Page 124 of Sigils & Spells

CHAPTER2

Well,at least Pippa wasn’t bored anymore.

Their spell had worked.

Sort of.

It had brought an inordinate amount of people to Zero, all of them paranormals and most of them eligible.

Most of them because what they hadn’t really foreseen—and probably should have—was that most paranormals weren’t loners by nature.

This meant that somehow their sleepy town of seventy-three residents ballooned to over five hundred in a matter of weeks.

First, a wolf pack moved into the area, then came a vampire coven followed by a coalition of Chameleons.

“Chameleons,” Tempest said in disgust when Pippa pointed out the newest group had to be chameleons. “There goes the neighborhood.”

“Oh, don’t be so judgmental, Tempest,” Natalie said. “I have it on good authority that Coalitions avoid running their cons in the communities where they live, so rest assured, we’re quite safe—probably safer, in fact, than if we had no Chameleons in our midst.”

“As if we have anything of value to steal anyway.” Jo snorted.

“Personally, if theyarechameleons, I’m impressed Pippa figured it out,” Morana said.

“Oh, they’re chameleons all right,” Pippa assured her.

“How exactly are you so certain?” Natalie demanded. “No one ever knows unless the chameleons admit it themselves.”

Pippa shrugged. “If you just think about it a minute, you’ll realize it’s quite obvious. They can’t be witches, unless we somehow screwed up our spell—”

‘We didn’t,” Natalie insisted.

“—and the wolves are all acting like they’re part of the pack while the vampires keep demanding to know how the chameleons are able to stay outside so long.”

“I can’tbelievethey told them a witch cast a spell on them.” Tempest scowled. “Those damn vampires have been pestering me for the spell ever since.”

“Personally, I was impressed a witch managed to reverse the original spell,” Natalie said, “and a bit envious of the power it would have taken.”

“Me too,” Morana said.

Everyone else nodded in agreement.

“I told the vampires there was no such spell,” Pippa said. “Then I told the chameleons that unless they wanted us to out them, they’d better come up with a better excuse for not turning beat red when outside during the day.”

“We should have specified loners,” Amaryllis lamented, glaring at her shoes. “I’ll never be able to go into town again.”

“Oh, come on, Amari.” Pippa slung an arm over her shoulders. “There’s no need for drastic measures. Anytime you want to go into town, we’ll go with you. We’ll run interference as often as you need us to.”

“Just say the word, Amari,” Rowan promised.

Amari didn’t respond.

“I heard the bookstore is reopening,” Natalie said.

Amari peeked up at her, then redirected her eyes back to her shoes. “Really?”

“Yes, really,” Natalie said. “It’s the one good thing with so many moving to Zero. We’re actually on the road toward having a functional town again.”

“What I don’t understand is why we’re suddenly overrun with vampires,” Tempest said. “In what world are vampireseligible?”

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