Sorceress, Interrupted - By A. J. Menden Page 0,50

and take notice. It almost hurt to see him, because doing so brought back all my memories of Howard before age began to devour him. Back when I’d led him a merry chase and he’d willingly done the chasing.

There were differences I could see between Howard and his progeny. Where Howard had been loud and congenial, Adam was more reserved. “H-hello, Fantazia,” he said, looking about the room as if he expected something to jump out at him. “Granddad sent me.”

The pit of my stomach burned. I tried to remember if I’d seen him since the day Joseph and the others were attacked.

“Is everything all right?” I asked carefully. Maybe he was sick and needed a healing spell. But I quickly dismissed that idea; Howard was powerful enough to cast his own healing magic, and in the more major spells he could be assisted by Adam.

“I think so,” the young man said. “But he’s really upset about something. He’s been going on about it all day. Something to do with these attacks. He wouldn’t tell me—said it might put me in danger—but he wanted you to know the truth. He thought you might take care of it. He’s too worried to fight back on his own.”

I narrowed my eyes. “I’m not sure I understand, Adam.”

Howard’s grandson looked around. “No one can hear us, right? What I say won’t go out of this room?”

I shook my head. “I put a silencing spell on it.”

He looked pointedly at the djinn guards. “What about them?”

There was another way in which they differed: Howard was never this much of a drama queen.

I stifled the urge to roll my eyes. “Boys, can you give us a moment?” I asked the djinn. They nodded and took themselves outside, though not so far that they couldn’t be summoned back.

“Now, we’re all alone and no sound is getting out of this room,” I said, realizing how scary that might sound under the right circumstances. But I didn’t fear Adam, only that he was never going to get to the point. “What does Howard want? What does he know about the attacks?”

Adam’s dark eyes bored into mine. “Who’s doing them. And he wants you to stop them.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“Did he say who it is?” I asked Adam for the fifth time as he drove us toward Howard’s house in a gold-colored version of Lainey’s car, the PT Cruiser.

“He said it was safer for me to not know, that once you knew you could take care of it.”

Great, I was a superhero for the magic set all of a sudden? I briefly wondered what had changed that made them think I might sweep in to save the day. Granted, I was probably the most powerful of them, but when was the last time I’d done anything remotely heroic?

I turned back to Adam and said, “He couldn’t come to my place to tell me because it’s someone we both know.”

Howard’s grandson nodded. “He was afraid this person would see him there and suspect him. He apparently stumbled on something he shouldn’t have seen. He acted like he didn’t see anything, but if he suddenly shows up at your place—”

“This person will get suspicious. I get it. But, why couldn’t we just teleport to Howard’s?”

“Same reasons, I guess?” Adam blanched. “I’m as much in the dark about this as you are, Fantazia.”

I frowned. “If this is a trap, Adam, I will kill you.”

“He said you’d say that. He also said to say he’d never try to trick you. He values his life and my life too much to try.”

I smiled. That sounded like Howard.

We pulled up to a modest house in a nice section of town. It was a quiet, secluded neighborhood, away from the hustle and bustle that was Megolopolis proper, but still close enough that a trip to the city wasn’t too bad of a commute. The neighboring houses were all like Howard’s, well-worn but dignified and homey. They needed paint jobs or a new roof here and there, and the cars in the driveways were older makes, but everything was routinely maintained.

There were no nosy neighbors hanging around outside, no kids playing in yards. Somewhere off in the distance a lawn mower could be heard, and birds sang in the trees overhead while cicadas buzzed from somewhere hidden. No cars other than ours had pulled onto the street—which wasn’t enough to make me think anything was unusual, especially since I hadn’t been out and about this much for ages, but