The Fairer Hex

by Lidiya Foxglove

  He narrowed his eyes slightly and then faced forward, looking at her.

  If I wasn’t mistaken, he was looking at her the same way I was.

  Monty led the way to the skating rink. Usually we just treated it like a spot to exercise in the winter. I tried to hit the gym most mornings but sometimes it was more fun to speed around a track. It was left unattended with music playing. Since the school was behind gates and everyone knew everyone else, we could just grab skates in our size and do what we wanted. The bowling alley was the same way.

  “Why are there ice skates?” Charlotte asked.

  “In winter if it gets cold enough we ice the lake,” Monty said. “We just keep everything here.”

  “It’s so quiet.”

  “Just us,” Monty said. “But that’s better, isn’t it? I know some of these guys have been jerks to you. Charlotte, what size do you wear?”

  “Eight and a half. In men’s it’s a six and a half, if that exists.”

  “Will seven work?” He held up a pair and knelt to put it on her.

  “You don’t have to do that,” she said, flustered.

  “But I want to.” He lifted her leg with one hand, shoving the pants leg up. He made it look accidental but I doubted it was. The sight of her skin was probably making his mouth water.

  Or maybe that was just me. He pulled off her shoe and slipped the skate on, tugging the laces. Firian was watching this too, and it had to be killing him. He couldn’t protest too much over male attention on his witch, but I think he wanted to tear us both to pieces.

  Charlotte seemed to be enjoying the attention. “I wish I had some french fries or nachos or something, but this is cool, having the place to ourselves.”

  “I always wish I had some french fries,” I said. “I get really sick of the gourmet stuff. Monty used to take us to Checkers in his car.”

  “You have a car?”

  “I sold it,” Monty said quickly. “To pay for expenses.”

  He told me that over the phone during the summer, but I wasn’t buying it. “But there are no expenses at Merlin,” I said.

  “Well, not school expenses, but life expenses. Just—stuff.” He looked at Charlotte. “Alec’s family is loaded, just like Harris—“

  “Not quite like Harris,” I grumbled.

  “I’ve seen your house, man,” Monty said.

  “So we’re like the scholarship kids,” Charlotte said. “That explains why you’ll stoop to my level.” Her laugh was light and teasing and made my cock twitch a little. I shut my eyes and imagined the faces of the five oldest U. S. senators to dispel my unwanted thoughts. My dad came up with that trick. He had a good sense of humor about his incubus son, at least.

  “No. It just so happens that I’m not afraid that a woman will corrupt me and ruin my reputation,” Monty said.

  “That’s already happened,” I said. “In Cancun.”

  “Well, then, it can’t happen twice,” Monty said, narrowing his eyes at me. “Come on, Charlotte. Let’s hit the rink.”

  She put a skate on the surface and then the other. Monty gave one of his feet a faint push and she shrieked, “No! …I mean…um. Ignore that. I’m fine. Let’s just go slow, though.”

  “I’m sorry. I like speed. But I’m here for you this afternoon.”

  Keeping a firm grip on her arm, he supported her while she got a feel for the skates. Meanwhile, I skated in front of them.

  While Charlotte was looking at her feet, I shot him a hard look. I know something’s up.

  Monty frowned. I knew what it meant. He’d been able to hide it from us over the summer, and now that we were together, it was obvious. Whatever happened to him at the Haven, he wasn’t just a normal warlock anymore. He was having memories. I could just tell. My stomach dropped. Before long, his sire would call him close.

  “You sold your car,” I repeated.

  “Yes.”

  “If you did have memories, would you tell me?” I barely whispered, as I remembered that vampires had fantastic hearing.

  “Nothing to tell,” he murmured.

  “Would you tell her?” I whispered.

  He gave me the finger before skating off.

  “Damnit,” I hissed, as I got up enough speed to let my skates roll down the long side of the rink. “Shit.” We were going to lose him. That was—

  That was just a fact. Hardly anyone had the power to stand up to a vampire, and no one who did was going to fight for a guy like Monty.

  Maybe Charlotte would keep him tethered here for just a little longer.

  He seemed happy with her. For now.

  But then, suppose she fell for him? What would happen to her when he was gone?

  “Like that,” he said, showing her how to brake.

  She messed it up and ended up almost crashing into the wall before he caught her again. “Or I could just stand here and do this, that would probably be less dangerous,” she said, doing a goofy little ass shake and chicken-wing-flap to ‘Brick House’. Rumor was that locked away somewhere in the bowels of the roller rink, its workings hidden like the Wizard of Oz, was a very old iPod that belonged to Master Blair which had been playing a playlist called “Get Down Tonight” for the past ten years, day and night.

  I stared. Maybe I liked the playlist after all if it made Charlotte wiggle like that.

  She was so…

  Cute, I insisted to myself, as much dirtier words flitted across my mind.

  I wasn’t sure if I could handle her being Monty’s girlfriend. It wasn’t fair to her. And none of this was fair to me, was it? I was under the impression that I was going to an all-male university, the safest place for an incubus to be. Master Blair put a girl in my room. Test? Test, my ass, that wasn’t what I signed up for.

  We had to put a stop to this.

  I skated over to Charlotte and Monty.

  “You know, this place is making me crave nachos,” Charlotte said. “Which is weird, because I’ve never actually ordered nachos before.”

  “Hey, Charlotte? We need to tell you something,” I said.

  Monty turned on me. He used to be pretty easygoing, but now his eyes were not just pissed off. They were…a little scary. My powers weren’t that strong, due to the fact that I wasn’t sleeping with anyone. “Yes. We need to tell you that we can easily go back to Lancelot and make some nachos,” he said, in the most sinister tone anyone had ever said the word ‘nachos’. I was sure of that.

  This wasn’t a great time for the lights to shut off, replaced by a giant tear of sinister bluish light that slashed across the roller rink like the fabric of hell was being ripped open.

  “Yeah—let’s do that!” Charlotte tried to run for her life, clearly forgetting she was wearing roller skates, and wiped out face first.

  I looked at Monty. He was looking at the light. He was ready for—something.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Charlotte

  I picked my face up off the rink and turned in time to see a twisted dark creature lunging out of the gate and toward me.

  It could best be described as Extremely Terrifying.

  I didn’t register much more than that. Huge shadowy dirty fanged growling lunging thing…versus me.

  Considering my feet were trapped in roller skates that I didn’t know how to use, my options were limited.

  Firian turned into a fox and planted himself between me and the wolf. He bared his cute lil’ teeth. I mean, next to this creature, Firian was nothing. This went about as well as expected. The demon was about one second from slamming into Firian when Montague jumped on him and grabbed the demon’s neck. When he touched it, the demon seemed to solidify a little more. It was sort of halfway between beast, human, and liquid shadow. The air around it had a distinct chill.

  “You…I smelled you…the other day…,” Montague said.

  Alec lifted his hands and generated a little square of sizzling blue lightning. “Get off him, Monty, I don’t want to electrocute you.”

  “No, Ale
c, you stay back, I’ve…got this,” Montague said, still trying to wrestle the wolf creature to the ground. “Who are you? How’d you get past the school—erggh!” The wolf suddenly reared up onto his hind legs, throwing Montague off, and then it whirled, its eyes glowing red, and ice shot out of its mouth. Montague was frozen where he fell.

  “What the hell is this?” Firian sounded nervous, which I guessed was a bad sign since his reason for existing was to aid and protect me.

  Alec attacked with his lightning magic. The demon shrugged that off like it was nothing and laughed at Alec. It spoke in an otherworldly voice that almost sounded like male and female voices layered, both of them low and musical. “A celibate incubus… Not likely to scratch the likes of me.”

  “I think it’s a pretty strong demon,” Alec panted. “Why? What do you want with us? We’re just students.”

  “Some of you are not ‘just’…students…” The demon turned toward me and lunged. It all happened so fast. Clearly I had two choices. I could shout ‘Flyiiing roller skate kick!’ or…I could burn everything down again.

  Maybe once I got better on skates, I could try the first, but I ended up going with the fire option.

  The demon burst into flames, head to toe. It screamed in this horrible way like an anguished creature and vanished back into the dark portal, which closed behind it. I slumped onto the hard, cold rink, breathing hard.

  “I’m sorry. Did I get you guys?”

  Alec checked his clothes and hair. “Just a little on the sleeve.” He offered me a hand. ”Let’s get you up, you dangerous girl.” He hauled me to my feet, but then whipped his hand back. Right. We couldn’t touch for long. Meanwhile, Montague was just shaking off the spell that froze him, slowly getting to his feet and rubbing a stiff neck.

  “I should’ve just torn his throat out,” Montague said.

  “No,” Alec said warningly. “You said you smelled it the other day?”

  “Yeah. It was in the woods. I felt as if it was watching Charlotte. But that time, it was behind the gate.”

  “There are wards on this school,” Alec said. “A demon shouldn’t be able to get in unless they were summoned.”

  I was feeling kind of done with the whole thing. I carefully hobbled off the rink back to the bench to get my regular shoes on. I tore off the laces. Pretty sure I was never going skating again.

  Firian sat down beside me and handed me a paper carton with nachos in it. “Here,” he said. “It’s time for Elemental Warlock Char to enjoy the Direwolf’s item drop.”

  “Where did those come from?”

  “Etherium. They’re not real. They won’t fill you up, I mean. They taste good, though.” He popped one in his mouth.

  I ate one, and shoved on my shoes. “So they taste good and they can’t possibly give me heartburn? You could have told me that before.”

  “Oh, you don’t want to eat too much Ethereal food,” he said. “Believe me. It’s not quite fae food, but it’ll still mess you up.”

  Alec and Montague were speaking in low, tense voices.

  “Hey.” I stood up. “You said you had something to tell me before that happened.”

  “Yes.” Alec rolled toward me and lifted a foot to take off one skate while balancing on the other foot. I definitely noticed that he had excellent balance, his arm reaching back easily to take off the skate. With a moment, he had them both in his hand and walked over to me in socks. Montague was right behind him, still in skates, which made me snicker because he looked really serious. But there is only so far you can go with looking serious on an old pair of roller skates.

  “Alec,” he said.

  “She needs to know.”

  “You are not going to mess this up for me. I’m fine.”

  “What is it?”

  “Monty—“

  Montague grabbed Alec by his collar and lifted him up. “You’re jealous and you’re ruining this for me. I said I’m fine. I invited you today because we’re friends. But you don’t want a girlfriend, so back off. It’s my business to talk to people about what happened to me when I want to talk about it.” He threw Alec back a little.

  “She’s already alone here,” Alec said. “I’m not going to let you hurt her. But you’re also one of my best friends. So if you want to talk about anything—”

  “Hey, guys. Time out.” I waved my arms. “I think the demon made you a little crazy. We’re just hanging out and having fun. You don’t need to fight over me—although that is…kind of…enjoyable to watch.”

  “Montague is different since he was turned,” Alec said. He took a step closer to me. I put down the nachos as he stood, his broad-shouldered frame haloed by the strings of tiny lights that were laced back and forth on the ceiling. “That’s…all.”

  “I’m not different,” Montague said. He huffed and walked over to block Alec from my view a little. “Charlotte…” He knelt on one knee before me, his dark hair falling over his brow. “All it is…”

  He was struggling with something. “Yes? Montague, it’s okay. You can tell me.”

  “Vampires obtain the memories of other vampires,” he said. “That’s all. It’s nothing. A small moment might trigger a memory from the vampire who sired me, or the vampire who sired him…and so on, through the memories of every vampire in the line still living. Alec is concerned because it has changed me a little. There are brief moments when I forget myself.”

  I thought I had seen one of those moments before. And I understood why Alec was concerned.

  “I see…”

  “You’ll like me better this way,” Montague said. “Becoming a vampire has tamed my immaturity and made a gentleman out of me. Stuart even commented on how adult I seemed after class the other day. You probably wouldn’t like the old me as much in the first place.”

  Behind him, Alec still looked unsure. I was skeptical myself. Montague sounded like he was trying to convince himself.

  Maybe Alec just missed whoever Montague used to be. Or maybe that wasn’t the end of it.

  I’d better be careful around him. It’s hard when he’s the only one willing to spend time with me, but I’ve been getting myself in enough trouble already.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Charlotte

  Since it was the weekend, the teachers were all gathered in their lounge playing what seemed like a rousing game of poker, although it seemed like they were missing their top hats.

  “Stuart, you devil,” chuckled Mr. Gruben. “That’s the third of these you’ve won from me, isn’t it?” He shoved a jar of eyeballs toward Stuart, who quietly pocketed them and shrugged.

  “I just don’t know where my luck comes from,” Stuart said. “When I was a kid I never won anything. I even enchanted my car in the soapbox derby, and I still lost.”

  “I think I’m going to do it,” Professor Gruben said. “I’m betting my cufflinks.”

  “Ho!” said Professor Das, who taught Enchantment and Illusions. “Now we’re talking.”

  Alec looked incredulous and cleared his throat. They all turned around to the doorway.

  “What is it, boys?” Master Blair said. “Oh—yes—and girl. My apologies. I keep messing that up.”

  “They look kind of messed up,” Stuart said.

  “A demon attacked us,” Alec said. “I have no idea what kind, but the feeling was much more than a normal sinistral. It felt to me like a high demon.”

  Montague and Firian nodded, so I also nodded.

  “That’s impossible,” Master Blair said. “We have put so many wards on this place, no high demon could break through in a thousand years, unless they were summoned.”

  “We certainly didn’t summon anything,” Alec said. “We were trapped in the world of your playlist and I’m pretty sure it’s impossible to summon a demon while listening to disco.”

  “If you insult the music of my glory days at Club Owl, I’ll expel you,” Master Blair said. “Well…tell me every detail of this encounter.”

  We did our best
, under the skeptical expressions of eight men whom I was starting to realize were all much older than they looked.

  “I’ll check and double-check the wards,” Master Blair said. “This makes no sense.”

  “It has something to do with Samuel’s death!” Professor McGuinness said.

  “And her being here,” said Professor Das. “She is bringing trouble with her wherever she goes. She lost control of her fire magic again?” I was especially hurt by this because Professor Das seemed like the most mellow guy here and he had never brought up this stuff in enchantment class.

  “Thank you,” I said, in a tight voice. “You forced me to come here, and I was just attacked by a demon when you swore I’d be safe, and now you’re blaming me for causing trouble? I could just go home to my dad. That would be fine with me.”

  “She’s right. We aren’t being very nice,” said Professor Adams.

  Master Blair got up, walked over to me, and gave me a gallant bow. “Charlotte, I’m so sorry. You’re very right. The last thing I want is for you to feel unsafe here. I’m going to give you an extra warding charm to wear, and we’re going to look into it. If we can get Samuel’s belongings, that might give us a better idea.”

  “We should bring this up to the council,” Professor McGuinness said.

  “Hsst!” Master Blair waved a hand. “Give me a chance to figure it out before the bureaucracy descends! Charlotte…try to stay in public areas and crowds as much as possible, just in case, until we figure out how this thing got in here.”

  “Hmm,” Professor McGuinness said. “There is one way to get past the wards that I can think of. That would be through a blood tie. A blood tie,” he repeated, like he was angry at me, his rather grim face growing more drawn and his tone more ominous.

  “You’re saying this in a tone like I should know what you’re talking about, and I don’t,” I said.

  “Your grandfather was a werewolf,” he said. “Isn’t that right? You are the child of the witch who married a werewolf.”

  “That thing wasn’t a werewolf,” Alec said. “Well…not exactly.”