Dime Store Magic

Chapter 24

I PULLED THE COFFEE BEAN BAG FROM THE CUPBOARD.

"I don't suppose you'd let me see that hailstorm spell," Cortez said.

"Hailstorm is an exaggeration. I can conjure up a handful of nearly frozen ice pellets. More like a slush shower. How bad is it out there, anyway?"

"Let's just say, if the temperature plummets tonight, I'd recommend testing out that hail spell."

I walked into the living room and parted the curtains to see a solid mass of people, even more than had been there when we'd got here. Though it was eleven at night, all the flashlights and camping lanterns lit up the yard bright enough for a ball game.

Camera vans lined the road, their windows rolled down, crews waiting inside, sipping coffee and talking, like cops on a stakeout. While the media stuck to the road, strangers covered nearly every square inch of my yard. Strangers on lawn chairs drinking soda. Strangers with camcorders filming everything in sight. Strangers huddled in circles clutching Bibles. Strangers carrying placards reading "Satan Lives Here" and "Thou Shalt Not Suffer a Witch to Live."

Cortez walked up behind me.

Still holding the curtain, I half-turned and looked up at him. "This afternoon, when we got here, you thought we should go to a hotel. Do you think… That is…" I shook my head and smiled wryly. "I'm not good at this. Asking for advice."

"You want to know if I still think we should leave?"

"Yes. Thank you."

"I don't. My initial concern pertained to the dangers and difficulties of getting past the crowd. Having done that, I believe, as I told Savannah, that we are best to stay here and ignore them."

He gently plucked the curtain from my hand, then let it fall closed.

"The mob mentality is, naturally, a concern. However, the presence of media should counteract any urge to violence, and the size of the crowd itself makes it unlikely that any rogue element could take control."

"But I know what Savannah means." I glanced at the closed curtain and shivered. "I feel… under siege."

"True, but think of it instead as an insulating buffer. No Cabal would act with such a crowd of witnesses. You are much safer here than you would be in an isolated motel."

"But if they won't act in front of witnesses… what was that at the funeral parlor? Not exactly a private demonstration."

"No, and I can promise you whoever came up with that scheme is in line for a serious reprimand. Someone acted without proper authorization, and will be duly punished. I've already reported the incident. It will be handled by an intra-Cabal judiciary review."

"Uh-huh. And that, I'd guess, is a bad thing."

His lips curved in the barest smile. "I won't bore you with an explanation but, yes, it's a bad thing. From herein you can expect Gabriel Sandford's team to act in accordance with standard Cabal rules of engagement."

"They have rules for…?" I shook my head. "Let me get that coffee going before I do need something stronger."

I walked into the kitchen, then turned around. "How about a snack? I don't think either of us ate our burgers this afternoon."

"If you're having something, then I'll join you, but don't-"

"How about cookies? Do you like chocolate chip?"

He nodded. After turning on the oven, I took a sheet from underneath the stove, and grabbed a Tupperware container from the freezer. I pulled off the lid, then tipped the box to show Cortez the tiny balls of cookie dough within.

"Instant fresh cookies," I said.

"Good idea."

"My mom's, not mine. Mothers know all the tricks, don't they?"

"Cooking was never my mother's forte. We tried cookies once. The dog wouldn't touch them."

I paused in transferring the cookie dough to the sheets. Had he lived with his mother, then? Obviously. Mother and father? Did sorcerers leave their sons with their mothers? Or did they marry? I wanted to ask, to compare stories. I was always curious to see how other races did things. It was like learning baking tricks from my mother-other races were bound to have learned tactics for living in the human world, tactics that I might be able to apply to the Coven and make our lives easier, less furtive. I thought of asking, but it seemed too much like prying.

Once the cookies were in the oven, I loaded up the coffeemaker, then excused myself to use the bathroom.

When I returned, Cortez was pouring brewed coffee into mugs.

"Black?" he said.

"Black for tea, cream for coffee," I said, opening the fridge. "Strange, I know, but black coffee's just too strong. That's how you take yours, right?"

He nodded. "A taste acquired in college. Spend enough late nights poring over law texts and you learn to take caffeine hits strong and black."

"So you really are a lawyer. I'll admit, when you said you misrepresented yourself in the beginning, I was hoping you didn't mean that part wasn't true."

"No need to worry. I passed the bar last year."

"Pretty young, isn't it?" I said. "You must have fast-tracked your way through school." I turned on the oven light and crouched to check the cookies.

"I condensed my studies," he said. "As I believe you did."

I smiled up at him as I stood. "Did your homework, huh, Counselor?"

"A degree in computer science, completed nearly three years ago. From Harvard no less."

"Not nearly as impressive as it sounds. There are far better schools for computer science, but I wanted to stick close to home. My mother was getting older. I was worried." I laughed. "Wow, I've gotten so used to saying that I can almost convince myself. Truth is, my mom was fine. I wasn't ready to leave the nest. Mom ran a successful business, and we always lived simply, so she'd put aside enough for me to have my pick of schools. I got a partial scholarship, and we decided Harvard made sense. And, of course, it looks great on a resume." I took two small plates from the cupboard. "So where'd you go to school? No, wait. I bet I can guess."

He lifted his brows quizzically.

"It's a theory," I said. "Well, more of a party game actually, but I like to give it the veneer of scientific respectability. My friends and I have this hypothesis that you can always tell where someone went to school by the way they say the name of their alma mater."

Another brow arch.

"I'm serious. Take Harvard, for example. Doesn't matter where you came from originally, after three years at Harvard, it's Hah-vahd."

"So before you went to Harvard, you pronounced the 'r'?"

"No, I'm a Bostonian. It's always been Hah-vahd. Wait, the cookies are almost done."

I turned off the timer with five seconds to go, then pulled out the tray and moved the steaming cookies onto the rack.

"So let me understand this theory," he said. "If someone was from the Boston area and went to college elsewhere, he would cease to pronounce Harvard as Hah-vahd."

"Of course not. I didn't say it was a perfect theory."

He leaned back against the counter, lips curving slightly. "All right, then. Test this hypothesis. Where did I go to school?"

"Have a cookie first, before they harden."

We each peeled a cookie from the rack. After a few bites, I cleared my throat with a swig of coffee.

"Okay," I said. "I'm going to list some colleges. You repeat each one in a sentence, like 'I went to blank.' First, Yale."

"I went to Yale."

"Nope. Try Stanford."

I listed all the major law schools. One by one, he repeated them.

"Damn," I said. "It's not working. Say Columbia again."

He did.

"Yes… no. Oh, I give up. That sounded close. Is it Columbia?"

He shook his head and reached for another cookie.

"May I suggest that your logic is flawed?" he said.

"Never. Oh, okay. Like I said, it's not a perfect theory."

"I'm referring not to the theory, but to the assumption that I attended a top-tier law school."

"Of course you did. You're obviously bright enough to get in and your father could afford to send you anywhere, ergo you'd pick from the best."

Savannah appeared in the doorway, dressed in a lily-print flannel nightgown. The plastic tag still hung from the sleeve. Someone from the Coven had given her the gown for Christmas, but she'd never worn it. She must have dug it up from the depths of her closet, a concession to having a man in the house.

"I can't sleep," she said. She glanced at the rack on the counter. "I knew I smelled cookies. Why didn't you come get me?"

"Because you're supposed to be sleeping. Take one, then get back to bed."

She took two cookies from the rack. "I told you I can't sleep. They're making too much noise."

"Who?"

"The people! Remember? Mobs of people outside our house?"

"I don't hear anything."

"Because you're in denial!"

Cortez laid his empty mug on the counter. "All I hear is a murmur of voices, Savannah. Less than you'd hear if we had the television on."

"Go sleep in my room," I said. "You shouldn't hear the noise from there."

"There are people out back, now, too, you know."

"To bed, Savannah," Cortez said. "We'll reevaluate the situation in the morning and discuss taking action then."

"You guys don't understand anything."

She grabbed the last cookie and stomped off. I waited until her door slammed, then sighed.

"This is tough on her, I know," I said. "Do you think they're really keeping her awake?"

"What's keeping her awake is the knowledge that they're there."

"It would take a lot more than an angry mob to scare Savannah."

"She isn't frightened. She simply finds the idea of being trapped by humans quite intolerable. She believes, as a supernatural, she shouldn't stand for such an intrusion. It's an affront. An insult. Hearing them is a constant reminder of their presence."

"Sure, I suppose surrounding our house could be seen as an indirect threat, but no one's throwing rocks through the windows or trying to break in."

"That doesn't matter to Savannah. You have to see it from her point of view, in the context of her background and her upbringing. She's been raised-"

"Wait. Sorry, I don't mean-Do you hear that?"

"What?"

"Savannah's voice. She was talking to someone. Oh, God, I hope she's not trying to provoke-"

Leaving the sentence unfinished, I hurried to Savannah's room. When I got there, all was silent. I knocked, then opened the door without waiting for an invitation. Savannah was glaring out the window.

"Did you say something to them?" I said.

"As if."

She retreated to her bed and thumped onto the mattress. I glanced at the phone. It was across the room, untouched.

"I thought I heard you talking," I said.

Cortez appeared at my shoulder. "What spell did you cast, Savannah?"

"Spell?" I said. "Oh, shit! Savannah!"

She collapsed onto her back. "Well, you guys weren't going to do anything about it."

"What spell?" I said.

"Relax. It was only a confusion spell."

"A sorcerer confusion spell?" Cortez asked.

"Of course. What else?"

Cortez spun and disappeared down the hall, sprinting for the front door. I raced after him.