No Chance in Spell Page 13

  Evian and Terra nodded in agreement, and Gran switched into storytelling mode, the card game forgotten, at least for the moment. That’s right, godmothers, ply her with wine and then get her to spill. Faeries are much more manipulative than people give them credit for, but my grandmother and my aunt had no clue about that particular nuance of their personalities. Or maybe they were just too many sheets to the wind to care.

  I chose to stay silent, because, well, I’m nosy.

  “Take your pick, ladies. I’ve got a million tales of botched spells and misdirected curses. I could tell you who’s a hoarder, and who’s a thief. I could tell you just how many witches like to pat themselves on the back for every random act of kindness—and the ones who congratulate themselves when they avoid a karmic kickback, no matter how temporarily. But I’m guessing your curiosities lie with the truly scandalous deeds tossed at my granite feet.”

  You’d have thought we were in the front row of a Tony award-winning Broadway play, all hunched shoulders leaning expectantly toward Clara, practically drooling on our shoes.

  While she took center stage and held court like a trained actress, all I could think was that if you could bottle charisma, it would have a photo of my grandmother on the label. She may not look a day over forty-five (and a well-preserved forty-five at that), but a couple of centuries was plenty of time to cultivate the air of je ne sais quoi most women only understand about five minutes after they’ve gone far enough over the hill it doesn’t matter anymore. And if you told her any of this, she’d laugh herself silly.

  By the time she wound down, I knew I’d never look at Lobelia Morningside the same way again. The woman had more notches on her bedpost than a comb had teeth.

  The last thing I remember was dancing around a roaring fire in the backyard—something I’d promised myself I’d never allow to happen again, but at least I was wearing clothes this time. Wedged between Soleil and Aunt Mag, I caught Gran’s eye across the flames as she, Terra, and Evian swayed to the beat of a Stevie Nicks song.

  I don’t think I can say it was a dream come true because when I was younger, any dream of my grandmother coming back from the dead would have qualified as a nightmare. Not once did I ever imagine I had a great aunt who kicked magical butt and I never considered sharing my godmothers with anyone.

  Someone wise once said the best things in life are the things you never imagined. Ain’t that the truth.

  Chapter Fifteen

  A HEAVY WEIGHT LAY on my chest as I fought my way toward consciousness and tried to take a full breath. Disoriented and confused, I reached for magic and pushed until the dull pressure was gone and my lungs filled with air.

  “What the hell, Lexi?”

  Kin’s annoyed exclamation punched through the last vestiges of sleep with a vengeance, and I popped my eyes open to find him balled up in the corner with Salem, a pink polka-dotted bean bag chair, and a tangle of sheets and blankets.

  “What happened? Did I do that? Are you all right?”

  I’m not a morning person on my best day, and not even waking up in the middle of an adrenaline rush was enough to poke my brain into full gear as I blinked and tried to make sense of what had happened. Kin’s presence in my bed was still a novelty for me, as he was my first real boyfriend and the only person to sleep over. Ever.

  My Twinkleberry-induced inebriation had caused a total blackout, and I didn’t even remember him showing up the previous evening, but I chose to keep that confession to myself.

  “I’m fine,” came the disgusted reply.

  “Speak for yourself.” Salem forgot to add clothing when he morphed from cat form to human. “You landed on top of me, you big oaf.” He grabbed the bean bag, tossed it back to its customary position at the foot of my bed, and started untangling Kin from the sheets.

  “Clothes, Salem. Please.”

  “Sorry.” He flashed back to cat form and then reappeared in a pair of pajama pants with Santa Claus all over them.

  “Cute jammies.” I tried to hold back a snort, but it sneaked out and twinned the one that came from Kin. I loved that we found the same things funny. Salem, however, was not amused.

  “I was going for silk boxers.”

  Ignoring that for the time being, I focused my attention on Kin and repeated, “What happened?”

  “It’s a bit of a blur. We were spooning.” Now it was Salem’s turn to snort. “And I remember giving you a little squeeze. Next thing I know, I’m shooting out of bed like it was a slide at an amusement park. You used magic on me in your sleep,” he accused.

  “I’m sorry. I...that’s never happened before. Is that normal, Salem?” He’d know better than I would since his magical experience was a whole lot more extensive than mine.

  “No, it’s not normal.” His voice sounded funny, and I looked back at him to see why. Rapidly alternating between cat and human form, Salem rotated through a different outfit each time.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, and he froze wearing nothing but a pair of black leather chaps and a look of consternation that told me he hadn’t been going for the Magic Mike cast member look.

  “Dude, seriously.” Kin tossed Salem the sheet to cover up with and then said to me, “We’re going to have to rethink our sleeping arrangements again.” We’d already moved Salem out of the bedroom once, but with Clara and Mag here, he’d returned the bean bag to his favorite spot in my room.

  “One catastrophe at a time, if you don’t mind.” It would take a gallon of brain bleach to wash that image out of my head. “Something feels off.” I took stock of my mental and physical selves. The flow of magic I’d come to rely on having at my command now hovered at the edge of my grasp. Like when you’re reaching for a jar on an upper shelf, and it scoots back just far enough that you can only touch it with the tips of your fingers. In the time it took to finish that thought, everything changed, and the power engulfed me hard enough to raise the hairs on the back of my neck.

  The smell of smoke beat the shrill alarm of the detector to my room by half a second. Salem reacted fastest and disappeared out the door just ahead of Kin. I suppose their manly need to fix the problem outweighed any instinct to see the womenfolk to safety. Not that I needed any help, mind you, it was merely an observation on their behavior.

  “Thanks for leaving me to burn,” I muttered.

  I hit the bottom of the stairs right behind Kin and peeled off toward the parlor to check on the Balefire. Flames danced merrily behind the andirons with no sign of a disturbance. Shouts drew me toward the kitchen where the rest of my family members were busy trying to direct the smoke cloud out the patio doors using towels, a plate, a flattened cereal box, and a large palm frond. Perched on a chair, Terra smothered the shrieking alarm with a flower-covered tea cozy, but the thing kept whistling merrily despite her efforts.

  “Did a bomb go off in here?” I grabbed the first thing I could lay my hands on to help with clearing the room and wondered why the faeries hadn’t used their magic to take care of the problem.

  Stepping off the chair, Terra opened a lower cabinet drawer, pulled out a hammer, climbed back up, then bashed the smoke alarm to bits with a grin of satisfaction.

  “Soleil burned breakfast,” Vaeta supplied, having apparently returned sometime during the wee hours of the morning. “Maybe she has a hangover from your little party last night.” I detected a hint of hurt at the thought of us having a good time without her, but I still wasn’t ready to discuss the subject.

  “It wasn’t my fault. Everything was going fine like always, and then something happened, and I lost control of my magic. Next thing I know, the pancakes are flash charred, and the pan of bacon goes up like a mushroom cloud. There’s smoke everywhere, and my eyes are watering. Vaeta tried to blow the smoke outside, but her air only fed the flames and just when Evian tried to douse the kitchen with water, the magic dipped to almost nothing and...”

  Soaking wet, Evian pressed her lips into a straight line and turned eyes gone the deep blue of
a storming sea up toward the ceiling in an exaggerated roll.

  “...that didn’t work, and then the alarm went off, and you saw the rest.”

  “The Balefire’s acting up again,” Mag followed Clara in through the open patio doors, and I wondered if they’d passed out in the yard the night before. Twigs twined through Clara’s hair, a coating of dust turning the deep chestnut to a dull gray that nearly matched the pallor of her face.

  By contrast, Mag’s flushed features appeared unnaturally red. Yet, neither of them looked the least bit hung over. Not fair, considering my head was pounding to the rhythm of a djembe drum.

  “I know, but why is it affecting Fae? I thought only witches draw on the power of the flame.”

  Shamefaced, Terra stepped down from the chair and sat on it with a thump. “That’s how it’s supposed to work, but when you didn’t Awaken, we had to align our magic with yours to help keep the Balefire alive, and now we’re tied to it.”

  “Permanently?” That would partly explain the meltdown when my mother had returned, and the faeries thought they were going to be evicted.

  “Not entirely.” Between her tone and her shuttered expression, I could tell Terra didn’t want to explain, so I let the subject drop. We had bigger problems at the moment.

  “This,” Clara waved a hand to indicate the kitchen and confirmed my suspicions, “is nothing.” She snatched the remote off the table and turned on the television with a frustrated gesture. “I’ve been recording the news ever since Tansy went missing.” She pulled up the early morning edition and fast forwarded through the national news to get to the local report.

  A clip of the wicked witch flying through the skies of Oz played behind the announcer, a perky blond with even teeth who described a similar sighting over Port Harbor in the affected rhythm adopted by news personnel to sound more convincing.

  “It looks like Halloween has come a bit early this year, folks, as we investigate a citizens report of a witch—yes, that’s right, a witch—flying over the city. We received this clip anonymously, and can only speculate that someone in Port Harbor has an interesting sense of humor. ”

  Amateur footage replaced the movie clip, and my mouth dropped open as the unmistakable silhouette of a woman riding a broomstick passed against the peachy pink light of the rising sun. Clara hit the pause button and activated a zoom feature I didn’t even know the TV had as an option. “Recognize her?” Taken with a cell phone while its user was on a dead run, the short video lacked clarity, but even fuzzy and in low light, I knew Violet Bloodgood when I saw the shape of her. Those boobs were one of a kind. Or two.

  Despite the alarm of seeing one of us blazed across the news, I had to give Violet props. “I didn’t know she had it in her.”

  “This is no laughing matter, Lexi. It’s a disaster on several levels.” Clara started ticking them off using her fingers. “First, that was just plain stupid. It takes immense power to ride if levitation isn’t one of your natural talents, and I happen to know it was never one of Violet’s strong suits. She’s drawing on the extra energy from two keepers feeding the Balefire.”

  The remote hit the table with jarring force. “Stupid witch. Riding temporary power like that. What did she think she was going to do when it failed? Flap her arms and glide. Honestly.”

  “You can’t be responsible for everyone’s choices.” The gentle reminder earned me a narrow-eyed look.

  “She was seen. You understand what that means? They'll be coming for us with pitchforks and nooses if we’re not careful. You’ve heard of a little thing called the Inquisition or don’t they teach history in school these days?”

  Rather than get into a discussion about changes in the educational system or venture my opinion about how society is more accepting of witchcraft these days, I waited for my grandmother to continue.

  “Mark my words, nothing good will come of this. We’ll be in the middle of another witch hunt if this keeps up and none of us will be safe from persecution.”

  While I felt Clara might be overstating the situation, she had good reasons. My great-grandmother, Tempest, left a detailed memoir in the Sanctum of her experiences during the time of the Salem witch trials and it hadn’t been pretty. I like to think we’re more enlightened these days, that we understand more about how it’s our choices that make us who we are, not the circumstances of our birth. Ten minutes viewing the vast array of dirty laundry aired out on the Internet was enough to prove me wrong many times over.

  Before I had a chance to venture an opinion, the doorbell chimed three or four times and the door, left unlocked all night, banged open to admit a gaggle of harried-looking witches, several of whom flashed me tense smiles or nods.

  “Clara Balefire, you have a lot to answer for.” Calypso Snodgrass led the way.

  “It’s my fault Violet Bloodgood doesn’t have sense enough to fly under the radar? Sure, and when I get bored, I arrange for solar eclipses and tsunamis. You’re the high priestess, Calypso, so why aren’t you banging down her door and asking for an explanation? Go lead, and leave me alone.” Maybe Gran had a little hangover after all.

  Calypso straightened to her full height of at least five foot eleven inches, towering over the rest of us with a look of contempt on her narrow face. I wondered briefly whether she, like her daughter Serena, had been pretty at one time, and what had turned them both into the biggest sourpusses I’d ever met.

  “Don’t try and pawn this off on me. Twenty-five years of peace under my guidance and it all goes out the window in less than a week. What’s the common denominator here? You. The great Clara Balefire and her half-powered spawn. Do you think I can’t recognize a campaign to wrest control of the coven when I see it?”

  Harm none. Harm none, I reminded myself like a mantra to keep from breaking the Rede I live by. Calypso Snodgrass wasn’t worth losing my self-respect over.

  “It might surprise you to know that I have no interest in taking over the coven. Standing in one place gives one plenty of time to think about one’s life and choices. It’s time I saw a bit more of the world than what lies between the county lines. Once I’ve reacquainted myself with my granddaughter, I’ll be taking an extended vacation.” My grandmother’s response elicited gasps of surprise from the rest of Calypso’s entourage.

  A sneer and a disbelieving sniff were Calypso’s reactions to the news. “Don’t bother climbing up on your high and mighty broomstick with me. If it’s your presence in the house making the Balefire erratic, why don’t you have the decency to leave so the rest of us don’t have to deal with the fallout?”

  “Because I’ve told her she’s needed here right now.” In Clara's defense, Mag got right up in Calypso's face. “All signs and portents point to these being dangerous times.” If she’d been peering into the crystal, it was news to me.

  It looked like Calypso couldn’t decide whether she dared to lean in closer, so she moved back and ignored Mag's smirk.

  “Maybe the times are dangerous because she’s back. What does your crystal ball say to that?” I didn’t see who threw out the challenge, but several of those who had smiled tentatively at me earlier now refused to make eye contact.

  "Banning witches from the coven is always a difficult choice, but if we all agree it's necessary—"

  Mag, already bristling, closed the gap again, and deposited a loud slap across Calypso’s cheek. “Don’t you ever insult my niece or my sister like that again, Swampscum or I’ll make sure you’re sorry for the rest of your pathetic life.”

  Even the crickets stopped chirping while Calypso’s face flicked through shock, anger, and indignation. I had to admire her self-control because I can tell you right now; I’d have gone wild if someone had the guts to slap me like that.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “YOU’VE NEVER JUMPED in a pile of leaves?” Kin tilted his head and appraised me with a pitying look. “I knew your childhood was different, but you really missed out.” He leaned his rake up against the fence and grabbed one of
the tall paper bags he’d just filled with a red and yellow confetti of crunchy leaves. “It’s time to rectify that particular oversight,” and all his hard work spilled back out to add to the heap at his feet.

  I’d always loved autumn, but that year, it seemed to have set in early—or maybe I’d just been so preoccupied I hadn’t counted the days and weeks passing me by in a blur. At least I was paying attention now. The colors, the scents, the crispness in the air.

  Can’t say I’ve ever thought about rolling around on a cushion of nature, but if Kin felt I’d missed out on an experience, I’d happily give it a try. A second bag of leaves joined the waist-high pile.

  Kin, a goofy smile on his face, took a running start and managed an impressive flip into the mountain that closed over his head with a rustling sound. Seconds later, he popped back up with an even goofier smile that made my heart flip over and set things in my belly to fluttering.

  “Your turn.”

  “Do I have to do the flip?” I preferred to avoid looking like an idiot whenever I had a chance to choose. What if I missed? Despite all evidence to the contrary, we were still in that stage of the relationship where I sneaked out of bed in the morning to brush my teeth. Landing on my butt in front of Kin ranked low on my list of girlfriend activities.

  “Just jump. It’s fun. You’ll love it.” People say things like that all the time, but that doesn’t make them true.

  Except for this time, it was. I plunged into the heap of dried leaves and relished the almost musty fragrance as they closed around me. If Terra had known how much fun could be had with something so simple, she would have created piles the size of a house and set up a diving board to leap into them. As it was, she had always relied on faerie magic to keep the yard clean of such debris.

  “Lexi Balefire, come home now!” As though the mere thought of one of my godmothers had been enough to conjure them up, Evian’s preferred method of communication issued from my pocket. I dragged a small shell from the denim depths and spoke into it.