First Destroy All Giant Monsters (The World Wide Witches Research Association) (22 page)

“Nothing. Nothing. Why would you say something like that? Lucinda would never hurt me. Lucinda didn’t do anything to me. I had a little … um … accident. I ran into something outside the house. Could have happened even if I wasn’t hanging around with Aunt Lucinda. But, Mom. It’s something … contagious. Something you can see on the Ethereal. I’m, we’re, working on fixing it.”

Her mother hesitated.

“Are you still human?”

Chapter Seven

“Mom! Really! What sort of question is that? Of course I’m human.”

“Good.”

Amber ground her teeth together and concentrated on unclenching her fingers, one knuckle at a time. Under her breath she recited her mantra for surviving conversations with her nuclear family.

I’m not five years old. I’m no longer five years old.

Her mother’s sigh echoed down the line and Amber squelched her nebulous guilt.

“Mom, I called to warn you about the contagion. What I caught … I don’t want you guys getting caught, too.”

“It has been a very long time since I went out of body, miss,” her mother bit each word off hard. “I told you that it’s a dangerous practice.”

“I didn’t actually catch it out of body, Mom. It is only really visible when I’m traveling the Ethereal. I caught it in a bookstore of all places. Aunt Lucinda’s house has made a protection for the cousins. I’ve got to work out a way to make it into something that I can send to keep you and Dad safe.”

“And Jimmy,” continued her mother.

Amber rolled her eyes. Her mother acted as if she intended to leave her brother out for the trolls to eat. Parents saw sibling rivalry in everything, even if the kids had moved on.

Of course, she wouldn’t mind if Jimmy got eaten by trolls – maybe just his toes. It wasn’t as if he walked often.

“You don’t have to send anything,” continued her mother. “Your aunt gave me a mini lodestone as a wedding present and it’s got the house protection spell on it. What Five Corners knows this lodestone can protect against. And she put strong protections on Jimmy the last time the two of you were there at the farm. But I want you out of there as soon as Lucinda sorts this out. Do you understand me? And don’t talk to your father about this, ever!”

I’m not five years old. I’m not five years old. I’m all grown up and want to come home to hide, Mom.

“I hear you, Mom. I’m not five years old and I … we’re dealing with it,” Amber was only mildly ashamed of the evasion. “I’ll leave protecting Dad and Jim to you. Maybe you could talk him into coming home for a few days?”

Parents’ strange power over their offspring had puzzled her for years. What magical power did they possess that could reduce seemingly adult and independent people to small children with just a look or a word? She sighed. Solving the puzzles of the universe seemed easier by comparison to family dynamics.

Amber heard a footstep behind her and turned to face Smoke who was frantically waving to her from the door.

“Mom. I have to go now.”

“Call back soon, Amber. You owe me an explanation. What are you doing with Aunt Lucinda when the last I heard you were working with computers in New York?” Her mother sniffed sounding more irritated than afraid. “I hope they’re looking after you properly, despite this current problem.”

“Yes, yes. Everyone is fine. I have to go, Mom. Bye.”

“Get over here now,” demanded Smoke.

“What the hell?”

“Your friend, he just had a seizure.”

They charged back through the house, doors swinging open as they approached. In the kitchen Karl was on the floor struggling against Rust and Lightning who were trying to keep him down.

“What happened?” cried Amber, skidding to her knees beside Karl and grabbing his arm.

“We don’t know,” said Rust. “He just started to shake. Then he stopped. Do we have to call an ambulance?”

“Who are you people?” demanded Karl.

“Maybe exhaustion has confused him,” said Amber. “That ritual took a lot out of me and I can recharge. I shouldn’t have left him.”

She pulled energy out of Air and tightened her grip on Karl. She sent a wave of strength into the pale man. Karl blinked, shook his head, and stared at her.

“Who are you?” repeated Karl.

“I gave him the burden of a dream, a nightmare he’d been …” She closed her eyes and repeated. “Bring this burden into the light and thereby defeat it.”

Karl rubbed at his face and his whole body trembled, the vibrations growing stronger and stronger until he was barely in contact with the floor. Amber seized his arms and pressed down, while the cousins sat on his legs. Smoke knelt at his head, his palms pressed flat against his temples.

“If he looks like he’s gonna swallow his tongue we call the ambulance,” declared Smoke.

Then the trembling stopped.

Karl blinked at them all absently then focused on Amber.

“What? What?”

“You should have told me you had a seizure disorder,” said Amber. “I would have been more careful.”

“Yeah.” Karl stared at her for a moment. “Amber?”

“Yes, that’s right. Amber.” She smiled at him. Karl turned to Smoke and the cousins who nodded, releasing him and jumping to their feet.

“Okay,” he said. “I’m okay.”

“Do you have these seizures often?” asked Smoke.

“I don’t have seizures.”

“Ah, yes, you do, my boy,” said Smoke. “We just saw you. Twice!”

Karl shook Amber’s hand off his sleeve and climbed to his feet. “And I tell you, I don’t.”

“Okay, be like that,” muttered Smoke, turning his back and preparing to walk away.

“Smoke, please, give us a minute. Karl, I’m sorry. It might be my fault. I gave you energy as part of the ritual. And again here. I might have triggered it. I’ll be more careful in future.”

Karl blinked bleary and confused eyes at Amber.

“Okay?”

“Now we need to talk. It you’re strong enough would you come with me?”

Karl climbed to his feet using the chair as a crutch and followed Amber to the library. Once there Amber tried to get him to rest on the daybed, but he was distracted by Lucinda’s collection and wandered up the curving ramp to the top landing of the library, studying the contents of the shelves as he walked. He worked in a bookstore because he deeply loved books. He lifted a copy of
Two Towers
from a shelf and turned it over in his hands with a smile.

What else did he expect to see in this crazy house?

Then he spotted a shelf filled with physics textbooks and started examining the displayed books with more interest.

This library’s huge,” cried Karl, “I can’t remember seeing so many books in one place outside of a university.” Amber grinned as he went from stack to stack. “The way the bookcases ascend the walls is great.”

He walked past a bookcase of political science commentary and another of ancient history. A huge photo book on the space race sat open on a carved wooden podium

“Tell Smoke,” said Amber, “he’ll be pleased. He and his brothers designed and built it.”

Amber settled on one of the heavily cushioned window seats and patted the place beside her.

“Are you ready to talk about the nightmares?”

Karl fought down a nervous shudder at the memory. They’d been a deeply personal, hidden part of his life for so long. Someone had been invading his mind, his dreams every night and he’d had no defense against that mind rape. Right now was not when he felt like having a revealing personal conversation and certainly not with a witch.

“Not yet. I feel like …” he laughed and leaned back against the cushions. “You know how it was when you were sent to the school counselor to talk about your career? You wanted to ask him what made him so smart. What made him able to judge whether or not you’d make a good rocket scientist or rock star? After all, if he’d any brains or skills he sure wouldn’t be a school counselor. Don’t get me wrong, but what sort of witch are you? Should I be looking for big balls of light and red shoes? Or are we talking flying monkeys?”

Amber chuckled and folded her legs comfortably under her.

“I suppose I should regard this as a job interview.” She held out her hand, “Hi, I’m Amber Kemp and I’m the temporary head of the World Wide Witches Research Association and Pinochle Club. Until a few days ago I was just the head of the research department.”

Karl spluttered for a moment before grinning back at her.

“You’re
what
?”

Amber ignored his reaction.

“And I was the A.V.P. for Information Technology in the third largest financial institution in the world. Most of my department got laid off in the latest round of acquisitions. I was also the head of the research coordination department for the WWWRAPC and maintained the website for my Aunt Lucinda, a research witch.”

Karl nodded, trying to keep up with the flow of information. Who she’d been was not as important to him at this moment as what she could do. His mind caught up with his ears and he blinked at her. The last thing she said was just too weird.

Karl rubbed his temple and leaned back in the carved rocking chair he’d chosen. “Okay. What is a research witch?”

“My aunt originally was what’s called a
hereditary
witch. She trained with her grandmother, who trained with her grandma. And so on. Get the idea? Only Aunt Lucinda is a bit … different,” Amber smiled. “She couldn’t just accept doing things just because that’s-how-it’s-always-been-done. She used to ask her grandmother questions. Like how a plant knew it was being picked at midnight when it was pouring down rain? Once she was taken to Boston to collect dirt from the grave of a hanged man, and she kept asking, ‘Does the dirt have to be from above his coffin or below? If it doesn’t matter which, can it be dirt taken from anywhere in the cemetery? Wouldn’t it make more sense to take dirt from where he was hanged? Does it make any difference if he were a guilty man or innocent, and could you use the dirt from a suicide’s grave if he died by hanging?’” Amber talked faster and faster as shivers passed through her body. “Aunt Lucinda isn’t … well, she is unique, and she is a great witch.”

“I can imagine her grandmother wasn’t too pleased with her questions.”

Amber laughed, loud and shrill, rocking back and forth on the window seat. “So Aunt Lucinda says. She did what she was told until her grandmother died and then she sort of, well, she started experimenting. She calls it ‘deconstructing magic.’ She looks at all the components of a spell and starts trying to do the spell with pieces missing or substitutions. She’s trying to work out what is really necessary for magic and what’s optional. She’s working her way back to the basics.”

“Magic is useless,” snarled Karl, “for anything but making people’s lives miserable.”

“Guns don’t kill people, people kill people,” quoted Amber, her words coming faster and faster. “Magic itself is neither good nor evil. You can kill people with words and destroy lives by passing a good, kind, and well-thought-out law. Magic can be used for many things. Magic users have their own codes of ethics. Just like every area of society, we have our criminals.”

“Okay,” he said, “Don’t imagine I’m going to accept everything you say at face value. I’ve too much practical experience with the ‘criminal’ element of magic to trust a witch. Any witch.”

Amber shrugged and hummed, hugging herself and swaying from side to side.

Karl watched her. If this was her normal behavior there was something wrong with her. If he didn’t know that she’d not even had a cup of tea he’d think she was drunk.

In the meantime he needed information. A way to judge how much she was doing to actually help him and whether this was just creating a future problem. He wanted, needed, to be free and had no intention of going from being captive to one witch, to victim of another.

“What do you do for your aunt?”

“I was recruited to head of the research department. It’s paperwork mostly. The website I set up coordinates the activity of several hundred witches. We have a bimonthly peer review journal, grants, and a central clearing house for spell requests.”

Karl shook his head and stared at the stained glass ceiling.

“This is completely ridiculous.”

“I’m not surprised you think so. It’s been hard for me and I sort of grew up with magical history. My aunt contacted me asking for the website and other stuff years ago. Somehow, the idea of a witch in a white coat staring at computer screens is stranger than one wearing a Halloween hat and stirring a cauldron. But I loved being involved in the work. Being part of the change of magic from a superstition to a science was thrilling. I had to keep it from my family, though. My dad must have watched too much 50’s TV when he was growing up. When he found out my mom was from a magical family he went ballistic. They almost divorced over it. But Mom went through a ritual to have her magic removed and they got back together again.”

“I take it he doesn’t know you do magic.”

“Up until a few days ago I did very little. I had my wand,” she waved her fan at him, “and a few personal protections to keep stuff from breaking or being stolen, but that was it. Like I said, mostly computers and the research.”

“Then what?”

“Then I was told my aunt was missing and I had to come here.”

“To look for her.”

Amber stilled for a moment and looked out of the darkened window.

“At first I thought so, now I’m beginning to think I was called so urgently to deal with what’s happening to you. To everyone who went into your store and all the other places similarly infected. It’s spreading.”

“What are we going to do?”

Amber lifted her hands, they were trembling again. Karl took one hand in his and stroked her fingertips, sending confusing signals through her body. Elemental Fire felt like that, only this was soothing and awakening together. She struggled to focus. It was getting harder to see, harder to hear. She blinked rapidly and stared at the three Karls that were looking back at her.

“When exactly did this start?” she said, trying hard not to slur her words. “Can you remember any event just before you started getting sick?”

“It came on gradually …” Karl sighed, continuing his gentle massage. “I can’t really give you a date. I was fine the first year. If I was tired then it was from staying up all night havi …”