The Sorceress Screams by Anya Breton

hung up on me .

Chapter Six
     
    The baying of
dogs at three o’clock in the morning meant only one thing—my mother had come
for a visit. I staggered out of bed and stomped into the living room. Reclined
almost upside down, atop the beanbag chair the size of a small elephant, was the petite goddess Hecate in gauzy ceremonial
robes. Her burgundy hair hung over the chair and pooled on the floor like a
veil. She made shadow puppets using the light cast through the mini blinds.
    I grunted over
a yawn powerful enough to pop my ears. “I hope you’re here for an early
report.”
    “No.” My
mother drew the word out while she made the shadows of a bird dive-bomb a dog.
“I need a favor.”
    My eyelids
slid shut while I pulled in a long breath for fortitude. Her favors were never
anything simple like babysitting four packs of Boy Scouts with ADHD after a
raid into a Girl Scout cookie factory. Her favors involved tracking down witches gone rogue and stopping them before they did
something terribly destructive, all with minimal assistance.
    “I’ll get my
bracelet.”
    Catey —my mother’s preferred name
these days—appeared within my bedroom before I did. Unlike moments earlier, a
fine mist coated her delicate frame. She’d moved into the Spirit Realm. Only I
could see or hear her—well, only me and any of the dead lingering nearby. The
baying of the neighborhood’s dogs fortunately faded.
    As I hopped
into my jean shorts, I debated asking her about Trip. My lifelong nemesis had
taunted me every Wednesday night without fail for six years. But I hadn’t seen
him in two weeks. Though he’d been sentenced to two weeks in Tartarus, time
moved differently in the Underworld. He could have served his time in the blink
of a mortal eye. If he’d wanted to, that is.
    What had I
said the last time I’d seen him? I’d been furious he’d tried to trick me into
eating an apple from Hades. And then that he’d used his newfound power to touch
objects on the Mortal Realm to do something as pointless as tangle up my power
cords at the shop. My fury had made me proclaim it would be a travesty if he
were promoted from a back-up judge for North American souls in the Underworld
to the full-time judge. And I’d meant
it.
    Was that why he’d
been avoiding me? Or was it because he believed his punishment was my fault?
Why did I care ?
    I slipped my
hammered silver cuff over my arm—the magical gift that enabled me to stay alert
without sleep. My mother held her palm out toward me. I hesitated. The moment
our skin would touch, she’d transport me into the Void—the realm of nothing
that filled in the crevices around everything. It would be uncomfortable.
    No,
uncomfortable was an understatement. Voidwalking was
my least favorite fact of divine life. But it was the quickest way to get
around the world. And it was the only way to get to the Underworld without
dying.
    I pushed out
three quick breaths, and then set my hand atop hers.
    ****
    I’d visited
few cities in the world that shone as brightly as Las Vegas did at three in the
morning. I gazed at the sparkling jewel of a city in all its electronic glory
from my vantage point high in the night sky. Why was I here?
    The soft sound
of contentment to my right reminded me. I glanced over and found my mother clad
in a pair of her denim overalls. Beneath them was a lime T-shirt with a winking
apple printed in the center. She’d twisted her hair into a baseball cap, making
her look like a pretty, teenage boy.
    She wasn’t
particularly concerned about the sleazy dead guy gawking at us from within the
Spirit Realm where she’d dropped us. Though I tried to ignore it, the scent of
decay and cheap cologne was too much. I discreetly covered my nose with my
fingers.
    “You have two
hours,” she said, snaring my attention again. “And if Clotho’s time at the slots gets interrupted, you’re going to have bigger problems than
your battered conscience.”
    The fate
spinner was here. Crap