Wicked Bronze Ambition

116

Little Strafa said, “Everyone crowd in again.” She rotated to face me, slightly to my right, cheek against my lower chest. She got hold of me good and Singe somewhat. I hoped she wouldn’t pull some Strafa stunt and get me branded as a pedophile.

She was a kid, though, despite some grown-up memories. Her mind didn’t run in those gutters.

She said, “Everybody shut their eyes.”

Naturally, I didn’t, so when my feet left the garden paving I watched the Algarda hovel sink away behind Moonblight. And saw Moonblight go deathly pale as she watched something behind me drop out of sight.

She was smart enough to shut her eyes; then she might have prayed. Her lips moved the whole time we were airborne.

It wasn’t a long journey, but it had its moment of drizzling brown terror. Little Strafa took us over a small plaza just in time for the opening salvo of a neighborhood fireworks show. We were not high up. Rockets cracked past. They exploded overhead. I squealed. Orchidia strained to keep her response inside. Moonblight muttered in some weird Other Race language and went right on keeping her eyes shut.

Explosions above betrayed us to the people below. Most decided we must be part of the entertainment. A few beetle-browed morons yelled for somebody to jump.

Idiots! Karenta’s richest resource is stupidity.

We settled onto Macunado. Two out of two witch women instantly declared, “We are being watched.” They pointed, not in the same direction.

“The house is,” I agreed. I waved to Preston Womble. He waved back, making no effort to be discreet. I didn’t see Elona Muriat. Maybe she’d gone to the riverfront for the fireworks.

A second party was less easy to identify. They might represent Belinda Contague or General Block. They were more professional than Womble, but barely so. They would rather be off watching fireworks, too.

Singe and Strafa paid no mind. Singe hustled to the door. She used her key. Little Strafa followed her inside. I was right behind with Brownie, still napping. Moonblight and Orchidia, with mutts, brought up the rear.

Penny emerged from Singe’s office. It was rare that anyone came into the house without being admitted by somebody already inside. She reddened immediately.

Singe barked, “You have been into my books again!”

“I was reading a story to Hagekagome. She likes stories. Where have you all been? We’re going to miss the fireworks.”

That was a diversion. Her real interest was Little Strafa.

Hagekagome, meanwhile, slipped past Penny, around Singe and Little Strafa, and glommed onto me. “Missed you! Missed you so much!” She hugged me hard with one arm while running her other hand over Brownie and sniffing. Brownie opened one eye lazily, gave Hagekagome’s face a big wet lick.

Little Strafa said, “My, my.” And to the sorceresses, “I see what happened. I think I get the mechanism. Grandmother overlooked natural law completely when she constructed her spell suite.”

Orchidia nodded. “Yes. It seems not to have occurred to her that if she regressed you, the regressed time and emotion would have to go elsewhere, into someone equally important.”

Believe it or not, I understood part of that, but the insight didn’t stick.

Strafa asked, possibly with a touch of concern or jealousy, “So, who is she, then? And if she is from twenty years ago, how come she isn’t as old as you?”

Ouch.

There was a new experience. I’d never seen Strafa jump into a big, steaming pile like that. That was more like something Kevans would do. Neither Tara Chayne nor Orchidia was pleased. The latter obviously considered reminding Strafa that she had kids the same age as Kevans.

Both sorceresses chose to make allowances.

There was enough grown-up Strafa in my girl to remind her that you don’t yank the beards of short-tempered older women, even unintentionally.

She didn’t show much more maturity with Hagekagome, though.

“Hey, you. That’s my man you’re climbing all over. Get off him. Stop rubbing yourself against him.”

She made it sound more intimate and sensual than it was.

Whatever had happened, it wasn’t simple and just physical. Hagekagome, honestly, was just trying to snuggle closer.

Tara Chayne, ever more practical than I expected, suggested, “Why don’t we think of a nice, private place where we can take the girls to watch the fireworks? And talk. It’s almost midnight.”

Almost time for the waterfront show. “Good idea. Strafa? Are you strong enough to make two more trips fast?”

Strafa eyed me like she wondered why I’d ask such a dumb question.

Inspiration had overwhelmed me.

“Back to the street, then. Everyone.” Dogs yawned, still loafing in people’s arms.

People moved without asking a bunch of questions. I appreciate that when it’s me wanting to get things done.

“We’re outside,” Moonblight said. “Now what?”

“Get into the place you were before, with your mutt. Orchidia, give yours to Hagekagome and put her in your place. Singe, same with Penny. We’ll fly. You lock the door. Strafa will come right back for you.”

Singe didn’t like the plan. Orchidia, though, understood. Singe chose to defer to her wisdom, though she couldn’t help saying, “Do not do anything stupid before I get there.”

“Hearing you five by five, Mom.”

Singe didn’t care where we were headed. She figured I could do something dumb and inconvenient anywhere.

Orchidia chivied everyone in tight around Strafa, who rotated to face me again, adding something extra as a message to Hagekagome, who never noticed. I was embarrassed about being the object of jealousy between children-even though, in a way, both were really my own age.

Singe was locking the door as we lifted off.

Neither Dean nor the Dead Man had made themselves evident at all.

I hoped no watcher got a wild hair and tried to break in. They might actually get away with something now.

Strafa whispered, “To the ridge in the cemetery?”

“You know my mind perfectly.”

“I am your wife. I will be your wife.” Stated with absolute conviction and an understood “No matter what!” “The view will be a little remote, but there won’t be any crowding. Not even the ghosts will get in the way of our conversation.”

My wife. There might be some social difficulties till she looked old enough for the job. Say, another three or four years. Plenty of girls get married, to get out of the house, by age fifteen. They wait five more years after that, even their overly protective fathers start calling them old maids.

Maybe by the time Little Strafa was ready for a real husband, she’d want someone a little more spry than the antique fart that I would be.