Don't Hex with Texas (11 page)

I loved my family, but I wanted more than anything for them to go away—and soon. Granny left first, since she didn’t like to drive at night. Then Molly and Frank left to get their kids to bed, and Teddy and Beth weren’t far behind them, sneaking out with a still-sleeping Lucy before she could wake up and demand to be held by her new hero.

You could have knocked me over with a feather when, as she and Dean were saying their good-byes, Sherri said, “You two should come over for Sunday lunch tomorrow. We barely got to chat at all with so many people here tonight.” She was supposedly talking to me, but she didn’t take her eyes off Owen when she talked.

Based on prior experience, I knew she probably wanted a chance to get her hooks into Owen, but I couldn’t be bothered to stir up any jealousy. Even if she really was a witch of the magical persuasion, I doubted she could overpower Owen. And if she was the other kind of witch, she was so far from his type I doubted he even noticed she was a woman. Owen’s obliviousness had gotten us in trouble in the past, when someone managed to throw herself at him without him noticing her enough to even reject her and she turned against the entire company in order to get revenge.

“We’d love to,” I said, ignoring the dismay on Owen’s face. It would be the perfect opportunity to see if there was any other magically stolen loot in their possession. I tried to give him a significant look to show him I knew what I was doing.

“Then how about we see you at twelve-thirty? Don’t bother bringing anything. I’ve got it all taken care of.”

When the house was finally empty of everyone but us, Mom, and Dad, I suggested to Owen that we go sit out on the porch swing and enjoy the lovely evening. As soon as I was certain we weren’t being spied upon—at least not closely enough to be overheard—I shared my conclusions. “I have a new suspect for us,” I said.

“One of your family?”

“Only indirectly. Sherri was wearing a new bracelet tonight, one Beth remembered having seen in the jewelry store on the square. Sherri seemed uncomfortable and was really vague about how she got it. I know she and Dean can’t usually afford stuff like that.”

“You think she’s our rogue wizard?”

“Either that, or she knows who it is because she’s buying hot goods from him at a discount.”

“So
that’s
why you accepted the invitation.”

“Exactly. Normally, I’d avoid it like the plague, but we might be able to see what else they have in their house, and you might be able to tell if there’s any magic going on. I don’t suppose there’d be any way to expose her as the thief without revealing the magical angle, huh?”

“It might be difficult.”

“Rats. I know it sounds awful of me, but I’d have loved to convince Mom that she didn’t hang the moon. Frank and Teddy have such great wives, and I’m glad to think of them as sisters, but I don’t know what Dean was thinking. He wasn’t thinking with his brains, that’s for sure.”

“She’s not even that attractive. She just looks cheap.”

I desperately wanted to hug him for that. I’d forgotten where I’d left off on the list of things I loved about him, but that needed to go on the list. Too bad a hug would be totally inappropriate for the strictly business relationship he seemed to be trying to maintain.

“I guess we rig the bank tonight after everyone else is asleep. How will we make it so that the customers and employees can still get in and out but our wizard can’t?”

“I can set it to only block people with a certain magical level. Someone who can actually work magic has to be beyond a particular threshold. If we hear reports of people being unable to get in the bank, we’ll know there’s more magic in this town than we realized. But if I’m right, he’ll try to hit the bank tomorrow night, so we’ll have everything taken care of before customers become an issue.”

“I take it we’re crawling out the windows again tonight.”

“I’ll have to get some things from my case first. I really hope your parents are heavy sleepers.”

We went back inside and made a big show of heading off to bed. Once I was safely in my room for the night, I changed into black jeans and a black hooded sweatshirt, made a dummy out of pillows so that my bed looked occupied, and pulled Owen’s case out from under my bed. Then I read by flashlight until shortly after midnight, when Owen tapped on my window.

He was also dressed in black. I moved to hand him the case, but he shook his head and crawled in through the window. “I don’t need the whole thing.” He knelt by the case, opened it, then dug around in it, putting various items into a black backpack that came from inside the case. I tried to get a look inside the case, but it was too dark to see much, and the magical light he used to illuminate his work was angled the wrong way to give me a good look.

After he had everything he needed, he relocked the case and shoved it back under the bed. Then we made our way out the window and down off the porch roof. We parked behind the Dairy Queen and walked the rest of the way to the bank, which was a block off the town square. It was a solid Art Deco building that must have gone up just in time for the banks to fail at the start of the Depression. The building had proved far sturdier than the institution, as it was still in use by a branch of a national conglomerate. Sam waited for us in front of the bank.

“Do you think you can manage a veil long enough for me to get this done?” Owen asked him. “I don’t want us accidentally fingered as suspects.”

“Got it covered, kiddo. I’m not sure it’ll be strong enough to block out our local wizard, but the cops on patrol won’t spot any suspicious activity. Just make it snappy. There’s not a lot of power to draw on around here. I spent a few hours on a church today, which helped, but it’s not as good as being able to tap into a real power source.”

“Is a church a good source of power then?” I couldn’t resist asking. “If it is, this town may be more powerful than you think. We have a church on almost every corner.”

“That’s gargoyle-specific, doll, only ’cause we was created to guard churches in the first place. Most of your churches here don’t have much power, since they weren’t built with gargoyles in mind. A big oversight, if you ask me.”

Owen was already at work, pulling things out of his bag and placing them around the bank’s front entrance. “Is there a back door?” he asked as he worked.

“No, one way in and one way out. This place was built during a time when bank robberies happened all the time. You didn’t want to give them much of an escape route. Is there anything you need me to do?”

“Thanks, but not yet. I’ll need you when it comes time to set these. Help Sam keep lookout.”

I couldn’t help but hold my breath and hope that Sam’s veil was good when I saw headlights approaching. It looked like the police were patrolling the square extra carefully after the previous night’s events. The lights turned as the car circled the square, and I let my breath out. A few minutes later, they reappeared, heading down the side street the bank was on. I flattened myself against the building as the car passed, and the officer drove so slowly that I saw his head moving back and forth as he scanned the streets for suspicious activity. Surely a gargoyle standing on the sidewalk and two people dressed in black near the bank’s entrance would have been enough to make him pull over if he saw anything, but he kept on going.

“You didn’t trust me, did you?” Sam asked, sounding offended, as I let out the breath I’d been holding.

“No offense, but since your magic doesn’t work on me, I find it very easy to forget that it’s there,” I said, surprised at how badly I was shaking. It reminded me of the one time I’d joined in a teenage prank when we toilet-papered the home of our chemistry teacher. I’d been too scared of being caught to get any fun at all out of it, so I decided to avoid that kind of activity from then on.

“I’m trying to work here,” Owen snapped. He did tend to get testy when he was concentrating on something. That was about the only time he lost his usual calm. Sam and I looked at each other, and Sam shrugged.

Behind us, Owen began chanting softly in something that sounded like it might be Greek. He scattered a shimmering powder across the bank’s threshold as he spoke. I shivered at the tingle of strong magic in use nearby, and I was glad I hadn’t worn the magic-amplifying necklace. He took a step backward, paused for a moment, then said, “Okay, now to set it and fine-tune it. I’ll need your help for this.”

“My help? But I have no magic at all.”

“Which means you have a lot of pent-up energy that I can tap into. Setting wards like this requires a massive burst of power, and with the power lines here so weak, I need another source if I don’t want to deplete myself entirely. You should barely notice the effect.” He held out his hand to me, and I stepped forward and took it. His hand was firm and warm, and I was sure mine was cold and clammy.

He adjusted his grip so that our palms were tight together and our fingers were laced, as much skin as possible in contact between us. “Now you need to relax. You don’t have to do anything but stand there and keep breathing. Okay?”

I nodded, then found my voice to croak, “Okay.”

“Okay, then. Sam, stay on lookout, and make sure that veil is working. There might be a few fireworks.”
Yeah, there sure might,
I thought as my skin tingled from the close contact with him. And he hadn’t even started the magic.

I felt like I should close my eyes, but Owen hadn’t mentioned it, and I wanted to see what happened. He murmured something under his breath that was somewhere between a chant and a song. There was more melody than in your average chant, while it was still too flat to be much of a song for anyone who wasn’t into rap. I didn’t understand the words at all, and I didn’t think I recognized the language. Then the strongest burst of magic I’d ever felt hit me. It flowed through me, and it reminded me of the very brief time earlier this year when, due to a fluke involving a parasitic fairy, I’d been able to do magic, myself. My hand grew so warm where it touched Owen’s that I was sure it would glow red if I looked at it.

I did look at it, and there was a golden aura surrounding our joined hands. But then an even brighter light caught my eye. I turned to see a sheet of white light rise from the powder on the ground to fill the entire bank doorway. The sheet held for maybe a minute, then suddenly all the magic was gone. The doorway went back to normal, with even the powder dissipated, and when I looked at our hands, the aura was missing. I didn’t feel the warmth anymore.

Owen took several long, deep breaths, then released my hand. “You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, I think so.” Actually, I felt a little shaky and light-headed, but I didn’t think it was because of whatever he’d done magically. It probably had more to do with watching him in action while holding his hand that way. I couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to make love with him, if we ever managed to get back together and get our relationship to that point before some disaster hit us, and then I was glad it was so dark out because my face felt as warm as our hands had. “Did it work?” I asked.

“Sam?”

The gargoyle waddled forward and approached the doorway, only to be thrown backward. “Yep, it works, all right.”

“Now what?” I asked.

“Sam starts staking out the bank and lets us know what he sees. And we get to bed before someone notices us missing.”

We crept back across town to the car, then began driving home. We’d only gone a few blocks when Owen said, “Uh-oh.” I turned around and saw flashing blue-and-red lights behind us.

“Uh-oh,” I repeated.

M
y heart always pounded whenever I saw a police car on the side of a road and I thought I was doing a mile or two over the speed limit. I’d keep an eye on the rearview mirror for the next several miles until I could convince myself that the officer wasn’t going to come after me. Tonight, seeing the police car flashing its lights behind us when we were out in the middle of the night doing extremely suspicious things while a rare crime wave was going on, I thought I’d have a stroke. Or maybe throw up. Tears stung my eyes in the instinctive female response to being pulled over. I never deliberately tried to cry my way out of a ticket, but I couldn’t seem to help myself.

Owen, on the other hand, looked totally calm. He pulled right over and rolled down the window. Then he reached across the seat and grabbed my hand. “Good evening, officer,” he said, a strange undertone to his voice. “What seems to be the problem here?” I recognized the tingle of magic, and my palm grew warm where Owen held it.

The officer got a glassy look to his eyes. “No problem. Have you seen anything suspicious?”

“Not at all.”

“Thank you, and have a nice day.” The officer turned and walked back to his car, and Owen drove off, not releasing my hand until the police car was completely out of sight.

As soon as the threat appeared to be over, I went giddy with relief. “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for,” I quoted, ruining my Obi-Wan Kenobi impression by interrupting it with giggles.

“What?”

“Oh, come on, you know, Jedi mind tricks. The Force has a powerful effect on the weak-minded.”

“Well, it does. And you’d better be glad I know that trick, or we’d have become the prime suspects. Do they have dashboard cameras in these police cars?”

“Not in this town, so you don’t have to zap the tape magically. I thought using magic to manipulate others was wrong.”

“It’s a gray area. It depends a lot on motive. In this case, I can get away with it because it was crucial to the success of the mission. If I’d made him fix a ticket I’d earned, then I’d be in trouble.”

“I guess it would have been bad if we became suspects while we were trying to solve the problem,” I admitted. Then I added, “That was really cool how you did that.”

“It’s not something I have a lot of practice with, and as tired as I am, I wasn’t sure it would work.”

“What would you have done if it didn’t?”

“I guess I’d have zapped him to knock him out and then tinkered with his memory so he didn’t recall stopping me.” The matter-of-fact way he said that was a little chilling.

He sat in the car for a while after we got back home. He looked utterly exhausted, like he had to recharge before he could even walk again. “Is setting wards really that draining?” I asked.

“Yeah, because you have to give them enough power to run for a while. It’s the same amount of power as doing a spell constantly for days. In New York, there are stronger power sources naturally that I’m able to tap into, so warding my home only required a long nap and a day without using magic for recovery. The office has enhanced power sources, so warding my office was next to nothing. Here, though.” He shook his head. “Doing much of anything takes a lot out of me. That’s why I needed to draw on you. What time will we need to get up in the morning?”

“Church starts at eleven, and normally you’d be expected to go, but if you’re not feeling well, Mom and Dad would understand. They’ll go to Sunday school earlier than that, but we don’t have to get up when they do. Sundays are fend-for-yourself days for breakfast.”

“I think your mother would be deeply disappointed if she didn’t get to show me off to her friends, and that might affect our ability to get anything done without making her suspicious. I’ll be okay, assuming I can manage to get back into the house. A few hours of sleep will get me mostly back to normal.”

This time, he didn’t use magic to ease the way up the tree. He boosted me up, and then I reached a hand down to help pull him up. He was slender, but he was a lot heavier than he looked. I climbed through my bedroom window first, then held my breath and listened for other sounds of life in the house. When I was sure the coast was clear, I gestured him inside and dragged his case out from under the bed.

He put away the backpack and got out a small vial before relocking the case and hiding it again. Then he asked, “Do you think anyone would notice if I went back to my room through the hallway? I’m not sure I’m up to much more climbing around on the roof.”

“If anyone hears anything, they’ll assume you’re going to or from the bathroom. It’s not quite like the stairs.”

He eased my door open, looked up and down the hall, then slipped silently away. I waited, holding my breath, until he’d disappeared into his room, then counted to a hundred before I shut my door as silently as possible and changed into my pajamas. It looked like we’d gotten away without being noticed yet again, though that police officer had been a close call. I pulled the pillow dummy out from under my covers so I could get into bed, then tried not to think about what it had felt like when Owen’s hand had burned against mine.

He didn’t look much worse for wear when he came down to breakfast the next morning. You’d have to know him as well as I did to notice the exhaustion behind his eyes. Mom had left a stack of waffles for us to pop into the toaster, and I couldn’t detect a trace of suspicion in the note she’d written, much to my relief.

Owen was dressed the way he usually was for work, in a suit and tie. I should have been immune to seeing him that way by now, but I hadn’t seen him like that for a while, and it almost took my breath away, even as it gave me a pang for what I’d been missing. “Coffee?” I asked, trying to hide what felt like a visible reaction.

“Please.” He hung his suit jacket over the back of a kitchen chair and wearily took a seat.

I placed the coffee in front of him, along with glasses of orange juice and milk. “Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked.

“As long as no one challenges me to a magical duel today, I’ll be fine. Our wizard is probably still recovering from the other night’s crime spree. The lack of local power sources should impact him—or her—even more than it does me.”

Some waffles popped out of the toaster, and I put one on a plate and set it in front of him. “Syrup’s on the table. Is there anything else you need?”

“I’m fine. Do you eat like this all the time?”

I put my own waffles on a plate and took the seat next to him. “No, Mom’s just showing off for company. Most mornings, we grab a bowl of cereal and maybe some toast.” I felt intensely conscious of how snug my skirt had become. A few months of eating Mom’s cooking without all the walking I did in New York, and I was in danger of needing to buy an entirely new wardrobe. My only saving grace was the fact that my job here involved more physical activity than my job at MSI had—well, except for when I was being chased by dragons or weird magical creatures. My days in the office at MSI were generally pretty sedentary while I seldom got to sit down for five minutes straight at the store.

Owen ate silently for a while, and then the caffeine hit his system, so he became a little more animated. “I guess we go from church to your brother’s house to make sure your sister-in-law isn’t our culprit. Then is there anything else on the agenda?”

“You’ll be pleased to note that an after-lunch nap is usually on the Sunday afternoon schedule.”

“Good. Then we’ll be ready for another busy night.”

“Another one?” I may have hated the ruffles and canopy, but otherwise, I was quite fond of my bed, particularly in the middle of the night. I wasn’t up for all this midnight creeping around.

“Our wizard should have recovered by now from Friday night’s capers, and Sunday night would be the ideal time to hit the bank for maximum impact. Imagine the shock and horror when they open the bank Monday morning to find the vault empty. That would give him a real thrill.”

“Can you really use magic to rob a bank or break into a safe?”

“I wouldn’t try it at a Chase branch in Manhattan, but I could probably get in and out of the bank here with a good amount of money without anyone noticing if I tried. I don’t know of any specific spells for safecracking, but there are some good spells for locks that might be modified. With what we’ve seen so far from our wizard, I wouldn’t be surprised if specific bank-robbing spells were included in Idris’s course.”

“There are times when I’m really glad you’re on our side,” I said, finishing my waffle.

Mom was waiting for us in front of the church, and I was glad Owen had insisted on coming, no matter how he felt, for she was dressed to the nines, all set to show off. We barely made it inside before she started introducing Owen to everyone as her daughter’s
special
friend who’d come all the way from New York to visit her. Owen was a good sport, even though it must have been his idea of hell to be surrounded by hordes of middle-aged and elderly women all fussing over him. I’d seen the kind of treatment he got when he went home for a visit, so I supposed he was used to it by now. At least here, no one was trying to throw daughters at him, since he was here to see me. Then again, my presence hadn’t exactly stopped the onslaught in his hometown at Christmas, though there was magic involved in all that mayhem.

I could almost feel the tension leave him when we got back in the car after church. “You held up nicely,” I said. “Many a strong man has faltered in the face of the women of the Cobb United Methodist Church.”

“Well, I have faced my share of dragons.” I knew from the quip that he was back to himself and might even be up to dealing with Dean and Sherri. I gave him directions to their house on the other side of town.

Sherri greeted us at the door in a skirt that could have doubled as a tube top and a tube top that could have doubled as a headband. I somehow doubted she’d been to church that morning dressed like that. She wore her new bracelet, along with a matching necklace and earrings. She grabbed Owen as soon as he stepped through the door and kissed him on both cheeks, European style, missing both times so that her kisses landed on the corners of his mouth. “Welcome to my home!” she said as she ushered us in.

It looked an awful lot like my home—my parents’ home, that is. The same family pictures hung on the wall in very similar frames, and if I wasn’t mistaken, the furniture was my parents’ former living room set. She’d set the dining table with china that looked suspiciously like the wedding china my mom never used. I made a note to myself to check the china cabinet and count pieces when I got home.

Dean wandered in from the backyard, smelling of charcoal smoke, so I assumed he was grilling something for lunch. When he greeted Owen, he was a little cooler and more reserved than he’d been the night before. He’d probably figured out that his wife had spotted a potential upgrade. Surely he was used to that by now, though, considering she’d broken an engagement with another man to marry him.

His coldness flustered Sherri. She fluttered around, picking up a book of matches and going to light a candle sitting on a side table. I thought it looked a lot like one of the ones Rainbow was selling in the drugstore—the ones Owen couldn’t tolerate being around. I’d just opened my mouth to say he had allergies when Dean said, “Don’t light that thing.”

“Why not?” Sherri asked, still holding the lit match. “It’s aromatherapy that will promote a calming environment.”

“It makes the place smell like a cheap whorehouse, and it’s so strong it gives me a headache.”

“Like you’d know how one smelled,” she muttered, but she blew the match out. As soon as Dean returned to the back patio to tend his steaks, she said in a voice pitched higher with tension, “Can I get you something to drink? How about a beer? Or we have sodas or iced tea or some lemonade, I think.”

“Iced tea is fine for me,” I said, wondering if she’d made it herself. On second thought, that might not have been the best choice.

“Iced tea for me, too, thank you,” Owen said. He gave the distinct impression that he wished he could get away with wiping his mouth from where she’d kissed him.