Rocked by Love (Gargoyles, #4)(74)
Kylie pushed aside the rush of warmth she felt hearing him call the house “our home” and threw her arm across her eyes. “I plead insanity. What’s your excuse?”
“I’m eating all the extra cheese and mushroom!” Ella’s voice drifted up from the hall and Dag swore before shoving to his feet.
He reached down to pull Kylie up behind him and dragged her toward the stairs, mumbling, “I have no excuse,” as he went.
Kylie laughed. “There is no excuse, but we’d better go. I want those mushrooms.”
Chapter Sixteen
Shlof gikher; men darf di kishn.
Sleep faster; we need the pillows.
Three days later and Kylie still couldn’t be certain she had recovered from that first lesson in magic. Not that it mattered, because the Terrible Trio of Trainers, as she had dubbed them, hadn’t let up on her for a minute. Every day, they had dragged her into the empty dining room (nothing valuable to get caught in the crossfire, Wynn explained) and put her through not just her paces, but the paces of several world-class athletes. At least, that’s what it felt like.
The first thing they insisted she know was defensive magic. After they made her demonstrate how well she had learned her lesson about calling the power to her fingertips. Once the magic tingled in her hands, Wynn explained, sending it out into the world with intent was what made for a spell, and a darned effective one. The witch demonstrated with a very cool cone-of-silence trick that ticked Fil off to no end (she’d been in the middle of a sentence when Wynn bespelled her) and yet that she refused to teach to Kylie.
“First off, you just want to use it on Dag. And me,” the witch added, noting her pupil’s glare. “And second of all, it’s not going to be much use against the nocturnis. You need to learn the important stuff first. We don’t have a lot of time.”
Sighing, Kylie had gotten back to work. Wynn was right. They didn’t have a lot of time.
When they entered the convention center on Saturday morning to pick up their badges, Kylie’s new bag of tricks included a personal shield spell that helped to deflect magical attacks (it would get stronger the more she practiced, Wynn assured her), a kind of magical mirror that bounced a spell back toward the one who had cast it, and what Ella called her bad-guy bubble spell, a favorite of hers. That one trapped whoever it was directed at in a giant bubble of energy that both kept the target contained and prevented him from casting magic outside its confines. Apparently, any spell he attempted just bounced off the interior of the bubble and ricocheted around inside. Very messy, Ella had noted with a grimace.
Messy, but effective, Wynn assured her.
Tonight, they would continue to work on the most important spell—the one that sealed portals and prevented what was on the other side from making its way into the human world. It was a tough spell, and not one Wynn would normally have taught to someone so inexperienced, but it was the last measure they would use if the Order succeeded in getting the portals open. Hopefully, the Guardians would stop them before that happened, and the spell would never be needed.
Az a yor af mir. I should be so lucky, Kylie thought. She refused to hold her breath.
In the meantime, Wynn and Kylie had reconnaissance to collect and nocturnis to avoid.
“Ms. Kramer,” the woman who provided their badges gushed, a bright smile on her face that went nowhere near her eyes. Or, you know, near sincerity. “We missed you at the dinner last night. We were afraid you might not attend our event after all.”
Kylie flashed a toothy smile of her own. “Oh, you know, business first,” she said breezily. “It’s how we can afford to help these little causes, isn’t it?”
As she guided Wynn away to find lanyards for their laminated conference badges, the witch laughed. “Wow, I’ve never heard you use your multimillionaire tech guru voice on anyone before. That was impressive.”
Kylie rolled her eyes. “Just wait till you hear my ‘pissed off woman with a nagging Jewish grandmother’ voice. It’ll knock your socks off.”
Esther had already left three messages of good luck on her voice mail, each one with the implied threat that if Kylie wound up getting hurt, Esther would be coming up to Boston personally to kick asses and take names. Kylie wouldn’t put it past her.
“Oh, trust me,” Wynn assured her, “I’m already familiar with your earlier body of work. Now come on. Let’s get programs and stand around leafing through them and talking earnestly about the most important use of your time before we disappear.”
Kylie readily agreed. After all, the plan was to make their appearance and then leave, waiting to return until they had a better shot at getting a glimpse of the setup in the auditorium for Richard Foye-Carver’s scheduled speech.
After retrieving programs from a bored-looking intern at the welcome table, they chose a conspicuous spot next to a pillar so they could be stared at and identified by the masses. Kylie had gone out of her way to make it easy for people, dressing in ripped and battered jeans, cherry-red canvas high-top sneakers, and two T-shirts. The long-sleeved red shirt provided the perfect contrast to the short-sleeved black one worn on top, which spelled out the word “genius” using elements of the periodic table.
She could have tattooed the word “SUPERGEEK” on her forehead and not looked more the part. That, plus all the publicity generated by her high-profile sale to a gigantic tech conglomerate a couple of years ago should take care of getting her recognized and firmly implanted in the minds of attendees and organizers alike.