Life's a Witch (Ravenridge College Book 4)

by Val St. Crowe

  Reid pointed at Estelle. “That guy who’s giving you the spell to turn human, Petra? He’s, like, screwing my sister. And he’s practically old enough to be our father or something—”

  “He is not,” said Estelle.

  “I thought it was over,” I said, sitting forward so that I could face Estelle on the couch. “I thought we agreed that you wouldn’t be alone with him—”

  “You knew about this?” Reid’s finger was in my face.

  “Well, a little,” I said. “I didn’t think it was so… consummated.”

  Estelle turned bright red. “Listen—”

  “You didn’t tell me that last night,” I said.

  Reid turned to Logan. “Did you know about this?”

  “Kind of,” said Logan.

  Reid threw his hands up. “What the hell, everyone?”

  Estelle turned to me and began to speak in an urgent, low voice. “He showed up at my door in the middle of the night. It just happened. And it was… he’s not bad, even though he said that to me, I don’t think he is. I know that he’s good inside because—”

  “Because what? Because he’s a professor who’s abusing his student?” said Reid.

  Estelle shot off the couch. “It’s not abuse. We’re adults.”

  “He’s in a position of authority,” said Reid, “and he can manipulate you—”

  “No, I’m the one who can manipulate him,” said Estelle. “He has so much more to lose than I do by allowing this to happen.”

  “Oh, yes, he’s getting a raw deal. He’s scamming on you and taking advantage of you, and you’re—”

  “It’s not like that,” said Estelle. She clenched her hands into fists. “Besides, you heard him when he left this morning. He won’t even talk to me again. It’s over. It’s never going to happen again. That was it. He…” Suddenly, she dissolved into sobs. She sat back down on the couch.

  I put an arm around her.

  She buried her face in my shoulder and she shook against me, silent sobs racking her body.

  Reid opened his mouth to say something and then closed it. He jammed his hands into his pockets. When he spoke again, his voice was even. “Look, all I’m saying is that I don’t understand why we’re trusting this guy. He doesn’t seem like a stand-up person to me.”

  “We’re not trusting him,” I said, patting Estelle on the back. “We’re just getting the spell from him. After that…”

  “After that, what?” said Reid. “We turn him in to Norwood? We sic the scribbly things on him? We don’t even know why he pissed them off, do we?”

  Logan got up off the couch. He put a hand on Reid’s shoulder. “All right, Reid, calm down.”

  Reid shook him off. “Don’t tell me to calm down.”

  “I know Fox better than any of you,” said Logan, looking around at all of us.

  Estelle lifted her tearstained face from my shoulder.

  “Okay, well, maybe not as well as you, Estelle,” said Logan.

  “No, it’s true,” said Estelle. “I don’t know him that well. I mean, I don’t know much about his past.”

  “Well, I’ve spent a lot of time hanging out and talking with him,” said Logan. “So, why don’t I talk to him about this?”

  “I’ll come with you,” I said.

  “That sort of defeats the purpose of a guy-to-guy chat,” said Logan.

  “Yeah, but we need to know what to do next for the spell,” I said. “And this way it can be sort of casual. Like, ‘Hey, what do we do next for the spell? Oh, by the way, what’s up with you banging Estelle?’”

  Logan blinked. “Yes,” he said blandly, “that’s extremely casual.”

  Reid rounded on me. “Petra, I feel like this spell is messing with your priorities.” He turned to Logan. “Maybe yours too. You guys have this plan for your future and you want it so bad that you’re ignoring all these warning signs—”

  “Not ignoring them,” I said. “I’m acknowledging them. I’m aware of the sketchiness of Fox Willoughby.”

  “Then why are you still working with him?” said Reid.

  “Just let me talk to him,” said Logan.

  “Yeah, fine,” said Reid. “Because that’s going to solve everything.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Since Logan had a point about the guy-to-guy thing, I did hang back when we met up with Willoughby later to talk about the spell. We went right after my spellcraft class, which was pretty tense. Estelle was there, but she and Willoughby were both pretending the other didn’t exist, even though I could tell it was killing Estelle.

  I was actually pretty pissed off with Willoughby. What was he doing, playing around with Estelle like that? I didn’t know a lot about Estelle’s past relationships, but I did know that I’d never seen her with a guy—not a hookup, not a boyfriend, nothing. So I figured that she’d probably fallen pretty hard for this guy. I heard that was what happened to most girls.

  For me, well, I’d spent a good part of my youth burning off all my emotional nerve endings by having random, meaningless sex, so doing it didn’t make me have feelings or whatever. Well, until Logan, that is.

  I thought back to last fall, when I was head over heels for Logan and he kept trying to push me out of his life, and I remembered how painful that was.

  Poor Estelle.

  But it wasn’t the same, because Logan wasn’t a jerk. He had refused to sleep with me, because he didn’t want to hurt me.

  Willoughby, on the other hand, had no such scruples.

  Yeah, I was pissed off.

  After class, Estelle scurried out of there and ran off alone, and I asked Willoughby if he wanted to meet up with us to look at the mop-things. I said that Logan was headed there, but that I had something to take care of, and it might take me ten minutes.

  And then I waited for him to get to the classroom and sneaked over to outside the door and listened to their conversation.

  “These are actually looking good,” Willoughby was saying. “You can see that they’re already pulling in the vampire blood. It’s changing them.”

  “Yeah?” said Logan. “I can’t really see anything different.”

  “They’re not nearly as gray,” said Willoughby. “They’re a bit pink.”

  “Oh, right,” said Logan.

  “So, you didn’t have a problem finding a vampire?” said Willoughby. “Even one who was willing to shed blood?”

  “We got it done,” said Logan. “It made for an interesting night. I wouldn’t say it was problem free, exactly. Uh, how was your night?”

  I rolled my eyes. That was his way of bringing this up?

  “Fine,” said Willoughby.

  Logan cleared his throat. “Listen, we talked to Reid.”

  Willoughby uttered a short, hard laugh. “Oh, of course. And I suppose he’s been to Norwood as well.”

  “No,” said Logan. “I said I wanted to talk to you first.”

  “What’s there to talk about?” said Willoughby. “It’s embarrassing. It’s unprofessional. It’s… wrong.” He took a deep breath. “And it’s not going to happen again. I’m only sorry that Estelle…” A long pause. “I made a mistake. Lots of mistakes. What can I say?”

  Logan was quiet, as if he didn’t know how to respond to this.

  “Are you going to go to Norwood?” said Willoughby. “Because if you’re planning to, let me try to prevail on you to keep this to yourself. I promise you, I will practice more self-control in the future. It’s difficult to explain, but it’s a temptation I’m not accustomed to, and—”

  “We understand that you told Estelle something about, uh, I don’t know, not being a good person.”

  Willoughby let out a helpless noise. “Did she give you a blow-by-blow of everything?”

  “No,” said Logan. “She didn’t tell me. It was a conversation with her and Petra. I only heard second hand. I—”

  “What I’ve done to her is not very honorable,” said Willoughby. “I’m in no position to pursue her, and I
… I think it’s all been very emotionally difficult, and it wasn’t…”

  “So, you’re saying you were referring to, um, being with her. That was made you not good.”

  “Obviously, it didn’t. You’re talking to me about it. It could cost me my job. It’s revolting that I’ve behaved this way.”

  “Right,” said Logan. “Is there anything you’re not telling us?”

  “About what?”

  “We’re trusting you with this spell, Fox, and you—”

  “I’ve warned you it could be dangerous. Petra insisted, and I’m only helping because you both seem willing to accept those risks.”

  “Right,” Logan said quietly. “Right.”

  I wasn’t sure what to think. Was he lying? About what? And it was true that he’d warned us about this spell, and that he’d been very reluctant to help us perform it. Willoughby was a dick for what he’d done to Estelle, but maybe that was as far as it went. Maybe I was seeing danger where there was none.

  I stepped into the room. “Hi, everyone. What are you guys talking about?”

  “Nothing,” said Willoughby. “Just noting that the creatures you procured are taking to the blood fairly well.”

  “Oh, they are?” I said, coming over to look down at the mop-things, which were definitely a little bit pink. “Is that what they’re supposed to be doing?”

  “They’re moving along well thus far,” said Willoughby. “But we have more things that we need for the spell. These are only the first ingredient. We’ll also need your essence.”

  “My essence?” I said. “How do we do that?” I wondered if it was going to be my blood.

  Willoughby crossed the room and looked out one of the windows. “Well, this is a bit delicate, I suppose. But considering that you know all of my awful secrets, I guess we’ll all become uncomfortably intimate.”

  “What?” I was confused.

  Willoughby looked over his shoulder. “We need your human essence.”

  “But the human part of me is dead.”

  “Exactly,” said Willoughby. “However, there may be traces of it left from, um, your interactions before your human side died.”

  “Like, I left traces of myself?” I said. “How? Where?”

  Willoughby turned back to the window, clearing his throat. “Your relationship with Logan? Did it begin before you lost your humanity?”

  “Um, no, not exactly,” I said.

  “Oh, that’s too bad,” said Willoughby, turning back around. “We’ll need someone Petra was, er, sexually intimate with while she was human.”

  “Oh,” said Logan. “Well, actually, that did happen.”

  Willoughby raised his eyebrows.

  “But we didn’t start officially dating until later,” I said.

  “There was a spell,” said Logan. “Sex magic. It’s a long, embarrassing story. Let’s skip that. So, I might have traces of Petra’s human essence?”

  “Yes,” said Willoughby. “You should, hopefully.” He crossed the room and peered into Logan’s eyes. “We should be able to extract it, I hope. I’ll just need to do a quick test before we begin the process, to make sure it’s there in the right quantities.”

  Logan squared his shoulders. “What kind of test?”

  “Oh, it’s simple,” said Willoughby. He took a clear sphere from inside his pants pocket, sort of like a large marble. He held it out on his palm. “Come here, Petra, you take this.”

  I took the big marble and held it on my palm like Willoughby had.

  “Now, you touch it, Logan. If there’s enough essence in you, it will flare up against the orb. The orb attracts it.”

  “Okay,” said Logan. “Easy enough.” He put his finger on the orb-marble-whatever.

  Nothing happened.

  “Hmm,” said Willoughby.

  “I don’t have the essence?” said Logan.

  Willoughby considered. “You know, I think it could simply be that your magical signature is too powerful. It may have drowned it out. You’re quite an extraordinary gargoyle, what with your ability to walk in the sun, and all of that.”

  “Why does that matter?” I said.

  Willoughby turned to me. “Well, the essence that you leave behind is magical in nature. The essence is only left by innately magical creatures. You know, there’s no essence between nonmagical humans or even between mages who use talisman magic. So, anyway, I think Logan’s magic is too strong. It’s just overpowered it.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  Logan groaned. “Oh, hell. This means we have to get it from Reid.”

  “Reid?” said Willoughby.

  “Don’t ask,” said Logan.

  I blushed. This was incredibly embarrassing.

  * * *

  “I think the same thing is happening here,” said Willoughby, taking the orb off my palm.

  We were still in the same classroom where the mop-things were being kept, but Reid was there now. He had gone on the record as not being pleased about any of this before he came to help us out, and he and Willoughby weren’t exactly talking much to each other, so the whole thing was extremely awkward. I mean, it would have been bad enough, considering the way Logan had been acting lately about the stuff with Reid, but with this added Estelle wrinkle, it was nigh on unbearable.

  “What do you mean, the same thing?” said Logan. “His magical signature is too strong?”

  “Possibly,” said Willoughby, “because he’s also a primal. Or maybe if he’s been with some other magical woman—”

  “Tatum,” I said. “She’s drowning out my essence in you.”

  Willoughby turned to me. “Perhaps if there was someone who wasn’t magical that you had been intimate with?”

  I licked my lips.

  Logan shrugged. “That shouldn’t be a problem, right, Petra?”

  I glared at him, blushing again. “Shut up,” I said softly.

  Logan spread his hands. “No, I’m not trying to make a thing of it. This is actually a good thing. There are plenty of guys out there who had no magic at all, and we just need to find one.” He seemed matter-of-fact about it.

  So, I nodded. “Yes, I guess so.”

  “All right, so maybe you call someone, and we can teleport out there, and get this taken care of,” he said.

  We could? So he was planning on coming along? Oh, that wouldn’t be weird at all.

  “I don’t really have… phone numbers,” I said. “It wasn’t exactly like that. I’m not really sure I remember, uh…” My voice dropped. “Names.”

  Willoughby cleared his throat. “Maybe I’ll let you two sort this out.”

  “Yeah,” said Reid, “I guess you’re done with me?”

  “Thank you for trying, Reid,” I said.

  “Yeah, sure,” he said. “It’s been great here, being reminded of the fact that I used to have a girlfriend and all.” He gave us a wave and then shuffled out of the classroom.

  “I’ll just explain to you how to use the orb,” said Willoughby. “And then I’ll go too.”

  “Fine,” said Logan, still seeming matter-of-fact.

  I blushed again. I wanted to die. At the same time, I didn’t want Willoughby to leave, because then it would just be me and Logan, and I didn’t much like his current reaction to all of this. He was being way too easygoing about it all, and when I factored in his recent reactions to Reid, it was all just… I wasn’t looking forward to what would happen when we were alone.

  “Well,” said Willoughby, “it’s simple enough. First have Petra and the other man—”

  “Can we not say that?” I cringed.

  Willoughby raised his eyebrows.

  “It’s fine,” said Logan. “Go ahead.”

  “Petra and the other man touch the orb at the same time at first. That should prime it. And then he touches it himself, and it should draw all her essence out and into the orb.”

  “Great,” said Logan. “So, we’ll get that done and we’ll bring the orb filled with the essence back to y
ou.”

  “Good luck,” said Willoughby. And then he left too.

  I peered after him, trying to think of an excuse to call him back.

  But the door shut.

  I cringed, turning back to Logan.

  But he was just rubbing his chin in thought. “So, no names at all?”

  “Uh… well, they weren’t exactly memorable to me. I mean, the point of what I was doing was not them. It was just trying to—”

  “No, I get it,” he said. “We’ve talked about it before.” He gave me a reassuring smile.

  Now, I was even more worried. “You’re being very cool about this.”

  “Am I?” He shrugged. “What about, uh, like going back to wherever you picked them up? Maybe if you went to specific bars or something? We could teleport out to your hometown now, see if your gran and your mom want to have dinner and then later, go looking? Does that sound like it could work?”

  I rubbed my forehead. Why was he being like this?

  “Call your gran,” he said, smiling.

  I sighed. Oh, hell, this was happening.

  * * *

  So, I’d decided, over dinner with my family, that Logan was behaving this way because he was just thinking of my having sex with other guys in an abstract way. The reason that he was so weird around Reid was because Reid was tangible and real. These guys were constructs in his head, and so he didn’t react emotionally to them. But once we actually found a guy I had slept with and Logan saw him, he was going to get weird then. Which was bad, because that was the exact moment when we were going to have to convince this guy to let us extract my essence from him.

  To that end, I’d tried very hard to convince Logan not to come to the bar with me. I said he could stay and keep my gran company. My gran loved Logan. She thought he was amazing, and they got along really well. But Logan brushed off the idea and said he’d rather come with me, that it would be easier.

  So, I was hoping that we’d be able to compel the guy to give us the essence. I didn’t know if my magical essence attached to him would make him uncompellable? Usually, only people without magic could be compelled.

  Right then, Logan and I were sitting on swivelly barstools in a place called Joe’s, which was one of two bars in my hometown. It was a real hole in the wall. The place was covered in wood paneling and there were cigarette burns on the pool table. You couldn’t smoke in the bar anymore, but you used to be able to, and they hadn’t gotten a new pool table in the interim.