“No, I just think you trying to look mad, and badass was kinda cute.”
“Argh!” she ground out in frustration as she scowled at me and motioned with her arm and an angry snap of her hand. The chairs all stood up and scooted to their tables. The shock on her face as she slowly looked around the room at all the upright chairs was damn near comical.
“Well…,” I drawled. Leaning back in my chair, I crossed my arms and cocked a brow. “Could you do that before?”
“Not that magnitude. Maybe one at a time,” she murmured, blinking slowly as if she still couldn’t process.
The surprise obviously hadn’t left her as she dropped into her seat, looking shell-shocked. Then she suddenly sat straight up with a gasp and smacked her forehead. “I have the power to help my mother now! I need the scrolls, and I need to get to my mom.”
I shook my head, dropping my arms to the table as I leaned toward her. “We can’t leave. Especially now. If what you say is true, then you just became even more valuable to whoever those people were. If they get control of you and those scrolls you’re in charge of, they have it made.”
“Not if I’m stronger than them,” she said excitedly.
“No. This is a bad idea. A terrible idea. I’m not a coward, but I know when to pick my battles. I also know my SAA told me to protect his sister, and I’m pretty sure letting her run into the goddamn storm isn’t the way to do that.”
“But I can open the scrolls now,” she whispered incredulously. “There’s likely a spell in there that can break the hex on my mother. Niara and I have been searching for a way to open the scrolls. Now I can. There are spells in there that the witches of my time have never seen. There are spells in there that only I, at my full power, can cast, and there has to be information in there that can help me defeat Tweedledee and Tweedledum too.”
“Why do I feel like I’m in some cheesy-ass TV show about witches?” I asked her with a smirk, because it sure did feel reminiscent of something I’d watched as a kid.
Her glare practically sizzled my skin. My shoulders drooped, and I raked a hand through my tangled hair. “You aren’t going to let this go, are you?”
“It’s mymother,” she cried.
That was the part that got to me. It was her mother. If it was my mother, I knew damn good and well that I’d do anything to keep her safe.
“Okay, but obviously those two that are after you don’t play by the rules. Because you sure as hell assured us your store was safe, and yet they got in.”
Irritation flashed across her face, followed quickly by frustration.
“I’ve been thinking about that. I think they somehow figured out a way to cloak themselves. My mother and I had cornerstones, a badass battery spell, and a mirror spell for good measure. I found out that she cloaked us for years to protect me. I always assumed it was from my father—who my mom always said was an evil bastard. Just as Voodoo’s grandma was able to find me, I think they got past them because my mother helped me set them up. With her life draining from her every day, she’s been weakened, which I now believe is exactly what they hoped would happen.”
“So how can you think you’ll be safe around them now? You can’t, because there’s obviously no precedence for this,” I argued.
She sighed and buried her face in her hands. Then she dropped them and stared at me. “Either way, we need to go get the scrolls,” she tiredly insisted. “If they found me and my mother, there’s the chance they will find the scrolls. Then they would only need me to open them.”
My jaw worked, and my fingers strummed the tabletop in agitation as I contemplated the situation.
“A chance they find the scrolls? How do you know they haven’t already, and they’re just waiting for you to go after them? Then they have everything!”
She inhaled deeply and slowly let it out. “I don’t. But better for me to have the scrolls and know they’re safe than to worry about them having them and never being able to step foot outside. I cannot let them get those scrolls. You realize if we don’t find a way to flush them out, I will always live in fear? At least until I figure out how to do more than magically create food and stand fucking chairs up.”
“Fuck. Let me make a call,” I stood and cast a quick glance around at the state of the room. Pretty sure my brain hadn’t caught up to the fact that the woman I fucked last night and this morning had somehow created water and electricity out of nothing. Oh, and we can’t forget the piping hot meal she conjured up out of thin air.
Needing a smoke something fierce, I went outside. After shaking a cigarette out of the pack, I lit it and took a deep drag as I waited for Voodoo to answer. I had no fucking clue how I was going to explain this shit to him.
Exhaling, I listened to the phone ring. “Yeah?” Voodoo’s sleep-laced voice came across the line.
I gave him a brief explanation of the need to get the scrolls without telling him everything that had transpired. I wasn’t ready for that, and even if I was, I sure as shit wouldn’t do it over the phone.
“Negative. I need you to stay there for now. It seems like a safe place. There hasn’t been any sign of anyone since you’ve been there, has there?” By the time he asked the question, he sounded more awake.
“Nope.”
“Then stay put,” he instructed.
“She’s not gonna be happy with that answer. I’m telling you now,” I warned.
“Tough shit,” Voodoo replied before the phone was taken from my hand. She’d been so quiet, I hadn’t heard her come outside. That told me I was slacking. I needed to be more observant.