“Sexy magic?”
“I know only what I kind of guess. And Penelope is definitely a too-much-information type, so she is more than happy to tell me about her sex life randomly when I drop off Samantha. I’m always just grateful she’s not naked when she comes to the door.”
“She has been sometimes?”
“Once. They have this gazebo thing where they have sex in the backyard. Witches prefer to do magic outdoors. And, for them, that includes sex. They know spells to enhance the sexual experience. Like magical Kama Sutra. I mean, I’m sure sex spells aren’t all they do, but it does seem to be their specialty.”
“So basically you’re telling me I’ve been having human sex all my life when I could have been having secret wizard sex?”
“I’ve been having human sex all this time, too, and that’s been fine with me. I’m sorry it wasn’t enough for you.”
She got so angry so fast. In their easy conversation, David had forgotten that fury simmered right under her layer of composure.
“I didn’t say that. It has been enough for me. More than that. I love having sex with you. I really, really love it. A lot.”
“Stop it. That part of our relationship is over.” She sighed pointedly. “You know what, I’m tired and I want to go to bed. We can talk about the Samantha thing later.”
n the Monday morning before Thanksgiving, before the kids came downstairs, David walked in on Amanda crying in the kitchen, her hair an eagle’s nest of pale gold. Her hands covered her face so tightly she looked as if she thought her face might fall off. She didn’t even notice him until he placed his hand on her back.
“Don’t sneak up on me,” she said.
“What’s wrong?”
The red in her eyes made the blue brighter.
“Nothing,” she said, her voice thick with tears.
“Of course not,” he said tenderly. “You cry tears of joy every Monday morning before work.”
She laughed weakly. “It’s really stupid,” she said. “I don’t want to say.”
“What?”
“I didn’t really know how stressed I was,” she said. “Until the tiniest thing goes wrong, and I fall to pieces.”
Then he saw the tiniest thing that had gone wrong. A pile of broken glass sat on the burner where the coffee pot should be. Someone had broken this pot with magic. The glass fell too evenly. Many of the broken pieces still clung together to form the shape of the pot. The pot looked as if it had self-destructed. It pricked his senses in the wrong way, too. He got an anger headache that made his brain run hot. He didn’t need the caffeine so badly. But he couldn’t stand the wanton disregard for their possessions. The idea that if one coffee pot broke, David could supply infinite future coffee pots with the high-paying job he would have forever. He also fumed at the lack of consideration for Amanda, the first person to the coffee pot every morning—a premeditated destruction of one of her small joys in a day otherwise full of unfaithful husbands, surly sons now with criminal records, and a hole in the house still not repaired.
He bounded upstairs with his eyes pulsing from his headache.
He found Patrick first, sleepwalking to the bathroom.
“I want you and your brothers and sisters downstairs in the kitchen in two minutes,” David shouted. He had made a point to use the plural.
“Why?”
“Downstairs. Don’t make me come back up here and drag you down.”
He pounded on doors as he went back downstairs. Amanda waited at the bottom.
“It’s a coffee pot,” she said.
“No. It’s a symbol of disrespect.”
“Why don’t you and I just go to Starbucks right now? Maybe… cool off a little.”
“I don’t want coffee.”
David waited while his children filed into the kitchen half-asleep. They all still wore their sleeping clothes and hadn’t brushed their hair. Emmy had spots of white acne cream on her face.
“Who did this?” he asked, pointing at the impossibly stacked pile of glass.
They all looked at the coffee pot mutely.
David’s glare went straight to Xavier… the amazing glass-breaking boy. He made it over to him in two strides. Xavier’s gray eyes widened, then went oddly still. Xavier blinked at him patiently, but didn’t seem to look at him quite right. He stared into the air in front of David’s face.
“You did this,” David said. “Why?” he demanded. “You hate her for not allowing magic? Think it’s clever to use magic to break something she likes? If you want to make a case for magic, why don’t you do something a little more interesting than breaking glass? Anyone can break glass. You don’t need magic. Glass is easy to break. It’s one of its defining qualities. Where’s the challenge? What’s the point? If you’re going to break things with magic, you better be prepared to fix them, too. Use magic to fix the coffee pot. Right now.”
Xavier said nothing.
“He can’t,” Evangeline said. “It can’t be done.”
“Then I suggest you get creative.”
David shoved a coffee cup and a bag of coffee beans into Xavier’s hands.
“You’re going to make her a cup of coffee one way or another. Use magic to make coffee. You’re not leaving the kitchen until there is coffee in that cup.”
Xavier looked at the things in his hands as if he couldn’t remember how they got there.
Jude stepped in front of Xavier, the only one tall enough to look David right in the eye.
“I broke the coffee pot,” Jude said.
“No, you didn’t,” David said.
“Yes, I did.”
“Why?”
Jude shrugged. “Just felt like it, I guess.”
“How did you break it?”
“Smashed it against the counter.”
“It was broken with magic.”
“You’re mistaken,” Jude said. His eyes… Amanda’s eyes… locked onto his gaze. He knew that look. He had seen it on both Jude and Amanda. Jude had dug his heels into the ground and wouldn’t budge, like Little League Jude who had made David pitch to him late into the night until he hit one over the fence.
The sight snapped David back into rationality with painful crunch. Jude protected his brother… the brother he despised. From him. David’s skin prickled all over. He had gone too far. He had forgotten whom he yelled at. Even Jude had known better.
vangeline and Xavier had begun class at Blue Oak Academy, a secular private school. And, according to Amanda, not a wizard school, even though the brochure advertised it for students “too creative” for normal learning environments. With them away during the day and Emmy healed enough to go back to school, David had no reasonable excuse to continue working from home. His ship was sinking, and he had to jump on board to go down with it. Fresh from his obscene overreaction about missing his morning coffee, David went into work. After nodding hello to everyone, he headed into the break room to get the coffee that seemed so important he had yelled at his abused son.
Liza stared at her computer screen as if it made mean faces at her. Not an hour into Monday, and the frizz around her hairline already started to show, as if the stress made her electric.
“Good morning, Liza. You all right?”
She sighed deeply. “Fine. Updating my resume. Why do I sound so crappy on paper?”
“Well, you must be doing something wrong, because you’re far from crappy. I’ll be happy to be a reference for you.”
“Thanks, David.”
He started to walk past her when she said, “Oh… there is someone named Colter here to see you.”
“Excuse me?” He splashed coffee over the rim of his mug and burned his fingers.
“Rachel Colter. She’s in your office.” She lowered her voice conspiratorially. “I think she’s one of those… what do you call them? Those birds that pick at the carcasses on the highway?”
“What?”
“Scavengers,” Liza concluded. “She buys dying companies.”
“You mean The Reaper?” Mark asked as he emerged from the office next to David’s.
The terror on David’s face must have shown through. Mark chuckled. “Calm down, David. She’s not really the Angel of Death. We have to joke around a little to stay sane, right? I know a thing or two about Rachel Colter. She’s a legend in the investment world. If anything, her being here is a good sign. Hell, maybe it means we should try to stick it out.”
“Why?” Liza asked.
“She has the best eye of anyone. She buys businesses for dirt cheap, businesses other investors don’t see much value in. But she must see things the others don’t because she gets massive returns. Sometimes, she just sells their assets at a profit, but other times she does some realignment and reopens the business with a new brand, and what seems like the exact same business with a different name and logo becomes profitable. Just like that. Everything she touches turns to gold.” He pointed his coffee at David’s door. “Be careful with this negotiation, friend. She’s going to make you think you don’t have anything of value and need to be rescued with her tiny offer. But that’s not the case. If she’s here, you must have something of value. Something she wants. Don’t just give it away.”
“No,” David said too firmly. “Never.”
Mark and Liza shared a glance that may have meant, God help us. He’s lost it.
David’s fingers tingled. He had stopped breathing properly, and nothing Mark had said helped at all.
The only thing he had heard - Death in is your office. And her name is Colter.
If a style existed called ‘wizard business professional,’ Rachel Colter had mastered it. She wore a black skirt and jacket and patent leather black pumps with straps that looked distinctly ‘witchy’ while still appropriate to wear to the New York Stock Exchange. She wore her pitch-black hair in a layered bob that went down only to the nape of her neck. The black hair in contrast to her too-perfect pale skin and her candy-apple-red painted lips made her the investment banker version of Snow White.
She waited for David to speak first. He couldn’t bring himself to enter the room and stood in the doorway. His eyebrows knitted together, and he knew he looked threatening. He wanted to look threatening.
“Who are you? What do you want?” he asked.
She didn’t look the least bit threatened. She smiled.
“Well, that’s disappointing,” she said. “If there’s one thing I like about Southern men, it’s the manners. Where is my ‘howdy ma’am, what can I do you for?’“
Her smile broadened to show a set of unnaturally white teeth.
“Answer the question,” David said.
She snorted in exasperation and met him in the doorway.
“My name is Rachel Colter. I’m an investor and am interested in Vandergraff Home Builders.”
She held out her hand. Out of habit, David shook it.
“That’s a little better,” she said. “I feel like I should ask you to come in and sit down, but it is your office. Do you always perform your business from the doorway?”
He said nothing.
“I ask you for ten minutes of your time,” she said. “That seems only fair considering the fact I flew all the way from New York.”
“In a plane?”
Rachel laughed as she would with an old friend. “I knew I would like you, David Vandergraff. Can we sit?”
His neck tightened with tension, and he could barely move his head, but he entered his office and sat down behind his desk. He nodded toward the chair, and she sat.
“I can tell this will be one hell of a negotiation,” Rachel said. “It was quite a feat getting you to just enter your office and sit in your chair. That’s a first.” She pulled some files out of her briefcase. “But I didn’t come here for a tough negotiation. I’ll get right to the point. I’m prepared to offer you three times what your assets are worth.” She smiled at him in an overly familiar way. “And I’ll even throw in an extra one hundred thousand just for those wounded puppy eyes of yours.” She picked up the family photo he had on his desk and smiled at it warmly. “You’re breaking my heart with the whole dark wizard family man thing you’ve got going on.”
She pushed some papers toward him. “I drew up the offer in writing. Of course, I’m happy to discuss the finer details and negotiate changes once you have your lawyer look it over. But I’m sure you’ll agree the deal is in your favor.”
“That is awfully generous,” he said in a tone so cold it could reverse global warming. “But you’ll have to forgive me for not crying tears of joy. Ms. Colter, I am in no mood to play games. Least of all with you. Tell me what you really want. Why would a businesswoman make an offer that wasn’t in her favor?”
Her smile faltered slightly, and she leaned back in her chair and looked at her hands. “Well, assuming you aren’t this rude and aggressive with all your business associates, you must know who I am… and why I might give you a… family discount.”
“We’re not family,” he said.
“Actually, if you did a little research into your genealogy, you’d see we are sixth cousins. You know how wizards are. So hopelessly connected. But, of course, that’s not what I meant. You’ll have to forgive me David, I’m not good at… delicacies.”
“What is your relationship to Whitman Colter?”
“You really don’t know who I am. I get all that hatred from you simply because of my surname? Or was it because you pegged me as a practicing witch? Too good to do business with my kind? You castrated wizards are all the same.”
“What did you call me?”
“I apologize. I didn’t come all the way here to argue wizard politics or sling insults. To answer your question, I was Whitman Colter’s little sister. Well, I am his sister. It’s a permanent condition, I suppose. But I hadn’t seen my brother for seven years. Not until I was called to Odessa to identify his body. I was the only person close enough to him to even recognize his body. Can you imagine? A sister he hadn’t seen in years. How sad is that?”
“The only sad thing about Whitman Colter’s death is that it didn’t happen sooner and more painfully.”
“You don’t have to tell me he was an evil man. I knew him much better than you.”
She absently twirled a locket she wore around her neck. Talisman.
David exhaled. The lack of oxygen from infrequent breathing had made him lightheaded.
“I don’t accept the offer,” David said.
“You didn’t even read it.”
“I can’t accept money acquired using dark magic.”
She laughed humorlessly. “I’m not going to say I never use magic in my work, because I am proud to say I do. But don’t imply I snap my fingers and make money appear. Even a wizard who doesn’t practice knows magic isn’t as simple as that. I’m a businesswoman, and a damn good one. I’m successful because I work hard and am good at what I do.”
David opened his mouth to say something else but stopped when Rachel suddenly stood. She picked up the papers and put them in her briefcase.
“As a dark witch and a businesswoman, my bouts of compassion are few and far between. And I don’t have the patience for your bigotry or ungratefulness. I wish you the best of luck feeding your family without money and without magic. Goodbye, David Vandergraff.”
David left work to pick up Xavier and Evangeline from school. He didn’t trust the school bus with them yet. Today, David got good old-fashioned butterflies in his stomach when he saw them leaning against the wall in their school uniforms, wearing backpacks. He didn’t look forward to the talk he would have with Xavier. His apology.
David always did a double take when he saw them in their school uniforms. He barely recognized them. Navy blue polo shirts. Evangeline in a knee-length pleated khaki skirt and Xavier in khaki chinos. No embellishments allowed. They didn’t complain, but David imagined they hated it. It felt cruel to make them dress that way. How many days would it take wearing khakis and living in a magic-free household before they s
napped? Or just ran away and he never saw them again? They wouldn’t give him any heads-up; he’d just wake up and they’d be gone.
They climbed in the backseat together. Neither one of them had ever sat in front with him. But he had no interest in fighting small battles.
“How was school?”
“Fine,” they both said.
No surprise there. A normal response for teenagers of any variety. Except for Emmy, who would have given him a play-by-play of every moment of her day, including trips to the water fountain and what everyone she knew had been wearing.
“Did you learn anything interesting today?” he asked.
“No,” Evangeline said.
“Did you learn anything boring, then?” David asked.
Evangeline giggled. “Lots.”
“What was the most boring thing you learned?”
Evangeline paused to consider while Xavier stared out the window.
“Hmm…” she said. “The most boring was Social Studies. The three branches of the government. I hate the government.”
David laughed. It sounded so odd to hear those words in her sweet twelve-year-old girl voice.
“Sometimes I do too. But they do some good on occasion, if only accidentally. Xavier, what about you? Anything you find particularly loathsome about school?”
The tiniest of smiles broke free. It reminded him of Crystal’s accidental smiles that slipped out despite her permanent vow of seriousness. So beautiful and unexpected. David stopped watching the road for a second and had to hit the brakes hard at the light.
“I don’t know. Geometry is okay,” Xavier said. “I like that it makes sense.”
“I don’t know if I’ve ever known anyone to like geometry because it makes sense. You must be quite the intellectual, son.”
Son. It had slipped out. It had felt so good to say. Please don’t freak out on me.
Xavier didn’t react in any obvious way. But he never did. He continued his staring vigil.
Evangeline darted to her room to take off her school uniform immediately upon entering the house. Xavier wandered into the kitchen. He at least shared one trait with his brothers: the need to re-fuel frequently. If David wanted a chance to talk to Xavier without Evangeline answering for him, he had to act now.
Destruction: The December People, Book One Page 11