Secrets The Walkers Keep: A New Adult Urban Fantasy (Casters of Magic Series Book 1)

by J. Morgan Michaels

“Sorry, can I borrow Hat for a second?” Damon said to my aunt’s boyfriend. “I need to show him something.”

  “Excuse me for a second?” I tried to leave him with an expression on my face that implied I might actually come back, but I had no intentions of doing so.

  “Thank you, I owe you,” I said to Damon as we ducked into the empty hallway. “No Talia today?”

  “She’s here, somewhere. No Max today? I’m surprised you’re rested enough to be here . . .”

  I rolled my eyes. “Touché. So, how’s it going with you two?”

  “Fine.”

  “So, how’s it going with you two?” I asked again with a smile.

  “I don’t know, good I guess. The same probably. We keep looping around in the same way we always do. You know? We break it off, then she appears in my life and there’s definitely this connection, but then something will happen and she pulls away. She’s a hard chick to figure out and it gets old after a while. But enough about me, tell me about last night. How did it happen?”

  “Look it’s Talia,” I said as Talia walked out of the bathroom. “Hey Talia! How good to see you.”

  “Uh, yeah, thanks,” Talia said, shunning my fake friendliness and giving Damon a confused look. She took a sip of something orange-colored in her glass and wrapped her arm around Damon’s waist.

  “Cousins & Cocktails this week?” Damon asked.

  “Yeah, maybe,” I said.

  My eyes shifted to the playroom where all the kids were crowded around Zoe, clapping, laughing, and watching her every move. Much like her mother at that age, Zoe had a commanding persona, one that easily made her the alpha cousin. I slipped quietly into the room and when one of the other kids noticed me, he signaled to the others and the room went silent as the group looked to Zoe to lead their alibi.

  “What are we up to?” I asked them. They weren’t old enough yet to understand that I was their age once, and I had done the same thing with my own cousins when caught by one of the adults. “Alright, what trouble are you causing?”

  “Nothin’ Uncle, we’re just talking,” Zoe said factually, nodding at her brothers and cousins in silent instruction for them to agree with her. In her hand was a key chain with her cousin’s name on it.

  “Zoe’s doin’ tricks,” one of the kids blurted out.

  Bending down to eye level with the group of children, I asked, “What kind of tricks?” From the corner of my eye I could see Zoe start waving her hands around and mouthing something to the rest. I moved my body to block her from the others.

  There was a natural order with the Walkers, the same as in any other family I suppose. The children tried to keep secrets with one another, and the adults used their experience, having once been children themselves, to pry those secrets out of them. I couldn’t judge the kids, though, because as I had recently learned, adults keep secrets too.

  “She’s tellin’ us when we got stuff,” Zoe’s youngest brother said. He had already lost interest in the conversation and was pushing a dump truck around on the ground.

  “Hey, I think they’re bringing the cake out,” I said to the group, pointing to the other room. They scattered and stampeded over me at the prospect of a mid-day sugar high.

  “Not so fast,” I said, grabbing Zoe’s arm as she tried to follow the rest out of the room. “Tell me about your trick.”

  “Ugh. It’s n-b-d,” Zoe said, rolling her eyes.

  “If it’s no big deal then show me,” I said, brushing off her real world use of text message lingo. I’m not THAT much older than you, little girl.

  “I don’t know . . . I just pick stuff up and I can tell you where it came from.”

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out my cell phone. “Okay, David Copperfield, show me,” I said handing it to her.

  “Who’s that?”

  I groaned. “Just show me.”

  She closed her eyes and slowly rubbed her hands around the screen. “You got it last summer. It was hot that day, but you had to get a new phone because you dropped your old one in the parking lot at work and it broke. Hmm.” She stopped for a second, twitching her face. “You went with Auntie Charley. She thought the case was ugly, but you got it anyway. Then you dropped it as soon as you got out of the store and that’s how it got this crack.” She opened her eyes and handed the phone back to me.

  That was no trick. Everything she said happened, just how she said it did, right down to the crack. “How’d you do that?”

  “I dunno,” she laughed, folding her lips over her braces, “it just happens when I touch stuff.”

  “Is it like you see it happening in your head, like a picture or a movie?”

  “Ugh. No. I don’t know. It’s like someone told me a story about it a long time ago, and when I touch it I remember what they said.”

  “Did someone tell you the story about me getting this phone? Auntie Charley maybe?”

  “No. I don’t know. It’s hard to explain. I just kinda know. You don’t believe me?”

  I looked into her bright, grass-green eyes. “No Zo, I do. It’s a pretty cool trick . . . but can you do your uncle a favor?”

  She flipped her hair to the side and crossed her arms. “What?”

  “Can you keep it a secret?”

  “Why?”

  I didn’t have a good answer to that. “Because.”

  She rolled her eyes at me and tossed her hair again. We both knew that she was too old to accept “because” as a valid reason for having to do anything.

  “Can you just trust me on this? Please? Are you old enough to do that; to just trust me because I’m your uncle and I’m asking you to?” I didn’t have any other way to explain it to her. How do you tell an eleven-year-old that you need her to keep her magical powers under wraps until you’ve figured out whether or not it’s safe for her to use them?

  “Yeah, whatever,” she said.

  “Promise?”

  She did promise, and I believed her, or at least I believed that she wasn’t planning to tell anyone. As she walked out of the playroom, she passed Talia looking over us. “Everything okay?” Talia asked.

  “Yeah, it’ll be fine,” I said, turning away from her and looking out the window. There really wasn’t anything she could have done to help, even if I had a way to ask her for it.

  As I sat alone in the playroom, I pondered the implications of Zoe’s powers, feeling more isolated from my family than ever. I couldn’t explain any of what was happening with Zoe to her mother without explaining everything else to her. It was another unfair rift in our relationship and things were already so rocky between us. It ate at me a little to hold it all in, but until I could be sure they’d be safe knowing the truth, I’d have to keep that from them too. In the meantime, I had to hope that an eleven-year-old’s promise to keep a secret would last long enough for me to figure that out.

  To ward off the ever-watchful eye of my enlarged family, I pretended I was watching TV as I inched my way slowly toward the door. There were just too many thoughts running around in my head, thoughts I couldn’t talk about with anyone there, and thoughts I couldn’t stand pretending I didn’t have any longer.

  Just as I was about to reach for the doorknob, someone poked the back of my head. “Looks like someone’s got a little less hair to brush in the morning,” Victor said, his eyes bloodshot and his breath reeking of pot.

  “Mm hmm. Thanks,” I said.

  “Don’t start crying about it, I’m just saying.”

  “Right. I’m actually on my way out, I’ll see you later,” I said, finally grabbing the door knob.

  “Wait,” Victor said, holding the door closed. “Did Syd talk to you about the paperwork for the house?”

  I released a deep breath and let go of the door knob. “No, but I signed everything last week and sent it back to the lawyer. He should have it soon if he
doesn’t already.”

  “You don’t have to get all huffy about it. She told you we can’t do anything with the house until you sign off, right? I’ve got some stuff coming up and I need the money.”

  “Yup. Don’t you worry, you’ll get your money.”

  “What the hell is your problem?” Victor asked, moving between me and the door.

  “You mostly,” I said, looking around cautiously to see who might be listening. “I hate the fact that the only thing you care about is selling her house, and the only thing I hate more is the fact that I wasn’t expecting you to act any differently.”

  “It’s not the only thing I care about, fuck head. But yeah, I want the damn thing sold so I can go about my business. What good is it to us until it’s sold anyway?”

  “You’re right, I’m the asshole.”

  “Don’t get indignant with me because I refuse to make this family my be-all-end-all like the rest of you. And I love that you act like I’m the one that treats the family like shit when you’re the one who’s never around.”

  Did you ever think that you’re the reason I’m not around anymore?

  Chapter 22

  “Neither will I,” I wrote back to Max as I walked to my car.

  His next message lit up my phone quickly. “So when?”

  I smiled, but he couldn’t have known that. “You tell me.”

  Planning a date was a lot easier once you’d already slept with the person. There was simply no pressure to be had. You already established whether or not you’d be willing to see the person again if you were still in their bed when they woke up the following morning. It was the only way to plan a first date.

  “Is tonight too soon?” his next text asked.

  It wasn’t too soon for me. We decided to meet at a restaurant downtown called Brickhouse. They had great food and were always just busy enough to where you didn’t have to shout to talk or wait for a table, but you also weren’t sitting there in an empty room.

  Max was perched at the bar waiting for me when I walked in. He wore a sharp black, fitted dress shirt over jeans and a light leather jacket. He looked great.

  When I walked up to him, he leaned in and kissed me, completely unfazed by anyone who may have been watching. He smelled like leather and fresh cranberries, a combination I admit sounds odd, but will also admit smells incredibly sexy. In contrast, I smelled like two cups of a coffee and a stale muffin, the only things I had allowed in my body that day.

  “Glad you could make it,” he said, handing me a full glass of wine.

  He looked too good for me to tell him that I didn’t like wine. “Yeah, you know, I had some free time and this cute guy I know texted me earlier.” I took an obligatory sip of the wine and placed it back on the bar. “So I figured I’d come for dinner with you before I had to meet up with him.”

  Max tightened his lips, gave a fake scowl, and touched my knee. “Don’t make me show everyone in this place just how hot you are for me,” he whispered into my ear, his hand running up my leg.

  “Um,” the skinny and short hostess interrupted us apprehensively from a distance. “Sir, your table is ready if you’d like.”

  Dinner was perfect, and I don’t remember a thing I ate. Talking to Max was a lot like talking to myself, and that made me uncharacteristically calm. I never had to worry about saying the wrong thing, because he acted like everything I said was the right thing. He was slowly showing me that a date, unlike all the dates I had ever been on, didn’t have to be painful or uncomfortable.

  We talked about everything, like my affinity for architecture, and his one guilty pleasure (or the only one he admitted)—old country songs. He liked hearing my crazy stories about Cartwright & Company or my family, and I was enthralled by his ambition. He opened his gym when he was just twenty-six, and only two years later it was wildly successful and growing more popular by the day.

  Max wasn’t what I pictured when I thought of a gay man. He was strong and confident, manly, and had never hung a rainbow-colored flag anywhere on his person, ever. He didn’t swish, he had no desire to wear makeup, and he played football in a league avidly and aggressively every season. I was unintentionally holding onto a lot of stereotypes about a man who sleeps with other men, even after I’d done it myself. I knew if I let him, Max could help me change all that.

  It was liberating to have a conversation with someone where you could say anything. Well, anything except for the obvious; that I sometimes could see the past, that my mother was murdered, and that I had some mythical necklace too powerful to understand. Other than all that, I was totally an open book.

  “What?” he asked at one point when he caught me getting mesmerized by those big gray eyes.

  “Nothing. Just thinking about you.”

  “But I’m right here.”

  “So?” I asked, laughing.

  The night continued with more wine, which I was starting to change my mind about, and a lot of laughter. He was captivated when I spoke, even when what I was talking about was frivolous or stupid. We were so deep in our own world that it took our waitress pulling the salt and pepper shakers from our table for us to sit back and realize that the restaurant was empty, and that all the chairs had been put up on the tables, except for ours, in preparation to close.

  Max grabbed my hand as we left the restaurant. “Wanna go for a walk? I don’t think I’m ready to let tonight be over yet.”

  It was crisp and cold that night, an easy excuse to pull close together as we walked. The winter winds blew through the tunnel-like streets of Providence’s financial district, knocking us around and chilling our exposed flesh. It was quiet, all the other businesses were closed by that time of night and there was hardly anyone left in the streets.

  We turned down one of the short alleyways, and Max pushed me against a brick building. He kissed me, his lips full of life and growing more accustomed to mine. “You could kiss a thousand people in your life and never feel like this,” he said when he pulled away.

  “Is that your way of telling me you’ve kissed a thousand people?”

  Normally, I’d find a statement like that a little too gushy, but the manly and genuine way he said it made my stomach jump a little instead. He grabbed my hand and pulled me along through the alley. His hands were strong and comfortable to hold, and he made me feel like nothing else in my life mattered; all that mattered was us, in that moment.

  The sound of metal rapping against the building behind us startled me. We turned around to see two muscle Guidos moving down the alley toward us, like two stone towers sliding across a chess board. A third Guido, a near-replica of the others, appeared from around the corner at the other end of the alley, boxing us in. Max’s nose flared a little as they started to close in on us.

  “What’s up, fags?” one of the Guidos said with a snort. He was still dragging the thick metal pipe along the building as he walked, leaving white streaks of brick dust behind him.

  This can’t be good.

  “What’s this?” Max said to the pipe-wielding Guido. He pushed at my chest gently, moving me behind him.

  “What’s what? We just thought we’d talk,” Pipe Guido said back to him.

  The Guido with the goatee, the one on Pipe Guido’s side, had a menacing look on his already grim and scratchy face. He didn’t look smart enough to form his own sentences, but he did look strong enough to beat on you until he got his point across. The third Guido, the one with the popped collar, was shuffling in closer behind us.

  “Who needs a pipe to talk?” Max asked calmly. He moved his left leg out in front of him, steadying his stance and bending his knees slightly.

  Pipe Guido lowered his head and looked to his side at Goatee Guido, giving him a nod. When he’d lifted his head back up, he lunged at Max without warning, pulling the pipe above him in preparation to strike.

  Max lifted h
is arm and stepped forward into Pipe Guido’s path gracefully, blocking his arm before the pipe could make its way down. In one, uninterrupted move, Max’s hand opened and wrapped around Pipe Guido’s wrist. He pulled at the man’s arm, forcing it to stiffen. Max’s other hand quickly came up from his side, striking Pipe Guido’s stiffened elbow with the inside of his straightened hand.

  Pipe Guido’s face contorted in pain as his elbow popped out of place, but Max was already striking him again with the same hand, this time just below Pipe Guido’s ribcage. Pipe Guido bent over involuntarily with a grunt, using his good arm to hold his side.

  Max used Pipe Guido’s brief submission to swing both of their bodies around and force the pipe in his hand to hit Goatee Guido, as he came up on their left. Using Pipe Guido’s hand, still clasped around the pipe, Max struck Goatee Guido, first in the knee, and then swiftly at the base of his neck on the other side. The loud cracking of his bones resonated off the walls with each blow, and with a large thud, he folded to the ground.

  Collar Guido, who had been standing idle behind Max until then, watched the action and waited for his moment to enter the fight. Pipe Guido had regained some control over his pain-stricken body and had reached around to grab at Max’s clothing with his free hand. Like a puppet master, and still holding his bruised arm, Max twisted Pipe Guido’s arm to his will, forcing him to his knees in pain.

  Goatee Guido was still heaving on the ground, holding his battered knee, when Collar Guido took his opportunity and jumped onto Max from behind, completely avoiding me in the process. He was able to land a powerful strike with his knee into Max’s back, with just enough force to make Max release Pipe Guido.

  Pipe Guido sprinted forward out of Max’s reach. Max had his hands on his knees, his back still in pain, but it was short-lived. As Collar Guido sprung at him again with flailing, unskilled fists, Max executed one perfect back kick to his stomach. The air exploded violently from Collar Guido’s lungs, and he slowly bent over, coughing. Then Max spun his entire body and pulled the heel of his foot into his hand by his head, and then released it with a tremendous force against the back of Collar Guido’s bent neck, sending him face-first into the ground.