by Rachel Lou
Another spike embedded in his mind, and he swallowed his nausea.
He dragged the chair back and slid open the door. He turned back to grab his messenger bag and then tripped over the doorsill, scraping his knees and tearing his gloves on the concrete porch.
He sprinted down the street, two blocks to where he had parked. He tripped and pitched off the sidewalk, landing in a bush of sharp pines, and then slammed against the trunk of his car when the pain suddenly left.
He dropped into the driver’s seat, nearly banging his head on the doorframe, then drove deeper into the neighborhood until he came across a street lined with bushes and trees. He parked under the shadow of a tree.
He rubbed the tears off his cheeks and streaked his hand with blood. He checked his face in the rearview mirror. A thin gash ran across his forehead. Blood dripped in a thin line to his eyebrow.
The gashes on his palms made it painful to peel off his gloves. The frayed fabric of the holes torn into his jeans rubbed into the gashes. He used his apartment key to cut the strands.
If he didn’t shield himself, his blood could be used as a focus for a location spell. He already had to maintain his aura’s defense. It was an active ward that required no touch-ups, but the addition of a location block would tire him. A block on his blood required less effort, but he didn’t think he had enough energy for that as well.
He closed his eyes and tested his energy pool with tiny mental pokes. There wasn’t even enough for a simple aura exposure.
HE WASHED up in the restroom at Stanley Hugh Park.
The sink water was freezing, and it burned as much as hot water did when he put his scraped palms under it. The water soaked into his jeans and plastered the fabric to his skin. His jeans hardened, and they felt three times as thick when he tried to bend his knees. Either that or his joints were frozen by the water.
The paper towel dispenser had filled with cobwebs after the hand dryer was installed. The dryer was broken. Everett wrung his hands and let them air-dry.
He wanted to speed home and take a hot shower, but with the bloodstain looming over his thoughts, he couldn’t bring himself anywhere near the shop. What if he was already being tracked?
The week only got worse and worse. Everett sighed and leaned against the sink, eyeing the angry gash on his forehead that was beginning to swell.
His phone vibrated.
He bowed his head and waited out the ringtone.
Eventually he would have to go home. He hadn’t told his grandfather how long he’d be out, but his grandfather was probably already worried.
He had to cast a tracking block. But how? The same way he locked away his aura?
It was worth a shot.
He looked at the boy in the warped mirror. Big eyes, small nose, thin lips—he was not the image of a Bridge Master. He was weak, clinging on to the last of his energy.
He grabbed a pinch of salt from his bag, defocused his eyes, and looked within his mind. He called up the illusion of the box he locked his aura in. He replicated the box and imagined storing a vial of his blood. He didn’t get the gut-stirring satisfaction he got when he cast spells. He felt nothing.
He couldn’t think of anything else he could put in a box that represented a blood location spell. His visualization wasn’t even a spell. It was simple imagery, something a human could do.
His phone vibrated again.
He groaned and palmed his eyes, then sharply withdrew his hands when pain raced through his wounds.
“How the heck am I supposed—”
Someone knocked on the door. It sounded more like a single finger tapping on the door. A very fleshy finger.
Everett opened the door a crack.
“Buzz!” He pulled the jellyfish in by a tentacle. He crushed Buzz to his chest. “You saved me.”
Buzz made a sound like wind chimes catching the summer breeze.
“Are you hurt?” Everett held Buzz up and down, checking him all over for wounds, though he didn’t know what injuries looked like on a spirit.
Buzz looked the same as he always did.
“You’re all right!” Everett opened his hands, and Buzz jumped back. “What happened? Did you hurt the woman? Is she dead?”
Buzz shook his cap and darted to the other side of the restroom.
“She ran. Did you recognize her?”
Buzz lazily shook his cap, then puffed two tentacles in parody of flexing arm muscles.
“She’s muscular. How old?”
Buzz pointed at Everett.
“A muscular teen girl.” That could be anyone. “If you saw her again, would you recognize her? Yeah? Then I guess we can go home. I just need to make a defense against blood tracking.”
Buzz crossed his tentacles. He pointed at himself.
“What? You can do the defense?”
Buzz put his tentacles in the air and floated in a circle.
“What is that?”
Buzz made shoulders out of his tentacles and shimmied.
“You’re dancing? Celebrating? Because you’ll do the defense for me?”
Buzz sagged, a disappointed eye looking at Everett. He nodded with his cap.
“Sometimes it’s difficult to translate your actions. Keep it simple.”
Buzz whined. “But it’s boring!”
“I know it is, but it helps—wait. Did you just speak?”
Buzz cocked his cap to the side. Had that been Buzz at the dojang? Right before Everett stripped Bryce’s aura?
“Did you—never mind. Can you keep the block on me for the rest of the day?”
Buzz nodded.
“How long can you hold it? A week? A month?”
Buzz nodded, but didn’t look convinced.
“All right.” Everett sighed. “Let’s go home and I’ll look up what I can do about this. We might have to go back to Omar’s house and tamper with the blood.”
Chapter 21
EVERETT MADE it to the first step before his grandfather caught him.
“Everett.”
His grandfather’s voice put an immediate brake on his feet.
“Where have you been? I called you thirty minutes ago and you didn’t answer. I thought something had happened to you.”
“I was hanging out with Buzz.”
Buzz hummed a low-tuned warning.
He shifted his messenger bag so that it covered his back more securely. He hadn’t been able to wash out the bloodstains, and he hadn’t the time or materials to stitch the slashes in his shirt.
Buzz stuck out of the corner of the messenger bag, making sure the bag stayed over Everett’s injury.
“I’m sorry, Grandpa. Next time I’ll make sure my phone isn’t on silent.”
“Did something happen? You seem shaken.”
“Excuse me, sir. I’m ready to check out,” a customer said.
“I’ll be right there,” Everett’s grandfather said.
Everett continued up the stairs. “I’m fine, Grandpa. You’ve been on edge lately, picking up on nonexistent traces.”
He watched the stairs move under his feet. If he stumbled, his bag would slip and his grandfather would see his wounds.
He swung the bag off his back when his bedroom door was shut. He forgot Buzz was inside and swung it on his bed. Buzz cried, trapped under Everett’s books.
“I’m sorry.” Everett held the bag upright and loosened the flap so Buzz could float out. “You’ve been making a lot of sounds recently. Have you always been able to, or are you finally coming out of your shell?”
Buzz hummed, and instead of a vibration it was a voice. He sounded like a human of indiscernible sex humming while they folded laundry or washed dishes.
Everett wriggled out of his shirt. It took an effort to keep his wound untouched. He stepped out of his jeans and laid his clothes side by side on his bed. He needed to stitch his shirt, but his jeans were fine. The bloodstains would fade in the wash.
“I wonder how much energy it’d take to fix these up.” E
verett looked at Buzz, but the jellyfish was covering his eye with all his tentacles. “You have permission to look.”
Buzz cautiously lowered his tentacles, and then he looked at Everett’s briefs, and his eye all but popped out of its socket.
“You’re a jellyfish and I’m a human. It wouldn’t work out.” Everett smiled and tossed his clothes at the foot of his bed. He wrapped his body in his bathrobe. “I’m going to take a shower, and you’re not invited. Go downstairs and make sure my grandfather doesn’t come across my ruined clothes. I don’t want him to know anything.”
Buzz saluted and waited in front of the door for Everett. Everett opened the door, and Buzz zoomed to the apartment’s shop entrance. He opened the door for that too, and Buzz flew down the stairs.
Something prickled in Everett’s back.
He touched the wound through his robe and the pain spiked.
He checked his back in the bathroom mirror and gasped. The scratches were inflamed, longer and deeper than Everett remembered them being. The park’s restroom mirror had been warped, but he hadn’t expected the reflection to be half the length of what they were now.
It looked like a jagged blade had raked his back twice to form a V, and once to scratch a vertical line through the V.
He prodded the area around the tip of the V and hissed.
He needed ointment for the scratches—and for his hands, knees, and forehead.
“It can’t get worse, can it?” Everett said, then laughed at the stupidity in his voice.
THE SCRATCHES scabbed over the weekend, and on Monday the skin wasn’t too painful to touch. Everett’s grandfather demanded an explanation for the cut on his forehead, so Everett lied—as was becoming a habit—and said he had gotten it while he was playing with Buzz. He had fallen off his desk chair and clipped his forehead on the desk’s edge. Buzz had gone with the lie and sheepishly shrugged.
Bryce hadn’t texted or called Everett since last Wednesday. The silence couldn’t stretch forever, so Everett took a deep breath that didn’t calm his nerves one bit and called Bryce. Five seconds later he hung up, went online to book a lesson for Tuesday, and texted Bryce the date and time.
Bryce confirmed it seconds later. If he could respond so quickly, he should have answered Everett’s call.
“You ruined our friendship,” Everett told Buzz and returned to the dusty spell book he had found in his grandfather’s bedroom.
The book had been under a pile of ancient books Everett had never seen before. They were out in the open, in front of an empty chest with an unlocked padlock.
His grandfather was working the cash register, and Everett was supposed to be leveling out the shelves, but here he was, defying his grandfather—again. He felt guilty for feeling a lack of guilt.
“If Omar was here, I’d know how to block, but his disappearance is the reason I’m looking for this spell in the first place—ah, here. Is this it?”
Buzz sat on the book and read.
Everett’s phone lit with a text from Bryce. He ignored it. If Bryce could ignore his calls, Everett could ignore Bryce’s texts.
Buzz tapped the spell’s title: Tag Block III.
Everett read the spell’s ingredients and mentally cried.
The traditional methods of casting involved ingredients that were believed to hold spiritual importance. The modern methods of casting involved focuses. Focuses simplified the casting process, but in exchange for on-the-spot spells was a prominent need for energy.
“We don’t have half the ingredients. And half of that half can’t be found in grocery stores.” Everett took a phone picture of the spell. “We’ll need a supply of it to last me until we find Omar. There’s a grace period of seven nights until the protection wears off. Can you find the natural ingredients for me? I’ll take care of the store-bought ones.”
Buzz acknowledged the request, followed Everett to the shop, and then went onward. Everett watched Buzz through the shop display.
“Excuse me… um… mister?”
Everett turned, and a boy half his size looked at his chest for a nametag that didn’t exist.
“Do you have any children’s books about witches?”
Everett smiled. “Follow me.”
The children’s books were shelved around the reading room, where a muscular teen sat with his laptop plugged into a socket on the side of the coffee table. He looked to be a gym regular who stuck with weights instead of treadmills. His torso was a triangle that tapered to a narrow waist. Not too different from Bryce. His foot tapped up and down impatiently.
The younger boy browsed the children’s books, and the older boy didn’t look up from his laptop. Whatever was on the screen held his attention like glue.
His features were familiar, but Everett didn’t think he had seen him before. He had seen the boy’s strong nose, dark eyes, and dark skin on someone else. His gaze jumped to Everett, then back to the laptop.
“Can I help you?” Everett asked.
The boy jerked and the laptop bounced on his lap. He pulled the screen halfway shut. “No thank you.” His voice was a deep rasp.
“If you need assistance with anything, I can help.”
Everett got the feeling the boy didn’t want him to leave. He put his attention on the shelves and helped the younger boy pick out books. Whenever he went near the bookshelves behind the older boy, the laptop screen was fully pushed back and the boy leaned away from the screen, making it easy for Everett to see a list of brew ingredients in a word-processor document.
“Are you doing work for the English program at GFC?” Everett asked.
The boy brought up an Internet tab and opened an online bookstore.
“I’m just searching books. New Age and occult books. Witchcraft and that sort. Some paranormal.” The boy smiled nervously, and the woman from Wednesday flashed in Everett’s mind.
“Your mother walks your dogs in front of the shop every morning. She told me you love paranormal books. She also told me your name, but I don’t remember it.”
“Jacob, but I’m Jake for short.” He didn’t seem pleased to be connected to his mother.
“I’m Everett. It’s nice to meet you.”
They shook hands. Everett cringed at the warm wetness coating Jake’s hand.
“I sweat a lot.” Jake wiped his hand on his pants.
It wasn’t sweat.
It felt like the ectoplasm Everett had produced last week, except Jake’s was diluted. It looked like a thin layer of sweat, normal in the summer heat, but the air conditioner kept the shop cool.
“It’s okay. I just wasn’t expecting it in an air-conditioned room. Is it too hot in here for you? I can turn the temperature down,” Everett said.
“I don’t want to bother you. I actually should be heading out.” Jake looked at the time on his laptop. “It’s 3:05. Yeah, I have to go.” Jake packed his laptop and charger in a messenger bag that was the same style and color as Everett’s. “Um, here’s five dollars for taking up space and not buying anything.” Jake dished out five one-dollar bills from a torn wallet.
“It’s okay. The Wi-Fi is—”
“Take it.” Jake put the bills in Everett’s hand. “Bye.”
“Okay. Stop by later,” Everett said to Jake’s broad back.
The mother of the younger boy came into the room. “You ready?” she asked.
“Yup.” The boy filled the rest of the basket with his books.
“Strange boy,” the mother said, tipping her head in the direction Jake had gone.
“Do you know him?” Everett asked.
“I know his family. They’re a strange lot.” The mother sighed.
“He was looking up spells on the laptop. Real spells. The ones witches brew,” the boy said, his eyes owlish.
“You see what I mean?” The mother patted her son’s shoulder and steered him with one hand to the cashier.
The scabs on Everett’s back flared with pain. He pressed his fingers into the center of the pain and
massaged.
He changed his bandages in the bathroom and remembered he had left his phone in his room. He hadn’t responded to Bryce’s text either.
There were three new texts, all from Bryce.
I’m sorry for ignoring you. It freaked me out when you grabbed me.
Are you free tonight? I was thinking we could hang out and I could apologize in person.
Is 6 a good time? Downtown Sundale?
Everett could manage that. Meet me in front of Pizza Shack.
Ok. See you soon!
Everett heaved a sigh. “It’s a date.”
Then he looked at the date on his phone and remembered today was his birthday.
Chapter 22
FOR THE first time in years, Everett left his home without any personal luggage. He slipped a wallet into his back pocket and a restaurant salt packet in his front pocket. He left his phone at home and didn’t realize he had forgotten it until he arrived at Pizza Shack. Bryce was already inside the restaurant, next to the window in front of Everett.
Everett stepped back and checked his appearance in the window of the Bundt cake shop next door.
Two hours ago, he had found a twenty-dollar bill on the sidewalk while taking out the trash. Nobody had been nearby to claim it, so he pocketed it and went to a thrift shop for something to spruce up his drab outfit. There he bought a four-dollar button-down shirt and paired it with a thick tank top.
He tucked the front of his tank into his jeans, unbuttoned the shirt halfway, and double-checked the torn holes in his jeans for blood. He had washed them to scrub as much of the stain off as he could, but there was a faint red where his blood had pooled.
Buzz still hadn’t returned from his quest. Everett didn’t need him back anytime soon. Not tonight, especially. That would invite Buzz to creep on Bryce tonight. There wasn’t room for another incident.
Bryce was playing a game on his phone, thumbing the screen with a scowl fixed on his face.
“Hard game?” Everett asked.