“Catnip is a medicinal relaxant,” Tony said with as much authority as he could muster. “Let’s get those others over here, we’ll need to have the . . . m looked at, too.” He’d been about to identify Arra as a nurse and changed his mind at the last minute. With his luck there’d be a nurse in the group and he didn’t want them suddenly thinking they should get involved.

Arra helped her middle-aged patient sit up. “How are you feeling?”

“What happened?”

The wizard rocked back on her heels, and nodded toward the surrounding people. “Explain it to her.” She started for the teenagers as half a dozen voices began half a dozen different versions of the story. The younger teenager was protesting he was fine, the other, to Tony’s critical eye, seemed to be milking his collapse for all it was worth.

Snagging Tony’s arm as he tried to follow, she muttered, “I’ll deal with the kids, you get as much out of the other thermos into Ben as you can, then get him into the car. If we give them time to think, we’re . . .”

“Screwed?”

“Well put.”

Fortunately, Ben wasn’t much bigger than Tony, and they were essentially being ignored. By the time he had the electrician in the car, Arra was crossing the lawn toward him. “Final words,” she murmured as she slid into the passenger seat.

“Thank you for your cooperation. If you have any questions, call health services.” About to remind them that the dog was a hero, he noticed the dog and her owner were nowhere around and decided not to bring it up. Out of sight, out of mind, he told the world silently as he started the car. Do not let any of this come back on Shania. Shifting out of park, he pulled into traffic and headed away from the temple faster than could strictly be considered safe. But safe, experience had taught him, was a relative term. “Where are we going now?”

Arra waved the second piece of the Yellow Pages at him.

“With Ben?”

“We don’t have time to take him home. We’ll do it after.”

“Man, the wife’s going to kill me!” Ben slurred from the backseat.

“Let’s hope not,” Arra snapped. “Go to sleep.”

There was a muffled thud as Ben’s head hit the rear window.

“Health services?”

Tony shrugged as he slowed for a yellow light. “It worked.”

“Yes. It did.”

Safely stopped he turned to look at her. She was frowning speculatively. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“The trick is to keep talking so no one has time to ask questions and then, you know, you showed up with the paperwork. Official documents carry a lot of weight. The whole Canadian peace, order, and good government thing.”

“I’m sure. But there will be questions.”

“Not our problem, now they’ll call health services.”

“And they are—specifically?”