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“If I wanted to leave the truck, I’m not sure you’d be able to stop me. But don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.”
I whipped a right turn down another side street, made a couple of blocks back the way we’d come, then turned back onto the highway in the opposite direction of the way we’d been going, behind the car that had been following us. I gave a friendly wave to Jason, the local police officer, who passed us going the other direction.
A second or two later, I heard a short burst of siren and looked back to see Jason pulling over the last car from the line of pursuers. “They made a U-turn right in front of a police officer,” Owen said with a grin. “Not very bright.”
While Jason had the one car pulled over, the other two cars made legal moves to get back behind us before I had a chance to turn off again. This town didn’t have nearly enough side streets, and they were spread too far apart.
“Another bright idea might really come in handy about now,” I said through gritted teeth as I tried to evade the rest of the apprentice wizards while sticking to the speed limit in a residential area where kids and dogs were likely to dart out into the street without warning. There was so little traffic on the side streets in our town that you could usually get through a whole game of stickball without interruption, as long as you weren’t playing during what passed for rush hour.
Owen got out his cell phone. “Sam? We could use some assistance. Are you up for scaring some wannabe wizards? Okay, great, and hurry.” He put the phone back into his pocket. “Sam will be here in a moment.”
Something occurred to me. “Where does Sam carry a cell phone?”
“He doesn’t. This isn’t your typical cell phone. It’s also a direct magical communication device.”
“Nifty.”
I was about to ask another question, but something dark swooped down out of the sky, zoomed over us, and then I heard brakes squealing behind us. I looked in the rearview mirror to see the car behind us turning around—in yet another illegal U-turn that, unfortunately, Jason wasn’t there to catch—and driving away rapidly with Sam in pursuit. “Gee, you’d think they’d never seen a gargoyle before,” I joked. “Now we just have one more, and we need to get rid of him before we can go home. We don’t want them finding our secret hideout.”
The final pursuer drove a little more cautiously. My necklace kept humming, telling me that they were still trying to use magic on us. “Do you think they can damage the truck?” I asked. “Was there enough in what you saw of the correspondence course for them to blow out a tire or something like that?”
“Don’t worry, I’m shielding the truck.” He sounded strained, and I glanced over to see that he was even paler and had beads of sweat on his forehead and upper lip. I didn’t think that was because of my driving.
“Do you have the energy for that?”
“Do we have much choice?”
“You could draw on me again.”
“Not while you’re driving.”
“Oh. Right. Give me a second. I may have an idea.”
I turned back onto the main highway, in the opposite direction from home. We passed the car Jason had pulled over, where he had all the car’s occupants spread-eagled against his police cruiser. As we went by the motel on our way out of the other side of town, I held my breath, hoping no more of the junior wizards noticed and joined in the chase, but nobody seemed to be hanging around the motel.
Now was the time to pray for a stroke of good fortune. If I was in a hurry, I never failed to run into a funeral procession or a slow-moving hay hauler on the two-lane road and either have to pull over for the procession or get stuck driving fifteen miles an hour with hay blowing into my face until I reached a safe passing zone. Now, for a change, I wanted to run into one of those things.
“Oh, glory hallelujah,” I breathed as we passed the small church on the outskirts of town. A funeral procession had formed, and the motorcycle officer escorting them was about to pull onto the highway to stop traffic. He waved me through with a grin, probably recognizing the truck as belonging to Dean. Then he pulled out onto the road and stopped our pursuer while the hearse, a limousine, and a whole line of cars made their slow, stately way onto the highway and to the cemetery a few miles away. “That should hold them a good ten minutes,” I said. It was enough time for me to circle back around the town on farm-to-market roads and get home safely.
Owen slumped in his seat, and my necklace went still. I glanced over at him, and he’d gone a grayish shade of pale. “Are you okay?” I asked.
“I will be. It’s draining to sustain that kind of magic around here, even worse than I realized. It’s almost like there’s nothing there at all right now. I can recharge a bit before tonight, and I don’t think we’ll have to worry too much about all our would-be wizards having too much force. If they haven’t learned good control, they’ll be burned out with one or two spells. In fact, the ones who were using magic while following us will probably be useless tonight.”
The next time I glanced over at him, he was sound asleep, his head resting on the window. I tried to be careful about hitting bumps or taking turns too fast the rest of the way home.
I had to wake him up when I parked behind our house. He already looked a little better, but he was still pale. Mom noticed that the second he set foot in the kitchen. “Are you okay?” she asked, taking him by the arm.
“I think his allergies must be acting up,” I said. Fortunately, Mom didn’t question me.
“I’ll make you some soup,” she said. “I may even have some homemade chicken soup from last winter in the freezer. It won’t take too long to heat it up. You just sit right down. Katie, you get him some juice.”
She went off to dig around in the deep freeze in the laundry room, and I poured Owen a tall glass of orange juice. I figured he needed the sugar as much as he needed the vitamins. I noticed Granny’s bottle of potion hidden in the back of the refrigerator, and I added a splash or two of that to the juice.
The earlier dose she must have given him hadn’t killed him yet, and there was always the chance it might help. Soon, he was being stuffed with soup, cheese and crackers, fruit salad, and cake for dessert. By the time he insisted he couldn’t eat another bite, he looked much better. He still appeared tired, but his color was healthier. Mom didn’t argue with him at all when he said he wanted to lie down for a while.
I could have used a nap myself, but I hadn’t drained myself of power and I was afraid to have no one on the lookout when we had gangs of rogue wizards out hunting for Owen. I shocked Mom by volunteering to do the dishes after lunch. It wasn’t because I was feeling particularly helpful, but rather because the kitchen window gave me a good view of the driveway.
While I washed, Mom fluttered around putting away the banquet’s worth of food she’d taken out in her efforts to feed Owen. “Are you sure he’s okay?” she asked. “Maybe he should see a doctor.”
