Which Witchery Is That? Read online

  “Used magic?” I questioned, grinning. “Your boys are witches too?”

  She shrugged. “Theoretically. But they’re too lazy and entitled to work on their craft. They mostly just fling it around to open and close doors and change the channel on the TV, because goddess forbid they should walk to a door or punch a button on the remote control with their actual fingers.”

  “They’re not that bad, Willy,” Bev said, laughing. “They just like to tweak you.”

  Willy gave me a wink.

  Mavis smacked Bev’s hand as she reached for her third cheese pastry. “Wait until you taste the food,” she told Willy. “You might never go home.”

  Willy waggled her brows. “All I need is a sleeping bag on the floor, Aggy. You won’t even know I’m here.”

  Everyone except a tall, gray-haired woman with a long face and pinched features laughed. When she saw me looking at her, the woman stepped forward, offering me her hand and a stiff bow of her head “Madam Lares. I’m Dell Rivers. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

  “Nice to meet you, Dell.”

  While we were setting up the food, Mavis had given me a quick rundown on the three coven members I hadn’t met. She’d labeled Dell, the witch from Chicago, as the hard sell on any issue. I could see it in the woman’s stiff posture… the tightness of her features…and the way her blue eyes glinted with instinctive irritation.

  Dell’s lips tightened as if she wanted to set me straight on something, but I smiled and turned to the woman I hadn’t been introduced to, taking away the older woman’s chance to rain on my parade. “Hi,” I said to the woman with flashing brown eyes and smooth brown skin. “You must be Pietra.”

  Pietra, pronounced pie-tra according to Mavis, gave me a cocky smile. “What gave me away,” she asked, winking. “My stunning good looks, or the giant ‘P’ on my necklace?”

  I laughed, liking the tiny woman immediately. “What giant P?” I said, grinning back. The chain of her necklace was as big around as my little finger and appeared to be white gold. The “P” pendant had to be two inches long. Hard to miss. “I love it, by the way. I need one that says ML.”

  Her laugh was husky. It shook her entire body, her brown eyes sparkling with good humor. In spite of her diminutive size─I judged her to be around five feet tall─everything about Pietra was larger than life. Her lush figure only added to that impression.

  “Trish will be here shortly,” Bev said. “She was at the hardware store picking up more trim material when I called.”

  I nodded, motioning toward the food. “Let’s eat and drink wine while we talk about how to find Wanda.” All humor fled me as I reset myself to the reason we’d gathered there.

  I poured wine as everybody tucked into the pretty spread Mavis had laid out. Dell preferred coffee to wine, so Mavis took care of brewing her a cup.

  I had just poured myself a glass of wine when the back door opened, and we all turned to find a white-faced Layla standing there.

  “Hey,” I said to her. “Layla, these are my friends. They’re going to help us find Wanda.” I looked around the group. “Ladies, this is Layla. She’s staying with me for a while.”

  Mavis’s expression showed shock, and I realized I hadn’t told her about Layla. My bad. I was surprised Bev hadn’t told her, though. Throwing Mavis an apologetic look, I whispered, “I’ll explain later.”

  She didn’t acknowledge my promise, too caught up in staring at the lost princess.

  “May I speak to you in private?” Layla asked me.

  I nodded. “Of course.”

  Layla returned outside, and I followed her. She didn’t stop at the patio but kept walking until we were ten yards from the house.

  I sent her a questioning look when she finally stopped. “Sorry, Aggy. I didn’t want the others to hear what I’m about to say to you.”

  “That’s okay. What’s up?”

  “My people have found something you need to know about.”

  I tensed, trying to keep panic off my face. If they’d managed to get hold of the white horse, we were going to have a problem. “What did they find?”

  “Matthew has identified a magical aura hanging over your belfry.”

  I glanced up and saw no aura. Even when I bled energy into my gaze, the belfry looked perfectly normal to me. “I don’t see it.”

  “You wouldn’t, Aggy. My people are good at cloaking their magic from others. But we can’t hide it from each other.”

  I let her words sink deep for a moment. Then asked, “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that a demon of some kind has recently used magic in your belfry.”

  I stood on the small landing of the belfry staircase, which was located three steps down from the top, where the stairs turned. I’d locked Monty in my bedroom to keep him out of trouble and I could hear his angry barking from below.

  The belfry floor was about ten feet square, but the bell and its support structure ate up most of the space, leaving about a three-foot-wide space all around. There wasn’t a lot of room for the five witches to move around. When we’d first arrived, they’d asked me to describe where I’d seen the vision of Wanda. I’d described it as best I could and then stepped back out of the way.

  What followed was a lively discussion over how best to prepare the area for their tracking spell. They’d quickly dismissed the usual practice of purifying the area in preparation for the new spell. They needed the lingering residue of the curse to track Wanda.

  Dell was negative about their chances of making the spell work.

  Willy was trying to be hopeful, but I could tell she didn’t really believe they’d be successful.

  Pietra was just happy to be there.

  Despite the worry tightening my gut, I had to smile at the witch’s happy demeanor and positive attitude.

  Bev and Mavis were taskmasters, keeping everyone moving forward while trying to squelch some of Dell’s negativity. Judging by the looks they kept throwing me, I suspected that was more an attempt to keep me from assuming the fetal position than anything else.

  I squared my shoulders and did my best to paste a neutral expression onto my face. I had faith in Bev and Mavis. And if they believed in the others, then I would too.

  Layla’s warning ate into my enforced confidence, laying it to waste. A demon? In my belfry? Curse, curse, swear! Wasn’t it bad enough I had a bat in my belfry?

  Our first challenge for the spell had been trying to find something of Wanda’s they could use in the spell. That gave me a few panicked moments because Wanda had never left anything at the church. As far as I knew, she’d never so much as used the restroom.

  Ray showed up and landed on the window sill. Dancing sideways, the goofy raven kept fluttering his wings as his beady black gaze spanned the room and all the faces in it.

  “That’s Ray,” I told the witches. They all looked from him to me like I was madder than the Mad Hatter. I cleared my throat and looked at the raven. “What’s up, Ray?”

  He danced sideways, his feathers rippling into tidiness, and opened his beak. “Caw!”

  Okay. That wasn’t very helpful. “We’re kind of busy here, Ray.”

  He lowered his head and pecked at the sill like a chicken.

  We all frowned. I sighed, moving in his direction. “Ray, we need to get this going. We’re trying to find Wanda.”

  The big bird clacked his beak and pecked at the sill again. I watched him, wondering if he’d damaged his tiny bird brain.

  That was when I saw it. “Hair!” I exclaimed, startling Ray into the air. He cawed explosively and then landed again, strutting from one end of the sill to the other with an indignant, pigeon-like swagger. “Pee!”

  “Sorry,” I murmured, flushing with embarrassment. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “Did he say pee?” Pietra asked, then doubled over in a belly laugh when Bev nodded. “Hi-larious!”

  I carefully tugged the strands of straight black hair from where
they’d gotten caught in a shard of splintered wood, holding them up for the coven to see. “This is hers. This is Wanda’s hair.”

  “You’re sure?” Dell said, her lips pursing.

  “I’m positive.”

  Mavis carefully extracted it from my fingers. “This will work nicely. Thanks, honey.”

  “Don’t thank me,” I responded with a grin. “Thank Ray.”

  Mavis snorted. “Not a chance.”

  Ray’s wings flapped, and he cast his beady gaze on Mavis. “Rude!”

  Pietra and Willy lost it, doubling over with laughter.

  Ignoring them, Mavis dropped the hair into a wide, shallow bowl and settled it on top of the bell.

  After several minutes of discussion, the witches got down to business. I stood back and watched, my eyes like saucers at the sight of five powerful witches arrayed around the bell, hands up and fingers moving to create a spell on the air. Five different colored webs formed in front of them, created from five different styles of weave. And five voices, soft and murmuring, chanted words I didn’t understand.

  The air changed in the belfry. I felt the touch of strange magic, and all the hair along my arms rose up as the magic tasted the air around me. Five different scents infused the belfry.

  The sweet scent of roses. The meaty smell of rich earth. The delicate flavor of lavender flowers. The spicy bite of cinnamon. The clean scent of pine. The air was rich with a chaos of aromas that fought against each other rather than merge.

  The door at the bottom of the stairs opened and softly closed. I looked down to find Trish hurrying up the steps, an apology on her face. “Sorry,” she whispered to me. “My stupid car broke down, and I had to bum a ride from Luke.”

  I touched her shoulder and nodded toward the witches. “They just got started.”

  Trish moved into the belfry, surprising me by popping into her warrior form and flying to the bell. She hovered there, the center of a magical wheel with five spokes reaching toward the center.

  Trish raised her small staff and energy spun away from it, surrounding her as she flew in a circle to complete the magical sphere.

  The witches stopped chanting and lifted their hands above their heads, a moment fraught with tension stretching between them. Then, on a silent command of some kind, they all clapped their hands at the same time and barked out a single word, “Invenire!”

  Five strands of magic shot toward Trish’s energy circle, five spells burst into mist and flowed toward the center, mingling and fusing into a single wash of pale gray that obscured everything beneath its touch.

  Five gazes rose to Trish. She nodded and pointed her staff toward the bowl beneath her. “Invenire!”

  Flames rose from the bowl, tall tongues of fire licking the magic-drenched air. The individual magics expanded, pulsed several times like a beating heart, and then everything seemed to gather up into a single entity, a slender curve of magic that hung motionless beneath the bowl for a beat and then blew outward, dousing us in the scents, colors, and energy of the combined magics.

  The world stilled for a moment, seconds taut with expectation and hope, and then something amazing happened.

  7

  A Hidey Hole, A Hidden Life

  The apartment was small, barely larger than my kitchen. It was tidy, but it had the busy feel of a room with too much furniture. Everything appeared well-worn and comfortable. Within the tiny space were the bare bones of a kitchen…a sink, a small refrigerator, and a stove. A twin-sized bed, mounded with blankets, was pushed against the far wall, and there was a closet-sized bathroom that I could see through a doorway across the room.

  “A studio apartment,” I said to no one in particular.

  Through a narrow window over the kitchen sink, I saw the spires of Saint Paul church on the southern edge of town.

  Behind the church, a crescent moon hung in the sky. I remembered that moon. It had hung over the belfry the night before. Was that when Wanda had been taken?

  Someone gasped, and I sharpened my attention on the vision in front of me. The covers on the small bed shifted, bunched. A dark head rose from the tangle of covers. A pale face shone through the moonlit darkness.

  Wanda!

  Her eyes were wide with horror as she stared toward something across the room. She scrambled upward, head shaking and mouth moving in silent denial.

  Without warning, her gaze slid to me and she screamed.

  Aggy! Please! You need to help…ahhhhhhhh!

  “Wanda!” I reached out, but the apartment disappeared, Wanda’s scream fading into silence. I sagged downward, blinking rapidly as tears burned my eyes. The world returned in a wave of painful clarity that dropped me back into the belfry, surrounded by concerned faces.

  Sadness swamped me, and I felt myself slam down onto a hard surface. The reality I’d returned to was still missing one lonely, scared teen.

  I looked up into the circle of faces hovering around me. “What…” I swallowed a dry-as-dust lump in my throat, coughing as it choked me. I was lying on the belfry floor, looking up at the coven. “What happened?”

  “You were in some kind of trance,” Bev said, her face tight with worry. “You said Wanda’s name. Did you see her?”

  I nodded, pain searing through me at the memory.

  “We found where she lives,” Mavis said, squeezing my hand.

  I looked at our clasped hands, feeling her touch for the first time since coming out of my stupor. I squeezed back, hope warring with fear for Wanda’s safety. “She was so scared,” I told Mavis, hot tears bathing my cheeks.

  “Did you see who took her?” a sharp, cool voice asked.

  I looked up into the face of the woman standing behind Mavis. Dell. The older woman’s cold, business-like eyes left no room for sentimentality.

  Shaking my head, I sniffed and sat up. “No. But I recognized Saint Paul church and the moon from last night. I saw Wanda just before she was taken.”

  Trish offered me a hand up and I took it, letting her help me stand. She gave my hand a squeeze before dropping it. “Let’s go.”

  Even bathed in the dying light of dusk, the old Victorian home showed its advanced age. Its lines were softer than they should have been. Its skirts sagged under chipping paint. The yard was overgrown, sporting more weeds than grass, and held enough toys to tell me at least one young family lived there. The bank of pocked brass mailboxes I could see through the locked front door told me that lots of people lived in the large house. From the curb, the two windows on the uppermost floor had looked like the too-wide gaze of a silent movie star, playing to a fascinated crowd.

  The old girl had seen better days, but she still served a purpose.

  At that moment, her main purpose was to give me insight into what had happened to Wanda. Eyeing the slender beam of pale gray magic leading us to the topmost window in the peak of the structure, I considered the next barrier to that goal. “How do we get inside?” I glanced around at my posse of witches, wondering if any of them knew a spell to unlock the door.

  Pietra gave me a wink and sashayed to the bank of call-buttons on the short wall next to the door. She started pushing buttons, getting a response after the fourth one. “Yeah?”

  “Hey, doll,” Pietra said in an accent that reminded me of someone born and raised in Jersey. My imagination didn’t have to work hard to see her with big hair, wearing form-fitting capris and high heels, while blowing bubbles with her gum. “How’s it goin’? I got a large pepperoni pizza here with your name on it.”

  A bell buzzed, and Pietra grabbed the handle, pulling it open. I bumped knuckles with her as I moved past into the foyer. Pietra made a little explosion sound and flared her fingers after the knuckle bump.

  Behind me, Willy said, “Now I want pepperoni pizza.”

  Pietra’s laugh was bubbly. “We’ll get some later, doll.”

  Ignoring the banter behind me, I hurried up the first set of stairs, then the second, and the third, which ended at a single door. The window
less landing was dark, the walls scarred and painted a dark green that only exacerbated the lack of light. A single fixture in the ceiling gave off weak yellow light through a dirty dome that was filled with dead bugs.

  I grimaced, thinking about Wanda spending her time there. Bev came up behind me. “Have you knocked?”

  I shook my head, fear locking me in place. What if Wanda was in that apartment? What if she was… I swallowed the lump in my throat, swiping damp palms over my jeans.

  Bev reached past me and knocked.

  We stared at the heavy oak door for a moment. Nothing moved behind it. No sounds filtered into the hallway.

  The group on the stairs behind me was silent, their presence somehow creating extra tension in my chest. I started to second-guess bringing the coven with me, but shoved the thought away. If there was any magic residue in the apartment, they’d told me they might be able to read it. Knowing what type of magic was used could lead us to her abductor. It could help us find Wanda.

  Bev tried the knob, and it turned. The door opened.

  A chorus of horrific screams filled the tiny landing and a flock of creatures shot out of the apartment, knocking me to my butt as they twisted and thrashed around us. The things were shrieking as if their tails were on fire. They darted and hurtled and spun, shooting between us and charging at our heads. Their screams were painful, causing us to cover our ears in self-defense. They were like those fireworks that blasted, winding and shrieking, into the sky and then exploded into shards of light and brilliant color.

  Cold slime from the creatures dripped onto my cheek, splashed against my back, and splatted against the wood floor all around us. The slime was like dry ice, burning everything it touched.

  I was dimly aware of the coven screaming as they hit the ground, and of lots of activity that bespoke frantic backtracking down the stairs.

  The noise was horrible. Beneath the effort I was making to understand what was attacking us, I nursed a fear that one of the other residents in the house…maybe one of the children who belonged to the toys in the yard…would come up to investigate and get hurt.