My Favorite Witch

by Lisa Plumley

Holy shit. Somehow, she’d gathered all the disappointment she’d felt over her disastrous first day at cusping-witch school and channeled it into a pack of killer cottonseeds.

  In a way, they were her…and they were out to get her.

  With another shriek, Dayna ran in the bathroom. She yelled out every spell she could think of, but still the seeds pursued her. She heard them scour the door, the walls, the tiled floor. She yelped and jumped into the bathtub, then pulled the curtain.

  A shower of seeds hit it. They fell to the floor, then surged upward again. In disbelief, Dayna stared at their shadows on the semitransparent shower curtain as they surged against it.

  An instant later, another shadow loomed. It was big. It was broad-shouldered. It was unmistakably male. Against all reason, Dayna begged with fate to let it be that tough-as-nails tracer, T.J. McAllister, come to her rescue. But another worried glance told her it wasn’t T.J. This man possessed spiky hair, a menacing growl…and a thousand-watt vacuum cleaner.

  It roared into service upon his command and slurped up cottonseeds like a hungry desert rattler went after field mice.

  Soon, the coast was clear. Gratefully, Dayna scraped back the shower curtain. Her gaze fell on Deuce Bailey’s affable smile, then his steady grasp on the neck of a vacuum hose.

  The last few cottonseeds pinged into the canister.

  Surprised to see the IAB agent there, Dayna could only stare at him for a second. Deuce’s attention lifted from his heroic handling of the vacuum to the witch he’d rescued.

  They must have trained all IAB agents to remain calm in a crisis, Dayna realized shakily, because this particular agent appeared downright happy-go-lucky as he switched off the vacuum.

  The motor subsided. Deuce grinned and put his hands on his hips. “How’s it going, Ms. Sterling? Everything all right now?”

  She nodded. “I can’t believe you recognized me.”

  “Why not?” He held out his hand to her, palm up.

  The entire situation felt engulfed in surreality. But then, that was her life these days. Ever since T.J. had found her.

  “Because your gaze never traveled any higher than my underwear.” With dignity, she snatched a towel from the nearby towel bar. She wrapped it around her waist, sarong-style, then accepted Deuce’s hand out of the tub. “Thanks for the rescue.”

  “Anytime.” With the implacable calm of a man who could handle anything, he watched to make sure she landed with both feet planted safely on the bathroom floor tiles. “Haven’t you heard? I’m a regular IAB hero these days. Rescuing is my job.”

  “I thought policing and punishing was the IAB’s job. With time off for teaching runaway cusping witches, of course.”

  “Yeah. All those things, too.” For an instant, Deuce’s rugged face grew taut with an emotion Dayna couldn’t identify. His voice lowered menacingly. “Especially punishing.”

  His intense demeanor spooked her. Deuce Bailey was big, strong, and undoubtedly tough. If he wanted to punish someone, she had no doubt he could do it. Thoroughly. And memorably.

  Worried anew, Dayna took a step backward. Her heel nudged the bathtub. Something tiny and sharp bit into her ankle.

  She slapped it. Another cottonseed. “Damn it!”

  Deuce hunkered down. He pinched the seed between his fingers, then showed it to her. “So…you want to explain?”

  “You go first.” Dayna eyed him, then pushed past him, eager to put distance between them. “You can start by telling me exactly what you’re doing here in my apartment.”

  Watery-eyed, T.J. peered up past Garmin’s desk.

  His supervisor was still on the phone, his aura of authority shot to hell by whatever was happening to T.J. Seeing Leo that way only made things worse. Was he dying? At the thought, T.J. felt his chest spasm again, harder this time.

  “Then do it,” Garmin barked. Realizing T.J. was looking at him, he put his hand over the receiver. His eyes were wide with alarm. “It was protocol, T.J. It’s my job. That’s it. I swear, I never wanted you to have a freaking heart attack over it.”

  T.J.’s heart constricted again…which made him realize, foggily and disbelievingly, what must have happened.

  Garmin’s demand for his IAB badge must have activated his Patayan instincts against betrayal. His stupid, outmoded, inbred need for loyalty had hit him where it hurt—in the heart—making him feel physical pain over his supervisor’s lack of trust.

  Simultaneously relieved, irritated, and embarrassed by his own weakness, T.J. straightened. His chest still hurt, but he could take it. He could take it because he knew it was a fault to be overcome. He pressed his mouth together, then held up his hand to halt Garmin’s phoned-in harassment of the other agent.

  His supervisor raised his eyebrows. But he got the message.

  “Never mind,” he barked into the receiver. He hung up, then suspiciously eyed T.J. “You’re trying to tell me you’re all right now? Hell, T.J.! You looked at death’s door a minute ago. You’re still pale.” With an urgent gesture, Garmin sent his office chair scuttling sideways to offer support. “What the—”

  “I’m fine,” T.J. rasped. With a tremendous effort, he grasped the sentient chair. It helpfully rose higher, allowing him to stand straight. Mostly. His chest still felt as though someone had opened it up with a buzz saw and rooted around awhile, rearranging things. He raised his palm. “I’m out.”

  He trod across the carpet, more slowly this time. He felt a million years old, vulnerable in a way he hated. Every instinct told him to get away. Now. But when Garmin’s voice rang out behind him, he was forced to stop. The IAB had awakened a sense of duty in him. Whether stripped of his magic or not, he could not ignore his training—or his supervisor’s sorrowful tone.

  “Hey. Next time you sense foragers,” Garmin said in a low voice, “it would be in your best interest not to kick their asses. They might be trying to clear your name with the bureau.”

  “They’ll never get a chance. They’ll never catch me again.”

  “I’m saying, let them catch you. Let them watch you,” Garmin urged. The sentient chair wheeled itself along beside T.J., squeaking as it tried to assist him. “If we can’t find any proof that you’re being disloyal, I’ll reinstate your license to practice magic. We’ll go back to the way things were.”

  “My own agency plans to spy on me. You suspect me of disloyalty.” T.J. fixed Garmin with a jaded look, his chest still aching. “We can never go back to the way things were.”

  That was why it was past time to go. With a weary motion, T.J. raised his hand. He drew an arch in midair, then focused on its shape. After a few seconds, the pixilated wall of the deluxe office suite lurched sideways. Then it vanished altogether, creating a new exit beside the impenetrable door.

  From outside, a rising clamor could be heard. Voices shouted. Equipment clattered in a distant room, chased by the sulfurous odor that meant magic was under way.

  “Hey, don’t leave like this. All you have to do is cooperate,” Garmin said. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”

  “It didn’t. But now it does.” T.J. felt the loss of his IAB talisman keenly. Without it, his Patayan amulets swung too freely, deprived—as he was—of the IAB’s controlling influence. “Congratulations, Leo. You just created the rogue agent you were afraid you already had. Nice work for a Tuesday.”

  “T.J. Wait.”

  Shaking his head, T.J. stepped into the hall. He almost collided with a witch agent. She was on full IAB alert, her talisman glowing with a magically transmitted amber warning as she ran toward Garmin’s office. She stopped short, looked curiously at the opening T.J. had made, then peered through it at Garmin.

  “Sir, there’s been another death. A human. We—” She faltered, gasping for breath with one hand over her talisman. Its amber color brightened. “We know legacy magic was involved.”

  “I see.” Garmin’s gaze shifted to T.J. And held.

  T.J. could take the hint. Frowning, he headed down the hall�
�possibly for the last time. As though trying to drag him backward, snatches of the witch’s conversation with Garmin pursued him. Their voices sounded clear and urgent.

  “Legacy magic?” Garmin asked. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” the witch agent said. “The signs were apparent.”

  “Someone’s magic has gotten out of control then.”

  “Not quite, sir. This wasn’t a case of magic misuse,” the witch argued crisply. “At least not a typical one. This was another gardener. Another brain aneurysm, like Obijuwa.”

  Halfway down the hall, T.J. slowed. In front of him, corralled by the nearest row of cubicles, agents rushed to and fro. They herded witnesses toward enclosed areas where truth spells could safely be cast without affecting IAB personnel. They whirled paperwork in the air, examining it with anxious eyes. They hustled by with cell phones to their ears. The activity was proof that something important had just happened.

  “The weird thing is…” Behind T.J., the witch agent paused, possibly waiting for him to move out of earshot. “There were certain…artifacts near the body. We have reason to believe the victim was trying to practice legacy magic himself.”

  In the hallway, T.J. stopped dead.

  My pops was doing magic, he heard Jesse Obijuwa say again. He was doing tons of magic. Just like all those witches and warlocks in town.

  At the time, T.J. had told the boy what he knew to be true—that humans couldn’t practice magic.

  Now, suddenly, he had his doubts.

  Ignoring the frenzy of activity, T.J. headed for the IAB’s exit. This latest human death was a tocsin to be heeded. If it meant what he thought it did, his magus’s prophesies were coming true faster than either of them had expected. There was no time to waste.

  In the kitchen, Dayna and Deuce sat companionably at the minuscule peninsula with bowls of Cap’n Crunch at their elbows. Fortified by the sweetness of Crunch Berries, Dayna gazed at the IAB agent opposite her, still perplexed by all he’d told her.

  “So you hacked into the IAB database and had my housing assignment changed. I get that. But why?”

  “Never ask a hacker why. It’s like asking a mountain climber why. Because it’s there. Because I can.”

  In the subdued glow of the overhead pendant lamp, all the ambiguity she’d sensed in him earlier was gone. Deuce appeared to be exactly what he was—an oversize kid with a yen for sugary cereal and an openness that made her want to be around him. He was, at best, an unlikely IAB enforcement agent. He seemed far too easygoing to be any good at official magical peacekeeping.

  On the other hand, there was that dangerous enthusiasm he had for the punishment phase of IAB business…

  “I was a programmer before I was turned,” Deuce went on, naming a well-known technology company, “but after that—”

  “Wait. Turned?”

  “It’s what witchfolk call humans who can sense the presence of magic.” Deuce spooned up more cereal, crunched thoughtfully, then swallowed. “Turned humans can’t practice magic themselves, but they’re aware of it. Unlike dozers, we recognize witches at a glance. But they can’t tell we’re turned.”

  “Aha. So if a bunch of witchfolk are up to no good—”

  “They don’t have any problem practicing illegal magic around a supposedly ignorant human.” Deuce grinned. “Like me.”

  “And then you nab them. Whammo!”

  “That’s right.”

  “So you’re like the IAB’s supersecret double agent.”

  “Something like that.” Deuce shook the box of Cap’n Crunch, peered inside, then frowned in apparent disappointment. “The bureau started using turned humans as agents in the past year or so. The program is still in the trial phase. Some of the witchfolk agents don’t trust us.”

  “Are there a lot of you? A lot of turned humans?”

  A distant look came into his eyes. “I hope not.”

  Against all reason, Dayna felt sorry for him. She considered reaching out in commiseration…then took one look at Deuce’s burly, muscle-corded forearm and changed her mind.

  “But I’ve never even heard of turned humans before. I didn’t think I was that out of touch with the magical world.”

  “It’s not something that’s talked about much. Turning happens through myrmidon magic. The magic of The Old Ways. And it’s only recently that The Old Ways have made a resurgence,” Deuce said. “I’m not up on all the witchstory, but I get the impression that witch-human contact used to be frowned upon.”

  “Only by the most bigoted witchfolk,” Dayna assured him. “The truth is, we should have planned our futures better. The magical population retreated to tiny, closed-off communities like Covenhaven centuries ago. I mean, the Extraction was understandable. Witchfolk were under siege. But closing yourself off that way doesn’t exactly lead to tolerance.”

  Deuce frowned. “Is that why you left here?”

  Dayna wished she could say it had been. She wished she could tell him that idealism had led her to bail out of the town she’d grown up in. But the truth was…

  “I think there’s another box of cereal in the cupboard.” She headed for the kitchen. “I’ll get more soymilk, too.”

  “Hey, it’s cool with me if you don’t want to talk about it. You’ve probably got enough on your mind, what with being bonded with T.J. and going to witch school. It’s a lot to take in.”

  With one hand on the open cupboard door, Dayna stilled.

  She swiveled her head. “Being what?”

  “Bonded. With T.J. He didn’t—” With a creative swearword, Deuce broke off. “He didn’t tell you, did he?”

  “No. ‘Bonded’? What does that mean? It sounds positively medieval.” Dayna raised her arm and pointed to her golden armband—now decently paired with pajama pants, a tank top, and bunny slippers. “Does it have something to do with this?”

  “I thought you’d know already. You’re the witch here.”

  Dayna snorted. “So far? In name only. So tell me.”

  “I shouldn’t say.” He shook his head. “All I promised was that I’d keep an eye on you for T.J. That’s it. That’s why I—”

  That’s why I altered your housing assignment.

  Deuce broke off with another swearword. His expression made it easy to fill in the blanks, though, with no complicated research theories necessary.

  That’s why I placed you here, in my apartment.

  No wonder he’d been so evasive when she’d questioned him earlier. He hadn’t wanted to admit the truth.

  “Keep ‘an eye’ on me?” Dayna stalked toward Deuce, all thoughts of cereal gone now, hating that she felt simultaneously intrigued, flattered, and annoyed by the machismo inherent in those words. “I’m not T.J.’s property,” she informed Deuce with a lift of her chin. “Nobody has to ‘keep an eye on me’ for him.”

  “That’s not what I meant! It’s more of a favor. Friend to friend. Your bond makes you special to T.J., but he—”

  Clearly catching himself in the nick of time, Deuce quit talking. He pressed his mouth together. “How about that cereal?”

  Dayna crossed her arms over her chest. She shook her head. “Maybe you don’t care if I spill my guts, but I care if you spill yours. Tell me what it means to be bonded.”

  Deuce’s gaze skittered to her armband.

  “It does have something to do with this new metalwork tattoo of mine, doesn’t it?” With a fierce gesture, Dayna indicated her armband. She’d kept it on because she’d liked it. It was cool, in a baroque, darkly Goth kind of way. It made her feel witchier—something with which she needed all the help she could get. “Tell me, Deuce. Tell me the truth, right now.”

  “I’ve already said too much.” He stood. “Good night.”

  “Good night? You’re kidding, right?” With her mouth open in disbelief, she followed the tracer to the sink. He deposited his cereal bowl and spoon, his shoulders tense. “Come on, Deuce.”

  He turned to face her, his expression filled wi
th equal measures of obstinacy and regret. “No way. T.J. will kill me.”

  “Why? Is it that important?”

  His silence told her it was. More alarmed than ever, Dayna stared at him. Then an idea occurred to her.

  “Fine. Don’t tell me. I’ll just take off this armband, and whatever that ‘bonded’ thing is, it’ll be over.”

  With as much bravado as she could muster, Dayna grabbed her golden armband. She tugged. It didn’t budge. She tried again.

  Deuce looked on with unhappy eyes.

  Irritated now, Dayna resorted to the tactic she usually used to remove stuck-on jewelry. She pumped some soap from the sink dispenser, then slathered it sloppily over her arm. With a defiant look at Deuce, she pulled the armband again. Hard.

  It actually seemed to tighten. “Ouch! What the hell?”

  “It won’t come off. Not unless something really drastic happens. T.J. told me that much.” Deuce put his hand on hers, then offered a hesitant smile. “Hey, at least you don’t have it as bad as T.J. does. He’s bonded with you through his birthright mark tattoo—the one on his arm. When I told him he should get unbonded with you by removing his birthright tattoo—”

  “You wanted him to get unbonded?”

  Why did she feel hurt by that? It was ridiculous.

  “Well, no,” Deuce admitted. “He wanted to get unbonded.”

  Dayna snorted. “Typical. Jerk.”

  “I was cool with it. I still am.” Deuce regrouped. “But the point is, T.J. told me that removing his birthright mark tattoo would be like removing a piece of his soul. He said it wasn’t impossible, just…costly. Especially to a Patayan.”

  Aghast, Dayna gawked at him. “His soul?”

  “Shit. I’ve said too much again.” Appearing panicky—at least as much as a two-hundred-pound tough guy could—Deuce backed off. “Just believe me, okay? You might get hurt if you try taking off that thing.” He nodded at her soapy armband.

  For a second, silence fell between them.

  Then, “If they made wedding rings this way, fifty percent of all humans would be seriously bummed right now,” Dayna said.

  At her joke, Deuce didn’t smile. He only averted his eyes.