2

It was after noon by the time I reached the occult shop. Even in the heart of the Bible Belt, there was a demand for witchcraft and the accompanying paraphernalia. Granted, Gaea’s Treasures was far more family-friendly than some of the stores I’d visited in New Orleans or New York, but it was still decisively pagan.

I’m not Wiccan; I’m Catholic. Any time I start to talk about magic, people make the assumption that I don’t believe in Jesus or that I’m into goat sacrifices. Don’t get me wrong. I think Wicca is great. Anybody who really lives their life by the code “And do no harm,” is probably a decent neighbor and a good human being. My standard was love God and love the person standing next to me, but I was the first to admit I didn’t always hit the mark.

“Do you ever hit the mark?”

The Bible and magic aren’t opposed. The original authors clearly believed magic was possible, so much so that they were very specific about what forms of sorcery were not allowable. As far as I can tell, I’m not permitted to invoke other gods, practice necromancy, conduct séances with the dead, brew poisons, or offer human sacrifice. That leaves me a whole lot of room to work with. There are even stories in the Bible about divination, transmutation, and animal magics. Within the bigger picture, though, it’s all about love. Any magic must be practiced within the confines of love towards God, myself, and my fellow man. Again, I was not one hundred percent on the mark, but I tried, and I liked to think the Big Guy gave me credit for that. Most of the sins I struggled against were a lot more mundane than necromancy.

“Lust, for example. Do you have any idea what you could get a girl to do for half of what’s in your wallet right now? What about five girls and all the money in the ATM?”

I ignored him and got back to my shopping. Gaea’s Treasures had a homey feel to it, probably because the owners lived out of the back half of the building. The right wall was given completely over to glass jars stuffed full of herbs. The combined smell was pleasant but pungent, like plowing head first into a field of wildflowers. I skimmed through their offerings and knew I’d end up back at the herb counter. They had quite a few items I thought I might need before the business with the wendigo was all said and done.

Herbs were a must-have for any magical practitioner. Shamans have been working with plants for hundreds of thousands of years, allowing humanity to accumulate a wide knowledge of herb lore. Beside their chemical properties, most herbs have well-known associations with certain spiritual essences. Take the rose, for instance. Love and romance are nowhere in its molecular makeup, but they still embodied the romantic archetype. Unfortunately, herbs were not the friend of the vagabond wizard. My trunk held enough questionable smells without adding valerian root to the mix…and I dreaded traffic stops without carrying extra green leafy substances. Consequently, I usually traveled with only a small stash of catnip and feverfew. Don’t look at me like that. Catnip is well known for its soothing properties. And I like cats.

“Sad, but true. Why couldn’t you be an animal hater like most serial killers?”

For what I planned, I needed a wider palette to work with. Summoning and the protection spells required by summoning were not my strong suit. Magic, at its heart, was about will and belief. Everything else (swords, staffs, athames, wands, altars, etc.) was basically props. In theory, I could perform any spell entirely within the confines of my psyche, the way I did my defensive shell. Unfortunately, most spells involved a lot more elements and could go really, really bad if things weren’t perfectly precise. Trying to track more than about three details at a time was generally more than my imagination could handle. By using physical representations, instead of mental ones, it left my brain free to attend to other aspects of the magical working.

Of course, I could be full of shit. Most of my notable arcane achievements range between dubious successes and horrific backfires. I hear this is quite common for rookie wizards, which may explain why there are so few seasoned veteran wizards running around: unnatural selection in action. Any sane person would have called it quits long ago.

“Good thing we’re a French fry short of a Happy Meal.”

I breezed past the candle aisle wistfully, then reversed march as I realized two things. First, I had a room! A hotel room is, granted, not ideal for magic, but it would offer me privacy and a controlled environment if I wanted to try something complex. Second, my magical experimentation now had funding! I could buy every item in the store if I wanted to…on my first week’s salary. I loaded up my arms with different colors, sizes, shapes, and scents of candles, then gave up and went back to grab a shopping basket.

The new books didn’t offer anything wendigo-specific or eye-catching, but the used book section took a little longer to go through. Even in specialty stores, people didn’t always realize just how rare a book they had sitting on a shelf, especially when it came to books in foreign languages. That’s part of how I had survived on the road for so long with so little money. I would buy something like the Rhine faeries book for twenty bucks, read it, and when I was done find the right sort of place to sell it for what it was really worth. A third of my library in Dorothy’s backseat was devoted to faeries, but an Illustrated Catalog of the Fae had one thing the rest of my books didn’t: pretty pictures, full page and in color. It was the first thing I had seen which I immediately knew how I would use. I wedged it carefully into the basket amongst my horde of scented candles.

The clothing and jewelry section was new turf for me. In the past, I skipped over such places without a second thought. But now that I was a professional wizard with a major league salary, it might not hurt to be able to look the part when the occasion required. I got the feeling that Lucien employed a lot of powerful, dangerous individuals with abilities that could make Duchess’ telepathy look downright secretarial. A little bling, plus a Wendigo kill, might go a long way in establishing my street cred. I didn’t want my new coworkers to lump me in with the other con men and one-shot wonders who had held my position previously.

“And I thought I was cocky. You’re already shopping for the victory party,” my inner voice taunted.

“Power of positive thinking, right?”

“Sure. Wishing everything was nice and pretty and perfect has worked so well for us in the past.”