The Halloween Collection (14 page)

“Don’t add that. You’re going to ruin the
formula.”

I shot her a glare with the eye of newt
dangling above the boiling pot from between my thumb and
forefinger. “Why?”

“It calls for eye of iguana.”

Rolling my eyes, I answered, “I don’t have
eye of iguana, I have eye of newt. They’re both lizards.”

“Gretchen,” Aura sighed. “The newt is an
amphibian while the iguana is a reptile. Different entirely.”

I pursed my lips. “Who here has opposable
thumbs?”

“The brute with half the brain of her cat,”
Aura answered smoothly, before licking the pads of one paw to show
how much she was ignoring me.

I sighed and added the eye anyway.

Of course, the explosion rocked the
foundations of the neighborhood.

“You know Tibbett is going to call the cops
again,” Aura murmured as I opened my eyes to the smoke settling
around us. She flicked her tail, dropping the force field she had
thrown up like a giant protective bubble. The cat had reflexes that
were, well, cat-like. She had saved my ass more than once.

I could care less about my nosy neighbor,
Old Man Tibbett, and his penchant for dialing the authorities. My
once-green concoction dripped in black, burnt clumps down the
stove. And the walls. And my cookie jar. “Damn it.”

“Why can’t you just go after him with a
bespelled sword like a normal, vengeful witch?” Aura leapt
gracefully from the bookcase to the kitchen counter and jumped the
rest of the way to the floor, narrowly missing a potion crater.

“Not enough,” I muttered, reaching for a
dish towel and recoiling when I realized it was covered in goo. “I
want his balls to fall off or his eyeballs to shrivel…”

“You are infinitely twisted,” Aura sighed,
waggling her fluffy butt as she picked her way carefully across the
floor, headed for the living room.

“You could help me clean this up, you know,”
I called, still looking for a clean rag. I couldn’t remember where
I had last seen the paper towel roll.

Aura turned just enough to narrow her eyes
at me over her shoulder. “Who here has opposable thumbs?”

Shot down by a cat.

* * *

I met Elery at The Coffee Shack a couple
hours later still reeking of lavender scented bleach.

“You stink, Gretchen,” she greeted me,
wrinkling her small, pert nose. “Did you blow something up
again?”

I sank wearily into the chair across from
her, letting my brown canvas satchel fall to the floor. “I don’t
want to talk about it. It’s still on the ceiling. If I don’t think
about it, it’s not there.”

Elery had been my mentor since I first began
exhibiting magickal powers. She was a beautiful woman, with
ethereal blonde hair that reached her lower back and a pixie-like
face harboring ice blue eyes. She was also immortal, which was a
sore point for me. Every minute I spent with her, I could feel the
age lines battling over my face.

“I taught you better than this,” she sighed,
shifting in her seat and letting her palms rest gently on the
table. The woman had the best damn posture of anyone I’d ever met.
If there hadn’t been a fluffy white puppy on the front of her
crimson sweater, you would have thought she was some kind of regal
princess.

“I can’t help it.” I pouted, crossing my
arms over my black long sleeve t-shirt. Twenty-eight-years old or
not, when she berates me, I revert to nine once more.

“Is this about Slane?”

“Don’t you dare say his name!” I snarled,
scaring the tiny waitress who had sidled up to the table. With her
dark chestnut eyes wide as saucers, the teen took my order for a
white chocolate mochaccino before hurrying away as if demons were
at her heels.

“Your behavior has already gotten us banned
from Starbucks. Could you tone it down?” Elery asked wryly, taking
a dainty sip of her steaming Chai. “Did you bother to brush your
hair before you left the house?”

My hands shot up to where my mass of curly,
bright red hair was tugged into a messy ponytail. “Um, no.”

Elery pursed her lips but let the hair
slide—unusual for her nature. She loved to preach about how a woman
should “always look her best!” She went on. “So, what did you blow
up this time?”

I fiddled with the napkin on the table,
tracing the name of the shop with one finger and searching for a
way out of her question. No exit signs in sight. “A potion.”

“What
kind
of potion?” Elery prompted, raising a
perfectly arched eyebrow.

Sighing, I gave in. She always won, anyway.
“A hex.”

“For Slane?”

“Quit saying his name!” I hissed, reaching
across the table to pinch her arm. Glancing around fervently, I
whispered, “He’s going to hear you.”

“Dear goddess, Gretchen, he’s a witch, not
omnipotent.” She smiled at a young, long-haired busboy as he placed
a plate of crumb cake in front of her. I never saw her order it, so
either she had him completely under her power or she was telepathic
and had never told me. Turning her brilliant eyes back to me, she
went on. “Gretch, we need to address this Sla—”

I glared at her, clearing my throat.

“This
man
issue.” She raised her eyebrow again,
which provoked the sullen teenager in me.

“There’s nothing to address.” I might have
slumped in my seat and crossed my eyes. I probably stuck my tongue
out at her. Maybe I even stomped my big black boots on the
floor.

Elery reached down to where her gigantic
leather purse sat next to her chair and shuffled through it. Her
hand emerged from it with a book which she laid on the table
between us.

“No.” I shook my head vehemently, scooting
my chair away from the table as if it were diseased. “Not
happening.”

She gave me a harassed sigh, one hand
pushing the book closer to me as the waitress ran by, depositing my
mocha. I reached for the coffee, ignoring the book.

“It’s time, Gretchen. Just buck up and do
it.”

* * *

Aura turned her head nearly upside-down to
stare at the book on the kitchen table, her nose wrinkling. “So,
this is it? It’s rather small.”

“I’m NOT doing it.” I had seated myself a
good four feet away from it, my chair jutting out into the walkway
between the stove and table. No matter how much I willed the book
to disappear, no luck.

“You knew it was a matter of time. Elery
gave you all the years you needed to prepare for it.”

Pouting, I muttered, “But, I hate him.”

“You barely know him. It’s unethical to hate
someone you barely know.”

“It’s unethical to build potions with the
intent to shrivel someone’s testicles, but I do it anyway,” I
responded cheerfully.

She managed a pinched and irritated look
that closely resembled Elery. “Gretchen, you’re missing the point.
Open the book and get it over with.”

“I don’t want to. It’s stupid.”

“I understand that, but sometimes you just
have to do things the way the Universe has planned for you.”

“The Universe can shove this book up its
ass.”

“That’s going to come back on you
three-fold, missy. You better shape up and just do it.” On that
note, my supposed best friend and familiar slipped from the table
and left me alone.

With my destiny.

I leaned forward in my seat, reaching
tentatively for the book. Using a single finger, I angled it to
better see the cover and shivered. Just a nonchalant black leather
book with my mother’s name printed on it in gold.

I’m a blood witch. 7th daughter of a 7th
daughter. My magick is supposed to surpass that of any witch who
isn’t a 7&7, though because of the rate at which I blow things
up, I guess maybe I’m just a dunce. As a 7&7, my destiny is
pretty much laid out like a well-drawn map—I will marry, I will
have 7 daughters, and I will die young as my power ultimately
consumes me.

It’s just the way things are.

The most important thing, however, was
who
I was
meant to marry.

We’re betrothed, you see, Slane and I. But,
not in the “my father pledged me to your father” type way. No, in a
“the universe planned it and sealed it by magick” type way.

Every 7&7 is magickally sealed to her
mate, but the magick isn’t complete without the final spell—a spell
her mother writes.

The book beneath my finger was my mother’s
Book of Shadows.

* * *

The sound of machinery woke me up. I shoved
a hand under my pillow to make sure Mom’s book had survived the
night beneath my rampant tossing and turning, and let out a breath
I hadn’t realized I was holding when I found it. Another clang from
outside my window made me groan. “I’m going to kill that old
man.”

“You are not,” Aura said, yawning. “His wife
makes you cookies.”

“How much work can one house need?” I pushed
myself to my elbows, glaring out the open window next to my bed.
The chill breeze was cold, even with four blankets on top of me,
but I loved sleeping next to the window where I could see the
sky.

A bulldozer was raking its way across
Tibbett’s backyard, digging up a deep furrow of dying grass. I
thanked the stars for my privacy fence, conveniently protecting my
garden from giant mechanical monsters, and flopped back onto the
bed. I buried my face in the pillow, fully intending to fall back
into dreams.

“So. How did you sleep?” Aura asked
smoothly, both of her paws snaking across the space between my
pillow and hers so she could knead her claws in my hair.

So much for more rest.

“Yes, Aura, I gave it some thought,” I said
into the pillow. “And no, I’m not going to read it.”

Ten razor sharp talons pierced my skull and
I yelped, jerking away and swatting at her. “You’re not my
mother!”

“Somebody should be.” She stalked out of the
bedroom, her fluffy tail swaying.

Aura met me at the coffee pot an hour later,
rubbing her body on my arms as I filled the pot with water and
loaded the filter. It was her way of apologizing and it always
worked.

“Have you purchased candy yet?” she asked
me, turning circles around my coffee mug. She was way too
energized. She had probably hit the catnip while I was in the
shower.

I tossed my mop of wet, red curls over my
shoulder and said, “What? Why?”

Sighing, she spun around one last time, like
a dog, and sat on my hand. “Tomorrow is Samhain, Gretchen. You are
the worst witch in the world.”

“Oh.” I took a deep sniff of the brewing
coffee and closed my eyes in ecstasy as I slumped over the counter.
It was like a narcotic. “Yeah, I’ll get some today…”

I stood up quickly, banging my head on the
cabinet. “Oww.”

“What is it?” Aura asked, scooting away from
my hand as I lifted it to my head, gingerly touching the point of
impact. “Something excited you.”

I raised an eyebrow at her. “It really
weirds me out when you do that.”

“I cannot help that my senses are twenty
times that of your own and I can smell your disgusting
emotions.”

I swear my cat smirked at me.

“We aren’t gonna need candy this year, Aur.”
I smacked my hands together, rubbing gleefully and aiming for the
Mad Scientist look.

“You look mentally handicapped, Gretchen, do
quit and tell me what has you in a dither.”

I smacked her on the bottom playfully and
she hissed at me. “I’m going to be a little busy for Samhain this
year.”

She froze on the tips of her toes, her back
rising in a fair imitation of a Halloween cat, only fluffier.
“Please, tell me you’re not considering…”

I smiled, skipping out of the kitchen and
down the hallway towards my ritual closet. “Oh, you better believe
it!” I crowed. “I’m harnessing the power of Samhain and getting rid
of that man once and for all!”

* * *

Halloween dawned bitter cold and spitting
rain. I spent all morning under the covers, flipping through
spellbooks and ignoring the one under my pillow.

Aura wouldn’t come near me. I could hear her
mumbling as she paced the den, catching words like “asinine” and
“foolish”. I think she might have gone for a walk at some point
because I heard the jingle bells over the kitty door a couple
times, but I was too absorbed in my reading. I barely noticed the
passage of dim daylight from my window as it traveled across the
floor.

By the time the sun had set, I had a
notebook full of information and a hastily scribbled spell thumb
tacked to the wall above my altar in the living room.

“I will ask you once more, please
reconsider,” Aura begged, rubbing against my bare ankles. “This
will only end badly.”

“I’m wearing my robe,” I told her, ignoring
her pleas. “No Scooby-Doo this time. Are you proud?”

“Gretchen.” She drew out my name like a
whine and it chilled me.

“Aura, go play in the litterbox if you don’t
want to hang around for this, ‘kay?”

She huffed, flicking her tail in the air
like a middle finger before stalking from the room. I was equal
parts exasperated and terrified as I watched her leave the
room.

Doing magick without Aura was a lot like
attempting suicide on accident.

The den was nicely atmospheric. I had lined
the walls with candles on every available surface so that the room
felt like a cave. With the lights off and the curtains over the
French doors closed, it could have passed for one of my ancestors’
old wooden huts.

Except for the twenty inch flatscreen. They
didn’t really have that liberty.

I struck a match, watching it flare into
existence and settle into a steady flame before I lit the black
pillar candle on my altar. Lifting the charcoal from the censor, I
held it over the candle until it caught. Sparks fizzed across the
surface of the coal like bubbles in a soda. I placed it back in the
bronze censor then dropped a pinch of mixed herbs on top of it. The
smoke curled through the air.