Rowan Blaize and the Hand of Djin Rummy by Jonathan Kieran (free novel 24 .txt) 📖

Rowan Blaize

and the

Hand of Djin Rummy

Book Two

of the Enchanted Heritage Chronicles

By Jonathan Kieran

Excerpt

Leticia Beauregard and Gertrude Gokey were at it again, though to anyone remotely familiar with the pair across the centuries, use of the word “again” would seem downright superfluous. It is best, perhaps, to say that Letty and Gert are at it, as if no past or future exists. Consider them locked in a perpetual “now,” at least in terms of their mutual and relentless fidget.

Luckily for St. Augustine and various other parts of the world, theirs was a low-grade magical antagonism of viral proportions, and no one was ever injured in the fallout. Well, that is not exactly the truth. Only rarely did injuries occur, and then not necessarily on purpose. Most were victims of collateral damage due to dangerous, hurtling objects caught in perfectly understandable magical vortices, shockwaves, and minor explosions. In short, neither witch ever intended to injure anything or anyone hapless enough to be located within a reasonably distant radius of one of their arguments. They did not consider themselves responsible, however, for those unfortunate enough to be located within unreasonable radiuses.

Leticia’s lanky frame was draped like a crumpled, worn garment that had been casually tossed across the length of a recliner and its footrest. She was an almost horizontal figure, from her slipper-clad feet to her dignified but eagle-beaked hook of a nose. A cool compress of cucumber water, chamomile, and deadly nightshade was placed over her eyes, both of which were weary from having to stare for hours at straggling tourists on St. George Street and then at tourists poking, prodding, and (if they knew what was good for them) purchasing distinctive products in the pepper shop itself. Letty Beauregard was not a witch to suffer looky-loos lightly, except perhaps at the very end of the shift, when so much commerce and interaction with mortals took its toll upon her, along with the constant drain of bickering all the livelong day with Gert. This last, however, could sometimes be an invigorating and ever-renewable source of energy, too; it all depended upon the subject under “discussion.”

Unwittingly, and without any overt magical influence whatsoever, Letty and Gert seemed to have invented a Perpetual Motion Machine of Squabble. Others, of varying degrees of skill, had attempted and perhaps come close to such exquisite craftsmanship, but these examples were so many mere stabs in the proverbial dark, compared to what the witches had accomplished. Had mortal scientists ever managed to observe and experiment, they might have found a means of channeling the energy of Letty’s and Gert’s Incessant Wrangle, duplicating its dynamics in order to build the elusive device that would garner every prize and plaudit imaginable, to say nothing of the alteration of history’s very course through the cosmic continuum.

For now, however, the world of scientific achievement would have to settle for a distant second place.

Letty’s long, sinewy arms half-rested upon and half-dangled over the plush arms of the recliner, her knuckles barely grazing the tiled floor below. Gert, for her part, was fifteen feet away, perched on a sofa at the other end of the living room, watching her beloved television set and listening via the headphones Letty had insisted upon gifting her for her birthday in lieu of “gifting” her a television set that would be teleported directly out the window, through the muggy Florida air with lightning speed, and plunged with considerable explosiveness and satisfaction into the deepest part of the bay. Both witches were in their evening housecoats, sipping their preferred after-work liquid refreshments, which they described to anyone who ever asked as “iced tea” in summertime and “hot tea” in winter, but which was in fact datil pepper-infused vodka (with a splash of wormwood) all year round … and Bloody Marys with the same stuff on Sundays, when the shop was closed. Fondness for the datil pepper and for any alcoholic beverage that could be derived, concocted, or distilled from said pepper constituted particularly sacred ground—rare ground—upon which both witches were always united in unflappable agreement.

Like most witches, Letty and Gert had stomachs of steel and livers to match. A week earlier, Gert had even informed Letty that she once “Knew an old sorceress who actually had herself a zip-out liver! Why, this old gal could drink a jug of white lightning every morning for breakfast, burn down an entire forest with her breath by lunchtime, take her liver out before bedtime, give it a good wring into a bucket, put it back inside her belly, zip herself up, and pick up right where she left off the next day!”

Letty, of course, had told Gert to stop being such an idiot and go soak her own head in a bucket of moonshine, but for all she knew, the story could have been true. Gertrude Gokey always had some rather unusual and mystifyingly weird acquaintances, even for a witch.

Their tidy, spacious apartment above the store was cheerful and redolent with near-textbook grandmotherliness: lace doilies atop parlor tables; elaborate cuckoo clocks; framed embroidery upon the walls; large, blossoming glass bowls piled with cookies and nuts; potted ficus trees and window-sill planters lush with herbs and dainty flowers; knitting baskets crammed with yarn; little rolled-up tubes of Ben-Gay jammed between the sofa cushions or forgotten on knick-knack shelves. The casual onlooker would never believe that the two occupants of such a quaint space were frequently guilty of summoning-up any number of denizens in the Hierarchy of Hellspawn to exact little measures of domestic revenge or mischief upon each other in return for someone forgetting to wash out the teacups or empty the lint-filter in the dryer.

This particular evening in the House of Beauregard and Gokey was, so far, a relatively mild one in terms of attritional wars. Early on, both women had been in exceptionally pleasant moods, at least for them. Traffic in the store had been much better than usual, considering the busy season was over, and Rowan Blaize’s swanky All Hallows Eve party was very much in their thoughts. Gert had her ideas about what kind of grand entrance Letty was planning to make, and Letty had her own inkling about what Gert might try to do, but neither woman would dream of revealing to the other so much as a glimmer of open curiosity in that regard. Their minds were, in fact, spinning like windmills in a gale. Despite outward appearances of evening relaxation, each had been preoccupied with plans to outdo the other in grandeur this year, in ways that did not include stinging mud-baths and the drowning of Swamp Goblins.

Next to the satyr-headed coatrack by the “garage” (broom closet), a mammoth grandfather-clock was close to striking ten and Letty, as if aware something had been too long awry in their universe, finally found a reason to harangue Gert.

“Hey! Turn that blasted TV program down, Gertrude Gokey. I can hear fools jabbering right through those headphones, you inconsiderate old baggage!”

To Letty’s surprise, and to the disappointment of her habitually cultivated sense of antagonism, Gert grabbed the remote and complied without one of her usual, dagger-like retorts. Turning down the set, she leaned back on the sofa and took a luxurious sip from her martini glass, which was nearly the size of a small fishbowl and, like Letty’s, always magically chilled to a tantalizing, frosty temperature. Letty lifted the comforting compress from her eyes and yelled across the room.

“You figure Rowan Blaize remembered to invite Mr. Wagswrath, that old troll what lives up under the Bridge of Lions, to the party this year? He forgot to invite him last year and look what happened. Nice little family from Japan gets eaten up in a fit o’ pique and a whole country goes off-the-boil wondering what happened to them. Tokyo blaming the scandal of our American crime rate. Ha! The secrets we have to hold onto as witches! Take off them headphones, Gert, and listen to me. You think he remembered the invitation this year?”

“Wagswrath got invited. I remember Rowan telling me himself the other day!” shouted Gert in reply, never looking away from the TV set. The miniscule images of contestants waltzing on some dance competition program could be seen reflected in the twin shimmering black pools of her fixated eyeballs. “The troll’s lucky Blaize didn’t annihilate him for what he did to them poor Yakimotos. But Rowan knows as well as the next warlock—trolls’ll be trolls. Wagswrath has been invited this year, right enough.”

Then she took another swig from her martini glass and belched. There was not even a perfunctory “Why in the name of Nineveh are you asking me such questions?” from the lips of La Gokey.

Letty was not best pleased. She removed her compress and flung it onto a nearby end-table with indignation. She struggled for a moment and then gritted her teeth; a swiftly muttered spell brought her LaZboy into the full upright position.

“And what about Iggy the incubus, the drunk?” squawked Letty. “You think he got invited again? I only ask because the nasty little varmint got good and tossed at last year’s party and tried to put the moves on that Miranda, Rowan’s foundling or assistant or whatever she is. You think he’ll be allowed back?”

Gert shrugged her plump shoulders. “Who knows and who cares?” she yelled. “Everyone gets a bit tipsy at that party and even if he does show up, Miranda knows how to look after herself. At least, well enough for a mortal. I don’t expect Rowan or Miranda will hold too much against the lecherous Iggy. He’ll be there. Count on it.”

Gert’s eyes continued to devour the action on Dancing with the Stars. Letty’s eyes, riveted with umbrage, continued to devour Gert. After a moment, her stern, paper-cut of a mouth twisted as if chewing upon the world’s tartest lemon and she rose, imperious, from her recliner, marched across the floor and ripped the headphones off her housemate’s cornrowed skull.

“What’s the big idea?” squealed Gert, slopping a precious bit of Datil Vodka onto her lavender bathrobe. “They’re just about to give Misty and Puffy their scores for the Paso Dobre!”

Letty’s eyes darted with serpentine speed and cunning toward the television set. The screen went dead with a swift static sound and the remote in Gert’s hand evaporated, completely, in an acrid puff of black smoke.

“Well, I NEVER!” gasped Gert. “What do you think you’re doing, woman? I suppose I’m to be thankful my TV set didn’t blow-up just now into a million pieces of confetti, like last time?

“Don’t doubt that the thought crossed my mind,” said Letty, arms akimbo.

“What manner of bewildered bee has burrowed into your brazen bonnet this time, Beauregard? I thought we was having a real nice, relaxin’ evening, savoring our voddies and generally staying out of each other’s way, for a change. I can enchant that set back on just as well as you can shut it off. No remote needed. So kindly tell me what’s on your mind or let me get back to my show!”

“Something very ominous is on my mind, Gert Gokey, and I don’t mind telling you it’s giving me a slight chill down the spine and frankly down the backside, too.”

Letty glowered down at Gert like a towering pinnacle of doom, her slightly bloodshot but emerald green eyes ablaze with portent. This was certainly worth the interruption of a dance program. Gert took a bracing sip of her martini and considered her friend’s gloomy countenance. The grandfather-clock began to strike its mournful hour.

“By the jingles, what’s got you so spooked, Letty? I ain’t seen this kinda look on your face since that time we were back in the Old Country