The Carver's Magic (12 page)

I look around and I am surrounded by a white haze. I don’t have to move to know that everything is going to feel soft and gentle. My chest rose and fell with rapid breaths.

I never gave Dar my heart. I only spoke to him three times while he was in the hospital. My chest tightened as I remembered my words at the hospital, I told him to use mine. But I didn’t think that really constituted as the same thing. Did it?

What the hell did I do?
I was so young. I didn't know any better. I let some time pass before I press a hand to the haze and picture the storage room again, taking away the shell I created for myself.

Grabbing my upper arm, Dar picks me up until my feet touch the ground. I stand with shaky knees. He points to where the guy once was, "You really messed up Beth. That guy remembers everything up until everything exploded. Now I have to fix your stupid mess so that enforcers and hunters don’t find out." He is so enraged I almost missed that he is acting as if he is going to help me.

I back away from him and look around. All the bottles are whole again. I back up and turn to the door, and leave him in the storage room. I don’t need his help and I am not in the mood to even discuss it.

Heading back to the bar, everything looks just as it should be. I look for Shane to see if he notices, but he is watching the VIP door. I look to the VIP door and see Cory walking down the stairs next to a tall, thin, ebony lady with long, thick braids down to her butt, wearing a light blue shirt with a low scoop and tight black pants with strappy black heels. She is adorned with several large pieces of jewelry and holding a glass of red wine.

Cory leans in to say something; as she leans in I can tell immediately that the lady is a vampire. Her teeth show and I take a step in her direction, but a hand wraps around my arm halting me in place.

"I thought I told you to leave," his voice whispers tight and menacing.

My heart is beating desperately in my chest. I can’t shake the need to obey him, but I know that my little sister is way too close to a vampire. "Cory," I whisper, and whimper at the same time.

I can’t leave without her.

"Nothing will happen to your sister. But something will happen to you if you don’t leave. Now." His voice is stern but his hand softens on my wrist. Was he trying to be gentle? Yeah right. "Now go." His voice hardened at the end.

I feel his hand leave, and I try to get Cory’s attention as my feet walk to the back door. She hasn’t looked at me and my heart is practically breaking because, for the first time in my life, I am scared.

When I push the door open I feel Cory's heart start to jump and I turn, worried that someone is hurting her or maybe she finally saw me. But she is not looking at me. She is looking at Shane.

I hold the door open and hear Shane ask, "Hey. You okay?" I let the door close as I pull out my phone, and text Cory.

Me: Not feeling well. Had to go.

A few seconds later,

Cory: What do you mean? Are you okay?

Me: Had a run in with Dar. Tell you about it when you get home. Can you take a cab?

Cory: Yep.

      
I start my car and pull out of the parking spot, but the need to obey Dar leaves. I don’t feel the need to go anywhere anymore. I drive down the street and park my car so that when she leaves, I will be here to drive her home. I can’t leave Cory, and to be honest, I am worried about her and the vampire. I don’t trust Dar at all. In fact, if he wasn’t able to do what he just did, I would probably kill him for making me leave when my sister needed me.

I lean my seat back, text Cory and tell her to text me when she clocks out because I will pick her up. Then watch the back door to make sure that no one is laying in wait for her. I figure she will walk out in two more hours so all I have to do is bide my time.

A short time later the big guy I gave a seizure to walked out the back door. My heart pricked up. This is my chance to fix my mess and try out my theory on memory manipulation. I begin the words in my mind and whisper them, even though I know no one could have heard me. My stomach drops and I know my magic took hold. I am hoping that the spell worked. To test my spell I wait until he gets in his car. I run to the end of the street and jump out in front of the car.

He breaks hard and swerves. He jumps out and runs to me, “Are you okay ma’am?”

I act shaken up, “Yea. No. Yea. Oh my gosh. I’m so sorry.”

He holds my shoulder, checking me over himself. I shrug away, “I’m fine. I promise.” And then take off in his opposite direction. He yells for me but I keep running toward the trees with a big smile on my face. It worked; he had no idea who I was.

I wake up with a start as Cory opens the door. I’m pissed I fell asleep and now I’m curious how she saw me. Cory feigns an uneasy smile as she sits down.

I start the car and pull it into drive. My sister looks over with a curious smirk. The last thing I want to do is rehash what happened with Dar. Instead of letting her ask the question, I ask her, "Why the hell were you chumming it up with a vampire, Cory?" I don’t hold back my contempt for the blood-sucker.

Cory raises her eyebrows as if I am the one being ridiculous. I’m not. She could have been hurt and I wasn’t there to protect her. She should know better than that. Not that we talk much about other magical creatures. We usually just talk about me and my magic, and I don’t usually let that conversation go on for too long because, when it came down to everything, there were some things I didn’t know.

Huffing, Cory says, "That was Patra. She said she was an enforcer for the Magic Council."

I can feel Cory's heart stammer and I remember that her heart is mirrored in my chest. I say a few words in my mind.
You're safe Cory, therefore I release the mirror of your heart
. But our conversation was far from being over.

“You do realize that vampires are dangerous, right?”

Quick to snap back, she argues, “You do realize that Carvers are more dangerous, right?” I could see her searing me with her eyes in my periphery as I drive.

“I would never hurt you, Cory. That, is the difference.”

Cory let out a breath and shakes her head, “And Patra can’t hurt me, she’s with the flipping Magical Council for heaven’s sake.”

I slam my hand on the steering wheel. “That means nothing. And you shouldn’t think that just because she is in a position of authority that she does not break the rules. They all do.”

“Just because you don’t trust anyone does not mean I have to be the same.” Cory checks the heater and turns it up to full blast.

I turn the heater up in temp but down in flow because I hate it when air rushes at my face. “You trust her? You just met her!”

Cory turns it back on full blast, “No, I don’t trust her. But I don’t go around slighting people because they are different from me. You treat everyone as if they are beneath you. Even other Carvers.”

I quickly turn to point at her. “Shane is an asshole. I treat him like an asshole,” I defend.

Folding her arms, “If Shane is an asshole, what does that make Dar?”

Ugh. She would go there. “That was quick. Didn’t know it would take you this long to bring him into the conversation.”

Unzipping her jacket, “I wanted to give you a chance to just tell me, but you didn’t and now I’m tired and just need the cliffs notes version so I can go to bed.”

Somewhat pricked, I ask, “Are you asking because you really want to know or because it’s the polite thing to do?”

Her jaw tenses before she lowers her hands to the vent. “Don’t be rude. I ask because I care. You are the only one who asks about stuff to be polite. Which is really annoying, by the way.”

Ugh. I squeeze the steering wheel wondering why tonight feels like the longest car ride of my life. “I do care, Cory.”

She leans back and flaps a hand at me almost like she is shooing me. “Yeah? Prove it. Tell me what happened and then let me help you.”

I was not at all inclined to tell her what happened, “I think you’ve done enough.”

“What does that mean? Are you saying I’m incompetent? Or you don’t want my help?” She adjusts her position so that she can look at me directly. And I can tell I hurt her.

Biting the bullet, I mumble, “Dar came to talk to me at the bar to tell me he knows I have been looking him up, which I haven’t, so that was real fun to hear, oh and he is getting a restraining order against me.”

“What?”

“Yeah, your background check must have alerted him.” Against my original thought, I am not as angry after confessing that.

“It shouldn’t have. I was very careful, but what do you mean a restraining order? That doesn’t make any sense. He is the one coming into the bar you work at, you are not going out of the way to go to him.” Cory bowed her head and her eyes glossed a bit. She’s crunching the information.

“I know! But yeah that’s not all.” I am trying to keep her from getting caught in her thoughts so she can hear the rest. If I lose her to her head I don’t know how long it will be until she comes back out again.

“Crap. What else?” She asks, but she is still looking away from me.

“When I went to the storage room he followed me in there. And my magic turned on me when I… lost it, kind of. It, my fire, went inside
him
and then made me obey him.”

Cory sits up straight and looks excited. Ugh. “Oh whoa. What did you have to do?”

“Unfreeze everything I had frozen and put it back together. But the point is, I was a slave to him. It was awful. I was in so much pain I can’t even describe it. So unless you know what to do about that, then I doubt you can help.”

Tilting her head to the side she says, “You’re a Carver. You can do magic that confounds everyone else. I’m sure your magic can fix it, but, I am also sure it’s going to take me to figure out how.”

I can always trust my sister to have complete faith in her abilities, “Is that so?”

“You hide from your magic, Beth. Don’t try and deny it. If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t know how to do half the stuff you can do,” she says in a matter of fact tone.

I turn down the heater because it feels like we are in the valley of suns. “It’s still my magic. And it’s my ass if I get caught.”

Cory flaps the air near her ear. “Puleese. Have you been caught yet? No. So just trust me for once.”

I hit the steering wheel again. “I have trusted you from the beginning! Don’t act like I don’t trust you and let you pull your sneaky little strings.”

Squishing down a smile I see at the tips of her lips, she says, “Let me help you. Please. I know I can figure this out.”

Relenting, “I am not telling you that you can’t help, but I also don’t think you can fix this.”

Pulling into the driveway she shrugs, “Well if you can overlook the restraining order, then I should be able to figure out how to break his ability to control you and your magic.”

“I hope so.” And I really do.

“I know so.” She confirms as I turn off the car and get out.

Unlocking the front door with my magic, I push it open, “You sound like a Carver.”

I can hear her scoff. “I learned a lot from you growing up. I realized early on that your magic is infinite, but that does not mean you know how to use it. That’s how I was always able to fool you. You limited yourself and your magic to the boundaries you give yourself. You didn’t push it, so I pushed you. You should really thank me.”

“Is that right?” I laugh and it feels purifying.

“The words you are looking for are ‘Thank you Cory for always forgiving me for my outburst and rudeness, you have been instrumental in learning how to use my magic, I will worship thee forever.’” Her tone was light and she had a finger in the air, with her eyes closed for dramatic effect.

Rolling my eyes, I threw my jacket on the couch. “Worship thee? You’re nuts, you know that right?”

Cory walks past me with her chin lifted high. She walks in the kitchen and points at the ground. “You should probably be on your knees and bowing to me right now.”

Shaking my head and letting out a small chuckle I say, “There is something wrong with you.”

Feigning a mocked face of shock she says, “You are being very disrespectful to your goddess.”

I pour myself a glass of water and walk out before her craziness spreads. “Good night Cory.”

Cory remains in the kitchen, but I can hear her say, “Hmm. You are dismissed servant.”

I love my crazy ass sister.

* * *

I am so tired when I leave work at Nat Lab that I can honestly say, I am not sure what I did all day. Cory and I are driving home and it’s quiet in the car, not the creepy quietness but the kind where you didn’t even notice it was quiet until you were already home.

We stop at Gino's Bar and Grill to get dinner since neither one of us planned on cooking. I was not even sure if I was going to eat or sleep first.

I don't bother to use the key to open the front door, as usual. I unlock it using my magic and push it open causing it to slam against the wall. Walking into the kitchen with a paper bag wafting the sinful Swiss cheese mushroom burger in my nose, I freeze mid-step because someone is standing there in the dark. I can’t see perfectly in the dark like werewolves or vampires, but I know a dark silhouette when I see one.

I hold my arm out, keeping Cory from passing me, and I pull her back behind me using my magic to make her invisible. Then I use a few words and freeze her so she can’t move from the corner of the front door and the living room. I slowly shut the door behind me and hesitate.

The kitchen light flicks on and I see that black lady with long, thick braids is in my kitchen. With Cory safely behind me I call my fire up and let some of it out of my palm. I roll it around like a crystal ball, hoping she’s not so dumb to misunderstand my threat.

“Council member or not, breaking and entering is still illegal.” I am trying to keep my voice calm, but this fang-er just broke into my house. And that is not okay. I am going to have to put a few spells on the house to make sure this never happens again.

Before I take my next step towards the kitchen, I remember that vampires have a keen sense of smell, too, so I mumble something else in my mind to close off Cory’s smell.