Don't Hex with Texas (24 page)

He obliged, blushing slightly and avoiding looking at me. He needn’t have been embarrassed on my account. I didn’t feel particularly threatened by a chick who lived in the water, unless she pulled some Little Mermaid stunt to be with him. The cheap metal Lone Star necklace looked out of place on her unearthly form, and I tried not to wish that it turned her skin green.

Sam swooped in then and said, “Looks like the party’s about to begin over at the courthouse. And funny, the gang’s a lot smaller than it was.” If he’d had feathers, he would have preened, he looked so proud.

“I guess I’ll go be the bait,” Owen said. “I’ll need Katie with me. The rest of you, stand by.”

Merlin stepped up in front of Owen, staring him in the eye. Most of the time, Merlin seemed like a kindly, cheerful older gentleman, the sort you could imagine playing Santa at the children’s hospital every Christmas. But every so often, without saying or doing anything in particular, there was something about him that made you well aware that he was a legendary sorcerer from more than a thousand years ago. This was one of those times, and I could tell from the way Owen stood that he sensed that, too. “I will be able to rely on you in this?” Merlin asked him.

“Yes, sir.”

“You remember what your priority is, and that your personal concerns have to be secondary?”

Owen glanced ever so slightly at me, then said, “Yes, I do.” I couldn’t help but gulp. Merlin was basically reminding him that he was supposed to catch the bad guy instead of rescuing me, and while I was in favor of that in theory, it made it kind of suck to be me.

“Very well, then.” Merlin then stepped aside, and Owen moved to catch up with me.

When we reached the courthouse square, he took my hand. “Do you see anything?”

“Yeah, the League of Extraordinary Dolts is gathered around the Confederate War Veterans statue, with the chief dolt doing his Hitler oratorical impression, complete with spittle. Why, you don’t see it?”

He shook his head. “He must be filtering against me.”

“I guess that goes with the territory of being public enemy number one.”

We moved closer so I could hear what was going on. I relayed the gist of it to Owen, feeling like one of those simultaneous translators at the United Nations must in having to listen and talk at the same time.

“He sounds pretty frantic,” I said. “He’s yelling at them for failing him because they weren’t able to catch you. They’re not fit to call themselves wizards, but at least they’re better than all those who were even weaker and ran away in fright.”

Idris worked himself up into a good fever pitch, then yelled, “I’m finished with all of you if you don’t catch that wizard tonight.”

I passed that on to Owen, who said, “That sounds like my cue.” I led him to where I was sure he’d be visible even if he couldn’t see them. He cleared his throat, then said in a loud, clear voice, “If you want me so badly, Phelan, why don’t you get me yourself instead of sending your lackeys after me?”

I
t took a couple of seconds for them to react. First, their heads turned in our general direction. Their eyes widened, and they blinked, then frowned, as though they were comparing Owen in real life to the picture Idris had shown them. The ones who’d actually seen him in person earlier in the day during the car chase had already left town, so there wasn’t anyone in the group who could verify Owen’s identity. In all fairness, he was a little shorter in real life than you might imagine he would be, based on his picture.

“There he is! Get him!” Idris shouted, pointing at Owen. “None of you will ever be real wizards unless you can capture him and bring him to me.”

Owen bent his head to whisper to me, “What’s going on?”

“I guess he hasn’t dropped the veil,” I said. “They’re all gawking at you, and Idris is saying they should go get you.”

“Ah, thank you.” Then he spoke to Idris. “Are you afraid I’ll beat you again?” I nudged him to turn a few degrees so he’d actually be facing the person he was addressing. If Idris hadn’t been such a jerk, he might have let Owen see what was going on.

“I think I came out ahead last time,” Idris said.

I relayed the message to Owen, who replied, “You escaped. I’m not sure I’d call that ‘coming out ahead.’ Scurrying away like a sewer rat isn’t my idea of a victory.”

“I like my odds now, since you’re more than a bit outnumbered here.” I counted eighteen student wizards, not including Dean, plus Idris, which probably meant the odds were in our favor when you considered who the people on our side were. But I wasn’t going to tell Idris that. That was part of the surprise.

Idris turned again to his people. “Well, what are you waiting for? The person you’re supposed to be catching is right there in front of you. Do I have to draw you a map?”

Moving almost as one, they rose and headed in our direction. At first, it was a few tentative steps forward, but then they gathered momentum and surged toward us. I didn’t feel I needed to relay Idris’s instruction to Owen. Instead, I tugged on Owen’s hand and yelled, “Run.” I wasn’t sure whether he was able to see the wizards coming at us, but I didn’t want to take any chances.

The student wizards ran through the Magic 101 spell book, throwing one thing after another at Owen as we fled. There was enough magic in the air to give me goose bumps. They must have dropped their veil because Owen deflected their spells easily without pointers from me. It helped that they had to say the spells clearly and out loud, sounding like first-graders reading from a primer. That gave Owen plenty of time to have his own counterspell ready in an instant. He’d probably had to practice fending off this kind of attack in the magical equivalent of Cub Scouts.

The wizards behind us shouted in triumph as we ran from the square toward the park. They were sure they had their quarry on the run. I heard Dean’s voice cry out, “Follow him!” They didn’t need much urging. They were already convinced they were moments away from earning the designation of real wizard for their achievement in capturing their mentor’s archenemy. I almost felt sorry for them. They knew no more about what they were messing with than Dean had before we set him straight.

We ran straight for the creek and down the path leading to the shore. When the first of the wizards reached the creek bank path all hell broke loose. The lead naiad rose from the middle of the creek and gave that creepy dolphin call. At her signal, several naiads popped out of the water near the creek bank to grab student wizards by their ankles and pull them into the water, where they sputtered for breath as the naiads dunked them repeatedly. The rest of the students were so freaked out by the naiads that they didn’t notice the dryads in the trees above them. Dryads dropped from the trees onto the student wizards below with unearthly howls. Others pelted the wizards with twigs.

The students behind the first group saw what was happening and tried to turn and run back up the path to the park, but they were blocked on the narrow path by the students who brought up the rear. A big traffic jam formed, which made them easy prey for the pixies, who popped out of the bushes to poke at their ankles and calves with sharp sticks as they giggled in delight.

“I guess we’d better go see how the rest of the fight is going,” Owen said.

“Do we have to? This part is pretty fun.”

“I want to catch Idris this time, and this is probably my best chance.”

“If he even shows up. I didn’t see him in the group chasing us.”

“I don’t think he’ll be able to make himself stay away. He’s not stupid enough to think that this bunch will really do much good. He’ll let them tire me out, and then he’ll face me himself.”

Since the path was still jammed, Owen and I climbed the creek bank, finding handholds on trees and roots as we made our way upward. We emerged into the park to see a magical battle in full force. The students who’d been blocked from going down the path to the creek had been caught by Rod, Merlin, and Sam, who’d all emerged from their hiding places with Teddy and Granny and were blocking the park’s one unwarded exit so that no one who wanted to run from naiads, dryads, and pixies could get away. The panicked would-be wizards who no longer wanted any part of this added to the chaos, getting in the way of those who were still gung-ho enough to want to catch Owen.

Judging by the guys running in circles, their eyes wild with terror, and the grin on Rod’s face as he stood waving his hands in languid gestures, I got the impression that Rod was sending horrific illusions after them. Those guys were probably facing things out of their worst nightmares. Merlin stood calmly by the exit, with Granny at his side, waving a hand every so often to deflect a spell or to block someone from getting away. Merlin’s attention seemed to be more on Owen than on the fight itself. I got the feeling this was some huge test that would determine Owen’s future with the company after his crazy AWOL stunt.

At the moment, though, Idris wasn’t there, and the pixies were keeping the fight away from Owen, which I hoped would help him save his strength for when it would really be needed. So far, the battle was going our way, with us having the advantage on land and in the water. We even had our own air force. Sam swooped down from the sky to buzz the battling wizards. He had a laughing pixie riding his back. The pixie blasted the students’ backsides with magical sparks, making them leap into the air as each blast of sparks hit them. Meanwhile, more pixies swarmed the ground, getting underfoot and tripping people left and right. Anyone who fell down was in big trouble. He might find his shoelaces tied together or his jeans unbuttoned so that when he tried to stand, his pants would fall down and then he’d fall over so the pixies could get him for more mischief.

Then one of the students saw Owen and yelled, “Hey, there he is!” Soon, we had all the students who weren’t currently entangled with a magical creature, running from an illusion, or in Sam’s strafing path after us. Owen sent a fireball into the crowd, dispersing them like a bunch of bowling pins hit by a well-placed ball. “Did you novices really think you could take me on?” he shouted. He sounded awfully intimidating, unless you knew he was a total sweetheart who was almost meek about doing magic, like he didn’t want to be noticed.

One of the student wizards sent his own fireball flying back at Owen. This ball was much smaller and dimmer than Owen’s had been, and it flickered in and out. Owen reached up and snagged it like he was catching a pop fly, then he held it hovering above his hand. As he held it, it grew bigger and brighter. Then with a flick of his wrist, he tossed it back at the wizard who’d formed it. “Nice try,” Owen said as the fireball hit its target and the student fell over. When he hit the ground, a trio of pixies gleefully pounced.

While Owen fought, I looked around for any sign of Idris. I could imagine him being coward enough to make other people fight his battles, but I couldn’t imagine him not being there for the fight at all. Then again, this was Idris we were talking about. He had the attention span of a gnat and could very well have been sidetracked by something shiny on the way from the courthouse square to the park. If a pretty girl had walked by, we might not see him for hours, so long as she wasn’t repelled by his body spray or by his personality. For all I knew, he was off at the Dairy Queen having a banana split and wouldn’t remember that there was a fight going on until he finished.

I felt a surge of magic coming toward me and whirled to see what it was just as Owen neatly deflected it. He was tiring now, breathing hard, with sweat-dampened hair clinging to his forehead. “Are you okay?” I asked him.

He nodded as he raised his hand and muttered something that sent a student wizard staggering away. “I’m fine. I don’t think I’m tiring as much as these guys are.”

“Maybe you should have kept one of the necklaces.”

“No!” I was surprised at the vehemence of his response. “Dabbling in that level of darkness isn’t worth it.”

“You gave one to Dean. You weren’t going to risk letting him go over to the dark side, were you?”

“Dean isn’t me.” He pulled me out of the way of an oncoming attacker and then sent that attacker flying to land on his back, where the pixies immediately swarmed him. “The more power you have and the more power you’re able to tap into, the more dangerous dark magic is. It’s practically harmless for Dean. For me, it’s a line I don’t dare cross.”

Owen was quite possibly one of the nicest guys in the known universe, and he wasn’t particularly ambitious about power, so I had a hard time picturing him turning into the magical equivalent of Darth Vader. I had a feeling his foster parents had instilled a healthy fear into him as a preventative measure. Bad magic was dangerous enough that you didn’t want to rely on someone’s discernment, not when that someone was as powerful as Owen was.

Owen tugged at my sleeve. “I want you to walk through the middle of the fight. It’s all magic, so they can’t hurt you. I don’t think they know about immunes, so they won’t understand why they can’t affect you. Play it up. See if you can get Ted to do the same thing. They’ll think you’re the most powerful wizards ever. I want them to feel so outclassed that they’re afraid to come near magic again.”

Although I knew intellectually that all those flying fireballs and influence spells would have no effect on me, that didn’t mean walking out into them was my idea of fun. I took a deep breath, put on a serene expression, and headed into the middle of the action. It took a lot of self-control not to flinch at the things that came flying my way. Instead, I bestowed beatific smiles on the student wizards who waved their hands in my general direction. The expressions on their faces as spells passed harmlessly around me were priceless. I couldn’t remember anyone ever looking at me with that kind of awe.

That gave me the confidence to really play it up. Every so often I held out my own hand, as though I was deliberately deflecting something instead of just being unaffected. Once I even stopped and laid my hand on top of the head of a student who seemed to be throwing everything but the kitchen sink at me, to no avail. “Give it up,” I said sweetly to him. “Your pitiful magic can’t harm the likes of me.” He went pale and fell to his knees.

Finally I reached Teddy, who stood near Granny. “What’s with the Our Lady of Perpetual Smugness routine?” he asked me.

“They don’t seem to know about people who are immune to magic, so Owen thought it would freak them out if they couldn’t affect me.”

“It seems to have worked.”

“Want to play?”

“I might as well. I don’t seem to be doing much otherwise. I’ve warned Merlin and Rod about a couple of things, but they’re way ahead of me. Hey, do you think anyone will write stories and songs one day about this epic fight of good against evil?”

“Not unless you feel like doing it. And it’s more like good against annoying, which is less epic.”

I hung out beside Granny while he stepped into the melee, and I soon saw how I must have looked. He didn’t have quite the experience with magical immunity that I did, so it took him a while to stop flinching when it looked like something might hit him. Soon, though, he caught on to how protected he was, and then he started showing off with theatrical motions to supposedly deflect the magic. All those years as dungeon master had finally paid off for him. I would have bet he wished Dean hadn’t swiped his old Jedi cloak.

Rod and Granny continued to guard the exit. The terrified reactions of student wizards running back to the battle gave me the impression that Rod had cooked up some impressive illusions. Granny mostly swung her cane and shouted, and I was rather glad I couldn’t hear exactly what she was saying. I was sure they were curses of some kind, but whether they were the magical variety wasn’t quite clear in the chaos.

As absolute proof that Idris had left out a few crucial facts about magic, some of the students swarmed around Merlin. Compared to Owen’s spectacular showboating, Merlin didn’t seem to be doing much of anything. If you didn’t know he was
the
Merlin, you might have mistaken him for an ordinary old man and very likely our side’s weakest link. It would have been one of the dumbest mistakes you ever made.