“I knew you’d be the right person. Yes. And the evil thing fell off the moment he unloaded the last of the boxes into my house.” She pointed at two semicircular pieces of what looked like copper. “It must have been triggered to release him once his mission was fulfilled.”
“The mission being to deliver all of your grandfather’s trove to you,” Mr. Butler said sadly. “I tried to fight it, Susan. I’m so sorry. I’ll load it all back into the truck right now.”
He took a step forward, lifting his chin and squaring his shoulders, but then he stumbled and collapsed back against a wall, looking grayer than ever.
“I don’t think you’ll be doing anything but resting for the near future, sir. Susan, which guest room?” I didn’t touch him, because I really, really didn’t want to see how he’d die, but Susan caught his arm and helped him stand upright.
Her godfather shook his head, a look of determination on his pale face. “No. I need to at least tell you what you’re dealing with first.”
Susan bit her lip and then nodded. “Okay. Let’s go to the living room and get him settled on the couch, and then I’ll make some tea.”
We did just that, and I put a folded quilt from the basket near the fireplace next to him on the couch, so he could tuck it around his thin, shivering body.
When Susan came back with tea for all of us plus a plate of cookies, she and I sat on chairs across from the couch and waited for Mr. Butler to tell us the story behind the dangerous objects now lurking in the house.
He drank some tea, shook his head when Susan offered him cookies, and then sighed and put his mug down on a coaster on the side table.
“First, I’m so sorry, Susie. I fought him—fought the manacle—but your grandfather was a powerful magic user after fifty years of collecting and using that stuff. He was determined that you’d carry on his legacy. When he gave me that armband, he said it was a relic from an ancient civilization. Made me feel honored that he’d give me such a valuable gift.” He twisted his shaking hands together. “I had no idea, because he always locked the door to his den when he was in there, that he’d put some kind of incantation or spell on the thing. As soon as I put it on, I felt the effects. The thing made me … fuzzy. Agreeable—too agreeable—but only to whatever he told me to do. Just made me grumpy with Millie.”
Susan smiled for the first time since I’d arrived. “I bet she told you what you could do with your grumpiness.”
A ghost of a grin touched his tired face. “You know it.”
I cleared my throat. “Not to be overly personal, but why did you work for Susan’s grandfather if he was such a bad guy?”
“Nobody knew,” Susan said grimly. “I mean, we knew he could be a jerk, especially to his daughters. My mom and Cordelia. When mom married a Gonzalez, he disowned her. Not rich or elite enough for him. Cordelia and mom were never close, because Cordelia started her criminal ways pretty young, and mom wanted nothing to do with it. Or her, after that.”
I knew Susan and Carlos’s mom had died when Susan was still a teenager. They’d just moved to Dead End, and Carlos had stepped up and become his sister’s legal guardian. He had still been a plain vanilla human then, not that it probably would have mattered. Dead End was flexible about supernatural gifts, especially when someone was a good guy and standing up to take care of his sister.
“He never used the darker magic around us,” Mr. Butler said. “We really didn’t know, which sounds ridiculous, but it’s true. He kept all that side of things very private, and Millie and I were only there to do the normal things. Take care of the house and grounds.”
I remembered something Susan had told me earlier. “You said he left for home? What happened?”
“The spell was cued to make me unload these last boxes when Susan was out of the house, so she couldn’t stop me.” He looked down at his clasped hands, unable or unwilling to meet her gaze. “I’m so sorry.”
Susan inhaled a deep breath and shook her head. “No. Nothing to be sorry for. You didn’t have a choice, really. Now what’s important is for us to figure out what to do next. I’m guessing just tossing the lot in the dumpster would be a bad idea?”
I nodded since she’d directed the question to me. “Oh, boy, would that be a bad idea. This kind of thing can cause havoc, like you can’t believe. Well, you remember the presents-stealing Christmas tree, right? We finally had to coat it in salt and then burn it and salt the ashes to be sure …”
I snapped my fingers. “If it had been a snake, it would have bitten me. That’s the advice we got from Alejandro’s wife, Rose, a powerful witch. I’ll text her, but I’ll bet that the same strategy will work for this stuff. Salt grounds some forms of magic, apparently.”
Special Agent Alejandro Vasquez was high in the FBI Paranormal Operations division. He’d worked with Jack in the past and had helped us out with more than one problem over the past year, but he kept trying to get Jack to come to work for P Ops with him and be his partner. Happily, Jack had no interest in that, which thrilled me, because the job was dangerous.
Alejandro also was married to the head of a major magical family, the Cardinal witches. Rose was giving me advice on helping my sister Shelley deal with her budding magical powers.
Pulling out my phone, I shot off a text to Rose. She usually answered within seconds, but not this time. She was pregnant with twins and seriously distracted, according to Alejandro’s latest call to Jack, so we might be on our own for a while.
I told Susan and her godfather this and then hesitated. “I wish I’d gotten Erin’s phone number. I could ask Jack to reach out to Ven, but Jack might be at a dangerous point in this trip …”
Then, of course, I had to explain that. Ven was the king of Atlantis’s brother, officially titled the King’s Vengeance, and Erin, his wife, was one of the most powerful witches on the planet. Jack and I had gone to dinner with them—in Atlantis!—on our first official date. (Long story: Many, many obstacles had come between us on our path to a relationship, but that had been maybe the best official first date in history.)
“So, Jack’s on a mission related to his old rebel commander days. In Sedona,” I finished, feeling grumpy but trying not to show it. “It’s probably dangerous, or they wouldn’t have needed him, so I’m not sure it’s a good time to bother him about this.”
“Who’s ‘they’?” Susan asked.
I blinked. “Ah … I don’t know. We got busy with him trying to find your granny and then various things in the shop … he never got around to giving me the details.”
Or else he couldn’t tell me much because it was super-top-secret, but I didn’t say that.
