Page 31 of Demon's Bluff
I stood, hand extended to help her rise. “I told you he was packing. You okay?”
“I’m fine.” Clearly peeved, she let me pull her up and she glared at him on the floor, only the barest rim of brown about her pupils. “How long was I out? Did you find Kisten’s book?”
“I haven’t had a chance to look yet,” I said, answering both questions with one answer. “I’m pretty sure the one on the table has Kisten’s curse in it. Mine has to be here somewhere.”
“On it!” Wings flapping once, Bis flew to the bookcase, landing to hang upside down and run a gnarled finger over the titles. “These aren’t even spell books,” the gargoyle said, his white-tufted ears pinned, and Ivy went to help look.
“It’s a good place to hide one, though,” she said as she began tilting them forward to make sure nothing was hidden behind.
I breathed deep, studying the room. Burnt amber was a hint, so faint I couldn’t place where it was coming from. The feel of the room was less home and more glorified hotel. The overdone scalloped woodwork didn’t seem like Elyse’s style, and the overstuffed couch and chair too dark forher. Annoyed, I grabbed the remote and clicked the TV off. I would have liked to have left a lighter footprint, but with Junior here, that was a boat long sailed.
“You think he was watching the news to see if we got caught breaking into the coven’s offices?” I said as I dragged the kid to the chair and hoisted his limp form into it.
“Maybe.” Bis turned from inspecting the books. “Something is off with him.”
“You mean other than his magic?” Ivy said, her back to me as she searched.
“He’s probably the coven’s next whatever.” In a moment of pity, I shifted his head so he wouldn’t wake up with a stiff neck.
Hoping we hadn’t made a mistake, I picked up the book on the end table and thumbed to the spell marked by the black napkin. Itlookedlike the right book, the illustrations and cramped handwriting being the same as what I’d seen in Elyse’s office. The subliminal tingle from the ley lines rising through it to meet me were familiar, too. But I couldn’t read elven, and I didn’t trust Elyse any farther than I could throw her.
“Bis, you want to take a look at this?” I set the open book on the coffee table with a thump. “Make sure it’s the right one before we walk out with it?”
The little gargoyle perked up, his lionlike tail switching. “Sure.” His wings flashed open as he pulled a book off the shelf and staggered into the air. “This one is about the right size to replace it,” he said as he beat his wings thrice and landed heavily on the table, aReader’s Digest Condensed Booksleather-bound doorstop in his arms. “That kid is going to tell them you were here. I don’t think glamouring it will help much.”
Brow furrowed, Ivy looked from replacing the couch’s cushions. “You could dose him into forgetting,” she suggested.
“No, too risky.” There was no way I’d dose the kid into forgetting we had been here. That was a one-way ticket to Alcatraz. “Well, Bis?” I asked, and he glanced from the book splayed before him.
“Looks legit,” he said as he closed the book and backed away, that little black napkin in his hand. “Spell ’em.”
Easy enough.I took my new transposition charm from around my neck and stared through the hole at the book Elyse had tried to lure me with.“A priori,”I said, and a quiver of line energy rippled through me, the power going nowhere but simply pooling, waiting for direction.
I turned my attention to the doorstop of thatReader’s Digest.“A posteriori.”
The energy tingling at my fingers doubled.“Omnia mutantur,”I whispered, speaking the words through the stone. The magic poured from my lips, visible like a smoky fire as it settled over the red, gold-gilded monstrosity and soaked in. As before, the book looked the same to me. “Did it work?”
Ivy came over, impatience making her motions sharp. “Yes. Wow. If I hadn’t seen you do it, I would never guess.” She flipped one open to show stark white pages and a regular typeset monotony. “They look exactly alike on the outside.” Expression closed, she took the black napkin from Bis, put it between the pages of the fake one, and shut it. “Make sure you take the right one.”
“No kidding.” But when I went to put it in my bag, Bis held his hands out, a wistful expression on him.
“Um, maybe I should make sure it’s all there,” he said, and I nodded.
“Good idea. Thanks,” I said softly as he settled himself right there on the table, his black, gnarled fingers holding a book almost as large as he was. “Any luck on finding the one she kept?”
“I’m sure it’s here. I can smell it,” Ivy said, her back to me as she continued to search, and I shifted the decoy with the black napkin back to the end table.
“Maybe they left it at the office,” Bis said, his head bowed low over the old text, and I moved to stand before the shelf, hands on my hips.
“Maybe.” I fingered the transposition charm, thinking. “They could have disguised it,” I said as I peered through the stone for a telltale sign of mischief.Nothing,I mused, turning on a slow heel to do a circuit of the room.
Again, everything seemed to be as it should be—until I gazed throughthe stone at the kid and he aged right before my eyes, suddenly buck-naked and sprawled in the chair with his legs stretched out and his head lolling. His cheeks were shaved, and he looked to be about sixty, which meant he could be as old as a hundred. It was a witch thing.
“U-uh,” I stammered, glancing over the stone to see a slim ten-year-old in jeans and a hoodie, his sneakers dangling over the floor. “Guys?” Breath held, I tried to nudge his knobby, old foot with mine, my boot encountering nothing. He might look six-foot-two through the stone, but it was an image. Like a placeholder. “I don’t think our little kid is really a kid.”Why is he naked?I wondered as I handed the stone to Bis and the gargoyle peered through it.
“What am I supposed to be seeing?” he said, and Ivy took the stone from him.
Confused, I glanced between her and the, uh, kid. “You don’t see an older man?” I said, deciding to keep to myself that he was also naked.