Not On My Patch: a Young Wizards Hallowe'en Story by Diane Duane Read Free Book Online

again not for long, and the crowd of them was now pressing in closer—
    “I was using the Sunstone on Wellakh this morning,” Dairine moaned, “and the damn thing’s still in phase with Thahit, it takes fourteen hours to get back in phase with Sol after I’ve been using it with its home star and I can’t pull power with it yet—”
    Something else then, Nita thought. Vaporization—
    And Kit’s earlier suggestion came back to her. Or canceling them out. If their raw material is coming out of the soil—  “You’re a genius!” she yelled at Kit.
    “I am?” he said, shooting again. “That’s great, maybe you could let me know how before I become a dead genius??”
    She’d been dancing around a lot as she fought, but now she made her way hurriedly back to where she’d put Jackie down, and stood next to him. “As soon as we see if this works!” she said. “Buy me a couple of minutes, okay? And then I’m going to need you guys to feed me power.”
    Kit nodded, got Ronan’s and Dairine’s attention, and they formed a loose triangle with Nita at the center. Much as she would rather not have done so, she closed her eyes so she could better see the spell she was going to be building in her head.
    She was furious, but right now that was a useful dividend, and Nita knew how to make that work for her: she let the feeling build. It’s not bad enough we have to deal with the Lone Power while we’re on active errantry, but it comes after us when we’re just having a little off time? This sucks. She scowled. This is not how I had my evening planned! A little candy, a little fun walking around and seeing everybody’s costumes and enjoying being dressed up ourselves. And then a little private time with Kit out in the quiet and the dark, just a little time during which the two of them were for a change not saving the world … Or blowing up zombies!
    But instead, what do I get? I’m part of the evening’s entertainment! Nita could just imagine the Lone Power sitting somewhere comfy, in a big black armchair or something, with its feet up, sipping a nice warm pumpkin spice latte and watching all this unfold. And then probably recording it somehow and sticking it up on Evil-Minion YouTube to share with all Its little followers. She scowled harder, opening her eyes. Yeah, well, I’ve got your pumpkin latte right here, nuisance boy!
    She grinned. Sun and water, she thought. But especially sun. Bobo, that complete dissociation matrix we were looking at a month or so ago? The one ‘too unpredictable and violent for everyday use?’
    I do remember that coming up for study, yes…
    Crack it out and restructure it for organic input.
    Organic?
    Get busy!
    She picked up Jackie, looked him? her? whatever— in the eye. “How would you like to get out there,” she said, “and have a chance to be the pumpkin you only ever dreamed of being before? The best one. The biggest one. With all the sun you can remember inside you at one time—”
    The feeling of utter longing and desire almost swept her away. If only!
    “Tonight’s the night,” Nita said. “All you have to do is remember that sun. All of it. It’s all inside you… and it’s what’s inside that counts.” She grinned a slightly evil grin. “Can you do that?”
    Can I!!
    “Then get busy and start doing it right now.” Bobo?
    Intention feed’s incoming, Bobo said. …It’s considerable.
    It’d better be. Build the spell and give it to me compacted. I need a semiphysical conduit to plug it into Jackie here.
    I have to warn you, the peridexis said, sounding concerned, if your adjunct’s intention flags, the conduit might short out and the spell might fail—
    Better hope it doesn’t, then, Nita said, or Long Island’s gonna be hip deep in zombies by morning. Ready?
    Delivering now.
    The spell flashed into life before her, hanging in the air in a set of nested circles about a foot wide. Okay, Nita said, not quite what I had in mind for this. She reached