Never Date A Warlock (Sister Witchcraft Book 4) Read online

Kashmir was licking his chest when he said, in that eerie not-at-all-cat-like voice, “We send something to go and find him. A book like that leaves a powerful magical residue, to the right set of nostrils. It will disappear quickly, too. So…”

  “So… we give up?” I said, shrugging. I knew that wasn’t the right answer, but search me what was. I was honestly exhausted from even this slightly truncated day of work, and I had an entire kitchen to clean. Though if I could take advantage of the suddenly, surprisingly helpful Lucy to take care of that, I might be able to do a little roaming…

  “Go get the child occupied,” Kashmir said, as if reading my mind (sometimes I was afraid he could). “I will procure an agent of interloping to find the perambulating publication.”

  “Now I know who’s been tearing off pages of my word-a-day calendar,” I said, but Kashmir was already through the kitchen door, yaowling to activate the backdoor spell.

  I’d taught him how to do that spell right after the initial terrier attack, but I thought he was getting a little too free and easy with his newfound open-door privileges. I might have to change the password on the spell, just to show him who was boss.

  “Boss,” Lucy said, surprising me as I had gotten suddenly and deeply lost in my thoughts. I stared at her for a second before I realized what I was going to ask her to do, then stared harder as I saw she was already in the middle of it.

  Wiping counters clean, the broom and dustpan within easy reach. Stacks of dishes waiting to be done…

  All very good. Extremely suspicious. I gave Lucy a real inspection, and then remembered something I hadn’t had a chance to talk to her about. So many things were happening at once today, it was like a conspiracy to keep me off balance.

  “That weirdo in black,” I said. “He was here for you. You gave him something, and then he went away. Explain yourself, right now.”

  I wouldn’t mention the earrings yet, unless I thought she wasn’t being truthful with me. Lucy smiled and shook her head, like I was speaking Esperanto. But there she was, standing at the counter, one of the ovens on, some things hidden in the pockets of her apron. She was doing things, darn it, things I needed to understand.

  Except that the instant I was ready to get all Big-Sistery on her, the door flew back open, and Kashmir flew back inside. He had inside his mouth something that, until very recently, flew free in the air and on its own. A little bird hung there, wings folded neatly against Kashmir’s chin, the rest of the poor thing completely inside his mouth.

  I, of course, screamed. Lucy, whatever else she was up to, was cognizant of the gravity of the situation, and she screamed, also, heartily. She also pointed, lest I miss who it was that was bringing an animal to the slaughter in our peaceful bakery.

  With a very human sounding “ptooey”, Kashmir spit the bird out on the ground, and leveled his familiar gaze upon me. “Well, witch it up. We haven’t got any time.”

  “Poor birdy!” Lucy shouted, rushing forward. She was quelled by Kashmir, who made a rather dramatic swish of his tail - enough to make Lucy freeze and blanch. To my knowledge, the mean old cat had never actually done anything to her. In fact, besides myself Lucy was the only other human he would deign to speak in front of. But that did not mean he would brook any sass back from her, and messing with his hunted animals registered on his sass-o-meter.

  “Send the girl away, we’ve work to do. Or I have a meal to attend to,” Kashmir said, grinning as evil a kitty grin as a kitty could.

  The little bird, which I couldn’t recognize (I’m not a bird-onomist, whatever you call them) was little, and a cute gray-blue color. On the top of his head he had a little thatch, as though he’d just gotten up from bed and his mama bird hadn’t reminded him to comb his feathers. He shook his head like he’d just awoken from a bad dream and hopped tentatively forward.

  “You put one more tooth on this little cutey,” I said to Kashmir, who was stealthily stalking toward the bewildered bird, “and no more fresh fish for you. Ever again.”

  “Then you’d better get to work,” he said.

  I sighed, then glared at Lucy. For no reason, it turned out, because in that moment I recalled that all of my magic paraphernalia was in my office, out closer to the front of the store. I scooped up the bird with a protective hand, kept it well away from the awful mean old cat, and whisked toward my office.

  Before I got out of the kitchen, I gave Lucy a brusque, “Clean this up!” and was out of there.

  And once in my office, which was tiny and cramped and, most importantly, locked away from the rest of the place, I could say to Kashmir what I could not say in front of my devoted sister/pupil: “I have no idea what you expect me to do.”

  Kashmir leapt up to my desk, nimbly missing the mess of wires, cables, and weird devices that we had attached to my computer. Witchery was finally entering the digital age… which meant it was getting even weirder and nerdier than brewing potions and dancing out in the moonlight. With Kashmir’s knowledge of magic, and my ability to get my computer on the Internet and anonymously search forums, we had cobbled together some actually powerful magical devices.

  But, like most computer things, they only worked when they wanted do, we both weren’t quite sure what they would do, and every neat new thing we wanted required a new expensive piece of equipment. Kashmir placed his paw on one of these now - a pair of glasses that were attached by a wire to my computer. That wire also was wrapped, from end to end, with fairy finger.

  Sounds really magical and neat, doesn’t it? Well, does that mean I went to a bunch of fairies, and cut off their fingers like some Japanese mob boss? (Japanese mob bosses cut off fingers, I saw it in a movie.) Were there tiny little fingers going round and round my computer wire, in a macabre and disgusting rope of flesh and bone?

  No! Ick! The thing is, witches like secret names for things, and use them so people, normal people, don’t know what they’re talking about. Eye of newt is mustard seed. Cat’s foot is ground up ivy. And fairy finger is dried up foxglove. Which kind of stinks.

  So my stinky computer glasses were what the cat ordered. What that had to do with the little bird who was shivering in my hand, I had no idea.

  “So… what?” I said.

  “We need to find that man with the book. We need to find where he is going, and what he is planning.”

  “Okay, right. And the bird?” I said, opening my hand slightly. A tiny beak poked out and a machine gun of little tweets came out from it.

  “The bird can fly. The bird can see things faster than we can. We just have to learn to use its powers. Now, quick, get out the spell you used on me. Where’s Grand-Mere’s book?” he said.

  “It’s right… somewhere,” I said, patting where my purse should be. Which I must have left in the kitchen, though I usually always had it in the office, locked away. “Never-mind, I remember that spell. I just need to drop some saline on the bird’s head, make up the password for getting in… oh, and he has to let me.”

  I held the bird up, close enough that we could be eye to eye, not so close that we could have an unfortunate meeting beak to eye.

  He should have been fluttering and whipping around and pecking at me hand, but the crest-headed little fella was actually quite calm. It twittered out its pretty little song at me, and its head went looking this way and that, in the super fast moves that only birds can make, suddenly looking one way then the other.

  “Birdy,” I said. “I don’t know your name, but I’m going to ask you to help me. I need to find some guy. Um…”

  “I have the scent in a vomeronasal sac in my mouth, and can breath it upon him,” Kashmir said.

  Both Birdy and I stared at the cat, wondering what the heck he was talking about. Kashmir sighed, and shook his head. “Just trust me.”

  “Trust me, Kashmir isn’t going to hurt you, and neither am I. We just want your help for something very important, and then you can go away and do any bird things you want… and if you ever need anything from me, just let me know.�
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  I spoke the words very sincerely and anybody watching would have been sure that I’d blown a gasket in the old brain. But I meant it, every word. Then I fished out some eye-drops from my purse, whispered a word, and squeezed the drop out on the bird’s head. He just blinked, like he knew just what I was doing.

  The next thing was amazing. Despite my own worries and trepidations about Kashmir and the looseness of his kitty ethics, I set the bird down beside him. It did not panic, or flutter, or freeze. It turned around, and actually hopped toward the cat.

  Kashmir looked down at the little bird, smiled, and bent his face down low toward it. The he opened his mouth and… in some weird way locked his jaw, so his mouth was stuck open in a most unappealing manner. He made a chuffing sound, breathing on the bird.

  Then it took off, flitting up into the air, and nearly dashed right into my door. I flung my door open, then the front door to the kitchen, and the bird flew determinedly away.

  “To the computer!” Kashmir called, and I raced back to the special glasses at our monitoring post.

  Chapter 4

  It’s hard to say just what I was expecting when I put those glasses on. Part of me thought I’d start hearing the thoughts of the bird like some kind of on-going narrative, but that didn’t happen - good, too. It was enough to have one animal able to tell me all of his animal thoughts day and night. More than that would probably ruin me for pets for the rest of my life.

  But I also thought I’d just be seeing something like footage from a camera - as if I’d had some kind of drone up there in the air, flying around and filming things it saw through its lens.

  A bird is not a camera. Bird’s eyes are not simple lenses. Through the wonders of those glasses, my spell, and the computer magic Kashmir and I had put together, I was seeing things truly the way a bird saw them.

  About three seconds of it nearly made me throw up.

  I couldn’t tell what I was looking at, at first, because there were so many colors, everywhere. Things that I supposed were dull gray trees suddenly burst with brilliant vitality. Blues and greens and pulsing oranges, everywhere. Everywhere. I could see normal colors, too, but surrounding everything was this incredible other light.

  “Oh my gosh this is amazing, I’m going to be sick,” I said to Kashmir. I couldn’t see him, of course, because my head was in these glasses, but I bet it was on the monitor, too. I bet he could see what I was seeing.

  “Looks a little bright, but it’s normal. Oh, right, you humans can’t see ultraviolet light. The magic of the glasses actually puts you right in the little morsel’s mind, quite different than just looking at the monitor.”

  “Well… I don’t know if it’s an improvement, I… oh heck, he’s flying around too fast, I’m gonna…”

  I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and steeled myself for what I would see what I opened them again.

  Lots of colors, Mimi. Ultraviolet light. This is amazing. Don’t get sick.

  I opened my eyes, and suddenly it all seemed right. The glowing was there, but a little muted, and whirring past me too fast to comprehend. The birdy was up in the air, high, and soaring, heading above the streets of Lafay and moving effortlessly on the wind, toward some destination. It was doggedly pursuing what must have been the trail.

  “I didn’t know birds had a good sense of smell,” I said, marveling at how purposeful each little graceful movement of the view was, in these glasses. This bird knew what he was doing in this whole flying business.

  “They’re nose-blind as bats,” Kashmir said, with a spitting noise that registered contempt. “That’s why I’m rigged up to this thing, too.”

  “What?” I said, and I moved to tip up the glasses to see what he was talking about.

  “No, no!” Kashmir said, as a tail whipped me right in the face. It made me jump back a bit, and the vision in the glasses became blurry, a little indistinct.

  “The spell breaks when you remove the glasses. That’s how it’s designed,” Kashmir said, his voice growlier than usual.

  “Okay, bossy-boots, you just have to tell me. I’ve got cat hairs up my nose,” I said, sniffing.

  Kashmir wasn’t interested in replying, and I got back to focusing on what this bird was doing. Which was much easier said than done. The glowing colors, the sudden flashes when something else alive came by were unnerving enough. Even more disconcerting was the field of view. A little bird like this guy has his eyes on the side of his head. That means he sees a lot more around himself than a human does, but he must have some other sort of innate focusing ability, because things shot in and out of focus like the cameraman had gone crazy.

  “I think being a bird would drive me nuts,” I said.

  “Shh, I’m focusing,” Kashmir said. Instinctively I reached out toward the sound, and placed my hand on Kashmir’s back. With just two fingers, I rubbed the space between his shoulder blades. Inadvertent purring began almost immediately, and his fur beneath my hand moved, like it was rippling.

  I don’t care how magic this familiar was, he was also a cat, and like a good scritch.

  When I turned my attention back to the dizzying view, I suddenly knew just where we were. Lafay’s not a big town, and it doesn’t have much in the way of hotels. There was a motel on the road just out of town which had a reputation I’m not even going to think about, let alone mention. And then there was the nice (if unimaginatively named) Lafay Inn, right on the main strip. It looked a little weird, like a diner from the 50s from the outside, but it had three stories of decent rooms, and the nicer restaurants in town were across the street.

  My little birdy had found an acceptable tree, and had perched itself in full view of the hotel. I could look right into the back porch of a single room, and see the front of the hotel, all at once. With this much less active view, I had an actual chance of trying to figure out just what I was seeing. People were walking on the streets, there was music coming from somebody’s car. It was all normal town life. And in this normal town’s very normal hotel room, there was a man with a book of ancient magic power.

  “Okay, the hotel. Let’s go,” I said, hands on the glasses. Again, a tail was in my nose, practically tickling my own little nose hairs. “Ach, what?”

  “What room number?” Kashmir said, snorting contemptuously.

  “We’ll ask at the desk,” I said, testily. I wanted to break this spell as soon as I could, because I could already feel the beginnings of a migraine kicking in.

  “Ask for whom?”

  “For, well… dang it.” It wasn’t nice for a cat to be all right all the time. Very annoying.

  “Just wait. The scent is around here. If it could just go stronger…”

  Kashmir’s back grew tense under my hand. I pulled away from him and, despite the tingling feeling on either temple that said this was gonna hurt later I focused on the images in front of me.

  A door into the hotel opened, and two people stepped out of it. Faces weren’t terribly distinct in bird-o-vision (since skin tended to go all super-bright in Ultraviolet) but clothes were easier to see. One of the people stepping out of the hotel room was a delivery boy, with a deflated pizza-caddy in one hand and a cell phone in the other. Just behind him, walking close enough that if the delivery boy stopped, they’d collide, was that weirdo in black who’d been at the shop.

  He’d left just minutes after the man we were looking for. They hadn’t looked or spoken at each other the whole time they were here, but… what did it all mean?

  Suddenly the view shifted as our little bird flipped into the air and whirled about, wending up high then diving low, right past the hotel and around it to another tree.

  Once my head and brain stopped reeling, I figured out we were behind the hotel, looking at row after row of windows. These were rooms, the top ones with balconies, the ones on the ground floor opening onto individual patios.

  On one of those second floor balconies, a woman was just coming out of the sliding glass door. Again, her face w
as completely blown-out by the bird’s peepers, but she was dressed in tight clothing, a leather jacket, and if she had hair (most women do, after all) it was completely hidden inside a cap.

  She slipped the sliding glass door closed, looked around to make sure nobody was looking, then jumped off of the balcony. It was a smooth, almost acrobatic motion that looked like something out of a movie. She landed gracefully, only pitching forward a little but easily catching herself. Her jacket opened a bit then, and I could see the package the man had been carrying. It had been opened, but she pulled her jacket closed before I could see inside it.

  “She’s got the book!”

  The bird dove again from his tree and landed on the balcony to watch the woman race through the alleyway and away from the main street, to the more residential area where there wouldn’t be anybody to see her.

  “Okay, new plan. Some lady just went away with the book. Birdy, after her!” I said, pointing forward.

  “No good,” Kashmir said, growling. “The scent I was following was a mix of the man and the magic of the book. He’d had it for a long time, so they commingled into something unique. The book itself… I can’t find it.”

  “Fiddlesticks. Wait, the birdy is tapping at the window now. There he is, I can see him, he’s all… weird looking.”

  The man was inside the room just inside the glass door, walking slowly toward it. Then stumbling to it. Then he was on his knees, then on the ground, collapsing a hand’s length from the door.

  Chapter 5

  I shrieked and whipped off the glasses. Suddenly the world was very dull, very dark, and made so much more sense. It was like the opposite of coming out of a movie theater into the bright day. Then a bright fire lit everything up again.

  The twisted foxglove that I had diligently wrapped around the computer cable went up in flames, all at once. The entire thing flashed bright, then was just falling ash and rising smoke, leaving behind an acrid nasty stench, like burnt hair. I looked down at Kashmir just in time to see him bat a similarly wrapped wire away, one that had been partially stuffed into his nose.