“No, but you aren’t compatible with the spell she cast.”
“You know nothing about me.” She shook her mane and stuck her nose in the air.
“Unicornmagic and demon magic don’t mix,” he ground out. “But go ahead. I’m happy to stand here and mock your efforts.”
The unicorn stomped her foot. “Youdare—”
“Both of you shut up and move.”
Bathin gave me a slow-burn smile, as if I’d just told him I loved him rather than ordering him to get the hell out of my way. That smile did things to my stomach. And my breathing.
And my resolve.
He bent a half bow, his arm sweeping out as I marched to the merry-go-round.
“Look, Klex, is it?” I held up the turnip and drew my gun. “I have a turnip and a gun, and I’m not afraid to use them. So either you leave Ordinary peacefully, or I will destroy you, cut off your ties to the Underworld, and turn you into anactualpiece of playground equipment for all eternity.”
The yellow eyes narrowed and the merry-go-round spun lazily as if pushed by a gentle breeze. But it did not pack it up and blob back to the vortex.
Fine. Turnip first.
I snapped my fingers three times.
The turnip shivered and sprang out of my grip, landing squarely in the middle of the demon-go-round. There was a “pop,” and the merry-go-round disappeared. Klex, the blob, wobbled in place, stunned on the singed dirt. The turnip bounced around it like a bobber in a stream.
That week-old root vegetable spun on its nubby end and danced a circle around the blob. As it did so, a wind began to blow.
The wind didn’t feel all that strong to me, but Klex was not faring well. The blob looked like a weather reporter bracing against a hurricane. The breeze didn’t even ruffle my hair, but it drove Klex end-over-blobby-end back to the edge of the vortex.
Klex teetered there on the edge, stretching and straining, before it plopped into the vortex and was sucked down on top of all the other blobs.
The turnip tumbled like it had also been caught by the wind, but it stopped right at the edge of the vortex. Then it dug itself down, turning and turning like a drill, rooting deep into the earth.
With each crank of the turnip, the vortex shrank smaller. A pond, a puddle, a cup of moonlight. When the turnip had drilled into the soil so only the tiny top of it, where a sprig of new green growth poked up, could be seen, the vortex sizzled like rain on a hot sidewalk…and was gone, leaving nothing but a circle of scorched dirt around the newly planted turnip.
The vortex was closed. The demon spawn was gone, yet the root vegetable remained, a plug between Ordinary and the Underworld.
Wow. That was easier than I thought.
“A turnip,” the unicorn said from near my elbow. “Huh.”
“People used to carve them on Halloween,” Bathin said. “To ward off spirits from the other side.”
“A pumpkin would have been cuter,” Xtelle said. “And more modern.”
“Wouldn’t have worked,” I told her.
The unicorn sniffed. “And how do you know this, Myra Reed?”
“I know the difference between gourd magic and good, old-fashioned root vegetable magic.”
The babble of young voices grew louder, peppered with shouts and squeals.
“Brace yourself,” Bathin said.
“Why?” I asked.
“Not you.”
