spies and spells 01 - spies and spells (6 page)

“I think I’m broken.” I flopped both wrists at the same time. “None of my spells are working right.”

I touched my nose and sparks flew out. That was working okay.

“It’s like they aren’t working all the time.” I sighed and took a good look at my hands. “Nothing seems to be out of order.” I noted each finger, holding my hands to the light. “Something’s off.”

Auntie Meme disappeared into the food pantry. A bright green glow darted out from underneath the door before it went to black and she reemerged.

“Be home for dinner tonight. Not a minute late,” she warned sending a sick feeling right to my gut. Another earthquake.

Chapter Six

“Smooth move this morning,” I said to Vinnie after I got in the car from the long day of two shifts.

I had managed to get through the day unscathed, on cloud nine from learning how to make the sausage gravy, but on edge from Mick.

“If you must know, I was going to dump the contents of the box, but decided you got yourself in this mess and it’s you who needs to get you out of it.” Vinnie didn’t sound so happy as he drove off.

I couldn’t help but look around me, out every window, thinking Mick was somewhere watching me.

“Although I’m your familiar, and supposed to keep you safe, you seem to manage to get yourself in hot water often and I’m always saving you.” Vinnie continued to yammer as my mind played the scene from the confrontation with Mick.

I pulled his business card from the apron, which was still tied around me. I’d been in such a rush to get out of the diner before Auntie Meme could make me stay to help the closing staff that I’d forgotten to take it off.

“He’s a spy,” Vinnie said, catching my attention.

“What?” I looked down at the business card.

Vinnie’s control panel, which looked like a little computer screen in the console, turned on, displaying a photo of Mick. His stats rolled across the bottom of the screen.

“Six-foot-two, muscular, dark hair, blue eyes, on the Louisville PD for five years before he joined an little-known division of Interpol – the Secret Keepers of the Universal Laws, known as SKUL. He’s a spy.”

“A spy?” I groaned. Something told me I was sticking my head someplace it did not need to be. “Oh, God.” I put my hands to my lips wondering about the package. “Are you sure he’s a spy?” I looked at the television monitor on the dashboard to make sure the stats read what I thought they read.

“Yes, Maggie. He’s a spy and that man you turned into a cat was a criminal meeting with Mick Jasper and there is most likely something in that makeup you smeared all over your face.”

“There is nothing in the makeup. I bet Mick was undercover and doing a drug deal or something and the guy put makeup in there to throw him off.” It did sound possible but my girlfriend theory from earlier had just been shot to hell. “Still, Mystic Couture is something I don’t think I can give back.”

“You have to.” Vinnie pulled up to the police station and opened the door.

“Wait.” I jerked looking around the parking lot of police cars. The traitor had brought me to SKUL.  “No. I’m not getting out.”

“You don’t have to.” Vinnie shut the engine off just as Mick walked up to the car.

I was going to pull Vinnie’s spark plugs if he kept this crap up. He was supposed to do what I needed him to do. I didn’t need him to drive here. I snarled.

“I see you came to your senses.” Mick put his hand on the roof, his body positioned between my driver’s seat and the open door. The muscles I’d read about from Vinnie’s work-up of Mick’s stats were popping through the short-sleeved blue knit shirt he had tucked into his jeans. Nice belt and Italian loafers made me think he was a snappy dresser. “Hand it over.”

“Hand what over?” A male voice came from behind Mick. An older silver-haired gentleman stood behind him in a grey suit, blue button down, and red tie. A curious look on his face.

“Her number.” Mick coughed. “We met last night at The Derby and we just had a late lunch.”

“When you are finished here, I need to see you.” The older man scowled. He slid his eyes over and sized me up before he surveyed the parking lot and dismissed himself.

Mewl!
A cat shrieked, jumping on the hood of my car. There was a white streak of fur across his left eye. The green eyes with golden flecks zeroed in through the windshield, paralyzing me.

Honk! Ho-o-onk!
Vinnie let out one short, and then one long toot of the horn, causing the cat to skitter away.

“That’s the man,” Vinnie said,
out loud
.

“What?” Mick jumped back, staring at the car. “Who was that?” He stuck his head into my little two-seater.

“What?” I let out a nervous giggle. “Who?” I looked at him like he had lost his mind.

“I don’t know what little game you are playing, but I heard a man’s voice.” He continued to cock his head around. “The male voice said ‘
that’s the man’
.”

“What man?” I furrowed my brows, playing the little banter game with him. I might not be able to put a little memory loss spell on him, but I could definitely play a head game making him think he was going nuts.

“Don’t screw with me.” His voice was raucous. “Who is the man?”

“The man?” I asked covering Vinnie’s slip up, never once taking my eyes off the cat-man who had run under the bushes, still looking as if it was about to pounce on me and Vinnie again. “I was saying there was a man who had the package.”

“He’s a man who wants the package just as much as me. Now, where is the package?” Mick stepped back up to the car and looked in.

“I left it at home.” I forced myself to look away from the black cat. Something was wrong. The spell should’ve worn off by now. It was definitely the cat, the man from last night. The eyes told me. “I had no idea who you were or what the package was about.” The cat jetted across the road, catching my attention. I tried not to focus on the angry feline. “I didn’t know you were going to come find me. Now that I know where I can find you, I will bring it by tomorrow.”

I reached over and wrapped my hand around the door handle to shut the door. Mick put his hand on the edge of the door, stopping me from closing it.

“Not so fast,” he grunted. “I will just follow you home to make sure I get the package from you.”

“That won’t be necessary. I’ll bring the package to you.” I said as Vinnie jutted forward, knocking Mick’s hand off the door, and slamming it shut. Vinnie peeled out of the parking lot. “Nice,” I said in a sarcastic tone, referring to the screech of the wheels in the SKUL parking lot.

“Maggie, we can’t be bothered with the flirtatious nature of the officer when we have a problem with him.” Vinnie whisked down the road after the cat that was darting in and out of traffic. “You know and I know the spell you placed on the man from the park should’ve worn off by now. He obviously has been keeping an eye out on you. And I have not detected him on my radar.”

“Don’t worry. Just keep up with him,” I ordered my familiar, my eyes bouncing from sidewalk to sidewalk trying to keep up with the feisty black cat. “If it’s a cat-and-mouse game he wants, he shall have it. All I know is I have to reverse the spell.”

“Why is that?” Vinnie asked turning down the street toward a warehouse on the docks near the Kentucky River.

“Someone has to be wondering where he is. He might have family. He might have kids. He might have missed work.” My voice escalated with urgency as each possible thought of who was missing him ran through my head. “What if someone filed a missing person report?” The knots in my stomach got tighter and tighter thinking how I might have altered this man’s life on a silly dare. “What if he never turns back into the human male he is?”

The thought of me screwing up a mortal life made me sick to my stomach. I was going to have to tell Auntie Meme and she was going to have to use her powers to reverse the spell. There was no way I could let this continue.

“We aren’t alone, Maggie,” Vinnie said in his robotic voice.

I turned my body around in the Cobra and looked out the small back window. Sure enough, there was a black rice burner car with red lights illuminating from underneath behind us.

“Are you sure they are following us?” I asked. The car’s blacked-out windows made it impossible for me to see the driver.

Vinnie’s engine roared. I could feel the road moving faster under us. Though I knew Vinnie wouldn’t wreck, I still turned back around into the driver’s seat and gripped the wheel. The speedometer read eighty miles per hour in a forty-five miles-per-hour zone leading down to the docks.

“I’m sure.” Vinnie’s engine revved before he took a sharp turn into a warehouse parking lot, fishtailing to a stop in front of another car that seemed ominous. “And he isn’t alone, Maggie.”

Mewl!
The black cat with eerie green eyes jumped up on Vinnie.

“Shit,” I groaned.

This had to be one of the times Auntie Meme had warned me about. She told me not to get myself in a situation where I
had
to use magic. She told me never to get in a situation where my familiar had to do some crazy outlandish thing that would bring attention to us and our craft. She’d warned me. But I never listened. I totally wished I had listened.

“Now what?” Vinnie asked, revving the gas as we idled.

I bit my lip and continued to release and rewrap my fingers around the wheel.

“I don’t like what I’m sensing you are feeling,” Vinnie said.

“Where are we?” I asked, keeping an eye on the bright yellow car with chrome wheels, equally as low to the ground like the black car behind me. The yellow car didn’t have the blacked-out windows. Both cars had me pinned. I zeroed in on the little bit of space behind Vinnie. If I reversed and took a hard swing left, I would have enough room to get us out of there.

Vinnie’s screen popped up a map of the area.

“I know we are on the docks. I want to know what this place is and who is in the car in front of us.” My chest heaved up and down. The cat continued to stand on Vinnie’s hood with its creepy eyes focused on me. The white brow a clear indication it was the man from last night.

“If that cat makes one scratch on my hood, I’ll neuter the fur ball.” Vinnie’s monitor put a picture up of the person in the yellow car.

It was a bald man with aviator glasses on. He had a toothpick stuck in the corner of his mouth. It slowly bounced up and down as he gritted this teeth together.

“Can you get a read out on him?” I asked.

“As to our location – we are at the Mystic Couture makeup facility. Very fitting since SKUL has an interest in the package you stole and the man on top of my hood was part of it.” Vinnie’s screen showed a picture of the inside of the building.

“Indo-sting,” I whispered to reverse the spell on the cat. My brows furrowed as I looked at the cat in the eyes, eyes that haunted my soul. “Raptu, verto.” A stream of breath headed straight for the cat on the long “o” sound.

The cat’s head flung back; its mouth opened exposing the sharp teeth.

Mewwl.
The sound escaped the creature that was morphing back into the man.

I shoved the gearshift into reverse, turned the wheel to the left, and punched the gas pedal not waiting for Vinnie to kick in. The wheels screeched the full one hundred and eighty degrees. I slammed on the brakes just in time to not hit the black car. The half-cat, half-man flung off the hood and landed on all fours, like a cat, on the ground.

I threw the gearshift in drive and floored the gas. A shrill sound came from Vinnie’s tires, spitting out smoke from underneath us, sending us into a forward motion making it through the small opening and out of the gate back onto the river road.

I glanced back as Vinnie took over. The man was on his hands and knees, his back heaved up and down like he was trying to catch a breath. The others were scratching their heads standing around him. The bald man peeled his sunglasses off his face, and his eyes   scowled at the back of Vinnie. A white glow of sunlight blanketed him.

“Shit.” A momentary panic rushed through me. The bald man was in charge and at any cost, he was going to see to it that I was taken care of and not in a good way.

“Um. . .” Vinnie’s voice quivered. “We have company.”

“You have got to be kidding me.” I beat my hand on the wheel and turned to see what Vinnie was talking about.

“Hey!” Vinnie’s voice boomed. “Easy on the hitting.”

“Sorry, but it’s Mick.” I grimaced.

“I wasn’t talking about him.” Vinnie’s tone frightened me.

“Who?” I jerked around. The only person I noticed was Mick. My eyes darted between the cars, looking for anyone or anything who might be following us. A streak across the sky darted in front of me.

“Auntie Meme,” my voice was tight. Sweat beaded on my forehead when I saw my crazy aunt and her puffed-out black hair peddling her bike above me. Her eyes searing me and Vinnie.

She tapped her wrist, letting me know she had been out looking for me and I was going to be late.

Like a shooting star, she shot past me and disappeared.

Mick was getting closer.

 “Take it nice and slow.” My eyes darted back to the rear-view mirror. I had to get this over with quick.

Vinnie decelerated taking us down to the forty-five miles-per-hour speed limit, turning left back toward home.

“Don’t go home,” I cried out. “I don’t want him knowing where we live. Plus Auntie Meme already knows we are late.”

Vinnie took all sorts of turns. I felt like I was the little silver ball, weaving in and out and around, in the child’s plastic maze game. Mick continued to follow us, at a safe distance, but he was still following.

“We need to lose him, Maggie. We have cleansing night.” Vinnie reminded me of the weekly cleansing ceremony Mom and Auntie Meme do at the beginning of every week. No wonder Auntie Meme was out. “Auntie Meme is already suspicious and knows something is really going on,” Vinnie warned how Auntie Meme wasn’t too accepting of excuses, especially since we were off work by three p.m.

“Crap.” With the chase and the damn cat, I had let the time slip by me. “I guess I’m going to have to face him,” I groaned.