Angie and EJ crawled down the steps and along the drive. Here George got his legs untangled from EJ’s blanket and could walk just fine. He had time now to inspect the magic around them. Angie’s magic was a low-lying, moveable ward, the upper dome of which was just high enough to allow them to sit up.
“I’m hanging up so I can push,” Angie said.
George heard two cars coming, one close. The first car pulled up behind Edmund’s car and stopped. The engine went silent and the ginger-haired twin, the Everhart witches, Cia and Liz, joined Edmund at the hedge. This was good. They would save the Biggers and KitKit and kill and eat the bad magic behind the house. And KitKit would stop the Mama Bigger’s death magics. It was going to be fine.
“Oh dear,” Cia said. “I had hoped Shaddock was mistaken about an emergency.”
George whuffed. His Lincoln Shaddock had sent them. This was better and better.
Puffing, the children reached the hedge. “Hey, Ant Liz and Ant Cia,” EJ said, waving.
George did not know why the humans were called ants, except that Lincoln Shaddock called them so, and Angie liked Lincoln. George liked Lincoln Shaddock too. He was the best vampire. George wished that Lincoln Shaddock was here with the Edmond vampire.
Angie straightened her nightclothes and wrapped EJ and George in the blanket they had dragged with them, petting them both equally. George liked being petted. He shared some of his slobber with her hand.
Liz said, “EJ. Angie, is there some reason you called a vampire instead of family?”
Angie scowled. Edmund smiled. Edmund showed a bit of fang. George thought KitKit would like Edmund.
“The attack isn’t witch magic,” Angie said, her smell defiant and stubborn. “It’s a were-creature or something else, and I didn’t want you to get bit by a werewolf or something.”
“Big teefs to eat you with!” EJ said.
“Ah,” Liz said, still composed. “Next time, please call us too.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Angie said, lying, by her scent. Why did Angie need to lie?
The second car pulled up and Angie transferred her antagonism to the new vehicle.
“Who’s that?”
A dark-haired witch emerged from the car.
“Melodie?” Cia called out.
George caught her scent and growled deep in his throat.
Danger…
Angie said, “Mama said not to talk to people I don’t know.”
“Angie,” Liz said sharply. “Manners.”
But Angie’s anger smell grew worse as the third witch approached. And George nudged her hand, adding his low growl to her worry. This witch was bad, bad.
Melodie said, “I’m sure the child has been through a lot tonight. I’m Melodie Joy Custer-Luckett from the Custer witch clan, Angie. I’m renting a room from your aunt Elizabeth while I finish a course at the university.”
The witch lied. The stink of it filled the air. George bumped Angie but the young witch only petted his head.
The danger witch added, “I was studying late and saw you rush off, Liz. I’m a paramedic. I thought I should follow.”
Angie’s smell said she didn’t like the Melodie witch. He nudged her again. You are right. Do not trust this one.
Angie said, lying also, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miz Melodie.”
She elbowed her brother, and EJ pulled a slobbery finger out of his mouth to say, “Pweasure meet you.” And stuck his finger back in his mouth.
Why did Angie lie? KitKit would know. George wished KitKit was here. Lying and secrets were cat things, not dog things.
“Edmund,” Angie said, sounding very grown up, “Ant Liz, Ant Cia, Miz Melodie, we must break the ward and save my mama and my daddy. And KitKit.”
“Breaking an Everhart ward will be difficult,” Melodie said.
But she smelled of…hunger. Like a dog who wanted to steal a treat.
Liz and Cia nodded, but Angie’s scent went smelly like lemons at Melodie’s words.
Edmund had been listening and his scent was full of caution and a predator’s alertness. George would not want to make Edmund mad.
“Sissy, I havta peepee,” EJ whispered. “And I’m hungwy and cold.”
“We’ll be free soon,” Angie said. She tucked the blanket tighter around them, to give EJ some heat.
George promptly pretended to fall asleep, drooling on EJ’s leg. Bassett Hounds were wonderful droolers. He drooled and drooled, fooling all the witches and even the vampire.
The visitors discussed the “situation,” as they called it, and looked at the pictures Angie had sent Edmund. Liz said, “Tell me what happened, Angie Baby, and very carefully, walk me through what you did to make such a strong ward.”
“I messed up,” Angie said. Angie described what had happened, emphasizing the colors of the magical working and EJ piping in with its sound—a drum beating slowly.
George drooled.
“You twined the magics together,” Cia said. Her scent was worried. Like the smell of a squirrel when a hawk was near.
“Yes,” Angie said. “It’s what Mama and Daddy do to our magics when they bind ’em so we can’t use ’em.”
“And you can see the magics? The energies they use to bind you?” Melodie asked.
“It’s why it’s so easy to get out. But this is different. Mama and Daddy and KitKit are all frozen.”
Liz asked, “Could she have triggered a temporal disengagement?”
“Or a temporal deactivation,” Cia said.
Those big words sounded very, very bad.
Melodie said, “Temporal… You Everharts are an interesting bunch.” Her scent was stronger. Full of hunger.
“I gotta peepee!” EJ said. “I gotta peepee noooow!”
“First thing, then,” Liz said, “is to get my favorite nephew out of the protection ward so he can go potty.”
“He’s your only nephew,” Angie said crossly, smelling of jealousy. “And I gotta use the bathroom too.”
“Alrighty then,” Cia said. George opened one eye to see Cia witch unwinding a ball of string and starting to trace a protective circle.
EJ muttered, “Hold it. Hold it. Hold it. Hold it. Sissy, I gotta go now!”
“You’ll need three of us. Where do you want me?” Melodie asked Liz.
Smell of hunger, hunger, hunger rising. Danger, George thought at KitKit.
There was no answer. And then, slowly, KitKit thought back, Betrayal. She. Wants. All. The. Tuna.
KitKit loved tuna. She was telling George that the Melodie witch was trying to take everything.
Yes, he thought back.
Let. Me. See, KitKit thought, so slow.
He opened both eyes to see. Bassett Hounds did not have very good eyesight, so he breathed in to verify everything he saw.
“North is here,” Liz said, walking to a different spot, “so each of you to the side in a triangle pattern.” The witches sat and closed the circle, the powers flaring into place with a flash of light.
George had seen and smelled an Everhart witch circle open. But this one smelled different. Not right.
Very. Bad, KitKit agreed.
“Oh my…” Melodie said, staring all around. “I’ve never seen anything like this. Do you Everharts do this kind of”—her hand made little circles in the air—“working often?”
Hunger, hunger, hunger. She wanted it all.
“No. But there’s always a first time,” Liz said, smelling grim. “I’ve never seen one so tangled. Cia, Melodie, can you determine the first step?”
“The strand from the top of the hedge, perhaps?” Cia said. “Except we’d never get to it.”