Witch's Brew - Spellspinners 1 (Spellspinners of Melas County)

by Heidi R. Kling

  No way he was going to come out and ask, so instead he said wryly, “Am I to assume the transfer worked?”

  “And then some!” she said, her perky lilt back. “I feel great.” Lily bounced up and pulled him to his feet with surprising power, surprising him further by bouncing up on her tiptoes and kissing his cheek. “Thank you.” Then she grabbed his hand and yanked him to her side. “I owe you. Seriously. Come on, let’s go save that kid.”

  Lily

  We ran through the artificial cave, sticking to the tracks. Alongside us, much like the grass on Black Mountain, the ride props sparked to life. Ghostly haunts groaned, faux flames sparked bright orange. Green goblins wobbled, cornstalks weaved, bats spun at an inhumane rate on the ends of electric wires.

  Then, when we turned the corner, the lightness disappeared. A boy lay bleeding on the side of the tracks, a massive bloody wound on his thigh, a twisted expression of pain on his mouth.

  His friends were yelling and carrying on—it was clear to me that they had no idea what they were doing and no natural leader to tell them what to do.

  Logan spoke to them in Spanish and then moved back out of the way for us to approach.

  “Hola,” I said to the boy.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Oh, sorry.”

  “No problem.” He said through a grimace.

  “Look, I’m going to help you. But you have to promise not to tell anyone.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “You a doctor?”

  “No. Well, sort of. Just trust me, okay?” I leaned in so only he could hear. “I’m going to fix you but you can’t tell anyone about it.”

  “Girl, you think we’re going to tell someone about bringing a piece to the Boardwalk?” The friend in a red bandana said. I noticed he had gang symbols painted in ink splayed across his wrist. We weren’t really any different, this gang member and me. This boy and Logan.

  And I wanted to help him.

  I caught Logan’s eye and he read my message loud and clear. He moved over to the opposite side of the frantic and suspicious boys, willing their eyes to follow him, to look away from the boy I was about to heal.

  One witness to my magic risked plenty.

  “Close your eyes,” I said to the boy.

  “Why? What you gonna do?”

  “Just trust me. Please.”

  His leg was trembling. Blood, so much blood was seeping through the bandana he was holding to his wound.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “John Smith.”

  I smiled. “Yeah, and I’m Jenny Jones.”

  “Nice ta meet ya Jenny Jones.”

  “Likewise. Now close your eyes, Mr. Smith. Dream of…Pocahontas or something.”

  A worried smile crossed over his face as I help my hands over his wound and closed my own eyes. His life, a series of photographs flowed through my hands—a single mom, a dad in jail, a little brother he loved more than life itself. His friends the ones he looked up to the most. A girl in tight jeans with a beautiful smile. His girlfriend? Saw his intensity, his apprehension upon coming into this cave to fight this rival gang member—how he promised to pick up his brother and take him on the Ferris wheel. After.

  My magic roared to life. A feeling so intense washed over me as my healing flowed through my core, down my arms, through my tingling palms into this boy.

  One, two, three minutes passed before he opened his eyes and popped up, back straight.

  “Whoa. What the...How’d you do that?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “You a witch or something?”

  “I…have a gift to heal people-—deserving of being healed.”

  He was quiet as he met my eyes and then dodged them again. “How you know I’m deserving of being healed?”

  “Because you love your brother. Because you take care of your mother. Because you need to give your girlfriend that toy ring you won for her up on the Boardwalk.”

  He winced but didn’t look scared. “Holy hell.”

  I shrugged. “Don’t tell, okay?”

  “Your secret's safe with me, Jenny Jones.”

  He held up his fist so I curled my fingers into one too—bumped knuckles to knuckles.

  “Get out of here, John Smith. And tell your friends this was a warning—next time I find you guys with a bullet wound from being idiots, I might not be so generous.”

  He nodded quickly, not wanting to show emotion. But I could tell he’d taken my words to heart.

  His friends nodded at me with a mix of gratefulness and curiosity. One friend though, the boy with shark-eyes, glared at me, glancing down at my hands. “I wouldn’t start dishing out warnings to my friends, Witchgirl, unless you want a warning coming at you.”

  Logan immediately stepped into his space.

  “You aren’t threatening Ms. Jones, are you?”

  “What if I was?”

  Logan drilled his eyes into the boy’s until he reluctantly conceded, backing slowly away without another glance at me.

  “Gracias,” John Smith said, a bounce to his step as he sprinted out of the cave.

  Ten minutes later we were back on the Boardwalk, slumped against each other on a bench, gulping bottles of water.

  It was an incredible feeling, letting the electrolytes refill themselves, Logan’s energy so close to mine, wishing the sun’s magic into my skin to make up for what I gave to the boy in the cave. I still felt lightheaded and dizzy, but not nearly as weak as I usually did after a healing. Logan’s magic was incredibly strong. Like nothing I’d experienced before.

  And so I reached for him.

  My fingers brushed down his damp shirt until they cupped the amulet in a full moon. “Wearing that? Here? Pretty risky.”

  Logan’s hand rushed to cover it, but not fast enough. Light flashed through the cracks in his fingers, like it was desperate to escape. Heat radiated from his body, and I knew what was coming. Scanning down his arm—his black tank top didn’t hide much—his ink appeared, running down his biceps, his forearms.

  I couldn’t decipher the pattern, but it was stunningly brilliant in design. More than art, more than language. More like a message. A code. My mind took a photograph I would research later.

  Rubbing his arm, he noticed me noticing. Of course he noticed me noticing. There was no way not to notice. Me noticing. His sweat made the ink glisten. Then abruptly he untied the sweatshirt from around his waist and shrugged into it, pulling the black hood up and over his head.

  “Well, we did have a lot of activity in that cave, Ms. Jones,” he said by way of explanation. Did he not want to admit I caused his ink to rise?

  Then the windows closed; I’d reached in too far. Logan hopped off the bench, long strides crisscrossing in front of me with an old-fashioned almost cowboy-like swagger as he walked up to the wooden railing. Stared out at the sea.

  I couldn’t let him go, though. Too much was at stake.

  He would be tried before Congression if they found out he’d saved a human boy, that he'd intervened with humanity at all.

  Witches vowed to help humans. Warlocks vowed to do everything but.

  Still he risked it.

  I studied his face; the side of his etched jaw. If he gave me the slightest hint that that would be okay, I’d do it. Throw caution to the wind, and go about this on my own; I’d find the mark and prove to my coven he was the Roghnaithe. He had the healing ability—he’d proved that, and now he was staring out at the sea like a tiger with a slab of raw meat dangling in front of him. I’d never seen someone else look out at the water like that. Someone other than me.

  I rubbed my temples—full of life, full of Logan’s magic.

  He waited until I was next to him, as if he knew I’d come.

  Our forearms touching skin on skin, we both stared out at the sea.

  Pulling his sleeve up higher, his eyes ran down his ink.

  “It’s my amulet, isn’t it? All this talk about butterscotch and your actions in the c
ave? The amulet is making you want things you never allowed yourself to want before.”

  His eyes told me I’d hit my target dead-on.

  He nodded, fingering the amulet, before tucking it away beneath the collar of his hoodie. “It’s making me see things too. Remember things.” He glanced at me like he wanted to say more, but didn’t trust me enough yet.

  I didn’t press. We had time. Not a lot, but some.

  “Me too. Since we met, everything’s been different. Heightened. I’m risking things I would never have before. Like this now. Talking to you here.”

  “Why are you going along with it?”

  So many reasons.

  Because it feels good.

  Because I want to.

  Because for once in my life, I’m making my own choices.

  “Because I like you,” I said.

  Smiling shyly, he looked down. “I told you.”

  “But that doesn’t mean you can keep my amulet,” I said.

  He wasn’t ready to give it up yet. I got that. It was the same feeling flowing out of me.

  Crossing his arms on the rail, he bent over to rest his chin on his folded hands. A lock of hair slipped out of his hood, falling over his eye. The wind blew the bottom of his shirt up. He wore his pants low-slung.

  As if all the rest wasn’t enough. This sweet new vulnerability was making me wildly attracted to him. I shook my head, trying to guard these thoughts. He was opening the window again. I was reaching through.

  “What do you think is going to happen with the kid?”

  He kept staring out at the sea. “Dunno.”

  “Hope he’s going to be okay.”

  “Yeah. Me too.”

  “It was…good of you to help me. To help me help him.”

  His chin tilted to the left, he looked up at me the way Chance looked at Orchid. His blue-green eyes shifted down to my lips, and damned if I wasn’t frozen to this sticky boardwalk.

  “Lily, I…”

  Then a sharp whistle sliced through our moment, and I turned and met Orchid’s eye. Waving pink Gravitron tickets in the air, she jumped up and down yelling, “There you are! The ride was broken down for a while, so we, yeah, anyway. It’s working now. So hurry up!”

  I glanced over at my warlock. Eyed my amulet hanging around his neck. I had to get it back. And I had to keep Logan.

  I needed them both now.

  Unexpected Shifts

  Logan

  “You seem to be in a far, hmm, how do I put this delicately, more normal mood,” Chance said as they drove up the winding mountain road in the darkness.

  “Do I?”

  “Acting slightly less psycho, yes. So that was the infamous Lily?”

  “Indeed.”

  “She does seem really…nice. But Logan—are you sure you’re in control here? She’s not one of us. You have no reason to protect her. You aren’t allowed to protect her.”

  “I don’t care,” Logan said, surprised by the conviction in his voice.

  When he saw her, it was better than surfing. Better than Breathing. The amulet got so hot while they bantered he thought it might burn another mark into his skin.

  But he needed to research it more. He was going to need Chance’s help or Lily’s help to find out what was going on with it…with him. He’d never seen an amulet so similar to his own before.

  Logan looked wistfully out the window, watching the dark forest fly past him in a shadowed blur.

  “We’re dead,” Chance said cryptically. Logan broke out of his Lily daze and saw why. A black BMW sat in the shadows of the driveway. Its license plate read 1Hemlox1. Logan’s stomach fell. They were so screwed.

  “Dude,” Chance said, sagging low in his seat, “He’s back.”

  You’d need a sword to cut the nervous tension in the air as they coasted into the driveway and parked next to the Beemer. The boys met each other’s eye once before Logan stoically cut the engine.

  “This is some welcoming party,” Father sneered, leaning against his luxury vehicle. The moon streaked through the clouds, highlighting his pallid skin. “Let me guess, you were out…sparring?”

  A familiar rotten feeling spread through Logan’s gut.

  “I’ll fix this.” Chance mumbled, jumping out of the passenger seat before Logan could protest. “Sorry, Master, it was my idea—we were out surfing.”

  Normally Logan would be right with Chance, fighting to get back into Father’s good graces, stammering apologies. Because of her, things were different. He felt stronger. More capable of handling his father. He took his time getting out of the driver seat. Hands shoved in his pockets, his fist wrapped around the amulet, he sauntered toward them.

  “Is this true?” Father asked Logan, his crimson eyes piercing into him.

  “Yeah,” Logan said.

  Father glared at the boys, looking from one to the other, before a slow smile formed between shrunken cheeks. “No punishment necessary. You caught me on a good night, my sons. Besides, there’s nothing wrong with a battle at sea.”

  “How was your trip, Master?” Chance asked, avoiding Logan’s eye.

  “Excellent, Chance, thank you. I’m cautiously…optimistic about the future. Business is tight right now with the absurd economy in such a mess, but when you have a good product like we do, there is always a market.”

  Jacob’s red-rimmed eyes twinkled mischievously. Logan thought he might tell them more; he looked like he wanted to let them in on his dangerous secret.

  Logan had always wondered about his company. The factories they kept overseas. The true use of the pharmaceuticals they manufactured. For the most part, Jacob was pretty tight lipped about the operation. But he was also a braggart and when he’d sucked a few too many back, on the rare occasion he let himself indulge in something other than magic, his secrets tended to leak out.

  “If anyone could do it, Hemlox can,” Logan nudged. He hoped Jacob didn’t detect the air of mockery in his voice. The irony that the warlocks’ multibillion-dollar-a-year company was named after a medieval potion used by witches wasn’t lost on Logan.

  “Let me help you with your bags, Master,” Chance said, walking toward the trunk of the car. The way Chance’s voice changed around Jacob, the way he jumped to do his bidding made Logan physically sick.

  It hadn’t bothered him before.

  On his palm, he felt the amulet pulse. As if it was egging him on…

  Father held out his hand, physically stopping Chance in his tracks. “That won’t be necessary. Save your energy, son.”

  Chance bumped into an invisible wall of energy, a force field that Father created.

  Sardonic humor etched into Jacob’s sneer. “What is necessary is another training session. The solstice is coming up. The warlocks in the Congression want a guaranteed triumph. Wins in every category. The witches must be defeated this time around. No exceptions.”

  Chance nodded. “Yes, Master. Of course!”

  Logan clenched his fist in the shadows and dared to ask. “Do you have the list yet, Father?”

  Jacob’s neck slowly turned toward Logan. Parting his lips, his flickered his forked tongue out of his cracked white mouth. “You are asking for the witch’s name?”

  “Inquiring if you have the list, yes.”

  “Why is it of interest to you, Logan, which one you fight?” His fingers, like a demon’s claw, scratched through the night air. “They are all the same.”

  Logan pictured Lily’s face, and then quickly erased it before Father could catch it.

  No, they certainly weren’t all the same.

  Catching Chance’s look of warning, he kicked a rock, planned for a safe retreat. For Chance’s sake if not for Logan’s. Angering Jacob, questioning Jacob never ended well for the boys. “Just curious is all.”

  “Curiosity killed the cat.”

  Father replying with mundane clichés? One of the best things about his winning personality.

  “So let’s go get something to eat,” Chance
said cheerfully. “Master, you must be starved after all your travel. And Logan and I always have the appetite of a dragon after a battle on the waves.”

  Chance was pushing it using Father’s cheesy metaphors. This time it was Logan’s look warning him to take it easy; Jacob was crazy enough to be manipulated by some amount of charm, but you had to tread lightly.

  Jacob didn’t look like he’d even heard Chance. His eyes were focused on Logan’s. He took a step toward him, snake-like in his movements, red eyes practically dripping in scornful warning. “At first you may be disarmed by the witches. Outwardly they are lovely, and their charms rival even Cleopatra’s. But remember, boys”—Father’s crimson eyes darted from Logan to Chance and back to Logan—“their beauty, their kindness, it is all a facade. They are weak and wicked. They only want to blend in with humans. They refuse to want more. To be more. It’s a disgrace that we mighty warlocks have to rely on their light magic at all. If I may let you boys in on a little secret?” He paused for dramatic effect. “We may not have to rely on it for much longer.”

  With the rage of emotion, the cadence of Jacob’s breath sped up, then sputtered and jerked as if his voice was a skipping CD. Whiffs of black gas trailed from his nose. Logan took a step back, in a vain attempt to duck out of the way before the putrid smell could hit him.

  Jacob’s bony shoulders slumped as he rested a weary claw-like hand on his own forehead, mopping up thick, yellow sweat.

  Logan caught Chance’s sidelong concerned glance.

  Father’s health was getting worse. That was clear. It was impossible to hide his condition from the public eye, so he stayed hidden here at the Academy, only traveling via his private jet, and then, only was in the presence of his family or the Congression.

  Only in the presence of others like him.

  At night his coughing was even louder, scratchier. Sometimes he coughed so much he heaved, which turned Logan’s stomach. Jacob was getting pickier with his eating too—refusing most meat and vegetables, relying solely on hard-boiled eggs he’d swallow whole.

  It was as if he was losing his humanity entirely.