Wicked Magic

by Margot de Klerk

  “Is she a hunter, too?”

  “No, Uncle Jeff is. Aunt Anna isn’t from a hunter family, but she has a very weak witch gene. Enough to be a good enchantress. She makes amulets for the family.” Nathan pulled his own out of his shirt to show Cynthia. She studied it for several seconds, before turning back to the dictionary.

  “Protection,” she translated as Nathan laid out knives and forks. “Safety, immunity from harm… and healing?”

  “Fast healing,” Nathan explained. “It slightly offsets the advantage vampires have over puny, fragile humans.”

  Cynthia hummed. “If vampires really exist, can I meet one?”

  “You really don’t want to. They have different standards of acceptable behaviour to us. And that’s the ones who don’t go chowing on random peoples’ necks and erasing their memories after.”

  “Do you even know any vampires?”

  “A few,” Nathan said reluctantly.

  “Real vampires?”

  “You still don’t believe me?”

  “I don’t really have proof,” Cynthia said.

  Nathan looked out into the darkness of the garden. “I can take you to meet a vampire. But you have to tell me the truth first. What are you?”

  Cynthia traced her fingers over the amulet and sighed. “What do you think I am?”

  “I don’t know,” Nathan admitted. “I’ve never seen anything like you. There’s nothing in the hunter databases about people who have animal auras.”

  “You can see my aura?” Cynthia asked.

  “You’re a dog today. A golden retriever, maybe?”

  “Dinner’s up.” Ms Rymes put a pan of taco mix on the table with a thud, but neither Cynthia nor Nathan moved. Cynthia frowned, still fiddling with the amulet.

  “Mum, can I?”

  “I’d prefer you didn’t,” said Ms Rymes, “But I know you’re going to tell him as soon as I’m out the room.”

  Cynthia smiled weakly. “We’re shapeshifters.”

  “Like werewolves?” Nathan asked. Cynthia shook her head, making a few loose wisps of blond hair fall in her eyes. She brushed them away again.

  “Do werewolves exist, then? We can shift whenever we want, but only into the form of the last animal we laid eyes on.”

  “Shapeshifters,” Nathan said, dumbfounded. Shapeshifters were a myth. Like, probably even Damien had never seen one. They were mentioned in old texts, but none had been seen in centuries, and most people didn’t really believe they’d ever existed.

  “There’s a dog living in the house across the road,” Cynthia said. “Usually, I try and look at our cat every day, because a cat is a good form to have if you need to run away and disappear. No one looks at cats twice on the streets.”

  “When I first saw you—and your sister—you were swans,” Nathan recalled.

  “Gosh, yeah, I’d taken Emma to the duckpond.”

  “So it’s always the last animal you saw?” Nathan asked. “And if that was… a tiger?”

  “Then I could become a tiger in the middle of the High Street,” Cynthia said. “But it would be amazingly inconvenient. Also, I couldn’t maintain it, unless there was a zoo with a tiger nearby.”

  “Wow!” Had he just discovered an extinct species? Adrian was never going to believe this.

  “You believe me?” Cynthia asked anxiously. “You’re not even going to ask for proof?”

  “I mean, I’d love to see you shift,” Nathan said. “But I’m guessing the clothing situation would be… not ideal.”

  Cynthia went scarlet. “No, clothes tend to get damaged. That’s the other reason I like having a small form.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “How’s it that easy for you?” Cynthia pressed. “I can’t believe—vampires? But you believe me.”

  “My folks hunt vampires for a living,” Nathan pointed out. “Pretty sure I’ll believe anything.”

  Cynthia smiled weakly at him.

  “I’m sorry I thought you were going to hand me over to the witches,” she said.

  “It’s alright. In hindsight, I was kind of creepy,” Nathan said.

  He took his seat at the table, and they started assembling their tacos. Cynthia commented, “Must be rough, having a whole family who can beat you up.”

  “They can’t all,” Nathan said. “My aunt can’t fight, neither can my sister.”

  “Isn’t your sister training to become a hunter, then?”

  “She is, but she’s only eleven. It’s like, training lite version.” Nathan considered that. “I think my dad was a bit stricter on my training when I was younger, because I’m the oldest, and, well…” Because no one wanted him to go the way of Adrian. He didn’t want to admit that, though. “There’s more pressure on the boys, in general. Not a lot of women become hunters, even if they do the training, because you have to be really fast and strong to stake a vampire.”

  “Women can be fast and strong, too,” Cynthia argued.

  “Sure,” Nathan agreed thoughtlessly. “You’d make a good hunter.” The comment just slipped out. Cynthia made a noise of surprise, and when Nathan looked at her, she was avoiding his eyes.

  “I don’t know a first thing about self-defence,” she said.

  “The principles are pretty easy,” Nathan said. “I’ve taught people before. I can show you, if you want.”

  Cynthia was blushing. She shook her head and mumbled under her breath.

  “Pardon?”

  “I said, you’d probably think I was really bad at it.”

  “Everyone’s bad when they start,” Nathan said. “I just have the advantage of having started younger.”

  Cynthia still looked embarrassed. “If you really don’t mind.” She nibbled on her lip, looking at him from behind a few strands of hair that were in her face again, and Nathan thought that she had the same cuteness superpower that Lily did.

  He really didn’t have the time to take on anything else right now, but he found himself saying, “I’d be happy to.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  “YOU DIDN’T TAN AT all,” Nathan said when he opened the door for Monica on Friday. She’d flown in from Morocco the previous day.

  “Hi Nathan,” Monica said airily. She was a strikingly pretty, skinny redhead, who was almost as tall as Nathan. “Nice to see you too. You’re so much more polite than you were back in July.”

  “Monica!” Jess hurtled out of the lounge and shoved Nathan into the wall in her desperation to hug Monica. Nathan had always privately thought that his sister would happily get rid of him and be related to Monica instead. Monica was cool. Jess did not think Nathan was cool.

  “Jessie! You grew up!” Monica said. “Are you wearing makeup?”

  “Don’t mention makeup,” Nathan pleaded. Aunt Anna and Jessica had rowed for hours about whether Jess was allowed it now that she was in secondary school, and the only time they had managed to agree on the subject was when they united forces to inform Nathan that, as a man, he was not allowed to have an opinion on the subject.

  Girls were strange creatures.

  Monica, of course, knew all the right things to say to Jess so that she disappeared back into the lounge post-haste, with a big smile on her face. Nathan wondered if he ought to take notes, but it seemed unlikely that Monica’s tricks would work for him, anyway.

  “I was thinking we should go out,” Monica said significantly. “And I want to meet your girlfriend.”

  “For one, she’s not my girlfriend,” Nathan said. “We’re taking it slow. And you’ll meet her on Sunday.”

  “Why wait?”

  “How did I forget how impatient you are?” Nathan asked. Monica made a face.

  “Let me get my stuff.” He ushered Monica up to his room to wait for him. She was the only girl, apart from Jess, who had ever set foot in his bedroom. He’d never really been one for posters or anything, so the walls were pretty bare. There were a few odd knickknacks that his father brought back when he travelled, and the bedcovers were blue wi
th stripes. A matching blue beanbag sat in front of his TV, to which the playstation hooked up. That was pretty much it.

  Monica shut the door and said, “Can I see the knife?”

  “Just be careful.”

  Nathan pulled the wrapped bundle out of the cupboard. Monica took it like she was afraid it would bite her.

  “Fuck—that’s—how can you stand to have this in your room?” she asked.

  “I don’t spend much time in my room, except when I’m sleeping,” Nathan pointed out. There wasn’t really a moment spare, in between school, training, and homework. He didn’t have space for a desk, so he did homework downstairs at the kitchen table.

  “Still,” Monica said. Nathan let her have her private moment with the knife whilst he changed. October had started and, like clockwork, the seasons had shifted. The leaves were turning, and a perpetual drizzle had started up. Even though autumn could be absolutely miserable, it was usually Nathan’s favourite time of year. His birthday was in October, it was sports season, and he just enjoyed being outside no matter the weather.

  It was just this year that was different. If only he could postpone turning eighteen for another year.

  “M, do you think I’ll make a decent hunter?” he asked as he laced up his trainers.

  “Huh? Why wouldn’t you? You can kick Adrian’s arse.”

  “Yeah, but…” Nathan struggled to put his thoughts into words for a moment. “It’s not that I can’t. Should I, though?”

  Monica stared at him. “Nate, when that kid needed help, did you think twice about jumping in?”

  “What? No, of course not!”

  “Then that’s your answer,” Monica said. “It’s part of you. If you can’t imagine not doing it… then you have to do it.”

  How did everyone manage to make it sound so simple?

  Nathan sighed and straightened up. “Alright, let’s go,” he said. “Are we heading to your place or into town?”

  Monica wrapped up the knife and handed it back to him. “Into town,” she replied. “I don’t think you should be keeping this thing in your cupboard. It’s like it’s literally trying to suck the life out of everything around it. At least wrap it in something sturdier.”

  “I’ll try and think of something.” Nathan shrugged. “Shall we? We can’t be out late. I have training at half seven tomorrow.”

  Monica was too lazy to fetch her own bike, so she sat on the back of Nathan’s bike, and he cycled her up the Abingdon Road.

  “You need to get your license,” Monica said, gripping his shoulder for balance as they climbed off on St. Aldates.

  “I’ll put it on the list for when I finally learn how to bend time.” Nathan locked his bike to the fence that ran beside St. Aldates’s Church, and they started to walk.

  “We could go to G&D’s,” Nathan suggested hopefully, but not optimistically. Monica wasn’t the kind of friend he got ice cream with.

  “Live a little,” Monica replied. “Let’s go to TWL.”

  Nathan’s heart sank.

  By day the witching level was a café and market geared towards witches. His aunt bought her warding supplies there. By night it served alcohol and became a bit racier. At the end of the day, it wasn’t the worst possible place they could go, but Nathan had to be up early for training tomorrow.

  He reminded Monica of that, and she told him, “You’re so boring. You should take this opportunity to have one last illegal drink before you turn eighteen.”

  “I have drunk alcohol illegally before,” Nathan said patiently. “It’s not going to taste any different after the thirteenth.”

  “I don’t know how I’m friends with you. You are appallingly responsible.”

  “I don’t know how I’m friends with you, either,” Nathan replied. Monica didn’t take offense, which was annoying because her comment had stung him. Nathan wondered if having your parents brutally slaughtered by vampires made you somehow immune to rude comments for the rest of eternity.

  That made him feel guilty. “Fine, let’s go to TWL.”

  The supernatural world generally didn’t care too much about legal ages. If a human wandered across their path, they were considered fair game for any number of hijinks, irrespective of age. Luckily, there was a way for Nathan to not become potions ingredients. They hid in the night entrance to TWL, and Monica took Nathan’s wrist between her slender, bony fingers. She chanted a few words in Latin that Nathan should probably have understood, and then he felt the smoky, strange brush of her magic against him. His wrist stung for a moment, and a black mark in the shape of a lightning bolt hitting a stone appeared on his skin. It was Monica’s witches’ mark.

  “You have to remove that before I go home,” he said. “If Aunt Anna sees it…”

  “You’ll be dead, I know,” Monica said. “I’ll take it off, don’t worry.” She smirked at him. “Worry about what I’m going to do in the meantime.”

  “Yeah, not really worried about that,” Nathan said. “Because you have standards and shagging a kid probably contravenes them.”

  “Shagging you would,” Monica said. “It’d be like incest. Ugh.”

  Then she kissed his cheek but, unlike when Cynthia did it, there was no heart-racing, sweaty palms, or mad panic. Nathan elbowed her lightly, grinning, and they headed upstairs.

  The witching level was crowded with Friday night drinkers. Mostly, they were young witches and warlocks, of whom there were a surprising number in Oxford. The university tended to attract them, partly because it had an excellent supernatural library, partly because it was old and filled with ambient and ancestral magic, and partly because the Council was here. Everyone secretly wanted to be noticed by the Council, because it meant you were powerful or special.

  “So, full disclosure,” Monica whispered once they were seated with drinks. “I figured we might do a bit of digging while we’re here on the Sahir.”

  “Should we?” Nathan asked warily. “I was sort of hoping to hand this over to the Council.”

  “Why haven’t you?”

  “…Cynthia,” Nathan said reluctantly.

  “Cynthia,” Monica echoed smugly. “Thought so.”

  “Couldn’t we keep her out of it?” Nathan’s voice sounded whiny and pleading to his own ears. “Couldn’t we just tell them I don’t know who the kid is that I saved?”

  “You know what will happen, though,” Monica said. “The Council will worm their way into the issue and find out everything. They’re on high alert now, especially, because of what happened with Damien and Christian.”

  There were times when Nathan wished he had never heard the name Damien von Klichtzner before. He sighed. “Have they replaced Christian on the Council yet?”

  “Yes, with some pseudo-Roman guy or something,” Monica said. “Not sure who he is, but the witches aren’t loving him. Par for the course, I guess.”

  Witches didn’t love anything to do with vampires. Nathan theorised that the only reason the hunters were allowed on the Council was to mediate between the witches and the vampires. It was certainly about ninety percent of their job.

  “Anyway,” Monica said, “Did you manage to get off tomorrow to go to my graduation?”

  “What do you think?” Nathan asked glumly.

  “Nathan! Can’t you, like, make up the hours some other time?”

  Only as long as he went without sleep for the next month.

  “Grey will never go for that, Monica.”

  “You promised to try!”

  “I did try! But Grey wants to take me on a field trip tomorrow, and he’s having doubts about letting me initiate, so I sort of need to be on the ball this next week. I’m sorry.”

  Monica huffed. “Now I have to take Adrian as my third guest.”

  “Take Lily.”

  Monica curled a strand of hair around her finger. “Yeah, that’s not a bad idea…”

  “How are you celebrating?”

  “We’re getting dinner at the Cherwell Boathouse,” Monica
said. “Okay, but if you’re bailing on me tomorrow, then you have to promise that I’ll have your undivided attention on Sunday. And you have to get celebratory drinks with me.”

  “No drinks on Sunday, I have school in the morning.”

  Monica made a face.

  “I’m serious,” Nathan said. “Kyle Saunders came in hungover one morning and Mr Wilkes put him in detention for a week!”

  “I can’t wait ‘til you finish school,” Monica complained. “We’ll have one drink on Sunday. But I’m taking you out for your birthday.”

  “Not if I have initiations the next day…”

  “Nathan, shut up!” Monica said. “You’re acting old!”

  Nathan put his drink down. “No, you’re acting like a five-year-old!” He recognised that his temper was fraying rapidly. “Bathroom,” he added. “I’ll be back.”

  Monica frowned. Nathan made a beeline for the toilets. His breaths were coming too fast. His heart raced. Hunters were supposed to be able to handle anything with a level head. Grey tried to shock him sometimes in training, and Nathan never lost his cool. Why did Monica get to him so easily? What was wrong with him today?

  He ducked into the hallway that led to the toilets and leaned his forehead against the wall, taking several deep breaths. Damn, what was this? Nathan had never been prone to panic attacks. He’d never really lost control of his temper, either. Okay, except when Adrian was involved, but that was different. Adrian deliberately tried to provoke him. Monica was his friend.

  Someone bumped into him, and he jerked his head up. There was a girl standing next to him, clinging to him. She stared up at him with wide eyes, looking completely strung out. Her hair and skin were so pale that at first Nathan thought she didn’t have any colour at all, but no, that was a trick of the light and the fact that she was wearing black. She was thinner than Monica, even, and wearing a very short denim skirt, the kind girls seemed to like that looked like it was going to fray away to nothing any minute. Her top was long-sleeved, but scrunched up at her elbows, showing off thin, tattooed forearms. Her heels made her almost Nathan’s height.

  “Please,” she said in accented English. “Please…”

  “Are you alright?” Nathan asked. Wait, her accent might be Russian. “Vy v poryadke?”