Something Wicked

by Robin Moray

  It was a place of power. Kevin could feel the power rise as the sun went down, as the light dimmed to dusk. That was the time, here, no more romantic time for teenagers than the illicitness of twilight, that was when this place flared bright like a beacon, ready to be tapped. That's why the ghosts stuck around. With any luck, they might see one. Or, Kevin might. Who knew, with Peter.

  Peter came over, and Kevin tried not to stare too openly at the keen way he moved, his long loping stride. He sat down close by Kevin's side. "That stone. How long has that been there?"

  "Long as I can remember," Kevin said, though he knew it was only eighteen years or so. Nanna Abigail had raised it up, because the energy that gathered here tended to make lovesick teenagers think dangerous thoughts, and she wouldn't have any of that. "It's supposed to appease the ghosts. I think."

  "It's certainly supposed to do something," Peter muttered, and Kevin's heart leaped because of course he could tell. Witch-hunter, don't forget.

  The realization made him lose concentration and he shuddered, the cold suddenly soaking his skin. Peter glanced at him, frowned.

  "You're shivering. Are you cold?"

  "Yeah, but it's okay," Kevin told him, but at that moment he felt the constant, subtle draw on his magic just stop, and Peter's face went suddenly contrite.

  "I'm sorry, you … will you take my coat?"

  "Oh, God no, don't," Kevin stammered, catching Peter's sleeve. Way to make him feel like he was back in highschool. "I'm a grown-up, I can cope with my own stupid choices."

  Peter didn't look at all convinced. "There's a blanket in the car, let me—"

  He turned, and that's when they both saw her.

  She was standing on the far side of the clearing, and, oh for fuck's sake, she was a cliche in black, long black sleeves and long black skirts and black hair in a tangle to her shoulders. Her face stood out pale against all the black, purplish in the fading light, and he couldn't see her eyes but he felt the moment they caught his, felt it like a slap in the face.

  Kevin knew what she wasn't at once, not a ghost and not normal. It wasn't until the acrid tang of corrupt magic caught in his throat that he was sure, though, what she was.

  Everything happened very fast. Peter threw out a hand, pushing Kevin behind him, and then the air was fire. It lasted less than a heartbeat, Peter's aura flaring like a dark sun to snuff it out, and then he was moving, one hand going into his jacket for—was that a gun? Kevin shoved himself to his feet. There was a snap like the sky breaking, and Kevin was almost blinded by the flare of wards ringing out across the valley, sweeping down to wrap all three of them in sticky gold webs strong as steel cable.

  Kevin swore as the ward wrapping around his leg tugged him off-balance; he went down, catching his skull on the edge of the bench as he fell. It hurt. He didn't bother struggling. These were Bella's wards, and no way he could break them. He jerked his head up, though, to keep the witch-hunter and the warlock in view. How the hell was he going to explain this?

  Peter—Kevin watched in fascinated horror as Peter casually picked apart the net of wards holding him captive, brushing them away like cobwebs. He shook his coat, stamped his feet, and then he was within three feet of the witch with his hand outstretched.

  The witch screamed. There was a sound like a thunderclap and Kevin thought his head was going to cave in from the sudden change in pressure.

  How it hurt. Kevin squeezed his eyes shut, and when he opened them the witch was gone, Peter standing alone by the edge of the clearing, shoulders wrenched in frustration.

  Kevin sucked in a breath. Okay. That was … holy shit.

  But then Peter was loping across the uneven ground, back to where Kevin was sprawled against the bench, still holding something black and dangerous in his hand.

  "Are you all right?" He knelt down, his free hand smoothing over Kevin's shoulder, peeling the wards away as if they were nothing. It was, all the rest aside, the most terrifying thing Kevin had ever seen in his life, just the ease with which the magic parted up under his fingers.

  Kevin filed it away to freak out about later because, more immediately—"Is that a gun?"

  Peter blinked at him, before holding it up. "No. Just a taser. Here, I'll put it away." He tucked it into his jacket, and then he helped Kevin up, which was mortifying. Kevin tried to push him away but Peter refused to let him go until he was sitting up on the bench by himself.

  "I'm fine, really, you don't have to … anything."

  "You're bleeding," Peter said. "I've a first-aid kit in the car. Can you walk?"

  It was strange, Kevin thought, how neither one of them was willing to talk about what just happened. Peter waited until Kevin was sitting sideways in the passenger seat, legs slung over the side, and then he insisted on cleaning up a deep cut just shy of Kevin's hairline on the left-hand side.

  "I think I hit the bench when I fell," Kevin said sheepishly, though his head ached.

  "When I pushed you," Peter disagreed, that apologetic look on his face again. "I'm sorry. I … overreacted."

  Kevin couldn't help his snort. "No you didn't. You reacted. It's different." Okay, this was it. "So, that wasn't a ghost."

  "No."

  Peter hesitated, obviously considering how to lie about this. He took a small phial out of the first-aid kit, wet a cotton ball with it and swiped it over Kevin's face. The stuff stung a little, but then his skin went deliciously cool, which was when Kevin realized that his hands and face were still smarting with the flashover of that whatever-it-was the witch cast and Peter snuffed out. Which meant he had spirit-burn, and the stuff in the phial was St John's Wort. It explained the smell.

  "Just a … maybe a hallucination. And an earth-tremor."

  Kevin couldn't help it; he snorted. "Uh, no. Because I definitely saw the same hallucination. I think. What did you see?"

  Peter frowned, still wiping over Kevin's face, around his ears and down his neck. It was, actually, incredibly intimate, for two people who only met today. Kevin wasn't about to argue, though, because it felt nice and, anyway, he had a feeling Peter wouldn't listen. "I didn't see anything. It was an earthquake, and I knocked you down, and you hit your head when you fell. Embarrassing, but nothing out of the ordinary."

  Kevin felt his face twist in disbelief. "Okay, well, I saw something. Guess it was just me, then."

  "You didn't see anything," Peter insisted, and his hand came up under Kevin's chin, holding him still. "Look at me." His voice had gone cool and firm, and his eyes … Kevin had to concentrate not to just get sucked into them. "You didn't see anything supernatural. Just an earthquake."

  It was too funny. "What, you're a Jedi?" Immediately he regretted it. It might have been better to pretend that whatever Peter had been trying to do was working, but Kevin had a feeling he couldn't have pulled that off. Better to run with this. "I saw something. Don't tell me you didn't, 'cos I don't believe you. Thought you'd be into the supernatural, if you're writing a book about it."

  For a moment Peter looked surprised, then conflicted. He wet another cotton ball, and started wiping down Kevin's hands. That was even worse than the neck had been, Kevin decided, because, well, hands, and the wealth of magic between them.

  Peter was silent for a little while, then—

  "What do you think you saw?"

  Kevin took a breath. Cards, table. Okay. "I think I saw something … magic."

  Peter shook his head. "You think."

  "Okay, you tell me what it was, then? And why I've got … whatever you're doing that for." He held up the hand Peter hadn't started on yet, flexing his fingers. The spirit burn gleamed silvery white on his skin like slug-tracks, and he knew the St John's Wort was to stop it festering but … how much, he wondered, would he be able to see if he was normal? What would all that have looked like to a normal person?

  "I can't." Peter took the hand, held it down, rubbed it with the damp cotton. "I can't explain it to you. It's all too … it's complicated."

  "Okay,
let me try." Kevin tipped his head back, thinking. Huh. If I were me, what would I think? "That was an evil mage, and it attacked us because you're some kind of warrior of light who fights evil and dark magic and stuff. Because, you didn't look surprised by any of that, and a normal person would be. And you've got a taser. That's pretty 'warrior of light' don't you think?"

  Peter stared at him. "How on earth did you come up with that?"

  The urge to confess was strong, but Kevin kept a leash on it. "I read a lot of books." He shivered then, the adrenaline wearing off, and Peter frowned at him.

  "All right, I'm taking you home."

  "Back into town," Kevin argued. The last thing he needed was to take a witch-hunter to the witch house full of witches that he lived in. "And you're explaining on the way."

  Peter made an exasperated noise that, for one horrible moment, reminded Kevin of Artemis. "If I must," he said, finally, dropping a hand to the seat by Kevin's thigh, close enough Kevin could feel the warmth through the denim of his jeans. "But, tomorrow. If you are free tomorrow, I will tell you everything."

  Kevin nodded, and then, because he couldn't help it, "Don't skip town in the night."

  Peter's smile was reluctant, but real. "You have my word."

  Chapter 5

  By the time Peter dropped him back at the shop, still stern and worried and more harried than he'd been all day, Kevin's phone had practically buzzed a hole in his pocket. He wasn't at all surprised.

  Bella just about screamed down the line when he called her back. "What the hell happened? Kevin, where are you? I scryed for you and it came up blank, Kevin, just nothing! Do you know how that feels?"

  "No? Sorry. I guess maybe Peter's aura—"

  "You're with the," she stopped short, and then, "him?"

  "No, he's gone. Listen—"

  "What did you do, Kevin? I know you were going up to the Point, I tightened the wards just in case, and they triggered, Kevin, were you there?"

  "Yes, jeez, let me tell you! There was the warlock and she did something—it was like the air was on fire—and Peter just snuffed it out. And then he walked through your wards like, like, smoke."

  Bella was silent for a moment. "What happened to the warlock?"

  "Not sure. I think, though, she might've … translocated."

  And Bella was silent again. "What. That's impossible."

  "I think she tapped the Point for power," Kevin insisted. "It was dusk. The Point was, like, full to the brim. I reckon even I could do something, you know, big with that."

  "Maybe," Bella mused.

  "Anyway," Kevin snapped, irritated, "I saw the murderer. The warlock."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Yes! Trust me, it was her. I saw her. And," crap, he'd forgotten. "I think she saw me."

  "Kevin!"

  There was a muffled crash in the background, a scream, some banging, and then Artemis' voice came over the phone, surface calm underlaid with tension. "Kevin, please come home. I'd like you to take me up to the Point and go over what you saw. If that's not too much trouble."

  "Is Bella okay?"

  "She's fine. She broke a vase, though, so you can understand that she's quite upset right now. So please hurry. Try not to get distracted by witch-hunters, will you?"

  And he hung up. Kevin glared at the phone for a moment before considering the fact that he didn't want to buy a new one because he'd set this one on fire, and tensions seemed to be running high for everyone, if Bella had been upset enough to break a vase.

  * * *

  Peter sat in the car, hands on the wheel, staring through the window and just, well, staring.

  He'd seen her. Her. Just as corrupted and monstrous as he remembered. Those eyes, how they burned inside.

  Kevin had seen her too. Peter scrubbed a hand over his face, feeling the heat of blood in his cheeks. How awful. And Kevin had seen more than just a woman at the edge of a clearing, had known something was happening even if he did not yet know what. How calmly he'd taken it, how easily he'd permitted Peter to salve him and tend his wound. And how the essence of him had sung when Peter touched him.

  Those smiles. They were in no way seductive, they were too honest for that. And perhaps it was just a little harmless flirting, and maybe it was more, and maybe less, but whatever it was now Kevin had asked and Peter was going to have to tell him.

  He'd never done this before. He tried to remember how Miranda had said it. He'd thought her cold, but he had been numb then, the burn of the rope still aching on his throat, his hands still shaking. Another woman might have offered him a stiff drink, but not Miranda. She'd simply put his hands on his shoulders and caught him in her steely grey gaze and said, "Magic is real. Witches are real. One of them tried to kill you." And then she had smiled, her mouth thin and brittle as glass. "I'll take care of him myself. Unless you've got the stones to help me."

  Mercy, if he had known then—but no, he would still say yes, if he had it over again. And he had not had the stones for it back then, but surely he did now.

  Did Kevin? He was so young, so fresh, beautifully unsullied. Not innocent, quite, but still Peter did not want to be the one who dirtied him (except, if he was honest, in certain ways that did not bear thinking about just now). But to tell him all this …

  Still, he had such a feeling about Kevin, one that came perhaps from somewhere nobler than appreciation for a pair of pretty green eyes. Something about him suggested that, yes, he would hear Peter out and, yes, he would believe him, and perhaps even agree to help him.

  And if he does, will you teach him everything you know? The thought was unnervingly appealing. You were a competent teacher, once. He had been. Better than competent, he knew.

  But. Kevin. Could he? Was it fair to draw him into this twilight world, one foot in the mundane and the other bracing open the door to the supernatural? And yet, now he had his teeth into it, Kevin would not let it go, Peter knew with a sudden staggering clarity. He was not the sort to shy away from things so secret and strange.

  Peter could go. He could drive out of Haversham, could be back in the city tomorrow, could sleep in his own bed with his own sheets. Kevin would never have to know anything more, could live in blissful ignorance of the dangers surrounding him.

  But the witch would kill again, and Kevin already knew too much to be left so helplessly ignorant.

  So. This is how it happens, he thought. God, this wasn't how he'd imagined it.

  Tomorrow, he resigned himself, turning the key in the ignition, I'll tell him everything.

  * * *

  The second he stepped over the threshold, Bella cannonballed into him. "Heavens, Kevin, I was worried! Don't you dare worry me like that again!"

  He hugged her back, her magic wrapping comfortably around his like a blanket. "I'm sorry! You knew I was okay, though. Right? Like … I always know you're all right." They all did. They were a coven, that's how it worked.

  "I knew you were alive," she snapped, glaring up at him. "You could have been all sorts of things, and still alive."

  Which he had to concede. So, yeah, he really did need to apologise again.

  But Bella was frowning. "Kevin, what have you … did you do magic today?"

  "No? Oh, I mean, yeah, this morning. I just," and he shrugged, embarrassed. "Had to get a cat out of a tree. I don't know how they get stuck, I mean, they know how to get down, they just freak out up there sometimes."

  "No, not like that. You're all out of sync." She tugged him into the hall, examining him critically. "You feel weird."

  "I got spirit burn," he admitted. "Up at the Point." He showed her one of his hands. "Peter put St John's Wort on it, though."

  "Stop calling him that. And what do you mean he put St John's Wort on it? Oh God, Kevin, what did you tell him?"

  "Nothing! He just … he tried to pretend it didn't happen, I think he tried some kind of mind wipe on me, too—" but Bella was staring at him. She grabbed his chin, pulling him down level with her.

  "You
've got hearts in your eyes." She sounded horrified. "You do. Artie!"

  Artemis breezed into the entryway, holding a duffel bag. "Here! Ready, let's go."

  "No, look. Look at his eyes."

  Artemis blinked, took off his glasses, and peered into Kevin's face. Kevin shrugged, uncomfortable under all this scrutiny. "Listen," he tried, but now Artemis had pulled such a scandalized face he couldn't really think of anything to say.

  "You've got hearts in your eyes!"

  "I don't," Kevin protested, but Artemis dismissed it with a wave.

  "Yes you do. Good grief, did you touch her?"

  That made no sense. "What?"

  "The witch, Kevin! Did you touch her?"

  "Of course I didn't fucking touch her! She tried to set me on fire, I was yards away!"

  "Then," Artemis reached out, pressed his palm flat against Kevin's chest for a moment, and then recoiled. "I don't understand."

  Bella, though, had gone grim. "Did you let the witch-hunter touch you?"

  "Yeah?" Kevin shrugged again, confused. "Does it matter?"

  "Oh my gawd," Artemis groaned, sinking melodramatically against the wall as if he were going to faint. "You're in love with him."

  "You can't fall in love in a day!" Kevin argued.

  Bella shook her head, stern and awful. "Yes you can. You can. You're a witch, Kevin, even if you're not very strong. You can definitely fall in love in a day."

  'Not very strong'. By which she meant, 'not very good' and he scowled, sick to death of it. "Bullshit. I don't know what you're talking about, and it's bullshit anyway!" He backed out onto the front porch and stamped a foot impatiently. "Come on, then! Did you want to go up the fucking Point or not?"

  He'd thought it was done, then, but when they got in the car Artemis climbed in the back seat with him and reached for his hand. "All right, Kevin. You can feel my magic, can't you?"

  Kevin rolled his eyes. "Yes. Of course I can. I'm not five."