Secrets & Dark Magic

by Chloe Vincent

They also hadn’t asked her weird questions. They’d just invited her to watch quirky British comedy shows with them.

  “I-I’m just gonna...eat,” Penny mumbled, disappearing back into the kitchen.

  When the creeps left, Henry holed away in his room. What he did in there, Penny had no idea. She hadn’t seen the inside of his bedroom in a year or more. She assumed it was still wall to wall band posters and strange photography.

  As the living room was now available and she was still hungry, Penny made herself a salad and plopped down on the couch to watch some Netflix. The room still smelled faintly of some gross scent she couldn’t place. It was like rotten eggs. She didn’t even want to know why Henry and his friends would smell like that. Now she sighed and set her food down. She found some sage in the kitchen and lit it up, waving the smoke around as she paced in the living room. She’d heard sage could cleanse a place of bad energy or something. Hell, she thought, it couldn’t hurt.

  “What is that!” Her brother appeared in the doorway, eyes huge. He bared his teeth at her.

  Penny jumped back a little and raised an eyebrow, holding up the sage. “It’s just sage! Smells kinda funky in here. Don’t you like sage? It makes everything smell like a campfire.”

  “Put it out!” Henry came charging at her and grabbed the burning sage out of her hand, throwing it to the floor and stomping it into smithereens.

  “Jesus, Henry!” Penny said, her hands flying up in front of her face in a reflexively defensive posture. “What the hell!”

  “No sage!” Henry growled. “There are reasons for things!”

  With that, he stomped back into his room and My Chemical Romance started blaring. Penny blinked and muttered obscenities, frowning at the heap of destroyed sage on the floor. She sighed and went to fetch a broom and sweep it up.

  At ten, Henry appeared to eat a late dinner at the dining table. Penny had an urge to return to her room but she stayed where she was, feeling stubborn. It was her house too, damnit.

  She was watching a Parks and Recreation just to have something on while she browsed Amazon on her laptop when something moving appeared in her peripheral vision. Expecting Jenkins, up to no good, Penny glanced in the direction of the floor lamp in the corner.

  The floor lamp was floating about three feet off the ground.

  Penny screamed and scrambled back, falling off the couch and bringing her laptop with her. She heard Henry cackling behind her and whipped around to see him wiggling his fingers in the direction of the lamp just as it dropped back to the floor and toppled over.

  Penny only gaped at him. His eyes seemed intensely dark, changing from their normal light brown color nearly to black as he shouted something in a language Penny had never heard and twirled his fingers. The lightbulbs in the living room shattered. Penny screamed again and having no idea what to do, stood in the middle of the room, terrified and staring at her brother.

  “Henry,” Penny said nauseously after a full minute of quiet during which her brother only stared at her with an unsettling smile on his face. “How are you doing that stuff?”

  “There are...a lot of ways to do it,” Henry said slowly. “But I choose to call on the forces of darkness. They’re always more powerful.”

  “That’s impossible,” Penny whispered.

  “And that is why you will not be salvaged,” her brother whispered back.

  She needed to replace the lightbulbs, she thought; her logical mind wanting to right things and make them normal again. She needed to sweep up the broken bulbs and also set the floor lamp right.

  Instead, she grabbed her computer and ran into her bedroom and locked the door.

  Cole

  This potion appears to use the transitive properties so popular with Germanic witch clans throughout the seventeenth century. This is a remarkable find as fox shifters in Appalachia have not been known to utilize the strategies of witches yet.

  “Yet…” Professor J. Cole Montgomery muttered to himself, blinking at the keyboard. His laptop stared back at him. For the last couple of hours, he’d been trying to finish his report on one of the many potions discovered in the ruins of a fox shifter pack’s lair in Virginia for a group of archivist wizards in England. Except he kept getting distracted.

  It was near midterms which meant all his students wanted to meet with him, bug-eyed and wired on energy drinks and anxiety. That was in the capacity of his “official” job as a professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Bellington University in Upstate New York. Around his classes, he also made time as a professional academic to write papers on new finds in toxins, poisons and biological warfare. And when he had time beyond all that he found some space for his less official freelance job of studying potions and magical properties of varied substances.

  The potion in question sat atop his cluttered wooden work counter. The bit of sludge was inside a dirty old Mason jar and looked quite out of place for an academic in their lab - although his lab was messy enough for most people not to notice the hints of a large side project. The wood-paneled part of his lab-cum-office was wall to wall bookshelves, a big C shaped counter forever overflowing with vials, papers, books, scales, microscopes, distillators and the other accouterments of his profession. The sun shone brightly through the windows but he kept the curtains half-drawn to dim the brightness while keeping a view of his beloved woods that spread out for acres and acres beyond the university.

  He had never been able to keep his office neat but he generally tried to keep it safe. He was just absent-minded enough to fail in that goal occasionally. Once, a misplaced burner had done away with an old witch’s tome before he’d started keeping one table cleared for burners. He was, at least, much safer in his classroom.

  With all his work keeping him busy for midterms, he’d hardly had time to lock the door when a doe-eyed grad student with legs up to there had swept in and fixed him with pouty lips. It was hardly a shock. Everyone had heard of him. And he could hardly turn her down. There were a few of them every semester. He tried to limit himself to grad students, if only because undergrads were too neurotic and a much riskier proposition. Not that he hadn’t been tempted. Seemingly every young woman with the appropriate proclivity batted her eyes at him in any of his classes and any of the young men with the appropriate proclivity did the same. Once they caught sight of him climbing on his motorcycle, it only got worse. He knew he was young and handsome; the picture of a hot professor. He’d cultivated his image carefully and it was all probably due to having seen the Indiana Jones movies too many times as a kid.

  Only an hour ago Clara had giggled when he’d easily picked her up, her legs wrapping around him as he pressed her up against the eyewash station in the corner. If nothing else, it was all very convenient. He hadn’t gone to a bar to pick a woman up since he’d started teaching at the university.

  Cole considered this one of the perks of being a professor - especially since he didn’t have tenure yet.

  On the other hand, between grad students with pretty mouths, midterms, official research and unofficial research, he had not had any “me time” in the woods for a few days and that was far too long. One of the advantages to living upstate and working at Bellington was the nice big forest - one could easily get lost in - being so close to his work and home. Students on occasion did get lost in it and had to be searched for, sometimes with dogs. But Cole had never gotten lost. If he ever found himself uncertain of which way to go, he had only to sniff his way out again. And that was good because getting sniffed out by dogs was not something he ever wanted to experience. More so because of the people that came with the dogs.

  Cole had come across a confused police dog once or twice in his life. They were never afraid even if they should have been. They tilted their little German Shepherd heads and then play bowed hopefully, always wanting Cole to wrestle around with them on the ground. None of them had ever given him away. Cole loved police dogs. Police, he was far more wary of. Police sometimes came with tranq guns and demanded
explanations.

  Cole took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, running a hand through his shaggy, golden brown hair in increasing need of a cut. The wizards would just have to wait a little longer for their report. He checked his watch. He still had an hour until his next class.

  Fuck it, he decided.

  Cole switched his tweed jacket for leather, throwing it over his v-neck sweater as he dashed out the door. If he hurried, he could have a little of that treasured “me time” before the next class. Cole had discovered over the years that not making time for the bear eventually brought the bear out whether you wanted him or not. It was better to nip the bear in the bud. So to speak.

  His motorcycle was waiting for him, parked alongside the more staid Volvos and SUVs that most of the faculty chose to drive. He caught some appreciative looks as he put on his helmet and soon enough he was peeling out of the lot to the road that ran around the school and headed in the direction of the woods.

  Cole parked on the fringe of the wood and packed away his helmet and his leather jacket, enjoying the crisp chill of the breeze as he trotted into the forest. The problem with being a bear shifter and in particular, a Kodiak bear shifter, was the sheer size of the animal he was. He couldn’t exactly be stealthy like his fox and wolf cousins. Even a panther could make himself unseen some of the time. There was no hiding a huge bear. Cole wasn’t far into the forest before he shifted and it felt like a bodily sigh, the familiar muscles of his other self flexing and then relaxing as he trotted along on his massive paws further into the woods. He rolled over one way and then another through a pile of leaves. If he’d had the time he would have run all the way to the river bed that ran north of the school and try to catch himself some fish. They weren’t plentiful this close to town but sometimes when he was quick, he could catch a fish or two. His shifter friends, the other men in a loosely-held pack that met up only on occasion, would tell him he needed to make more time for his bear self; take a weekend now and then to go to the wilder woods and really hunt. He knew they were right. It was just so easy to get too busy for his shifter life but when you denied yourself care you tended to pay for it later. He’d heard one too many stories about stressed-out bear shifters finding themselves unable to control their shifting after enough stress. They had to retire from the human world completely to avoid revealing themselves by accident.

  His bear buddies also liked to remind him that caring for his bear self would alleviate his grief. Cole usually grunted in the face of those arguments and in the wrong mood, he growled. His mate, Louise, had been killed by poachers seven years ago and only in the last couple of years had he begun to feel he was really moving on. But it was still difficult not to think of Louise and the connection they’d shared. They’d been paired together by the alpha of their pack. Erik was good at finding mates and when Cole had met Louise, he’d assumed they’d be together unto death at an old, old age, able to share their human and bear selves with each other over the course of a long marriage and matehood. The day he’d found Louise’s body in the woods, he’d thought he would die himself. The hunters, he heard later, had been intending to kill the Kodiak they’d seen loping through the woods while Cole was teaching classes as a first-year professor. When they ran through the trees after their guns rang out and instead found the corpse of a human woman, they were scared right out of town, sure they’d go to prison for life. They also just left her there, alone in the woods. Cole had sensed the loss and left class right in the middle of it to find his mate. He’d roared his pain in the forest and the cops had dragged him away. He was lucky he hadn’t shifted involuntarily and blown his cover. He’d always figured that his bear self had gone into shock at that moment and simply frozen up, until later when reality had sunken in.

  He’d taken a leave of absence after Louise’s death and stayed a bear for a while, living in the woods and grieving. It was a long time before he could enjoy himself again and even longer before that melancholy had rolled away into bittersweet memories that were precious, but not the ever-present ache that he’d thought would never go away after years of living with it.

  Cole ran around and wrestled in the woods, internally clocking the time. When he felt he was starting to push it, he regretfully shifted back into human form to make his way back. He stood in the middle of the forest, catching his breath, scratching his head and tousling his shaggy brown hair. It was one of his bearish mannerisms that made people think there was something slightly off about him. Somehow attractive women seemed to leave those behaviors in the category of charm, perhaps just because he was so good looking.

  He was teaching Advanced Chemical Agents now and contemplated his lesson plans as he walked back to his bike. He found himself contemplating his extra-curricular activities and smirked to himself. Clara would probably come by again in another couple of days. But until then there was a cute redhead named Cassie in that class who’d bitten her lip while leaning into him very obviously to give him a view down her blouse the week before. He was hoping she’d ask for a private study session.

  The bear was sometimes difficult to sate.

  Penny

  Since the night of Henry’s frightening magic tricks, Penny had been avoiding him even more than usual and trying to figure out what to do. She’d texted her best friend, Jade, a server at Quelle Surprise. Jade thought Penny was overreacting.

  “It’s just a phase,” Jade said. “What is he? Twenty? His brain’s not even done developing yet. He’s a dumbass. I’m sure that thing he did with the lightbulbs was just a short in the electricity. Don’t flip out on me, Pens.”

  Great, now her best friend thought she was crazy on top of everything else.

  On her day off, Penny opted for self-care. She took a bubble bath. She read a mystery novel, curled up on the couch with a cup of tea. Henry was off with his creepos which was probably a bad thing but it was nice to have the house to herself and peace away from him all day. After a salad for lunch, she went to her room to paint with the help of Bob Ross videos on YouTube. She’d moved on from one evergreen to an entire forest. She was sure she could do a nice landscape on her own but she’d always enjoyed the calming, supportive vibe of a Bob Ross video so she’d watched it all the way through twice before setting out her paints and painting along with Bob.

  She couldn’t seem to stop painting forest scenes generally. But she wanted to get better at animals too. Nature had seemed to call to her lately. If she was honest with herself, she would have liked to move out of the city, somewhere where the forest was more than a crowded park smack dab in the middle of the hustle and bustle, and a long train ride away from Brooklyn. She painted leisurely dabs of green to make saplings and fantasized about wandering in the woods.

  The woods. Yes, that would be lovely. And a big burly man to go with them…

  Penny sighed, rolling her eyes at herself. It had been a while. The last couple of guys she’d dated or slept with had been lacking in the everything department. Brooklyn was nice. She could appreciate a craft fair and a farmer’s market and “artisan popcorn” (whatever the hell that was) as much as anyone, but the whole hipster thing was getting old. Sometimes she wondered where the normal guys were. She painted and fantasized about some faceless guy who was intelligent and not just pretending to be. Somebody strong, somebody charming, somebody with bulging biceps…

  “Okay, girl,” Penny muttered to herself. “Calm down.”

  The doorbell buzzed, which never happened, and Penny was startled. She set down her brush and wiped paint off her hands, pausing Bob on the laptop before trotting out to the living room. She braced herself, ready to tell whoever wanted money that she actually wasn’t rich, they’d just inherited the house. That was the only thing about owning a home in Brooklyn. Everyone assumed she and Henry were loaded.

  She opened the front door and looked down at a woman a little bit older than her, petite with jet black hair pulled into a ponytail and squashed down by a ball cap. She was wearing a blue jumpsuit with a name
tag that said “Joan” and she was carrying a toolbox.

  “Afternoon, ma’am,” the woman said. “I’m Joan, I’m with the electricity company. Uh, electric company. Department of...electrical. I’m here to read your meter! Make sure it’s...metering. Correctly.” The woman smiled tightly and Michelle squinted at her.

  There was something ridiculously off about it all yet she felt compelled to let the woman in. It was not that she was hypnotized. It was more like a tiny but insistent voice in her head encouraging her to trust the woman now peeking over Penny’s shoulder into the house.

  “Um, sure,” Penny said, shrugging.” Gotta check that meter. I guess.”

  “You bet!” Joan tipped her cap and Penny stood back as Joan plowed past her and inside. “So...how you doin’ today? Day off?”

  “Oh...yeah.” Penny nodded, sticking her hands in her pockets as Joan took a look around the living room which seemed odd since the meter was around back. But Joan seemed very confident about it at all as she stood there with her toolbox in hand - and confidence could be persuasive. “Just...painting.”

  “Oh yeah, whattaya’ painting?” Joan nodded in the direction of the floor lamp, that had been righted since the magic tricks. “I’m just gonna uh...check your outlets if you don’t mind?”

  “Sure. Um. I paint forests? A lot of the time.” Penny crossed her arms, watching Joan kneel down and inspect an outlet. What she was looking for was a mystery. Penny wondered why the city could send somebody out to randomly inspect her electrical outlets but couldn’t get it together when it came to the subway. The thought of it annoyed her. But that was hardly Joan’s fault and she was always polite to people. “Do you want some coffee?”

  “I would literally murder somebody for some coffee!” Joan said, whipping around. “I mean, ya’ know. Not totally literally. I wouldn’t actually murder people. It’s very bad. So, you paint forests?”