Michele Hauf - This Strange Witchery

“Oh, shoot! I don’t think I expelled it to Faery.”

Indeed, the thing had disintegrated. But it worked for Tor.

Melissande ran out and stood over him. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

“Bloody hell!” Tor pushed up and out of the clutter of black feathers. He eyed the neighboring building, where he knew a very curious cryptozoologist happened to live. The shades were drawn. Which didn’t mean much. That kid had a way of seeing things he wasn’t supposed to see.

“You’ve a smudge of black salt here. Pity your vest got torn.”

Tor charged past Melissande and into the house. Checking his watch, he abandoned his intent to head out the front door and over to the next building. No time to check on the neighbor. The interview was soon!

He marched down the hallway—then abruptly turned and stomped up to the witch. “Do not move. Do not go outside. Do not even blink. And where is that bedamned heart?”

She meekly pointed toward the kitchen counter.

“Did you have a chance to ward it?”

She nodded. “I used a new dark magic spell.”

“Fine.” He tugged at the torn tweed vest. Not the first impression he wanted to make to a prospective employer. “I’m going to change. Again. Stay right here.”

He turned and stalked off.

“But—”

“Nope!” he called back to her. “Not even!”

The man had changed into a midnight blue vest, combed his hair and now led Melissande back toward his bedroom. This was an exciting turn of events! But she didn’t read any sexy, playful vibes coming off him. More like stern frustration as he stretched out an arm to indicate the room they entered.

“I need an hour,” he said. “With no distractions. No witches getting attacked on my deck. Not even a peep from that little box of yours.”

She clutched the plastic container to her chest. He’d hastily grabbed both her bags and now set them on the end of the bed. This was certainly not sexy or playful, being consigned to the metaphorical time-out corner.

“You can stay in here while I’m online. It’s a very important interview. So please, please, be quiet. There’s the TV on the wall to entertain you. Keep the volume low. And I’ve got some books on the shelf.”

She noted the books were organized by color of their spines, and they were all in a gradient order, from white to gray to black. Did the man not understand color? Fun? Simple civility?

“Can you do that?”

She met his patronizing glare and huffed. “Fine. The teacher wants to put me in detention for an hour.”

“It’s not that, Mel—” He sighed. “I just...need this interview to go well. I promise as soon as it’s over, you have me at your beck and call.”

“What’s the interview for?”

“New job. Accounting stuff.” He checked his watch and shook his head. “I only have five minutes. I’ve got to sign in to Skype. I’ll come get you when I’m done. Do not come out to check if I’ve finished. Promise?”

“Fine!” she called as he closed the door behind him.

Melissande plopped onto the bed and crossed her arms. A pout felt necessary. Seriously? He was going to treat her like a naughty five-year-old? She hadn’t expected the harpie to come swooping out of the sky, wings flapping and bared yet feathered breasts shocking.

“This heart attracts some strange energy.” She tapped the container. “Good thing I had Tor to fight off the bird chick.”

Because in the moment out on the deck and under attack, she hadn’t been able to summon any deflecting magic. She could do that. With ease. A mere flick of her wrist and a few words of intention would make others walk a wide circle around her, or even push back a potential attacker. But she’d panicked. And in such a state, her magic was useless. Only when she’d gotten inside and knew she was out of the harpie’s path had she been able to focus.

Now she gave her kinetic magic a try. A twist of her wrist slid the books on the shelf from one end to the other. “Just so. I seriously have to learn to relax during terrifying moments.”

Yet despite her faults, she had managed to obliterate the harpie. And that made her sad. She hadn’t wanted to kill the thing, just consign it back to Faery. Truly, this strange new magic she sought was going to take some getting used to.

With a nod, she decided she would concede to Tor’s request. The man had a life, and he had agreed to help her. Which meant she had to understand that he must have engagements and things to take care of. He wouldn’t be able to stand as her guardian 24-7. And she didn’t expect that. Should she?

She was getting nervous that the next few days could prove more harrowing than she was prepared for.

Her only chance to acquire the heart had come yesterday afternoon while searching the Archives for the proper spell. A spell she’d already had, thanks to one of her father’s grimoires. However, she’d told her uncle Certainly she hadn’t the full version, so he had allowed her to search the stacks.

The Book of All Spells contained every spell designed, conjured and/or invoked by every witch who ever existed (and some by witches who were yet to exist). It was constantly updated as new spells were spoken. She’d browsed that massive volume without intent to copy anything out. Never was an item allowed out from the Archives—it was first and foremost a storage facility—but she’d often copied out spells or spent an afternoon studying an incantation to enhance her magic.

Having already studied the spell, she’d gone into the Archives knowing exactly what ingredient was required to make the spell successful: Hecate’s heart. And after a lot of digging and sorting through dusty books, old wooden boxes and piles of unidentifiable artifacts, she’d found it wrapped in faded red silk, tucked between a book on crystal alchemy and a steel box that had rattled when she’d brushed it with the back of her hand. She had absconded with it while Uncle CJ had been talking on the phone. With a wave and a merci, Uncle! , she’d told him she’d see him soon.

Fingers crossed that her uncle didn’t notice it missing from the Archives. It wasn’t as though he did a thorough inventory. He very likely had no idea exactly where the hundreds of thousands of items were at any given moment. Melissande had but to perform the spell and free her mother from the haunting, and then she could return the heart. And in the process of invoking dark magic, she could prove to her dad she had what it took to be a dark witch. Just like him and his twin brother and her twin cousins, Laith and Vlas. Even CJ’s wife, who had once been a light witch, was now half-and-half.

The practice of dark magic was a Jones family tradition.

“Whoopee.” Melissande sighed.

Was dark magic all it was cracked up to be? Try as she might, over the years she’d never been able to bring herself to pull off so much as a hex. Hexes were strictly dark magic. They fed off negative energies and sometimes required demonic familiars. Bruce was about as far from demonic as a familiar got. That amphibian was light, all the way.

Of course, she was aware that without dark magic, light magic could not exist. It was how the universe functioned. No good without bad. No peace without war. No heaven without hell (if you were a human). No Beneath without Above (for the paranormals). No yin without yang. No black without white. No glitter without ash. Someone had to practice dark magic. And in the hands of her dad and his brother, it was handled with grace, respect and kick-ass power.

Her sister, Amaranthe, had possessed that kick-ass skill. She had once been able to stand between CJ and their dad, TJ, and hold her own. Melissande missed her. But lately it was difficult to feel compassion toward her younger sibling for the havoc and utter terror she currently held against their mother.