The Trouble With Magic

by Tania Hutley

  “You okay?” I ask.

  “Fine. I can hear the thing whispering, that’s all. Nasty bastard. Doesn’t have anything good to say.”

  Shit. That’s the last thing we need.

  “Eating will help. Got to keep your strength up.” I take off into the kitchen so he doesn’t see my expression. I can’t afford to fall apart now.

  In the kitchen, I find a note propped up against the toaster. It’s in Jess’s messy handwriting, addressed to me.

  Hey, Saff.

  Where are you? I haven’t seen you at home for a while.

  We’ve got a gig in DC tonight so I won’t be back ‘til tomorrow.

  Sylvia’s rat and your chicken both looked hungry, so I’ve been feeding them. Boy, that chicken has a temper, doesn’t she? Anyway, I hate to fuss, but give me a call to let me know you’re okay. I’m worried about you.

  Jess.

  I put some bread in the toaster, then check Ratticus’s cage. He’s got food and water and seems happy enough. I hold out my hand for him to climb on and he rubs his whiskers against my palm.

  Then I head out to the courtyard to check on Agnes, mainly because I’m putting off having to tell Xander that I have no plan. I don’t have any idea what we’re going to do about Jeqabeel.

  When I accidentally blew up the concrete pavers in the courtyard, I exposed the bare dirt underneath. Agnes is asleep now, roosting on the back of the garden seat, but it’s obvious she spent the day digging a tunnel. She’s scratched out a deep hole and is angling it to go under the fence. Another few hours working on it and she’ll probably be free, and at the mercy of any dog or person who decides she looks tasty.

  I take a deep breath. I unleashed all my magical energy at the demon and really need a long rest before trying to use it again. On the other hand, my clothes are soaked with blood and I can feel the shared power of the council somewhere inside me. I don’t want it and I’m not about to use it, but it’s there in the background.

  The shared power of the council is strong. When I search for my own magic, I have to tiptoe around it. It’s like I’m trying to figure out how to light a propane tank without blowing myself up, and all I can hear is the hum of a nuclear power plant.

  At least at night, chickens are docile, which means I won’t get my hands torn to pieces trying to touch Agnes. Moving behind her, I pick her up. She lets out a surprised squawk.

  I close my eyes and reach out with my newly-unbound magical senses. The magic keeping Agnes in her current form is a tangle that’s knotted and snarled into an impossible mess. It’s mostly made up of animal magic, but earth magic is snagged inside the spell like barbed wire in wool. No wonder Mireya couldn’t unravel it.

  Agnes pecks my hands while I concentrate on the all-but-exhausted magic inside me, trying to direct it at the mess I’ve made. Her sharp beak hurts like hell, but every time she draws blood, my scraps of magic glow a little brighter.

  The fibers that make up the spell are an angry shade of red. I can barely remember how furious I must have been when I cast it. Now, I feel close to the end of my endurance. I’ve lost so many people I loved. Will I lose Xander too? What if I can’t save him?

  With a desperate effort, I force out the last traces of animal magic I have left. The meager scraps trickle slowly into the spell, unbinding it and letting the twisted mess of magic fall away.

  A small amount of earth magic escapes with it, slipping out of my control before I can stop it.

  My focus is split between the two branches of magic, and even though there’s only a tiny amount of each, trying to control them both is like juggling with sparks. My earth magic has nowhere to go. It’s looking for an outlet and I try desperately to guide it away from anything electrical.

  While I’m concentrating on that, the spell falls away from Agnes.

  Instead of a chicken, I’m holding a woman. A confused, old, woman.

  Agnes is still wearing brown slacks and a brown cardigan, but the sharp creases and fresh linen smell are gone. She looks like she’s been scratching in the dirt. Her face and hands are dark with grime, and her hair is as tangled as my spell was.

  Losing my concentration at the last moment was a bad mistake. Tiny traces of the spell still cling to her, caught like burrs in her flesh. Feathers coat one side of her neck.

  “Agnes?” I ask gently. “Are you okay?”

  As she turns wide, frightened eyes on me, I feel my earth magic seep into the porch light. It explodes with a noise loud enough to make me duck with my arms around my head.

  My neighbor makes a strangled sound that’s half human and half a chicken’s squawk. She flaps her arms and hops, as though trying to flee.

  “Agnes.” I grab her shoulder. “You’re okay. Nothing’s going to hurt you.”

  She stops, frowning. Her terrified eyes dart to me and away again.

  From behind us, I hear a long, low whistle. “I thought I’d seen some things today,” says Xander. “But that was one of the weirdest.”

  “Agnes?” I say again. “Can you answer me?”

  If I could summon any more magic, I’d try to clean all the spell off her. But the only power I feel now belongs to the council. What if I can’t manage to clean up my mess, and she can only cluck like a chicken for the rest of her life?

  Agnes swallows hard, her hand held to her mouth. “What happened?” Her voice is croaky.

  I blow out a relieved breath. At least she can speak.

  “What do you remember?” I ask.

  “I asked you to turn your music down. Then I came in to do it for you, and…” She puts a shaky hand to her forehead, frowning at a feather poking from the skin on her arm. “Did I hit my head?”

  “Yes, you did. You hit it hard. I think you must have been knocked out for a while and had strange dreams. Isn’t that right, Xander?”

  “Strange dreams,” he agrees, nodding. “I’ve been having them myself.”

  “It’s dark now. Maybe you should go home to sleep. I’m sure you’ll feel better after a long rest.” I take her arm to lead her toward the door. Trying to get those feathers off her neck and arm will be the first thing I’ll attempt tomorrow.

  Agnes snatches her arm out of my grip and sniffs. She may not be completely sure what’s happened to her, but it looks like she’s just remembered how much she hates me.

  “Keep the music down,” she snaps. Then she stalks to the door.

  When it slams behind her, I turn back to Xander. “At least that’s one problem solved. Mostly.” I blow out a relieved breath.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you could do that?”

  “I did. I told you I turned her into a chicken.”

  “No, I mean turning her back.”

  “Because I couldn’t. But now my magic’s unbound, I can use it again. I’m not great at controlling it, though. I have to be careful.”

  He shakes his head, looking more cheerful than he has since he woke up with a demon inside him. “You really did turn her into a chicken. And you changed her back again. Watching her change was incredible. If you can do that, you’ll be able to fix me.” The smile he shoots me is way more confident than I deserve.

  Oh-kay. So maybe he didn’t see the leftover feathers?

  “Piece of cake,” I say breezily, wiggling my fingers. “Just let me get my strength back.”

  “Once you’ve banished the thing that’s squatting inside me, what do you think about making plans to have a quiet night in?”

  “A quiet night?” I wrinkle my brow. “What, like watching TV or something?”

  “TV. Yeah.” He shrugs. “I’m craving a boring night in for a change. Just the two of us. You up for it?”

  I wouldn’t have thought I could manage a smile, but incredibly I feel my lips twitch up. A night on the couch with Xander sounds like bliss.

  Jeqabeel had better be afraid. If I was determined to destroy him before, I’m doubly determined now. No centuries-old demon is going to stand in the way of a night of Netflix and
chilling with Xander. That’s a promise.

  “It’s a date,” I say.

  Dear Fabulous Reader,

  Thank you so much for reading The Trouble With Magic!

  We hope you enjoyed reading about Saffy as much as we loved writing about her. Don’t worry, her adventures aren’t over yet.

  Here’s the first chapter from The Problem With Witches.

  You can get it from Amazon now.

  The Problem With Witches: Chapter One

  An awful moaning fills my ears. Pain flares at my side, and my neck feels like it’s cemented to my shoulder. Panic churns along my nerve endings but I can’t actually remember why I’m so filled with dread.

  Forcing my eyes open, I blink at the arm of the lumpy couch I've been sleeping on. Why did I sleep on the couch? And why do my eyes feel like they've been dipped into a vat of salt and chlorine?

  My gaze goes to the person next to me. The moaning is coming from Xander.

  His large body is splayed awkwardly over the other side of the sofa, his legs tipped off the side and his face squashed against the cushions. He’s making a tortuous sound, like he’s in terrible pain.

  “Xander!” I grab his shoulder to shake him awake.

  The instant I touch him, my mind floods with darkness. A nasty voice penetrates my brain, the words like silent probing fingers clawing deep inside my head.

  “Join me, Sapphira,” it rasps, “and you will have power beyond your wildest—”

  I jerk my hand back with a curse as a painful burning sensation spreads up my arm.

  Just like I did in the Blood Council chambers, I see strands of magic, this time black and oily. They’re coming from Xander, and they’re oozing toward my shoulder.

  I leap up, my heart hammering, and shake my arm out. The strands vanish and the feeling of my arm being on fire subsides. But I’m left with terrible memories spreading through my consciousness like a virus I can't stop.

  A demon called Jeqabeel is inside Xander.

  The Blood Council forced me to become one of them.

  And I killed Uncle Ray. Oh God, I turned him inside out. I put my hands over my eyes, trying to banish the gruesome image of his blood-covered body.

  Suddenly I remember our time limit, and jerk around to check the clock in the hallway. It’s ten o’clock in the morning. The council gave us just forty-eight hours to find a way to get Jeqabeel out of Xander, and now seven of those hours are gone, wasted because we couldn’t keep our eyes open.

  We have forty-one hours left before the council turn Xander into a statue to keep the demon from escaping and killing us all.

  Xander groans and opens his eyes. For a moment, they look blood red. My heart stutters. Am I seeing the demon inside him?

  Then he blinks, and his eyes are back to their normal ice blue.

  “Hey.” He sits up and stretches with a grimace that tells me he’s as stiff and sore as I am. “You don’t want to know what I was dreaming.” He shudders. “I’ve never been so glad to wake up.”

  “We shouldn’t have slept so long.”

  “After the night we had, we both needed it.” Xander sounds way too calm. “Besides, you had to rest to get your magic back.” He stands up, running his hands down the front of his jeans. “No pressure, but it’d be great if you could magic the demon out of me now.”

  “I wish it were that easy.” I say the words without thinking and then wish I hadn’t.

  Xander’s expression tightens, fear momentarily clouding his eyes.

  I reach out to touch his arm, then remember the demon and snatch my hand back. Dammit, I’ve give just about anything to be able to hug him right now.

  “Don’t worry,” I tell him. “I’ll find a way.” I have to, because if we don’t, Xander gets turned to stone. That’s some serious motivation.

  “How hard will it be?” Xander’s a smart guy, a detective used to reading people. He’s not fooled by my show of optimism.

  “My magic’s been bound for years,” I admit. “I don’t know how to use it.”

  “But you’ll try, right?”

  I nod, because what choice do I have? “I’ll do my best.”

  “Good. I trust you.”

  If only I trusted myself. Xander has far too much confidence in me, but I hate to argue when my magic’s the only thing giving him hope.

  I reach up to run my hand through my hair, and it gets stuck in the tangled bird’s nest at the back of my head. My hair’s hard to control at the best of times, let alone after a night sleeping on the sofa. “I’m going to wash up, and check on Ratticus.” Sylvia’s pet rat is in a cardboard box in the corner. I can hear his wheel squeaking as he runs inside it.

  Xander nods. “I’ll make coffee.”

  I emerge from the bathroom a short time later, freshly showered, wearing clean clothes, and with my hair secured in two long pigtails. Xander’s in the kitchen with two steaming cups of coffee, and when he offers me one, I take hold of it with the relieved sigh of someone who’s critically caffeine-depleted. Then I fall onto a slice of toast as though it’s the last piece of food left on Earth.

  While I’m devouring every crumb, he disappears upstairs to shower, and I make a second cup of coffee and more toast. I’m sitting at the kitchen table licking butter off my fingers when Xander comes back smelling fresh and clean, with his hair damp. He hasn’t shaved for a while, and his jaw is dark with stubble. The rugged look suits him. My eyes catch on his lips. I remember all too well how amazing it felt when he kissed me. In fact, if he didn’t have a demon inside him, I’d be tempted to run my fingers over his stubble while I test how soft his lips must feel in comparison—

  “You okay?” Xander frowns, rubbing one hand over his bristled jaw. “Why are you staring at me like that? Do I have something on my face?”

  “No.” I let out a long sigh. “It’s nothing. Wishful thinking, that’s all.”

  “Are you ready to try magicking the monster out of me?”

  “I’d like to.” With another sigh, I pull my mind away from Xander’s lips, back to the far more important question of how to save his life. “But I don’t know how.”

  “Just zap it.” He aims a stage magician’s hand motion at me, as though he’s shooting lightning into me from his fingertips. “Slam it with your magic.”

  “That’s way too dangerous. Remember how I accidentally turned Agnes into a chicken? What if I do something even worse to you?”

  “Worse than having a demon inside me? Worse than your council turning me into a statue?” He raises his eyebrows. “They only gave us forty-eight hours, remember. It’s worth taking a risk.”

  I suck in a breath, thinking hard. “When I was younger, I learned spells to direct my earth magic. But I haven’t used spells in a long time and Magnus said I couldn’t use them to control two types of magic. Anyway, what kind of spell would banish a demon?”

  He sits down next to me at the kitchen table. “Maybe there’s a demon-banishing spell in the book the Unseen wanted.”

  “The dark magic grimoire?” It’s a good idea, and he’s probably right. It’s far more likely than an ordinary grimoire to have spells relating to demons, especially given that it was written by the witch who brought Jeqabeel into this dimension in the first place.

  It’s just a shame I can’t read it.

  “Using dark magic is strictly forbidden,” I tell him. “Besides, I left the grimoire in the library by mistake. Seeing as we almost destroyed the building, getting it back might be difficult.”

  “So how are we going to get the demon out of me?”

  I hate having to admit I’m totally clueless. “I’m not sure.” I mumble the words into my coffee cup.

  “Then we’ll have to try zapping it.” He lifts both hands as though my magic’s a football I’m aiming to throw at him, and he’s ready to catch it. “Hit me with a spell.”

  I let out a long, reluctant breath. “Tell you what. Let me try using a spell on something other than you. Something inanim
ate. If I manage not to blow it up, that’ll be a good start.”

  “Here, magic this cup.” He pushes his empty coffee cup toward me. “Turn it into a chicken.”

  “It doesn’t work like that. Give me a minute to feed Ratticus, and I’ll try to remember some of the spells I used to know.”

  Ratticus is still running on his wheel in the cardboard box I set up for him in the living room. He climbs out of the wheel when I fill up his bowl, and I pick him up to stroke his furry back while I think.

  How many earth magic spells can I recall? A few easy ones, for moving dirt and stones. And one to shape a stone into a statue. Dad taught it to me, so I could give a carving to Mom for her birthday.

  Can I still remember that spell? I trace the rune in the air with the hand that’s not holding Ratticus. That’s it, isn’t it? It’s been so long, I’m not entirely sure.

  “Pity you’re only a rat,” I tell Ratticus. “You must have watched Sylvia use dozens of spells. I bet you know lots of runes, don’t you?”

  “Does he ever talk back?” Xander’s voice comes from close behind me. “Is Ratticus just a regular rat, or can he speak?”

  I snort. “A talking rat? That’s ridiculous.”

  “Is it? I’ve seen stranger things lately.”

  I guess he has a point.

  “It’d be great if Ratticus could share Sylvia’s secrets,” I say wistfully. “She was an archivist, so she could use her books to do a little of every kind of magic. Unfortunately, Ratticus would need a brain a little bigger than his pea-sized one to be able to tell us anything.”

  I give the rat one last pat, then head back to the kitchen and pull a sharp paring knife from the drawer. I have to figure out what I’m going to do with each of my two types of magic. “Let’s go outside. I’ll use my earth magic on the stones in the courtyard seeing as they’re already messed up.” Using my magic outside will also mean less danger of bringing the house down by mistake.

  Not that I’m going to say that. Not when Xander’s so hopeful my power can save him.

  He leads the way out the back door, and with every step my dread grows stronger. The large courtyard pavers are already in pieces, evidence of how unpredictable my magic is. The two halves of my magical whole are tangled and chaotic, the animal magic fighting against the earth magic.