Phantom of the Library - Lidiya Foxglove Page 0,40

wrong.

I waved my hands and let Chester go. “Go tap into Sinistral first,” I said. “Break that tie with Piers. And then follow me.”

“But—”

“Do you think I have time to argue with you? Helena’s in trouble.”

Chester, clearly used to being bossed around, meekly disappeared. I would have to trust him, although it seemed like that could go either way.

I rolled up my sleeves as I turned to the whole crowd of familiars nibbling on the foliage or catching bugs and voles in my yard while others were curled up in the sun taking long naps.

“Listen up! If you want to stay free, I need your help. My witch is the one who helped to free you, along with her friends, and now the council is after them and they also are working on some plan to bind you to them no matter what world you’re in, so…we’re all going to have to fight, and we need to leave now. Any questions? No time for questions. Come on. This is your one and only chance to answer to no one except yourself!”

Considering I’m always alone, I am enjoying this a little too much, I thought, as the familiars clustered around me, ready to follow me where they would normally follow their wizard.

I think my Helena did something really amazing.

Chapter Fifteen

Helena

I was almost inside the house when Bevan suddenly appeared with an entire army of familiars.

“Helena!” he shouted at me. “I’m here!”

“I didn’t call you!”

“I know.” He looked very pleased with himself. “But you never do, so what else is new? We’re here to help you fight…” He looked around. “Who are they?”

“The neighbors?” I winced. “But they’re not happy about potentially losing their familiars. Let’s try not to hurt anyone. I don’t really think they’re enemies. They’re just scared of change.”

“I think most enemies do come from being scared of change,” Graham said. “It’s more powerful a motive than you would think.”

“Very profound, Senator Capello, but I still don’t want to kill all the neighbors.”

“Then we could flip all the houses!” Billie said, as Gaston was gently putting an old man in a sleeper hold or…well, I hoped that was what he was doing. “Naw, I’m kidding,” she said. “I don’t really want to spend too much time in California anyway.”

As I was trying to defend the old people, Isaac lifted his arms and the tropical vine I was standing in front of reached out and started to strangle me.

“I will take your life force…!” Isaac declared, and as the vine tightened around my body I could feel all my energy slipping away.

One of my legs was still free. I tried to kick at it while it wrapped around my throat, strangling my voice.

Jake sprung to wolf form and attacked the vine with his teeth, tearing it into pieces. This was definitely suited to his skills. I broke free of the vine but not without damage.

“Thanks, Jake…”

The landscape was changing fast. Gaston had apparently gotten zapped by the wife of the old man he sent into unconsciousness, and now both men were out while Billie and the old witch duked it out. But the familiars had flooded the battlefield and the neighbors were on the retreat already. Thank goodness, because I was feeling dizzy while Isaac looked like he’d just taken a hit of something. I guess he had. A hit of my life force.

“Attention!” Isaac yelled. “Attention Avalon Woods Heights neighborhood association! We’re not winning this one, okay? They got too many numbers.”

“The council guard will return soon and fight with us,” Hepzibah said. “We just need to hold the line and they will remove these people.”

“But there are a hundred familiars on their side,” Zuzana said. “How did this happen?”

“Exactly. We’re going to have to stand down and figure this out.” Isaac gestured around. “You want to take all of our familiars away and make some kind of debacle out of Sam’s house? I guess we can’t stop you. But we better have a detailed explanation of what’s going on and then we’re going to put a curse on this house so you’ll never have any good fortune the whole damn rest of your lives. Now that, we can do.”

“The council will be back sooner rather than later,” Billie said. “But they might not be your friends. We’ve already had a fight with the Ethereal council.”

“That’s right,” I said. “Both councils want to stop us. We’re actually trying to help Sinistrals. Like Jake and Jasper, here. They’re werewolves so