A Witch's Magic

by N. E. Conneely

  They were far from the only ones. On the other side of the store, a large man was pacing back and forth, talking to himself. Near him, another woman appeared to be asleep on her feet. At the tables behind them, four people behaved as oddly as the rest. Two girls were sharing a table, and they seemed to be typing so fast the computer couldn’t even register the keystrokes. The other two tables each had one person, a scowling elderly woman and a crying young man.

  I cracked open my shields, intending to extend a tiny tendril of magic, but I didn’t even get that far. The entire room was overflowing with some type of magic, similar to what I’d seen at Happy Paws and The Creamery. Like those jobs, I would need help.

  Trying not to attract any attention, I backed out the door, closed it quietly, and then fished my cell phone out of my purse. Rather than hope my usual contact Officer Rodriguez was available, I simply dialed 9-1-1.

  A crisp, female voice floated across the phone. “Cherokee County 911, what is your emergency?”

  “Hello, I’m Michelle Oaks, a witch and consultant with the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office. I’m calling because there seems to be some type of magical emergency at Roasted Beans, the coffee shop in the old downtown district. I’m afraid I don’t know the exact address.”

  “Don’t worry about the address, I can pull that up.” There was a short pause. “Ms. Oaks, I have verified your status with the sheriff’s office. Is there anyone you would like to have respond to this call?”

  I knew who I wanted, but I wasn’t really sure what was needed here. “It would be ideal if Officer Rodriguez could get here. Other than that, backup of any kind, preferably officers with some magical sensitivity, and certainly with magic nullifying handcuffs. I have not yet ascertained the cause of the incident, but there are about fifteen people in this building, and all of them are going to need some type of magical assistance.”

  “I’ll see if Officer Rodriguez is available.”

  “Thank you.” A car pulled out of the drive through line, tired of waiting. I squinted, trying to see through tinted glass doors. I hadn’t thought to look at the drive-through window or considered how many people might have been infected by whatever was going on here and then driven off to cause trouble somewhere else. Hopefully, it was localized inside the building, or this would be quite the mess.

  “Do you need me to stay on the phone until backup arrives?”

  “No. I’m going to see if I can solve some of this.”

  “Good luck.”

  “Thanks.” I had a feeling I was going to need it. I hung up the phone and tucked it in my purse, my mind already focused on the job.

  If I wanted to do my best to contain this, I couldn’t let the people who were in the drive-through leave until I was sure they were safe. Since I didn’t have a badge, I doubted the drivers would all listen to me just because I said so. While I might be able to come up with the power to put a big shield spell around the building and parking lot, that wouldn’t leave me much for the rest of the emergency. Plus, it would take even more energy to construct the spell so the police could get in but no one else could get out. That meant I would have to get clever, and probably irritate a few people.

  Keeping one eye on the entrance in case another car came in, I walked across the parking lot until I could see most of the cars in the drive-through line. With a twist of my wrist, I summoned my wand. Then I focused on the ground under the cars. “Orzu.”

  The ground softened under the cars, and their tires slowly sank. When they were deep enough in the earth that I didn’t think the cars would be able to force their way out, I solidified the ground. “Fehu.”

  Then I circled around to the last two cars that were next to the windows and repeated the process with them. This would irritate the drivers to no end, but it was easy enough to undo once the problems here were resolved.

  With the people in the drive-through dealt with, I walked over to the entrance to the parking lot. Using my wand, I carefully drew the words “POLICE LINE: DO NOT CROSS” in the air. When I was satisfied with the spacing of the letters and it fully spanned the entrance and exit, I pointed my wand at it. “Wunho.” The letters began to glow red.

  That was all I could do out here. I stopped by my car and locked my purse inside. Tucking my keys in my back pocket, I braced myself for what I was about to find in the building. I opened the door with my wand in my hand, ready to cast a spell.

  If anything, it had gotten more chaotic. The crying was louder. There was an argument breaking out between the man who had been pacing and the formerly asleep woman.

  Taking a deep breath, I sent out a tendril of energy to the person closest to me, the woman still slouched over crying. My probe didn’t find anything in the air around her. If I thought any of these people were rational, I would’ve asked for permission before probing them for magic, but I didn’t think they were in their right mind because of whatever magic had been done to them. I carefully touched the probe to her shoulder.

  Ah, there it was. The magic was inside of her. But it seemed to be moving, as if the spell hadn’t really settled into being. Even though it was in flux, I got hints of what it was trying to do. It was creating the emotions. It was actively making the woman feel sorrow.

  I pulled the probe away from her and directed it towards the man. He was still frantically writing his list over and over and over again. At this point, the paper was almost blue from pen marks. I repeated the same process with the probe, first hovering above him and then touching him. As before, I didn’t feel anything in the air around him but got a sense of the spell as soon as the probe made contact with his skin. It had the same unfinished feel as the spell on the woman, but this one seemed to be creating obsession with his current task.

  Someone grabbed my arm, breaking my concentration. I lost track of the probe, and my shield snapped into place. I pivoted, looking at the elderly woman with a hand clenched around my sleeve. She had curly blue hair and an expression that meant business.

  She scowled at me. “What are you doing? Don’t you know we need help?”

  “Ma’am, I’m doing my very best.” I didn’t even get a chance to continue before she started scolding me.

  “All you have done since you got here is stand right there and stare at those two people. That does not help. We need help. Something is wrong.” Her eyes went wide at the end.

  I took a deep breath and reached over to try and pry her fingers off my sleeve. “Ma’am, please let me explain. I’m a witch. There’s a magical disturbance at work in this coffee shop.” And that was as far as I got.

  “I don’t care if you’re a witch! You need to help us.” Her fingers tightened as she spoke.

  I took a deep breath, trying not to get frustrated with this poor woman who was clearly at the spell’s mercy. “I am trying to. You are interrupting me.”

  She let go of my sleeve and grabbed my hand. The spell pushed against me, and I could feel it morphing inside her. This time, it had ramped up her anxiety and brought her to this state. There had to be something I could do.

  I tuned out her renewed scolding as I tried to figure out a spell to help her. Maybe if I just put her to sleep. “Mannaz.”

  I may have put a little too much behind the spell, because she collapsed as if she’d been stuck with a tranquilizer. I caught her and slowly lowered her to the ground, leaning her against the wall by the couple I had been examining before she had interrupted me.

  A roar came from my left.

  I whirled around, wand in hand. The man who’d been pacing and arguing with the woman had his head thrown back, his throat working as he roared again. I’d heard that roar before, and it chilled me right down to my very bones.

  Before I could do anything else, his shape twisted, and his clothes ruptured at the seams, falling to the floor. Where he’d been, there was now a fully grown male black bear. He opened his mouth, showing off an impressive set of teeth, and roared for the third time.

  Beside him, the wo
man collapsed to the ground. I couldn’t tell from here if she was passed out or asleep again, but it really didn’t matter. This day, which hadn’t started great, had just gotten exponentially worse.

  Then my brain kicked back into gear. I was standing in a room with more than fifteen innocent people and a werebear who was a victim of magical influence, and he was angry. I had to contain him before he caused problems for anyone else.

  I shouted the very first spell that came to mind. “Sowil!”

  A containment spell popped into being around the black bear. He swung his head away from the woman in towards me. I wasn’t sure that part was progress, but he seemed to be captured for the moment.

  Taking a deep breath, I quickly glanced around the room. The man who’d been yelling on the phone was peeking out from behind the counter, along with three of the baristas. One of them was still collapsed across the cash register. No one else had reacted. They were so heavily influenced by the magic that they hadn’t noticed the bear.

  I returned my gaze to the bear as he lifted up a giant paw. The claws at the end of his toes were truly terrifying claws. He swatted at the containment spell.

  This spell should’ve been immune to physical damage. No mere bear should’ve been able to get through it. Or that’s what I told myself.

  The spell wobbled as his paw impacted it. When he moved back, I could see four gashes in the spell where his claws had ripped right through it. Yep, this day officially sucked.

  He poked his nose at the shredded remains and managed to shove part of his face through. He leaned forward until his shoulders were touching the spell. After a moment, the spell just melted away.

  This time, I tried the same spell that had worked earlier, though I threw a bit more power into it. “Mannaz!”

  He sat back on his haunches and shook his head. Then he shook his head again, as if disoriented. Well, that was an improvement over terrorizing people. Though I wasn’t going to feel good about him until he’d been rid of the spell and was back to himself again.

  The werebear might have stayed sitting, but the woman woke up. Upon seeing the bear, she let out a scream that would’ve done a banshee proud. With that, what portion of the sleep spell that had been working was broken. The bear lunged to his feet, stretching out his nose as he did so.

  Since I was oh-for-two on spells, I had to figure out something else quick, because the last thing I wanted to see was a werebear eat a woman because they were both under the influence of magic.

  I wracked my brain for something else. “Ropes,” I whispered, trying to remember the rune. “Algiz!”

  The magical ropes snaked around the bear, and in a fraction of a second, they had him tussled up. All four of his feet were tied together, and his snout was tied shut.

  I held my breath, hoping that this spell would finally hold him.

  Something hit me from behind, knocking me forward. Three quick steps later, I regained my balance and whirled around with my wand in the air.

  A slender man in a police officer’s uniform with pointed ears and gray brown skin yanked off his sunglasses. “Sorry, Ms. Oaks. Couldn’t see you through the door. What seems to be…” He finally spotted the bear, and that seemed to answer that question for me.

  My gaze followed his. The ropes were holding the werebear, so at least that spell was going well. I turned my attention back to Officer Kent. I was rather surprised to see him on this particular call, as it was still the middle of the day, and he was a dark elf. They didn’t usually do so well in bright daylight, which was why he been wearing sunglasses. “I’m surprised they sent you.”

  He made a face. “On call, and I live fairly close. Dispatch said they are having trouble all over town, and I was the closest one with ‘magic.’ Do you know what happened?”

  “I’m not sure. I stopped by to get a cup of tea and found the place like this.” I found my eyes drawn back to the werebear. “Okay, the bear was still in human form, but you get the idea.”

  Officer Kent took in the room, from the woman I’d knocked unconscious, to the couple at the table who were still doing what they’d been doing since I got here, to the three catatonic people. The man who’d been screaming into the phone was still huddled behind the counter, as were the three baristas. The three people remaining behind the werebear were either typing or crying as they had been before. It was very unsettling that most of the people hadn’t even noticed the bear.

  “Have you managed to ascertain what’s affecting these individuals?” Officer Kent asked.

  “Not really. It seems to be some type of spell that has yet to settle into specific form. I suspect they ingested it, but I’m not sure yet. Oh, and it reacts unpredictably with magic. So, I don’t know how long those ropes on the bear over there will last.”

  As soon as I said that, Officer Kent got out his radio and started requesting medical teams and a team to take care of an out-of-control werebear. I hoped that last request wasn’t one he made every day.

  While he was busy, I kept my eyes on the bear. So far, the rope seemed to be holding, but I wasn’t going to probe them and potentially mess up whatever balance they had with the magic inside of him. The woman was passed out again. That was one less thing to worry about right now.

  “Ms. Oaks,” Officer Kent said, “do you think you can remove the spell from these people?”

  Before I could answer, a woman barged through the doors to the coffee shop. She was absolutely as neat as a pin. Her hair was carefully combed, no single strand out of place, crisp creases in her slacks, and a suit jacket over her red blouse. Though the angry scowl dominating her face was more compelling than her suit. “Officer, I need to report a crime. Someone sunk the tires of my car into the road, and it will not move.”

  “Where was this?” Officer Kent glanced at me.

  I tipped my head away from the woman, hoping he’d get the hint and excuse the two of us to talk for a moment.

  “In the drive-through.” Her voice went up in pitch. “If I can’t leave soon I’ll be late to a meeting with a client.”

  Officer Kent lowered his voice. “Ma’am, give me just a moment. I need to consult my colleague, and then I can address your concerns.”

  He stepped over to where the three catatonic people were still laying on the floor. I followed while the incredibly tidy lady glared at us.

  “Was there something you want to say, Ms. Oaks?”

  I look him straight in the eye and hoped he’d understand exactly why I’d done what I’d done, or I might be getting a trip to jail tonight. “I needed to ensure that no one left the premises after being exposed to the spell. Since I have yet to figure out what’s causing this problem, I was worried it could be transferred to the people in the drive-through, and then both your fellow officers and I would get to chase it all across town. So, to prevent that scenario, I sank the cars. I can reverse it, but we need to clear all those people before they leave, right?”

  Officer Kent closed his eyes and took a deep breath before looking at me. “Ms. Oaks, are you sure you can get those cars out without doing any damage to them?”

  “Yes.” I mean, I’d never actually freed that many cars before, but I’d used the spell plenty, and it had always worked in the past.

  “All right, then. I’ll deal with the angry drive-through customers while you figure out what’s going on in here.” Rather than give me time to argue with him, he marched back over to the woman tapping her foot.

  With a sigh, I looked down at the three catatonic people underfoot. Maybe I hadn’t handled everything properly, but I couldn’t figure out what else I should’ve done. I didn’t have the same authority he did. I didn’t carry a badge. I was a witch.

  That’s right. I was a witch, and it was my job to figure out what happened to these poor people. With that thought, I actually saw the three catatonic people. All three of them had their eyes closed. Since I could see their chests moving from time to time, they seemed to be breathing just fine. From the way the
y had fallen, slightly on top of one another, with limbs tangled, I thought it looked like they had been suddenly reduced to unconsciousness.

  Plus, there was a puddle of coffee under the three of them. That made the sudden collapse assumption even more likely. People didn’t willingly drop coffee they’d just purchased. Even if they did drop the coffee, they didn’t lay down and take a nap in it.

  One of the coffee cups burbled out a bit more of the dark fluid. Now that was a waste. Leaning over, I snagged it off the ground. Two stars and the word energy caught my attention. That was how the shop marked drinks if they were getting a pump of a magical ingredient. Though a boost of energy didn’t explain why these people were unconscious.

  Or maybe it did. There was always a chance for magic to go wrong. Sometimes when it went wrong, it went very, very wrong.

  On a hunch, I picked up another one of the coffee cups. It also mentioned energy, so I picked up the third. In an extremely surprising turn of events, it also had a note for an energy boost of the magical variety.

  Now, two could be coincidence, but three was most definitely a pattern. I glanced around the shop. There were actually quite a few coffee cups still around, as if people started them but didn’t finish them or weren’t aware enough to put them in the trash. Cracking my shields open just a little bit, I extended a tendril into the cups. A spell swirled, a much more concentrated version of what I’d felt in the man and woman I’d probed. The spell seemed to be in the process of changing from an energy-boosting spell to a sleeping spell. That would explain a lot.

  I carefully set the three cups on the shelf and hurried over to the table with the crying woman and the man still frantically making a list. Even without probing the two cups, I could feel the magic as I picked them up. The woman’s cup listed a magical boost of joy, while the man’s cup mentioned a quarter shot of disinterest.

  So far, everyone had shown essentially the opposite reaction to what was listed on the cup near them. The guy had asked for a little disinterest and gotten a lot of obsession. The woman had asked for some joy and ended up sobbing. My three sleeping beauties over there had asked for some energy. In fact, I was willing to bet that almost everyone in the shop had consumed a beverage that was supposed to have one effect and was instead having a very different affect.