Page 13 of Hell and Hexes
I stood. “Really.” Digging in my purse, I pulled out one of my amulets and gave it to him. “No one will see you coming and going from my office while you’ve got this. Be at my office every Sunday at nine in the morning, and you and Stanley can talk. Heck, I’ll even spring for donuts and coffee.”
He grinned, then his smile faded. “But what am I going to tell the pack?? They’re nosy as all heck here. Someone is going to want to know why I’m going into town every Sunday morning, and, amulet or no, they’ll probably follow me if I don’t have a good answer.”
I told him my plan, then he laughed, tucking the amulet in his pocket and struggling to get to his feet.
“Dang, Bart, how bad did Melvin stab you?” I asked as I handed him a walking stick.
“Clean through my leg,” he told me. “Bled all over the place.”
I deactivated the silence charm and tucked it back into my pocket before helping Bart to the door. When I opened it, I was glad I’d used the charm because there had to be two dozen werewolves crowded around outside Bart’s house, all staring at him with eager anticipation.
“What’d you win in the raffle, Bart?” one shouted.
He stood for a moment, eyeing them all with a smug grin. “Three months of tap dance lessons. Every Sunday morning.”
The group sucked in a collective breath, then cheered, all of them excited about Bart’s good fortune.
“Congratulations, Bart.” One of the werewolves patted him heartily on the shoulder. “Sorry you didn’t get that latch-hook rug, but this is almost as good. Tap dancing. Think you’ll be any good at it?”
He most certainly would not be any good at it since he wouldn’t actually be taking dance lessons on Sunday mornings, but that was part of the plan. No one would think twice when after three months, a werewolf lacked any tap-dancing skill whatsoever despite diligent practice and regular lessons. And it wasn’t really the dancing that anyone cared about anyway; it was just the fact that he’d been lucky enough to win something in a raffle.
Werewolves loved luck. They loved being lucky more than anything else in the world. Maybe I could use that to my advantage as a Perkins witch and try to do my part to bring about peace on the mountainside.
But all the great ideas in the world wouldn’t do any good if I couldn’t manage to do a spell. I only had so many amulets and charms left, and when those were gone, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make more.
Once again, I wondered if I was still a luck witch or not.
