“Because their magic prevents it.” Beth took another brownie, too. "It's like impenetrable fog."
“This is our only chance.” Deva set out a plate of cookies now that the brownies were demolished, the scent of the warm chocolate chips and macadamia nuts making my stomach growl quietly even though it was full of brownie and should be satisfied with that. “But they are mean, Emma. This could go very wrong. They might even kill Henry as soon as they see us. They're unpredictable at best and their moods seem to shift as quickly as waves coming in to the shore from what I've heard.”
“But you’re sure Henry should be safe until then?” I asked, my pulse picking up.
“Yes. They need a living sacrifice for this to work,” Beth said, and there was only a small note in her voice that reminded me I’d asked the question a thousand times already.
“And we still don’t have any idea why they grabbed Henry out of everyone and if this had anything to do with his gambling?”
Deva sighed. “We’ve all been following up with every contact we have, and no one has a clue.”
Still. I swore with their phones always going off, I constantly felt a strange kind of hope that one of their texts or calls would be with valuable information to make any of this make sense. Unfortunately, so far it’d been a bunch of supernaturals who didn’t have a clue about Henry’s disappearance.
I grabbed a cookie, deciding it was better to focus on the food than my waning hope. Was I comfort eating? Maybe. Not that my friends were judging. “Why are you doing this to me? Sweets are my weakness.”
Murmurs of agreement came from the other women around mouthfuls of cookies. We were all at our wits end when it came to research and, personally, I was getting impatient for the full moon, when this weird ceremony was supposed to take place. I just wanted Henry back safe and sound.
A man walked by the storefront and dropped his gum wrapper right on the sidewalk in front of us. He couldn't see us because of the tint on her glass, but we could see him fine. He hadn't accidentally dropped it either. It wasn't like it fell out of his pocket as he was trying to tuck it away. No. He barely even crumpled it up before he dropped it.
“Asshole,” Buster said with a growl and a flick of his tail.
I’d been practicing my magic every moment we weren’t researching. This wasn't the first moment I'd encountered like this, but it still gave me a thrill to intentionally use my magic. I waved my hand and the man stopped and bent over, coughing hard. A few seconds later, he coughed up a gum wrapper. He turned back in our direction to stare down at the wrapper he’d thrown on the ground.
Looking around in panic, he rushed forward and picked up his discarded wrapper and stuffed both in his pocket. He practically ran away after that. I vaguely remembered hearing about weird stuff happening when I lived here as a kid, but I'd always chalked it up to adults being paranoid or not smart enough to realize what was actually going on. I was such a brat. All the arrogance and invincibility of a typical teenager.
“Hmph.” I nodded. Served him right.
“Nice,” Buster said, then stretched in his patch of warm sunshine. The sun highlighted that he wasn't just a black cat but a tabby cat. The warm light made the dark brown stripes stand out against the rest of his black fur.
Everyone laughed at the horrified expression on the guy’s face before we all turned back to our respective books and kept reading. The books my girls had produced were more than just a little old; they were ancient, and as such, were treated with care, so when I dropped cookie crumbs on the page I hurriedly swiped them off, hoping they didn't leave any chocolate or residue behind. The last thing I wanted was to piss off any of the witches that had loaned us the books. My girls had scoured their homes and the home libraries of all their witchy friends, hoping we’d find something more helpful in these books. I knew a little chocolate smudge wouldn't piss off my friends, but the others? I had no idea about them.
“Oh, no.” Deva slapped her hand on the table, her voice a groan, like she'd just remembered a dentist appointment or something.
I looked up to see her staring out the windows with her eyes wide before narrowing into a furrowed glare. Then the front doorbell jingled.
We all swung our gazes around to see Deva’s ex walk in the door with his arms full of African violets. There must have been over a hundred of the tiny purple flowers. “He keeps doing this,” she whispered. “These are my favorite. Seems like ever since we broke up, he's suddenly remembering my preferences. He didn't give a crap when we were together though.”
The women and animals stared coldly at Jason as he set the violets on the table and backed away, making tiny bows and with his eyes glued to Deva. “I know I don’t deserve a second chance, but I won’t stop trying. I love you, Deva. Name the price and I'll pay it.”
He briefly scanned his eyes over everyone else, saluting the rest of us before he backed out the door.
“That boy didn’t know what he had until it was gone,” Carol tutted as she shook her head sadly and grabbed another cookie. “Those are pretty, though.”
“They’re toxic to animals,” Buster murmured from the floor. “Burn them.”
“How about you just don’t eat them,” Beth countered. “Problem solved.”
“Human,” Buster muttered, then huffed and rolled around in his sunbeam until he was the shape of a kidney bean with all four paws in the air. I'd seen cats in that position before and it
