Funny Tragic Crazy Magic (Tragic Magic Book 1) (20 page)

So
it turned out, stealing my mom’s notebook wasn’t so difficult after all. All it
took was, A) stealing a minivan, B) hijacking an airplane (after 2001 even. Oh,
and I won’t go into the difficulties that came from TSA, but let’s just say
watching an officer pat down Leo was extremely cathartic.), C) breaking into
the Study, and D) allowing Ash to almost kill a few people. Not that bad. I
felt a little bit lazy. That might not make sense... Ash was the one who almost
killed people, Joe was the one who did the breaking and entering, the
Grandfathers hijacked the plane, the only thing I did was steal Ryan’s minivan.
After several hours sleep, I felt so guilty for that one I don’t think it
counted. Overall, my part in this whole thing was minor, yet I was the one who
would get all the reward. I was the one who would get the notebook and become a
Grandmother.

I
must have been really stupid then to not hear the alarm bells warning me that
something bad was about to happen. But as I stood in the entrance of the Study,
I was too much in awe of actually being there, and content with Joe’s hand in
mine.

Anyway,
we walked into the library, and I looked around. It was a library, so, you
know, there were books, and shelves, and soft leather chairs. Nothing too
crazy. On a wooden table at the center of the room, I could see the familiar
leather of my mother’s notebook. It couldn’t be that easy... could it? I walked
up to it, and yes, it was. It was my mom’s notebook, pulled out for my perusal.

Okay.
The first bell rang then. Joe didn’t seem worried that they knew what I had
come here for. He just leaned over the notebook, hungry for more answers.

I
held my mom’s notebook close to my chest and took a deep breath. My mom. It
smelled like my mom. I put it down on the table and put my thumb against the
edge. This was it. I could look. I had my legacy back.

“Would
you open it, dear?” Ana said, interrupting my inner celebration. “I would love
to take a look inside.”

I
glanced at her, “It’s been here for almost a year, I’m sure you’ve looked
inside.”

“Oh
no, I haven’t. Your mother left a rune on the inside covers. No one, except
yourself or your sister Phoebe, could open it. I’m glad you are here, as Phoebe
is... of course... passed. If you never came to open it, then generations of
runes would be lost to the world.”

I
clutched the notebook to my chest as tight as a hug when she said my sister’s
name. By instinct, I knew I shouldn’t open the notebook, at least not until I
was safe. Once the notebook was open, they could take it from me, hurt me, I
don’t even know. It could be my protection. I’d be safe, and maybe I’d keep Joe
safe if I didn’t open it, at least until they had no more use for me.

“Later,”
I said. “I’ll open it later.”

Ana’s
eyes twitched to the left; I felt the gentle burn of an Instinct’s look from
behind me, but I refused to turn.

“Are
you certain?” Ana said, a hint of nervousness hidden in her voice. “You’ve come
all this way, and it would be childish not to open it.”

Behind
me, I could hear a breathing sound, and then a door close. I turned. There
wasn’t anything behind me, except a few massive bookcases blocking the exit of
the library. There should have been something else there. No, there should have
been someone else there.

Joe.
Joe should have been there. He had been right next to me; I never even saw any
movement. Where was Joe? I looked through the library, at the books, the warm
fire glowing in the fireplace, everything, but Joe wasn’t there. Ana and I were
alone in the room. Ana wrung her fingers together as she faced the left of me.

And
then we weren’t alone.

“Larissa.”
I heard her voice before I saw her, and then a line of runelight rippled over
her body revealing who it was.

“Giara,”
I whispered. “How’d you know…? How did you get here?” Giara looked beautiful in
the firelight as I plead, “Don’t hurt him. Please don’t hurt him.”

Giara
smiled. I think she smiled at my weakness, and honestly, that pissed me off.
It’s bad sportsmanship.

“You
have been so poorly trained,” she said.

“Where
is he?” He couldn’t be dead… Ash had said the
killing
runes took only an
instant, and my back was turned.

“He’s
safe.” Giara said, a sudden look of compassion filling her face. “We have turned
his care over to the Grandfathers. You should be proud, your allies argued very
well for him.” She brushed a speck of red from her face. Was that blood?
“Nevertheless, your time together should be at an end. You two are on opposite
sides of this wa… conflict,” She reached her hand toward my shoulder, but I
recoiled.

“I...
No. What?” My voice hurt, because my throat was so choked with emotion. “No… I
didn’t get a chance to say goodbye,” I said.

“Well,
perhaps you should have taken that chance while you waited for me.” Giara said,
her face angry at being disobeyed.

No.
The idea was hard to process. It all happened too quick. It didn’t seem real.
Joe was alive but gone, and I might not ever see him again.

“It’s
for the best,” Giara said.

“Bull.”

Then
just as quickly as Joe had disappeared, he reappeared, running through the
fireplace. Sparks from the fire cascaded around and through him.

“Excuse
me, ladies,” he said, lifting me into a fireman’s carry. An
open
instinct Witch phased through the wall behind him, looking out of breath.

I
was eager to join him, but my legs wouldn’t move. A line of braided three-toned
runelight hidden in the material of the Oriental rug stuck me there. It was
stay
,
my favorite.

“Crap.”
I said when we both recognized the situation.

While
Joe was thinking of a way to get me out, Giara was giving me an amused smirk.

“I
had hoped we wouldn’t need to use this, Larissa.” Giara said as she turned to a
door beyond where I could see. “I picked someone up for collateral when I was
in Plymouth expecting to find you. Shizuka, would you bring her in.”

Joe
held me close. “Brace yourself, Riz,” he said.

Behind
him through a doorway, I could see a Japanese woman wearing pale pink pulling a
child dressed in blue pajamas by her elbow. A black cloth sack slouched over
her head. I made eye contact with Giara, and she pulled off the hood.

It
was Meg. Her hair was disheveled, and a dark bruise covered her face.

Then,
with Joe’s arms around me, I fell through the floor.

Vertigo
filled me as we fell down to the next story of the jagged building. Shattered
runelight cascaded from the ceiling as we fell down two stories. I closed my
eyes and held Joe close as we went through another floor. We landed with a
sickening thud in the dirt cellar under the ground, Joe’s body protecting me
from the worst of it.

I
rolled off his legs where I landed, and then reached down to help Joe, who had
sunk a couple of inches into the dirt.

He
stood, and I took in his sunflower eyes, his perfect crazy smile, and the
disarray of his hair.

“Hi,”
I said.

He
seemed happy to be with me as well, he put his hand behind my neck, and our
foreheads touched together.

“Hey,”
he said.

I
took a deep breath. “They have Meg.”

We
sat still for a moment, and then Joe pulled away and put his arm around my
shoulder, “Not for long.”

We
started walking, although I’m not sure where we thought we were going. We just
both knew we couldn’t stay still for long.

“Whatever
you do, don’t let go of me again.” I said, my voice carrying into the dark
secluded hallway.

“Uh,
you let go of me first.”

I
didn’t respond to his teasing as I normally would. I stopped in a room
completely shrouded by darkness. Joe stopped too.

“What
is it?” Joe said.

“If
I go up there again, they will let Meg go. If you go with the Grandfathers, you
will be safe. But if we stay together… then nobody is safe. We need to split
up.”

“No.”

“We’ll
find each other. I have the notebook now,” I gestured with my hands, “and I’ll
get Meg and go home. You go with the Grandfathers. When you get the chance,
leave them and come find me. Nobody can hold you in one place. We’ll find each
other.”

“I
don’t like it.”

I
sighed, “I don’t either, but it’s... Look. We got to do it.”

Joe
pulled me into a hug, the notebook coming in between us. The corner of the
notebook poked me under my left arm.

“I
do love you, Riz.” The way he said it made it feel like he was saying goodbye.

I
took a deep breath and pulled the smell of him into my memory, that warm smell
of honey and pine.

“Te
amo, más que mi propia vida.”
I said, and then I walked away
from him.

I
pulled my sleeves up to my elbows and held the notebook, still unopened, tight
against my chest as I walked back up those stairs. I had a slight limp from the
fall, thank goodness for
protection
. If I hadn’t had that, I would have
at least broken a leg.

Protection
.
Joe’s
protection
rune would keep him safe. He’d be safe.

He’d
be safe.

Please,
God. Mother. Anyone. Please keep him safe.

It
took me a while trying to navigate my way back up to the library where they had
trapped me. Giara smiled when I walked back in. Meg sat in one of the leather
chairs, the hood back on her head. For the first time I could see her hands
bound together, the skin on her arms rubbed raw. It reminded me too much of
what Leo had done to me, and it made me furious. A large group of Witches had
assembled in the library, and they watched me, but I wasn’t paying much
attention to them.

I
was glaring at Giara, “What did you do to an innocent, Giara?”

The
woman around me started whispering, and I could see Giara swallow. “Only what
needed to be done.”

I
walked to Meg, drew
open
on the bindings around her hands, and then took
off the hood. Meg started crying when she saw me and threw her arms around me.

I
cried too, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

When
I turned, Giara wasn’t watching me; she had turned to the others in the library
as if seeking their judgment of her actions. Most of the Witches turned to each
other, talking in whispers or behind
silence
runes. Only Ana faced me,
and she raised an eyebrow when our eyes met as if she was trying to tell me
something.

Meg
clutched my hand.

“We’re
going now,” I said, then I helped her up, and we turned our backs to the women.

“No.”
Giara said.

“What
do you want, Giara?”

“The
notebook,” she said. “There are runes in there that you shouldn’t have.”

She
was right, the
killing
runes were in there, and I didn’t have any right
to them. I started to open my mouth to say okay you can have it, but Giara
spoke first, a sense of panic in her expression I have never seen before, “I
need them.”

She
didn’t have them. Giara didn’t have the
killing
runes, only my mother…
This notebook in my hand had the only copy of the
killing
runes in
existence.

I
smiled. “Giara, in the last twenty-four hours you have tried to kill both of my
best friends.” All the eyes in the room were on me. And now I knew why. “This
notebook is mine.” Giara opened her mouth to speak, but I interrupted her, “If
you want it so bad, then take it from me.”

Maybe
I shouldn’t have said that.

Every
ambitious woman in the room turned her eyes to the notebook in my hand, with a
look of hunger.

Giara
took a step closer to me, and I leaned back.

“That
could be arranged,” she said, “We can always
compel
you to open it, if
you plan on being difficult.”

I
did, in fact, plan to be difficult.

“Run,”
I whispered to Meg. She took off without any more encouragement, and I turned
and ran with her. About ten feet away, she fell, and I saw for the first time
the binding of runelight around her ankle. I didn’t have my Instinct to pull us
through the ground to break it.

Giara
was still walking toward me. I wiped the runelight from Meg’s ankle, but it
wouldn’t budge. Someone strong had shared the binding, and the light was a twisting
of two colors.

The
women surrounded me, a look of hunger on their faces. They reached forward,
their eyes on my notebook.

“Hocus
pocus!” I shouted on a whim, and then I drew the rune for
stay
and threw
it at them. Eight people were frozen. Eight. That’s how many I can affect at
one time.

Sadly,
there were nine people in the room.

One
woman slinked around the women frozen to the library floor, her eyes locked on
mine like a magnet. It was Shizuka, the Japanese woman in pale pink who had
held Meg hostage. I could feel all that magic expelled from the
stay
rune drain out of me, but I tried not to think about it. Shizuka drew a
transformation
rune on her own stomach, her eyes never looking away from mine. At first, I
thought she went invisible, but no. She shrunk down incredibly small and then
ran for me. I watched her, completely perplexed. Would it be a bad thing if I
stepped on her? I mean really, was that the kind of thing a person did?

When
she was right in front of me, she ended the rune, and the displaced mass gave
her an extra heave as she punched me incredibly hard across my mouth. My arms
went flying out, and with her other hand, Shizuka snagged a corner of the
notebook. I protested as it slid out of my hands, and then I fell to the floor.

Shizuka
stood there, smiling and obnoxious. I must not have been the only one who
thought so, because Meg ran to the woman uttering swear words her mom didn’t
know she knew. I braced my hands on the hardwood floor and pushed myself up.

“Meg,”
I screamed.

Shizuka
barely noticed her. She drew a rune on Meg’s arm. It was the rune for
fire
.

“No!”
I rushed for her, drew the rune for
air
in the… well, air, and then cast
it at both of them. It was a weak rune; it blew past Shizuka and Meg, shaking
their hair in the rune-created wind. Just then Shizuka’s rune caught, and Meg’s
clothing erupted in flames. She cried out and fell to the ground, rolling and
slapping the flames away.

I
dropped the rune for
stay
that held those eight women, transformed
myself three feet taller, and pushed Shizuka to the ground. She fell and hit
her head with a satisfying thud. The notebook fell from her hands. I drew the
rune for
air
to pull the notebook to me, and then drew the rune for
water
and doused Meg until the last flame silenced. I caught the notebook and glared
at the other women, tensed for them to spring at me en masse. They were all
still.

I
hadn’t noticed during my battle with Shizuka, but more women had entered the
library. I was surrounded now. Twenty or more Witches were in that room, each
looking at me with their faces calm, eerily devoid of emotion.

“I
told you,” Ana, who was standing near the back of the room, whispered to the
Witch next to her. The room was so quiet, that her whisper seemed shouted.

I
released the
transformation
rune, and the floor rushed forward a few
feet. My shoulders rose and fell with each of my breaths.

“This
is mine,” I whispered.

The
Witches looked at one another, several glancing at Giara for a verdict. She
didn’t seem happy, but she nodded. The women in the room erupted in a cheer
that hurt my ears it was so loud. What was going on?

When
the cheer ended, the women spoke to each other with excited voices. Shizuka
still lay on the ground. The massive cheer didn’t even wake her up.

“Welcome,
Larissa Jayne Alvarez, the newest Grandmother,” Giara said, her voice strong. I
could sense a bit of reluctance both in her stance, and also in her voice. I
took a deep breath, still looking around at the others like a scared cat.

“I’m
sorry… What?” I asked.