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As they remained several yards above ground, Moni willed herself not to look down. Flying hadn’t ever been her thing because she suffered mildly from a sort of vertigo. She was okay as long as she didn’t have to gaze down for any length of time. It was different riding on a broom or pitchfork than climbing a ladder, because when she was earthbound she never got dizzy. But up above Mother Earth, all bets were off.
“Hey, Moni,” Luca hissed at her. “Don’t be intimidated that our Forks can be remote controlled like drones. Look above your hands where they are gripping the handle, see anything?”
Moni squinted. She’d forgotten her glasses yet again, and anyway, she was just slightly nearsighted and didn’t need them. Not to mention she had an aversion to being afour eyes.
“There are some screws or rivets or something,” she hissed back.
“Yeah, well, the top one there blocks the remote signal if you press down on it twice! I studied this model in a Witchtech Owner’s Manual. But don’t?—”
He was going to tell her not to touch it, but due to Moni’s inquisitive and impulsive nature Luca was too late. The next thing he knew, she had abruptly dropped from her place right beside him in the air and was falling to earth!
Funnily, time seemed to go into a slow motion mode, and though Moni could see the meadowland rising up from below her, she felt no sense of panic. But she was having a problem figuring out which of her repertoire of memorized spells to use to stop from crashing to the ground.
She began by reciting the Yellow Magic SpellSuspendi Motuseven realizing that she did not know how to focus the energy of the spell on herself rather than having it affect the other flyers or even the entire class, when she noticed that Luca had chosen to join her in her fall, his pitchfork in tandem to hers so that he could easily reach over and press another button on the handle that immediately stopped her plummet and caused her Pitchfork to rise up again and resume its proper place in the formation.
Luca was again beside her within two seconds, and she shot him a grateful smile as he seemed to laugh and waggle his finger at her.
The wind at that altitude was high enough to carry away any spoken words, but Moni read his lips as he mouthed,
“Such a naughty little witch!”
After class, Shady had an appointment tutoring a young witch who couldn’t get herExponentia CaeruleumSpell to work well enough to pass the upcoming finals in Novice Magic, but Broody, Luca and Antimony decided to spend the hour between classes relaxing in the Hellcat Café, one of three student coffee bar eateries, and the only one that served sushi.
As they manipulated chopsticks and dipped the tasty morsel in a variety of savory sauces, Moni decided to share her most recent discovery.
“I found my relative, the one I’d heard was working here at Pitchfork Prep Academy. He is one of the Professors, actually.”
“Let me guess which one,” Broody said, popping a Tako Nigiri and rolling his eyes briefly at the exquisite taste. “Might it be Professor DeSapientiae?” he guessed. “You look kind of like her, actually!”
Moni recoiled slightly, looking incredulous. “How can you evensaythat? You’re joking, right? You know they say she wears that turban thing on her head to hidehorns? Apparently, she is a freak, and her coloring is nothing like mine!”
“Well, she has great tits!” Broody said pleasantly. “Just like yours! And I, for one, can overlook a few extra bumps on the head for a perfect set of titties! I would totallydoher!”
“Your sexual leanings tend to be bizarre, Broody, always have been. After you met and started dating that one underclassman with two vaginas, Shady and I didn’t see you for weeks! You barely came up for air! I nearly lost my best friend!”
“What can I tell you, I’m a connoisseur of the Vag, among other things,” Broody said airily. “Anyway, so it wasn’t Professor DeSapientiae?”
“No, it wasn’t,” Moni snapped. “And as it turned out, he recognizedmebefore I foundhim.Professor Weasel is my long lost Uncle. He was not close to my father because they have different fathers, and on becoming an adult, he changed his surname to Weasel from Crockett. He seems pretty nice. He does have the Crockett chin dimple, I noticed. Very intelligent and he went out of his way to assure me that he had also been searching forme, off and on, after hearing about my parent’s bizarre accident in the high country. He said knowing I am his niece would probably cause him to be harder on me in class, so not to expect any favors. As if I ever would anyway. And he also told me to feel free to seek him out if I had any problems or difficulties. Which I thought was nice, that he wanted to be there for me in some way. It’s something I’m not used to and never expect. It feels kind of weird, in a good way, I mean.”
“Well, I’m happy for you,” Broody said.
To which Luca added, “It does seem fortuitous that you managed to connect with him but Moni, please, be careful .He is a relative—pun intended—stranger. Just because he’s blood doesn’t mean he has your best interests at heart. Broody and I wouldn’t ever pry because we don’t give a shit, but rumors around school hint that you are some kind of heiress, that your folks left you a lot of money… What I’m trying to say is, some people might want to get close to you because you’re rich!”
CHAPTER FIVE-PLAYING DOCTOR/HOMECOMING
“Idid what you asked,” the heavily perspiring Professor Weasel insisted as he looked warily from one half shadowed face to another. “I made contact. I let her know who I am. You never said there was anything else!”
The middle figure was taller than the rest, and as he stepped closer to the nervous Dr. Weasel, enough light shone on his face so that the Professor could see the sneer on the unwelcome visitor’s lips.
“I apologize for the misunderstanding, but our association will continue until we have achieved our objective,” he said in a quiet voice that was liberally edged with menace. “We need to make an acquisition, and for that to happen you need to have more than a cursory, casual relationship with Antimony Crockett. You must ingratiate yourself to her. Become her favorite Uncle. Win her confidence to the point where she relies on you and trusts you. She will be hungry for connection, having lost her brother, and with her family declining in number since the last century. You are a very well spoken and charming man. I am sure that this is a task you are equal to,” the figure finished.
Professor Weasel would have trouble sleeping that night, as it turned out. He had made the mistake of looking down atthe feet of the robed figures that had come into his classroom, quietly closed the door, pulled the shade over the window, and cornered him for a privatepep talk.
Although the exposed portions of their anatomy from the waist up seemed normal enough, even their exposed hands looked like the hands of any witch or warlock, their feet were something entirely different. They had feet that were those of a giant lizard, all of them. He could see the rough lizard skin and the claws protruding out from under the bottom of their robes.
That meant that they wereextra. They were not only witches, but something more sinister. He had no desire to find out what they might do to him if he did not heed their instructions.
Moni could hear the raucous music emanating from the room she shared with Broody and Shady—who was now going by the moniker ofThe Fabulous Shade—filling the corridor as she walked toward it. Before she could open the door, she was met by a sweating and exhilarated looking Luca.
