“To feed their ego. The more power he has, the more he can control people. It’s a dangerous game to play,” Luna said as we approached the end of the gravel road where we would turn back towards civilization.
“Goddesses are gonna smack him down,” Miss Elva observed.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Goddesses don’t like when someone tries to trifle with that stuff. Just you watch, Horace is going to get what’s coming to him.”
“Did you curse him?” I asked. Miss Elva was legendary for coming up with the best and most inventive curses.
“Child, I didn’t have to. That man cursed himself when he started trying to steal power from Goddesses. Trust me, he’s in for it.”
“I suppose that’s something, then,” I said, craning my neck to look behind us. “There aren’t, like, demons or anything coming after us, are there?”
“Not us, child, not us,” Miss Elva said.
“Speaking of no harm coming to us,” Luna said, as we sped towards downtown Tequila Key, “what was that little magickal number you pulled back there?”
“Me? What aboutyou? How come we could leave the circle and not be harmed? I was convinced we’d pick up another Rafe.”
Rafe sniffed beside me, his nose in the air. “You’d only be so lucky.”
“There is a little-known spell for breaking a circle when the one who cast it has ill intentions toward you. It’s old magick,” Luna said and Miss Elva nodded her head.
“That’s a good one, Luna child. I hadn’t even thought of that one.”
“Well, thank you. I’m glad we didn’t get zapped by whatever that light was,” I said, running my hands up and down my arms to soothe myself.
“You should be proud of yourself, Thea. You sure did a good job of protecting a whole lot of people,” Miss Elva said.
“I tried,” I said, shrugging it away.
Luna glanced at me in the rearview mirror; I could just see her eyes in the glow of the console lights.
“Tell me how you controlled it like you did.”
“I don’t know, really. I thought of the white bubble and was starting the protection spell when I looked around at all the people behind me. I kind of felt guilty that I wasjust going to protect us and not everyone else, so I made a magickal donut.”
Miss Elva snorted, and then began to rock back and forth in her seat, wheezing as she slapped her knee.
“A magickal donut?” Luna squeaked.
“Yeah, one that was basically a circular protective ring around us and everyone outside the circle, with a hole in the middle for whatever nonsense Horace was about to pull onto himself,” I shrugged, feeling a little foolish.
“Only you would make a magickal donut,” Luna said, shaking her head back and forth before she began to laugh.
“I like donuts,” I protested.
“Who doesn’t?” Miss Elva laughed.
Lights flashed across the interior of the car and I froze, fear racing up my spine.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I groaned.
“Nope, we’re totally getting pulled over,” Luna swore and eased the car to the side of the road, the interior of the car silent as we waited for Chief Thomas to approach.
I swear – it was almost like it was a full moon or something.
Oh wait.
