A Hidden Witch (A Modern Witch Series: Book 2) (16 page)

Corners ready where we wait.

Neatly done by we three,

As I will, so mote it be
.”

Lizzie could rhyme like nobody’s business.

The sheet floated gently toward Kevin and
settled an edge down around the first mattress corner. They got the
next two corners on in quick succession, but the last one was
tricky. After a couple of attempts, Lizzie abandoned ship and
switched focus to the duvet.

Swift teamwork settled the cover on the bed over
the errant sheet corner, and added two pillows.

Lizzie opened her eyes and grinned. “There, we
did it!”

Elorie laughed. By six-year-old standards, that
was probably an acceptable solution. She’d fix the last corner
later.

Aaron arrived in the doorway. “There are scones
and milk in the kitchen, if anybody’s hungry.” He got out of the
way of the stampede, grinning at his wife.

“There’s got to be a joke in here somewhere
about how many witches it takes to change the sheets on a bed.”

Elorie laughed and held up the corner of the
cover so he could see Lizzie’s shortcut. “Don’t hire them just
yet.”

Aaron chuckled. “Not a problem. Aervyn’s
sleeping in that bed, and he’s only three feet tall. He’ll never
notice.”

Elorie fixed the sheet anyhow.

~ ~ ~

Sophie sat down in front of her laptop and let
out a long sigh. Packing was finally done, her house was back in
order, and her system was settling down after the lovely shock of
Mike’s arrival.

He’d found excellent use for her zinging
hormones and then gone off for a run while she finished packing.
Running was serious business for Mike—she didn’t expect him back
for at least another hour.

She had plans for that hour. A nine-year-old was
aiming for Realm domination, and Gandalf wasn’t the only witch who
could take her down. Sophie’d been planning a sneak spell-raid for
almost two weeks now, and her pushed-up travel plans meant she
needed to spring the attack tonight.

Warrior Girl was online and on the prowl.
Perfect. And odd. She was wandering around in one of the easiest
witch-only levels, and she had company. Huh. Normally the top
players stayed in the higher levels. It wasn’t any fun squishing
newbies, and complex spells didn’t work as well in the beginners’
zone.

Sophie dropped into the level-one world to
investigate. Maybe Warrior Girl would be more vulnerable without
her fancier spellcoding tricks.

At first, Sophie thought one of the lower-rated
players had made the eternally dumb mistake of launching a magic
attack on Realm’s number-four-ranked player. Watching from the
forest, however, it soon became clear that Warrior Girl wasn’t
fighting—she was training. Which was fascinating on a bunch of
levels, not the least of which being that her companion had a very
strange mix of glaring weaknesses and nifty magical tricks. Sophie
looked up the username. Hecate. Hmm.

She didn’t know what gave her presence away, but
suddenly Hecate fired a very tricky freeze spell in her direction.
Sophie reacted instinctively, pulling a reversing spell out of her
bag in the nick of time.

Nothing like being completely unprepared. Ugh.
Sophie squared off with Hecate and tried to keep an eye on Warrior
Girl.

Hecate had some nice magical moves, and she used
them. Sophie dodged where she could, retaliated when she had to,
and wondered how the heck she was going to get out of this with
even a fraction of her spell stockpile intact.

Just when she was getting somewhere, Warrior
Girl tossed in an illusion spell to make things interesting. Sophie
would have appreciated her sense of fair play more if Hecate didn’t
appear to have six arms now.

There was only one way she could see to end
this, and she’d better take it before Warrior Girl got more
seriously involved. Hecate had snazzy magic tricks, but she had
really weak physical fighting skills. Sophie waited for an opening
and moved in. One conk on the head with the butt end of her sword,
and Hecate dropped to the ground like a stone, out cold.

Ginia flew to the side of her fallen trainee.
“Aunt Moira!”

Sophie’s brain slowed to molasses. “Aunt
Moira?”

Ginia looked up, a very pained look on her face.
“Ssshh. Keep it down. She’s my secret weapon, but it won’t do me
much good if everyone figures out who she is.”

Oh, God. She’d conked Aunt Moira on the head. In
an online game. Either of those events was insane. Both must mean
the world was coming to an end.

She bent down beside Ginia. “What do we do?”

Ginia looked up. “I don’t know. I don’t have any
safe zones in this level.”

Sophie sighed and drew a cloaking spell out of
her bag. This was going to cost her mucho game points. She
initiated the spell and a dome slapped into place around them. “It
only lasts for fifteen minutes, so think fast.”

“I didn’t know you could do that.” Ginia looked
moderately impressed.

She should be. Only four Realm players had
cloaking capabilities, and Sophie had managed to keep hers secret
until now. “So how do we fix the conk on her head?”

Ginia shrugged. “I could make her a new avatar,
but I think Aunt Moira likes this one. I don’t have any healing
spells, though.” She raised her eyebrows. “
Somebody
hasn’t
been sharing lately.”

Spellcoding only worked with magic you possessed
in real life, so Sophie was one of the very few Realm players who
could create healing spells for the game. Once upon a time she’d
done a brisk business trading those spells for other useful things,
but in the last few weeks, she’d been hording them. Healing your
competition just wasn’t all that smart in the long run.

Besides, no decent healing spell worked in this
level. Witches were restricted in the spells they could use in
level one, mostly for safety reasons. “None of my spells are basic
enough to work here—they’d all trigger the spellcode lock.”

Ginia frowned down at the still-unconscious
Hecate. Then she looked up at Sophie, eyes full of mischief. “The
lock only works on spellcode. Maybe we can try something
different.”

Uh, oh. “Like what?”

Ginia looked around furtively. “Is your cloaking
spell soundproof?”

Just barely, but no point letting Warrior Girl
know that. “Do I look like an incompetent witch?”

Rolling her eyes, Ginia pulled one of her
trademark spellcubes out of her bag. They were remote-triggered,
and everyone in Realm had learned to be very careful when they
spotted one. She set it gently on the ground. “
Now
we’re
soundproof for sure.”

Yeesh, what was this—a secret spy convention?
“What are we doing, kiddo, waking the dead?”

“Close.” Ginia’s eyes twinkled. “I want you to
do a healing spell on Hecate.”

“I can’t heal in-game, you know that. We need
spellcode to do that, and we’ll trigger the lock if we try. Maybe
we can take Hecate to one of the higher levels.”

Ginia shook her head. “Nope. She’s almost ready
to pass to level two, but not quite. I can’t seem to teach her to
keep her sword hand high.”

Since that was how Sophie had gotten around Aunt
Moira’s guard, she wasn’t about to argue. “So what are you
suggesting we do?” Ginia was plenty creative—maybe she’d figured
out a way around the lock.

“I’m going to use Net power.”

“I thought that just worked for
spellcoding.”

“Nope. It works to join things. Spellcoding
joins magic with programming code, but I can join other stuff, too.
I tried it yesterday with Uncle Jamie and Gandalf, and we joined
two spells here in Realm.”

Splendid. Just what they needed in the
game—Warrior Girl with magic no one else could match.

Ginia looked down at Hecate. “So I bet that if
you try to heal her, I can use Net power to join your in-real-life
healing magic with what happens here in Realm.”

Real magic in Realm?

Sophie was pretty sure she’d just heard the
final clink in Ginia’s quest for Realm domination, but she couldn’t
resist the lure of a new magic trick. Crouching down, she laid her
hands on Hecate’s head and chest. “Let me know when you’re
ready.”

When Ginia nodded, Sophie reached for power and
tried to pretend she felt Aunt Moira under her hands, rather than
her computer keyboard. It was a very strange sensation.

Strangeness vanished when Hecate coughed and
tried to sit up. She looked up at Sophie, eyes scolding. “Sophie
Ellen Delaney, what on earth were you thinking, conking me over the
head like that?”

Oh, yes, definitely Aunt Moira. “How does your
head feel?”

“My head is just fine, but Hecate here will
probably have a bit of a bump.”

Sophie laughed at herself. It had been a dumb
question to ask, but she wasn’t used to virtual healing.

Virtual healing. Or rather, real healing magic,
done in-game. They’d brought real magic into Realm. Sophie looked
over at Ginia, the weight of what they’d accomplished suddenly
sinking in. Ginia met her eyes with a very sober, very adult
look.

Two things hit loud and clear. One, Net power
was a new world, and Ginia was leading the scouting party. Witch
school was going to be very interesting. And two, Warrior Girl was
about to turn Realm upside-down. With Aunt Moira at her side.

First things first. Sophie grinned, warrior to
warrior. “So, how about a girl-power alliance? I might even be able
to help you train this one to keep her guard arm up.”

They shook hands over Hecate’s spluttering
laughter.

Nell heaved a sigh of relief as she climbed out
of Aaron’s van. Here in the middle of nowhere, she could finally
stand down from high alert. Four-year-olds and airplanes were a fun
mix for about an hour. Unfortunately, it took a lot longer than
that to get from California to Nova Scotia.

And she’d had to clamp a silence spell on Aervyn
going through customs. The nice border agent didn’t really need to
know what an unhappy witchling thought he could do to make planes
go a little faster.

“Try not to lose your brother before dinner,
Ginia,” she called out to her daughter, already halfway across the
lawn happily greeting Lizzie, with Aervyn not far behind.

Kevin waved. “Don’t worry, Aunt Nell. We’ll make
sure he doesn’t fall in the ocean.”

It was hard to take that promise seriously from
a boy whose pants were wet up to the knees. “Just make sure you all
come back for dinner.”

In moments, all five children were around the
end of the house and gone.

“It will do them good to run for a bit,” Aaron
said, grabbing some of her luggage.

Nell grinned. “You just don’t want them burning
it off inside your inn.”

“That, too. Although Elorie assures me it’s been
witchling-proofed.”

“Nothing is Aervyn-proof.”

Aaron chuckled. “Remind me to triple your damage
deposit, then.” He picked up a bag. “What the heck is in
here—rocks?”

“That would be Ginia’s collection of potions.
She wanted to show Sophie and Moira some of her latest creations.
Unfortunately, potions are heavy, and not all that easy to get
through customs.”

Aaron eyed the bag with sensible caution. “I can
imagine. Will any of them turn me into a frog or cause me to
express my undying love to the wrong woman?”

“Don’t worry. I’ll make sure you’re pointed at
your wife if you drink that one.” Aaron laughed, and they began
lugging bags into the house. Nell decided she approved of Elorie’s
guy.

A sense of humor was an important quality if you
were married to a witch, particularly if there were witchling
babies on the horizon. Nell knew a case of baby fever when she saw
one. Elorie’s eyes had strayed to every baby on the West Coast
during her visit. She’d be shocked if there weren’t a little Shaw
in at least the planning stages.

Moira was waiting in the inn’s parlor. “How very
lovely to see you.” She hugged Nell and gestured to the table.
“Come, sit. I’ve tea already poured. I assume your children ran
away with our ruffians.”

Nell breathed deeply and downshifted to rural
Nova Scotia speed. “They did, but Ginia can hardly wait to sit down
with you and Sophie. She’s been practicing her potions and
threatening to turn our entire back yard into a garden.”

Moira beamed. “She’s most welcome in my garden.
My flowers could use some tending by young hands. They feel a bit
neglected these days.”

“None of your witchlings have earth magic?”

“Our Sean has a wee bit, but his talents are
mostly with the rocks and land. He’s not at all interested in the
plants, and I don’t think he’s got the patience to sit and tend to
flowers.”

“That’s women’s work,” Marcus said from the
doorway, nodding at Nell. She wasn’t entirely sure he was
kidding.

Moira looked heavenward. “Nell, you’d do me the
most wonderful favor if you could tinker with my nephew’s thinking
while you’re here. Some of his brain appears to be stuck in the
Middle Ages.”

Marcus poured himself a cup of tea. “I’ve never
denied it. Welcome to our corner of the world, Nell. I won’t ask
about your trip—I assume that with two witchlings in tow, it was
less than pleasant.”

Nell could feel a hiss of protest coming on,
even though Marcus was exactly right. He just rubbed her the wrong
way.

“Marcus, behave,” Moira said, an amused look on
her face. “So, Lauren didn’t travel with you then, Nell?”

“No, she didn’t. There was some last-minute deal
she had to wrap up this morning, so she took a different airline
and routed through Colorado. She and Sophie will be coming in
together in a couple of hours.”

Marcus sat and offered Nell a bowl of berries.
“Perhaps she reassessed the wisdom of spending hours on an airplane
with a four-year-old.”

Nell just raised an eyebrow. She knew how to
handle bullies. Her pithy reply, however, got cut off by Aervyn’s
flying entrance. “Blueberries!”