Witches Protection Program (12 page)

“What kind of gun is this?” he shouted.

“It’s sort of a cosmic super soaker. Hit the bitch again!” Morgan yelled. She was standing on the roof of the next car. She jumped across, slipping. Wes grabbed her under the arm so that they stood close together.

“Get inside!” he screamed at her.

Morgan was ready to argue but saw Vincenza had turned and was heading toward them at an astonishing speed.

The witch’s face snarling, she gathered speed as she raced toward Wes. Wes pushed Morgan behind him. Engaging in his firing stance, he held his arms out, waiting for the perfect shot. Vincenza cackled with ugly glee, speed making her twisted smile stretch as if she were looking in a funhouse mirror. The rain plastered his shirt against his body. His feet began to slide on the wet surface of the vehicle.

“Don’t look at her eyes,” Morgan advised him.

Wes nodded, holding his breath, the world narrowed to the two of them. The air changed as she sped toward him. He fired, watching the impact throw her backward. She somersaulted, her broom flying out from underneath her, cracking in half. She bounced on the stretched cable, flying high, then tipped into the ocean. Vincenza screamed as she hit the water. Wes watched as the sea foamed, turning a rainbow of colors, the surface churning, pulling the disintegrating witch into its cold depths. The rain eased, then stopped completely. It was so silent you could hear the remaining cables yawing.

The snake gripping Alastair uncoiled to fall harmlessly onto the pavement, turning into a mess of unraveled wires.

Wes jumped down and turned to lift Morgan. Holding her hand, they ran back to Alastair and Junie.

“Nice work. Head to Secaucus.”

“You’re not coming?”

Alastair shook his head. “I got explaining to do. Someone’s got to stay and clean this up. Leave before they pull you in for questioning.” He turned to walk over to a squad car, a sincere smile on his face.

* * *

“What kind of badge is this?” demanded the officer who identified himself as Captain Halperin. He was as
white
-haired as Alastair, with the thickened middle of constant desk work. His nose told of his taste for a good drink after work. Alastair handed him his flask.

“Can’t. On the job.” Halperin shrugged. “I’ve never seen this badge before.” He squinted at Alastair’s shield.

Alastair took his arm. “I suggest you call this number.” He handed him a card with the seal of the commissioner on it.

“You stay right here.” He directed two men to keep watch on Alastair and Junie.

Halperin disappeared into an unmarked car and emerged twenty minutes later, his face white with shock. “You still got that little flask?” he asked Alastair.

Alastair was leaning against the opened door of a pickup truck. Junie had a crowd of officers around her, laughing at something she was relating about the Red Hook Port.

Alastair reached into his chest pocket and handed him the flask with a companionable smile.

“Hard to believe,” the officer said after a long pull.

“Once you really get to know them, it’s hard to believe you didn’t see it sooner.” Alastair paused. “So, did we make the papers?”

Halperin laughed. “The papers, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram. Witches are trending, my friend, and you are being called the Witch Hunter.”

“The Witch Hunter? That could hardly be further from the truth.”

“Won’t be long before Hollywood calls,” Halperin said, handing back the flask. “You, Mr. Verne, are the man of the hour.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

U
sing his smartphone, Wes called an Uber car to meet him on the other side of the bridge. Sliding into the quiet confines of the car, he shook his head to the inquiries of the driver.

“What happened back there?” the accented driver asked insistently.

“A cable broke.”

“A cable?”

“Yeah, snapped and uncoiled like a snake.” Wes gave the address, then fell backward next to Morgan, not even realizing they were still holding hands. Disengagement was awkward. Wes mumbled an apology, to which Morgan responded just as uncomfortably. They pulled into a deserted industrial park, asking the driver to let them out around the corner from the Pendragon building.

The wind had died down. The sky cleared, revealing a sparkling canvas of stars. Wes searched upward, his eyes finding the constellation Hydra. Morgan gazed up, asking, “What are you looking for?”

He pointed to a long chain of stars. “That’s Hydra. Hercules slew Hydra. It had multiple heads that kept growing back.”

“One of Hercules’s twelve labors,” she whispered back, showing him she knew Greek mythologies too. “Pendragon is like the hydra. There are many heads that are going to grow back.”

Wes shrugged, feeling like he had aged a lifetime. Beliefs had been ripped apart. His whole world had changed. Nothing would ever be the same again.

“Are you a witch too?”

Morgan shivered, wondering exactly how to answer him. “Sometimes. Does that bother you?” she asked, afraid of his answer.

Wes looked at her face, her dark eyes, the sweep of her lashes. “Everybody has something.”

“Do you?”

Wes looked at the logo on the sign indicating they were at Pendragon’s warehouses. He slowly unscrambled the letters, sighing. “Let’s go get this hydra.” They skirted the walkway, using a grassy lawn and diving between clumps of bushes.

A guard rounded the corner. The two intruders stood in the lee of a garden,
knee
-deep in foliage. “They’ll never let us pass.”

“Let me think.”

“Don’t you have a plan?” Morgan whispered furiously.

“Does it matter? What matters now is we have to get inside this complex.”

Morgan hesitated, then said tentatively, “I can put a spell on us.”

“Yeah, you can turn us into frogs,” Wes said dismissively. “Let me think.”

Morgan cocked her head, biting her bottom lip. “Then we can hop our way in.”

“I was kidding,” Wes whispered back frantically. “You’re not going to turn us into…What are you doing?” He bent down where she was gathering a small pile of twigs and dirt. “Stop that!” He brushed her hands away.

“Shush,” she calmly replied, back in her element. “It’s a great idea. It’s not like you’re going to stay a frog.”

“I’m not doing this.”

Morgan reached over to tear a small twig off a thin tree branch. It broke after she twisted hard. She pointed the jagged branch at the doorway, gauging the distance to the entrance. “We’ll have, like, six minutes to hop from here to the main entrance.”

“Are you crazy?”

Morgan looked up at his worried face and placed a grubby hand on his cheek. Her eyes softened, and she wet her lips. Wes’s world narrowed, relegating frogs, witches, and face cream to the furthest corner of his mind.

He leaned down, his lips tentatively meeting hers. Their mouths molded together. His arms surrounded her, pulling her close. When her tongue touched his, he groaned, deepening the kiss.

Morgan pulled away, a smile teasing her lips. “The kiss comes after, silly. Now, when I say inhale, breathe deep. Hop, hop, hop is the easiest of the codes to turn us into a couple of toads. Now breathe!” Holding the branch over their heads, Morgan blew a pile of dried leaves from her palm into his face.

Wes choked on the dust, his eyes bulging out of his head. His skin became tight. A cold chill traveled up his spine. The world receded; sound stretched in his ears. He felt dizzy. His chest constricted, then expanded, air rushing through him. Lights grew fuzzy, then elongated, filling his line of vision with striated neon streaks. He opened his mouth to complain, and a loud croak came out. He looked up, realizing he was staring at a mountain of a rock that was formerly a mere pebble. Morgan batted her froggy eyes at him, her tiny green derriere wiggling as she led the way. Wes cursed, hearing Morgan giggle at his complaining ribbiting. He looked down at his splayed amphibious hands. A faint buzzing filled his ears.
Do frogs even have ears?
he thought frantically. He spied a firefly lazily dipping behind drooping blossoms. Tilting his head, he felt a faint urge to roll out his long tongue to catch the bug. He heard Morgan impatiently whisper, “Come on. We can catch a bite later.” So he did what any frog would
do
—he hopped after her.

The path was a tangled mess, filled with
dew
-laden ferns that slashed against his face as he followed Morgan. His protruding eyes rolled in his new head. He looked up at the distant stars, cursing hydras, witches, and the new reality he found himself in. Wes called out for Morgan to slow down. It came out in a loud croak, but she seemed to understand him, turning around to bat those dark,
long
-lashed wet eyes. Wes moaned as his gullet swelled, and a cacophony of sounds erupted. Morgan listened intently, then responded with an equal amount of ribbiting that seemed to make weird sense.
Head for the door. It’s motion activated, and we’ll hop in.
The guard won’t be alarmed when he realizes it’s just a couple of toads,
she told him through her musical croaking.

Wes looked at the long distance between them and the awning of the entrance. He stared at the door, estimating the time needed to get there, when Morgan’s gasp made him turn around. He felt his fear tighten his slimy skin when he saw a calico tabby crouching, ready to pounce.

“Run!” he croaked, turning to face the monster alone, his only thoughts for Morgan’s safety. Inflating with air, he made himself a large target and watched those feral eyes light on him, distracting the cat from Morgan. It was an alley cat, one ear torn, with the longest fangs he’d ever seen. Morgan inched behind him. He felt the cold wetness of her skin next to his. He kicked out with his long leg, pushing her as far away from him as he could. Their eyes made contact. He made a small sound, then leaped toward the feline. Morgan flew backward, a scream erupting from her mouth.

The cat meowed loudly as it pounced, her sharp claws scratching his delicate skin. He winced with the pain, feeling his side tear just a bit. Inhaling, he jumped high, smacking the cat’s face with his back flippers, hearing a satisfying crunch as he broke her front tooth. The cat yowled, spitting and hissing, using her paws to toy with him. Morgan hopped into the fray, hitting the cat’s torso with her body, keeping up a sideways assault. The cat smacked back, sending Morgan into a sharp tangle of brambles. He heard the thud of her body as it was thrown into the thicket. Wes yelled, “Morgan! Change us back!” There was no answering ribbit. The cat used this distraction to grab Wes by the midsection with her bleeding mouth, shaking him as if he were a rag. The greenery whirled before his eyes in a nauseating kaleidoscope, and Wes knew with growing sadness he was doomed. He was going to die tonight, ending up the main course for Garfield. He wondered briefly if he’d taste like chicken.

A sharp incisor pierced the fragile flesh of his side. Wes thought of the serendipity of life. He liked Morgan, really liked her, and wished he had taken a moment to let her know. His father would never know what happened to him, and for a second, Wes thought that would be the only good thing to come out of this debacle. Wes swelled, trying to drag air into his compressed lungs, but the cat held tight, the sound of distant traffic growing as faint as the distant stars in the sky. Though his vision dimmed, he looked longingly for Morgan, who he now saw lay splayed in a bush, her eyes closed.

He sighed with regret, croaking with surprise when his attacker screamed with anger. A black shadow flew past him, pouncing on the cat’s back, causing his jailor to release him in a rush. He heard the
high
-pitched squeals of a catfight, hisses and spitting that ended with the calico escaping with a yowl into the night. Wes dragged air into his starved lungs, then felt the
rough
-edged caress of a cat’s tongue on his skin. “Oh, not again.” He sighed, turning to find the bright gaze of Luna watching him intently. She tapped him gently, pushing him toward Morgan, who smiled up at him groggily.

“Cat got your tongue?” Morgan croaked.

Wes could swear the cat snickered at him, but when he looked at her, he saw that Luna was looking pointedly toward a vent on the side of the building. Leading the way, Wes hopped toward the opening, Luna and Morgan following behind him. His side pained him, but adrenaline coursed through his small body. He found a new determination replace the lethargy than enveloped him before.

The vent led to an internal office. Once Wes punched out the grill with his webbed feet, he leaped down, waiting for the others. Before she landed, Morgan managed to return them to their former state.

“What took you so long?” Wes asked breathlessly, pulling her into a tight embrace. She fit into the hollow of his arms, her head just under his chin. He ran urgent hands down her body, checking for injury.

Morgan giggled, her tentative fingers finding a tear in the skin on his flank. At Wes’s quick intake of breath, she placed a comforting hand on the wound, which filled Wes’s injured side with heat. She moved closer to him, brushing her lips against his, making them tingle with desire. “A kiss to make it better?” she whispered as if asking permission.

Wes gently took her head, feeling for a bump.

“Ow,” Morgan complained.

“You deserve it for turning me into a frog.”

“You technically still are without that kiss,” Morgan whispered, standing on her tiptoes and wrapping her arms around his strong shoulders.

Wes leaned forward, his lips grazing hers as lightly as a summer breeze. Morgan felt her body start to hum with pleasure. She opened her mouth but was stopped abruptly by Luna’s loud meow.

“What’s she saying?” Wes asked, kissing her on the soft spot below her ear, sending waves of pleasure shivering though her body.

“She said to stop acting like cats in heat and get what we came here for.”

Wes cleared his throat noisily. “So, where do we go from here?” he asked.

Morgan took his hand, opened the door, and, after looking both ways down the hallway, headed to the lab.

Research and development was tucked in the basement of the building, the room antiseptic and airtight. Rows of counters lined with Bunsen burners, assorted beakers, and long stretches of chalkboard covered with formulas filled the room. As he passed, Wes noticed different fragrances, some floral, some musky, but all attractive. Inside the lab was a glass door leading to an office. Morgan tried the knob, but it was locked. Wes slipped out a thin piece of metal, bent down, and played with the lock. The tumblers clicked. They went in the room. Morgan sat in the chair behind the desk, typing the passwords to gain entrance to the computer. Wes opened a drawer of a filing cabinet, pulled out folders, and glanced through them.

“Wes,” Morgan called, her face lit up by the screen. “I’ve got something.”

He came behind her, bending low to read the manifest. “Wow, that’s a lot of face cream.”

“It’s the North American shipments. They haven’t gone out yet.”

“Can you cancel them?”

Morgan typed. The cat meowed loudly. “That’s a good idea, Luna. She says to introduce a virus.”

“Can you?”

Morgan shrugged. “I’ll try.”

Wes typed a message updating Alastair on his phone, indicating they were inside and attempting to retrieve the information. He left Morgan, deciding to explore a set of offices next door. He opened the locks with ease, then wandered through them, checking desks and filing cabinets along the way. He entered the last door on the right, finding a room with a large monitor and a leather chair. He searched the back of the monitor, looking for an on button, then pressed it. The screen flickered on, the Pendragon logo emblazoned across it. He followed an AV cable from the screen to a small console on the side of the chair. Opening the top drawer, he found a hard drive imprinted with the Pendragon seal.

He flicked it on. Still nothing but the logo stared back at him. Bending over, he went through the console, finding a pair of holographic glasses. Wes examined them, then placed them on his face, the room coming alive as a
3
-D desktop. Data surrounded him. He spun, slightly disoriented, his hands reaching out. He moved suddenly. A file opened; his eyes widened at the content. Gingerly, he moved his fingers, riffling the virtual papers in the “smear. campaign. project” file. It contained a detailed report of timed press releases to ruin the incumbent president’s reputation in the next election. Wes scanned the information, shocked by the viciousness of the plan.

He moved the file aside, then typed the word
Morgan
.
Denied
in big red letters floated before him. He tied
Pendragon,
then
Gabby, black cat, broomstick,
and other assorted words that were denied as well. His fingers typed
Genevieve Fox,
and the room lit up with
information
—most surprisingly, his own file from the bureau, as well as his father’s.

“That’s interesting,” he murmured.

Most of the documents were reports from the field, where Genevieve Fox was employed. A former housekeeper, she had worked for a woman and two children in a small town in Nevada. Oddly enough, it was the only home in Pahrump, population 310, to have a private helipad. It was she who found the information on the president and the bigamist family he had hidden away from the public eye.

Wes read through the file, using his fingers to manipulate the words in midair. It was actually easier. He was able to twist or alternate the scrambled sentences so that his reading speed amped to a level he had never known. Once he finished with the report, he rifled through the next one, coming across one labeled “Abracadabra.” It opened to images rather than reports, almost as though it were a movie. Fuzzy sepia film sputtered, showing the world from high above. He felt as though he was riding something high above the clouds at a dizzying altitude. He descended, his stomach meeting his gullet the same way as when he dropped altitude in an airplane. It was pitch black, and the stars overhead twinkled brightly. It was close to dawn in this virtual
world
—he could smell the musty earthiness of early morning. Squares of white light lit up like small patchwork on a crazy quilt of the landscape. Wes could feel the cool air as he continued his downward spiral. Looking at his legs, he noticed he was on a virtual broomstick. For a minute, he felt giddy with the unrestrained freedom of the ride. City lights flew past him. He was racing above the continental United States from the mountains sheltering California, to the middle of the country’s flatlands to the rocky coastline of the East Coast. Shadows played with the brightness of the sun, limning the horizon in pink and yellow, accenting the deep canyons of the Rockies from the fertile greenlands of America’s breadbasket. Wes’s jaw grew tight with pride. This was his country, and he was proud to wear a badge defending it. Any badge. Up here, the air was clean, as pure as untrod snow, and just as refreshing. He took a deep breath, forgetting it wasn’t real, but allowing his lungs to feed off the imaginary oxygen. On the horizon, he could see a thin light of the sunrise, unfolding the country before him, as if drawing back a curtain. His silhouette, a lone shadow, stretched across the landscape like a banner. He pulled back, then sloped down to a closer look. Other witches patrolled the imagined airways, but none noticed or acknowledged him. This was Bernadette’s blueprint, the very plans of her scheme.