Mike took another drink of the fortified wine while Cernunnos continued. “I could blow smoke up your behind and tell you that if you stare at an animal long enough, you’ll eventually take its form. It might be humorous but cruel all the same. The real magic is learning the secrets of the animals so that you can make use of nature. Once you have a true connection with nature and animals, the magic really starts, but it’s a long process. You don’t ask a girl you don’t know to marry you, right? The same goes for animals. You wouldn’t try to shift into an animal you barely know. You will find animals that your soul aligns with, and then—and only then—can you even think about shapeshifting.”
The Dagda said, “That just leaves the awakening.”
Mike asked, “What awakening?”
Alayna whispered, “Your awakening. Strip off your clothes.”
Mike disarrayed and waited nervously for what was about to happen. The Gods closed in on him with what appeared to be ice picks.
Cernunnos explained, “We need to inject the power of magic into your veins. First we must create some openings.”
The Celtic Gods poked seventy-seven holes in him until a majority of his body was covered in blood.
Blodeuwedd held his hand and walked him across the room. She said, “Now is the time for you to soak in the blood of the Gods.”
She walked Mike up to a bubbling cauldron full of thick red liquid. He asked, “Won’t I burn myself. This looks like it’s boiling.”
Blodeuwedd asked, “Do you truly believe?”
“I do.”
“Then take the plunge, gentle soul.” She smiled, instilling confidence in him.
Mike stood on the platform next to the cauldron and dipped his toes in. It was hot, but not hot enough to melt his skin off. He slowly lowered into the boiling blood of the Gods and Goddesses. He felt the blood from the cauldron entering his body and mixing with his own blood.
Mike’s eyes shot open and he felt something being jammed into his head. It was similar to smoking the plant of knowledge, but not exactly the same. Once Mike got used to the temperature of the cauldron, he felt relaxed.
Mike listened to the Gods and Goddesses for a few hours as he remained in the cauldron. Revitalized, he got dressed and flew back to the Deep Burrow on the back of Redridge. Alayna led him to the elevator portal to get back to his normal world.
Alayna and Mike went back to his house. Mike’s apartment was sweltering due to the fact that the box fan was broken. Opening windows didn’t provide any help, only swirling the stale, hot air around the tiny dwelling.
Mike’s phone rang, and he snagged it out of his pocket. He recognized the number and answered.
“What’s up, Emily?”
“Not much. Did you get some sleep last night?”
“Yeah. Surprisingly, I got a lot. How about you?”
“I tossed and turned a lot. I wish you would have stayed here. I always sleep well when you stay here.” She giggled.
Mike noticed Alayna staring at him, and he turned his back on her. “Did you get ahold of the tarot reader yet?”
“Still no answer. I drove by his house earlier, and his driveway door was still open.”
Mike looked out the dirty window. “Was that van still parked there?”
“Yep. I swear I could hear growling sounds coming from the house so I just pretended like I was turning around in his driveway and got the hell out of there.” She sounded frightened.
Mike turned around, and Alayna greeted him with a smile. He stepped around her and walked toward his room. “Smart move. So what are we going to do?”
“I went shopping and got some stuff to make dinner. If you want, you can come over for dinner, and hopefully by then Tucker will have answered the phone. If not, I say we eat dinner and go by his house, and if that garage door is still open, I think we might need to go in.”
Mike got into his room and covered his nose. He spoke in a nasal tone. “I don’t want to break into anyone’s house. What if he has a gun and shoots us?”
“I think you might be breaking up a little. You sound weird. Just an idea, but we could take our gun with us.”
Alayna had followed Mike into his room so he walked to the kitchen. “Yeah, but he would be waiting and ready for us on his home turf. Plus, I don’t really want to have to shoot anyone. George is one thing, but this guy is a real person. I’m just not sure I could do that.”
“I will.”
“What?” Mike was stunned.
“I’ll do it. I mean, this guy has been calling me nonstop and randomly stopping by my house for days. Not normal behavior. Now that we finally have the amulet... Wait, you still have it, right?” she asked in the tone of an irate mob boss.
Mike didn’t appreciate her killer edge and wondered if Alayna had been right. His voice cracked, “Of course. It’s in the top drawer of the dresser in my room.”
“You’re breaking up again. That’s good. Great, really. Anyway, now that we have his precious object, he disappears. I’ll do whatever it takes to get that money. I won’t try to kill him, but if it comes down to it, I’ll shoot his ass.”
Mike didn’t know how to respond. He hadn’t seen this cold side of Emily before. She hadn’t even hesitated when she had offered to shoot Tucker. “Why don’t we talk about this over dinner?”
“Sounds good. You got a ride over here?” Emily asked.
Mike paused.
She said, “Just kidding. I’ll pick you up in, like, an hour. I’ll text you before I leave.”
“It’s a plan. Can’t wait.”
“Me, too. See ya in a little bit.”
“Alright, bye.”
Mike started to smile, but faltered at the sound of Alayna’s voice. “That sounded like a nice, friendly conversation. What were you two lovebirds talking about? Vacations together? Walks to gaze lovingly at the setting sun? Murdering someone?”
Mike was caught in the middle of a tense situation and didn’t know what to do. “Stop listening to my phone calls. I’ve already warned you about that several times. I don’t want to have to do it again. And we were talking about having a nice dinner tonight. Sorry, but you aren’t invited.”
Alayna laughed. “But I could have sworn that I was on the guest list. That sounds like a lovely dinner. It’s the morbid dessert you two were talking about that has me scared for you. I know she’s been afflicted. I don’t know who’s done it, but this shady character sounds like a prime suspect.”
“How do you know she’s been afflicted? You haven’t even met her yet.”
“Oh, Micheal, Micheal motorcycle. I hadn’t met you until a week ago, and I know everything about you and your past. My people gather intelligence much like the FBI or CIA and we have agents everywhere. George used a conduit to lure her in, and Tucker McSeamus seems like the most likely candidate to be that conduit.” Alayna scooped two spoons of fine Columbian beans out of a canister embellished with a renaissance scene and put it into the coffee maker.
He jerked his head toward her. “How do you know his name?”
Alayna wiggled her nose as the first drops of coffee hit the pot. “Mike, how long are you going to keep up this act of naivety? My people and I, we are trying to help you. At a certain point, though, you should want to help yourself and your town. I can’t keep twisting your arm.”
Mike sat down at the table. “I hate to go back to this, but I’m still not sure if you are real. I know about the punch, and the secret world, and everything seems so real to me, but it also is such a fantasy. I need something solid I can count on. This is the first solid relationship I’ve ever really had with a girl. Other girls, it was just going to the bar and that was it. So stop trying to ruin this for me.”
“You fall in love way too easily. You need to watch that. And you can cut the bullshit, Mike. You know I’m real. You know the Gods are real. What’s the true problem?”
Mike lowered his head. “I’ve been failing at everything I do since my mom died. I know you say I
share this bloodline with Merlin, but I’m scared. That plant is making me more intelligent, but we both know that I’m truly dumb. What if that plant wears off? What if I fail?”
“Mike, we are all afraid of failure, and I’d be lying if I didn’t say there will be bumps along the road, but you can do this.”
Mike still wavered. “This would be the hardest thing for me to do in my whole life. I haven’t been able to do the easy stuff. Have you seen my high-school grades?”
“These are excuses, Micheal. The sooner you shed them, the stronger you will be.”
Alayna poured two cups of coffee. She handed a mug with Albert Einstein on it to Mike and kept her special Beatles mug to herself. “Then I don’t know what to do. If you would just show a little gumption, you could acquire stronger magic than most in the world can only dream of possessing. It will only take about a month. Can you feel some of the power already?”
Mike blew on the coffee. “I don’t know what I feel right now. I’m all mixed up. I feel different. I know that. I do feel more confident. Not sure why, though. And my words keep changing right before I say them.”
Alayna passed the sugar and sat down at the table. “We’ve just started, too, Mike. And the Plant of Knowledge will never wear off, but it’s just a foundation that you have to continually build on. You’ve only tapped the surface of your potential so far. Even that small taste should have showed you that you are special.”
“It was cool. I’m not denying that. But that was off in some crazy fantasy land that I was doing all that stuff. Let’s say I come face to face with George. How do I know if any of that stuff is going to work?” Mike tasted his coffee and it needed a few more scoops of sugar.
“You don’t. And that’s what separates magicians, mages, witches, warlocks, and, of course, wizards. The successful ones are the ones who truly believe. You’ve learned that already. I would ask you to try your skills right now, but magic is not to be wasted or used for show.” Alayna chugged most of the steaming liquid and slammed her mug on the table.
“What about when you lit your finger on fire and all that other stuff you did when we first met?”
Alayna smiled, her cheeks rosy and eyes wide from the rush of caffeine. “That was necessary because you wouldn’t have listened to a ravishing woman in a beautiful dress without the magic. Am I right?”
Mike tried to drink his coffee as fast as Alayna had, but had to stop. He had never really liked the flavor of coffee, and although sugar helped, he still hadn’t acquired an appreciation for the taste. However, he enjoyed the jolt from the roasted beans. “I’ll give you that one. I was hardly listening to you after the magic stuff. I was pretty baked, too.”
“Regardless, it was necessary. If you don’t believe the magic will be there, it won’t. Just like the famous quote, ‘Whether you think you can or can’t, you’re right.’”
“What?”
“Come on, you have to understand this with your raised level of intelligence. It means if you think you can do something, you can. But if you don’t think that you can do something, you’ve already lost the battle. That doesn’t encapsulate self-doubt and fear, which are very natural responses to difficult situations. The bottom line is that if you believe in yourself, anything is possible.”
Mike clapped his hands. “Great pep talk. I have to get ready for dinner now.”
Alayna stared at him and shook her head slowly. A single tear ran from her right eye. “I’m done chasing you now. If you want another lesson or any help from me, you have my number. Don’t be a stranger.”
The faerie kicked open Mike’s front door and left without closing it. Mike didn’t really understand his Jekyll and Hyde mood swings with Alayna. Deep down, he feared that she would abandon him like his father had, and didn’t want to get attached to her. He also feared that his Jekyll and Hyde personality came from his father. All his awful tendencies came from his father.
Mike went into his room to get ready and noticed a stack of old books about magic on his bed. With the coffee still coursing through his system, he sat down and cracked open one of the books. He felt immediate guilt for snapping on Alayna, and tried to block it out by reading and thinking about dinner at Emily’s house.
Chapter 22
MIKE SAT ACROSS THE table from Emily and ate his Caesar salad. The aroma of barbecue sauce and cinnamon-cherry scented candles filled the small dining room. Emily stood up and lit four more blue candles on the table then dimmed the lights on the crystal chandelier.
Mike asked, “So do you know where you want to go when we get that money?”
“Some city. Any city. We just need to get out of this shithole of a town. My business is dead. You don’t really have anything holding you back, either.”
Mike nodded and took a drink of his Cabernet Sauvignon.
Emily pushed her salad around with her fork. “I was thinking Philadelphia or Pittsburgh. They are the closest two cities that I would want to live in.”
Mike said quickly, “Pittsburgh.”
“Is that a statement or question?”
“Yes.” Mike smiled. “It’s a statement. I like Pittsburgh. I already root for their sports teams anyway. I think we should go to Pittsburgh.”
“That’s fine with me. How is dinner?” She lowered her eyes.
Mike chewed up a piece of the tough chicken breast drenched in barbecue sauce and swallowed. “It’s all great. Even the green beans that I don’t normally like.”
“Is the baked potato soft enough?” she asked excitedly.
It wasn’t. “Uh huh. Tastes fine to me.” He smiled.
“Good. I thought I might have taken them out of the oven too soon. Pittsburgh. I’ll bet they have plenty of businesses that need a good educated woman. What are you going to do?” She put more butter on her baked potato.
Mike hadn’t really thought about it. He didn’t have many skills that could be applied to a technical job. “I don’t know. Last job was demolition.”
“So what, you just destroyed buildings? That sounds like fun.” She guzzled the rest of her wine and poured another glass for herself.
“It wasn’t bad. I just don’t know what I am good at.”
A seductive smile came across Emily’s face. “I know something you are really good at.”
“Would you want me to do that as a living?” Mike smirked.
Emily shook her head slowly, some of the purple liquid leaking from the corner of her mouth. She wiped it away with the back of her hand. “Of course not. I’m the only one you should be pleasing like that. I hope.”
Mike peered through the candlelight and made eye contact with Emily. “You have nothing to worry about in that regard. I’m not messing around.”
“Good. I don’t want to scare you but for the sake of conversation, do you want to have kids?”
Mike thought for a few moments because he had never considered the question. “Yes. I don’t know if I am ready for them right now, but I wouldn’t mind seeing a couple of little Mikes running around.”
She tilted her head to the side. “What if it’s a girl?”
“Then a couple of little Michelles running around wouldn’t be that bad, either. Wouldn’t know what to do with a girl, though.”
She giggled. “Yes, you do. Pretty much the same things you would do with a boy. You will still be changing diapers and tucking her in at night. I think you would make a great father.”
“Thank you.” Mike regarded those particular words as the best compliment he had ever received. But he wanted to change the subject before Emily asked him about his family. “Has Tucker answered his phone yet?”
She shook her head rapidly. “Nope. Fill up that stomach because we might need to go in this time. I really don’t want to but if that son of a bitch is going to hold out on our money, we might just have to take what is ours.”
“If that’s the way it’s going to be, then I guess we have no choice,” Mike said, trying to sound tough. He forked a couple of buttere
d green beans into his mouth.
Emily took a sip of wine and smiled, exposing her purple teeth. “What do you want out of life, Mike?”
“I don’t know.”
“Come on, you have to know what you want out of life.”
“How about you go first?”
She tapped her fork on her lip in thought. “I want to get out of this town, for one. For the most part, I just want a normal life. These past few years have been so crazy. My family abandoned me. Everyone at the company hates me. I just want to find a guy to have fun with. Live life. Nothing too crazy. No fame or fortune necessary.”
“Me, too. I don’t need anything fancy, either.”
She dug her fork into the baked potato and held the piece in front of her face as she blew on it. “I don’t know. I look at you and I see this, like, glow of gold around you. Like a surrounding halo for your entire body or something. It sounds so stupid when I say it out loud, but I just see you as, like, this superhero or something. You know, like Thor or someone like that. You have that look.” She shoved the potato into her mouth and turned away, embarrassed.
Mike blushed. “Thank you. Not sure about all of that, but thanks. I did think of something I want out of life. I want to help people. People like you and me. Whose families have been busted up and might need some help. Doubt it will ever happen but it would be nice.”
“Why do you doubt it? I’m finding out pretty fast that you’re a great guy, whether you care to acknowledge it or not. Some people have untapped potential. It can come out at any point from childhood to old age or sometimes not at all. I think you still have some untapped potential to discover.” She shrugged her shoulders and took a healthy gulp of wine.
Where had he heard that before?
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