Mind Over Magic by Lindsay Buroker

15

It wasfull dark by the time the truck turned onto the long pothole-filled driveway, Morgen’s grocery bags tipping over and dumping everything from cantaloupes to cans of cream-of-mushroom soup all over the bed. The bag of dog food she’d picked up for Lucky, who would be starving by the time she fed him tonight, skidded back and forth with each turn. She resolved to take her car, with its modern amenity of a trunk, into town for her next grocery run.

A clunk sounded as something hit the side of the bed. Hopefully, not the label maker she’d purchased right before the small stationery-slash-office-supply-slash-printing-slash-mailbox store closed for the night. She’d been delighted by the find and planned to put it to use in the root cellar, at least on the things she could identify. A lot of the jars weren’t labeled, and a check of her phone’s app store had shown her programs for identifying plants and trees, but nothing aimed at recognizing strange powders used by witches.

As he drove, Amar sat silently, no lights on the antiquated dashboard to illuminate his face. He’d barely spoken since Morgen walked out of the Crystal Parlor, admitting that Phoebe was willing to show her a few things, but she sensed that he didn’t approve. Maybe she shouldn’t have said anything. All he wanted—and all she’d said she wanted when she’d walked into that shop—was to find Grandma’s killer.

But after being targeted by so many dangerous people, Morgen wanted to learn something about her heritage. Especially, she wanted to learn to defend herself.

Back in the suburbs of Seattle, she hadn’t felt the need, but Bellrock was different. Very different.

“I’m going to have to clean the house tonight and in the morning,” she said, the seat making her voice vibrate as the truck bumped and swayed up the muddy road. “There’s a photographer coming to take pictures of the property tomorrow.”

Long seconds passed before Amar replied. “You are certain this is only a ruse?”

“Absolutely certain. Grandma left me a letter that I read last night and asked me to keep the woods intact. Even if I’d been thinking of selling the property before—” which, she admittedly had been doing, “—I wouldn’t do it now that I know it would be against her wishes.”

“It would also be against my wishes.”

Morgen hadn’t known him two days ago, so that wouldn’t have swayed her nearly as much, but she said, “I know. And I’d prefer not to annoy you.”

“Good.”

“But because I want the ruse to work, it might be a good idea if you would refrain from wandering around in front of the barn with your chainsaw while the photographer is here.”

“You do not think a picture of me would help interest a buyer?”

“One of you holding a chainsaw would be alarming and not make anyone want to put in an offer.”

“Then I should prowl about in every room as the photographer takes pictures.”

“Ha ha. Also don’t turn into a wolf, please. You, with blood dripping from your fangs, would also put off a buyer.” Morgen said it lightly, but the disturbing memory of that image had imprinted itself in her mind.

“I cannot become a wolf when the sun is out.”

“That’s the rule? I’d wondered if it only worked at night. Are full moons required?”

“No. Only that the sun be down or hidden behind deep cloud cover. It is painful, however, if the light level rises and forces a change back, so night is the ideal time to become the wolf.”

“Is it… painful the rest of the time? Transforming?” Morgen imagined that having one’s bones and body magically contorted into another shape had to hurt.

“It is not pleasant,” he said tersely.

“Then why do it?”

Now, she felt guilty that he’d had to change into his wolf form to help her at the restaurant.

“The moon calls.”

“Meaning you can’t resist it?”

“You can resist, but it grows more difficult with time. For one or two nights, perhaps it is only an itch that longs to be scratched, but the urge grows as more time passes without turning. Also, at night, there’s a great urge to hunt, to consume the hot fresh flesh of the prey that travels the forest.” Amar looked over at her.

Hopefully, not thinking about how humans were prey that one might feast upon.

“Carrots and cabbage don’t satisfy that urge, huh?” she said after a long uncomfortable moment.

“No.” Amar looked back to the driveway as they ran into a pothole with a jolt. “The hunt is even more exhilarating than the feast afterward. I am also stronger and more deadly in my wolf form.”

Thinking of his muscular arms, she wondered if that was true. He seemed like he would be deadly as a human too.

“There are times when it’s an advantage to turn,” he added.

“Like at the Timber Wolf.”

“Yes. But you have to be careful once you turn. It’s easy to get lost in the blood lust, to forget the difference between friend and foe, to simply wish to strike.” His voice lowered to a husky whisper. “To kill.”

“Such a pain when that happens.” Maybe she shouldn’t have made jokes, but the conversation was making her uneasy, and she longed for the house to come into view so she could escape inside. It was her fault for asking questions.

“It is a pain when you are also a man and judged by the laws of men,” Amar said. “Even if you are judged as a wolf, men will come after you if you’ve killed their kind.”

Their kind. As if he weren’t truly one of them.

“They are weak, but their guns can kill even one of us,” he said.

“Have you always been a werewolf? Is one born into it?”

“No.”

She waited, expecting him to tell her the story, but he didn’t. Maybe it was something painful that he didn’t want to share, like the picture of the woman in his glove compartment.

Amar sniffed the air, then rolled down the window, and sniffed some more.

“Are you… smelling prey now?” Morgen sniffed tentatively, but her nostrils didn’t give her anything except the smell of the forest, damp after an earlier rain.

“No. I smell smoke.”

“Like a campfire?”

“No.”

Though the driveway hadn’t grown any less bumpy, Amar gripped the wheel with both hands and accelerated. If the bench had been making her teeth vibrate before, now it threatened to knock them out of her jaw and onto the floor of the truck. She grabbed the door bar and, there sadly being no oh-shit handle, pressed her other hand against the ceiling.

Before the house came into sight, the smoke Amar had smelled reached her weaker nose. The first inkling of fear entered her gut. She’d left Lucky in the house. If it was burning, he wouldn’t be able to get out.

Orange light flickered over the trees. She leaned forward on the bench. Not only was there a fire, but there was a big fire.

As Amar rounded the last bend in the driveway, the clearing came into view. The clearing and the barn. Flames burned all along its roof and leaped through the broken windows of the loft apartment as plumes of smoke rose up into the dark night.

How had those windows broken? Had someone—some arsonist?—thrown Molotov cocktails through?

Amar swore, accelerating toward the barn. For now, the house wasn’t on fire, but the barn wasn’t so far away from it that it was guaranteed to be safe.

He halted the truck and leaped out. Morgen grabbed her phone to call 9-1-1 as he ran toward a hose reel on the side of the house. She shook her head bleakly. That little hose wouldn’t do anything to stop those flames.

As she called, wondering how long it would take for a fire engine to navigate those potholes and reach the place, she ran toward the front of the house. Surprisingly, Lucky wasn’t barking. She couldn’t believe he would be inside sleeping when the barn was on fire.

The smoke hung thick under the roof of the porch, and she coughed as she opened the front door. Again, she was surprised, because her dog didn’t sprint out, as she would have expected. Maybe he sensed the danger and was hiding?

“Lucky!” she called as soon as she gave the address to the dispatcher and hung up. “Come on, Lucky! Let’s get you outside.”

She ran through the house, checking all the rooms. Since most of the windows were closed, it wasn’t that smoky inside, so she didn’t have trouble seeing or breathing, but she didn’t spot him.

“Lucky, I brought food for you. Dinner. Treats!” She threw out all of the words that usually made him come, but he wasn’t anywhere on the first floor.

What if the arsonist had let him outside, and he’d been afraid and run off into the forest? He could be lost or hiding under a log somewhere.

Morgen was about to run upstairs to look for him, but a masculine scream came from the yard. Amar?

He hadn’t screamed or so much as yelped in pain when he’d been battling those three werewolves. What could have made him cry out? He wouldn’t have been foolish enough to run inside the burning barn, would he?

Though she was worried for Lucky and wanted to keep searching, Morgen ran back outside. She halted on the porch steps as she spotted Amar on his knees, his back arched and the hose in the grass beside him. Outlined by the light of the fire, three women in dark dresses had come out of nowhere and faced him, each carrying a stick—no, a wand—and an amulet. They gripped the jewelry in their hands rather than wearing it around their necks and pointed their wands at Amar as they muttered arcane words.

And those words, or those items, were hurting Amar.

Morgen almost shouted for them to stop, but if they’d taken him to his knees, they would have no problem knocking her on her ass. She gripped her amulet and whispered the only magical words she knew, the incantation from the restaurant.

“Under the moon’s magic, allow me to sleuth and reveal thy silvery truth.”

Once again, it took a moment for anything to happen, and Amar continued to gasp and writhe on his knees. Morgen gripped the porch post, wanting to help him, not hide uselessly in the smoke and shadows. Had she been able to think of anything in her grandmother’s house that could be used as a weapon, she would have run back in to get it. The fireplace poker? That was the only object that came to mind.

There were all those knives and even that antler staff in the root cellar, but she would have to run around the house, and likely into sight, in order to get down there.

The double-vision returned, showing her the witches and what they feared. An illusionary man appeared, grabbing one woman and forcing her against something. Did that signify a mugging? A rape? Either way, Morgen didn’t know how she could use that fear to get her to leave Amar alone. Another woman was afraid of growing old and dying. The last feared… werewolves. In her vision, a man turned into a black wolf and sprang at her.

Morgen cursed, unable to think of how to exploit any of their fears, and ran into the house for the fireplace poker. It was all she had.

As the barn continued to burn, another scream ripped from Amar’s lips.

Morgen ran back outside with the poker and followed the shadows of the porch, hoping to get close enough to whack at least one witch before they saw her. She didn’t know how they were holding Amar prisoner or what pain they were inflicting on him, but their lips kept moving. If Morgen could make them stop the incantation, maybe their spell would falter.

She reached the closest witch and slammed the iron poker down onto her wrist. The woman shrieked and dropped her wand. Morgen spun, intending to do the same to the other two, but they’d seen her. One sprang back, her mumbling stopping, but the other frowned at Morgen and focused even more intently on Amar. He’d gotten one foot under him, but she renewed her chanting and thrust her wand toward him. His back arched, and he screamed again.

“Stop it, you bitches!” Morgen lunged past Amar, wanting nothing more than to crack the woman on the head.

But the first witch recovered and snatched up her wand. She pointed it at Morgen, and something that felt like a lightning bolt struck her. Her entire body spasmed, and her legs gave out. She pitched into the damp grass, flopping like a fish at Amar’s side, unable to keep her legs and arms from twitching wildly.

A snarl came from a few feet away.

“He’s changing,” one of the women cried. “Stop him!”

The electrical current flowing into Morgen stopped, though her limbs continued to shake. Her whole body was shaking, but she made herself pat around, trying to find the poker. She found a piece of leather clothing—was that Amar’s vest?—but not the poker.

“Stop right there.” Something cool pressed against the side of Morgen’s neck.

A gun? No, it was the metal of one of the pendants, touching her skin as the witch bent over her. It was hot, like a branding iron, and Morgen winced, trying to pull away.

“This is my property,” she said. “You all better get off right now. The sheriff’s department is on the way.”

“The sheriff knows better than to interfere with our justice,” one of the witches said.

“Justice? Burning down my barn and attacking the renter?”

More snarls came from her side, followed by a yip of pain. One witch still had a wand pointed at Amar. He’d started shifting into his wolf form, but they’d stopped him somehow, and he was stuck in the middle of changing, now neither man nor wolf.

Morgen slowly got to her feet, not daring to ignore the tip of the amulet pressed to her neck but refusing to sit in the grass and do nothing.

The wail of a siren reached them. It was probably a fire engine coming and not law enforcement, but the witch with the amulet pulled it back and glanced uncertainly toward the driveway. One of the others did too. Only the witch with the wand, the one focused on Amar, kept her focus, her eyes full of anger—or was that hatred?—as she glared at him. That was the woman whose fear was werewolves.

Morgen spotted the poker and snatched it up.

“Don’t fight us,” the youngest of the women said, a girl who barely appeared old enough to legally drink. “We came to save you.”

“By burning my barn?” Morgen demanded.

She feared she would regret it, that she would be zapped again with electricity or worse, but she stepped in front of Amar—in front of whatever magic the witch was firing at him from that wand.

Surprisingly, nothing hurt her. She didn’t feel anything at all. Behind her, Amar gasped and pitched backward, reverting to his human form.

“By burning his home. You’ll never be safe as long as a werewolf claims this property as his own.”

“He’s not claiming anything. He’s my…” Her what? Morgen didn’t know. She barely knew Amar. She hadn’t even figured out yet if he’d been paying rent for the barn. “Protector.”

“He’s a werewolf, not a protector,” the woman with the wand said. She hadn’t lowered it, but she was scowling at it now, as if betrayed that it wasn’t zapping Morgen. “He hates our kind, and if he’s pretending to help you, it’s only because he wants something.”

“Yeah, to protect me. Because he was my grandmother’s friend.” Even as she said the words, Morgen wondered if they were true. Phoebe’s warning came to mind, that Grandma might only have gained Amar’s allegiance by casting a spell on him.

“He was her servant, not her friend. That is the only way for our kind to have a relationship with their kind, the cruel bullying bastards.” This time, the woman who spoke was the one who’d feared rape, at least according to Morgen’s incantation. She shook her head vehemently, loathing in her eyes as she stared at Amar.

The sirens were growing closer, vehicles maneuvering up the driveway. The glances the witches sent in that direction promised that they didn’t want to be caught here, even if they’d claimed the law didn’t interfere with them.

“Amar isn’t like that,” Morgen said. “Whoever hurt you, it wasn’t him.”

She couldn’t truly know that, but she believed she was right. Maybe Amar was fierce and aggressive and had threatened her life, but he hadn’t so much as glanced at her chest. Not like the smarmy Christian.

“They’re all the same,” the woman said. “All of them.”

“That’s not true,” Morgen said. “Now, get off my property so I can put out that fire. Put out your arson. How the hell did you think burning down the barn would help me?”

“He was supposed to be in it, not riding around with you. You’re a fool to trust him at your side. The minute you try to sell the woods, he’ll tear your throat out.”

The headlights of the approaching fire engine flashed through the trees.

One of the witches swore and grabbed the arms of the other two. “We have to go.”

They ran between the house and the burning barn and into the woods.

Two fire engines and a sheriff’s department SUV pulled into the clearing. By now, the barn roof was collapsing, and the sides of the loft apartment were charred black. The witches might not have succeeded in burning Amar to death, but they’d destroyed his home. And possibly all of the furniture and projects he’d been working on in the barn below.

Distressed on his behalf, Morgen turned to help him as the firemen leaped from their trucks.

He was naked and on his knees, a fist pressed into the grass, his jaw clenched as he glared at the earth. Thinking of his admission that shifting form hurt, she could only imagine what being knocked back mid-change did. And the witches had clearly been hurting him further with their magic.

Morgen didn’t know if she could believe them, but if they’d come here to help her, this was her fault. She dropped to her knees beside Amar and risked putting a hand on his bare shoulder.

“I’m sorry. Is there anything I can get you? Tylenol?” She had some in her purse. “Bandages?” She eyed a cut at his temple that dribbled blood down the side of his face. “Cauliflower puffs? I know you’re a fan.”

Amar snorted, shook his head, and rose, indifferent to her hand—maybe to her. He gripped the back of his neck, as if some of their magic had struck him there, but he dropped his hand and looked with determination at the barn. “I have to put the fire out.”

The firemen were already on that, but he grabbed the garden hose, the grass sodden since it had kept spewing out water while the witches worked him over, and strode toward the barn. She didn’t think the firemen needed him, but she couldn’t blame him for wanting to help. After all, that was his home. She didn’t know how long he’d lived there, but it must have been a while to accumulate all that wood and start so many projects. Projects that might be little more than ash now.

Morgen shook her head, again feeling for him, but he only glared at the flames and shot hose water onto the barn, standing naked in the orange light of the fire.

A deputy headed toward her, nobody commenting on the naked man on the lawn, and Morgen braced herself to answer questions. But a distant bark came from the house, and she spun toward it.

“Lucky?”

She waved to the deputy and shouted that she would be right back, then ran into the house. She charged straight up to the second floor where she’d left off her search. The library door was shut, and she didn’t think she’d left it that way. Had the witches come into the house to snoop around and locked Lucky in there when he’d barked at them?

She raced and opened it.

Lucky jumped up, putting his paws on her shoulders, and knocking her into the wall. He licked her face before dropping to all fours and running toward the stairs.

“Wait, boy,” she blurted, afraid he would charge outside and be hurt or get in the way.

She chased him out of the house, prepared to lunge after him if he ran toward the fire. But he veered abruptly from the steps to the closest bush, where he lifted his leg. She slumped against the railing.

“I guess I was gone for a while,” she admitted as he continued. And continued. “My apologies. I did bring back dinner.”

Though she didn’t know when she would get a chance to make it. The deputy had spotted her and was heading her way again. What she would tell him, she didn’t know. The witches had disappeared into the woods. She hoped she never saw them again, but she doubted she would be that lucky.