Chapter 4

 

Rozella’s grimoire had been tucked away in a safety deposit box until a few months ago. I retrieved it after certain things began to happen that suggested I might be leveling up in the magical abilities department. I’d been working with roots and herbs for years, making various types of charms and other things. There’s a big difference between combining energy with outside tools to cast spells and create a result, and using only the power of one’s magical will to affect things. Especially when those things had energy of their own, like ghosts and demonic entities. The grimoire was full of spells, rituals and recipes, but interspersed throughout were notes Rozella wrote giving her thoughts on different subjects. One of them was energy work.

I thumbed through the book until finding the right page. After convincing Blake to leave and setting up a time for this dubious date, I had to placate Daniel for a while before the vampire finally got tired and went to bed. I had planned on leaving but changed my mind. Bringing a quilt and a big glass of tea along with the book, I found a shady spot under one of the large oaks in the massive back yard. Lying on my stomach on the quilt, I read Rozella’s notes on energy work.

Much in the same way a person can only do so much with their muscles unless working to make them stronger, a witch can only do so much with their magical energy without practice. That was the point of some energy work. We’d never done much of this when I was her student but I always knew Rozella could do more than she taught me. She had no desire to hide knowledge from me, but she fervently believed there were some things a student needed to seek out on their own. It wasn’t her fault I’d never sought certain things on my own.

I hadn’t brought a candle with me but had something else in mind to try. I’d been doing a lot of thinking about what appeared to be my natural affinity for the element of fire. What else could I do with that besides light candles?

There were many different flavors of witchcraft but there were some common denominators among them. One of those was the four natural elements of earth, air, fire and water. Those four elements corresponded to the four states of matter–solid, gas, plasma, and liquid. My desire to go beyond the party trick of lighting candles without a match led me to research plasma. Other than bad memories of science classes in high school, I didn’t get much out of it. An idea for a very basic experiment occurred to me and I’d been waiting for the time to try it.

Wishing I’d brought an empty glass, I drank the rest of the tea and tossed the ice into the grass. I laid the book aside, along with my glasses. Drawing into a sitting position, hands resting lightly on my thighs, I did a slow grounding. Despite having spent a great deal of time here, I still wasn’t as familiar with this plot of land as I was with my own. Opening myself up, I reached out to the energy around me. The earth below, the sky above, streams and underground water sources, trees and vegetation–all of them flowed together into a natural rhythm. Beyond that was  the man-made energy of the city itself. Point and counterpoint. Or if not that, then at least two separate rhythms that somehow managed to work together, like an improbable mash-up of two radically different pieces of music.

I expected all of that and had felt it before. What shocked me was the bang and clatter of something atonal, chaotic. Hard bop on meth, instead of cool jazz or trance blues. Concentrating on the discordant notes, it overtook everything else until its rattle was the only thing I could feel. A rushing wildness, dark and hungry, pulled at me. It pressed against my chest and tugged at my limbs. Fear exploded in my gut, followed quickly by recognition. That recognition saved me from what might have turned into a nasty panic attack. Reaching for calm, steady earth, I pushed away the chaos and took slow even breaths.

It was the flood. The land, the people, every source of energy in the area had been traumatized by the flood. There hadn’t been enough time yet for any real healing, so the menace still lurked just beneath the surface of things. And if it was at all present, that meant it could continue to affect things.

My breathing got a little out of sync as fear nibbled at the edges of my thoughts. I had to distract myself or pretty soon all I’d be able to think about was my destroyed home. Hard bop on meth was not really a good analogy for this area. Well, the meth part worked. What other musical analogy might work to describe the flood’s leftover energy? I struggled to come up with something but the best I could do was “redneck Rammstein.”

I would not be sharing that tidbit in conversations with either Daniel or Blake.

After giving myself several minutes to calm down, I turned my attention back to my experiment. I shook the last remnants of liquid from the tea glass then placed it on the ground bottoms up, trapping air inside. Focusing my auric vision to see deeper into the spectrum than usual, much deeper, eventually I was able to see telltale traces of that trapped air’s energy. It was very faint, the faintest of pale watercolors, but it was enough to help me with visualizing what I wanted.

According to my research, ball lightning was a natural example of plasma.

I focused my will on the air inside the glass. The idea was to tap into that vein of fire magic that let me light candles with just a flick of power directed at a wick and use it to heat the air. By the time I felt the first spark of connection my skin was covered with a fine sheen of sweat, my t-shirt stuck to my body. It was some time later before I could see something in the glass, a tiny pop of gold that disappeared as fast as it arrived.

I kept at it. Muscles protested and despite the heat of the day I began to shiver. A slightly larger dollop of gold appeared in the glass, zipping in a jerky pattern before dissipating.

Pain gnawed at my stomach. A headache bloomed behind my eyes. The temptation to stop was great but I wanted to keep trying, at least for a few more minutes.

Finally, a flash of gold not quite the size of a dime winked into existence. It danced and jumped inside the glass, looking very much like a large spark thrown during welding. Ricocheting off the glass, it sped up until it seemed to stretch into shining lines. The glass wobbled, then exploded in a shower of jagged pieces. I rolled to one side, off the quilt and into the grass. Making things explode was not exactly what I’d had in mind, but it was better than nothing. A sense of accomplishment flooded me, pain quick on its heels. A piece of glass was embedded in my right upper arm, just below the t-shirt sleeve. Blood trailed to my elbow.

Swearing viciously, I considered my options. I could try to take care of it myself, drive to an emergency room, or wake my sleeping ancestor to perform first aid on my bleeding self. He’d done it before but it was the kind of thing that really drove home the fact he was a vampire.

After a tentative attempt to pull out the glass that made my stomach do a triple lutz, I decided to go wake Daniel. By cellphone.

* * * *

Blake was due to pick me up any minute. I still couldn’t believe we were going on a date. It seemed so normal. I wasn’t sure if I remembered how to do normal.

Since I had no idea where we were going, I erred on the side of casual and dressed in jeans and a dressy top with three-quarter length sleeves to cover the bandage on my arm. Daniel had done a good job patching me up. He insisted I explain what happened, but to his credit he refrained from lecturing.

He waited with me in the living room. The King Biscuit Time blues show warbled out of the antique radio. I tried reading but couldn’t focus on the words.

“Does he know I’m prepared to do murder on your behalf?”

“What the hell, Bubba?” I gave up on the paperback and set it on the coffee table. “I really don’t think you’ll be required to do murder.”

Daniel wore an expression that would have bordered on comical if I hadn’t known he was serious. “All I’m saying, he can’t be trusted. I know it and you know it, yet you still want to date him?”

Apparently Daniel had saved up all his lecturing for this moment. “Look–”

“I mean, what kind of woman wants to date an evil demon-conjuring sorcerer?”

“You’re about to cross a line,” I warned him.

He raised an eyebrow. “Well, it’s not the kind of thing generally covered under your typical points of compatibility, now is it?”

I rolled my eyes. “Now I know you’re just screwing with me.”

“Of course I am. You really think I would give you a free pass when you do something this dumb?”

“So you’ve never thrown caution to the wind and got involved with someone you knew you shouldn’t? In all the years you’ve lived, you really want me to believe you never did that?”

My own words caught me up short. It was one thing to admit to myself the folly of my attraction to Blake, but saying it out loud brought it out in sharp relief. Why was I about to go on a date with this man? Did I even like him? Sexual attraction, no matter how intense, didn’t count. So what was it? His dark eyes, the smirk that sometimes tilted into a smile, the shimmering aura that never failed to fascinate me–did those things count as something real?

But then, that was the point of the date, right? To see if there was anything real there, or if he was just some misguided fantasy.

“The mistakes I’ve made in the name of love are what will damn me to hell, Roxie, not being what I am.” Daniel spoke quietly. “I know you don’t like it when I daddy you. I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

I had no idea what mistakes he was talking about. Curiosity ate at me and I wanted to ask questions. He talked often enough about his past, usually entertaining stories about things he’d seen and done but rarely anything that so much as hinted at real darkness. I didn’t know how to respond.

He spoke again. “I can hear his car in the driveway.” He rose and walked across the room. I followed him, hoping he didn’t plan on greeting Blake at the door. Instead, he headed for the stairs. “I won’t say anything to him tonight but if you decide you’re going to keep him around, he and I will have a conversation.”

I worked really hard not to be offended and couldn’t quite get there. “I don’t need you to do that.”

“I know you don’t need it.” He leaned over and kissed my cheek. “Maybe I need it.”

A knock announced Blake’s arrival. Daniel made his way up the stairs, raising his glass in good night. I waited until he was out of sight before walking to the door. Hand on the knob, I paused for a moment, asking myself one last time if I really wanted to do this.

“Special delivery from the date of the month club.” Blake spoke loud enough to be heard through the thick oak door. “This month’s special, Harry Potter’s demented cousin.”

A smile came to my lips. I didn’t bother to hide it as I opened the door. “Strangely enough, that sounds like the kind of guy I’d pick for this month’s date.”

His jeans, black Danzig t-shirt and Doc Martens reassured me of my choice to dress casual. Not that I cared much about clothes at that moment, or anything else beyond the way he looked at me. No smirk, no guarded expression, only warmth and a hint of desire in his dark eyes and the slight curve of his mouth. My resolve to keep him at arm’s length weakened. I stepped onto the porch, pulling the door closed behind me, and stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek.

Blake grinned. “If we’re starting the date with a kiss what can I hope for at the end of the evening?”

“Another one just like it.” And that would be all. Definitely. Probably. “So where are we going?”

“How does hot dogs and nachos sound for dinner?”

“You’re taking me to a drive-in?”

“I’m taking you to a baseball game.” He held up a pair of tickets. “We’re going to a Sounds game.”

I could not have been more astounded if he’d suggested square dancing and a Little Jimmy Dickens concert. “A baseball game? For real?”

His smile faltered. “What, do you not like baseball?”

“Baseball’s fine. I’m just surprised. It’s not what I expected, that’s all.”

He laughed but it didn’t sound like his usual laugh. He sounded nervous and that was just as shocking as his plans for our date. “Generally I wait until the third date to break out the kinky magic tricks.” But then the smirk reappeared and Blake the Sexy Sorcerer said, “But you’ve already had a taste of that, haven’t you, sweetness?”

In that moment I knew all I had to do was say the word and he’d take me back to his hotel, the back seat of his car, right there on the front porch–he’d take me wherever, whenever I allowed. The erotic promise in his eyes was matched by the sensual energy flowing between us. Was he doing that, directing energy toward me, or was it something that happened between us organically? Like the way magenta flared in his aura when he was turned on, or the way molten heat pooled in all the parts of me I wanted him to touch.

I had to get this under control before we really did wind up half naked and sweating in the back seat of his car. Grabbing the tickets, I looked them over. “Hey, it’s fireworks night.”

“It’s always fireworks night with us.” He grasped my arm to lead me down the steps. I managed not to gasp, but he could tell he’d hurt me and that there was a bandage on my arm. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“It’s nothing. Just a little accident.”

He stared at me. “You sure?”

Did I want to talk to him about my explosive experiment? Of course, but at that moment I found myself more curious about the Blake who would take a girl to a baseball game than the Blake who practiced dark magic. A conversation about magic might be a little too welcome, a little too seductive, and I really wanted to keep my head for as long as I could. “I’m fine.” I went down the steps, hoping he would follow and take the cue to not worry about my arm. He did follow me down the steps at least. “So you really like baseball?”

“Hey, I can’t be Master of Darkness all the time.” He opened the passenger door of his car but stopped me before I climbed in. Tilting my chin up, he kissed me slowly, his tongue teasing just past my lips. “I just want to take you out, that’s all.”

“Let’s go, then.”

We had our normal night out, which had a gentle magic of its own. He even bought me a teddy bear in the team gift shop. By the time I fell into bed, alone and exhausted, I didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed that Blake acted like a perfect gentleman all evening. The content of my dreams suggested parts of me were very disappointed. I didn’t know what to make of this strange new creature, Blake the Sweet Sorcerer. It was interesting to see this side of him but I couldn’t help but wonder, who was he trying to convince that he could be this nice normal guy–me, or himself?