by Karen L Mead
Mike took a swig of his hot chocolate and looked at David. “Sorry, I should have asked this before, but who are you?”
“He defected from the Eastern Court, and we are all very much in his debt,” Sam said, eyeing David significantly.
“You can let him introduce himself, you know,” Khalil said. He was twirling the Rod of Moses in his right hand like it was a baton.
David shrugged.
“Uh, I don’t really need an introduction. I’m David, I’m from London, that about covers it. It’s not like I have a title.”
Dwight glared at Khalil over his sunglasses.
“Will you stop playing with that? You could break the thing.”
“You will now address me as Rabbi Khalil.”
“He is going to be insufferable, isn’t he?” Dmitri said softly. He was still tense, ready to pounce if Mike showed any signs of vampiric hunger. But it had been nearly half an hour since Khalil had touched the waking boy with the Rod, and nothing had happened. Mike had looked a little dazed when he awakened, but within thirty seconds, he was asking for his laptop and a hot chocolate, like nothing had happened.
Sam collapsed into a chair; he had been standing the whole time, watching Mike as though he couldn’t believe the boy was really there.
“I think Khalil’s earned the right to be insufferable for a little while.”
“You are going to regret saying that,” Khalil whispered.
“I know.”
Everyone looked at the door to the break room when Jay threw the door open. “Mike! You were dead?!”
Mike didn’t even look up from his typing.
“I was not dead, I was just, uh…asleep for a little while. Don’t be all dramatic.”
Jay stopped and looked around. With Sam, Dwight, Khalil, Mike, Helena, David, Dmitri, and now Jay all in the room, the break room was getting pretty full.
“Uh, I don’t know some of these people,” Jay said, his eyes darting between David and Helena. Helena gave him a sad smile.
Sam took a deep breath.
“Helena, I don’t know what we’re going to do with you, but as long as you’re here, may as well make yourself useful. Can you go back to my apartment and get the cauldron and the black box full of ingredients? It’s a tool box, like you’d use for screwdrivers, but it has magic supplies in it.”
“Certainly,” Helena said, looking relieved to have something to do. A few more words exchanged with Sam, and she was out the door.
“What do you need that stuff for?” Jay asked.
“We have someone in need of a protection amulet,” Sam said, eyeing David. Jay turned around and looked at the thin youth.
“Oh, so you’re joining the club, huh? That’s cool. We have great parties.”
“Do you?” David asked. From his expression, it was clear he was skeptical.
Dwight moved toward the door and gestured for them all to follow him.
“C’mon, it’s getting too crowded in here. Let’s at least go to the café, where we have chairs for everyone.”
“Do you feel up to moving, Mike?” Sam asked.
Mike didn’t answer for a few moments; everyone looked at him, concerned.
“Isn’t anybody going to ask me what I found out this weekend?” Mike said, still typing furiously.
The group exchanged glances. In the panic over Mike possibly dying, no one had given any thought to the reason he’d risked his life in the first place.
Jay walked up behind Mike and looked over his shoulder.
“Why are you on auction sites?”
“I’m tracking all of the purchases that the Liddell vamps have been making. They’ve been spending a lot of money lately.”
“On what?”
“Sorcery,” said Mike, hitting his Enter key with relish.
“The cards?” Jay asked, confused.
Khalil spun the Rod one more time, and gave a low whistle.
“Oh Jay, poor innocent Jay. You think a group of evil vampires are spending money buying cards for that stupid game? I think Sorcery means something else in this case,” Khalil said in a patronizing tone.”
Sam stood up, agitated. “What are they buying? Illegal black magic ingredients? Are they planning some kind of major curse?”
“Hmmph?” Mike said, popping the remains of a chocolate chip cookie in his mouth.
“Nah, Jay was right the first time. They’re spending all their money on rare cards.”
Chapter 43
“So…let me make sure I have this straight,” Azrael said, rubbing his temples like he was in pain. “You found out that your witch has the ability to cast black magic, so you dragged her into Realm against her will.”
“It was the only responsible thing to do,” Sammael responded. He was leaning back in his chair, like a delinquent kid at school.
Azrael shifted his weight.
“Then you looked into her mind and discovered that the Watchers are planning to invade this reality through her, at which point, you told no one of this. Instead, you took her to fight fabricated dinosaurs.”
“I thought that putting her in extreme danger would give her the kick in the tush she needs to be able to control her magic consciously,” Sammael embellished.
“In the process,” Azrael continued, pointedly not looking at Sammael. “You brought out her latent angelic nature, which is the one thing the Watchers absolutely need for their invasion to be possible in the first place.”
“Really, if I failed, it was only in the fact that I succeeded too well,” Sammael mused.
Azrael continued, still not looking at Sammael.
“So you’ve now made it possible for the Watchers to enter the world, which would have remained functionally impossible if you had simply done nothing.”
“A loaded assumption.”
“And we would be in better position to fight them off if we weren’t down a man…which we are, because your son ate him.”
Sammael shrugged. “We’ve all thought about doing it, kiddo just took the plunge. Kind of proud of him, honestly.”
“So we can’t send your witch back to the mortal realm, because the Watchers will likely use her to attack as soon as she gets there. However, the longer she stays here, the more unstable your abomination of an offspring becomes.”
“Look, he’s probably not going to eat anyone else unless you provoke him. It’s not like he’s going to go out of his way to get that hot lunch, you kind of have to wave the red flag in front of the bull there.”
“Meanwhile, you allowed Satan a visit from his biological mother—and only the Almighty knows how that’s even possible—breaking him from his infernal prison. As we speak, the Devil walks the earth again.”
“To be entirely, fair, you were the one who approved that visit; my hands were tied there.”
Finally, Azrael made eye contact with his adversary.
“When I approved the visit, I only knew that he wanted to see the witch. I had no idea that there was a time paradox in play and she was his mother. Only you knew that.”
“Which I would have told you, if you had thought to ask. Communication is a two-way street, you know.”
Azrael looked like he was in a place beyond anger. Like he’d already experienced the full emotional roller coaster of raging anger, and now he was just completely done with it all.
“Can you give me one good reason why all of us assembled here shouldn’t just rip you apart and devour your essence? Because I don’t even have words for what you’ve done here. I don’t know if the Almighty has words for it, and he invented words.”
“If you kill me, then you’ll be two men down,” Sammael said calmly. “Do you really want to try fighting Shamshel and Sathariel and that whole nasty lot without me?” He looked around the room. “How many former Seraphim do we have here? One, two…oh wait, it’s just me.”
Azrael sighed.
“You’re right, for Heaven’s sake. Tell me, Sammael, honestly…were you trying to bring this abo
ut? You can’t possibly have done all this by accident.”
Sammael looked uncomfortable for the first time.
“Ah, no. Some of the things that happened were within my predictions, but I’m not gonna lie, I missed the big picture here. It happens.”
Azrael looked at him for a long time. Finally, another demon Cassie didn’t recognize spoke up from the other end of the room.
“Did your wife put you up to this?”
Sammael turned toward the interjecting demon, livid.
“How dare you suggest that? How DARE you? What do you think I am, some shallow boy toy who just does whatever my Sugar Momma asks? You really think I’m that whipped?”
“You kind of are,” Cassie said under her breath.
Sammael turned to her.
“Excuse me?”
“Nothing.”
“I have perfect hearing you know, you can’t play that game.”
“We need the woman,” Azrael said, looking like he’d somehow aged about thirty years during the course of this conversation, which was impressive for an inherently ageless being. “The Witch of the Outer Banks, that…that creature that he calls a wife. She may have been born human, but she’s certainly not anymore. If anyone knows what happens next, it’s her.”
Cassie felt Sammael tense next to her. “First of all, my wife is human, and I won’t have any talk to the contrary. Second of all, good luck getting in touch with her this time of year.”
Another demon spoke up. “What are you talking about? What time of year?”
“Spring cleaning,” Sammael said, stifling a yawn. “Or Helen’s version of it, anyway. It’s when she rereads all of her books. She does it every year—unplugs the phone, the internet, for about two weeks. If I try to contact her, believe me, I’m going to be in the dog house for a long time. Not worth it.”
“We don’t need your permission to question the woman,” Azrael said.
Cassie found she was holding her breath, and she wasn’t sure when she’s started. For a moment, she thought that Sammael was going to assume his true form and start annihilating everyone in the room. Then he grinned.
“Fine, but I want no part of it. If you’re stupid enough to bother Helen during her ritual, I want it on record that I was opposed to it. The fallout won’t be on my head.”
There was an uncomfortable silence for a few moments as the demons exchanged glances. Cassie looked at Sammael with a raised eyebrow.
What the hell kind of trap did Helen set up that Sammael is warning THEM not to mess with her? Or did she do nothing, and he’s just counting on them being wary of her?
“Don’t be absurd,” Azrael sneered. “Someone, when night falls in the mortal realm have a trusted familiar summon you, fetch the witch, and come back here with her so we can get to the bottom of this. Who would like to do the honors?”
More silence.
“You’re not going to have any volunteers,” Sammael said softly.
Azrael’s face screwed up, like he was remembering how to be mad again. “This is ridiculous! Do you mean to tell me that you’re all afraid of a mere witch, a frail mortal woman? An animal with the life of a mayfly, practically? A middling creature who—”
“If she’s so harmless, then why don’t you do it?” someone asked.
Cassie turned around to try to see who had spoken, but she couldn’t tell. Whoever had spoken had pulled some trickery so that it was hard to tell where their voice had come from.
Azrael spluttered.
“Of course I’m not going to do it! I’m the leader of this assembly, I do not perform menial tasks like fetching witches for questioning! This is just…this whole thing is just…utterly….”
Cassie raised her hand.
“Can I say something?”
Azrael looked at her for a moment. There was no condescension in that look, no contempt. For better or worse, he saw her as something akin to an equal now. Something more than human.
“Yes?” he said, obviously struggling to maintain his composure.
“Um,” she began, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. “I think you can send me back to the human world without the Watchers attacking. I mean, they will attack, but not right away. I think they need the conditions to be right.”
“And how do you know this?” Sammael cut Azrael off by responding to her first.
She shrugged.
“I don’t, really. But I’m learning to trust my gut feeling on this sort of thing. And my gut feeling is, they want to do a flood. That’s how they want to kill off most of the humans.”
“All the more reason for us to never allow you back to the mortal world ever again,” said Azrael. “You know I’m not being intentionally cruel to you, child, only practical. If we never send you back, they can never invade. That’s one problem solved, and we’re in desperate need of solutions right now.”
“Maybe, but I’m not the only thing they need to invade,” Cassie said. She tried to begin an explanation, then realized she didn’t know where to start, and sighed.
“Look, can someone get me a weather report for the NYC Tri-state area in the mortal realm? Normally I would check Weather Puppy, but I don’t have my phone on me.”
Chapter 44
Ethan Buckley was determined. He hadn’t wanted to do this, but the tournament was just days away, and having to sit at home while he knew it was going on just wasn’t fair. As much as he loved and respected Eugene, it was time to appeal to a higher power.
When he entered The Daily Grind, Mike, Jay, and another teen he didn’t recognize were sitting at a table near the front. Naturally, they were playing Sorcery.
“This game is too complicated for its own good,” the new kid was saying. He spoke in a British accent that sounded very posh to Ethan’s ears. “And I say that as someone who was forced to play cricket as a kid.”
“It’s as complicated as it needs to be. Hey, Ethan,” Mike said, looking up from his deck.
“Hey.”
Jay pointed to Mike. “This guy almost became a vampire a few hours ago.”
“So what?” Ethan said without thinking. He didn’t see what difference it would make; all the vampires he knew happened to be very nice people.
Jay misinterpreted the meaning of his response.
“Wow, that’s ice cold. Did not expect that.”
“Excuse me, but could you introduce us?” said the British teen.
Mike gestured in Ethan’s general direction.
“David, this is Ethan, one of Sam’s other familiars. Ethan, this is David, someone from the Eastern Court. Don’t be scared, he’s on our side now.”
“Nice to meet you,” Ethan said mechanically. He didn’t want to waste time with this small talk.
David’s eyes widened when he heard that Ethan was a familiar.
“So it’s true…they really do use children as familiars over here? I thought that was Court propaganda, something my folks said to make you guys look bad.”
“Well, uh….” Jay started, obviously trying to come up with some justification.
“We are that bad. Unlike your people, we’re just not homicidally insane and paranoid,” Mike clarified.
“Hey, where is David going to stay, anyway? Sam’s still got that fairy at his place.”
“A fairy?” David asked, but Mike ignored him.
“I dunno, probably with one of the Buckleys.”
“He could stay at Cassie’s house,” Jay mused. “It’s pretty big, and it’s got a couple of extra bedrooms. Plus she’s not using it now.”
David blushed slightly at the mention of Cassie’s name, and suddenly became very interested in his cards.
Mike laughed softly.
“Sam is never going to agree to that.”
“Why not?”
“If you can’t figure it out on your own, I’m not explaining it. Never change, Jay.”
Ethan knitted his thin brows, confused.
What are they talking about? Do they mean that becaus
e David is a boy, Sam won’t let him stay in Cassie’s house because she might fall in love with him or something? That’s really stupid. Real adults don’t think like that. Older kids think they understand so much, but they really don’t.
“Is Sam in the back? I need to talk to him.”
“Yeah he’s talking to Mr. Gold—I mean, John,” said Jay. “It’s still weird to me to call him that.”
“The rest of us have been over it for months.”
Jay frowned and flicked a card in Mike’s direction. “Look, stop doing this ‘I’m cooler than you’ thing in front of the new guy! It’s so obvious.”
Ethan left the table while Mike was explaining that he was not, in fact, trying to look cool, merely being truthful. Ethan himself was skeptical.
When he approached the door to the break room, he could hear the conversation coming from the other side. He didn’t really mean to listen in, but curiosity got the better of him, and he stood with his hand on the doorknob for a little while.
“I thought this was your area of expertise,” Sam said, a hint of mockery in his tone.
“Give me a break! I only just found out the other day that the game was invented by Azazel, you can’t expect me to put all of the pieces together that fast. Obviously it’s not a coincidence that the Liddells started collecting the cards now, but beyond that….”
There was a pause, then there was a squeak. Ethan figured it was the sound of John Golding turning on his heel.
“Besides, if anyone should know what the purpose of the cards are, it’s you! You took Azazel’s entire essence into yourself, and you’re blaming me for not knowing what he was planning?”
“Look, it’s not like I got to pick and choose which of his memories I wanted. It’s all a jumble. I remember a lot of people being crucified and dying of plague, but if I try to focus on anything from the past hundred years or so, it’s like white noise. Like those memories hadn’t settled yet.”
“Isn’t this your area of expertise?” Golding said mockingly. “Maybe you should have thought of that before you ripped him into pieces.”
There was something about their banter that disturbed Ethan a little bit. He knew that Sam wasn’t the type of person (well, demon), to punish his subordinates just out of spite, but it felt like the teacher was intentionally pushing those limits. Why would he do that? It didn’t make any sense to him.