by K. F. Breene
I leaned over the side of my deck to see if Mikey was out on his back porch. Nope, all clear, which made sense in this heat. Looking down the row of houses, I didn’t see anyone out. Again, in midday and in this heat, that stood to reason.
I wiped sweat from my brow. It was annoying that I could withstand fire, but weather still affected me. Of all the injustices in the world…
Taking a deep breath, I let my power burn through my body as I slowly moved my hand through the air. Fire sprang up on the stone ground, spreading in the pattern I willed it to take, as quickly as I willed it to happen. This part of my power was second nature. Easy.
I feathered the flame higher, changing its heat and intensity, keeping it away from the wooden fences. The color shifted between yellow, orange, red, and blue. Next, I influenced different places in the yard to burn at different temperatures. This was a bit harder.
Sweat was dripping down my forehead from the strain as I created revolving fireballs. Orbs of blue, orange, and red moved around the yard like a school solar system. I blinked my eyes against a droplet of sweat. If only the yard was air-conditioned.
I clenched my fists. The orbs of fire blinked out and the flames dwindled. Taking a deep breath, I focused on the rocks in the middle of my yard. Ranging in size from small to half my height, they represented the newest power I’d tapped into. Telekinesis. Lifting things with my mind.
This ability had come as a surprise. I’d discovered it while knee deep in whiskey one night, bored as hell in my burned-out living room (before Darius fixed it up), making orbs circle each other like fairy lights. I’d felt a hankering for another sip of whiskey, but my glass was across the room. Clearly a ghost must have moved it, since I couldn’t remember putting it there. Deciding I didn’t much care about ghosts—they were easy enough for experienced mages to banish—I made a move to get up and get it. But the orbs flared, and suddenly there came my glass, floating through the air.
It was then I realized two things. I could move things with my power, so the myth about demons doing that while in a human host was probably true, and also, I did actually care about ghosts. A great deal. Because at first I didn’t realize I was moving the glass, and it scared the holy bejeebus out of me. I tore out of the living room for my sword, and the orbs winked out and the glass dropped, shattering across the floor.
At the time, I was more relieved I didn’t have a ghost than excited I could move stuff with my drunken mind.
From then, it had been on. I had a new thing to practice.
Turned out, making things move with my mind was way harder than making an orb of fire.
In the bright sunlight, I stood on my deck, staring at the smallest rock and keeping my hands at my sides. Pulling on my power, I imagined lifting the rock. It merely wobbled on the ground.
I pulled harder, feeling a strange numbing at the base of my stomach. The rock rose slowly into the air until it was three feet or so off the ground. Still focused, legs trembling, I moved it minimally before trying a larger one. That done, though not as successfully, I tried the next biggest, and then the next, until I was straining with the last and heaviest of the rocks.
The cold in my gut surged, pushing at my fire. I furrowed my brow as the biggest rock wobbled, an improvement on my last practice. The way my magic was acting, however, felt like a step backward. The fire in the yard, which had sprung up during my exercise with the first rock, had dwindled to nearly nothing.
I wiped my forehead and relaxed. All activity in my backyard stopped.
Though a little off balance from the feeling in my gut, I hadn’t yet practiced levitation, and I steeled myself to do so. I didn’t understand that new cold sensation, but I was confident my fire could fight it.
Maybe hopeful was a better word than confident.
Determination setting in, I shook out my arms and rolled my shoulders. I wasn’t far from using a boom box to blast “Eye of the Tiger.”
The thick air hung heavy around me. Distantly, a dog barked. Somewhere, a rattling, buzzing air conditioner clicked on.
Here we go.
Fire raged through me as I amped up my power to the red line. My heart thumped in my chest, feeding off the surge in adrenaline. Rushing sounded in my ears.
Slowly, I lifted my hands like Magneto in X-Men. Like Magneto, my feet lost connection with the wood under them, and I rose into the air. Heat rolled over my body, sweet agony. A foot off the ground, and I was still in my comfort bubble. I pushed a little harder and lifted a little higher. Two feet now. Three. The burn of using this much power ate through the pleasure of it.
Now for the hard part. Even drunk and totally committed, I had a hard time with this one.
Biting my lip, focusing with everything I had, I flexed my body and willed myself forward.
My muscles started to shake. I could barely hear through the pressure in my ears. It felt like there were weights on my shoulders, holding me down. Keeping me immobile.
Breathing heavily, fists clenched, I willed myself forward again. It felt like I was trying to move through a wall.
Gritting my teeth now, determined to make some sort of headway, I squeezed my eyes shut, held my breath, and gave it everything I had.
Air wafted against my face. At first I thought I’d gasped or exhaled, but I belatedly realized I wasn’t breathing at all. I’d moved forward!
Drenched in sweat, tremors running through my legs and arms, I tried again. And lurched again. It was then I noticed that the numbness now pulsed inside me, dull and cold, throbbing up my esophagus. Strangely hollow, too, like an echo through a vast, empty chamber.
“What in the holy fuck?” I heard.
My eyes snapped open and everything came crashing down. Rocks I hadn’t realized I’d lifted hit the ground. Orbs of fire fell, winking out as they did so. Flame, which had been crawling across my backyard, pulsing in all colors, sank until it extinguished. I followed, hitting the wooden steps of my porch and rolling to the bottom, thunking my head against the hard stone. Good thing my noggin was hard.
My neighbor, No Good Mikey, stood on his back porch looking into my backyard. His face was devoid of expression, but his eyes were rounded and his fingers had a white-knuckle grip on his banister.
“I’m a circus performer,” I blurted, sitting up. I rubbed the knot that was quickly forming on my head.
He shook his head slowly. “Nope. Try again.”
“I do magic. I learned it in Vegas and I’m practicing for a comeback tour. Neat tricks, right? I’ll crush it.”
He wiped his hand over his face. His gaze landed on the rocks spread around the yard. I’d even gotten the big one off the ground. A first. I needed to figure out what that cold sensation was. That seemed like the key.
His gaze shifted to the sides of my yard protected by the shielding spells, something he could clearly see from his vantage point. The air was filled with a sparkling purple haze reaching high into the sky. From the other side, it wouldn’t be noticed. In fact, the eyes would slip right past it, hiding the things behind the spell in plain sight.
“Have you done this before?” he asked through a tight jaw. He was clearly trying his damnedest not to freak out. He had balls of steel, that guy. If only he were magical, we’d make one hell of a team.
“Would you like the truth, or something that sounds good?” I asked.
“Don’t fuck with me.”
“Right. Yes, I’ve done this before. Not to this extent, because practice makes perfect and all, but…”
“Those rocks aren’t part of some shitty OCD decoration scheme?”
“Not really, no. Though thanks for pointing out my poor taste in decorating,” I said sarcastically.
“I haven’t heard or seen this before because…” He motioned at the shimmering purple air.
“I was better at keeping it under wraps, yes. I ran out of the…” I hesitated. “Hell, I’m just going to say it. Spells. I ran out of the spells. I only had two, and I needed three.”
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“I ain’t never seen a witch in that cemetery light shit on fire without touching it, not to mention throwing shit around like that,” he said in a strangely accusatory voice. He swore a lot in general, but when his brain was bending, he apparently pushed it to the next level.
“Say, listen, why don’t we take this conversation indoors? People like you aren’t supposed to know about people like me. It could get me in trouble and you dead.”
As though I’d flicked a switch, Mikey bristled and straightened out, turning his meaty shoulders toward me. His hands flexed and then curled into fists at his sides. All hint of I’m freaking out left his eyes and demeanor.
“I’d like to see them try,” he growled.
We’d definitely make a helluva team. And Darius wondered why I didn’t want to move…
“Well, I wouldn’t. I’d have to kill them all, and then we’d both have to move.”
“Open your front door. I’m coming to you. I don’t want you to burn my house down like you did yours.”
“That wasn’t me, and you know it.”
He was shaking his head as he turned. I distinctly heard, “Looney tunes,” before he disappeared around the edge of my house. I heard his back door slam shut.
If only I’d heard it open.
Weak and shaky, I moved into my gloriously air-conditioned house. I heard the knock at the door, two fast raps, and ignored it. I needed to put something on that wasn’t drenched in sweat. A moment later, I heard another two raps, followed by the handle jiggling. I assumed my door was opened directly afterward.
“You gonna let me in, or what?” Mikey called through my house.
“Clearly you just let yourself in,” I yelled back, peeling off my leather pants. That material was the absolute pits in the summer weather of Louisiana, but it did prevent me from buying a bunch of new clothes. “Don’t let the air conditioning out.”
“Girl, you need a lesson in hosting,” I heard him mutter.
I threw on some yoga pants and a T-shirt before heading out to find Mikey standing against the closed front door. He was looking around the new digs with a straight face.
“So?” I asked, gesturing at the living room. “You like?”
“Fancy,” he said. He’d seen the place when it was a half-burned ruin, and he was the reason the second half hadn’t also gone up in flames. Since then, we’d gone back to normal, which meant he did his thing, I did my thing, and our paths didn’t often cross. “Didn’t peg you for the type that bought that kind of stuff.” He jerked his head toward the closest oil painting on the wall.
“Surely you must’ve seen the outrageously gorgeous woman who was hanging around after the remodel was done.” I paused by the archway to the kitchen, waiting for his answer.
“Yeah, I saw her.”
I’d bet. Every man in the neighborhood had probably noticed her, even though she hadn’t strayed far from my house.
“She did all this.” I gave a sweep of my hand.
“And you let her have free rein.”
“Obviously. What do I know about decorating?”
He huffed out a laugh as he filled half of the entrance to the kitchen. “About as much as me, I reckon.”
“Exactly. Want something to drink?” I asked, getting myself some water. Part of me wondered if I needed water to live. For that matter, did I need food? I got hungry and thirsty, but I felt the need to breathe, as well. I’d proven that I didn’t need to, so maybe I didn’t need those other things either. Maybe the pain of not having them could be endured.
Truth be told, I didn’t much want to find out.
“I’m good,” Mikey said, crossing his arms.
“Want to sit?” I pointed at the table in the corner of the kitchen.
He shook his head, so I leaned back against the counter. He wasn’t much for formal conversation, I gathered.
“Did Smokey tell you what he saw in the cemetery?” I asked, trying to figure out a good place to start.
“Yeah. Sounded insane.”
“It is insane, yes. Most of the witches who come to the cemetery aren’t very…magical. Some aren’t magical at all—they just wish they were.”
“This is going to be the worst conversation I have all day, I can already tell.”
“All month, at least.” I took a few gulps of my water. “But some of those witches are real. They can do crazy stuff with plants and spells and whatnot. That aswang Smokey saw was magical, and very dangerous. The people he suspects are supernatural are, indeed, supernatural. There are lots more, as well, all around. You’ve met more than one in your lifetime and had no idea they weren’t—” His eyes glimmered with a warning and his body tensed. I changed the word I’d planned to use. “—normal.” He relaxed somewhat.
“So you’re one of those witches who is… Who can really do stuff?” he asked in a rough voice.
“I’m not a witch, no. And here’s the tricky part of our relationship.” I finished my water and refilled my glass, trying to figure out how to say this delicately. “Even as far as magical people go, I’m not normal. I’m not like anyone else, which is very dangerous for me. Only a few people have ever seen the things you saw, and those few could get me in big trouble. Now, you couldn’t get me into hot water directly, but loose lips might get heard by the wrong sort of people, and then I’d be up shit creek, do you hear what I’m saying?”
“I know how to keep my mouth shut.”
“Yes. I know you do. But occasionally someone might come around asking questions, and I can’t have anyone knowing the answers to those questions. Do you hear what I’m saying?”
“I know a threat when I hear one.”
“Good, yes. Because this is definitely a threat. Usually I would kill you without question, but what can I say? You’ve grown on me. I’d hate to move, and it would suck even worse to be a suspect in a murder investigation. Cops are annoyingly hard to shake. You’ve put me between a rock and a hard place.”
A smile spread across Mikey’s face. He looked out the front window in the kitchen. “What a strange fucking day.”
“Sometimes meeting one’s neighbors isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.” I sipped my water, watching him over the rim of my glass. I wasn’t lying—I really didn’t want to kill him any more than I did the captain. In all honesty, I liked him. He was blunt and grumpy and violent and completely honest. He was good people. My kind of people.
While I knew I shouldn’t be expanding my bubble of acquaintances, after the incident with Darius and the unicorns, it had just kind of happened. And, to be honest, I didn’t want my life to go back to the lonely way it used to be. It would probably bite me in the ass in the end, but that was nothing new. I knew this semi-normal life I had was on borrowed time.
“Smokey thinks you’re one of them,” Mikey finally said.
“Who, a vampire?”
“No. One of them magical types. He’s onto you.”
“Oh. Well, he saw me carrying a really big rock one time. It was super early in the morning, so I didn’t think anyone awake would also be sober. That was my bad. It’s fine that he thinks I’m magical. My community knows it. It’s the exact nature of my magic that is the secret.”
The smile dropped off Mikey’s face. “And what specifically isn’t normal?” I felt my eyes harden—the less he knew, the better. He put up his hands in surrender. “I gotta piece through this. Right now, I want to tear shit up because everything feels so whack. Humor me.”
“Usually that would be asking a lot, but I’m kind of asking the same of you, so fine. Everything you saw was not normal.”
“The fire, and the floating rocks, and the hovering? All that?”
“Literally, all of that, yes. Some people can make fire, but not like that. Not in floating orbs.”
“This shit is blowing my mind.” He shook his head and shifted again, bowing a little. “It is literally blowing my mind. Smokey talking is one thing—he’s nuts—but I saw this shit, yo. I saw it.” He took
a step back. “I need a moment.”
“Yup.” Warning tingles spread across my skin. I didn’t like this turn of events.
As if hearing my thoughts, Mikey put his hands up again, though he was still bowed over. “I got no problem with you. Your shit is your shit. I’m good with that. Just like my shit is mine, and I don’t need you telling nobody my hours or what I’m up to. I get this.” He motioned back and forth between us. “You’ve got my back, and I’ve got yours. Still, I’m having a hard time with what I saw. It was either incredibly dope, or batshit crazy.”
“Crazy. Stick with crazy.”
“Yeah.” He blew out a breath. “I’m going to go think on this, and avoid all your friends like the plague. Hope you’re good with that.”
“Yes. Probably wise.”
“Fine.” He motioned back and forth between us again. “We understand each other.”
“Okay.”
“Okay. I’m out.” He turned and headed for the door.
I stared at the empty space he’d just vacated. He should’ve had J.M.’s job, clearly.
Chapter Nine
Agnon heard the summons and forced its way into the weaker demon’s path, pushing it down and taking its place. Grudgingly, Agnon let the form it had assumed while last walking the earth, that of a young man, dissolve away. The being materialized in an enclosure it recognized. The summons it had interrupted before—when it had made first contact with the witches and promised them a boost in power for their participation in its cause—had come from the same place.
The building was large, damp but spacious, and held rows of stacked boxes toward the back. A body lay clumped some distance away, the vessel of the energy needed to summon Agnon. Humans in flowing robes of black gathered around him. Their toes were well back from the blood-splattered chalk outline they mistakenly thought would contain a being as mighty as Agnon.
Silly creatures.
While they clearly knew Agnon was a different demon than the one they’d called before it had stolen the summons, they still had no idea of the power they’d brought to their doorstep. The being occasionally loved working with imbeciles. In this situation, especially, it made the task so much easier.