Slightly Spellbound (25 page)

“A spell? Does it call for a fabulously dressed vampire?”

“No.”

“Then why the order to wear sequins?”

“Edie’s not the only witch in this family who can scheme. I needed to run Zach off before I got into trouble with him. Sorry about making you rush over, but thank you for coming right away. I owe you a favor, okay?”

“Oh, I don’t care about that. But why run him off?”

“Because I’m with Bryn now.”

“So that’s been settled?”

“Yep,” I said, trying to sound completely confident.

“Good to know,” Rollie said thoughtfully as he joined me in the kitchen. “So the handsome deputy’s available then?” Rollie asked, leaning languidly against the counter like I ought to grab a camera and take his picture.

“Well, he’s available to women, I suppose,” I said, not really wanting to contemplate Zach’s future love life.

“Hmm. Yes, to women,” Rollie said, leaning over to check out the shelves of witches’ herbs that I took bottles from. “Anything in there for a love spell?”

My brows shot up. “Rollie, you better behave.”

“I’m just kidding. I don’t need love potions to get a guy. Besides, something really tiresome has happened.”

“What?”

“I fell in love,” Rollie said in an exasperated tone. “With a tiny hairdresser,” he added, shaking his head. “And now I’m thinking of doing something drastic and permanent.”

I grinned. “Like getting married? It’s legal in some states. Wanna look on the Internet to see which one’s closest?”

“Marriage, God no! This from the girl who got divorced before she was old enough to rent a car.” He yawned and half-reclined on the counter. “I said permanent, Tammy Jo. I’m thinking of making him a vampire.”

My jaw dropped. “Does Johnny want to be a vampire? Who would open the salon? It’s got all those windows.”

“Details,” Rollie said with a dismissive wave of his hand. He yawned. “So do you need help with a spell or what?”

“Nope, but I like your company. Stay and visit.”

“No, Zach’s gone. My work here is done. And the truth is I’m feeling a few pints low.”

“Do you need blood? Are you out of your supply?” I asked, alarmed. There was no blood bank in Duvall. He usually brought some with him.

“No, I’ve had plenty. It’s some kind of supernatural chronic fatigue syndrome. It hit several of us in Dallas. I thought I was better, but I’ve come down with it again here.”

“I didn’t know vampires could get sick.”

“We usually don’t. The coven’s investigating. It would normally have caused high hysteria, but people were too exhausted to fuss. Everyone lounges for hours like models posing for a Hippolyte Berteaux painting. Very sensual. Anyway, the sickness doesn’t last, so there’s nothing to worry about. Johnny got me a gorgeous silk peacock kimono. I’m going to his condo for a lie-down before I drive to Dallas. Bye, darling,” he said, giving me an air kiss.

“Rollie, you said it’s a supernatural illness. Are you sure?”

“Not really,” he said, walking down the hall.

I trailed after him.

“The coven thinks it’s caused by a spell. I’ll hear more details when I get home,” he said.

“Someone’s attacking vampires with a spell? Who do they think is doing it? A Dallas witch?”

“Dunno. I’m so tired,” he said, putting the back of his wrist to his forehead like he’d wilt. “Leaving now,” he announced, sashaying out of my house with sequins sparkling.

I clucked my tongue and turned to Mercutio, who sat on the bureau. “Merc, what do you think about that?” I demanded. “Edie got exhausted and faded away. Other ghosts lost energy and disappeared. Now vampires are feeling run-down, too? Ghosts are dead. Vampires are undead. Both are afflicted by some energy-zapping affliction. Coincidence?”

Merc cocked his head.

“You know,” I said, pausing with a grimace. “The trouble arrived when Vangie did. From Dallas.” I frowned. “I hate to suspect her, but she did hex townspeople with the flu . . . What if she wasn’t abducted? What if she’s hiding out? Sucking up death juice for some death magic spells? Maybe to use on her stepmother and stepbrother?” I couldn’t decide which worried me more: Kidnapped Vangie or Necromancer Vangie?

Either way I had to find her. I filled a large glass bowl with water and grabbed a pair of pillar candles and the other ingredients I’d decided to use for my location spell. In the past, I’d tried spells from borrowed spellbooks, but one of the instructional books for young witches that I’d been studying at Bryn’s had said that witches should choose spells with ingredients that they were drawn to. None of the herbs I’d used in the past had been especially meaningful to me, so I decided to modify the spell to make it more suited to what I like.

I put a jacket on and filled a bag with my supplies. Mercutio joined me outside. I sat down and burrowed my feet in the dirt. I lit the candles and placed them to the right and left of the bowl. I took off my charm bracelet, which was the only physical link I had to Vangie. I arranged it in a circle on the bottom of the bowl.

I added three drops of almond oil and then three drops of vanilla, which looked like swirling smoke in the water. Then I put in a dozen mini-marshmallows. Mercutio sniffed the bag and skewered a marshmallow with one of his sharp canine teeth. He tried to chew the marshmallow, but it didn’t work. He resorted to rubbing his tooth with his tongue and making faces that said he didn’t care that much for mini-marshmallows after all.

“Yeah, that’s gonna be hard to get off. Sticky, huh? But good.”

Merc gave an annoyed yowl.

“Sorry! They are really good in s’mores and hot chocolate, though. And I needed something that floats,” I said, defending my decision to use marshmallows.

Mercutio was still annoyed, but I knew he’d get over it if I got us on the right track for an adventure.

“Hi, Earth. It’s me, Tammy Jo,” I said. “As usual, I could use your help. My friend Vangie’s missing, and I need to be shown the way to her. So I’m going to say a spell, and I’d appreciate it if you’d help my magic arrange the marshmallows in the right direction.”

I took a deep breath and swirled the water, then stared into the bowl, letting my eyes cross and uncross till they were unfocused. It was a little like looking at one of those Magic Eye posters where it starts out looking like a computer-generated kaleidoscope and the next thing you know there are flying eagles or jumping dolphins.

I breathed in a slow, steady rhythm.

Vangie, my brand-new close friend

If I had a letter I wanted to send

I’d need directions to where you are

So show me a map and tell me how far.

I let my muscles go limp and waited. After a few minutes I saw Vangie. She wore an ivory-colored gown and lay on some sort of bench. Her long hair spilled over the edges and swayed in the wind. I didn’t like the look of her skin, which was pale and slightly gray. My stomach clenched worriedly. That’s not a good color for anybody. There’s a reason you never see a foundation shade called Bride of Frankenstein.

“Oh,” I said, clutching the sides of the bowl. I couldn’t take my next breath as I waited to see if Vangie would take hers. When her chest finally rose, I exhaled, my hands clammy with sweat.

“Alive,” I said. “Thank goodness, Vangie. Thank goodness. You just hang in there. Just keep on breathing. And if you’re not too tired, maybe you could breathe a little faster.”

Merc made an impatient sound. I looked up and narrowed my eyes at him. “She looks half dead and not in a Sleeping Beauty suspended animation kind of way. She looks like her makeup artist is Tim Burton,” I hissed in a whisper.

Mercutio dipped his head.

“Now where are you, Vangie?” I asked, looking back at the marshmallows floating on a vanilla almond oil slick. I blew softly on the marshmallows, and they swirled slowly in the bowl. “Show me the way to my friend.”

I sat staring for several minutes, but when the water stilled, the marshmallows clumped together. An image of the town appeared on the bottom of the bowl, like I was looking down into a magical snow globe, and the cluster of marshmallows rested above the town like clouds. They didn’t move even though the water swayed in the bowl. I pushed them to the side, but they floated back to the spot where they’d been and stopped.

Mallows mark the spot?

“Northeast. North even of the golf course. What’s up there besides the river?” I murmured. “There aren’t even any roads,” I murmured, and looked at Mercutio. “I don’t know, Merc. You think these marshmallows are really trying to tell me something? Or is this just a sweet and soggy mess?”

I pinched a mini-marshmallow between my thumb and index finger and dropped it inside my mouth. It was slightly slimy. I let it melt a little on my tongue before I swallowed. It slid down my throat, and despite the chill, I felt a little warmth deep in my gut. An urge pulled me northeast. Yes, that was the way to go . . . the spell was clearly working.

Suddenly Mercutio sprang toward the door, ready to proceed.

“Okay, thanks,” I said, patting the earth. “Follow the mallow it is.”

Before I could reach the house, however, the smell of honey and apples hit me, and I heard humming. I looked around sharply, but I was alone. Then I pictured myself lying in the arms of a tree. Words seemed to slip from my lips, but I couldn’t make them out as I placed my arms around my ash tree. My skin tingled and warmed, like there was sunshine on my back. I glowed faintly and the bluebells began to ring in alarm.

“A faery is near. And it’s me,” I whispered to no one.

I shuddered, and the glow faded, but the ache from my wounds had lessened.
Healing magic
, I realized. I felt energized and a little . . . invincible.

I sucked in a breath and looked at Merc. His head was cocked. The bluebells quieted.

“I’m all right.” I ran a hand through my hair and picked up the bowl I’d dropped when I’d been in the semitrance. “I have always healed fast, Merc, but there is something going on. Some power is fortifying me and making me more fae on and off. The true fae are immortal except for wounds made by iron. So I guess I wouldn’t heal an iron arrow through my heart. But I swear the other injuries just don’t stick around as long as they used to. I just wish I knew why this is happening. And I wonder if there will be a price to pay? There usually is one.”

28

I WAS DETERMINED not to ruin any more good clothes. I stripped out of my patient gown and threw it in the hamper. After a fast shower, I put on underwear, a sports bra, and an old pair of cotton pajama pants and its matching striped shirt. Then I hooked the charm bracelet around my wrist.

Merc gave me a funny look, and I sighed.

“What? It’s nighttime. People wear pajamas at nighttime.” I pulled on a raggedy sweater and was ready to tackle the next part of the evening. I hoped I wouldn’t run into anyone besides Vangie, who I figured would be too busy being grateful at having been rescued to question my decision to leave the house in PJs.

I didn’t have a gun, so I armed myself with a crossbow I’d bought two weeks earlier and took the custom-made quiver that I’d had Georgia Sue’s momma quilt for me out of some cupcake-print fabric. The quiver was lined with vinyl and held a dozen arrows. Merc eyed the bow.

“I know it’s bulkier than a gun, but it’s what we’ve got on hand.”

Speaking of not having the normal equipment, when I was at the police station, I’d learned that my car with its flat tire had been discovered and taken to Floyd’s garage as I’d suspected, which was a relief since it hadn’t been stolen, but also a problem because it was locked up. Since Bryn’s car was way back at the site of the battle with the Cajun witches, I’d need some other transportation. Even though some of my pain had eased and my muscles didn’t seem to be cramping anymore, I knew I couldn’t walk all the way to the northeast side of town. There was nothing to do but steal a car.

Doc Barnaby, who once drugged me to use my blood to raise his wife as a zombie, was my neighbor. You’d think we wouldn’t be friends anymore, but he did it because he missed her so much. It was the most romantic zombie-raising I ever heard of, and I forgave him for poisoning me.

Returning Zombie Mrs. Barnaby to the grave had gotten me in tons of trouble, so I figured that he couldn’t in good conscience begrudge me a little grand theft auto. I used a spare key to get into his house, careful to be quiet so I didn’t wake him. I found his car keys and took his 1987 Buick LeSabre station wagon out of the garage. The custom paint job was brown on top and blue on the bottom, which I didn’t think looked all that good together.

I let Mercutio in with a warning. “No scratching the dashboard. This car’s real old. Some people like the doc call it a classic.”

Merc made a skeptical sound.

“Yeah, classics are in the eye of the beholder, apparently.” I swiveled the wheel and rolled out of the driveway as quietly as possible.

I drove across town while Merc licked his paws. I studied him for a moment. Mercutio spent more time grooming himself than any guy I knew, even Bryn on a court day. Why would a wildcat who spent half the night stalking rodents and lizards need to be so fastidious? Heaven forbid Merc should get into a fight with dirty feet.

He paused with his tongue above his ankle, glanced over at me, and then gave his shin a lick.

“You know, Merc, Doc Barnaby’s not the only guy I know who’s quirky.”

Mercutio meowed.

“I know it’s a cat thing, but it really would be faster and less gross to just take a shower. Think about it, okay?” I cleared my throat. “So according to the vision from the magic marshmallows, Vangie is barely breathing and probably in a coma. I don’t think she did that to herself. Not when she was looking forward to getting married. No, I’m pretty sure she
has
been kidnapped. I assumed that if anyone snatched her, it would be her stepmother and stepbrother, but Beau claimed they couldn’t find her. If not them, who? What about her plastic-faced fiancé?” I glanced over at Mercutio. “Vangie said he didn’t know magic. She would’ve known if he did, right? The thing is, Merc, when a woman meets up with foul play, it’s always a good idea to suspect the husband or lover. Zach and a bunch of detective stories taught me that. But if Jackson was after her money, wouldn’t he wait till after they were married to kill her? So he could inherit it?”