Mad Magic

by Nicole Conway

  “Do not say it!”

  Zeph’s mouth curled into a wicked smirk. “Not that I wouldn’t enjoy giving you the public ass-whipping you deserve, but watching you bow to a mortal will be much more satisfying.”

  The wolf growled even louder. I saw his legs coil beneath him. His fangs flashed. I squeezed my eyes shut and prepared for the worst.

  “Josie!” Zeph shouted. “You can control him! He has to obey you! Give him a command!”

  I threw my hands up to shield my face and screamed, “Stop it! Don’t touch me!”

  I tensed up, waiting to feel his teeth clamp down on my skin, or worse.

  The wolf didn’t attack.

  He stayed crouched, still growling, his eyes boring into mine with scalding hatred.

  Zeph grinned smugly. “Good, now tell him to sit, like a good little mutt.”

  Was he serious? I swallowed hard, steeling myself. “S-sit.”

  The wolf’s ears pressed against his skull. His snout wrinkled as he showed me all his pointed teeth. But he obeyed. He sat back on his haunches, his shaggy pelt trembling with fury.

  “Excellent. Nice to see you back in your place.” Zeph was practically purring with satisfaction. Then he whirled around and started for me at a purpose-driven pace.

  I screamed.

  He looked like something out of a twisted thriller movie with fangs, spiked horns, and radiant wings. I didn’t understand what he wanted from me, and the fact that he seemed to know that wolf so well wasn’t reassuring at all.

  “Josie,” he said my name in a disturbingly calm voice. “I’m not gonna hurt you.”

  “S-stay away!” I couldn’t control my shaking. I tried to get away, but there was nowhere else to run. All I could do was squeeze my eyes shut.

  I could feel how close Zeph was even before I opened my eyes again. It was like his body gave off an invisible electric current that made every little hair on my arms stand on end.

  When I did dare to look, he was crouched down right in front of me, his gleaming violet eyes staring right into mine and his voluminous wings closing around us like a cocoon.

  It was too much to take in—the fear, the confusion, the giant shadow-wolf that apparently wanted to kill me, and the glowing, purple-eyed, vegetarian angel-monster living across the hall. I couldn’t breathe. I leaned back against the wall as spots danced in my vision. My ears were ringing and my fingertips tingled.

  “Looks like we need to talk.” He arched one of his dark eyebrows. It was the same cocky expression he had given me the day before. Somewhere under all that purple, glowing, otherworldly strangeness, he was still the same Zeph.

  “This is real.” My own voice sounded far away. “I-I thought I was …”

  He smirked. “What? Crazy?”

  I couldn’t answer. My arms dropped back into my lap like two overcooked noodles. I couldn’t keep myself conscious anymore.

  I opened my eyes to the sound of my cell phone’s alarm going off on my nightstand. I was lying on my bed amidst rumpled blankets, warm and comfortable. Soft sunlight filtered through the thin, lacey curtains over my bedroom window. Outside, I could faintly hear the sounds of morning traffic passing in front of the apartment building, and birds singing in the trees right outside.

  This wasn’t right. I didn’t have mornings like this.

  I sat up and scooted to the edge of my bed, leaning over to see down the hallway and into the living room.

  There was no one else here.

  My skin prickled with a cold chill.

  I crept out of bed and down the hall, peeking around every corner before going from room to room. Nothing was broken. Nothing was cracked, flipped over, or spilled. Everything looked exactly the way it should have. My pictures were still on the walls. All the cabinets were closed. There was no grouchy tattooed man sitting at my breakfast table and no giant, evil wolf waiting to rip my throat out.

  I stopped in the middle of the living room and scratched the back of my head. Had it all just been another nightmare? That was the only explanation that made sense …

  Until I saw the feather.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted something sparkling on the coffee table. It was a slender, delicate feather that looked like it had been cut from thin purple glass. I held it up, watching it shimmer and shine in the morning light.

  It hadn’t been a dream.

  The wolf, Zeph, and everything else I had seen these past few years had all been real. That one little feather shattered the dam of doubt and fear that had been building in my mind. This wasn’t ptsd or an anxiety disorder. I hadn’t imagined any of it.

  I wasn’t crazy.

  Still wearing my pajamas, I bolted out the front door and ran across the hall to ring Zeph’s doorbell repeatedly.

  My mind was a tangled net of questions. If I wasn’t crazy and if all of this was real, then why was I seeing it when no one else could? What was Zeph? What was that wolf and why did he have to do what I asked? What was he even doing in my apartment in the first place?

  There was only one person who had those answers, and he wasn’t answering the stupid door.

  “I know you’re home!” I yelled, trying the knob; but it was locked. “Zeph! Open up!”

  I knocked as loudly as I could and rang the bell a few more times. Minutes crawled by, and I planted myself stubbornly on his doorstep.

  He never answered. In fact, I didn’t hear a single sound coming from inside his place.

  I glanced down at the beautiful feather still in my hand. It caught the light and sparkled like transparent purple glass, and yet it bent easily with a silky softness that tickled my palm. I wondered if the rest of his wings were as soft. Had they been? I couldn’t remember now. All my thoughts were hazed as I looked back up at Zeph’s door.

  He had to come back sometime. I could be patient until then.

  I twirled the feather between my fingers as I wandered back across the hall to my apartment. This shimmering, delicate gift was the only evidence I had that I wasn’t out of my mind. It was my prize now, so I placed it in an empty bud vase on the windowsill behind the kitchen sink. I stood back to admire how it caught the sunlight and sent a riot of bright reflections glittering across the room.

  Then my phone started buzzing again. It was my secondary “seriously, get up now” alarm. There was no way around it this time; I had to go to school today.

  Yanking a clean uniform out of my closet, I quickly got dressed. The pleated skirt, button down blouse, and tie weren’t very flattering on me. If anything, they made me look younger. I felt ridiculous until I pulled the thick, navy blue knit sweater over my head and straightened my collar out on top of it. Somehow wearing that helped a little. It at least disguised the fact that I basically had no boobs.

  I scarfed down half a peanut butter and jelly sandwich before brushing my teeth and racing out the door. The sky was cloudless and crisp blue and the wind was cold, but bracing. I dared to smile as I strolled the sidewalk on my way to school. Maybe this would be a fresh start. If Zeph had chased off that wolf for good, then I didn’t have to be nervous about going home anymore. Maybe the strange things that sometimes happened at school would stop, too.

  One look and all my hopes came crashing down around my ears.

  Through the line of other kids filing into the building, I spotted Ms. Grear’s puffy, bulldog face glowering in my direction.

  It was going to be one of those days, after all.

  I was in for it this time. Anger wafted off her like a gust from a furnace as I walked up the front steps of the school. Her eyes locked onto mine, and every muscle in my body went tense.

  Ms. Grear opened her mouth, and I cringed as I waited for the inevitable verbal smack down I was about to receive in front of all my peers.

  Out of nowhere, something heavy fell onto my shoulders.

  I glanced up in surprise—right into the face of an extremely good-looking boy I didn’t rec
ognize. He was gazing back down at me like there was nothing at all out of the ordinary about him holding onto me. Even though he was wearing our school uniform, I was sure I’d never seen him before. I would definitely have remembered a face like his. He had perfect, glossy, golden hair that fell over his eyes like he should be walking down a fashion runway. His smile immediately made my insides gelatinous. He winked at me like we were sharing an inside joke. My breath caught—he had beautiful, enchanting, purple eyes.

  My heart hit the back of my throat so hard I literally choked out loud.

  “You okay there, babe?” he asked casually, standing there with his arm draped around my shoulders. Then he turned to Ms. Grear, who looked like she might be choking, too. “This is your counselor, right?”

  I made some unintelligible, panicked sound like a mouse that’d just been stepped on.

  “Ms. Grear, it’s so good to meet you. Thanks for lending Josie to me yesterday. Man, having her there at the hospital was such a lifesaver. I don’t think I could have made it through all that without her.” He gave another bewitching smile that made my whole body shudder with embarrassment.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t believe we’ve met,” Ms. Grear finally spoke. Even she looked a little flushed. “Who are you?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry! My name is Joe. Joe Noble. I’m new. I was supposed to start last week, but then my mom got diagnosed with an aggressive illness, and yesterday she had to have emergency surgery. It’s pretty complicated. The doctors are still trying to figure out what’s wrong,” he explained, giving me a little squeeze that made me squeak out loud. “Lucky me, Josie was there at my side the whole time. I told her I would explain everything to her counselor, since she didn’t get a chance to call. I know I made her miss detention and class yesterday. I hope we can work something out. Can’t you let it slide? Just this once?”

  He blinked innocently—those big lavender eyes that suckered even me right into believing that crazy story.

  “Is this true, Josie?” Ms. Grear’s voice cracked, and she had to look away and fan herself a little as her flabby cheeks turned bright red.

  “I-I-I …” Joe elbow me in the ribs, and I managed a panicked, “Yes.”

  “Very well, then.” Ms. Grear sighed, pointing back into the school. “Both of you inside, now. Joe, please come with me to the central office so we can get you settled into your classes.”

  “Great! Thank you so much. I owe you one.” Joe laughed and combed his fingers through his perfect, glossy, blonde bangs. He bent down, and before I could react, he planted a firm, warm kiss on my cheek. “See you later, babe.”

  Oh, god. Had he really just …

  It took a few minutes for my brain to start working again after that. I didn’t remember walking into the school or the entire hour of detention. I finally remembered how to breathe again once the bell for my first period class rang, and realized that somehow I had ended up at my desk.

  “Pssst,” someone whispered from behind me.

  I glanced back, surprised to see one of the popular girls sitting directly behind me, leaning forward.

  “Is it true? Is that cute new guy really your boyfriend?” She cupped a hand over her mouth so no one else would hear. “Is it true that his family is loaded? You’re so lucky!”

  I blushed. “N-no, I think he must have me confused with someone else!” More like he was some deranged relative of Zeph’s that had been coerced or blackmailed into being my boyfriend. He’d said the eye thing was genetic, right? That’s the only explanation my frazzled brain could come up with.

  The classroom door opened, and every head in the classroom turned as Joe Noble swaggered in.

  My stomach did a spastic backflip as our gazes met.

  Joe waltzed right down the aisle of desks and stood in front of the popular girl sitting behind me. “Hey, sweetie. Can I have this seat? I want to sit by my girlfriend, if you don’t mind.”

  He flashed her that charming grin and the poor girl tripped all over herself to give him the seat. Joe plopped down in the seat behind me, looking very pleased with himself.

  All through class, I could feel his gaze on my back like a tingling heat. Was my hair straight? Had I ironed this shirt? Was there lint on my sweater? Had I remembered to put on perfume this morning?

  When the teacher finished giving his lecture, we were allowed to talk quietly while we finished our worksheets. I finally got up the nerve to turn around in my seat and look at Joe again. He leaned back his chair, his hands folded behind his head and a bewitching grin on his perfect lips. It was like a snapshot from a magazine.

  “Why are you doing this?” I asked him as quietly as I could. “I don’t even know you. I’ve never seen you before in my life. Are you related to Zeph?”

  “Seriously?” He asked, like I’d just asked the stupidest question ever. He arched one of his brows up in an eerily familiar way. Even his voice sounded a little familiar, like maybe …

  My heart hit the back of my throat. But—when—how—what the hell? It couldn’t be! It was impossible!

  “Zeph!” I practically screamed.

  Everyone in the room looked up with varying expressions of terror, bracing for the school psycho to have another meltdown. The teacher narrowed his eyes at me, and I instinctively shrank down farther in my seat.

  “Nice,” he mumbled with a sly grin. “No wonder everyone thinks you’re nuts.”

  “Zeph, how are you … When did you …” I tried to settle on just one question to ask first, but I was having a hard enough time coming to terms with how Zeph had somehow made himself look like an incredibly cute teenage boy.

  “Call me Joe,” he reminded me. “And keep it down. You must love detention or something.”

  “Joe,” I forced myself to whisper. “Why are you doing this?”

  He just shrugged, like it was no big deal. “You said you didn’t have any friends and the counselor was giving you a hard time. You were right about her, by the way. She’s scary as shit.”

  “Is this some kind of mask? Like in a spy movie?” I poked his cheek with my pencil just to make sure.

  “Pfft. Don’t be ridiculous. I’m way cooler than that.”

  “You can’t just barge in here and not explain any of this to me,” I insisted, my voice growing louder as I lost control of my nerves. “You said we were going to talk. What about last night? What about that wolf? And your wings!”

  Zeph put a hand over my mouth to shut me up. From across the classroom, the teacher was glaring at me again.

  “Geez. Do you have any common sense at all? We can’t talk about that here. Wait till after school. Now turn around and do your schoolwork’n crap. Go on. Shoo.”

  I scowled and slowly turned back around in my seat.

  Even if he was being a jerk about it, it was … kind of nice knowing he was sitting back there. Somehow, it made me feel so much safer. It was the first day all year that I had gone from class to class without feeling terrified of what might be waiting for me around the corner.

  Not that everything was normal. No, I wasn’t that lucky. But when I noticed one of the big ivy plants on the windowsill in my English teacher’s classroom beginning to move, stretching out like it was going to grab the girl sitting in front of me—Zeph appeared like he’d just materialized on the spot. He paused on his way down the aisle of desks and stared at the plant. His eyes narrowed. One corner of his mouth curled into a dangerous half-snarl. The leaves shivered as though a breeze had passed through the room. Slowly, the plant recoiled back into its pot and became perfectly still. Zeph gave an approving snort, and I never saw the ivy move again.

  My mouth fell open.

  He had seen it, too! Now I knew it wasn’t just a fluke that he’d been able to see the wolf in my apartment. Whatever he was, he could see and sense the same things I could.

  I wasn’t imaging any of it.

  That realization put tears in my eyes. Relief washed over every in
ch of my body. I hid my face with my hair, keeping my head down as I struggled to keep it together.

  Someone poked me in the back with the eraser end of a pencil.

  “Hey,” Zeph whispered. “What’s wrong?”

  I shook my head slightly and rasped, “Nothing. I’m fine.”

  Apparently, “Joe” had done a real number on Ms. Grear, as well. He had charmed her into putting him in all the same classes I was in, and made a point to sit right behind me in each one—even if that meant he had to bat those dazzling purple eyes at the teacher to get the seating chart rearranged. Each time he did that, I got a strange chill. Sometimes I heard something, too, like a whispering melody in my ear. It came and went so quickly, though. Could I even be sure it had anything to do with Zeph?

  By the end of the day, the school was buzzing with rumors about my new “boyfriend” and how cute we were together. I didn’t understand that at all. It’s like they’d forgotten all about me being a walking disaster. Did Zeph have something to do with that, too?

  After the last bell, we left school holding hands. I kept my head down, trying not to make eye contact with any of my peers as we left. It probably confused anyone else who saw us. Why wouldn’t I be thrilled to be holding hands with an attractive guy like that?

  It wasn’t until we rounded our street corner that he finally released me and let out a huge, growling groan. “I forgot how much high school sucks.”

  Yeah, school sucked. He had no freaking idea! He wasn’t the one who had to pretend everything was perfectly fine while plants and fire were coming to life and attacking anyone who stood too close. I gritted my teeth, biting back a scream. I’d been patient enough. I was done waiting. He owed me some answers, and I wanted them now.

  I waited until we were alone, standing in the hallway between our front doors, then I whacked him over the head with my purse. “What is going on? You said we would talk! I deserve some answers!”

  He dodged my purse as I swung at him again. “Calm down. It’s not that big of a deal.”

  “Not a big deal? Are you kidding me? I’ve been tortured every single night by that—that monster in my apartment! Then you show up! And at first you look like a grunge rocker, then a glowing violet angel-vampire, then like some model from a clothing advertisement!” I yanked my purse back, and went to shove him instead. “So you better start explaining this to me right now. I’m not even close to kidding!”