Chapter Two

THE ALARM WENT off in a series of loud beeps arranged to form a song melody but were so annoying he’d downloaded the tune to use as his alarm tone. Mika let out a soft yowl, and Sora answered with a grumble, but neither moved from where they were twined around Kana.

Kana laughed and started the laborious process of extricating himself. Once he was finally free, Mika and Sora simply rolled into the warm spot he had left, curling around each other to contentedly sleep for another half hour. Kana eyed them with envy, wishing he could crawl back in with them, but a glance at the clock forced him to keep moving.

He showered quickly and got dressed in a pair of slacks and a button-down. Mika, finally awake, pushed a plate of buttered toast and a cup of tea in front of Kana’s seat at the kitchen table when Kana headed over, and he and Sora took their own chairs to eat their preferred marshmallow bomb cereal drowned in milk. Toast was more than enough for Kana this early, but he had snacks in his desk at work to tide him over until lunch if he got hungry early.

They left their dirty dishes in the sink to deal with later that night. Kana found his backpack where it had been abandoned by the front door, while Mika and Sora shifted to their house cat form. Neither wanted to climb into the bag, which was fine. A touch of magic—the same spell Kana used on a slightly larger scale at work—kept anyone from noticing them.

“How was the meeting last night?” Beth asked the second Kana arrived in their shared cubicle space.

Mika and Sora crawled underneath Kana’s desk where he had left them an overstuffed pillow. Kana retrieved his notebook from his bag, stuffed the bag in a drawer, and then turned to Beth.

“About as well as a meeting with vampires can go. When are we gathering so I can give my report?”

Beth clicked on her computer for a few seconds. “Calendar invite we got says ten.”

“Just enough time to check my email and have another cup of tea,” Kana joked, even though they were both buried beneath work over-assigned to the new employees. Every time Kana started to catch up, someone dumped another assignment on his desk, much like what had happened with the vampires last night. He would barely have time to get his notes in order before the meeting.

Kana logged in and got to work.

*

“SO YOU’RE SAYING they’re willing to be interviewed,” Stephen said. He sounded excited, and like Kana feared, he ignored everything else Kana said.

“I’m saying they might have an ulterior motive to being interviewed,” Kana repeated, hoping this time Stephen and the rest of the room might listen. “If you walk into their house, they consider you easy prey. You might not walk out again.”

Beth, at least, seemed to understand his worry. “They also weren’t certain they would even show up on camera, right?” she asked Kana. “Won’t be much of a story if it looks like we’re interviewing air.”

Stephen waved his hand as if he were physically brushing Beth’s words aside. “We’ve worked with less before; we can certainly work around that.”

Kana wanted to ask Can you work if they’ve stolen all your blood? but Stephen was past listening.

Except, Stephen seemed to have a moment of clarity as he looked around the room. “Now, I don’t want to offend our hosts by wearing a garlic necklace, but can anyone think of something slightly less gauche to encourage them to continue being good hosts?” No one answered, and Kana saw what was coming his way even before Stephen turned to look at him. “Kana, please research this.” Stephen picked up Ember’s business card. “I’ll give them a call and let them know we’re free all next week. They can pick the best date and time for them.”

Kana let out a breath as the meeting ended. The interview was still happening, but at least everyone was warned. And Kana had the opportunity to provide some protection. His coworkers didn’t need to know he was using magic to protect them, so if he could spell up an oil or perfume for them to wear, he could hopefully keep the vampires away.

Kana didn’t know what herbs would work best, though. Garlic, certainly, and he could get his hands on some holy water for the base, but even the humans, let alone the vampires, would be able to tell they were wearing vampire repellent just from the smell. No, Kana needed to come up with something smelling lightly flowery or of citrus, but still incorporated the protective parts of garlic.

Everyone started to stand and gather papers, so Kana did the same. His seat was at the far end of the room, so he had to wait for everyone else to leave first. Eventually, Kana was able to walk with Beth back to their desks.

“Kinda crazy, interviewing vampires like this,” Beth said. She sat and fluffed her pixie-cut hair for a moment while she thought. “I still can’t believe you went to the preinterview alone like that.”

Which was actually part of Kana’s problem. Because he had emerged from the interview unscathed, his coworkers, and Stephen in particular, probably thought they could do the same. Kana needed to keep his powers a secret for his own protection, but hiding them, unfortunately, caused his coworkers to dismiss the potential threat. Well, Kana would simply have to put together a good spell to protect them and they could remain blissfully ignorant.

“It’s going to be so exciting though,” Beth continued. “I’ve never met a vampire before, let alone talked to one!”

“Does the Herald interview a lot of supernatural creatures?” Kana logged into his computer, but instead of loading his next work project, he pulled up his favorite online herbalist. There had to be a combination of herbs he could use to help mask the smell of garlic.

“Stephen says he interviewed a guy possessed by a demon once, but I think he got played. The guy was probably a wannabe.”

Or he was a warlock, whose magic derived from summoning all kinds of creatures, demons included, to power their spells. Stephen probably didn’t know the difference, though, which meant it could have been any sort of magical whatsit, or just a regular human wannabe like Beth said.

“That’s why Stephen is so excited about this. None of the other local news agencies have ever even thought to try something so ambitious.” Beth leaned closer and lowered her voice, so Kana obligingly leaned close too. “I think,” she paused and glanced side to side to check whether anyone was nearby to overhear. “I think Stephen wants to pad his resume with this. If he has interviewing vampires on his resume, I bet he thinks the bigwigs at the national headquarters will pluck him out of our local station and give him a big-time job.”

“It might look good on a resume, but all the big stations have to do is talk to Stephen to learn better. We’re not getting rid of him so easily,” Kana joked, although at the back of his mind a twinge of worry that a vampire might actually “get rid of him” slipped through.

Chatter sounded from around the corner, and Beth and Kana sprang apart, swiveling their chairs around to return to their desks. Kana got back to work.

About four that afternoon, just when Kana was starting to save his work so he could head home, Kana and Beth’s emails simultaneously pinged.

“Monday at seven thirty,” Beth read. “Damn, that’s soon!”

Kana had all of Friday and the weekend to concoct his spell. Not much time, but he would have to make it be enough.

Kana shut down his computer and dug his backpack out of the drawer. He helped Mika and Sora inside and swung the bag onto his back.

“See you tomorrow?” he asked Beth.

Beth grinned at him. “Yep. Have a good night!”

They waved at each other and then Kana headed for the elevator and the bus home.

*

KANA AND MIKA carefully lifted the coffee table and walked it over to an empty space in the kitchen. Sora rolled up the rug and then leaned it against the TV stand where it would be out of the way.

The first thing Kana had done after moving into his apartment was rip out a large square of the wooden floor. He had replaced it with a chunk of seamless, smooth slate—one of his first big purchases after he had settled down for college. If he ended the lease on his apartment, he would remove the slate and use magic to replace the floorboards, which he was currently storing in the hall closet, but for now he had the perfect space to write his spells.

Mika handed him a piece of chalk. Kana crouched and gently placed the tip of the chalk down on the slate. He kept his arm steady and spun on the balls of his feet to draw a large, perfect circle. Drawing the pentagram required a steady elbow and stiff wrist to ensure he drew five straight lines. Kana was pleased with how the completed circle looked when he stood to study it.

A simple circle without any amplifying runes allowed the spell to focus on his potion, which was the important part of the magic today. Mika took the chalk back and Sora brought over the candles—white, for protection. Kana placed a candle at all five points where the pentagram met the circle’s edge.

Sora and Mika carefully stepped over the chalk lines. Sora put Kana’s smudge bowl down, Mika placed a large vial full of water and floating bits of plant next to it, and then both shifted into their house cat form. Kana draped his spell robe—also white because this was a spell of protection—over the back of the couch and, naked, stepped into the circle. He sat directly in the center and Mika and Sora arranged themselves on either side.

“Ready?” Kana asked, his voice soft. The rising moon shone through the kitchen window. It was waxing, which was a lucky coincidence. Any phase of the moon would have worked for the spell, but a growing moon meant growing power.

Ready, Mika and Sora both said.

Kana placed his hands on their backs and let out a breath. He called on his magic, opening the channels between him and his familiars. Power flowed through their bond, melding the three together into one. He delved downward, rooting his power into the ground, then soared upward to spread his magic through the circle like a tree spreading its branches. When he opened his eyes, the chalk circle had become a glowing sphere, surrounding them with gentle white light. The pentagram was glowing softly as well, its lines pulsing as power flowed through. Kana shot magic down the lines, and the candles burst into flame. Their light melded seamlessly with his circle, but also gentled the power so instead of pulsing, the light began to flow evenly.

Kana lifted his right hand from Sora’s back and reached out to stir his fingers through the contents of the smudge bowl. Fire followed his fingers, and a gentle smoke quickly rose and began to fill the sphere. Mistletoe did not have a scent, but the ashy smell of burning wood enveloped Kana.

Mistletoe warded off evil and brought good luck, both of which would be needed for this spell. Kana waited until the sphere was completely full of smoke and then uncapped the vial.

He had previously ground garlic to a paste, then squeezed it through cheesecloth to extract the oil. His apartment still smelled of it and it had taken multiple scrubbings to get it off his hands, but he had gotten enough for an extract. Boiling the garlic oil with fennel, mugwort, and chamomile, with a base of holy water, had reduced the scent considerably. Fennel and mugwort helped to repel evil spirits and chamomile was…chamomile. There wasn’t much chamomile couldn’t be used for. At its base, chamomile was simply a plant of good, and goodness was exactly what Kana’s spell needed.

Kana passed the open vial through the smoke, slowly drawing a pentagram. The second he connected the last line of the smoke-drawn pentagram with the first, magic throbbed through the circle, making Kana’s bones ring like a tuning fork. The sphere flared with light, forcing Kana to shut his eyes, and then, suddenly, the light vanished.

The sphere, pentagrams, smoke, and candles were all gone when Kana opened his eyes again, but the contents of the vial glowed softly in the unlit room.

Kana hoped his spell worked, but unfortunately there was only one way to test it: have a vampire try to bite someone anointed in the oil. He hoped it didn’t come to that tomorrow, but even if it didn’t keep the vampires away completely, Kana was pretty certain the spell would do something to stop them.

Bedtime? Sora asked, his voice hopeful even as he planted his front paws on the ground and stretched out his back with his tail high in the air.

“Let’s put the room back together first, and then yes. I’m ready for bed,” Kana answered, then paused to let out a yawn as the late hour and the magic expenditure hit him.

The exhaustion was worth it, though, Kana reminded himself as he corked the vial and carefully set it aside for the morning. The vampires wouldn’t be hurting anyone tomorrow night—he was going to make certain of that.