“I’m not alone. Firian’s here.”
“Ah, yes, well, that doesn’t really count, does it?”
“Firian doesn’t count? As a person?”
“Just drop it, Charlotte,” Firian said.
“But that’s ridiculous!”
“Firian is not of this world,” Montague said. “If you have him hanging around, you seem like a child who needs to be protected every moment. And you don’t need to be protected every moment…do you?” He trailed a finger down my arm.
I yanked my arm back, incredulous. “Whoa there, buddy. You can’t just touch me like that!”
“You don’t like to be touched? I apologize. When I am out among the common folk, they seem quite pleased for me to touch them.” His voice was low, flirtatious, and as far as I could tell, genuine. I mean, I had no doubt that most of the ‘common folk’ at my high school wouldn’t mind Montague touching them. He had warm brown eyes you could melt into. But it was obvious that I needed some ground rules around here.
I heard the sound of crackling fire and glanced over to see Firian aflame. I mean, a faint purple-blue fire effect was actually wafting off of him. “I am protecting her,” he said. “I don’t care what you think about it. She’s not here to impress you.”
“I really hope you’re not jealous,” Montague said. “Jealous familiars get in trouble, from what I’ve heard. Bad enough when they fall for anyone, but your own witch?”
“I’m not falling for anyone, I’m protecting my witch from a pit of horny warlocks who are trapped behind walls,” Firian sneered back.
“I just wondered if you wanted some company,” Montague said. “But maybe your familiar does the talking for you.”
“No,” I said. “I’m fine alone. I was just wondering what kind of man can pull off a cape, and…I’m still wondering.”
Montague actually looked a little genuinely insulted. “In my hometown, we have a story about this.”
“About what?”
“Familiars who fall in love with witches. A century ago, in St. Augustine, a witch and a familiar fell in love. It tore the entire town apart and unleashed darkness on the land. Where I come from, familiars are not permitted at the table for this reason.”
“Where you come from…are you talking about the same St. Augustine that’s the tourist town in Florida where my Grandma and Grandpa went on vacation once?”
“I’m talking about a town that has seen some very dark events.”
“It has a fort, right? And a Ripley’s Believe it or Not museum.”
“Well…there is the…human side, yes.”
Harris stood up in this really self-important way. Like, all these guys had it dialed up to eleven all the time. Shoving chairs, slamming hands on tables, wearing capes… Life as a warlock was intense.
“Sit down,” Harris said. “We’re not going to acknowledge this travesty any more than we have to.”
“What? Travesty? You mean me?”
“We’re supposed to be studying magic,” Harris said. “Men’s magic. This is not a place for a witch. And lay off Montague, you don’t know what he’s been through lately.” He gave Montague a weird look.
“‘Men’s magic.’” I narrowed my eyes, standing up as self-importantly as I could manage in order to meet him. Of course, I immediately realized they had six to eight inches of height advantage. “This is exactly what I’m talking about. Maybe you should leave your cage a little more often. Unless the magic is making your dick bigger, I don’t know why men and women should have different magic.”
“You can’t handle our magic.”
“Challenge accepted!”
“It wasn’t a challenge. It’s just a fact. Women have never been able to handle the aggressive arts without messing it up. The history books are filled with those stories. You’ll see.”
“You’re seriously telling me that women can’t be aggressive? Your history books are filled with stories of ladies trying to do cool stuff and getting the vapors? How convenient.”
“Try summoning a demon by the end of the year without getting yourself in trouble,” he said. “Without losing control, or falling in love with the demon, or something like that.”
“Fine! No problem! I’m not falling in love with a demon. Jeez.”
“Harris…I just wanted to offer her some company,” Montague said. “You’ve never summoned a demon…have you?”
“We’ll both summon a demon,” Harris said. “If she’s still even here by the end of the year.”
Suddenly double doors burst open from the kitchens and the chef stormed out waving a knife around. He was an older guy with crazy hair that I feared had to be getting in the food now and then. But, this was getting exciting. “Sit down,” he said. “There is too much commotion out here. My restaurant is a place of contemplation. How are you to savor the flavor of my cured gravlax if you are here talking nonsense about summoning a demon?” He paused and looked at me. “Oh…you are…the girl.”
It was clear that he wasn’t happy with my presence.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m the girl. And I want my food to go.”
“Don’t let them bully you,” Firian said.
“I don’t care anymore. I have never seen a bunch of men who were so annoyed at having a girl around.”
“I like girls very much,” Harris said. “Just, in their proper place.”
“I like girls too,” Montague said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Please, sit down. Cyrus, make the lady something good.”
“There has never been a woman at Merlin College,” Cyrus said. “This is unacceptable. What will happen if other women want to attend? The food I cook is for men. What, am I to start making tea sandwiches and fruit salads?”
So. This was what I’d be dealing with. Sexism you couldn’t usually find nowadays without a time machine. Or maybe, to be fair, hanging out at that one hardware store in my hometown where a girl couldn’t buy a screwdriver without the old man at the counter saying something about it.
I grabbed the bread basket. “Actually, this is good. I love bread. Thank you.”
“I love bread, thank you?” Firian said as I stormed out. “That was your parting shot after all that?”
“Shut up,” I said. “I thought I did pretty well considering I am ganged up on everywhere I go.”
“But you can do better. Don’t give them an inch, Charlotte. I don’t know why you’re here, but seeing how ridiculous this place is, I commend whoever enrolled you. Merlin College could use a shake up.”
I couldn’t argue with that. But I wasn’t sure I wanted to be the one to shake it up.
“I forgot to pay for the merlot,” Firian said with a shrug.
Chapter Nine
Harris
This was no place for a witch.
That was one thing I knew. I was the one with six older sisters, after all. Men had no business with witch magic, and women had no business with warlock magic.
“Maybe I should have worded things better,” I muttered, sliding back into my chair after tearing my eyes away from Charlotte. “I should have told her that witch magic is just as powerful and respectable as warlock magic instead of challenging her to summon a demon. Now when she gets hurt, it’s on my head. But she ought to be taught a lesson.”
“She’s in school,” Alec said. “I think that’s the point.”
“You know what I mean. The professors will go soft on her.”
“Maybe she won’t get hurt,” Monty said, sipping ‘rare steak blood’. AKA, plain old cow blood, but Cyrus tried to put a good spin on it. I tried not to stare. “I didn’t need you to charge over there.”
“Nothing good will come of you flirting with her. Anyway, I know she’s not your type. You just smell blood, isn’t that how it works?”
“No. That’s not how it works.”
I wasn’t used to my best friend being a vampire. We’d managed to talk on the phone exactly twice over the summer, since it happened, but he had pretty much been
at the rehabilitation center—getting all spelled up and learning techniques to help him function in our world, so he could go in the sun, and not kill us. And whatever he said, he’d changed since it happened. Genuinely changed. As in, I didn’t entirely trust him with a girl, especially a girl like Charlotte who seemed clueless.
“I can control myself,” Monty said, casual. “That’s why I take those pills. Alec’s the poor bastard you should worry about. What is Master Blair thinking?”
“He’s not thinking,” I said.
“Charlotte is my type,” Monty added. “She’s female. She seems nice. She looks quite adorable in the uniform.”
“Is that your criteria?”
“What’s yours, then?”
“A talented witch from a good family with sophisticated manners.”
Monty gave me a look of disdain. “Of course it is. But, that’s fine. You won’t be jealous at all if I make her mine.”
“I won’t. She’s just a normal human, basically. I can’t believe she even has powers worthy of attendance. It’s not appealing to me. Anyway, I can’t just date anyone I like. I have centuries of great magic users, ancestors who would curse me from beyond the grave if I stooped to a lower level.”
My mother already had a line up of girls in mind for me, and I got to see them every summer and Christmas vacation. One was the daughter of the head of the New Orleans coven, one was the daughter of the late, famous diviner of Chicago, and one was from Russia, descended from a disciple of Rasputin, although my mother was about to knock her out of the running because she liked listening to pop music. Once I got out of Merlin college, I would choose one of those three.
Charlotte? Well, she was a disgrace. Her voice was loud and she had a faint Southern accent, and not the acceptable kind. Her movements were sort of…bouncy, and she had a computer user’s slump. She still had her familiar hanging around like a little kid. And, word was she had no experience with magic. So, I didn’t care if her full lips were rather sexy spouting off insults. Unlike my two best friends, I didn’t think with my dick.
Plus, if I wanted a loud wife, I could choose Daisy.
“Listen to yourself,” Monty said.
“It’s true,” I said.
My family was the most famous of all magical lines in the western world. Yes, there were many, but my ancestors came from a marriage of a Hapsburg witch and a vampire hunter who was renowned for having twenty kills, Florin Nicolescu. The family home on the Hudson River in New York was full of old world paintings of my illustrious ancestors and treasures of the Hapsburgs, and the library was full of journals detailing their exploits. Whenever we met anyone new at a party or gathering, my mother would look them up in the records as soon as we got home to see where they fit into the tapestry of witch bloodlines. As soon as she heard that Monty had been turned, she got out the book, found his entry, and wrote, “Turned” in her fine cursive.
Then she clapped the book shut. “You won’t be hanging out with him anymore,” she said.
Yes, my parents were a lot of fun. But they had a point. I was furious at Monty for being such a dumbass.
“She’s going to be sleeping in Alec’s room,” I said. “We won’t have a chance with her anyway.”
“Maybe that was true,” Monty said. “But I’m a vampire now. I have my own seductive powers. Incubus versus vampire. We shall see.”
“I’m focused on my studies,” Alec said. “You know that. You can have her.”
“We shall see how long that lasts,” Monty said. “She’s already checking you out. You’re going to lay awake at night listening to her breathe.”
“I am not,” Alec said. “I’m not just some mindlessly sexed up demon. I’m a warlock and I’m going to make my dad proud, and when college is over, then and only then, I’ll find a wife who can keep up with me.” He lifted his coffee cup and grinned in his understated way.
“No complaints from me, my friend,” Monty said. “Then, she’s all mine.”
I was irritated at him for reasons I couldn’t quite pinpoint. “Are you sure you should kick off your first year of college with pursuing the most controversial student? Don’t you think you caused enough trouble last year?”
“I wondered when the judgments would begin,” Monty said. “I lived for the moments. I have no regrets.”
“No regrets about being turned into a vampire?” I asked, incredulous.
Whenever Monty, Alec and I got into a little trouble in high school, my family always knew Monty was the ringleader. My family had agreed that a little fun on weekends was all right—in high school. Before things get too serious.
But he’ll pay for it someday, my mother always said. That Monty. Either he will get his head on straight, or he’ll regret it forever when he falls afoul of the council.
My mother was usually, infuriatingly, right. Monty had been irresponsible and stupid, and now he was a vampire, his prospects ruined.
Except that Monty didn’t seem repentant at all.
But when she struck his name out of the book with that fateful word and told me he was no longer my friend, she also said, “Well, he probably only has a few years now, before the curse of all vampires catches up with him, so I suppose I won’t have to worry much longer.”
Chapter Ten
Charlotte
I slogged back up the stairs with my basket of bread. Alec was in the shower. The door was shut, I heard the water running, and that meant he was naked in there. Just…right on the other side of the wall from my bed. Soaping up his Greek-god-hued muscular shoulders and his…
I shoved a mini baguette in my mouth and took the opportunity to plug in my laptop, since he had implied that if I used it in his presence, it was going to be A Thing.
“Want to kill a few kobolds real quick?” Firian asked. “I’ll use his plug.”
“Okay! If the internet works.” My laptop fired up and I saw an open network for MerlinStudent. It seemed pretty fast too. “Yesss…I’m in.”
We both got in the game and went to Kir Forest to try and grab some quick Kobold Hides we needed for our current quest. Kir Forest was dangerous because the kobolds here were undead and they always came in packs. It only took a second for a band of them to pop out of the bushes. I cast a ghostfire spell and incinerated one with blue flames while Firian swung his oversized sword.
I glanced over at Firian, his face lit by the glow of his laptop. I opened the chat window. we’ve never played in the same room before.
yeah. now I can’t imagine you as a broody mage anymore.
well, you’re definitely not a scantily clad elf babe.
i wasn’t trying to make her scantily clad. they don’t have many options.
i’m not stupid! they have a full armor option.
…but it’s ugly
I shook my head at him.
you’re the one deep throating a baguette right now while casting furtive glances toward the shower, he typed.
“Oh my god.” I threw down my laptop and shoved him.
don’t get mad at the truth
“He might hear you!”
“I said that in the chat.”
“Oh. Right. I forgot.” Sheepishly, I went back to my computer and hastily tried to cast Doomshadow to make up for it.
gamer girl has forgotten the difference between chat dialogue and real speech, he said. i think it’s good you’re getting out in the world.
well, i think it’s good you’re wearing pants.
Doomshadow spells were tricky to cast because I quickly had to mix two ingredients, but I pulled it off. The kobolds went down and two of them dropped a hide.
“Nice.” Firian grabbed them.
“Two in one go! Dude! Even if that’s all we get done, that’s a successful outing.”
“How many do we need?”
“Um…six more.”
The door opened and Alec came out in black pajama pants and nothing else.
“Speaking of pants,” Firian said.
“
I thought I sensed computers. Doesn’t that make you feel nauseous?” Alec asked.
“I guess I’m used to it…,” I said, as my eyes raked over his abs and chest and arms and then his abs again because why not. He was mostly dry but there was one spot in the hollow around his collarbone down to his ripped left pectoral muscle where droplets of water still clung to his skin.
I could lick those off you, I thought, and then my skin temperature rose a hundred degrees. Why was I having these thoughts? They just appeared, completely unbidden.
He’s talking to you. Brain? Brain, hello? He’s talking to you like a normal person. Pay attention.
“You should probably try to break the habit,” he was saying. “You won’t be able to perform magic up to school standards if you use computers often. Sorry, I’m going to need my outlet back.”
Firia left the game, the chat window said, as Firian’s character abruptly vanished.
This place really was no fun, shirtless gods aside. I was pumped to get six more undead kobold hides. If I was home, we would have been up until two in the morning working on it. I yanked the plug out of the wall and dumped everything on the chair, and grabbed Outlander out of my bag instead. Firian turned into a fox and curled up at the foot of my bed.
“He doesn’t need to stay,” Alec said. “I can’t hurt you.”
Firian’s ears flattened. “I don’t trust you.”
“I’m serious. Here…” He plucked up one of my hands from the paperback and kissed the back of it. Or tried to, anyway. Immediately, he got jolted back as if I’d slapped him.
“Rest assured,” Alec said. “I can’t touch her for more than a moment without that happening. Not that I want to, anyway. But if I should lose control because of my magic, well, that’s not a concern. Do you want word to get out that you still sleep with your familiar?”
“I really don’t care what everyone thinks.”
Firian slowly stood up. “I am bad for your reputation, it’s true. I belong in Etherium.”
The Fairer Hex Page 5