Succession of Witches (7 page)

To his credit, Serenus didn’t answer; he knew as well as Sam did that Helen was the most calculating creature on the face of the earth, and perhaps beyond. Whatever Sam was, it was because the woman who had given birth to him had willed it to be so.

They were doing the poetry unit in first period honors English, which Cassie could do without. As far as she was concerned, creativity was nice, but punctuation was invented for a reason. At least Golding wasn’t one of those teachers who made you read out loud all the time.

Their teacher, bless him, was of the sort that picked mostly short poems and read them aloud to the class himself. He cut an attractive figure, standing at the front of the class holding their textbook in one large hand. With his towering height, olive complexion and leonine mane of golden brown hair, he had long been designated “the hot teacher,” at Silver Crown Academy, something he did a good job of pretending he was oblivious to.

Or at least, Cassie hoped he was pretending to be oblivious: no one could be that blind when 95 percent of the students who came to him for extra help were girls.

He cleared his throat, and soon his resonant bass brought the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson to life.

“The sense of the world is short,

Long and various the
report,

To love and be beloved;

Men and gods have not outlearned it;

And how oft soe’er they’ve turned it,

Not to be improved.

“So,” he said, putting down the book and placing his hands in the pockets of his gray slacks, a common habit of his, “Madison, what is Emerson saying?”

“Um, he’s saying that love is a great thing?” said the blonde girl sitting two rows behind Cassie. Madison Clarke was a good student, but like Cassie, she had a difficult time when the subject turned to anything resembling old-timey language.

Cassie rolled her eyes. If Emerson had wanted to say that love was grand, why didn’t he just come out and say it?

Golding smiled, flashing his white teeth. Cassie thought the man must use whitening toothpaste twice a day. “Is that all?” He acknowledged another student behind Cassie with a lazy wave of his arm, which Cassie soon realized was Mike.

“He’s saying that love is the same for men and for gods,” said Mike confidently. “Even if you’re dealing with a god who has superpowers, they fall in love just as easily as an average person.” He nudged Cassie gently in the back with a knuckle, which she made a concentrated effort to ignore.

“I believe you’re right Mr. Trepkowski, but what intrigues me is this ‘report’ Emerson speaks of,” said Golding, pacing in front of the whiteboard. “What do you think he’s referring to?”

In the middle of his question, the bell rang. As everyone began to put their textbooks back in their bags, Golding called out over the noise. “Read through page 96 for tomorrow, and think about the poem; we’ll return to it briefly tomorrow.”

Cassie was about to follow Mike and Jay into the hall when she felt a gentle tap on her shoulder. When she turned, she was surprised to see Mr. Golding towering over her.

“Ms. Tremblay,” he said, “Can you stay behind for one minute?”

“Sure,” she said, straightening her bookbag on her back. “What is it?”

Golding looked over her head, watching the other students file out of the room for a moment. When the room was empty enough to suit him, his hazel eyes returned to hers. “Is everything all right?”

“Yeah everything’s fine. Why?” she asked, puzzled. Other than the fact that she’d run out of Golding’s class once last fall when Sam had summoned her to his side, Golding had no reason to suspect any of the upheaval in her life. She was careful to keep her grades up.

“It’s just…” he looked down, seemingly struggling for the right words. “Cassie,” he said softly. Cassie started; from him, it was always “Ms. Tremblay.” The fact that he was calling her by her first name couldn’t be a good sign.

“I know I’m not your guidance counselor, but if there’s anything going on in your life—anything at all—I want you to know that you can tell me,” he said. He looked over her shoulder again to check that the room had emptied out, and when his gaze returned to her, the look in his hazel eyes was almost pleading. “Even if it’s something you can’t tell many people.”

Cassie suddenly felt dizzy. He hadn’t said anything specific, but between his words and the way he was looking at her, she was pretty sure Golding knew something. Whether he knew that she was a demon’s familiar and everything that entailed was another story.

“Thanks, Mr. Golding,” she stuttered. “I’m—“

“Call me John,” he said, shocking her further. He ran a hand through his thick hair. “Not in class obviously, but when it’s just us it’s fine.”

Cassie blinked. He wanted her to call him by his first name? What was going on?

“Th-thanks Mr…. John, but I’m fine. I’m just a little stressed because of the SATs,
that’s all,” she stammered finally.

He shrugged, clearly not interested in the upcoming test. “I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

“Well there’s fine and then there’s Harvard-fine,” said Cassie, avoiding his eyes. She wanted this conversation to be over, but didn’t know how to delicately extricate herself.

“That’s true. Anyway, I just wanted you to know that I’m here for you. I won’t keep you from your next class,” he said, turning back toward his desk. Clearly dismissed, Cassie left the classroom bewildered.

Mike and Jay were waiting for her in front of her locker.

“What did Golding want?” asked Mike, curiosity obvious in his light blue eyes.

“He knows,” said Cassie, fixing them both with a grave look so there could be no doubt what she meant. Jay’s eyes widened, and she saw Mike’s Adam’s Apple wobble as he swallowed.

“Okay, but
what
does he know?”

“That’s the problem.”

Since there hadn’t been any banging the night before, Sam was hopeful on Thursday morning that whatever had been living in his wall had found a way out sometime the previous day. However, when he was halfway through the set of 100 sit-ups that he did every morning (the push-ups had been uneventful) he heard the ominous banging behind his headboard once again.

He finished his workout and stood up, reaching for the phone. He punched one button for the hospitality desk.

“Yes?”

“Hi, it’s room 3B again. Listen, the noises in my wall haven’t gone away, I was wondering if you could send someone to come check it out?”

There was a pause. “You want change room?” said the woman, her voice thick with some accent Sam couldn’t pin down.

“No, I don’t want to change rooms. I like this room. I just want someone to come take a look at—“

“Mr. Li go home, you can have 2C. Want room 2C?”

“No, I don’t want room 2C. Isn’t there a maintenance guy you can send up? I think it might be a raccoon or something.”

Another pause.
“I sorry, if you wan’ move 2C you call back okay?” She hung up. Sam muffled a swear and did the same.

Whatever his new “roommate” was, he was just going to have to deal with it. After marking this room with magical smut, he didn’t want to change rooms and risk marking anywhere else. Besides, it was the principal of the thing: it was his room, and he had his stuff (what little stuff he had) laid out just the way he liked it. He shouldn’t have to leave because they had a pest problem.

Just as he moved to get dressed, the creature in the wall resumed its struggles at a frightening pace. Whatever it was, from the sound it seemed like it was throwing its whole body against the plaster.

Maybe it was the close call when he’d crafted the earrings for Cassie the night before, or maybe it was just sleep deprivation, but something in Sam snapped. He’d never sought a comfortable life—quite the opposite, actually—but having to continually listen to the panicked thrashings of  a mad, trapped animal while everything he tried to do with his magic blew up in his face was just too much.

Suddenly angry, he picked up the old floor lamp he used for reading and moved toward the wall. He unscrewed the lightbulb with deliberate care and put it gingerly on the table, moving towards the bed to zero in on the spot where the banging seemed to be the loudest.

“I’ve had just about enough of you,” he muttered, then raised the lamp over his head; this thing was going to get out whether it liked it or not, and Sam didn’t particularly care what condition the thing was in when he was finished.
Anything to make the noise stop.

Taking a deep breath, he slammed the head of the lamp into the wall, feeling satisfied when chunks of cheap plaster went flying. Repositioning himself for a second swing, he began to hack away at the small hole his first swing had made, widening it with every blow.

“Get! Out! Of! My! Wall!” Sam yelled as shards of plaster sprayed all over his bed. One of them nicked him as it flew, creating a small, bloody mark under his collarbone.

When the hole had reached the size of a pizza, and his upstairs neighbor was banging on the floor with impunity to protest the noise, Sam took a deep breath, feeling the anger slowly leave his body. Now that he’d taken his anger out on the wall, it was hard to see why he’d been so upset in the first place. Sheepishly, he put the lamp back down in front of the bed and slowly screwed the lightbulb back in, waiting for the plaster dust to clear.

Sam expected the creature to emerge from the hole, assuming it was even still alive, but after a minute, nothing happened. Sighing, Sam put his right knee on the bed so he could slowly move his head into the hole, trying to keep alert in case a raccoon jumped out and tried to claw his eyes out. A little later on, it became clear his uninvited guest did not hail from that particular branch of the animal kingdom.

“So, can you take it away?” Sam asked, leaning on an outstretched arm next to the hole in the newly-destroyed wall. The man in the white jumpsuit with the words “BAT RESCUE” stenciled on the back paused before answering.

“Well, you did the right thing by calling us, Sir, you certainly did,” he said, gently examining the small creature on Sam’s reading table with gloved hands. “This time of year, it’s not common, but sometimes they wake up from hibernation too early, and then the cats are after ‘em. Or worse, people get scared and try to kill them themselves, and the little critters are harmless, really. Bats are
some of the most misunderstood—”

“Yes I know, but can you take Vladmir here to an animal shelter or something?”

The pudgy man frowned as he administered a bottle to the small creature perched in front of him, which made a small hissing noise before beginning to drink. Was it milk? Sam hoped it was milk.

“I’d like to Mr. Andrews, but this here, this is a common Big Brown Bat,
Eptesicus Fuscus
. They’ve got a real healthy population, and all the local zoos are full of ‘em. Not endangered at all. Plus, despite being stuck in your wall for lord knows how long, she seems perfectly healthy, so there’s no need to take her back to the facility.”

“She?” asked Sam, incredulously. “You can tell?”

“Yep. This here ain’t Vladmir, it’s Vladmira, heh. And I guess she must’ve maintained a healthy weight by eating all the stuff back there behind the wall. Must’ve been chock full of bugs.”

“Wonderful. So I’m stuck with her?” Sam asked, eying the odd creature drinking from the bottle a few feet away. Small enough to fit in his hand, the fuzzy brown creature had cowered behind the wall for nearly an hour after Sam’s attack, only flying out to take cover under the reading table when Sam temporarily left to go to the bathroom. Now that he could see how helpless it was, he felt guilty for breaking the wall so aggressively; it was a miracle he hadn’t killed the thing. Still, he really wasn’t looking for a pet.

“No sir, you just keep the window open and I’m sure she’ll fly out of her own accord. She’s had a good scare, so she might stay put for a while, but eventually they always go outside. They don’t like people y’see, they’re scared of ‘em. Should be too, considering how people are their biggest threat, destroying their nesting sites and what have you, but anyway, I can assure you this little lady wants nothing—”

At that moment, Sam flinched as the bat suddenly flapped its wings and vanished, flying up and out of his sphere of vision too quickly for his eyes to track. Before he had a chance to wonder where it was, he felt a tiny weight on his left shirtsleeve; the bat was hanging from his outstretched arm.

“—to do with you….well now! You don’t see that everyday.”

“It’s on me, isn’t it,” said Sam through gritted teeth.

“Yep, I guess she must like you after all. Hell of a thing, I’ve been rescuing bats for 25 years and I’ve never seen that. Never say never.” Shaking his head with a smile, the volunteer packed the bottle in his tool case and moved to go. Sam moved to intercept him, keeping his left arm straight out awkwardly so as not to disturb the bat. It’s not that he wanted it to stay there, but he was less comfortable with the idea of it relocating to another part of his body.

“Can’t you just take her off me with pliers or something? I can’t go out like this!”

“Mr. Andrews, I’m telling you, just keep the window open and the problem will take care of itself. I’m sure she’ll want to get back to nature soon enough.”

“But what if she doesn’t? What if I have some kind of rare pheromone or something that makes her think I’m another bat?”

The volunteer stifled a laugh. “Mr. Andrews, if that’s the case, then you can call me back. But I promise you, just move near the window and she’ll be gone before the end of the day.” With that, he tipped his hat to Sam and closed the motel room door behind him, leaving Sam with his tiny new roommate.

Sam sighed and rotated his arm so he could see the bat better. She did look kind of cute, with her pointy little black ears sticking out and her tiny toes (or whatever they were) attached to the fabric of his long-sleeved T-shirt. Carefully, he walked towards the open window, opening it even wider with his right hand.

“So, Vladmira. It’s been fun, but it’s time for you to go back to your world. Can’t you hear other bats out there, echo-locating? It’s time for you to join them,” he said, feeling utterly ridiculous but sensing that some element of ceremony was appropriate. “Begone!”

Gently he moved until his left arm was out the window, only Vladmira somehow maneuvered so that she was closer to his torso. She made a clicking sound, then a hiss, and for
all the world, looked perfectly content at her perch. Sam stood with his arm out the window for a good ten minutes, and the bat didn’t so much as budge. Finally, he pulled his arm slowly back inside, only for Vladmira to make even more satisfied noises.

“You aren’t going to fly out the wi
ndow before the end of the day, are you,” said Sam. It wasn’t a question.