by Davis, L. C.
Queer Magick
L.C. Davis
Copyright © 2017 L.C. Davis
Acknowledgments
Licensed material is being used for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted in the licensed material is a model.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
L.C. Davis acknowledges the trademark status of all brands and copyrighted works mentioned in this work of fiction.
Warnings: This book contains explicit male/male sexual content and action violence, intended for mature audiences only. This is the first book in a continuing serial with developing themes of polyamory and it has a cliffhanger ending.
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One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
One
Stillwater was the last stop on the line for me. I was running out of towns and my fresh start was close to expiring, but that's the downside of being a bleeding heart with a knack for working miracles. The town was nestled in the wilderness of Vermont, and if I were the kind of person who found comfort in signs from above, I might have found it in the way the sunlight filtered through the leaves that were just beginning to don their autumnal garb of gold and russet. But I wasn't that kind of person, and one of the primary reasons Stillwater had made the top of my list of places to begin my new start was that it had a reputation for being one of the least religious towns in the Northeast. Granted, you had your cradle Catholics who made the odd appearance at Christmas mass, but there wasn't a steeple or a little white chapel within a good fifty miles of the town, and that was all I needed. The quaint little storefronts, friendly locals and cheesy food-themed festivals were just a bonus.
The main reason I had chosen Stillwater was the fact that it was a good fifteen-hundred miles away from Gosham, Arkansas and the charred remains of one Trinity Tabernacle Church. More specifically, it was fifteen-hundred miles away from my father, the esteemed Reverend Bertrand Hurlow. Holy man by day, con artist by night, man in an orange jumpsuit picking up crushed cans on the side of the road every other Tuesday when he got out of prison in ten years' time. As it turned out, the parole terms for keeping your kid locked in a basement for five years were pretty lenient when you had an entire church association bankrolling a celebrity lawyer and publicist. Friends in high places and all that.
Sure, I had missed the little things like highschool graduation and highschool itself, but at least the civil settlement had made it possible to start over and change my name. The judge had even been kind enough to seal the name change records, but I knew it would do little to deter my father from finding me if he really wanted to, so I decided to just make it as hard to find me as possible. Stillwater wasn't the first town I had attempted to start over in, but I intended for it to be the last. Unfortunately, it's hard to forget the past when the thing that makes you want to keep it there is part of you. To make things easier, I laid down a few simple ground rules for myself.
Rule One: Act normal. Easier said than done when I had spent my formative years in a basement with a set of musty Biblical commentaries as my primary companions, but it was a work in progress.
Rule Two: Look normal. Upon obtaining my freedom, I had eagerly traded in my stuffy preacher's kid uniform for more androgynous fare. A few years on my own had veered my personal style heavily toward the edgy end of the spectrum, but that was something I could sacrifice if it meant blending in and looking the part of a small-town guy. Khakis and sensible sneakers were a fair tradeoff for normalcy.
Rule Three: The most important rule of all, the one that absolutely bore no wiggle room. No. Witchcraft.
That last one might have been easy enough for most people to follow, but witching had always been my Achilles' heel. No matter how much I tried to be a good little preacher's son, mysteriously floating objects, flickering lights and wounds that healed in seconds when they should have taken weeks made it hard. It might have been easier if I had ever had the luxury of suppressing all the quirks that had plagued me since birth, but my father had found a profitable outlet for certain gifts by marketing me to the pious masses as a faith healer. Turning it on and off according to his whims had come at a cost neither of us was prepared to pay.
And so, I found myself about to face my greatest challenge yet: Blending in with small-town America. Finding a place to live had been easy enough, since there weren't many options to choose from in a town where most of the residents passed their quaint two-story homes down from one generation to the next. As luck would have it, there was an older woman renting out the attic apartment of her little white farmhouse on the outskirts of a town that was already on the outskirts of civilization, and I had snapped it up faster than you could say cheap rent. Something told me the brusque yet kind landlady would have been reluctant to share her remote home with most guys, but my overt twinkishness had always worked against me. For once, it seemed to have worked in my favor. With long, unruly brown hair and a less-than-impressive build, I couldn't intimidate a church mouse if I tried.
Living as a recluse in the woods was a bit counterproductive to my goal of blending in, so I decided to make it a point to go into town every week, at the very least. The greasy spoon diner wasn't half bad, and they made a decent cup of coffee. It was a perfect way to wrap up my first ween in town, and I was still patting myself on the back for pulling off a successful impersonation of a normal human being when the mayor's wife walked in through the front door of the diner.
Carla Whitaker was an attractive woman in her mid-forties with a smart bob and the requisite small-town New England uniform of khakis, a sweater with chunky blue-and-white nautical stripes and a simple handbag that had probably cost more than my ten-year-old sedan. She slipped off her sunglasses and scanned the diner before her eyes fixed on me. Reading people had never been one of my "gifts," but the smile that spread across her face struck me as genuine enough. She waved and I waved back, wishing I hadn't taken such a huge bite of my raspberry scone when I realized she was heading straight for me.
"There's the mystery man," she said, strutting over in her kitten heels. "I was hoping I'd catch you around town before the weekend."
Mystery man? Crud. Maybe I needed to be a little less reclusive. If I had to fill out one more set of change of address forms, I was going to stick a ballpoint pen through my occipital lobe. I forced my half-chewed scone down m
y throat, which proved to be a mistake and I started choking. I gulped down a mouthful of near-scalding coffee and by the time I composed myself, Carla was watching me in deep concern.
"Oh, my. Are you alright, dear?"
"Fine. Something just went down the wrong way," I said with an awkward little laugh. Normal people laughed a lot, if the sitcoms were any indication. "What's going on this weekend?"
"A mixer, tomorrow night," she said, taking the chair across from me with a giddy little "squee" sound. "I haven't had time to throw many lately, what with all the planning for the equinox festival, but I wanted to ask you in person since you never got back to my RSVP."
"RSVP?"
She gave me a look, like she couldn't tell if I was joking or not. "It didn't come in the mail?"
"Oh. Um, I haven't exactly gotten around to changing my address," I admitted.
"That's perfect! I've still got a few fliers to mail out for the festival, so we'll go over together."
I glanced at the clock above the door. "Shouldn't the post office be closing soon?"
"I know the mailman," she said with a conspiratorial whisper.
Before I could answer definitively, Carla was on her feet, motioning for me to follow her. I hesitated a moment before grabbing my Frappuccino and following her outside. She linked her arm in mine, which seemed like a strangely intimate gesture for someone she barely knew. Stillwater must have been having a gay best friend shortage.
"I can't wait to introduce you to everyone tomorrow night," Carla chattered. I began to wonder when I had officially accepted the invitation, but reminded myself that it would probably be the best way to get rid of the unwanted intrigue that had settled around me.
Carla pulled open the door to the post office and pulled me inside. The front lobby was empty, but it looked pretty much like all the other small-town post offices I had been in. There was a wall covered in P.O. Boxes of varying sizes, a selection of oversized packing supplies for last-minute gift givers, and a bunch of brochures plastered with the smiling faces of stock models who probably didn't care as much about shipping regulations as they let on.
"Yoohoo! Nick!" Carla called, leaning over the front counter. "I brought someone to meet you!"
I heard thumping sounds coming from the back, then a clatter. "Hang on a sec," a husky voice called out a moment before the clerk rounded the corner.
Nick the mailman wasn't quite what I had expected, and evidently, the feeling was mutual. Rather than the tan uniform I'd seen in the many cities and towns I had temporarily called home, he was wearing a white tank top that smelled like the motor oil it was stained with and clung to his lithe build a bit too well for civilized company. He had shaggy brown hair that fell over eyes the hue of liquid gold, but it was the look in them that caught me off-guard. He was looking at me like I'd just run over a newborn puppy and then reversed a few times just to make sure.
I was still struggling to come up with anything I might have done in the brief amount of time I had been in Stillwater that could possibly warrant that level of rage from a stranger when Carla came up beside me, looking between the two of us like she was trying to figure out the same thing. Evidently, this wasn't normal behavior for Nick. I just wasn't sure if that came as a relief.
"Nick," Carla said, drawing out the name as she waved a hand in front of the clerk's face. "You in there?"
When Carla snapped her fingers, Nick jolted and quickly averted his eyes. I was relieved, since it was as hard to hold that golden gaze as it was to look away from it, but I still didn't have a clue what was going on. "Yeah, sorry, Aunt Carla," he muttered. "Long day. Lots of deliveries. You need something?"
Carla blinked. "I was just going to introduce you to Holden. He's the one who rented out Mrs. Marrin's place?" she said pointedly.
"Oh. Right." Nick turned back to me with a closed-mouth smile. I took his offered hand hesitantly, almost surprised when I received a handshake rather than getting shanked with the letter opener on the counter. I was also surprised by how warm the callused palm that enveloped mine was. "Nice to meet you, Holden. I'm Nick."
"So I gathered," I said awkwardly, looking down at my hand when I realized Nick didn't seem to have any plans of letting it go. He dropped it quickly and slipped both hands into the pockets of his baggy jeans. The fact that they were slung so low they revealed the six pack underneath should have been the last thing on my mind, but sexual repression had a habit of surfacing at the worst possible times.
"Holden is going to be at my Saturday night mixer," Carla said in a knowing tone, folding her arms as she watched her nephew. The way she said it made me wonder if she had introduced us to be nice or to make a match. Nick didn't strike me as gay, but I told myself I was just making assumptions based on the butchy greaser vibe he was projecting. "I figured it would be good to introduce you now, since you hate those things."
"I don't hate them," Nick muttered, giving his aunt The Look. I suddenly got the feeling I was being used as bait to guarantee another RSVP. "I just don't usually have the time, but I'll be there."
I found myself a bit too interested in what kinds of things the clerk occupied himself with when he wasn't making his appointed rounds, but Carla was already pulling me towards the door.
"Goodnight, dear," Carla called. "See you at seven."
By the time we made it outside, it was nightfall and the town square had already quieted down. To be fair, there weren't many late-night venues around to cater to the unfortunate night owls of Stillwater.
"Your nephew is..."
"Strange?"
"I was going to say nice," I said carefully. "But that, too."
"I don't know what got into him tonight," she said, glancing back at the post office with a shake of her head. "Never seen him get tongue-tied around a man before, but I'm sure he'll be fine by the time the party rolls around."
Man. There was that phrase again. I knew it wasn't meant in any kind of way other than as a statement of fact, so why did it always feel like a punch in the gut? "Well, I'd better get home. I've still gotta get things set up so I can start working next week, and...oh, crap."
"What's wrong?"
"I just remembered I didn't get the change of address forms from Nick."
"Oh, that," Carla said with a dismissive wave. "You can do that on the computer. It's all online now."
I blinked at her, but before I could ask why she'd felt the need to drag me to the post office if that was the case, she asked, "What is it you do for work, anyway?"
"I'm kind of an amateur botanist," I said, slipping my hands into my jacket since it was getting chilly. That was the simplest way to explain that I used plants as the one remaining outlet for my powers. "I grow them and use the extracts to make tinctures, lotions, that kind of thing."
"How cute," she said, prodding her cheek. "I don't suppose you have anything for wrinkles, do you?"
"If you had any, sure."
"Oh, you," she said with a flustered laugh and a dismissive wave. She glanced down at her phone. "It is getting late. Lucas will be home from the Council meeting soon, so I'd better get going. Do you know where the house is?"
"It's the big colonial by the library, right?" It was kind of hard to miss the Whitaker family estate. I was confident you could see it from space.
"That's the one," she called. "Goodnight, Holden."
"Goodnight," I called back, sighing as I turned to head back down the cobblestone path that led out of the town square and towards Mrs. Marrin's lot. It wasn't far enough to justify driving, and most people in town didn't even use their cars unless it was to go into Burlington, but it was far enough that I decided to take a shortcut. The night air was helping to clear my thoughts, at least. It was a lot easier to breathe in the country, and there was a lot more time to think. Whether that was a good thing or not, I still wasn't entirely sure.
I looked up and realized the moon overhead was a waxing crescent. It would be a good time to work on a few tinctures. I had managed to
convince myself that it didn't really count as magic if I was just working with the forces that were already present in nature. Never mind that that was the very definition of magic, from a certain perspective. My plants kept me sane. My other powers had been easy enough to suppress, but I couldn't bring myself to get rid of the plants.
Something further down the path caught my eye and I squinted at the white object nestled in the grass. It had a faint glow in the moonlight, and when I got a little closer, I noticed it was moving. Once I realized that movement was the rise and fall of breath, I started running.
It was a cat. The creature's fur was pure white, with the exception of the fur at its side that had been turned crimson with blood seeping from a deep wound that left sinew and bone exposed to the cold night air. My stomach churned with sympathy and horror. The poor thing's breath was labored and its eyes moved rapidly behind its eyelids, twitching open every few seconds to reveal a brilliant flash of green. It was suffering.
I looked around but couldn't find any sign of the creature whose fangs had torn such a grisly wound in the woods that obscured Mrs. Marrin's farmhouse from view. Shrugging out of my jacket, I draped it over the cat both to keep it warm and so I wouldn't get its blood on me as I gently scooped it up into my arms. No telling what it had. I half-expected it to attack me, but the pitiful thing was limp in my arms.
After a moment's hesitation, I recalled seeing a sign in the town square for an animal clinic. The chances of it still being open were slim to none, but if the town vet lived above his clinic like most of the other business owners in Stillwater did, maybe I stood a chance at getting the cat the help he needed. A mercy killing was just about the last way I wanted to end my night, and I doubted any of the tinctures I kept around the apartment would do the trick. A small wound was one thing, but it would take some serious mojo to heal an animal that had been laid open, and that would be a flagrant violation of Rule Three before my first week in Stillwater was even up.
You could only get chased out of town by an angry mob so many times before it got old.
