The captain directed us to go back in two days to check on the family.
“And Dred, don’t forget the paper work.”
“But Red Igu—“
“After. Then, I’m sure, you can do Red Iguana.”
“Fine.”
We left his office and I settled in to handle the paperwork, while also working out with Bee that I’d be missing Red Iguana 2, tonight.
It still baffled me that the supernatural stuff required paperwork. Seemed incongruent, and very annoying. But, maybe as we worked through it, lightning would strike and I’d know what had happened to the demon.
7
My house was in the gentrifying district of an area known as Sugar House. The commute from the west side to the east, where my little cottage waited, took me fifteen minutes, ten if I hit the lights right.
The sky still glowed with the light of dusk as I passed hipsters on bikes, families pushing strollers, baseball games beneath stadium lights, and the massive, sprawling Liberty Park until I was easing into my tiny, narrow driveway.
As I got out of my car, a cat scurried past my legs and leapt over a fence. Vito, who belonged to the neighbors, hunted mice and lizards in my yard, which was xeriscaped out front and apparently hosted plenty of wildlife to keep him busy.
Inside I flipped on the lights and left my gun in the drawer of the table near the door. I’d kicked out my roommates after I lost Scott. I didn’t need my powers randomly shooting off if we got into a tiff over the power or wifi bill.
Not that that would happen, but better safe than sorry. Plus, Orrin demanded it. I put my palm to my forehead.
Orrin.
I pulled my cell phone out of my jacket pocket. Just after nine.
I hurried through the house and threw open the back door.
“You’re late,” his gruff voice growled at me.
He reclined on the bench skirting the edge of the expansive patio, staring up at the night sky. A faint glow surrounded him from head to toe. He wore the clothes that I assumed he’d have worn a hundred and forty years ago. A long, scraggly beard hung from his chin and it swayed in an invisible wind as he sat up and faced me.
“Totally forgot our lesson. I’m sorry.”
He swung his legs over the edge of the seat. “Drop and give me twenty push ups.”
“Don’t you mean sixty? One for each minute I was late?”
“Aye, but you’re a woman, so I assume that would be murder for you.”
I knew he was an ass, but it was jabs like this that constantly reminded me.
“Look, I know you’re from a different time period, but those Mormon pioneer women were tough as nails. I’m not buying this.”
“What is it you’re not buying?”
He loved to pretend like he didn’t get the idioms of my time period, but I assumed he’d kept an eye out on the world from wherever he hung out as a ghost, watching things change. So I answered him like he hadn’t snidely pointed out another idiom. “Your misogynistic claim that I couldn’t do sixty push-ups or that the women you lived around couldn’t either.”
“Insubordination, now you must do seventy push-ups.”
“Fine. Good.” I grimaced inwardly. I’d never let this bastard see the irritation I felt at landing myself in a position that I’d created.
I pulled a scrunchy out of my pocket and put my hair up into a ponytail. Then I took off my jacket and my shirt, opting to do this irritating punishment in my sports bra.
Orrin shook his head and looked away.
“Different times, Orrin,” I said.
“I should demand ten more,” he said.
“Classic body shaming. I’m so glad I didn’t live back when you were alive.”
“You’d have been burned at the stake already. The country was too rough for the likes of you and everyone else that this world makes too soft.”
I kneeled on the unforgiving wood of the patio and got ready, took a breath and put my hands down, launching into the push-ups.
Orrin stood up and waltzed around me, inspecting the trees, plants, and fountain that comprised my Zen garden. I focused on the sound of the fountain as I counted out the push-ups, and internally walled off the sense of frustration that I was wasting my time doing push-ups when I could be learning new spells, which was the whole point of Orrin.
I kissed goodbye to my plans of a light, quick dinner, streaming a show, and then, delightfully falling asleep early. Now I would be awake till midnight after working through spells and lessons with Orrin breathing his spirit breath across the back of my neck.
I took one break, but managed to complete the punishment in less than fifteen minutes. My muscles screamed as I stood up and dried off. Orrin didn’t let me rest, however. I grabbed some water from the kitchen, then returned to the patio and we immediately began the training session.
He cast a wall of protection around my backyard to silence any spells and protect the neighbor’s yard. Then we began the lessons.
A sinister smile spread across Orrin’s face now that the magic was beginning.
There was something disturbing about having a ghost for a mentor, so I didn’t dwell on it, because at this point there wasn’t anything I could do about it. You can’t pick your relatives, as they say.
That’s right, the old coot was one of my ancestors, and he’d shown up shortly after my powers manifested. I didn’t care for him, and as far as I could tell, he didn’t care for me either, but was here under some ancestral obligation. When I asked him about most things, he was tight-lipped, giving me as little information as possible while only just answering my questions.
Example—why am I the only one in my family to have these powers? Orrin’s answer? Because you are the only one who has had these powers manifest.
“That’s like saying, the question is the answer.”
“Precisely,” Orrin said.
“That’s not helpful.”
“How would any other answer help you?”
“I could feel like life made sense.”
“Life most decidedly does not make sense.”
“Because the people who have the answers don’t give people with questions the answers.”
“Yes, because the key to a happy life is discovery.”
That was often how any questions of mine were answered. Orrin only gave me what he thought I needed, which was helpful where it was helpful, and not helpful where he didn’t want it to be helpful.
He was a 19th century dick and I detested him.
Often I suspected that he was irritated that it was a girl he was mentoring, and not a boy who he could be proud of.
But, well, how could I blame him? He was still a product of his time. And, to be honest, it just made me want to try harder to kick ass and show him the error of his shortsightedness. Not that I expected him to ever decide one day that he was impressed by me or anything I’d done.
Orrin stood on the bench with his hands clasped behind his back. He wore a cravat and a high collared shirt, the kind I’d seen in a lot of portraits kicking around Utah history books, where the legacy of the original settlers was shared constantly to make everyone work harder and be extra grateful to live in Utah. Cultural lore, also known as propaganda.
Orrin was shorter than me, so he always opted to stand on the bench when we went over spells. Or maybe he thought of it like a podium in a church. But in my opinion, it would have been way more intimidating if he’d just been larger than life, while still being short.
Maybe that was hard to do.
“The best method for learning, is to teach. When we teach someone else, we are forced to recall the knowledge we’ve been taught.”
I didn’t answer. I wasn’t supposed to, a lesson I learned the first time he visited me. I’d done a lot of push-ups that night.
“We’ve been at your studies now for er, ahem, four weeks?”
“You mean you don’t know?”
In that moment, I realized that he had no concept of the pa
ssage of time, as his eyes went wide and shifted back and forth, struggling to sort out how much time had elapsed. He seemed to realize that he’d just betrayed himself. Not knowing something—a terrible position to be in for a teacher who liked to lord their knowledge over their students.
“Almost two months,” I said, deciding not to rub it in.
“Ah yes, yes. Very well. Pupil, I would like you to explain to me how you create a spell.”
OK, so this time I was the teacher. Great.
I sauntered—I knew that my saunter would irk him; Orrin wanted me to behave like we were in a military school or something—over to the waterfall feature of my patio and turned to face Orrin.
“First, clear the mind. Take a breath. Hear the sound of the air as it passes through your lips. Visualize the spell. And then, the gesture casts the spell.”
It was actually difficult to get used to, but once I had it down, I’d found that I could do the steps reliably fast.
“Yes, and what is the purpose of this method?” Orrin was now pretending he knew no answers.
I frowned. “I don’t understand the question.
“Why do you do it this way, and not chanting aloud or with a wand? Like other magic-wielders.”
“I don’t know. Because I’m the magic?”
“Close,” he said, holding up a finger and beginning to pace on the bench, which allowed him only a few steps, so he turned around a lot. “Your body is the medium, you are the magical device. Like a divining rod finding water, or a lightning rod channeling the lighting. The magic lives in your bones. It is the very sinew of which you are built. For a wizard, the wand is the magical device, which the wizard channels through. And for the witch, it’s the chant—the words that carry the magic. The mage? The runes.”
“Are you saying a person like me is the essence of magic?”
He nodded sharply, one hand folded behind his back. “Very much so.”
8
Well, hell. Me, the essence of magic? That right there was the sort of revelation that stunned a person. I know it wasn’t just me he meant, but all sorcerers. Still. I wasn’t sure how I felt about this information. Oh, wait, no. I felt weird about it, actually. But before I could dwell on it too long, Orrin launched into something else.
“Now then, Pupil, you know a wind spell. You know a spell of protection. You know a freezing spell. You know a spell to conjure water in the form of rain or deluge, time for one of the more powerful and yet destructive spells.” He clapped his hands together. “Fire.”
My hands instantly began to sweat.
Fire was the spell that had shot out of my hands the day Scott died. More like balefire, or something more powerful, because it wasn’t anything like the female demon had cast earlier in the day. This had been a searing white heat, fringed with yellow and blue.
What I’d cast at that time might not have been a fire spell, for all I knew. It seemed like fire of some type. Anyway, it was something I’d want to know from my mentor, if my mentor had been apt to answering questions and listening to me, rather than the style of mentoring that Orrin chose.
“With fire, remember that it is instantly more destructive than wind or water. What fire touches, cannot be redeemed. It will turn to ash. And only the most powerful sorcerers have any hope of reversing a spell that chemically alters what it touches. Water is different. Wind is different, which is precisely why I have waited till now to build on the spells you’ve already learned. After you master fire spell 1, there are further spells, all the way up to 5, just like with water and wind.”
I nodded, listening to him, feeling the anxiety spread through my body. Was the fire I’d conjured that fateful day a level five? I assumed that somehow, Orrin knew what happened. Because he showed up shortly after that.
He held up a hand and a flame appeared over it. I saw the colors dancing in his eyes as he gazed at it. It cast shadows over his face, which was surprisingly solid for being a ghost. He’d never actually told me he was a ghost—I’d just assumed. What else could he be? He was dead.
But, like all things, maybe there was some in-between, some wiggle room, or sub-levels of ghost.
“The fire appears here, Pupil. I close my hand, and capture the flame.” He did this. “Then I cast it away from me.” With his other hand, he gestured toward the lower level of the patio and a beautiful small tree appeared. He thrust the clenched hand toward the tree and the tree burst into flames.
It wasn’t like the fire that had wreaked havoc two months ago. It left no trace as it fled Orrin’s hand. In fact, it merely appeared on the tree as though it had never been in his hand at all.
Orrin held one hand aloft and clenched his fist and the tree vanished.
“What was that?” I asked, breathless.
“Illusion. None of it was real. It was only to demonstrate, Pupil.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and sighed. “Could you stop calling me that? I have a name.” It wasn’t the first time I’d asked.
“I’m afraid I can’t.” He always said no. “That is part of my method.” He raised his hand again and the same tree appeared where it had been standing moments before. “Light it on fire, Pupil.”
I bit my lip, holding back a snarky response at the same time. I might lose it tonight, if I wasn’t careful.
“If it’s not real, how can I light it on fire?”
He made a rolling motion with one hand, indicating that I was to just get on with it.
He was such a joy to be around. A real saint.
Holding my hand up, I did the steps to bring myself to center. I cleared my mind. Took a breath. Listened to the sound of the air through my lips. Visualizing the spell, I imagined a flame floating in my hand.
And then, the gesture.
I flung my hand toward the tree.
Nothing. The flame vanished.
My mana was depleted the moment I thrust my hand toward the tree and I sagged, exhausted. I wasn’t quite sure what had sapped all my energy—perhaps the push-ups. Perhaps the fact that I’d had no dinner, yet, or perhaps it stemmed from the fears overwhelming me of losing control like I had the day my powers manifested to me.
Orrin looked at me, disappointment writ loud in his gaze, the shape of his mouth, the tilt of his head.
“Very well. I see with the Sight that you are depleted of energy. We shall continue another night. In three days time.” That was about as often as he scheduled our lessons—only twice a week.
He pulled out a small wooden object that resembled an abacus, flicked three beads and then returned it to his pocket. “For now, rest. Build up your stores through healthy eating and doing good deeds, and practice what you already know, Pupil.”
He vanished, taking with him the ethereal glow of the world beyond and some aspect of my confidence.
With a heavy sigh, I gathered up my shirt and jacket and quietly crossed the patio and went into my home.
Dinner for a single person such as myself when I was alone could take two forms: one, it could be a meditative exercise of gorgeous meal-making. I could plan an elaborate affair that would take two hours and feed me for five days with the leftovers. Or it could be a bowl of cereal as I pored over books in my office, planning or researching something interesting to keep my mind busy and the scholarship flowing.
Tonight, it was Lucky Charms and then a follow up bowl of of Cheerios to cleanse my palate of all that sugar.
I released all the hexes and wards I placed around my office, which had been originally arranged for me by Bianca, and went inside. A long sigh escaped me as I entered the inner sanctum of my home and went to my desk.
I munched on cereal and studied a few things that I’d been working on for a few weeks.
One of them was a book about fire spells.
Yes, I was afraid of them—an unfortunate side affect of that fateful moment my magic manifested itself—but I was also drawn to fire.
Fire was in my bones, in my blood, and I knew that on an elemental level, it w
as my primary form of magic. I’d been born under a fire sign, and it took up almost all my houses in astrology—Leo rising, Mercury in Venus, Aries in Venus, Saturn in Leo, and Neptune in Sagittarius.
But, fire was also what came out of me almost involuntarily, as events spiraled out of my control and I witnessed the terrible death of my best friend and Flameheart partner, Theo Scott.
And now, I was drawn to it, at the same time as frightened of its ability.
I needed to learn to control it so that I could use it. And yet…
Trust in myself had been hard to come by since then.
And Orrin wasn’t helping.
I flipped through the pages of the book, scanning them as well as the figures and details for something that leapt out at me. Not knowing what I was looking for meant that anything could be the answer. That was the both the problem and the beauty of being unsure of what the question was.
I pushed the book aside, and in doing so, revealed a photo on my desk that had recently been given to me by my mother. The black and white image was one of an admittedly handsome guy in his early twenties, my father.
I looked just like him.
Despite my clever compliment to myself—saying he was gorgeous and then saying I looked like him—the truth was that I didn’t care if I was or wasn’t a looker, the point was, my biological father was a looker. And I’d inherited all his best features. His smile. The dimple on his left cheek, his green eyes.
And that was about all I knew about him. Everything else relating to him was a mystery. He’d gone mad when I was just a small child, and then died mysteriously. Who had he been? What was his story? Was he as funny as me?
All the memories I had of him were pleasant. In fact, the story that he went mentally ill was suspicious. Either I didn’t want to buy it and it was true… or it wasn’t true.
There was an ache inside me about him. It lived there, between my heart and my breastbone. I ignored it most of the time and lived my life. When I paused for a moment and looked at the ache, studied it, or acknowledged it, its strength overwhelmed me and sent me down dark paths full of sorrows and regrets.
Flames to Free (Dred Dixon Chronicles Book 1) Page 5