Page 27 of Dream Weaver (Spellbound in Sedona #3)

ABBY

“Closing time, Abby,” Walt called quietly.

I didn’t so much as glance at the clock. I just kept hammering away.

Normally, my boss communicated in a firm boom. Now, his voice was soft and gentle, like I might break.

And, hell. I was close.

“Now, Abby…” Walt murmured, coming over to me.

Even Louie, his floppy-eared mutt, looked at me with pity.

I stopped hammering but kept my eyes on the anvil.

Drip… Drip. Beads of sweat fell from my chin to my project — the very last ax head.

Walt reached out to touch my shoulder, then stopped and sighed when I shuffled away.

“Listen, you’ve had a long day…” he started.

Ha. That was one way to put it. First, Cooper, then Claire. She’d been delighted to see Mike after school, but when we’d arrived at the metal shop and discovered Cooper gone, she’d been crushed.

Me too.

But… But… Like a dog looking for its owner, Claire had run around the metal shop, checking my workspace, Cooper’s locker, the parking lot…

Her hands had formed tiny fists, and she’d faced me, furious.

How could you let him leave? How could you?

The same question I asked myself, over and over.

I thought my heart was already crushed, but Claire’s tears proved there was a bit left to torture. Even worse was the fact that she only shed one or two tears, then turned away to hide them.

Like mother, like daughter. She was that tough.

I hung my head in shame.

In the end, Claire refused to talk to me, and Mike had taken her home. I remained at work, banging away.

“Time to take a break, don’t you think?” Walt finished.

I shook my head sullenly. No, I didn’t. I couldn’t. I couldn’t face Claire or home or my family. I couldn’t face anything. I just wanted to curl up in the forge and hide for a while.

Louie leaned in, meekly thumping his tail against my legs.

“I’ll close up.” My voice was dry and raspy.

Walt stood there another minute, then walked off with Louie, shaking his head. He stopped briefly at the door to call back, “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” I murmured into the flames. Then I took a deep breath and went back to hammering.

How long I worked, I wasn’t sure. Traffic on the main road peaked, then fell. I finished shaping the last ax head, then got to work on etching the blade. The sun set, giving way to a cloudy night. My phone rang, then pinged with a text.

Are you coming for dinner? Erin asked.

Go ahead without me , I typed back and shut off the device. Then I went back to work.

I was still working when the front door creaked open an hour later.

“We’re closed,” I called without looking up.

“Sure look open to me,” a man drawled.

My head jerked up as Jay sauntered in from the darkness. I reached for my hammer, tempted to throw it at him.

Shadows shifted behind Jay, and Liselle followed him in. Her dress had a metallic sheen and was gaily lined in vertical, rainbow stripes — perfectly appropriate for a socialite lunch.

If only it were noon and we were at a trendy restaurant.

But we weren’t. We were alone in a strip of businesses that had all shut down for the night.

Two men filed in after Liselle, and she nodded to a third outside. I heard footsteps crunch as he took up a lookout position.

My nostrils twitched. Were those three men the cougars Cooper and I had confronted at Devil’s Bridge?

I twirled my hammer. “We’re closed. Come back tomorrow at nine.”

“We’re not here for business,” Jay shot back, looking dangerously cocky.

I glanced toward my phone, wishing I hadn’t turned it off and tucked it away in my bag.

“Now, now. I’m sure you can spare a few minutes,” Liselle cooed. “You and that lovely daughter of yours.”

My blood turned to ice, and I thanked my lucky stars Claire was safe at home.

“If she’s even here,” Jay grumbled. He stalked around, looking behind tables and yanking lockers open as if Claire might be hiding there.

“She’s not,” I growled. “Now, get out.”

“The hell I will!” Jay stomped forward but halted like a dog when Liselle snapped her fingers.

Wow. She really had him under her spell. Then I frowned. Literally?

“Step outside, Jay,” she said in a perfectly even tone.

He turned to her with glassy eyes.

“Step outside,” she repeated in a monotone.

Her mind-bending wasn’t aimed at me, but I could feel the air tingle.

“Sure thing, babe,” Jay murmured, strutting for the door like he was in charge, not her. “You call me if you need anything.”

I had the sinking feeling he was nearing the end of his shelf life when it came to being useful to Liselle. What then?

The thought sickened me, but that was his own doing. I had to think of myself and Claire.

I piqued my senses so as not to fall for Liselle’s mind-bending again. I’d been distracted when I’d visited her home, but I sure as hell was on guard now.

“What do you want?” I demanded.

“Not much. Just that brazier I ordered.”

“Well, I hate to disappoint you, but it’s not done.” And it never would be. Not by me, at least.

“I need you to make it. Now.”

I laughed, indicating the clock, then the darkness outside. “Now?”

She nodded sweetly. “Now would be perfect, thank you.”

Such a bitch, yet so polite.

“Well, we’re closed, as I said.”

“Oh, I’m sure you can manage.”

“I’m sure I can’t.”

She smirked. “You haven’t asked me what I’m offering in exchange.”

Right. Like she was here to close a fair deal.

I tossed my hammer from one hand to the other. “I’m not interested in anything you have to offer.”

“Oh, I think you are. Just consider, what is your daughter worth to you? What if I could make that custody case go away?”

The custody case she’d bankrolled. I was sure of it now.

“Like any judge would award Jay custody,” I scoffed, sounding more confident than I felt.

She slid a manicured finger across Bob’s workbench. “Maybe. Maybe not. But custody battles cost money. Lots of it.”

Money she had, and I didn’t.

“And the process can be so confusing, even harmful to an innocent child…” she went on.

I swallowed hard. She had a point there.

“But I can make all that go away,” she cooed.

The itch at the back of my mind became a burn.

“No need to do things the hard way,” she said, friendly as can be. “All I need is that brazier, and that custody case will go away, along with Jay.”

Tempting, but no way.

“You mean, scraping at vortexes with the ax you stole isn’t getting the results you wanted?” I said, laying out my suspicions.

Her eyes flickered. Obviously, her efforts had failed so far. The question was, what result was she after?

“That’s my business, not yours,” she snipped. “Just make me that brazier.”

“I’d rather face that custody suit, thank you.” I made a show of cleaning up my workspace. I did keep hold of my hammer, though.

“You think I don’t have other forms of collateral?” Liselle arched an eyebrow. “Say, this town.”

I frowned. What did she mean?

“Let’s say misfortune rained down on beautiful Sedona.” Liselle circled me, predator that she was. “Just think — if a wildfire were to strike here at the peak of the dry season, and the winds were to kick in…”

A bush swayed, scraping my car in the back lot. But that was hardly the tempest Cooper and I had survived at Devil’s Bridge.

Magic was a cloak that shimmered around the shoulders of powerful witches and warlocks. But Liselle only had the barest glint, and most of that came from the dazzling effect of her dress.

Then again, it didn’t take a tempest to whip a tiny fire into an inferno. A small, steady breeze at the right time and place could be just as dangerous.

“Just imagine — all that property damaged, all those lives at stake.” Liselle sighed sadly, like she was watching a documentary and not actively plotting arson. “All those firefighters, risking their lives…”

I tensed. Was she that ruthless?

The sparkle in her eyes said yes. Very.

My mind jumped to Cooper, Rich, and the other members of the Yavapai crew. To those killed in action, like Kevin and Peter…

Then I froze, recalling what Cooper had said.

I met her during a job in Nevada. The Clark Canyon fire.

And not just that, but something about her making a scene after his brother turned her down.

My mind spun. The brother who’d been killed in a fire.

I stared at Liselle. Had she…? Would she…?

My knuckles tightened around my hammer.

“Such heroes, those firefighters…” she lamented. “And with so many other fires to fight. Wouldn’t you like to spare them one more?”

“Wouldn’t you?” I snarled.

“Of course. And it’s all perfectly avoidable — if you help me.” She leaned in. “I ask so little of you, really. Yet you stand to gain so much.”

“ You stand to gain, you mean.”

But what exactly was that?

Power, the back of my mind hummed. Unfettered power.

Liselle had been trying to siphon the energy of the vortexes with the stolen ax. Maybe she’d even succeeded but needed a more effective tool, like the brazier she’d shown me.

Those slots along the top edge are especially important, she’d said . I love how they make the smoke swirl.

Part of a recipe for magic?

“Let me spell things out,” she chirped. “You get nothing for doing nothing. But if you help me, I’ll make your custody problem disappear.”

And replace it with an inferno? No, thank you.

“You know, I don’t get it,” I admitted. “First, you try to kill me…”

Her eyes glowed. “Oh, that little storm at Devil’s Bridge was just a warning.”

No. It had been a goddamn tempest, but I doubted she’d been the one controlling it. Who, then?

“A warning?”

She nodded. “Not to mess with me. Just make me that brazier, and there won’t be trouble.”

I didn’t buy that for a minute, but I indulged her, just to gain time to think.

“And you want it done…when?” I asked.

“Tonight.”

My eyes nearly bugged out of my head.

“You can skip the runes,” she added. “Those were just for show.”

“Oh, well. In that case…” I muttered.

“Get to work,” one of the men muttered, drawing a gun.

All the blood drained from my face.

“Picture that gun aimed at your daughter.” Liselle smiled.

With my phone out of reach, I tried screaming to my sisters in my mind, but my cries seemed to bounce back from a brick wall.

Liselle’s lips curled, and the lipstick that matched the peach stripe in her dress glinted.

Shit. I could resist her mind-bending tricks, but I was blocked from reaching out to my sisters. I couldn’t reach Mike or Greg either.

“Come now. It’s just a little brazier,” Liselle cooed. “That’s all you have to do.”

My mind spun, trying to formulate some plan. But all I could come up with was to stall for time.

So stall, I would. All night if necessary.