Shanna Swendson - Don't Hex with Texas

Idris was in mid-speech, and his voice carried well to the bushes where we hid. “It’s time for your final exam. If you pass this test, you will earn the title of wizard. I’ve brought in a top wizard from New York to test you. You’ll have to find him and then defeat him in close magical combat. Now, I should warn you—he’s very powerful, and it may take all of you working together, but that’s part of the test.”

He waved a hand, and a flickering image formed in the air next to him. It took a while to solidify, and Idris talked as the image took shape. “Here is the wizard you should be looking for. Defeat him, and you will be a true wizard.” Finally, the image was recognizable. It was a picture of Owen.

Standing as close as I was to Owen, I could feel his muscles tensing, preparing to spring into action. I grabbed his arm and gave it a firm squeeze, hoping that would remind him that this really wasn’t a good time to take all of them on at once. He looked at me and nodded, then after a few deep breaths, he relaxed and I let him go. With a tilt of his head, he indicated that we should leave, and we crept away, leaving the pep rally still in progress.

“This, you’ll have to call in,” Sam said once we were safely back at the car. “You’ll need backup.”

“I can handle it.”

Sam shook his head. “Even if those guys aren’t as powerful or trained as you are, you can’t handle all of them by yourself if they’re teaming up and gunning for you.”

“I’ve got you and Katie’s grandmother. And Dean on the inside. And I may be able to get some local allies. We’re not that outnumbered.”

“If you don’t call and let the boss know what’s going on, I will. Don’t you think it would go better if he heard it straight from you?”

I felt like I was missing a crucial part of this conversation, but if my reading between the lines was accurate, then…“You’re AWOL!” I blurted to Owen. “They don’t know you’re here, do they?”

“Oh, come on,” Sam said. “You know the boss. Of course they know he’s here. They just don’t officially know.”

“I thought I could wrap it all up over the weekend,” Owen admitted, sounding like he was explaining why his homework wasn’t done. “I called in sick on Friday, and I thought I could easily be back in the office by Tuesday, with everything taken care of.”

“Yeah, and there wasn’t anything suspicious about you calling in sick the morning after you spent the day begging the boss to let you come down here and make sure Katie was okay,” Sam said.

If Sam hadn’t already been made of stone, the look Owen gave him would have turned him that way.

“We weren’t having any luck finding or dealing with Idris in New York, so I thought I’d do better finding him here by going through his student. And I was right.”

“But now you’re outnumbered, with the bad guys gunning for you, and Idris seems to have some tricks up his sleeve, like that disappearing act he pulled,” I argued. “So unless you’re willing to run, you’re going to need help.”

“We can’t afford to let him get away this time,” Sam added.

Owen stood still for a while, then finally said, “Okay. I’ll call. In the morning. It’s pretty late now.”

Sam snorted. “Like the boss isn’t expecting this.”

Owen held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay, I’ll call. I knew I’d have to come clean at some point, but I would have preferred to do it with Idris or his junior wizard in custody.”

“You do have the junior wizard,” I reminded him. “That may help.”

“Maybe I should get a little farther away from all the student wizards who are gunning for me before I take time out to make a phone call,” he said.

“Don’t worry, kiddo, I got you covered. Go right ahead and make that call,” Sam said, a little too gleefully, earning himself another glare.

Owen went a few yards away, just out of earshot, and at least mimed talking on his cell phone. I watched him for a moment, then turned to Sam. “You were in on this?”

“Not really ‘in.’ I just agreed not to tell anyone he was here. He said it would only be for the weekend at first, but then he started tacking days onto it. Even if we hadn’t seen what those goons were up to tonight, he’d have had to come clean pretty soon, or else I’d have had to rat him out.”

“But why?”

Sam laughed. “Oh, dollface, and I thought you were so smart. It’s ’cause of you! He nearly flipped when he heard about the bad guy going after you. I guess that was really your brother playing a prank on you, huh? The boss wanted to wait and see what happened after you figured out that Idris was involved. I was gonna keep an eye on you while they tried to find Idris in New York. But Palmer there was convinced Idris would be down here. And then he was the one I reached to tell about the stuff at the theater. I’m guessin’ he didn’t tell the boss about that.”

“So he risked getting into huge trouble because he was worried about me?”

“I think he also wanted to make up for what happened the last time, you know, not letting his feelings get in the way of him being able to catch the bad guy again. Of course, the fact that he rushed down here to protect you doesn’t help his case much, does it?”

“No, probably not,” I said with a sigh. No wonder he hadn’t said anything about me going back to New York. After this, they certainly weren’t going to let me be close enough to him to be a distraction, unless they decided to lock me up safely somewhere they could keep an eye on me. Part of me was thrilled to have proof that he still cared for me, but I couldn’t help but be a little bit scared.

He might have had a crazy streak at times, but running off against orders wasn’t like Owen. In fact, him being such a classic good boy was the main reason that he wasn’t too scary, in spite of all the things he could do, like mess with people’s minds and stop time.

Owen returned to us. “They’re sending backup,” he said. I couldn’t tell from his tone of voice how he felt.

“So, how much trouble are you in?” Sam asked, and I was glad he did, so I didn’t have to.

“I don’t know. I’m supposed to stay out of sight and not engage either Idris or his minions.”

I tugged on his sleeve. “Well, if you’re going to do that, we’d better get home.”

We managed to avoid the wizard gang and get back home to make our usual climb up the tree onto the porch roof. I seemed to be entering the house more often through my bedroom window than through the door these days. I’d just put one leg through the window when I noticed movement in my room. Someone was in there. I opened my mouth to scream in shock, but someone caught me from behind with a hand over my mouth. That could have been even more frightening, but I realized right away that it was Owen.

“What are you doing here, Mrs. Callahan?” he whispered.

I pried his hand off my mouth and blurted as softly as I could, “Granny?” Sure enough, my grandmother was sitting on my bed. “I thought you didn’t like to drive at night,” I added.

“Not liking to isn’t the same as can’t. But I’m not the one who should be answering questions, missy.

Just what would you be doing climbing in through the window at this hour? Where have you been, and what have you been up to?”

Before we continued the conversation, I climbed the rest of the way inside, and Owen joined me.

Granny patted the bed beside her, and we both sat down. “There’s something going on in town,”

Owen said.

She nodded. “I thought so. Those were some strange-looking young men. They’re using too much magic. They’ll run us all dry. Now, what does this have to do with you?”