“O h, sh—shoot,” Dean hissed, glancing at me as he corrected himself.
“We’re running around at midnight and doing magic,” I whispered back to him. “Do you think I’m going to tell Mom you used a bad word in front of me?”
“Hush!” Owen snapped.
I somehow doubted that with a wall of blue-white flame shooting to roof height, our whispering would be what alerted the cop to our presence, but I hushed, anyway. For all I knew, Sam might be able to veil the flame while it took too much extra power to muffle the sound.
The police car slowed to a crawl as it passed the bank, and I held my breath. I knew Sam was good at hiding things magically, but all that flame—along with the light it cast—had to be a challenge.
Suddenly the flame collapsed in on itself, leaving no trace. Even the powder it had grown from was gone.
The police car kept moving at its frustratingly slow pace, but it didn’t stop. When the car at last passed out of sight, there was a collective “whoosh” as all five of us let out our breath. Then Teddy turned to look at Owen. “That was so cool!” he said. “What did you do?”
“The energy that created the ward had to go somewhere, so it was absorbed into the powder and burned up,” Owen explained.
I stepped in before the two of them could start discussing the chemistry and physics of magic. “Are you sure it worked?” I asked.
Owen gestured at Dean. “Come over here.” Dean looked apprehensive, but he stepped forward. “Try to cross the threshold.” Dean visibly steeled himself, then stepped forward. He was able to get all the way to the bank’s door. “It worked,” Owen reported. “Now, we need to get all those stolen things returned. Based on the pattern from previous nights, I think the police car will most likely return in half an hour, so let’s hurry. I don’t want to test the limits of Sam’s veiling ability.”
Dean and Teddy ran back to Dean’s car to get the goods and returned loaded down. “This is the first batch,” Dean said.
“How much did you steal?” I asked.
“I may have gotten a little carried away,” Dean admitted.
“Which stores are those from?” Owen asked.
“I thought we’d start with the jewelry store, since that was the most valuable stuff.”
We made a funny procession as we headed across the square to the jewelry store. Sam flew ahead. I followed behind him. Teddy and Dean with their overflowing boxes were in the middle, and Owen brought up the rear. We looked like a gang of inept reverse burglars.
“They didn’t have a camera here, but there is a security system,” Sam reported when we reached the jewelry store.
“Yeah, I was able to bypass it,” Dean said. He looked a little too proud of himself for my comfort.
“That’s not too difficult,” Owen said. “The spell that dissolves the window actually keeps the sensors intact. You were sloppy, though. You overdid it on the windows. They should have come back as soon as you were in and out. That wasted power and drew attention to your actions.” He faced the window, waved a hand, whispered a few words, and the glass vanished. “Okay, now put the stuff back in there.” Dean went to climb through the window, but Owen shook his head. “No, just leave the boxes there. You want them to notice it’s been returned. You don’t have your name or anything identifying you on those boxes, do you?”
“These are the boxes I got from the store.”
“Then put them in there.”
Dean followed instructions. As soon as he was clear of the window, the glass reappeared. “You’ll have to teach me how to do that,” Dean said.
“Somehow, I don’t think that would be such a good idea.”
“I wouldn’t do it to steal stuff again.”
“Then why would you need to be able to do it?”
“This is amazing,” Teddy gushed. “Now, how does the ratio of matter and energy work on this? Are you actually making the matter go away, like into an alternate dimension, or are you just separating the atoms so it looks like the glass isn’t there, but all the matter actually still is?”
“Teddy, we don’t have time for the scientific explanation,” I said.
“Sorry. But can we talk about it later?” If they did, it wasn’t a conversation I wanted to be anywhere near. Thinking about how magic worked gave me a headache.
We worked our way around the square, returning goods to all of the stores Dean had burgled magically. “What were you trying to do, open your own store?” I asked.
