Mom couldn’t call off work, so Joanne agreed to watch me, as if I was a child. Neither of them trusted me anymore, and I couldn’t say I blamed them. If I weren’t me, I’d probably wouldn’t have believed me, either. Besides, I was about to do something very untrustworthy.
I snuck downstairs. The television blared, and Joanne was asleep in front of Game of Thrones. I tiptoed across the floor to the kitchen table, where she left her purse. It wasn’t long before I cupped the keys in my hand.
Not long ago the thought of stealing Joanne’s car would have been appalling to me. How quickly things changed in my life once magic was introduced to it. In movies, magic always made things better, at least in the end, but in my minimal experience it turned everything pear shaped.
With the keys in my hand, I pushed open the door and snuck out into the night. As I crossed the street a lump formed in my throat. Once I stole Joanne’s car, I could not take it back. It was a bond of trust that might never be repaired. However, the rift to the Dark Place loomed over our street, and I had to fix it, even if it meant destroying every relationship I had in the process.
The key slid into the door and then the ignition. It was that easy. I took one last look at my house, and then pulled out of the driveway. Soon, Joanne would wake up, and I would be in trouble. I just hoped I could get back before she found out I had betrayed her.
I looked into the rearview mirror and watched Katie float out of my bedroom window and down into the passenger’s seat of the car.
“That wasn’t so hard,” she said, settling next to me.
“For you, maybe,” I said with a chuckle. “Let’s go.”
I couldn’t drive down to Coronado without a dragon heart, and there was only one place in town where I could hope to get one. Luckily, the Witch’s Brew was open late, and Frank was behind the counter when I pushed open the door.
“You’re back!” he said. “I thought the troll might have gotten you.”
“Why did you lie to the police and say you didn’t know me?”
“Please,” Frank smirked. “First off, how do you think it would look for a grown man to hang out with a little girl.”
“She’s not little,” Katie said. “She’s a teenager.”
“Even worse. Second of all, do you think they would believe me if I told them the truth? I mean, how did the truth go for you?”
“They threatened to lock me up,” I said with a sigh.
“Exactly,” Frank said. “And I cannot take jail. You’re young and pretty. They gave you the benefit of the doubt, just like they did to Ted Bundy. Me, on the other hand, well…they wouldn’t even need a good reason to lock me up and throw away the key.”
“I mean, he makes a point, Banana,” Katie said.
“Sure he does,” I growled at her. “But I don’t have to like it.”
“You don’t have to like anything about life,” Frank said. “You just have to understand how it works if you want to survive.”
“Why couldn’t my mother see the rift to the Dark Place?”
“You don’t know?” Frank said. “Regular people can’t see ghosts. Only witches can do that.”
“But I’m not a witch.”
Frank chuckled. “I can tell a witch when I see one, and I smell old magic all over you.”
“But my mom can’t see Katie.”
Frank shrugged. “Maybe it was your dad.”
“No way,” Katie said.
“Way,” Frank said.
“If he was a witch, why did he go to war? Why did he die in that blast in Kabul?”
“We’re powerful, honey, but we’re not immortal and we still need money. We can’t cure cancer. We can’t stop old age. All we can do is delay it. Life is still life, and death is still death.”
“I never saw him cast any spells.”
“Maybe he had latent powers. It happens all the time. And if he was a witch, that makes you a witch, which means you can take on Hilda, and the whole council. You can save your friend.”
“If I’m a witch, why didn’t Hilda say anything about it when I saw her?”
“Hilda’s powerful, but she’s far from perfect. She only sees what she wants to see. Your friend’s soul glows hot with magic, but you…you have the tiniest spark I’ve ever seen. Still, it’s there.”
“I can’t think about that now. Right now, we have to close the rift to the Dark Place.”
“Right,” Frank said. “Well, I’ve tracked down some dragon fire. Did you find the troll mucus?”
I shook my head. “No. The troll told me he wanted to try a dragon heart, and if I brought him one, then he would give me some of his mucus.”
Frank shook his head. “Dragons don’t give them easily. Every dragon has six hearts and can only part with three to live. There are no dragon hearts from dead dragons which haven’t been used to give witches and warlocks incredible strength. He’s given you an impossible task.”
“Maybe not,” Katie said, her eyes shining brightly. “I have a plan, but it will take some trickery.”
I turned to her. “Well, that seems to be our MO now, so what do you have?”
“Do you have any lizard hearts by chance?” Katie asked Frank.
Frank smiled. “I do indeed.”
Chapter 35
Katie’s plan involved taking a lizard’s heart and expanding it to the size of a dragon’s through illusion magic. Her reasoning was that dragons were basically big lizards, and that one lizard heart probably tasted like any other. I wasn’t a fan of the plan, but it was the best one we had, so I went with it. The final product sat in a plastic bag beside me on the passenger’s seat as I drove down to the Coronado Bridge in the dead of night.
“What do you think a dragon heart tastes like?” Katie asked, hovering
