Copyright © October 2010, Eve Langlais

The magic powering her broom coughed and sputtered. Sophia held on tight as she lost altitude and weaved drunkenly through the night sky.

“You’ve got to be freaking kidding me,” she muttered aloud. Apparently spelling a broom while frazzled and rushed had unwanted side effects. Like becoming intimately acquainted with the ground. Oops.

She fought with the roughening antics of her broom, its wooden handle jerking between her hands. As she cursed her bad luck in language not fit for human ears, she spotted the lights of a gas station easily visible in the dark and aimed herself at it for an emergency landing. She also prayed to the Dark Lord-“No road rash. No road rash.” She’d taken weeks to heal the raw patches the last time she’d crashed her broom. A natural broom flyer she was not, and she’d put in a request for the rare and popular Ali Baba book of spells. Somehow carpet flying sounded a lot safer than the traditional witchy method of travel.

The ground came up to meet her and with one last quick prayer, she used her feet to slow her momentum, stumbling several feet before she came to a halt on the pavement. I didn’t crash. Yay! Sophia swung off her broom and glared at it, the problem easily evident. Most of the bristles had fallen out, along with the magic that imbued them with flight.

Shoot. Now, how am I supposed to get to the All Hallows’ Eve Convention on time? She was still staring at her only means of transportation in consternation when a man came out of the garage and into the pool of light surrounding the gas pumps where she’d landed. He rubbed his hands on a rag, and the corded muscles of his arms gleamed with sweat even though the air was somewhat cool.