The Book of Lost Souls (19 page)

Ivy grabbed the power cord from her book bag, and with a quick wave of her hand, the cord changed into the vine, spreading out in Spike’s direction.

The vines raced up Spike’s body, binding his arms and legs at his sides. He yelled for Tara, but Tara ignored him.

Devlin wrestled the squeaky toy from Dean and took off with it across the lawn, squeaking loudly.
 

Great. Now the whole house would wake up.
 

Please let the grandmother be deaf.

“Devlin!” Ivy called after him. But, Devlin had already vanished around the corner of the house and out of sight.

“Bane!” Ivy called. “Go get him and make him be quiet.”

Bane darted off after Devlin.

The vines pulled the frantic Spike toward her. He cried out again for Tara’s help. The cacophony of barks, squeaks, voices, and screams was enough to wake the whole house. Ivy expected Tara’s parents to come running outside any minute.

This mission was about as stealthy as Godzilla at a petting zoo.

“
Nooooo!”
Spike wailed as Ivy started her incantation. “Not the terrarium! I know stuff. I have a note for you. It’s very important.”

This had to be some sort of lizard trick. “A note? From who?”

“A man gave it to me while I was in the woods hunting for bugs,” Spike explained.

Ivy gave Spike a suspicious glare. “Who gave it to you? What does it say?”
 

Spike tried to shrug. “I’ve never seen him before. And I don’t know what it says. I can’t read. Tara said she’d teach me.”

“Give it to me, then,” Ivy demanded.

Spike rolled his eyes. “Duh! I can’t. You’ve got me tied up.”

Ivy stared at him for a moment. “You’re lying.”

“No I’m not. Look!” He eyed the vines binding him.

“I mean about the note!” Ivy snapped.

“Oh. Yeah. It’s about the books,” Spike said.

After a moment’s standoff, Ivy undid the vine spell, all except for a section around Spike’s left wrist.
 

Another clump of dirt exploded near Spike.
 

“Run!” Raven shouted. She nearly slammed into Ivy and Spike, grabbing them both by the arm and dragging them with her. “Unless you can out duel Dean
and
Tara.”

She could, maybe. But not while keeping control of Spike. Besides, all the racket would bring out half the neighborhood at this rate.
 

“Bring back that lizard!” Dean demanded. “I’m gonna skin him for moving in on my girlfriend.”

Raven laughed. Ivy hardly found any of this amusing.

“Well, if nothing else, your plan to put the two of them back together worked, but I wouldn’t advise matchmaking as a living,” Raven said as a sprinkler head went flying past them.

Ivy didn’t release her hold on the vine as she ran. Great. Now the mission to change Spike had become a
rescue
mission to keep him from becoming boots. What next?

Unless there was some other way off the property, Devlin and Bane couldn’t be far. Ivy and Raven ran, dragging Spike with them, finally coming to a wooden gardening shed the size of a small barn. Bane and Devlin were involved in a tug of war match with the squeaky toy.
 

Raven pulled Ivy around the corner of the shed just as Dean blew off a piece of siding with another spell. Bane let go of the toy and he and Devlin scrambled to take cover with them.
 

“Geez, Bane. If you really want, I’ll get you a squeaky toy for Christmas,” Raven quipped.

It earned her a raised lip and a growl from Bane.
 

Ivy poked around the corner and fired off a Repelling spell. “We’ve got to get off the property.”

“You take left, I’ll go right,” Ivy heard Tara say to Dean.
 

“Behind the Cypress,” Spike said. “There’s a gate.”

“There’s a
gate?”
Raven said. “You should of thought of that before you used that stupid book.”

Ivy shrugged. “Yeah, well, I didn’t think I needed blueprints for this, you know?”

Tara rounded the corner, taking aim at Ivy. “Gotcha!” she said.

Ivy ducked, letting the spell completely miss her.
 

“Dean’s coming,” Raven warned.

“Run,” Ivy said. She took off for the gates, Spike in tow, although he didn’t seem to need any coaxing. Lizard or human, Spike understood he was in serious trouble with Dean.

Bane and Devlin made it to the gate first, both whirling about to defend Ivy and Raven if they needed to. The gate was locked.
 

Ivy raised a hand to the gate. “Unlock!” She handed the vine holding Spike to Raven. “Go, I’ll hold them off. Get to the woods.”

Raven snatched the vine and dragged Spike through the gates. Bane and Devlin whirled around after Raven just as a tree limb crashed to the ground. Ivy raced out of the gate behind them, turning to fuse the latch shut with a hex.

Secure in the knowledge that the spell would give them time to escape, Ivy ran, following her friends into the woods and the relative safety of darkness.
 

CHAPTER 22

They didn’t stop running until they were well into the woods and Ivy could no longer keep the same pace as the others.
 

“Slow down, guys. I don’t think they’re behind us anymore.” She stopped, rubbing at the stitch that had developed in her side. “Bane, are they following?”

Bane looked about carefully, nose in the air, sniffing. Puffs of his breath hung in the cool air like ghosts. After a second or two, he relaxed and blinked, signaling that he thought they hadn’t been followed. He turned and walked onward, nearly disappearing into the darkness.

Raven shrugged. “I don’t hear them, either.”

“We got lucky. I can’t believe no one in the house heard all that racket,” Ivy said.

Spike snorted. “That’s because Tara cast a Quieting spell so no one would hear her sneak out.” He frowned deeply. “Dean was really mad, wasn’t he?”

A Quieting spell? Tara put a
Quieting
spell around the perimeter of her own house? Ivy was almost impressed. “Yeah, Spike. He was.”

“Guess I can’t go back to hiding in the gardening shed or down by the river,” Spike said with a mournful shake of his head.

Somewhere in the woods, an owl hooted, followed by the fateful scream of a small animal. Walking in the woods may have been routine for Bane, but not Ivy. Sounds carried out here, and Ivy was aware of every noise around them. Much of the forest was nocturnal, as evidenced by the hooting owl. Thin threads of moonlight weaved around barren hardwood trees and fragrant Evergreens, finally pooling here and there on the forest floor in patches of faded silver.

Raven laughed, filling the air with human sounds for which Ivy was grateful. “She kept you in the gardening shed? The one Dean took a chunk out of? Wait until the Prescotts see all the damage.”

Ivy shrugged. “They probably won’t know. If Tara and Dean hurry, they can fix most of it and blame the rest on moles or something. The one thing I’m betting on is that Tara won’t tell anyone we were there. That would be admitting she was out with Spike and her parents think she’s perfect. Spike isn’t exactly the type of dating material the Prescotts would approve of, much less have the town know about.”
 

“Hey!” Spike protested. “I resent that!”

Ivy looked at Spike. She needed to change Spike back into lizard form before something else happened. Or, before the Intelligence spell and whatever else Tara had done made matters worse.

A twig snapped somewhere around them, indicating something larger than a rabbit or field mouse was afoot. Bane and Devlin froze, listening. They exchanged a quick glance then continued on. Ivy wondered if it was just a deer or something...
else
. Like two murdering souls from a particular book.

“It’s nothing, right guys?” Ivy asked, hoping she was being silly and that nothing other than the five of them and maybe a raccoon lurked in the cloak of the forest. Ivy peered into the blackness, unable to see much except the skeletal branches of trees. Bane and Devlin came to a halt.

A dull ripping sound, similar to falling timber, broke the silence. Ahead, a medium-sized tree uprooted itself, scooted to its right about twenty yards and plunked itself down. The air suddenly smelled rich and musty as writhing tree roots burrowed back into the soil like oversized worms. The tree’s branches creaked as it bent forward, frantically smoothing the surrounding soil. Another tree busily tamped down the upturned earth its neighbor had vacated.

“Oh. Well, that explains it,” Raven said.
 

Ivy sighed, relieved it was just the stupid Trekking trees. “Knock it off, okay? We’re Kindred.”

The trees stopped their forest floor housekeeping and bowed. With a few final creaks and groans, they stood still. A lone root wriggled in the dirt.

“What was
that
?” Spike asked, clearly alarmed. “Trees can
move?”

“
Some
of them,” Raven clarified. “Just Trekking Trees. They like to confuse hikers—get them lost. It’s sort of a game to them. Back when a lot of trees were harvested it also saved them from being chopped down and made into furniture.”

Ivy smiled. “My grandmother had a table made from one. Of course, she didn’t know what type of wood it was when she bought it at a garage sale. She had to get rid of it. The crazy thing kept darting across the house one too many times during dinner.”

“They can see, then?” Spike inquired, sounding equally horrified and intrigued.

“Yeah,” Raven said. “If you get close enough, you’ll notice the knots in the tree are really eyelids.”

Ivy turned to Spike. “Look, Spike. I’ve got to turn you back into a lizard now.”

“NO!” Spike yelled. He tugged hard on the vines binding him. Despite his best efforts, Spike was no match for Raven’s vampire strength.

“The note!” Spike said.
 

Ivy stopped to get the shoebox from her book bag. “I’ll read it when I change you. Once you’re safely tucked away.”

“But...but you won’t be
able
to,” Spike said. “These aren’t really store bought clothes. They’re charmed. Tara did it. You turn me and the clothes disappear. Maybe the note, too.”

Ivy considered this. “Very smart, Spike. Too smart.”

Spike stood tall with a triumphant grin on his face. “Well, thanks to you and the Intelligence spell you cast.” Spike tapped the side of his head. “That, and lizards have a high survival instinct. Besides, Tara told me how the spell worked.”

Ivy walked up to Spike, palm extended. “Fork over the note. If there really
is
a note.”

Spike grinned. “The man who handed it to me said he needs more time. I promised him I’d give you the note.” Spike cocked his head. “I lied.”

Ivy and Raven exchanged glances.
 

“Who are you talking about? He needs more time? For what?” Ivy asked.

Spike waggled a finger. “
Not
telling. You’ll turn me into a lizard.”

Ivy took the vine from Raven. “Fine. Raven, search his pockets.”

Raven shot Ivy an incredulous look. “No way!”

Ivy sighed. They really didn’t have time for this. “Since when did you get all modest?”

“Geez! He’s my brother’s pet lizard. That’s just a little too weird, even for me,” Raven replied.

“Besides,” Spike said. “The note isn’t in my pockets. It’s in my underwear.”
 

Bane let out a series of barks that sounded almost like a hyena.
 

Ivy slapped her palm to her forehead. Next time, she’d be more careful and pay attention to spell warnings. Spike might not be Einstein, but he had been under the Intelligence spell long enough to think this through, juvenile as it was.

“Wait,” Spike bargained. “Let me stay human for a little while longer and I’ll give you the note.” He scanned the area around him and frowned. “Hey, where are all the bugs?”

“It’s fall,” Ivy said, irritated. If it weren’t for bad luck, she wouldn’t have any luck at all. His
underwear
? “There aren’t many bugs out anymore, Spike. You got lucky with the moth. Nice snack, by the way. And when the next hard frost hits, there won’t be
any
bugs.”
 

Spike looked oddly nervous. “Moth? What moth? And I don’t
eat
bugs. Not anymore. Um, I was just curious about what happens to the bugs. You know, just filling the old noggin with more knowledge. Really? None?”
 

“Anyway,” Ivy huffed. “Maybe I’ll make you tell me
without
a deal.
 

Spike swallowed hard and diverted his attention to the surrounding woods and thick underbrush.
 

“Don’t even think about it, Spike,” she warned.
 

“She’ll zap you into next week,” Raven said.

“You wouldn’t. Gareth would be very upset,” Spike said.

“He’ll get over it when we get him another lizard. Something less scaly,” Raven replied, easily maneuvering over a large, recently fallen oak. There was just enough room between the trunk and a thick branch that partially propped the tree off the forest floor, allowing Bane and Devlin to crouch down and scoot underneath it.
 

Spike easily hoisted himself on top, and he offered Ivy his hand, helping her across. “I’m being reasonable,” he said. “Just for a few days. Tomorrow, I’ll tell you even more.”
 

He shuffled some leaves away from the fallen log. “Say, do you know if these woods are where Gareth used to find Tiger beetles to feed me? Um, I mean, did you know that they taste
almost
like sweet and sour chicken?”

Ivy’s stomach lurched. Tiger beetles? She’d never eat sweet and sour chicken again.

“Never mind me! Just spouting off odd facts. Still, it’s sad. Maybe I could catch all the bugs and save them from whatever is making them disappear.” He took a deep, steadying breath. “Anyway, about keeping me human in exchange for the note and some information. Deal?”
 

“And why would we believe you’d actually help? Why should we trust you?” Raven asked. “Is there a code of ethics among lizards?”