Mind Games

by Christine Amsden

  “Are you over him?” Kaitlin asked.

  “Yes.” I wasn’t even close to over him, but I backed up the lie with a bit of truth. “I’ve even got a date this afternoon.”

  “With who?” Kaitlin asked.

  “Matthew Blair.”

  “The state senator?” Kaitlin squealed. “The mayor’s son? How do you always get the best men?”

  I chose not to answer that particular question, not when Kaitlin was in full jealousy mode. Having had very few men in my life at all, and having held on to none of them so far, I didn’t see a good reason for her envy. On the other hand, I didn’t want to argue, especially not when Kaitlin did have problems of her own.

  “I’m glad you’re moving on.” Madison didn’t sound glad. In fact, she refused to look me in the eye. “It’s important to move on. Helps you get over people.”

  “How would you know?” Kaitlin asked. “Isn’t Nicolas your first-ever boyfriend?”

  Madison’s face went beet red. I gaped at my best friend, wondering where she had left her sense. Maybe it had burned in the fire that had consumed her first apartment and everything in it, because she hadn’t been herself for nearly that long.

  “Sorry,” Kaitlin muttered.

  “It’s okay,” Madison said. “You’re right. He is my first boyfriend.”

  But I had a sudden inspiration, an answer to a question that had been plaguing me ever since she had finally accepted my brother’s nagging date invitations. “Is he helping you get over what your father did?”

  I hadn’t thought it could, but Madison’s face went redder. “I’m not using him.”

  “I didn’t think you were,” I said.

  “I just needed someone to help me keep my mind off… things.”

  “Is it working?” I asked.

  She bit her chapped lip again. “Maybe.”

  It was the best answer I would get, and more than I had dragged out of her in weeks, so I let it go.

  “I am sorry,” Kaitlin repeated, sounding more sincere this time. “It’s hormones. It’s stress. I haven’t slept in days. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” Madison offered Kaitlin a hug, which she accepted.

  “You can’t sleep?” I said.

  Kaitlin shook her head, and I saw the truth in the dark circles under her eyes.

  “I know a sleeping potion.”

  “Is it safe for the baby?” Kaitlin asked.

  I didn’t know, but I could find out.

  * * *

  The surface of Table Rock Lake gleamed in the late morning sunlight, giving it a mirrored look, at least from a distance. The Blairs owned a speedboat, which Matthew and I took turns driving at high speeds. We steered in tight circles, riding our own wake as well as the wakes of the other boats passing us by. The wind whipped through my hair, which I left unbound, tying it into tiny knots that would take time to untangle. But my troubles seemed to fly away into the breeze.

  Matthew brought a picnic lunch for us to share. He took control of the wheel, steering us into a secluded cove that no one else seemed to notice. In fact, one boat approached, its driver looking directly at the cove, but it suddenly turned away at the last minute.

  “Just a little suggestion,” Matthew said by way of explanation. “You don’t want to come this way. There’s nothing very nice here.”

  He could call it little if he wanted, but it seemed like powerful magic to me, and it made me feel uneasy. Not that I thought Matthew was controlling me in any way. I mean, if he was, my parents would never have allowed him to spend time with me. But he was powerful, potentially dangerous to others, and I didn’t know him all that well.

  “I’m enjoying the bird song coming from the tree just behind us,” Matthew said, “while you’re thinking about magical ethics.”

  My face heated. “That’s not fair.”

  “Probably not, but at least with you I don’t have to use subtle tricks to bring the conversation around to what you clearly want to talk about. You knowing the truth about me is as fair as I can make it.”

  I looked into his eyes, which implored me to trust him, and to like him. Give me a chance, they said. “All right, so tell me. When and how do you use your spells?”

  Matthew took a bite of ham sandwich and chewed, thoughtfully. “Well, it depends upon the situation. Magic isn’t black or white, you know.”

  My father said so all the time, but he had an addendum that I spoke out loud. “No, but mind magic is already tinted a deep, dark gray.”

  “Your father doesn’t trust what he doesn’t understand. I don’t blame him, but to throw his saying back in his own face, any kind of power is already tinted a deep, dark gray. Haven’t you ever heard that power corrupts?”

  “Of course.”

  Matthew gave me a slight shrug. “Well, your father could burn my house down around me while I slept. It doesn’t mean he will. I could make him feel so depressed that he wants to kill himself. It doesn’t mean I will.”

  I shuddered. Both scenarios may have amounted to murder, but Matthew’s attack plan seemed more sinister.

  “How is it worse?” Matthew asked.

  Words failed me. Dead is dead, but in Matthew’s suicide scenario, he didn’t attack straight on. He sapped will and even self. He removed free choice from the equation, and turned a person into something they were not.

  “The trouble most people have with mind control,” Matthew said, “is they think their thought processes are a part of their soul. So if I alter those thoughts, I’m changing something that is fundamentally theirs, that they can never get back. Trust me, I’ve sifted through enough minds to know the soul isn’t in there.”

  “Oh?” I arched an eyebrow at him. “So where is it?”

  “In your right big toe. Unless you’re left handed. Then it’s in the left.”

  It took me a minute to realize he was joking.

  “Are you left handed?” He grinned at me.

  “No.” I grinned back. I couldn’t help it. It didn’t make me trust mind magic, or even him, but it gave me something to think about. And, after all, he was being very open with me. That was more than I could say for anyone else, including Evan.

  “Last week I was at a fundraiser,” Matthew said. “I kept hearing these dark thoughts, kind of in the periphery. They disturbed me, so I made my way through the crowd, trying to find the source, and there it was – a young woman, barely more than a girl, standing all alone near the speaker system. She figured if she stood there, no one would try to talk to her because it would be too loud.”

  “Didn’t it bother her?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “She’s deaf. Her parents brought her to the fundraiser and they apparently like to use her disability as a political tool. She’s convinced they don’t even love her. I can’t say if that’s true or not, since they weren’t really thinking about her one way or another when I ran across them, but in her mind she was all alone in the world. She was standing there, by the speakers, playing death scenes in her mind… a gun, some poison, maybe slit her wrists.”

  I closed my eyes. “What did you do?”

  “A little suggestion. A mood lift. I couldn’t just undo the depression, not without a lot of tools and time that I didn’t have available, but I forced her to smile. Did you know that smiling can make you feel better?”

  “I usually smile when I’m happy.”

  “Try smiling when you’re not,” Matthew said. “It works wonders. So I made her smile and I suggested she call her doctor.”

  “Did she?” I held my breath, eager for the answer.

  “Yes. I drove by her house the next day on a pretext to make sure. Just in case she hadn’t, I brought a potion I hoped would do the trick, but it turned out to be unnecessary. I’m a minimalist – the more you go mucking around in someone’s mind the more chance you have of creating an inconsistency.”

  “An inconsistency?”

  “Like getting caught in a lie.” Matthew took a sip of his soda and
leaned back against the padded blue bench seat. “I didn’t mean to turn to such a dark subject. I’m sorry.”

  I didn’t mind in the least. The story had given me a glimpse into who Matthew really was, and I liked what I’d seen. I wasn’t a fool – I was sure he also used his telepathy and mind magic to help him in his political career – but at least there was this side to him as well.

  “So is that why you won’t just help me forget about Evan?” I found myself asking. “Inconsistencies?”

  “Among other things.” Matthew set his soda down and slid closer to me along the boat’s bench seat. “Cassie, you’re a strong woman. You don’t need my help getting over a bad breakup.”

  I wasn’t entirely convinced, but I nodded.

  “In two years, I’m going to run for the U.S. House of Representatives,” Matthew said. “After two or three terms there, I’m going to try for governor. After that, maybe senator. I’ve got serious goals and there’s no way I’d give you a second look, let alone tell you my secrets, if I didn’t think you were strong.”

  My heart gave a little involuntary flutter. Looking at it that way, he had just given me extremely high praise.

  He raised his hand slowly, cupping my face and tilting it slightly upward. He was going to kiss me and what was more, I wanted him to do it. When his lips met mine, soft and warm, I reacted to the touch, pressing my body closer. It didn’t inspire the sort of magical abandon that Evan’s kiss did, but there was something to be said for having a clear enough mind to savor the moment.

  Matthew pulled away. With a jolt, I realized that not only had I been thinking about another man while he’d kissed me, comparing their techniques, but he’d heard every word of it.

  “It’s okay,” Matthew said. “These things take time.”

  “Let’s talk about something else,” I suggested.

  “Health care?”

  I latched on to the random topic eagerly. Though he did most of the talking, it did have the desired effect – I didn’t think about Evan again for the rest of the day.

  3

  KAITLIN MANAGED TO SLEEP WELL THAT night, after I brewed a sleeping potion for her. I wasn’t so lucky. Even after drinking the potion I tossed and turned all night long, drifting off for a few minutes before suddenly waking. That happened to me sometimes. When it did, a sleep spell was the only thing I knew that could help. But I didn’t live at home anymore and I couldn’t exactly call Mom to ask her to drive twenty minutes to my house in the middle of the night.

  Work beckoned to me the next morning, rested or not, so I brewed my wakefulness potion to cast aside the residual drowsiness. Madison, who would be starting her first day of student teaching, looked like she could use some as well so I passed her a cup.

  “Thanks,” she said, taking a sip. Then her eyes widened and color flooded into her cheeks. “You’d better watch out, this stuff could be way more addictive than coffee.”

  It was way more addictive than coffee, which was why I refused to brew it more than a handful of times a month, and only when I really needed it. Usually, one sleepless night wouldn’t be enough for me to decide I needed it, but it had been nearly a month since the last time I’d brewed it and Mondays could be chaotic. Maybe it was the start of the new school year or the talk about magical unification, but something told me it would be a good day to stay alert.

  As if to confirm my feelings, the sheriff called me into his office the moment I walked into the station.

  “Hiya, Boss,” I said as I entered his office. I paused when I spotted the new deputy seated across the desk from the sheriff. I shut the door softly and took the last vacant chair in the room.

  “Cassie, this is Wesley Blake,” Sheriff Adams said.

  I took the opportunity to look at Wesley, trying to take his measure, but he was a closed book. Nothing about him stood out in any way – short brown hair, blue eyes, rounded chin, hopelessly average build and height. He didn’t smile when he saw me, nor did he frown or give me a dirty look. It was almost as if he was trying to take the measure of me as well, and in the process thwarting both of our efforts.

  He held out his hand to shake mine and I accepted the gesture, firm and sure. An odd tingle of awareness stole over me, something that at any other time I might have taken for a slight stirring of interest, but in this case it didn’t make much sense. Wesley was at least ten years older than me and while not unattractive, hardly my usual type.

  “Wesley’s replacing Rick,” Sheriff Adams said, bringing me back to reality.

  Repressing a groan, I took a fresh look at the newcomer to the office. The sheriff had this strange idea about pairing me with a non-believer, a sort of Mulder and Scully match. But, as I tried to explain to the sheriff, Scully wasn’t blind, she was analytical. Rick, on the other hand, wouldn’t believe David McClellan’s death might have had anything to do with werewolves when we found his half-eaten carcass the day after the night of a full moon. At least he’d quit soon after that, because he really would have hated my assertion that David’s death probably had something to do with the dangerous items he sold at his shop. I came to that conclusion after the medical examiner pronounced that David had not died from the animal attack, but had already been dead at the time. With the body in such bad shape, the M.E. hadn’t been able to tell us how he had died.

  “Nice to meet you, Wesley,” I said, drawing my hand back. To the sheriff, I said, “Another Scully?”

  Wesley blinked in confusion, but the sheriff just smiled. “Wesley isn’t from around here so it is possible that he’ll bring a fresh perspective.”

  “Where are you from?” I asked.

  “St. Louis. I was a cop there for five years.”

  “Why did you come here?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “I thought the city was too violent. I wanted fewer murders and a slower pace of life.”

  I almost laughed. “You might have come to the wrong place. Come on, I’ll show you around.” I paused at the door. “You giving him Rick’s old station?”

  “Yep.”

  That meant he’d be working right next to me. Not that it mattered, since I typically spent little time at the station. I’d been on my own since Rick quit, no one particularly eager to team up with me, and now I wasn’t sure whether to be grateful for the help or wary of the intrusion. A new partner meant new quirks. Given the types of cases I typically worked, I needed to know how he would react to the strange and unexpected. Bad backup could be worse than none at all, as Rick had proved during the diner robbery.

  “What did you do in St. Louis?” I led him across the small open space where all the deputies had their desks. Mine was in the back corner, furthest from both the sheriff’s office and the reception counter. His was adjacent to mine, with only a few feet between. There weren’t even cubicle walls to give us the illusion of privacy.

  “I started in traffic, but they moved me to homicide last year. I thought it would be interesting, and it was, but there was just too much of it. And too many cases we couldn’t solve.”

  “We don’t always solve them here, either.” I thought about David McClellan, though I wondered if I was really putting my all into that case.

  I didn’t get into David’s case with Wesley right away. Better to work our way up to that. Instead, I showed him the break room, coffee maker, file room, copy machine, and the small jail. We weren’t equipped to handle long-term inmates but there were always a few people there, awaiting trial or sleeping off a hard night of overindulgence.

  I also introduced him to the other deputies. After Rick left none of them had rushed to fill the gap, but it wasn’t because they disliked me. We got along pretty well with one another, but everyone knew that if a crime involved anything out of the ordinary, I would be the one to get it.

  Around mid-morning our dispatcher, Jane, came by to introduce herself to Wesley. She flung back her long red ponytail and sat on the edge of his desk, her manner typically flirtatious. I considered her a friend, but for so
me reason her mannerisms bothered me more than usual.

  “So, Wesley,” Jane said. “Do you believe in magic?”

  “Magic?” He furrowed his brows in obvious confusion. “Like stage magicians or something?”

  “No, real magic,” Jane said.

  He looked my way as if hoping I would help, but his answer interested me even more than it interested Jane. I’d been working my way up to the question more slowly, but now that Jane had forced the issue, I wanted to hear the answer.

  “Do you mean like fortune tellers and ESP?” Wesley asked.

  “Oh, you know… witches… vampires… magic.”

  Wesley glanced at me. “Does this have anything to do with that Scully remark you made earlier?”

  I gave him a careless shrug. “It helps to be open-minded.”

  “I’m open-minded,” Wesley said, almost defensively. “But no, I don’t believe in magic. I’ll have to see it to believe it, and even then I’m going to want to rule out scientific explanations first.”

  “You should check out our coffee maker,” Jane said, winking at me. The coffee maker had been a gift from my father. “Makes the best coffee you ever had in less than ten seconds flat.”

  Wesley looked unimpressed. “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

  I frowned, trying to place where I’d heard that before, but it escaped me.

  “Arthur C. Clarke,” Wesley said helpfully.

  “I see.” Since I didn’t normally read science fiction, I wasn’t sure why it had even sounded familiar to me. Maybe Evan had mentioned it before; it was the sort of thing he liked to read.

  “Hey, Cassie!” Joe called from the reception counter.

  I looked up, but before I even had a chance to ask what he needed, I saw the answer for myself. Cormack McClellan, David McClellan’s younger brother, drummed his fingers impatiently on the counter and stared straight at me.

  “Speaking of unsolved cases,” I murmured as I rose to my feet and went to face down Cormack.

  Cormack looked a lot like his brother around the face, especially the eyes, which gleamed with the same malevolent intensity. But Cormack stood at least half a head shorter than his brother, with a much wider girth. He had been by the sheriff’s department every few days since his brother’s murder, demanding answers when we had none to offer.