Free Switchblade Goddess by Lucy A. Snyder Page B

enemy.
    “Yeah. She’s been by.”
    “What did she do?”
    “Frowned a lot and talked to dudes in suits, mostly. Nobody who looked like a Regnum agent, though,” he quickly added, apparently realizing my worry. “Anyhow, she told me that if Cooper and the Warlock didn’t bring everyone out in twenty-four more hours, she was going to have to take action.”
    “What kind of action?”
    Randall shrugged. “She didn’t say. But if Dallas Paranormal was on this, I know exactly what we’d do: we’d drop a localized isolation sphere on the house, then cast a magic-suppression spell and fill the house with knockout gas. Get in, bring everyone out, pump Junior full of magebane, and take him to juvie for psychological evaluation. And if he’d seriously hurt anyone in the house, he’d be staying locked up for a good long time until everyone was sure he’d been civilized.”
    “How are Acacia and Horatio? Were they badly injured?”
    “No, they were just shaken up a bit. Some bumps and bruises were the worst of it. They’re mostly worried about the kid, can you believe it?”
    “Yes,” I said. “Mother Karen says they’re really nice people.”
    “Yeah, they seem supernice. But, seriously, the kid could’ve killed them; if some little shit tossed me three stories, I sure as hell wouldn’t want to take him home with me afterward, you know?”
    “Kids screw up; that’s just what they do,” I said, thinking back on the stupid, hurtful things I’d done when I was young. Yelling. Hitting. Telekinetically exploding Eddie Chong’s PlayStation. Setting my bedroom on fire.
    I hadn’t meant to do any of it, and I knew what it felt like to be rejected by family because of it. “Good parents always give second chances.”
    “Well, when it comes to people trying to kill me, I’m a one-chance kinda guy,” he said lightly. “And that’s why I always carry clean ammo and fresh condoms.”
    * * *
    After I finished talking with Randall, I closed the mirror, thinking hard. Even if my brother didn’t know what was happening inside the house, I could contact Karen myself and find out, couldn’t I? I reopened the compact and spoke Mother Karen’s name. The image cleared to a view of her office, which was still a wreck. But at least it seemed no worse than before.
    “Karen!” I called. “It’s Jessie, are you there? Kaaaren!”
    I kept at it for nearly three minutes, getting more than a few annoyed looks from nearby Talents who understandably liked a little peace and quiet for breakfast. This was likely the magical world’s equivalent of the Most Annoying Cellphone Call Ever. But Karen never showed up. Finally, I closed the mirror and stared down at my cold food.
    “The guys aren’t coming back today, are they?” I said to Pal.
    He shook his shaggy head. “It doesn’t seem likely, no.”
    “Well, damn.”
    “Indeed.”
    I stabbed my fork into my frittata and began to grimly eat breakfast.
    “Do you have a plan?” Pal asked.
    Well, more or less
, I thought back to him as I took a drink of my iced coffee.
    “Care to share?” He gulped down a ham slice.
    “Well, first off I need to memorize this list that Sara gave me.” I pulled the yellow paper out of my pocket and unfolded it. There were fourteen names printed on the sheet. I studied them, trying to get a feel in myhead for the rhythm of their syllables. “If I can figure out a tune these go with, I should be able to get them all stuck in my head in an hour or so.”
    “And then?”
    I shrugged. “Find Miko. Negotiate like Kissinger and get her to give up her souls. If that doesn’t work, administer an epic beat-down and bring out whoever I can grab. Get the hell out of here and go home.”
    “Your plan lacks a certain specificity, I think,” Pal observed.
    “If I lay my plans any more carefully, you
know
there’s going to be a rain of toads, or the earth is going to open up and we’re going to be swarmed by a million angry lava gnomes or some