Pulling items from the bag, she chanted.“Garbitu espazio hau.”She lit a bundle of herbs I was pretty sure was sage, for cleansing.“Iraganekoa kendu. Negatibitatea baztertzen dizut.”
She waved the sage around in a ritual only she understood. I trusted her ability and knowledge to do what we needed to do, and do it properly, but I wished she’d hurry.
Anthony clapped me on the shoulder. “She’ll find her. And Riley is fierce, pregnant, or not. She’s okay.”
“I’m glad she’s got Axoular with her, even so. She’s been vulnerable since she’s been pregnant.”
He didn’t reply. We watched Cindy put down a map of the island. “Where’d you get that?” I asked. She hadn’t had time to stop to buy a map.
“Shhh,” she said, then continued her chant.
“She probably conjured it,” Anthony whispered in my ear.
She cut the top of the mostly empty blood bag open and dipped a pendant of some sort into it, rubbing it around to get Riley’s blood all over it.
Her chant changed and became more commanding as she slowly circled the pendant, hanging from her closed fist, over the map.“Erakutsi zer bilatzen dudan.”
The pendant swung for several agonizing minutes while Cindy chanted. Finally, it landed on the map with a thud.
Cindy marked the spot with a red marker and began again, exactly the same. The pendant dropped again, many minutes later, in a different spot. “What does that mean?” I asked.
“It’s not good. This spell requires the caster to ask for the location three times for a reason. I’ll do it one more time and let you know what it means.”
I nodded and tried to ignore the panic rising in my gut.
This time, the pendant landed in the water around the island. Cindy hung her head. “She’s blocked.”
“What do you mean blocked?” Anthony asked, his voice higher than normal.
“Someone is using magic to keep me from being able to find her.”
“So, what now?” I asked.
“Now, I call my coven here.” She swung her eyes to me. “We’ve been friends a long time, and I come help whenever you need me because I believe you're good people, and your family is one of the few that wants to do right. But my coven will not come willingly to help a Supay.”
“I know you only give us the time of day because my mother saved your mother’s life. I understand what it costs to employ a coven. We’ll pay double their normal fee.”
She arched an eyebrow. “That’s hardly necessary.”
“It is very necessary. Perhaps it'll incentivize them to work faster.”
She laughed. “You old fool. It doesn’t work that way. But they need the money, so I won’t argue. I’ll have them here as soon as I can, but it might be tomorrow.”
“Tell them they get a bonus thousand dollars for every hour they arrive before…” I checked my watch. It was four in the morning. We hadn’t even started looking until midnight. We began to grow worried at ten but gave them time to finish their date. We didn’t want to rush them.
At midnight, we’d gone to the club where they’d had the roast. The party was in full swing, but Riley and Axoular were nowhere to be found. After talking to all the cabbies outside, we found the one that was out there waiting for them. I’d returned to the cottage to contact Cindy while Anthony had continued searching.
“Eight this morning. That gives you four hours. A thousand dollars per hour before eight.”
She nodded and opened a portal right there in the kitchen to take her home. Stepping through, it closed with a pop and left us alone, with nothing to do but worry.
RILEY
Three days had inched by, leaving us bored and restless. We hadn’t been let out of the room, and I was feeling cut off from nature, from the sun.
“I thought dragons were supposed to hibernate in caves and hoard gold and other treasures,” I grumbled to Axoular. “I need to be outside.”
“That must be some weird Earth legends. We aren’t really dragons, not like what I’ve seen in your storybooks and movies. We’re more like lizards.”
