The Problem With Black Magic (8 page)

The sandy haired man took a step toward her in his perfect Italian-leather shoes, and Cassie instinctively pulled back. “Now, now sweetheart, don’t cry-
- we’re not going to put you in a dungeon. We’ll take very good care of you,” he said, with a smile that she imagined was supposed to be friendly, “and there will be plenty of people there just like you.”

Cassie started to sob quietly then, not caring what it sounded like. Sam averted his eyes, like just looking at her pained him. Before the men could move any closer to her, Cassie heard the door to the break room open.

“Now, now, enough being naughty, gentleman,” said Serenus, sauntering into the room. “Sam here might not know our laws from a hole in the wall, but unfortunately for you, I do.”

Sam looked up at Serenus in disbelief. “How did you…I didn’t-“

“I did,” Dwight interjected, and Cassie realized that he’d been in the room the whole time she’d been there; he’d been so quiet, standing against the lockers behind her, that she hadn’t even noticed his presence. “I sent him a text as soon as they showed up and asked for you.”

The demons looked at Serenus with disdain, like he was an annoying bug they’d love to squash, but couldn’t. Suddenly, Cassie felt like there might be some hope for her continued freedom after all.

“There was no need,” muttered Sam angrily. “I can handle this.”

“Yeah, you were doing a real great job so far,” Dwight said quietly.

“What’s your business here, Examiner?” said the salt-and-pepper haired man to
Serenus, making a show of brushing some imaginary lint off of his immaculate black suit.

Serenus
grinned. “You know very well. Officers of the court, lying about the law. Tsk, tsk. How downright shameful.”

Salt-and-Pepper looked at
Serenus as if he were a gnat. “We didn’t lie.”

“No, but like all good liars, you didn’t tell the whole truth,” said
Serenus, still beaming; it occurred to Cassie that the man must live for moments like this. “The law, most recently amended in 2007, states that a familiar with potential for advancement must be taken to headquarters and evaluated-- unless her master can successfully defend his custody of her at the next meeting of the high court,” said Serenus, as if quoting by rote. “What will happen at court remains to be seen, but Cassie remains here until at least the next court date-- and when is that, again?”

“Two weeks from now,” said the sandy-haired man with a sour expression.

“Two weeks from now!” said Serenus, clapping his hands together in glee. “Where I imagine Sam has an excellent chance of maintaining custody of her, since whoever sent you two bozos wouldn’t have bothered if that weren’t the case.”

Cassie took a deep breath: two weeks. She was safe for two weeks. It didn’t sound like a lot, but considering she had just been wondering if she’d ever see her family again, she’d take it.

“Watch your mouth, Examiner,” said the sandy-haired one. “Just because you’ve been appointed by the court doesn’t make you untouchable.”

“Right back at you, kiddo,” said
Serenus, gamely closing the gap between them. He gestured to the demons with his cane. “Really, you should be thanking me- do you know what Sam was about to do if you actually tried to take her away with you? No amount of legal protection helps when you’re dead.”

For the first time, Cassie thought she saw a glimmer of fear on both demons faces. “He wouldn’t have done anything,” sneered Salt-and-Peppe
r. “It doesn’t matter whose son he is, attacking us would be signing his own death warrant.”

“Perhaps,” said
Serenus, turning his back to them and pacing away nonchalantly. “But do you know for sure he wouldn’t do it anyway, just out of spite? I don’t know if he’s suicidal, but he’s not the happiest camper in the lake, this one. Maybe you should have brushed up on the particulars of your target before you tried to take his familiar away from him.”

Salt-and-Pepper grimaced at the echo of his own words, and looked at Sam. “You would have tried to kill us?” he asked.

“Of course not; it’s against the law,” said Sam evenly, and it didn’t take a mind reader to sense the murderous intent in his eyes. Cassie stared; she had thought his resigned look had meant he’d given up on her. Now, it seemed like he’d been planning something else entirely.

The
lead demon cleared his throat. “It doesn’t matter; we’ll see you all in court in two weeks. Sammael, if you want to keep your servant, be sure to show up this time.”

“Will do,” said Sam icily.

“Good day, gentleman,” said Serenus cheerfully, like they’d all just met for a spot of tea. The two demons shot him more glares for good measure as they exited the room.

As soon as they were gone, Sam jumped up from his seat. “I was handling it,” he said to
Serenus.

“Yes, but your method of handling it wou
ld have led to more dead bodies. I thought it was prudent to try a different approach.”

“They would have deserved it,” Sam said, glaring at
Serenus. Cassie realized, for the first time, how angry he was; she’d been too caught up in her own situation to realize it, but he really had wanted to kill them.

Serenus
fixed Sam with a withering look, like he was a spoiled child who needed reprimanding. “And what, pray tell, would you have done next time when they sent not two, but 20? You start killing your own kind, they’ll send a squad to put you down like a rabid dog, Sam!”

Cassie was surprised at the barely contained fury present in the older man’s voice; apparently, he was seriously concerned that Sam was going to get himself
killed. She swallowed; if Serenus hadn’t shown up, Sam could have gotten rid of the demons, just like he’d gotten rid of the poor souls who’d tried to kidnap her over the weekend-- and that would have been the end for both of them.

Sam
grimaced, like he knew what Serenus said was true and couldn’t stand it. “Maybe they would be doing me a favor,” he murmured.

Cassie stared; Sam wasn’t normally “the happiest camper in the lake” by any stretch of the imagination, but this was a new side of him. She got to her feet gingerly, hoping she wouldn’t agitate him further.

“Sam, it’s over, okay?” she said, everyone turning to look at her as she spoke for the first time in a while. “No one needs to die.”

“And what do you know!” he said, turning to tower over her with a suddenness that made her gasp. “If you’d just listened to me and let me handle it-
- if you could somehow have avoided hitting me for another five minutes-- they might not have realized what you were and none of this would have happened! Now we all have to go to court because of you!”

Cassie drew back, shaking. She was confused; she didn’t know how to defend herself, because she didn’t really know what she’d done. He was that upset that she’d slapped him? She’d thought he’d be pissed that she had embarrassed him in front of his peers, but it sounded like there was more to it than that.

“It’s not her fault, Sam,” said Serenus. “This is all on your head.”

Sam turned his rage on
Serenus. “They were trying to take her illegally! How is that my fault?”

“Because it’s your r
esponsibility to know our law, and just like human law, possession is nine-tenths of it. They called you on your ignorance, and, if not for me, by the time you figured out you had the right to file a complaint, Cassie would be a thousand miles away.”

At that moment, the door opened and Khalil popped his head in. “Look, I hate to interrupt demon business with silly nonsense like our jobs,” he said, shooting
Sam a dark look, “but I see those suits are gone now. Can I get a little help out here? The natives are getting restless.”

Sam exhaled, as though letting all the tension of the last few minutes out of his body. “I’ll go,” he said, turning away from her. Dwight stepped forward and put a tentative hand on Sam’s shoulder.

“Are you sure? Because…” he said, trailing off. Apparently, he wasn’t quite sure how to tell Sam that he didn’t necessarily want a demon still in the grips of murderous rage serving his customers.

Sam moved toward the door, with something approaching his normal state of calm. “I’ll be fine; I’ll stay behind the bar and I won’t even look at anyone,” he muttered, letting the door slam behind him. Dwight shared a
concerned look with Cassie, like he didn’t trust Sam not to kill and eat anybody, and followed close behind him.

When they were gone, Cassie looked to
Serenus immediately. “What does he mean, it’s my fault because I slapped him? He called me his property!”

Serenus
sat down, looking tired now that the action was over. “Cassie, a person bonded to a demon usually feels rather…subservient. It should be hard for you to disagree with him. When you struck him, right after being under compulsion not two minutes previous, you let the demons know exactly how special you were,” he finished quietly. “If they had any remaining doubt they were interested in you, you erased it.”

Cassie sank into an uncomfortable metal chair. “So despite what you said, it really is my fault that we have to go to court, huh?” she said softly.

Serenus leaned forward and put his hand on top of hers on the table; even though she wasn’t afraid of Serenus, the sudden contact still made Cassie jump in her seat a little. “Not really. If he’d told you what to do if officers of the court came calling, you would have been fine. This is why I asked you to be patient with him: he wants to help you, but he doesn’t know what you need to know.”

“But you do,” said Cassie, meeting his eyes. “Why didn’t YOU warn me?”

Serenus raised an eyebrow. “You’re not my familiar.”

Cassie looked down, suddenly embarrassed. She was getting so used to
Serenus filling in all the gaps for her, when Sam refused or was unable to, that she had forgotten that none of this was technically his problem. She didn’t know what his relationship with Sam was, but the fact that he cared enough to try to help didn’t make him responsible for the complete mess she and Sam had created. She also didn’t know how far he was willing to go to protect either of them, or if she had any reason to expect him to.

“Thank you for showing up today when you did,” she said, quietly.
Serenus smiled.

“It was my pleasure. A
ny day I get to show officers of the Western Court for the idiots they are, is a good day in my book.”

“I…have to go back to school,” she said, remembering suddenly how she’d run out of first period English like a woman possessed…well, technically she probably was possessed.
Serenus had called it being “under compulsion,” and the thought of what that felt like made her slightly happy that she’d given Sam such a good hit when she had the chance, consequences be damned. She thought of asking Serenus about how it worked, but decided against it.

S
oon, she would have to know, but for now she just couldn’t think about it. Because dwelling on it at all today was going to lead to her stabbing Sam in the back with a bagel knife.

Serenus
stood up when she did. “I’ll walk you back then; you really shouldn’t be alone.”

Cassie started to say that wouldn’t be necessary, then realized that it was; she couldn’t take two steps lately without demons trying to whisk her away to whatever hellhole they lived in. She was thoughtful as they made their way outside the shop, waving to the managers at the front as they left. Sam didn’t look up at her, for which she was just as happy.

“Hey, Ser?” she asked him as they hit the sidewalk outside.

“Yes, my dear?” said
Serenus, taking her arm with his free hand like they were in an old-fashioned movie.

“Can demons be killed?” she asked, pitching her voice low so others on the street wouldn’t hear.

Serenus briefly broke his stride, turning to look at her in obvious surprise. “You’ll forgive me if I’m not exactly forthcoming with information on that topic,” he said dryly. “I take it you weren’t fond of the compulsion, eh?”

“What a shame,” said Cassie in mock-disappointment. “I was beginning to think you knew everything.”

Serenus
made up some ridiculous story about being an uncle from out of town who had swooped in to see his favorite niece for an hour in between business meetings. It didn’t sound very credible to Cassie, but somehow, Serenus charmed the ladies in the attendance office into believing it. Whether that charm was regular garden variety, or some form of demon magic she wasn’t sure; Serenus had said he had very little power, but “very little” wasn’t the same as none. Now that she was getting to know the man, she wouldn’t be at all surprised to find out that he downplayed the extent of his own abilities to give people a false sense of safety.

In any case, she wouldn’t have two period cuts on her school record, something that would have been a pain to explain to her parents.

Unfortunately, she normally saw both Mike and Jay at lunch, and she wasted most of the class before just staring at the unfinished collage in front of her, wondering what she would tell Mike. She decided to go with the story Serenus had invented-- he wouldn’t believe it, but she couldn’t think of anything else. There was no earthly reason why she would run out of class like her butt was on fire.

Jay and Mike had gym together fourth period, so she knew Jay would probably already be tipped off about her disappearing act. Great; now in addition to worrying what she was going to tell Mike, she had to worry about whatever Jay might have already said.

Jay caught up with her first on the way to the cafeteria. He pulled her aside into an alcove near the lockers, and looked from side to side theatrically, to see if anyone was listening. If it were anyone else, she would have thought he was hamming it up, but that was just how Jay was.

“Mike’s in the bathroom, so before he gets here-
- today? First period? Was that a demon-related thing?” whispered Jay.

“Yes, it was a demon-related thing,” said Cassie. It wasn’t hard to sound pissed off while you were whispering, she noticed.

Jay smiled. “I knew it. Sam SUMMONED you!” he said, and Cassie gaped at him. “He called you to him, right? Usually in the books it’s vampires that do that, but--“

“Shut up!” she yelled, not caring that she was being loud. “Jay, you have no
freakin’ idea what it’s like, okay, so don’t talk about it like you know!” She turned away from him and stomped towards the cafeteria; sugar would not solve her problems, but at the very least, it might help.

Mike caught up to them by the time they were at their regular table in the courtyard outside with their sloppy
joes. He dropped his brown bag on the table and swung his legs over the picnic table bench, fixing them both with a serious look that Cassie was sure bode ill for her.

“So, have you two had a chance to compare notes?” he said, taking his usual peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich out of his bag slowly. Cassie paused with her sandwich halfway to her mouth before she caught herself and resumed eating.

“What do you mean?” she said, trying to sound casual around her mouthful.

Mike took an apple out of his bag and placed it in front of him, still with that same deliberate slowness. “I’ll level with you: I didn’t go to the bathroom. I was going to follow Jay and listen to the two of you talk to find out what the hell happened first period, only Beckett stopped me in the hall and I missed my chance. So much for my diabolical plan,” he said with mock malevolence. “So, why don’t we screw that and you both tell me what’s going
on.”

Cassie looked down at her sandwich; of course Mike was already clued in. When Mike had told Jay about her strange behavior, excitement would have clearly raced through his brown eyes, while Jay denied that he knew anything. It didn’t take a genius to figure out
they both were hiding something from him, and depending on whose tests you believed, Mike actually was a genius.

Taking a deep breath, Cassie decided to go forward with her cover story. “I got a text from my uncle, who wanted to see me real quick while he was in town for business, so I ran out of class and saw him for a little while before he walked me back. It wasn’t the smartest thing I’ve ever done,” said Cassie, shrugging and taking a generous bite of her sandwich. She wanted to be chewing when Mike responded, to give herself time to think.

Mike looked at her incredulously. “You weren’t touching your phone the entire time. It was in your bag. You didn’t get a text during class, try again.”

Cassie tried to keep herself from shrugging again, which would only look more suspicious. “Look, I got a text, you weren’t watching, I went. I didn’t think you watched me like a hawk for all of Golding’s class.”

“No, I was enraptured by the Bard’s enchanting verse instead,” said Mike, glaring at her. “You didn’t have your phone; you never take it out during class, and if you had I would have noticed. You ran out of there like-- like you thought you were gonna die or something, it was goddamn scary, and now you’re lying about it.” He spared a glare for Jay. “And Jay totally knows and he’s lying too.” At that, Jay bit off a huge chunk of his sloppy joe and immersed himself in chewing.

Cassie gave up on her sandwich and began removing the plastic wrap on the large chocolate chip cookie on her tray; she was done being concerned with nutrition today.
Again. “You’re losing it,” she said simply, tired of trying to argue with him. “Just drop it already.”

“Fine, so you won’t tell me.
I’ll just have to get it out of Jay,” he said, playing with his apple and turning to his friend. “I guess you’ll just have to continue avoiding my questions for the rest of the year. And next year. And the year after that. And in college. And--“

Jay swallowed his mouthful loudly and then took a deep breath. “Sam at DG is a demon, he made the time skip happen,
Cassie’s bonded to him now, and he summoned her this morning,” he said.

Cassie’s jaw dropped. Jay had cracked that easily?

He turned repentant brown eyes on her. “Look, he was going to find out, okay? We tried.”

“I don’t know if that really counts as trying,” snapped Cassie.

“Serenus said we didn’t have to hide it.”

“Yeah, ‘
cuz it’s just great for everyone to know about this stuff! It’s done wonders for my life,” she said bitterly.

While she and Jay bickered, Mike just looked at them, still holding his apple in two hands. Eventually, Cassie snapped at him. “What, no comment? Isn’t it fun to look at the crazy people?”

Mike looked down. “You’re not crazy,” he muttered. “I believe you.”

Cassie stared at him.
Seriously?

“I don’t believe that you believe us,” she countered.

He looked up at her, an expression on his face she couldn’t remember ever seeing before. “Look, I do, okay? I don’t even know why I do, but I knew what I saw today was…different. Something I wasn’t supposed to see. It was like there was this other thing in Cassie’s body, and she wasn’t even there.”

“What did he need you for, anyway?” Jay asked her.

Cassie began attacking her cookie with vigor. “The usual. Demons want to steal me away because I’m the best thing with magic since pants, or something.” She frowned. “That sounded much smarter in my head.”

Jay looked perplexed. “So why would he summon you if they were trying to steal you? Aren’t you safer at school?”

“It’s the whole claim thing-- he had to prove that we’re bonded together, and now it’s this whole big legal issue--“

“Whoa, whoa
whoa,“ said Mike, holding up his hands. “Could someone please tell me what’s going on, starting from the beginning?” He took a quick look around, dropping his voice when two girls holding lunch trays walked past their table. “I’m still stuck on the fact that this explains the time skip.”

Cassie and Jay took turns relating everything that had happened since the morning of the time skip, taking turns while they finished lunch. Jay had to be prompted to lower his voice on several occasions, but for the most part, Cassie wasn’t worried about their conversation being overheard; most people would hear talk of magic and just assume they were talking about something in an MMORPG.

Mike didn’t touch his lunch, and looked from Jay to Cassie as they explained the events of the last week. When they were done, he was silent for a while, glancing out towards the center of the courtyard without appearing to be looking at anything in particular.

“Wow. Just so you guys know,
if you are lying to me about this, I’m going to kill you both.”

Cassie glared at him. “You said you believed us!”

“I thought I did, but wow,” he shook his head, “this is just…beyond…I’m just saying that if this turns out to be a joke, I will seriously kill you guys. I’m not kidding.”

Again, there was silence at the table. Cassie looked at Mike, considering; sure, threatening to kill them was a little melodramatic, but
she could kind of understand it. The foundation of Mike’s world was being rocked, and unlike them, he hadn’t seen any of the magic or otherworldy beings that gave them no choice but to believe. All he’d seen was Cassie run out of class like her life depended on it, which was unusual, but not irrefutable proof of supernatural forces at work.

“We’re not lying to you, but I don’t know how we can prove it; I can’t do magic myself-- which blows, by the way-- and Sam’s not going to care whether you believe or not. It’s not like he’s going to cast a spell just to prove he can do
it,” said Cassie, trailing off when she felt a vibration on the seat next to her and realized she’d gotten a text. She dug her phone out of her bag, curious.

“So you can’t prove any of this to me.
Riiiiiiight,” said Mike.

Jay looked terrified that his best friend would seriously consider that he’d play such a cruel prank. “I know what it sounds like, but I’m telling you, I saw the vampires and they were the real deal-
- and it wasn’t like they were Halloween vampires with the plastic teeth, you can tell they were real and they just, I don’t know, it was like you could tell they were vampires, there was this feeling like--“

“Don’t bother, Jay,” said Cass
ie, after she’d checked her text messages.

Jay turned to her as the bell for the next period rang. “Cassie,
he has to believe us!“

Cassie shook her head. “I mean, you don’t have to bother because I think Mike may get to see some proof after all.
Ser got the ingredients: Sam’s making the protection amulets today.”