Dime Store Magic (Otherworld 3)

" Dime store magic?" Savannah said.

"Definitely. See here? Where the bone comes through? Now, if this was done correctly--"

I shivered. "Am I the only one totally grossed out by that thing?"

They both looked at me blankly.

"Apparently so," I muttered. "Can I skip this lesson? I'll start walking to Margaret's and you two can catch up."

"Paige is right," Cortez said, returning the Hand to the bag. "We haven't time for this. I would suggest, though, that we take the Hand along, so we can dispose of it away from the house."

I nodded and we headed for the back door. Cortez grabbed his leather jacket, then wrapped the bag as small as it would go and shoved it into the pocket. I couldn't suppress a shudder. Yes, I know I'd resolved to better accept the darker side of Savannah's nature, but I couldn't imagine ever toting around body parts as if they were tools like chalices and grimoires.

When we stepped outside, the evening was already growing cool and Savannah, dressed in a midriff-baring T-shirt, decided to run back in for a sweater.

Once she was gone, I pointed at the bag. "You really use stuff like that?"

"I use whatever works."

"Sorry. I didn't mean to sound ..."

"A lot of magical objects aren't things I would otherwise choose to handle. It's like magic. You can refuse to learn the stronger, more distasteful spells, or you can acknowledge that they may, under some circ

umstances, be necessary."

"I know that. With the spells, I mean. But I'm ..." I hesitated, then pushed on. "I'm having trouble with it. Getting my head around the idea that I might have to ..."

"Do bad to do good?"

I managed a small smile. "Good way of putting it. I've been thinking about that a lot. Killing someone to protect Savannah. I know it might come to that, but I've never ... And what if I had to do more than disable an enemy? What if protecting her meant hurting an innocent bystander? I'm really ..." I took a deep breath. "I really have trouble with it."

"So do I."

I looked up at him, but before I could say anything, Savannah burst through the door.

"All set?" I asked.

She nodded and off we went.

I spent the ten-minute walk to Margaret's thinking about the grimoires. What bothered me most of all was the realization that if only Savannah had felt comfortable talking to me about her mother, we could have cleared this up months ago. Now that I'd finally been ready to listen, it might be too late.

I was still working through Savannah's story. She said that the Coven-sanctioned spells were primary spells, which you had to master before you could progress to secondary spells. Only once you knew the secondary spells could you hope to successfully cast a tertiary spell, like the ones in my secret grimoires. I'd never heard of such a thing before.

Although Coven spells are divided into four levels, hypothetically, a witch could start at fourth level. It would be excruciatingly difficult, but not impossible. It's like programming languages. They start you out with something easy, like C. You learn that, then move on to the higher languages like C++. That's not to say you can't jump straight into a higher-level language. People do it all the time. But, if you've mastered something like C, the learning curve on other languages decreases significantly. You understand concepts like data structures and functions, which can be ported into any language.

What Savannah said implied something altogether different. If I understood her correctly, every Coven witch spell was a primary spell, the bottom building block for witch magic. Yet that didn't explain why I'd mastered four spells from the "tertiary" grimoires. Savannah said Eve hadn't been able to make any work. Now, I'd love to believe that I'd mastered them due to my superior spell-casting abilities, but even I'm not that smug.

Eve had stolen the grimoires from Margaret. I'd ... well, I'd pretty much done the same thing. The Coven maintains a library. The books are kept in a fortified closet in Margaret Levine's house. With advance notice, witches may visit the collection. Some books may not leave the house. Others may be borrowed. To borrow one, you have to fill out a card and return the book within a week. I think the only reason the Elders haven't instituted late fines is because I'm the only one who ever borrows anything.

Coven witches aren't even permitted to step into the closet and peruse the collection. Margaret keeps a list posted inside the door, from which they must choose their books.

Three years ago, as I was pestering Margaret for a better reference book on herbs, someone knocked at the front door and she took off to answer it, leaving the library. It was like leaving a kid with an open closet full of candy. The moment she was gone, I was in that closet. I knew exactly what I wanted. The prohibited spellbooks.

So why was I returning to Margaret's house now? Because I wanted answers. More than that, I had a hope, a slim hope, that Savannah was both right and wrong. That she was right about the existence of a grimoire that would unlock the spells I now possessed, and that she was wrong in thinking the Coven had destroyed it.

We arrived at Margaret's place, a two-story house on Beech. I opted for the rear door, both as a courtesy and so she couldn't freak out about me showing up on her front doorstep for all of East Falls to see. Being the village pariah does make social calls most trying.

I persuaded Savannah to wait outside with Cortez. Savannah understood her great-aunt well enough to know that Margaret would speak more freely to me alone.