When one intrepid cop tried to bully and arrest Sandra, she stared him down and said, “Those evil men attacked me. Being attacked makes me lose control of my magic. I suggest that, unless you deliberately want to cause me to lose control, you treat me with respect, young man. Or wear feathers. Your choice.”
He could have arrested her for communicating a threat to a law enforcement officer, but instead he found someone else to intimidate.
In the quiet after his departure, Sandra found a moment to approach an emu and study him carefully. Then she stretched out her hand and touched the bird, releasing her power in a slow coil. Her magic wrapped around him, soothing him. Several minutes later, a naked human plopped to his backside on the floor, and instantly covered his genitals.
She had done it. She had reversed her emu curse.
Tears gathered and fell from her eyes.Harold . . . I can save Harold.
She patted the confused and embarrassed man on the head and wandered into an empty patient room. There was a blanket on the bed. She gathered it in her arms and walked slowly between the law enforcement types and down the stairs. Across the walkway to the school. And around back to the petting zoo. No one stopped her.
Harold flapped his wings and raced to her in excitement. At the fence, he stopped and pecked at her pocket, his beak stabbing her. “Ouch, stop that,” she said laughing. “I don’t have anything for you, sweetheart. Except this.” She gathered her power and let it swirl around her. Delicate and rich, the color blue and the scent of basil and allspice. She hadn’t known that her power was beautiful. She sent it curling to Harold.
Her magic twisted around his head, down his long neck, and began to twine into the feathers and around his body. Somewhere around his hips it broke into two strands and dropped around his legs, coiling to the ground.
A dozen heartbeats later, Harold coalesced out of the magic and the emu feathers, and sat hard, on the ground. Stunned. Confused.
Sandra wrapped a blanket around him and sat on the dusty zoo ground, her arms around him. Tears were streaming down her face.
Oddly, there was a naked human woman a few feet away. Sandra was pretty sure there had been a boa constrictor coiled there a moment ago.
It took several minutes for the fact to seep in. Her magic had freed another person from a third person’s curse.
That wasn’t possible.
It was impossible for one magic practitioner to reverse another’s magic.
But she just had.
Oh. Oh my.
“Sandra?” Harold asked. “Why am I naked? In a barnyard?”
“Sweetheart, I have a long story to share.”
“You!” a voice shouted. “Stop! Stop. Freeze! Police!” He had a gun out. Pointing it at two naked people and a petting zoo full of animals.
With a flick of her magic—not her curse—Sandra turned the terrified young cop into an emu.
Dani
She felt a great deal more comfortable and less exposed in the clothes Mable had brought her. And her pearls. Dani had alwaysloved pearls, though not with the till-death-do-we part devotion of her undercover self.
Judge Benjamin Bennett showed up shortly after the cop was transformed. Mable’s old flame helped sort things out, explaining to law enforcement that TriDevi had led the investigation and brought down The Sevens’ entire operation. Once “Bennie,” as Mable called him, was on the scene, TriDevi’s lawyer got the charges against Sandra dropped. It hadn’t been difficult. The cop’s service weapon had not been holstered. He had drawn his gun for no reason at all except panic. Benjamin had even demanded an apology from the local sheriff for the incident as part of Sandra agreeing to turn the cop, along with rest of the emus, back to human.
The apology had been politely—if coldly—delivered.
After that, things with the law went much more smoothly, and Mable had introduced her old flame to Dani. It turned out that Benjamin was a lonely widower these days. Over coffee in the employee dining room of Building Z, the judge asked Dani out to dinner. She stopped with her cup halfway to her mouth, pulling her thoughts back from the debacle they had narrowly averted to her coffee companion. “What did you say?”
“I said, ‘Let’s get out of here and find a nice steak place.’ Unless you’re a vegetarian? Or a vegan?”
Dani blinked. She didn’t date. Especially not Mable’s sloppy seconds. But . . . Ben Bennett was kinda cute. He was a little shorter than she was, had dark eyes and very dark skin. He was bald and his head had a perfect shape. “I’ll—” She stopped. “TriDevi has a press conference. In an hour.”
“Steak tomorrow then. Coffee after you’re done here tonight?”
Dani asked, “Tomorrow? Tomorrow . . .” She met his eyes. His looked kind. “I eat steak,” she said, slowly. “Rare,” she warned.
“I like mine a little more cooked, but bloody beef doesn’t scare me. Nor do strong women who blow up cars.” He gave her a smile and Dani found herself staring at his mouth.
