First Destroy All Giant Monsters (The World Wide Witches Research Association) (35 page)

Drunk, drained, empty, spiritless, helpless, hopeless.

It was like a mantra thrumming through her memory. Pushed, created, guided, changed.

Where had she seen the words? Seen the concept?

Still staring at the wall she pulled a hotel notepad over and scribbled the words running through her head. Then she snatched up her phone and speed dialed home.

“May I speak now?” asked Karl.

“A few minutes, just a few more minutes.” whispered Amber, still trying to chase down the elusive image.

Somewhere deep in her the words resonated. She’d read something similar recently. But where, when? The harder she chased the memory the faster it fled.

“Hello?”

Amber relaxed at the sound of Smoke’s familiar and welcome voice. She didn’t realize until these last few days how much she depended upon her cousin’s stability and strength.

“Smoke, hi. Listen. Do you have the list of books that Aunt Lucinda bought at the same time as the monster’s book?”

“Yeah?”

“There were three books that you brought with you to collect me in New York. What were they?”

“Well,” the distant sound of paper moving came through the phone, “I had
Lassie, Come Home
,
First Destroy All Giant Monsters
, and
Psychic Self-Defense
. The books she bought were. .hey.
Psychic Self-Defense
!”

“Right! Great! I read that years ago so I didn’t bother looking at it when you brought it with you. I can’t believe how stupid I was. As if the house or Aunt Lucinda would do anything casually!”

“So that book was supposed to be a message to you?”

“One that I completely missed. If I’d read it before going to the store maybe I wouldn’t have been caught. But might have beens aren’t helping. I have to re-read that book now. Let me see if it’s available as an e-book. Damn. No. It’s not!”

Karl slid her laptop out from under her hands and clicked his way onto the internet. He worked silently for a few minutes while Amber argued with Smoke.

“If I stay here at the hotel for a couple of days then you could ship the book to me,” she suggested.

“And if you decide to go racing off, then what? Will you ask the hotel to forward your mail?” asked Smoke.

“What got you started on this, Amber?” Karl kept most of his attention on the small screen and clicked his way to another site.

“I remember a story about a girl trying to change her boyfriend’s mind about something,” Amber turned on the phone’s speaker. “It was in the book about
Psychic Self-Defense
. I’m sure of it.”

“I’ve found the book,” said Smoke, his voice muffled as he flipped the pages. “The chapters all start with little stories. Love, work, get the job you want, get money, creativity, childbirth. Ah ha. Here we go. Chapter Seventeen. Warning – psychic influence.”

Amber and Karl waited breathlessly while Smoke quickly read the piece.

“Okay,” he said finally, “apparently this girl who was into magic decided that the guy she loved should get involved, too. So she gathered up some power and put a spell on him. Unfortunately, the spell was not properly shaped and his interest in magic became an obsession. He got so involved in magic that he started to ignore her. By the time she tried to use magic to counter her spell his psychic shields were so strong that the spell backfired and she developed a magical aversion.”

“Does the chapter give any other information?” asked Amber, “and is there a reverse story?”

At the same time, Karl jumped up and started prowling the room.

“I was never involved in magic,” he said, waving his hands in the air. “Never. I hate it.”

Amber raised an eyebrow.

“As far as you know you were never involved, Karl. There are so many spells on you that it’s impossible to tell what each individual spell is for. Besides, it’s interesting that you hate magic so much. Maybe she put the hate spell on you.”

Karl ignored her and continued to pace. Amber returned to the phone.

“Smoke. I need to read that book again and a couple of others from the library.”

“So? Are you heading home?”

“No.”

“That book you want isn’t that rare,” Karl slipped her laptop back under her nose. “In fact, we could probably pick it up down the road. See. I did a search. There’s a big bookstore in the mall across the street and this says that they have a copy in stock.”

“Wonderful. We’ll go and get a copy tonight. But I still need some books from the farm library.”

Amber tapped her pen rapidly on the table until Karl took it from her fingers and she smiled an apology.

“Going back isn’t going to help. Neither is sitting still. I think Karl and I should head for …” She found the information package Davie had sent her, opened Gloria’s file, and scrolled down to the woman’s current address, “Albany tomorrow. We have to see a certain bitch witch and explain some matters of ethics to her. Is that okay with you, Karl?”

“Okay? Hell, great, whatever you want.”

“So.” Amber clicked to a hotel reservation page. “I’m going to make reservations at a hotel in Albany and I’ll email Smoke the address. Smoke? What I need you to do is pack up all the books you can find that have psychic influence or something similar in the index or contents and have them shipped overnight to me there.”

“All of them?”

Amber could easily imagine the look on Smoke’s face as he stood in the middle of the library, staring up at shelf upon shelf of books – and grinned.

“Yes. Please.”

“You got it. Keep us updated, kid. Don’t want to lose touch again.”

The phone clicked off.

“Okay, done,” Amber shut her computer and hesitated only a moment before tucking it and her phone into her handbag. She’d already proven that it was unwise to leave anything behind. Who knew if she’d be getting back to this hotel ever? She turned to Karl who was pacing the floor.

“Ready?”

“To hell with that. I was never involved in magic.”

“I’m not saying you were. That was just one story in the book. There were others. I’m just trying to get an idea, a shape of what the witch who cast the spells on you was intending.”

“That isn’t me,” declared Karl, continuing to pace, “I was not obsessed with magic, she was.”

“And that’s useful information. Listen, Karl, all this does is remind me that it’s possible to influence people’s thinking magically. What I’m looking for is ‘style.’ How this witch thinks. If this is one of the books she’s read, an idea she’s used, then I can start looking at how to deconstruct her spells. Right now it’s like I’m trying to find a black piece of paper inside a sealed box that’s buried under the bottom of the ocean. Any clue, any hint helps me.”

“And is that going to help you get the spells off me?” As he paced he flexed his fingers.

Amber watched him, her concern growing. “Maybe. Everything helps, even if it’s wrong. It’s one more thing to cross off the list.”

“And
maybe
you can take them off without those books? Take another off tonight?”

Amber hesitated. “I don’t know if we’re up for that tonight. We’re both very tired.”

“It’s gonna be worse in the morning,” Karl reminded her bitterly.

Amber nodded slowly and reached for her fan. “That’s for damn sure.”

The next morning Amber shambled into the bathroom. She’d recharged herself, recharged Karl, and then they’d gone back to sleep. Several hours later she’d woken and climbed into the shower to try and shock her brain into functioning status. It hadn’t worked.

Amber emerged from the bathroom running a comb through her thick wet hair. The thought of standing in front of a mirror blow-drying her hair was too depressing. She lifted a handful and let it fall. One quick glance in the mirror was enough to show that the grey strands now extended from root to tip on almost fifty percent of her hair.

Karl was seated on the side of his bed and paused in his note-taking to give her a brief sympathetic smile, brushed his hand over his own now white hair, then continued his phone conversation.

“Did you find it?” he asked whoever was on the other end. “Good. Call him and put in a double order. Tell him you need it within two days. Don’t let him give you a hard time about unscheduled delivery; it’s not like we don’t give him a decent amount of business. And call that agent back. Tell him we would be delighted, and make arrangements for the earliest possible day for the signing. Have Jake make up a sign as soon as we have a date. And get lots of her books on hand for people to buy. I’ll talk to you about an advertising strategy later,” he tapped his pen impatiently on the pad balanced precariously on his knee as he listened. “That’s fine. I’m sure your brother will be a great addition to the team, and it sounds like we do need the help. I’ll leave it to you to orient him. Look around for another person to hire for the coffee shop. I have to say I’m very impressed with you, Bess. If everything continues smoothly, when I get back in a few days, we’ll arrange for you to get a formal promotion to assistant manager and a pay raise with it.”

The excited tone of the answer was audible to Amber from her position at the other side of the room.

“No, thank
you
, Bessie. I really appreciate all your hard work while I’m dealing with this emergency. I’ll call later for an update.”

Amber raised a delicate inquiring eyebrow. Karl dropped her phone and made a few more notations.

“I’ve got to thank you, too, Amber,” he said, rising from the bed. “That citrine globe of yours has made a big difference. That was our friend Bess. Apparently we have done more business since the globe was installed than at any other time in the store’s life. My staff is almost dying of shock. They’ve never seen the place so busy. We’re actually having to rush order some stock to keep up levels.”

Amber laughed.

“I didn’t know it was possible to sell that much coffee.”

“Not coffee,” said Karl, grinning broadly and grabbing her for a quick hug. “Books. Books! People are actually buying the books again. Not just the net business. That spell you put on the place is working.”

“But it was only a protection.” Amber’s jaw dropped and all the color drained from her face.

“Well, it has become more than that. Bess says that everyone who comes into the store, first of all goes over to the stone and touches it. Then they go buy a book.”

“Oh,” said Amber in a faint, worried tone, and started biting her fingernails, “but I didn’t put a sales spell on the globe. That wouldn’t be ethical.”

“No,” said Karl as he took her hand out of her mouth and gave her a gentle shake. “It’s a bookstore. People go in to buy books. The problem was that no one was staying awake long enough to browse. Now they are actually doing what they want to do. Get a book and read it.”

“Oh. So, I guess that’s okay,” Amber continued to worry at her fingernails, “I didn’t actually make them do something they weren’t already going to do.”

Karl leaned closer.

“Now what’s wrong with that?”

“I have to be so careful,” replied Amber quietly. “The rules for magic are so strict about overriding someone’s self-determination. I don’t want to get in trouble with the powers-that-be. They know where to find me.”

She shut her eyes and reviewed the spell in her mind.

“Near as I can remember that spell has a ‘harms none’ tag to it, so it wouldn’t put sales pressure on anyone.”

Karl released her with a snort.

“Don’t worry too much. Obviously someone has been getting away with breaking the rules for a while if the store and I are anything to go by.”

Amber nodded, her face thoughtful even as she rubbed her multi-colored bracelet.

“I know but it doesn’t matter what they do. I have to face the consequences of my own actions. So I’ll continue to be careful and to worry.”

She gazed into space for a few moments, then shook off her distraction and turned back to Karl. Amber’s sudden brilliant smile warmed Karl to his toes, and filled his heart with dread at the same time. He was beginning to enjoy her mood shifts and flashes of humor. Hugging her was a pleasure, too. Feeling her soft warm body pressed tight against his when she lifted him out of the car, he’d wanted to hold on. Just hold on to her. A few minutes in her embrace and he’d felt heat in parts of his body that had been asleep for years.

But on the other hand, there was always the threat, the thought, of magic. It was so much a part of her. A normal person, he knew, would call the police if a friend were missing. Amber, it seemed, considered searching for the soul on the Ethereal Planes to be the best technique. Not that he could criticize the outcome. It was just … just … His lungs seemed to tighten, his breathing painful.

Magic.

He couldn’t abide the touch of magic.

“I have an idea,” she said brightly.

“Will I like it?” Suspicion dripped from his voice.

“If it works, the odds are good you won’t even remember.”

Karl mock shuddered.

“Oh. One of
those
ideas.”

“Charming,” drawled Amber, grabbing an untouched notepad. “What I want you to do is re-write these notes to yourself. Instead of writing Gloria’s name I want you to write ‘the bad witch.’ No. The ‘bad guy.’ Or better yet, ‘the coven member in Albany.’”

“What the heck will that do?” Karl shuffled the note pages and started writing.

“It’s an experiment,” said Amber, “and we don’t have much time because I just said her name. Karl, I have to talk to you about magic related stuff and I can’t have you forgetting anything important. My theory is that it’s the name ‘Gloria’ that causes the memory reset. From what you’ve said, she sounds egotistical enough to have set the spell up that way. If when your memory resets this time you read all the things we’ve worked out, and you don’t think that Gloria is the villainess, then you might just remember everything from then on.”

Karl stared at her blankly for a moment, then leaned forward to place a light kiss on her forehead.

“That is brilliant, Holmes. Let’s give it a try.”

Amber blushed to her toes, surprised at the pleasure she felt at his almost indifferent praise, the touch of his lips. It was just a dry, soft touch. She could not have imagined that her body would respond so passionately; wanting to pull him close and teaching him much better places to kiss and be kissed.