Spellbound Magic: An Urban Fantasy Action Adventure (The Witches of Pressler Street Book 3)

by Martha Carr

They stood from the table and headed toward Fricano’s front door. “That’s the only way to get back to your office, isn’t it?”

  Nathan pulled an exaggeratedly mischievous face as he looked at her over his shoulder. “Maybe. Maybe not.” He held the door open, and they stepped out of the restaurant’s life-saving AC and into the Texas summer steam-cooker.

  “Yeah, let’s just stick to walking.”

  “If we were in my old office, I would’ve been able to pull this out in five seconds.” Nathan rifled through the books stacked in boxes and scattered across the floor, the bookshelves built into the wall, and his desk. “See what I mean?” He studied a heavy hardback of something physics-centric and dropped it back into the box. “I’ve moved a lot and had a lot of jobs. By far, transferring as a professor with my entire library packed in boxes is…” He glanced at the next box beside the first and shook his head. “The definition of insanity.”

  “You’ll find it.” Laura didn’t want to pry into Nathan’s things, but she couldn’t help stepping toward the bookshelf and peering at the titles on the not-yet-organized spines. “I’m surprised you keep magical texts in your office.”

  “Why?” He straightened and looked at her with a goofy smile. “You do.”

  “I…” She turned from the shelf and narrowed her eyes at him. “Touché.”

  “And I’m not even a-hundred-percent unpacked in my condo yet, either.” At his desk, Nathan flipped over books and binders and folders, spreading them out to see their titles. “Just a scattered mess at this point. I’m usually pretty clean when I get settled down into whatever space I happen to occupy at the time.”

  Laura smirked and turned her attention from the bookshelf to the open box at her feet. “Okay. I’ll believe it when I see it.”

  “Challenge accepted. Hey, feel free to go through anything in here. None of it’s gonna bite.”

  She pulled her hand away from the box just before she would’ve reached inside to lift out a stack of books. “Why would you say something like that right before I start looking?”

  “Because it’s funny. Have you ever been bitten by a book? Be honest.”

  With a snort, Laura rolled her eyes and squatted beside the box. She gave it one quick, tentative search just in case before pulling out the first few books inside. “No. Nickie did almost lose her fingers to a flesh-eating bush this morning, though.”

  “Really?”

  “A little surprising, I know. We haven’t been inside our greenhouse in a really long time. I mean, I made sure all the plants were cared for. They’re a lot easier to maintain than any of the other creatures in—” She stopped herself before she ended up admitting to the first person in her life that she kept seventeen magical creatures in her walk-in museum closet. “Well, plants are easier than animals.”

  Nathan eyed her sideways and chuckled. “I’m now keeping a mental list of all the things you stop yourself from telling me.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Just so I can remind you of it when you eventually do tell me.” He grinned.

  “Oh, you’re that sure of yourself, are you?” Laura brushed him off and kept searching through the box, pulling out textbooks and peer review journals and something that looked like a DIY advanced-physics-at-home kit. “I’m not sure where I overdid it on the upkeep spells, though. The greenhouse went a little wilder than I expected.”

  “Maybe that’s part of the shift in magic.”

  She glanced over at him. “You think?”

  “Doesn’t seem that unreasonable that one and a half energy cores would make a bunch of grackles drop out of the sky and give your greenhouse plants an extra kick. Or bite, as it were.”

  “Huh. Maybe.” The next stack of books she pulled from the box nearly toppled into her lap when the book on the bottom bent beneath all the weight on top of it. Not a hardback, then. What’s this? She pulled the other books off the top and found a leather-bound journal in her hands that looked an awful lot like the book of Peabrain magic she’d kept in the drawer of her desk in her own office down the hall.

  A wave of her hand over the journal’s surface made both her legacy ring and the journal’s cover flash a quick, alarming shade of orange. Oh, great. More wards. “Is this it?”

  “Hmm?” Sitting cross-legged on the floor, Nathan peered up to take a peek. “Hey, yeah! Good find.”

  “It’s warded, so I’m not even gonna try to mess with it. The last time I tried to undo somebody’s protection spells…”

  He chuckled. “Well, I’m ninety-nine-percent sure there isn’t a Gorafrex locked away in those pages.”

  “Pretty unlikely if they’re not iron pages…”

  “What was that?”

  “What? Nothing. You wanna give it a shot?” Laura held the book toward him, and Nathan crawled across the office floor toward her. One misplaced hand on a book sent the hardcover slipping out from under him. He nearly face-planted right into Laura’s lap and caught himself just in time to blink less than an inch away from her thigh. “Whoops. That was…not the way I wanted to join you over here.” Shaking his head, he pushed up and stared at the book in her hands. “Sorry.”

  For the first time since they’d danced at his very professor-like welcome party at Vanessa’s, Laura didn’t feel self-conscious about bursting into genuine laughter. And it felt good not to worry about what Nathan or anyone thought of her enjoying herself. “You face was priceless, you know that?”

  He laughed. “I’m glad you find my humiliation amusing.”

  “That was more like complete horror.” She pointed at her thigh covered by the khaki shorts she’d worn to the Greenbelt and pretty much wore as often as possible. “Like my pockets were gonna attack you.”

  “I have been warned never to underestimate what a witch keeps in her pocket.”

  Laura patted her side pocket; all of her pockets were empty. “A few weeks ago, I probably would’ve had my wand tucked away right here, waiting to be used. You might’ve almost broken it.”

  Nathan bit his lip in mock embarrassment and leaned toward her. “Please don’t tell me you’re mad at me for something I almost did but wouldn’t have been able to anyway.” His purple-hued eyes were closer than they’d been even when they’d danced the night before, though she was only starting to admit to herself it had been fun. That purple twinkled, sending tiny fragments of glowing color swirling around his lashes.

  They’re really beautiful. And most of the world won’t ever see eyes like this. “That’s a very weird thing to be mad at you about.” Laura realized he’d leaned even closer, his gaze moving from her eyes to her lips and back. Nope. “So, don’t worry about it. And here’s your book.” She leaned away from him and extended the book with both hands.

  Nathan held her gaze a little longer, chuckled, and took the book. “Okay, let’s see what’s going on with this one.”

  “Did you forget what kind of wards you put around it?” Yeah, great way to change the subject. Pretend like he wasn’t just about to kiss you…

  “Well, it’s an old book.” He ran his hands over the leather cover and up and down the spine a few times. “But I’m not the one who put wards on it.”

  “Oh.” Laura watched him study the book. “Have you actually read it?”

  “Totally. When I was in high school. My uncle found me with the thing and called me an idiot for playing with old Mechanic technology.” With a shrug, Nathan glanced at her and smirked. “Up went the wards, and this beautiful thing went into a trunk of my uncle’s secret things.”

  “How’d you get it back?”

  “Uh…” Nathan’s eyes widened as he considered how much was too much to tell anybody right now. “Broke into his stuff before I got home.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “I did.” He cocked his head at the journal and leaned forward a little. “I waited seventeen years to do that, and I finally got my chance before the big move to Texas.”

  “Wow. How old are you?”

&
nbsp; Nathan snorted and wrinkled his nose. “I’m thirty-four.”

  All she could do was raise her eyebrows and smile. Seven years older than me. Seven.

  “Does that completely change the image that I was so desperately hoping to maintain?” He shot her a sideways glance and stopped running his fingers over the book.

  Oh, now he’s just being coy. “I’m not sure what image you’re talking about.” Laura shrugged. “But no. Now I just know how old you are. And that’s only fair, seeing as you ‘looked into me’. You obviously know how old I am.”

  “Yep. I think it’s awesome.”

  “What’s awesome?”

  “Just everything about you.” He winked and didn’t give her any time to respond before tapping every corner of the leather-bound journal in his hand. Silver bubbles released from the tip of his finger and hovered on the surface of the book. When he placed the last bubble of his spell in the very center of the cover, jagged lines of magic cracked across the whole thing, connecting all the bubbles. The journal flashed with orange and silver, and then that was it. The smell of cherries filled the air in Nathan’s office, and despite the fact that she’d just eaten, Laura’s mouth watered. “Okay. Looks like seventeen years was enough to learn the basics.”

  “That didn’t look very basic to me.” Laura couldn’t hide her eager smile. He’s good.

  “Coming from you, Professor Hadstrom, that means a lot. Let’s find your rune.” The journal’s spine cracked when he opened to the first page, and they sat on the floor, side by side, seeking a solution to how Laura and her sisters could handle this mess.

  Chapter Seven

  Nickie lay on the couch in their living room. One leg hung over the edge of the couch, her bare foot brushing the hardwood floor while the other tapped out a beat on the cushions as she played her Strat. “Something’s off.” She strummed another chord, followed through the progression, and shook her head. “I can’t believe I thought that would work.”

  Her phone buzzed on the coffee table, and she sat up to answer it. “Hey, babe.”

  “Hey.” Her boyfriend Chuck sounded like his usual, incredibly happy self. “How you doin’?”

  “Good. I’m just working on this new song. Trying to, anyway. I haven’t had instrumentals give me this much of a hard time in…” She puffed out a sigh. “I don’t know how long.”

  “You’ll get it, Nickie. You always do. Maybe take a little break and focus on something else for a while. It’ll come to you.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right.” Except for the fact that working on a new song is the something else I’m focusing on. I need a break from all this energy-core-bashing. She smiled. “What’s up?”

  “Just wanted to make sure everything’s okay. You booked it out of that party pretty fast last night. And you looked a little…well, I guess those are some bad headaches, huh?”

  “They’re not fun.” Especially when I hear the Gorafrex’s witch-luring drums pounding away in my head. “I’m sorry I kinda ruined the night.”

  “No, it wasn’t ruined. Just…I mean things aren’t nearly as fun without you around. We were just getting started.”

  “I know. It was pretty boring before we got there.”

  “Go team. But I actually had a decent time after you left. John’s hilarious. Nathan’s pretty cool in a weird kinda way. Kinda like Laura, actually, so I guess they’re a good fit.”

  Nickie snorted. “Don’t tell her that.”

  “Are you kidding? I know what buttons not to push. At least Laura’s. I don’t know if Emily even has any.”

  “Oh, they’re there. Just buried way deep down under lots of sarcasm and the worst jokes ever.”

  “Huh.” Chuck let out a mocking little whine. “I actually like her jokes.”

  “You would.”

  “Hey, are you ready for our meeting tomorrow?”

  Nickie took a deep breath and leaned back against the couch cushions. “With Dave? Yeah, I’m totally ready for it. I think it’s gonna go well.”

  “Of course it is. You know, I didn’t tell you any of this, just ‘cause I didn’t wanna overwhelm you. You’ve had enough on your plate the last couple days.”

  “You have no idea.”

  Chuck paused on the other end of the line. “Did something happen?”

  “What? Oh, no. Just…you’re right. It’s been weird, but I think I’m starting to feel better.” Good job, Nickie. Keep up all the lies. “What didn’t you tell me?”

  “Right. Blue Silk Records isn’t the only label who’s been pounding on my door trying to sign you. The rest of them, well, they weren’t offering anything near what you deserve, so going with Dave is the best choice out of the six.”

  “Six?”

  “I know, right? Everybody wants Austin’s new Queen of Blues.”

  “Wow.” Nickie scratched her head and tossed her hair back over her shoulder. “That’s awesome. And I’m ready to do this.”

  “Great. Hey, I really wanna come over to see you, but I have a few more meetings today. I’m also trying to wrangle all those old dudes into coming on with you when you start recording. They’re like a bunch of chickens. Musician chickens.”

  She barked a laugh. “You still have time for that, though, right? We haven’t even signed papers with Dave or anything.”

  “Yeah, but we will. And I want the band to agree to record with you before they start going senile.”

  “They’re not that bad.”

  Chuck laughed, and the sound of shuffling papers came over the phone. “They’re good enough to play with you, and that’s what matters. Wanna meet me for lunch tomorrow before the meeting? I feel like I haven’t seen you much outside of your shows. Don’t get me wrong. I love those. I just…I miss you.”

  “Me too, babe. Yeah, lunch sounds good. Just text me where you wanna meet.” Nickie tapped the dark-blue body of her Strat propped up on the couch beside her.

  “Done. I’ll call you later tonight. When I’m not herding musical chickens.”

  “Yeah, okay. Love you.”

  “Love you, too, Nickie. Be excited! You’re signing a record deal tomorrow.”

  “I’ve already got the streamers up. The balloons might take me the rest of the day.”

  “Ha, ha. Good joke. Talk to you later.”

  “Bye.” Nickie tossed her phone onto the coffee table and sighed. “‘Be excited.’ I wanna be excited. Just a little hard with Gorafrex-possessed humans running around trying to kill our kind and blow this ship to bits with an escape pod…” She leaned on the couch’s armrest, picked up her guitar, and started to play.

  A succession of taps came from the wall behind her. She kept ploughing through the new chord progressions until Speed noticed the tapping too. The overweight immortal bulldog coughed a little and sounded like he was choking.

  Nickie sat up and put her Strat down. “You okay, buddy?”

  Speed, ears cocked, paid more attention to that tapping sound coming from the side of the house than she’d ever seen him pay attention to anything. “Oh, are you…” She leaned over her lap to catch his attention. “Is that your bark, Speed? I don’t think I’ve ever heard you do that before.” The tapping repeated again, faster and more urgent, and Nickie frowned at the side of the house. “What is that?”

  She went to the window looking out over the sloping side yard and froze. “Seriously? I mean, I get that you can’t fly or talk or squawk, but why are you still here?” The tapping continued, but it was quicker and not just a single tap but a lot of them. Nickie pressed her forehead against the glass and observed at least a dozen huge, glistening black grackles pecking at the house’s siding, all of them in a neat row, trying to chip away at her house. “Hey!” She tapped the glass with her fingernail. “Come on, you…birds. Cut it out.”

  A single grackle stopped pecking, and the others followed. Now she had a hundred birds in the side yard and twelve of them stared at her with beady, pleading black eyes.

  “Leave th
e house alone, huh?”

  If it wasn’t so unlike the magical messengers, their response would’ve been pretty comical. The first one that had stopped the crazed pecking, who was apparently leading the band of misfits, cocked its head, then hunched and turned away from the house.

  “Hey, I’m not mad. I know this is probably ridiculously frustrating, but I can’t think with all that—oh, come on.” Each bird in turn hopped away, heads bowed until their beaks almost touched the grass, moving slowly and with obviously hurt feelings. “Jeeze, the grackle walk of shame.”

  A few of the other birds milling around on the grass hopped toward the back of the house, and Nickie glimpsed Laura’s car pulling up along the sidewalk. Her sister practically skipped up the steps to the top of the hill and hustled to the front door in all of fifteen seconds.

  The front door burst open. “Nickie! Emily! I found something!” The door slammed shut, and Laura jumped with a little squeak at the unintended force of her excitement. “Hey, guys—”

  “Yeah?” Laura jumped again at Nickie’s response, and her younger sister just folded her arms and leaned back against the windowsill. “I’m assuming you found something good?”

  “Uh, yeah. If we can consider any of this good. But it’s helpful. Might even be the part we’re missing. Where’s Em?”

  “I think she went down to the basement. She’s been there since you left this morning.”

  “Doing what?”

  Nickie smirked. “Practicing with her metal balls. Or I guess just one of them now.”

  Laura rolled her eyes and snickered. “We need to help her come up with a better name for those things. Or thing. She still has the gloves I made her, right?”

  The middle Hadstrom sister shrugged. “She’s figuring something out. Didn’t even come up for lunch. I was actually…” Nickie laughed and rubbed the top of one foot with the bottom of the other. “I was actually hoping she’d make me lunch. Had to settle for a frozen dinner. Guess I shouldn’t start expecting gourmet meals out of her on her days off, huh?”

  “No, she really likes cooking for us. Will you go get her? Then meet me in the Clubhouse so I can show you what I found today.”