Page 37 of The Nowhere Witch

“You think you get to choose when you fight? Yes. Now.”

16

The monkeys had decided they needed an audience and had set up on top of a bookshelf in the office. The missed chords and off drumbeats echoed through the door before I even walked into the office that morning.

Oh, this wasn’t going to be good.

I strolled in as if nothing were amiss, as if I didn’t feel like I’d been turned inside out by Bautere, like the monkeys weren’t torturing people with their music, and like I didn’t see dust bunny tracks trailed across the floor.

“Hey, all,” I said with a smile, as if everything was good. I might’ve added a little too much perk to sound natural and had declared my guilt instead.

Musso’s grunt was a little rougher than normal. Bibbi wasn’t looking up fromhertable, too scared to make eye contact.

Zab looked up at me. “Haven’t I always been a good friend to you?”

“They’re notthatbad.” I glanced over my shoulder at the monkeys before turning back to him. “They’re actually improving a little.”

“Everybody’s a critic,” Hear No Evil said from his perch. The rest of the band was shooting Zab dirty looks.

Of course the dust bunny decided to streak across the office right then.

“Dusty, I told you, outside only,” I yelled in the direction I thought it went, guessing by the plumes.

“You named it?” Zab asked right before he coughed. He went to take a sip of his cocoa but put the cup down. “It stole my cocoa again.”

Ah, shit. I’d forgotten to get it cocoa this morning. Although Zab was the last person who should be complaining about the bunny. I’d take the heat for the monkeys, but that was where I drew the line.

“Hey, the dust bunny problem is as much your fault as mine,” I said.

He groaned softly as he slumped, covering his face. Musso was shaking his head and Bibbi was still looking straight down, afraid to glance up at me.

“Look, I’ll get you another cocoa as soon as I get back from my errands,” I said, grabbing my coat before the band started back up.

The last thing I would do was hang around the office and wait for Hawk to show up while I watched Bibbi do my job. I hit the street, ignoring the sneers and nodding back when it was appropriate until I made it out of town.

I hiked my way up to the wall, spending my time wondering if Helen wrote Bibbi notes and ground her wheels a little faster whenshewalked in. It fueled me up the hill a little faster, and without one of Hawk’s nifty doors, it was a long haul. Even with two layers of socks and the heaviest clothes I owned, the fifth wind seemed to favor the mountain.

Hopefully Hawk would be off handling something else, somewhere else, and he wouldn’t get the satisfaction of knowing I was up here, that I cared about the cracks in the wall, though of course I did. This place was my home too. It had been before he’d booted me, and I didn’t need anyone to tell me to protect it. Seriously,Iwas the protectorate. Who did he think he was? Offense didn’t tell defense how to guard the goal. He needed to stay in his own lane and stop acting like the king of everything.

The second I got up there, I remembered why I’d hated this place. It felt worse than when I’d left it. That feeling, the soul-sucking dread that made you think you’d rather be dead than live another minute, was seeping back into the area. You could be having a perfectly splendid day and the second you felt it, it was as if the world around you was burning down and screaming in agony. It wasn’t full force, but it was growing again.

Right after I’d done the spell that built the wall, it had gone away. Or I’d thought it had. Maybe I’d been too out of it to notice by that point. It was here now, though, its dark magic leaking out and getting its tendrils past my barricade.

Not only was the evil feeling back, but the hatred too. This thing hated me with a special kind of intensity, and I didn’t think it was just about the wall, as insane as that might seem.

Either way, something had to be done. There was no doubt that there were breaks, but could I repair them? I hadn’t really known what I was doing the first time. What if I messed the wall up and made the weaknesses worse?

I was getting ahead of myself, though. First I had to find them. Easiest way to do that was to follow the feeling of dread. I took a step to the left and wallowed in the misery for a minute before taking a step to the right. Oh yeah, definitely to the right.

“I could’ve gotten you here faster,” Hawk said.

“Are you following me?” The cold melted away as my blood boiled. I shot him a look over my shoulder that told him how I felt about company.

“Of course not. You hiked up here. Why would I possibly do that?”

“You just happened to be here when I came?”

“You seem to forget that this has been my concern before you even knew Xest existed. You said you weren’t interested in the cracks, so why would I think you’d be here?”

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