by Karen L Mead
After a few moments, the woman stopped examining the shop and approached the front counter. As she got closer, Khalil found it hard to breathe; her eyes were a sparkling pale green, like young grass, and seemed to give off a bit of their own light. The contrast between her dark, smooth skin and luminous eyes had literally taken his breath away.
Yeah, definitely not here for a café mocha.
She walked past the table where Ethan and Jay were playing Sorcery, but they were too involved in the next game and didn’t look up. She reached the counter and stood formally, hands folded in front of her.
“Can I help you, ma’am?” Dwight asked.
Instead of answering his question, the small woman looked around the room some more, taking a few deep breaths. After another moment, she finally addressed Dwight.
“I must admit, this place smells better than any Necromancer’s Lair I’ve ever been in.”
“It’s all the hazelnut. Covers everything,” said Khalil.
Dwight leaned over the counter so he could get closer to her and lower his voice. “If you’re here on Entourage business, that’s fine, but we’re not authorized to make any decisions. If it’s urgent, I can make some calls.”
“Hmm,” she said, putting a finger to her lips. “My life is not likely to be in danger for another four days, six hours, so I suppose it is not terribly urgent.”
Dwight and Khalil shared a glance. “Do you need to speak to Sam?”
“Yes, I believe that is his name.”
“Well, he’s on shift tomorrow morning, if you want to drop by then.”
The woman looked perplexed. She tilted her head sideways. “On shift? You mean he…works at this establishment?”
“Yes.”
She looked around at the shop again, as though she might have missed something. “And what does he do here, exactly?”
“Mostly cleans things. You have never someone clean dishes the way this guy does it, I’m telling you,” said Khalil.
“Ah!” Her eyes lit up with a spark of familiarity. “The creatures with the darkest stains on their souls, sometimes they clean things incessantly to try to make the feeling of filth go away; I have seen this several times before.”
“Really?” Khalil said, perplexed. “All this time, we thought it was just OCD.”
Just then a pair of normal customers came in, and the dark-skinned woman smoothly moved to the side and let Khalil take their orders. After Khalil had made the women two iced coffees, and the pair had taken a table in the corner, she continued in a soft voice.
“Listen, I see you are busy, so I will not take up more of your time. My name is Dorothy, but you can call me Dot, if you like. I will stop by tomorrow morning to see this…Sam, this Necromancer. If you see him before then, tell him that someone has come to ask for asylum. Good day.”
And with that she turned to leave, high heels clicking on the tiled floor. When she was gone, Dwight turned to Khalil with a frown.
“Why did she keep saying ‘Necromancer’? Usually they just say ‘demon.’”
Khalil shrugged. “I don’t know, that’s a new one on me.”
Ethan came up to the counter. “More hot chocolate, please.”
“Isn’t this like, your fifth? Dwight, we should cut him off.”
“I only had one!” Ethan exclaimed, then colored when he realized that Khalil was messing with him. When he got his drink, he took a quick sip and then fixed the two men with a serious expression.
“Listen, you’d better warn Sam that there’s a fairy coming to see him. Fairies are tricky.”
The two men exchanged glances, again. “How do you know she’s a fairy?” asked Khalil.
Ethan smiled the smug smile of someone older than his eleven years, then went back to his table, picked up a card, and held it up. Khalil leaned forward, squinted, and read “Forest Fairy.”
The clothing was different, but the woman featured in the illustration was clearly Dorothy.
Chapter 11
Standing by the front door of Cassie’s house, holding a prettily-wrapped pastry box in his arms, Sam had a sensation of mental whiplash. Earlier, he had been prepared for Cassie to slap him, call him a monster (which would not only be fair, but accurate), and refuse to see him ever again. What he had not expected was for her to brush his shameful declarations aside and invite him over for dinner. It felt incredibly wrong to be standing here, after the things he’d done, the things he’d said, yet here he was.
He could have refused, holed himself up in his apartment for as long as he needed to until he felt human again, but the truth was, he still wanted to see Cassie. He wanted to look at her, hear her voice, sense the subtle, intangible presence of her that their bond made possible. If he had to leave everyone behind, and it was looking more and more likely that he would, he wanted the image of her burned into his brain first.
When he rang the bell, Hunter answered the door. He was dressed nicely, in a pale blue button-down shirt under a striped sweater. Apparently, Cassie’s family had dressed for company.
“Are you going to get my parents to stop acting like Twilight Zone people?”
Isn’t he ten years old or something? How does he know from The Twilight Zone?
“That’s the idea,” said Sam, stepping over the threshold.
“Finally,” said Hunter, closing the door behind Sam a little harder than was strictly necessary.
Cassie’s mother was in the kitchen, cooking something on the stove. Sam poked his head in awkwardly.
“Hello, Annette. Good to see you again.”
“Hello, Sam. Dinner will be ready soon.” She gave him an entirely blank look and then went back to focusing on the contents of her frying pan.
Sam took a step back, disturbed. His few interactions with Cassie’s mother usually involved her screaming at him, so hearing her sound so disinterested was downright strange.
I thought she was exaggerating, but it’s as bad as Cassie said. Instead of making them stop worrying about their daughter, that ‘calm the hell down’ charm I crafted just made them near-catatonic. Wow, one of my spells wasn’t delicate enough, who could have POSSIBLY seen this coming….
“You see?”
He turned around at the sound of Cassie’s voice, and felt his throat tighten at the sight of her. She was wearing a velvety-black dress he’d never seen before, with white stockings. With her pale skin and dark hair, she looked like a life-sized China doll, albeit a slightly plump one. She also looked young, even younger than usual, and he felt sick inside for the way he’d leered at her earlier, like some lecherous thug.
Cassie turned toward Annette in the kitchen; it took a conscious effort for him to pay attention to what she was saying and not just admire her in that dress.
“It was bad enough when Miri was hypnotizing her every day, but when you made the charm, it got worse. At least my mom still talks, my dad barely says anything at all.”
“Alright, I can see it’s bad,” he said, putting the cinnamon cake box down on a nearby table. “But remember, we did this for a reason. We were trying to keep them safe.”
“I know. But I shouldn’t have listened to you, and Miri. I knew it was wrong.”
“Cassie….”
She snapped her head around to look at him.
“Oh, you’re in “nice Sam” mode now, so you’re going to tell me it’s not my fault and everything’s okay? Or are you going to talk about all the terrible things you want to do to me some more?”
Sam grimaced; the words stung almost like she’d physically hit him. He had been hoping they were going to pretend that the events of this afternoon had never happened—at least for the time being— but he should have known better.
“Please, don’t. I was trying to make a point, and you know it.”
“So, were you lying?” she asked, looking up at him through dark lashes. “You were lying about…about wanting to do all that?”
“I was making a point,” he said quietly, then made his
way to the mantelpiece on the other side of the room. Surrounded by pictures of Cassie and Hunter as adorable, raven-haired children, there was a decorative purple candle with a curious blue flame. The candle itself was normal, but it had been infused with magic, the magic that was keeping Annette and her husband from noticing anything unusual was afoot. Sam reached out a hand until the soft blue flame was nestled between the tip of his thumb and index finger.
“Now, are you absolutely sure?”
“Break that thing!” said Hunter, suddenly reappearing from behind the stairs. “I hate it.”
I spent two hours standing over a hot cauldron to make this stupid thing, and this is the thanks I get? If anyone else wants a custom spell from now on, they can make it themselves.
In an instant, he’d snuffed out the candle. It took only a second for the effects to be felt, or rather, heard.
“Huuuuunter!” yelled Annette from the kitchen. “Where is your President Report? You told me you were going to finish your President report!”
Hunter beamed; it was probably the happiest any kid had ever been at hearing his mother start nagging him. He practically sprinted toward the kitchen. “Ma, we did the President report already. Now we’re doing the Country report!”
“What’s this about a Country Report? What ever happened to the other report?”
As Hunter and Annette continued to discuss school assignments, at unnecessarily loud volume, Sam sighed and looked at Cassie. “Look, this is still an issue. We can’t have your mother trying to show up in Court and give them all a piece of her mind.”
Cassie knelt and picked up the dessert box he’d put down a moment ago. “I know. We’ll explain to them what’s going on, then I’m moving out ASAP. They’ll be a lot safer without me around.” Then she went toward the kitchen. “Look, Ma, Sam brought the cinnamon cake you like! He said it was the last one too.”
Sam bit his lip and put his hand down on the back of an easy chair beside him. Cassie was being optimistic about it, but the situation with her parents might not be so easily resolved. If they refused to accept reality, refused to let her go, he might be forced to take some drastic measures…and Cassie and her brother would not be happy.
After some more bickering with Hunter about various papers, Annette exited the kitchen, and smiled a fabulously fake smile at Sam. Her lips were turned upwards, but her eyes were looking at him like he was some kind of vermin she planned to kill with a shoe. That, combined with the ostentatiously loud tennis dress that she was wearing, made him wish he could avert his gaze.
“Thank you for bringing that lovely cake for dessert. I see your mother raised you right.”
“Thanks,” Sam mumbled, genuinely taken aback. It was perhaps the first time anyone had ever complimented Helen’s parenting within his hearing.
Annette put a hand on her hip, still eyeing him like a disgusting insect that had somehow wormed its way into her living room. “Cassie, why don’t you show your boyfriend into the dining room? Now if only my husband would come out of his office, we could all sit down to dinner.” With that, she turned around.
“JON! We’ve got company!” she bellowed down the hall.
“What? When will they be here!” Jon yelled back.
“He’s here now!”
“What? I didn’t know we were having any—”
“Just get out here!” she yelled back then turned to her son. “Hunter, be a good boy and take the peas and corn into the dining room, alright?”
“Yeah, Ma!” said Hunter, still beaming.
Cassie was looking at her mother with a blank expression. As everyone made their way into the dining room, where the table was set with fine china, Sam bent down and whispered in Cassie’s ear. He half-expected her to recoil from him, but she didn’t.
“Is it possible that it’s been so long, you forgot what your mother was like?”
“Shut up!” she said and grabbed the bowl of corn out of Hunter’s hands before he dropped it. Sam was still grinning when he sat down at the table.
“Hello, hello,” said Jon Tremblay, adjusting his glasses. “Oh. Cassie’s boyfriend. I see. I…see.” He scowled at his wife. “It would have been nice if you’d told me who we were expecting, Annie.”
“Well it would be nice if you wouldn’t spend twenty-four hours a day in your office building model rockets, but we can’t have that either. Honey, get the dinner rolls.”
Other than Annette’s barbs, the dinner started off innocuously enough. Jon started a conversation about the local sports teams, and even though Sam didn’t really follow sports, he’d heard enough about the subject from Dwight and Khalil that he knew what to say at the appropriate moments.
“Sure, getting to the post-season is a nice thought, but the Silverhawks don’t even know what defense is.”
“Exactly! This is what I’ve been saying!” said Jon, talking with about half a roll in his mouth.
Defense, defense, defense. It’s always something about not having enough defense. Ain’t that the truth.
Jon swallowed then continued. “You see Sam, I’m a fan of football, since I’m a little kid. And I’m a loyal fan, not just the type who only roots for their team when they’re on a hot streak. The problem is, what we have with the SIlverhawks isn’t really football, it’s—”
“A Greek tragedy!” Hunter finished.
Jon nodded proudly, like his son had just said an incredibly sage thing. Annette sighed and put down her napkin.
“Excuse me, honey, but I’d like to take this opportunity to actually talk to our guest.”
“We are talking to him,” Hunter pointed out.
“Eat your peas, baby. Now, Sam,” she began, and flashed a smile.
Oh God, that smile again. That smile like she wants to eat my organs one at a time.
She picked up a glass of red wine and swirled it around a bit. “Now, I understand you work at the coffee shop with Cassie. Is that correct?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Right. Now, are you working there part-time while you pursue a degree at the University?”
“No ma’am, I’m not a student.”
Annette took a sizable sip of her wine, then put the glass down. “I see. Are you working there to pay the bills while you apply for a better job?”
“Uh, no ma’am, I’m not currently applying for anything.”
Her eyes narrowed further. “And, excuse me for asking, but how old are you again? Thirty?”
“I’m twenty-nine.” He actually was twenty-nine, but even to his own ears, it sounded like a lie.
Jon swallowed a mouthful of peas and looked to his wife.
“Annie, c’mon, this isn’t an enhanced interrogation. Give the fellow a chance to eat his dinner!”
Annette ignored her husband like he wasn’t even in the room. “So, since you clearly have no money and no prospects, what business do you think you have dating my daughter, exactly?”
There was a pause. Sam decided that the time had come to reveal the evening’s true purpose.
“Your daughter’s a witch,” he said.
“Sam!” Cassie exclaimed.
But it was too late; Annette had been about to launch into a tirade, and she hadn’t even heard what Sam had said.
“You see, young man, I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but our Cassie has a very bright future ahead of her. She’s going to go to an Ivy League University and study to be a lawyer. She needs to associate with people of her own…class.”
Sam was rendered speechless by that, but Cassie wasn’t.
“Mom, I don’t want to be a lawyer anymore, I want to be a doctor.”
Annette looked at Cassie, confused. “What? A doctor? Oh honey, you are not cut out to be a doctor.”
“Yes I am!” said Cassie, putting her fork down. She sounded incredibly childlike.
“No, you aren’t. My daughter, covered in blood and guts all day? Please, a lawyer is a much better fit for you. You’re a big fish in a small pond at th
at private school, but once you see how much work there is in medical school, you’d change your tune fast, trust me on that.”
Jon coughed.
“Annie, if Cassie wants to go into medicine, I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t—”
“Oh, says the man who failed out of engineering school, twice? Trust me, Jon, I know my daughter and what she can handle. She’d be in waaaaaay over her head in medical school.”
Cassie stabbed her untouched dinner roll with a fork and looked at Sam.
“Let’s end this,” she said.
“Thank God. Mr. and Mrs. Tremblay, Cassie and I have something important to tell you.”
“If you tell me she’s already pregnant, I swear I will kill you with my bare—”
“Your daughter IS A WITCH. She formed a demonic pact with me, and together, we rule this city. This whole thing about me being her boyfriend was just a cover story. In reality, I’m a demon.”
Annette and Jon just looked at him, stone-faced. Feeling a need fill the silence, Sam continued.
“I know you might find this difficult to believe, but what I’m telling you is true. I can do things like this.”
He pointed to the bowl of corn, mouthed a word, and instantaneously, where there was once a mound of kernels, there was a thick stalk of a plant that reached nearly to the ceiling.
“Wow, that’s cool,” said Hunter, as the cornstalk continued to grow and wrap itself around the chandelier.
“Thanks. I was going to do that with the lamb, but that might have been kind of gruesome.”
Unfortunately, this was one of those times when the taint of black magic decided to make its presence known. The cornstalk began to blacken and flake apart.
“Ah, sorry, sometimes that just happens. Let me get rid of it.” He mouthed a word.
In a moment the rapidly degrading cornstalk was on fire. The room filled with the acrid smell of smoke.
Is the taint coming out more often lately? And if it is, what the hell do I do about it? I can’t just burn everything.
Hunter pulled on Annette’s sleeve. “Mom, can I get the marshmallows? I want to roast a marshmallow over the—”