First Destroy All Giant Monsters (The World Wide Witches Research Association) (24 page)

Smoke shouldered open the door and carried in a heavy tray.

“All right,” said Karl. “I’ll kiss Smoke for a cup of coffee.”

“Not in this life,” muttered Smoke putting a tray down on a small table. “Ask Lightning.”

“How do you feel this morning?” said Amber.

“You have to ask?”

“Actually, yes, I do. Do we have to send for a doctor?”

Karl rubbed his chest and arm remembering yesterday’s pain.

“No. I remember the nightmare. Oh, my God, I remember. I was in it, but … I don’t know how to say it; I survived.”

“Well, I was out for most of the night,” said Amber. “I wasn’t able to set up any spells to run during the morning energy drain because I passed out before. Sorry about that. But as soon as the drain was over I gave … I boosted you.”

“It wasn’t as if I haven’t been through it before,” Karl’s swung his feet off the couch and failed to stand. He dropped back, supporting his head on his hands. “It wasn’t as bad as the day before.”

“Yeah, I wondered about that. Did the nightmare change in any way that you remember? Take your time answering. You look half dead.”

“Only half? I’m improving.”

Smoke poured a heavily creamed cup of coffee and placed it and several warm rolls near Karl’s elbow. Karl seized the cup first, inhaling deeply. The scent was almost enough to make life worth living. He took a big bite of a roll, surprised to discover it was full of meat and vegetables instead of something sweet. Amber waited patiently while he sipped and ate. When he finished the coffee he lay back and rested on the pillows.

“Let’s see. I was sitting Shiva the night before, so I wasn’t asleep.”

“Hmm, okay. That’s important on two points. Maybe they can’t do drains if you’re awake. And maybe the drain was worse because they were doing an energy catch up. But this doesn’t make much sense. If they’ve got lots and lots of victims, why did you being awake matter?”

“No idea,” Karl waited while Smoke topped up his cup.

“Have you tested staying awake?” she asked.

“Since I didn’t remember the nightmare or know about the energy drain before last night,” Karl said irritably, “no. Like every other mere mortal since I was tired, I’d go to bed every night hoping to have a good night’s sleep … and woke up feeling like shit.”

“Oh. Sorry, I forgot. My days are running together. Well, as an experiment we could try staying awake tonight,” suggested Amber. “Maybe take a nap this afternoon.”

“That may be okay for you, but I have a business to run and I’ve been out for two days. I’ve got to go to work.”

“Really? Going to work is more important to you than sorting this out?”

Karl sipped at the coffee. “According to you I’ve been having nights like this since college. What difference does it make?”

“You could die?”

“So you say.”

Karl continued working on his breakfast while Amber stared out the window and sipped at her cup. Realizing it was empty she blushed and grinned. The smile changed her face entirely. The stern, serious person vanished replaced by a mischievous imp. Her dark eyes flashed catching his breath. He smiled back, then remembered who and what she was and his smile faded. A shadow passed over Amber’s eyes and she looked away.

“I’ve got an idea about something we need to do for your store,” she began.

“Now let’s get one thing clear,” said Karl, stabbing his finger at her, “Just because you’ve sort of convinced me there’s something going on with
me
doesn’t mean I’m going to let you take over my life. I’m not stupid and all you’ve shown me so far just confirms that magic is destructive.”

“Hang on a minute.” She stiffened in her chair, the coffee cup thumping onto the tray.

“I’m not going to blindly believe everything you choose to tell me. And since I have no way to judge if you’re lying to me or taking advantage of me, then anything you want to do you’re gonna have to prove to me. You’re going to have to
work
.”

Amber came to her feet and walked across to the window. She nodded to Smoke who retreated, grinning back over his shoulder at Karl.

“What you don’t understand, Karl,” said Amber, her voice a distant whisper, “is that
if
I try to prove anything to you it’s because I’m bound by rules to treat you with courtesy. To act in a moral manner. The rules binding ethical witches are stricter than you could imagine, and the punishments …” she raised her eyes and smiled at him, “last longer.”

“If the timeline we discussed last night is real, I’ve been the magical punching bag of a witch for years. I don’t see any punishment.”

“I know about her now. I may not know her name, face, or location,” she dismissed these problems with a shrug, “but we’ll find her and then we’ll …
explain
the matter to her.”

“Yeah, with what?”

“Well, part of it will involve a brick, if I get any say in the matter,” said Amber, her voice hard.

“Before I let you do anything to my store how are you going to prove to me that you can be trusted?”

“I’m not even going to try,” said Amber, pouring him another cup of coffee and pointing to a pile of towels, wrapped toothbrush, and comb. “You either trust me or you don’t. There’s a bathroom just down the hall. When you can stand without falling over you may as well get cleaned up.”

“You’re not going to try to convince me?” He felt faintly hurt that she didn’t want to make the effort. Didn’t she want him to like her?

“That’s going to be difficult since trust can be gained only over time. You can watch me and judge from my actions if I’m an ethical person. Or not. If I were an unethical person I could lie to you. I could spend hours arguing with you and still not get anywhere, so I’m just going to spare myself the effort. I’m tired, too, you know.”

She stalked out of the room leaving Karl frustrated and furious. He didn’t know what was making him angrier. The fact she was right, or the possibility he already did trust her. Despite everything he’d ever known or felt about witches, he almost, possibly, maybe, trusted someone he’d known for two days.

He wasn’t certain how they managed it.

Without seeming to check with a clock, without seeming to be worried about the passage of time and without hurrying they got him to the bookstore just at 8:30. In time to open the door for his startled sales associate.

Bess and Amber sized each other up, and did the check of makeup, clothes, and jewelry that passed for character assessment with women.

Amber admired Bess’s earrings and Bess had a lot to say about the colored bracelet Amber wore and they decided to be friends.

And then with Karl trailing after her muttering and complaining, Amber set up little decorations in the corners of his store while Smoke carried a faux marble pillar as tall as himself past Amber and Karl, and placed it in the middle of the sales floor. Amber lifted a small citrine globe out of her handbag, golden lights flashing from its interior on the windows, walls, and books surrounding them and admired it.

“Will this do?” Smoke asked, shifting the pillar on the carpet to get the best balance.

“Just fine,” said Amber. “Thanks, Smoke.”

“No, I’m not having this in the middle of the store where everyone can fall over it,” cried Karl, waving his hands in front of Amber’s nose. “Have you any idea the questions I’m going to get from my staff, from the customers about this? What am I going to say? ‘Oh, it’s to protect you from a magic monster.’”

“What you don’t understand about people,” said Amber with ponderous calm, gently wafting air across her face with her fan, “is that they assume a great deal. When something bad happens they think someone else is going to fix it, and when they see something they don’t understand, well, they either pretend that they do know what’s going on, or they ignore it … or they post it on YouTube.” She chuckled and patted the glowing yellow stone. “No one wants to be embarrassed. Anyone who actually pays any attention to this thing is going to think it’s advertising or art and they’ll just walk on by. Take my fan, for example. It’s my wand. You know that witches are supposed to have this wooden stick to do magic with. Have you tried to carry a long piece of wood around with you?”

Karl growled and she laughed.

“But you get my point. This fan is my wand. Uncle Robyn made it for me. It’s got rowan, oak, silver beech and all sorts of woods in it, in addition to sandalwood to make it smell nice. I can go anywhere with a fan and if people think about me at all they think I’m being pretentious or practical or just plain silly. Aunt Lucinda carries a walking stick. She’s old, well older, and walks with a limp. Who’s going to question her?”

Her expression faded from amused to deadly serious.

“Are you telling me you don’t want to protect your staff and your customers?”

Karl groaned and gripped his graying hair in both hands and tugged, welcoming the pain. They’d been arguing back and forth about it since she’d proposed the plan.

“My staff is probably already infected,” said Karl suspiciously, watching the light reflecting off the curved stone.

“I’d say definitely,” said Amber, adjusting the pillar, “Bess is. The others I’ll check out as they arrive. Odd that they aren’t as badly affected as you. I can’t fix them, but I can act to prevent any new hires, any new customers from becoming infected. Who knows, you may even sell something besides coffee. So, what’s it going to be?”

“This is just a protection spell?”

“Right.”

“Only protection? Nothing else?”

“Protection only,” Amber put her hand over her heart. “It’s a variation of the spell that’s on my aunt’s house. It will keep the web that’s got a grip on us from attaching to anyone else. Do you want me to swear as a girl scout?”

“You were never a girl scout,” Karl growled then subsided.

“Yes, I was.” Amber grinned. “Do you want some cookies? Smoke has some in the freezer.”

He grumbled and turned away as if the light from the globe hurt him.

“Don’t worry. The light show is just until the spell is set. Unless you want me to set it to disco? Please, all people are going to think when they see this is that it’s pretty.”

She turned her back on him and settled the citrine globe into the indentation on the top of the pillar, then covered the ball with both hands and chanted the last words of the spell. One hand on the protection stone, Amber watched the energy flow of the room. She had spent an hour that morning persuading the house to teach the “protective shell” spell to the citrine globe. Now she could see opalescent energy passing through the door of the store like a tunnel. It spread over the ceiling and out through the windows and side doors. The dangling threads of the contamination brushed against the tunnel and were turned aside. Then they were gently enfolded and lifted up to hover above the shop. Now people could safely enter, shop, and leave the store without getting tangled in the web.

“It worked! It worked!” cried Amber, jumping up and down then leaning against a bookcase to catch her breath. “It’s contained. We have a little time before the store opens,” said Amber. “Do you need a hand with anything? Boxes moved. Coffee brewed?”

“You can remove as many spells from me as possible,” Karl replied instantly.

Amber raised an eyebrow at him and pushed herself away from the case.

“There’s a limit to how much I magic I can do right now. This protection is my limit, magically. I haven’t recovered completely from last night’s collapse and then there’s the drain this morning. I had the house do most of the work on this globe spell.”

“You’ve got to do something,” cried Karl, grabbing her by her shoulders. “Do you have any idea how sick I feel knowing that stuff has been hanging on my soul for years?”

“Years? No,” said Amber. “I’ll tell you I feel nauseated, invaded, violated …”

“Mind raped?” added Karl. “These people are stealing my life. My
life
. I want it to stop.”

Amber wrapped her fingers around his wrists and made no move to push him away or resist him in any way. She didn’t want to make him feel rejected or that she didn’t appreciate the extent of his pain. She locked eyes with him and regarded him calmly and with strength.

“Karl, please believe me, I’ll start as soon as I can. But you’ve got to realize, part of the problem with freeing you
is
that you have been infected for years. It’s like you’re a dam that has been holding back too much water too long. If you suddenly remove the dam the water is going to flood in every direction, tearing things down. It’d be absolute chaos. It’s best to remove a little bit at a time and relieve the pressure slowly, and to do it in the evening so you’ll have all night to adjust to the changes.”

“I’m not in a mood to be reasonable about this,” said Karl.

She let out a short laugh.

“I have picked up on that message.”

Karl stormed off to pretend to do the routine work of setting up for the day. The memory of what he’d seen in that mirror shook him to his soul. Whatever that was, whoever had caused it, he wanted it gone more than he wanted to take another breath. What really had his stomach churning was not the three cups of coffee he’d already consumed this morning, but the fact that the witch was refusing to do magic for him. For other people, sure, no problem, but he was at the bottom of her list.

She was pretty good at thinking up excuses. Okay, the truth was he didn’t want magic done to him or on him. He wanted it done
from
him, to get that stuff
off
. Permanently and now.

Amber was watching the sun lit parking lot through the front windows. On the street outside, early commuters were rushing past with the sunlight flashing off their windows and mirrors.

“There are a couple of things I want to do with your spells next time we do a working.” she said slowly, her attention obviously somewhere else. “We’ve got to remove the blindfold on your third eye and the restrictive spell on your hands … that
has
to go.”

Karl rubbed his hands together. A spell on his hands? He cringed away from that thought, shoving it deep away in his mind.