I glanced at the fire. I hated that thing.
The sense of urgency I'd been feeling since I became the leader of the light increased so much I got dizzy. Once again, the Nephilim were ahead of us, and we were playing catch-up. I needed Sawyer to be Sawyer very badly.
"Do not despair," Carla said. "I can do a spell of my own, which will allow him to walk as a man under certain conditions."
I straightened, the weight on my chest lightening. "Seriously?"
"All I will need is some earth from the Glittering World."
The Glittering World was another name for the Dinetah. Navajo Land.
My chest went tight again. The Dinetah was back in New Mexico. By the time we fetched dirt from there we'd all be dead. Unless—
"I could have Summer—" I reached for my cell phone only to discover it had no signal in the depths of the basement. Figured.
"No need." Carla walked over to the shelves that held all her canning jars. As she passed the jar of eyes, she tapped it with her fingernail, and the single eye that had been watching me again faced the wall with a flick so quick I was left uncertain if I'd actually seen it at all.
She brought an empty container back to the table. A few more Latin words, a jab of her twig fingers, and between one blink and the next, empty became full.
Carla attempted to remove the top with a twist of her wrist, but couldn't, and after a glance at Sawyer, she handed the thing to me. I held it up. The clear glass container appeared to be stuffed to the brim with reddish-brown earth.
I screwed off the cap and took a pinch between my fingers. Felt like earth.
I lifted the particles to my nose. Smelled like earth.
I handed the jar back to her, along with the screw top. "How did you do that?"
She smiled. "Abra-kadabra?"
"That jar was empty."
"What's your point?"
"Then it was full."
"What is there about magic that you don't under-stand, Elisabetta?"
A helluva lot apparently.
"You conjured dirt from the Dinetah?"
"Isn't that what I said we needed?"
"And if you needed, say, ajar of money?"
Carla merely smiled.
"Now what?" I asked.
"Now I will do my spell. Run along."
"Excuse me?"
"Leave," she said.
"But—"
"What I will do is between him and me."
I frowned. "I don't think so."
Carla shrugged. "He's been cursed this long, I'm sure a few more centuries won't hurt him."
"I thought you were a good witch."
“I am." She made a disgusted sound. "I'm not going to hurt him, Elisabetta, I'm going to elp him. You think he can't take care of himself?"
Sawyer dipped his chin and threw his head up, then repeated the movement, as if saying both Yes and Get lost.
I was still uneasy. If she wasn't up to something, why did they need to be alone? Then again, what could they possibly be up to?
Sawyer crossed the floor and shoved me with his nose toward the basement stairs. "All right, all right. I get the hint. I'll be in the car."
"Go to a hotel," Carla ordered. "This will take a while, and it isn't safe to loiter in my neighborhood."
"I'll be fine."
"You think he can't find you?" Carla made a shooing motion. "Go!"
I could stand here and argue but Sawyer wasn't getting any more human, so I went upstairs. As I reached the hallway, Carla murmured, "Payment must be made."
Payment? When dealing with magic, payment was usually in blood, guts, your soul—things you really couldn't afford to lose.
I took a step back toward the door, and it slammed in my face. No amounting of tugging could get it open again.
I pounded. I shouted. I went quiet and I listened. It was as if I were alone in the house. Whatever they were doing in the basement, they were doing very quietly. For all I knew, they weren't even down there any longer.
I hung around, tried the door again, got nowhere. Considering the superior strength I'd attained from Jimmy, I should have been able to yank the door from its hinges. That I couldn't made me think the portal had been fortified in some way, most likely by magic. Which meant I wasn't getting through unless I went out and found myself another witch. I wasn't in the mood.
By the laws of my gift of empathy, I would possess Sawyer's magic if he'd been born with it. That I didn't meant he'd either learned his witchery, or taken it the same as his mother had. He'd never been quite clear on which.
I wandered through the house, which was dark and dusty—an old lady's house—where a lot of cats might live, though I didn't see evidence of a single one. Maybe they were invisible. Like the dog.
The only bizarre thing I found was a nursery. For a baby, not plants.
The place didn't appear to ever have been used. Had Carla lost a child? Or perhaps she was expecting a grandchild. I hoped she didn't frighten the kid to death.