Wizards At War

“Still thinking about that one,” Kit said.

Nita looked around, shook her head. “I can’t think straight,” she said. “I’m in shock. And now I’m wondering if I’m going to lose it totally when it starts to sink in. Dairine’s right for once: They’ve just told us the world might end in—what, a few weeks? A couple of months?”

“Something like that.” Kit’s mouth was dry again.

She looked up and down the street. “Makes everything look different,” she said. “Look, here comes Carmela…”

Kit glanced to the left, down toward the corner, where his street crossed Nita’s. Carmela had just come around the corner lugging a big pile of what Kit could eventually see were more teen magazines, and Ponch was trotting after her. As they came down the block, Nita said, “When she finds out, is she going to be able to cope with this?”

Kit had to laugh. “Carmela? Neets, how would I know? I don’t know if I can cope with it yet.”

She looked at him and shook her head. “You will,” Nita said.

Kit shrugged. Her certainty was reassuring. He just hoped it was justified.

“You guys done with your big meeting?” Carmela said as she came up to them.

“Yeah, we’re done,” Kit said.

“Roshaun still here?”

Ponch jumped up on Kit and started trying to lick his face, as usual. “Having a discussion with Dairine,” Nita said.

Carmela snickered. “I’ll just bet.” She went on up the driveway.

I went home and got some food, Ponch said. Your pop forgot that you fed me.

“Yet another criminal mastermind,” Kit said. “What are we going to do with you?”

Give me enough food that I don’t need to manipulate you. Did you miss me?

“Didn’t even notice you were gone,” Kit said, which was true, if not terribly tactful.

Ponch snapped at Kit’s face playfully. I didn’t think you’d mind if I went. Tom and Carl are nice, but they weren’t bringing their dogs.

“No problem,” Kit said. He looked over at Nita. “Look, I’m gonna go home and give my mom and pop the news. The sooner they find out, the sooner they’ll get over it. I hope.”

“Yeah.” Nita let out a long breath. “Telling my dad’s gonna be fun, too … at least I have a few hours to figure out how to explain it. There should be a stripped-down version of the story in the manuals.”

She reached out to the seemingly empty air and slipped her hand into the otherspace pocket where she kept her own manual. Then her eyes went wide.

“What?” Kit said.

Nita pulled her manual out, and Kit suddenly understood her reaction. Nita’s wizard’s manual normally looked like a hardcover library book—buckram-bound, a little beat up, and the size of a largish paperback. But now it was twice its normal size, and three times its normal thickness. It looked more like a phone book now.

“It looks like Tom’s,” Kit said.

“Yeah,” Nita said, looking both intrigued and troubled. “Great. See you afterward?”

“Yeah. The usual place?”

“Sure.”

He lifted a hand, a half wave, then turned and headed down the sidewalk toward the corner. Ponch followed him, trotting along and looking up at him. So what was it about?

“Look out for the tree!”

I know where all the trees are, Ponch said, just barely avoiding the maple he’d been about to run straight into. What happened? Are you all right?

“Huh? I’m fine,” Kit said. “But we have to save the universe.”

Ponch looked up at him, swinging his tail widely from side to side as they walked along. Oh, Ponch said. Okay.

Kit smiled. He felt weak in the knees at the moment, but there was something about Ponch’s matter-of-fact acceptance of the seemingly impossible that made him feel better—for the moment, anyway. “Come on,” he said. “We need to talk to Mama and Pop. And then I’ve got a couple of calls to make.”

3: Initial Reconnaissance

Nita let out a long breath as she went back up the driveway. Kit’s uncertainty disturbed her… possibly because she was feeling more than her own share. I’m so used to having Kit to backstop me, she thought. Whenever I get nervous, he’s always there to help me get a grip. But for a while I may have to do the gripping.

Across from the back door, Roshaun was leaning against the fence that ran just this side of the lilac bushes, with yet another lollipop sticking out of his face. Carmela was leaning against the fence, too, on one side of him. Spot seemed to have wandered off.