Hexed

lot as our small convoy of sports cars pulled out onto Pecos, steering carefully around the golem’s head that Leif had thrown through the roof. Bogumila’s body was bundled gently into Roksana’s Mercedes. We waved and wished Antoine and his ghouls bon appétit . His gang would have the place cleaned up before sunrise, leaving nothing but property damage and a large pile of rocks behind for the police to wonder over.
    I was riding with Malina and Klaudia in the Audi. Klaudia sat on my lap, her torso twisted around to face me and a leather-clad arm draped around my shoulder. With her other hand, she was caressing my injured jaw with a delicate tip of a fingernail. She made cooing sounds of sympathy, and I couldn’t take my eyes off her lips.
    » Klaudia, stop that, « Malina said. » Now is not the time to tease Mr. O’Sullivan. «
    My head cleared immediately, and I shuddered at Klaudia’s knowing smile. She had enchanted her lips like Malina did her hair.
    I was glad the ride would be brief; Klaudia had discovered a loophole in our nonaggression treaty already. It was the second time an attraction charm of the Polish witches had worked on me. My amulet had eventually shut down Malina’s, and I had no doubt it would have done the same to Klaudia’s, but in each case it had worked long enough for them to do me harm if they had wished it.
    » It’s all right, « Klaudia said brightly. » I think he and I understand each other. « She patted my chest with the hand that had been caressing my jaw. » Don’t we, Mr. O’Sullivan? «
    I nodded and turned my gaze to the darkness outside. She was letting me know for future reference that she was every bit as dangerous as Malina.
    A quarter mile east on Pecos, we found a charred and blackened Leif facedown on an empty expanse of gravel, next to a trench of violently churned earth. He’d obviously managed to quench the hellfire engulfing him and drag himself a short distance away, but now it appeared he’d reached the end of his strength.
    » He’s not dead, « I said to the witches assembled around his body.
    » Yes he is. « Berta begged to differ.
    » Well, yes, you have a point, but I mean he’ll be okay. Still dead. But fine. «
    » What about you? « Malina asked. » Your face looks like someone took a meat tenderizer to it. «
    » I’ll be fine too, « I assured her. I was already feeling marginally better now that I had contact with the earth. » Just help me get Leif back to his car. «
    Parts of Leif flaked off and blew away when we moved him. One of his fingers crumbled and fell like the tightly packed ash of a hand-rolled cigar.
    » Eep! « Kazimiera cried when she saw this.
    » It’s okay, « I said. » It’ll grow back. I think. «
    We fished Leif’s keys out of his burned jeans and decided, for his own safety and mine, that he should make the return trip to Tempe in the trunk. Klaudia volunteered to run back and get his car. » Don’t ever tell him we did this, though, « I said as we stuffed him into the ass end of his Jaguar. » I don’t think he’d take it well. « Berta tittered.
    I bade the witches farewell and expressed my hope they would prosper and grow strong again. It was the language of diplomacy and we all knew it, but it was the proper language in that time and place.
    Dr. Snorri Jodursson was already at my house, watching The Fellowship of the Ring with my apprentice, so it wasn’t tough to find someone to take charge of Leif’s recovery. Snorri said he’d simply raid the blood bank, and he was nice enough to put my teeth back in place for me before I lay down to heal in the backyard. Said he wouldn’t even charge me this time.
    As I stretched out gratefully on the familiar grass of my lawn with a worried Oberon nestled against my side, I hoped the near future would bring me a small portion of peace. I was tired of these constant distractions and the alarming rate at which I seemed to be losing my ears, and if the chaos would consent to desist for a while, I would heal and mourn and focus properly on what to do next.
    There was a parcel of wilderness that needed my attention, which I had neglected for far too long.

Epilogue
    It’s rare that I take the form of a stag. Though it’s the largest shape I can take, it’s still a bit lower on the food chain than I would like, and rare is the occasion when one of my other forms will not serve me better. But when the job at hand was lugging fifty-pound bags of topsoil miles