Wizard in a Witchy World (3 page)

"What's in the garage?" he asked when he got out of his cruiser.

"Nothing. I park in there sometimes. You can see the entire thing if you look through the window on the side.” I had no intention of opening the door for him. He could get a warrant if it came to that.

He walked up to the side door and shined his flashlight into the space. As expected, it showed a dusty, but relatively clear garage without anything required to keep a dog. He stepped back and directed his flashlight around the yard, looking for evidence of a kennel or dog run.

"So do you have a lot of nights like tonight?" I asked as we walked up the steps to my apartment.

"Enough," he grunted.

I fumbled with the keys and opened the door to my apartment, making a show for him. I couldn't remember what shape I'd left the apartment in and was disappointed as I scanned the interior. The place was a wreck, but it was just as I'd left it.

If he was off-put by the mess, he didn't say anything.

"Satisfied?" I asked.

He stumbled and grabbed his shoulder. I caught him and guided his body into one of my two kitchen chairs.

His voice wavered. "Thanks."

I poured a glass of water and placed it on the table in front of him. "You mind if I take a quick look at your shoulder? I probably have something that'd make it feel better."

"You have a lot of books on the occult," he observed. "Are you some sort of shaman?"

His question caught me off guard. I felt like I'd underestimated his skills of observation. "Something like that. You mind?"

He looked skeptical, but the beads of sweat on his brow gave away the pain he was feeling. "Sure, but nothing weird, okay?"

"All natural. Nothing to be worried about," I said.

I grabbed a couple of clean towels and a salve I kept on hand for cuts and abrasions. It certainly wouldn't ward off a lycan infection, but he'd feel better for a few hours. Most of all, I wanted to get a good sample of Shaggy's spit, and if I were really lucky, blood. So, sue me. I wasn't just being nice.

He gingerly pulled the shirt off his shoulder. The wound wasn't deep. He'd held the wolf off heroically, but as far as I knew, there were no small werewolf bites. After cleaning the skin, I liberally applied the white, greasy paste and covered it with a large gauze pad.

"That feels a lot better. Bueno," he said. "You remind me of Mi Abuela."

"Is your grandmother a shaman?" I asked.

"She's Virarica."

I'd have to look that up later, so I just nodded. I'd been able to save blood and grime from the front of his shirt, so it was time to work on getting Lozano out of my apartment. He was entirely too familiar with my universe and I didn't need him getting curious about where I fit in.

"I hate to make this all about me, but are you satisfied that I don't have any dogs?" I asked.

"You're good, Mr. Slade," he said. "You mind if I ask what you do for a living?"

"Odd jobs, mostly," I said.

He made a move to stand and sat back heavily as if his legs didn't agree with his desire to leave. I didn't know much about lycan bites, but what I did know told me he was in for a rough ride the next few days. His body would initially fight the infection, but there were only two ways it could go. He would either be dead or he'd recover and turn into a wolf every full moon for the rest of his life.

"Can I help you down to your cruiser?"

"No," he said, finally standing and walking to the door. "I'll be fine."

I picked up the towel I'd used to clean Lozano and clipped off pieces that contained good samples of his blood, dropping them into a glass specimen jar. It was possible the scraps contained evidence of Shaggy, but I'd have to deal with that later. I sealed the jar with a cork and wrote on the glass with a grease pen using a runic alphabet I'd developed. The words glowed as I etched them into the fabric of the bottle and disappeared once I placed the container onto the nearly empty shelf.

Needing to preserve the samples I'd gathered, I rooted around and finally found the right spell book. It was a reliable tome given to me by my first mentor, Judy Babcock, an ordinary looking witch who resembled a housewife more than a mid-level earth witch. She'd discovered me when I was fourteen and had just burned down my high school's gymnasium. Apparently, the spell I'd stumbled onto couldn't be extinguished without a counter curse. Fortunately, her coven set things right and she'd taken on the task of overseeing the emergence of a new wizard.

I missed hanging out with Judy and 'the girls,' as she called them. My recent departure from home in North Carolina was still fresh in my mind. I hadn't even known I was headed to Leotown until I arrived and decided it was where I should be. It made a certain amount of sense. Visiting my old foster family was at the back of my mind, but so far, I hadn’t made the effort.

The components of the spell were a mix of things I had in stock and others I needed to gather: nail clippings from a raccoon, caraway seeds, ash from garlic stalks and five more things I didn't have. I wrote out the list and stuffed the piece of paper into my pocket, pausing to look up at a staccato tapping on the kitchen window. A large raven was perched on the sill, looking in.

"Maggie. Hold on, I'm coming." I closed the spell book, slid the window to the side and pulled the screen off.

"Cawwk." She greeted me as she fluttered through the window and landed on a pile of books.

She and I both looked around the room for her perch. Maggie was generally good about not doing her business in the house, but it wasn't a hundred percent type of thing. It took a few minutes to unearth the stand and clear a spot on the floor. As I’d learned a few times, a little effort upfront would pay off in the end. Maggie and I were still working on our communication. I could only understand a few things she said, but I didn't need to be a wizard to know she was hungry. She was always hungry.

"Good to see you, dear," I said, setting the perch next to the table. She fluttered gracefully to it and grabbed on firmly.

Maggie had been with me since before I'd known I was a wizard. Originally, she'd just followed me, always watching from nearby trees. I'd been freaked out by her behavior at first. Of course, I didn’t realize the big black birds I started to see everywhere I went were all the same raven. It had been Judy Babcock who'd suggested Maggie might be a positive character in my life and that ravens were not some evil omen.

The last time I’d seen Maggie was in North Carolina. The poor girl had to be hungry after that long trip, but I was prepared. I'd been saving a thick strip of funky smelling beef and tied it to the perch. She bobbed her head half a dozen times in appreciation. I didn’t even wonder anymore how she'd found me. It was just the nature of our bond.

"What do you think of the new place?" I asked. She understood me, although she ordinarily ignored idle chit-chat. "Thinking about doing a reagents hike early tomorrow. Want to go along?"

Finding wild sage, sumac, ginger, goldenrod and a dozen other native plants was a good way to fill my cupboards without going broke. I had fond memories of running around the woods with half a dozen semi-clothed, middle-aged women in Judy's coven in search of usable plants. It was one of the few activities I could participate in and I'd enjoyed it immensely.

As expected, Maggie focused on her strip of meat.

It had been a crazy night and I was exhausted. I lay back on the couch, picked up my e-reader and tried to remember where I was in the story.

I awoke to the sound of pounding on my door.

"Hang on," I growled, trying to focus on the wall clock in the kitchen. One o’clock. I'd only been asleep for a few hours.

The pounding started again.

"I said, hang on!"

I yanked the door open, prepared to give some asshole salesman a good piece of my mind.

"What… do you want?" I asked. My bluster evaporated as I recognized the woman standing in front of me. It was Red. In person.

"Mister Felix?" she asked. It sounded more like mee-stir. Cool. I'd always had a thing for accents, but maybe I paid too much attention to that sort of thing.

"What are you doing here?"

"I need to talk to you. May I come in?" she asked.

Water splashed from the hood of her cloak and it dawned on me that it was raining. The weather explained why I'd slept so deeply. As a wizard, my strength was tied to the natural forces around me and rain was a powerful regenerator.

A hint of her perfume caught me and something else … a wisp of evergreen and clay.

At this point, I need to admit that I'm not always the sharpest knife in the drawer, especially when it comes to attractive young women with accents.

"Sure," I said, stepping aside.

She smiled demurely and reached up. The gesture seemed natural and harmless - that is, until the point when her hand touched my chest. Fire coursed through my body as she lifted, tossed me over a chair, and then jerked me back onto the couch.

"Shit! What the hell?" I groaned. This girl had a serious attitude problem.

Red jumped over the chair and placed her knee on my chest, right where her hand had burned me. She shoved her finger in my face.

"Quiet, Felix. I'm going to ask you some questions and I need you to be truthful with me." Her innocent, doe-eyed persona had completely evaporated - not to mention her accent.

"Damn it, I was letting you in, wasn't I?" I asked.

"What were you doing outside Victoria Barrios' house last night?"

"What's it to you?"

My chest hurt where her knee pressed on me and there was only so much humiliation I was willing to take, even from a beautiful young witch. I shifted my position and tried to sit up.

She murmured an incantation and touched my collar bone. Her finger felt like a blowtorch.

"Knock that shit off!" I snapped. "Or I'm going to start taking it personal."

"Tell me." She wagged her finger menacingly.

The magic she was using was as familiar to me as my own. She was obviously part of a local coven, as no witch would be dumb enough to use this much magic outside her own territory. The pine and clay told me they were earth witches, just like Judy's coven. I concentrated and felt three additional souls supporting her. They were standing with shoes off, toes dug into the soil and hands joined. They had to be close by. Why the hell were they focused on me?

I grabbed her hand and twisted hard. The look of surprise on her face gave me a feeling of smug satisfaction. I bet she hadn't expected
that
when she'd come into my house and tossed me around. Who was she to start this crap? Dark feelings turned into their own power and I pushed her back, sending her sprawling on her butt against the overturned chair.

"Is that how you want to play it?"

She raised her hands defensively.

"Cawwk." A dark shape flitted through the open kitchen window and into the living room. Maggie landed between us on Red's knees, spreading her wings protectively.

"Crap." I backed up and dropped to the couch.

I closed my eyes, trying to center myself. It had been a long time since I'd come that close to losing it. I pushed away the darkness and breathed out the way Judy taught me. My heart rate slowed and my breath shuddered.

I heard Red get up and knew she was trying to slip past me to the still-open front door. I flicked a wave of power, slamming the door shut.

"Sit, if you know what's good for you," I growled, still not completely in control.

She returned to the couch and sat quietly.

After a few minutes, I opened my eyes. Red sat rigidly, a look of fear on her face, her original confidence shattered. Maggie was back on Red's knees.

"Who are you?" she whispered.

"You already know my name." It wasn't the answer she was looking for, but it was the only one she was going to get until I had some answers.

"Felix Slade is all I know."

"Don't you mean we?" I asked.

Her eyes grew wider.

"Call your coven and have them join us."

"What are you going to do?" she asked. "I'd rather die than give them to you."

"I'm not going to do anything to you or your coven. Don't turn this on me. You're the ones who barged in here," I said.

"So you say. Can you get this bird off me?"

"That bird saved you, so I'd show some respect," I said. "And her name is Maggie."

Maggie bobbed her head in agreement. She expressed her desire to get back outside, so I stood up and offered my arm. Flying indoors was hard for her, given the broad wingspan, but she knew I'd help and she jumped onto my arm. I walked her into the kitchen and lifted my arm to the window sill.

"Cawwk," she chided and dove out the window.

"She's your familiar?"

"More like a friend," I'd always been uncomfortable with the other term. It didn’t fit my relationship with Maggie.

"Why were you at Victoria's house last night?" Red pulled the willow switch I'd used to form the seer's glass from her purse and threw it on the coffee table.

"Where'd you get that?" I asked.

"So, you
were
there," she said.

No use denying it. "Yes. I was there."

She started chanting an incantation. I didn't recognize the words, but power rolled off her in waves. At the same time, my attention was caught by the sound of bare feet slapping up the stairs to my apartment.

I sprang to action, grabbing the grease pen from the counter. In the middle of the kitchen floor, I crouched and drew a large circle, finishing just as my front door exploded inward.

"
Sphaera
." A translucent bubble popped up around me, binding to my hastily drawn circle.

The storm outside intensified. Through the splintered door frame, a violent wind whipped rain against the house.

The first person through the door was an older woman, mid-fifties if I were guessing right. A dark green dress thrashed around her matronly figure and long black and gray hair blew wildly around her face. She stepped across the rubble of my door, looked once toward Red and then bee-lined for me, gnarled staff in hand. She was followed by two others, progressively younger, but similarly dressed.

Red joined them as they formed a circle around my ring of protection, joining hands and chanting. With my shield in place, I heard their words, but felt none of the magical energy they generated. Sparks bounced off the circle from all directions, but nothing penetrated.

As they continued, the chants grew louder, rain and wind poured into the apartment, and lightning intensified. I wasn't sure how much of a beating my hastily drawn circle could take, but so far, it was holding.

As interesting and exciting as it might seem to be surrounded by four women bent on your destruction, there's only so much it can do to hold your attention. After ten minutes, I'd become bored. Sparks, chants, gouts of flame, icicles… whatever. I had the same problem with Independence Day fireworks celebrations. Five minutes in and I'd seen everything I needed to. Way too repetitive after that.

I sat on the floor, pulled out a small pocket knife and peeled dirt from under my fingernails. If there was something I couldn't abide, it was dirt under my nails. I blame Judy. She had a huge herb garden and didn't mind putting me to work in it. I really wished I'd taken the time to bring a chair in with me. I'd have to remember that next time.

After another ten minutes, the storm outside began to pass and the magical attacks slowed. I suspected the coven's energy was dissipating. The older woman’s face was drawn and her arms were shaking. Red had opened her eyes and was looking around their circle, worry on her face. I had to admit, at this point, I didn't much care. They'd barged into my house and made a mess of things.

"What in the hell is your problem, Red?" I growled.

"You will be vanquished," she declared bravely.

"Vanquished? Who talks like that? The way I see it, your coven is about to run out of gas and I haven't even started swinging yet. Tell the sisters of mirth here to drop this bullshit and we can talk it out. Otherwise, we can turn this into a real pissing contest."

The older woman opened her eyes and looked at Red. She attempted to project an aura of strength but I saw the fatigue in her face. Wordlessly, the four of them dropped their hands and the magical buffeting abated.

"Are you going to behave?" I asked the older woman.

She swayed slightly and locked eyes with me. I felt like a child caught telling a lie. With the circle up, I knew her attack wasn't magical, but man, she really had that stare down. I fidgeted uncomfortably.