Seventh Seal - Jacquelyn Faye Page 0,74

street."

Chief was walking closer to the wall, slowly reaching out his hand and pressing it against the magic barrier. As soon as he touched it, it sizzled and faded from view. There was a blast of heat, but it quickly dissipated as the damage came into view.

Something had blasted a hole through the front window of my store. Some of the display materials in the window were still smoldering, but that was the extent of the damage.

"Well, I think we can rule out a gas leak." He rubbed the toe of his shoe over the fire blackened floor at the base of the window, flipping a metallic ring covered in tiny fins over. There were several other mangled pieces lying around the site of the blast. "And that's something you don't see every day."

"What is it?" I moved closer and stood next to him.

"Looks like the tail piece of a rocket, but I'm no expert." He looked over at me, giving me a questioning glare.

"Somebody shot a rocket at my store?"

"That's what it looks like."

"Who the hell would want to blow my bookstore up with a rocket? The OWLs?"

"You know how much one of those costs?" Jason had moved closer to survey the damage.

I looked at the customers inside the store. Normally, a scene like that would have caused people to scream and scramble for safety, but there they all stood, too shocked to move. "Uh…folks? We're going to be closing early today. Take what you have and just head home. My treat. Sorry for the…boom."

An elderly lady closest to the register nodded, smiled, and headed for the front door, pausing to rub her hand over my shoulder before she left. "Thank you, dear. And thank you for saving all of us."

"Wasn't me. It was the store."

She winked and headed out the front door, the rest of the customers slowly following her lead. More than a few of them offered words of thanks and comfort as they passed. I waited to do or say anything until only my family and staff were left. The two newbies at the register looked like they needed to change their underpants. "You guys can go, too if you want."

The taller guy looked ready to bolt but stood his ground when his shorter female counterpart made no motion of leaving. "Well, at least go grab a coffee."

I looked up to see Josie and Candace standing at the entrance to the coffee shop from the bookstore. Josie raised her eyebrows at me and tilted her head. "What the hell happened?"

"We got blowed up."

She just shook her head and led the kids into the coffee shop.

"That's an RPG," Jason said as he bent down to inspect the piece of explosive on the floor.

"RPG?"

"Rocket-propelled grenade."

"And you know this how?"

"Video games."

"Seriously?"

He nodded solemnly. "Somebody wanted to turn this place into Last Moon Books."

"Funny." I rolled my eyes, anger overshadowing the fear that had been weighing me down like a wet blanket. "Who the fuck would blow up my store?"

"My uncle," Yuki said disapprovingly from the door. I hadn't even heard her open it.

"Uh. It's almost noon. Couldn't have been your uncle."

"You think he would shoot a rocket himself? Hell no. He'd hire some dumb human to do it."

She had a point.

"He's lucky he didn't do any real damage."

"Thanks to your wards and shields. Holy shit, Dot. I don't even think I could stop a bullet, let alone a rocket." Chief had a tinge of awe in his voice as he looked around. "If you hadn't had that strong of a shield over this place…"

"Yeah. Let's not think about it. I kind of want to throw up." I started breathing heavy and leaned against the counter, bracing myself with my hand and trying not to hyperventilate. Things could have been exponentially worse. A rocket launched into a building with that many people in it… The death toll would have been tragic.

He rubbed his hand over my back and the rest of the guys moved closer to support me. "Your shield is probably why we felt it so bad at the diner. The explosives didn't have anywhere to vent but out. Hence the gigantic shock wave."

"Shit. I need to go make sure everybody is okay over there."

"I'll go," Yuki answered and took off.

"I'll go fix the windows and give your apologies," Jason said solemnly and followed her.

"Pay my bill, too!"

He waved over his shoulder while I tried to get my breath back.

"Well, first thing's first. Let's get this place fixed up,"