Chapter 28
I had nowhere left to go except back to the magic shop. There wasn’t time to fight with a witch, not when the Dark Place rift was opening more with each minute, but I couldn’t let her just keep Samantha, either.
“Frank!” I shouted as I walked into the empty shop. All the lights were turned off. Behind the counter I saw something flickering underneath a locked door. The faint blue light reminded me of Katie’s, and my heart jumped into my chest.
I heard a scream from the back—Katie’s scream—and I leapt into action. I jumped over the counter and slammed open the door. I expected to see Katie writhing in pain, but instead she was laughing and giggling with Frank.
“And what’s that one?” she said, pointing to a three-eyed head suspended in a jar of translucent goo.
“That’s a banshee head,” Frank replied. “Witches use them to see into the past, but it’s very dangerous work. Drives most of them mad, and since we can’t change the past, it’s generally not worth the hassle. Still, they’re good sellers, so I keep them in stock.”
“Katie!” I shouted.
Katie turned with a smile. “Banana! You’re back!”
That would have been the moment that I wrapped my arms around her, except that there was nothing to wrap my arms around, only her translucent body.
“Where’s the other one?” Frank grunted. “And my goblin? What have you done with my goblin?”
“Hilda has her. She took Samantha and the goblin.”
“The witch?” Katie asked. “How did she even know where you were?”
“A locator spell, I’m sure,” Frank replied. “Hilda puts them on everything. She and her council need to know everything all the time. God forbid there be any mystery in the world.”
“You seem a little bit angry about that, Frank,” I said.
“I hate the council. They’re pompous jerks.”
“If you hate it so much, why do you want to be on it so bad?”
“Well, I didn’t know they were pompous jerks until you told me Hilda hated me,” Frank said. He sounded bitter. “Now, I hate them. They’ve been off the righteous path for decades now, and I turned a blind eye, but no more.”
“Righteous path and witch sound like incongruent concepts,” Katie replied.
“It’s called the dark arts. Not the evil arts.”
“Do you have any idea where Hilda would take her?” I asked.
Frank shook his head. “No, but we have bigger problems, I’m afraid. The rift to the Dark Place is opening wider by the day. We have to stop it as soon as possible.”
I pulled the goblin powder out of my pocket and held it up. “This is the goblin bone, and you have the ectoplasm. Now, we need dragon fire and troll mucus.”
“There is a troll that lives under Coronado Bridge. Get him to help you. Meanwhile, I will try to track down the dragon fire.”
“What about Samantha?” I asked.
“Did Hilda say why she wants her?”
I frowned, unsure. “She said Samantha has something she needs.”
Frank stroked his chin. “And does she?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then we have to work to find her, too, but we must close the rift first. That is our top priority.”
“You’re not so bad,” I said. “I thought you were kind of a jerk, but it turns out you’re kind of nice.”
“People can be two things at once. Duality is one of the bedrock principles of witchcraft. Two sides of the same coin, and the like. Now go. We don’t have much time. The troll will turn back into a rock at daybreak.”
Chapter 29
“You can go the speed limit you know,” Katie said from the passenger’s seat of Samantha’s car.
We were driving down the freeway, and every car on the road was zipping past us. I didn’t care, however, because I was scared out of my mind to be driving on the highway for the first time since I got my license. Not just a little way down the road either—I was driving all the way from Orange County down to San Diego, which was over an hour of straight highway, so I was taking it slow.
“That’s easy for you to say. You’re already dead.”
“You’re not going to kill us.”
“No. I’m going to kill me. You’re already dead.”
“There are so many safety features in cars these days, you probably wouldn’t even die if you get hit.”
“Can you please stop saying the words die, or dead, or dying, or anything that implies not being alive.”
“Sorry,” Katie said. “It’s just that, well, going too slow is just as dangerous as going too fast.”
“That can’t be true.”
“It is. My mom told me all about it.”
“Your mom, the speed demon?”
“It’s just as dangerous as going too slow.”
Cars swooshed by me on either side and I clenched onto the steering wheel until the blood drained from my white knuckles. “That sounds like the kind of thing people like to say to justify endangering themselves.”
Katie didn’t stop complaining until we pulled off the highway, but we reached San Diego before daybreak, and made our way to the Coronado Bridge. The bridge led from the mainland of San Diego to Coronado Island. There wasn’t much to do on the island except visit an old arcade or look out at the ocean, but people liked to do it all the same. I never imagined there was magic under the bridge.
There wasn’t an easy way down from the top of the bridge to the sand below it, but we found an access road that led to a switchback which let us slowly work our way down to the bottom of the bridge. We couldn’t bring Samantha’s car down all the way to the bottom of the bridge, so we had to make the rest of the way on foot. By the time we stepped foot on the sand, the yellow-orange of sunrise was mixing with the blue of the night. We were almost out of time.
“Hurry up,” Katie said as I rushed along the sand. There was a
