by Martha Carr
“Good. How many?”
Emily looked up and counted in her head. “Five, so far.”
“Hmm. Not quite enough.”
“Well, we’re gonna get another one tomorrow. Then the ship can’t be powered up at all, right?”
“It needs only half to operate successfully, not fully, yes. And I assume you’re keeping the Gorafrex from activating any of the others until you can destroy them all?”
“Not exactly…”
Rutilda sucked in a quick breath through her teeth, her eyes growing wide. “And how many has the creature awakened with its blood magic?”
“One.” Emily nodded curtly. “And a half.”
“Ancestors save us.” The Engineer whirled and faced the trees. “The trees know many things. The pressures beneath the surface. The taste of magic in the air. The changes.” She reached out to gently stroke the closest branch and glanced down at Emily. “Now it makes sense. The Tree Folk are terrified. Magic turned on its head, rearranged into all the wrong forms. The ship’s magic only fuels that damage.”
“We’ve noticed.” Emily scrunched up her nose and hoped the woman wouldn’t lose it again. But she deserves to hear everything, right? I mean, she did burst up out of a cavern under the museum. That’s worth something. “And your messages. They haven’t been delivered, because the magic that’s going crazy everywhere got to the grackles first.”
Rutilda scowled. “What happened to the messengers, Emily Hadstrom?”
“They kind of…fell out of the sky. Onto our house. A lot are in our side yard, actually.”
With a heavy sigh, the last Engineer shook her head. A shiver of dust sprayed from her gray hair. “You must end this. You and your sisters, yes? The three of you are the only ones who can.”
“We know.” Emily stepped forward, realizing this might be the moment they got the rest of the answers they needed. “Laura had this idea to recreate the binding rune that was on the prison. We can capture it that way.”
“That is…surprisingly creative.” Rutilda stroked her chin. “And you will return it to the prison that way?”
“I guess we have to figure out one more step.” Emily let out a frustrated sigh. “It’s not like we can drop an iron weapon through a rock in the Greenbelt.”
“Hmm.” With a smirk, the Engineer glanced up at the sky. “Perhaps the rune should include physical transference of some form.”
“Like a transportation bubble?”
Rutilda barked another wheezing laugh. “That is Peabrain magic, yes. And yet the humans have never had the misfortune of capturing a Gorafrex. No, Emily Hadstrom, I am referring to a transference that is instantaneous. From one place to another in the blink of an eye.”
“Okay. I’ll let Laura figure that one out.”
“As you wish.”
“Hey, you wouldn’t happen to know how to get the Gorafrex out of a host so we can actually use the rune, do you?”
“Ah.” Rutilda rubbed her huge hands together and bent to retrieve her screwdriver from the path. “Have you ever seen a caporchian feed on its mate?”
“Nope.”
“Perhaps a surface-dweller analogy would be more suitable.” The Engineer slipped her massive tool into one of her jumpsuit’s pockets and nodded. “Salt on a slug.”
“Um…what?”
“It’s a simple matter of alchemy, Emily Hadstrom. The salt draws all the moisture out of the slug through its flesh and dries its mucous secretions. It’s quite messy, yes? And it kills the slug. But the process, I imagine, is very much like that you must use with the Gorafrex.”
Emily frowned and crossed her arms. “Yeah, but a human host isn’t a slug. And we don’t want to kill whoever it is once we get that thing out of their body.”
“I understand. You will do what you must.” Rutilda coughed a few times before spitting onto the grass beside them. A puff of dust escaped her mouth, followed by something that looked very much like a dust-covered moth, especially when it fluttered away into the trees. “I imagine you might find a way to tailor the alchemical reaction to a very specific purpose with some very specific magic.”
“I know you spend a lot of time by yourself,” Emily said, “but I still didn’t understand anything you just said.”
“Indeed.” When the Velikan woman grinned, her wrinkled lips pulled back to reveal huge, yellow-stained teeth. “What, Emily Hadstrom, combines alchemy and magic to produce a physical tool one might use for its intended purpose? A tool anyone might use, whether or not that being knows its purpose or that magic exists in the first place?”
Emily glanced around the empty park, silent but for the buzzing insects in the warm night air and the loud, slow breathing of the giant woman in front of her. Slugs… The only connection she made to that was the state of their greenhouse and all the plants that had somehow grown out of proportion with varying degrees of dangerous new properties. “Oh. You mean alchemy like chemistry, don’t you?”
“If that’s what everyone’s calling it these days.”
“Chemistry and magic.” The young witch grinned. “You could’ve just told me, ‘There’s a potion for that,’ Rutilda. That would’ve saved us a few minutes.”
“Ha! At least you understand.”
“Yeah, okay. A potion to suck the Gorafrex right out of the host.”
Rutilda nodded. “Salt on a slug.”
Emily snorted. “When I find a different analogy that doesn’t end up killing the human we’re, I’m gonna find you and tell you to use that one instead.”
The Velikan Engineer threw her head back and roared with laughter. The few trees around her swayed in a rustle of branches, and the woman hunched over. “Oh, yes. I forget I cannot be as loud up here as I wish.” Her hand fluttered toward the rest of the park around them. “Other living things being what they are.”
“I hear ya. People tell me to cut it out all the time.”
“I like you very much, Emily Hadstrom.” Rutilda tried as best she could to hold back another cackle.
Emily studied the woman’s mussed hair and dusty jumpsuit and huge, magnified eyes. “I like you too.”
Rutilda chuckled and shook her head. “May you and your sisters finish what you started as soon as possible so I can get back to the end of my life. I was growing fond of how it was all turning out.”
“Oh. Okay.” Emily blinked as the Engineer turned and headed south toward downtown. “Just one more question…”
“Yes?”
“How do we keep magic from getting worse? Is that even possible?”
“I do not know, Emily Hadstrom. I will say the only way to reverse the effects is to destroy the energy cores the creature has already awakened, but if that image your sister showed me is correct, it was done with blood magic. Meaning you will not destroy those activated cores until the Gorafrex is in its iron prison and weakened enough it must release its hold on that magic. I do not recommend destroying activated cores before such time.”
“Right. Thank you.” Emily lifted her hand for a little wave, and the Engineer chuckled before shuffling off.
“Do your worst with it, then. You are far from the end.” Without turning around to say goodbye, the giant woman who’d designed and built this ship centuries ago with her brethren disappeared through the trees lining the park.
Emily watched until all signs of the Engineer’s path had faded. “I wonder how she’s gonna get back under the museum.”
A groan sounded from behind her, and she spun to see John sitting up, rubbing his neck. I can’t believe I forgot about him. The young witch jogged toward him and sat beside her date. “Are you okay?”
“I…don’t know.” John blinked, opened his eyes wide, and closed them tightly again. “My head’s killing me.”
“Yeah, you said you might be coming down with something.”
“I did?”
“Yep. See? You’ve got the brain fog too. Come on.” She grabbed his wrist and pulled him slowly to his feet. “I have no
problem driving back to my house, but you’ll have to take it from there if you wanna get back to your place tonight. I’m sure you’ll be fine once you walk it off.” Isn’t that what he told me about my ‘muscle cramps’?
“Em, I’m so sorry. I don’t even…I mean, I had tonight all planned out…it didn’t include this.” John twirled his finger at the park and rubbed his forehead.
“John, do not worry about it at all. We’ll have plenty of other dates.”
He glanced up at her, trying to smile through his severe dizziness. “Promise?”
“Totally. Trust me, this isn’t even close to the worst date I’ve ever had.” That made him laugh, and Emily helped him put his arm around her shoulder so she could support him more. They walked down the path toward the parking lot, and she took a deep breath. The worst date would be the one he doesn’t remember.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Emily grabbed the open driver-side door as John slipped behind the wheel. “You sure you’re good to drive?”
“Yeah. It’s not like I had a lot to drink.” He blinked at the steering wheel and shot her a worried glance. “We didn’t drink a lot tonight, did we?”
“No. I think we had one glass of wine each…”
“Okay. Cool. Man, I can’t believe my brain just stopped working.”
She leaned down toward him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Seriously, don’t worry about it. Go home. Get some rest. You’ll feel better in the morning.”
“I hope so.” She started to turn away from his car, but he grabbed her hand. “Hey. Thanks.”
“For what?”
“For not being super upset tonight didn’t go the way either of us planned.” John shrugged. “For not being upset at all, actually.”
Emily squeezed his hand and kissed the corner of his mouth. “Like I said, this definitely isn’t the worst date. And we’ll have more. We don’t have to bring this one up again, okay?”
“Deal. You working tomorrow?”
“Yep.”
“I’ll see you then.”
With a nod, she stepped away from the open door and grabbed it again. “Perfect. Good night.”
“‘Night, Em.”
She closed his car door, and he watched her step up onto the sidewalk before he turned around and drove down Pressler Street the way they’d come. Emily went up the concrete steps toward the front of her house and got all the way to the door before she realized she’d seen an extra car parked on the curb. “Mine, Laura’s, Nickie’s. Yeah, that’s Chuck’s car. So, who drives the Jeep?” Squinting at the blue Jeep parked behind Chuck’s sedan, she twisted the doorknob and stepped inside.
The voices in the living room stopped, and she shut the door behind her before seeing Laura, Chuck, and Nathan sitting there. “Huh.” Definitely wasn’t expecting Nathan to be here when I got home from a magically-interrupted date. “Hey, guys.”
“Did you have a good time?” Laura didn’t sound remotely interested in her answer.
“Uh…I’ll answer that later.” Emily walked through the foyer and jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “Nathan, is that your Jeep out front?”
“Yep. I just got here.”
“Cool Jeep.” The youngest Hadstrom sister frowned and glanced behind her into the dining room. “Where’s Nickie?”
“Clubhouse,” Laura said.
Emily glanced at Chuck, then shot her sister the ‘not in front of a human’ look they’d all learned to use since the guy had started dating their sister. “Okay…”
Chuck spread his arms. “The drums again, apparently.”
An exaggerated laugh burst out of Emily’s mouth, and she pointed at him. “Good one, Chuck. I have no idea what you’re talking about, but it’s funny.” How the heck does he know about the drums?
“Em?”
“Yeah.”
Laura tapped a fist against Chuck’s arm where they sat together on the couch. “He knows.”
Emily’s smile fell off her face. “Knows what, Laura?” She glanced at Nathan, who smiled a little in amusement as he watched the revelation unfold.
“Everything.”
“Um…” Emily glanced at each of them in turn one more time, and her lips formed the shapes of words she didn’t think she wanted to use. She settled on, “Somebody please tell me what’s going on.”
“Witches. Magic. Aliens trying to kill witches and take their magic.” Chuck ran a hand through his hair. “When she says everything, Em, she means everything. I sound like a crazy person saying this out loud, but I believe all of it. That thing tried to kill me and Nickie today. Oh, yeah. And it’s inside Dave now.”
Laughter bubbled up Emily’s throat despite how inappropriate she knew it was. “What are you talking about?”
“Em, it’s not a joke.” Laura shook her head.
“Okay, but…okay.” Slowly, the youngest Hadstrom sister took a few more steps into the living room. “I’m out of ideas, so please.”
“Chuck and Nickie went to go sign her record deal.” Laura glanced at her sister’s boyfriend, who nodded before resting his forearms on his thighs and hanging his head. “Sounds like the Gorafrex already had his new host, which just so happened to be the owner of Blue—”
“Yeah, Laura, I know who Dave is. I had no idea Nickie was signing a record deal today. That’s awesome.” When Emily got only blank stares all around, she realized her mistake. “Which I’m guessing didn’t actually happen.”
“That thing took over Dave’s body,” Chuck added, staring at the area rug. “Started blasting magic all over the place at Nickie and me.” He looked at Emily and raised his thumb and pointer finger to demonstrate. “Little tiny round thing, Em. This big. Touched me on the shoulder and threw me into a bookshelf.”
“Ouch.”
“Ha. Yeah, ouch. And your sister…” The man shook his head and grabbed it with both hands. “She did whatever magicky thing I guess witches do. Just a bunch of light that ate up the little red things—jeeze. I sound insane.”
“Well, this whole thing is kind of insane, Chuck. So is the fact that you know about magic now—”
“Em…” Laura shook her head.
The youngest witch sighed and came to sit on the other side of Nickie’s boyfriend. “You don’t sound insane. You aren’t insane, okay?” She pushed her fist against his arm and looked reassuring. “This stuff is real.”
“No kidding.”
“And we’re working on making it all right again.” Emily caught her sister’s gaze, and Laura gave her a nod of approval. “So…Nathan.”
“Emily.” The part-Kashgar professor leaned back in one of the armchairs, one ankle crossed over his knee, and picked at his lower lip.
“Why are you here?”
“Emily, don’t be rude.”
“What? It’s a fair question.”
“No, it’s okay.” Nathan rubbed his hands together and gathered his thoughts. “Laura asked me to come by so we could examine that rune more. I didn’t know Chuck was gonna be here with a whole new outlook on life.”
Chuck snorted. “And I had no idea I was gonna be sitting down with a witch and a Casper.”
“Kashgar,” Nathan corrected, then held up his own thumb and index finger just like Chuck had. “Just a little, though.”
“I don’t even know what that means.”
“Okay, you two.” Laura flashed a tight smile at everyone in the living room, trying to bring the focus back to what they needed to do. “Chuck, you can stay here if you want. Feel free to throw in any ideas you might have, whatever they are. Anything could help. Em, there are a few things I should fill you in on first.”
“Yeah, that goes both ways, I think.” Emily patted Chuck’s back before she stood and went to the armchair beside Nathan’s, just because things were starting to feel a little crowded. “You wanna go first?”
“Sure.”
Nathan folded his arms and sat back to watch the information overload and two witchy sisters come up with a p
lan.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“We totally beat the Gorafrex at the energy-core race.” Emily grinned. “That’s a good thing.”
“Yeah, Em. It can’t launch the escape pod into space, but now we have to keep it from activating the other five cores.”
“Because of magic going cuckoo. Right. You know, if I’d known you and Nickie went off by yourselves to break another energy core, I would’ve been able to give Rutilda the right numbers.”
Laura shrugged. “Well, you said you weren’t gonna let this little Gorafrex issue ruin your night with John, so we were trying to respect that.”
“Ruined it anyway, though. I don’t know if it’s better or worse that he can’t remember anything.” Emily pointed at Chuck and frowned. “How come he didn’t get bubble-flashed by a Huldu?”
“Probably because the Huldu don’t have any idea what the three of you are dealing with right now,” Nathan said. “Which is honestly pretty impressive. They keep an eye on everything.”
“I betcha it has something to do with the fact that the messengers are camping out in our yard instead of telling the whole world about our escaped convict trying to blow up Austin with misfired magic.”
“Wow.” Nathan chuckled and dipped his head at Emily. “You sure do have a way with descriptions, don’t you?”
Emily grinned. “Thank you, Nathan.”
“Okay, so we need to figure out the next steps.” Laura tapped her finger against her lips.
“I told Rutilda I’d leave this one up to you,” Emily said. “Something about physical transference and doing it instantly. From one place to another like that.” She snapped her fingers. “Better than a transport bubble, which I don’t really understand—”
“Oh!” Laura’s dark eyes lit up when the pieces all came together. “She was talking about transference with the rune, right?”
“Uh, I think so.”
“That makes so much sense.” Laura stood abruptly from the couch, making the cushions bounce a little. Chuck kept staring at the rug and didn’t react. “I mean, obviously it’ll have to be on a much larger scale and a lot stronger, but that really might work.”