Wizard in a Witchy World Read online

  "We were only there for five minutes before the dogs showed up. That wasn't enough time for Jeffery to call. They were following us," I said. "I hope he got out of there okay."

  "Drop you at your apartment?" she asked.

  She didn’t get it. "You think this is over?" I asked. "Gabriella, they'll find you. We barely escaped with our lives."

  "I have an appointment. I'll be safe," she said.

  "An appointment? It's Sunday, what kind of…" Then it hit me. "No. You've got to be kidding."

  "I'm really sorry, Felix. What happened in your apartment was a mistake. I shouldn't have let it go that far," she said.

  "Boyfriend?"

  She nodded.

  "Shit, Gabriella. That’s cold," I said.

  I got another of those pitying looks. "It's not like that. I messed up. I just really need your help finding Clarita."

  "Which is it? You messed up or you need help finding Clarita? From where I'm sitting, it feels like you're using me."

  "What do you want me to say? They're killing my family," she said.

  "This guy, is he going to keep you safe from lycan?"

  "I'll be fine. He lives in a high security building. I'm really sorry. I didn't mean for things to go like this," she said as she turned into the gravel drive in front of Mrs. Willoughby's garage.

  I opened the door and swung my legs out, brushing broken glass from my lap. "Screw off, Red." I slammed the door behind me. It didn't exactly have the effect I was looking for as the window was missing, so she still had the ability to talk at me as I stalked up to the garage.

  "I'm sorry, Felix," she called.

  I pulled the overhead door up and slipped under it, allowing it to slide down behind me. "Whatever."

  I knew it'd been too good to be true. Gorgeous women like Gabriella – strike that – Red, didn't ordinarily pay attention to loner types like me. I sighed, annoyed with my hubris. I shook my head and switched gears. A little girl was missing and if I could do anything about it, I would.

  The first order of business was to recharge my jewelry. If Shaggy pulled up right now, things could get ugly. I was surprised that Gabriella - Red - was treating the attack so cavalierly. There was no reason to think the werewolf was tailing me and every reason to think he was after her. Yet, there she was, running off to the symphony with Mr. Perfect. I hated the bastard already. I needed to let go of my anger, but I was struggling.

  I breathed in deeply and released slowly, closing my eyes in an attempt to focus. I pulled out a gnarled walking stick I sometimes used when hiking in the Appalachians and with its foot, drew a wide circle in the dirt of my lab. I took my jewelry off, laying it to one side of the circle.

  From my shelves, I pulled a can of gypsum and spread the white powder liberally in the trench I'd drawn with the staff. Gypsum, most commonly found in drywall, was a great catalyst for my spell circle. Its fine powder bonded well with the ground.

  "Sphaera," I said, after stepping over the white border. The translucent barrier popped up around me as I sat, crossing my legs and assuming a classic lotus position. For me, meditation was a critical recovery tool and sitting in the middle of a spell circle was a great way to guarantee I wouldn't be interrupted.

  My thoughts flicked back to Gabriella and I pushed them away. The attack at the morgue took another forceful push, but my mind refused to quiet. Images of Victoria Barrios slumped at her front door and thoughts of Clarita being kidnapped jumped to the forefront. I pushed away the distractions and dropped into a deeper meditation. Finally, my spirit relaxed and my connection with the earth strengthened. An hour later, I opened my eyes, recharged.

  "Finis." I dropped the circle and stood, stretching stiff legs.

  The trip to the morgue hadn't been a complete waste. My current theory was that Shaggy was either holding Clarita or worked for whoever was. Either way, he knew where she was. I slipped my jeans off and laid them out on the granite slab, inspecting the right leg where I'd kicked Shaggy. The dark blood stain stood out on the worn fabric. I'd like to say I'd kicked him when he was down just to collect the blood, but that would have only been partially true.

  I folded the fabric of the jeans, laid them across my copper pot and looked beneath the counter. The chemist's wash bottle was right where I'd left it, next to my griffin beakers. The police had either missed these or dismissed them as uninteresting. Not having ready access to running water in the lab was one of my only complaints about the space. I'd solved the problem by stocking glass jugs of spring water, one of which I pulled out, partially filling the wash bottle.

  A spray of water across the bloody crease in my jeans yielded a satisfying pink stream into my cauldron and I adjusted the jeans to collect as much blood as possible. In the end, I collected half a cup of the pink-tinged spring water. I separated the fluid into three specimen jars, complete with runic inscriptions and a preservation enchantment on two of them. The third I'd be using more immediately.

  The next problem I needed to solve, however, was that of storage. The last batch of Lozano's blood and what I'd hoped was Shaggy's had been lost to an ill-timed search warrant. The niggling question in the back of my head was whether the missing samples had been the real reason for the search. Other items in the lab had been broken or destroyed, but not much else had been taken. I was going to do my best to make sure these samples were around when I needed them. The protection enchantment I wanted to use on the extra jars required a chameleon's tail, something I didn’t have. For now, I placed one of the jars on my shelf and hid the other in the garage's open attic, atop a piece of well-weathered plywood.

  I placed my spell book next to the cauldron. I remembered most of the steps for the locater enchantment, but I'd ruin my blood sample if I missed a step so I set about scraping, cutting and powdering the components I needed. I was missing two ingredients and as I worked I considered how I might get them. The answer was as close as Mrs. Willoughby.

  Leaving the burner on low heat, I ducked beneath the garage's overhead door. It was only five thirty, so I wasn't worried that she might be asleep as I knocked on her back door. The smell of fresh baked bread and the sound of a loud T.V. reassured me of her presence. It took several tries before she finally answered the back door.

  "Felix. I wasn't expecting any company tonight," she said. "Come in, come in." She stepped back into her kitchen and looked up at me expectantly.

  "Hi, Mrs. Willoughby. I'm sorry to bother you, but I have a splinter and was hoping you would have a needle I could use to remove it," I lied.

  "Oh, dear. I'm afraid my eyes aren't as good as they used to be, but I can try," she said.

  "No, no. I can do it, but it's in there good. I just don't have a needle."

  She walked to the kitchen counter and pulled open a stubborn drawer. "Yes, I've one right here. Are you sure you don't want me to give it a try?" She held out a needle in her shaky hand. I noticed she had an abrasion on the back side of her hand as I accepted.

  "What happened there?" I asked.

  "Oh that? Clumsy me. I touched the side of the oven," she said.

  "It looks painful."

  "It will heal," she said. "When you get as old as me, you learn to accept life's small setbacks."

  Her statement made me feel guilty for being one of her life setbacks.

  "I've a cream that would make that feel better. Would you mind if I got it for you?" I asked.

  "I put butter on it, but all that does is get the attention of Chelsea," she said. As if on cue, a gorgeous black cat nimbly jumped onto the counter and stared at me through green eyes.

  I frowned. Old wives’ tales were rarely helpful. "I don't think butter is the right thing. Hold on, I'll be right back."

  "Door will be open, dear. Just come on in," she said, sitting down at her kitchen table.

  I pushed the needle into my shirt like I was pinning on a flower and ran up to my apartment. Mrs. Willoughby was a frail old woman and it made me sad to think she didn't have anyone loo
king after her. I scraped a few applications of the salve Judy taught me to make into a container with a clean wooden tongue depressor. Growing up with a big-hearted witch had impressed upon me the value of helping others. The kid in me wished that somehow Judy would know I was helping Mrs. Willoughby.

  I knocked on Mrs. Willoughby's door and pushed it open.

  "Hello. I'm back," I said loudly. She'd invited me, but I felt a little weird walking into her house, unannounced.

  Mrs. Willoughby was petting Chelsea, who was sitting comfortably in her lap at the kitchen table.

  "Have you had dinner, Felix?" she asked.

  "Not yet, Mrs. Willoughby," I said, sitting down at the kitchen table next to her. "I'll probably have something simple in my apartment."

  "Nonsense, I just made fresh bread. It's cheating, really. I used my bread maker. It's not as good as I used to make, but it's close," she said.

  "Could I see your hand?" I asked.

  "You needn't bother, Felix," she said.

  "That wasn't how I was raised and you really shouldn't put butter on a burn," I reprimanded lightly.

  She nudged Chelsea from her lap and laid her hand on the table between us. Her thin skin made the burn appear worse than it was.

  "I'm going to put a bandage over this, we shouldn't let Chelsea lick it. I don't think the salve would be harmful to her, but you never know," I said.

  I placed the small container on the table, dipped my finger into the greenish mixture, dabbed it onto the open sore and covered it with the bandage.

  "You've a healer's touch," she said.

  I smiled. "I'll leave this with you. Apply it every morning," I said as Chelsea jumped into my lap and thrust her face toward me. I'd been around enough cats to know she was inviting me to give her jaws a good scratching, so I obliged.

  "At least take a few cookies with you?" she asked.

  My stomach growled loudly in response. I didn't think she'd heard it, but the cookies sounded good.

  "That sounds good," I said.

  "There's a bag in the freezer, take the whole thing. I'll make more in the morning."

  "Are you sure?"

  "They're just cookies, Felix. Of course I am," she said.

  I wasn't turning down cookies twice, so I opened the freezer door and grabbed the bag, pulling a cookie out and offering it to her.

  "Not before dinner for me," she said.

  "Thank you, Mrs. Willoughby," I said.

  "Call me Katherine."

  "I'll check on you tomorrow to make sure that salve is working. Okay?" I asked.

  "As you wish," she said.

  By the time I'd walked the twenty feet to the garage, I'd already polished off two cookies. The bump in blood sugar was very welcome.

  Back in the lab, I pushed the needle through a wine cork I'd retrieved from my apartment. I picked several of Chelsea's black hairs from my shirt, dropped them into the cauldron and then poked my finger with the corked needle, spreading a few drops of blood on the end.

  I incanted "Inveniet" as I dropped the cork and bloody needle into the mixture. A puff of white smoke slowly escaped the cauldron. After pouring the enchanted liquid back into the specimen jar, I set it on the granite counter. As the contents settled, the cork rose to the top and the needle spun in a circle, finally coming to a rest. I'd become the proud owner of a one-of-a-kind Shaggy compass.

  The crunch of tires on gravel and the flash of headlights breaking through the small cracks of the overhead door alerted me to the arrival of a visitor. I quickly pulled my jewelry on and checked the Shaggy compass, which pointed northeast, and more importantly away from the driveway.

  Banging on the plywood preceded the sound of Joe Lozano's voice. "Slade. Open up, I know you're in there, I see your lights," he called out.

  "Just a minute."

  I turned off the burner, pushed my spell book under the counter, jammed a stopper into the jar containing the Shaggy compass, and stashed it in my pocket. I looked around for anything incriminating and didn't find it.

  At his insistent banging, I lifted the overhead door, ducked under and lowered it before Lozano could figure out I wasn’t moving the plywood on the side door. I didn’t want to give him a chance to enter the lab if I could help it.

  Lozano looked even worse than he had the day before. He stunk of booze, his eyes were bloodshot and he looked like he hadn't shaved for a week.

  "What's happening to me?" he asked, grabbing the lapel of the light coat I was wearing.

  "Joe. Stop. We can't talk out here," I said.

  "What?"

  "Have you talked to your grandmother?"

  "She's just a crazy old woman." The smell of alcohol wafted freshly across my nose.

  "Get in," I said, pushing him toward the passenger side of his black, four-door pickup.

  "You're not driving my rig," he said.

  "What? Things aren't bad enough? You want a D.U.I. on your record?"

  He grumbled something, but complied, opening the passenger side door. I climbed into the driver's seat and adjusted the seat back. He picked up a bottle of cheap whiskey from the center console and took a swig. "Want to get caught up?" he asked.

  I shook my head, started the truck, put it into reverse and turned around to look out the back window. A lump formed in my throat at the sight of two kid’s car seats.

  "Where does she live?" I asked, heading toward downtown.

  "You’re going in the right direction," he said. "Now talk."

  "How about we start by you telling me what you remember," I said.

  "No damn way," he said.

  "I'm going to take a guess. If I'm right, you have to tell me everything," I said, not waiting for him to agree. "Friday night you felt sick, probably didn't go to work. The next thing you remember is waking up, not in your house, naked, miles from home."

  "Who put you up to this?" he asked. "Did you do something to me?"

  "I'm not through. You had blood on your hands and fur or feathers in your mouth?"

  He pulled a gun from his waist and pointed it at me, tears running down his face.

  "What'd you do? I have a family," he said.

  "Put the gun away, Joe. I'm the least of your problems. I'll help you if I can, but I need you to tell me what you know. It's not safe for me to tell you some things," I said.

  "Safe? From what? We're in my truck."

  "Just tell me."

  "Yeah. It pretty much went like you said. I wasn't feeling good, so Jen slept in Sienna's room. I woke up in a ditch next to a corn field, naked. That's not the worst of it. I'd eaten an entire rabbit, guts and all. It was all there when I threw it up," he said. "You know how hard it is to get home when you're naked and ten miles from home?"

  "Sounds messed up," I agreed.

  He continued, talking in a far-away, monotone. "When I got home. I thought someone had broken into my house. The bedroom was torn up and my partner Sandy was still there talking with Jen. They thought I'd been abducted. I told them about waking up in the field."

  "What about last night?"

  "I didn't go home last night," he said.

  "Slept in the truck?"

  "I tried. I had a crazy dream."

  "Dream?" I asked.

  "I was running through fields, hunting," he said. "I had four legs."

  "You're wondering if it really was a dream, aren't you?"

  He didn't answer other than to take another long pull on the whiskey. We continued to drive for another twenty minutes, Joe giving terse directional changes until we pulled up to an old farmhouse on the edge of town.

  "Don't say I didn't warn you," he said as he jumped out, slamming the door behind him, stalking toward the back door of the dilapidated building. I got out and followed him.

  "Josepho. I asked myself who would be visiting Nanna so late in the evening," she said, grabbing his face in her hands. She was speaking a dialect of Spanish that I couldn't place, but her words were easy enough to understand. I chuckled at her refere
nce to the early hour. "And you've brought a friend. No? Come in."

  An invisible force stopped me from entering the home, holding me back. Initially, Joe and his grandmother didn't notice and I allowed my spirit to inspect the protection. It was nothing I'd ever come into contact with, but I could sense that unraveling it would not be particularly difficult. I also understood that I would alarm Joe's grandmother if I did.

  "What is this? You bring a brujo to my home?" she asked, stopping short and turning toward me.

  "Nanna. Felix is like you. He's no witch. He made me come here," Felix said.

  "You speak of things you do not understand. Be gone, brujo, or I will cast you to hell," she said. At least she said something close to that. The more excited she became, the fewer words I understood.

  I felt an updraft of wind behind me and the familiar sensation of Maggie's claws latching onto my shoulder as she folded her wings and landed.

  "Heya, Maggie," I said as she rubbed her beak against the side of my face. I'd always considered it a sign of affection, although it could just as easily have been her way of cleaning rotten meat from her beak.

  "Ancient one," Nanna said. "Welcome." She was clearly talking to Maggie, but her barrier dropped all the same. Maggie lifted from my shoulders as I took a step toward the door.

  "Come by tomorrow. I'll pick up meat," I called after her.

  "Caaw," she called back, but kept flying.

  "Sit, Josepho. You are sick, no?" she asked as we entered the well-lit kitchen. "Why have you come to Nanna?"

  "Tell her, Joe," I said.

  "Tell her what?"

  I slid the wide silver ring from my left ring finger. I held it out for Nanna to inspect, but didn't give it to her. She looked warily from the ring back to me.

  "Hold your hands out, Joe," I said.

  He shook his head, but made a cup with his hands and held them out anyway. I dropped my ring into his outstretched hands. For a moment, he let it rest there, but no more than twenty seconds later, he dropped the ring to the floor, shaking his hands out as if they had been burned.

  "Josepho, what is this about?" Nanna asked, leaning over to pick up the ring, turning it over in her hands.