
Table of Contents
Chapter 4: The Human Lie Detector
Chapter 5: Fixing the Memories
Chapter 9: Diapers, Santa, and Visiting Relatives
Chapter 10: Guess Who's Coming to Lunch
Chapter 12: Not a Walk in the Park
Chapter 15: Words We Don't Say
Chapter 16: Sherlock Holmes and Pookas
Chapter 17: Rednecks at Subway
Chapter 22: Babies and Billboards
Chapter 26: Things Go Horribly Wrong
Chapter 30: The Girls are Gone
Chapter 31: Never Trust a Witch
Chapter 32: The Final Dead End
Chapter 33: Laying Things to Rest
It Never Rhines but It Pours
Rhine Maiden [2]
Erin Evans
(2011)
Rating:
\*\*\*\*
Product Description
Rhine maiden, Piper Cavanaugh, is on the job as a Guardian hit-man, but can she execute an innocent witch? When she discovers her target has been framed, Piper has to find the true killer or risk losing her job -- and her life. As she sorts through a dwindling number of suspects, Piper tries to keep her trigger-happy vampire friend in line, fix a backfired spell, deal with some unwanted house guests, and still find time to mother her two toddlers. With every use of her power of command bringing her closer to immortality, Piper soon realizes, it never "rhines" but it pours!
It Never Rhines but It Pours
A Rhine Maiden Novel
By Erin Evans
Copyright 2010 Erin Evans
For my mother,
who not only taught me the way to Neverland, Narnia, Middle Earth, and many other worlds, but also taught me how to write, dream big dreams, and, most importantly, how to be a good mother myself.
And for Katie,
who created incredible cover art, proofread, and pointed out glaring plot problems. Any mistakes and typos are all mine!
Table of Contents
Chapter 4: The Human Lie Detector
Chapter 5: Fixing the Memories
Chapter 9: Diapers, Santa, and Visiting Relatives
Chapter 10: Guess Who's Coming to Lunch
Chapter 12: Not a Walk in the Park
Chapter 15: Words We Don't Say
Chapter 16: Sherlock Holmes and Pookas
Chapter 17: Rednecks at Subway
Chapter 22: Babies and Billboards
Chapter 26: Things Go Horribly Wrong
Chapter 30: The Girls are Gone
Chapter 31: Never Trust a Witch
Chapter 32: The Final Dead End
Chapter 33: Laying Things to Rest
Guardians
I stared at the carnage before me. Broken, mangled bodies were everywhere. Some were still feebly moving, clinging to life as they slowly slid into oblivion. They had mostly died in pairs, although some had died alone. There were hundreds of them. Maybe even thousands. Slaughtered for no other reason than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. When something hits you at seventy miles an hour you don't have a chance. I frowned and made a face. I detest lovebug season.
At least the car was a rental. I would hate to have to clean this mess off my car. Lovebugs, in addition to being worthless nuisances that plague our state two times out of the year, like to hang out on the highway and other roads. Their bodies are slightly acidic and, when splattered across the front of your car and then slowly baked in the hot Florida sun, can eat through your paint. Not to mention how hard it is to clean them off the windshield so that you can see to drive.
Urban legend says that they were genetically created in hopes of controlling the mosquito population. Instead, a non-biting, non-mosquito eating, constantly mating, and inedible bug was created that swarms twice a year. I doubt that is true. I don't think scientists are capable of creating something so heinous. If they were, entomological warfare would be all the craze, and it's not.
The rental car had started out white. It was more of a speckled black and white now. Lovebugs show up wonderfully on a white car. I guess the idea is that the color white will keep the car cooler in the heat. Ha. Nice thought, but no. We had totally skipped winter this year and had gone straight from summer heat, to slightly cooler fall, right back to summer. Just stepping out of the air-conditioned car had made my sunglasses fog up. I took them off and squinted in the bright light as I cleaned them on the corner of my shirt.
"Ugh! It's hotter than an oven out here!" My little sister Sarah was climbing out of the car. She was barely dressed at all in a skimpy tank top, cut off shorts, and flip-flops. I was also pretty sure she wasn't wearing a bra. She was sixteen and had the figure of a runway model. I was more conservatively dressed in light weight slacks and a sleeveless blouse. I could feel sweat pooling up inside my bra and wished that I was at home, drinking ice tea and enjoying the air-conditioning.
Sarah was finishing off her large DQ blizzard which was another source of contention between us. It wasn't fair. I was only ten years her senior, but, as a mother of two, I had to carefully watch every bite I ate. Instead of ice-cream, I had ordered a diet coke which I was leaving in the car to turn into a watery mess. I was still a little ticked that my traveling companions were both wolfing down sugar and fat like they would never grow old.
In the case of Cecily, it was true. She was frozen forever at somewhere in her mid-twenties. She could eat ice cream all day long and not gain a pound, and she was dead. As in vampire dead. Contrary to popular beliefs, she could walk about in the sunshine, she just looked like sleep deprivation with a hangover. When the sun set she would revert back to her usual cheery state. I didn't know a lot of vampires, but I thought she was unnaturally cheery. It got on my nerves sometimes. That and the blood drinking. I tried to avoid anything that had to do with blood.
She was wearing her favorite combo of gauzy, asymmetrical skirt with matching color top, and strappy high heel shoes that I would break my neck just trying on. The heat didn't seem to bother her at all, a fact which I added to my list of complaints. I was grumpy, Sarah was teenage sullen, and Cecily was exhausted. We made a great team. Just call us the PMS girls.
"Are ya'll finished?" I snipped, still mad that I wasn't eating a blizzard. Who cares about being thin? Oh, yeah, I do. I just wanted to have my cake and eat it too, literally.
"Yumm," Sarah sighed, overacting. "Don't you wish you had one of these?" She waved her spoon under my nose.
I closed my eyes and counted to ten. "Just wait," I answered maturely, "When you get older it's all going to hit you and you will turn into a blimp."
"Whatever," Sarah rolled her eyes. Her silver bracelet gleamed in the sun as she raised her arms over her head in an exaggerated stretch.
It was my turn for the eye roll. "Great, Sarah. If there were any teenage boys around I'm sure that pose would be very effective. Try to be a little professional!"
Cecily slid out of the car and added a large brimmed hat and dark sunglasses to her ensemble. She looked like Audrey Hepburn, if Audrey had been taller, curvier, and had midnight black hair. The large claymore she was wearing sheathed across her back somewhat detracted from the overall look.
"Do you have to bring that thing?" I hissed.
She glowered at me, "As Wielder of a Sword of Justice it is my job to be ready at all times. Besides," she grinned, a killer whale sort of grin, "I might get to use it today!"
I groaned and tried to wipe sweat off my face without removing all my makeup.
"Remind me again why you get to be the Wielder?" Sarah asked petulantly.
"You want to cut someone's head off, slurpee?" Cecily snarled.
"Maybe I'd start with yours," Sarah shot back.
"Cut it out, you two!" I cried. "We're all cranky and nervous and the last thing we need to do is fight with each other!"
"Yes, Mom," Cecily and Sarah said at the same time. They laughed. Apparently mocking me united them. The enemy of my enemy and so forth.
"You're sure that no one can see that thing?" I was highly skeptical. After all, it was huge, and I could definitely see it.
Cecily yawned, "We've been over this, Piper. Only magical beings can see the sword. Humans won't even know I have it."
"Non-magical humans," I corrected her. I had fought too hard to join the United Supernatural Beings as a human to let that one slide. Until Sarah and me, humans had been completely in the dark so far as supernatural beings were concerned. Vampires, werewolves, Fae, and all the others kept themselves out of human knowledge. In fact, the one law instantly punishable by death, with no trial, was to do something that might even risk humans finding out about the rest of the beings that share their planet.
The only reason Sarah and I were hanging out with a vampire was because we were not exactly normal ourselves. In college I had discovered the ability to command anyone to do something and they would have to obey. After abusing my gift, I had decided to never use it again. Forcing someone to act against their will is a horrible violation. I'd gotten married, had two beautiful little girls, and thought that I could live the rest of my life as a normal human, when I slipped up. It was all Sarah's fault. If she hadn't been such a rebellious pain in the butt, and if my parents hadn't gone out of town and left me in charge, nothing would have happened.
I used my Voice in a public place, and was visited that night, not by one of the spirits of Christmas, but by my own personal vampire. I had previously known her as my friendly next door neighbor who worked the night shift at the morgue. I was understandably a little surprised when she saved my life from a Guardian hit. See, I had broken that one important law and was a free target. Cecily saved my life that night by taking the bullets herself. In retrospect it was a good thing. I would have had a much harder time believing that she was a vampire if I hadn't seen her body magically heal after the bullets were pulled out.
Cecily had been assigned to watch me after they tracked me down from my wild college days. I had, unknowingly, been on probation. Allowed to live as long as I never used my ability again.
To save my life, I had to appeal for membership in the USB. The United Supernatural Beings. They remind me of a magical version of the United Nations. They probably based themselves on the UN but they would never admit that. Humans are the lowest of the low on the totem pole and copying anything a human created is embarrassing for a supernatural being.
Long story short, I was allowed to join as a human if I could find another human with mental abilities. Enter Sarah. I should have known she had a gift. There was no way that someone as wild as she was could have my parents totally wrapped around her little finger. I had thought that my parents were just getting tired in their old age. There is a ten year gap between us, and Sarah was allowed to do things, go places, and dress in ways that would have had me grounded for a year.
When my husband, Mark, didn't remember a huge altercation between Sarah and myself, the altercation that forced me to use my Voice for the first time in years, I knew she had a gift. My gift is vocal, hers is more mental. She can change people's memories. My parents didn't know that she was running around dressed like a gothic whore with a groping boyfriend. She had changed their memories. That still ticks me off. I would like to point out that I never used my Voice against my parents.
Cecily did a little research for us and discovered that we are descendents of the Rhine Maidens. Remember Odysseus tying himself to his mast and stuffing his sailors' ears with wax so that he could listen to the sirens' song? Those sirens were Rhine Maidens. A couple of them got it on with humans and then abandoned their subsequent offspring. Rhine Maidens weren't known for having much human empathy. The children of those children and so forth eventually married and were my parents. Somehow the magic strain skipped all those generations and landed on Sarah and me. Our other brother and sister have no abilities that I know of. Just lucky, lucky me and my annoying little sister.
All this probably sounds great. I mean, who wouldn't want to be boss of the world? Imagine what you could do if everyone had to obey you! It has a catch. Isn't there always a catch? Not only does my Voice only work for about ten minutes, give or take, depending on how mentally strong the person is, but if I use it too often I run the risk of turning immortal. Sarah is thrilled by this. She thinks being immortal sounds fabulous. She is an idiot. Did I mention that she is sixteen? It goes with the territory.
So, Sarah and I were allowed to join the USB as humans. Big whoop. Even better, we were allowed to live. I still have a hard time wrapping my head around it all. I know my ability is real. I've seen it work. But come on! Witches with magical powers? People who turn into animals? How can that possibly be? How could humans be so oblivious to what is going on around them?
Speaking of hard to believe, I've also been told that aliens are coming to earth. Yep. Aliens. I laughed too. How sci-fi can you get? The big hoopla about our joining as humans had a lot to do with the possible alien invasion. The witches and some other members wanted to declare open season on humans. Come out of the shadows and start killing people. The witches in particular get most of their power from death magic. The more humans they are allowed to kill, the more power. The more power, the better their ability to protect earth if the aliens are not friendly.
The vampires also would potentially benefit from not having to hide anymore. Instead of drinking from blood banks or other undercover means that I don't want to think about, they could go on a rampage and "stock up" as it were. Same for some of the other magical species. If staying hidden was no longer the primary objective then, theoretically, they would all be more powerful and therefore less likely to be wiped out by an alien attack.
I, understandably, had some huge problems with this. As a human I thought it rather important that I protect my species. Being the occasional snack item is bad enough, but becoming the main course would be horrific. Cecily backed me up on this. She, and others, believe that coming out of hiding would be a mistake. Either humans would freak and start the witch hunt of the ages, or humans would be wiped out and then the magical beings would have to start feeding off each other. World War III. I wasn't too concerned with the war part; after all, we humans would all be dead at that point. I was more concerned with the "all being dead" part.
By joining the USB as humans, Sarah and I effectively kept the protective status on all of humanity. We argued that if there are two, then there must be more. I'd like to be able to meet them, but I'm working on the assumption that they are out there. The witches are still trying to argue that our membership should be revoked and we should be executed. It might have something to do with a certain fertility statue the Fae and werewolves had me steal from the witch's abortion clinic. The bottom line, the witches hate mankind in general and me in particular.
The downside of being a protected member species of the USB is the taxes. Every species has to pay a tax. Sarah is underage and unemployed. I'm married with a joint bank account and a husband who I haven't gotten around to telling the truth to yet. I know, I know. Marriage is built on trust. That is exactly why I can't tell him. It would destroy his trust in me. I've racked up too many lies at this point to come clean. Or so I keep telling myself. I'm just a big chicken. I'm scared Mark will leave me if he knows the truth, and I couldn't stand to lose him.
We had to work a deal to cover our taxes. Sarah and I are now members of the same hit squad that tried to assassinate me. The Guardians. Our job is to use our combined abilities to cover up any magical mishaps. No classes, no training, just "get out there and clean things up!" Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how annoying she is being, Cecily was able to join our team. Part of the job is whacking any supernatural being who crosses the line and gets caught. Or who, in the Guardian's opinion, might cross the line and might get caught. Lots of room for leeway.
Cecily was delighted with her part of the team. Not only did she get to carry a wicked big sword, but she was also allowed to use it to chop people's heads off! And, triple bonus, she had permission to drain the victim, I mean criminal, of blood if she so desired. Heaven for a vampire. I wasn't so thrilled. I was okay with manipulating human minds and erasing memories so that they didn't stumble upon the supernatural world, but being jury, judge, and executioner was a little over the top for me. Which would be why I wasn't carrying the dumb thing.
"They have a metal detector," I stubbornly pointed out to Cecily. I was really hoping she would leave it in the car and thus not even have the possibility of using it.
"Piper," she yawned again, "it's a magic sword. No one will see it, feel it, smell it, nor will it set off a metal detector. Relax."
I made a face at her. Relax my backside. Our very first job and we get witches gone wild in Kissimmee. Close to our home town of Melbourne, which is why we were assigned the job, but still a little big for first-timers.
"All right, ladies," I said, "Let's go over the plan one more time."
"Good grief," Sarah whined, "It's a million degrees out here. Couldn't we have gone over it in the car?"
"I didn't think of it in the car," I answered regally. "Okay. Here goes. We walk in. I say that we are the legal representation for the guy and command them to take us to him. Sarah, you be changing their memories as we go so they don't remember any of this as soon as my command fades. I command them to let him out. Here's where you come in, Cecily, you keep him under control until we get out of the building. Sarah, still changing those memories. Quick and simple. In and out. Any questions?"
They both shook their heads. We had gone over this a bunch of times on the drive over. I was just stalling for time. I did not want to walk into that police station. It was a pretty building with red brick on the sides and huge curved walls of glass in the middle. Pretty scary. It looked huge to my smaller town eyes. The parking lot was small and curved around the front of the building where the mandatory flags hung listlessly in the mid-day heat. We would start to draw attention if we stood out here much longer.
I took a deep breath, "Okay then. Let's do this."
The Hit
It was rather anti-climactic to be almost totally ignored when we walked into the police station. We stepped through the metal detector, having our purses rifled as we did so. They took my tweezers but Cecily breezed right through with her claymore strapped to her back. Guess she was right about its magical discreetness.
I walked up to the main desk and waited, and waited. The police officer receptionist was busy filing her nails and chatting on the phone. She wouldn't even make eye contact. I tried clearing my throat. Still no response.
"Use your Voice," Cecily whispered in my ear. Easy for her to say, she had already come to terms with living forever. I still wanted to be normal. I was only going to use my ability if I had to, and not a smidgen more. Cecily could just learn a little patience.
Sarah was draped next to me reading a newspaper that had been left open on the counter. The police officer working the metal detector was not making eye contact either. He was too busy staring at Sarah's butt. I sighed.
"Check this out, Piper," Sarah said in a low voice.
I tried a subtle hand wave in the peripheral vision of the receptionist. She glared at me like I'd yelled something rude and held up one finger. Was that one more minute? Or one warning? I wasn't sure. "What?" I said to Sarah.
She slid the newspaper in front of me. It was a local paper, the Osceola News Gazette. I've always wondered what a gazette was. Sarah was pointing to a human interest story. The headline read "Human Lie Detector Wows Audience." It was a short enough article that it only warranted a small picture of a boy's face. I skimmed it quickly. Some young man claimed to be able to tell when people were lying. He had done a show at a local community theater and impressed everyone with his accuracy.
I looked blankly at Sarah, "What about it?"
"Human lie detector," she said.
"I can read."
"Human. Lie. Detector," she stressed every word.
I shook my head, "I'm not following you here."
She gave me a look laden with meaning, "You know," she stressed the first word.
I was really missing something here. "What? He reads body language? Like the guy in that TV show?"
"Maybe," she sounded all mysterious. "Or maybe not."
I finally got it. "Oh." I blinked. "I don't know. Maybe." Maybe his ability went beyond reading body language and into a real ability. A magical ability. That would really take some of the pressure off at the USB if we could produce yet another magical human.
Cecily was reading over my shoulder. "Ah." She got it instantly.
The woman behind the counter was wrapping up her phone call. "We'll discuss this later," I mouthed and was ready with a big, fake smile as soon as the phone hit the cradle.
"Hi!" I said with forced cheer. "We're here to see Richard Parker."
There was instant wariness in the room. I felt very uncomfortable. "And you are?" the lady asked.
I kept my smile going. "His legal representation."
Wariness turned to disgust. "I see," her mouth was turned down in disdain. "Your name please." She held out a sign-in clipboard.
I felt so sneaky. I knew the clipboard was coming and I was ready for it. The last time I had to write a false name on a clipboard I had totally blanked out. This time I was prepared. I wrote Arabella Mansfield. Yeah, I didn't know who she was either until I Googled the first female lawyer. I thought it was a nice touch. It's the little things that make for a really professional job.
I handed the clipboard to Sarah who scrawled "Mary Smith." Very unoriginal. Cecily's was so sloppy I doubt even she could read it. She handed it back to the police officer.
"IDs, please."
Here came my part of the job. "You don't need to see our IDs," I commanded with the Voice. "Please take us back to Mr. Parker at once." It was pretty cool. I always felt like a Jedi warrior when I used my Voice. These are not the droids you are looking for.
"I'll buzz you into the back," the woman said. "Go around the counter here and wait at the door on the right."
We obeyed and, when the door unlocked, pushed through into the back hallway. An intercom clicked by my head. "Go down the hallway to the end and the officer there will let you into the cell area."
"Thanks!" I waved to the air. I assumed that they had cameras watching everything in this building. "Did you-?" I asked Sarah about the memory fixing.
"Yes, Piper," she rolled her eyes. "I know what I'm doing."
"Shall we, ladies?" Cecily inquired. I still couldn't believe that no one could see the giant sword on her back. I hoped that whoever cast the invisibility spell on it had thought about cameras. Holy crap! What about vampires? Wasn't there something about not showing up in mirrors or on film?
"Do you show up on security cameras?" I whispered to Cecily as we walked down the hallway. Man this place was dirty! The walls were scarred concrete, the floor was also plain concrete, and naked light bulbs hung from the ceiling. Talk about inhospitable. I guess criminals shouldn't expect the Ritz when they got caught.
Cecily smiled at me, "Another old wives tale, Piper. Quit worrying so much."
"She's always been like this," Sarah chimed in.
"Yeah, whatever," I grouched. "It's not like I don't have legitimate things to worry about here."
We reached the far door. There was another intercom on the wall surrounded by a wire cage. Things must occasionally get rough back here. I pushed the button and said, "We're here to see Richard Parker."
The door buzzed and we went through. There was another desk with computer and police officer guarding the entrance to the cells. A floor to ceiling gate was locked with a heavy padlock and I could see prisoner cells through the bars.
The officer here was short, balding, and had a considerable gut hanging over the top of his pants. He stood as we entered and I wondered how his pants managed to stay up with all the police paraphernalia hanging from his belt. He pulled out a large bunch of keys on a ring and opened the gate.
"Richard Parker is the first on the right," he mumbled and went to sit back down. No Voice needed yet.
I took a deep breath before entering. The man we were going to see was dangerous. He was a witch, and I've already mentioned how much love they have for humans. He was also accused of murdering two teenagers in a brutal, and very gory, black magic ritual. Cecily had shown me the pictures and I hadn't been able to eat for the rest of the day.
I saw Cecily's hand twitching near the handle of her sword. "Not here," I said firmly.
"I know," she answered, but her eyes were bright with hunger. Great. My very first job for the USB and I've got to work with a trigger happy vampire.
Waiting was getting me nowhere except more nervous. I stepped through and came face to face with Richard Parker. Recognition hit me with a shock. "You!" I exclaimed.
"You!" he said at the same time. If anything, he looked more shocked than me.
"You know this guy?" Sarah asked from behind me.
I crossed my arms and glared at him. "Yeah. I know this guy." I turned on Cecily. "Cecily, why weren't there any pictures of Mr. Parker here in the case file?"
Cecily's eyes grew wide with imperfectly faked innocence. "I didn't think it relevant."
I tried not to grind my teeth in frustration. "Who is he?" Sarah wanted to know.
I turned my glare back at Mr. Parker. "This is the witch who tried to have me executed on my first visit to the USB." I searched my memory. "His 'witch' name is Pravus."
Pravus had regained his calm. "Why are you here, Abominor?"
"What's an 'abominor'?" Sarah asked. I was kind of glad she did. I didn't want to lose the upper hand by not knowing Latin. Oh wait, only geeks, nerds, and witches knew Latin. I was fine.
"It means 'abomination,'" Cecily answered. "Witches like to use Latin a lot," she explained in a how-stupid-are-they tone of voice. "They think it makes them scarier." Her eyes did the freaky thing where they turned completely black and her fangs extended. "Do you feel scary, little witch?"
She was creeping me out and I was on her side. Pravus took a shaky step backwards. "Why are you here?" he asked again, a little less forcefully.
"We're Guardians," Sarah answered. "We are here to fix the mess you made."
I saw realization hit him. His eyes fastened on the sword handle showing over Cecily's shoulder. He swallowed. I felt a twinge of pity. Oh shake it off, Piper! I said to myself. This is a cold-blooded killer. He deserves to die. He knew the consequences if he got caught. He made his own choices and now he would have to live by them. Or rather, die by them.
The Wrong Man
Getting Pravus out of jail was a lot more complicated than I would have guessed. Even with magic on our side there were a ton of loose ends to tie up. First, I had to command the police officer guarding the cells to give me the keys. Before we opened the cell, I also commanded him to give me access to the police computer database. Cecily was overjoyed to find that the Kissimmee Police Department was up to date with technology and had gone completely digital. Her fingers flew over the keyboard as she hummed a happy tune under her breath.
"What's the big deal?" Sarah wanted to know. "Why is digital so cool?"
"Because," Cecily answered without stopping her manic typing. "Instead of having to track down every piece of paper filed for Mr. Parker here, every video tape taken of him entering the building, sitting in the cell, etc, and destroying it, now all I have to do is change the computer files. And voila! Done. So far as the Kissimmee police are concerned, Richard Parker never existed."
"Cool!" Sarah was impressed. Great. I was actively encouraging my little sister in a life of crime. What would my mother say if she knew?
"According to the computer logs," Cecily continued, "Only six officers have had contact with Pravus. This guy here," she pointed at the officer who was sitting quietly in the corner where I had commanded him to stay, "the lady cop at the front desk, the homicide detective, his partner, and the two cops who provided backup when they arrested him."
"Which ones are here now?" I asked.
"Well, him and the lady at the front desk, obviously, and" she typed some more and squinted at the screen. "The homicide guys are off today, and the other two cops are out patrolling." She hit a few more buttons and the printer beside the computer spat out a piece of paper. Cecily waved it in the air. "Home addresses and patrol routes. With any luck we should be able to clear this up today."
I nodded. "Sarah, Cecily and I are going to get Pravus, you do your bit on this officer's memories and then we'll head out to the front to fix the woman."
Sarah looked a little nervous but started doing whatever it was that she did. Cecily and I headed back to the cell with the keys. Pravus was sitting on the cot, fingers twitching and mouth moving in some sort of chant. I could feel something swirling in the air around me like an invisible tornado gathering force. Not good. "Stop!" I commanded. It seemed like a good time to use the Voice. Witches could do some freaky things with their chanting. The tornado feeling fell away.
Pravus opened his mouth. "Silence," I commanded. "You will come with us, quietly, and not cause any trouble. You will obey everything that we tell you to do. Now."
Cecily opened the cell and motioned him to step out. She left one hand resting on the hilt of her sword and I could tell that she was dying to get the chance to use it. Pravus walked meekly out of the cell and waited while I relocked it and then placed the keys back with the police officer.
We stopped shortly at the front desk while Sarah changed the woman's memories and then we were out in the car pulling out of the parking lot. I drew a shaky breath. My nerves were shot. Everything had gone smoothly and I was a wreck. Maybe I wasn't cut out for this sort of work.
I was driving again. Sarah was now in the front seat and Cecily was in the back with Pravus. She stared at him with animal hunger and seemed to quiver with tension. "Now what?" I asked.
Cecily didn't take her eyes off of Pravus, daring him to move. "I think it only appropriate that we return to the scene of the crime."
The murders had taken place in a large open field behind a Christian school. Some of the kids called the police and said that while out "hiking in the woods" they had stumbled across the dead bodies. For "hiking" think "making out" in the woods. It was open farm land, far from any visible roads or houses, the perfect place to kiss your boyfriend or commit a gory satanic ritual.
The crime scene photos had been gruesome. The two bodies found had been flayed and dismembered. The pieces had been used to form a large pentagram with a trench circling it. Blood from the bodies had filled the trench and each head had been stuck on a spike with one facing east and the other west. There were candles and other Satanic accessories but I hadn't wanted to look too closely at the pictures. One quick glance had given me enough to feel perfectly justified in ending this witch's life.
It was Saturday, so we parked in the almost empty school parking lot and tramped off through the woods. Pravus was still under my command of silence and none of the rest of us really felt like talking. I was getting more and more sick to my stomach.
As we broke through the trees and into the first pasture the skies opened up and dumped down rain. In Florida, when it rains, it pours torrentially for a short time and then goes back to hot mugginess. The rain was a welcome change in temperature, but as soon as it let up the weather would be horrendous again.
Cecily had done her homework and we soon came to some police tape waving languidly in the rain. It was clear that the investigation here was done. The tape was torn and the ground had been trampled. Car tracks showed where the coroner's van had come to collect the remains and cigarette butts and empty soda cans littered the ground.
In the middle of all this, a circle was still visible in the earth. The blood has soaked into the ground, leaving a dark colored mud behind. I seriously hoped that they had found all the body parts. I did not want to stumble on a finger or toe. This place gave me the shivers.
Cecily led Pravus to the middle of his circle. She pushed him down on his knees and drew her sword with one fluid motion. It was Breakfast at Tiffany's meets The Highlander. Very surreal. Sarah turned her face away as Cecily prepared to swing.
"Wait!" I cried. This was happening way too fast. "Doesn't he get some last words or something? You're just going to kill him, now?"
Cecily looked at me, "He has broken the Charter. He must pay for his crime. Why do you want to hear him talk?"
"Because," I said stubbornly, "that's the way we do it here in America. Innocent until proven guilty."
"He is guilty, Piper. He killed humans in a way that risks exposing the magic world. He has to die."
I frowned, "It just doesn't seem right. If he hadn't used magic he wouldn't have to die?"
"No," Cecily said carefully, "he wouldn't have to be executed by the Guardians. The humans would get to deal with him. Would you rather him get to sit in comfort on Death Row for the rest of his life?"
I sighed. This was what I had signed on for and I knew it. I just didn't feel right about it. "I still think he should get to say something before he dies. Maybe he has a message he would like passed on to his family."Or maybe he will blurt out a curse to kill all of us," Cecily argued.
"Can they do that?" Sarah asked.
Cecily shrugged, "They might be able to. Are you willing to risk it?"
Sarah looked at me. "It's up to you, Piper."
I looked at Pravus. He was kneeling in the mud, rain dripping from his hair into his face, eyes following each of us as we spoke. I made my choice.
"He should be allowed to speak before we execute him."
Cecily made a sound of exasperation but stepped back, sword still out and ready. "Go ahead," she griped.
"You may speak now," I commanded.
Pravus met my gaze squarely and glared, "What would you have me say, abominor?"
I blinked, not the gratitude I had been expecting, but then I was getting ready to kill him. "I don't know," I said. "Do you have any last words?"
"What does it matter?" he spat. "You have made yourself judge, jury, and executioner. What is there left for me to say?"
I frowned, "You murdered two high school students. That's enough right there to execute you. But you also used magic to do it. How stupid can you be? You had to know that the Guardians would come for you."
Pravus sank back on his heels. "So you say. Think about it, abominor. I had to know that the Guardians would come for me."
Sarah stared at him, "What are you saying?"
Cecily cut in, "You can never trust a witch. He is guilty."
"Is he?" Sarah asked. "Because I didn't really read the case report. How do you know he did it?"
"The police believe he did it," Cecily snarled, "that's enough for me. He is also the only witch in this area who is powerful enough to work a death spell alone."
"Well?" I looked at Pravus.
"Well what?" he sneered.
"Did you do it?"
"Why do you care?" he said. "You've made up your minds. Just kill me and get this over with."
"Alright then," Cecily said and raised her sword.
"Hold on!" I cried. "We can't just kill him if he didn't do it!"
"Piper! He did it! We know he did it. It's our job to execute him! Do you know what happens to Guardians who don't do their job?"
Sarah and I turned on her, "What?" we both said.
"What happens to Guardians who don't do their job?" I asked.
Cecily sighed, "If we don't execute him, the Synod will send Guardians to execute all of us."
"What!" Sarah shrieked. "Kill him now, then!"
"Whoa!" I stepped forward between Cecily and Pravus. She had already started her swing and stumbled at bit to keep from slicing me. "That's not a reason to kill him."
"Not a reason!" Sarah yelled. "Piper, he's guilty, we have to execute him. Let's just get this over with!"
"You just said that you hadn't read the police report and didn't know!" I yelled back.
"That was before my life was on the line!"
"That makes a difference?"
"Hell, yeah, it makes a difference!"
Pravus was observing all of this with disdain. He rolled his eyes, "You people are so professional. Are you going to kill me or not?"
"Did you do it or not?" I demanded.
"No!" he snapped back. "I didn't do it. But that won't stop you from taking my head. It's too perfect for you. Revenge for what happened at the USB and a clean conscience to go with it."
Cecily shook her head. "I do not hold a grudge against you, little witch. I am merely doing my job." She raised the sword again. Man, she was eager to use that thing!
"Cecily, stop!" I commanded.
She froze and then glared at me, "You would use your power on me?"
"I'm sorry," I truly was. "But we can't just kill him without being sure."
"Yes, we can," she insisted.
"No, we can't."
"Yes, we can!"
"No, we can't!" We were both yelling now.
Sarah raised her hand, "When you two are done acting like grown-ups can I say something?"
We both glared at her. "What?" I demanded, angrily pushing wet hair out of my face.
She smiled at me calmly, the annoying little twerp. "Cecily, you said that if we let him go we will all die."
"That is correct."
Sarah took a squishing step forward, "What would happen if, and I'm only saying if, he was innocent and we found the guilty person?"
The rain chose that moment to let up and a ray of sunlight shot through the clouds and bathed the scene in light. It was too dramatic to be a sign. I chose to believe that it was merely a typical Florida rain storm passing overhead and leaving sunshine behind.
Cecily looked up at the patch of blue sky and frowned. "Well," she was obviously thinking, "as long as the correct person was punished, the Synod would not care that we let an innocent witch go."
Pravus was still kneeling in the mud, looking wet, bedraggled, and miserable. "Are you going to kill me or not?" he demanded irritably. "Because this is really uncomfortable."
Cecily raised her sword again, "I wouldn't want you to be uncomfortable."
"Cecily, stop it!" I grabbed her arm and forced her to lower the blade. Well, I didn't force her. Cecily is a vampire and I could have hung my entire weight on her arm and done chin-ups and she wouldn't have moved. That is, if I could do a chin-up to save my life, but you get the point.
"What are we going to do?" Sarah asked. She looked young and scared and I felt horrible for bringing her into all of this. This kind of stuff was way beyond her age and maturity. Hey, it was beyond mine too.
Cecily turned to me, "Well?"
I shuffled awkwardly in the mud, grimacing at my dirty flip-flops. I let out a huge sigh. "Pravus?"
"Yes, abominor?" he sneered.
My temper snapped, "Do you want us to kill you?"
"It's bad enough that I have to be executed by a bunch of amateurs for something I didn't do, but to have to kneel here and listen to your stupid conversations and answer idiot questions is cruel and unusual punishment!"
I growled and thought about snatching the sword from Cecily and using it on him myself.
"He's right," Cecily said. "He would say he was innocent even if he wasn't. This conversation is pointless. I say we do our job and sort it out later."
"Sort it out later!" I felt like pulling my hair out. "You can't sort it out later when it involves cutting someone's head off! It's not like we can glue it back on if we make a mistake!"
"Why don't you command him to tell the truth?" Sarah wanted to know.
"No," Cecily said. "Some of the stronger witches can resist her command, especially if they are prepared for it. All they have to do is work a shield around their mind to protect against command. If Pravus did indeed murder those students in a death ritual then he is a very powerful witch and should have no trouble shielding."
Cecily was right. I remembered back to my attempted breakin and robbery at the witches' abortion clinic. One of the witches had been ready to obey me when the other one told him to "Shield his mind." Maybe if I snuck up on Pravus when he wasn't expecting it and commanded him to be truthful before he realized I was there. Maybe not.
"Wait!" Sarah cried. "I have an idea!"
"What?"
"Remember that newspaper article?"
"What?" I had no idea what she was talking about.
"The newspaper article."
"What newspaper article?"
"Oh," Cecily said, "that might work."
"What might work?" I was losing it.
"The newspaper article," Cecily answered as if that explained everything.
"If someone doesn't tell me what is going on I'm going to kill someone!" I shrieked.
"Now you know how I feel," Pravus muttered.
"You, shut up!" I commanded.
"Calm down, Piper," Cecily soothed, "I think Sarah is on to something."
"What?" I repeated. "And so help me, if you say 'the newspaper article' again I'm going to smack you."
Cecily smirked, "Tempting, but I shall refrain. Sarah?"
Sarah drew a breath, "You have such a bad memory, Piper. It must come from being so old."
Old my backside. I'd show her old if she didn't tell me what in the world they were talking about.
"I showed you that article when we were at the police station. The one about the human lie detector."
I still didn't follow. "So?"
"Two birds, one stone," Cecily said infuriatingly.
Light dawned, "Oh," I said. "You mean, we should take Pravus to the lie detector boy and see if he is telling the truth."
"No," Cecily answered, "We should take Pravus to the lie detector and see if he is lying."
"Wait," I said dejectedly, "it won't work. If Pravus is strong enough to resist my command, then he would be able to lie to the boy just as easily."
"No," Cecily corrected again. "Not obeying a command is totally different. To disobey you he has to be strong enough to resist. There is no resisting in lying. You are either lying or not, and if the boy has the ability to tell, then there is nothing Pravus could do to trick him."
I paced up and down, shoes sticking in the mud. "So, what is the plan? We find this boy, show up and say 'here is a deadly witch. Is he telling the truth?'"
Sarah rolled her eyes, "Don't be stupid. We'll tell him that we are writing a story for a newspaper and can we interview him. We'll ask to test his ability and voila! If he has an ability, we can tell him the truth and if he doesn't, I'll wipe any part of his memory that would be troublesome."
"I am really uncomfortable with you wiping people's memories," I said.
"You don't trust me," she snapped.
"It's not that I don't trust you, Sarah, it's just that playing around with memories is a tricky thing. What if you erased something important? You could do a lot of damage."
"So could you with your Voice!" she shot back.
"Yeah, but my command wears off eventually, you take away memories forever."
"You'll just have to trust me then," she said smugly.
"This little family chat is so endearing," Pravus said sarcastically, "but if you have made up your mind not to kill me this second, would you mind if I got out of the mud?"
Cecily slid her sword back into its sheath. "You may stand up, little witch. But I am watching you." She tapped her fingers on the hilt, "These two humans may doubt your guilt, but I do not, and when the time comes I will enjoy taking your head." She smiled, sharp teeth showing.
There was an uncomfortable silence. "Alright then," I said with fake cheer. "Let's head back to the car."
As we tramped back the way we had come I heard Cecily mutter under her breath, "You can never trust a witch."
The Human Lie Detector
"Now what?" I asked.
"Now we use some modern technology and track down this lie detector." Cecily pulled out her iphone and started tapping away. Within minutes she had an address and we were on our way.
"Should we call first?" I wondered.
"Nah," Sarah answered, "Let's just show up. We're much better at lying in person than on the phone."
"Are we now?" I murmured.
"Yes," she smiled sweetly, "we are."
I felt an inward twinge. My little sister had way too much power and not near enough maturity. But if I tried to control her I would just drive her away. Now I knew a little of what my mom and dad were going through. Sarah was almost an adult and I had to treat her like one, but that didn't mean I liked the choices she was making. I wished that I could talk to my mom about all this. It didn't feel right to be helping Sarah lie to our parents.
We rode in silence. Cecily had typed the address into my portable GPS and I focused on making the correct turns in an unfamiliar city. Soon we were turning into a middle class neighborhood. It was gated but not the kind manned by a guard. I followed another car through the gate and we were in. A couple of turns and I parked the car in front of a cookie-cutter block house with the requisite baby oak trees out front.
I traded looks with Cecily through the rearview mirror. "Ready?" she asked.
I grimaced. Bringing humans into this supernatural mess could be tricky. I knew that Sarah thought she could fix any problem by erasing people's memories, but I wanted that to be a last resort, not a first choice. Besides, I could envision situations where changing memories would be tricky if not downright impossible.
I sighed, mentally gearing myself up for trouble, "Let's do this." We all exited the car and I turned to Pravus. "You will be silent," I commanded.
They followed me up the front walk and all stood back a few paces while I knocked on the door. There was no answer, so after waiting a few more moments I rang the doorbell. I heard the sound of footsteps and the door was opened.
A young boy stood half concealed behind the door and stared at me suspiciously. He was around fourteen or fifteen years of age and still in the awkward growing phase. His eyes took in me and then my companions behind me. When he got to Sarah his gaze seemed to stick. Perfect. I told her that she was a treat for adolescent boys.
"Ahem," I cleared my throat. He tore his gaze off Sarah's cleavage and tried to focus on me. I smiled. "James Miller?" I asked unnecessarily, he was a match for the picture in the newspaper.
"Yes?" He looked back at Sarah.
I glared at her over my shoulder. "We're from the Orlando Tribune and we'd like to interview you for a human interest story."
"Really." He sounded skeptical.
"Yes," I smiled brightly. "May we come in?"
He looked at me, "There isn't an Orlando Tribune."
"What?"
"It's the Orlando Sentinel," he explained. "You're lying."
I was thrown for a loop. Of course, why had I thought I could lie to the human lie detector? While I was scrambling, Sarah stepped forward.
She smiled seductively and laid a hand on his shoulder. "You're perfect," she purred. "We really need your help. Will you help us?" I swear she batted her eyes. I gritted my teeth. We did need his help but I didn't think seducing him was a good plan. Too late to tell that to Sarah. James was obviously drooling under her spell. A purely feminine "I'm not wearing a bra'" kind of spell.
"Sure," he stammered, "Come on in."
Sarah followed him into the house and Cecily and I took the chance to roll our eyes. Pravus looked bored to tears, which I thought was rather calm for someone whose life depended on the next few minutes.
James led us into the living room and we all sat. He fiddled nervously with a magazine on the table and then spoke. "What do you need my help for?"
Sarah took a breath to speak but I silenced her with a deadly glare. "We read in the paper that you can tell if people are lying," I said.
He nodded his head. "Yeah."
"Well, we would like to see how good you are." There, true but not the whole truth.
"Okay," he said eagerly. "Everyone thinks it's a trick, but I'm really good at it."
I looked around the living room. I saw pictures with James and two adults who I assumed were his parents. "Are your mom and dad home?" I asked. I didn't want them walking in and wondering what was going on.
"No," he replied. "They're both out. I'm home alone." Someone should tell this boy not to be so honest with complete strangers. That same person should tell him not to let strangers into his house, but I wasn't going to be that person. At least, not until we got what we needed. "We'd like to tell you some statements and see if you know if we are lying or not." I said. I looked at Cecily and she shrugged. She didn't have any better ideas. We hadn't planned what to do in the car since Pravus was there listening. We were trying to look professional and like we knew what we were doing. I hoped it didn't come back to bite us.
"Alright," James said and leaned forward in anticipation.
"My name is Martha Little," I said.
"That's a lie," James said quickly.
I nodded. "I have a small dog and a cat."
"True," he said.
"Let me try," Sarah cut in. "My favorite movie is Twilight."
"Lie," James said with a grin. "I hate that movie too." Oh good. They were bonding.
Cecily shifted in her seat, that giant sword must make sitting uncomfortable, "I'm over a hundred years old," she said.
James looked puzzled, "True?" he said with a question. "How can that be?"
I ignored him and turned to Pravus. "Tell James what you told us," I said without command.
Pravus gave me an ugly look and said "I am innocent of the crimes these people think I have committed."
I tried not to stare at James in anticipation. What would he say?
"True," he said. "He's telling the truth. What crimes do you think he did?"
I drew a deep breath. Cecily had a look of shock on her face. Pravus was innocent. I shuddered to think how close we had come to killing him. I couldn't think clearly. If Pravus hadn't murdered those kids then someone else had. The Synod didn't care too much about justice. If we didn't execute Pravus for the crimes then we had better come up with another person quick, or we would all be killed.
I pinched the bridge of my nose in frustration. This would have been so much simpler if Pravus had been guilty. Irrationally, I felt angry at him for being innocent. It just really gummed up the works. Now we still had to fix the memories of everyone who had taken part in the investigation but also find the real killer. My day was just getting better and better.
I stood up, "Thank you, James, you've been very helpful."
"Wait," he pleaded, "can't you tell me what you needed my help for?"
"I'm sorry, it's classified," was the best I could come up with.
"Piper!" Sarah hissed. Oh sure, use my name in front of him, that's smart. "Shouldn't we tell him?"
"Tell me what?" James wanted to know.
I tried to smile, "You have a very unique gift, James. Thank you for your help. We will be in touch."
I grabbed Sarah's arm and hustled her out the door. Pravus followed with Cecily close behind.
"Please," James said, sounding very young, "I---" he didn't know how to say what he wanted. Just as well. I wasn't going to tell him anything until we got this ritual murder cleared up. One thing at a time. There was plenty of time to fill him in on the USB and all the supernatural beings that went with it, if and when I decided that we should.
"Thank you so much, James," I patted him on the back and then got into the car as quickly as I could. Four car doors slammed shut and, as I drove out of the subdivision, I looked back and saw James standing in the middle of the street, a lost look on his face.
"Why didn't you tell him about the USB?" Sarah demanded.
"Yes, why?" Pravus asked. "He appears to have a magical ability and he is human. You must force him to join with you."
I glared at him through the rearview mirror. "Force him? That may be the way you witches do things, but we humans believe in free will."
"Why didn't you tell him, Piper?" Sarah was angry.
"He's a child, Sarah!"
"So?"
"It's a lot to take in. You want to be the one to tell a little kid that vampires and demons and witchcraft is real?"
She crossed her arms stubbornly, "You should have told him. We need him."
I pulled off the side of the road into a gas station and parked the car. "We do need him, Sarah. You are right. But we don't need him right this second. Give him some time. Trust me, we will have to tell him sooner or later. I just wasn't ready to rush into it."
"That's your problem, Piper," Sarah snapped. "You're too cautious. When have you ever rushed into anything?"
"That's not fair," I said, "and there's nothing wrong with being cautious. I don't see why I should have to defend myself to you."
Pravus raised his hand, "May I say something?"
"No!" we both said.
"Cecily," I asked, "why is he still here? Can we boot him out now?"
She fingered the hilt of the Sword of Justice. "I suppose so," she said reluctantly. "He seems to be innocent and even I do not wish to kill an innocent person." She sighed. "I'm sure he has done other reprehensible things. Perhaps we could execute him for those?" she sounded hopeful.
"No!" I yelled. "You cannot go around cutting off people's heads for fun!"
"Thank you," Pravus said.
"Shut up!" I snapped. "And get out of the car. You're free to go and don't come back."
He glared at me, "You're kicking me out here?"
"Yes. You have a problem with that? 'Cause I could let Miss Psycho Decapitator here chop off your head if you want to stick around?"
Pravus didn't move.
"Well?" I snarled. "What's it going to be, because my lenience is about to run out. You are not my favorite person on a good day, and today is not a good day."
"My car is at my house," he said flatly.
"And?"
"You expect me to walk?"
"I don't care if you hop a broomstick and fly there, just get out of my car," my temper was quickly boiling over.
"No."
"No?" I shrieked. Sarah's eyes were the size of dinner plates. Cecily had a smirk on her face that enraged me even further. "Do you want to rethink that answer?"
"No," he said again.
I was opening the car door to go back and kick his butt when my cell phone rang. What is it with cell phones? Growing up I had thought nothing of leaving the house without a phone, for the simple reason that we didn't have them. Oh, we had a cell phone. It was just the size of a phone book, plugged into the car battery, and cost over four dollars a minute to use. Now if I forgot my phone I felt naked. How would people reach me? What if my car broke down? What if I needed help?
I also had to check it the instant it rang. Sure, it could go to voicemail, but I had to know who was calling, even if I didn't want to talk to them. Especially if I didn't want to talk to them. So, even though I was furious and getting ready to administer a beat-down, or at least try, I stopped and checked my phone. Habit.
The display read 'Home" so I answered. "Hello."
"Hi, Mommy!" A little voice said.
"Hey, sweetie!" I cooed. "Are you having fun with Daddy?"
This was supposed to be a girls' weekend out. Sarah and I had said that we wanted to reconnect and work on our relationship. Mom, Dad, and my husband, Mark, all thought that we were relaxing and talking and shopping. We were due back the next night and I missed my family more than I wanted to admit. Toddlers can drive you nuts sometimes, but I love my two little girls and I wouldn't trade them for the world.
Megan had just turned five and already had quite the little attitude. "Daddy lets us do whatever we want!" she told me excitedly.
"Really," I said dryly. "I'm thrilled to hear that."
"He let us watch movies, and eat pizza and ice-cream and stay up all night long."
"Uh-huh."
"And Granny came over to play and took us to the movies!"
"Wow! Sounds like you guys are having a blast!" I'd been gone less than twenty-four hours. It sounded like Mark was going a little overboard.
"You're really having this conversation now?" Pravus hissed.
"Shut. Up." I mouthed the words at him and made a slashing motion across my throat with my hand.
"Are you being a good girl for Daddy?" I asked.
"Yes!" she chirped. "Cassidy isn't being a good girl. But I am."
Cassidy was the youngest, almost three, and still really hard to understand. She was also much more emotional than her older sister, and tended to get her feelings hurt easily. "Why isn't she being good?" I asked.
"She's not a big girl like me," Megan explained.
"I know. You are a very big girl. Are you being a big help to Daddy?"
"Yes, I told him what we like to eat for breakfast, and what we like to wear, and when Cassidy needs a spanking."
I smiled, "Wow, sounds like you are being a big help. I miss you a bunch, sweetie! Mommy will be home tomorrow night to tuck you in."
"Oh, that's okay," Megan chirped, "We don't miss you yet. We're still having fun with Daddy."
I laughed, "That's good. Can I talk to Cassie?"
There was a scuffling on the other end and then Cassidy came on. "Hey, honey! I miss you!" I said.
"Miss you too, Mommy! 'Eg mean to me." Straight to the tattling, those were my girls.
"I'm sure she didn't mean it," I soothed. "Are you having a good time with Daddy?"
There was fierce whispering coming from the backseat of the car. I was trying to ignore it, but I could see Sarah staring over the back of her seat with wide eyes. The whispering erupted into a fight. Cecily was apparently trying to forcefully eject Pravus from the car. He had wedged himself in between the seat and the door and in the cramped space she didn't have enough leverage to utilize her superior strength, which was bound to be a little less superior, due to the sun.
I refocused on the phone call. "---fun time," Cassidy ended.
"That's great, honey," I said, making hushing motions at Cecily. "Can I talk to Daddy for a minute." I covered the mouth piece and hissed at Cecily, "Will you be quiet!"
"He won't get out of the car!" she exclaimed like a kindergartener.
"Get out!" I said to Pravus.
"No!" he yelled. "The least you can do is give me a ride home!"
I growled in frustration and then had to switch to a normal voice when Mark came on the line. "Hey, babe!" he greeted me.
"Hi! Sounds like ya'll are having a little too much fun there without me."
"You know how it is, when the cat's away the mice will party!" he said.
"Don't overdo it, they're going to think that Mommy is a stick in the mud who never lets them have any fun."
"Aren't you?" he quipped.
"Ha. Bet you miss me."
"More than you can imagine. I have no idea how you do this every day. I'm exhausted."
I laughed. That was more like it. I wanted to know that I was missed and appreciated. "I'll be home tomorrow. Hold on till then."
"Counting the hours, hon. You just relax and have a good time with Sarah. Say hi for me!" There was a crash from his end of the line. "Megan!" he yelled away from the phone. "Sorry, babe, I've got to go! Love you!" and he hung up.
Relax with Sarah. If he only knew.
Pravus and Cecily had finally separated and were sulking as far away from each other as they could get in the small backseat.
I rolled my eyes with a sigh. "Where do you live?" I capitulated.
Pravus smirked at Cecily and gave me the address. Fifteen minutes later we were rid of him. He showed not a trace of gratitude for our saving his life. In fact, he seemed to blame us for wasting part of his day.
"We broke you out of jail!" I cried, surprised.
"I didn't ask you to!" he retorted. "And you better finish cleaning up this mess. I do not want to be rearrested here."
I made a face at his back as he stalked up to his house. "Can you believe that?" I asked.
Cecily had a hungry look as she watched him close the door behind him. "You can never trust a witch," she repeated.
As much as I hated to admit it, Pravus was right. We did still have a bunch of work to do. The detectives who worked on the case would have to have their memories adjusted. Otherwise they might start to wonder where their prime suspect, whom they had locked behind bars, had gotten off to. That would lead to all sorts of questions. The sorts of questions that it was our job as Guardians to prevent.
"Where's that printout from the police station?" I asked.
"Here you go," Cecily handed it up to Sarah.
She took it and perused it quickly. She typed a few addresses into the GPS and then spoke, "Okay. I think we can hit the two homicide cops at home and then we'll have to figure out where the other two cops are on patrol." She tapped the paper, "Both these guys live pretty close."
I pulled back onto the street. I was getting really tired of being in the car. I wished that I really was on a girl retreat with Sarah. Lying by a pool, sipping a frozen beverage, working on my tan. I needed a break. I would have to pretend to be all relaxed and refreshed when I got home, when really this trip was shooting my stress level through the roof. I used to think that being a stay-at-home mom was tough, now I longed for the days when all I had to worry about was who hit whom, or who had the toy first. Not to mention the guilt. I had to keep on lying to Mark. It was for the best. But if it was for the best why did I feel like such a scumbag?
"Earth to Piper; come in please," Sarah broke into my reverie.
"What?"
"You missed the turn." The GPS was showing me where to turn around and get back on route.
"Sorry."
"What were you thinking of?" Cecily wanted to know.
I sighed. "I just love this job so much. The hours, the people, the wonderful crime scene photos we get to look at. It's a dream come true."
Sarah snickered.
The GPS announced that we had arrived at our destination. Another cookie-cutter house in a cookie-cutter subdivision. I could have been a few streets over from my own house. I was reminded of that movie with Salma Hayek where she lives in a neighborhood where all the houses look the same but she paints hers in crazy southwestern colors. Why did we all live in look-alike houses? Oh, yeah, because custom homes were way more expensive.
Cecily got out first. Her skirt and blouse still looked fresh and clean even after being out in the rain. I felt more like a partially drowned rat. The rain had soaked Sarah's clothes as well and made her t-shirt almost see-through. I gritted my teeth and refrained from any rude comments about her appearance.
They followed me up the front walk and I had a troubling thought. Why were they acting like I was in charge? Shouldn't Cecily be in charge? She was older, faster, and scarier. I wasn't sure I like being the one who gave the orders. They both stopped in front of the door and waited for me to knock. Good grief. I did not want this responsibility.
I knocked on the door when it became apparent that neither Cecily nor Sarah was going to do it. A plain woman in cutoff-shorts and a t-shirt answered.
"Yes?" she asked.
I looked down at the computer printout in my hand. "Does Detective Rodriguez live here?" I asked.
"Yes," she said again.
"May we speak with him?"
"What is this regarding?" she wanted to know.
I tried my fake smile again, "We have a few questions regarding one of the cases he is working on."
"I'm sorry," she smiled just as fake-ly back. "This is his day off. He's resting and he doesn't discuss open cases with anyone outside the police department. Regulations." She smiled again. "You understand."
Sarah elbowed me very unsubtly in the side. I glared at her and Cecily backed her up with a cough and an exaggerated "get on with it" head gesture.
I hated using the Voice. Becoming immortal would be horrible. But being executed now for not doing my job would be worse. I didn't want to live forever but I did want to live a little longer.
I cleared my throat and used the Voice. "Please take us to your husband at once."
She instantly invited us in to the living-room and asked if we would like anything to drink. We all declined and waited while she went to fetch her husband.
He had obviously been sleeping and I felt bad for disturbing him on his day off. "What case is this about?" he asked with a yawn.
Cecily and Sarah waited for me to speak. This was getting out of hand. I would have to talk about it with them when we were done here. I did not sign up to be the chief.
"The double homicide, ritual murder case," I answered.
He sat up straighter. "Yes?"
"Umm," I looked over at Sarah. I wasn't sure how her memory thing worked. Did the person have to be thinking about what she wanted to change? Or did she just have to be near them to change their memory?
"Can you tell me your initial impressions?" I asked, trying to sound like the cops on TV.
He frowned at me, "I don't know what my wife told you, but I don't discuss cases with the press."
It was Sarah's turn to give an exaggerated cough.
"Please tell us all about the witchcraft case," I commanded with the Voice.
His face cleared at once and he spoke, "Some teenagers found the crime scene and called it in. My partner and I were second on the scene, some uniform officers arrived first. It was pretty gruesome. I've seen some bad things, but this was ..." he paused, "... worse."
"Go on," I encouraged.
"It was hard to tell how many victims we were looking at. There were only two heads, but since the arms, legs, fingers, and toes had all been dismembered, there appeared to be more body parts than two victims would account for." Sarah made a face. I tried to keep mine blank and professional.
He went on, "There was a pentagram done in blood in the ground, with melted candles, bowls full of blood, and four silver coins. The two heads had been stuck on spikes and faced east and west." He stopped his dry recital and said, "My partner puked up his entire lunch." A smile came to his face in remembrance. I guess if you didn't laugh at things in this job then you would go crazy.
"We immediately called in backup and secured the scene. The forensic guys were able to determine the identities of the victims. DNA evidence pointed to a man with prior arrests involving witchcraft."
"DNA?" I asked.
"A hair was found at the scene, and there was a partial fingerprint on one of the bowls."
"Really?" Sarah spoke for the first time. "Doesn't that seem rather sloppy?"
Detective Rodriguez smiled at her in a paternal sort of way. "Things very rarely happen the way you see on TV. It is almost impossible not to leave some trace of DNA at a crime scene. It's really more surprising that the hair and fingerprint were all we found."
"So you arrested the man?" Sarah asked meekly. Hmph. She was going for child-like innocence and curiosity.
"Yes. Richard Parker has been brought in a couple of times for various witchcraft-related crimes. We should have no problem convincing a jury that he is guilty."
I closed my eyes for a moment in guilt. No problem. Well, after we were done he wouldn't remember that he had almost closed the case. I nodded at Sarah. She got a slightly unfocused look on her face.
"Thank you so much for your time, Detective Rodriguez," I said, standing up. I paused, "Can you tell me again the name of your prime suspect?"
He shook his head. "Like I said, we don't have a suspect yet. It's still in the early days of the investigation. We've looked at some of the practicing witches in the area with priors, but all of them have come up clean. Don't worry," he said grimly, "we'll get the guy."
I gave him a sick smile. "I'm sure you will."
We headed off for his partner's house next. He told pretty much the same story and was taken care of in the same way. Neither one of them would remember talking with us, or arresting Richard Parker. Sarah fixed it so that they would think the killer was still out there and they needed to catch him. That was all good, I suppose. After all, the killer was still out there, which gave me a rather prickly feeling between my shoulder blades.
After the detectives, we had to find the two officers out on patrol. This was a little harder as it involved deciphering the shorthand of the police department to see in what area their car would be during which time. We finally tracked them down outside a Burger King and quickly erased their memories of arresting Richard Parker.
I was beat at this point and insisted that we go inside the restaurant and get a drink or something in the cool air-conditioning before doing anything else. Sarah and Cecily each got a large hamburger, fries, coke, and milkshake. I tried to make them gain weight with the power of my evil thoughts while I ordered a salad and a diet coke. Life was not fair.
Holy Ground
"Now what?" Sarah asked, dipping a french-fry into her milkshake.
"Now we have to find out who really killed those kids." I said.
"Oh. Is that all? I thought we had something really hard to do," she said sarcastically.
I turned to Cecily. "So, what's the deal with not completing our Guardian assignment? I take it that the Synod won't take 'he was innocent and we let him go,' as an excuse."
"Right," she said, dashing all my hopes that the Synod was more understanding and lenient than I was giving them credit for. "Since we let Pravus go, we have to kill someone else or be killed."
Sarah raised her hand, "When you say 'kill someone else' does that mean anyone else, or just someone who really did do the crime?"
Cecily shrugged. "Or just someone that we can convince the Synod did the crime."
"You mean, an innocent person?" I was annoyed. "If I wanted to whack an innocent person I would have killed Pravus and been done with it. We're not killing someone for convenience."
"I was just saying ..." Cecily took a big bite of her burger.
I shoved some unappetizing lettuce into my mouth and chewed angrily. I did not ask for this. When I signed up to be a Guardian it had been the only option. Now my only option was to play detective and I wasn't happy about it. This job was supposed to be easy. Be given a target. Take the target out. Cover up the mess. Go home and pretend to be normal with my husband and kids. Things were not proceeding as planned.
"How are we supposed to find out who really did this?" I wanted to know.
"We could always talk to some of the victims' friends," Sarah suggested. "On the cop shows the victim is always killed by someone they know."
"That's because it makes for more interesting TV," I pointed out. "It's not very entertaining if the murderer chose the victim at random with no motive."
"That's the word!" Sarah cried. "Motive! You find the motive, you find the killer."
"And the cops missed this how?" I asked sardonically.
"The police stopped looking once they found Richard Parker," Cecily pointed out. "The evidence pointed clearly to him and they did not have our inside knowledge that he has to be innocent."
I sighed. "I wish he had been guilty. This would be a whole lot easier."
"We could still go execute him and be done with this," Cecily said, needlessly.
"Yeah, yeah. Been there, tried that. Not a solution." I took a sip of diet coke. Why is it that fountain drinks taste so much better than canned or bottled? There must be extra aspartame or something in them. I know artificial sweeteners are supposed to make your brain synapses misfire and cause cancer in lab rats, but I really like the taste. Maybe I like having my synapses misfire too. I drink diet coke so often that I wouldn't know what it was like to not have my synapses misfiring. Plus, I have no idea what a "synapse" is. It's just a fun word to say.
"Do you have any better ideas?" Sarah asked.
"Than what?"
"Than talking to the victims' friends."
I thought for a moment. "Alright. We can track down their friends and try to get an idea of why someone would kill these two kids. Was it a crime of opportunity? Or premeditated? Was the satanic ritual real or fake? Maybe we should talk to a witch too and find out what the ritual was supposed to accomplish."
"I know a witch we could talk to," Sarah smiled.
"No," I said firmly. "We are not talking to Pravus again. That man is annoying. Innocent or not, I will kill him myself if I have to be around him again."
Cecily finished her milkshake and pushed the rest of her fries away. I was so tempted to take one. Just one! How many calories could be in one little french-fry? Self control, Piper! Self control!
"Friends it is," Cecily said.
I looked at my watch. "We only have the rest of today and a couple of hours tomorrow to figure this out. Then I have to get back to my family. My girls will forget what I look like and start calling my mother-in-law 'mom' if I stay away any longer."
"Oh, come on, Piper," Sarah chided. "You left them with Mark, not Carolyn."
"Yeah," I agreed. "But I guarantee that she is over there every single day I'm gone. Undermining me. Spoiling my kids. Turning me into the bad guy."
"You're not paranoid or anything, are you," Cecily said dryly.
"Just because you are paranoid doesn't mean that someone isn't out to get you," I said wisely. "That woman hates my guts. I'm just lucky she loves my kids. Mark really does need the help. Why is it that men can't multi-task?"
"God made women different," Cecily smiled. "And when I say 'different' I mean 'better.'"
"Still," Sarah cut in, "Mark is completely capable of spoiling the girls rotten without his mother's help. No matter who you leave them with you are still going to be the boring mom when you get back." This was spoken with true love and understanding. Ha.
I had to agree though. "I know. They miss me, but when I get home life has to go back to normal and that's hard for little kids. That's one of the reasons why I hate to leave. That and I miss them."
"Well then," Cecily stood up. "We have limited time and a lot to do. Shall we ladies?"
We quickly realized that we had no destination in mind. After conferring, we decided that the best place to start was the school that both of the victims had attended. Legacy Christian School was run by the Baptist Bible Church of Kissimmee and was located on the edge of the open farm lands we had tromped through hours before.
It was a large, red brick church with white columns. Very Deep South. Since it was Saturday, I was not surprised to see only a few cars in the parking lot. Unsure where to go, we followed the signs that pointed to "Church and School Office." They led to the main building. Over the door was the sign "Biblically Preparing Eternal Souls." Sarah stopped short.
"Do you want to wait out here?" she asked Cecily.
"Why?" Cecily was puzzled.
Sarah pointed at the church door. "It's a church," she said, rather obviously.
"And?" Cecily asked.
"You are a vampire," Sarah was getting more obvious by the minute.
"And?" Cecily asked again.
"You are a vampire." Sarah stressed the last word.
I held up a hand, "Don't say 'and' again," I begged. "We'll be here all day."
Cecily smoothed her skirt and smiled, "May I assume that you are referring to a certain old wives' tale?"
"Yeah," Sarah said. "Vampires can't enter a church."
"Why not?" Cecily asked.
This threw Sarah for a loop. "Because," she explained eloquently.
"Because why?" Cecily was making a point.
"Because ..." Sarah trailed off. "You don't have a soul?" she asked embarrassed. This had to be the first time my little sister was worried about someone's soul.
"Who says I don't have a soul?" Cecily wanted to know.
"Everyone!" Sarah blurted out. "Everyone knows that vampires don't have souls."
"Just like everyone knows that vampires spontaneously combust in the sun?" said the vampire who was obviously not combusting in the bright sunlight. She looked bad, tired, haggard, drawn, but even on her worst day in the sun, Cecily was still pretty good looking. Not that I'm jealous or anything.
"Well," Sarah was thinking. "Does that mean you can enter a church?"
"Yes," Cecily smiled.
"Do you have a soul?"
"Sarah!" I chided, thinking that it was rather rude to ask someone if they were soulless or not.
"Well," Sarah said stubbornly. "Do you?"
"Why wouldn't I have a soul?"
Sarah crossed her arms and scowled, "Do I have to spell it out?"
"That might help. I'm not a telepath."
"You are a vampire."
"You already said that."
"Why are you being difficult?" Sarah asked.
Cecily sighed. "I'm not trying to be difficult. I just really would like to know what your actual questions are before I start answering. I've been around a long time and what people think about vampires has changed over the years. What I'm trying to say is, I don't know what framework you are operating under."
"Oh," that made sense to Sarah. "I always thought that vampires couldn't go into sacred ground, because they were soulless and would burst into flame."
"I'm not soulless."
"But you're dead, right?" I couldn't stay out of the conversation. There were some things that I wanted to know as well.
"Yes. But not soulless."
Sarah had a new thought, "Can a vampire be a Christian?"
"Yes," was the surprising answer. "Why not?"
"Because," Sarah was stumped. "I don't know. You're dead. Christians believe that when you die you go to heaven to be with Jesus. You died and didn't go to heaven, therefore, not a Christian."
Cecily shrugged. "Jesus himself told his disciples that there were ones among them who wouldn't taste death until he returned."
"Yeah?" I didn't get the point.
"That was over two thousand years ago. Humans don't live that long. Vampires do."
"Oh, come on," I was skeptical.
"When Jesus returns there will still be people living on the earth. I will be among them, if I make it that far. Why are they any different from me?"
"Because they're not dead," it seemed a big difference to me.
"Neither am I in the sense that you mean. When a human says 'dead,' they mean 'not interacting with life.' 'Life' means breathing, eating, talking, sleeping. In that sense of the word I am very much alive."
I frowned. I would have to think about this some more. Cecily wasn't finished. "And," she grinned, "the Bible does say that 'the dead in Christ will rise first.' I take that to mean my vampire brethren."
I had to laugh. I wonder what the Church would say to that argument. On one hand it seemed rather sacrilegious, but on the other ... why not?
"So you can enter the church here?" Sarah was back to the beginning question.
"Yes, I can enter the church here without needing a fire extinguisher handy."
I noticed that both Sarah and I stayed back from Cecily as she pushed through the double doors. I believed her; I just didn't want to take any chances. If she was going to catch fire, I wanted to be far enough away that I didn't get singed.
Grief Counselors
Inside the church foyer, all was dim and cool. It looked very much like other churches I have been in. There was the mandatory table with a vase of flowers and a mirror hanging on the wall behind it. There was the table with church brochures, Bibles, hymnals, etc. There were a couple of chairs artistically arranged. The standard faux oriental carpet covered the tile. To one side of the room a sign read "Church/ School Office." The door was closed and locked.
I had just stepped back from the locked door, when a woman entered behind us. She was short and plump, with heavy make-up, and big hair. "Can I help you?" she asked, a little out of breath from pushing open the front doors.
Sarah and Cecily looked at me. Dang it! I'd forgotten to speak to them about how I was not in charge. "We're here regarding the recent deaths---" I didn't get to finish.
"Oh, I know. Isn't it horrible? We are all just so shaken up here about it!" She pulled out a heavy bunch of keys and opened the office door. "I'm Charlene, the church secretary. How can I help ya'll?"
By this time I had thought of a reason for being there. "We are grief counselors," I lied. "Do you know of any students close to the two victims? Best friends? Boyfriends, girlfriends? The closer the relationship the greater need there is for professional help in dealing with the many emotions that come from this sort of situation." Huh? Did that even make sense?
Charlene didn't have a problem with it, "That is so true," she gushed. "I can get you a list of their friends right away. That is just wonderful that the state is sending out grief counselors! What rewarding work ya'll must do!"
I hadn't said anything about being from the State, but I wasn't going to correct her. She bustled around to her desk and pushed the power button for her computer. Its fan whirred to life and we all waited as the operating system loaded.
"You know," she chirped into the silence, "I think ya'll might find some of the kids in the sanctuary right now. It plum slipped my mind, but they've been keepin' a sort of vigil, with candles and whatnot. Pagan goin's on, is what I said, but the pastor said that they were 'working through their sorrow.'" She tutted to show what she thought of that. "You might talk to some of them whiles I print you up a list of students who were friends with Shane and Julie. Now you understand that normally our records are completely confidential. But, seeing as ya'll are from the State and whatnot, I am happy to help out!"
Sarah gave a choked snort from behind me. I valiantly kept a straight face. If I said anything more she would probably think we were from the National Treasury and give us the contents of the offering box! I wondered if the school parents knew how "confidential" their records were being kept.
We excused ourselves, backed out of the office, and entered the sanctuary. I kept an eye on Cecily and tried to stay a few feet back from her. Like I said before, it's not that I didn't believe that she had a soul, I was just taking a few precautions. She observed this behavior and gave me a wry wink. I tried to pull an innocent face and, when that failed, ignored her and looked about the sanctuary.
It was a rather pretty church. The wood pews had red seat cushions which matched the stage carpet and the tall, stained-glass window behind the pulpit. Multiple, beautiful, hand-sewn banners with scripture verses hung on each wall. The stage was raised by five steps and each step was covered in flower arrangements. An easel stood on either side of the pulpit with a large framed photo - one of a boy, the other a girl. These must be the two students who were killed, Shane and Julie.
At first glance I had thought the place deserted, but as my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I saw four teenagers sitting on the second pew, two girls, and two boys. The girls were obviously crying; the boys looked grim. These must be the friends the secretary had told us about.
I looked over at Sarah in question. We needed to talk to these kids but I wasn't sure what the best way to go about it was. The church secretary already thought that we were grief counselors so perhaps that was the best way to approach them. Far from having any great ideas, Sarah gave a shrug as if to say "It's all up to you." I really needed to have that talk with her and Cecily. This had to stop.
I walked quietly down the center aisle and cleared my throat. Four heads turned to look at me. "Hello," I tried a sad smile. I was going for friendly understanding and empathy. Their faces didn't change so I don't know how effective it was. I started to introduce myself, realized that giving my real name might not be such a great idea, ran out of time in which to come up with an alias, and decided to just go with "I'm Piper."
Still blank looks. One of the girls sniffed loudly and wiped at her eyes with a soggy tissue. I continued the introductions, "This is Cecily and Sarah. We're grief counselors and we'd like to talk with ya'll. Is that okay?"
I kept one eye on the ceiling waiting for lightning to strike me for lying in church. Nothing happened so I guess God understood that my intent was good.
The four teenagers looked at each other, each obviously waiting to gauge the response of the others before committing to a reaction. One of the girls finally spoke. She had black hair with lime green streaks, a nose ring, and heavy eye make-up smeared from crying.
"What do you want to talk to us about?" she asked a trifle belligerently.
I was guessing that she was the leader of the group. The rest of them seemed content to let her do the talking. "I understand that ya'll were very close with Shane and Julie. We thought that it might help for you to be able to talk to someone about the emotions that you are going through. Also," more lies here, "we work closely with the police department and you may have information that could help catch the murderer."
One of the boys looked puzzled, "I thought it was Mr. Parker?"
"I'm sorry," I was confused. "Did you know Mr. Parker?"
"Yes," the other girl answered. "He was a guest lecturer at school."
"What?" Cecily was surprised.
The second boy turned to her, "Yeah, he gave a couple lectures this year in our world religions class."
"I thought this was a Christian school?" Sarah said.
"It is," the first girl said. "But for World Religions we had a bunch of different speakers come in to talk about different religions. Mr. Parker spoke on Wicca."
I traded looks with Cecily. Interesting. "Did he show a particular interest in Shane and Julie?" I asked.
"Not really," the second boy said. "I mean, they were, like, really interested in the Wicca stuff and asked him a bunch of questions after class, but that was all."
"Why did he kill them?" the first boy asked with a catch in his voice.
I sat down on the pew behind them and tried to look them each in the eye. They were all suffering and I wanted to do something to help them. "I don't know why Shane and Julie are dead," I confessed. "I know this is really hard for all of you."
The leader girl angrily wiped at her mascara, "We should have been with them," she said.
"What?"
The other girl spoke, "We were supposed to meet them that day, but..." she trailed off and looked guilty at one of the boys. "... we were busy." I could guess what they were busy at.
"Shane said they had a great idea of some fun and did we want to come," the first boy filled in.
"We thought we'd just catch up with them later," his friend said lamely.
They all looked at me with stricken looks on their faces. I imagined that this was what survivors' guilt looked like. They almost felt worse over still being alive than they did about losing their friends.
Cecily sat down on the pew next to me, the Sword of Justice clanging on the wooden back. "There was nothing you could have done," she said calmly. Their faces lightened a little. They wanted to believe that so badly.
"If you had been there you would have died as well," she continued. "There is little point in beating yourself up about not dying. Your time will come when it was planned. You were not meant to die that day."
Sarah cleared her throat. "I know the police believe that Richard Parker was the murderer, but is there any chance that someone else might have been responsible?"
The four kids looked at her strangely. "He was a witch," one explained.
"He worshiped Satan."
"He told us about other rituals he had been involved in."
"The police found DNA evidence."
"Who else could have done it?" They finished and waited for her to respond to their logic.
Sarah looked helplessly at me, "I don't know," she shrugged, "I'm just asking if Shane and Julie ever mentioned anyone else that might have wanted them dead."
All four heads shook. "Everyone loved Shane and Julie," the leader girl said. "They were popular. Not just with us, but with everyone. The teachers loved them, they never got in trouble with the Headmaster, nobody had any reason to want them dead." She started to cry again.
I reached out a hand and tentatively patted her on the shoulder. They all seemed to be telling the truth. As far as they knew, there was no one else who could have killed their friends. You have to admit, it made sense. If your friends are killed in a Satanic ritual, it seems logical to assume that the only Satanic ritualist you know would be responsible. Logical, but incorrect. Pravus was innocent, which created this whole mess in the first place.
"We need to go," I said. "But if you ever need to talk---" Crap. If they need to talk? I couldn't give them my phone number or email address. The last thing I wanted was for word to get back to the police that some vigilantes were investigating the murders.
"Thanks," the leader girl said, apparently not noticing my lack of concrete ways to contact me. "We appreciate it."
"Okay, then," I gave a half smile. "We'll see you around."
The four teenagers turned back to face the front. We were dismissed. I stood and Cecily and Sarah followed me out of the sanctuary.
The doors shut quietly behind us and we exchanged looks. "Well?" I asked.
"Not good," was Cecily's answer.
"Why? Other than the obvious."
"The obvious being, Pravus didn't do it but it sure looks like he did?" Sarah asked.
"Yeah, that one."
Cecily sighed, "The evidence makes Pravus guilty."
"But he is innocent," I pointed out.
She sighed again. "It doesn't make sense. He had means, motive, and opportunity." She ticked them off on her fingers, "He is a witch so he knows how to work a death ritual - means. He would gain a lot of power from a death ritual, especially if the victims were are pure as their friends believe them to be - motive. He was a guest speaker here and both victims had expressed interest in his beliefs outside of class - opportunity."
I shook my head, "But we know that he didn't do it. So that means that he was framed. Either the two kids were the prime target and Pravus was a convenient scape-goat, or---"
Sarah finished my thought, "Or Pravus is the target and we need to be looking at people who want him dead!"
Dead End
Back at the hotel that night, I tried to think. It had all started out so simple! Why had I had such a big problem with executing someone? Right now I would be happy to wield the sword myself, anything to finish this craziness! Pravus was innocent, of that much I was sure. So, where to go from there? What did it mean?
All the evidence pointed to Pravus. The police believed him to be the killer. The Synod believed him to be the killer. By not executing him, we had created a problem. Either the Synod would kill us for failing to follow orders, or we had to find the real killer and execute him. Just peachy. Only problem was Point One again: all the evidence pointed to Pravus. Therefore (my brain was starting to hurt at this point) the real killer had no interest in the students other than that they were a convenient way to frame Pravus. We could stop interviewing people who had anything to do with the murders and focus solely on Pravus. Who hated him? Who wanted him dead?
Someone knocked on the door while my brain was contorting itself in mental gymnastics. I checked the peephole to make sure it was Sarah and Cecily before I opened it. They had gone out for pizza and drinks. None of us had felt like eating out in a restaurant. Conversations about decapitated victims and satanic rituals tend to earn you suspicious looks from your waitress.
Food was quickly dispensed and I noticed Cecily quietly bowing her head over her plate before beginning to eat. Curiouser and curiouser! I wanted to ask her more questions about this whole "soul" thing, but now was not the time. I decided to share my musings.
Cecily and Sarah munched pizza and listened while I explained my reasoning. "So," I wrapped it up, "We need to find out who has a grudge against Pravus. We find out who hates him the most and we've found our killer." It sounded so easy when I said it that way. Ha.
"Okay," Sarah agreed. "Makes sense to me. How do we do that?"
Drat. It sounded so hard when you said it that way.
"We'll have to go talk to Pravus tomorrow," Cecily said. "He must have some clue as to why he was framed. He can't be entirely as stupid as he looks."
I choked on a sip of diet coke. "I certainly hope not," I added with a laugh. Cecily and I broke into a laugh at our wittiness. Sarah rolled her eyes and reached for a fourth piece of pizza.
Where was she putting the food? Granted, I was ten years older, but really! Even at sixteen I would have been plump had I eaten the way she did. Must be her metabolism. Some people seem to be able to eat whatever they want and not gain an ounce. Me, I felt fatter just looking at the pizza. I'd had one piece and it was killing me not to reach back in the box for another one. No, I told myself. You do not need the calories!
Why couldn't I have been born with a quick metabolism? Come to think of it, my older sister, Karen, liked to eat ice-cream for breakfast. And my brother Jacob ate enough for an army. Why was I the only one in the family to inherit a sluggish metabolism? It wasn't fair. I had to get the crappy metabolism and the crazy ability. I pouted a bit.
"What's wrong?" Cecily asked. She was, not that I was counting, on her third piece of pizza. Vampires don't get nutritional benefit from eating, but they enjoy the process. It was supremely unfair. Cecily would stay slim and trim without watching her caloric intake or joining a gym. Of course, she was dead. But every silver lining must have its cloud!
I had a random thought. "If I turn immortal, will I stay just the way I was when I changed?"
"Huh?" she was confused.
"If I turn immortal, does my body stay the same and never change?"
"You won't age," was the answer.
"Yeah," I rolled my eyes. "I get that. The word 'immortal' kind of gave that one away. What I mean is, do immortals gain weight?"
Sarah laughed, the little punk. "You are so obsessed with your weight, Piper!" This from the girl with the long legs, flat abs, and perky boobs. I remember when mine were perky. Breastfeeding sort of "takes it out of them" if you know what I mean.
I sat up straight in offended dignity. "I am not obsessed with my weight. I was just wondering. Hypothetically."
Cecily hid a smile behind her hand. "I don't know," she said. "When I turned I became better than I had been before. Stronger, faster, thinner, even prettier. I don't know how it would work for you."
I sighed. So much for that hope. Not that I wanted to be immortal. It would just be nice for something in my life to have a positive side.
"You have to remember," Cecily continued. "You both are the first of your kind that we have met. It is unknown how your bodies would react to immortality."
"Could they be wrong about the whole immortality thing?" I asked hopefully.
"Unlikely," was the crushing response.
"You'd be fine with turning immortal if it meant you could eat whatever you wanted!" Sarah teased.
I gave her my death stare. "Just you wait. For all you know we'll gain fifty pounds and grow warts when we turn immortal. How would you like that?"
Sarah laughed the laugh of youth, unconcerned and invulnerable. Had I ever been like that? Probably. I just didn't feel like that anymore.
I pulled the conversation back on track. "So, the plan for tomorrow ..."
"We have to go talk to Pravus again," Sarah said.
"Then we go home," I added. I missed my kids. It's not that I didn't trust Mark to take good care of them. It's just that I knew no one could do as good a job as me. They had to be missing me by now.
Sarah was playing with her silver bracelet. "What happens if we can't find the killer," she asked Cecily.
Cecily looked serious. "The Synod will set a hit on us. We may have some time until that happens. At the most, I would guess we have three days to find the real killer before ..." She didn't finish but we all knew what came next.
I knew that she had really put her life on the line by trusting me. If she had done what she wanted to do, Pravus would be dead and all this would be over. Instead, she had listened to me. Bad enough that I was risking my own life; I was potentially taking my sister and my best friend down with me.
Looking back though, I don't know how I could have done any different. I couldn't kill an innocent person just to save my own life. That wasn't right. I would never be able to live with myself. I would just have to hope that we found the killer before the Synod found out that we hadn't fulfilled our hit.
We wound up watching stupid reality-TV shows into the wee hours of the morning. What is it about normal people making colossal idiots of themselves that is so entertaining to watch? Could people really be this stupid? And if they were, did we deserve to continue as a species? I wanted to slap all the drama queens and send them to their rooms. Maybe that was what was missing from their lives, a strong mother figure to tell them to stop being such a baby and suck it up.
Sarah and I shared one of the queen beds which was a little weird for me. I'm used to sharing a bed with Mark, where it's okay if you snuggle in the middle of the night. Waking up to find Sarah's elbow in my face and her knee in my spine was not quite so nice. That and she snores. I was exhausted, but what with the elbowing and kneeing and snoring I didn't catch much sleep.
The few times I looked over at Cecily's bed, I noticed that she wasn't sleeping either. Oh, duh. The vampire thing. She was probably used to sleeping during the day and being awake at night. Our current schedule had to be killing her. Oh wait. She was already dead. I stifled a snigger and finally drifted off to sleep.
The next morning we were all grouchy and tired. Three women, one bathroom, need I say more? By the time we were packed up and ready to go I was ready to shiv someone. Maybe Sarah, for hogging the bathroom for forty-five minutes when I had to pee, but probably Cecily, for suggesting that we skip the hotel's continental breakfast and go get donuts or pancakes.
"Pancakes!" I shrieked.
"Yeah, you know, the round bready things you put syrup on," Sarah chimed in.
"I know what they are," I snarled. "Do you have any idea how many calories are in pancakes?" My voice was reaching its upper register.
Cecily rubbed a tired hand over red-rimmed eyes. "Never mind, I need to get some food," she said.
I stopped. She sounded awful. "Okay," I said slowly. "Where do you want to go?"
She looked embarrassed. "Umm. You guys go get some breakfast and I'll meet up with you."
I narrowed my eyes. "Where are you going?"
She played with the fabric of her skirt. "I told you," she didn't explain, "I need some food."
"Oh my goodness!" I breathed. "You're going to feed off someone!"
She glared at me. "No. I'm not," she said shortly.
"Then where are you going?" Sarah wanted to know.
Cecily stopped looking embarrassed and started looking exasperated. "Do you really need to know?"
Sarah and I looked at each other. "Yes," we both said.
Cecily rolled her eyes. "I'm going to go visit a vampire contact in the city and get some blood." As our eyes widened in horror, she added, "from a blood bank. Good grief you two. I'm not Dracula."
"But you are, kind of," Sarah said. "I mean, for us, you're the closest thing to Dracula I've ever met."
"But I don't kill people," Cecily sighed
"I know." It was my turn to feel embarrassed. "I'm sorry. We're just all out of sorts this morning." We quickly agreed on a meeting place and Cecily did her disappearing act while Sarah and I drove down the road to an IHOP.
Breakfast was torture. I adore pancakes. And waffles. And donuts. And bacon. And all those other fatty, high calorie breakfast foods that are so delicious. Sarah got giant, blueberry pancakes, with peanut butter and syrup, a side of bacon, hash browns, scrambled eggs and toast. I had oatmeal.
I nursed my coffee and thought murderous thoughts. Sarah was digging in like a plow hand. If she made another "mmmmm" sound I was going to stab her with my fork. As it was, my oatmeal was probably loaded with quadruple the number of calories that my high-fiber, instant oatmeal had at home. I felt my butt growing larger as I thought about it.
How in the world did my sister do it? She must have hollow legs. She also looked fresh and alert, like she'd gotten a good night's sleep. Humph. Apparently she hadn't had someone poking her in the back every time she turned over. Or snoring in her ear. She'd had time to apply heavy eye make-up, and her silver earrings matched the bracelet on her wrist.
"I like your bracelet," I said, to make conversation. What I really meant was "You're overeating is making me sick with jealousy."
"Yeah?" she spread more peanut butter on her pancakes.
"Yeah," I tried not to snarl. "It's pretty." Translation: "I hope that pancake gives you thunder-thighs."
"Thanks," she crunched on some bacon. I might have ground my teeth.
Fortunately, Cecily chose that moment to appear. I slowly released my death grip on my fork and leaned back in the booth. She looked much better. There were still dark circles under her eyes, but they had lost the blood-shot, hungry look. On the one hand, I was glad. Hanging out with a hungry vampire is not a good idea. On the other hand, Eww! She had been drinking blood!
The waitress brought the check and I gave her my credit card before Cecily could order anything to eat. I'd had about all I could take of watching people eat things that would make me fat if I dreamed about eating them.
Our only agenda for the day was to go back to Pravus' house and question him. Then we could go home. I was getting pretty homesick. I missed my privacy, and my kids, and Mark. I missed Mark a lot.
We found our way back to the witch's house and knocked on the front door. It was still early enough in the morning that if you had tried to cook an egg on the sidewalk it might have taken at least ten minutes to fry. In a couple of hours we would be able to feel our brains boiling inside our heads in direct sunlight. Cecily was back in her dark shades and wide brimmed hat. In addition to not crying, it looked like vampires didn't sweat either. Lucky them. If we stood out here much longer I was going to need another shower and a change of clothes. Barring that I could just jump in someone's pool. I couldn't possible get any wetter.
A dog barked down the street and I heard the sound of a lawn mower. I knocked again. All was quiet. I rang the doorbell a couple times and gave the door a few heavy bangs. Still no answer. Cecily cocked her head and closed her eyes.
"I don't hear anything," she said. Her eyes opened wide, "Nothing at all." She drew the Sword of Justice and crept around the side of the house. Sarah and I watched her go. It was too hot to go crawling around in a backyard. Besides, if she ran into trouble what good would we be? Better to stay put in the front porch shade.
I heard footsteps finally approaching the front door from inside. "Cecily!" I hissed. "He's here!"
The door opened. It was Cecily. "He's not here," she corrected.
I pushed past her, "How did you get in?"
She shrugged, "The sliding glass door was broken."
I stared, "You didn't!"
She gave me a wide eyed look. Sarah laughed.
I made a face at her and made a visual sweep of the living room. It could have been my neighbor's living room. Nothing screamed "a goat worshipper lives here!" Cecily disappeared down the hallway.
"Piper!" she called.
I joined her in the master bedroom. It was a wreck. Someone had thrown clothes all about. Drawers were left hanging open and the closet doors were ajar. I checked the shoes, there were spots for missing ones. And an empty place on the shelf that would have been the perfect size for a suitcase.
"Drat," I cursed. "He's gone."
Diapers, Santa, and Visiting Relatives
"Mommy's home! Mommy's home!" my gleeful daughters cheered. It was nice to be missed and loved.
"What did you bring us?" Megan, the oldest, wanted to know.
"What bring? What bring?" Cassidy echoed.
I swept them up in a big hug and pretended that the warm welcome had been for me, and not for the presents they were hoping I had brought.
"I brought me!" I said brightly.
Mark was standing a few feet back, waiting his turn for a hug. He snorted. I glared at him. "Well," he said, "that's good enough for Daddy," he wiggled his eyebrows in a suggestive way. "But probably not for the little materialists."
"You had to bring us something," Megan added, placing her little hands on her hips and giving me the eye. "You were gone forever."
"What do you think I was doing while I was gone?" I asked.
"Shopping for presents?" she guessed.
I hid a smile. "Who would I be getting a present for?"
"Me!" Cassidy cheered.
I kissed the top of her head. "What if the present is having Mommy home?"
The girls looked at each other. They had to confer. Cassidy shook her head. Megan answered for them both. "That's a nice present, Mommy. But a real present is even nicer. Where is the real present?"
I smacked her bottom and caved. "It's in my suitcase---" I was drowned out by the screaming stampede to my bag. A fight quickly broke out.
"I open! I open!" Cassidy yelled pulling on the handle.
"No! I'll open it. You're too little!" Megan tried to shove her little sister out of the way.
"No one will open it if you don't stop your rotten attitudes now!" I said in my best mother voice.
There was instant silence and they both quickly sat and placed their hands in their laps. "That's better," I said in a quieter voice. "Now, I will open the suitcase and give you your presents."
"I need to practice that tone of voice," Mark commented. "I got walked all over this weekend."
I kissed his cheek in passing. "You need more practice," I smirked.
He threw his hands up in the air. "Oh, no!" he exclaimed in mock horror. "Please, anything but that!" He snagged my waist and pulled me close, "I'm very happy that you're home. I'll show you how happy later."
I giggled and rubbed up against him, "Promise?"
"Promise!"
"Mommy," Megan interrupted. "We are waiting patiently."
"You are," I agreed. "And here is your present!" I pulled out the two princess coloring books I had purchased for them. The girls were ecstatic and ran off to color.
"I'm a genius," I informed Mark.
"I never said you weren't," he said and then all further conversation was impossible.
"How was your weekend?" he asked me later, after the girls were in bed, and we had sufficiently demonstrated how much we had missed each other.
"Good," was my evasive reply.
He was running his finger along the outside of my earlobe. "I love your ears," he said, completely apropos of nothing.
"Really?" I asked, flattered.
"Yeah," he kept playing with them, "they remind me of something."
"What?"
He thought for a moment. "You know that movie where they go off in the jungle and find that little dinosaur? Baby! That was the dinosaur's name."
I sat up. "That dinosaur was a brontosaurus. They don't have ears."
"I know," Mark grinned, "but if it did have ears, it would have had ears like yours. It just had cute little holes in its head." He pulled me close and nibbled on my ear. "It just reminded me of you."
I took his finger off my ear and bit it lightly. He snuggled me closer and took a deep breath of my hair. "So, what'd y'all do?" We were back on the topic I would rather avoid.
"Umm," I was glad we were spooning and he couldn't see my face. "You know, the usual. Ate out, shopped, things like that."
He was losing interest. Men's eyes start to glaze over whenever you try to talk about things that women find fun. Mark was an only child, so he had an even harder time understanding a weekend spent with a sibling. He knew it was important time; he just couldn't imagine what in the world we talked about for three days.
He had no idea that magic really existed in the world, much less that his wife was cursed with a special ability. Or that his sister-in-law had changed his memories on occasion in the past. If we truly had been just shopping and eating, I might have worried about running out of conversational topics with Sarah. Since we had little time to talk about much other than the Synod and our hit, I felt like I had hardly spent time with my sister at all.
I was feeling very stressed again. Joining the stupid USB had been bad enough. Working for them was giving me an ulcer. Why couldn't they come up with a more creative punishment than death? Not a member of the USB? We'll kill you. Don't fulfill your hit? Ditto. Let people know about magic? Ditto again. It was annoying. Every time I turned around I was facing another death sentence. Couldn't these people just leave me alone?
So I hadn't killed Pravus. Big whoop. He was innocent. Five minutes in court and he would have been able to prove his case and walked out. But, oh, no, not in the USB. In the USB we don't believe in mundane, human things like trials, or a jury of your peers. What was it that Cecily had said once? Oh yeah, here we act preemptively to fix problems. Preemptively. Good thing that none of us were telepaths. I could just see how that would go. Instead of covering up magical messes, we'd be working as the thought police.
Even with all the worry and stress, I still managed to sleep well. There's something about your very own bed that is a beautiful thing. Your bed, your pillow, your usual night sounds, and of course, your husband cuddling you in the night. Well, cuddling until he tells you that you are hotter than a blazing furnace in hell and could you please scoot over to your side of the bed. Ah, romance.
The next morning things were back to normal. I awoke to the sound of singing. Loud singing. It seems that Mark had let the girls watch Ni Hao, Kai-lan a few times when I was gone. I was repeatedly invited to join our good friends because it was time to play on a super special day. It's not that bad a theme song, as children's theme songs go, but hearing anything sung over and over, even in a cute off-pitch voice, starts to grate on your nerves.
I threw on my bathrobe, poked a snoring husband with no response, and tromped across the house. A rhythmic thumping sound was added to the singing. I quietly opened the child safety gate that keeps little visitors from joining Mommy and Daddy early in the morning, and stepped into the girls' room.
Cassidy was sitting on her bad, back against the wall, bouncing in time to her song. Now that I was in the same room the song sounded extremely garbled. On the other side of the house my brain had filled in the missing consonants of the song. Here, it was like listening to a foreigner sing English without having a clue what he was singing. Cassie was matching the sounds of the song, but she didn't really understand the words.
For a wonder, Megan was still sleeping peacefully. How in the world she managed to sleep through the racket, I have no clue. I sat down on the bed by Cassie and put a finger on my lips to tell her to be quiet.
"Hey, sweetie," I whispered. "You need to stop singing."
She closed her mouth with a smile but kept bouncing back against the wall.
"Stop bouncing, baby," I pulled her into my lap. "Why are you awake so early?"
"Singin'" she whispered.
"I can hear that," I said. "Megan's still asleep though. You need to be quiet."
"Me sing, 'eg'll tet up."
I nodded. "Yes, if you sing loud enough, Megan will get up. But that's not very nice. You need to let your sister sleep."
"Why?"
"Because," I stopped to think. It was early. My brain wasn't fully functioning yet. "Just because."
I stood up and scooped her into my arms. Quietly we tiptoed out of the room and back across the house. Far worse than the Rhine Maiden thing, I was cursed with the inability to fall back asleep after being woken. It's truly a burden. I deposited Cassidy on the bed, where she burrowed in next to her father, who didn't stir at all, and went to get a shower. At least I would be clean and ready to face the day.
I like to sing in the shower. There's great resonance. All those tile walls mean that your voice sounds fantastic. I had just finished a stirring rendition, Whitney Houston style, of "I will always love you," was toweling off my hair and stepping out of the shower when I heard a little voice.
"Singin' pitty, Mommy." It was Cassidy. She was awake and standing in the middle of the bathroom. I covered myself with the towel and shooed her out of the room.
"Go wake up Daddy!" I suggested. "Jump on Daddy!"
"I heard that!" came a muffled voice from the bedroom.
"Oh," I said in mock surprise. "You're awake!" I tucked in the edge of the towel under itself in an impromptu dress and followed Cassidy into the bedroom. "Fancy seeing you this early in the morning."
Mark groaned and pulled the covers over his head. "Very early in the morning," he said, sounding muted through the fabric.
"Go tickle Daddy," I whispered to Cassidy and boosted her up on the bed. She went at it with a vengeance and a pillow fight had started by the time I finished getting dressed and doing my hair and makeup.
"Alright," I said, catching Cassidy in mid-leap across the bed. "That's enough. Let's let Daddy get up while we go start breakfast."
"Pancakes?" she asked.
I shrugged, "Sure. Why not?" She ran squealing into the kitchen, looking a little saggy in the rear. Whoops. I'd forgotten to check her diaper first thing. It definitely needed changing.
"Diaper change!" I called after her and raced her to the changing table. "Oof, you're such a big girl," I complained, picking her up. "Don't you think it's time you wore big girl panties?"
"No," she said firmly.
"Big girl panties have princesses on them," I bribed.
"No," she said again. "No want big girl panties."
I sighed. She was stubborn. I'd read on the internet that children as young as eighteen months of age can be potty trained. I found that thought very exciting and had checked out a "How to Potty Train Your Child in One Day or Less" book from the library. The book said that by following some simple steps and throwing a "potty party" your little darling would be out of diapers in eight hours or less.
I was thrilled. No more diapers! Megan had been very resistant to potty training and hadn't started until she was three and a half. I had high hopes that, through positive peer pressure, Cassidy would be ready much sooner. I followed the instructions carefully. Plastic Doll that can pee - check. M&M's for treats - check. Big girl underwear with favorite cartoon characters - check. Lots of juice - check. I was ready.
I did everything by the book. We drank and drank and drank. I showed her how her little doll could drink a bottle and then pee on the toilet. We let the doll have a couple accidents. "Oh, no!" I would say in horror. "Dolly's wet!" We drank some more juice. I sat Cassidy on the potty and waited, and waited, and waited. Nothing. The book said that the child would pee on the toilet, realize how much easier it was and how much they liked the attention and praise, and then be trained. Ha, I say.
In a four hour time period, I'm pretty sure that Cassidy peed everywhere in the house but the toilet. During hour four I made her play out on the back porch so at least I wouldn't have to clean the carpet anymore. She would sit on the toilet for an hour with no result, get up, and pee within seconds. I even tried carrying her to the toilet while she was peeing so that she would get the idea that peeing on the toilet was what we were going for. That was a disaster.
Harvey watched the whole proceedings with troubled doggy eyes. When he peed on the floor, he got yelled at and thrown outside. Why is she allowed to pee on the floor? he seemed to say. I started to fear that he would think peeing on the floor was our new way of doing things. I gave up. I was tired, and hot, and frustrated, and Cassidy was not learning anything. Anything other than that toilets are hard, boring things to sit on and should be avoided at all cost. Just perfect.
So it was still diapers. Lots and lots of diapers. I longed for the day when I didn't have to change another diaper. That day was still a far ways off. My mother-in-law regaled me with stories of how Mark was potty trained at fourteen months. Charming. I'm sure it's because she's a better mother than I am. She even offered to take Megan, back in the day, and train her in one afternoon. Implying that my technique was lacking. My mom, on the other hand, assured me that "No one goes to college still wearing diapers." She meant that, eventually, even the hardest to train child will learn how to use the toilet. I sometimes twisted it to mean that my kids would never go to college. They'd still be wearing diapers. Not that I could afford college after eighteen years of buying diapers for two children. Mark and I would be living in a cardboard box on the street. See! You can always make a worrisome situation worse in your mind!
I was going to have to wait until Cassidy was ready on her own. She already had a complex about public restrooms (the loud flushing sound) the last thing I needed was for her to develop a complex about our home toilet. The good thing about waiting until age three to potty train, is that they become self sufficient much sooner. I have friends who have to take their two year old to the bathroom and help them on the toilet every twenty minutes. Sure, they're potty trained, and sure, it's saving diaper money, but it's very time consuming. I would just smile and say "I'm not going to rush her into something she's not ready for," when people asked me why Cassidy was still in diapers. Inwardly, I would seethe with jealousy. Outwardly, accepting motherly calm.
Megan finally woke up and staggered out of her room. "Where's Cassie?" she asked.
"We're in here!" I called, scooping Cassidy off the changing table and heading for the kitchen. "What do you want for breakfast?"
Megan sat down at the table and Cassidy climbed up into her booster seat. They looked at each other for a minute. "Oatmeal!" Megan said.
"Pancakes!" Cassie cried.
"No, oatmeal!" Megan insisted.
"Me want pancakes!"
"Oatmeal!"
I watched them for a moment. Here was a perfect opportunity to teach them about putting others first. About sacrificing what you wanted for the good of your sister. About the true meaning of love. "You can each have something different," I said. Ok. So that's not the true meaning of love. I'll get around to teaching them that.
Mark had headed off for work and I was enjoying my morning cup of coffee when my phone rang. It was my mom.
"Hey, sweetie!" she greeted me. "How's your day going? How are my little angels?"
One little angel poked the other one, who then retaliated with a wild swing that knocked over both cups of juice. "Hold on, Mom," I said.
I placed one hand over the mouthpiece so that Mom couldn't hear me yelling at the little angels. "Megan! Cassidy! You cut that out right now! Look at that mess! No more juice today! Only water!"
I grabbed up a wad of paper towels and sopped up the mess. It had run down through the cracks in the table top and pooled on the floor. I would have to pull out the Swiffer mop to get the stickiness off the tile.
"Water?" Megan wailed, about twenty seconds late in her complaint.
"Water," I mouthed at her, taking my hand off the phone. "You still there, Mom?"
"What's going on?" she asked.
"Nothing," I said innocently. "Why?"
"I heard yelling."
"Really?"
"Yes, really. Is everything ok?"
"It's fine. We're fine. The girls were just running off to play." I shooed them away with my hand while giving them the evil eye so that they would know I was still upset about the spilled juice fight.
"Are you coming over today?" my mom asked.
I was puzzled. I didn't mind coming over, but I hadn't been planning on it. "Today?"
"Yes, today! I told you!"
"Told me what?"
"That you needed to come over today!"
"Why?"
"What do you mean, why?"
I shook my head in exasperation. Sometimes conversations with my mother could be a little vague and confusing. "Why do I need to come over?" I asked again.
"Because it's the right thing to do!" she said indignantly.
"Why?" I insisted. Eventually she might tell me what it was that she had obviously forgotten to tell me.
"That's what families do, Piper," she explained, "They're there for each other."
"Mom," I said. "I have no clue what you are talking about. Who do I need to be there for?" I had a thought, "Is Karen in town?" That would be great! Karen was my older sister, living out in California. I hadn't seen her in months. It would be great to catch up!
"No, silly. I told you all about it, just last week!"
"No, Mom," I said. "You didn't. But you can tell me now ..."
"I did so tell you! I remember talking to you about it."
"About what?"
"We were talking about diapers and I said that I might need to buy some adult ones."
Huh? Adult diapers? My mom was getting up there, but she wasn't that old! In fact, if I looked as good as she did at her age I would be thrilled! I was hoping that I had her aging genes and would still be trim and slim in my sixties. "What?" I asked.
"You know, Depends," was the totally non-informative answer.
Maybe I didn't want her genes. Would it be better to have full mental capacity, or be in good shape? It would be a pity to have a nice body but no mind to go with it. On the other hand, if you had a great mind but a horrible body, it would bother you a lot more than the reverse. I'd have to think about that one. Not that I would get to choose. I just wanted to know which one to be upset about if I didn't get it.
"Mom, why don't you start at the beginning and pretend like you haven't told me anything," I suggested.
"But I did tell you," she replied.
"I know," I said patiently. I wasn't going down this tangent again. "Just pretend."
"Your grandmother is coming into town today," she said.
Ah! Light bulbs turning on over my head. "Gigi?" I asked. That was my mom's mother.
"No, Nana," my mother sighed.
Nana was my dad's mom. She was also a little crazy. As in, she needed to be in a home, crazy. She kept saying that she would sell her house and move down to Melbourne to be near Dad, but she never did. Eventually he was going to have to make her do it. She really shouldn't be on her own. I could see Nana needing to use adult diapers. I hoped I died well before I reached that stage of life. Although, to be fair, Nana seemed to enjoy life as much as anyone. If, by enjoying, you mean complaining. Nana loved to complain.
"Oh," I said. I love my Nana, I really do. It's just that she can be a little much sometimes. Especially for Mom. You can't really reason with her, and once she gets an idea in her head, it's there to stay. She's convinced that we never landed on the moon. It was a big government conspiracy to steal tax-payer's money. They filmed all the landings on a secret movie set in the desert. I pointed out once that there are a lot of people working at NASA, not forty miles away, who would have to be "in" on the deception, and the government would spend more money insuring their silence than they would make on the whole con. This started her "mind control" suspicions, which were a little too close to home for me. I tried to avoid arguing with her at all costs.
"You'll be here?" my mom begged. "I know she'll want to see the kids."
Yeah, right! Nana was not a baby person, and she could never keep the girls' names straight. But Mom was right, family was there for each other. I would come for Mom, for moral support. "How long is she staying?" I asked.
Mom sighed, "She says she's moving down here and is going to start looking at some assisted living homes."
"So, no definite departure date?"
"Piper!" Mom pretended to be shocked then decided to be honest. "No, worse luck." She sighed again.
"Don't worry, Mom. It'll be fine."
"I know," she said. "I just wish your father was a little more helpful. You know how he gets."
I did. Dad tended to have to "work late" when Nana was visiting. All the fussing in the world couldn't convince him that she was his mother and he should take primary responsibility for her. He would always buy Mom a nice present afterwards, but I think she would have been happier with having him around than a nice apology after the fact.
After arranging a time to come over, I hung up. Funny, I hadn't worried about the ritual murders for at least five minutes! Trust the thought of Nana to drive even Satanic killings out of my head.
I had a lot of cleaning and laundry to do that morning. Mark was great with the kids, but I couldn't expect him to keep up with the housework while I was gone. I was lucky that there was only a day's worth of dirty dishes on the counter. Last time I left for the weekend, it took me a week to catch up on the mess.
The morning passed quickly. The girls played happily with a minimum of fighting and I felt strangely competent and ready to face anything. I would figure this mess out, whack the correct person, and put it all behind me. I was a Rhine Maiden! I could handle anything! We just needed to look at this with fresh eyes and it would all make sense. I determined to not worry about the Synod or anything to do with the USB until tomorrow.
The girls were ecstatic about going to Nanny's house. I made sure that their clothes were clean and their hair combed, and gave them a little lecture about Nana. It's hard to give advice to young children. On the one hand, you want to make sure you prepare them so that they don't say something inappropriate. On the other, you don't want to be stressing the inappropriate things they could say, because that will only make it stick in their minds.
"Now girls," I said, when we were all buckled into the car. "Someone special is going to be a Nanny's house."
"Santa Claus!" Megan guessed.
"No, not Santa Claus."
"Because Santa Claus isn't real," she said sadly.
"That's right," I was a firm believer in telling my children the truth. Well, okay, so I lie constantly to my husband and my kids. I meant, a firm believer in telling them truths that they could handle. All left up to my judgment of course.
Megan cut in again before I could go on. "If Santa isn't real," she asked, "who fills our stockings?"
I gave her a look.
"Oh," she sounded amazed, "you and Daddy do it!"
"Yes," I agreed. "Now, I need you to listen---"
Megan interrupted again. "Last year Cassidy and I peeked in our stockings before Christmas."
"Yes, you did." I decided that this was a learning moment. "Did you spoil your surprise that way?"
"No," she shook her head matter-of-factly. "We looked way before Christmas morning so we didn't remember what we had seen when it was time to open them. It was okay."
Not a learning moment. Maybe another opportunity would come up to teach them about the joys of waiting for surprises. Maybe I would learn my lesson and not stuff Christmas stockings before Christmas Eve. The year before I had misplaced the bag with all the stocking stuffers and hadn't found it until Valentine's Day. Last year I had stuffed the stockings early to make sure I knew where everything was. Obviously not a great plan.
I tried to remember what I had been going to say. Oh yeah, Nana. "Anyways," I started.
"If Santa isn't real does that mean that Rudolf isn't real either?" Megan asked.
"Megan, we will talk about this later. Right now I need to tell you something important."
"What?"
"We're going to Nanny's house and there is someone special visiting." I said, "She's Nanny's mother," really fast before Megan could guess who the special person was and send us off on another rabbit trail. "Her name is Nana."
"Mommy?" Megan asked. I waited for her to go on. There was silence from the back seat. Finally I realized that she wasn't going to say anything more until I answered her.
"Yes?"
"How did Nana know to name Nanny, Nanny?"
"What?"
"And how did Nanny know to name you 'Mommy?'" Megan sounded puzzled.
I tried not to laugh. "That's a good question, sweetie. The answer is that my name isn't 'Mommy,' it's 'Piper.'"
"Then why do we have to call you 'Mommy?'"
"Because it's polite. And you are the only people in the world who get to call me 'Mommy!'"
"But it's not your name."
We were getting way off track again and the car was starting to heat up sitting in the garage. I started the ignition and backed out of the driveway. "You call me 'Mommy,'" I said firmly. "And you will call the lady who will be at Nanny's house 'Nana.'"
There was something more I was going to say but I couldn't remember it now. Something about how Nana was a little odd sometimes and not to say anything about it. I couldn't say that obviously, because then they would tell her that their Mommy said she was odd. If we hadn't talked about Santa Claus I might have remembered how I was going to word it. Oh well, what was the worst that could happen?
Next time I have that thought I'm going to kick myself. My imagination is woefully lacking when it comes to "the worst that could happen." I think I'm home safe, and then "bam!" something even worse happens.
I parked the car in my parent's driveway and unbuckled the girls. They ran squealing up to the front door. There was a strange car in the driveway that I assumed belonged to Nana. I cringed at the thought of her driving anywhere. One day we would have to take her driver's license away. That would be a fun day.
Megan and Cassidy were both happily knocking on the door and ringing the doorbell when I joined them. I was just in time to see the door open, and come face to face with Pravus.
"You!" I yelled.
"Piper! You're here!" my mom greeted me. There was a strained look on her face.
"Mom?" I asked. "What's he doing here?"
"Piper! Be polite! This is your great-uncle Burt's son, Richard," Mom ushered us in and closed the door behind us. We all stood in the foyer and looked at each other. Pravus was smiling. I was going to kick his teeth in.
"Mom," I said firmly. "This is not---" She cut me off, giving the girls a big hug and asking if they were ready for lunch. They all raced off to the kitchen, leaving me glaring at Pravus.
"What are you doing here?" I hissed.
He smiled blandly. "Is that any way to greet a relative, Piper?" he asked.
"You are not a relative! You are a slimy, weasely, little witch, and if you don't tell me what you are doing here with my mom then I am going to ..." I couldn't think of anything sufficiently horrible. "What are you doing here?" I asked again.
He crossed his arms over his scrawny chest and leaned against the wall. "I'm here to make sure you do your job."
I felt like hopping up and down in rage like a cartoon character. If I'd been wearing a hat I might have tried to eat it. "What do you mean 'do my job?'" I felt my face turning red. "My job was to kill you! Keep pushing and I'll do it!"
He patted my shoulder in a fatherly way. I was so in shock that he had dared to touch me that I didn't punch him in the face like I should have. "Calm down, cousin." He stopped and looked thoughtful. "Are we cousins? Second cousins? First cousins once removed?"
"I'd like to remove you," I said. "You need to leave here immediately, before I do something we both will regret. Or at least something that you will regret. If you're even alive to regret it!"
"I can't," he explained patiently. "Aunt Mildred needs my help."
"Who?" I asked.
"My Aunt Mildred. She's your Nana."
I narrowed my eyes at him. Where was the stinkin' Sword of Justice when you needed it? "She is not your Aunt Mildred. You are no relation to this family at all. What are you really doing here?"
"I told you," he yawned. "I'm here to clear my name. You didn't kill me, great. I am so grateful." He didn't sound grateful. "But if you don't find out who the real killer is, then I could still be killed by another Guardian. One not as squeamish as you."
"Squeamish!" I shrieked and then looked around quickly to make sure that no one could hear our conversation. Mom and the girls were in the kitchen making a lot of noise. I didn't see Nana anywhere, so we were safe.
"Face it, Cavanaugh," he sneered. "You don't have what it takes to chop someone's head off."
I looked around wildly, "Somebody throw me a kitchen knife! I'm ready now!" I glared at him, "Next time I won't hesitate."
"Sure," he laughed annoyingly. "You keep thinking that."
"That still doesn't explain what you are doing here. You really think I'm going to let you stay here with my family?"
"What better place to keep an eye on your activities," he stepped back quickly as I made a lunge at his throat. "Ah, ah, ah. Control yourself, my dear. I'm here to stay; get used to the idea." He tried out the fatherly smile again, "Also to help. You will need lots of help if you want to get out of this alive."
I fumed and glowered, but he was right. We had gone to his house to ask him more questions. Questions that we needed to know the answer to if we were going to solve this thing. That didn't mean that he could stay here at my parents' house though. That was out of the question. No way was some Satanic witch going to be sleeping in my mom's guest bedroom!
"Fine," I snapped. "But you can't stay here."
"Yes, I can," he said.
"No, you can't."
"Yes, I can."
"No, you can't."
"Who's going to stop me?" he asked belligerently.
"Me," I snarled and used the Voice. "You will leave this house now."
"No, I won't," he said. My jaw dropped. He smiled and I wanted to knee him in the balls. Just once. Maybe twice. "I have made precautions," he explained. "Do you think I would come here, to the lair of the Rhine Maidens and not protect my mind from your powers?"
Lair? What was this? Some kind of Batman cave? Mom chose that moment to call us to lunch. It appeared that I was going to have to play nice a little longer. But just wait until Cecily woke up this evening. She was going to get an earful.
Nana had been taking a nap. She was in her nineties, frail and shriveled, with fluffy white hair that barely covered her pink scalp. She was wearing bright red lipstick and either her eyesight was going, or she didn't believe in coloring inside the lines. She hobbled to the table and sat down.
"What's for lunch, Marion?" she warbled. "I'm famished."
Mom was clearly flustered. Something about her mother-in-law put her on edge. She always acted like she was trying to impress Nana and believed that she was failing. "I thought we would have sandwiches, chips, and fruit," she stammered. "And I have cookies for desert."
"Cookies!" cheered Megan and Cassidy, easy to please.
Nana looked down her nose at Mom. "Sandwiches?" she repeated. "I prefer a hot meal at lunch."
"Oh," Mom looked lost. "I suppose I could ..."
I stepped in. "You can have a hot meal for dinner, Nana." I bent over and gave her a hug. "It's good to see you."
"Goodness child!" she complained. "Don't knock a person about so! A hefty girl like you shouldn't be throwing her weight around!"
I bit my lip and marched into the kitchen. I was not going to lose my temper. She was an old lady and had used up her life allotment of tact twenty years ago. It was funny. I should laugh. I tried a chuckle; it sounded forced.
I caught Pravus smirking. Curse him! I would really have to find a way to get rid of him. This was not going to work for me. I pretended like I had been looking for the napkins and came back to the table. Megan and Cassidy were busy helping themselves to the fruit bowl.
"Girls, hands out of the bowl," I said calmly. After meeting a witch in my mother's house, dirty fingers in the food seemed rather trivial.
"But, Mom!"
"No buts. Sit down and I will serve you."
Soon everyone was seated and served, and talking was stilled by chewing. I tried to keep my glares to a minimum. I didn't want Mom to start wondering why I didn't like Pravus. I mean, Richard. Nana was telling some complicated story about her gallbladder. Megan was listening with huge eyes, so I was sure I would get lots of questions later. I tuned everyone out and tried to think.
This could work. I needed some excuse to get Pravus alone, and then I could question him about his enemies. He'd answer, something would pop out at me, and we'd be done with this whole debacle. Of course, that meant that we had to kill someone else. But hey, we were going to have to do that anyways.
The front door opened. "Hey, Mom! I'm home!" It was Sarah. I jumped up from the table in order to warn her before she saw Pravus.
"You haven't been excused, Mommy," Megan pointed out.
"Just a sec, honey," I smiled and bolted for the front door.
"Sarah!" I hissed quietly.
"What? Why are you whispering, Piper?" Sarah asked loudly.
"Hush!" I glanced over my shoulder. "Pravus is here."
"What?" This was even louder.
"Will you be quiet? Pravus, the witch, he's here."
"How can he be here?" she was at least trying to moderate her voice now.
"I don't know. He was here when I opened the door. Mom thinks he's Great-uncle Burt's son or something. He came with Nana."
"He can't be here!" Sarah was shocked.
I wanted to shake her. "You think I don't know that! I tried to get rid of him but ..." I caught sight of Mom entering the room.
"Oh, there you two are." She looked a little stressed. "I was wondering where you got off to." She lowered her voice to a whisper, "Don't leave me in there alone!"
I giggled. I couldn't help it. It was just too funny. Usually I was the one hiding from my mother-in-law and Mom was the one telling me to get a grip. She gave me a look that would freeze a volcano and I instantly sobered up. "Sure thing, Mom. We'll be right there."
She waited for me to come while I waited for her to leave. Neither one of us moved. "Fine," I sighed. "We're coming right now."
"But, Piper ..." Sarah looked uncertain.
I gave her a big, fake, "we'll talk later" smile. "Come on, Sarah. Come meet Cousin Richard."
Magical Mayhem
Lunch was not a disaster. At least, no one will remember that lunch was a disaster. And that was because both Sarah and I had to use our abilities to fix the mess. In the annals of the history of my life, that lunch will be topping out the disaster list.
It started harmlessly enough. Sarah got her sandwich and sat down at the table after greeting Nana. I noticed that Nana didn't say anything about Sarah being hefty. Not that I was upset about that at all. I just noticed. I also noticed Sarah shaking out half the chip bag on her plate and grabbing a handful of cookies. Megan noticed too.
"Mommy," she said.
"Yes?"
"Can I have a cookie?"
"You haven't finished your sandwich yet, dear."
Nana was looking at Cassidy in horrified fascination. I'll admit, sometimes two years olds can be a little messy when they are eating. Make that all the time. It's amazing how they can pick up a sandwich and manage to drop the insides all over the floor before it reaches their mouth. I scooped up the meat quickly and remade the sandwich.
"Piper!" Nana was shocked. "That food was on the floor!"
Tattletale. Now Mom would get on my case. "The six second rule," I explained, hoping she would let it drop before Mom noticed. She was currently engaged in a conversation with Pravus, which I was dying to listen in on, but couldn't with Nana scolding me.
"The what?" she asked.
"The six second rule," I spoke quickly, trying to hear what was being said at the other end of the table. "You know, if you pick food off the floor before six seconds it doesn't have germs."
Nana frowned. "That does not seem to be scientifically accurate."
"I know," I smiled. "But it excuses picking food off the floor. At home I have even shorter because our dog, Harvey, snatches ..." I trailed off. Come to think of it, Mom's dog should have been there, ready to grab falling food out the air.
"Hey, Mom," I interrupted. "Where's Bingley?" Bing was also a cairn terrier, like my Harvey, but wheaten instead of black. He looked like a walking carpet and loved food more than anything else in the world. I was very surprised to not see him sitting under the table.
Mom made a sheepish face, "I put him outside," she said.
"Why?"
"He was growling at Richard!" she sounded shocked and embarrassed. Usually Bingley loved everyone. He was absolutely useless as a guard dog, but very affectionate.
I glared at Richard, "Really," I said. "I'm surprised."
"I know!" Mom exclaimed, "I've never seen him act that way before. I don't know what has come over him." She turned back to Pravus. "I do apologize again. I would have felt horrible if he had bit you!"
I made a face at Pravus while my mom wasn't watching. "Yes," I pretended to agree with her. "That would have been terrible."
"Thank you for your concern, dear cousin," Pravus said dryly. "But fortunately I escaped unscathed."
"How fortunate," I replied with equal dryness.
Nana chose that moment to butt in. "Dogs are dirty creatures," she said loudly, "and should not be allowed in people's homes."
Megan looked up in surprise. "I like dogs, Nana!"
Cassidy, not to be left out, chimed in, "Me too! Me too!" She sprayed particles of her sandwich all over the table.
"Cassy!" I said sharply. "Don't talk with food in your mouth!"
Nana wiped her arm off with exaggerated disgust. "Really, Piper. You should control your children better."
I saw Mom bristle at the implied insult and tried to quickly change the subject. "So, Nana. Did you have a good trip here?"
She smiled at Richard, "Yes, Richard darling was so very helpful. I don't know what I would have done without him."
"I didn't know that you were bringing anyone with you," Sarah remarked.
Mom perked up a bit. I could tell that she was dying to ask the same question but didn't have the nerve.
"Yes, do tell," I added. "When did your plans change?"
Pravus leaned back in his chair and smirked at me. Was I close enough? Yes! I could just reach! I gave him a hefty kick under the table with the edge of my shoe. He jumped a little but maintained a pleasant smile on his face.
"Of course, we are thrilled to have you visit," Mom assured him. Feeling perhaps that all the questions might make him feel unwanted. Ha. I'd show him unwanted.
I had an evil thought. Why didn't I command him to leave again? Sure, he said he'd worked up some sort of magical protection, but what if Sarah and I worked together? How long could he hold up against the two of us?
I caught Sarah's eye and tried to give her a look that said, "Use your ability on Pravus to make him leave." She gave me a look back that plainly said, "What?"
I tried to the look again and added a head nod and a shoulder scrunch. She opened her eyes wide and held her hands out, the universal sign for, "I have no idea what you are trying to say."
I rolled my eyes and tried again, with bigger motions. Why hadn't we learned sign language as children? Or telepathy! Telepathy would be nice. Mom looked over at just the wrong moment.
"Are you okay, Piper?" she asked.
I smoothed out my facial contortions and said, "Of course, Mom. Why do you ask?"
"Because you were making faces," she said.
"Not polite," Megan said sagely. "Not supposed to make faces at the table. Not when Mommy is watching."
I glared at her. So young and already only obeying when I was watching. We'd have to talk about that later. Right now I had a witch to run out of town.
"Mom," I said loudly, causing all conversation at the table to cease and every head to turn. "I'm so sorry to tell you that Cousin Richard said that he wouldn't be staying." Pravus opened his mouth to protest.
I commanded with all the power I could summon, "You have to leave."
He smirked at me. "No, I don't."
"Yes, you have to leave," I commanded again. "Sarah?" I gave her another looking asking for help. She finally got it and went still. I assumed that she was doing her thing.
"I told you," he smiled. "I'm going to stay for awhile."
"No, you have to leave, now," I commanded.
"Piper!" Mom protested. "If he wants to stay, of course he is welcome!"
I didn't have the energy to waste on commanding her. "You have to leave," I commanded.
"No," he said, still smiling, but beads of sweat were starting to collect on his forehead.
"Piper!" Mom said loudly. "You're being rude!"
"You have to leave," I kept trying. I'd never felt someone resist me like that before. It felt like I was pushing with all my might against a brick wall. I noticed Pravus was leaning towards me slightly and that his hands were clenched in his lap. Ha! It was working. Sarah had her eyes closed and her lips were starting to move.
"I'm not leaving, Piper," Pravus said quietly.
"Yes, you are," I commanded. I was getting tired. This was worse that running a marathon! Not that I'd ever run in a marathon, but I could imagine, that's why I've never done it.
"No, I'm not," His face was starting to turn red.
"You have to leave, now."
Mom stood up from the table. "Piper Cavanaugh, you stop that this instant! Richard is welcome here for as long as he wishes to stay!"
I couldn't turn my head to look at her. I had to keep my focus on Pravus. "You have to leave," I repeated like a recording. Good grief! How strong was the man? Why didn't he break?
"No," he gasped. "I'm staying. I don't want to die and I don't trust you to do your job."
Mom's jaw dropped, "Die? What are you talking about? Are you in trouble?"
I was ready to fall on the table in exhaustion. "You have to leave now," I whispered still using the Voice.
"No," he answered.
I gathered all my strength for one for try. If this didn't work, we'd have to regroup and try something else. "You have to leave now!" I bellowed, not sure if volume would add more power to my ability but willing at this point to try anything.
"No!" he screamed and a ball of lighting sizzled in the air in front of him and exploded on the table, which caught fire.
We all sat for moment in stunned silence as the flames leaped up towards the ceiling. The smoke alarms went off and the girls started screaming. I leaped into action first, grabbed up my daughters and hustled them out of the room.
"Stay here," I commanded, placing them on the couch in the living room and rushing back to the dining room.
Mom had grabbed the dishcloth off the stove and soaked it in the sink. She was beating at the flames while Nana looked like she was having a heart attack. Her lips were turning blue and she was clutching her chest in pain. Sarah was pouring all the glasses onto the fire and within seconds it had sputtered out, leaving a blacked, charred mess behind.
"Nana!" I cried and rushed to her side.
"My pills!" she croaked pointing with gnarled fingers at her purse. I found the bottle and quickly administered a tablet under her tongue. She started to look better and I turned to survey the room.
Mom was standing staring at the table in shock. Crap, crap, crap. This was not supposed to happen. As if she heard my guilty thoughts she turned on me ferociously. "Piper Alexandra Cavanaugh!" she yelled.
I cringed. I hadn't been three-named in a long time. I thought those days were past. "Wow," I tried. "What was that?" It sounded guilty to my ears.
Mom placed her hands on her hips and gave me the "mom" look. I was in trouble. "What is going on?" she demanded.
I went for wide eyed innocence. "I don't know!" I lied. "How did the table catch on fire? That was so weird!"
It wasn't working. Mom had known me too long to not know when I was lying. "You had better tell me what is going on, right now, young lady, or you are in big trouble."
Seriously, what kind of trouble could I be in? More than I already was? It's not like she could ground me or send me to my room! I was a married mother of two, for Pete's sake! Why did I feel so scared? "Umm," I stalled.
"Right now," she insisted.
Just then I saw Pravus grin. That did it! If I was going down, I was taking him with me. "He started it!" I yelled pointing at the witch.
"What?" Mom's voice was hitting upper octaves. Soon only dogs and small children would be able to hear her. I knew because my voice does the same thing when I'm furious.
"He did! He started the fire! I didn't do anything!" I was babbling, anything to turn the evil eye away from myself. I hoped my command was holding on Megan and Cassidy and that they didn't come in to see their mother cowering like a baby.
"We do not accuse our guests of setting fires," Mom said with dignity. Like a fire in the dining room was a normal occurrence. "And we do not yell at our guests to leave. What were you thinking?"
Pravus stepped up and laid his hand on her arm. I gritted my teeth. I did not want that slimy witch touching my mother. "It's perfectly alright, Marion. No great harm has been done. Your daughter is just a little exuberant."
"Exuberant!" I shrieked, losing it. "You lying, little witch! Get your hands off my mother now before I make sure you don't have hands at all!"
"Piper!" Mom couldn't believe what was going on. She'd never seen me so rude before. Of course, she'd also never entertained a Satan-worshiping jerk in her home before, either.
I'd had enough. This was getting too messy to clean up in any normal fashion. "Sarah?" I asked.
Sarah was standing behind Nana's chair, eyes as big as dinner plates. "Yes?" she squeaked. It must be odd for her to not be the one getting in trouble.
"I need your help," I said.
"What does Sarah have to do with any of this?" Mom wanted to know. "Honestly, Piper, it's like you're a crazy person! What is going on?"
I sighed. I'd never used my Voice on her before. I just didn't have any better options. "Mom," I commanded sadly. "Sit down and be quiet."
She sat and closed her mouth. "You too, Nana," I added.
Nana was still sitting but she kept quiet. "Sarah, do your thing," I said.
Sarah closed her eyes again and I almost felt the air hum, but perhaps it was my imagination. "Mom and Nana," I commanded, "close your eyes and sit still." They obeyed, what choice did they have?
I turned on Pravus. "Look what you've done!" I yelled. "This is all your stupid fault. You shouldn't be here! They are not part of this, and should be left alone!"
"What I did?" he shot back. "You're the one throwing power around! Is it any wonder that it backfired?"
"Backfired!" I was still yelling. "That was a little more that a backfire! That was more like a bonfire! My kids were at that table!"
"Then you shouldn't have been fighting in front of them if you didn't want them to be part of this," he crossed his arms across his chest and looked belligerent.
"This is my house!"
"No, it's not," he was calming down. "It's your mother's house, and she invited me to stay."
I growled in frustration. What a mess. Speaking of mess ... I looked at the table. The tablecloth had been badly burnt, as well as the food, but the table itself didn't look too bad. "Help me clean this up," I said.
Sarah started to clear the dishes, but Pravus sat back down. "Well?" I asked caustically.
"You heard your mother," he said. "I'm a guest."
I gripped a butter knife in my hand. Oh, how I'd love to stab him with it. I restrained myself and helped Sarah finish cleaning up the mess. In minutes we had set the room to rights, put on a new table cloth, and cleared the plates. I placed the plate of cookies in the middle of the table and put fresh plates in front of everyone. Sarah took the scorched dishcloth and used it to fan the air in front of the fire alarm. It reluctantly shut off and she stuffed the towel down in to the bottom of the trashcan.
"We just started desert," I suggested to Sarah, and she nodded. I went to get Megan and Cassidy, who were still sitting obediently on the couch. "Come on, girls," I said. "It's time for desert."
Sarah closed her eyes again and hopefully changed everyone's memories so that all was back to normal.
"Well," my mom said, opening her eyes. "Who wants a cookie?" She sniffed the air. "Do you smell something burning?"
Not a Walk in the Park
I broke off half of a cookie and watched Pravus out of the corner of my eye while I munched. Plan A had gone wrong. What was Plan B? I thought some more. I wasn't ready to try and force him to leave again. The next time I tried, I wanted to have backup, in the form of Cecily, there to help. For now it looked like he was going to be staying at my mom's house. No way was I asking him to come stay with me.
He wanted his name cleared. Good. We had that much in common. I wanted his name cleared too. Not for any feelings of warmth towards him, but solely to find the one responsible for killing those students. We'd agreed that the next avenue of investigation needed to be Pravus' enemies. If other people felt like I did about him, then it was no wonder that someone wanted him dead. I wanted him dead. Not in a "I'd like to kill him myself," sort of way, but a "Oh, Pravus is dead? How sad," sort of way.
I needed to get Pravus alone and talk to him. That shouldn't be too hard. We had just set the table on fire with a magic battle and no one was the wiser. It should be child's play to get him alone. Of course, children can get pretty violent with their play, but I was going to try a more gentle approach.
"Pr---Richard," I corrected quickly.
"Yes, Cousin Piper?" he said smoothly.
"How would you like to take a little walk with me?"
"A walk?" my mom looked up from her conversation with Nana. "Isn't it rather hot outside?"
"I know," I said cheerily. "But I thought that we could take Bingley for a little stroll and get him used to dear cousin Richard." I smiled sweetly.
"Okay," my mom said slowly. "I suppose it would be good if Bing got used to Richard."
"Great!" I jumped up. "Let's go, Richard." I gave him a look that said he'd better come with me and not argue. "Megan and Cassidy, ya'll stay here with Nanny and I'll be right back." They barely acknowledged me, they were having too much fun being spoiled by their grandmother.
Pravus waited for me by the front door while I found Bing's leash and went to the back yard to call him in. He was waiting patiently by the door, tail wagging furiously. I bent down and let him plant doggy kisses all over my face. "Who's a good boy?" I asked him. "Who's the good puppy? Yes, I know, you're the good puppy."
He went crazy with joy at the sight of the leash. I had a hard time holding him down long enough to snap it to his collar. Bingley only weighed about twenty pounds, but it was twenty pounds of Tasmanian devil when he thought he was going to go out.
"Come on, Bingley," I said and was dragged through the house to the front door. As soon as he caught a whiff of Pravus, he stopped and every hair on his back stood up in a ridge. A low growl started in his throat and grew to a snarl and then a ferocious barking. For a little dog he could sure make a lot of noise.
"Stop that, Bing," I said calmly and without the Voice. He kept barking. I hid a smirk. He was obviously more intelligent than I thought. Pravus took a step back and gave me plenty of space to open the front door. "We'll just be gone a little while, Mom!" I called. I heard giggling from the girls and knew they wouldn't miss me.
We walked down the front driveway, Bingley still lunging at the end of his leash and trying to get a chuck of witch. I halfheartedly pulled him back each time. "He doesn't seem to like you," I announced.
"Thank you, Captain Obvious," Pravus snapped, jumping back as I let the leash get a little too long.
"Dogs are good judges of character."
"Are they," he said dryly.
"Yes.
"They also tend to be like their owners. In this case, I would say suspicious, yappy, and quarrelsome."
I retaliated by letting the leash slip through my fingers at just the right moment. Bing caught a mouthful of pant leg and Pravus swore. "Oh, I'm sorry," I said insincerely. "I was yapping so much I wasn't paying attention."
I finally tired of taunting Pravus and commanded Bingley to walk quietly. He obeyed but he was still on edge. "So," I broke the fresh silence. "Who do you know that wants you dead?"
"Besides you?" he asked snarkily.
"Believe me, if I wanted you dead, you'd be dead," I snorted. I sounded tough. Of course, it was all a lie. I'd never killed anyone. Not permanently. There was this vampire at my Synod hearing that I'd staked, but found out later, that since I hadn't cut his head off and burnt it, he was going to recuperate. There were also some Triffids that I'd killed with soy sauce and water, but they were plants and didn't really count.
We walked in silence a bit farther. Bingley finally relaxed and started to enjoy the different smells. "Who?" I asked again.
"I'm thinking!" he snapped.
"That many?" I said snidely.
He gave me a look and kept walking. "Ok," he said. "There might be some beings that want me dead."
"Beings?"
"Supernatural beings. Non-human."
"Oh."
We walked a bit further. I was starting to feel hot and sticky. Summer in Florida is very muggy. On a high humidity day you feel like you are moving through water instead of air. I thought I was being patient, but even I have a limit.
"Well?" I urged.
"Well, what?" he asked obtusely.
"Who wants you dead?"
"I told you."
"No, you didn't. You just said that there were some beings who wanted you dead. Not who they were. Whom they were? No, who they were." Why did English grammar have to be so hard?
Pravus looked at me gravely. "I'm not sure I'm prepared to tell you at this time."
"Not prepared - Listen buddy!" I was angry. "You want to stay alive, you'd better give me some names to look at now! If not, I might just start thinking that you look good for the murders." I was bluffing, but he couldn't know that, right?
He nodded. "I will think about it. There are some people who are better left alone, even if they are guilty. Perhaps you should be finding another way to complete your job."
We were almost back at the house. Time was up and I hadn't gotten much out of him. Besides, it was almost naptime for my girls, and if we missed that by too much they would get cranky.
"You'd better think fast, Pravus," I threatened. "I don't have a lot of time here. I need to get this wrapped up."
He gave me a mock bow, "I will do my best, Cousin Piper."
"Don't call me that. And so help me, if you do anything to hurt my family ..." I tried to impress on him the depth of my feelings on the matter with a glare.
He laid a hand across his heart. "I assure you that I will treat your family as if they were my own."
Somehow, that didn't comfort me.
Dinner is Served
We made it through the rest of the visit without setting anything else on fire. Sarah followed me out to the car while I was buckling the girls in.
"Piper," she whispered. "What are we going to do?"
I made a face. "I don't know. Just stay out of his way if you can, and I'll talk to Cecily tonight. Hopefully she will have an idea that doesn't involve chopping his head off on Mom's coffee table."
"The fire was pretty impressive," Sarah giggled.
I glared at her and she held her hands up in mock surrender. "It wasn't funny," I said.
"Yes, it was funny. You may not think it was funny now, but it was funny."
I closed my eyes and briefly banged my head against the side of the car. "I'll call you," I said morosely and drove away.
I couldn't sleep during naptime. I knew I was tired and needed to rest, but I couldn't stop worrying about everything. I needed more information. Lots more information. Like a Zen master, the only thing I knew was enough to know that I knew nothing. Pravus being innocent was a good starting place but we couldn't stop there. This wasn't the good ol' USA where you were innocent until proven guilty. In the USB you were guilty until proven innocent. And if you didn't follow the orders handed down to you by the Synod ... I didn't know what would happen. Like I said, I needed more information. How much trouble had I gotten all of us into? How much time did we have to find the true guilty party? What kind of evidence did they require as proof? I had a hundred of these types of questions rattling around in my brain. Small wonder that I couldn't sleep.
Thankfully, the girls slept well past four and were pretty well behaved for the rest of the day. They played nicely without much fighting and I was able to straighten the house and actually cook dinner. I cook dinner at least once a ... hmm, once in a while? Once a month? No, more than that. I couldn't really remember the last time I had cooked dinner. Does heating things up in the microwave count? Of course it does. If it's hot, it's cooked. So, with that reasoning, I cooked all the time. I cooked some microwave popcorn last night. And some Lean Pockets the night before.
I decided to make my version of Arroz Con Pollo, Spanish chicken and rice. It required pan cooking frozen chicken breasts and adding canned tomatoes, peas, black beans, and chopped onion. I poured water into a pot and started the yellow rice. Dinner would be ready in twenty-five minutes. I called Mark to make sure he would be home on time. Nothing made me more irritated than to cook dinner and not have anyone there to appreciate it. Yes, the girls would be there to eat it with me. I said "appreciate it." Megan and Cassidy didn't appreciate my cooking at all. There would be groans and whining and complaining. Mark would be the only one to say he enjoyed the food. In reality, I was cooking for him alone. If he wasn't there to appreciate it I would be angry.
Mark answered his phone.
"Hey babe," I greeted him. "I'm cooking dinner."
There were sounds of gasps and amazement on the other end. I glared at the phone and uncharitably hoped that he really was having a heart attack.
"Are you going to be home at six?" I asked, annoyed.
"And miss seeing a modern miracle?" He was still using an awed voice.
I stuck my tongue out. "Are you going to be home at six?"
"I wouldn't miss it, babe," he assured me. "I always try to be on time for special occasions."
I made a face and then had to laugh. He was right, and funny. "Love you."
"Love you too!"
Megan and Cassidy wandered in to the kitchen. "What for dinner?" Cassidy asked.
"Chicken and rice."
Cassidy watched Megan's face carefully. I knew that she was waiting to see what Megan's reaction would be before having one of her own. Megan was quick to make a face and say, "Chicken and rice! Yuck!"
Cassidy's face wrinkled up in mirror image. "Yuck!" she said. "No like."
"You do like it," I said, stirring the chicken so it wouldn't burn and stick to the bottom of the pan.
"Ugh!" Megan said loudly. "Why can't we have something good for dinner?"
I gave her the evil eye. "We are having something good for dinner. You've had it before and you like it."
Cassidy shook her head. "No like."
I rolled my eyes. "The last time we had this you said you liked it." Of course, that was at least a couple of months ago and I knew that their likes and dislikes could change by the hour.
"I want pizza," Megan announced.
"Pizza!" Cassidy was in favor of that idea.
"No pizza," I said firmly. "We're having chicken and rice."
Megan fell to the floor moaning. "I won't eat it!" she cried. "I'll just stay in my room and starve!"
Cassidy joined her on the floor. "No eat, no eat!"
I pointed the spoon at them, "You can both get your little butts off the floor and go clean your room, or I'll give you something to cry about!"
They decided that cleaning their room was a good idea. Smart. Very smart. Dinner was ready quickly and I started to set the table, keeping one eye on the wall clock. It was five 'till six and Mark wasn't home yet. He said six, but did he mean it?
At six on the dot the table was set and I started dishing out the food into bowls. The girls' would need to cool off a bit before they could eat it. I added picante and hot sauce to the table and poured water into the glasses. Still no Mark. I told the girls to go wash their hands and then come to the table.
We all sat down and stared at our plates. Steam was rising from the hot rice. "I hungry," Cassy announced.
"I know, honey, we're just waiting for Daddy."
"Where is Daddy?" Megan asked.
I was very tempted to say that Daddy was inconsiderate and rude and late, but I didn't. "He's working. He'll be here any minute," I assured her.
Five more minutes passed. The girls were starting to squirm and the steam was no longer visible. I sighed and picked up my phone. "Where are you?" I texted and waited. Seconds later my phone beeped.
"Oops! On my way!" it read.
I gritted my teeth. Was it any wonder that I never cooked? Here I was, slaving over a hot stove, and he wasn't even home on time! Okay, so I hadn't slaved very long, but there were other things I could have been doing! Why should I bother to cook when he wasn't going to be there to eat it when it was hot? I was working myself up into a temper.
"I'm hungry, Mommy," Megan complained.
"Let's just go ahead and eat," I sighed. "Daddy will be home soon."
We started eating and girls quickly forgot that they hated chicken and rice. I guess they really were hungry. Fifteen minutes later I heard the garage door open. I was fuming. How hard was it to come home on time? I stabbed a piece of chicken with my fork and it flew off the table and onto the floor. Harvey was on it in a flash and then looked up expectantly for more.
"No feed dog," Cassie shook her head. "Bad Mommy."
I snorted. "That was an accident."
"Can I accidently feed Harvey from the table?" Megan asked.
"No."
Harvey sat up on his hind legs and wagged his tail. When that got no response he added a yip.
"Quiet, Harvey," I scolded. "No begging."
Mark entered the kitchen and set his laptop case on the counter. I saw him trying to watch me out of the corner of his eye to judge my level of anger. "Hi, Piper," he said tentatively.
"Hi," I said shortly.
"I'm sorry I'm late," he apologized.
"Humph."
He walked over and tried to rub the back of my neck. I brushed him off, not ready to forgive yet. "I'm really sorry," he apologized again.
I rolled my eyes and pointed at his bowl. "Your dinner is getting cold."
"Daddy late," Cassie said.
"Yes, sweetie," Mark gave her a kiss on the top of her head. "Daddy is very sorry that he is late. How is dinner? It looks yummy!"
I glared at him. Flattery was not going to get him anywhere.
"It's good," Megan said, chewing a big bite of rice. "Not as good as pizza though."
Mark laughed. "I'm sure it's much better than pizza. Your mommy is a wonderful cook."
I stifled a smile. He was really trying hard. Mark saw the smile and squeezed my knee under the table. I reluctantly met his eyes.
"Am I forgiven?" he asked, pleading.
"Why were you so late?" I burst out. "I told you I was cooking dinner!"
"I know," he kept rubbing my knee. "I lost track of time and I'm really sorry. Can you forgive me?"
I stuck out my tongue at him. "Oh, fine. I'll forgive you. But only because you're so cute."
He made a theatrical gesture of despair. "What will I do when I'm old and haggard?"
"Be home on time?" I suggested.
"No," he shook his head sadly. "That won't work."
I kicked him under the table. "It'd better."
"If I'm crippled it will take me longer to get out to the car and drive home," he pointed out.
"Or it will keep you home where I can keep an eye on you."
"Daddy stay home?" Cassie asked. I jumped up and caught her glass before she knocked the whole thing over.
"Daddy will stay home on the weekend. Finish your dinner." I looked over at Mark and gave him a wink. "I love you, babe," I whispered and he blew me a kiss.
After dishes and baths and other bedtime routines the girls were finally in bed and the sun was beginning to set. I hate daylight savings. During the summer the sun doesn't set 'till 8:30 and it's hard to convince little people that they should be asleep when it's bright outside. I glanced at the clock, 8:00. Cecily should be getting up soon.
"Hey, babe," I said. "Do you mind if I run over to talk to Cecily for a bit?" I left off any explanation. Mark wouldn't care why I was going to talk to her and if I tried to explain it would only sound suspicious. I was getting to be a pro at lying to my husband. Joy.
"Sure," Mark was leafing through the mail. "Take your time."
"Okay," I slipped out the front door and across the grass to knock on Cecily's door. It was still a little early for her but I really wanted to talk to her.
No one came to the door so I knocked harder and rang the doorbell. Finally I heard movement and the door was yanked open. "What?" Cecily snarled.
She looked like someone with a hangover. I knew it was because the sun had not completely set. In another fifteen to twenty minutes she would be back to her usual gorgeous, energetic self.
"Hi," I said. "It's me."
"I see that," she sighed. "Come on in. What is so important that it couldn't wait another half hour?"
"Wow, you're really grouchy when you wake up," I commented.
"Not when I wake up, when I'm woken up," she shaded her eyes against the dusk and pulled me into the house. "I'm a vampire, remember. We don't like the sunlight."
"It's barely light out!" I complained. "What's the big deal?"
She let her eyes go completely black and flashed some fang at me. "Do you really want me to answer that?"
I stumbled back and bumped into the wall. "No," I croaked. Sometimes I forgot that she was not just my quirky friend. She drank human blood to survive and had been alive longer than I could imagine. I really had to be more careful when I was dealing with her. It was too easy to be comfortable around her. Rather like the tiger keepers at the zoo who forget that their cute little pets are actually deadly animals.
Cecily ran a hand over her face. "Let me get something to eat and then you can talk to me."
I trailed after her into the kitchen. She pulled a bag out of the fridge and slammed it into the microwave. The contents were dark red and the bag was printed with the name of a blood bank. I made a face. I would never want to drink blood, even it meant superhuman beauty, strength, and speed. Of course, she could also eat whatever human food she wanted without it affecting her weight. I daydreamed for a moment about what it would be like to eat donuts to my heart's content.
"What are you thinking about?" Cecily asked.
"Donuts," I sighed.
She laughed. "You are the weirdest human I know," she said.
"Do you know a lot of humans?" I was curious.
She thought about it. "Not closely. Not like I know you. But with most people it's easy to guess what they are thinking. You usually surprise me." She cocked her head and looked at me, "You're very random."
I grimaced. "Thanks, I guess. There really was a logical train of thought."
"I'm sure there was." She poured the blood into a large wine glass and took a sip. "Ahh," she closed her eyes in pleasure. I felt a little queasy. Not even for donuts.
"Let's go sit down," she suggested and I followed her into the living room. She sank gracefully onto a leather couch and I curled up on the matching loveseat.
I waited until she had drunk enough to regain some color to her skin. The circles under her eyes faded and she started to look fresh and energetic. I didn't want to beat around the bush.
"We have a huge problem," I said. "Pravus is at my mom's house."
"What?" Cecily set down her glass and stared at me.
"Pravus is staying at my mom's house," I repeated.
"How?" she blinked.
"He somehow convinced my grandmother that he is related and she brought him with her." I shrugged. It didn't make sense to me, but I was willing to admit that it was possible to play with people's minds and cause them to believe things that weren't true.
"Why?" Cecily asked.
I glowered at her. She wasn't purposefully being annoying with her one word questions. I was just ready to snap at someone and she was convenient. "Isn't it obvious?" I asked.
"No. What?"
"He's here to make sure we clear his name with the Synod. For some odd reason he thinks we're incompetent and need encouragement to finish our job."
Cecily leaned back in her chair again and picked up her glass. "Hmmm," she murmured.
"Hmm?" I was angry. "That's all you have to say? 'Hmm?'"
"What would you have me say?" she asked calmly.
"Anything!" I jumped to my feet and started pacing around the room. "Some plan, some idea, some ... something!"
"You can never trust a witch," she replied coolly.
"You've said that before," I said dryly.
"I know. I just don't think you get it yet. You can really never trust a witch."
"Great. So I've got an untrustworthy witch staying with my parents, my baby sister, and my grandmother." I threw my hands up in the air and fell back onto the loveseat.
Cecily took another sip of blood. "Why didn't you command him to leave?"
I gave her a look that would freeze lava.
"You tried," she guessed.
I continued the look.
"It didn't end well?"
"If it had ended well do you think I would be here telling you that he's staying at my parents' house?"
She shrugged. "What happened?"
"Other than setting my mom's dining room table on fire and having to use Sarah's ability and mine to fix the problem? Other than that? Nothing much."
I thought I saw a smirk cross her face but she hid it behind her glass. She'd better not be laughing at me. This wasn't funny.
She set her glass down again and folded her hands in her lap. She managed to look elegant and graceful which just didn't fit with the glass of blood at her side. I rubbed my eyes. I would give anything to never know about magic and supernatural beings. To be normal. If Sarah's ability worked on me I would be very tempted to erase any memory of the past few months and just live my life like a human.
But there was the problem. Humans needed me. They didn't know they needed me and if they knew about my ability I would probably be locked up in a government facility. But that didn't change the fact that they needed me. Sarah and I were the only things protecting humans from being openly hunted. If I had to start over, I would not change any of my choices. Sure, they were rotten choices, but they were the only ones I was given.
"We have another problem," Cecily said.
I half lifted the arm I had thrown over my eyes and peeked at her. "Do I want to hear it? Why does it have to be another problem? Why can't you have a solution?"
Cecily stared at me in complete vampire stillness. She gave the impression that she could sit there unmoving for hours. Or for at least as long as it took me to get a grip. I sighed and sat back up. "What's the problem?"
"I have heard from the Synod," she started and my heart sank. Anything that involved the Synod would be unpleasant.
"And?" I prodded when she failed to continue.
"We have three days to complete our assignment." She stopped again and watched me carefully for a reaction.
"Our assignment? You mean, whacking Pravus?"
"Yes."
"Three days?" I kept my voice calm and conversational. Cecily looked worried.
"Yes. Three days."
"Hmm," I leaned back against the cushions. Inside I was screaming. Three days! What, were they crazy? Why not three hours? Why drag out the agony? I could tell that Cecily was waiting for me to explode. My calmness was disturbing her. Good. Join the club.
"What happens after three days?" I asked, still without raising my voice or throwing things around the room.
Cecily gave me a look but answered. "After three days they will give our assignment to another Guardian who will be tasked with completing it and eliminating us."
"Eliminating."
"Yes."
Oh good. We had three days to find the real killer or we were all dead. Nothing new there, but I guess I had kind of been hoping that the Synod would be a little more understanding.
"You realize what the easiest solution is?" Cecily asked tentatively.
"Convince the Synod to give us more time?" I said hopefully.
"No. Kill Pravus," there was ice in her voice. "He may not be guilty of this crime but he is surely guilty of other killings. You would be doing humans a favor."
"I didn't know you cared," I quipped.
"I don't," she said uncertainly. "I understand your reluctance to kill someone whom you believe to be innocent, but surely your own life and the life of your sister is more important?"
I drew a deep breath. How to explain? "I know Pravus is not a nice person. He may even be evil. I just can't kill him in order to save myself. That would be wrong! I'd be killing whatever ethics I hold to. Almost like killing myself. What good is living if you give up everything that makes you who you are?"
"Where there is life there is hope," Cecily answered. "Isn't that what you humans believe? Even if you do something that bothers you, at least you will still be alive in order to eventually get over it. There is no getting over death."
"You did," I pointed out, perhaps untactfully.
Her eyes turned dark and sad. "I was faced with the same choice, and I chose to continue my existence. Even at the sacrifice of the human I had been."
"I'm sorry," I said softly.
She shook her head as if to clear it of depressing memories. "If you refuse to take the easy path, then we must find the true killer quickly."
"Agreed," I said, having no idea how we were going to go about that. "We need to talk to people who have reason to hate Pravus. I have a feeling that could be a long list, and he's not talking."
"No matter," Cecily smiled her freaky vampire smile. "I have made enquires and I believe that there are only two plausible suspects in Florida. None of the other possibilities have traveled by Zipline during the necessary time frame. Plus, they all have alibis." Zipline was a magical way of getting from one point to another in a hurry. I'd only traveled from Melbourne to Orlando, but it made the hour drive take only a second. Drive in one end and, presto-chango, arrive out the other end at your destination.
Cecily continued "So, it stands to reason that our best choice is enemies of Pravus currently living in Florida."
I felt a lifting of my spirits. Only two? Were things finally looking up? Of course, that meant we would be that much closer to having to kill someone. Or that much closer to total failure. I didn't know what to hope for. Murder or death? What a choice! Why couldn't cake be one of the options? I'll take the cake, please!
Cecily had kept talking while I went down my Monty Python rabbit trail. She had asked a question and was waiting for me to respond. "I wasn't listening," I confessed.
She gave me the eye and repeated, "Are you free tomorrow night?"
"I don't know. I could be. I'll have to talk to Mark," I said.
"Good," she said, taking it as a given, "We'll leave here around ..." she stopped to think. Whatever time we left would be way too early for her. She decided there was no good option and sighed. "... say five o'clock."
"Why so early?" I asked.
Cecily made a face. "Our first stop is in Volusia County."
"Volusia!" I'd lived in Florida all my life, but I still wasn't completely sure where all the counties were. "Isn't that way North of us?"
"It's probably about a two hour drive. We'll be going to Astor, Florida."
"Never heard of it."
"It's right in the Ocala National Forest. I'll drive. You and Sarah be ready to go at five tomorrow night."
"Yes, Captain," I said under my breath.
"You would rather drive?" Cecily asked innocently.
I shook my head. I should have remembered her superior hearing. "Who are we going to talk to?" I had another thought, "Is this going to be dangerous? One of these people, hopefully, is the killer who framed Pravus. Whoever it is can't be a very nice person."
"There might be some who would think ridding the world of a witch as a good thing," Cecily replied.
"At the cost of two lives?" I was indignant.
"Some might think it a fair exchange."
"Yeah," I snorted. "I've often noticed how people are much quicker to sacrifice someone else than sacrifice themselves. It's one thing to exchange another man's life, it's quite another to exchange your own."
Cecily nodded. "You are right. And perhaps it is not right to talk of a fair exchange when you are not the one paying."
"You've got that right. So, like I said, this person is not going to like us poking around. Who are we going to find?"
Cecily opened her mouth and then closed it, thinking. "I'd rather not tell you just yet."
"Why not?"
"Well, I do not believe that the person we find tomorrow night is the one we are looking for. However, we must eliminate all possibilities. I would rather you come to this meeting with an open mind."
I glared at her. "I have an open mind."
She grinned. "Perhaps, and it will be even more open if I don't tell you what you should be expecting. Sometimes we see things that are not there, or miss things that are, because of our expectations."
I blew air out through my lips. "Fine. Have it your way. Be all mysterious, Master Yoda. I'll be ready to go tomorrow night."
"Sarah as well?"
"Sarah too."
I could tell there was still something she wanted to say. I waited as patiently as I could. That lasted for about five seconds. "Out with it," I said.
She looked me straight in the eyes, "We have three days, Piper."
"I know." We'd been over that.
"I do not wish to be hunted down by the Guardians."
Hello, Captain Obvious. "Me neither."
"I have made hard choices before, and, when the time comes, I want you to know that I am ready to make them again." She was deadly serious.
I swallowed. I didn't know if she was implying that she would kill Pravus to save us all, or that she would kill me and Sarah to save herself. Either way, I hoped it never came to that.
"Cecily, sometimes you have to do what you have to do," I said without really knowing what that meant in this situation. She seemed to take some understanding from it and walked me to the door.
"Very well then. Until tomorrow."
The next morning I awoke thinking about humans and the USB. There was a lot of pressure on Sarah and me, as the only known humans with abilities. The witches had been arguing ever since we joined that we were freaks and should just be killed so as not to cause confusion. Some other members thought that we should have joined another group instead of joining as humans. The bottom line was that there were not enough of us.
Things had been rather quiet on the alien front. Apparently, space travel is not like Star Trek and Star Wars show it. It takes years to even cross our little solar system. I didn't know where the aliens were in relation to Earth, or how they had even been spotted. For a while I had hoped that the USB was wrong, since nothing was being said at NASA. Then I realized that the last thing the government wanted was mass panic. We wouldn't be told about an alien threat until we were being served up as hors d'oeuvres.
The great push to open up hunting on humans had been a political move. No one knew how big a threat the aliens would be, or even if they were a threat. Some species just saw a prime time to gain a little power and support for themselves. And hey, who didn't want the freedom to kill humans whenever they wanted? Win, win for everyone! That is, until Sarah and I came along. Now, those same species were looking at us as the one thing standing in their way. Which brought me back to an earlier thought. There just wasn't enough of us.
With more humans with abilities, it would be harder to wipe us out. We would carry more sway in USB meetings. We would have greater protection and safety. Not to mention, how cool it would be to find others like myself! So, what was I waiting for? There had to be more of us out there. Maybe I should be exerting a little time and effort to finding them. But how? That was the question that stumped me.
I stared at the ceiling for a bit, trying to find an answer in the stucco. I found a bit that looked like a dog, and part that looked like a catfish, but no clue to finding other humans with abilities. I heard the girls' door slam, which meant that they were up and playing. I'd better get my lazy butt out of bed and into the shower if I wanted to start the day clean and fresh. Mark was still sleeping, no surprise there. If I didn't kick him out of bed in the morning he could sleep all day. It ticked me off sometimes. I'd like to be able to sleep all day, but no one ever offered to let me. And, even if they did, I doubted I would be able to. I would be too busy thinking about all the things I wasn't getting done to be able to sleep. Such is the life of a mother.
I poked Mark a few times until he grunted. "Time to get up!" I chirped.
He mumbled something and pulled the pillow over his head. I yanked on the covers until he had to sit up to grab them or be exposed to the cold. Not that it was that cold, this was Florida after all. If the house got down to seventy-seven at night it felt freezing. But compared to the warm snugness of the bed the temperature felt chilly.
"Come on, Piper," he moaned. "I don't have to get up yet."
"What do I look like?" I asked, "Your mother? Do you think it's my job to make sure you get to work on time? This is the one wake-up call you get, and you get it when I feel like giving it. If you want to go back to sleep you are on your own, mister!"
As threats go, it was a good one. He knew darn well that he hadn't set his alarm clock and that if he went back to sleep and I didn't wake him, he would miss the whole day. He gave me an evil look and slowly got out of bed. I knew he was headed for the bathroom so I jumped up and beat him to it. Hey, first come, first served. He tried to grab me as I scooted past but I was expecting it and ducked at the right moment.
We bickered a bit about who got to do what first, but I won out in the end. I was showered and dressed and getting the girls breakfast by the time he came out of our room. Mark wasn't watching where he was stepping and he tripped over a princess wand and skidded on some books.
"Girls," I scolded. "You shouldn't leave your toys there for people to step on!"
Mark bent down and picked up an ABC book. It was open to the letter "F." He grinned and said, "What the 'F!'" holding up the book and pointing to the letter.
"Mark!" I was not pleased. "Don't talk like that in front of the girls!"
"You should say 'heck,'" Megan instructed, wisely.
"What?" I turned on her.
"Heck," she said.
"No, you shouldn't say 'heck,' honey. That's not a nice word."
Mark was snickering. Not helping.
"What does heck mean?" Megan asked.
"It's another word for the bad place," I said, pointing down.
"Oh. you mean 'hell,'" Megan said.
"Hell, hell, hell," Cassidy chanted.
"What's feck mean?" Megan continued before I could think of an appropriate response.
"Feck?" Mark asked, openly laughing.
"Yes, you just said 'feck,'" Megan was curious.
"No, I said---"
I cut him off, "---Mark!" I turned to the girls, "Daddy didn't say anything. And we don't talk like that in this family."
"Daddy do," Cassie said.
I glared at Mark. "He'd better not."
"Only when I stub my toe on toys," he assured me.
"Is it okay to say bad words when you hurt yourself?" Megan asked.
"No!" I said at the same time that Mark said, "Yes." I glared at him some more.
"No," he amended. "It's not okay, and Daddy shouldn't talk like that either."
"Thank you," I said sarcastically.
"Mommy say 'crap,'" Cassie added.
"I do not!" I protested. "Well, sometimes. Mommy shouldn't say that either."
"Does crap mean hell, too?" Megan asked, trying to get things straight in her mind.
"No, Megan," Mark started to explain. "Crap means---"
I cut him off again, "It means a word that you shouldn't say. Thank you, Daddy, for your help."
"No problem, honey." He gave me a kiss. "Is there anything else you would like me to teach the girls before I go off to work?"
I smacked his arm. "I think that's enough for one day. Maybe tomorrow you can teach them about tequila shots and chewing tobacco."
Mark laughed and gave each of us another kiss before heading out the door. Drat! I'd forgotten to ask him to come home early so I could go out with Cecily. I could run out and catch him in the driveway but I hadn't thought of a good lie yet to explain why I needed to go. I closed my eyes and banged my head into the front of the refrigerator a couple times. I hated lying to Mark.
"Mommy?" Megan was standing at my side with a worried look on her face.
"Yes, baby?"
"Do you need to say a bad word?"
I snorted with laughter. "No, honey. Mommy just ... umm, forgot something."
"Ok," she sat back down, totally reassured.
I tried to think of a good excuse that would explain why I needed to be gone a couple nights in a row. I could tell him my grandmother was in town and I needed to go spend some time with her. But he might call my mom and find out I wasn't there. I could say I was doing intervention with Sarah over her latest boyfriend. But would that really take two or three nights? Usually, when Sarah and I disagreed on something, we got into such a huge fight that we didn't speak for a few days. Going out several nights in a row might look suspicious.
Aha! I had an idea. Mark's birthday was coming up in a couple of weeks. I could say that I was birthday shopping and then all the cloak-and-dagger would make sense! He would think that I was just hiding a great present from him. Of course, I would have to really come up with a great present, and that would be hard, but it was the best idea I had. I picked up the phone.
Mark's line beeped to show that he was on the other line. I was about to leave him a message but then decided to just text him so he didn't have to go through the rigmarole Verizon puts you through to check your messages. That done, I had all day long to worry about the coming evening.
Sherlock Holmes and Pookas
"I'm so happy that you are Sarah are spending more time together," Mom whispered as I waited in the front hall for Sarah to finish putting on her face. Cecily had wandered past me and was watching Pravus and Nana playing a card game on the coffee table.
Cecily had an intense look on her face and one hand was up behind her head grasping the handle of her sword. I saw her lips silently mouth words which I was pretty sure were "You can never trust a witch." Pravus was doing his best to look calm and ignore her, but even from across the house I could see the tension in the way he was sitting.
"Yeah, Mom," I was very distracted. "We're reconnecting."
"Aha!" Nana yelled, making me jump, "Take that! Look who's nervous now!"
Pravus tried to smile but caught Cecily's eye at the wrong time and she flashed him some fang. I closed my eyes and prayed, please, don't let my mother see that. Cecily took a step closer so that she was invading Pravus' personal space. If she was trying to loom she was doing a good job of it. I don't think I would be comfortable sitting and pretending that all was normal if I had a homicidal vampire with a twitchy sword looming over me. Pravus was made of stronger stuff. He shifted on the couch but held his place.
"Sarah!" I yelled in desperation. "Time to go!"
"Almost done!" she yelled back.
"No one cares how many pounds of eye makeup you're wearing!" I yelled. "You can get by with just one or two!"
"Very funny!" came the yell. "Maybe I have to 'make-up' for the obvious lack of time you spend in front of the mirror!"
"If it's not broke, don't fix it," I yelled. "Some of us are just naturally good looking."
"Hardee har har," she yelled sarcastically. "I'd be there faster if you stopped yelling at me."
Mom gave me a knowing smile. Sarah could spend hours in front of the mirror. I wore makeup myself. In fact, I wouldn't go out of the house without it. But I belonged to the school of thought that believed you should look like you weren't wearing makeup. Sarah believed that eyeliner was to be worn completely circling the eye and drawn with a heavy hand. I called it the raccoon look.
I glanced back into the living room. Cecily had now drawn the sword and was standing in Pravus' direct line of sight. She hefted the blade in one hand and slapped it into the palm of her other hand, all the while staring freakishly into the witch's eyes. I saw a bead of sweat drip down his face. Nana saw it too.
"Face it, young man," she crowed, "I'm winning and there's nothing you can do about it!"
Cecily mouthed again, "You can never trust a witch."
Things were getting out of hand. I'd tried to make Cecily stay in the car but she wanted to come in and see that everything was ok. I should have been more insistent. If I'd known that she was going to stand there and taunt him I would have ... I don't know. I'd have done something different. There had been way too much magic in this house lately. I didn't need a witch/ vampire war breaking out over pinochle.
"Ready," Sarah announced behind me, acting like she had been waiting for me. I turned just in time to see her face change. "What is she doing?" she whispered looking at Cecily.
"Oh," Mom answered with an indulgent smile, "Nana's playing cards with Cousin Richard. Isn't he so sweet? He's been taking such good care of her. I've never seen her in such a good mood."
"That's great, Mom," I said between gritted teeth. "Cecily! Time to go!"
Cecily slapped the blade across her palm one final time and gave Pravus a toothy grin. She was having way too much fun. With one fluid movement she resheathed the sword behind her back and gracefully walked to the front door. "It was good to see you again," she said politely to my Mom.
"Have fun girls!" Mom called after us.
"What do you think you were doing?" I hissed at Cecily as soon as the front door closed behind us.
"What?" she asked with an innocent look.
"What! You know what I mean! You drew that stupid sword in my mother's home!" I was half yelling at her over the roof of the car. She opened her door and got in, forcing me to do the same. "What were you thinking?"
Cecily smiled. "I was just playing with him, Piper."
"Playing with him! What if he had tried to do something?" I started the car so that we didn't suffocate in the heat while we fought.
"Then I would have had just cause to decapitate him," she explained, like it made perfect sense.
"In my mother's house?" I was incredulous.
"It's not all about location, Piper," she said calmly. "Sometimes you just have to take the best opportunity that presents itself."
"Not in my mother's house," I said firmly.
Cecily looked at me and apparently decided that I was serious. "I will try my best to not execute Pravus in your mother's house," she promised.
Sarah leaned forward and placed a hand on my shoulder. "Give it up, Piper," she advised. "That's the best you're going to get right now. Don't we have somewhere to be?"
I gripped the wheel tightly and the decided to let it go. For now. "Fine. Where are we going?"
"Astor, Florida," Cecily answered. "Get on I-95 north."
"Where is Astor?" Sarah asked. "I've never heard of it."
"It's in the middle of the Ocala National Forest," Cecily explained. "Population fifteen-hundred."
"Wow, that's small," Sarah remarked. "How long to get there?"
"Two hours," I said glumly. Riding in the car was not my favorite pastime. There was no Zipline. Apparently not enough people wanted to travel to Astor. Go figure. At least I was driving. In the rearview mirror I saw Sarah put in her earphones.
"Let me know when we're there," she said and leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes.
"Who are we going to see?" I asked Cecily.
"I told you," she yawned, reclining the passenger seat, "I think it best for you to have an open mind."
I snorted, "If my mind were any more open my brain would fall out. Who are we going to see?"
"I'm not exactly sure," she answered.
"You're not exactly what?" If we hadn't been going seventy down the highway I would have pulled the car off the road to stare at her.
"I'm not sure who we will be finding," she explained, as if that made any sense at all.
"Cecily," I growled warningly.
I saw her mouth quirk up in a half smile. She was enjoying this. "Let me explain a little of how the USB works and this will make more sense."
"It'd better," I muttered, "I'm not driving two hours to podunkville for fun."
"Oh, this should be fun," her eyes sparkled. "At least, it has the potential to be."
"Fun I can do without," I grumbled, "Helpful in finding the real killer would be preferable."
"To find the impossible, you must first eliminate the improbable," she paraphrased.
I ran it through my brain a few times. "I don't think that means the same thing that Sherlock Holmes said." I racked my brain a bit more and came up with the proper quote, "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truth."
Cecily shrugged, "I like my way better. Besides, Edgar Allen Poe said it first."
"No, Arthur Conan Doyle said it in The Sign of the Four," I argued. I was somewhat of a Sherlock Holmes buff.
"He paraphrased Poe's detective, Dupin, the very detective that Sherlock Holmes was based upon." Cecily seemed sure of her facts.
"Fine, what was the original quote?"
"Something along the lines of: It's not the reasoner's job to reject solutions based on apparent impossibilities. It is our job to prove that those apparent impossibilities are not really impossible," she quoted.
"Well," I grumped, "No wonder everyone attributes it to Holmes, that didn't sound anywhere near as clever."
"Trust me," Cecily said seriously, "Edgar was a very clever man."
I blinked. I had forgotten who I was talking to. I was about to ask if she had really met him when I realized that we had traveled a long way down a rabbit trail away from my original question.
"Who are we going to meet?"
Cecily sighed. "Has anyone ever told you that you have a one track brain?"
"Who are we going to meet?" I've often found that to get fast answers you sometimes have to repeat the original question without allowing yourself to be deviated by non-relevant comments. For example: "Why is your sister crying?" I might ask.
"She bit me, Mommy!" A classic attempt to move the blame onto another party.
"Why is your sister crying?" I stick to the main question.
"She said she doesn't like me!" Again, another attempt to focus blame elsewhere.
"Why is your sister crying?" I refuse to be distracted by the ploy and ask the question again.
"Okay, okay, I hit her with a toy!" Finally, the truth comes out when the guilty party runs out of subterfuge. When you're dealing with four year-olds this can happen quite quickly. They are not nearly as imaginative as adults.
I tried to give Cecily the evil eye while keeping both eyes on the road. It's a lot harder to do than it sounds, but I think she got the point.
She leaned her seat back farther, causing Sarah to have to shift her feet in the back seat. Throwing one arm across her face to block the sun, she said, "I was getting ready to explain when you went off on Sherlock Holmes."
"I didn't go off on Sherlock Holmes. I merely corrected your inaccurate quoting."
"Whatever. Do you want an answer or not?"
"Answer away!" I pulled into the right lane to pass a car doing fifty. As expected, the driver was senior and female.
"To become a member of the USB you have to meet two major requirements," Cecily began.
"Which are?" I couldn't keep my mouth shut.
"Which I was about to explain before you interrupted," she huffed.
"Fine. I'll be quiet. Just leave out all the dramatic pauses." I pretended that I couldn't see the glare she was shooting at my head.
"Two major requirements," she began again. "One, you have to have some sort of magical ability. Two, you have to pass as human." She paused again.
"What does 'pass as human' mean?" I had to ask, pretty sure that she was waiting for the question.
"It means that you can walk around with other humans and not have them suspect that you are different."
"I know some humans who can't even do that!" I joked.
"The point I am trying to make," Cecily said, "is that there are many, many other beings that qualify for the first requirement, but not the second."
I thought about that for a bit. "You mean, things that don't look human? Like the Loch Ness Monster?"
"Yes. Or trolls, kelpies, things of that nature."
I had a thought, "What about pookas?" My dog, Harvey, was named after one.
"Of course," Cecily said, as if six-foot rabbits were totally the norm.
It was the perfect time to try out my Jimmy Stewart voice. "He's a pooka!"
"What?" Cecily was puzzled.
Obviously my impersonation needed some work. "He's a pooka!" I tried again.
"Oh," she shook her head. "Actually that wasn't a pooka."
"Yes it was!" I loved that movie.
"No, it was white. Pooka's are black."
"Why are they black?"
"For the same reason that black swans are black," she replied.
"Which is?"
"Because they wouldn't be black swans if they weren't!" It seemed to make perfect sense to her.
"Whatever," I muttered under my breath. "Harvey was a pooka."
"The point is," Cecily said frigidly, "that a pooka would not pass as a human and thus could not join the USB."
"Why is that important?" I tried to steer the conversation back on track.
"Because, having non-humanoid, supernatural creatures running around poses a serious threat to the safety and secrecy of the USB. Which is why we keep an eye on them."
I was about to ask what would happen if a troll set up shop under the Brooklyn Bridge, but then thought better of it. For one, it would probably send us off on another tangent. For another, I had a feeling I knew what the answer would be. Anything that threatened the USB was quickly and quietly disposed of.
"How do you keep an eye on them?" I asked instead.
"Most of the creatures like to stay hidden. Of course, every once in awhile we have to go put down some Mongolian death worms, and there was a mothman a few years ago that caused a bit of an uproar in the press and had to be convinced to be more discreet in its traveling."
"Of course," I remarked snidely. "I hate it when mothmen are flying around in plain sight."
"Each member species of the USB is assigned an area to keep under control. Any creature in that area is the responsibility of the assigned species. It's mostly red tape and paper work. If humans start talking about chupacabras or zombies or whatever, you have to investigate and turn in a ton of paperwork. Then you either eliminate the threat or clean up the incident so that it disappears."
"What does this have to do with the person we are going to talk to?" I asked.
"Because, I'm not really sure who we are looking for," was the reassuring answer. "I was looking for people with reason to hate Pravus. That wasn't hard. But when I narrowed it down to opportunity, it was a lot harder. About ten years ago, Pravus was sent out to investigate a supernatural creature spotting. He didn't fill out any paperwork." She did that dramatic pause again.
"So he didn't find anything?" I guessed, knowing that was the wrong answer but just trying to keep her talking.
"No. Because, every year since then, he has gone back to the same town for a day!"
"Let me guess. Astor, Florida," I said.
"Exactly!" she was pleased with her logic.
"I don't get it." I was confused. "We're looking for someone who hates Pravus. Not just some creature that he failed to report."
She grinned her shark grin. "That's where it gets interesting. Four out of the ten times Pravus has visited Astor, he has visited the hospital afterwards with broken bones."
I raised my eyebrows. "Okay, that seems promising."
"Also, just think about it. Why wouldn't Pravus report whatever it was he found?"
"I don't know," I shrugged. "Laziness?"
"Try greed," she said. "My guess is that he is blackmailing the creature in return for his silence."
She could be right. I wouldn't put it past Pravus to try and extort someone. And that would be a pretty good reason to frame him. Blackmailers are never very popular with their victims. If I was being blackmailed I could see how a permanent solution might be tempting.
"Hold on a sec," I had a concern. "If you don't know who we are looking for, how are we going to find this person?"
Cecily shrugged. "How hard can it be? The town only has fifteen hundred people in it!"
I glared at her, "That's a lot when you're going door to door in the amount of time we have! I would like to get home sometime before sunrise! Some of us may be able to sleep all day, but my kids will be up at seven-thirty regardless of what time I go to bed!"
"You worry too much, Piper," Cecily yawned. "In a town that size I guarantee that people are talking about anything weird that is going on."
"And what if there isn't anything weird going on?" I snapped.
"Trust me. Pravus wouldn't be going to the boonies for enjoyment. There is some sort of supernatural creature there. And the hospital record proves that it doesn't think too highly of our witch friend."
I rolled my eyes in frustration. It was going to be almost seven o'clock before we got there. I'd told Mark that I would be late getting back and not to wait up for me, but I really would like to be back on the road by midnight at the latest. That gave us five hours to probe the local populace, discover a magical creature, interview it, and decide whether it was responsible for the Kissimmee killings. Great. Just peachy.
Rednecks at Subway
We got off I-95 and onto the smaller FL-40. Almost thirty miles later and we were in the middle of nowhere. It was typical Florida scenery, which is to say, not very scenic. Scrub brush, pine trees, palm trees, and swamp. I half expected to see alligators crossing the road. We had our share of alligators in Melbourne, but most of them preferred to stay in the swamps outside the city. A few of the braver ones would go for a dip in someone's swimming pool, or even try to enter a house. If you don't believe me, you can check out pictures people have taken and posted on the web of alligators standing on their hind legs up against a front door. You hear a noise at your door, go to open it, and wham! a six foot gator falls into your foyer.
Astor was giving me the creeps. We were deep in the middle of redneckville and Cecily's cute Honda Civic was totally out of place. All I saw on the roads were trucks. Big trucks. Muddy trucks. And occasionally, one that wasn't painted in camouflage.
Sarah took her earphones out and leaned forward. "What's the plan?"
I was still driving down FL-40, now called Butler Street. Cecily popped her seatback into the upright position and was looking out the window. My stomach rumbled. "How about dinner first?" I suggested.
"Sweet, I'm starved," Sarah chimed in. "We passed a seafood place back there." She pointed the way we had come.
Now, I know this is odd for a native Floridian, but I don't eat seafood. Any seafood. If it comes from the water I don't like it. Fish, crab, lobster, shrimp, clams, they are all are on my no-eat list. I can't take the smell, much less the taste. Once in a blue moon I will get the urge for tuna fish, but if I open that can and it smells fishy then my cat, Otis, gets a treat. Once I thought I liked mussels, but the second time I tried them I ate a bad one and spent the rest of the evening vomiting in the bathroom. So, no thank you, no seafood for me.
"No seafood," I made a gagging sound.
"Oh, come on, Piper!" Sarah whined. "I feel like some shrimp."
"The cockroaches of the sea?" I asked.
"Fine," she crossed her arms over her chest and sulked. "Where do you want to go?"
We were getting deeper and deeper into the middle of nowhere. "Umm, I don't think we'll have many options," I said.
"Look, there's a sign for 'The Blackwater Inn Restaurant and Lounge,'" Sarah pointed.
Cecily nixed it. "Too fancy. We need somewhere where the locals hang out and drink."
"Uh, Cecily, there's a problem with that," I pointed out.
"What?"
"Someone in the car is underage."
"Good grief, Piper!" Sarah complained, "I don't look like I'm underage. I can pass."
"No, you can't."
"Yes, I can!"
"That's not the point! I'm not taking you into a bar!" I was getting upset.
"What? So, you'll take me to decapitate someone but not to see people drinking beer? What kind of double standard is that? They let soldiers drink before they turn twenty-one!"
"What does that have to do with you?" I wanted to know.
"The rule is, if you are risking your life for your country you should be allowed to drink," Sarah seemed to think that her logic was faultless.
"You're not risking you life for your country," I pointed out.
"Yes I am!" She was indignant. "Sort of."
"There's a Subway!" Cecily yelled, cutting into our argument.
"Subway it is!" I agreed, taking a sharp right into the parking lot. "Do you think this is a local enough hangout?"
Cecily shook her head. "Maybe we can find out where the local watering hole is here."
"Watering hole?" Sarah asked.
I smirked. "She means the local bar."
"What?" Cecily was puzzled. "You don't call them watering holes anymore?"
"Not unless you're my grandfather's age," Sarah commented.
Cecily sniffed. "I am considerably older than your grandfather."
"And much better preserved," I added, patting her arm. "Now let's get some food and try to figure out what supernatural creature could possible want to live in this dump."
Inside, the Subway looked just like the ones at home. Older, dirtier, but essentially the same. We got three sub combos and Cecily and Sarah threw in some large chocolate cookies as well.
"Do you want a cookie?" Sarah asked.
I glared at her. Yes. I wanted a cookie. No. I didn't want my butt getting any bigger. How was it possible that two sisters could have such different metabolisms? She must have stolen part of mine when I wasn't watching. That would explain everything. Maybe it was part of her memory abilities.
"Are you sure that memories are the only thing you steal?" I asked suspiciously. It was farfetched, yes, but I really wanted to know.
Sarah gave me a weird look. "I don't steal memories, Piper," she whispered, looking around to make sure that no one else was listening. "I just change them. You know that."
I gave her a narrow eyed stare. Maybe she was telling the truth. It still didn't explain how she could scarf down a twelve inch sub, a bag of Doritos, and a couple of cookies and still fit in her size four shorts. Granted, I was a size six, but I had to work for every inch of it. I'd have to keep an eye on her. If she'd really stolen my metabolism I wanted it back.
Cecily bumped into me from behind. I had been standing in front of the drink fountain, staring at nothing. "Piper?" she said softly. "You've got that weird look on your face."
"What weird look?"
"That look you get when you are thinking something really stupid."
"What!" I said a little loudly. "Take that back. I never think anything stupid."
"Okay, what were you just thinking about?" She filled her cup with ice and coke and turned to me with one raised eyebrow.
I tried to look mysterious. "Nothing that concerns you."
"Uh-huh. If you think that doesn't prove my point, you're wrong."
"Whatever," I shrugged past her and took a seat in the booth across from Sarah.
Cecily stopped to pick up what, at first glance, appeared to be a local newspaper. At closer examination it was merely two pages folded together with the main content being advertisements. We all ate in silence while Cecily read. For a vampire who gained zero nutritional value from human food, Cecily sure seemed to enjoy her Italian meatball sub.
"Mhgrhg!" Cecily said through a mouthful.
"What?" I craned my head around and tried to read what she was pointing at.
"Reward Offered for any Mysterious Sightings," read the ad. I made a face. "Mysterious sightings? What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means that we're on the right track!" Cecily sounded way too triumphant for someone who had merely proven something that we already knew. Mainly that there was some supernatural creature in the area.
Sarah gave me a wink and leaned over the seat behind her. "Excuse me," she said, leaning over far enough that I was pretty sure she was showing more than just cleavage to the three rednecks in the booth behind us.
"Yes, ma'am?" one said. He took off his trucker's hat and wrenched his gaze up a few inches.
"I just couldn't help but notice this strange ad in your newspaper," she cooed. "What in the world does it mean?"
One of the other men, who was wearing a camo jacket and full mountain-man beard, guffawed, "Oh, that's just Floyd. He don't mean nothin'."
The third man, whose coveralls had the name "Cooter" sewed over the left front pocket, laughed so hard he choked on his coke. "Floyd's crazier than a coon with rabies!"
"Really?" Sarah batted her eyes. "Why's that?"
"Well, ma'am," the first man answered, since his companions were both still laughing. "Floyd thinks he saw something out off Airport Road."
"You have an airport?" I blurted out in surprise. I didn't think this town rated even a Walmart.
"No, ma'am," he nodded politely at me. "We just have a road named for one."
Sarah glared at me to shut up and went back to oozing charm. "What did Floyd see?"
"Most likely it was a bear," the man nodded sagely.
"Or a 'possum!" camo jacket hooted.
"Or his own shadow!" added Cooter and collapsed cackling on the table top.
"Why the reward?" Cecily asked.
"Well, ma'am," the polite man said, his mama had obviously raised him right. "Floyd imagines himself to be a reporter of sorts. He says that when he finds proof of whatever it is he thinks he saw, that he'll get a job at some big newspaper in Deland, or maybe even Deltona."
"Deltona, huh?" I kept a straight face.
"Where could we find this Floyd?" Sarah simpered, drawing all male eyes back to her neckline.
"Most nights he's over at the Steel Around Forest Tavern, just down the road a ways. You just tell Rainie that Clyde sent you over and you's looking for Floyd. Rainie's the bartender there. She'll point you out straight."
"Why thank you, Mr. Clyde," Sarah beamed, causing the poor man to blush bright red. "We appreciate your help!"
We gathered up our trash and headed for the door. Maybe we were getting close, or maybe we were just going to meet the local town nut. Either way, we had to do something and this seemed like the best lead at the moment.
The Tavern
The Steel Around Forest Tavern was just a few miles farther down the road. The sun had almost set when we pulled out of the Subway parking lot and the road cut straight through the middle of the forest. There were no street lamps, no houses, no buildings, only the glow from our headlights and the occasional truck that passed us going the other way. If I had been in a creepy mood, it would have seemed the perfect place for one of those horror movies where people go stumbling through the woods at night. Good thing I wasn't feeling creeped out.
We finally passed a few houses and then an RV park. The Tavern was almost directly opposite an RV park. It had large triangle-shaped roof sections that started at almost ground level and gave the building an out-of-place alpine look. A large banner hung over the door proclaimed that this was "Steeler Country."
"Steeler?" Cecily asked, puzzled. "As in thieves?"
Sarah snorted, "No, oh ancient one, as in the football team."
I kept my mouth shut. I had known that the Steelers were some sort of sports team, but I might have guessed baseball if asked. I'd never been big on sports and, thankfully, Mark wasn't either. He loved to go out and play paintball, but he had zero interest in watching a football game on TV. I've seen one Super Bowl game, or at least, part of one. I had no idea what was going on. It seemed to be a lot of starting and stopping and commercials. The commercials were kind of fun, and it was definitely more interesting than watching, say, a golf game, but still: yawn. Why not just check the score after the game to see who won?
I parked the car and took a quick look around the lot. We were the only car there. Most of the spaces were occupied with motorcycles, Harleys seeming to be the favorite. If it wasn't a motorcycle, it was a truck. Raised, camo-ed, muddied, painted with the Confederate flag, there was great variety in truck decor. I wondered if we would stand out as badly indoors as we did outdoors. Sarah was wearing blue jeans, but not the kind that a country girl would be caught dead in. Hers were skin tight, covered in skulls and bones up each leg, and had a couple of chains hanging from the pocket. Her black tank top was cut high on the bottom to reveal midriff and low in the neckline to reveal the lacy top of a hot pink bra. I seriously hoped that Sarah had used her ability to make my mother forget what her youngest daughter was wearing. I wouldn't want Mom to have had a heart attack as soon as we walked out the door.
Cecily was the exact opposite. Flowered chiffon skirt, boat-neck blouse, and strappy stiletto heels. I was a little more normal looking in my jeans, flip-flops, and solid-color tee. Of course, that was normal for back in Melbourne. Here in the middle of the Ocala National Forest I had a feeling that normal might run more to bike leathers, or cowboy hats. Oh well, we weren't trying to hide, so it didn't matter if people stared.
"I'm not staying in the car," Sarah said, pouting.
I watched a group of bikers swing off their Harleys and enter the Tavern in a loud, raucous group. "Yeah," I agreed. "I don't think you should stay in the car either."
"What?" I had clearly taken the wind out of her prepared complaint.
"We're all going in," I said, and gave the best smile I could muster up for the moment. "We're looking for Rainey, the bartender. We'd like her to point out Floyd to us. Clyde sent us."
"Yeah, we were there too, Piper," Sarah snipped. "You don't have to spell everything out a gazillion times."
I closed my eyes and briefly tried to imagine my happy place. A beach, with a lounge chair set up in the shade of a huge umbrella, waves lapping at my toes, good book in one hand, pina colada in the other ... No nagging sister back-talking me. Heaven.
"Piper?" Cecily asked. "Are you okay?"
"Yes," I sighed. "Let's go in."
As I reached out my hand for the door knob I could already hear the noise from within. I still wasn't prepared for the wave of sound that crashed over us as I opened the door. The place was packed with people, mostly bikers, but quite a few cowboy hats as well. A band, consisting of lead guitarist, bass, drums, fiddle, and vocalist, was crammed up on a tiny stage, speakers blaring so loud it almost didn't sound like music. A crush of people swayed and moved on what must have been a dance floor, and small tables littered the scene, covered in bottles and glasses, and surrounded by thirsty people. The bar ran along the back wall. Shelves of bottles lined the wall behind it and a large mirror gave it an old-timey feel.
I caught a glimpse of the woman working the bar as she poured foam off the top of a beer mug and topped it off. She was tall. Amazon tall. Six foot at least. She was far too curvy to be a supermodel, and was wearing clothing that could have been spray painted on. Her boobs were so firm and round that they had to be fake. Or at least, that's what my jealous brain wanted to believe. Fake or not, the men clamoring for a drink didn't seem to mind. In fact, they seemed to be looking for a smile and a word just as much as a beverage. Hopefully this was Rainey, although how she going to point out anything in this hubbub was beyond me.
Cecily started pushing through the crowd to the bar. She may look willowy, but the path cleared rapidly before her. Maybe it was her sharp elbows and heels, or maybe people's instinct warned them to move when a vampire glared at them; either way, she got the job done. Sarah and I followed closely in her wake and arrived at the bar only slightly out of breath. The noise level was making my eyeballs quiver and I fervently hoped that we would be out of here quickly.
Per usual, Cecily waited for me to begin. I raised a hand tentatively. It had been years since the last time I had been in a bar, and that time had been pretty off-putting. I wasn't quite sure how you got the bartender's attention. Lucky for me, I had help.
"Well looky there, Loraine!" the speaker was a man dressed in a leather jacket with a ... no, it couldn't be. Yup. Okay, he really did have a naked woman spreading her legs on the back of his jacket. Nice. "Some city folk have graced us with their presence."
The Amazon bartender, who must be Loraine, turned and stared straight at me. No doubt about it, we didn't fit in. I gave her a slight finger wave. "Um, hi! Clyde said we should come talk to you."
She gave me the one eyebrow lift. Dang it! I had to learn how to do that. It was so cool looking. "Did he now?" she drawled, not stopping in her drink mixing dance.
"Are you Rainie?" I asked after a suitable pause in which the woman filled a half dozen drink orders and the biker man moved from leering at me to leering at my kid sister.
"Who wants to know?" she asked.
"I'm Piper Cavanaugh, and I'm in town looking for Floyd," I stuck my chin out a bit as I spoke. I was not going to be intimidated by some country hicks. At least, not any more than I already was.
"Floyd!" the biker laughed so loud he spewed beer from his nose. "Who'd want to find Floyd?"
I gave a patient smile, "Me. I said that already."
There was a lull in the drink orders and Rainie pulled out a cloth and starting wiping down the counter. "What it'll be?" she asked.
"Huh?"
"What it'll be?" she said again. "You're in my bar, taking up space. You'd better be ordering something."
"Oh," I looked helplessly at Cecily. I didn't drink much. I had a very low tolerance for alcohol and a shot of vodka worked the same on me as a couple of sleeping pills. It was going to be a long night and I didn't want to be falling asleep at the wheel on the drive home. Cecily shrugged, no help there. They probably didn't serve blood here and I didn't know what else she drank.
"Could I have a Diet Coke?" I asked, failing to remember the names of any cool sounding drinks I could order. What did it matter at this point? Blending in was not going to happen.
"Diet Coke?" Rainie repeated.
"Yes," I said firmly.
"What'll the jail bait have?" she asked.
Huh? I looked over my shoulder. Who was she talking about?
She tapped my arm. "The underage kid. What would she like?"
I felt Sarah bristle. I tried to quell her with a glance. She was underage. No sense in getting offended by the truth.
"She'll have a regular Coke," Sarah said snidely.
"All righty then," Rainie filled our glasses smoothly. "You have five minutes to drink those and then I want you out of my place. On the house."
I stared at her, unable to read the situation. Was she kicking us out? Or buying us drinks? What in the world was going on?
Rainie crossed her arms across her perky bosom and leaned forward across the counter. "I ain't seen Floyd in here today, so I can't help you there. But I can give you a friendly word of warning, if you're of a mind to listen. Floyd is trouble. He's dumb as a skunk and gets people riled up about as fast. Always spouting off crazy ideas and causin' trouble. You want to steer clear of him if you can. And that's my last word."
I was at a total loss. Our one lead, flimsy though it had been, had just petered out and we had nothing. Fortunately, Cecily had brought a back-up plan.
"One more question, and we'll be out of your hair," she said, stepping forward.
Rainie gave her the once over and obviously found her amusing. She was probably classifying her as a prissy, city girl. Hopefully Cecily's lethal side would have no reason to emerge here in the bar, so Rainie was welcome to her misjudgment. "What's your question, princess?"
Cecily smiled, "Have you ever seen this man?" She pulled out a photograph and placed it gently on the bar top. I glanced over her arm and recognized Pravus.
Rainie picked up the photo and made a big show of studying it. "Now there I can help you," she said. "This here is Richard. He's got some kinfolk up off Airport Road. Comes in about once a year or so to visit. Nice man."
Nice man! I choked a bit on my coke. She was a lousy judge of character!
"Cousin Richard has family here?" Sarah broke it, with a girlish giggle. "Imagine that! You wouldn't happen to know their names would you?"
"The Peersons. Mom and a little boy. Keep to themselves mostly. Quiet folks but seem like real nice people." Rainie was quickly losing interest in our conversation. "Now, if you're finished I'd thank you for leaving. I don't want no trouble with the police here. And you," she pointed at Sarah, "next time you come in here I want you to be twenty-one."
I was completely happy to get out of there as fast as possible. The door shut the noise behind us and the sounds of crickets and frogs could not have been more welcome.
"That went well," Sarah frowned.
I made a rueful face. "Actually, I think it went better than it could have."
Cecily nodded, "Then we are agreed on the next step."
"We didn't find Floyd!" Sarah pointed out in exasperation. "How are we supposed to discover what the suspicious sightings have been?"
Cecily smiled. "The Peersons. They have to be the supernatural creatures."
"Why else would Pravus be visiting them?" I asked.
"Yes. He's not here for his health. You really think that he has family living here, and that, even if he did, he would be stopping by for a visit?" This last was addressed to Sarah.
"Oh," she said shortly. "Right."
"Leave the detecting to your elders!" I said cheerily, slapping her on the back and getting a snarl in return. "The game is a foot!"
We were all grateful for the car's air conditioning after the brief mugginess of the parking lot. Cecily entered Airport Road into the navigational GPS and it showed up as a few miles back the way we had come. It was full dark now, and dark in the country is a completely different dark than in the city. I had always thought that Melbourne was a rather small town. Now, I couldn't wait to get back to street lights, and store lights, hey, even headlights. There was nothing out here, and nobody around.
We made the turn onto a smaller two lane road that dropped us onto Airport Road. It was an even smaller road, covered in pot holes. I suppose I should have been grateful for the lack of traffic, for if we had met someone head on we might have brushed side mirrors with them trying to squeeze past. If possible, this was even more remote and dark than the road we had left.
"Uh, Cecily," I said nervously, as a large shape swooped across the road in front us. "We don't really have an address."
She peered through the front windshield and I wondered if she was capable of seeing more in the dark than I could. "Do you think an address would help?" she asked.
"They are usually beneficial when trying to find a house," I snipped.
"Yes, but look around. Do you see any other address that would give you a frame of reference to know whether you were traveling the correct way?"
She had a point. Without other houses or buildings around an address would be pretty useless. "Then how do you know that we are traveling in the right direction?" I asked. So help me, if we came around a bend in the road to have my headlights light up some figure standing there waiting with a machete in its hands, I would ... I don't know what I would do. Probably scream. Screaming is always good.
"Why are you nervous?" Cecily asked, genuinely puzzled.
"Oh, come on!" Sarah was clearly nervous too. "They could have filmed the Blair Witch Project here!"
"And that's bad?"
"No, that's creepy. This is a creepy place."
I was glad that I wasn't the only one having horror movie flashbacks.
Cecily rolled her eyes. "The place is not creepy. It is merely dark. You humans are always afraid of that which you cannot see."
"With good reason, turns out," I muttered.
"Hey!" Sarah leaned between the seats, pointing. "Is that a house?"
Through the trees and brush a faint light could be seen, illuminating what looked to be the side of a building. We drove a little further looking for a driveway. Nothing.
"Maybe we passed it," I guessed and spent the next five minutes attempting to do a three point turn which turned into more like a fifteen point turn. Finally pointing back the correct way, I drove slowly, trying to watch both sides of the road at once.
"There," Cecily said, pointing.
"Where?" I braked, but saw nothing.
"There is a path there through the brush."
"I don't see anything," Sarah said.
"Trust me, it's there."
"Will the car fit?" I asked, still seeing nothing.
"Wait here," and with that Cecily was out of the car and disappeared into the dark.
"Creeeeeepy," Sarah sang in a high pitched voice.
"Stop it!" I yelled. "I'm weirded out enough as it is."
A tap at my window had me screaming and fumbling wildly at my seat belt. I don't know what I was trying to do. Use it as a weapon? Escape? Fortunately, it was Cecily.
"Are you trying to kill me!" I hissed angrily, once I got straightened out again in my seat.
I swear she was smirking. "No, I didn't mean to frighten you. There was some brush pulled across the driveway. I believe that there is enough room for the car if you drive slowly."
"Ha!" I muttered under my breath as she went around to the other side to get in the car. "I wasn't frightened. I was just jumpy."
It was a very tight fit, and the sound of branches dragging along the side of the car was more than a little eerie. We pulled out into a clearing and I parked the car. There was a single wide trailer with a sagging wooden porch and various scattered objects filling the majority of the cleared land. With the engine off, I could hear the low hum of a generator, and the blueish light flickering across one of the windows made it seem likely that someone was watching TV within.
Sarah and I were a little slower to exit the car than Cecily. It might help to know that you are super strong, super fast, and practically invulnerable. Slow, weak, humans that we were, we were a trifle more cautious about our skin. I was glad for the light of the full moon, without it I would have been completely blind. Of course, that meant that there were long, dark shadows everywhere, but that was marginally better than complete blackness.
"How do you know that this is the right place?" I whispered. If there was anything out there in the dark, I didn't want it to hear me.
Cecily pointed to the front door. A little, painted, wooden sign read "The Peerson's."
"Oh." I took a deep breath and almost gagged. The stench of skunk was strong.
"Shall we?" Sarah was also whispering.
"What are we going to say?" I asked, suddenly wishing we had talked about this in the car. "Hi? Has Richard been around lately?"
"Put your hands in the air and freeze!" The voice sounded so close behind me that I jumped a yard in the air while trying to turn and look.
The front door had opened and framed in the light was a young boy, torn jeans, dirty shirt, and a double barreled shotgun pointed straight at my heart.
Still in the Dark
"I said put your hands in the air," the boy said again. There was a quaver in his voice but none in his hands as he kept the barrel pointed straight and true.
I slowly lifted my hands in the air, jaw still dropped open in surprise. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Cecily and Sarah doing the same.
"Why are you here?" the boy asked, his voice cracking on the last word.
"Are you the Peerson boy?" I asked, trying to sound calm.
"Why?" he asked suspiciously.
"We're looking for your mother," I said, keeping a friendly tone and hoping that he didn't get so nervous that he squeezed the trigger on accident. Why couldn't he have pointed it at Cecily? She could probably survive a direct shotgun blast. I doubted that I would be so fortunate.
The boy's tension escalated at word of his mother. "You can't have her!" he shrieked. "She's done nothing wrong!"
"What?" I glanced over in surprise at Cecily.
"Don't move!" he yelled louder. "I won't let you take her!"
Cecily cleared her throat. "Um, Piper, why don't you explain to the young man why we are here."
I was still open mouthed in shock for a moment. Why did he think we were here to take his mother? Then the word explain hit me. Oh. Right. I could control this situation. Who cares if Piper winds up immortal? At least we'd all be alive to get to immortality. Why was it that I was the one who would have to pay the price though? I thought about balking and not using the Voice, but then decided that I still wanted to live a little longer. I closed my eyes briefly and hoped that this wasn't the time that sent me over the edge.
"You are not afraid of us," I commanded, wanting to erase his fear before he shot me from pure nerves. "We are your friends and here to help you. Invite us in and tell us what is going on." Whoops. I'd forgotten an important part. "Put the gun down. You don't need it," I added.
The boy slowly lowered the shotgun and rested the end of the barrel on the porch floor. "You're friends?" he asked, beginning to sniff.
"Yes, honey," I said, forgetting to use the Voice. My heart went out to this brave little kid. I stepped up on the shaky porch and held out my hand. "I'm Piper. This is Sarah, my sister, and Cecily, another friend. We're here to help you."
"I don't know what to do anymore!" he wailed, bursting into tears. I glanced back at Cecily and Sarah, they were standing wide-eyed, no help there.
"Shush," I gave him a half hug. "Why don't you invite us in," that part was for Cecily, "and we'll sit down and have a nice little chat. You can tell us everything, and we will try to help."
"Okay," he sniffed, wiping the back of his hand across his nose. "Come in, please." He stepped into the trailer and I followed.
The inside was even tinier and more run down than the outside. The carpet was so dirty and worn through that it was impossible to tell what color it had originally been. A couch filled most of the main room, and it looked as though Goodwill would have thrown it out. I counted three visible springs and numerous stains.
The small kitchen was missing most of the cabinet doors, and the dishes within were either paper or plastic. The counter was stacked high with takeout food boxes, some of which were extremely dirty on the outside. I realized that someone had been dumpster diving. I had tried it once in college, when the "in" thing to do was dig through the Krispy Kreme dumpster at closing time. The smell was enough to make sure I never tried it again. The thought of eating something that had been in such close proximity to that smell still made my stomach turn.
A short hallway had two doors leading off of it. One was obviously the bathroom; the door was left open to show a squalor that even my brother as a teenager would have turned his nose up at. The second door I assumed was the bedroom, and it was shut.
The skunk smell was just as bad in here, if not worse, in the close confines. It probably had to do with the lack of any noticeable air-conditioning and the open windows. A solitary oscillating fan struggled vainly against the muggy heat.
"Please, have a seat," the boy said politely. Someone had obviously raised him right, other than the shotgun welcome.
I sat down gingerly, trying to find a spot that looked clean and wouldn't poke my rear end. "What's your name?" I asked gently.
"Harry," he said. "I forgot your name."
"Piper," I told him again. I pointed at Sarah, "Sarah," then at Cecily, "Cecily."
"Hi," he said shyly, ducking his head.
"Now tell us," I said, "Why were you scared of us?"
"I thought you were here to take my mom away," he answered.
"Why would you think that?"
"Because the man said that if she ever got out again that he would send people to take her away." He started to cry again.
I stood up and found a fairly clean dishtowel in the kitchen. I sat down beside Harry on the ground and wiped his face. "What man said that, Harry?" I asked gently.
Cecily pulled out her photo of Pravus, "Was it this man?" she asked.
He recoiled and half climbed into my lap. "Yes, that was the man. He said that if we didn't bring him the plants he needed that he would send people to take my mother away!"
I motioned at Cecily to put the offensive picture out of sight. "Hush, hush," I rocked him gently. "No one is going to take your mother away."
"Promise?" he sniffed.
"Promise," I said, hoping that I was not promising the impossible.
"She hasn't gotten out lately, I promise!" he pleaded, "She's been real good!"
I patted him on the head. Gotten out? How to get to the heart of all this? We needed to start at the beginning. "Tell me about when you first met Pr---Richard," I suggested.
He sniffed a bit more and blew his nose on the dishcloth. "I dunno," he said. "He comes every year, long as I can 'member."
That fit with Cecily's research. If I remembered correctly it had been ten years since Pravus first started visiting Astor. That must have been before this child was even born.
"How old are you, Harry?" I asked.
"Nine, next month," he said proudly, "But Ma says I'm real big for my age!"
Yeah, big in opposite world. I'd seen matchsticks with more meat on them.
"Harry," I was struck by a thought. I couldn't believe I hadn't asked sooner. The heat must be getting to me. It was the question I should have asked first. "Where's your mother?" It was dark and late, and I didn't like to think that she had left him out here in the middle of nowhere, all alone.
Harry looked at us suspiciously. "You said you weren't here to take her."
"No, of course not! I just was wondering if she was home," I glanced back towards the closed bedroom door.
"No," he crossed his hands over his scrawny chest. "She's not home."
"Okay," I backed off. Clearly this was not the right tactic. "So, tell us more about Richard. What does he do when he comes out to visit?"
Harry scowled. "He mostly picks up the plants we've collected for him and threatens Mom a bunch."
Hmm. What to ask first? Plants or threats? I decided to go with the threat question. "What does he threaten?"
"Oh, you know, he tells her a bunch of times that if anyone finds out about her that he'll send people to come lock her up. He says that she can't talk to nobody, let nobody see her, or she'll be gone and I'll be left all alone." He teared up a bit at this.
I was slowly getting the picture. His mom must be some sort of werewolf. Why in the world hadn't Pravus just reported her and allowed her to join her species? Did she think she was the only one? What kind of abuse was going on here? I was getting angrier and angrier at Pravus.
"Ok, so he tells your mom that she has to stay hidden. Has he told her if there are any other people like her out in the world?"
Harry shook his head violently, "Oh, no ma'am. Mom's the only one of her kind, and if the government men found out about her, they'd lock her up, sure as breathing. They'd test her, and poke her, and study her, and never let her out!"
Maybe true. At least about the government. That was why she needed the protection of the USB. What kind of crap was Pravus pulling here?
"What about the plants?" Cecily asked. "What kind of plants do you harvest for Richard?"
"Mostly calamus root," Harry said knowingly. "Sand butterfly pea, chaffseed, milkwort, and a few others when they're in season. I also collect blue-tail mole skinks and oval pigtoes, when I can find 'em."
I nodded, but really had no idea what he was talking about. He collected weird plants and animals for Pravus. I got that. Why? I had no clue. Probably to use in some sort of WAND ritual.
"Does Richard pay you for these plants?" Sarah asked. Trust her to think of money. But it was a good question.
"Pay?" Harry was honestly perplexed. "Why would he pay for them? I'm using them to pay him, so Mom doesn't have to go away. He says they're not worth nothing, but that he finds small uses for them and he'll accept it as payment until I'm old 'nuff to get a real job and pay him cash."
I noticed Cecily frowning. I had a sneaky suspicion, based on a lack of belief in Pravus' altruistic nature, that those plants and animals were worth a bit more than "small uses." He was ripping this family off! Which, come to think of it, was a good reason to want to get rid of him. If I found out that I had been cheated and lied to for ten years, I might get a little homicidal too.
Cecily sat up straight and cocked her head to one side. "Did you hear that?" she asked.
I tried to listen but only heard the normal sounds of frogs and insects. "What?"
"Listen!"
We all sat in silence for a moment. Still nothing. I made a face at her to say that I couldn't hear anything and what did she want to do.
With eerie grace she was up and out the door. Harry, Sarah, and I just sat and stared at each other with wide eyes. The frogs abruptly left off croaking and there was real silence. Then the sounds of scuffling, grunting, a harsh cry and then silence again.
"Cecily?" I called softly. No answer.
"Cecily!" I tried a little louder whisper. Still no answer. What had happened out there? What was out there that could take out a vampire?
I glanced over at the shotgun. Harry was curled up in a little ball of fear. Sarah was staring, white faced, at the door. I heard footsteps on the front porch. That was it. Dang it! I was not going to sit here and wait for something to come in and kill us all. I grabbed up the shotgun, checked the safety, and took an even-legged stance pointing at the door.
The footsteps paused. I heard a grunt as someone fumbled with the doorknob. My heart was beating so loudly at this point that it was amazing that I heard even that much. I focused on holding the gun steady. As soon as whatever it was poked its head through that door, I was blowing it to kingdom come. Or making it really angry. Either one.
The knob turned, the door creaked slowly open and Harry and Sarah both let out little yelps of fear. I so wanted this to be over. I couldn't handle this kind of stress.
The door stopped halfway. I could barely make out the outline of an arm and a bulky shape. It didn't look human. The door was pulled back a little and the creature cleared its throat.
Floyd Finds Us
I steadied my aim, ready to fire as soon as I was reasonably sure of hitting my target. I hoped the creature came through the door soon because much more of this and I was going to pass out from hyperventilating.
"Piper?" the creature asked in a familiar voice.
"Who's there?" I croaked.
"It's me, Piper," the voice sounded like Cecily. "If you are planning to shoot me as I walk through the door, I seriously hope that you rethink that."
"How do I know it's you?" I asked suspiciously. What if it was some kind of creature mimicking her voice?
I heard a sigh. That sounded authentic. "Do you really think that something is mimicking my voice?"
"No," I said angrily. "Of course not. That would be stupid. Walk through the door slowly."
I held the shotgun ready as the door was pushed open. Cecily slowly stuck her head in and gave me a devilish wink. She was carrying a man draped over her shoulders like a sack of potatoes. That was what had made her outline look so bulky and odd.
"Do I have to know the secret password?" she asked with a grin.
I stuck out my tongue. "We were scared. There was fighting, a cry, and then you didn't answer."
"You really think that something could take me out?" she jeered.
Sarah smoothed down her top and tried to look nonchalant. "It's possible. We didn't know."
Harry was still a little white around the eyes. I set the gun down and gave him a half hug, half little shake. "It's okay, honey. There's nothing to be scared of."
Cecily dropped the unconscious man on the couch. We all four stood and stared at him. He was short, slight, balding, and wore a t-shirt that said, "I Dig Cryptozoology," with two crossed shovels and some weird looking animals.
"Okay," I said slowly. "What is he doing here?"
"I found him listening under the window," Cecily said, brushing her hands off on her skirt. "I gave him a little tap on the head to insure good behavior."
"Uh-huh," I nodded. I looked at Sarah, "Water?"
"Should work," she agreed and trotted off to the kitchen to find a somewhat clean glass to fill with water from the sink. She brought it back and handed it to me.
I looked at Cecily who nodded. "All right then," I said and dumped the entire cup on his head.
The man spluttered and coughed and tried to jump off the couch, but was stopped with a look from Cecily. He sank back, trying to awkwardly pull his legs in close to his body for protection.
"What were you doing outside the window?" I asked sternly.
"It's a free country!" he yelled in protest.
"This is private property," Sarah pointed out.
"No it's not!" the man was triumphant. "This is a squatter's trailer! The county owns this land! I have just as much right to be here as anyone!"
Cecily crossed her arms over her chest and loomed. The man let out a little squeal and tried to burrow deeper into the couch. "What were you doing out there?" she asked.
"The public has a right to know!" he yelled. Yelling seemed to be a thing with him. Every sentence was spoken like he was at a rally trying to whip people into a frenzy.
"Shall I get rid of him?" Cecily asked, fingering that stupid sword again.
"No!" Sarah and I yelled together. Harry was still huddling in the corner, unsure of what was going on.
"That man is always sneaking around!" he said, pointing with a shaky finger.
We all turned back to the man. I gave him my best displeased mother look. "What is your name?" I asked.
He looked around as if for help, caught Cecily's eye again, and subsided. "Floyd," he muttered. "Floyd Jenkins."
"Floyd?" I asked in surprise. Although, now that I knew his name it seemed pretty obvious. "As in 'reward for reporting suspicious sightings?' Floyd?"
"You saw my ad?" he looked up hopefully.
I sat down and tried to look less menacing. Cecily chose to continue looming and glaring. "What are you doing out here, Floyd?" I asked again.
"I was listening," he said sullenly.
"Really?" I said dryly.
"We could still get rid of him," Cecily suggested.
"It's my discovery!" Floyd whined. "I've tracked the beast for years! It's not fair!"
I blinked. Beast? This silly man had been tracking a werewolf for years? How dumb could you get?
"We're not trying to steal your discovery," Sarah said, confused.
"Then why are you out here?" he demanded petulantly.
"Umm," I looked at my companions.
"They're here to help me," Harry said.
I looked over at him. He was so young and small and helpless. Way too young to be dealing with all this. "Harry," I said gently, "We really need to talk to your mother. Do you know when she'll be home?"
"Yes!" Floyd leaned forward, eyes glittering with avarice. "Where is your mother, boy?"
"His name is not 'boy,'" I snapped. "Show some common decency or shall I have my friend here teach it to you?"
Cecily smiled her dead-eyed shark grin. It even gave me the willies.
Harry was shaking his head. "You can't talk to Mom," he said, glancing back at the closed bedroom door.
"Why not, Harry?" I asked. "It's really important that we talk to her."
Floyd remained quiet but was eagerly following the conversation. I wished that we had had more time to talk to Harry before this unfortunate interruption. I felt like we had walked onto a stage, half way through a play and were still trying to catch up on the characters and their motivations, not to mention the plot.
"You can't see Mom!" Harry yelled, starting to cry.
"Harry," I held up my hands in appeal. "We really are here to help you, but to do that we really need to talk to your Mom."
"No!" he screamed.
"Where's your mother, boy?" Floyd cried, jumping off the couch towards Harry.
Cecily grabbed him in mid stride and swung him firmly around to crash back on the couch. She was in pure vampire mode, eyes totally black, canines elongated, and snarling in fury. Sarah and I stumbled back in shock. I knew what Cecily was, but it was still scary to see your best friend morph into a monster before your eyes.
Floyd was staring up at Cecily's face. Not in fear or horror, as I would have assumed, but with a strange look on his face. It was so out of place for the situation that it took me a while to figure it out. It was joy.
"You're a ..." he couldn't get the word out. "You're a ... you're a ..."
"Silence, slurpee," she snarled. "Try to touch that child again and I will tear out your intestines to strangle you with."
Gulp. That would have shut me up. But Floyd? Not Floyd. He was in rapture. "You're a vampire!" he breathed in awe.
Sarah looked at me and we both shrugged. Friend Floyd was obviously missing a few important cogs in his brain.
Cecily was not responding well to the lack of fear in Floyd's voice. I could tell that she was moments away from carrying out her intestine threat. Besides being really gory and gross, it would probably be horrible to clean up after, and it would smell bad. Not that this room could smell much worse. The skunk smell was getting stronger. There must be a whole family of them out there in the woods releasing their scent.
"Floyd, sit down and be quiet," I commanded and of course he had to obey.
"This guy is crazy!" Sarah complained.
"Tell me about it," I agreed. "We'll have to fix him later. Harry," I turned back to the child. "I know you are scared, but I promise you, we are not here to take your mother, or hurt her, or hurt you, or hurt anybody. We are really just here to help. But in order to do that we must talk to your mother."
"No," he shook his head, tears still welling up in his eyes. "You'll take her away."
"I promise you," I said, "We will not take your mother away."
"He wants to take her away," Harry was pointing at Floyd, who was sitting obediently on the couch.
"We won't let him take her," I said. "I promise."
"He's always trying to take pictures of her, to put her in the newspaper!" Harry cried. "He called hunters out here! One of them almost killed her!" He was quickly growing hysterical.
"Harry," I said urgently, "I will not let him hurt your mother. We can fix it so that he never bothers ya'll again!"
"How?" Harry screamed. The emotion in the room was escalating. Part of my brain noticed that the smell was growing even more pungent. The rest of my brain was turning in circles trying to figure out how to assure this child that we were the good guys. I didn't want to have to use the Voice on him. But if things kept going this way, I would have no choice.
That's the problem with power, with the ability to coerce people against their will. You know it's wrong to use it, but sooner or later 'you have no choice.' Stalin probably felt the exact same way. He didn't want to murder millions of people, he was just pushed into a situation where he 'had no choice.' Man, I hated myself sometimes.
"You can't see her, you can't see her!" Harry screamed. He was way past reasoning with. It was time to use the Voice. Like it or not, we had to see his mother and get this whole mess cleared up.
I opened my mouth to speak when Cecily held up a hand. "Did you hear that?" she asked quietly.
I stopped and listened. Not again. Who else was outside listening in? The floor shook beneath my feet. The skunk smell grew overpowering. There was a roar from the back of the trailer. It was like nothing I had ever heard before. Not lion, not bear, not even TV dinosaur. It was deeper and angrier and scarier than any sound I had ever heard on National Geographic. Of course, knowing that it was coming from the other side of a half inch composite door probably added to the fear.
If I had to make a guess, Mama was home and she was not happy.
A Second Dead End
The bedroom door was slammed open. The knob hadn't been turned. The door had merely been hit so hard that it splintered and burst out of the frame. We were all standing in frozen positions of shock. All accept Floyd. He was still under the Voice and sitting obediently on the couch.
All eyes were glued to the doorway. At first, I couldn't make out the creature that was standing there. It definitely was not a werewolf. At least, not the kind of werewolf that I had met. This so surprised me that it took several seconds to comprehend. I had been so sure that Harry's mother was a werewolf. It had all made sense. Except, it was totally wrong.
The creature let out another roar and rose to full height. The trailer ceiling was a standard eight feet tall and her head was brushing it. She filled the hallway from side to side and it almost looked as if the floor was bending under her weight. Her eyes flashed red in the reflected light and if I could have screamed and run, I would have. The trailer was much too small and too crowded to run in, so I settled for just screaming.
Harry's mother was a Bigfoot. A huge, scruffy ape creature that smelled like a skunk who had taken a bath in a sewer. This was so not what I had been expecting. I felt a little lightheaded and decided to stop screaming and take a breath of air. I regretted that as soon as I gasped and gagged on the smell.
The Bigfoot roared again and a small figure jumped up in front of her, waving its arms.
"It's okay, Mom!" Harry yelled. "It's okay! Calm down!"
She roared again and smashed a fist through the wall. I could see our car through the hole. Gulp.
"Now look what you've done!" Harry yelled, looking at me.
"Me?" I croaked, "What I've done?"
"Yes!" he was furious. "You made her mad."
I held up my hands to show that I was tiny and harmless and inched over to stand by Cecily. Sarah quickly wiggled behind us. Floyd was still on the couch, wide-eyed. Maybe I should release him from his forced sit. On the other hand, we didn't need any more people running around the tiny living room and screaming. Then there wouldn't be room for me to do it.
Harry was murmuring in his mother's ear and she slowly sank down to a half crouch and quit roaring. She was amazingly hideous. Like a cross between a giant orangutan and a small hill. She was visibly calmer and started sniffing the air in great huffs.
"They said that they're here to help us," Harry explained, stroking her fur.
She grunted and huffed some more.
"Harry," I said tentatively, "We didn't mean to make your mother mad. We just didn't know that she was a ..."
"Skunk ape!" cried Floyd. Apparently ten minutes had passed since I'd commanded him and it had worn off. He leapt off the couch. "A real, live skunk ape!" He clapped his hands together and did a little happy dance.
The skunk ape turned on him with a low growl. The man was so overjoyed that he completely ignored all of the warning signs. "I have to get my camera!" he cried, still leaping around like a kid in a candy store. "This is amazing!"
I sighed. I should just let her whack him upside the head and put all of us out of our misery. But no, that wouldn't be very friendly. Trouble was, I wasn't feeling very friendly.
"Floyd, sit!" I commanded. He sat down abruptly in the middle of the floor. "Floyd, shut up," I added and there was silence, blessed silence.
Harry's mother swung back and forth on her hind legs as if nervous. I felt myself getting nervous; an eight foot gorilla can have that affect on you. She let out a guttural sound and Harry increased his soothing voice.
"Harry?" I asked, "Does your mom always look like this?" I couldn't imagine this creature having such a normal looking son. Eww, yuck! Some man mated with her? Okay, bad mental image. Erase! Erase!
Harry gave me a withering look, "No, it's the full moon. She always changes at the full moon. Sometimes she tries not to, but if she gets angry," he gave all of us an added glare, "she changes, whether she wants to or not."
Okay, improvement here. She was some sort of were-creature. Pravus should have reported her and facilitated her joining the were community. We were talking about Pravus though. A witch. They didn't harbor warm, fuzzy feelings towards the other members of the USB. It was sad to think that this woman had been alone for the last ten years when she didn't have to be. But would that make you angry enough to kill?
I watched her raise up again on her hind feet and bellow. Some of the spittle hit my arm. Mama was getting antsy again. No. I couldn't imagine her framing anyone. Tearing Pravus limb from limb, yes. Plotting and planning and setting up a crime scene to point to him? Never. Cecily was right; this was a dead end. We still had to help them though.
"Harry, can you calm her down?" I asked quietly.
He thought for a moment. "If I take her outside to walk around, she might get calmer."
"Calm enough to shift back to human?"
He shrugged, bony shoulders poking through his thin t-shirt. "Maybe."
"Why don't you try? I'll handle Mr. Enthusiastic here," I nodded at Floyd, still sitting on the floor.
Harry carefully led his mother through the tiny living room and out the door. She stopped and sniffed loudly a couple times almost in my face. Maybe she thought I smelt bad. The trailer tipped slightly with her weight on the porch and then righted itself as she hopped cumbersomely to the ground. Lucky for us, most of the smell went with her. Phew! Now I knew why they call them "skunk" apes.
The trailer felt much larger without the three-hundred pound monkey. I sank onto the couch and groaned. "What have we gotten ourselves into?"
Sarah made a face, "She didn't arrange an elaborate satanic ritual."
"Nope," I agreed.
"So, what do we do now?"
I glared at the back of Floyd's head. "We deal with him, and try to get her and the boy to join the USB." I looked questioningly at Cecily, "Maybe call in a were representative to talk to them?"
She nodded, "Makes sense. If she is humanoid most of the time, there is nothing preventing her from joining, and the were's would be the best fit."
"Alright. First things first." I rubbed my eyes. It was getting late and I wanted to go to bed. But bed was a hundred miles away and we weren't finished yet.
"Floyd, you can get up now," I commanded.
"Did you see her!" he yelled.
"Yes," I said dryly.
"Amazing! Simply amazing! I knew it was true! I just knew it! She looks just like those pictures, I can't wait to bring proof of this! I'll be famous!"
I rolled my eyes. Poor Floyd, he had no idea what was coming. "What is it exactly that you do, Floyd?" I asked.
"I'm a cryptozoologist," he said proudly.
"A what?"
"A cryptozoologist. Cryptozoology is the study of hidden animals."
"Hidden animals?"
"Animals that we have tales of but have not yet found proof that they exist." He sounded so rational.
"Like Bigfoot?" Granted, we had all just seen with our own eyes that Bigfoot was real. It just seemed that normal, sane people would find this hard to believe. Not be out there looking for him, or her.
"Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, the Jersey Devil, the jackalope, creatures like that." Once again, he sounded completely rational. Scary.
"Those are urban legends," I protested, choosing to ignore the hole in the wall next to my head that had been made by an urban legend.
"But no less real," he lectured. "Just because an animal is rare and elusive, doesn't mean that it doesn't exist."
Sarah snorted, "You mean, just because you can't find something, or prove that it exists, it doesn't mean it's not out there."
"Exactly!" Floyd missed her sarcasm. "Think of the giant gorilla! The okapi! The giant panda! All were mocked and thought to be imaginary animals! It took over sixty years for them to bring back proof of the pongo, the mountain gorilla! Who knows what other creatures are out there, undiscovered by man and mocked, yet lurking in our backyards!" He was getting more and more excited.
"Lurking in our backyards," I repeated.
"Oh, laugh away!" Floyd cried bitterly. "Our science has always been mocked by those whose minds are too narrow to embrace the possibilities!"
"My mind is plenty open," I said dryly. "But what I really want to know is this: What are you going to do when you leave here?"
"Leave here?" his eyes gleamed, "First I need to take pictures, obviously some with the boy to show the beast's strange maternal feelings---"
I cut him off, "That beast, as you say, is the boy's mother."
Floyd gave me a condescending smile, "Of course that is what the boy thinks, but obviously that cannot be the case. They are clearly two different species."
"What if she changes into a skunk ape at the full moon?" Sarah asked.
"Nonsense!" Floyd laughed. "Were-creatures are pure paranormal hype and give the true science of cryptozoology a bad name. Really! A creature changing its form? A 130-pound woman morphing into a 300-pound animal? It's a scientific impossibility! Where would the matter go? Where would it come from? No, no. We deal in science, not in fairy tales." This from the man who accepted the possibility of jackalopes.
I looked from Cecliy to Floyd. Hadn't he recognized her as a vampire? Wasn't that a paranormal creature? I opened my mouth, "What about vam---?"
Sarah shook her head sharply and made a hand motion cutting down the center of her skull. "I already fixed that," she whispered.
Floyd went on, oblivious. "As I was saying, I'll need photos, samples, paw prints, video. I'll have to bring back a team of scientists to capture the beast for study."
I frowned, "You can't take her away! She has rights!"
"Rights," Floyd looked puzzled. "She's an animal. What rights does an animal have? Oh," his face cleared in understanding, "you're one of those tree-hugger types. Don't worry; she will be kept perfectly safe."
This had gone far enough. "Floyd, sit on the couch and be quiet," I commanded wearily.
"He can't take her!" Sarah cried, indignantly.
"I know. There's just no point in fixing his memory until we can get him out of here," I sighed. "Then we'll erase everything and send him on his way."
Harry stuck his head back in the door. "I think she's ready to change back. Give her a few minutes."
We all stood awkwardly, waiting. How weird to meet someone that you first met as an animal. Weirder still to turn into an animal. I wondered how much Harry's mother understood in her skunk ape form. Could she understand English? Communicate? Or were her thoughts restricted to feelings and body language? Maybe the Voice and the risk of immortality weren't such horrible curses after all. I didn't think I could handle gaining a couple hundred pounds at once.
Harry slipped by us into the back bedroom and returned with a dress draped over his arm. "It'll just be a minute," he said and was gone again.
Poor kid. What kind of life must this be? Living out in the woods, separated from people, hiding who his mother was. I wondered if he was really happy. Maybe they preferred to be alone. Or maybe introducing them to the USB would be the best thing that could ever happen to them. I wasn't wise enough to make that decision for them. Harry's mother would have to be given all the facts and allowed to make her own choice.
Her choice would also be biased by the knowledge that we would have to inform the USB about her existence. And if she ever got caught on camera, running through someone's backyard, well, I just hoped that we wouldn't be the Guardians who got the call to come clean up the mess. Either way, tonight was going to change their lives forever.
There was the sound of a throat being cleared behind me and I turned to see a small, mousy woman standing shyly in the doorway. She was about five foot two and just as thin and scrawny as her boy. Light wispy brown hair, brown eyes, and a look of frailty as if one harsh word would send her into tears. I was surprised. This was not the woman I'd expected. To be honest, I hadn't given it much thought, but I guess, subconsciously, I'd been expecting more of a Xena Warrior Princess, not Little Miss Meek and Mild.
"Hi," I greeted her warmly, holding out my hand. She flinched away and slid apologetically into the room.
"Hello," she breathed in a barely audible whisper.
"I'm Piper Cavanaugh," I introduced myself again, not sure how much she had comprehended before."
"Nice to meet you," she said and perched lightly on the arm of the sofa. Harry stood beside her, with one arm protectively behind her back. Now that his mom was human, he seemed more on the defensive.
"We came here to talk to you about Richard Parker," I said, having taken a quick peek at my watch and realizing that if I wanted to get any sleep at all tonight we would have to head back soon.
A frown darkened her face, and she looked helplessly at her son. "I haven't told anyone about what happens to me," she protested, "and we've been right on time with our payments. He's got no cause to send people after me."
I sighed. What a charmer that Pravus was. What a guy! Good thing he wasn't here. There were a few things I'd like to pay back to him as well. "Cecily, why don't you explain about the USB to Mrs. Pearson here," I suggested.
"Annabeth," she said, with a sweet smile, "please call me Annabeth."
Cecily did her best to explain an entire magical organization, complete with mythical beings and odd rules and regulations, to someone who had spent their entire life hiding in the swamp, thinking that they were the only abnormal person in the world. She did a good job. It took longer than I wanted it to, but in the end I think Annabeth grasped what was going on.
"So, I can join the werewolf group?" she asked.
"Not the werewolves," I broke in. "The were group. There are more were creatures than just wolves, or apes. But they can offer you protection and training on dealing with your ability."
"But Pravus said that if I talked with anyone about my ability that this USB group would kill me. Or lock me away for good, so I'd never see Harry again," tears filled her eyes.
Sarah shook her head angrily. "He was lying. He's an evil witch and you should just forget anything he ever told you. He was just using you and your son. He should have reported you and helped you get in contact with the weres years ago."
Harry looked fierce, "If I ever see him again ..."
I grinned sadly. There was no way that they were playacting. They hadn't known about any of this. So there was no reason for them to kill two teenagers in Kissimmee in order to frame Pravus. Now they might try to kill him if they saw him again, but I doubted it. Annabeth seemed too gentle to get murderously angry, and Harry was too young. One day wasted. One day closer to facing the Guardians and a Sword of Justice ourselves.
Babies and Billboards
We followed Floyd down the dark road to the main street. I could see him twisting in his seat, trying to see who was behind him on the godforsaken stretch. He was also probably wondering what he was doing out there. Sarah had worked her magic.
Finally back on the highway, I was silent on the way home. I had a lot to think about. None of my thoughts were very happy. Some of them should have been, but they weren't. So I felt extra guilty and bad about those thoughts, which just spiraled my mood down into a pit of self-pity, and crankiness. I'm good at both of those emotions. Practice makes perfect they say.
"What's your problem?" Sarah asked from the back seat. I have often noticed that a bad mood is more infectious than a toddler's cold. Like a small child, the original infected person sprays and slobbers the bad mood on anyone in a ten-foot radius. I've also noticed that while a toddler will be over their cold in a few days, anyone who catches the cold from them will be sick for weeks. Same with bad moods, the secondary infections are often much worse than the original cranky person. All that to say, Sarah was quickly escalating past my bad mood into a really bad mood.
"Nothing," I said maturely.
"It's not nothing," she snipped, "you're in a bad mood."
"I am not," I lied, unconvincingly.
"Are too."
"Am not!"
"Children," Cecily interjected, earning glares from both of us. "It's understandable that Piper is a little upset. Annabeth was obviously not the person we were looking for, and while it was nice to be able to help her, we are still two days away from serious trouble with the Synod."
"That's not why she's in a bad mood," Sarah replied. "Annabeth said something to her."
I locked my eyes on the road and pretended that I hadn't heard.
"You did stay back and talk to her," Cecily mused. "Did she say something to upset you?"
I made a great deal about checking behind us for cars and changing lanes.
"What did she say?" Sarah asked.
"None of your business," I snapped.
"She said 'none of your business?'" Sarah was being a smart aleck. "Wow, I can see how that would tick you off."
I rolled my eyes. "You know what I mean."
"No, I don't know what you mean." Sarah was getting angry. "I'm your sister. Cecily's your friend. We want to know what the skunk ape lady said to you!"
I'm pretty sure that Sarah intended for me to laugh. I did. I couldn't help it. How often do you hear the words "skunk ape lady" in a sentence? The tension in the car eased a bit and I tried to think about what I wanted to say.
"Well?" Cecily asked.
I sighed. "She just said 'Take care of the two of ya'll.'"
"The two of us?" Sarah was puzzled.
"No," I struggled to explain. I don't know why it was so hard. It's not like it wasn't a normal part of life. I just hadn't totally grasped the idea myself. Or was entirely sure that I could believe the word of a weird were-woman living out in the boonies.
"Oh!" Cecily's eyes sparkled. "The two of you!"
"What?" Sarah still didn't get it.
"She said she smelled me," I explained. "I don't know if I believe her or not."
"What?" Sarah said louder from the back seat.
"It's all your fault," I said to Cecily, ignoring Sarah. "You didn't warn me beforehand."
"Would that have made a difference?" Cecily asked smugly.
"No," I was getting grumpy again. "But it would have been nice to have some warning."
"What is going on?" Sarah yelled loudly.
"Piper's pregnant," Cecily announced.
"What?"
"Maybe," I said. "If we can believe Annabeth."
"Why does that make you grumpy?" Trust my little sister to cut straight to the heart of the problem. "And why is it Cecily's fault?"
I answered the easy one first. "It's Cecily's fault because she didn't tell me that coming in contact with a fertility statue would make me pregnant."
Sarah blinked. "It never crossed your mind that touching a magical fertility statue might make it more likely for you to get pregnant?" She sounded incredulous.
"No!" I was defensive. "I had other things to worry about! Besides, I'm on the Pill!"
"Hmm," Sarah pretended to think, "The Pill versus magical fertility statue. I know where I'd put my money."
"Shut up."
"So, why aren't you happy? Don't you want to be pregnant?"
"I'm on the Pill, Sarah. If I wanted to be pregnant right now I wouldn't be on the Pill now would I?"
"Yeah, but what's the big deal?"
"The big deal!" My voice was getting louder. "The big deal is that we just started crazy jobs as USB assassins, that's what we are, assassins. We've already botched our first job, and if we don't finish it we're going to die! And now I find out that not only am I risking Mark and the girls, but I'm also carrying a little person into danger with me wherever I go!"
There was silence in the car.
"I have a solution," Cecily suggested.
"No."
"It works."
"No," I said again.
"You can't trust a witch, Piper."
"I believe I've heard you say that once or twice before. The answer is still 'no.'"
Cecily slouched in her chair. "It would make things so easy. Come on, you're right about the baby. It goes wherever you go. That means that whatever trouble you get into, you're dragging your baby right into the middle of it. They send a Guardian to chop off your head and you're killing your child too."
"It's not that much safer for Mark and the girls!" I protested. "If Sarah and I are killed then there are no more humans with abilities and a USB membership. The whole open season thing comes back into play and my family is hunted down and eaten!"
"All the more reason for us to just kill Pravus now," Cecily said stubbornly.
"I can't do that!" I wailed.
"Why not?" Sarah asked. "He's a creep. He deserves to die anyway. We'd be doing the world a favor."
"I can't! He's not guilty. I can't kill an innocent person!"
"Even to save the life of your baby?" Cecily asked gently.
"Even to save my entire family! It's wrong! I believe that life is precious. That means that Pravus' life is just as precious as my daughters'. I can't decide that they are more important than him. What kind of world would that be?"
"I don't see the problem," Sarah grumped, "They are more important than him."
"But who decides that? To Pravus, I'm sure his life is more important, does that mean that he should start killing anyone who threatens him? It can't work that way." I felt like I had more words and ideas in my head than could easily come out of my mouth. "Either we are all equally precious, or we all start killing anyone who stands in our way."
Cecily snorted. "A little extreme, but I get your point."
"So," Sarah was still argumentative. "Let's say that someone has a gun pointed at Megan's head and they tell you that unless you kill Pravus that they will shoot her. What do you do?"
I closed my eyes and prayed fiercely that I would never be in that position. "I couldn't kill Pravus in order to save Megan," I said firmly.
"So you'd kill your own daughter?"
"No," I explained. "Whoever was holding the gun would kill her. It's simple terrorism. Terrorists like to put people in positions where they feel responsible for what happens. But really, the only person responsible is the one who pulls the trigger. You can't ask me to murder someone and then shift the blame onto me for your crime when I refuse."
"That doesn't change the fact that Megan would be dead."
"I know," the very thought made me sick. "But if I killed someone on the chance that it would save my daughter's life, I would be no less a murderer than the man who killed my daughter."
"So what do we do now?" Cecily asked, apparently willing to hold off on removing Pravus' head from his body.
"We need more humans with abilities!" Sarah announced.
"Duh," I grouched.
"No, really, we need to find some more humans and get them USB memberships before our deadline is up. That way, even if we are executed, our family will still be safe."
I stared up into the rearview mirror at my baby sister. That was the most mature, self-sacrificing thing I had ever heard her say. "How?" I asked, having no ideas myself.
The road signs and lights flashed by, lighting the interior of the car every two seconds. "I know!" Sarah exclaimed. "We advertise!"
"Nope," Cecily shook her head, "the whole point is to keep the members of the USB hidden and safe. Advertising would get us killed faster than ..." I know she wanted to say "than not killing Pravus," but she restrained herself from pointing out the obvious.
"No," Sarah was shaking her head now, "not out in the open, with magic!"
"How?" I asked again.
"We ask Pravus. I read this book once where the people with the magic advertised on TV with magical commercials that only people with magic could see."
"Do you know how many times you said 'magic' in that one sentence?" I asked quietly.
She stuck out her tongue. "Why not? Why wouldn't it work?"
Cecily was giving it some serious thought. "I don't think that the TV thing would work," she started.
"See!" I said. "Told you it wouldn't work."
"Well, it might work, it would just be ridiculously expensive. Besides, I'm not too sure how witch magic interacts with technology."
"What about a billboard then?" Sarah pointed to one flying past the window.
Cecily thought some more. "You know, that might work! He could cast a spell on a single billboard to look and say something different to humans with abilities than it would to normal slurpees."
I glared at her for the slurpee word. "Where would we put it?"
"Orlando," they said together. "If there are weird, wacky people, they are going to be in Orlando."
"We weren't," I muttered under my breath.
"Besides, it would have greater exposure there," Sarah pointed out. "Let's do it! We'll put up a sign that tells people that if they can read the sign then they are special and to call your cell number for information that will benefit their lives!"
I snorted. I hardly thought that my life had been benefited by membership in the USB. But then, I was still alive, that might be counted as a positive. "Why my cell?"
"Because you're better at talking to people, dear sister," Sarah said with mock humility. The lazy bum.
"Fine," I sighed. "Would we have to buy the billboard? I have twenty-five dollars in my wallet."
Cecily stared up at the car ceiling. "Maybe we could just add the advertisement to an already existing sign. We'll have to ask Pravus," she frowned, "and you know ..."
We all said it in a unison, sing-song voice, "You can never trust a witch."
"We still have only two days," I pointed out, not wanting to rain on the excitement, but also wanting to face facts. That's not called pessimism; it's called realism.
"Maybe we'd better offer a cash reward for any callers," Sarah suggested.
"Out of whose wallet?" I asked suspiciously.
"We'd offer it," she stressed, "we wouldn't have to pay it."
I groaned inwardly but didn't say anything. She was partially right, we needed incentive for someone to call quickly, and we had no money. But was lying really the way to go? That thought from the woman who was planning to tell her husband that she had been to dinner and a late movie with her friends. I sighed again. Sometimes, the only choice was not a good one.
Home Sweet Home
Mark was thankfully asleep when I got home at three o'clock in the morning. At least I didn't have to try and come up with a good story when I was foggy with exhaustion. The morning would be soon enough. I gave my face and teeth a cursory cleaning and fell into bed.
My alarm went off ten seconds later. Not literally ten seconds, but it sure felt like it. This is one of the problems with being a parent. Notice I say "one." There are many. No matter what time you go to bed, your kids will always be up at the same time the next day. Non-parents, who stay up past midnight and are really, really tired, can sleep in the next morning. Sure, they have jobs, and bosses, and responsibilities, but usually a quick phone call and a fake cough can get them a few extra hours of rest.
Parents, on the other hand, do not have that option. Sick, tired, depressed, it doesn't matter, there are hungry mouths to feed at the same time every morning. I was really looking forward to the day when Megan and Cassidy would be old enough to get themselves breakfast.
That thought made me sit up in bed. Baby. There was another baby coming. I was restarting the clock to late night feedings, diapers, colic ... I flopped back on my pillow with a groan.
"Late night?" Mark asked, putting an arm around me and nibbling on my earlobe.
"Mhhh," I moaned.
"That's what happens when you're a party animal," he said sagely.
I grabbed a loose pillow and bonked him over the head with it. "I don't suppose you'd like to let the love of your life sleep in while you got the kids breakfast?" I asked hopefully.
He planted a kiss on my forehead, "I would love to do that," he said, making my heart leap for joy, "but," my heart sank, "I have a meeting this morning and have to run."
I groaned some more and buried my head under my pillow. Mark swiped the covers off as he got out of bed and smacked my uncovered rear end.
"Up and at 'em, sleepyhead," he said cheerfully. I needed to practice my death glare. It wasn't working.
"Mommy!" I heard the wailing start from across the house. Time to get out of bed. There were things to do today: Murderers to catch, witches to interview, billboards to spell, just another normal day in the life of Piper Cavanaugh.
"I'm coming," I yelled back, lying on my back and staring at the ceiling. I was coming, eventually. I just needed to build up some momentum.
"Mommy!" The wailing turned to shrieking.
I sighed and rolled out of bed. I was getting too old for this sort of lifestyle. I did not operate well on four hours of sleep. Maybe they could send one of those Guardians out to execute me today. Then I would get some rest. Peaceful rest.
"Mommy!" There was the sound of a loud crash and then more screaming.
I trudged across the house, muttering under my breath. Someone was going to get in trouble. I slammed open the baby safety gate and marched into the girls' room.
"What is going on?" I don't know how many times I have asked that question since becoming a mother. Probably millions.
"Cassidy says that she won't be my friend and that I'm a poopy-head," Megan was sobbing.
I smothered a grin. "Cassidy!"
Cassidy was hiding in the closet. She started hysterically screaming. "No spanking! No spanking! My bottom will break in two!"
I closed my eyes and counted to ten. "Cassidy, come out here right now."
"No!" her screaming intensified.
"Cassidy, I'm counting to three and then you're going to get a spanking."
"Noooo!!"
"One." There was no movement from the closet.
"Two." Still no movement.
"Three." Half way through the word "three" Cassidy stuck her head out of the closet door and slowly inched her way towards me.
"No spanking!" she cried.
"Cassidy, when I call you, you need to come," I said firmly.
Cassidy did a little dance, covering her bottom with her hands and keeping it as far away from me as she could. "No spanking," she repeated.
"Cassidy, did you call your sister a bad name?" I asked.
"Poopy-head," Megan filled in, "she called me a poopy-head."
"Thank you, Megan," I sighed. "But we don't repeat bad words, even if someone else says them."
"Okay," Megan had stopped crying and was watching with interest. Probably hoping that her sister would get a spanking.
"Did you call your sister a bad name?" I asked again.
Cassie's eyes got big and she had to think about her answer. Finally, "Yes."
"Come here," I held out my arms and she took forever to cross the room to me. "You need to apologize to your sister."
"She said I stupid," Cassie cried.
"Megan."
Megan found something that looked really interesting on the other side of the room.
"Megan!"
She looked up, a "who me?" look on her face.
"Did you call your sister stupid?"
"Weelll," she hesitated. "Maybe, I might have said that. But it was just because she wouldn't give me the doll I wanted. She was being selfish."
I put a hand over my eyes and longed for bed. "Okay, both of you need to apologize to the other one and then play nicely 'till I get back."
I dragged my sleepy bones back across the house and had just reached the master bedroom when I heard, "Mommy, Cassie won't forgive me!"
I pretended that I hadn't heard. I just wasn't up to dealing with toddler nonsense this morning. Or any morning, for that matter, but especially mornings in which I was sleep deprived. A shower helped wake me up a bit. Mark gave me a quick hug and kiss and was out the door before I decided what shirt would go best with my khaki shorts.
"Breakfast, girls!" I called and had to listen to the usual complaints against eggs. Not that I've tried to serve eggs in the last year or so, but the memory of that time was fresh in their minds. I don't think that Cassidy really knew if she hated eggs or not, she was just following her sister's lead.
I called Sarah over my second cup of coffee. "What's the status on our favorite witch?"
I heard a loud yawn, "Piper?"
"Sarah?"
"What are you doing?"
I pulled the phone away from my ear and stared at it, "Talking to you?" I asked.
"Do you know what time it is?" she shrieked.
I winced and held the phone away again. "Sarah! We don't really have time to sleep in right now! There are more important things at stake! Like our lives!"
"It's like ..." I heard fumbling noises and a crash, "it's 8:30 in the morning, Piper! I don't get up this early even on nights when I didn't go to bed at four o'clock in the morning!"
I sighed - teenagers. "Sarah, are you going to spend the last few hours of your life sleeping, or are you going to help me save the world?" Ok. So that sounded a little dramatic.
Sarah grunted. "What do you want, Piper?"
"I want to know if Pravus is still there. We need to have a little talk."
Sarah yawned again. "I'll check. He's probably cooking pancakes for Mom and Nana for breakfast."
"He's cooking?"
"Yeah, he's got them wrapped around his little finger. They think 'Cousin Richard' is the best."
"What does Dad think?"
"You know Dad. He's hiding out at work because Nana's here. I'm not even sure if he knows that Pravus is staying here too."
I laughed. That sounded like Dad. Work would be having a crisis that required him to work major overtime as long as Nana was in town. "I'll be over in a little bit. Make sure Pravus doesn't go anywhere."
"Uh-huh," was the noncommittal reply.
"Sarah! You better not be going back to sleep! We have things to do!"
"Uh-huh." She yawned.
I rolled my eyes. "You better be up and showered and coherent when I get there."
"'bye," Sarah hung up on me.
I glared at the wall for a minute. Was I the only person taking this seriously? I decided that I needed a third cup of coffee. And a pregnancy test. I closed my eyes. I hadn't told Mark about the new baby. Wait a sec, maybe there wasn't a new baby. I had nothing to tell him at this point, so it wasn't like I was lying to him ... again.
At that moment the front door bell rang. My little girls ran to the window to see who was here. I was wondering myself. It was a little early for callers. Then I heard the joyful shouts, "Granny's here! Granny's here!"
Oh, drat. I should have had that third cup. I should have had a donut. I should have moved to Timbuktu. Too late. Satan's henchman was here to make sure that I experienced all the horrors of hell here on earth.
I dragged myself to the front door. Was that a coffee stain on the front of my shirt? Had I put on makeup this morning? I reached a hand up to run through my short hair. I had either fixed it or it was now all standing up on end. Oh well, it's not like anything I could ever do would be good enough for my mother-in-law. I swear the only reason she even tolerates me is because I am the uterus that will provide her with more grandchildren. Nice to be thought of as a baby incubator.
"Good morning, Piper," Carolyn said coldly when I opened the door. She was dressed to the nines in matching light pink capris with a frilly blouse. "Did I wake you?"
I gritted my teeth. She could care less if she had woken me. She was just laying the groundwork for an insult. "Why, no, Carolyn," I said with saccharine sweetness. "We've been up for awhile."
"Oh," she looked taken aback. The horrid actress! "It's only that you look like you just rolled out of bed."
"Nope," I grinned. "Not me." I gave my hands a shake behind my back to loosen my fingers out of the fists they had instinctively formed. "Won't you come in?"
She stepped by me into the front hall and ran a finger down the top of a picture frame. Ha! I thought. I dusted that ... last week? Crap.
"I had thought to find the girls ready to go," Carolyn commented, giving Megan and Cassidy a hug and a kiss.
"Go?"
"Yes," Carolyn sighed the sigh of the martyred. "I'm taking the girls on an outing today."
"An outing?"
"Yes, Piper. If you have nothing more intelligent to say than to repeat what I just said, perhaps your time would be better served by getting the girls ready to go. I am on a schedule." Carolyn tapped her perfectly manicured toes.
I almost said "schedule?" but closed my mouth in time. "I---" I started, stopped, opened my mouth, closed it, then started again. "I'm sorry, Carolyn. I don't remember anything about your taking the girls on an outing."
"I spoke to Mark about it just the other day," she replied. "He said that you would call if there was a problem. As I received no call ..."
I tried to keep the grimace off my face. Darn that Mark! So what if I'd been a little preoccupied lately and we hadn't spent much time talking? He could have told me about something like this! He should have told me about this. I felt a guilty twinge. Maybe he had told me and I had been so busy worrying about the Synod, and Pravus, and trying to avoid lying as much as possible, that I hadn't been listening.
I sighed and threw myself under the bus, "I totally forgot. So, sorry. Come girls, let's get ready!"
"Where going?" Cassidy wanted to know.
"Out with Granny," I shrugged, looking at Carolyn.
"It's a surprise," she whispered to them.
"Yay! Surprise!" The girls raced off to put on their flip-flops and I followed to brush hair into somewhat neat ponytails. This left Carolyn alone in the kitchen which still had the dirty breakfast dishes on the counter. Tough. She would just have to suffer until she could escape with my children.
I had Megan and Cassie ready to go in record time and trailed them into the kitchen.
"Piper," Carolyn had screwed up her face into a grimace. "What is that smell?"
I narrowed my eyes into an annoyed slit. She knew darn well what that smell was. It was dog. And it wasn't like he was that smelly. He just smelled like a dog.
Harvey, guessing that someone might be talking about him, looked up from cruising the floor for fallen scraps and wagged his tail happily. "That's Harvey," I sighed.
"Oh." The tone was eloquent in its distaste.
"Well," I clapped my hands together. "Time to go. We mustn't keep Granny waiting!"
"Let's go! Let's go!" the little traitors cried and were out the door without even giving their mother a kiss or telling her that they would miss her. They wouldn't miss me. But they could at least pretend.
I ran down the front walk to ask an important question. "When will you back?"
Carolyn smiled sweetly. "I'll have them back around dinner time," and she pulled smoothly out of the driveway.
"Whose dinner time?" I yelled after the departing car. "Ours or yours?" There was a big difference. Carolyn thought that a proper dinner began at eight o'clock at the earliest. We always sat down at six. It made for lots of fun when she had us over for dinner.
There was no reply and I watched helplessly as the car disappeared around the corner. Well, at least I was free for the rest of the day. I could go take a nap! Reality crashed back in. I had a witch to deal with and the human species to save. A nap would have to wait.
The Request
"Mom?" I called, opening the front door with my key. "Anybody home?"
"We're back here!" came the response.
I dropped my purse and keys on the hall table and kicked my flip flops off by the door. Then I walked quickly through the main part of the house to the back porch. Once, only a slab of concrete with a metal roof, my dad had turned the porch into an air-conditioned Florida room, with wood floors and comfortable furniture. It was a favorite spot for the family to congregate.
Nana was seated in the rocking chair, telling a story when I walked in. Mom was sitting on the couch, and Sarah was slouched on the floor, a bored look on her face. I almost smiled at the tableaux until I saw Pravus leaning back on the couch, a satisfied smirk on his face. Drat him! I needed him to be here right now, but I really wished he'd gone away. No such luck.
"Thieves! I tell you!" Nana was saying, and Mom gave me a finger wave and a hushing motion. "All of them are filled with thieves!"
"They can't all be filled with thieves," Mother interjected.
I gave Sarah a questioning look. "Nursing homes," she explained. "Nana and Cousin Richard here went looking at nursing homes yesterday."
"It was really shocking," Nana said, waving a hand about her face, "I don't know if my health can take the shock."
"Did they steal something from you?" I had to ask. Mom and Sarah shot me looks of horror that quickly turned to resignation as Nana started her story over again for my benefit. From the way Sarah was mouthing along I could guess that they had heard this story more than once.
"I managed to sneak away from the tour guide and talk to some of the people in their native environment," Nana began.
I choked, but motioned that I was alright and to continue. Mom closed her eyes and shook her head in despair.
"I knew I could only get the true story from the people living in the home. The workers are, of course, paid to say anything to get more people to move in." Nana nodded sagely at her own wisdom. "One woman told me that they make everyone sign out on a piece of paper when they leave the building!"
I had a blank look on my face, waiting for the rest of the story.
"Well?" Nana asked impatiently.
"Well, what?"
"What do you think of that?"
"What do I think ... of signing out?"
"Yes!"
"Umm," I looked helplessly at my mom. She gave me a "you got yourself into this and you can get yourself out of it" look that didn't help. "Maybe they want to make sure that everyone makes it back home at night and isn't missing?"
"No," Nana was scornful. "That's what they would like you to think! Really they do it so they know when it is safe to enter the resident's rooms and steal things!"
"Steal things?"
"Yes! Another one of the ladies told me that her pants are all too small!"
Sarah started coughing and Mom was trying to keep a straight face. I wasn't following yet. "Pants?"
"Yes, her pants. She knows that she bought the right size, but what do you think happens when she signs out and leaves the building?"
"I couldn't possibly guess Nana," I said truthfully.
"They sneak into her room and replace her pants with smaller ones!" Nana was indignant over the evil practices of assisted living facilities. I blinked.
"Wow," was all I could say.
"It's shocking. Truly shocking. I don't know what I was thinking, even imagining myself living in a place like that!"
"Yeah, um, really shocking," I tried to keep my eyes to the size of small salad plates. Sarah had her face buried in one of the sofa cushions, her shoulder shaking uncontrollably.
"Well," Nana stood up, "It's time for my morning nap."
We all watched her leave the room in silence.
"Pants," I remarked.
"Shhh! Piper!" Mom scolded. "She'll hear you!" She looked around as if just missing something. "Where are the girls?"
"With Carolyn," I made a face.
"Oh," Mom tried to look nonchalant. She always said that she thought Carolyn was a wonderful woman and grandmother and that I was far too hard on her. But secretly, I think she was just as jealous of the time the girls spent with Carolyn as Carolyn was of the time they spent with her. They both wanted to be the favorite grandmother, while realizing that kids don't usually have a favorite.
Pravus stood up, "If you don't mind, I have some errands I need to run ..." he trailed off when he saw my vehement head shake. "On second thought, maybe I'll hang out here a bit?"
"Don't mind us, Mom," I smiled, "Sarah and Cousin Richard and I have some catching up to do."
"All right!" she beamed at the three of us. "It's so nice to see you young people getting along!"
Young people? Pravus had to be at least forty if he was a day. I didn't really appreciate being lumped into his age group. She went to the back part of the house and we were alone on the porch.
"So," I said.
"Yes?" Pravus gave me one raised eyebrow.
"We need your help on a little project."
"Why should I help you?" he sneered.
Sarah's face turned red and she clenched her fists, "Because we saved your life, dim-wit!"
"You haven't saved me yet!" he scoffed, "In fact, your incompetence is likely to get me killed anyways! And having to pretend to be related to that doddering old senile woman you call 'Nana' is punishment enough for anyone!"
Sarah's mouth was opening and closing like a goldfish. I held up a hand to stop her anger. "No one asked you to move in here, Pravus," I pointed out. "If normal life is so troubling to you, perhaps you should move back to your own home in Orlando."
"And be killed on the spot as soon as the Synod figures out that the two of you are bumbling idiots? At least this way, if I have to die, I will hopefully get to see the two of you executed first."
I glared at him and imagined picking up the rocking chair and bashing him over the head with it. No. Wait. We still needed him. Bashing was not an option. Yet.
"We need you to cast a spell on a billboard," I said firmly, ignoring all the reasons for screaming at him in fury.
"A what?" He was thrown off by the subject change.
"You know," Sarah said sarcastically, "one of those big signs you see on the side of the road."
"I know what a billboard is," Pravus huffed.
"Then why did you ask?" Sarah kept a look of angelic curiosity on her face.
I could almost hear Pravus' teeth gritting together. "Why do you want a spell cast on a billboard?"
"For advertisement," I said.
"What?"
I tried to explain, "We want you to cast a spell on an Orlando billboard so that when normal humans look at it, it says whatever it usually says, but when humans with abilities look at it, it tells them that they are special and to call me."
Pravus blinked. "Why would you want them to call you?"
I was exasperated; it seemed obvious to me. "We need more humans to join the USB. That way, even if something happens to Sarah and me, humans will still be protected."
Pravus was thinking, I just wasn't sure what about. Finally he spoke, "Why would I want to help you do that?"
"Because, you little twerp," I stood up and glared down at him, "I'm saving your rear end here. You owe me."
"I don't owe you anything!"
"Fine then. One phone call from me and Cecily will be over here waving her sword around!"
Pravus crossed his arms over his chest and looked petulant. "That's blackmail."
I sat back down. "Get used to it, bub. Help us or I stop protecting you." It was pretty empty as threats go, but maybe he didn't know that.
"What billboard?" he pouted.
Sarah and I exchanged looks. We hadn't really gotten that far in our planning. "Umm, I-Drive?" I suggested. International Drive is the main tourist thoroughfare through Orlando. The Convention Center, Ripely's, Wonderworks, etc. were located on I-Drive.
"Which one," Pravus asked.
"How about all of them?" Sarah asked.
I shrugged. I had no clue how magic worked. Was it harder to change one billboard or a whole street full?
Pravus rubbed his nose thoughtfully. "Maybe," he finally said. "It might work. Give me a few minutes to set up and we can see what happens."
"Here?" I choked. "I thought we had to drive to Orlando!"
"No," he shook his head. "Location is not important. Magic isn't a linear thing. It works based off of my will and intentions. Here is just as good as standing right in front of the billboard. Of course," he added with pride, "I am a senior witch. For a novice such a spell would be almost impossible."
"Yeah, yeah," Sarah rolled her eyes. "You're a genius and we need your mind."
"You do," Pravus fixed her with a cold look, missing the Father of the Bride reference.
I sighed. "Okay, get together whatever you need and let's try this." I glanced at the clock. It was nearing eleven. "How long is this going to take?"
"You can't rush magic," Pravus said with a sniff. "It will take as long as it takes.""Great," I muttered under my breath as he headed back for the guest bedroom. He was back sooner than I would have thought with an armful of paraphernalia.
"Where can I set up?" he asked.
I eyed the candles and whatnot with suspicion. "What exactly does 'set up' require?"
"I'll need a large flat surface to draw a pentagram on---"
I held up a hand, "Whoa, hold on a sec. Sarah, do you mind?" She followed me into the living room.
"What?"
"This is witchcraft!" I hissed.
"Yeah?"
"Sarah! It's black magic! Demonic! What in the world are we thinking?"
Sarah shook her head in exasperation. "We're thinking that we'd like to keep Mom and Dad, and Mark and the girls, and everyone else in the world from being killed by witches or eaten by werewolves!"
I frowned. Good point. That was what we were trying to do. It just sounded a lot more reasonable when it didn't involve pentagrams and black candles. "Fine," I rubbed my eyes. "I just really don't like it."
"Oh come on," Sarah patted my shoulder. "It's not like he's calling up a demon or anything in the living room."
"And if he was?" I asked dryly.
"He's not," she said firmly.
"Not in the living room," I had made up my mind on that point. "We'll do it in the garage."
"Piper!" Sarah whined, "It's like a hundred and ten out there!"
I held firm. "Not in the house. What if Mom was to walk through?"
"Fine. Whatever. It's your funeral," Sarah stomped off to get a drink from the fridge and I headed to the back porch to tell Pravus where to set up.
Casting the Spell
Pravus wasn't too happy about the garage either. He said the crack down the middle of the concrete might have an adverse effect on his pentagram. Also, it was too hot. I told him to man up and quit whining. It was hot, and I wasn't feeling too sympathetic, more like sweaty and grumpy.
I had backed Mom's car out and rolled the riding lawnmower into the driveway, so there was a big open space on the floor. Like all garage pads, it did have a split down the middle of the concrete, and I hoped that Pravus was exaggerating about its effect. I ran the push broom half heartedly towards the door and scowled fiercely when Pravus merely shook his head and pointed to the blower.
"Fine. Make Piper be the grunt labor. She's got nothing better to do," I grumbled quietly under the roar of air. When I was finished the floor was a good deal cleaner, but I wasn't going to feel happy about anything until all of this was over.
Pravus carefully paced out an area and then got to work with a giant piece of white chalk that glittered with a metallic sheen. "Magnetic chalk," he explained when he saw me watching. "It works better than plain. Especially if you're calling demons," he saw the look of horror on my face and finished quickly, "which I'm not this time. This spell doesn't need it."
I hugged myself and rocked a little on my feet. I had a really, really bad feeling about all of this. I don't know if I was more bothered by the thought that demons were real, or that Pravus had obviously dealt with them before. Once again I was reminded that innocent or not, Pravus was not one of the good guys. At least from the way I judged good and evil.
Pravus worked quickly with an air of confidence and sure, swift strokes of the chalk. He drew a large pentagram on the floor, making a face every time he came to the crack in the concrete. Sarah wandered out with her ice-tea and sat crossed legged on the floor to watch. The pentagram was complicated, more than just a five pointed star. It had intricate cross lines and wiggles and, from where I was standing, looked perfectly symmetrical. I was impressed. I didn't think I could draw a straight line, much less create something so complicated and large.
Pravus put away the chalk and got out candles. Short, fat candles in a variety of colors. Some were black, some white, a few red, gold, blue, even pink. The candles went on intersections in the chalk lines. The whole thing was starting to give me the heebie jeebies. I glanced at Sarah. She yawned and twirled the silver bracelet on her arm.
"Anybody want a snack?" she asked.
Pravus smirked and kept working, placing the candles carefully in, what seemed to me, to be a random order.
"No thanks," I said, not able to tear my eyes of the scene before me.
"I'm going to go grab a bite to eat," Sarah announced. "Don't start without me."
"We won't," I said and Pravus grunted, which either meant he was agreeing or was annoyed.
The candles in place, he picked up a bag made of animal skin. At least, I hope it was animal skin. Pig skin hopefully. I tried not to think of what other skin might look so smooth and pale. A wave of nausea swept over me. Maybe I really was pregnant. I placed both hands over my stomach to try and keep the baby safe from any black magic that was flying around. What in the world was I doing? I had an unborn child to worry about! I shouldn't be running around executing people and casting evil spells. I should be home, keeping my children safe.
Safe. What a nice word that was. Too bad it was merely an illusion. Nothing in this world was safe, and if I did just go home and hide my head I was dooming not only my children, but everyone I knew and loved, to death or slavery. I squeezed my eyes shut and silently screamed, "I want to be normal again!"
When I opened them, Pravus was staring at me in concern. "Are you all right?"
"Yes," I said shortly.
"You just looked like you were going to throw up or something."
"Yeah?"
He shrugged. "Just don't do it on my pentagram. I don't want to have to redraw the lines." He hefted the skin bag in his hand and twisted a small cap on the end. The bag was filled with a dark liquid. Slowly, carefully, Pravus started adding another design to the pentagram with a drizzle of fluid from the bag. I wrinkled my nose. Oh no. A sharp metallic smell filled the air. Oh crap. Blood. I hated anything that had to do with blood.
Sarah flounced back into the garage with a peanut butter and banana sandwich. She took a bite, sat back down on the ground, and watched Pravus with interest. "What's he doing?" she asked around the mouthful.
I made a face. "I hope he's not doing what I think he's doing."
Pravus looked up from his intricate pattern. "If you think that I am creating another pentagram around the first with blood, then you are correct."
I covered my mouth with a hand. Sarah said, "Cool. What kind of blood?"
Pravus quirked an eyebrow at her. "Do you really want to know?"
"Yeah," she took another bite. "is it human?"
He nodded. "Human blood is the most effective. And the younger the better."
My stomach turned over and I swallowed hard. "Sarah?"
"Yeah, Piper?"
"What are we doing?" I whispered. Pravus went back to his blood drawing.
"We're casting a spell on a billboard so that if there are other humans with abilities out there, then they can find us and join the USB and then our family will be safe."
"But at what cost?"
"Cost?" she shrugged. "Look, Piper. It's not like you went out and killed anyone. Wherever that blood came from, it had nothing to do with you, and it would still be in that bag even if you weren't asking him to cast a spell. It's not your concern."
I shook my head. It didn't seem right. All of this was wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. There was a good chance that there was baby blood in that bag. Baby blood! I was going to do something that required a baby to have been killed! What kind of person was I? How could I justify this? Maybe it would be better to just die. Maybe there are some things that you should never do, no matter how good your reasons are.
I pressed my fingers into the bridge of my nose and tried to think clearly. I loved my family. I loved Mark and the girls, and Mom and Dad, and even Sarah. I didn't want them to be hunted down by witches. Hunted down and drained of blood and used in rituals just like the one that we were about to do.
"Ready?" Pravus was standing in the center of the pentagram. While I had been thinking, he had lit the candles and also lit five sticks of incense at the five corners of the pentagram.
"No," I said. "Sarah, I don't think we should do this."
"Piper!" Sarah came to her feet. "We have to. Besides, it's already mostly done anyways. You can't back out now."
"Yes, I can back out. I don't want to do this."
"But I do!" she yelled. "You think you're the only person in the world who loves their family? I want Mom and Dad to be safe just as much as you do! And this is the best way to do it!"
"Make up your mind, ladies," Pravus growled. "The spell is almost complete and if I don't finish it soon it could backfire."
"Backfire?" I shrieked. "No one said anything about backfiring!"
"As soon as I begin drawing the pentagram the spell begins," Pravus said, beads of sweat starting to form on his forehead. "If I don't complete the incantation the whole thing will be ruined."
"Do it!" Sarah yelled.
"No!" I cried.
"Make up your minds!" Pravus grunted.
"Do it now!" Sarah said louder and clamped a hand over my mouth.
"Mmhhm!" I struggled to break free but it was too late.
Pravus raised his hand and started to chant, "Trinus dea, ego dico vos! D'hul Karnain, audite meus placitum! Tribuo meus prex, ego precor."
I heard the door to the garage open behind me. Sarah was still holding me in a death grip. I tried to turn to see who had entered but couldn't. "Mhmhmm!" I screamed and bit Sarah as hard as I could.
"Ow!" she cried and fell back.
I whirled to see my mother standing in the doorway, her mouth dropped open in shock. "What is going on out here?" she asked in horror.
"Eximo mens illae mulier!" Pravus went on and there was a searing flash of light and for a moment I couldn't hear or see anything.
Things Go Horribly Wrong
For a moment, I felt like I was in one of Mark's Xbox war games and someone has just thrown a "flash-bang." My vision was completely white and my ears were buzzing. I staggered and bumped into a yielding surface. It was Sarah.
"What happened?" I yelled, ears still ringing. My voice sounded faint and tinny.
My vision started to clear and I could just make out her face. Her lips were moving but I couldn't hear anything. "What did you say?" I yelled louder.
Sarah shook her head and pointed to her ears. I shook mine to try and clear my eardrums and gave my earlobes a couple of pulls. Color started to seep back into my vision and I looked around the garage. Pravus was standing in the middle of the floor with a shocked look on his face. Not good. Not good at all.
The pentagram on the floor was hopelessly smudged. It looked as if some giant hand had smeared the chalk starting at the center and wiping outwards. Pravus was standing in the middle of what now looked like a blurry flower. The candles had all been knocked flat as well. From the look on Pravus' face I could guess that this was not exactly the outcome he had intended. What had happened? I struggled to recall the events leading up to the whiteout.
I'd changed my mind. I remembered trying to stop the spell and Sarah fighting with me. But then ... I shook my head again and for a wonder my ears popped and cleared. "Sarah!" I said turning, "what happened ..." as I finished my turn I caught sight of the body lying in the garage doorway. Sarah was standing over our mother, hand over her mouth and fear in her eyes.
"Mom!" I cried and rushed to her side. She was crumpled on the ground, eyes closed, and face slack. Her eyelids were twitching wildly and her breathing was heavy and erratic.
"What did you do?" I screamed at Pravus.
"Me?" he finally moved, stepping carefully over the smudged chalk onto bare concrete. "I didn't do anything. Your mom walked in at precisely the wrong moment."
"Wrong moment!" It was all I could do not to jump to my feet and throttle him with my bare hands. "What do you mean 'wrong moment'?"
He shrugged and brushed chalk off his hands. "She interrupted the spell. I'm not sure what affect that will have on her."
"You never said that this was dangerous!"
He shrugged again. So help me, if he did that again I was going to kill him. "I assumed that you knew that any spell has the potential to be dangerous."
"Why you little ..." Sarah was obviously not restraining her murderous impulses as well as I was. I grabbed her ankle as she lunged at Pravus.
"Sarah!" She barely caught herself from face planting on the concrete. "We need to get Mom in the house and see what's wrong with her. Taking it out on Pravus is not going to help anything," I glared at him, "right now."
Pravus sighed, "You try to help someone," he muttered.
I ignored him. "Come on, help me lift her." Between the two of us, we were able to half carry, half drag Mom to the living room couch. Pravus trailed after us at a distance.
I wet a hand towel in the sink and pressed the cold cloth to her forehead. "Mom?"
Her eyes fluttered open and I felt the hard knot of fear in my chest slowly release a bit. "W-what happened?" she asked feebly.
"You passed out," I said truthfully.
"What is all the commotion about?" came an imperious voice behind me. Nana had woken up from her nap.
"Piper!" Mom grasped my arm, "who is that woman?"
I looked in shock from her to Nana. "That's Nana."
"Who?" There was no recognition in her eyes. "That woman is an assassin! She's here to kill me, Piper!"
"What is she going on about?" Thankfully Nana was a little hard of hearing.
I looked with wide eyes at Sarah. Her eyes were just as huge. "Get her out of here," I whispered.
Sarah stared blankly at me for a moment before leaping to action. "Hey Nana, are you ready for lunch? Why don't you come in the kitchen with me and tell me what I should fix." She led Nana off by her elbow, shooting me questioning looks over her shoulder.
I turned back to Mom. "How are you feeling?" I asked.
"How do you think I am feeling?" she snapped irritably.
"Headachy?" I guessed.
"No!" Mom looked around the room with suspicious eyes. "I assume we are hiding out here in this safe house until things blow over."
"Safe house?"
"It's all right, Piper. I know all about the aliens," Mom said calmly.
"Aliens?" I choked. Did she really know about the aliens?
"Yes, aliens." Mom sat up and gave me a look. "Why are you repeating everything I say? Is there something you're not telling me?"
"Umm ..."
"Never mind," Mom got shakily to her feet. "I notice that you have neglected the protective headgear."
I couldn't stop myself, "Protective headgear?" I repeated dumbly.
"This is not the time to let your vanity rule your actions," Mom said briskly. She saw Pravus standing awkwardly in the doorway. "When she was child," she explained to him, "she hated to wear a helmet while she was bike riding. She said it made her head look like a giant mushroom and it was hot. It's just the same now! You would think that protecting your brain from being stolen by aliens would be more important than hat hair, but no, not for Piper!"
"Mom!"
"Don't worry," she patted my arm. "I'm sure they have some emergency supplies in the kitchen. All the safe houses should be stocked with aluminum foil." She headed off for the kitchen. I watched her go with my jaw hanging down to my knees.
As soon as she was gone I turned on Pravus. "What did you do?" I hissed.
"I didn't do anything!" he protested.
"Anything! Anything!" My voice was rising into a shriek. "My mom has gone stark raving mad and you say you didn't do anything!"
Pravus folded his arms defensively across his chest and grumbled, "It's not my fault."
"Not your fault!"
"Your mom's right," he complained. "You do have a problem with repeating everything people say. You're like some giant, annoying parrot."
I was halfway across the room with my fingers outstretched like claws before common sense kicked in and I realized that I might need him alive to reverse the spell. I stopped myself and stood there trembling, hands clenching and unclenching at my sides.
"Fix it," I said through gritted teeth.
"Fix what?"
"Fix it or I'm calling Cecily over here right now." I meant it too.
Pravus gulped. "Fine. I'll have to do some research. I'm not sure exactly what happened."
"Can I assume that there is not a spelled billboard in the Orlando area right now?" I asked caustically.
Pravus glared at me and headed back to the garage to start gathering up his witch paraphernalia. I followed. "I'm going to have to go get some more supplies. And talk to some peers."
"You mean witches that can cast a spell without it backfiring and attacking innocent bystanders?" I asked.
He glared some more and stomped off in a huff. I liked that. My mom was the one babbling on about aliens and he had the gall to get offended that I was questioning his witchly prowess.
Calling Cecily was not such a bad idea. Pravus would be gone on his magic shopping trip so the chance of her decapitating him on sight was low, and I really could use her advice. I punched in her speed dial number and listened to the phone ring. It was the middle of her sleep cycle so I hung up and dialed again. And again. And again. Hopefully she had left her phone volume on and the incessant ringing would wake her.
I was about to give up when she finally answered. "-mmllo?"
"Cecily?"
"Who else would be answering this phone?" She obviously had not gotten up on the right side of the bed.
"We have a problem."
I could almost feel her snapping to attention on the other end of the line. All signs of sleep were gone from her voice. "What's happened?"
As briefly as I could, I explained the Pravus spell mistake to her. There was a long silence. "Cecily?"
She sighed. "You can never trust a witch, Piper," she said sadly.
I grunted. "We're a little past that point, Cecily."
"Well," her voice was back to its normal cheerfulness. "There is one easy solution."
"Really?"
"Yes. It will instantly reverse the spell on your mom. No harm done."
"What is it?" I was suspicious.
"Kill the witch."
I groaned. Back to square one again. It seemed like, no matter what I did, the best solution kept coming back to taking Pravus' head. Maybe I should just let Cecily do it and be done with this whole mess. I gave myself a mental shake. Snap out of it, Piper! One should never kill someone for convenience. I should trademark that advice. It would make a great Hallmark card.
Why me? Why me? I silently asked the ceiling.
"Piper?" Cecily was still on the line.
"Yeah?"
"What do you think?"
"About killing Pravus? I'm all for it. Whack him, by all means! Who cares if he's innocent? He's really inconveniencing my life right now and the easiest thing to do is get rid of him."
"Piper?" Cecily sounded unsure. "You don't sound sincere."
"It's called sarcasm," I groaned.
"So," she paused. "I can't kill him."
"No. You can't kill him."
"Well then," she paused again. "What are we going to do?"
"I was hoping you had some ideas that didn't involve decapitation."
"All out," she said cheerfully.
"Okay. Just hang tight then. I'm going to go check on Mom and Sarah and I'll call you in a bit. Maybe Pravus will be back soon with the reverse spell." I hung up the phone. "I knew this was a bad idea," I said to myself. "I knew it. I knew it. I knew it."
My phone rang as soon as I shut it. It was Cecily again. "Yeah?" I asked.
"Umm, Piper?"
"Yeah?" I said again.
"We might have another problem."
I groaned. "Don't tell me!"
"Okay," she said slowly.
I waited through a long silence before I realized that she was taking me seriously.
"What?" I snapped.
"You said to not tell you," she was offended.
"I didn't mean it!"
"Then why did you say it?"
I gritted my teeth and bit back several less than kind responses. "Just tell me what it is."
"I happened to look out at your front door," she said.
"And?"
"Well, there's a skunk ape with a little boy and a bunch of suitcases sitting on your front step."
"What!?"
"There's a skunk ape with a little boy and a bunch of suitcases sitting on your front porch," she repeated.
"Annabeth?" I guessed the only skunk ape I had ever met.
"Yup."
"And Harry?" Annabeth's son.
"Yup."
"And suitcases?"
"Looks like they're here to visit for awhile."
I groaned again. What in the world were Annabeth and Harry doing showing up on my doorstep? I'd given her my address, but really! I didn't think she would follow us down here! What did she want? There was one obvious way to find out, but it involved driving home and leaving my mother here. I didn't know how much sanity she had left, how fragile it was, and if the sight of a nine-foot odiferous monkey would drive her over the edge.
"Cecily?" An important question occurred to me.
"Still here."
"Is Annabeth human or skunk ape?"
"She's a skunk ape, Piper." Cecily sounded like she was answering a stupid question.
"No, I mean, does she look like a human right now?" I had visions of the neighbors calling animal control in a panic.
I could have sworn I heard Cecily's eyes rolling in her head. "She looks human, Piper. What did you think? That she would be sitting on your front step looking like a giant orangutan?"
Seeing as that was exactly what I had just thought, I decided to ignore the question. "Okay. Would you mind going over and letting her in the house?" I asked. "You still have my spare key, right?"
"As if I ever needed it in the first place," I heard her mutter. Giving her a spare key had been the source of a little contention. Cecily found it insulting to think that she would need a key to enter any house that she had been invited into. I, on the other hand, refused to acknowledge that my paltry locks would do nothing to stop a vampire and insisted that she use a key like a proper human being.
I chose to ignore that remark as well. "Great. You let her in, find out why she's here, and I'll be home as soon as I make sure Mom is going to be alright."
"Remember, we have an interview with suspect number two this afternoon," she reminded me.
"We do?"
"Well, not really an interview. But we're running out of time and I thought we should wrap up our Synod hit as soon as possible."
I made a face at the phone. "Sure, yeah, top of my list. Interview possible murderer. Plan execution of guilty party. Unspell my mother. Kick Pravus out of the house. Find out why there's a skunk ape on my front porch. Find more human's with abilities. The list goes on."
"There's not really a lot to plan for an execution," Cecily pointed out. "You just decide that the being is guilty and then cut off their head. It's easy. I don't think it should have its own spot on the list." She was serious.
"Fine," I said. "Go greet Annabeth and I'll be there as soon as I can." I hung up before she could say anything else. She was getting on my nerves.
"Piper?" Sarah was standing behind me. "Mom is rearranging all the dishes in the kitchen."
I raised both eyebrows.
"By size," she finished. "Largest to smallest. On the counters. Well, it started on the counters; now she ran out of room and is moving to the floor. She's really bothered that some of them are the same size and it's all I can do to convince her not to break them into different sizes." Sarah looked harried. Good. She deserved it. She was mostly to blame for this fiasco in the first place.
There was a loud smash from the kitchen and I heard Mom say, "That's better!"
Sarah blanched and ran off for the kitchen. I trailed after her slowly. The room was as bad as I imagined it to be. I tried to make myself feel better by remembering that I didn't live here anymore. It wasn't my kitchen. Oh no. It was just my mother.
Sarah was arguing with Mom about bending all the spoons so that when placed end to end they would make perfect circles. Sarah was obviously against this plan. I mouthed, "I've got to run," at Sarah over Mom's head.
"No!" she mouthed back, eyes wide.
"Take care of Mom," I mouthed, pretending I couldn't lip read the easiest word in the English language.
"Don't leave me!" she whispered.
"Why, Sarah, darling!" Mom said in surprise, "of course I won't leave you." She looked serious for a moment, "Unless the aliens come and take me away. But I assure you that it would be totally against my will. That's why it's so important to find ..." she trailed off.
"Tinfoil?" I offered helpfully.
"Yes!" Mom clapped her hands. "Perfect. We must start on our hats."
I slipped out the front door without meeting Sarah's imploring gaze. I had a skunk ape to take care of.
Uninvited Guests
All was quiet as I pulled into the driveway. I parked quickly in the garage and let myself in through the laundry room. I could hear voices in the kitchen.
"Would you care for a cup of tea?" Cecily was asking as I entered the room.
I took in the scene quickly. A vampire politely offering a skunk ape a refreshing beverage. Not the weirdest thing that has ever happened in my kitchen, but close. My whole life had been nothing but weirdness ever since this whole thing started. Perhaps I should be grateful that I wasn't so blase that I could still appreciate how odd things were.
Annabeth was sitting on one of the bar stools. Harry was sitting at the kitchen table, coloring in a coloring book. There was a mound of suitcases sitting in the front hall.
My first words would probably not pass the Emily Post test of how to best greet unexpected guests. "What are you doing here?" I asked.
Annabeth looked up in relief. "Oh, thank goodness you're home!"
"What's going on?" I rephrased.
"I don't know," Cecily shrugged. "We were waiting for you."
I grabbed a diet coke from the fridge and popped open the can. "Okay, I'm here. What's going on, Annabeth? Is everything okay?"
"We need a place to stay," she said matter-of-factly, but there was fear in her eyes.
"Why?"
"It's not safe in the woods anymore. That man has been getting more and more persistent." She looked extremely tired; at the end of her rope.
"Floyd?"
"Yes," she nodded, tears brimming her eyes. "Everywhere I go, he's there. Waiting. Watching. With that horrid camera!"
I gave Cecily a puzzled look, "We erased his memory!"
She too looked perplexed. "That doesn't make sense. He shouldn't remember anything. Unless ..."
"Unless what?" I asked.
"Unless his desire to find a "hidden animal" is so strong that it has become an obsession. If that is the case it might be so much a part of who he is that ..."
"That what?"
"That the only way to make him forget is to completely erase all of his memories."
"All?"
"As in, he would be a vegetable."
"Oh," I thought about that for a second. "Not good."
Annabeth sniffed, "You have to make him stop!"
"Me!"
"Yes! We can't go on living like this! He's going to find some proof that I'm not normal and then our lives will be over!"
She did have a point. If Floyd managed to get any kind of video evidence that Annabeth was a skunk ape, then she could kiss her privacy goodbye. Also her life. I swallowed hard. If Annabeth was outed then the nearest Guardian would be sent to take care of the threat. I guess that kind of did make it my problem.
I held up my hands to try and calm her down. "Okay, I'll see what I can do."
"You will?" Cecily was surprised.
"Yeah, we have to clean up our messes," I said with emphasis.
I saw Cecily's brain flash through the same conclusions that I had. "Oh," she said. "I guess we will have to fix this one way or the other." She reached up a hand behind her shoulder and looked a little unsettled at realizing that she had left the Sword of Justice at home. I didn't blame her. Invisible to mortal eyes or not, it couldn't be that comfortable to lounge around the house in.
"Can we stay with you for awhile?" Annabeth asked. Harry turned huge pleading eyes to me as well. I sighed. I so did not need this right now.
"Cecily?" I gave her a "follow me" jerk with my head. "Can I talk to you a moment? In the other room?"
She followed me into the master bedroom and sat down on the hope chest at the foot of my bed. I closed the door carefully behind us.
"What?" she asked.
"Can they stay with you?" I begged.
"Why me?"
"Because," I waved my hand around the room. "I've got two kids and a husband who know nothing about all of this! How am I going to explain total strangers bedding down in the den?"
Cecily shrugged, implying that it was my problem, not hers.
"Besides," I wheedled, "You have a guest room! You have a whole house to yourself! They won't be in your way at all!"
"Piper, the reason I have a whole house to myself is because I like having a whole house to myself!"
"It would only be for a few days," I pleaded. "We'll get all of this cleared up and then send them on their way. Promise! Three days max!"
I could see her wavering. "Fine," she said. "Three days. Then I boot them to the curb."
I nodded.
"And you owe me."
That sounded a little serious. "Owe you what?"
She shrugged, "Whatever I decide."
"Like what?" I was suspicious.
"Do you want me to keep them or not?"
"Yeeess," I said slowly. "But I don't like making a deal without knowing what the terms are."
"The terms are, you owe me, and I'll let you know what and when."
"That's a lousy deal!" I was offended.
"Take it or leave it," she folded her arms across her chest, leaned back on the end of the bed, and glared at me.
"Fine!" I threw my hands in the air. "Whatever! Just put them up for a few days and I'll owe you!" I put the words "owe you" in finger quotes.
"Deal," Cecily said a little too cheerfully for my liking. She held her hand out to shake. I grudgingly shook it and stomped back to the kitchen.
"We've got it all worked out," I said with false cheer. "You and Harry can stay at Cecily's for a few days until we get all cleaned up."
Annabeth didn't look as happy as I would have hoped. "Cecily's?" she asked.
"Yes!"
"Why can't we stay here?"
"Because ..." why was everyone in the world trying to pick a fight with me? "You would have to sleep on the floor and my husband doesn't know about ... people like us."
"Cecily is a vampire," Annabeth said flatly.
"Standing right here in the room!" Cecily announced loudly.
Annabeth ignored her and kept her eyes on me. "She's a vampire."
"Yeah?" I was starting to feel belligerent. "And you're a skunk ape! I'm the only human in the room, and I say, if you want a place to stay, you'll stay at Cecily's."
Annabeth looked worriedly at Cecily. "Will you promise not to take blood from either Harry or me?"
"Take blood!" It was Cecily's turn to get offended. "Take blood from a monkey? I think not!" She made a disgusted face.
"Promise," Annabeth said firmly.
Cecily shot her a look that could peel paint, "I promise not to touch a hair on your head, or on your son's head."
Annabeth sighed and relaxed. "Okay, then we would be very grateful for the offer of your hospitality."
"My pleasure," Cecily flashed her some fang.
"Great!" I brushed my hands off, "We've got all that settled. Now, if you don't mind, perhaps Cecily could show you around and then she and I have some work we need to do."
"Work?" Annabeth asked.
"Yes," I explained. "We have a murder suspect that we need to interview."
"Someone is going to be killed?" Annabeth was puzzled.
"No," I fumbled for the right words. I just wasn't used to using the word "murder" in a normal conversation. "I mean, a murderer suspect. Oh, dang it! A person who we suspect might be a murderer. We have to talk to that person."
"Right," Cecily headed for the door. "I'll show you my house and then Piper and I have to hit the road."
"Can we come with you?" Annabeth asked.
"No," Cecily and I said together.
"Why not?"
"Because," I looked at Cecily. "The person might be a murderer!"
"I could help!" she said stubbornly.
"What about Harry?" I pointed out. I wouldn't want to take my kids to interview a possible killer.
"He can stay in the car."
Cecily made a wry face. "Sure, why not?" she said.
"Cecily!"
"Why not, Piper? She's right, she could help."
I looked around the room at all the crazy people. It must just be my day for crazy people.
"Fine!" I snapped. "But I'm driving."
Of course, it wasn't that easy. It never is. Harry had to go to the bathroom. Annabeth wanted to move her luggage over to Cecily's. Cecily had to put on sunscreen and get her floppy hat and shades. A quick brush through my hair, a dab of powder on my nose and I was ready. I sat on the barstool and waited for everyone else, kicking my feet aimlessly in the air. This was worse than trying to get Megan and Cassidy ready to go.
While I was waiting, I decided to give Sarah a call.
"Hey," she said, sounding tired.
"How's it going?"
She sighed. "She's taking a nap."
"Any more craziness?"
"Not unless you count using food coloring on all the food to make it pink. You probably didn't know, but aliens won't eat pink food. She wanted to make sure we weren't all aliens without knowing that we were."
"Like the Cylons," I said.
"What?"
"Never mind, I guess you all passed the test?"
"Yeah, Nana had a fit, but I tried to convince her that Mom had just had too much to drink and to humor her until it wore off."
"Oh, great!" I cried. "Mom's going to kill us when this is over! You know Nana will never let her live this down!"
"Aha," Sarah chortled evilly, "You forget, dear sister, 'after this is over,' no one is going to remember a thing!"
"I guess," I said uneasily.
"Don't worry, big sis. I've got it covered."
"Okay. By the way, Cecily and I are going to hit the last suspect this afternoon."
"Without me!"
"Yeah, you're on mom-sitting duty."
"That's not fair!"
"Well," I pulled my best big sister voice. "Whose fault is it that Mom is crazy?"
"Pravus'?" she suggested.
"Well," I amended. "Yeah. But who wanted to stop and who tackled that person?"
"Whatever," Sarah huffed. "Fine. I'll watch Mom, but I want to hear all about it afterwards."
"I'll give you all the gory details," I promised, sincerely hoping that there would be no gory details. I hung up and went back to kicking my heels against the counter.
After what seemed like hours, but was probably only fifteen minutes or so, we were all finally loaded into my minivan. Carolyn had moved the girls' car-seats to her car which meant that Annabeth and Harry didn't have to sit in the way-back. No way was Cecily sitting in the back of the car. It must be some kind of control freak thing. Maybe she felt safer knowing she could grab the steering wheel if I had a heart attack and died.
I backed out of the garage and stopped in the driveway to enter the address into the minivan's GPS. When we'd bought our Honda Odyssey, I hadn't wanted the navigation system and backup camera. I'd thought they were ridiculous extravagances. Now I couldn't imagine life without them. I had yet to back my van into something, which had everything to do with the backup camera and nothing to do with my backing skills, which were minimal.
The address was in St. Cloud, the city just to the east of Kissimmee, where the murders had taken place. It was a straight shot over on 192, a two-lane highway that ran through the middle of nowhere. People often wondered why cities on the east coast of Florida crammed themselves between the ocean and I-95. It was because, once you got west of the interstate, the land turned into low lying swamp. The cost of bringing in fill dirt in order to build far outweighed the benefits of more land.
My gas tank was only half filled so I stopped at the last 7-Eleven on the outskirts of town. "Anybody want a slurpee?" I offered, craving one myself. I knew it was 500 calories of sugar but in the sweltering heat nothing could hit the spot better than a frozen coke.
"No thanks, I'm fine," Cecily smirked. I realized that "slurpee" meant something else to her, and gave her a don't-freak-out-the-kid-in-the-backseat look.
"What's a slurpee?" Harry asked.
"What's a slurpee!?" I was shocked. How could you grow up in Florida and not know what a slurpee was? "Well, you are in for a treat," I promised. "That is, if your mom says it's okay."
Annabeth smiled but shook her head no when I asked if she wanted one. I started the gas going and headed in for the store. Cecily followed and ultimately decided on a huge bananas foster cappuccino. I'd tried one once and found them to be so delicious that I never tried it again. Anything that tasted that good had to have at least a week's worth of calories in it. And even if I did want to gain ten pounds, I wouldn't want to drink a scalding hot beverage when the heat index was at 105.
Harry was thrilled with his slurpee. I had briefly considered getting him one of the electric blue slurpees that my little girls love, but decided that, for a first time experience, it was better to go with the classic. He could always expand his taste buds later. Gas tank filled, and all happily sipping and slurping away, we headed out of town to meet suspect number two.
Finding Nemo was still in the car's DVD player so I passed back a set of headphones and set the sound system so that Harry could watch the movie without bothering the rest of us. More importantly, we could all talk about death and mayhem without having to worry about little ears hearing things they shouldn't.
"Who are we going to talk to?" I asked Cecily, after explaining the situation to Annabeth. She wasn't too thrilled to find that she had been our first suspect, but I assured her that we had total faith in her innocence.
"Patrick Schultz," Cecily said. "He's a witch, or maybe a warlock, I'm not sure of how they rank themselves. Anyways, he's young and was Pravus' student for awhile. Rumor has it that they parted on less than friendly terms."
"Unfriendly enough to set your teacher up for murder?"
Cecily shook her head. "I don't know. Things got really heated between them and Pravus has prevented him from rising in the WAND ranks."
"Wand?" Annabeth asked.
"Witches and Necromancers Deputation. Stupid name, but they wanted a cool acronym." Cecily was openly disdainful.
"And what?" I asked, "Pravus wouldn't let him get his next witch badge?"
Cecily smiled evilly, "A little more than that. He had him knocked back to beginner status and he's not allowed to cast spells without a senior witch present." She snickered.
"Is that bad?" I asked, having no clue.
"It's like if I took away your driver's license and said you could only ride a tricycle, and then only if I was there to make sure you didn't ride into the street."
I had to laugh. "I guess that might make someone a little ticked off."
"Especially if that someone was already an egotistical, power hungry, witch."
"Which is kind of the personality requirements to be a witch in the first place," I added snidely.
"Aren't witches human?" Annabeth asked.
"No," Cecily replied. "They look human, and they taste human," she licked her lips. "But they're not. Something to do with DNA and blood chemistry. Humans and witches can reproduce, but their offspring will be either one or the other. Humans can't work magic, witches can. That's pretty much the biggest difference between the two."
"They smell different too," Annabeth added.
"Do they?" I asked.
"Yes. At least, Pravus did." She cocked her head to one side remembering. "He smelled of grave rot."
"Eww!"
"You smell like sunshine and ..." she sniffed deeply, then said apologetically, "diaper chemicals."
I grimaced. Figures I would smell like a diaper pail. I sure spent enough time around diapers. Clean diapers, wet diapers, dirty diapers, you name it. Call me the diaper queen.
"You're offended," Annabeth said worriedly.
"No," I lied. "It makes sense."
"It's better than grave rot!" Cecily chimed in. She was right. It was. I would just focus on the sunshine smell. That sounded nice.
The GPS started flashing images to show that we were nearing our destination. I had turned off the annoying voice that prompted you every seven seconds. We had entered St. Cloud and were, according to my Honda, a few minutes away from our destination.
"Are we going to his house?" I asked, noticing that we were in a commercial area.
"No," Cecily said. "I couldn't find his home address, but I did find where he works. He's a manager at Checker's." She looked up hopefully, "Maybe we can get a banana milkshake!"
"You're a vampire," I pointed out sourly. Life just wasn't fair.
"So? Taste is taste!"
I pulled onto a slightly less busy road and read from the screen that we were eight hundred yards away. It started to count down, silently.
"Umm, Cecily?" I peered through the front window as traffic slowed. "Is that where we're going?"
Up ahead there was a large Checker's sign on the side of the road. One might safely assume that a Checker's building would be under said sign. That wasn't what was confusing me. It was the myriad of flashing lights and official vehicles parked around the building. And the miles of yellow crime scene tape that were fluttering in the wind throughout the entire parking lot. Things were not looking good.
A Dead, Dead End
I parked in the strip-mall parking lot just past all the police excitement. There was no getting into the Checker's parking lot. Not without a police badge. "What do you think is going on?" I asked, trying to see past all the flashing lights.
Annabeth took a deep sniff of the air. "Rotting meat," she said succinctly.
"I'm guessing you're going to have to wait on your milkshake, Cecily," I quipped.
She frowned. "We need to find out what is going on. Go and see, Piper."
"Me? Why me?"
"Because you have the Voice. You can get past the crime tape and no one will bother you. And," she looked significantly up out the window. "You don't mind the sun."
"Fine. Whatever, Miss Bossy Pants," I grumbled and swung out of the car. The heat and humidity hit me like a splash of boiling water. "Ugh," I groaned and slammed the car door behind me. I left the car running so everyone would still be alive, or at least, in Cecily's case, undead, when I came back. On a summer afternoon in Florida, the inside temperature of a car can reach 150 degrees in minutes.
I walked gingerly over the asphalt, grateful that my flip flops were protecting my feet from being burned by the heat I could feel pouring off the ground. That was when I took my first deep breath. Big mistake. Even I could smell rotting meat. Not a good smell. My slurpee began to sit a little uncomfortably in my stomach.
I ducked under the yellow crime scene tape that was circling the Checker's parking lot and noticed that the Checker's sign out front offered the store up for sale. I guess Patrick Schultz hadn't been working here recently. Cecily's info was a little off.
I headed towards a group of people standing by one of the outside tables. As I got closer I heard the sound of retching. Two of the cops were busy emptying their stomachs into plastic bags. This was getting better and better.
"What are you doing here?" a big man barked at me. He was dressed in lightweight khaki pants and a polo shirt. He flashed a detective badge at me, "No civilians allowed."
"It's okay," I commanded with the Voice. "Tell me what's going on."
He instantly relaxed. "We got an anonymous tip reporting a disturbance at this location. When the uniforms got here ..." He pointed towards the building's windows. They were black and oddly moving. I could hear a buzzing sound that I couldn't place.
"What is that?" I asked.
"Flies," he grimaced. "Millions of them. Our first guess was that the previous owners failed to empty the freezers when they closed and the city shut off the electricity."
I made a face, thinking of how many pounds of rotting meat would attract that number of flies. Then I realized that he had said "first guess."
"What is it really?" I asked, not wanting to know.
"These two guys went in," he said, pointing at the gagging officers. "They say there's a body in the freezer."
"A body?"
"Yup," he rubbed his hands together. "The forensic investigator is in there now. We'll have a better idea in a moment."
"Okay." I thought about turning tail and running for the car. I did not want to hear a more detailed report. But if I went back to the car Cecily would want to know more and would just send me right back over. I needed to conserve energy in this heat. I stayed put.
A small woman exited the building to an increase in sound from the flies. She was dressed, head to foot, in protective gear with a large mask covering her face. She made a beeline for the detective and stripped off her mask. Sweat had matted her hair down on her head and she wiped off drops that had formed on the end of her nose.
"You've got a dead one," she said cheerfully.
"Tell me something I don't know," he said.
"Alright. Victim is male, approximately in his early twenties. Best guess at COD is strangulation. His throat was cut, post-mortem, and from the ligature marks on his ankles, also post-mortem, I'm guessing that he was hung upside down and drained of blood. I'll have to get him into the lab to run some tests, but I'd put time of death at perhaps six weeks."
"You can't say closer than that?" the detective asked. I was personally amazed that she could tell that much from looking at a fly covered, decomposing body, in the sweltering heat.
She shrugged. "It appears that he was frozen directly after the blood draining, and without running tests, I can't say any closer how long it would take his body to thaw and start to decompose. You might want to find out when the building had its electricity shut off. That would give us a more accurate timeline." She looked back at the fly covered window. "Once again, I'm just guessing here, but I'd say from the rate of decomp, and the number of flies and larvae, that he'd been unfrozen for about four weeks. I can't believe that no one called it in sooner."
"Probably thought it was just left over humburger meat going bad," the detective shrugged. "It's happened before. No one wants to have to go in there and check it out."
"Well, this time it's definitely meat gone bad," the forensic lady laughed, "just not the kind you'd want to eat!"
I suddenly wanted my own plastic bag to throw up in. Must be those pregnancy hormones kicking in. I had heard enough and was ready to be well away from this place. I just needed to know one more thing. "Do we have an ID?" I asked.
"The vic still had his personal possessions on him," the lady said, pulling out a plastic evidence bag. "Or rather," she laughed again, "inside him."
"Inside him?"
"He's decomposed enough that the contents of his pockets have sunk into his abdominal cavity."
Oh. I really did not need to hear that. She pointed to a stained driver's license. "This would seem to indicate that he was ..." she peered through the plastic. "... Patrick Schultz, age twenty-five. Five-foot eleven inches, brown hair, brown eyes. Yeah, that seems about right. We won't know for sure until we run teeth or DNA."
"Thank you both very much," I managed to say politely, and quickly headed back across the parking lot.
"Hey!" the big detective yelled after me. "Who did you say you were?"
"It's not important," I commanded and got out of there as fast as I could.
The cold air blasted past me as I opened the driver side door. I slid into the seat and slammed the door after me.
"Well?" Cecily asked.
"Not our guy," I said grimly.
"Who's not?"
"Patrick Schultz. He's not our murderer."
"How do you know?"
I gave her a look. "I don't think he came back from the dead," I checked the backseat to make sure that Harry was still engrossed in his movie. "Unless you can run around killing people after you have your throat slit and all the blood drained out of your body, I'd say he's not the guy we're looking for."
"Oh," Annabeth said, a shocked look on her face. I could tell she was beginning to regret wanting to hang out with us.
"How long has he been dead?" Cecily asked.
"Six weeks, give or take."
"Right." Cecily sighed. "Back to square one."
"Expect this time we have no other suspects."
"Right," she said again. A coroner's van pulled into the next parking lot. I hoped they brought some bug spray.
"We're almost out of time," I said to Cecily, not really knowing what I wanted her to do about it. Or even what she could do about it.
"I know," she sounded blank. "I thought this was a good lead. I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault." I patted her knee. "We'll think of something."
"We could---" she started.
"No," I cut her off. "We're not killing an innocent person. No."
Annabeth snorted. "You'd be doing the world a favor," she said.
I slammed the car into reverse and backed out of my parking space. "This is not open for discussion."
"Fine," Cecily crossed her arms. "But eventually you will have to face facts."
"What facts?"
"When someone is standing over your children, ready to cut off their heads, you will change your mind," she said grimly.
"No, I won't," I said stubbornly. "Because it's wrong. I can't murder someone to save my life, or anyone else's life."
"What about that vampire you staked?" Cecily asked snidely.
"That was different!" I protested. "He was going to kill me. It was self-defense!"
"You staked a vampire?" Annabeth had awe in her voice and a little fear.
"It was a one-time thing," I said. "And he didn't die. So it's not relevant."
"It will be relevant," Cecily said darkly.
"A life is a life," I said. "You can't say that one person's life is more important than another's just because you like that person! If that was the case, we'd have relatives of people needing organ transplants hunting down compatible donors and killing them for their organs!"
"That's nice and idealistic," Cecily replied. "But when it comes down to it, I'm betting you change your mind."
"I might," I said seriously. "But I'll be wrong if I do. And I hope, by talking about it now, that I will have already decided what the right thing to do is, before I get in that situation. Most people have flexible ethics because they think, in the heat of the moment, that they'll make the right choice. That's letting your emotions decide, not your head. My emotions say, 'kill Pravus.' My head says it's wrong. I hope it never comes down to it, but if it does, I want to go with my head."
"Even at the expense of your children?" Annabeth asked.
I put a hand over my belly, where there might be a baby growing. "How can I truly say that I believe something if I'm not willing to risk everything for it? It's not a preference, it's not a 'I'd rather not murder people, but if you push me ...' It's a belief. Murder is wrong. I'm going to execute the person who murdered those students, because murder is wrong. I'm not going to murder someone myself to save anyone." I took a deep breath. "Not even my daughters."
"But isn't killing the murderer, taking a life, just like the murderer did?" Annabeth protested.
Cecily leaned back in her seat, a gleam in her eyes. I could tell she was enjoying this exchange.
"If all life is precious, then there is only one penalty severe enough for taking a life. If you lock people away, or charge them money, you are saying that a human life can be bought. So much money, so much time in jail, and it's okay to steal someone's life. I believe in the death penalty because it's the only punishment that makes sense. It's the only punishment that says, 'you took something that is irreplaceable,' because they did. If I smash your car, or steal your TV, I can pay you back. But if I kill you, there's no coming back from that."
"For some of you," Cecily said quietly with a smile.
"Vampires aside, dead is dead," I smiled.
"Okay," Annabeth said. "So what are you going to do now?" I wondered if she was worried that she would lose her place to stay if we were executed in the next forty-eight hours.
"I don't know," I sighed. "I don't know."
Floyd Again
I invited everyone in for a late lunch when we got home. None of us had felt like eating after smelling and hearing about the gory demise of Patrick Schultz. I was kind of hoping that they would refuse, but I think that the safety of a human house trumped the dubious privacy of a vampire's. Besides, I wouldn't think a vampire would have much around the house that was edible. But Cecily did tend to eat like a farm-hand, even if she derived zero nutritional benefit from it and never gained an ounce.
I set out sandwich meat and condiments and popped open a new can of Pringles.
"Fat free?" Cecily asked.
"Yes," I said shortly.
"These taste like cardboard."
I glared. "No one said that you have to eat. In fact, one might even suggest that you are wasting resources by eating."
She popped another chip in her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. "Cardboard ... and dirt. I'm definitely detecting a dirt taste."
I snatched the can. "Then don't eat them," I said through clenched teeth.
She swiped the can back before I could even blink. It must be getting later in the day, her vamp reflexes were speeding up. "I didn't say I didn't like the taste," she crunched another chip. "I just said it tasted like dirt."
I gave her the evil eye and finished smearing fat free mayonnaise on my sandwich. Annabeth was quickly assembling a gigantic sandwich for herself and a much smaller one for Harry. She must have a really good metabolism too. Why was I the only person in the world with a slow metabolism?
Cecily eyed the mayo and opened her mouth. I waved the knife at her. "Don't," I said.
"Bu---"
"Don't say it."
"I was ju---"
"Ah, ah, ah!" I stopped her. "Either eat it or shut up. No more comments."
She was just beginning to say something else, probably about how the mayo tasted like egg whites when there was a crash from the backyard. Annabeth's hand flew to her throat in terror and Harry cringed in his chair. Cecily went streaking out the back door before I could tell her to wait. Vampires! I ran to the master closet to get my husband's shotgun out of the gun safe. I knew that, by the time I chambered a few shells and made it out to the backyard, the excitement would be over. If Cecily was the victor, all well and good. But if not, I wanted to have a backup plan.
"Cecily?" I called cautiously, opening the screen door with one hand.
"Over here," she answered, making me almost lightheaded with relief. Backup plans are good, but there's a reason that they are the backup and not the main plan.
I turned the corner of the house to see Cecily yank someone up from the ground. Unfortunately for him, she had hold of his foot, not his arm. It took me several seconds to recognize Floyd, handing upside down in the air.
I flipped the safety back on and lowered the barrel on the shotgun.
"You can't do this!" Floyd screamed, "I have rights!"
Cecily gave him a little shake and I imagined I could hear his teeth rattling.
"Put him down, Cecily," I said wearily. I probably should have added a couple qualifiers to that order. Like "gently," or "carefully." Cecily took me literally and dropped Floyd on his head.
He sat up sputtering. "You can't treat me like this!" he protested. "I have rights!"
"You have no rights, Floyd," I said. "You're trespassing."
"I'm ..." he stopped and stared at me, mouth opening and closing like a goldfish. "How do you know my name?"
I rolled my eyes. Some of the mind erase had worked. "I know a lot more than your name," I said mysteriously. Or, at least, I hoped it sounded mysterious. "I know that you're a ...a ..." Oh dang it! I couldn't remember the word.
"A cryptozoologist," Cecily finished helpfully.
"Yeah, what she said."
"How did you know that?" Floyd was in awe.
"Why are you here, Floyd?" I asked.
He stood up, brushing grass off his pants. "I'm following a skunk ape!" he said excitedly. "It's the discovery of the century!"
I groaned. Not again! And Annabeth had led him straight to my door. I did not need this right now. I wiped a trickle of sweat off my face. It was way too hot to be standing out here arguing with a crazy man. What was it with crazy people today? Couldn't they go find someone else to go pick on? Why did they all have to bother me?
"Come on inside," I said grouchily and stomped back towards the house, slinging the shotgun over my shoulder. My heart rate was coming back to normal and I was still hungry. All this stress was making me crave a giant milkshake. And a double cheeseburger and fries. Lots of fries.
"Close the sliding glass door," I said over my shoulder in the same tone I used with Megan and Cassidy. "The air is on."
I couldn't be sure, but I thought Cecily whispered, "Yes, Mommy." I would pretend I hadn't heard that.
Floyd came to a stop when he saw Annabeth and Harry sitting at the table. "Wha---,"
"Floyd, meet Annabeth," I said. "Annabeth, this is Floyd."
She leapt to her feet. "What's he doing here?"
I sighed, slid back into my seat and took a gulp of ice water. "Would you like a sandwich, Floyd?" I asked politely.
"I ... I ... umm," he was clearly flustered at coming face to face with the woman he was stalking.
"Pull up a chair, Floyd." I bit into a chip. Cecily was right, they did taste like cardboard.
"I ... I ..." Floyd was still lost for words.
"Sit down," I commanded, tired of the stammering. He sat.
Annabeth was still standing. "Piper!" she complained. "He can't be here!"
I chewed my sandwich slowly and waited until she sat back down. "He is here, Annabeth. Sarah's not. I can't do anything about it right now. So let's just sit down, have some lunch, and get to know each other ... again."
"I won't sit here with him," Annabeth said vehemently.
Floyd looked uncomfortable. He shifted in his seat and looked ready to run.
"Some people object to being stalked," I told him confidentially.
"S-stalked!" he stammered, "I never ..."
"You never thought that Annabeth was a real person, with a son to worry about?" I asked. "Oh, by the way, have you met Harry? Say hi, Harry."
Harry was staring at Floyd, mouth open, last bite still half chewed.
"I know," I said. "Floyd's a little odd, but it's okay."
"Me?" he gasped.
"Yeah, you, Floyd. It's not every day that normal people hang out with a stalker. Generally your kind is arrested and locked up where you can't bother people."
"I ... I ..." he protested.
"You, you." I mimicked him angrily. "You never thought of it that way did you? You never thought of Annabeth as a person. Or Harry as a child. Or that stalking them, and taking pictures, and video, and writing articles in newspapers, might be making their lives harder."
"I'm a scientist!" he said. "She's abnormal! She should be documented! People have to know!"
"Why?"
"Because ... because ..." he was flustered.
"She's not an animal, Floyd." I said quietly. "She has rights, and feelings, just like everybody else. You're trying to turn her into the freak show at the circus. Is that really what you want?"
"But ... but ... it's the affirmation of everything I've worked on! You've no idea how I've been mocked! Ridiculed! If I can show them proof, they'll have to take me seriously!"
"There's your proof," I pointed at Annabeth who was taking furious bites out of her sandwich. "She's real. She's a person. She has a life, and hopes and dreams, and a family, and you are threatening all of that. What is more important? You getting revenge for years of people laughing at you, or her life?"
"I ... never ..." Floyd came to a stop.
"You never thought of it that way," Annabeth said bitterly. "You never stopped to think that every time you snapped a picture or wrote one of your articles, encouraging hunters to go out in the woods and take potshots at anything that moved, that you were hurting me." She pointed an angry finger into his face. "You're the reason I have to live in a trailer dump in the middle of the woods! You're the reason Harry doesn't have any friends!"
Floyd looked shocked. "I'm sorry," he mumbled.
"You should be." She tore off another bite of sandwich and chewed furiously.
"I just wanted to prove that there are creatures alive today that modern science dismisses as myths." His voice took on a classroom quality. He'd obviously said this more than once. "Think of the Giant Panda! It was mocked and ridiculed and believed to be a myth until---"
Annabeth cut him off, "The Giant Panda is a dumb animal. An animal. Not a sentient being. I might turn into a skunk ape, but I'm still a person."
Floyd's mouth dropped. Until that moment I think he hadn't really believed himself. "You really turn into a skunk ape?" he said in awe.
"Yes," she snapped. "Isn't that why you've been stalking me for years?"
"I know," he looked dazed. "But ... I wasn't sure. I mean, I thought I was right ...but, it's true!" There was pure joy on his face.
Annabeth snorted. "Now what are you going to do? Call the zoo and take me in? Lock me in a cage so people can take blood samples? Test my DNA? How about an autopsy? That should answer all your questions nicely."
Floyd was still lost in his world of discovery. "A real live skunk ape! The illusive Big Foot! Do you have any idea what this means for science?"
Annabeth laughed. "Illusive? You mean, smarter than me. Most don't get caught."
"Most?" I asked. I'd rather thought that she was one of a kind.
"My family," she said sadly. "They're better at not getting caught. It helps when you live in a community."
"Skunk ape villages!" Floyd breathed in amazement.
"Try towns," Annabeth said.
"But," I had to ask, even though I thought it might be too personal a question. "Why don't you live with your family?"
"Because," she looked lovingly at Harry. "I fell in love with a human, and had his child. We're banished. Procreating with humans is not allowed."
"That's not fair!" I was indignant.
"No, it's okay. When Harry reaches puberty we'll know."
"Know what?"
"We'll know which genes are dominant. If he turns into a skunk ape, we can move home. If not," she looked resigned, "then I'll go home and Harry will make his own way in the world."
"You'll abandon him?" I was shocked.
She shook her head. "Eventually. The same way that every parent abandons their child when they send them off to college, or off to live on their own. I won't leave Harry until I'm sure he is assimilated. And he can always come visit." She reached over and squeezed his hand. "It's the way we do things. I knew what the consequences were when I had Harry, and I have never regretted them."
"Still want to get out your camera and test tubes?" I asked Floyd.
He looked shaken to the core. It must be hard to have your dreams come true and then realize that you shouldn't share them with the world.
Cecily was lounging at the counter, looking lean and elegant, and staying remarkably quiet through this whole exchange. She'd stopped making horrible faces every time she bit into a fat free Pringle and was merely watching our faces as each person spoke. After an awkward moment of silence, she raised her hand for permission to speak.
"Yes?" I asked, like she really needed my okay before saying something.
"Maybe it's just me," she said carefully, "but it seems that both Floyd and Annabeth could profit from a ... partnership."
"Partnership?" they both said.
"Yes," she smiled, showing sharp teeth. "There's money to be made in cryptozoology, isn't there?"
Floyd looked hesitant, "Perhaps, if you can produce proof."
"Proof?"
He looked a little guilty, "Not uncontestable proof, just enough that your claim seems likely."
"A highly scientific field," I heard Annabeth mutter under her breath.
Floyd bristled, "Every true cryptozoologist knows that absolute proof is almost impossible to find. If it was easy to find cryptids, they wouldn't be cryptids!"
"Exactly," Cecily concurred, "All Annabeth has to do is let you take enough pictures and samples to make your claim seem ... likely."
Annabeth and Floyd looked at each other. She frowned. "You'd pay for that?"
Floyd stared at Cecily, then at her. "You'd let me take pictures? Good pictures?"
She crossed her arms, "Maybe."
His face lit up, "Really?"
"I said, maybe."
My cell phone rang. I smiled encouragingly at them and slipped out of the room to take the call. I felt like I had just witnessed potential peace between Israel and Iraq.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Babe!" It was Mark.
"Hi, Honey. How's your day going?"
"Great. Busy, but great. You?"
I looked back into the kitchen where Annabeth and Floyd were yelling at each other. I closed the door carefully behind me. "Couldn't be better," I said with a hint of sarcasm.
"Cool. Hey, some of the guys are having a poker night tonight. Do you mind if I go?"
"Sure, what time do you think you'll be back?"
"Oh, I don't know. Depends on how I play. Two or three?"
I rolled my eyes. Playing a card game 'till three o'clock in the morning sounded like torture to me, but to each his own. "Sure, hon. That's fine."
"Oh, by the way," he sounded puzzled. "I had a weird phone call from my mom."
"Your mom?"
"Yeah, she said something about somebody having her and the girls over and they couldn't come home 'till they heard from you?"
My heart lurched in my chest. "What?" I felt like the room was slowly spinning around me.
"Yeah, it didn't make a lot of sense. I was working on a proposal so I didn't quite catch it all and she hung up before I could ask her to say it all again. She's not picking up now, but I thought that maybe you'd know what was going on."
I sat down on the floor, sliding down the wall. My stomach flipped over a few times and I felt bile rise in my mouth. "Did she say what she needed to hear from me?"
He thought for a moment. "Something about you quitting something? I'm sorry, Piper. I just wasn't paying enough attention. Why don't you try to call her?"
"Okay," I said slowly. "I will."
"Okay then," he was back to being cheerful. "How are the girls?"
I felt like I was beginning to hyperventilate. "Oh, you know, they're fine. I've got to run, babe! See you in the morning if I don't wake up when you come home."
"All right. Thanks for letting me go."
"No problem. Love you."
I hung up and stared at the phone in my hand. For a moment all I could hear was my pulse in my ears. The door opened and Cecily stuck her head in.
"What's wrong?" she said with concern. "I could hear your heart rate increase."
Okay. That was kind of freaky. I held up a hand for silence and dialed my mother-in-law's number. It went straight to voice mail. Not good. She always kept her phone with her when she had the girls.
"Piper?" Cecily sounded worried, "Your face is white. What's going on?"
I stared up at her, not wanting to put it into words. Tears welled up in my eyes and my voice broke as I said, "I think someone's kidnapped Megan and Cassidy!"
The Girls are Gone
In a flash, Cecily was squatting before me, holding my hands, "Why do you think that?"
I gulped some air and tried not to break down into hysterical tears. "Mark said that Carolyn called him and said something about somebody having her and the girls and they couldn't come home until I quit."
Cecily rocked back on her heels. Her eyes went vampire black, no whites visible. "We'll get them back, Piper."
I shrank back a little. Man did she freak me out when she looked like that. I tried to get a grip. Sitting on the floor and wailing was helping nobody. "You're right," I said, and pulled myself to standing, using her shoulder. "First I have to make sure that I'm not overreacting. Let's go check out Carolyn's house."
Cecily smiled, a freaky vampire "the better to eat you with" smile. I suppressed a shudder and charged back into the kitchen.
"Someone might have kidnapped my daughters and I need to go check that they're not still safe at their grandmother's right now," I announced.
There were looks of shock all around. "Who kidnapped your kids?" Annabeth asked.
"I don't know," I said grimly, "but I intend to find out."
"What do they want?" Floyd was practical. "Money?"
"I don't think so," I said. "I think they want me to either quit looking for the murderer or drop out of the USB."
"Murderer? USB?" Floyd was lost.
I sighed. "I don't have time for the long explanation. The short one is: the USB is the United Nations of magical beings. All of us here are members. Cecily and I work for them, covering up any magic accidents or crimes that could expose magical beings to humans. We were supposed to execute a witch for murder, found out he was innocent, have been trying to clear his name, run out of possible suspects, and are hours away from being executed ourselves for failing our job."
Floyd's mouth dropped open. "There are more creatures than just skunk apes?"
I sighed again. "Catch up quick, Floyd, or I'm leaving you behind."
"What kind of creatures?" He was stuck like a broken record.
I thrust my feet angrily into my flip-flops and scooped my purse up off the counter. "Werewolves, vampires, shape-shifters, Fae, selkies, witches, you name it. It's real."
"Werewolves? Vampires?" Floyd was deep in his mental rut.
Cecily turned on him with a snarl. Eyes black, teeth elongated, face soulless and hungry like a great white shark. "Believe it, accept it, and help, or I'm tying you up in the garage until Sarah can deal with you again." She looked at me, a question in her eyes, "Or I can fix this permanently. Now."
I didn't even bother giving her a look. How many times did I have to say not to kill people? "I'm driving over to check out my mother-in-law's house. Annabeth, can you and Harry stay here in case she comes by?"
Annabeth nodded weakly, and Cecily and I were out the door. Floyd staggered after us, "I think ... I'll stay here and talk to Annabeth," he said hesitantly.
"Fine. I'll call if we find anything." And we were in the car and on the road before I could really even think about what I was doing. I didn't want to think. I wanted to feel numb. I wanted to be cold and logical and be able to act quickly and decisively. Breaking down wouldn't help my little girls. I didn't know if action would help either, but at least it was a chance.
Cecily wisely stayed quiet for the drive. Carolyn's elegant townhouse was normally a ten minute drive away. That day I made it in less than seven. As we pulled into the perfectly manicured subdivision, I felt sure I was overreacting. I have been known to do that in the past. How could anything have happened in a place that would look at home on the cover of Better Homes and Gardens?
I parked in the pavered driveway on Carolyn's half of the attached townhome, and was out of the car before the engine had totally switched off. My fear came back in a tsunami wave that almost knocked me to my knees. The front door was open. Carolyn would never leave the front door open.
"Carolyn?" I called, bursting through the door. "Anybody home?"
There was no one home. Cassidy's stuffed elephant was lying on the sofa in the living room. The lunch dishes were still on the counter. A gigantic dollhouse with hundreds of rooms of toy furniture was in the middle of the floor, half set up. No Carolyn. No Megan and Cassidy.
I spun around at the sound of a footstep behind me. It was Cecily. She looked grim. "There's a car parked in the garage," she said softly. "Two booster seats in the back."
I chocked back a sob and ran to see. Carolyn's car was parked neatly just as Cecily had said. No sign of her or my daughters.
"There's no sign of a struggle," Cecily said helpfully as I came back into the house. "Nothing broken or knocked over. No blood."
I shot her a venomous look. "That's supposed to make me feel better?"
She looked down at her feet. An embarrassed vampire; what a novelty. "What do you want me to do?" she asked.
I reached out and gave her a hug. She stiffened at first, then hugged me back. "I'm sorry," I sniffed. "I'm glad you're here. I'm just really scared."
She pulled back out of the hug to arms length and looked me straight in the face. "We'll get them back, Piper. I promise you."
I nodded, quick and forceful. "We will." There was no other option. I would accept no other option. I would hold my girls again, alive and safe, and all would be well. That was the only way that this was ending.
"What now?"
I thought for a moment. "We need Sarah. If we find where the girls are being held, we'll need all the help we can get. Let's go pick her up, then go back to the house to think."
I closed the front door behind us and drove across town at a slightly slower speed. The last thing I needed was to be pulled over for a speeding ticket right now. As we turned a corner I caught sight of Cecily's face. She was thinking hard.
"What?" I asked.
She frowned. "Are you going to quit?" she asked.
"Quit?"
"Yes. Your mother-in-law said they would be returned if you quit."
I shook my head. "I'm not quitting. Quitting is not an option."
"But your daughters!"
"What about them?"
"Quitting is the easiest way to get them back safely."
I stopped at a red light and turned to look at her. "Easiest, maybe. Or maybe I quit, and we're all executed by the Synod and then humans are hunted to extinction. Or maybe I quit and never see my girls again. How can I trust the word of a kidnapper? No, the only option is to hunt whoever it is down and get my girls back myself."
She relaxed in her seat. "Good."
"Good?"
"I wasn't sure what you would do. It's your family. Sometimes people are too close the situation to be able to make the best decision."
The light turned green and I gunned the van forward. "Believe me," I said bitterly. "If I thought that there was any chance that some scumbag kidnapper would return my children unharmed if I cut off my right hand, I would do it. But quitting puts us all in danger, so it's not an option. If I give in to blackmail now, I've doomed not just my family, but everyone's family."
Cecily nodded. "Then we'll just have to find them."
I pulled into my parents' driveway and was relieved to see my dad's car in his usual parking space. I motioned Cecily to wait in the car and loped up to the front door. I'd left the van running and had to knock instead of using my key.
Dad opened the door. "Hey, Piper!" he greeted me with a hug.
"Hi, Dad. How's Mom?"
He shook his head. "She's resting. Sarah says she has no idea how your mother took the wrong pills, but the doctor says that it will wear off. What a weird reaction though! It's almost like she's gone crazy!"
I laughed nervously. I wasn't sure what Sarah had told him, but it sounded like a pretty good story. "Umm, can I borrow Sarah for a bit? Sister stuff."
"Sure," he smiled. "I can hold down the fort here. I'm glad you two are reconnecting."
"Yeah, it's great, Dad." I trotted down the hallway to pound on Sarah's door. I opened it without waiting for her to answer and took in the pigsty. Sarah belonged to the school of thought that believed that if everything was out on the floor you never had to look for anything. True, sometimes you mixed up your piles of clean and dirty laundry, or stepped on something sharp or breakable, but it was a real time saver.
Sarah was flopped on the bed with her pillow over her face. "I need your help, Sarah," I said urgently.
"Uh-huh," she grunted. "Like you needed my help this afternoon when you ditched me and Mom. Do you have any idea of how tough my day has been?"
I snatched the pillow off her head and tossed it on the ground. "I don't have time for this. I'm sorry you had to watch Mom, but we've got bigger problems now."
"Bigger problems?" she sat up, hair disheveled. "I had to slip Mom four sleeping pills before she would stop knocking holes in the walls with a hammer to see if there were any hidden alien listening devices. I had to wear a tinfoil hat on my head all day so she wouldn't try to tinfoil the entire house to protect me. I had to lie to Dad about how she took the wrong pills and had a bad reaction. Don't talk to me about problems!"
I almost jumped on the lying part to point out that she should be used to lying to Mom and Dad by now, but I restrained my big sister impulse and said instead, "Megan and Cassidy have been kidnapped."
Sarah's jaw snapped shut. "Oh. Let's go." Somehow, she found her shoes under a pile of towels and quickly ran a brush through her hair before tossing it on the floor. She pulled her silver bracelet out from under a stack of school books and jammed it on her arm. It might look like a disorganized pig pen, but she was ready to go in under thirty seconds.
We were back in the car and on the way home before anyone spoke again. "So, what happened?" Sarah asked.
Cecily filled her in quickly and her first idea surprised me. "Why don't you get Harvey to track them?"
"Harvey?" My dog? The one with an IQ slightly higher than a twig's?
"Yeah. Take him over to Carolyn's and command him to track the girls." Sarah seemed to think it would work.
"Sarah, this is the dog that can't find a piece of cheese dropped on the floor unless you point it out to him. I don't think he has any bloodhound in him."
Cecily tapped her lips with a finger. "Harvey might not have the greatest sense of smell ..."
The same idea hit me. "... but Annabeth does!"
"Annabeth?" Sarah obviously hadn't been paying the closest of attention to Cecily's quick recap.
"Previously, in the life of Piper ..." I said in a radio announcer's voice.
They both stared at me like I'd gone mad. Maybe I had. "What?"
"Nothing," I hunched my shoulder defensively. "Annabeth is our skunk ape friend who's staying with Cecily for a few days."
"Oh." Sarah blinked. "You really think she can track down Megan and Cecily with her nose?"
"You thought that Harvey could do it," I pointed out.
"Yeah, but Harvey is a dog. They're supposed to be good at smelling."
"They're also not supposed to pee in the house, but tell that to Harvey," I said dryly.
"She smelled that Piper is pregnant," Cecily said.
"Have you checked yet?" Sarah asked.
"Not yet," I focused on the road. "I haven't really had the time."
"We make the time," Sarah said wisely.
"Thanks, Dr. Phil," I snorted. "I'll remember that next time I have to choose between running to the store for a pregnancy test or hunting down a murderer." I blinked back some tears. "Or trying to find my daughters."
"And your mother-in-law," Cecily added.
"And my mother-in-law," I agreed, less tearfully.
Sarah took a breath to say something then stopped.
"What?" I prompted.
She took another breath, let it out slowly, then said, "It just doesn't make sense."
"What doesn't?"
"Why kidnap Carolyn and the girls?"
"To get me to quit."
"Quit what?" Sarah met my eyes in the rearview mirror. "It's not like we're close to finishing this job. We have no leads. No clues. And unless we kill Pravus, we're out of the picture in a few days anyway."
I thought about it. "You're right! We did something to trigger this. Someone thinks we're getting too close. Why else try to stop us like this? Why not just wait until the Synod stopped us permanently?"
"You're sure that the witch guy in the freezer was a dead end?" Sarah asked.
"He smelled pretty dead to me," Cecily quipped.
"So, where does that leave us?" She looked from Cecily to me, expectantly.
"I don't know ..." I trailed off. Something was not making sense here. Maybe if I thought it through aloud, starting at the beginning. "The Synod tasks us with executing Pravus. He says he's innocent. Lie Detector Boy says he's innocent. We try to find the real killer. It's not Annabeth. It's not the freezer guy. We're out of leads, and almost out of time. The Synod is going to step in and have the Guardians get rid of us. Then, Carolyn and the girls are kidnapped and I'm warned off." I shook my head. "It just doesn't make sense."
I pulled the car up into the garage and turned off the motor. We all sat there, lost in our own thoughts. Suddenly, it came to me. How stupid could I be? Apparently, really, really stupid. Colossally stupid. Insanely stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. I didn't know that I was bashing my head into the steering wheel until Cecily pulled me back.
"She's lost it!" she yelled to Sarah, and slapped me across the face. "Snap out of it, Piper!"
I caught her arm as she started another slap. "I haven't lost it," I sputtered, rubbing my cheek. "I just know who kidnapped the girls."
Never Trust a Witch
Sarah and Cecily stared at me, jaws dropped. "Who?" they said together.
I felt a moment of doubt. Was I wrong? Maybe I should walk them through my thought process instead of just blurting out a name. See if they reached the same conclusion. Then I'd know I hadn't gone crazy.
"We've based all our thinking on one fact," I said. "At least, we thought it was a fact. But what if it wasn't? What if we had it wrong? It changes everything!"
"Piper," Sarah said firmly, "if you don't start making more sense, I'm going to clobber you!"
"We assumed that the Human Lie Detector Boy actually had a supernatural ability," I explained.
"But, he did!" Sarah protested, "He told us ..." her eyes got huge.
"He told us that Pravus was innocent," I finished.
Cecily's eyes flashed black and furious, "But if Pravus is guilty ..."
"Then it all makes sense," I said. "We couldn't find the real killer, because we had already found the real killer. He lied to us. He killed those kids. He's been watching us all along, and he is the one who kidnapped Megan and Cassidy."
"And Carolyn," Sarah said distractedly.
"And Carolyn," I agreed.
Cecily's canines elongated and she turned to me with an accusing look. "I wanted to kill him," she said quietly.
I hung my head. This was all my fault. I thought I could read people. I thought I knew when people were telling the truth. I had trusted Pravus and now my daughters were the ones to pay. "I'm sorry," I whispered. "You were right all along. I was wrong. We should have executed him at the beginning. I'm so, so sorry."
A rim of white appeared around her eyes. Cecily reached over and patted my arm. "It's okay. I forgive you. Just as long as you don't stop me when we find him."
"Stop you?" I said bitterly. "I'm going to rip off his head with my own bare hands." Sarah stared at me in horror. "Okay," I backpedalled. "Probably not my own bare hands. But I definitely won't stop you again."
The garage door opened and Annabeth stuck her head out. "Is everything okay?" she asked. "Did you find them?"
I slid out of the car seat. "No," her face fell. "We didn't find them, but I think I know who has them."
"Pravus," she said, her eyes glittering with hate.
I stopped and stared at her. "How did you know?"
"He's a witch," she said, as if that explained everything. "I thought you were a fool to trust him."
Sarah and I looked at each other with humorless grins, "You can never trust a witch," we sang together.
Cecily huffed. "Laugh all you want, slurpees. Some sayings are there for a reason."
We entered the house and all flopped down in the living room. Harry was deep in a hand held video game and Floyd was sitting nervously in the armchair, jumping every time someone got too close.
"Want me to fix him now?" Sarah asked, pointing.
"Nah," I shook my head. "We've got bigger problems to deal with first. Then ..." I looked speculatively from him to Annabeth, "... we'll just have to see."
"So," Annabeth sat down primly on the edge of the couch. How in the world did someone who turned into a two-ton gorilla manage to look so dainty and lady-like? "Pravus is the murderer and he's kidnapped your children."
"In a nutshell," Cecily nodded.
Sarah made a face. "But how did he get us to go visit that kid? Or get the kid to tell us he was telling the truth? Something's still not right."
I shrugged. "We'll get answers when we catch up with him. First order of business is to find him and the girls."
"And Carolyn," Cecily added.
"And Carolyn."
Sarah wasn't finished, "Did he spell Mom on purpose?"
"It seems likely," Cecily said darkly, "to keep you distracted and off your game. Not a bad plan really." I wished she didn't sound quite so admiring.
I shook my head to clear it. "Annabeth, do you think that you could try to track Pravus and the girls by scent?"
She smiled, "I can try!"
Sarah was still going on. "And how did he know that we ran out of leads? How did he know that you found the freezer guy and that it was time to kidnap Megan and Cassidy? We're missing something here."
"Yeah," I was frustrated. "We're missing the fact that he's an evil, conniving witch and has been lying to us from day one. And that he has my daughters. That's all I need to know right now."
"Let's go then," Cecily was eager.
"Whoa," I held up a hand. "I need to get some things first." I headed off to my bedroom without explaining.
I got the shotgun back out of the closet and made sure I had a box of rounds. I had originally purchased the steel shot rounds to scare off werewolves. It was cheaper than silver and a whole lot easier to find. I didn't know if the steel would affect a witch the same way it did weres but figured that, if they were close to human in anatomy, the sound of a double barrel shotgun chambering a round would make them equally nervous.
I also got Mark's nine millimeter Beretta out of the small gun safe in his bedside drawer. I wasn't a good shot at any kind of distance, but if my target was less then fifteen feet away I was deadly. Especially if they were less than fifteen feet away and I had an entire clip to unload in them, then my odds of hitting something were vastly improved. Hey, I'm being honest here. A wise woman knows her limitations.
I also grabbed Mark's ankle length rain duster that he'd bought for a Halloween costume last year. Dumping the guns on the bed, I changed quickly into dark jeans and tennis-shoes. If things got physical I would prefer to not have exposed flesh and flip-flops to contend with. Running in flip-flops is difficult, as is kicking anything, but the biggest downside is in their name. It's the sound they make, and walking quietly is almost impossible.
Wardrobe changed, I tucked the nine mil. into a fanny pack and strapped it on my waist. Not very Dirty Harry of me? Well, I was hoping to retain at least some semblance of legality here and my concealed weapons permit was, by definition, for a concealed weapon, not one that might be seen by other people. I also felt really stupid tucking a gun into the back of my pants and had an irrational fear that I would shoot my butt off on accident. The fanny pack was the most comfortable and convenient way to be able to easily access a gun and yet have it completely concealed.
I then found a long duffle bag and wrapped it around the shotgun. Not legal at all, especially since it was loaded, but my options were limited here. This done, I took the rain duster out to Annabeth. I tossed it in her lap.
"What's this?" she asked, puzzled.
I winced. "No offense, but I'm assuming that you have to ... shift to smell better."
"Of course."
I saw Floyd's eyes light up like an alcoholic at an open bar.
"This is for you to wear then." I pointed to the duster. "It will help hide you better if anyone sees us tonight." I gave her an apologetic look. "I don't want to start more skunk ape rumors here in Melbourne."
She hefted the duster experimentally in one hand. "Fine. I'll wear it."
I let out a breath. "Let's do this then. I figure we drive back to Carolyn's house and start there. Her car is there and from the lunch dishes and toys I think that's the place they were taken from."
"Perfect," Annabeth slung the duster over her shoulder and told Harry to go visit the restroom before we left.
My heart caught in my throat. That was what I was supposed to say to Megan and Cassidy. Tell them to go potty, get their shoes on, to quit lollygagging and get in the car. I missed them so much it hurt. If I stopped to think I was going to break down and be no use to anyone. Get it together, Piper. I would have plenty of time to cry when we were all home safe again.
By the time we were all loaded into the minivan it was dusk. Cecily was moving with greater fluidity and I was grateful that she would be at the top of her game. Floyd had decided to come along and "document," although he promised, on threat of having his arms torn off and made into a bowtie for his neck (Cecily's words), that he would not publish any footage without our permission first.
His shock at finding that Cecily was a vampire was even funnier the second time around. It really was like deja vu all over again.
It was dark when we pulled up into Carolyn's driveway. I turned off the headlights and we all stumbled out of the minivan. "Do you want to go inside to shift?" I asked. I had a moment's worry that she would strip naked on the sidewalk like the last person I had seen shift had done. Not on the sidewalk, but out in public. Eww. I guess that weres don't have a lot of modesty issues.
Annabeth gave me a tight lipped smile and entered the house through the still unlocked front door. Floyd made to follow her, but one look from Cecily and he settled back to wait with the rest of us.
"Harry?" I asked.
"Yes, ma'am?"
"Can your mom understand us when we talk to her? When she's a skunk ape?" That was a pretty important point, and one I should have asked Annabeth from the beginning. Well, better late than never.
"Oh, yes, ma'am," Harry reassured me. "She can understand everything you say. She just can't form words with her mouth as a skunk ape."
I felt a tingle of something against my skin and then a waft of rotten eggs hit my nose. "Oh," I gagged, "I forgot how bad that smelled!"
Floyd was eagerly filming the front door. Cecily, Sarah, and I were all covering our noses and mouths and trying to look like we didn't want to puke. Harry was the only one unaffected. He had caught a lizard in the front bushes and was trying to get it to bite his earlobe and hang like an earring. Even through the smell, I had to smile. I remembered doing that as a child. Nice to see that both humans and skunk ape children liked to play with lizards.
I tried to look nonchalant as Annabeth came back out the front door. What I really wanted to do was run screaming for the woods. There is something about an eight-foot monkey that scares the living daylights out of you. Not to mention the smell. I thought I was pretty used to bad smells. After all, I had changed hundreds, if not thousands, of dirty diapers in my life. This was worse. I hoped that extended exposure would cause my nose to acclimate. Or just quit working. Either one would be good.
I held out Mark's rain duster and helped fix it around her shoulders. It barely came down to her thighs and there was no way her hairy arms were going to fit through the sleeves. The hood at least covered her face somewhat, and it was better than nothing. The last thing we needed was the neighbors calling animal control. Or the National Guard. Fortunately, in nicer subdivisions like this one, people were private, kept to themselves, and ignored their neighbors unless absolutely necessary. Carolyn might get a polite letter from the Home Owner's Association next week asking her to please check her trash since someone noticed an odor.
"Can you pick up their scent?" I asked hopefully. If she couldn't this whole trip had been a colossal waste of time.
The giant creature nodded its head and gave a wheezy snort. "That means 'yes,'" Harry translated, needlessly.
Annabeth started off at a slow shuffle, head down to the ground, snuffing loudly. Cecily, Sarah, Harry, and I all trailed behind at a distance. When she got to the street she picked up the pace, breaking into a lope. We had to trot to keep up and after a few blocks I began to wish that I had thought to follow in the car.
After another couple of blocks I was wheezing for breath, doubled over with a stitch in my side, and drenched in sweat. It might be dark out, but this was Florida, and the temperature had dropped to a balmy 82 degrees. Not the weather for running through neighborhoods following a skunk ape. On the plus side, since I couldn't breathe, I couldn't really smell either. Things might be looking up.
Cecily looked cool and relaxed, as if she had just stepped out of an air-conditioned limo. Sarah and Floyd, thankfully, were as sweaty and panting as me. That made me feel better. Childish? Yes, but misery loves company. Harry had the resilience of the young and looked like he was enjoying himself.
Finally, Annabeth came to a stop and started sniffing the air in ever increasing circles. We were in a small subdivision that, like most housing developments in Florida these days, had at least half the houses foreclosed or up for sale. The housing bubble crash had hit Melbourne hard. Nicely manicured lawns were next door to overgrown weedy lots and boarded up windows. We were standing on the sidewalk in front of one such house. The sign out front advertised a foreclosure agency and the place was clearly vacant.
Annabeth pointed with one beefy paw.
"Here?" I asked.
She nodded and woofed softly.
"You're sure they're here?"
She gave me a look and a low growl.
"Okay," I felt a cold sweat break out on my overheated skin. This was where things would get serious. "Cecily?"
"On it," she said, and ghosted around the side of the house. I moved our little group over a few houses, so as not to be visible from the front windows. Cecily was back in a flash.
"This is the place," she nodded. "I saw one of Megan's shoes in the front room and a purse. I couldn't get a good look in the back window without being seen, but I could hear children's and adult voices coming from the kitchen."
I felt like I took my first breath in years. Tears started behind my eyes and my nose prickled. It was not time to start crying. Hopefully there would be plenty of time for happy crying later. I just had to hold on to that thought.
I got a firm hold on my emotions. "Okay, here's the plan---"
Cecily interrupted, "---I'll go in, take off his head, and call you when the coast is clear." She drew the Sword of Justice and flourished it in the air.
I gave her a long look. "My kids are in there."
She looked bemused. "You've got a kid out here, too, Piper."
I breathed in through my nose in frustration. "Yes, and I intend to keep us all safe. Mentally as well as physically. And seeing you cut someone's head off is not something that my children should have to live with."
Sarah raised her hand, "I can erase any unpleasant memory."
I turned on her, "Really? Like you can erase my unpleasant memories? It doesn't work on me, Sarah, and for all we know, it won't work on them either. They're my kids, and they might have my resistance."
"Fine," Cecily crossed her arms over her chest, still holding the sword at an awkward angle. "What do you suggest?"
I looked back towards the deserted house. So close, and yet still so far away from my babies. No way was I waiting this one out on the sidelines. The truth was that I had to see for myself that they were okay. I couldn't wait outside for the news.
"All right. Floyd goes around back and makes some noise to cover the sound of us breaking in the front door."
It was Floyd's turn to raise his hand. "Noise?"
"Yeah, bark like a dog, yell like an angry neighbor trying to get the dog to shut up. Something like that."
Harry grinned. "I can do a really good dog bark! Can I help?"
I looked at Annabeth. She nodded. It was probably the safest place for him. "Sure," I smiled, "You two go around back and give us five minutes. Make as much noise as you can."
They both trotted off eagerly around the side of the house next door. I hoped they wouldn't be barked at by any neighbor dogs. It would help with the noise level, but I didn't want to attract too much attention from the neighbors.
"Can you kick open the front door?" I asked Cecily.
She raised an eyebrow at me. "I'm a vampire, aren't I?"
I paused with a new concern, "Can you enter the house without being invited?"
She assessed the house, "It's foreclosed. The owners' aren't living there. Pravus is there uninvited ... yes, I should be able to enter."
Not quite as resounding a 'yes' as I would have liked, but it would have to do. "We break in the front door, make our way to the kitchen. Annabeth, you grab the girls and Carolyn, and Sarah, Cecily and I will take care of Pravus."
Annabeth huffed and everyone else nodded.
"Good plan," Cecily said. "I like it. Simple, and entirely ignoring any obstacles, like: what if Pravus hears us breaking in the front door. Or: what if he gets the drop on us with his magic."
I glanced at my watch. Five minutes were almost up. "You got a better idea?" I said sharply.
"No," she smiled, her eyes starting to eerily vamp out. "That's why I said I like it."
"Let's go then," I reached over and squeezed Sarah's hand. She was nervously twisting her silver bracelet around her wrist. She gave me a sick smile and squeezed back. I almost offered her the shotgun, but she looked a little too wild-eyed as it was. I handed it to Annabeth instead. She checked the safety and smoothly chambered a round so I felt pretty confident that she knew what she was doing. I pulled out the nine mil. and did the same.
An ungodly racket started in the back yard. It sounded like a small terrier was having a conniption fit while a Great Dane encouraged it. Occasionally, when the Dane was quiet, a man's voice could be heard, yelling at the dogs to shut up. That was our cue.
Cecily flowed with inhuman speed to the front door, raised one foot and planted it firmly into the door, just to the side of the doorknob. The frame splintered and the door flew open on its hinges. Before it could slam into the inside wall, Cecily had regained her balance and caught the edge of the door in her hand. I blinked. It had happened so fast!
Cecily looked over her shoulder. "Come on," she hissed.
Sarah and I exchanged looks and followed Cecily into the house. The front rooms were empty. The carpet was dirty and stained and someone, probably the angry foreclosed owner, had bashed huge holes into the drywall. There were bare wires hanging out of the ceiling where the light fixtures had been ripped out, and the house was dark. I could see light coming from the kitchen, along with shadows moving on the wall.
My heart was hammering so loud in my ears that a Salvation Army band could have snuck up behind me without my hearing it. Adrenaline was pumping through my veins and making my hands shake. When this was over I was staying home for a month. A year. Maybe I would never leave the house again.
I was terrified of walking down that hallway, but I heard a voice that pushed me into action.
"I wanna juice cup!" Megan's voice whined.
That was all I needed. My baby needed me. I barreled down the hallway, Cecily and Sarah at my heels, and plunged directly into a net of blue energy that was covering the door opening. We were trapped like bugs in a spider's web.
The Final Dead End
From within the blue web I could clearly see the entire kitchen. Carolyn was sitting on the floor, back against the wall, hair in disarray, and a blank look on her face. Megan and Cassidy were both perched on bar stools at the counter, coloring in a coloring book. I was instantly upset. Didn't that witch know that a two year-old was too young to be sitting on a bar stool? She could flip over backwards and crack her head open!
Pravus was standing directly in front of us, a smug look on his face. "Well, well, well," he smirked. "I've been expecting you."
Why did they always say that? It was exactly what the last witch who had caught me snooping around the abortion clinic had said. In her case, she had been telling a big fat lie. I had caught her by surprise and she had to lock me up in a closet for a long time while she gathered her people and paraphernalia. In Pravus' case, he might be telling the truth. The web trap did seem to point towards prior knowledge of our arrival.
"It's been so much fun following your progress," Pravus continued. "I must admit, you were even faster than I had hoped. I was getting fed up with your brats' whining.""
I struggled vainly against the web and settled for just glaring at him. There would be time to rip out his heart later. Hopefully.
"Mommy!" Megan looked up and saw me. "I'm hungry and I want to go home. Granny's not being any fun."
I looked over at Carolyn. I'd never seen her so disheveled. She was completely out of it. I'd worry about fixing that later.
I smiled at the girls. "How are you doing, guys?"
Cassidy pouted. "Hungry," she said.
"Okay," I kept my voice even and calm. "We'll go to McDonald's for dinner after this. How does that sound?"
"Yay!" they cheered. "Chicken and french-fries!"
Pravus frowned. "You still think that you're walking out of here?" He waved his fingers in a complicated pattern and the blue web disappeared. I flexed my shoulders carefully but stayed still. A quick check out my peripheral vision showed me Cecily and Sarah doing the same thing. Funny, where was Annabeth?
Pravus took a few steps backwards to stand behind my girls. He rested one hand on Megan's shoulder. I gritted my teeth. We'd play this as calm as possible until I could get him away from the girls. Then I was letting him have it.
"This whole thing had been immensely amusing," he said.
"You murdered those students," I said with heat. "How did you get that boy to say that you were telling the truth?"
"How did you know that we would go there?" Sarah added. "Or that we were coming here?"
Pravus smiled at her. "You told me," he said.
"What?"
He pointed to the silver bracelet on her arm. "You've told me everything that has been going on."
Cecily and I looked at Sarah in shock. "Sarah?" I asked, "Is that true?"
Sarah looked equally shocked. "N-no!" she stammered. "I haven't been helping him! It's just a weight loss bracelet!"
"A what?" I admit, I was a little sharp.
"A weight loss bracelet!" she said again. "I bought it from one of the stores in town!"
"A wiccan store?" Cecily asked.
"Yes," Sarah's eyes were filling with tears. "She said that I could eat whatever I wanted and not gain weight!"
I glared at her. So that's why she had been stuffing her face every time I turned around. "You bought a bracelet from a witch?" I said incredulously. "They hate us, Sarah. They're out to get us!"
A tear broke free and ran down her face. "I thought it was okay." She looked down at the bracelet, then slid it off her arm and flung it on the floor. "I thought it was just a simple charm."
"You can never trust a witch," Cecily snarled, drawing her sword and moving a few steps wider and further into the room.
Pravus kept one hand on Megan's neck and turned to keep all of us in his line of sight. "You were most helpful, Sarah," he crooned. "Not only could I follow your progress, but it's so much easier to influence someone's mind when they are wearing your curse."
"That's why we believed that you were innocent?" I cried.
"That's why Sarah believed," he sneered. "You, my dear Piper, are merely as stupid and trusting as you look. You are so incapable of killing someone, that you would believe anything, no matter how ludicrous, in order to stay in your nice, safe, little world. You are weak." He spat the word. "Weak and stupid. And we will be well rid of all of you."
I clenched my hand around the butt of the gun. "I don't have a problem killing you now," I said in a low voice. "Step away from my children."
"Or what?" Pravus laughed. "You're nothing. I have guarded myself against your powers and you are useless. All of you will die here. Perhaps, if you cooperate, I won't stage the scene to point to you as a crazed murderer who killed her mother-in-law and her own children." He ran a hand lightly over Megan's head. "Did you drown them in the tub or just shoot them?"
"Step. Away. From. My. Children," I said again.
Pravus sneered at me. "Tell you what, human. You retract your membership from the USB and I will release your children."
"No!" Cecily shouted.
"No," I echoed, softer.
"No?" Pravus was surprised. "Not even to save your children's lives?"
"No," I said again.
"What kind of mother are you?" he taunted. "You'd see your children dead before you dropped out of a stupid club?"
I gritted my teeth. "No," I said. "I'm the kind of mother who loves her children too much to trust a lying witch for a second."
I caught sight of Annabeth sneaking down the short hallway off the kitchen. She was directly behind Pravus and out of his line of sight. I acted instantly. Whatever Pravus had thought of my weakness, he had definitely not imagined a berserk mother leaping over the kitchen counter and taking him down in a flying tackle. Megan and Cassidy also went flying, but that was part of my plan.
"Get them out of here!" I screamed, trying to dig my fingers into Pravus' eyes and managing to knee him in the balls at the same time. I had hoped to be able to knock the back of his head into the tile floor and either stun or kill him. I wasn't picky. But he was up and fighting with me before I could even register the pain and bruises and I had from hitting the floor myself.
We rolled, taking down a barstool and I saw Annabeth snatch up Megan and Cassidy under one arm and grab Carolyn on the way out. Pravus hit me hard in the face and I lashed out blindly, barely connecting with his arm. Somehow he got his feet between us and kicked me off. I went flying to crash against the wall but kept a death grip on the gun. I brought it up and pointed it at him.
It was impossible to miss at that range. He was scrambling to his feet, with his back turned to me. I aimed, finger on the trigger. My girls were out of the house and safe. There was no one in the line of fire. I should have pulled the trigger. I should have emptied the clip into his worthless hide. But I hesitated. I've never killed someone before. God help me. I hesitated.
Cecily was leaping into the fray, sword raised, eyes black with vampire hunger. She swept the blade towards Pravus' neck and with one hand motion he blasted her with a sheet of energy that sent her tumbling through the air to land halfway through the drywall. The sword went flying out of her hand and skittered across the floor.
My eyes wide with fear, I finally pulled the trigger. The loud report half deafened me and I kept squeezing and squeezing the trigger until I realized that the gun was clicking on emptiness. Pravus straightened, brushing bits of metal off his shirt. He smiled at me, completely unharmed. I knew I had hit him. It just hadn't mattered.
"My turn," he smiled and casually turned and hit Sarah with a bolt of fire. She had been charging him, barstool raised over her head, ready to clobber him. The fire knocked her to her butt and she slid backwards across the floor.
The sight of her singed shirt enraged me and I leapt back into the fray. Cecily had pried herself out of the wall and was moving with lightning speed towards her sword. Pravus flicked his fingers and it was like she ran into an invisible brick wall. She rebounded off nothing and the force split her skin down her forehead. I tackled him around the knees and we both went down. He rolled quickly away and was free. I felt like he was playing with me.
I have never so badly wanted to inflict physical harm on another person. I was ready to gouge his eyes out and I couldn't even land a punch. I felt frustrated and afraid. My kids were safe, but they needed their mommy, and, unless things started to change, there was a good chance I wasn't walking out of this house.
I dove for Pravus again, but he neatly sidestepped me and I tumbled into the counter. Cecily was staggering to her feet when Pravus caught her again with a blast of energy. He began to laugh.
"I don't know what they were so worried about," he chuckled. "You are pitiful! To think that I was concerned about you!" He waved his hand to the side and Sarah was flattened against the wall. She struggled but remained pinned and unmoving.
Cecily was picking herself up again, murder in her eyes. I hoped I would never see a vampire coming for me with that look in her eyes. I'd probably die of fright before I was even harmed. I felt the icy grip of fear squeezing the life out of my soul. The witch couldn't be beaten. He was just too powerful. He'd murdered those kids just to get to me. It was almost like I had killed them myself.
Cecily made a dash for her sword again and again was picked up in the air, this time to be smashed against the ceiling. I froze in the middle of the kitchen. Sister on one side, friend on the other, and unstoppable evil facing me.
Pravus cocked his head to one side. "This is getting dull," he said. "Tell you what, to make things more interesting. Take that sword and cut off your little bloodsucking friend's head. She's dead anyway. Do that and I'll let you and your sister walk out of here alive."
I glanced over at Sarah. She was still pinned to the wall, blood trickling down from her nose. She looked at me in mute appeal. Pravus moved his hand and Cecily slid down from the ceiling to stand frozen on the ground.
"Come on," Pravus coaxed. "I'm going to kill all of you. Then I'm going to drain your blood and use it to power my magic when I go after your family. They won't know why they are in pain and dying, but I'll be sure to let them know it's all your fault."
"You ... bastard!" I cursed. "You stay away from my family!"
He grinned. "I will. On one condition. Kill the vampire. She'd rather that you were the one to take her life. You'd be doing her a favor. No sense in all of you dying. Kill her and I will let you go."
Cecily struggled to speak. "He's right, Piper. Save your family. It's okay."
Visions of Mark being tortured, skinned alive, dismembered, screaming in pain, flashed across my eyesight. Megan and Cassidy were crying, alone, afraid. My parents were running for their lives in terror. I could prevent all of it.
"No," I whispered.
"No," Pravus asked. "Is that your final answer? Think carefully, human. I'm only going to offer this once. I might even keep you alive long enough to see your family suffer."
Before I knew it, I had taken a step towards the fallen Sword of Justice. I couldn't breathe. The same visions of horror flickered across my sight. My heart broke as I heard Megan and Cassidy screaming for me. I took another step towards the sword.
"It's okay, Piper," Cecily gasped. "I understand."
I bent and picked up the sword. The hilt was cold in my palm.
"Good, good," Pravus encouraged. "You know it's the right choice. Kill the bloodsucker. She's already dead. It's only logical."
I got a two handed grip on the handle and turned to face them. Cecily closed her eyes, still unable to move, but accepting her fate. A tear rolled down my face. She was my friend. She had saved my life more times than I could remember. Either way I was dooming her to die.
I felt a wave of despair so strong that I almost fell to my knees. That was what finally did it. It was too much. I remembered this feeling. The helplessness, the fear, the self-loathing, and the wanting to end it all. I lowered my head so that Pravus couldn't see my face. Hopefully he would think I was overwhelmed by emotion. These were the same feelings I had felt at the abortion clinic when I had almost slit my wrists. Stupid witches. Messing with my brain.
I shoved all emotions aside. "Logical" my round rear end! If I murdered Cecily I could spend the rest of my life in human prison. That is, if the Synod didn't decide to send the Guardians after me anyways. There was only one death that would protect my family, and it wasn't Cecily's.
I took a step towards Pravus and Cecily, pretending to be shaky and broken. "I'm sorry," I whispered to Cecily.
She nodded. "Don't worry, Piper," she assured me.
I took another step.
"It will all be over soon," Pravus crooned. I felt another wave of emotion batter against my mind, but I was shut down. Completely cold and emotionless.
I took another step, this time veering towards Pravus. His eyes got big and after a shocked second he started to laugh.
"You're going to try to kill me!" he choked he was laughing so hard. "You're ludicrous! You couldn't kill me the first time! You don't have it in you. You are a weak, pathetic, puny human. You're nothing! You don't have the guts to do anything! You couldn't even pull the trigger of your useless pistol!" He laughed and laughed, bending over to place his hands on his knees.
I took another step towards him while he wasn't looking and raised the sword. Could I do it? Could I really cut off someone's head? Could I believe in what I was doing strong enough to put force behind the blow to sever his neck? For a moment I doubted. Maybe I should just kill Cecily. She wouldn't fight back. She didn't mind. It was really the smartest thing to do.
Pravus looked up. "You can't even do this right, Piper," he said sadly. "I gave you a chance to save your children, and you couldn't even do that."
All the emotions that I had been holding back crashed in. They blended together to become rage. Pravus turned from me with an expression of disgust. He raised a hand to begin another spell and I screamed.
Swinging the sword with all my might I connected with his spine. The blade sliced through his neck with no resistance. One second he was opening his mouth to speak, the next, the light had gone from his eyes. There was no one home anymore. His head went flying off, spraying blood around the room.
Once, against my better judgment, I had watched Kill Bill with Mark. At the end of the movie there is a fight scene with hundreds of people getting dismembered by swords and blood fountaining out of their body parts like water out of fire hose. I had thought it excessively gory and ridiculous. Now, I wasn't so sure.
It might not be a fire hose of blood, but it was close enough. Within seconds the entire kitchen had been baptized in blood. The head landed on the ground and rolled to bump against Sarah's feet. She was just beginning to move, and I could feel Cecily moving behind me.
Sarah stared down at Pravus' head. His eyes were still wide with shock, and his mouth was open. Sarah poked the head with a toe. I fought back the urge to vomit.
She started laughing. Giggling at first, then belly bursting hysteria. Cecily and I stood, not sure what to do next.
Sarah gasped for breath, leaning against the wall as her sides shook with laughter.
"Want to let us in on the joke?" Cecily spoke.
Sarah tried to speak, kept laughing, tried again, then finally got control enough to be understood. "Life's a witch," she giggled.
I felt my mouth twitch in a grim. "And then you fly," I finished.
Laying Things to Rest
We were standing there in the kitchen, covered in gore, watching the pool of blood spread across the floor, when the Guardians burst in. It was a witch/werewolf team and they had come expecting a fight. They both staggered to a halt as they burst into the house and realized what they were looking at.
"Pravus!" the witch woman shrieked. She was dowdy and overweight, dressed in Birkenstocks, a long-tiered skirt, and a flowery blouse. It would have been hard to take her seriously if it wasn't for the crackling blue fire that she held in each hand.
She wiped her fingers back to normal and knelt by the body, heedless of the blood that soaked instantly into her skirt. "What happened?" she asked, disbelief clear on her face.
Cecily took a step forward, "Your services are not required here," she said stiffly. "Piper Cavanaugh's team has completed their assignment. The guilty party is dead. Everything is covered up and handled."
The were was a short, stocky man, clean shaven and going bald, which surprised me. I thought all werewolves were overly hairy. I guess not. At first I had thought he was human, but then I realized, duh, Sarah and I were the only human members of the USB. The snarling wolf tattoo on his arm had clued me into his "wereness." That and something about how he sniffed the air and dropped into a fighting stance the instant he entered the room. Seeing no immediate threat, he slowly eased into a more relaxed stance. "This is the witch, Pravus?" he asked in a low rumble.
"Yes," I said, stepping forward. If it was "my" team, I should take some responsibility.
He eyed the body distastefully, "We had received a report that you had failed in your task and were refusing to comply with orders." He looked pointedly at his witch partner. It wasn't hard to guess where he had heard that from.
I gave them a forced smile. "As you can see, you heard wrong. Our job was to execute Pravus and we have done so."
The were shrugged and turned to go. The witch stood up, fury on her face. "This is not right!" she shrieked.
I squared off in front of her. "You're darn right!" I snapped. "Pravus wasn't working alone. It seems that he had the support of the WAND in his attempt to eliminate an entire species from the USB. I'm going to have some charges of my own to press here, very soon."
She glared at me and I glared right back. No way was I letting them get away with this. I knew I had a snowball's chance in hell of getting any kind of serious repercussions for the WAND, but I could try.
The were man stepped back towards us. "Is this true?" he asked his partner.
She spluttered and sputtered and looked completely guilty.
The man gave her a look of disgust. "Would you like her life?" he asked seriously.
"What?" I squeaked.
"It is within your rights to take her life. I will vouch that your actions were justified."
What kind of freak show was this? No, I didn't want to kill her! What good would that do? These people were nuts.
"Piper," Sarah stepped up behind me, "What about Mom?"
"Yeah," I said. "I want the curse lifted from my mother."
The witch looked puzzled. "But Pravus is dead!" she said.
I didn't see how that changed anything. I still wanted my mom's sanity back.
Cecily explained. "Most spells only last for the lifetime of the caster. Your mom should have been freed with his death."
Oh. Well. Had I known that I might have been a little less hesitant in pulling the trigger earlier. Okay then. I could come up with some other demands.
"I want the WAND to promise to leave us alone," I said.
"Or else what?" the witch sneered.
"Or else I take this whole mess to the Synod and say that the WAND threatened to expose all of the USB to the human world by kidnapping humans in an attempt to blackmail a member species. And they failed. How do you think that will go over?"
From the look on her face it was apparent that she didn't think it would go over very well at all. "Fine," she spat. "I will talk to my people."
"And," I added, not done, "I want a real spell, cast on a real billboard in Orlando. The one that Pravus promised me."
"Done," she said. "But nothing else."
I looked at Cecily. She nodded once. It was the best deal we were going to get at the moment. "All right then," I said. "You keep your end of the deal and I won't report this whole fiasco to the Synod."
The witch and the were nodded and then disappeared into the night. Leaving, unfortunately, a huge mess for us to clean up. I sighed and looked around the room. "I've got to go check on my kids first," I said. "Sarah, I'll need your help fixing Carolyn's memories at least, and if you can help the girls, that would be great."
Cecily looked at the still warm body on the floor and licked her lips. "I'll stay here and start cleaning up," she said.
I made a face. I didn't want to know. I didn't want to know. "Thanks," I said, pretending not to see the hunger in her quickly darkening eyes. "We'll be back in an hour."
"Take your time," was the answer and she waited impatiently for us to leave.
Needless to say, we were out of there quickly. There was no one outside and I paused for a moment in indecision. Where would Annabeth take the girls? The first place to check was Carolyn's house. I trotted back the way we came, Sarah running lightly behind me. I was wheezing and had a huge stitch in my side after the first block but Sarah didn't even sound like she was breathing hard. Oh, to be young again.
Hmmph. Speaking of young, we'd have to have a little talk about her weight loss bracelet once things calmed down a bit. I couldn't believe that she had been so stupid as to buy a spell from a witch. She was lucky it hadn't made her gain weight, or grow a second nose, or make pimples break out all over her face. Oh no, all it had done was let the witches influence her thoughts and listen in on our plans. We were definitely having a talk about this.
We weren't talking about anything right now though. I needed all the air I could get to keep jogging. Maybe I wasn't in as great shape as I thought. We rounded the final corner and I started sizing up the distance to Carolyn's driveway. I might just make it there before I passed out from lack of oxygen. That's when I saw the house lights on. Someone was home, and I was betting it was my daughters. I got a second wind and sprinted the last couple yards.
"Hey," Sarah panted behind me, but I wasn't going to feel safe until I held my babies in my arms again.
I burst in the front door and saw Carolyn, Megan, Cassidy, and Harry sitting at the kitchen table. Floyd was helping Annabeth serve them steaming cups of hot cocoa, topped with marshmallows.
"Megan! Cassidy!" I exclaimed in relief. I held out my arms, wanting to squeeze them both and make sure they were real.
"Hi, Mom," Megan said, calmly sipping her drink. "We got hot chocolate."
Cassie was even less enthused to see me. "Hi, An-Sarah!" she said. "Wanna mashmillow?"
Sarah came to a stop behind me. "They don't appear to be emotionally scarred," she whispered in my ear.
Ha. Little ingrates. There I had been, tearing my hair out with worry, risking my life and lots of other people's lives, sick at heart with missing them, and they acted like not a thing had happened.
I turned to Carolyn. She was dazedly looking around the room like she had never seen it before. "Piper?" she said weakly.
"Sarah?"
"I'm on it," Sarah assured me. "Hey, Carolyn!" she greeted her gently. "Why don't you come back to your room with me and we'll have a little talk."
Carolyn looked at me for permission. I gave her a big reassuring smile and a hand push motion. She set her mug down carefully on the table and followed meekly after Sarah. Wow. Pravus had really done a number on her. Speaking of which, I pulled out my phone and called my dad.
"Hey, how's Mom feeling?" I asked, fingers crossed.
"Oh, hi, Piper," he answered. "She's fine. She woke up a little while ago and doesn't remember much. She's in the kitchen right now trying to put all the dishes away. I think she thinks I'm playing a practical joke on her." He laughed, completely unconcerned. "We'll just all have to pretend like this didn't happen. You know how your mom gets when she's embarrassed."
"Okay, Dad. Mum's the word."
I hung up relieved and knelt down between Megan and Cassidy's chairs. I put an arm around each of them and kissed the tops of their heads. All the tears that I had been holding back chose that moment to burst forth. I scooped them both into my lap and sobbed and sobbed.
"Mommy?" Megan asked. "You okay?"
"Yeah, honey," I wailed. "Mommy's fine. I just love you guys."
"Wet," Cassidy announced distastefully.
"I'm sorry," I sniffed, wiping tears off her face. "Mommy's just really happy to see you two."
Sarah came back in and picked up Carolyn's hot cocoa mug. She hesitated for a second then decided that she wasn't really that worried about germs. After all we had been through, who could blame her. She took a sip and closed her eyes in bliss.
"All okay?" I asked, nodding back at the master bedroom.
"Everything's squared away," she said, taking another sip. "All will be back to normal in the morning."
"Good," I sighed. "I need to get these two little munchkins back to bed."
Annabeth quickly collected the mugs and rinsed them out in the sink. I set a hand on her shoulder. "Thanks," I said softly. "I owe you."
She smiled. "You got rid of that witch. I'm the one who owes you."
I looked over to where Floyd was putting the marshmallows away. "What do you want to do about him?" I asked.
"Floyd?"
"Yeah. Sarah can erase his memory again."
She stopped and looked at him for a long moment. "It didn't work too well last time," she said slowly.
"No, he's pretty persistent."
She cocked her head to one side. "I could make some money off of this."
"You could."
We both looked back at Harry, half asleep at the table. "Harry and I could use some extra cash."
I grinned, "All right then. Floyd can remember. But if you ever change your mind ..."
"I know who to call."
I collected the car-seats from Carolyn's car in the garage and moved them back to my minivan. It would be a tight fit, but it was just a short trip across town. Cecily appeared at my side as I backed out of the car after arranging the seatbelts.
"Hi," she said, making me jump half a yard in the air.
"Hey," I held a hand over my pounding heart. "Thanks for that."
She smiled. A cat in the cream smile. I shut down any thought process that might try to make sense of that. I didn't want to think about it. Really.
"Do you mind if I take the girls home to bed before we go back to clean up?" I asked.
She shrugged. "It's already done."
"Really? That was fast."
She smiled again and I decided not to ask any more questions. Later, I found out that Cecily's idea of "cleaning up" was to pour gasoline on everything and set it on fire. The next week there was an article in the newspaper about a vagrant accidentally setting fire to the house he had broken into and burning it down, killing himself in the process. How the forensics explained his decapitated head, I had no idea, and I wasn't going to ask. Some things are better left in the dark.
I did have one thing I needed to know though. I waited until Sarah was dropped off at her home, the girls were safely tucked in bed, Floyd had left and Annabeth and Harry had settled in at Cecily's house for the night.
"Cecily?" I asked.
"Yes?"
"Why didn't Pravus use magic on me?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, he used magic on you and Sarah. He kept you pinned to the walls. Honestly, when I picked up that sword I had no hope of using it. I thought for sure that he was just playing with me. Why did he let me pick it up and swing it?"
She smiled. "He was bluffing, Piper, and you called his bluff. By the way, thank you. Very few people would have been able to stand up to him."
I shook my head. "He didn't even really try to stop me!"
"He was using all his power to hold Sarah and me in place," she explained. "All he had left was enough to try and convince you that you had failed." She made a rueful face, "It was working on me. I thought it was over. I thought the best thing would be for you to kill me. I'm glad you didn't though."
I felt a flash of anger. "He thought I was the most vulnerable!" The anger turned to rage. "That little witch creep used up all his power on the two people he thought were the biggest threats!"
Cecily backed up a step and held up both hands. "Whoa there! It's over!"
I stomped up and down to release tension. "He thought I wasn't a threat! He really thought I wasn't a threat!" I whirled on Cecily. "I am a threat!"
She grinned and patted my arm. "I know you are, Piper."
I shook her off. "I'm dangerous! I should be taken seriously!"
Cecily edged towards the front door. "Yes, you should. But for once, I'm glad that Pravus underestimated you."
I crossed my arms and scowled. I was glad I cut off his stupid head. That was the last time he would ever get to misjudge me. I showed him. I suddenly noticed that the house was empty. Cecily had slipped out quietly.
I tiptoed into the girls' room to watch them sleep. They looked so peaceful. I knew that in a few days they would be driving me crazy again and I would threaten to sell them to the gypsies. But right now, with almost losing them so clear in my mind, I would treasure every little moment I had with them.
"Kind of vague, don't you think?" Cecily, Sarah and I were standing underneath a gigantic roadside billboard off International Drive in Orlando.
I read the billboard again. It merely listed my cell number and instructed whoever could read it to call.
Sarah cocked her head to one side. "Yeah," she agreed, "it's vague. Maybe it should say 'if you can read this you're not crazy.'"
"That might not be true," Cecily muttered. She was still a little piqued after our argument on the way over. She had insisted on bringing the Sword of Justice with her. I think she was more than a little jealous that I had gotten to use it and she hadn't. It's not like I wanted it to happen that way. The thing gave me the creeps, and I don't care what she said, I still found it almost impossible to believe that it wasn't clearly visible to everyone. Sort of like the billboard. How could everyone not read it? Would I be fielding calls from half the city?
"The witches came through," Sarah pointed out.
"Thank you Captain Obvious," I replied.
"I mean, you asked them to do a spell, they did it, and it worked." I knew she was trying to make a point, and I knew what that point was, but I wasn't going to help her.
"So far," I said darkly. I didn't know how the WAND could twist this to come back and bite me, and I was pretty sure that they hadn't figured out a way yet either. But when they did ...
"So," Sarah plunged on, "Not all spells are bad."
"Like weight loss spells?" I asked snidely.
Sarah fidgeted. "I'm just saying, we needed this billboard. It's going to help our membership in the USB. And that helps protect all humans. And we'll be helping people who think they're crazy. So, in this case, it's a good spell."
Cecily took a step back into the shade. "There's always another way," she said.
Sarah crossed her arms stubbornly, "Yeah, maybe. I'm just saying, it's not all black and white like Piper makes it out to be."
I decided to back up Cecily, just to cause a little trouble. "Cecily's right. We almost found another human with an ability all on our own."
"Who," Sarah scoffed. "The lie detector kid? He was a fake, paid by the WAND to lie to us!"
I turned to walk back to where we had parked the car. It was too hot to stand out here for long. I needed air-conditioning. "Yeah, well, he might not have been and then we would have found him." It was lame for a retort, but it was the best I had at the moment. I could have pointed out that we never would have seen the newspaper article if Sarah hadn't been wearing the bracelet and under the WAND's influence, but I could tell Sarah was feeling guilty enough at the moment. I would save that for when I needed some heavy duty guilt-ammunition.
I bumped into Cecily who had been walking in front of me. She had stopped suddenly and was staring at something. "What?" I asked.
She pointed at our car. "Isn't that the lie detector guy?" she asked.
I blinked and put up a hand to shade my eyes. Sure enough, standing awkwardly by the car was the kid we had just been talking about. I heard a sharp intake of breath behind me and then Sarah went barreling past.
"Hey, you!" she yelled. The boy cringed but stood his ground. "You've got a lot of nerve coming here!"
Cecily and I came to a stop, flanking Sarah. The boy looked like he wanted to run. He opened and closed his mouth a few times like a goldfish.
"Well?" Sarah demanded. "You here to lie to us again?"
"I never ..." the boy finally sputtered. "I didn't ... I ..." he blushed bright red. "I'm sorry," he said. "I was paid a thousand dollars to say that whoever you brought to see me was telling the truth."
I crossed my arms and gave him my best "mom" stare. "How did you know we were the people to lie to?" I asked suspiciously. This could be another trick by the WAND. Get us to believe that a normal human had abilities and then after we tell said human about the USB, we all get executed for revealing magic to humans.
He shrugged, "They described you. It was pretty obvious when you showed up at my door."
""Well, I hope you enjoy your money," I said coldly and clicked the locks open on the car.
"Wait!" he cried. "I ... is that your number?" he pointed at the billboard.
I gave him a narrow glare. I still wasn't buying it. He was a patsy for the WAND. We'd just pulled our rear ends out of serious trouble and I wasn't eager to return there. "Is what my number?" I asked.
"On that billboard," he said. "My friend said it's an advertisement for Ripley's Believe It or Not, but I see a phone number that it says to call."
I sighed. My instinct was to trust him. If he truly had a supernatural ability, then he was going to need our help. But if this was a trap ... The last time I'd gone with my instincts and believed someone I'd almost gotten all of us killed.
"Sorry, kid," I sighed. "You blew it."
I jerked my head at Cecily and Sarah to tell them to get in the car.
The kid hung his head dejectedly. Sarah obviously felt sorry for him. She patted him on the back. "How'd you find us, anyways?" she asked.
"I saw you standing there on the side of the road," he said timidly. "I was having lunch over there with my friends." He pointed across the shopping plaza at a McDonald's. "It's kind of hard to miss someone with a giant sword strapped on their back." He laughed nervously, "I mean, really, how many people do you see walking around like that?"
I froze, hand on the car handle. Cecily met my eyes over the roof of the car. "It's up to you," her face seemed to say. Great. Just great. What to do? It was so hard to let go of my doubt and trust. But maybe that had been part of the WAND's plan. To keep us so constantly second-guessing ourselves, that we became stagnant.
I glanced at Sarah. She shrugged, also leaving it up to me. They trusted me, I realized. They really trusted me. Even though I had totally blown it, they still trusted me to make the right choice. I felt a surge of warmth rush through me and I blinked back tears.
The boy --- his name came to me, James --- turned to walk away. I tossed a mental coin up in the air and waited for it to land.
"Hey, James!" I called after him. "We need to talk."
The End
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Piper will return in:
A Little Rhine Must Fall
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