and Nick walked into the kitchen. His mom sat ramrod straight, but her eyes were red rimmed and she was still sniffling.

  “I want a lawyer,” Sarah spat. “You can’t keep me here like this.”

  “Lady, you don’t want to know what I can do,” Jake said.

  Sarah tried to stand, but only succeeded in dragging the stool over with her. She fell onto the kitchen floor with a loud clatter.

  “Damn.” Nick went to help get Sarah off the floor.

  “Great.” Jake looked down to see if Sarah had broken her fool neck.

  There was a loud attention-getting cough. “Ah-hem. At this range, there’s nothing you can do with whatever powers you might have that can stop me from blowing this little one’s brains out.”

  Jake turned and stared in disbelief at Greg, standing behind Grace with a compact black pistol.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Thea gaped as much as the tape would allow as Greg settled on the couch arm behind her sister, pistol pointed at the baby’s head.

  “Everyone stop and sit where you are and shut the fuck up!” Greg shouted in a voice that Thea didn’t recognize at all. “I will shoot her. Then I will shoot her mother and her aunt.”

  There was a rush of noise as everyone who had been standing sank to the floor. And Marilyn, who tried to duck beside her stool, pulled it over and just sat behind it.

  “Shoot ’em all,” Sarah croaked in the quiet lull.

  “You are by far the most expendable person in the room,” Greg said. “Don’t make me notice you.”

  In a matter of seconds, the only sounds to be heard were the gurgling smacks Lily was making and the sobs of Emmy, who had burst into tears.

  “If you don’t move that gun away from my daughter’s head—” Nick said in a cold and calm voice, “—I promise you I will—”

  “No, you won’t, Agent McKenzie. I work for people who can literally erase you and any record of your existence,” Greg said, staring at Nick. “I hope you won’t make it necessary.”

  Thea shivered at how assertive but colorless Greg’s voice was. She risked a glance at Nick, who wasn’t sitting so much as crouching on the kitchen floor. His expression was almost as unemotional as Greg’s. He seemed to have slipped into “agent” mode. Jake, who knelt beside him, was almost as stoic. Only his hands, clenched on his thighs, gave him away. The pair glared at Greg as if their combined stares could somehow stop him.

  Greg. She would never in a thousand years have guessed—

  “I’m kind of sorry you’re all taped up, Althea.”

  Thea was surprised by the intensity of his gaze. Greg had always seemed so…bland before.

  “I really wanted to talk to you a bit before I called in the troops,” Greg said, his tone becoming silky. “But I suppose if your friends here hadn’t stopped you from talking, I would have had to gag you myself, wouldn’t I?”

  Thea stared at him, trying not to blink.

  “That ability of yours is amazing. But w
hen you add in your acting—the way you can hide your real intentions so well—you’re damn impressive. A natural. Even this afternoon when I told you about Hartford’s research into Woodruff Herbs—”

  Grace’s gasp was audible even over Emmy’s whimpers.

  “See, Althea.” Greg smiled. “You were so much better at hiding your reaction to that. And we’ll find something interesting when we analyze your herbs, won’t we, Dr. Woodruff? Something you don’t want the world to know.” He put a finger to his lips as if in thought. “Something your sister tried to cover up by persuading your father to stop his research.”

  How did he know that? And what did he know, exactly?

  Greg looked at his fingernails. “But we don’t need Hartford’s research when we have your whole farm, do we? You see, I know what your particular ability is.” And there was that smile again. “And might I say how very…selfish it is of you to keep something like that to yourself, with all the suffering in the world.”

  Thea watched Grace’s face, but other than pressing her lips together, Grace gave nothing away.

  Lily made a smacking noise and Emmy’s whimpers grew louder.

  “I need to nurse her,” Grace said, her voice shaking.

  “She can wait,” Greg replied.

  Thea wanted to scream. She was furious with the pompous little twit. She would hack this stuff out of her hair and strip the skin off her face just so she could tell him to turn that vicious little gun on himself!

  Greg continued. “Does your father have an ability? I wonder. He certainly seems suspicious of your herbs. At first I thought maybe it was something Hartford was up to behind our backs because, let’s be honest, they are always up to something behind our backs.”

  There was a slight cough behind Thea and she glanced back. Jake was moving his fingers minutely, as if he was playing a flute. What did—

  “Althea!”

  She turned back to Greg.

  “Get on the floor and make her shut up.” Greg pointed to Emmy, his gun still trained on Lily’s head. “And Dr. Woodruff, keep this child still.”

  “She is a newborn. If you don’t let me nurse her—”

  “You can nurse her later. She won’t die or anything.” He smiled down at Grace. “Not when you can make her all better with a touch.”

  “You—” Grace began.

  “Get down, Althea,” Greg snapped, ignoring Grace’s tone.

  Thea slid to the floor. Now she couldn’t see Jake or Nick at all. Emmy buried her face in Thea’s neck and Thea slid an arm around her.

  “Yes, my colleagues are going to be quite happy. It seems I’ve stumbled onto a really unique opportunity,” Greg said. “Did you know, Althea, that dear old dad is doing some work for us? He’s quite the asset, when it advances his own agenda in Washington. Always willing to lend a hand. It’s amazing where we can go and the intelligence we can collect when we’re helping organizations like Hartford provide medications and vaccinations to those who are desperate for them.”

  Thea frowned. She had thought there was something off about that program. Her father would never be involved in providing anything for free unless there was something in it for the company. Whoever Greg was really working for, they were peddling exactly what her father wanted—leverage in the halls of power. Greg was watching her closely. “I wouldn’t have tripped over you at all if not for your interest in that little operation. That made me curious about you, Althea. First your family and then your mountain.”

  This was all her fault for trying to make a difference. Instead, she had made things worse—much, much worse. Whoever Greg was—whoever he represented—was a bigger threat than her father would ever be.

  “None of that really mattered though, until I watched your father’s performance after his little one-on-one with you. Sadly, I don’t have his office under surveillance. He’s pretty savvy about such things. I would have loved to have heard exactly what you said to him. It was evidently life changing. Like some kind of religious conversion. Now I know how you managed it.” He laughed then. A strange dry sound.

  “Eddie, is it?” Greg said, turning his attention to the handyman.

  Eddie raised his head and opened his eyes. “Yessir?”

  Greg nodded to the breakfast bar. “Go over there and retrieve my cell phone out of that pile, will you?”

  “I’ll get it,” Jake said, a sarcastic tone in his voice.

  Thea felt something loosen inside her at the sound of his voice. It reminded her that they were all still alive and mostly uninjured. They would get out of this mess somehow.

  “Yes, I bet you would, Sheriff.” Greg said. There was that twitch under his eye. “Go on, Eddie. Mrs. Moser? That nice cell phone you took away from me? Point it out to Eddie please? Take your time. I wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt after all this.”

  Thea heard Marilyn sniffle, then the sounds of her struggling to get to her feet, dragging the chair her wrist was still tied to. She heard someone whispering something to Marilyn, something Thea couldn’t catch.

  Greg ignored them. “I don’t know exactly what my employer does with people like you. But I do know that it involves making sure you are using your abilities for the greater good, aimed in the right direction, working for us.” His smile was chilling. “They’ve got at least two of your kind tucked away right now.” He smiled at Thea. “They are so excited about only two. Imagine how they will react when I bring them all of you. I suspect they’ll want to analyze this mountain of yours as well. They are going to—”

  “I’m not one of ‘em,” Sarah sobbed. “I’m not. I was gonna—”

  “I’m starting to notice you,” Greg warned. “We’ll sort the wheat from the chaff a bit later.”

  Emmy whispered into Thea’s ear. “The sheriff wants you to do what you did at the festival—to that man’s gun.”

  Thea jumped, barely controlling her reaction.

  What you… What?

  “Make him move it. Just a little.” Emmy continued.

  Greg’s attention was still on Marilyn and Eddie. “Bring that phone over here. Now.”

  What you did at the festival. What you did at the festival. But she wasn’t sure it had even worked. It might have been a coincidence. Oh please, let it work.

  What would she say to Greg if the tape was gone? She glared at him.

  That gun is heavy. So heavy. And your hand is tired, Greg. So tired. You need to move it a little. Move it. It’s cramping. It’s starting to hurt. You need to move it. Move it, Greg! MOVE IT NOW!

  The barrel of Greg’s gun drifted down and to the right, aimed now at the floor as he reached to rub his hand.

  As if a truck had plowed into him, Greg flew through the air, slamming backward into the brick fireplace.

  Nick and Jake sprang into action, but Greg had somehow managed to cling to the pistol. Even as he slid to the floor, he was pointing it at them.

  Drop it! Drop it! DROP IT! Thea screamed at him in her head.

  Jake saw Greg’s eyes go wide and the gun slip out of his fingers to bounce on the hearth. Jake slammed into him with another invisible blow and felt something give way in his shoulder just as he grabbed hold of the man in reality. Shards of pain slid down his arm. Shit. But Jake managed to hang on and rode him all the way to the floor.

  “Dammit. Nick, I wrenched my shoulder. Can you secure this jerk?” On top of it all, he was really feeling the overwhelming sense of fatigue that followed exerting his gift this much. He’d never used it to beat the crap out of anyone before.

  Nick caressed his daughter’s head as he went by. Almost everyone in the room behind him was either screaming or crying or panicking, except the baby.

  “Stay down, or I’ll knock you into those bricks again,” Jake growled, pulling the zip ties out of his pocket and tossing them to Nick.

  “It doesn’t matter w
hat you do to me,” Greg sputtered. “They’ll find out about you—all of you.”

  Then Greg’s mouth was suddenly closed, apparently frozen that way. For a moment, he looked confused, then he looked over at Thea, color draining from his face.

  Nick took over securing Greg and motioned for Jake to go see Grace. Jake knelt beside her and got his first close look at Lily as Grace put her hand on his arm. He felt tingling warmth suffuse his shoulder and erase his headache. He reached up and felt his skull. The goose egg was gone. He turned to check on Thea.

  She leaned heavily against Emmy, blood trickling from her nose.

  “Sheriff Moser, she’s not doing so good,” Emmy said in a shaking voice.

  “Dammit! Somebody get me some scissors and the vegetable oil. Quick!” Jake scrambled over to pull Thea into his arms.

  “Thea?” he pulled up his shirt to wipe the blood off of her nose and saw bubbles. Was she getting enough air? “Thea, honey? Open your eyes.”

  Nothing.

  “Is she breathing?” Grace asked.

  “Yeah, but there’s blood coming out of her nose. What if it clots?”

  “Bring her over here,” Grace motioned anxiously.

  Jake dragged Thea over to lean against the couch and Grace grabbed her sister’s hand. Aaron held the kitchen shears out to him and Jake used them to saw through the scarf and tape right beside her cheek.

  “Sorry, Matchstick.” Chunks of hair and tape and scarf hit the floor. No finesse. When he had a good loose edge to work with, Eddie was there with a bottle of olive oil.

  “She’s all right. She’s getting air,” Grace said.

  “I’m still getting this damn stuff off now.”

  Jake pulled his T-shirt over his head, poured the oil onto it and dabbed the soaked shirt on the edge of the tape to ease the way.

  When her mouth was free, Thea sucked in air, got some oil as well and choked. Jake held the shirt for her to cough into.

  Jake let out a long slow exhale and looked up. Grace had released Thea’s hand and was nursing Lily at last, if the strategically placed blanket was any indication. Nick was unloading Greg’s gun.