The Art of Stealing Time

FOURTEEN

“Gwen.”

“Mmrph.”

“Gwen, you must wake up.”

“No.” I burrowed deeper into the Gregory-scented blankets on the (surprisingly comfortable) sleeping pallet, and refused all attempts by my brain to wake me up.

“It’s almost dawn, and I must leave before the guards can see me.”

I stuck a hand out of the warm cocoon of blankets and waved it vaguely in the direction of his voice. “Later, tater.”

Cold air brutally assaulted me when the blankets were ripped off my inert form. As if that wasn’t rude enough, Gregory swatted my bare behind, not hard enough to sting but enough that I shot upward and glared at him.

He smiled, the bastard.

“You hit me!”

“I did not. I gave you a tap on your derriere.”

“That, sir, is technically abusive behavior, and I will have none of it,” I said huffily, pulling the blankets up around my breasts.

He cocked an eyebrow and looked down on me. In the dim gray light of the coming dawn, I couldn’t help but notice that he was dressed, and wished wholeheartedly that he wasn’t. “Do you seriously believe I’m the abusive type?”

“No,” I admitted, trying to hold on to my huffiness but admitting to myself that he wasn’t that type of man at all. “I wouldn’t be with you if you were. What is so important that you had to wake me up? I’m not a morning person. I need a long time to wake up and be able to brain things.”

“Brain things?”

I pointed to my head. “You know, do that thing with your brain.”

“Think?”

“Yes, that. Mornings are evil.” I looked longingly back at the pillow next to me. It still bore the imprint of his head. I bet it smelled like him, too.

“No,” he said, snatching the pillow away as I started to dive for it. “Not until we’ve had a little talk.”

I sighed and scooted back so that I was leaning against the canvas of the tent. “All right, but in the future, you must supply me with coffee before you expect me to either brain or comprehend things.”

“Duly noted. Do you remember when I told you how I saved your life by taking the time I needed to stop that mortal from tossing you over the cliff?”

“Yes.” I frowned when he sat at my feet. I’d much rather he sat next to me so I could drape myself over his chest and doze off while he talked. “Do you want me to thank you for that again? I will, but I thought I already did.”

“You did, although it wasn’t at all necessary.” The light was too dim to make out the expression in his eyes, but his voice was filled with wariness that penetrated the dense fog of morning that always seemed to wrap itself around me. “The person who I took the time from was an immortal, of course.”

“Where are you going with this?” I asked, suddenly too impatient to give him a chance to tell me properly. “Does the person want his time back?”

“No.” He looked at me steadily for the count of eight. “She wants you.”

I snorted. “She can’t have me. We may not have a brilliant future ahead of us with you in the Watch and my moms being who they are, but I consider this a relationship until we both decide otherwise.” A sudden fear shook me. “You do too, don’t you?”

“Yes,” he said gravely. “What we have together isn’t the point. This woman is a reclamation agent. When you died, she expected to gather your soul and take it to the afterlife of your choice. Perhaps even Anwyn. But she wasn’t able to do that because I manipulated time so you didn’t die in the first place.”

The horror grew until it crawled along my skin like ants. “My soul? This woman wanted my soul? What kind of person—merciful lord and lady! It’s Death, isn’t it?”

He nodded, placing his hand on my leg so that the warmth of his palm seeped through to my suddenly chilled flesh. “She works for Death, yes. Evidently she was tracking you in the mortal world. I ran into her in the park in Cardiff shortly after you ran off.”

I felt sick. “I don’t want her to take my soul. I like it. I think I need it, don’t I?”

“Yes, you do, and I won’t let her take it or you. Gwen—” He leaned forward and pulled me onto his lap, wrapping a blanket around me. “I’m not telling you this to frighten you, merely to warn you so that you’ll be aware of your surroundings. I can’t be with you every minute, much though I would wish otherwise. You need not be scared, just more aware of things. If you see this woman while you are away from the camp, return here immediately. She has some sort of allergic phobia to cats, and I doubt if she would try very hard to penetrate the depths of the encampment.”

“She’s here?” My voice rose on a squeak. “She’s in Anwyn? Goddess! Is everyone here?”

“What do you mean, everyone?”

“There’s two hit men here, too. They work for Baldwin, that lawyer who has it in for my moms and me because I wouldn’t let them deliver the magic they sold him. He’s the guy who threw me over the edge of the cliff.”

“Two men with no necks?”

“That’s them.” I shuddered despite the warmth of his embrace and the blanket. “Irv and Frankie are their names. They have an obsession with heads in duffel bags. I can’t tell you how that makes me feel.”

“I can tell you how it makes me feel,” he said grimly, his hold tightening painfully around me. “I will simply forgo my pledge to Aaron and stay with you. You must be protected.”

For a moment, I wallowed in the sensation of being cherished, but I’ve never been a woman who shoved her responsibilities onto others. “You can’t do that, although I appreciate the sentiment.” I kissed him gently, then scooted off his lap, taking the blanket with me. “Aaron would be pissed if you broke your promise to him, and as for Irv and Frankie, I’ve already taken care of it. Doug sent out guards to nab them when they followed me to this camp.”

Gregory chuckled. “The reclamation agent will have trouble gelding them as she wishes, then. I’ll have to tell her that they are out of her reach.”

I gathered up my clothing and began to put it on, feeling that further sleep was not going to be in the cards. “I suppose you could, although I don’t see why you’d go out of your way to tell her anything.”

“Er . . .” An odd expression akin to embarrassment crossed his face. “As it happens, I was supposed to report to her last night about what happened to the two men.”

“Why?”

“I ran into her as she was about to enter the camp, and played upon her feline phobia in order to keep her from hunting for you.” He made a face. “It seemed preferable to having to run through the camp attempting to make sure you were out of the way.”

I shivered again, slipping on the long linen tunic that was among the clothing Seith had left for me the night before. “Definitely. Doug has issues where you’re concerned, and he wouldn’t hesitate to carry out his threats of jailing you if he sees you. Which means,” I said, pulling aside the tent flap enough to peer outside, “that we should get going. It’s getting lighter.”

“We?”

I pulled on the pair of leggings and my tennis shoes. My sword had been cleaned and set just inside the tent. I hesitated a second, then strapped it around my waist, feeling that it was better to have it with me than not. “I don’t have to be on duty until late this afternoon, and besides, I’ve always wanted to see what a thief does. I can shadow you.”

He stood up and pulled me against him, his lips curling when I melted into his chest. “Not while I report to the reclamation agent.”

“What is her name?” I asked, giggling when his hands went exploring down my back to my butt.

“I haven’t a clue, and I don’t particularly care. You can help me find the bird if you like.”

I wiggled against him, wondering if there was time for a quickie before too many people were awake. “Did you find the dog and the deer?”

“No and yes. The dog is long since deceased, although I suspect a puppy from one of its descendants will stand in for it. The deer I left outside your tent.”

“You did? Did you feed it? What are people going to say when they see it?”

He kissed me quickly, then took my hand and led me toward the tent opening. “That you have exceptionally bad taste. Behold, the famed roebuck of Aaron.”

I gazed upon a stained, broken marble statue that was propped up against a tent pole. “That’s his valuable deer?”

“According to Ethan it is, and I don’t think he was lying about it. He seemed much too preoccupied with himself to care what happened to the spoils of war, so to speak.”

“Hmm. It’s kind of a letdown, to be honest. I was hoping for a magnificent, randy buck.”

“And you have one, my vixen,” he said against the nape of my neck, pulling me against him.

I thought seriously of pushing him back into the tent and having my womanly way with him, but voices from the tent beyond had me quelling that idea. “Come on, let’s get out of here before someone sees you. You can tell me about the bird on the way over to Ethan’s camp.”

We managed to make it to the stream without being seen, and while we crossed it and skirted the edges of Ethan’s camp, Gregory told me about his meeting with Ethan.

“I didn’t realize he named his hand. To be honest, I didn’t think Alien Hand Syndrome was real until Colorado said that’s what the problem was with Ethan.”

Gregory looked askance while I explained my experience with Ethan. “He is an odd man.”

“Yes, but he does seem to be kind of helpful. At least you got the deer, and he said you could get one of the dogs. Oh! I think that’s the tent where my moms are. Peaseblossom said it was next to Ethan’s.”

Gregory looked toward where I was pointing, to a purple and white tent. “Why don’t you visit them while I hunt out the reclamation agent? I don’t want you wandering around the camp until I know where she is.”

“You’re cute when you’re overprotective,” I said, giving his hand a squeeze.

“One moment.” He moved ahead of me, checking down first one aisle, then the next before beckoning me forward. “Stay at your mothers’ tent. I’ll find you once I’ve spoken to Death’s minion.”

A chill went down my spine at his words. I didn’t want to lose my soul any more than I wanted my head in Irv’s favorite duffel bag. “All right, but if you’re not back in a couple of hours, I’ll have to risk leaving on my own. I want to check with Doug that those two hit men are safely confined and not likely to get out. I don’t need them telling this woman that I’m just a stone’s throw away.”

He glanced around quickly, then pulled me into a kiss so hot it left a little shimmer of electricity snapping and crackling along our skin.

“Show-off,” I whispered against his lips as the charge faded away.

“You bring it out in me. Stay safe, sweet Gwen.”

I watched him walk away because . . . well, because he looked really good from the rear and I enjoyed the view. That thought had me pondering, on the way to my moms’ tent, just how I was going to fix things so that we could have a future together.

“There’s got to be a way,” I muttered to myself, my gaze skittering from person to person in search of the woman Gregory had described. “I won’t ask him to leave the Watch for me—not that I know if he would . . . no, he would . . . maybe—but there has to be something we can do to get the Watch to ignore Mom and Mom Two. Hmm.”

No solution had struck me by the time I entered my mothers’ tent, but I had resolved two points: I was going to warn them about the woman who wanted my soul, and I wasn’t going to tell them about Gregory and me. Over the course of my life they had both, singly and jointly, gone into periodic matchmaking modes, trying to hook me up with men and women . . . and one or two androgynous individuals about whom I was never really certain.

Usually I resisted their efforts, but sometimes, when I was feeling particularly lonely, I’d go out on a blind date or two just in case they were right and they really had found me the perfect person.

They never did. Trust the one organization that made my life a hell to bring my attention to a man who actually might well be the person with whom I wouldn’t mind spending the next few hundred years. Regardless of whether he was or was not a life mate, I wasn’t going to inform my moms about him. They would be merciless in their attempts to find out information about Gregory and would probably demand that he do something silly like marry me. They were very big on binding ceremonies.

“I’ll just keep mum about him, and focus their attention on ways to deal with the Death woman,” I told myself, slapping on a carefree smile when I entered their tent. “Mom! Mom Two!”

“Hello, Gwenny, dear,” Mom said, not glancing up from a large mixing bowl where she was vigorously beating a viscous pink liquid. “Eighty-eight, eighty-nine, ninety. There, that’s the sleeping draught finished, Alice.”

“Did you make it into a batter so we can bake little Eat Me cakes?” Mom Two asked. She had her back to me and was busily measuring various powders and liquids and placing them in little stoppered vials. “Gwen, you’re just in time. The alchemist has a tiny supply of fey motes in, and I told him you’d like to buy it from him. I know how hard it is for you to find them.”

“Yes, absolutely.” The only other person in the tent was the tiny form of Mrs. Vanilla, curled up in a voluminous armchair. Her hands flitted about in quick little movements, knitting small octagons one after another in a giant object so massive that it spilled out over her lap and onto the floor. I relaxed, the sight and scents of my mothers busily creating potions and physical manifestations of spells making me think of home. How many years had I perched on my favorite three-legged stool and watched as they practiced the physical side of their craft? I dipped a finger in the pink batter and touched it to my tongue. It tasted of peppermint. “How much does the apothecary want for them?”

“Now, Gwenny, that’s not for you. Lady Holly asked us to make something that would cause all of those nasty soldiers to the north to fall asleep so she can capture them all and force the evil king into subservience. You don’t want to be falling—” My mom looked up in midsentence, and froze, her eyes growing huge. “Alice!” she shrieked, making me spin around in fear that something horrible had crept in behind me.

There was nothing, just the tip of the tent flap—pulled aside to let air and light into the interior—gently moving in the breeze. Behind it, a couple of dogs rolled on the ground outside, and a weary-looking old man wandered around with a bucket and a metal scoop, the latter obviously used to keep the grounds poop-free.

“What is it—” Mom Two started to say, but then she, too, stopped and stared at me. Mrs. Vanilla glanced at me, made a few squeaking sounds, and returned to her knitting.

Mom pointed a shaking finger at me. “She’s found him!”

“Or her,” Mom Two said sagely. “Is it a her, Gwen?”

“She’s found a man!” Mom said, still pointing.

I gawked. “How the hell can you tell that just by looking at me?”

Mom dropped her finger, and Mom Two strode over to give me a hug. “Oh, Gwenny, dear, you should know better than to ask that.”

“We’re your mothers,” Mom Two said, as if that explained it.

“We can tell these things,” Mom added, wiping her hands on a cloth before coming around the table to give me a hug as well. I hugged them both back, giving them each a kiss on their respective cheeks before shaking my head.

Mrs. Vanilla got creakily to her feet and shuffled over to us. I hugged her as well, and even gave her wrinkled cheek a little peck. She made happy noises and returned to her chair.

“It’s like it’s witchcraft,” I said with a smile. “It is a him and not a her, Mom Two. I’m sorry.”

“Eh.” She patted my cheek and returned to her worktable. “I had hopes that someday you’d find the right woman, but so long as this man makes you happy, I can live with him being male.”

“Who is he? Where is he? Is he here with you in Anwyn?”

“He must be here, Mags. We’d have known if she’d met him before.”

“You tell us all about him, dear,” Mom said, leading me over to a small love seat in the corner of the tent. The interior was quite large, consisting of the main work area and what looked to be a smaller sleeping quarter that was hidden by long silken draperies. “Although you’re going to have to be quick, because Lady Holly likes to see us directly after breakfast, and it’s almost that time now.”

“As a matter of fact, I did meet him before we entered Anwyn, although I hadn’t realized that he was—” I bit off the word “good” and tried to think of a way to explain about Gregory without mentioning the fact that he worked for the Watch. I had a feeling they would plan copious ways to take advantage of him if they knew who his employer was. “I hadn’t realized he was quite so wonderful at that time.”

“What’s his name?” Mom Two asked, packing a bunch of bottles into a wicker basket.

“Gregory Faa. He’s a Traveller.”

“Faa?” She draped a linen cloth over the top of the basket, her brows pulled together. “Mags, do you remember that woman we met right after the war?”

“Which war?” my mother asked, giving me a pat on the hand before she set about filling muffin cups with her pink sleeping batter.

“The one with the nuclear bombs.”

“World War Two?” I asked.

“That’s it. We met a woman Traveller whose husband had been killed. She was very distraught, and one of her daughters-in-law had come to us seeking something to ease her pain. There was nothing we could do, of course, because there is no magic but love to heal a broken heart, but her name was Faa. I wonder if she could be related.”

“I have no idea. While we’re on the subject of Gregory—”

“Oh, mercy, look at the time, Alice!” Mom said, hurrying over to a line of baskets that had already been packed. She shoved two of them at me, picked up three herself, and nudged me toward the door. “Mrs. Vanilla, you stay here where you’re comfy. We won’t be long, and then we’ll get you a nice cup of tea and take you for your walk, all right? Gwen, dear, take this. We’re going to be late, and Lady Holly is most acerbic when that happens. You can tell us about your young man once we’ve given her the day’s potions.”

“Er . . .” I held back when they bustled out of the tent, not wanting to risk seeing Holly in case she had heard that I was working for Aaron. There was also a chance that Death’s minion might be lurking about. I peeked out of the tent, but didn’t see anyone aside from the usual collection of dogs wandering around, begging for food, playing, sleeping, and generally just lounging and watching all the people moving to and fro. No one resembled the woman Gregory had described.

“Don’t dawdle, Gwen!” Mom Two called before disappearing into the large tent next door.

I swore under my breath, sent a little prayer to the lord and lady that I wasn’t about to step into a trap, and followed them into the big tent.

“You remember our daughter, Gwenhwyfar, don’t you?” Mom was saying to the gaunt, leather-wearing Holly. She shot a quick disinterested look my way, then continued pulling out items from one of the baskets. She raised her voice to say, “Lord Ethan, have you met our daughter, Gwen?”

Mom sidled over to me and whispered, “He’s a bit odd, dear. He has an illegal alien hand.”

A man walked toward us from the far end of the massive tent, which, like my mothers’ accommodations, had floor-to-ceiling silk hangings that blocked out sections requiring privacy. He wore an odd leather harness that strapped his alien hand to his belly, the hand encased in a red glove.

“We’ve met,” I said, politely smiling at him. “Good morning. How’s Diego?”

Ethan glanced at his hand, frowning when the fingers twitched. “No, you may not fondle her breast. Stop it. No, stop that, too. It’s rude, and there are ladies present.”

No one said anything. My mothers both attended to unpacking the baskets. Holly rolled her eyes and picked up a potion, unstoppering it to take a sniff. Ethan waited until his hand stopped making obscene gestures, then addressed me. “He is a bit angry this morning. He did not have a solid night’s sleep because some idiot woman kept charging into my tent and demanding to know where two mortals were. I know you.”

“We met a few days ago,” I said, wanting to change the subject quickly. I needed time to warn my moms about the two hit men and Death’s agent. “You loaned me your mother’s sword.”

Holly glanced up at that, skewering him with a look. “You what?”

“Ah, yes, that’s right. The Nightingale. You’re one of my soldiers. Holly, which head shot do you favor? I think this one makes me look too serious, but it highlights my cheekbones superbly, don’t you agree?” He held out a couple of large photographs.

“You gave this woman the Nightingale?” Holly’s frown grew when she turned it on me, taking in the sword belted around my waist. She ignored the photos, gesturing toward me. “Don’t you think that was a bit unwise, Ethan?”

“If I thought it was unwise, I wouldn’t have given it to her,” he said quite reasonably. “What do you think, warrior?”

I considered the pictures he showed me. “I like the cheekbones one.”

“You have good taste.” He tossed the pictures onto a massive mahogany table that sat smack-dab in the center of the tent. “Now then, who are these ladies?”

Holly, who had been watching me with suspicious, narrowed eyes, stopped that in order to give him a long-suffering look. “They are the witches I told you about two days ago, Ethan. The ones who are making magic for us to use to defeat Aaron.”

“Ah, yes, that’s right. I remember now. You will make an excellent addition to a future chapter,” he told my moms.

They beamed at him.

“I want to get to the bottom of you giving away valuable swords—” Holly started to say, but didn’t finish the sentence. At that moment there was a brief struggle at the door, and two large men entered, blocking out all of the morning light.

“There now!” the biggest of them said, catching sight of me. “I thought I might find you hereabouts.”

“Hello, Irv,” I said wearily, one hand easing the hilt of the sword out of its scabbard. “I thought you were being held by Aaron’s guards?”

“Aye, and that we were, but Frankie here, he got an idea.” He looked proudly at his friend, who responded with a deprecatory gesture and a modest expression.

“I know I shouldn’t ask,” I told the room in general. “And yet I’m unable to keep from doing so. What idea was that?”

“Frankie thought we ought to use some of the magic them witches give us.”

“Oh, no, moms, tell me you didn’t . . .”

“That’s right, I did think that, and so we did, and as soon as them soldiers of that other boss got a whiff of the happy juice that we got from those two, they was laughing so hard, they couldn’t stop us if they wanted to. We took care of them while they was rolling around laughing, and then ups and walked right out of the tent they was holding us in.”

“You sure do know your business, all right,” Irv told my mom. She looked pleased with the compliment until she caught my eye.

“Threefold law, Mom,” I told her sternly.

She donned an aggrieved expression. “I don’t know why you cast that at our heads, Gwenny. We are always accountable for our actions and have done no one any harm.”

“Including giving potions to two hit men?” I pointed to the men with my sword. “The potion you gave these two has resulted in the deaths of who knows how many innocent guards. That is doing harm.”

“We did not give them any potion,” Mom Two said indignantly while my mother snorted to herself. “They took it while we weren’t looking. Didn’t you?”

“Liberated it,” Frankie said, scratching his belly. “Boss likes us to call it liberating rather than stealing.”

“Here, this lady’s your mum?” Irv asked, nodding toward my mothers.

“They both are, yes.” I turned to Ethan. “I don’t suppose you’d like to lock these two men up? I can assure you that they are murderous villains and should not be allowed to remain free.”

“Oy!” Frankie said, looking oddly hurt. “None of that, now.”

“These men are working for me,” Holly said, looking up from where she had been writing in a small notebook. She’d been so quiet that for a few minutes I’d forgotten she was in the tent with us.

“Then you share the blame for the death of Aaron’s guards.”

She seemed immune to my cold stare, but my mothers weren’t. They moved together for solidarity, both their faces wary.

“I am responsible for many deaths. A few of that devil’s men are nothing to me. Ethan, I must go have that meeting I mentioned with the guards and warriors. I’ve heard a foul rumor that some of them aren’t fighting as they ought, and clearly I need to lesson a little motivation into them.” She gave me a look that I met with one of absolute innocence. “I will meet you after lunch to discuss the new weaponry.”

“Eh?” Ethan continued to poke at his laptop with one finger.

She shook her head and marched off, her long hair swinging like black and green silk daggers behind her.

“She’s so intense,” Mom told Mom Two.

“She’d be much better for having a cup of dandelion tea each morning,” Mom Two agreed.

“Oooh, I’d kill for a cuppa right about now,” Irv said.

Frankie laughed and elbowed him.

“What?” Irv asked.

“You’d kill for a cuppa.”

“So? I haven’t had any tea this morning.”

“No, you’d kill for a cuppa.” Frankie elbowed him again.

It took Irv a minute to see the irony of it.

“Aha ha ha. That’s right, I would,” he allowed with a chuckle.

“I do not think killing people is funny.” I whipped the sword through the air so that it sang. Both men watched, their merriment fading. “Especially innocent people.”

“What innocent people?” Irv looked at Frankie. Frankie looked at Irv.

“The guards you said you killed in order to escape. Aaron’s men.”

“Who says we orfed those blokes?”

“You did.”

“I did?”

“Yes. You said you took care of the guards while they were incapacitated with my mothers’ laughing potion.”

He waggled his hand in the air while Frankie said, “There’s take care of, and then there’s take care of, if you see what I mean. Now, I’m not saying we didn’t tie them up, but Irv here, he pointed out that since this is heaven and all, the folks here was already dead, so there’s no use in trying to kill them when they can’t die again.”

“That’s right,” Irv agreed. “It’s been our experience that once you’re dead, you won’t be coming back to life any time soon.”

I shot a potent look at my mother when she opened her mouth to correct the two mortal men’s false assumption. “I’m glad to hear you’ve given up your propensity to violence. There’s no reason to go about killing anyone—or rather, trying to—when a simple conversation will clear things up.”

“What conversation would that be?” Irv asked, looking confused.

“The one that stops you from killing innocent people in Anwyn.”

“Do you know what the daft hen is talking about?” Irv asked Frankie out of the side of his mouth.

“Not a clue.”

“I think we’d best wrap this up as soon as can be. I’m thinking she’s not quite all there.”

“I’m totally all here!” I protested, throwing grammar to the wind.

“You may be, or you may not be, but either way, we was sent to bring you back with us,” Frankie reminded me. “Boss said he prefers you alive, but if we wasn’t able to do that, he said we could just bring your head back with us and you could be a lesson to those what would cross him.”

I was feeling a bit more confident now. Not only did I have my spiffy sword, but the two men weren’t likely to hurt anyone in Anwyn due to their belief that everyone here was deceased. I saw a chance to get rid of them once and for all, and decided boldness would pay off in this case. Accordingly, I strolled around them, gesturing with my sword as I spoke. “I hate to break this to you, but you’re wasting your time. I have no intention of leaving Anwyn to speak with your boss.”

“You said you wanted to earlier.”

“True,” I told Frankie. “But I’ve since changed my mind. You can feel free to tell him that I’m armed and I resisted all attempts to subdue me. Thanks! Bye-bye.”

I strolled over to my mothers, whistling a carefree little tune that didn’t at all reflect my inner turmoil.

“Ha ha ha.”

I spun around at the laughter. The two men were nudging each other and nodding toward me. “Daft hen thinks anyone would believe we couldn’t subdue her,” Irv said.

“That’s a good one, that is,” Frankie told me. “You may be daft, but you’ve a wicked sense of humor.”

“Look,” I said, my hands on my hips, my sword still clutched firmly. “I’ve just about had it with you guys. I’m not leaving Anwyn, all right? So you can just buzz off before I lose my temper.”

“And what’ll you do then?” Irv asked, giving me an indulgent smile that just made me irritable. Dammit, it was like they didn’t take me seriously as a threat to their well-being.

“You don’t want to know. Now bugger off.”

“Gwen!” both mothers said in unison. “Language, dear,” Mom finished.

“I can’t believe you kiss your mother with that sort of a mouth, I really can’t,” Frankie said with unbearable self-righteousness.

“It’s the modern generation,” Irv agreed. “They have no sense of what’s right and what’s not right.”

“Are you totally unaware of the irony of that statement?” I asked. “You are hit men!”

“So?”

I let it go. I just didn’t have the energy to point out the obvious.

“Know what I think?” Frankie asked Irv.

“She’s going to run off again?”

“I’m not going to run away.” My voice was sharp with irritation, but I felt it was justified. “You, however, are leaving. Ethan, you’re the head honcho around here—tell these guys to leave.”

“I cannot believe someone had the nerve to give my book only three stars! The last volume was all about how I dealt with having a famous mother. It was filled with celebrity insider information! Three stars? It’s ten stars’ worth of a book at least. Twenty stars. Three is just utterly ridiculous.” He looked up. “Who is this Mr. Amazon? I wish to have a word with him about the people who leave stars on his Web site.”

“You really do live in your own little world, don’t you?” I couldn’t help but ask. “Does nothing register with you?”

“Not really,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “I’m not really cut out for all of this, you see. Oh, there was a time when I fought every battle and bested every foe, but really, what’s there to look forward to once you’ve conquered all there is to conquer? That’s when I decided to begin writing my autobiography. In seventeen volumes. Who are you?”

I was about to tell him—again—who I was when I realized he was looking at Irv and Frankie.

“They’re hit men.” Surely even Ethan wouldn’t be uncaring if murderers were wandering around his camp.

“Enforcers,” Irv corrected me.

“I’m sure that someone as erudite and learned as you must see that having such uncouth mortals around your camp is not going to reflect well on you.” I pursed my lips and looked thoughtful, figuring that Ethan might be swayed by commercial concerns. “After all, people might get the wrong idea about books written by the sort of man who has hired thugs hanging around him. I certainly wouldn’t want to buy the book of such a man, no matter how interesting the material was.”

“Hmm.” Ethan appeared to be considering the idea.

“We have no quarrel with you, mate,” Irv told him and pointed to me. “It’s this one who we was told to bring back. And now here she is waving that sword in our faces and telling everyone that we killed a bunch of giddy guards when we didn’t. Trying to black our good name, she is.”

“I’m sure that was just a misunderstanding,” Mom Two said, indignation rife in her voice. “Gwen would never cast an aspersion upon someone unless she felt it was just.”

“That’s as may be.” Irv smiled at me. I was momentarily disconcerted by the sudden gesture. And that was my undoing, because while I was trying to figure out what he had to smile about, Frankie moved as fast as a snake, grabbing Mom Two in a hold that had her yelping.

“You bastard!” I started toward him with my sword held high, but stopped at the sight of metal glinting in Frankie’s hand.

“Alice!” Mom shrieked and would have lunged at Frankie if I hadn’t held her back.

“Let me handle this, Mom.” I took a deep breath. “Mom Two, are you all right?”

“Yes,” she said, her dark eyes filled with fear. I hated Frankie at that moment, hated that he could make someone as happy and loving as my mother fearful of being harmed.

“Let her go, Frankie,” someone said in a low, ugly voice that was filled with so much menace it made me shiver. I was momentarily startled to realize it came out of my mouth.

“Boss said we was to come back with you, or your head. This isn’t you, but maybe he won’t mind so much when we tell him that the head we have belonged to your mum.”

“Gwenny.” My mother plucked at my sleeve, her anguish as palpable as Mom Two’s fear. I stood on the balls of my feet, my gaze locked on Frankie’s knife, trying to think of how best to disarm the situation. If I rushed him, he’d likely sink his knife into her neck, and although she wouldn’t keel over from a wound like mortals would, she could be killed.

“This appears to be a tricky situation,” Ethan commented, and rising, he strode over to where Frankie held Mom Two. “You there, whatever your name is, release my witch. Holly has much work for her to do and would be most unhappy if you were to disarrange those plans.”

“This has nothing to do with you, mate,” Irv said, moving over to stand next to Frankie. “I’d advise you to stay out of it and let us handle it.”

“Ethan,” I said, gently pushing my mother behind me, all the while never taking my eyes off that knife. “I bet Diego would like to come out to play.”

“I doubt that. He’s testy today.”

“Ethan.” The word was ground through my teeth in an attempt to get him to understand what I was suggesting. “Let Diego out.”

“Look here, you,” Irv said, pointing at me. He and Frankie were close enough that if Ethan unleashed his alien hand, it might be enough of a distraction that I could rescue Mom Two. “I don’t know who this Diego bloke is when he’s at home, but he isn’t going to help you any. Frankie’s going to lose his patience in a minute if you don’t agree to come with us.”

“Very well, but if he misbehaves, I’m holding you responsible.” Ethan unbuckled the strap holding his arm to his belly, sliding the leather slinglike structure off. Immediately his hand reached out and grabbed my left breast.

I stared down at it in mingled horror and surprise. His fingers flexed.

“I told you he was testy today. Diego! Release that woman’s nipple. It isn’t yours to fondle.”

Frankie and Irv snickered.

“This isn’t quite what I had in mind,” I snapped, shoving the hand away. It reached back as if it was going to cop another grope, but I shifted, pointing the tip of the sword at it. The fingers twitched and slunk back to Ethan.

“If playtime’s over, we’ll be getting along now,” Irv said.

Ethan frowned at him. “I do not wish for you to kill my witch. You, woman, do something to stop them.”

“I’m trying,” I snapped, waving my sword in the air. “But thus far I haven’t had a lot of luck, and Diego was a huge letdown.”

“You’re an alchemist. Do something.”

“Like what?” I gave him an incredulous look. “Transmute them to death? That would take centuries, not that I can do it to begin with.”

“Time’s up,” Frankie said, clearly having reached the end of his patience. I didn’t blame him. I wanted to slap Ethan for being such an idiot.

“Either you come with us now, or we’ll be taking the head of your mum here back to our boss.” Irv stepped forward with a nasty smile.

“How about you two return to your boss and tell him to mind his own damned business.”

We all turned to look at the source of the voice, a surge of joy filling me as Gregory entered the tent. He looked relaxed and carefree, with a slight smile on his lips, but I knew without a single shred of doubt that he was furious. I could feel his tension prickle along my skin like the static electricity that we generated when things got hot and heavy between us.

“You have excellent timing,” I told him.

“It goes along with the whole Traveller thing.” His gaze held mine for a few seconds, and I suddenly understood why I felt the electricity in the air.

“Mom,” I said softly. “The egg spell. Do you remember it?”

Mom frowned, sliding me a worried look. “Egg spell? No, I don’t think I know a spell that has anything to do with eggs other than—” She stopped.

“I don’t know who you are,” Irv told Gregory, “but you’re not wanted here, mate. Best be on your way.”

“Ah, but I know well who you are, and I object to you holding Gwen’s mother in that manner. Let her go, and there won’t be any trouble between us.”

“Ooh.” Mom Two stopped being afraid for a few seconds, rolling her eyes over to examine Gregory. “Mags, this is him.”

“Is it?” Mom stopped whispering her spell, also giving Gregory the visual once-over. “He’s not what I expected. Gwen’s never liked blonds before.”

“Well, he is technically handsome, if you like that sort of thing,” Mom Two admitted.

“But she’s not been one for letting a pretty face turn her head,” Mom argued. “Do you know, Alice, I think that bodes well for her future. He’s totally different from all the other men she’s brought to see us.”

“Really?” I asked, turning to her. “Do we have to have this conversation right now?”

“All the other men?” Gregory asked at the same time, giving me a look that warned he had a lot to say about the subject. “Just how many other men has she brought home to meet you, madam?”

“None of your business.” I spoke loudly and pointed with the sword to Frankie. “Can we get back to what’s important here, please?”

“It’s not really that many,” Mom Two told him. “Maybe ten?”

“Twelve, I think, dear. No, I tell a lie. It’s thirteen.”

“Mom!” I gave her a long-suffering look. “I have not had thirteen boyfriends. Five, maybe. Six at most.”

“Thirteen,” Mom said with a knowing expression on her face. “The first was that poet who wore all the lace and that smelly hair oil. He went down with the Titanic, didn’t he? Then there was the politician who supported the suffragettes. He was quite nice, but mortal. And then you fell for your alchemy instructor, and after that was an actor. Do you remember him? He was so good at charades.”

“He was a very nice boy,” Mom Two agreed. “As was that young man in advertising she was with during the fifties.”

I glanced at Gregory. His jaw was tight, and his eyes glittered like particularly pissed blue topazes. “Maybe we can do this another time—”

“I do remember the clown.” Mom shuddered. “He was horrible.”

“Then there was the dog trainer, and the accountant—”

“He made her cry a lot. I didn’t like him at all.”

“And the astronaut, and then those twins that she couldn’t decide between, even though they were both clearly quite, quite gay—”

“Bi,” I interrupted, my cheeks hot. “They were bisexual, not gay.”

“And the man who created that vacuum cleaner, and finally, that rock climber. That’s thirteen.”

“Astronaut?” Irv asked, giving me an appraising glance.

I waved it away. “Everyone was dating test pilots and astronauts in the sixties. Besides, it’s not like I was a fragile little thing living in an egg carton.”

Mom caught the emphasis on the last words, and finished whispering her spell.

“I’m more disturbed by the thought of dating a clown,” Ethan said from where he was, back at his laptop. “That’s just creepy.”

“Thirteen,” Gregory said, his eyes glittering.

The hairs on my arm stood on end.

“It’s not important!” I yelled, taking everyone by surprise. Luckily, Gregory was waiting for it, and having gathered up enough electricity, called down the lightning.

Right on top of Frankie and Irv.