Secrets & Dark Magic

by Chloe Vincent

  Penny snorted at that and went to the kitchen to put on a pot. “Yeah! I love the forest! Used to take my brother on trips with my parents. But they died a few years ago, so…”

  “Oh? Sorry to hear that!” Joan called back.

  Penny poured grounds into the filter and wondered if Henry’s behavior could be blamed on their parents’ deaths at all. Not that it could excuse anything. He’d definitely been a little scary before that though. She put the coffee on and in the living room, she saw Joan sitting on the floor, immediately crawling over to another outlet when Penny walked in.

  “Do you like bears?” Joan inquired.

  Penny pursed her lips. “Um… Bears? Sure. Who doesn’t like bears? You’re talking about the actual animal, right? Not like big, burly gay men?”

  “Yes, the animals. I just meant since you’re into forests. Maybe ya’ like bears. In general.”

  “Yeah, I like bears?”

  “That’s good.”

  “Okay…”

  Joan got to her feet and frowned at the floor lamp, peeking under the shade to find a lack of lightbulb. Penny had replaced a couple of the lights in the kitchen and living room and then run out of bulbs. She intended to buy some more after work the next day. Joan walked around the living room and glanced under the shade of a table lamp by the easy chair.

  “Missing some light bulbs?” Joan asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “Yeah, um…” Penny got a little shaky just thinking about how scared she’d been. “My brother did this… Well, he said it was a magic trick. Actually, heh… Actually, he said it was dark magic. Blowing up light bulbs?” Joan laughed a little hysterically and threw up her hands. “He’s weird! What can I say?”

  “Dark magic?” Joan said, her eyes lighting up. “Ya’ don’t say? Hey, you know what? I believe it. World’s a crazy place and it’s only gettin’ crazier, am I right?”

  “Yeah. I mean, I guess so.” Penny was taken aback, having expected the woman to think she was nuts and now she found herself babbling the entire story because so far, everyone thought she was nuts. “It was very real! And he’s been hanging out with these total creepos! They act like those men’s rights incel guys but with magic wands! Well, I guess they don’t use wands but they definitely do spells or something. And they asked me if I’d be with the horde at the reckoning or some crazy shit like that! Then my brother told me I was unsalvageable? What does that mean? You know, sometimes I think they’re really dangerous and now with that lightbulb thing, I’m really getting freaked out, you know? Like what if they can really do some damage? I mean this thing is totally a weird-ass cult and sometimes cults kill people! Or themselves!”

  “Oh, wow.” Joan nodded and looked as if she actually thought Penny was onto something. Penny sighed in relief at the very idea of being believed. “I get you, man. No, I get it. Trust me. Listen.” She walked up to Penny and looked her straight in the eye, gripping her shoulders. It seemed like a strangely personal move for a meter reader from the electric company to make, but there was something about the look in her eye that made it okay. “Do not let this go. I’m serious, yeah? Honestly, you should check this out. Find out what he’s up to. Investigate. Because you never know, right? Just...be careful.”

  “Yeah.” Penny nodded. The thought was frightening, but it was all she could think about lately and it was actually nice to have her fears validated rather than dismissed. “Maybe you’re right.”

  “Hey, of course I’m right!” Joan said. “Get to the bottom of this! He’s your brother, yeah? Gotta stay on top of him and all that.”

  “Yeah!” Penny nodded again. “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “So I’m gonna go!” Joan said, grabbing her toolbox off the floor.

  “I thought you had to check the meter?”

  “Yes!” Joan pointed at her, sticking her tongue between her teeth. “Yes, I do. Gotta check that meter. Ah, what I meant was, I’m going to check it on the way out…” She pointed toward the kitchen. “Back door that way? Meter’s probably around back?”

  “Yep,” Penny said. “That’s right.”

  “Okay, well I’ll just do that. Won’t trouble you. Anyway, good luck with your brother though! Follow up on that, for sure!”

  “Oh, yeah, I’m definitely going to,” Penny said sighing. “Thanks.”

  Joan tipped her cap and Penny watched her go out the back before nodding to herself, feeling freshly motivated to investigate whatever stupid shenanigan Henry was getting himself into.

  It took Penny all of ten minutes to get her nerve up and then she picked the lock of Henry’s room with an unbent paper clip. The room smelled horribly of rotten eggs and she gagged, holding a hand over her nose and mouth. The place was dim and it felt as if everything was covered with a thin layer of slime, but it was more of an eerie feeling that was turning Penny’s stomach rather than an actual substance. She rifled through some drawers and found all kinds of weird ephemera; stone objects forming strange symbols, clumps of sticks. She found a jar full of animal teeth that made her yelp. The whole thing was giving her a headache.

  She found the notebook underneath his mattress. It was a thick college-lined notebook and on the cover, in a messy, all-caps scrawl was written: THE SALVAGED. She had to assume that was the real name of their little group or cult or whatever it was.

  There were lumps in the notebook that turned out to be small objects taped to pages; a tooth here, a pebble there, a leaf, a bit of animal hide. She couldn’t make sense of the writing that looked partly like her brother’s handwriting and partly like something had taken Henry over and made him scribble incoherently. Or, it was incoherent to her, anyway; all the lines of strange symbols and nonsense words packed together in walls of text.

  She found the vial in the back under the words: THE END OF THE UNSALVAGED.

  The vial was taped to the page. And all around was scrawled in Henry’s lunatic scribbling: THE END THE END THE END THE END THE END.

  Delilah

  Delilah was camped on the stoop across the street from Penny. She wore a pair of dark shades and held a device that passed for the kind of phone the real live humans were always using. Though she herself had died before that type of phone. But the Oracle device was not a phone, it was a guidance system given to her from the Council of Three. And it…usually worked. Using it, she could look at what Penny Sax was now looking at on her computer. Delilah held a paper cup of coffee in one hand and took a sip, nearly choking when she saw that Penny was searching contact information for the FBI.

  “No, dumbass!” Delilah said out loud. “Google professors or something… Damnit.”

  Delilah had been watching Penny’s every move since she’d left the walk-up after changing out of that heinous jumpsuit. It had been two days and she’d seen Penny make several unsuccessful phone calls, trying to tell police that an evil cult was about to do “something bad” and that no, she had not seen any firearms or bomb-making materials, but there was a weird vial…

  Nobody seemed interested so far.

  No phone-calls had been made to any Kodiak bear shifters.

  Delilah decided it was time to nudge Penny again.

  How to do this subtly was another question. Delilah drained her coffee and leaned on her knees. Penny was scrolling Facebook.

  “What good is this gonna do, huh?” Delilah muttered. “What are you doing? What are you…?” She trilled her lips and spoke to the device itself, hoping the Oracle was functioning alright today. “Can I send a thing to her Facebook?” The Oracle glimmered an electric green which she’d learned meant “yes”. “Like make an ad for uh...I dunno, like just throw up an ad for Bellington University and feature our guy, Montgomery, and put that he’s a professor of toxins and chemistry and unknown substances in there. And say something paranormalish. But only she’s seeing it, okay?”

  The ad appeared, looking completely professional and realistic and Delilah sat up straight.

  “Yeah, that! Uh, send!”

 
She watched the ad appear on Penny’s timeline. Penny’s mouse hovered over the add for about a full minute and finally, she clicked on it.

  “Okay!” Delilah cackled. “Now we’re gettin’ somewhere!”

  Cole

  Midterms were mercifully over. Cole’s relief was surpassed only by his students’ relief, he supposed. He spent his new free time actually enjoying the report on the Appalachian fox shifter potion, taking another look at it under the microscope and mixing samples of the stuff with his own brew of investigatory potion that revealed magical properties. It was a bit tedious and would be much easier with castings but Cole wasn’t a wizard, so he was forced to take the long way around. The archivists in English had claimed that his work was actually more thorough than many of the wizards they’d had do similar investigations. He felt a bit smug about that bit of praise.

  Cole had put on a Spotify station and he bobbed his head along to whatever was playing; something that was supposed to sound like 80s pop but wasn’t. He checked his watch. If he went to the woods now, he could have a solid couple of hours before going home for dinner. It was Friday and the students had a break from the constant grind following midterms. He could go all the way to the river and look for fish and even if he didn’t find any, it would be fun to play in the water and then he could go home and hunker down with a good book and-

  KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.

  Cole started, straightening his glasses and fully expected an attractive young woman from one of his classes to slink inside and insist on a date. Not that she’d have to insist very hard. He glanced around in the space of two seconds and saw nothing too suspicious that couldn’t be explained away.

  Sure enough, an attractive young woman poked the door open without waiting to be let inside. Cole frowned, not recognizing the grad student. He would’ve cataloged her instantly if she was in one of his classes. She was very pretty with cupid’s bow lips, big hazel eyes, and a luxurious head of silky brown hair that fell to her waist. Yes, he definitely would have zeroed in on her instantly. She couldn’t be adding a class either as it was far too late in the semester.

  Cole raised an eyebrow at the mystery woman who walked in, looking vaguely worried but determined as she glanced around his office. She wore dark jeans and a soft gray sweater that accentuated her curves.

  She looked luscious, that much was true. On the other hand, he had a nice forest waiting and he was feeling restless beneath his skin after getting so little time to shift lately. If this wasn’t about a “date,” he really didn’t want to make time for it.

  “Can I help you?” He sat up straight on his stool. He raised his eyebrows but couldn’t help eyeing her up and down one more time.

  She seemed to notice his perusal and frowned. “Professor Montgomery?” She asked. “Are you Professor J. Cole Montgomery?”

  Cole hopped down and, intending to keep a future conquest on his side while extricating himself from an immediate chore, he stuck out a hand and cast the girl his most charming smile. So far, not many had resisted the stubbled chin and deceptively self-deprecating grin of Professor Montgomery. It seemed to work even better when he was wearing his glasses.

  “Guilty,” Cole said, dropping his voice a little. “Jeremiah Cole Montgomery. Everybody calls me Cole. Nice to meet you.”

  The girl shook his hand and he took it in both of his, stepping in close and saying “why, hello” with his dark eyes. She swallowed and then frowned, taking a step back.

  Hesitant. Okay, well that was fine. Cole loved a little bit of a chase.

  “Penny Sax,” she said, nodding. “Um-”

  “Unfortunately,” Cole interrupted, “my office hours are closed for the day but if you need to discuss something for next semester or-”

  “I’m not a student,” Penny said quickly. “I saw you in an ad on Facebook-”

  “An ad?” Cole blurted. “What kind of-”

  “Your specialty is toxins, biochemistry and um…” Penny took a step closer and spoke under her breath. “Substances that might fall out of the realm of the um...conventional?”

  Cole searched her eyes. “I’m not one of the Profs who doles out pills if that’s-”

  “No,” Penny said, sighing heavily. “I think you know what I mean. Like...supernatural stuff?” She gave him a knowing look.

  Who the hell was this girl?

  “Who are you?” Cole asked tightly. It wasn’t necessarily bad. She could’ve known somebody from his pack or one of the archivists or any number of people or creatures. But he didn’t like not knowing. “Who sent you here?”

  “I told you, I saw you in a Facebook ad,” Penny said again.

  “I’m not in any kind of ad that says that,” Cole said. “I don’t broadcast it.”

  “Okay, well, I saw it and I don’t know what to tell you but forget that,” Penny said quickly. “I need your help. It’s urgent! It’s urgent as all get out.”

  Cole took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look, I don’t what ad you saw. What I actually think is, you’re a friend of one of my buddies out in New Hampshire. The Bear Club? Maybe you’re a…” He looked her up and down again. She really didn’t strike him as a shifter. Novice witch maybe. “You want me to whip you up a love potion or something? I don’t do that, sorry, a little bit below my paygrade.”

  “Dear God, the ego,” Penny said, her eyes wide.

  Cole couldn’t help but smile at that; the corner of his mouth turning up slightly.

  “I don’t need a love potion,” she said. “Interesting assumption for you to make, though.” She took a vial out of her purse and set it on the counter. “I need you to look at that.”

  Cole glanced at the vial and back at the girl. “Office hours,” he said slowly. “Monday through Thursday, four to seven.”

  Penny took a deep breath and said, “I drove here from the city. Took me six hours.”

  “Well, you probably should have called first, huh?” Cole said. He took off his glasses and wiped them on his sweater and put them back on.

  “You’re an asshole,” Penny grumbled, swiping her vial from the counter and stomping out of the room.

  Firecracker, Cole thought.

  “You can come back on Monday!” He called after her.

  He was used to putting his foot down with students who would walk all over you if you gave them an inch. On the other hand, he was wondering now what had been in that vial even as he stretched and hung up his tweed jacket, switching it for the leather.

  Besides that, if he didn’t shift soon he felt like he was going to turn into a bear at the Chinese take-out place where he planned to pick up his human dinner and that wouldn’t be good for anyone, least of all nice Mr. Huang.

  “Come back Monday, firecracker,” Cole muttered to himself. “I’ll still be here.”

  Delilah

  “Noooo!” Delilah was crouched outside Montgomery’s window, watching them face off.

  It did not seem to be going well.

  “Don’t blow her off!” Delilah grumbled. “What’s wrong with you? She’s hot! What the hell! Goddamn bears…”

  She watched Penny walk out the door and grunted in frustration before running around the building to the main entrance, dashing down the wrong hallway, and spinning around back the other way. At the sight of Penny coming around the corner at the end of the hall, she realized she’d be recognized as the meter reader if Penny got too close, and spying a mop bucket full of suds, she turned it over, flooding the hallway while no one was around to see.

  “CLEAR THE CORRIDOR!” Delilah announced, cupping her hands around her mouth. “HAZARDOUS SPILLAGE! ALERT! THERE IS A HAZARDOUS SPILLAGE!”

  Penny was coming nearer and Delilah ducked her head as Penny hesitated, seeing the couple of inches of water running her way.

  “YOU THERE!” She pointed at Penny. “YOU CAN’T EXIT HERE! OR...BACK THERE! THE EXITS ARE BLOCKED! THERE’S A...SPILLAGE! GO BACK TO WHERE YOU JUST WERE! UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE! THERE IS AN OFFI
CIAL SPILLAGE! NO EXIT, MA’AM!”

  “But-”

  “RETURN TO WHERE YOU JUST WERE, MA’AM!”

  Penny threw up her arms. “Why do I have to go back to where I-”

  “DON’T MAKE ME CALL CAMPUS SECURITY, MA’AM! THERE IS A SPILLAGE!”

  Other students attempting to walk near the water grumbled and turned the other way and now a professor was poking her head out of a door and yelling questions at Delilah. She kept her eyes on Penny who turned around and took that precious little vial out of her pocket before standing up straight and heading back in the direction of Montgomery’s office.

  “Yeah, that’s right,” Delilah said under her breath. “You go tell that bear.”

  The professor crept out of her office, attempting to walk through the sudsy water and Delilah waved her back. “Hey hey hey, lady. There’s a spillage here! Slippery when wet, okay?”

  Penny

  Penny didn’t bother knocking this time, she simply threw open the door. She was just in time to nearly step on the toes of Professor J. Cole Montgomery (call me “Cole”) who was now wearing a leather jacket and looking even more annoyed than before.

  “Oh c’mon,” he said now, looking at her as if he were plainly exhausted.

  Penny took a deep breath and said, “Look. I can pay you.” She took the vial out of her purse and couldn’t help the way her hand shook. Ever since finding it, she’d had a terribly dark feeling as if something awful was coming and if she didn’t stop it, nobody else would either. “I can give you…” She swallowed the lump in her throat. She’d been putting money away with lofty dreams of either going to art school or taking a bunch of time off to work on her art by herself but now she said, “I can give you a thousand dollars.” The thought of giving anyone a thousand dollars on her salary even considering she didn’t pay rent seemed impossible and her eyes welled up.