A Hidden Witch (A Modern Witch Series: Book 2) by Debora Geary Read Free Book Online Page A

basement again.”
    He picked up an old hard drive and sat it next
to Moira’s melted heap on the table. “First, let me explain what
we’re trying to do. We think that one of the witches in Nova Scotia
managed to turn computer insides like these ones—into this.”
    Aervyn looked at the cooked hard drive in
fascination. “It’s pretty hard to melt metal stuff. They must be a
pretty good witch.”
    “Well, that’s part of the problem. We’re not
sure who did it, or how they did it. I thought we could do some
experiments and see if we can copy what they did.”
    Jamie stopped talking and let his nephew think
for a minute. He had his own ideas to try, but Aervyn was a highly
creative witch. Left to work out his own solution, he might well
come up with something none of them had considered.
    Aervyn looked up with a grin that gave Jamie
just enough warning to throw up a hasty training circle. Nell was
pretty lenient, but she drew the line at house fires. A few seconds
later, the edges of the hard drive were melted, but it wasn’t
anywhere close to the puddled goop of Moira’s drive.
    Aervyn frowned. “It’s pretty hard. The metal
doesn’t want to melt.” His eyes brightened. “I could do it with a
circle to help.”
    Jamie shook his head. “Not just yet, hot stuff.
We learned something important here. You used fire power, right? If
you can’t melt it by yourself that way, then that’s probably not
how this happened. We need to think of a different way to try.”
    Ginia held up a mouse. “If we believe it was
Elorie who did it, then she was using one of these.”
    Shay spoke up. “And she was on an open Internet
connection.”
    Jamie hardwired the mouse into the hard drive.
“Aervyn, do you think you can direct power through this?”
    For once, his trainee looked bewildered.
“Maybe.”
    Several tests later, including one where Jamie
and Aervyn joined forces, they had managed to do no more than melt
the edges of the hard drive, and one small witchling was a tired,
hungry boy.
    Jamie sent him upstairs for cookies and stared
at the failed experiments on the table. He looked up to see Ginia
eyeing his laptop with speculation. He’d been a witch trainer long
enough to know when trouble was brewing.
    “Don’t even think it, niece of mine.”
    She looked so innocent. “Think what?”
    “Whatever you were planning to do with my
computer.”
    “Not your computer, exactly. I bet I know how we
could do this, but I need a full computer, not just a hard
drive.”
    He hoped it was for a good cause. Jamie
concentrated for a moment and teleported one of the old clunkers
from his home office. “You can use this one, but use the firewalled
port to hook it up to the Net. We don’t want to fry anything else
by accident.”
    “I’m not going to fry this one—I just need the
screen interface.” She nodded to her sisters. “Help me wire the old
drive into the USB port.”
    Jamie sat and watched, and soon the old drive
was hanging off one of the clunker’s USB ports. They were good, and
he was still totally lost. “What are you planning?”
    Ginia flexed her fingers in a movement common to
master coders everywhere. “I’m going to melt it with spellcode. Go
away. I’ll tell you when it’s ready.”
    Damn. Why hadn’t he thought of that?
    He went upstairs to swipe some of Aervyn’s
cookies. By the time he came back, three faces were grinning with
maniacal glee. Mia bounced in a circle. “It’s gonna work, Uncle
Jamie. Watch!”
    Ginia focused, clicked twice with her mouse, and
the old hard drive hanging off the side of her computer turned into
a puddle. The acrid smell of melted metal underscored her
success.
    Jamie hugged his excited nieces and tried to
think. He was totally impressed. There was only one problem. No one
in Nova Scotia could spellcode their way out of a paper bag. Well,
Marcus could, but he hadn’t been the one sitting at Moira’s
computer when it fried.
    He was pretty sure they hadn’t