Random Acts of Sorcery (20 page)

“I want three things before I tell you this,” said John, finally speaking again after devouring two sandwiches and a bunch of mashed potatoes. Cassie knew they had fed him regularly as a rat, but it didn’t seem to have made much difference.

They were all gathered in the living room, with John in the center. Even Aeka was looking down at him from the balcony, her face unreadable.

“Which three things?
Wine, women and song?” said Dmitri, and Liam gave him a pained look.

John took another giant sip of coffee; he was on his third mug. “First, I want my job salvaged. Being absent for days without notice is generally frowned upon in the teaching profession.”

“Actually, we took care of that for you,” said Dwight. “When you first got, uh, ratted again, we called the school and told them you had the flu. I pretended to be your brother, or cousin or something, don’t remember. But they think you’re out sick.”

“Yeah, we had a sub Tuesday and Wednesday,” added Cassie.

“Good,” said John, draining his mug with one more sip. “And if they get any ideas about firing me, I want someone to see to it that they’re persuaded otherwise. I know how good vampires are at persuasion.

“Second, I want to become a paid blood donor to the Buckley clan. I lost my secondary income since I stopped associating with the Liddell vampires, and I want it back.”

“What makes you think we even want your blood?” said Billingsly. He didn’t seem overly fond of John Golding.

“I eat an all-organic diet, with no synthetic hormones or preservatives. I also avoid High Fructose Corn Syrup
and all partially hydrogenated—”

“I’m certain your blood is of suitable quality, Mr. Golding,” said Eugene, giving Billingsly a withering, side-eyed glance. “Continue.”

John took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “Lastly, I want to be made a member of this entourage, with all of the protection and benefits that entails.”

Everyone was silent for a moment at that.

“Excuse me?” Sam sputtered, finally. “Don’t you hate me?”

John put his hands behind his head. “Oh, I do hate you. But I’d rather hate you and be alive,” he said. “I want a protection amulet and the whole works.”

“So who’d you piss off?” Khalil called. He was standing toward the back of the room, but listening with interest.

“Being a vampire blood donor is a risky proposition,” said John, looking at Sam instead of Khalil. “I want protection not only from my former…clients, but anyone else who thinks they may be able to use me as a meal because of my history.”

“Maybe you should have thought of that before you became a vampire blood—”

“Khalil, please,” said Sam. He took a deep breath and looked at John. Cassie felt like it was the first time he was really looking at her teacher as a colleague, not as a threat or some bizarre plaything. “If you have information that will be helpful at court, I don’t see any problem with granting those three requests.”

John looked skeptical. “You’re serious? You’re not just toying with me?”

Sam looked a little chastened, though not at all surprised that John would ask that. “If I lied to you now, I think I would lose the respect of everyone here. Isn’t that right?” he said, looking around at everyone. They all nodded, except for Aeka, who didn’t move at all.

“I know I’ve been bad to you; like I said, you’ve only seen the worst of me. But I don’t blame you for wanting protection, and it doesn’t hurt me to provide it. I will meet your conditions, whether the information you have proves useful or not.”

John exhaled, and a great tension seemed to leave him; it was like the muscles in his body all relaxed at once. He looked like he was about to begin a long story, then thought the better of it. “Can someone get me some cookies? Fruit-flavored is my preference, but anything will do.”

No one moved for a moment, then Dmitri grumbled and went to the kitchen. “I’m the official fetch man now,” he mumbled.

Once he was satisfied that cookies were on the way, John began. “Cassie is already a witch. I’m pretty sure she has been for a while.”

The room filled with murmurs. Sam looked at Cassie, and the look in his eyes made her feel sick.

“Did you…with someone…with my—”

“No! No, I swear, I didn’t do anything!” She frowned at her teacher. “You’re wrong, Mr. Golding. It’s not possible.”

He smirked at that. “Is it?”

“I think I know how witches are made, John,” said Sam, who still looked a little pale. “Assuming Cassie isn’t lying—”

“I’m not!”

“The thing is, you don’t,” said John, looking at Sam with a smug grin. “Do you know the process for how turning a human girl into a witch really works, hmm? Do you?” He accepted a plate of cookies from Dmitri; they appeared to be tiny little fruit-filled cakes.

Sam looked like he was rapidly starting to regret agreeing to give John anything. “And I suppose you do?”

“Actually, yes. I didn’t only become a blood donor to the Liddells because I needed the money,” he said, with a glance at Eugene. “They have an excellent library, and I’ve been allowed access to it for the last few years. They have an extensive collection of texts about not only vampires, but all of the other races; I probably know more about this subject than any other human alive.”

No one said anything; they didn’t doubt the truth of John’s words. They already knew about the quality of the Liddell’s library from Serenus, and it seemed only logical that a literature buff would be fascinated by it.

Seeing that no one was going to interrupt, John smiled and continued. “What’s really curious is that the transmission of demonic power is very much like a sexually transmitted disease in many respects. Intercourse is the surest way to spread it, but not the only one. The texts I’ve read suggest that thousands of years ago, it wasn’t the main way. Apparently, in days of yore, demons used to turn their human lovers into witches just by kissing them.”

The room exploded in murmurs again. Cassie could hear Jay whisper “They’ve KISSED?!”

Cassie herself was lost in a memory: the time she and Sam had kissed in North Carolina, right before he had run off to fight Quentin and his cronies. At the time, she had wondered if it was more than a kiss; later, she had convinced herself that what she had felt was in her imagination.

I’ve been so hot lately, for no reason. And I know I’ve been eating more, but I haven’t been gaining any weight. John got changed into a rat on Monday when I was really mad at him, then changed back when I pulled that lever….

There was a loud sound, and Cassie saw that Miri had smacked her forehead. “I feel so stupid, I should have known,” she grumbled. “I knew she smelled different, but I thought she had just changed her bodywash or something. Stupid, stupid stupid.”

Cassie looked at Sam, but he didn’t meet her eyes; he seemed to be lost in thought. She wondered if he was remembering the kiss as well.

“Are you certain?” said Eugene, addressing John. “What you say appears to make sense, but…I have my doubts.”

“When she changed me, I was sure,” said John. “There’s no other explanation.”

“B-but wait, I don’t get it,” said Cassie. “Even if I am a witch, I don’t know how to do a complicated spell like change someone into a rat. I just….”

“Got angry and felt something snap?” said John, completing her thought. “You couldn’t have done the original spell, but it was already done for you.  Whether I like it or not,” and here he gave Sam a dark look, “I’ll always be someone who has a complete animal form magically present. Even with no training, you can flip a switch that’s already there.”

“If it’s a switch that can be switched on and off easily now, that means you could have turned him back at any time, Sam,” said Mike.

Sam gritted his teeth. “Well, I didn’t know that at the time. I thought I had to do the whole thing from scratch again.”

While Cassie’s mind was spinning with the knowledge that she was now a witch, able to cast her own magic instead of just serving as a power source for a demon, Eugene still seemed unimpressed.

“This is all very well and good Mr. Golding, but I thought you said you had something that was going to solve Sam’s problem with the court,” he said coldly. “Making Cassie into a witch is the least they expected of him by now; it is better for his prospects that she has made the transition, but it won’t cause them to rule in his favor.”

Golding laughed. “I can’t believe even you’re missing the point!” he exclaimed, and Eugene scowled ever so slightly at him. “Don’t you see it? It’s so obvious.” He turned to Sam with a grin.

“You’re not just bringing them a witch; you’re bringing them the first
virgin
witch in over 2,000 years.”

Miri was rifling through Cassie’s closet, frustrated.
Where’s that sexy green dress? Don’t tell me she got rid of it.

“The whole thing is stupid,” she muttered as she sorted through a whole rack of boring clothes. “I don’t think it matters who Cassie’s slept with or not, it’s not going to affect what kind of witch she’s going to be.”

“Neither do I,” said Dmitri. “But the teacher was right; demons care about that sort of thing. They’re obsessed with purity, perhaps because they’re convinced their own souls are so filthy.”

They had stopped by the Tremblay house to put together an overnight bag for Cassie. Sam still didn’t want to risk any of his humans outside the protective barrier of the Buckley’s penthouse, but it was almost time to leave for Las Vegas and they all needed their things. Liam had said he felt weird looking through girls’ closets, so Miri had agreed to come on the packing trip instead of him. So far, they had packed bags for most of the entourage.

Cassie had requested that Miri pack the black dress and not the green dress, but Miri planned to conveniently “forget” about that; she was confident the girl would thank her someday.

“That’s why Quentin was never that taken with you, by the
way. In his eyes, you weren’t—”

He ducked as a shoe flew over his head and slammed into the wall above Cassie’s bed.

“I see your point,” said Miri, annoyed.

Here it is! She shoved it as far in the back of her closet as possible.
Silly girl.
She gently tossed the dress to Dmitri, who carefully placed it in the suitcase he was packing.

Miri leaned back against Cassie’s dresser, frowning. “It’s not that I don’t get it. It’s going to be this whole symbolic thing to them, like another sign written in the stars that she’s this amazing witch that they’ve been waiting for.” She began picking at her nails. “But the girl already has major issues about intimacy, and this is going to make it worse.”

“Not my area of knowledge,” said Dmitri, as he zipped up the suitcase.

“I wasn’t talking to you. I was just thinking out loud and you happen to be standing here.”

They both heard someone coming down the hall, and for the tiniest fraction of a second, both prepared for attack. Then, from the sound of the footsteps, they realized it was the boy, and both relaxed.

Hunter threw open the door. “Where’s Cassie?”
His blue eyes, so much like his sister’s, flashed with anger.

“Cassie’s going on a trip,” Miri said nonchalantly. She was good at sounding casual. “We jus
t came to pick up a few of her things.”

“Where is she going?” Hunter asked. His tone was demanding, like he planned to hit them both if they didn’t tell him.

Before Miri could fabricate an answer, Dmitri interjected. “Boy, shouldn’t you be in school?”

Miri frowned when she realized what Dmitri meant; it was a regular Friday morning. Why wasn’t the boy in school?

There was a moment of sadness on the boy’s face, then he was angry again. “Mom doesn’t care if I go to school anymore. Everything’s all weird, and it’s all Cassie’s fault. I want to talk to her. Where is MY SISTER??” He yelled the last two words.

Miri and Dmitri exchanged concerned glances. Clearly, they had to hypnotize the little boy, but no one in the Buckley clan liked resorting to using compulsion on children. Dmitri subtly shook his head no, his dark eyes somber. Even though it was their duty, he wouldn’t do it.

Miri sighed and knelt down in front of her target. “Hunter,” she started, “I know you’re very worried about your big sister, because you’re a good brother. But you have to….”

She meant to ease into her hypnosis voice, but the look in Hunter’s eyes made her trail off. He loved his sister, fiercely, and he had probably intuited more of what was going on than anyone had given him credit for. He was scared of them, terrified of them both, but he wouldn’t back down, because he was brave.

His eyes are just like hers. I can’t do this, this feels so wrong.

Even though she hadn’t spoken, Dmitri could sense her emotions.

“What do we do now?” he asked, and she knit her brow in frustration.

Most of the bats had been freed to pursue their normal bat activities, but a few were still flying around areas of interest. Sam couldn’t see through their eyes exactly (and if what he thought he knew about bats was correct, even they couldn’t see too well through their own eyes), but he did get pertinent information from them. He had started receiving signals from the bats in his sleep recently, and once he was familiar with the sensation, it was easy to tap into their consciousness while he was awake as well. How they gleaned where he wanted them to patrol was another story; they just seemed to know, without him making any conscious attempt to communicate with them.

Maybe John knows something about how I ended up with this
Halloween bat army without doing anything.
Of course, if I want to get anything further out of John, maybe I should wait until his memories of being a rat aren’t quite so fresh….

His musings were interrupted by Eugene, who had returned from making a flurry of telephone calls. He joined Sam by the living room window, his face solemn.

“Any luck?” asked Sam, but the look on Eugene’s face did not bode well.

“No. No one has heard anything about this Seraph, or at least nothing useful. One of my contacts took great pride in telling me that Seraphim are a class of angel, but I’m fairly certain you were already aware of that.”

“I was,” said Sam, irritated. He really hadn’t expected Eugene’s inquiry to turn up anything substantial, but he was hoping for at least some kind of clue. “The only guess that makes sense to me is that this Seraph is actually a witch; that your theory that this is a demon masking his actions through human pawns is true, only it’s the witch doing the micro-managing.”

Eugene put his hands in his pockets. He was wearing an especially shabby sport coat today, one with orange elbow pads. “That would stand to reason, unless…
.” he trailed off.

“Unless what?”

Eugene seemed hesitant about what he was about to say, which was a strange expression to see on his usually stoic face. “Do you think it’s possible that she could really be an angel?”

“No,” said Sam quickly. He couldn’t prove that it was impossible, but he refused to believe that an angel would use a group of mentally ill vampire victims as tools to commit mass murder.

Angels attack like Aeka; up close and brutal, with no hesitation whatsoever. Manipulating in the shadows is a demon’s game. Isn’t it?

They heard the door open, indicating that Miri and Dmitri were back with the luggage. When they also heard a child’s voice that wasn’t Ethan’s, both men exchanged concerned glances.

“She’d better be here,” the boy said in a serious tone. It sounded almost like he was threatening them.

Sam was about to ask who the child was, until the boy fixed his blue eyes on him.
That must be Cassie’s brother, Hunter. Why would they ever bring him here?

He looked at Miri with a quizzical expression, but before she could respond, dragging a bunch of suitcases behind her, the boy addressed him. “Are you Cassie’s boyfriend?” he asked. He said ‘boyfriend’ as though it were a dirty word.

“No, I’m…her friend. What can I do for you, Hunter?”

The boy was glaring at him. It was strange, seeing that same glare in a face that wasn’t Cassie’s. “What have you done with my sister?”

“Hunter!” Cassie called, running down the stairs. “Why? Why did you bring him here?”

Miri dropped a bunch of bags on the carpeting. “Well, we didn’
t really have much of a choice.”

Dmitri walked over to where Sam and Eugene were standing and
spoke, his voice so low that only they could hear. “He confronted us. It was either bring him or tamper with his mind, which we would not do.”

Sam understood, but Eugene looked livid. “Wonderful. Be sure to let me know the next time your arbitrary morals may get in the way of doing the job you were assigned to do,” he said in a furious whisper. Dmitri took the rebuke without expression or comment.

Cassie, still wearing the dated white dress, grabbed her little brother’s shoulders. “You can’t stay here, okay? You need to go home with Mom and Dad, I have to go somewhere—”

“Why are you never home anymore?” Hunter interrupted her. “Why does Mom act like I’m not there? What are all these people doing to you?” he asked looking around.

Cassie seemed at a loss at the depth of her brother’s emotion. “They’re not doing anything to me.”

“You’re LYING!” he said, yelling in her face. “You’re not the same, you’re not my sister!”

He went to hit her, but Miri grabbed him before he could belt his sister one. “Whoah, squirt. You’d better get this violence thing under control before you hit puberty.”

“Lemme go! Lemme go!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. Cassie watched him thrash in Miri’s thin arms with all his might. To
Sam, it seemed like his familiar was on the verge of tears.

Sam walked behind her and lowered his head so he could whisper in her ear. “You know, we can take him with us.
Seems like he’ll be hysterical if we leave him.”

Cassie shook her head. “I don’t want him at court, it’s not safe. We should…we should make him forget about me.”

“Maybe,” said Sam. “But then I have to make one of the Buckleys brainwash a child.”

Hunter seemed to have exhausted himself in his struggle, and instead lay limp in Miri’s arms.

“I want him safe,” Cassie snapped, with a demanding tone he was unused to from her.

Sam had to sigh at that. “Will he be safe here? The Seraph may have more men we haven’t seen yet.”

At that, Cassie did cry, a single tear running down her face. “You’re right. He’s never safe, just because he’s my brother.”

With that, she grabbed Hunter out of Miri’s arms (the vampire let go easily) and wrapped him in a fierce hug. The boy’s eyes widened in surprise; apparently, Cassie didn’t show him physical affection too often.

I know the feeling
, Sam couldn’t help thinking.

He could tell she was crying from the sound of her voice, but still, she spoke clearly and with purpose. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry there were so many things I didn’t tell you all these months. I was just afraid for you, okay? I was so afraid that you were going to get hurt because of me, that I was the worst sister ever. I’m so sorry.”

Hunter tried to pull a stoic face, but in a moment, his eyes were filling with tears too. “Cassie what happened why is everything so quiet and weird, no one talks to me anymore and—”

“I’m going to tell you the truth, starting now, okay?” She stood up and took a deep breath. “It’s complicated but…here’s the gist. I’m a witch, see?” she said, pointing to herself. “And he’s a demon.”

Sam dropped his disguise spell for a moment, and the expression in the boy’s eyes went from sadness to wide-eyed wonder.

“And these are vampires,” Cassie said, gesturing to Miri and Dmitri. Both smiled and showed their fangs.

Hunter seemed to consider all that for a moment. He sniffed. “Okay,” he said.

Cassie didn’t seem to believe what he had said for a moment. “Okay?
Really? That’s all you’re going to say?”

“Mom hasn’t yelled at me since February,” Hunter explained. “I knew it had to be something really, really weird.”