Would-Be Witch (29 page)

We heard another wolven howl of pain along with the merman’s shriek.

“Ahh!” came the growling scream from the tank. Samuel leapt up, running to the tank. He jumped, clearing the wall, and plunged in.

I stood up on shaky legs, biting my lip. There was more splashing and screams, and the water turned a murky maroon.

“Mercutio,” I cried, racing to retrieve the gun. I snatched it up and ran to the ladder. I climbed up with the gun in my teeth, like a deranged pirate.

I glanced at Lennox. His eyes were closed. I couldn’t tell if he was still breathing. I gripped the gun with both hands, trying to make out the wolves and the merman.

Suddenly the waves died down. The gun shook in my hands. Samuel, in half-wolf form, broke the surface of the water and sailed up onto the platform, his jaws open wide, giant teeth ready to snap my neck.

I yelped and pulled the trigger over and over. The bullets tore into him and knocked him back into the water. Then everything was still, the bloody water settling, calm as death.

“No,” I whispered.

Then there was a tiny swish, like a snake moving. And I saw the tail sweeping away from us. And Mercutio’s head broke the surface as he clawed his way up the inner ladder.

“Mercutio!” I cried, throwing my arms around his neck when he got to the platform. He shook and spit out a mouthful of dog hair and green scales, coughing a bit before he settled down to lick his fur.

The bodies rose to the surface. The merman had sliced them up. I shuddered, looking away.

“Tamara!” Bryn shouted, running into the barn.

“Here.” I said, bending down to check Lennox. “Where’s Zach?” I asked, feeling a faint pulse.

“He’s okay. Bleeding some, and it slowed him down. Are you all right?”

I nodded. “Lennox isn’t doing very good though.”

Bryn’s pace slowed, and his face creased with sorrow. “I know.” He came up the ladder with an expression that made my chest hurt.

“Tammy Jo?” Zach called.

I looked up to see Zach shuffle to the doorway and lean heavily on it. I could see the blood soaking his shirt even from twenty feet away.

“I’m here,” I said, hurrying down the ladder. I was almost to him when he crumpled to the ground.

“Oh!” I dropped to my knees next to him. He had a second wound now, a slash to his side, and both wounds streamed blood. I shoved my hand over the chest wound and pressed down as hard as I could.

He winced a little and opened his eyes. His tongue touched his dry lips as if to wet them, but there wasn’t enough moisture.

“Hey there,” I whispered.

“Hey, darlin’, you all right?”

I nodded.

“Good. A couple got past us. I thought . . .” His eyes were unnaturally bright. “Hell, you’re still the prettiest thing I ever saw.” He paused, his lids drifting down before he forced them back up. “I wasn’t all I should have been to you, but I loved you. You’ll always remember that for me, won’t you?”

Tears spilled from my eyes. I leaned down and kissed his lips. “Don’t go,” I whispered against his mouth, crying harder.

“No help for it.” I felt his hand rub my back and then fall away.

I sobbed over him.

“Don’t cry, darlin’.” His voice was so weak.

“What have you all been up to?”

I looked up through blurry eyes and found Edie bending to examine Mercutio.

“Zach’s been bitten by a werewolf. He needs help!”

“Oh,” she said grimly. She drifted toward us and curled down to have a closer look. “I’m so sorry,” she said.

“He’s dying. Do you know anything? Any spell?”

She shook her head sadly. “My poor darling,” she said, brushing a phantom finger along my cheek. “Don’t worry. He’s very capable. He’ll find his way to the other side straight away. And maybe I’ll walk with him partway. I’ve wanted to have a chat with him for such a long time.”

Zach was staring directly at the spot near my shoulder where Edie’s face was.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he said, closing his eyes.

“
You
had her locket all this time?” Bryn asked, his voice a combination of surprise and anger. I looked over my shoulder and found that he’d carried Lennox down from the platform and set him on the nearby bench.

“She can dance on my grave when I’m dead, and you can watch if you wish,” Lennox said, putting the focus right back on his own trouble, which I couldn’t blame him for.

Bryn sighed, frowning, then spoke a few words in their foreign language. Lennox answered, and Bryn looked over to me.

“My father says there’s a legend of healing water, Leon’s Spring. He thought your family ghost might know the location. Another ghost told him she did.”

I looked expectantly at Edie.

“It’s not pronounced
lee-on
. It’s pronounced
lay-own
. And I do know where it is. It’s along the second northeast ley line. About seven miles outside the town.”

I told Bryn what Edie had said.

“I’ll get the car,” Bryn said, hurrying out.

A few minutes later, Steve from security was helping Bryn load Lennox and Zach onto the bench seats in the back of the limo. I sat on the floor between them, applying pressure to their wounds. Edie sat on the floor, too, with Mercutio curled up near her.

Bryn jerked the car out of the driveway and sped out of town. I gave him directions via Edie through the open partition.

“Hurry,” I whispered as Zach’s breathing got more uneven, and I could hardly feel a pulsation from Lennox’s wound anymore.

After about ten minutes, Edie announced, “We’re here.”

“Stop the car!” I said.

She floated out through the roof. Bryn and Steve yanked the doors open. Steve pulled Zach out and hauled him over his shoulder in the same fireman’s carry Bryn used.

“Which way?” Bryn asked. The light from the headlights petered out a few feet into the blackness, and I couldn’t see anything farther ahead.

“Follow me,” Edie said.

“This way,” I said to the men. “Follow my voice.” I stumbled forward over the rough ground and then after a few feet, tripped and pitched forward. I put my arms out, but didn’t hit the ground. I plunged underwater, thrashing from the shock. When I surfaced, I could hear the others. They’d all fallen in. We were up to our necks in water.

“Steve, dunk him all the way under a few times and pull him back out,” Bryn said.

We all took a bath in the cool, fresh water. I swam a few feet, then crawled out on a bank that Edie led me to.

“I’ll meet you at the car,” Edie said.

“I can’t see where I’m going.”

“Follow your ears,” she said, but the only sound I could hear was the noise the men were making, dragging Lennox and Zach out.

A few seconds later, I heard the car stereo. Some a.m. station was playing old jazz. I was amazed we could pick up the signal.

When I got to the car, I found Edie lying on the roof, looking at the night sky. Merc was sitting next to her, licking his paws.

“How did you turn on the radio?”

“Mercutio turned it on for me.”

“Mercutio?”

“Our cat.”

“I know he’s our cat. How did you know his name?”

“It’s on his collar.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Don’t sound so disappointed. Just because he can’t talk doesn’t mean we don’t understand each other.”

I heard the men over my shoulder. I turned. “How are they?”

“Let’s see,” Bryn said, lowering Lennox to the hood of the car and yanking his shirt open. He laughed that gorgeous laugh. I turned from them and hurried over to where Steve was lowering Zach into the back of the limo. I pulled his shirt up and stared down at the skin, perfectly sealed with small white scars.

“Ha!” I shouted, bending to squeeze his cool chest in a make-shift hug.

“Am I dead?” he mumbled.

“No,” I said.

“Sure feels like Heaven.”

Chapter 29

I woke early and found out my body didn’t ache nearly as bad as it should have. The scratches on my legs had been healed in that spring, and my wrist only throbbed if I cocked it all the way back.

Bryn and Zach had both tried to convince me to sleep in a bedroom with them, but I slept on the living room couch with Mercutio instead.

It turned out we’d skipped fall and headed from our freak heat wave right into winter. A cold snap, the weatherman called it. Darn chilly, I called it, and was glad I was inside making a black raspberry torte using Bryn’s state-of-the art kitchen instead of outside with him talking to a team of divers who were going to put the merman back in the ocean. A big rig had just been loaded with a temporary tank.

Georgia Sue called, sounding way more cheerful than someone after a near-death experience ought to have. She told me all about the hospital in Dallas, including its lunch menu that tasted nearly as bad as the squirrel stew her momma made once with curry. Then Georgia went on for two full minutes about how Parkland should invest in some Downey fabric softener for its stiff cotton hospital gowns. The thing she barely mentioned was what happened to get her there. She couldn’t remember a thing about the park that night. And she seemed totally unconcerned about it, too. Well, that’s Georgia Sue, I guess.

I glanced over at Mr. Jenson. He had a very neat, white bandage on his head and, looking as undisturbed as Georgia Sue sounded, he went about his business. He poured a small bowl of cream for Mercutio, who tap danced in anticipation like he didn’t have a million scratches and stitches on his body.

Mr. Jenson arranged fancy china on a silver tray and then set a pot of tea on it. He poured a bit of expensive Scotch whiskey into each of the two cups and then a tiny drizzle of honey. It looked so nice I wanted to take its picture instead of taking it down the hall to our recovering wolf-bite victims.

“You want some arsenic to put in that cup?” I asked.

“Arsenic?” he asked, setting down linen napkins while I cut slices of dessert, including one for Mr. Jenson.

“Yeah, for Lennox’s cup. Don’t guess we’ll use enough to kill him since I went to some trouble to save his life, but enough to teach him a lesson for knocking you in the head.”

“The circumstances were most extraordinary yesterday. It doesn’t seem worth dwelling on them.”

“That’s right kind of you.” I know it’s unchristian to hold grudges, but in my genes I’m part pagan, and I couldn’t help but be annoyed on Jenson’s behalf. He could’ve broken a hip or his head when he fell.

Jenson laid an iron pill on each of two small dishes, and I decided I want Jenson to stay with me next time I get the flu.

“I shall take the tray,” he said.

“Oh no you don’t.” I slid the tray to me. “You’ll serve Lennox Lyons tea and torte today over my dead body. Kick your feet up and rest.”

He might have wanted to protest, but I was quicker and was halfway down the hall before he could answer.

Lennox lay in bed, reading a magazine called
WitchWeek
. It sure looked interesting, but I pretended not to care. I was gonna try to go back to being a pastry chef again, so I didn’t need to know what happened at the last Conclave meeting.

I set the tray down and poured tea into one of the cups. “Why’d you kill Diego, the werewolf?”

“That is none of your business.”

“You want cake and tea or not?”

He rolled his eyes and lifted his magazine again. “If you’re not going to serve it to me, please remove it.”

I clenched my teeth. He was still the king of the bastards.

“Fine, you don’t want Jenson’s whiskey-honey tea, that’s your business, not mine.” I lifted the tray and was halfway to the door.

“Tamara?”

“What?” I asked without turning around.

“The wolf was holding a weather witch hostage, a friend of mine as it happened. When I tried to liberate her, he attacked us. She died, leaving a rather significant heat wave in her wake. Obviously, I was bitten, but survived. That’s all I’ll say on the matter.”

I turned and set the tray back down. “Iron to build your blood,” I said, handing him a pill.

“My own personal Florence Nightingirl. I feel very fortunate,” he said dryly, but he put it in his mouth and swallowed it with a mouthful of tea.

I set the dish of cake down with a napkin and started to pick the tray back up to head down the hall to check on Zach.

“I apologize,” he said.

“Which thing are you sorry for? ’Cause the list of stuff you could be apologizing for is kind of long.”

He smiled. “When I went to your home and when I counter-spelled your family locket, I tangled our magicks together—so far as the werewolves’ tracking was concerned. It wasn’t intentionally done, but I suppose I owe you an apology.”

Darn right.

“Well, I suppose I accept your apology for that.” I waited, but he didn’t say any more. “Do you think the wolves could’ve tracked my magical energy to someone else who cast a spell using my blood to power it?”

Lennox took a bite of cake. I held my breath waiting for his reaction. “This dessert is the most important reason that I’m pleased you didn’t end up dead during our little adventure.”

I decided that the only compliments the man knows how to give are the backhanded kind. Whoever Bryn had learned to be charming from, it sure wasn’t his father.

Unfortunately, I was just dumb enough to care that he liked it. He took another bite and closed his eyes to savor it.

“And yes to your question,” he added.

Hmm. So the werewolves probably had torn up Doc Barnaby’s house looking for me after he’d used power stolen from me to cast his ill-fated wife-raising spell.

I took my tray and knocked gently on Zach’s guest room door.

“C’mon in,” he called.

I opened the door. Mr. Jenson had laundered Zach’s pants as best he could, but there were still a few bloodstains on them. His shirt couldn’t be saved, so he wore a borrowed white T-shirt that was too tight. It looked good on him, like most things do.

He stood near the bed, talking on the phone. “Yeah, I’ll be there. Gimme ’bout half an hour.” He hung up and smiled at me.

“You’re up. Feel okay?” I asked, setting the tray down.

“Feel fine. Even better now that I’m looking at you,” he said, walking around the bed.