by E. M. Moore
Instead of telling him to leave me alone, I sighed and stepped forward. He looked at my arms surrounding my body and his eyebrows quirked up. “You cold?” He immediately took his hoodie off and put it around my shoulders. “I bet you’re not used to the weather around here.”
Thankful, I shrugged into the warm hoodie and breathed in deep. I recognized his scent from yesterday, but I couldn’t quite place it. It was fresh, and airy, but that was all I had to go on. “Thank you. I didn’t bring appropriate clothes for the North. I had no idea where the feeling was going to take me.”
He smiled, and the glasses slipped down his nose slightly. “Salem isn’t all that bad. It’s beautiful in the summer.”
“I doubt I’ll get to see it. I’m itching to get home as it is,” I told him truthfully.
His eyebrows pulled together as I walked past him and made my way to the door of the cafe. Bells rang when we walked in and Liam immediately grabbed the door to hold it open for me. I hung a right and took a booth alongside the windows that looked out onto the sidewalk. I could see the edge of the guys’ apartment from this vantage point which is where I’d learned some of their routines. At this time of day, they’d all be at class and Randy would be off at the gym. Then again, as Liam helpfully pointed out, it was Saturday and who knew what they were doing.
A waitress I hadn’t seen before walked up to greet us. She had on a Salem State shirt and barely looked up until she noticed Liam sitting there. “Oh hey,” she said. “It’s you. You know who I haven’t seen lately? The friend of yours with the…” She held her arms out like a muscle builder and clenched her fists. “Randy!” she said finally.
Liam’s cheeks reddened. It was obvious the girl didn’t even know his name, or care. A fire started in my belly while Liam pushed his glasses up his nose. “Oh, you know. He’s busy.” He gave the girl a polite smile.
The girl giggled, but it had nothing to do with Liam at all. Being a woman myself, I could tell she only wanted more information about Randy and it was pissing me off. Liam was getting all embarrassed over nothing. “Maybe you could tell him—”
“Maybe you could get us some menus,” I said, interrupting her blatant attempt at trying to get with Liam’s friend. “I’d love to eat sometime today.”
I gave her a big smile when she turned my way. Her eyes narrowed ever so slightly, but hell, I didn’t care. I hated the fact she was using Liam to get to Randy, which was why Randy thanked me for being so nice to him yesterday.
The girl turned and grabbed some menus off the counter and placed them in front of us. “I’ll give you guys a minute then.”
She retreated back around the counter. I watched as she walked, shoulders slumped over, and then stood by the coffee machine staring out the front windows. When I turned back to Liam, his eyebrows were halfway up his forehead. My lips immediately curved into a smile, and eventually, his did too. The fuller his smile got, the more relaxed I became and weirdly, my headache dissipated too. That feeling of belonging was ripe in my belly so when I looked away to read the menu, it wasn’t as if I was having breakfast with someone I just met, it was like having breakfast with an old friend, just getting together to catch up.
“So, Liam,” I ventured. We’d just ordered and since I’d snapped at her, the waitress had been pretty accommodating, even bringing over our drinks immediately. I took a big sip of my coffee. “Can you tell me more about your coven?”
Liam looked around and leaned in. I understood the feeling. Us magic users were outsiders already. Lots of times we didn’t want to be seen as more unusual than we already were. Finally, he looked down at the table between us and picked up a napkin. “Yeah, of course. It’s not really a secret in the magic world or anything. At least in ours. We’re members of the Order of the Akasha. It’s an order put together whose members believe in the act of harming no one above anything else. We’re also called Enforcers because we make sure that magic isn’t used for negative spells or by evil people.”
“How do you know it’s bad?”
“The feelings we get,” he said, inching ever so much closer. “No one knows why people are chosen for The Order and how they get chosen. It’s a magic thing,” he said, shrugging. “Gabe got pulled to us all the way from London.”
Well, that explains that, I said to myself.
“There are orders in the UK, too, but he was drawn here. Again, no one knows.”
“So weird,” I said, shaking my head. “I’ve never heard of it.”
He sat back in the booth, dropping the napkin. “And maybe you wouldn’t if no one you know has ever had anything to do with it. I myself had no idea.” His teeth ground together and he looked frustrated before continuing. “Gabe understood it. His grandfather was an Enforcer so when he first got the summons, his family was behind him one-hundred percent. He’s probably the one who had the smoothest transition out of all of us.”
“But not everybody has an ancestor who’s an Enforcer?” I shook my head. Magic sure didn’t try to make things easy for its user. Even with Granny and I, our powers were different from one another. She could only teach me so much as a lot of it is based on the individual witch.
“Some are. Some aren’t. I’ve looked into it and I really can’t find a rhyme or reason for anything.”
Liam’s brown eyes turned ruddy as he looked out the window. I couldn’t quite put a finger on his emotions, but it was evident there was something plaguing him.
“And you guys all get along?” I asked. They all seemed so different from one another. Liam, obviously the shy, thoughtful type, while Gabe was more outspoken, Randy more dangerous, and Travis just pissy. That was the only word that would come to mind.
“We have our moments,” Liam said, a slight tilt to his lips. “We do much better when there’s a fifth.” He brought his fingers up and interlocked them. “More cohesive when there are five of us.” He took one interlocking couple apart. “Recently, it’s like we have a missing link. It’s really strange to have a fifth not show up for so long. Once one of us got the call, the rest of us got the call within a month or so and we’ve been together ever since. It’s been months and…” Liam trailed off and ran his hand through his short hair. “I can’t say it’s been all sunshine and roses.”
“Wait. How long has it been?” I ventured, thinking about my own recent past. I’d been getting more irritable by the week. It started with cramps, then headaches, then the pull. I’d even gone to the doctors back home thinking it didn’t have anything to do with magic at all, but when the doc couldn’t find anything wrong with me, I knew there was something otherworldly going on.
“Six months,” Liam said. He shook his head as a shadow crept over his face.
I tried to keep the surprise from my face. Same for me. Could it be I was really supposed to be an Enforcer with these guys? The timeline matched up. When I started getting the magical symptoms, they’d lost their fifth. “How did you lose your fifth, Liam?” I asked, not believing it never occurred to me to ask until now. Seems like it was important when they talked about fighting evil people.
Liam shook his head. “Long story.”
“I’ve got time.”
He rubbed his temples, a gesture I’d found myself doing so often lately. I reached out and touched his elbow. He flinched away at first, possibly from the snap of electricity or just being caught unaware, but then he moved his elbow back into my outstretched hand, both of us relaxing.
Fuck me. I was a goner. The adorable shy kid had my heart racing.
Liam heaved a sigh. “Jax—he was our fifth. He broke our basic moral code, using magic to harm. Once that happens, it’s just a trial away from being cut off and stripped.”
“Stripped?”
“His powers,” Liam said. “We had to take his powers so he could never do it again.”
It felt as if all the air got sucked from the room. They took his powers. Everything. “What if he’d just made a mistake?”
Liam shook his head slowly
. “He didn’t just a mistake and even if he did, he knew better than anyone what would happen if he abused magic. He had no excuse.”
“But magic is a part of us,” I said, sitting up taller.
He lifted a shoulder. “It’s the price paid for using it in ways we aren’t meant to.”
The world swam in front of me as I tried to imagine my life without magic. Yet, here I was having breakfast with a guy who could take it away from me in an instant. Yes, these guys were scary. Very much so.
The bell above the door sounded. A split second later, a wave of nausea hit me so hard I doubled over, my fingertips clawing the Formica in front of me. My stomach twisted and knotted as if there was a little man inside driving a corkscrew through my intestines. “Son of a bitch!”
Liam made a guttural sound in the back of his throat. I had just a second to look up when he rose from his seat and turned toward the front door. Just on the other side of him, two men wearing all black ran up the aisle toward us. A scream worked its way up my throat.
6
Randy
Distracted all morning, I’d just sat down at the front desk of the gym I worked at after saying goodbye to my second client when a tremor started in my hands, worked its way up my forearms, through my chest, and down into my stomach. My core turned to knots, and I closed my eyes at the pain. Whenever it got this way, I always wondered why negative magic was always forewarned by pain to the Enforcers. Couldn’t we get a fucking text message, or something far less intrusive than gut-wrenching pain?
I looked around, doing my best to keep the pain inside, holding my face a mask of serenity, or so I’d hoped. I pulled out my cell phone and brought up Liam. As far as I knew, he was the only one who didn’t have anything going on today. Hopefully, he could get to the scene fast. The longer this drew out, the more pain we’d be in, and that sure as fuck wasn’t what I needed right now.
Gabe
One second I was running up the field, dribbling the checkered ball between my feet when the next, I was sprawled in the grass, effectively face-planting for the whole crowd to see. I turned on my side and clenched my stomach. Almost automatically, I thought to reach down and grab my ankle as well. The joke with my teammates was that I had soft bones. I was always getting injured for no recognizable reasons.
That was magic for ya.
Damn. I squeezed my eyes tight and lifted my head. The other team had already stolen the ball and were making a drive toward our goal. I pushed myself up and limped in that direction, not even bothering to look at Coach Red who was probably already waving at me from the sidelines to come out. Hopefully the other guys in the coven would have it taken care of in a few minutes.
Travis
Oh for fuck’s sake.
I tore my headphones from my ears and threw the buds down on the comforter. I groaned through the tight squeeze in my midsection. What the fuck? We hadn’t gotten a call like this in months. I was beginning to think our pre-warning system had gone whack since we’d lost Jax. We certainly weren’t as powerful as we’d once been.
Then Norah, fucking Norah shows up like she’s the answer to all our problems. I didn’t know who I was more mad at, the guys, or the universe.
I pulled the covers from my legs and stuck my feet into the shoes waiting for me just by the edge of the bed. Randy was at work, Gabe had a game. Liam had left earlier, and I wasn’t sure where the hell he’d gone off to, but he was the only other one who could get there right away besides me.
I picked my cell phone up off the desk and sent him a quick text: Meet u there.
7
“Get down, Norah!”
The cafe exploded around us. Menus, napkins, condiments—anything that was lightweight flew through the air. Chairs scraped against old linoleum as the magic in the space grew. A ketchup bottle that stood on the counter spun toward Liam’s head. On instinct, I shot my hand out, stopping it in midair and sending it to the ground. Liam’s eyebrows rose and sent me a quick backward glance. Yeah, that’s right, hot chocolate wasn’t the only thing I could send through the air.
I scooted to the end of the booth, still trying to keep my head as low as possible. The two men, obviously magic wielders as well, sent spell after spell in Liam’s direction. He countered each one, and after only a minute, the small cafe that was always so quaint and tidy, looked like an earthquake had demolished it. All the while, the pain in my stomach grew. I’d never dealt with anything like this before. Granny’s voodoo didn’t send objects through the air with the attempt to maim. She was a healer, a protector. Her spells were at one with nature, but this was nothing like that. Granny wouldn’t approve at all. She wasn’t even keen on my voodoo shop back home. “Magic shouldn’t be used to trick. It should—”
The shattering of glass brought me out of my reverie. I ducked and shards of the glass wall to our left cascaded over our heads. What in the actual fuck?
I stood, anger swelling within me. This is what the Order had to deal with all the time? Fuck no. “Sleep!” I screamed.
The surrounding chaos subsided in an instant. A coffee mug spun in midair, its trajectory blown off by my spell. It hovered for a few seconds before crashing to the floor. Beyond that, one of the men whose hand was outstretched as if he’d sent the coffee mug our way, wobbled. His hand fell to his waist and then he took a nosedive for the black-and-white checkered floor. The other man in the dark suit followed like he was the next in line of a Dominos trail.
To my left, Liam swayed on his feet. I reached out and caught him right before his body gave out. With my hands hooked under his arms, I gave him a quick shake. “Liam,” I whispered. “Wake up.”
His eyes drooped then shuttered open. He looked around, then scrambled to his feet. “Norah? Are you okay? What the hell?”
I motioned to the two men in front of us. “The only thing I could think of was to tell them to go to sleep. They did, but it seemed to stop everything else as well.” The poor cafe. Tables were turned over. The whole glass window was shattered, splinters of jagged edges remained in the sill, but everything else was cracked and blown off. I bent at the waist and shook my head. Little bits of glass tinkled to the floor. Liam did the same, and I reached out to help him pick the glass out. “My magic’s never been that good,” I told him, in awe myself at what I’d accomplished.
“Being with your coven makes you stronger,” he mused.
My heart thumped loudly in my chest. “I’m not a part of your coven. Voodoo doesn’t do that, Liam. If the Akasha wants me as part of the Order, they’re insane because it isn’t going to happen. I like my parlor tricks back in New Orleans, thank you very much.”
As if he hadn’t heard me, Liam stepped toward our two intruders. The closest guy’s nose was broken. Bright red blood spilled onto the floor while the other one had a big gash on his forehead where he’d cracked it off a booth on the way to the ground. My stomach rolled, but the twist in my stomach had started to subside. Magic pulled back like the changing of the tides and within a few moments, the cafe felt like it had on every other day I’d been here. Not a whiff of anything ‘other’ in the air.
I gripped the side of the booth as Liam leaned down next to our not-so-friendly duo. “What the fuck was that even?” I asked.
He shrugged, then finally reached out and rolled the first guy to his back. He was younger than I expected, probably barely into college, and in fact, he wore a Salem State hoodie much like the one I had of Liam’s currently snuggled around me.
“He’s not a magic user,” Liam said, his voice the tiniest bit shaky. He got to his feet and knelt down next to guy number two, rolling him also to his back. He put a hand to his forehead like I’d seen him do with the other and shook his head, tiny frown lines appearing between his eyebrows. “Neither is he.”
“Well, they certainly were for a second there. How else would you explain the flying objects?”
Running feet thudded against the sidewalk until they slowed just outside the shattered picture w
indow. Fuck. Whoever that was would call the police and here we were, stuck inside the cafe with no way of explaining what actually happened. A mini panic attack clawed at my throat and my feet itched to move.
“Liam? Liam?” a male voice called out.
The tension in Liam’s shoulders subsided. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s Travis.”
“Holy fuck,” I said, relief spreading through me.
“In here,” Liam called out, tiptoeing through the carnage left over.
Travis’s footsteps crunched the glass out on the sidewalk and then the same bell above the door sounded, announcing Attitude’s presence. “You’re kidding me?”
I looked up, noticing his sneer directed at me. Liam stepped into my view, effectively blocking his infuriating demeanor. Like any of this was my fault. I wasn’t an Enforcer, or a part of the Order, and I sure as hell didn’t go around having magical fights all the time. He pointed to the two bodies on the ground. “Two out. Non-magic users but you wouldn’t know it by what they were throwing at us. There’s at least one waitress somewhere behind the counter and I don’t know how many kitchen personnel in the back.”
“What happened to all of them?”
“Norah put them to sleep.”
Travis made a ridiculous snort in the back of his throat. “All of them?”
“Yeah,” Liam said, his voice rising. “All of them. At the same time.”
I didn’t even bother trying to see if Travis looked impressed or not. He probably wasn’t capable of any other emotion other than pissy.
“I’ll go get the car,” he said, glass crunching under his feet again as he turned in a circle. “We’ll get these guys to headquarters so we can interrogate. When I get back, we’ll put this right again and wake up everybody.”
