It Never Rhines but It Pours (4 page)

Cecily shook her head. “I do not hold a grudge against you, little witch. I am merely doing my job.” She raised the sword again. Man, she was eager to use that thing!

“Cecily, stop!” I commanded.

She froze and then glared at me, “You would use your power on me?”

“I’m sorry,” I truly was. “But we can’t just kill him without being sure.”

“Yes, we can,” she insisted.

“No, we can’t.”

“Yes, we can!”

“No, we can’t!” We were both yelling now.

Sarah raised her hand, “When you two are done acting like grown-ups can I say something?”

We both glared at her. “What?” I demanded, angrily pushing wet hair out of my face.

She smiled at me calmly, the annoying little twerp. “Cecily, you said that if we let him go we will all die.”

“That is correct.”

Sarah took a squishing step forward, “What would happen if, and I’m only saying
if
, he was innocent and we found the guilty person?”

The rain chose that moment to let up and a ray of sunlight shot through the clouds and bathed the scene in light. It was too dramatic to be a sign. I chose to believe that it was merely a typical Florida rain storm passing overhead and leaving sunshine behind.

Cecily looked up at the patch of blue sky and frowned. “Well,” she was obviously thinking, “as long as the correct person was punished, the Synod would not care that we let an innocent witch go.”

Pravus was still kneeling in the mud, looking wet, bedraggled, and miserable. “Are you going to kill me or not?” he demanded irritably. “Because this is really uncomfortable.”

Cecily raised her sword again, “I wouldn’t want you to be uncomfortable.”

“Cecily, stop it!” I grabbed her arm and forced her to lower the blade. Well, I didn’t force her. Cecily is a vampire and I could have hung my entire weight on her arm and done chin-ups and she wouldn’t have moved. That is, if I could do a chin-up to save my life, but you get the point.

“What are we going to do?” Sarah asked. She looked young and scared and I felt horrible for bringing her into all of this. This kind of stuff was way beyond her age and maturity. Hey, it was beyond mine too.

Cecily turned to me, “Well?”

I shuffled awkwardly in the mud, grimacing at my dirty flip-flops. I let out a huge sigh. “Pravus?”

“Yes, abominor?” he sneered.

My temper snapped, “Do you
want
us to kill you?”

“It’s bad enough that I have to be executed by a bunch of amateurs for something I didn’t do, but to have to kneel here and listen to your stupid conversations and answer idiot questions is cruel and unusual punishment!”

I growled and thought about snatching the sword from Cecily and using it on him myself.

“He’s right,” Cecily said. “He would say he was innocent even if he wasn’t. This conversation is pointless. I say we do our job and sort it out later.”

“Sort it out later!” I felt like pulling my hair out. “You can’t sort it out later when it involves cutting someone’s head off! It’s not like we can glue it back on if we make a mistake!”

“Why don’t you command him to tell the truth?” Sarah wanted to know.

“No,” Cecily said. “Some of the stronger witches can resist her command, especially if they are prepared for it. All they have to do is work a shield around their mind to protect against command. If Pravus did indeed murder those students in a death ritual then he is a
very
powerful witch and should have no trouble shielding.”

Cecily was right. I remembered back to my attempted breakin and robbery at the witches’ abortion clinic. One of the witches had been ready to obey me when the other one told him to “Shield his mind.” Maybe if I snuck up on Pravus when he wasn’t expecting it and commanded him to be truthful before he realized I was there. Maybe not.

“Wait!” Sarah cried. “I have an idea!”

“What?”

“Remember that newspaper article?”

“What?” I had no idea what she was talking about.

“The newspaper article.”

“What newspaper article?”

“Oh,” Cecily said, “that might work.”

“What might work?” I was losing it.

“The newspaper article,” Cecily answered as if that explained everything.

“If someone doesn’t tell me what is going on I’m going to kill someone!” I shrieked.

“Now you know how
I
feel,” Pravus muttered.

“You, shut up!” I commanded.

“Calm down, Piper,” Cecily soothed, “I think Sarah is on to something.”

“What?” I repeated. “And so help me, if you say ‘the newspaper article’ again I’m going to smack you.”

Cecily smirked, “Tempting, but I shall refrain. Sarah?”

Sarah drew a breath, “You have such a bad memory, Piper. It must come from being so old.”

Old my backside. I’d show her old if she didn’t tell me what in the world they were talking about.

“I showed you that article when we were at the police station. The one about the human lie detector.”

I still didn’t follow. “So?”

“Two birds, one stone,” Cecily said infuriatingly.

Light dawned, “Oh,” I said. “You mean, we should take Pravus to the lie detector boy and see if he is telling the truth.”

“No,” Cecily answered, “We should take Pravus to the lie detector and see if he is
lying
.”

“Wait,” I said dejectedly, “it won’t work. If Pravus is strong enough to resist my command, then he would be able to lie to the boy just as easily.”

“No,” Cecily corrected again. “Not obeying a command is totally different. To disobey you he has to be strong enough to resist. There is no resisting in lying. You are either lying or not, and if the boy has the ability to tell, then there is nothing Pravus could do to trick him.”

I paced up and down, shoes sticking in the mud. “So, what is the plan? We find this boy, show up and say ‘here is a deadly witch. Is he telling the truth?’”

Sarah rolled her eyes, “Don’t be stupid. We’ll tell him that we are writing a story for a newspaper and can we interview him. We’ll ask to test his ability and voila! If he has an ability, we can tell him the truth and if he doesn’t, I’ll wipe any part of his memory that would be troublesome.”

“I am really uncomfortable with you wiping people’s memories,” I said.

“You don’t trust me,” she snapped.

“It’s not that I don’t trust you, Sarah, it’s just that playing around with memories is a tricky thing. What if you erased something important? You could do a lot of damage.”

“So could you with your Voice!” she shot back.

“Yeah, but my command wears off eventually, you take away memories forever.”

“You’ll just have to trust me then,” she said smugly.

“This little family chat is so endearing,” Pravus said sarcastically, “but if you have made up your mind not to kill me this second, would you mind if I got out of the mud?”

Cecily slid her sword back into its sheath. “You may stand up, little witch. But I am watching you.” She tapped her fingers on the hilt, “These two humans may doubt your guilt, but I do not, and when the time comes I will enjoy taking your head.” She smiled, sharp teeth showing.

There was an uncomfortable silence. “Alright then,” I said with fake cheer. “Let’s head back to the car.”

As we tramped back the way we had come I heard Cecily mutter under her breath, “You can never trust a witch.”

Chapter Four:

The Human Lie Detector

“Now what?” I asked.

“Now we use some modern technology and track down this lie detector.” Cecily pulled out her iphone and started tapping away. Within minutes she had an address and we were on our way.

“Should we call first?” I wondered.

“Nah,” Sarah answered, “Let’s just show up. We’re much better at lying in person than on the phone.”

“Are we now?” I murmured.

“Yes,” she smiled sweetly, “we are.”

I felt an inward twinge. My little sister had way too much power and not near enough maturity. But if I tried to control her I would just drive her away. Now I knew a little of what my mom and dad were going through. Sarah was almost an adult and I had to treat her like one, but that didn’t mean I liked the choices she was making. I wished that I could talk to my mom about all this. It didn’t feel right to be helping Sarah lie to our parents.

We rode in silence. Cecily had typed the address into my portable GPS and I focused on making the correct turns in an unfamiliar city. Soon we were turning into a middle class neighborhood. It was gated but not the kind manned by a guard. I followed another car through the gate and we were in. A couple of turns and I parked the car in front of a cookie-cutter block house with the requisite baby oak trees out front.

I traded looks with Cecily through the rearview mirror. “Ready?” she asked.

I grimaced. Bringing humans into this supernatural mess could be tricky. I knew that Sarah thought she could fix any problem by erasing people’s memories, but I wanted that to be a last resort, not a first choice. Besides, I could envision situations where changing memories would be tricky if not downright impossible.

I sighed, mentally gearing myself up for trouble, “Let’s do this.” We all exited the car and I turned to Pravus. “You will be silent,” I commanded.

They followed me up the front walk and all stood back a few paces while I knocked on the door. There was no answer, so after waiting a few more moments I rang the doorbell. I heard the sound of footsteps and the door was opened.

A young boy stood half concealed behind the door and stared at me suspiciously. He was around fourteen or fifteen years of age and still in the awkward growing phase. His eyes took in me and then my companions behind me. When he got to Sarah his gaze seemed to stick. Perfect. I told her that she was a treat for adolescent boys.

“Ahem,” I cleared my throat. He tore his gaze off Sarah’s cleavage and tried to focus on me. I smiled. “James Miller?” I asked unnecessarily, he was a match for the picture in the newspaper.

“Yes?” He looked back at Sarah.

I glared at her over my shoulder. “We’re from the Orlando Tribune and we’d like to interview you for a human interest story.”

“Really.” He sounded skeptical.

“Yes,” I smiled brightly. “May we come in?”

He looked at me, “There isn’t an Orlando Tribune.”

“What?”

“It’s the Orlando Sentinel,” he explained. “You’re lying.”

I was thrown for a loop. Of course, why had I thought I could lie to the human lie detector? While I was scrambling, Sarah stepped forward.

She smiled seductively and laid a hand on his shoulder. “You’re perfect,” she purred. “We really need your help. Will you help us?” I swear she batted her eyes. I gritted my teeth. We did need his help but I didn’t think seducing him was a good plan. Too late to tell that to Sarah. James was obviously drooling under her spell. A purely feminine “I’m not wearing a bra’” kind of spell.

“Sure,” he stammered, “Come on in.”

Sarah followed him into the house and Cecily and I took the chance to roll our eyes. Pravus looked bored to tears, which I thought was rather calm for someone whose life depended on the next few minutes.

James led us into the living room and we all sat. He fiddled nervously with a magazine on the table and then spoke. “What do you need my help for?”

Sarah took a breath to speak but I silenced her with a deadly glare. “We read in the paper that you can tell if people are lying,” I said.

He nodded his head. “Yeah.”

“Well, we would like to see how good you are.” There, true but not the whole truth.

“Okay,” he said eagerly. “Everyone thinks it’s a trick, but I’m really good at it.”

I looked around the living room. I saw pictures with James and two adults who I assumed were his parents. “Are your mom and dad home?” I asked. I didn’t want them walking in and wondering what was going on.

“No,” he replied. “They’re both out. I’m home alone.” Someone should tell this boy not to be so honest with complete strangers. That same person should tell him not to let strangers into his house, but I wasn’t going to be that person. At least, not until we got what we needed. “We’d like to tell you some statements and see if you know if we are lying or not.” I said. I looked at Cecily and she shrugged. She didn’t have any better ideas. We hadn’t planned what to do in the car since Pravus was there listening. We were trying to look professional and like we knew what we were doing. I hoped it didn’t come back to bite us.

“Alright,” James said and leaned forward in anticipation.

“My name is Martha Little,” I said.

“That’s a lie,” James said quickly.

I nodded. “I have a small dog and a cat.”

“True,” he said.

“Let me try,” Sarah cut in. “My favorite movie is
Twilight.
”

“Lie,” James said with a grin. “I hate that movie too.” Oh good. They were bonding.