Shanna Swendson - Don't Hex with Texas

He was also dressed in black. I moved to hand him the case, but he shook his head and crawled in through the window. “I don’t need the whole thing.” He knelt by the case, opened it, then dug around in it, putting various items into a black backpack that came from inside the case. I tried to get a look inside the case, but it was too dark to see much, and the magical light he used to illuminate his work was angled the wrong way to give me a good look.

After he had everything he needed, he relocked the case and shoved it back under the bed. Then we made our way out the window and down off the porch roof. We parked behind the Dairy Queen and walked the rest of the way to the bank, which was a block off the town square. It was a solid Art Deco building that must have gone up just in time for the banks to fail at the start of the Depression. The building had proved far sturdier than the institution, as it was still in use by a branch of a national conglomerate. Sam waited for us in front of the bank.

“Do you think you can manage a veil long enough for me to get this done?” Owen asked him. “I don’t want us accidentally fingered as suspects.”

“Got it covered, kiddo. I’m not sure it’ll be strong enough to block out our local wizard, but the cops on patrol won’t spot any suspicious activity. Just make it snappy. There’s not a lot of power to draw on around here. I spent a few hours on a church today, which helped, but it’s not as good as being able to tap into a real power source.”

“Is a church a good source of power then?” I couldn’t resist asking. “If it is, this town may be more powerful than you think. We have a church on almost every corner.”

“That’s gargoyle-specific, doll, only ’cause we was created to guard churches in the first place. Most of your churches here don’t have much power, since they weren’t built with gargoyles in mind. A big oversight, if you ask me.”

Owen was already at work, pulling things out of his bag and placing them around the bank’s front entrance. “Is there a back door?” he asked as he worked.

“No, one way in and one way out. This place was built during a time when bank robberies happened all the time. You didn’t want to give them much of an escape route. Is there anything you need me to do?”

“Thanks, but not yet. I’ll need you when it comes time to set these. Help Sam keep lookout.”

I couldn’t help but hold my breath and hope that Sam’s veil was good when I saw headlights approaching. It looked like the police were patrolling the square extra carefully after the previous night’s events. The lights turned as the car circled the square, and I let my breath out. A few minutes later, they reappeared, heading down the side street the bank was on. I flattened myself against the building as the car passed, and the officer drove so slowly that I saw his head moving back and forth as he scanned the streets for suspicious activity. Surely a gargoyle standing on the sidewalk and two people dressed in black near the bank’s entrance would have been enough to make him pull over if he saw anything, but he kept on going.

“You didn’t trust me, did you?” Sam asked, sounding offended, as I let out the breath I’d been holding.

“No offense, but since your magic doesn’t work on me, I find it very easy to forget that it’s there,” I said, surprised at how badly I was shaking. It reminded me of the one time I’d joined in a teenage prank when we toilet-papered the home of our chemistry teacher. I’d been too scared of being caught to get any fun at all out of it, so I decided to avoid that kind of activity from then on.

“I’m trying to work here,” Owen snapped. He did tend to get testy when he was concentrating on something. That was about the only time he lost his usual calm. Sam and I looked at each other, and Sam shrugged.

Behind us, Owen began chanting softly in something that sounded like it might be Greek. He scattered a shimmering powder across the bank’s threshold as he spoke. I shivered at the tingle of strong magic in use nearby, and I was glad I hadn’t worn the magic-amplifying necklace. He took a step backward, paused for a moment, then said, “Okay, now to set it and fine-tune it. I’ll need your help for this.”

“My help? But I have no magic at all.”

“Which means you have a lot of pent-up energy that I can tap into. Setting wards like this requires a massive burst of power, and with the power lines here so weak, I need another source if I don’t want to deplete myself entirely. You should barely notice the effect.” He held out his hand to me, and I stepped forward and took it. His hand was firm and warm, and I was sure mine was cold and clammy.

He adjusted his grip so that our palms were tight together and our fingers were laced, as much skin as possible in contact between us. “Now you need to relax. You don’t have to do anything but stand there and keep breathing. Okay?”

I nodded, then found my voice to croak, “Okay.”

“Okay, then. Sam, stay on lookout, and make sure that veil is working. There might be a few fireworks.” Yeah, there sure might, I thought as my skin tingled from the close contact with him. And he hadn’t even started the magic.

I felt like I should close my eyes, but Owen hadn’t mentioned it, and I wanted to see what happened.

He murmured something under his breath that was somewhere between a chant and a song. There was more melody than in your average chant, while it was still too flat to be much of a song for anyone who wasn’t into rap. I didn’t understand the words at all, and I didn’t think I recognized the language.

Then the strongest burst of magic I’d ever felt hit me. It flowed through me, and it reminded me of the very brief time earlier this year when, due to a fluke involving a parasitic fairy, I’d been able to do magic, myself. My hand grew so warm where it touched Owen’s that I was sure it would glow red if I looked at it.

I did look at it, and there was a golden aura surrounding our joined hands. But then an even brighter light caught my eye. I turned to see a sheet of white light rise from the powder on the ground to fill the entire bank doorway. The sheet held for maybe a minute, then suddenly all the magic was gone.

The doorway went back to normal, with even the powder dissipated, and when I looked at our hands, the aura was missing. I didn’t feel the warmth anymore.

Owen took several long, deep breaths, then released my hand. “You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, I think so.” Actually, I felt a little shaky and light-headed, but I didn’t think it was because of whatever he’d done magically. It probably had more to do with watching him in action while holding his hand that way. I couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to make love with him, if we ever managed to get back together and get our relationship to that point before some disaster hit us, and then I was glad it was so dark out because my face felt as warm as our hands had. “Did it work?” I asked.

“Sam?”

The gargoyle waddled forward and approached the doorway, only to be thrown backward. “Yep, it works, all right.”

“Now what?” I asked.

“Sam starts staking out the bank and lets us know what he sees. And we get to bed before someone notices us missing.”

We crept back across town to the car, then began driving home. We’d only gone a few blocks when Owen said, “Uh-oh.” I turned around and saw flashing blue-and-red lights behind us.

“Uh-oh,” I repeated.

My heart always pounded whenever I saw a police car on the side of a road and I thought I was doing a mile or two over the speed limit. I’d keep an eye on the rearview mirror for the next several miles until I could convince myself that the officer wasn’t going to come after me. Tonight, seeing the police car flashing its lights behind us when we were out in the middle of the night doing extremely suspicious things while a rare crime wave was going on, I thought I’d have a stroke. Or maybe throw up. Tears stung my eyes in the instinctive female response to being pulled over. I never deliberately tried to cry my way out of a ticket, but I couldn’t seem to help myself.