my eyes, but I walled that all off and pretended she was talking about someone harmless, like Snuffleupagus or Captain Kangaroo.
“So you’ve come to me to make him wilt like lettuce?” I said. “You could have done the job yourself by shedding that skin and showing him what you really look like.”
Wow. I couldn’t believe I’d just said that. Her eyes bulged with the offense, and she whipped her right hand toward my face for a slap. Now, a slap from a normal woman I could handle. Heck, I’d suggest I needed one after saying something like that to a regular college kid. But a slap from a witch is simply not permissible, because sure as the moon rises full once a month, she’d use her nails to scrape some skin off my cheek, perhaps even draw some blood, and then she’d have me. A friend of mine fell prey to precisely this sort of trick centuries ago, and it had poisoned me against witches ever since. She had goaded him into saying something rude, slapped him and left marks on his face, and then that very night his heart exploded inside his chest. I don’t mean he had a heart attack: His heart had literally blown apart as if someone had planted explosives in it, long before gunpowder was invented. Some other Druids and I had taken him to the grove and done a rudimentary autopsy to see if we could puzzle out why he’d dropped dead so abruptly, and we found this crater inside his rib cage. That’s when I realized he’d been killed the moment she slapped him.
I’d never avenged him-the witch got away-and it still stung centuries later. That’s why Emily’s attempt to slap me got a very violent reaction: I knocked her arm down by crossing my right hand over my face, then I backhanded her really hard, much harder than I should have. I shouldn’t have hit her at all; I should have just backed up out of her reach, but I tend to flare up when people try to kill me-which was what she was trying to do, make no mistake. She squealed and staggered back a few steps, holding her nose.
I had broken it, and I sort of felt like an asshole even though she had planned to do much worse to me. While she was still in shock and processing what had happened, I took the opportunity to try to talk her down from escalating it. “You offered me violence and I defended myself. I know that a slap from you would have meant the end of my life, or at least the threat of it, and I could not permit that. And if you are thinking about using magic against me in my own shop, I would remind you that discretion is sometimes the better part of valor.”
“And I would remind you that I am not powerless. Radomila will hear of this!”
“That’s fine. I’ll show her my security tape,” I said, gesturing to the video camera mounted on the wall above the register, “which clearly shows you swinging first. On top of that, you have now given me cause to believe you are a close associate of an old enemy of mine. I’d be within my rights to treat you as hostile.”
“Go ahead and try something!” she challenged, eyes blazing.
“I don’t need to try anything,” I chuckled. “I’m in control here.”
“You go on thinking you’re in control, Druid,” she spat, heading for the door in a fury, her flip-flops flapping noisily. “You’ll soon find out you are very mistaken.”
“See you tomorrow for tea,” I waved cheerily as she slammed through my door.
‹Oh, she’s going to want some revenge,› Oberon said after the door closed and we were alone.
“Don’t worry about her,” I said, grabbing a spoon and moving quickly around the counter. “She’s not the sharpest tool in the shed.”
‹What are you doing?› Oberon asked. He followed me out to the floor, curious. I had squatted down on my haunches, examining the carpet.
“Ah, there we go.” I found a droplet of blood on the carpet that hadn’t soaked thoroughly into the weave; it was not much, but it would be enough. I scraped it off the surface and walked toward the door, peering through the glass window to see if Emily was visible. She was getting into her car, parked across the street a short distance north, a bright yellow Volkswagen Beetle. She would have to turn over her left shoulder to see me, so I darted outside, telling Oberon I’d return in a moment, and kicked off my sandals. I sank my toes into the same narrow strip of grass that had helped me heal my arm the day before, and I chanted a binding as I drew power from the earth. Emily felt the draw somehow, whipped her head around, and saw me standing there. I showed the spoon to her and smiled; her mouth dropped open in horror as she realized how careless she had been. I saw her lips move and her brow furrow in concentration, so I had no time to waste. I licked her blood off the spoon and completed the binding just in time. She flicked her fingers at me and I knew she had just hurled something my way, but all I felt was a gentle breeze.
A couple of seconds later her upper body was thrown painfully forward into her steering wheel, which caused the car’s horn to beep. Ha! She had tried to blow the spoon out of my hand-and knock me down in the process, off the grass strip and my source of power. Clever. But not fast enough. The binding I had performed was actually a ward, which meant that any spell she sent against me would rebound against her. The only way she could get out of it would be to get herself some new blood.
She leaned back slowly and clutched her chest. Probably bruised a rib or two. On top of a broken nose and wounded pride, she’d had a rough day visiting the local Druid. It made me wonder what she’d been told about me. Did she know how old I was? Did she think I was some sort of lame-assed neo-Druid, mucking about with holly branches and mistletoe? She turned around to stare daggers at me, and I gave her a jovial wave, then blew her a kiss. She flipped me off-a gesture that had zero cultural relevance to me-and then started up her Beetle and screeched away toward University Drive.
Chuckling to myself, I reentered the store, and Oberon came over and nuzzled against my legs, which was somewhat startling when he was in camouflage. ‹Nobody’s here now. I want a scratch behind the ears.› I searched and found his head and gave him a good head rub for a minute or so. “Yes, you’ve been very patient, haven’t you?” I said. “Tell you what. Next time we go hunting, we’ll head down to the Chiricahua Mountains. That’s south of here and I think you’ll like it.”
‹What’s down there?›
“Mule deer. Maybe some of those bighorn sheep, if we get lucky.”
‹When can we go?›
“Probably not until this business is over,” I admitted. “I know it will be a long wait for you, but I promise we’ll do nothing but hunt once we go. The trip will be for you. But that’s not to say you’re going to be totally bored in the meantime. We’ll probably get attacked at any moment.”
‹Really?›
“Well, it’s more likely going to be after we leave the store.”
Oberon’s ears perked up and he turned to the door. ‹Someone’s coming.›
A customer walked in, looking for a copy of The Upanishads, and after that a fairly steady stream of people were either browsing or buying something. The lunchtime lull was over, and soon enough Perry came back to help out. After giving a regular his customary cup of Daddy’s Little Helper (my code for a tea designed to promote prostate health), the phone rang. It was a call from one of Radomila’s coven.
“Mr. O’Sullivan, my name is Malina Sokolowski. May I speak to you about what occurred between you and Emily this afternoon?”
“Well, sure. But I cannot speak frankly right now. I have customers in the store.”
“I understand,” she replied. She had a warm voice and a faint accent that had to be Polish, judging by her name. “Let me ask you this: Do you consider the contract between you and Emily to still be in effect?”
“Oh, absolutely.” I nodded as if she could see it. “Nothing happened to nullify that.”
“That is reassuring. Would you mind terribly if I accompanied her for tomorrow’s tea?”
“I suppose that would depend on your intentions.”
“I will not fence with you,” Malina said. What was this coven’s obsession with fencing? “My intention is to defend Emily in case you attack her again.”
“I see. And, according to Emily, how many times have I attacked her so far?”
“Once physically and once magically.”
“Well, at least she got that part right. But in both cases, Malina, it was she who initiated the attack. I was able to redirect both attacks against her; hence the injuries you have no doubt seen.”
“So it’s her word against yours,” she sighed.
“Yes. And I understand that you must take her word against mine. But you must understand that she told me her lover is a sworn enemy of mine. By doing so, she has allied your entire coven with him.”
“No, that’s unthinkable!” Malina objected. “If we were allied with this individual, then we would not be trying to humiliate him.”
“Why are you trying to humiliate him?”
