He could have given it to Mark himself, or even magically coerced him into taking the test, but it was better to avoid using magic. For one thing, he didn’t want to bias the child against him. For another, he didn’t want to use more powerful magic in the school and draw attention to this child—or the Fae that preyed on children with powers would drain him.
The self-assessment was unnecessary for identifying magic, but it was standard procedure, mostly so that Womby’s School for Wayward Witches had a record of his information and had an idea what kind of affinity he might be.
Mostly they used it to weed out misfits like Felix who didn’t fit into the strict constructs of the kinds of magic they deemed acceptable in Witchkin society. There was an irony that he could perform his job as a recruiting agent better than those tasked with this job from other schools, not because he was as powerful as he claimed, but because he could tolerate the electricity of the Morty Realm. The school board would have fired him if they had known what he was.
A Red affinity who could harness the powers of electricity was a danger to Fae and Witchkin alike. Worse yet that his electricity could be fueled by pain.
Mrs. Sprouse gave Mark the form, and he grudgingly filled it out. Felix seated himself at the teacher’s more comfortable chair, watching the child’s reactions. Mark’s eyes went wide and then narrowed. He looked from his teacher at the front of the room, where she helped another child with his math, to Felix.
“The bell is about to ring.” Mark glanced at the clock. “I won’t have time to finish this.”
Felix forced his lips to curl upward. “You have plenty of time. I’ll give you a hall pass so you won’t be late for your next class.”
“I’m going to get in trouble.” The child groaned. “My dad is going to get so mad at me.”
Ah, so his father apparently knew the child could do magic. Sometimes that made Felix’s job easier. Sometimes not.
Students began to cram books and papers into their bags before the bell rang in the time-honored tradition of junior high students trying to escape from learning early. When the bell rang, Mark rose.
“Sit,” Felix barked with the firm authority of a teacher—which he had been once. “Finish your self-assessment. Then you will be free to go.”
Mark slouched back into his seat. The rest of the students scuttled out the door faster than cockroaches escaping after a kitchen light had been turned on. The only student who didn’t rise was Victoria, the girl who had been sleeping in class earlier. She sluggishly pulled her socks and shoes on, wincing as she did so. Felix felt the twinge of pain in the room, his magic wanting to lap it up and use it.
Felix resisted the urge to give in. This was the entire reason his magic was deemed as unnatural and despicable. He was so distracted by the yearning in himself he almost missed the perfume of magic.
What he sensed was different from the boy’s affinity. Nor was it his own. This tasted of music and dancing, but he sensed no spells. He thought the magic came from the girl, but she was human.
The flavor was more like Fae magic than a Witchkin’s. Felix scanned the room for Fae traps. It was possible a Fae had been watching the goblin boy and intended to catch him in the act of using magic, though no Fae would dare enter a building. The electricity alone would make them weak and vulnerable. There were no windows, so he didn’t have to worry about Fae spies outside. As Felix perused the room, the hint of magic seemed to come from the girl slowly shuffling out the door.
Felix would read the boy’s intake form carefully to see if this boy lusted for blood or pain as some goblins did, though he doubted that magic had come from him. It hadn’t tasted like Amni Plandai magic, but it had been too fleeting to glean much. Perhaps there were more Witchkin here than Mark. Or perhaps Felix had been too distracted by the girl’s aching feet to be observant enough to realize she was Witchkin.
Mrs. Sprouse busied herself with preparing for the next class. This school was probably on seven-minute passing periods like many middle schools. Felix seated himself beside Mark. Discreetly he erected a protective ward to divert attention from them and used a spell to keep from being overheard.
Felix waited until Mark finished filling out the form. “Do you know why I asked you to fill out this form?”
Mark rolled his eyes. “Duh. To see if I have magic.”
“Do you understand the importance of being trained in magic?” Felix took the form and folded it up to review later.
Mark sighed. “So I don’t hurt anyone.”
“Indeed. And so no one hurts you. Do you know about Fae? And Witchkin?”
The boy sank lower in his chair. “Yes.”
Felix arched an eyebrow upward. “Indeed? And do you know what a Fae will do with a child who uses magic in this realm?”
The boy’s cheeks flushed pink. “Eat us, drain us, or enslave us.” He said it in the dull monotone of a mantra he had probably recited many times before.
“Indeed. Yet you have used magic anyway. Any Fae could claim you as a tithe after witnessing such a display.” Felix wrote a hall pass so the boy would be excused from arriving late to his next class.
“But you aren’t a Fae?” Mark’s brows lifted hopefully.
“No. I’m a Witchkin, like you.” He said that, but the truth was, he wasn’t like anyone. “Unlike you, I went to a school for learning magic. Did you know there are schools out there for people like us?”
“My dad never told me that.” There was awe in Mark’s voice.
“Indeed,” Felix said, seeing a way past the boy’s protective armor. “If you went to a school in the Unseen Realm, you would be able to use your talents in a safe environment away from Morties. You would be with others, and you wouldn’t have to hide what you are.”
“There are other goblins out there?” Mark whispered.
“Just so. I have met many goblins.” Felix didn’t mention he didn’t like most of them. It was irrelevant, and he didn’t like most people.
Felix drew a rune in front of the child and marked him as his to claim. Recruiters from any other school were not allowed to claim him. It was a small enough mark that it would fade in a few days. The important detail was that most Fae who happened upon the child would leave him be until the mark faded.
Most, but not all.
Felix couldn’t undo the past and erase the horror of his own childhood, but he could spare this child from being used and enslaved by Fae tyrants.
It was a temporary marking that would fade in a couple of days, but it gave Felix time to do his job. He didn’t always have room in his busy schedule to make home visitations on the same day he observed children in their schools.
Students trickled into the room for the next class. They avoided the vicinity of Mark, compelled to leave them alone.
Mark stared at the rune, transfixed. He had enough power to see the magic, whereas a Morty wouldn’t. Felix drew Womby’s crest.
Felix placed the hall pass on the boy’s desk. “I would be remiss if I didn’t point it out, but it doesn’t matter what I am. I have caught you using magic. You do realize that means I can claim you.” Felix folded his hands in front of himself on the desk, waiting to see how the child took that.
Mark screamed and ran away, rightfully frightened. He didn’t even take his hall pass with him. Felix would be inviting himself over to the child’s house and having words with his parents later.
* * *
After studying the teacher’s gradebook to make note of Mark’s current grade and exemplary behavior, Felix left the math class, intent on making his way to the office. Once there, he would appropriate a copy of the boy’s school records and address.
Felix halted when he felt the hint of magic once again. The hall was desolate now that classes had started. It was easier to sense the enchantment with the energy of teenager hormones, Mark’s nature affinity, and the pain of the sluggish student’s foot not distracting Felix. A flicker of magic shimmer
ed on a thread so thin and fine it might have been made of a spiderweb.
Fae often lured children by tempting them to take an item, hooking a magical barb into the gift so that a line of magic was attached, not so different from a worm on a hook to catch a fish. Felix hadn’t noticed any such lures attached to Mark, but it was possible he wasn’t the only Witchkin child at the school. It was rare to find more than one student with magical abilities per school, but sometimes he found two or three if they were all related.
The school also happened to be in a rural area full of nature, and Witchkin found that comforting. Moreover, the suburbs of Portland, Oregon, always attracted Witchkin.
And sometimes Fae.
Felix walked to the place he’d seen the nearly invisible line, squinting and crouching, trying to catch that glimmer once again. It was so subtle it took a moment for him to find it. When he did, he marched over, inhaling the fragrance of magic. There was indeed music attached to the silvery light of the lure. This wasn’t like the traps of Fae rogues who were the culprits Felix usually caught trying to snatch children or trick them into using magic. This was smooth and refined, a cultured craft that came from a Fae house. It tasted different from the Raven Court Felix was used to dealing with and lacked the earthy energy of the Verde Court. The notes of piano music and the impetus to dance was more akin to something of the Silver Court.
Felix followed the string of magic down the hallway, turning corners until he found himself at the door of a music room. The instruments had been cleared, and students wore sparkling costume jackets. The racket that came from the speakers sounded like disco. Felix frowned.
If there was one thing Felix hated more than Fae, it was popular music. He’d tolerated the music of the fifties and sixties, but this business with the Bee Gees was pure torture.
Mark stood in the back of the room dancing behind three rows of students. Twenty-five students gyrated, using moves Felix found highly inappropriate for children. Mark’s head turned to Felix when he saw him in the door, his eyes going wide. Felix didn’t sense any magic radiating from the boy. The string wasn’t attached to him, but it was difficult to tell where it came from with the swarm of dancing children. A teacher clapped her hands and danced energetically at the front of the room, showing the students how to swing their hips and shake their shoulders like maniacs.
Mark looked appropriately scandalized to be caught performing. If he were accepted to a magical school, he would be taught more civilized forms of exercise: waltzing, Morris dancing, and traditional folk dances used for calling the elements. None of this popular Morty rubbish.
Felix was so scandalized by the sight of the children attempting pelvic thrusts that he almost forgot about the Fae magic. It was only when he caught the shimmer of light that he continued to scan the other students for traces of magic.
The front row of dancers were the most energetic pupils. Felix could see why the teacher had placed them up front to model the movements. Victoria, the sleepy-eyed girl from earlier, danced with her shoes off. Her movements were technically correct, a mirror of the moves the teacher showed the class, but she moved wildly, as if frenzied by the beat. Her movements were more than passion. They were frantic, as if her life depended on this dance.
Blood seeped through her socks. Pain radiated from the girl like a beacon, calling to Felix, tempting his magic to respond to her bleeding blisters and bruised feet. Every muscle in her body burned with fatigue. Her heart raced, working too hard. The organ convulsed painfully in her chest. Felix inhaled the aroma of that agony, the fuel for his own affinity—depraved as some might consider it.
Felix fought the urge to collect her excess energy and instead reached out for the Fae thread, probing the air near the girl. The hook had sunk into her solar plexus. It shimmered brighter momentarily. Yet, Felix could feel no other magic from the child, only the lure, which was curious. Most Fae preferred to lure and consume the energy of Witchkin children, not humans.
This girl was completely human. The only magic on her was that of the Fae.
The teacher was turned away from the students, which was why she didn’t see Victoria stumble and fall over.
The pain in her feet faded. The fatigue in her muscles melted away. Even before he strode forward to check for a heartbeat, Felix knew she was dead.
CHAPTER TWO
The Resurrection Game
Felix snapped his fingers at the tape recorder playing music, using the forbidden magic of electricity to cut the power. At this moment, he was more concerned about the child than being caught using “bad” magic. Victoria lay on the floor. He strode toward her.
Students looked around confused by the lack of music. The dance teacher turned around, her smile strained. She looked like she was about to chew someone out for messing with her music.
“Victoria, are you okay?” a girl asked, crouching beside her friend.
“Get the school nurse,” Felix shouted over the sudden murmurs.
Not that he had much faith in Morty medicines, but one had to try.
Students cringed back from Victoria’s limp form on the floor as if afraid she were contagious. The teacher turned around, saw her student on the carpet, and looked to Felix striding forward with his school district psychologist badge pinned to his pocket. She shoved two students toward the door, instructing them to get someone from the office and tell them to call 911. She had the sense to shove students back.
Felix kneeled beside the girl. He rolled her over, placing one hand on her back, the other on her sternum as he sent a jolt of electricity into her to restart her heart. The organ spasmed in her chest, a painful convulsion that echoed in Felix’s ears louder than the sound of the panicking children. She gasped in a breath.
He could see the string more clearly this close. Her soul was half removed from her body, the fabric of her spirit a translucent gossamer. As he’d suspected before, this girl had no magic, but what she lacked in affinity, she made up for in artistic passion. Her soul spoke the language of creativity and piano melodies. Ballet and classical music sang through her spirit, despite it being half tugged out of her.
The dance teacher started CPR. She manually pushed air into the girl’s lungs using mouth-to-mouth. She paused to perform chest compressions.
Felix used magic to hold on to her soul and tug her back inside her body. He snapped the string that had hooked her, but the moment he did so, her soul shifted through his fingers. Her heart stopped beating again. It was difficult to determine which was more urgent, keeping her body alive so that her soul would have a home, or keeping her soul present so that it would return to her body and give her the will to live.
“Move,” Felix said. “You’re doing chest compressions wrong.” The teacher wasn’t even in the right spot. He elbowed her out of the way.
With the next jolt of electricity he sent into Victoria, she opened her eyes and gasped. Her dance teacher smiled, thinking the worst was over.
Felix knew otherwise.
One thing Felix had experienced when it came to souls was how difficult they were to return to a body once they had vacated it. They needed a reason to want to be housed in a body once they’d experienced freedom from pain. The fatigue of her limbs and the ache in her muscles weren’t much of an enticement. This girl was a dancer. He could taste the rhythm and melody in the vibration of her soul. CPR and first aid weren’t going to be enough.
Felix lifted the girl into his arms. The dance teacher began to protest, but Felix ignored her. He rocked the girl, the closest she would get to movement and dance in her current state. He sang the first song he could think of.
“Alouette, gentille Alouette,
Alouette, je te plumerai,
Alouette, gentille Alouette,
Alouette, je te plumerai,
Je te plumerai les ailes.”
Of course his tongue would select a song so macabre, though most Americans didn’t speak enough French to know the cheer
y song was about earing a lark and plucking it’s body, head, and eyes. And of course it would be a song with her name. Alouette. Felix tried not to linger on what his subconscious was telling him about the headmistress of Womby’s School for Wayward Witches. It was the last worry he needed to think about right now.
The melody became a haunting lullaby when Felix sang it, the sound resonating in the room and filling it like a dirge. Music was a channel of spell craft, a medium for words. He was aware of the magic tingling against his lips and was careful to infuse meaning into the tune, to weave the refrain through the girl’s body and soul to bind them together.
It still wasn’t enough. Felix hated using Morties, but a child’s life was at stake due to the meddling of a Fae. He pushed the song into the children of the room so that they joined in his refrain, repeating the words and singing, becoming the chorus this girl needed to strengthen the bond between a body in pain and a lyrical soul. The dance teacher joined in, closing her eyes and swaying, caught up in the mesmerism.
Had Felix been born to a court of muses and Fae known for inspiring, this kind of magic would have been easier. The strain it put on him to multitask magical music with speaking to this girl’s soul on a level it could understand him was far more taxing than other kinds of magic he typically used in the Morty Realm.
Felix reached out with his awareness and wrapped the music around her soul, placing the spirit inside her body. The soul drifted out again.
Her eyes fluttered closed, and her heart stopped. He tried to grab her soul before it floated away. This time it drifted through his astral fingers and faded. He was helpless to stop it.
* * *
Felix walked out the doors of the school, his shoulders heavy with defeat. The moment he caught the perfume of Fae magic, he knew the day’s battles weren’t yet over.
“Merlin’s balls,” he muttered in vexation.
Son of a Succubus Series Collection Page 83