Page 54 of A Witch-ish Guide to Protectors and Pendulums

“They might be able to put me in contact with other members of my extended family.”

He shook his head. “Then I guess we’re going to Birmingham.”

We wrote down the information that we needed and when I stood and said, “It’s time to go,” the stairwell opened up. Connor grabbed my hand to lead me up the steps. He tried to keep walking, but I tugged my hand away to stop him.

“Fág mar aon ní amháin,” I said, hoping that, again, the witchy spell on the archives appreciated my attempt at pronunciation. When Connor gave me a weird look I shrugged. “What? Bad things could happen if I don’t close the archives. It has to be done.”

“Anything else? Put your left hand in? Pull your left hand out?”

“I’m not doing the hokey pokey.”

“Do you have the strength to manifest us to Birmingham or are we running?”

“I ate. We’ve been sitting for hours. I can’t be sure, but I felt something tingly when I drank my wine. I think it had some healing properties like the witches knew I needed it.”

“I love being a death hound, but witches are damn cool.”

“Yeah, they are. So hold on tight and I’ll manifest us to Birmingham.”

Getting Connor to do anything that involved getting close and personal with me clearly wasn’t a hardship for the man. Pretty much the moment the words left my mouth, he had himself pressed to my back, his arms around my shoulders. I sucked in a breath, closed my eyes, and pushed the thought ofWeik Laboratories, Birmingham, out into the world. At full strength, the manifesting came easily to me.

It literally took us the time from me closing my eyes and pushing the thought to opening my eyes again to find that we’d landed in an alley between two brick buildings. Huge buildings. Several stories up. I couldn’t know how wide until we headed out of the alley and I got to take in the full scope. Each building took up the length of the alley on their respective sides. Where I lived in my little corner of Michigan, we didn’t have these massive modern monoliths—ooh… all M’s. I liked how that sounded. Massive modern monoliths—No. focus Simone.It almost felt like the more my magic downloaded into my system, the more all over the place my thoughts traveled and I had a strong suspicion that little side effect would either become my best friend or get me into a world of trouble one day. I voted for best friend, but so far I didn’t feel like my vote counted for much in the universal elections. If there even was such a thing.

“Which building do you think it is?” Connor asked, snapping me out of my head. I startled then smiled at him. His eyes dropped to my mouth. “What’s that for?”

“What?”

“The smile. You take my breath away when you turn that smile on me. I can’t think straight.”

“I’m just glad you’re with me now.”

“Dammit, woman—” He snaked me into his arms again, pressing his cheek to the top of my head. “You can’t say shit like that when we don’t have time for me to act on it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Just save that thought for when I can get you alone. Now, before I say screw the world, which building?”

I shrugged. “Don’t know. It could be either one of these or it could be across the street. Magic lands us where it’s safest, where we’re least likely to be seen by someone who wants to burn us on a stake.”

“So you don’t have a feel yet?”

“It’s harder to pinpoint because there’s a lot of magic users here. That, I feel one hundred percent. And for the record, I’d rather you screw the Simone. I don’t want to share with the world.”

“Right,” Connor grumbled, wiping a hand down his face. “We need to start looking.” He reached for my hand and started to walk, leading us out of the alley onto the bright, sunny street.

“It’s that one.” I pointed to the building across the street from us.

“You sure? How do you know?”

Laughing, I dropped Connor’s hand to move his head in the direction I wanted him to look. Namely, at the sign on the front of the building that read:Weik Laboratories.

“I’ll be snookered,” he mumbled. “They just put it out there?”

“Sometimes the best defense is to hide in plain sight. No one is going to go there unless they’re seeking out their services.”

Because Weik Laboratories was located on a busy street, we jogged up to the closest crosswalk and crossed with the others,mostly non-supers, needing to get wherever they were going, too.

Connor pulled the glass and metal door open for me to pass through first.

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