The Library, the Witch, and the Warder

by Mindy Klasky

  She could have brought a case against a fellow witch or had one filed against her. For the oldest court documents, only litigants’ names were available. There were no detailed records of briefs filed or motions argued before the court. Still, that was enough for David to learn that Abigail had never stood before Hecate’s Court.

  If only there was a way to reach out to Abigail’s possessions… A book she might have owned, an athame she’d handled, a wand she’d used to channel power for a spell.

  Closing his eyes, David sifted through the kaleidoscope of sensations in his memory, all the references he’d ever cataloged with countless orphaned items. Any one of them could have belonged to Abigail, linked to the witch’s unique signature.

  A unique signature like Jane’s night jasmine, the alluring scent that even now enveloped his senses. He took a deep breath and allowed himself to relax for the first time in days.

  The tug came through the astral plane, stronger than any summons he’d felt from Jane yet. He didn’t think. He didn’t reason. He simply reached to the cottage in the Peabridge gardens.

  He closed the distance to the front door with a dozen long strides. The nearer he got to Jane, the more he was able to parse the sensations he’d gleaned from their jasmine bond.

  She’d worked a fire-dampening spell. He knew that before he hit the porch. He didn’t know which spell in particular, or why she’d harnessed her powers that way. But he could have used her magic on Sunday night and spared himself and the Washington Pack a nightmare without Bourne’s watery destruction.

  Pushing aside an iron pang of regret, he knocked firmly on the cottage door.

  “David!” Jane cried.

  Her voice was strangled. She let him sweep into the living room, but he had the distinct impression she wanted him gone. In fact, her words were filed to a precise point as she said, “I was just about to finish cooking dinner for my guest.”

  Guest. That had to be the guy standing just inside the kitchen. He wore jeans and an open-necked dress shirt, along with a tweed jacket. His face was pale beneath curly hair, and he kept glancing from Jane to Neko and, now, to David, his eyes wide with a stunned look of disbelief.

  First things first. He had to find out exactly how much magic her guest had witnessed. “I’m sorry to interrupt,” David said, barely bothering to match tone to words. He strode directly into the kitchen, the better to observe the threat from Jane’s mundane companion.

  Great. There was another person present—a buff giant of a man who stared at Neko with adoring eyes.

  Jane hurried to join him beside the scorch-marked stove. “David,” she said, with a spirited attempt to sound welcoming. “I don’t think you’ve met Roger, Neko’s friend.”

  He exchanged a somewhat wary handshake with Adonis.

  “And this is Jason Templeton.” Jane sighed as she gestured toward Mr. Tweed. “Jason, this is David Montrose. He’s the, um, mentor I mentioned earlier. The one who’s guiding my independent study.”

  David shot a quick look at her. What study was he supposed to supervise? Lies worked better when all the relevant parties were in on the story. Tweed cautiously offered his hand, saying, “David.”

  “Professor.” David shook, but he kept his voice flat. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a book on the counter. Elemental Magick. That explained the fire spell he’d felt. But Jane must have had one hell of a motivation to pour as much energy into the working as he’d felt from his office. He turned to her and said, “Jane, we need to talk.”

  “Can’t it wait?”

  “No.”

  “Look,” she said, and her cheeks flushed pink. “This has not been my dream night, okay? First, I almost burned the pear tart because the oven runs hot. Then, I came close to poisoning Jason with peanut soup. As you can see, the oven caught fire while I was preheating the broiler. I don’t have time to talk to you, David. Not tonight.”

  He knew he shouldn’t laugh at her. Not when she was clearly upset. But her catalog of so-called catastrophes was so picayune, so refreshing after a week of sprites and salamanders and EBI arrests and a werewolf Chase and whatever Pitt was up to… He fought to sound sincere as he followed the lead she’d unwittingly set. “There are just a couple of details we need to work out. Tonight. Some problems have come up with your…independent study, and I would hate for the administration to get involved.”

  She looked so distraught that he settled a protective hand on her elbow. The move was pure instinct—pure warder—but it felt right.

  Tweed blanched. Darting a nervous glance at David’s face, he said, “Look, Jane. Maybe I should head home.”

  Jane shrugged off David’s grasp, clearly annoyed. “But we haven’t eaten!”

  Neko looked at the lamb chops on the counter. “I wouldn’t trust the oven,” he said sincerely. “But I’ve heard lamb tartare is considered a delicacy in some parts of the world.”

  Tweed looked repulsed, either by the notion of eating raw lamb or the thought of spending another minute in the chaotic cottage. “You probably should get someone to check that oven. We’ll do this again, though. Some time soon.”

  “But I baked a pear tart!” Jane protested.

  Tweed glanced at it with barely masked horror, as if the dessert might fly from the countertop and attempt to choke him. David wondered exactly how bad the evening had been before the oven caught on fire. “I’m sure it’s wonderful,” Tweed said. “Look, you can bring it into the library tomorrow. I’m sure you could sell slices to go with lattes. It would give a real colonial feel to the library.”

  “Jason—” Jane protested, but Tweed was edging around David, making his way past Neko and Roger. Jane followed him to the front door, her voice dipping into a soft, apologetic register.

  Unwilling to eavesdrop on a witch, even one who tantalized him with the scent of jasmine, David made a show of turning toward Neko and his human companion. The blond sex god was conveniently occupied with pouring himself a full tumbler of vodka from the supply under the sink. “Everything under control here?” David asked.

  “It is now,” the familiar replied.

  “I take it you walked her through the fire-dampening spell?”

  “She had all the power she needed. I just helped with focus.”

  “She seems to have a lot of power.” David glanced at the front door as Neko nodded. Jane was clutching Tweed’s arm. Like any concerned warder anywhere, David demanded, “Who is that guy?”

  “She calls him her Imaginary Boyfriend.” The familiar feigned coughing up a hairball.

  David grimaced, but he didn’t have time to reply, because Jane was finally saying goodbye to the loser. Instead, David fished his wallet out of his pocket and forked over a pile of crisp twenties to the obliging familiar. “Get out of here, you two. I’ll make sure she’s okay.”

  He was just returning his wallet to his back pocket when Jane entered the kitchen.

  “Right.” Neko’s stage whisper was clearly meant to entertain everyone in the room. “Roger and I will have a ‘late supper.’ At Bistro Bis. On Capitol Hill.” He winked and put his hand on his boyfriend’s shoulder.

  As the men slipped out the front door, Jane surveyed the kitchen wreckage. David fought for a light tone. “Well, at least you weren’t frivolous about using your magic this time.”

  She actually smiled. “I’d pretty much run out of other options.”

  “Come on,” he said, before he realized he’d made up his mind. “Let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  “Out to dinner. Some place safe. Where someone else cooks the food.”

  She started to protest, but then her shoulders slumped. She looked like a witch who’d completed a Major Working on short rest. She looked like a woman whose carefully planned dinner date had turned into a disaster. “Thank you,” she said with palpable gratitude. “I’d like that. Very much.”

  Sitting in a nearby Italian restaurant, they didn’t talk about her ridiculous Imaginary Boyfriend.
They didn’t talk about witchcraft. They didn’t talk about shifters or the EBI or salamanders or his lost Hecate’s Torch. Instead, they filled hours with easy conversation about favorite foods and treasured childhood books and perfect dream vacations.

  And if he noticed she’d painted her fingernails burgundy—that she’d grown her fingernails long enough to paint them—he told himself that was unimportant. She was his witch. He wasn’t supposed to concentrate on mundane things like fingernails.

  He walked her to her door long after midnight. She laughed as she thanked him for a wonderful dinner. He told her the pleasure had been all his. He waited until he heard her engage the deadbolt inside.

  And then he sat on a bench in the chilled autumn garden, staring at the darkened cottage that housed the Osgood collection and the most intriguing witch he’d ever met.

  32

  David was still replaying dinner as he went through his morning routine—shower and shave and a fresh cup of coffee, bracing himself before he reached for the office.

  Haylee James had been a stunning witch, precise with her spellcraft, dramatic with her presentation. She’d worn her Torch like a battlefield medal, displaying it proudly to imperials and mundanes alike. She’d shimmered with power, a force only amplified by her close friendship with the Washington Coven Mother, Teresa Alison Sidney.

  And when Haylee dismissed him, he’d thought his life was over. His life as a warder, certainly, but his life as a man as well. He’d poured himself into being her protector. He’d twisted his beliefs, his values; he’d done his damnedest to justify her inappropriate demands. He’d compromised on every single aspect of who he was and still she’d left him like a piece of fruit rotting in the sun.

  Jane’s energy was completely different. She had a greater well of potential than any witch he’d ever met. He could sense her capacity when she worked her spells. He could feel her untapped power pushing against the ether like the pressure of water against eardrums after diving deep into a swimming pool. She’d never known the restrictions of a magicarium, never been taught the limits of her ability. She was like a child playing on a parent’s computer, utterly unafraid to push any button.

  And because she’d lived outside the strictures of witchcraft, she had a world of other references—Shakespeare and her best friend’s bakery, artisan cocktails and old black-and-white movies. She was fresh. She was new. And his helping her might be the very thing to gain Hecate’s approval by Samhain.

  With new determination, he reached for his cubicle, already reminding himself it was Hump Day.

  His grip slipped on the steely thread spun out across the astral plane.

  Still in his kitchen, he blinked hard, shaking his head to drive away the first inkling of a headache. He hadn’t lost an astral thread in years, not since his first days of learning to reach. Then, he’d had trouble concentrating; he’d fought to measure the precise tension he needed to place on the line. But for decades now the touch had been automatic, especially when he was traveling to a place as familiar as the court’s downtown office building.

  He really must be shaken by the events of the past few days. And he hadn’t done himself any favors, sitting outside Jane’s cottage until three in the morning.

  Squaring his shoulders, he reached for the office again.

  And once more, he found himself reeling in his kitchen. This time, he had to take a few quick steps to keep from staggering into the center island. He felt as if he’d bounced off an invisible wall, a plate glass window stretched across the astral plane.

  Swallowing panic, he reached for the wooden dock on the lake. He landed on the smooth wood with perfect ease, and he transported back to the kitchen as soon as he felt a breeze rise off the water.

  He reached for George’s house, for the backyard shed his father had built to keep warders’ comings and goings safe from neighbors’ eyes. The familiar room surged into place with its Queen Anne chairs, decanters of red wine and brandy, and a humidor of his father’s favorite Cuban cigars. He bounced back to his kitchen immediately.

  Once more, he reached for the office, taking the time to picture his cubicle—the precise angle of his computer monitor, the shelf of reference books he still kept in paper, the telephone with electrical tape covering the message light that always pulsed red. Pulling the image close, he sent his body onto the plane.

  And he fell to his knees on his cold kitchen floor.

  Swallowing the coffee-flavored acid of panic, he grabbed his keys and headed out to his Lexus. He wasn’t going to chance reaching to some other destination downtown, not if his powers were flickering in some way he didn’t understand.

  He fought traffic on the interstate, around the Beltway, and down the crowded arterial road into the heart of the city. He discovered he’d missed Early Bird Parking by an hour, but an exorbitant garage rate was the least of his concerns. He shuddered a little as he slid into a parking space. At least this garage was flooded with fluorescent light instead of Tidal Basin water.

  Walking the half-block to his office building, he tried to slow his galloping heart. There had to be a simple explanation, an obvious reason he was foolishly overlooking. He concentrated on the cool brass beneath his palms as he pulled open the door to the lobby.

  Norville Pitt waited for him in the center of the atrium, pocket protector jutting from his yellow short-sleeve shirt, crumbs speckling the wool of his mud-brown trousers. A wide grin split his face, making him look more frog-like than ever.

  “David Montrose,” Pitt said, his nasal voice echoing off the marble walls. He slapped a sheaf of papers against David’s chest. “Your employment is terminated with cause, pursuant to section seventeen point four slash 3 sub a double-i of the employee handbook. You are hereby fired, permanently and without recourse, from your position at Hecate’s Court.”

  33

  You can’t fire me. I quit.

  For the hundredth time, David shouted the words inside his head. He knew they were childish. They wouldn’t have changed anything, even if he’d bellowed them at the top of his lungs in the sunlit atrium. Especially if he’d bellowed them. They certainly wouldn’t have wiped the smug grin from Pitt’s face or kept people from staring—a pair of senior students scurrying to beat the bell for second period, an ancient warder helping his equally ancient witch to the elevator bank, a wide-eyed cadet whose jaw hung halfway to the floor.

  The words wouldn’t even be true, because David couldn’t quit. He couldn’t throw himself out of the society of witches and warders forever, not voluntarily.

  That’s why he’d hurried to the Imperial Library after Pitt’s smug declaration. Now, David huddled deep in the belly of the Eastern Empire Night Court. He already knew the warders’ library was useless, and he no longer had access to the computerized records of Hecate’s Court.

  But any member of the Eastern Empire was cleared to use the trove of books in the courthouse. He just had to find what he needed.

  The library looked like it hadn’t been maintained for centuries. Books were strewn across tables the size of aircraft carriers—leather-bound parchment mixing with scrolls and a handful of modern editions. Abandoned notepads were tucked into some volumes, along with an assortment of discarded pens, from quill to Rollerball.

  A computer lurked in the corner, but its screen was dead. If there was a secret to bringing the machine to life, it was beyond David’s skill. He’d given up after ten minutes of turning the machine off and turning it back on, only to hear a wheezing whirr deep inside the plastic casing.

  Sighing, he read through his termination papers one more time. They were filled with the court’s customary legal jargon—parties of the first part, parties of the second part, and countless Latin phrases. He’d already memorized the inventory of his supposed failings, starting with his being accused of felony endangerment in an Eastern Empire proceeding. Even without trial or conviction, that single count made him too dangerous to exist in the society of witches.

 
Staring at the courthouse library’s jumbled bookshelves, he almost capsized under a wave of hopelessness. The materials weren’t in any order. Handwritten docket sheets were shelved next to procedural rules for the Council of Giants, an entity that had been disbanded the year before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. Case reports from the Dryad Circle were interleaved with criminal indictments from the griffins’ Court of Elementals.

  He had no way of knowing where to find information about Hecate’s Court. And even if he discovered those records, he’d still have to locate specific information about employment law.

  He’d worked for the court long enough to know he shouldn’t bother hiring a lawyer to press his claim. The court had been created by witches, for witches. They bothered themselves with warders only when absolutely necessary. Sure, the court administered the Academy, but that was only to guarantee ongoing corps of fresh cadets for new witches.

  The last time the court had considered an action brought by a warder had been during the Harding administration. A witch had used spellcraft to increase her investment portfolio during the corrupt presidential regime. A warder—not hers—filed an action for conversion when he lost his life savings following the witch’s lead. But even that case was dismissed after Harding died in office.

  No, the court would not hear David’s complaint. But he had to do something to thwart Pitt.

  As he slammed his hand down on the table in frustration, his attention was drawn to the far side of the underground chamber. While the library was an unqualified mess, the rest of the room seemed to be a perfectly maintained gymnasium. A boxing ring was roped off in one corner, and a number of blue mats covered the floor. An armoire was filled with neatly folded practice uniforms. A variety of weapons hung on the wall. Ominously, a cage hulked near the locker room, its tarnished silver bars spaced close enough to keep even the thinnest vampire at bay.