I tried to look more closely at her, but she stepped back to avoid me. With molten earth between us, I couldn’t move forward.
“We are going to tear this town apart. You think you’re so precious. You’re not going to have a single thing left when we’re finished,” she hissed.
“You think you can just take the unicorns and have them work for you?” I asked. My legs wobbled, but at least I was standing.
“The beasts will do what we need or we will eliminate them. They don’t have to be part of our plan,” she said. Her voice didn’t sound as confident this time. I stared hard at the dark shape. Behind us I had ceased to hear yells. I also didn’t know where the other four Vixens had gotten to. I didn’t know if we were winning or losing, and I didn’t like it.
“You’re going to lose this battle. Mark my words,” said the Vixen.
I lunged. I mean, really. She was saying all of this competitive mumbo jumbo as if I cared. I just wanted to go quietly about my days in Twinkleford, dating Quinn and getting to know my family. It was because of this crazy lady and her followers that my sister couldn’t be here.
As I lunged, something black swooped out of the air. I nearly toppled over when I realized that Cracker was attacking.
The Vixen tried to envelope the owl in vapor, but the mist immediately disappeared after an angry sound from the owl.
“Take that,” I muttered.
Quickly I twisted and flicked my wrist.
Another big spell.
Another bad idea.
Just your average evening. Plus murder, battles, and big spells.
The air around the Vixen crackled and the ground rumbled under our feet.
“What do you think you’re doing! You’re a Young Witch! You can’t be performing spells like . . .” She let out a scream as the dirt under her feet split apart and she toppled backwards into a black hole.
I gasped and tried to catch her, but it was too late. I stumbled on my way toward her. No, a hand on my back shoved me. I fell sideways and landed hard on the cold frozen ground.
I grabbed wildly at one of the masks. It turned out to be a tight, dark skin, neither loose nor easy to pull away, but that only made me yank harder.
A mad scrabble of the Vixens’ hands tried to stop me.
Air had stopped coming into my lungs and I forced a gasp of cold through my mouth.
The next instant my frozen hands managed to tug the mask off.
A familiar set of eyes met mine. Hers were furious and cold in a way I had never seen before.
One Vixen was unmasked.
I wish she hadn’t been.
Lisa was on her knees staring at me. Flames were sprouting out of her irises and making me wish I could look elsewhere before I was consumed by furious fire.
“You had no idea it was me,” she was smirking.
The sheriff’s lights were flashing in the distance. I had no hope of keeping her here long enough for Quinn to arrive. She would disappear into the night in moments.
Still, that might give me a breath to ask why.
“But . . .” I started to say.
My protest was lost on the wind.
Her face only became more closed and dangerous.
“No, of course you didn’t. We lived across from you for months. You were too stupid to realize what was in front of your face.
I knew I should be processing what had happened, but my mind wasn’t working. Despite all my snooping I must have missed a lot of clues, but at the moment I was too cold and surprised to make sense out of any of it.
“How? Why?” I stammered.
Lisa got to her feet and I instinctively backed away from her.
She smirked. “MOM!” she yelled. There was no movement.
“MOM!” she cried again. “Always running off without me, she is,” she said.
She was already walking away from me. I tried to go after her, but my legs wouldn’t work. My head started to pound and spin at the same time.
The world spun a swirling black and gray blur.
Then I collapsed and didn’t notice anything more.
Chapter Thirty-Three
My dreams came fast and furious while I slept. Someone was moving me and carrying me. I heard Ethel’s sharp voice order someone not to drop me. A man’s voice, pretty sure it was Quinn’s, said something gruff in response. I was laid gently on my bed and Quinn said something about sleeping it off.
An unreasonable part of me worried that he somehow thought I’d been drinking, and that nothing unusual had actually happened. But in fact, he had arrived just as the Vixens were making their retreat. My mind hadn’t quite comprehended that Lisa and Lucky were Vixens. They had seemed so nice and normal! We’d had them at our kitchen table countless times! How could Bethel not have known?
My mind swam with questions, but it was sort of like swimming through muck. Everything felt very slow, and I wasn’t able to process any of it quickly.
At least Quinn was there. His strong arms and sure steps made me feel as if everything would be all right.
Meanwhile, Ethel swore more than anyone I had ever met when she looked down at me. I was lying on something soft, so I was comfortable, but my sister’s face was mostly out of focus. I knew it was because my eyes weren’t opened properly, but there was nothing I could do about it. I didn’t have the strength to open them further.
I hoped Quinn would stay. So too for Ethel. And I hoped they wouldn’t attack each other.
Time was blurring, though, and I lost track of what was happening when.
A plump-faced doctor also visited and said I’d be fine. I was young and small-boned, which I didn’t think had anything to do with anything. The key point, though, was my recovery time would be brief.
Brief, I thought, until my grandmother filed me away in a cave, never to be seen again. Then I slept again and did not dream.
Light streamed in through the curtains. There was a weight on my bed, and when I cracked an eye open I saw Jackie smiling at me. “Morning sleepy head!”
I asked about the others. Ethel’s soothing voice informed me that everyone else was fine. Michael had insisted on going home, and the owls had gone with him. Kelly’s parents had come and taken her home, and Lowe was at the hospital but was also going to be fine. The unicorns, the cats, and the rest were all gathered together discussing the battle and what it meant. Spunk had been sorely tempted to follow the Vixens, but Tiger had batted him over the head and forced him to stick around at home. Spunk had not been pleased.
I heard all of this while I dozed in and out of consciousness. I didn’t want to sleep, but my body overruled me. The stress of fighting the Vixens had been too much.
Soft voices spoke in the background most of the time, and I was grateful for a lamp on in the corner. I didn’t want to be in the dark.
Bethel would be home soon. No one had said so, but no one needed to clarify such things. Grandmother Rhinestone was coming. Of that much I was certain.
“You’re awake again,” Jackie said, still sitting on the edge of the bed, smiling. She was dressed for work, her face scrubbed clean and her cheeks pink.
“I guess so,” I rasped. My throat felt like it was filled with desert sand.
Jackie was looking down at me, her face filled with concern. “My mom heard what happened. She ordered me not to come here, so of course I came right over. Are you all right? Can you drink some water?” She held out a glass.
“I might be out of it, but that water is purple,” I pointed out. My voice sounded scratchy and my head felt fuzzy.
Jackie grinned. “I added some of my mom’s herbs to it. She was once a practicing witch. My dad tried to tell me she was pretty good, but I didn’t believe him.”
I smiled weakly at my friend. It was good to see her and to know that everything was okay.
“What happened? And how are the others?” I asked, a sudden stab of worry piercing me now that I was becoming more clear-headed. I knew I had been given a report already,
but I wanted the comfort of hearing it again.
“They’re fine,” she hastened to assure me. “Michael was furious at the suggestion that he wasn’t fine. He demanded to know what was in the food we’d given him to eat at home. We were just trying to help him out, but he saw it as an attack on his safety and freedom. Ranted about the reasons why he grew his own vegetables instead of eating somebody else’s. We assured him that we hadn’t given him anything poisoned. He relaxed when Kelly told him it was all okay.”
“What about Lowe?” I said.
Jackie grimaced. “She was the worst off. She’s going to be fine, but someone called Bethel. Unless I misunderstood the yelling, she was already on her way home.”
I had expected as much.
I grimaced. Lowe was going to be okay, but I knew it had been a near thing. I never would have forgiven myself if something had happened to my cousin.
“There’s a visitor here to see you,” she added. She leaned away from me to reveal Quinn, framed in the doorway. He had dressed in his sheriff’s uniform. His blue eyes were storming.
“I’ll leave you two alone,” said Jackie. She got up and hurried away.
Quinn got out of the way so she could leave, then moved slowly into the room, his limp a bit more pronounced than usual. I expected him to come sit on the bed, but since he didn’t, I sat up and scooted backward so that at least I didn’t look so pathetic. I did a quick mental tally and decided that I must look horrible. Involuntarily my hand reached up to smooth my hair, but I knew it was futile. Sometimes I put enough hair spray in my hair to keep the strands in prison, but they always broke out.
For a long time Quinn was quiet. While I waited for him to say something, I glanced around my room and saw that nothing had changed, a small comfort after the events of the night.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” he said. “If I had known . . .”
I saw him swallow, and knew that once again he thought that all of this was his fault. I wanted to assure him that it wasn’t, but all the words died in my throat.
“I’m okay. We’re all okay,” was all I said.
“Might not be after Bethel gets her hands on us. We should enjoy these last few hours of being able to walk,” said Quinn.
I couldn’t really tell if he was kidding. A blanket of concern and sadness hung over him that I wished I could wash away.
“True,” I said, with the slightest of smiles at the thought of Bethel.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t faster. I’m sorry I wasn’t a better sheriff,” Quinn said, hanging his head.
I reached out for him. He looked at my hand and I could see the guilt shining in his eyes. It nearly killed me that he thought any of this was his fault.
“I insisted on snooping,” I reminded him. “I don’t think that’s going to change.”
“I don’t want to it to change,” he said quickly. “I mean, I’ve wished that you’d pick a safer hobby, like jousting or volcano jumping, but I wouldn’t want you to change for all the world.”
Sometime when we didn’t have so much else to discuss, I intended to ask him what exactly volcano jumping was. Today was not that day. He looked so sincere, it broke my heart. To find a good man was hard enough, especially when crazies like my stepsister Bailey took one for herself. To find a good man who didn’t want to change my craziest traits was unheard of. I guess it just took him being half fish to work. No, I was never going to let him hear me call him that.
He was staring at me. “What?” I asked, feeling self-conscious again.
“I see all the words racing behind your eyes. Don’t suppose you want to share any of those thoughts?” He was smiling just enough now so that I knew he was teasing me.
I blushed and looked down at my lap.
“No, definitely not,” I said.
“If you aren’t careful with this snooping thing, I just might deputize you,” he said.
Now I looked up at him in surprise. Tat thought had never occurred to me. I didn’t even know it was a thing.
“Could you then tell me stuff that you can’t tell me now?” I asked breathlessly.
He rolled his eyes. “Of course you’d go for that idea.”
“Just think it over. Don’t make any hasty decisions,” I told him.
“Okay, I won’t,” he said.
“Also, will you sit down already? I’m tired and you’re making my neck hurt!” I informed him.
He reluctantly came and sat on the edge of the bed, leaving plenty of space between us. Sometimes his gentlemanliness was great. Then there were the times when I wished he’d ease up a bit.
Or maybe I was just grumpy after our ordeal.
“What would you like to know?” he sighed.
“What happened? Where have you been?”
“I’ve been giving a report to the Twinkleford Planning Board. They run the town and are in charge of hiring and firing the sheriff,” he said.
My heart squeezed. “They don’t want to fire you, do they?”
“They most definitely do not. The trouble they would have filling the position after the Vixen attacks would drive them crazy. Joy certainly wouldn’t take on that role, or that task. But they did want an explanation. We might have to go before a judge.”
I thought of the purple velvet courtroom and nearly smiled. “Okay, so you told them who the Vixens were?”
Now Quinn’s face looked grim. “No one saw who they were but you. Do you mean to tell me you know who the Vixens are?”
Now he was alert, instantly back in investigative mode. If I hadn’t given him an extra glare he might have stood up right then and started pacing. Though admittedly, because of his limp I rarely saw him do that.
I swallowed hard. “I was the only one who saw?”
“Yes, Lowe was unconscious. Michael was helping Kelly because she’d gotten injured. Even the cats didn’t see.
“I only saw one of their faces,” I murmured. My heart was suddenly hammering in my chest. He didn’t know.
Quinn was on the edge of his seat.
“Lisa,” I whispered.
Shock registered in Quinn’s eyes, then a furious grimace flashed over his face. “Are you serious?” he cried. “That explains why they haven’t been at home! We’ve been knocking and knocking. I was worried that the Vixens had attacked them, too. When we had a spare moment we were going to go into the house and make sure they were okay. Joy reasoned that they probably were, because the house didn’t appear to be broken into. I don’t suppose it would be if they were Vixens themselves.”
It was clear as day that if Lisa was a Vixen, then Lucky was as well. My heart had sunk terribly low since I realized the truth of it. Having to relay it to someone else who had liked them gave me no pleasure.
Quinn went still. “Tell me everything,” he said. “Then I’ll tell you, although I may have to leave partway through. We can put out a search party to look for Lisa and Lucky and the others, although I don’t suppose we’ll have any luck tracking them down. They must have known they’d be discovered eventually. They probably planned for it.”
I told him what had happened, starting with the trolley company visit. He frowned at me when I admitted that we’d broken in. I gave him a look that said that my breaking one little law was really the least of our problems right now. Luckily he agreed with me.
He was most interested in the fact that there were five Vixens. He also was not pleased that I hadn’t called him sooner.
“The sooner you call, the sooner I can come . . .” he said with irritation.
“Right. Sorry,” I muttered.
“So, Lisa and Lucky aren’t the only ones. We knew that anyway. There were three at the hospital that time,” he said.
“Right. I think I also know where Sammy hid the stuff she stole from them,” I said.
“Sammy decided to steal from the Vixens?” Quinn said it as if he found the idea inconceivable.
“Maybe she didn’t know how bad they were,” I said.
“So s
he didn’t leave the stuff with the unicorns?” he asked.
“No, but she did leave it with a unicorn. Of sorts,” I said.
Quinn looked at me with total confusion.
I smiled.
Cracker was perched on the fence that surrounded our front garden and Bethel was out there chatting to him, still in her traveling clothes. She glanced at Quinn and me when we came out of the cottage, a surprising lack of fury in her eyes. I hoped that wasn’t just because she was speaking with Cracker and not me.
“He was magnificent against the Vixens,” I said. “All the owls were.”
The owl puffed out his feathers. He liked being called magnificent. As we had found out, he also liked a good fight.
Bethel smiled at him. “Tell Michael he’s welcome here any time. As are you. The unicorns were surprisingly pleased about your presence.”
The day was warmer than the last few had been, and standing in the sun warmed my face. I wobbled a bit and reached an arm out to Quinn.
“Hello,” I said to my grandmother. I suddenly felt shy, maybe because of the incredible relief I felt at her return. She was really there now, and everything was going to be okay.
“I’m afraid I can’t stay,” he said to Bethel, who turned to us after the bird took flight. “But Jade shared the identity of the Vixens with me.”
Bethel turned to look at our neighbors’ dark and empty house, her expression grim. “A shame,” was all she said.
She and I looked at each other for a long moment. I was so relieved to see her that I felt tears well up in my eyes. She wrapped her arms around me in a fierce hug. When we finally broke apart she whispered in my ear, “You are everything I could ever want in a granddaughter, and so much more. Don’t let it go to your head.”
I gave a watery laugh and swiped at my cheeks.
“I hope you’ll tell me everything I’ve missed. As soon as I leave town, things sure pick up around here,” she said.
“Maybe that isn’t an accident,” said Quinn.
She glanced at him sharply, but the look was quickly gone. “You can’t possibly be saying that little old me keeps Twinkleford in check?”
The Rhinestone Witches Omnibus: Books 1-3 Page 66