Oracle's Moon (Elder Races #4)(84)

Therese lived in a modest-sized house with a fenced-in backyard, in a neighborhood with tree-lined streets. Khalil wasn’t very familiar with Louisville, but he did recognize in the distance one of the famous spires from the Churchill Downs racetrack. He surveyed the house and immediate area from above as he floated down. The driveway was empty. Therese appeared to be gone. Her house winked with flecks of Power.

It was as unwise to rush into a place filled with unknown magic as it was to rush into a place filled with unknown wards. Either Therese was a competent witch, or she knew someone who was, because all of the entrances to her house were spelled, front and back doors, her windows, even the chimney.

He studied the spells thoughtfully. They seemed like they might be sensitive enough to be triggered by his presence. He didn’t think they would hurt him so much as alert someone if he triggered them.

He was interested to know who they might alert. He was even more interested in the fact that the spells felt bright and shining, like newly minted coins. Why would Therese recently feel the need to spell her windows, doors and even her chimney?

Perhaps Khalil had not made a favorable impression on her when they met.

He lowered down and slowly circled the house from a few feet away at the ground level. The house was not so new. However, both it and the detached garage were nicely maintained, and the flowers and shrubbery in the yard were quite charming and well tended.

There. A small vent for a clothes dryer protruded from the exterior wall, a few feet above the ground. It was covered with a grill and an aluminum flap, but those barriers did not matter in the slightest to him. The vent was not covered with a spell. He thought perhaps someone should tell Therese about that.

He attenuated his presence and flowed into the vent, through the dryer, and materialized in a small laundry room. There were no living presences in the house, so he strolled out of the laundry room and found himself in a kitchen filled with a great many things.

The walls were covered with hangings and framed pictures. There was a rooster clock and a smiling creature made of cloth with denim clothes and straw for hair and button eyes. There were cartoon cows interspersed throughout. A red-and-white checked cloth covered the table where two small ceramic chickens sat, one with the letter S and the other with the letter P. A pink jar fashioned like a pig sat on the counter. The word COOKIES was printed on its round belly.

Really, he did not understand the pig thing.

The jar had a lid shaped like a puffy white hat. He lifted the lid and looked inside. It was, indeed, filled with cookies. How logical. He took one, sniffed it and tried a cautious bite. It was brown, sweet, and had a spicy kick.

He ate the cookie as he walked through the house. He paused in the hall by the front door to flip through Therese’s mail—bills, cards, clothing catalogs and a solicitation from a political group called the Humanist Party. Therese liked stinky colored leaves and dried flowers that she kept in a bowl on the hall table. She had a small computer station in one corner of the living room, and a large flat-screen TV in another corner. He turned on the laptop and left it to power up as he continued his search.

Therese also liked a lot of pillows, and she had a lot of dolls. She really had a lot of dolls. Dolls on shelves, dolls in glass cabinets. Dolls with curly blonde hair and frilly dresses, cloth dolls, plastic dolls, baby dolls, porcelain dolls, dolls both new and old. He lost interest in counting them after he reached a hundred. In her bedroom, she had twenty pillows on her bed of varying shapes, sizes, colors and patterns, and over thirty dolls were arranged in front of them. Some of the dolls sparked with magic.

Khalil was inclined to think this was strange. He was almost bored, and he really wanted to go back to Grace and watch the kids splash in a small pool, but he was also curious. Down the short hall, he found a bathroom (there were dolls in the bathroom too, which he found totally incomprehensible), and a half-closed door that led to a darkened room that held most of the Power in the house. Carefully he eased the door open further and looked inside.

There were so very many dolls. By this point he was beyond surprise. There was a workbench with a tall stool and a lamp, and parts of dolls on the bench, along with clay, jars of powders and liquids, bowls and measuring implements, a pestle and mortar, dried herbs, and candles and a smudge bowl with something half burned in it.

Ah. No wonder Therese had a thing for dolls. She worked sympathetic magic, and she made poppets. Khalil stepped closer to the workbench, studying everything without touching it. While he was no expert on human magics, it appeared Therese was accomplished at her craft. Someone could do a great deal of damage with poppet magic, and also a great deal of good. Several human cultures had magic systems that used poppets, from early Egypt, to West African fetishes and New Orleans voodoo.

Had Therese collected anything of Grace’s or the children’s to use in poppets, when she had snooped through their things? Just the possibility made Khalil want to raze her house to the ground so completely that not a single cornerstone was left standing.

Tires crunched on gravel outside. He blew to the window nearest the driveway in time to see Therese climb out of her car. She collected her purse and a few grocery bags from the trunk. As she headed for the front of the house, he flowed into the kitchen, materialized to lean against the counter and waited for her. He helped himself to another cookie as she unlocked the front door. He chewed and listened to her heels click on the floor.

Then she rounded the corner, caught sight of him, dropped everything and screamed.