Read Somebody Tell Aunt Tillie We're In Trouble! (The Toad Witch Mysteries Book 2) for Free Online

wear, his skin was freezing cold to the touch.
    At least he was still alive.
    *     *     *
    I dragged Gus between two of the candles, into the house.
    When the puppies saw us, they gave happy little yips.
    But those yips soon turned into whines as we got closer.
    They slowly backed away, growling. 
    I shook Gus, trying to wake him up.
    But there was no response.
    It was like his body was there, but whatever it was that made Gus who he is, his essence , had vacated the premises.
    And he was cold.
    So cold.
    I tossed all the blankets I could find on him and then used a starter log to get a fire going. But the warmth from the flames seemed to glide right over him, without touching him.
    It was like Gus was encased in a block of ice, just like Grundleshanks had been.
     

Chapter 9
    T he puppies growled from underneath the couch.
    Gus’s skin and lips were turning a light shade of blue. I put my hands on his face, to try and warm it up.
    I was immediately hit by an intense cold, like I’ve never felt before.
    Tendrils of frost snaked around Gus’s skin and creeped up my hands, freezing my fingers. 
    I gritted my teeth and ignored the pain. I concentrated until I found the golden thread of energy that extended from Gus’s body to his spirit and followed it out into the ethereal plane.
    That’s when I realized that energetically, he was still connected to the circle in the yard.
    That must have been what the weird rolling head image had been about this morning. Gus’s weather magic had obviously been a colossally bad idea.
     
    It took all the strength I had to break through the thickening frost and wrench my hands off his face.
    My fingers were painfully cold.
    I could see my skin starting to turn blue.
    I looked around for something I could use to cut Gus from the circle, before he sucked me into whatever he had been doing. My gaze landed on a ritual sword that Gus had made and mounted on the wall.
    Gus worked a lot with the Faery realm and if there was one thing the Fae didn’t like, it was iron. Fae energy was like gossamer threads on the wind, or a spider web, twinkling with dew. Iron, on the other hand, directed, blasted and cut energy. Nothing annoyed the Fae more than humans blasting energy around, reconfiguring or destroying the Fae’s carefully laid work, or forcing their portals to slam shut.
    Which was exactly what I was going to do. I was going to use the sword to slam that circle down fast, sever the working and shut the portal to the Faery realm.
     But when I tried to take it down off the wall, the sword slipped out of my useless grasp and clattered to the floor.
    Damn it!
    I put my hands as close to the fire as I dared, to thaw out my fingers. But the blue color was spreading from my fingers up my hand, to my wrists.
    The sword’s hilt end was slightly off the ground, so I pushed on the edge of it with my foot. As it went down, the blade went up enough for me to slide my arm underneath it. I stabilized the blade and hilt between my forearms and elbows, and slowly stood up.
    I didn’t want to risk dropping the sword, so I carefully hurried outside to power down the space, reel Gus back in and call an end to whatever hellish rite he had started.
    *     *     *
    The back yard was still glowing, a sea of flames lighting up the snow. I picked my way through the candles, to where I had found Gus and prayed I was doing the right thing.
    While I hoped that when I cut Gus’s connection to the rite, it would bring him back, my fear was that cutting it could strand him in the world of the Fae.
    But I had to do something. Turning, so that the sword moved in a wide circle, I chanted:
    “Red threads and black threads, white threads and grey.
    Spirit of Gus return, as fast as you may.
    Gold, silver and bronze, threads of spirit and soul.
    Gather Gus’s heart and head, back where you belong.
    Back to blood, back to bone.
    With the song of this sword,
    and my Will alone,
    This rite is done.”
    As I