It was a wild magic spell, somehow tied to Shaddock, for him to have felt the reappearance after so many years. I didn’t ask where the teapot had been, but I had a bad feeling that Dorothy’s wild magic had knocked it out of its own timeline and into the future a century and a half or so. The four of us witches stood at the four cardinal points, circled around the toy box, hands clasped. As eldest, I took north, even with my magic so damaged and me having to rein in my death magics beneath fierce will.
Together we said the words to an old family spell, softly chanting. The wyrd spell was originally meant to heal that which had been wounded by black magic. “Cneasaigh, cneasaigh a bháis ar maos in fhuil,” we said together. The rough translation, from Irish Gaelic: “Heal, heal, that which is soaked in blood.”
We chanted the words over and over as our power rose. And rose. I closed my eyes, feeling my sisters’ magic flow through me and through the floor, into the earth. Fecund and rich and potent. Power. Life. And when our massed magics were meshed and full, we directed the working, like a pin, a pick, an awl, directly at the teapot.
It shattered.
Pieces flew through the air, and beyond the circle, breaking it. The power that we had been using blazed up and out in a poof of heated air and broken stoneware. We ducked. Shattered pottery crashed into the floor and walls. And into Lincoln Shaddock’s bony knees.
The vamps reacted faster than I could see, racing at us, weapons to hand. Ready to kill.
“George!” Angie Baby shouted, and broke free from a dumbfounded Regan to throw herself at the multicolored, long-eared dog standing on the toy box. He licked her face and nuzzled her. And then he turned to stare at Lincoln. He sniffed, smelling, tasting the air, redolent with the ozone of burned power and vampire blood.
“Son of a witch,” Carmen muttered. “It worked.”
George slowly dropped his front paws off the box and waddled to his old master, to Lincoln, licking the trace of blood off Lincoln’s bleeding knees.
“Son of a witch,” Carmen muttered again. “It really worked.”
Lincoln Shaddock dropped again to the floor and pulled George into his arms. He was crying, purely human tears, and the old dog licked them from his cheeks. Lincoln chuckled and rubbed the basset behind the ears. “You are a sight for sore eyes, you are, old boy. Good old boy. Good George.”
It was the first major working we had done as a family since we’d lost our coven leader and big sister. Tears fell down my face in joy and delight and excitement. My earth magics weren’t what they had been before. But they weren’t dead. Not yet.
? ? ?
One week later to the day, there came a knock on the wards. Holly and Jerel stood there, in the dusky night, waiting patiently. Carrying KitKit, I went to the front door and dropped the wards. When the vamps reached the porch, Jerel bowed again, stiffly formal, and opened a folded note. Vamps have great night vision, and when he read, I had no doubt he could see the words.
“Lincoln Shaddock, Blood-Master of Clan Shaddock, does not forget his promise of a boon to Molly Everhart Trueblood and to Angelina, her daughter. But he offers this small token of thanks, for the memories and humanity gifted by the child and her tender care of his beloved dog, George.”
Holly knelt and set a small bundle on the grass at the bottom of the low porch. “He is from a line of champions. And his name is George.”
From behind me, Angie squealed and threw herself off the porch and directly at the basset puppy. The two tumbled across the night-damp grass and rolled, the puppy licking her face. In my arms, KitKit struggled and scratched and hissed, and made a twisting, leaping, flying movement out of my arms, over my shoulder and back inside. The puppy, seeing the movement, raced after, managing to trip over his huge paws and step on his own ear, sending him flying. Angie, to my horror, whirled and threw herself into Holly’s arms for a hug that left him shocked and motionless on his knees, and then slammed into Jerel to hug his knees. And then she was gone, inside, chasing after the pets. Oh dear. I had a dog. Big Evan would be home tomorrow and . . . we had a basset.
Before he stood, Holly removed something from his pocket and handed it to me. “Final thanks,” he said, backing away, “but not a boon.”
I looked down at my hand and saw what looked like a diamond. Payment for an old dog was a diamond? A diamond? When I looked up, the vamps had gone, disappeared into the shadows. I closed the door and reset the wards. And went to check on my enlarged family.
Big Evan would have a cow.
Cat Fight
Author’s note: This short story takes place (in the JY timeline) after Dark Heir.
“The Master of the City of New Orleans sends you greetings and a missive.” The words had that old-fashioned ring, a sure sign of a powerful vamp’s official notice—and the fact that the courier was a vamp himself, and not a human blood-servant—which indicated that this situation could only be trouble. I’d heard similar words once when the chief fanghead had told me to get out of his city or he’d eat me. And not in a good way.