“Have you asked Wes and Kaz about taking the cat along?”
“No,” she responded, biting one of her already stubby nails. “Should I?”
“Yes. Absolutely. But I would ask his owner first.” The witch had more than one magical Coon cat, and overnight Jasper had become a favorite of Sallie and Thatcher’s.
“Okay.”
Seeing as I had no orchards to tromp through, and it was still officially summer, I was wearing flip flops a la Tanner. The druid wore them all the time in order to access the earth and its energy. I missed him and had adopted the footwear after he left for France. The thin soles kept me in more intimate contact with the ground than my leather boots.
When an oily, viscous sensation hit the bottoms of both feet, I had to take a quick breath and tamp down the desire to shuck the floppy sandals and run.
“Sallie,” I said, assessing our immediate area for possible threats, “do you feel that?”
She tightened her grip, the bones of her forearms almost bruising my ribs. “I do, Aunt Calliope, and I don’t like it. It’s making me feel sick to my stomach.”
The Magical signature echoed one I encountered the same day I met Tanner and began this whirlwind odyssey into a world of magic and Magical beings. Once again, the signature blinked in and out from the vicinity of the marina, a mere three blocks away. There, float planes, fishing boats and yachts docked alongside one another. One of the yachts, the Merry Widow, belonged to my ex mother-in-law. Intellectually, I knew she was under house arrest at her estate in Victoria.
Emotionally, my gut roiled at the thought of encountering Meribah Flechette any time soon.
Sallie’s battered fingernails contracted and elongated, switching erratically between her chewed-at human version and the claws Fae trained themselves to use as weapons. I swept away the shoulder-length hair she kept deliberately shaggy. Her ears were turning too.
“Get in the car,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “Lock the doors and lie down. Now.”
Sallie had been schooled into round-the-clock obedience by the collars her parents forced her to wear for over six years. She no longer wore a collar yet even without the magic-imbued restraint, she reacted to my command without question.
Though that was what I needed her to do in the moment, we were going to have to talk about how quickly she acquiesced later.
I pointed to a strip of bushes and trees separating the public parking area from the section of businesses. I could dig my toes into the soil and keep Sallie in sight.
“I’ll be right over there.”
Sallie’s face was streaked with splotches of red and white. She mouthed, ‘Okay’.
The sickening sensation heralding the Magical’s presence grew stronger. The tree I ducked under was someone’s camping spot. I pressed my hand into the deep grooves of the bark, scuffed away leaves and a crushed can, and slipped one foot out of the flip flop. Toes in the soil, I kept glancing at my car as I attempted to pinpoint the oddly colored spot.
The surface of the blackish area swirled with a rainbow of colors, like a shallow puddle on an oil-slicked bit of road. Hating to have Sallie out of my sight, but not knowing how else to do what I needed to do, I closed both eyes and settled all ten toes into the soil.
A circuit board of Magical signatures spread and multiplied across the insides of my eyelids and through my brain. I recognized the familiar colors connected to store owners and other workers. Those I often saw when I read the downtown area.
Added now were a handful—five maybe, or six—of the oily swirls, tightly joined and moving together. My eyelids flew open. The group was approaching the building backing onto the parking lot. The building belonged to the Flechette Realty and Property Development Group.
I forced my dirtied feet into my flip flops and hurried to my car. I didn’t press the unlock button on my key fob until I made sure my niece saw me.
“Sallie,” I said, whispering. Which was entirely unnecessary. “Sit up slowly. I’m going to move us out of here and drive around the front of the realtor’s office.”
“If you mean my family’s business, just say it, Aunt Calli.”
I nodded. “Yes, that one.” I started the car, backed up, and stopped at the exit area to let a group make their way along the crosswalk. The queasy feeling in my belly strengthened.
“Do you feel that?” Sallie asked.
“I do. What do you think it is?”
Sallie pressed her lips together, grabbed the headrests of the front seats, and hauled herself to the front. “I know who it is.” She dumped the contents of her purse in the footwell, jammed the bag on her head, and reached for where I’d tossed my sunglasses on the dashboard. “Adelaide and Meribah share a lover and he’s here. Complete with his faithful entourage.”
Sallie flicked her thumb at the windshield and wiggled deeper into the passenger seat.
The last pedestrian had stepped onto the sidewalk. I hit the blinker, signalling a right hand turn, when two people stepped off the curb to my left. They were followed by a trio, then another couple and I watched, jaw agape.
“Shut your mouth,” Sallie hissed. “You’re giving us away.”
I clamped my lips together, adjusted the rear view mirror, and pretended there was nothing more fascinating than whatever was going on with the blemish on my chin. The man in the middle demanded my attention. Slightly shorter than the six clustered to his back, sides, and front, he was the only one not wearing a bluetooth device in their ear.
Disconnected from technology, he was acutely connected to the swirling, Magical signature I could see even with my eyes wide open.
The seven disappeared around the corner. I inched into traffic
