Jocelynn Drake - Dead Man’s Deal

“I don’t exactly have a housekeeper doing rounds down here,” I muttered. Rolling my shoulders, I forced my jaw to unclench and relax. I told myself that I didn’t have anything in common with other warlocks, but it was a lie. I didn’t know of another witch or warlock who was comfortable with someone else touching their collection. It was like letting a stranger rummage through your underwear drawer while reading your diary. “I don’t get to spend much time down here.”

Sofie paused and glanced over her shoulder at me. “That is probably for the best.” She continued on, stopping at the end of the table, where I had a large stack of black hardback journals. “What’s this?”

“Notes. For the most part, it’s potions that I’ve come up with for one thing or another.”

Sofie jumped up and sat on the top journal while staring at me with wide eyes. “And the parts that don’t fit in your ‘most’?”

Leaning against the table, I crossed one leg over the other and smiled at her. “Take a wild guess.”

“Gage,” she said sternly.

“Oh, come on, Sofie!” I angrily waved one hand at her and the journals. “Did you expect me to quit? I can’t. I can’t quit magic any more than I can quit breathing. At first, it started out with me making notes, listing all the curses, wards, enchantments, and charms that I learned while I was with Simon. It wasn’t about learning anything new. I didn’t want to forget anything that I had learned.”

“But …” she prompted when my voice died off.

I shrugged, my eyes dropping to the sundry bits on the top of the table. I picked up the severed leg of a raven. The claws were turned inward, still looking as sharp as the day I found it in a potion ingredients shop. “I started remembering things that Simon did, but didn’t necessarily teach me. With a little time and thought, I pieced the spell together. Others, I thought of on my own, so I made note of them. Sometimes, magic comes easy to me. A lot easier than tattooing ever has.”

“Why did you leave?” Sofie shook her head at me. There was a sad note to her question. She lay down on the top book, tucking her paws in at her chest. “Learning magic would have made you so happy. You’ve got such raw, natural talent. You could have been great.”

“And I can’t be great now, as a tattoo artist? I could only achieve greatness as a warlock?” I teased, but Sofie wasn’t amused as her ears flattened a little against her head.

“I don’t know what a tattoo artist can achieve, but I know what you could have done as a warlock.”

“I loved learning magic,” I admitted. “When I held my wand for the first time, it was like all the buzzing around in my soul and along my skin settled and found a direction, or like music notes lining up into a symphony. But I couldn’t be a warlock if it meant being like Simon or any of the others that I knew, and I had to do that if I was going to survive in the Towers.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do. If you want to be a warlock, you have to be willing to kill. You have to kill other warlocks and witches to get ahead. You have to kill other creatures to use their organs in potions and spells. You have to kill innocent people or risk them not fearing you. The Towers survive on two things: power and fear. To achieve both of those, you have to be willing to kill.”

Sofie remained silent when I finished talking. She was staring at the far wall, looking at one of the cabinets with the glass-and-wood front. There were locks on each of them. If someone managed to get past the protective spell, I didn’t think the locks would stop them. They let me sleep better at night.

“How did you do it?” I asked softly. “You were there for years, but you were the only one I ever saw who didn’t beat the shit out of an apprentice if they failed to cower before you. You seemed nice.”

The cat sighed heavily, closing her eyes. “At first, I was no different than you described. I killed, constantly and indiscriminately. I think that might be how I stayed a little sane while there. Young and old. Helpless and powerful. I killed them all without blinking an eye, and nearly all were for no reason. I told myself that God didn’t need a reason to kill any of them, so why should I? But when I reached my second century, I started to mellow. I killed less, though when I did, there didn’t need to be a reason. I no longer had anything to prove to anyone. That may be why I seemed nicer than the others when we met.”

I tried to smile at Sofie, but the corners of my mouth weren’t working properly. I didn’t know if she was any saner than the ones who lived in the Towers. She had found a way to deal with the violence that that life required, but her way wasn’t the answer. Gideon was closer to the middle ground, but I felt his underground movement was progressing far too slowly. The Ivory Towers had to stop. Stop being overlords for the world. Stop demanding abject fear and total obedience.

Magic wasn’t about being powerful and controlling the world. Magic was about tapping into something beautiful and about becoming more than a fleshy meat bag if only for a couple seconds.

“Would you go back if you had the chance?” I asked.

Sofie cocked her head to the side as she looked up at me. “What do you mean?”

“If you were human again, would you go back to living in the Towers? You weren’t exactly escorted to the door. You could go back now if you wanted and no one would stop you. If you were human again, rather than a cat, would you go back?”

The cat stood and arched her back, stretching while extending her claws briefly to scratch along the rough surface of the book. “It’s going to be a long time before I see skin again, if ever.”

“But if you could?”

“I don’t know.” Sofie sat on the book and looked at me. “It’s been several years since I was last there. I’ve lived with a human that I depended on for several years. I’ve lived with you and Trixie for a while now. I honestly don’t know if I could return to that life. I’ve changed and I feel like I’m too old now to change back to the way I was when I was living in the Towers.”

“I’m glad,” I said with a smile. It was a good answer. It was one Gideon could accept. If he could get Sofie changed back to a human, he would have someone safe who could train his daughter if she proved to have magical talent.

Sofie made a noise. She was either scoffing at me or coughing up a hairball. I prayed it was scoffing. “You make me sound soft.”

“No, just a good person.”

Sofie wouldn’t look at me. She jumped down from the table to the dirt floor. The air directly above her seemed to grow a little hazy. I stood and looked over at the symbol, but the protection spell was quiet. As I looked back at the cat as she crossed the room to peer in one of the cabinets, the misty haze above her solidified slightly so that it looked like I was seeing a ghost. But it wasn’t a ghost. It was a misty image of Sofie as she looked when she was human. She was right. There was a lot of powerful magic down here.

“Who cursed you, Sofie?” The cat or the ghost didn’t look over at me, but I could see her stiffen. It was the first time I had ever asked her that question. Sofie didn’t talk about the attack and I respected her privacy, but I had someone who might be able to help her.

“It’s none of your business, Gage,” she said in a low voice.

“I know, but tell me anyway.”

“Why the sudden interest?”

“Because I know of someone who may be willing to help you.”

Sofie jerked around and quickly padded closer to stand in the middle of the room. The freaky thing was that I could see hope scrawled across the face of the ghost as she peered at me. “Who?”