The wolf saw me mid-arc. It bounced off Bo and leaped even higher into the air. Bo crashed to the floor.
The wolf landed a few feet away from me, and I stared it in the eyes.
I knew those turquoise eyes. It was Gillian.
The wolf stalked toward me.
"Where's your pack?" I asked, backing up.
Behind the wolf, Bo aimed one of his bottles. CeCe readied her sword, crouching low. Bo motioned to me to keep talking.
"If this is what working with the coven looks like, it's going to end badly for you," I said.
Gillian growled again.
THUNK!
A bottle hit his back and he whipped around. Bo adjusted his sunglasses and made a "bring it on" motion with his hands.
"Round two, poochy!" he cried as CeCe charged him.
She slashed the wolf's shadowy body, but her sword cut through the shadows as if they were clouds.
Gillian clamped his jaws on CeCe's wrist and she cried out in pain. Her sword clanged to the ground.
THUNK!
Bo hit the wolf with his final jar, and it shattered on the wolf's neck, making him let go of CeCe.
CeCe glanced down at her wrist, which was a mess of muscles, tendon, and bone.
"Good thing I don't bleed, and good thing I'm ambidextrous," she said.
Gillian snarled and beelined for me.
I don't know why I ran. You're never supposed to run from wolves. That's exactly what they want, and boy, was Gillian getting it now. But if I didn't run, there was no way I was going to fare as well as CeCe did.
Gillian tackled me and landed on my back. He reared up over me and I could hear his teeth about to close in on my neck. My whole body shook.
The wolf's muzzle drew closer and I could feel its hot breath. Then, something smashed into him and relieved the pressure. Gillian ran down the hallway. CeCe was on his back, embracing the wolf in a bear hug.
Gillian roared and ran around the hallway like a bull in a rodeo.
Trust me, seeing CeCe wrestle a wolf was something else.
A hand dragged me up by my gabardine collar. Bo.
We crept into the nearest doorway. A spice shop.
A heady scent of cinnamon and coffee overwhelmed me. Thick jars of spices lined the walls. On the front counter was a large carafe of coffee...and a customer and an employee, frozen. The employee was a young man in an apron and a beige baseball cap, and his mouth was contorted mid-sentence. The customer, an elderly woman in a knitted sweater, was handing him a twenty-dollar bill. They looked as if someone had hit a pause button in the universe.
"What the—” Bo said.
Outside, a slamming sound drew our eyes into the hall. CeCe slid down the wall as Gillian bounded for the spice shop.
I needed something to fight with. The small table next to me with several wooden chairs wasn't going to cut it.
The coffee aroma in the air...the wolf racing toward the spice shop...reminded me of my dog Hazel. I don’t know why I thought about her all of a sudden.
Hazel loved coffee. I couldn't keep her from sniffing my mug whenever I walked away from my kitchen table. But the moment I put cinnamon in it, she wouldn’t go near it.
I had an idea.
I jumped behind the counter and landed next to the employee. I scanned the spice rack and found a giant jar of freshly-ground cinnamon. The glass was cool to the touch. The jar weighed at least ten pounds.
"Yo, boss man, what are you doing?" Bo asked.
“Catch!” I said.
Bo barely caught the jar.
I grabbed another cinnamon jar off the shelf.
A second later, Gillian was in the shop, and he sprang through the air. He landed on the counter, inches away from me. His claws dragged on the wood like nails on a chalkboard.
I removed the lid from the jar and dumped the cinnamon on Gillian's face. Soon, he was covered in the sparkly orangish-brown powder.
The wolf coughed immediately. He fell off the counter and crashed in front of me. He began sneezing uncontrollably. Clouds of cinnamon erupted into the air.
I smashed the glass jar against the counter, grabbed the nastiest-looking shard, and aimed it at him while backing away.
But Gillian had bigger problems. He couldn’t stop sneezing.
Footsteps tracked into the shop. CeCe.
“Whoa, quick thinking,” she said.
Gillian sneezed again and the force knocked him into the spice rack. A glass jar of sage crashed on his head.
He sneezed again and his body jolted forward as if an invisible hand were separating the wolf from the shadows. His turquoise eyes widened in fear. For the first time since the attack, I saw his white fur. The shadows quickly covered it, and he growled again.
He sneezed, and his head popped out of the shadow, white fur gleaming.
I don’t know why, but something told me to pull him out.
I grabbed the nape of Gillian’s neck with both hands and yanked him as hard as I could.
“Nooooo!” a voice cried. It took me off guard. It sounded like multiple women’s voices doubling upon themselves.
I pulled again.
Gillian sneezed, blowing a cloud of cinnamon in my face.
I pulled again, but this time, I felt a sneeze coming on…
I inhaled, holding back the sneeze.
I pulled. Held my breath hard.
But I couldn’t hold it back. I pulled as hard as I could and let the sneeze rip out.
A-choo!
The sneeze propelled me backward.
A flash exploded across the shop, followed by the woman shadow’s piercing screams.
The force knocked me and Gillian over the counter. We hit the cold concrete hard.
A swirling mess of shadows hovered over the counter. Three sets of electric eyes blinked open in the billowing shadows.
“You foolish wolf,” the voice said. “You cannot perform even the most basic task. To think that you are a fated mate with our Cassandra is a disappointment.”
Next to me, Gillian stirred, but he didn’t open his eyes.
The shadow zoomed toward us. A giant, ragged claw extended for Gillian.
“We will finish this ourselves, but first, we must end this fated nonsense—noooooo!”
I smelled it before I saw it—an intense, vegetative burning. Then smoke. Then a flaming jar sailing through the air in slow motion.
The glass shattered on the counter.
The shadow screamed in agony as it swirled into nothing.
The shadows in the Grand Hall faded, bloomed like ink in water, and then dissolved.
In an instant, the sound bubble burst. My ears filled with the swell of fresh air, blues music, and the soft undertones of conversation.
Time had restarted.
The employee behind the counter finished his sentence, took the customer’s money, then looked at us, stumped.
“What the—”
Gillian and I were lying on the floor. CeCe was standing near the front counter with her sword drawn, just as shocked as the employee. Bo hugged the jar of cinnamon like he was about to steal it.
And Joyner stood in the doorway, leaning on his cane with a grave look on his face. Whatever was in that burning jar, he had thrown it.
He pointed his cane at Bo. “Dead man! You said on a scale of one to ten, your problem was a six or seven.”
“Yeah, so?” Bo asked.
Joyner groaned. “Those witches are shadowcrafters,” he said. “Maybe you ought to bump your rating up to an eleven.”