The exploding fireball jolted everyone out of bed, and as Sandy flew off the foot of the bed under her own power, Kyle and Trisha leapt off either side at the exact same time. Trisha landed on two feet, and Kyle landed on four, already completely transformed into his smaller feline form.
Sandy hit the floor and slid to a stop with a squeal as her bare feet cut through the dust. She needed a weapon. She knew this without checking a window, and her instinct told her not to go to the window and let anyone know which room she was in.
If they don’t know already, she thought. After all, Emmett may have just called someone in to deal with Sandy and her friends. It could be the witches or the cats coming in for the attack.
But either way, Sandy needed to arm herself.
She went to the wardrobe and opened the pair of hinged doors out. The hanger rod was empty, and hung from four black wrought iron hooks. Sandy took down the rod and shook her head.
“It’s too big.” She handed it to Trisha. “Bust that in half for me.”
Trisha did, and then Sandy took one half and swung it slowly to test the draw. To keep the charge under control, she opened her mouth and sang, “Hooow— and then shifted to a higher pitch as she ended with “—aah.”
“That sounded goofy,” Trisha said.
“I have to make a sound to contain the energy or I’ll blow the house up.”
“Nice,” Trisha said, a trace of sarcasm creeping into her voice. “You get raw destructive powers, and I get hairballs. The universe is so very cruel.”
Sandy smirked and offered a one-shoulder shrug. “We can switch roles in the next life. Then you can be the tortured heroin, and I can be the ditzy comic relief.”
Trisha’s mouth flapped, and then she grinned. “I see what you did there.”
“So, going out through the window?” Sandy asked.
“Sure, but let me open it first.”
The window led out onto the roof, but as soon as Sandy got outside, she found herself surrounded by cats.
Trisha said, “Can you make a shield?”
“I already—” Four thumps hit the shield coming from the direction of the open bedroom window. Sandy glanced over, and then grimaced as she made the shield sticky to hold onto Maggie, Leon, Ray, and Darlene.
She pulled them through the shield, and then said, “Sorry, guys.”
The cats grumbled as they got to their feet, but quickly shook off the dazes made by their high-speed impacts.
Sandy’s attention wandered up the street at the sound of a motor rumbling. At the end of the driveway, a Corvette pulled in, and then parked. The passenger side door opened, and Sandy’s eyes bulged when her father got out.
He cupped his hands around his mouth, “Sandy, watch out! It’s a trap!”
Trisha snorted and muttered, “Oy.”
Sandy would have reacted the same, but she saw a single cat slink away from the house, making a straight line for her dad.
She came to a decision in a flash and compressed the shield around herself. Already running for the edge of the roof, she shouted, “Don’t fight the cats!”
Trisha said, “But—”
Sandy cut her off, “It’s only me they want, so just stay up here!”
She leapt off the roof, and the cats proved her right by following after her. She let them encircle her, and then she tapped the rod on the ground and stopped humming. Lightning rippled in a ring around her, but the charge was greatly diminished in the dry, sandy soil. It was still enough to shock the cats, and rather than attack as a coordinated unit, they became wary of further attacks.
Sandy used their hesitation to run through a gap in their ranks. A black cat on her right leapt, and she brought up the empty rod to clop his head. Another cat landed on her “back” hitting the shield she projected with enlarged claws. Sandy glanced back to check the cat’s position, and then hummed as she flicked the rod back and over. She kept her voice quiet and calm, trying to deliver just the smallest charge to the cat. A blue bolt hit the cat’s back on contact, and its long fluffy orange hair puffed and crackled with smaller blue bolts. The cat dropped and spasmed on the ground.
Sandy didn’t have time to check on it. When she looked up, she had to bring the charged stick up for the same black cat, and it also poofed up like the orange cat had, though not as dramatically.
Sandy turned to run, and yet another circle of cats had formed. Sandy scowled, looking beyond the ring. Then she saw the cat had attacked the witch, and she was bleeding badly. She couldn’t see the cat, but her father was checking on the witch instead of watching his back.
Sandy had to end the fight fast, or Todd would get himself killed.
Drawing the charge back into herself, she infused the lightning into her shield and then let it expand fast.
All around her, cats yowled as they were stunned by the advancing spell. Sandy jumped over the line of shaking cats, but there was still a hundred yards of driveway between her and the wounded witch.
Worse, the weredogs had just arrived in their stolen van and surrounded her father.
***
Todd cupped his hands around his mouth, “Sandy, watch out! It’s a trap!”
Vanessa thought to slap Todd, but the car separated them. She waved her hand instead, and a hand-shaped pocket of air smacked the back of his head.
Todd flinched and looked over the roof. “What?”
“She knows it’s a trap,” Vanessa said, leaning over to take her rod out from behind the seat.
She shut the door and turned to look up the driveway, barely catching sight of the cat before it leapt.
Vanessa dropped, arching her back in a vain effort to avoid the cat’s growing claws. Heat flashed along the side of her neck, and hot blood seeped from four long, shallow wounds.
Falling back, Vanessa put her hand to her neck and rolled, trying to get back to her feet. She’d lost her grip on the rod in her panic, and instead of looking for the cat, she searched the ground.
The cat’s growl let her know she’d run out of time, and she looked up in time to see the grey Manx crouch.
She threw up her hands as the cat blurred, but then her rod flashed down, coming over the top of her head at a downward angle.
Todd’s swing sent the cat crashing to the ground, and the enormous impact rattled his arms, causing him to drop the rod. He sank to his knees, and Vanessa slumped against him, certain that she was dying.
“He got me,” she whispered.
“He didn’t hit your jugular,” Todd said.
“He didn’t?” Vanessa asked. Then panic wore off and she realized that her palm was nowhere near her jugular. She was still bleeding, and when she pulled her hand away, Todd grimaced. She didn’t need to ask why, because blood poured from her open wounds as soon as she’d let go.
As she put her hand back, he swallowed and said, “Okay, he got you, but not fatally. Still...you’ll want to bandage that.”
“Later,” Vanessa said, and then pointed at the cat as it stirred. “We have to deal with him first.”
“So cast a spell,” Todd said.
“Are you kidding?” Vanessa grunted at his confused scowl, returning it with an angry glare. “I can’t focus through this much pain! You’ll have to whack him and put him out for good.”
“Oh.” Todd grabbed the rod and swung it in a slow downward chop to test its heft. He looked at the cat, and said, “I don’t know if I can.”
“He was going to kill me,” Vanessa said, now feeling extremely agitated. “He still might kill me if you let him recover.”
Todd considered this, and then sigh. “But he’s got his eyes closed. It’s...it’s cold-blooded.”
“Cold—” Vanessa’s mouth flapped. “He came here to kill your daughter, and he almost killed me!”
“And how many of his relatives did you kill two weeks ago?” Todd asked.
Vanessa scowled at him, but her attention wandered when she noticed the van rumbling up the road. Through the windshield, she saw dogs, with every snout tensed in a snarl.
“Todd, give me the rod,” Vanessa said.
“I thought you said you couldn’t focus.”
“I can’t, but I need the stick to beat those dogs back, and your pacifism is going to get us both killed.”
“Dogs?” Todd turned around just as the van screeched to a stop. The side door slid open, and dogs began spilling out.
The driver’s side door opened next, and the man in the driver’s seat slipped out. His face was distorting as his head slipped to the bottom of the window, and by the time it came into view around the door, the man was already a Rottweiler. His clothes fluttered to the ground around him, and he snarled to reveal most of his huge teeth.
The Manx cat got to its feet and sniffed at the air. Then it turned around, and its fur stood on end. The cat hissed, and then growled at the sight of the dog pack. Then it looked back at Vanessa and Todd and did a double take. The cat’s furry head bounced back and forth twice, but as the dogs advanced, the cat apparently decided that a wounded witch was less of a threat and began backing up toward Vanessa.
The Rottweiler growled a command, and the pack divided into two rows. Using the van and the Corvette as barriers, the dogs formed walls to prevent anyone from escaping.
The Rottweiler growled a challenge to the cat, who looked around. None of the other dogs moved in. This was meant to be a show of power.
The cat flickered, and the dog snapped, blood spouting from his dark hide though he was not able to return the favor to the cat.
Vanessa tried to follow the fight, but the animals moved too fast. She saw them in recoiling poses, saw the dog’s wounds before they healed. But the actual connection of claws to flesh was a blur too fast for her to follow.
All at once, the dog bit and caught a front leg, snapping it with bone crunching force. The cat screamed and plunged a claw into the dog’s exposed eye, and the dog threw the cat down before the claw could probe further for a killing blow.
The cat staggered one way, and the dog spun the other, yelping in agony over his leaking eye. He got over it fast and spun.
Todd stepped over the injured cat, the stick coming up in an undercut swing. The gnarly rod head met the dog’s jaw and cracked bone, sending the Rott flipping onto his back.
“Bad dog!” Todd said.
The other dogs growled in a chorus of menacing threats. Todd looked around and raised the rod above his head. “Hey! Who has the stick here? Huh?”
The dogs froze, looking amongst each other with uncertainty.
Todd looked around at Vanessa, and then grinned as if he’d just had a great idea. He waved the stick and called, “Who wants the stick now? Huh?”
Tails began wagging, and the dogs started to follow the stick with more interest.
Todd said, “Well then, go fetch!”
He threw the rod, and the pack took off across the street and into an empty plot of untamed shrubs and wild weeds.
Guffawing with obvious pleasure at his plan working, Todd said, “Dogs are so stupid.”
“Uh, Todd?” Vanessa said.
“Hmmm?” He looked over his shoulder toward her, but his eyes continued rolling left toward the Rottweiler, who was just getting to his feet again. “Ooh, that’s bad.”
Vanessa thought to save the insult for if they survived, but logically she didn’t see survival as an option. So she gave voice to her first thought and said, “My sister was right. You are an idiot.”
“Yeah, but she meant it in a good way,” Todd said. He hunched over toward the Rottweiler and made a worried smile. “Nice doggie.”
The Rott leapt, and Todd caught the dog in a chest-to-chest collision. The dog’s thick head went over his shoulder, the snapping mouth grazing past his ear. He hit the ground on his back and the little air left in his lungs rushed out in a pained cough.
The Rottweiler rose to regain his balance, and the dog’s jaw opened wide to snap at Todd’s exposed throat.
A bloody rod connected with the dog’s head, and the skull exploded with the sound of a static discharge.
Todd squeezed his eyes shut to protect against the spray of blood, brains, burst eyeball and bone. His flapping hands pushed the spasming dog off to the right, and he rolled to the left, still shuddering with involuntary revulsion.
Once he could get control of himself, he pulled the bottom of his shirt loose and crouched over to wipe his eyes. Then he looked up at Sandy.
She pouted at him with concern, and he said, “I’m okay. He didn’t bite me.”
“He didn’t bite me either.” Sandy pointed behind Todd. “But what about them?”
The other dogs had returned, and none of them looked happy about their fallen leader.
Todd got up and coughed to clear his throat, adding bass to his voice experimentally. Then, speaking in a much deeper voice than was normal for him, he said, “Drop the stick!”
Vanessa was somewhat surprised when the dogs cowered, and the grey poodle carrying the rod dropped it. She heard the growl of a fire and looked around, and then she saw what the dogs were reacting to.
Todd picked up the stick, nodded, and then turned around. He paled visibly as the sight of Donald, who was bathed in golden flames. His eyes even glowed with inner fire. Yet his clothing didn’t burn, didn’t even lose their proper creases. His control of the element was so complete that he could merge with the flames and absorb the heat into himself.
He opened his mouth and spoke with a hot, furnace blast of breath. “Do we have a problem?”
The dogs turned without so much as a yip and walked up the road the same way they’d come. Occasionally they cast cautious glances back to make sure an attack wasn’t coming, and the pack avoided running until they were almost out of sight.
The flaming warlock went to Vanessa and smiled as his eyes lost their false golden color and revealed irises of a green shade similar to her own.
“Hello, Donald Merryweather. You appear injured. May I offer some assistance?”
Vanessa nodded, and in the time it took her to find her voice, the pain in her neck was gone. She lowered her hand to wipe blood off on her skirt, only to find her hand dry and unstained.
Smiling timidly, she offered her hand. “Hello. I’m Vanessa Greenfield.”
Sandy said, “Greenfield is my mother’s maiden name.”
Todd put his arm around Sandy. “That’s right. Vanessa is your aunt.”
Vanessa pouted at Sandy, guilt suddenly rushing to fill her chest. “I’m so sorry about your mother. I’d given her a charm to protect her, but the cats mistook her for a spy. This is my fault.”
Sandy stared at Vanessa for a few seconds, and then shook her head. “It’s my fault because I jumped from the water tower. Everything else that happened, happened because of my jump.”
Donald coughed lightly. “We should clean up our mess a bit and go into Emmett’s for a chat. Then we can worry about who’s at fault.” The older warlock moved to the injured Manx cat and closed his hand over the flopping limb. The cat growled in pain, but Donald shushed it. “Sshhh, just calm down. I’ll help you heal that much faster than you could on your own.”
The healed cat got up warily, its hazel eyes moving from Donald to Vanessa, and back again.
Donald sighed and said, “You can either come inside and work out an arrangement, or we can start the fight over.”
The Manx considered this, and then lowered its tail.