Psychic Witch: A New Immortals Universe Novel (House of Magic Book 2)

by Ariel Hunter

  Callan grunted as he went back to rummaging under the bar top. There was a slight cranking sound. I spun as the fountain behind us let out a rushing gulp and water spurted from the top cylinder, flowing down in tiny rivulets, parabolas rainbowing from graceful mermaid lips raised to kiss the air.

  I watched him with one eyebrow raised. “Lovely. Still not a date, though. Now, what are the mice for?”

  “First training session, we are going to try and recreate the sleeping spell you did at the pawn shop. This time, you will just be trying to put these little mice to sleep.” Callan stood next to the cage and looked at me expectantly.

  The mice flashed their wild red eyes as they scurried around the cage and I took a deep breath. Recreating spells that I had done once wasn’t really my forte.

  “I didn’t say a spell, though. How do I make it happen again?”

  “Your most powerful magic seems to come about when you are not using spells. You seem to command it without trying. That’s a powerful gift, but it can also be a powerful curse when it backfires on you. So, if we can figure out a way for you to have more control over the way that you seem to just will your magic into being, then it shouldn’t backfire. You’re different, but that doesn’t mean you should fear that difference. You need to embrace it so you can control.”

  “I sure wish the Council could see it that way.”

  “The Council is . . . set in their ways. I’m doing my best to convince them, but it would be easier to do if you could control it.”

  “All right, so if I am not keying on words in a spell, what do I focus on?”

  “What did you focus on in the ocean this morning?”

  “The harmony. The emotions. The feelings.” I frowned. Witches didn’t use feelings to make magic, except me. Callan nodded, seeming to not notice my inner reluctance with this plan.

  “I think your magic is more tied to your emotions than a normal witch, so it’s important that you control them and not the other way around. This is why the spells exist and are so important. They provide a level of separation, of disassociation from the emotional connection between a magician and the magic they are creating. That doesn’t seem to work so well for you, so we’re going to work back from what I know you can do.”

  “Can do is a nice way of saying can do hazardously. When I use my magic without words, things tend to go horribly wrong,” I pointed out.

  “Because you’re reacting out of fear and the need to survive. If you train, there will be no need to fear and your reaction will be to use it in a way that benefits you instead of backfiring.”

  I bit my bottom lip. The uncertainty was still there, but he had a point.

  A really good one. Damn. I hated it when that happened. Why did he always have to have good ones?

  “What do I need to do?”

  “Well, we’re not going to recreate the exact conditions,” he said. “You’re not going to be in fear for your life. But that’s part of the training. You need to move beyond only being able to access your magic when you’re in intense situations. So, instead, focus on the harmony within you. Then guide it. Only you can know exactly what it feels like for you.

  “Once you’ve been able to really pick out that drive within you, make it repeat the spell. In the same way a spell you would chant would have a time limit on it, will five minutes of rest to them. Then, once they awake and scamper about, we’ll make sure they are fine and try it again. Think you can handle that?”

  I looked at the mice. He was right that I needed to handle this, but I was pretty sure if the mice exploded, I’d be scarred for life.

  He gave a grin of encouragement and I grimaced back.

  “Here’s to hoping . . .”

  “Close your eyes. Feel the harmony within you. The connection to the broader world.”

  I breathed deeply, in and out. I spread my hands out at my side, flexing my fingers. His voice was so soothing. It warmed my body. I forced aside thoughts of him and tried to focus on my emotive drive.

  I could remember what it was like, that need, that hunger, that will for the pink magic to obey whatever I desired in those intense moments of need.

  What I needed now was to put these mice to sleep.

  I strived to find that magic in my soul and opened my eyes to look at the little mice scurrying around. A pink haze had gathered around my fingertips and I instructed it to move toward the mice and lull them to sleep. I was feeling the will, the desire, the need, the harmony . . .

  Nothing happened.

  The pink magic just hovered, a kind of lazy haze with the occasional white or pink spark, just around my skin, weaving in and out of my fingers.

  Come on, I urged silently. I tried to recall exactly what the feeling had been when I needed the magic to obey me at the pawn shop and at Boundless.

  “Find the harmony,” Callan said again. He was trying to help, but instead of calming me, I bristled. I could sense his magical tension not far away, as if he were prepared to intervene if something bad happened.

  Like exploding mice.

  Don’t think about exploding mice. Seriously? Damnit, I chastised myself.

  That thought distracted me and the pink magic around my fingertips dissipated.

  “Fuck.” I looked up at Callan.

  “It’s okay. What distracted you?”

  I didn’t want to tell him that it was his lack of trust in my ability to control my magic that distracted me. Mainly because that meant admitting I had a lack of control. So, instead, I grumbled, “Exploding mice.”

  “What?” he asked hoarsely, coughing to cover a laugh.

  I elbowed him in the ribs and then winced.

  “Ow,” I complained. “Why is it I’m the one hurt for hurting you?”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t elbow people, then,” he said, clearly amused. “Now what’s this about exploding mice?”

  “Ugh. Well, every time I use my magic, it goes bad. I’m scared I’ll accidentally explode them or something . . .”

  Callan stared at me for a full two seconds before letting out a boisterous laugh. I’d wanted to elbow him again, but I didn’t, knowing how bad it would hurt.

  “Let’s give it another shot. And try not to think about exploding mice.” He barely said it with a straight face. “One of the things that happened when you did the sleeping spell was that a bunch of roses grew, right? Now, I don’t know why. I don’t know if there is a creation release that happens with intense usage of your magic. But make sure you allow for that chaotic consequence as well. Allow for the creation of something beautiful to happen while you are also placing limits on some other being.”

  I wrinkled my nose at him and sighed. That didn’t entirely make sense to me and sounded far too nebulous to be able to be strictly followed, but if it worked, it beat being scarred for life.

  I took a few more deep, meditative breaths, trying to let the annoyance drain away. It only took a moment and the pink magic began sparking around my fingertips again.

  “Allow for creation, allow for the harmony to flow through you. Direct your will. Put the mice to sleep, but if the roses want to grow, let them show,” Callan was saying. I blocked him out and looked down at my fingertips, willing the magic to curl out and ribbon around the mice, but still, it just hung there in the rather dim light of the boarded-up restaurant.

  Frustration was welling in my chest in time with the harmony I was trying to make sure I stayed connected to. It seemed like time was wearing on. Callan was shifting his weight from side to side. Shadows were starting to stretch out in the restaurant. The trickling of the fountain’s waterfalls and rainbow arcs was the only sound as Callan’s prompts had repeated too many times without seeming to affect my success rate. The mice, if anything, were getting friskier as the night approached.

  Damnit, I can do this.

  Allow for chaos but contain the harmony and my emotional drive within the harmony.

  Put the mice to sleep for five minutes.

  Maybe the
chaos would be roses, but maybe it would be something else. Maybe I was focused too much on that thought. If I could use my frustration to allow for chaos, then I could gain more power from the pink.

  As I tried to embrace my frustration as fuel, the pink started to untether from my fingertips and curl forth toward the mice.

  Yes!

  I surged again a bit of the frustration and opened up a willingness to will the creation of chaos and also the intention of putting the mice to sleep. Brilliant pink magic burst from me, exploding throughout the room.

  There was a rumble in the bar and then water spiked from its center, pipes that Callan had turned on completely bursting, spitting out rays of water into the air. The fountain exploded, one mermaid’s face blowing clean off and shattering to the floor as suddenly the flow couldn’t be limited to the fine lines within its marble cast. The form began to splinter. Cracks hummed along the wall in another plumbing line and a hole appeared where I could assume the kitchen sink was and water rushed out from the wall, flooding the dusty hardwood floor.

  I looked at the mice. They were squeaking and scrambling over each other as mist rained down on them. I grabbed their cage and moved them out from under the parabolic arc of water from the busted bar pipe.

  “What do we do?” I demanded of Callan. He was standing with his arms crossed, his jaw set in a slightly quizzical examination of me.

  “Well, you didn’t explode them, so that’s something.”

  “Callan,” I snapped.

  “What did you try to will it to do?” he asked over the rumbling sound of more pipes bursting.

  “I just allowed for chaos and captured my frustration to fuel the pink magic, like you told me.” I narrowed my eyes and Callan sighed, not seeming to take this seriously at all. “But can we discuss this more once you stop this? Or are we just going to let the plumbing get fucked—”

  Callan pulled a chair out and stood on top of it, carefully shaking the water from the soles of his tennis shoes, completely ignoring me.

  “Seriously?” I demanded, holding the cage of mice close to my chest.

  “Are you done?”

  Oh no he didn’t.

  “Are you done?” I said. “We’re in this situation because you told me to mess with the pink magic and now—”

  “This is your opportunity. Find the thread you unwound. Tuck it back into the web. Will the end of your magical chaos you allowed. Your magic is swelling the water. Pull it back in. End the water creation.”

  I narrowed my eyes. He clearly wasn’t changing his mind though. “Fine,” I said through gritted teeth.

  I pulled out a chair and stood on it as well. The water level on the floor was already up an inch and growing, ripples spreading out from every droplet hitting the ground from the spraying pipes.

  I closed my eyes and willed it to end. I willed the magic away. I willed the water to go back where it came from.

  When I opened them, it was flooding faster.

  “Fuck,” I cursed. A sharp bite in my finger made me wince. My hand dropped from the cage and the mice screamed. I scrambled to grab it again and adjusted my grip to look at my hand. Blood welled on my finger. Courtesy of the little assholes I was hellbent on not exploding. No good deed goes unpunished.

  “It’s really flowing now,” Callan commented lightly like this was a walk in the park.

  “Why?” I demanded angrily. “Why are you being like this? You can help me stop it.”

  “No.” He crossed his arms and waited.

  I stomped my foot and closed my eyes. Seek out the unwound thread. I can find that. I can calm that . . .

  I cringed as sprinklers over our head burst and started pouring down. I pulled my collar up closer over my neck to minimize droplets trailing down my back and tried to focus. The entire building was groaning. The mice were squeaking. The marble fountain was crumbling in on itself. Water was leaking out the door.

  Harmony. Find the allowance of chaos. Harmony. There it was.

  Pink magic. Use my will. What is my drive? Where can I take it? What can I say? How to bring it back in . . . Control the swelling of water . . .

  I breathed deeply. Eyes closed, trying not to wobble on the chair seat. I imagined the swelling pipes, the spraying sprinklers, the busted fountain. All chaos of water creation. Then I told it to calm.

  To stop.

  Slowly, slowly, the groaning and crumbling stopped. The sprinkling on my face ceased.

  I opened my eyes.

  Pink magic floated all over the room.

  There was six inches of water on the floor and tons of cracks and holes in the walls. The fountain was ruined.

  But Callan was beaming.

  “Well done.”

  I glowered at him, dropping down to the floor to sit on the water-soaked chair and put my head in my hands.

  Shit. That sucked.

  I could hardly label this as a triumph. I was the one that had caused the destruction. I looked bleakly around at the ruined restaurant as Callan busied himself repairing it.

  My hands and legs were tingling. My head was buzzing.

  A golden glow gradually lit up the room as Callan evaporated the water, refashioned the fountain, and fixed most of the cracks in the walls. Then he approached me, the mice in the cage cried out for Mr. Perfect to save them and I silently extended the cage toward him. Callan smiled faintly as he took it.

  “I know you don’t see that as a success, and granted, we didn’t do what we came here to do, but you made progress. Progress is good.”

  He moved to holding the mice with one hand and snapped his fingers on the other. The mice and their cage disappeared.

  “Do I want to know where those went?” I asked.

  “Probably not,” he said, grinning. “Let’s go home.”

  He held out his hand for me to take for the teleport.

  I took it and the restaurant disappeared.

  We arrived back at Callan’s home and I dropped his hand. The painful punch of the teleport seemed to cling a little longer to my body than normal, but I knew it was partly just the punch to my pride from what had happened at the restaurant and the fatigue from all the magic I had expended. I had fixed the overflowing water. I had managed to stop it, but I hadn’t managed to recreate the sleeping spell, and I had caused some serious damage to the remnants of a once treasured place of business. It was unfair that Callan could just sweep in and fix all my mistakes.

  My stomach rumbled with hunger and grumbled with discontent at still being at the mercy of his much higher magical skill and brilliance.

  I had to keep trying, but that didn’t mean it was easy.

  “We will get there, Marnie,” Callan said. I swung to look at him sharply. I knew he couldn’t have read my mind. My thoughts just must have been that obvious on my face. “This was our first training session after some pretty serious stuff went down, and after being off a week. It’s okay. We will figure it out. And the control you showed quelling the water was truly remarkable. You just have to keep trying.”

  “Yeah, I don’t really have another option, though, do I?”

  “No, you don’t. It’s training or death.”

  “You have a choice, though. You don’t have to be anchored to me.”

  Callan looked at me, cocking his head sideways. “I don’t have a choice in this matter.”

  “Because you vouched for me?”

  He licked his lips and I couldn’t help following the trace his tongue made. He took a step nearer to me. He grabbed my hand and I tried to pull back, but he wasn’t having any of that.

  “Tell me, did you like my display on the surf?”

  I curled my hand into a fist, but he snuck his fingers in between mine, lacing them together. I looked away and tried to keep my face impassive as I thought of him surfing. That was a welcome distracting thought from the training session that had just happened. He had been so incredibly hot, bare-chested, ocean-water dripping down his body, athletic muscles rippling, so tal
ented at something that was mine. I caught myself sounding like a petulant child.

  “I did not,” I lied. “You cheated. I don’t see how else you could do a backflip like that.”

  He curled my hand up to his chest, pulling me into him. His eyes flicked back and forth between mine, not denying my words, but not admitting it either.

  “A bet is a bet. We had a deal. And I won.”

  It was difficult to breathe, and his words from earlier were echoing in my mind. That when he asked for the kiss, I would be wanting it too. I asked myself, did I want it? And I couldn’t deny that I did.

  “You did win. But if you did cheat, the only honorable thing to do would be to—”

  Callan grabbed my bicep and his mouth crushed mine, stripping away my words. His tongue flicked into my mouth as his grip on my hand tightened. His other hand moved from my arm and up to my neck, cradling my jaw, then slipping lower. He wrapped it around my throat, choking me gently, then pressing firmly so I gasped into his mouth. Tingles ran all through my body and my knees went weak. I clutched him for support. He released the possessive hold and moved his hand to my hair, pulling on it, as I regained my breath, his lips against mine in passionate fervor. He released my other hand and wrapped his arm around my waist, his fingers slipping beneath the hemp of my shirt to knead my lower back. I gripped his shirtfront and pulled him closer.

  Oh my god this couldn’t be real.

  He bit down on my lip and sucked. Fire burned in my veins as I tried to battle past the dizziness and regain any sense of control, but he had me . . .

  And then he pulled away.

  I stumbled against the wall, breathing out, shaky, trembling, staring at him through misted eyes.

  Callan ran his hand back through his hair and his lips twisted. He had me, and he knew it. “Good night, Marnie.” He walked away down the hall, closing the door to his room as I leaned against the wall, trying to get my bearings.

  Holy hell . . .

  I shook myself and headed into my bedroom, closing the door, stripping out of my clothes and into pajamas for the night. Still breathing heavily, I snuggled into bed knowing that sleep couldn’t possibly come to me quickly. I was way too wound up, flustered, in a titillated state from that kiss. It felt like so much more if I were being honest with myself.