Watch Me Burn: The December People, Book Two

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© 2014
Sharon Bayliss
http://www.sharonbayliss.com

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ISBN 978-1-62007-722-1 (ebook)
ISBN 978-1-62007-723-8 (paperback)
ISBN 978-1-62007-724-5 (hardcover)

1. Start Reading
   
2. A Taste of
   The Charge
   , by
   Sharon Bayliss
   
3. About the Author
   
4. More Books from
   Curiosity Quills Press
   
5. Full Table of Contents
   

For my husband, who shines bright enough for the both of us.

What is to give light, must endure burning.
-Viktor E. Frankl

avid Vandergraff could smell magic in the air, as clearly as he could smell the motor oil and burned coffee. When the news report began, the volume on the television became much louder, and the screen glowed as if demons would claw their way out at any minute. However, none of the other patrons in the waiting room of the mechanic’s shop noticed anything different. They continued staring at their phones, looking pale and sick in the fluorescent light and excessive air conditioning. Before David had known he was a wizard, he dismissed such oddities as “just one of those things you can’t explain.” But now, he knew better.

The image of the missing girl on the screen shined so intensely, he could see her outline burned into the blackness behind his eyelids when he blinked. The girl posed in her volleyball uniform, displaying a radiant, white-toothed smile. She looked about fourteen or fifteen. She had blonde hair and golden skin and a strange radiating quality, as if the pixels in the television gave her an extra glow.

David shook his head. Since he had learned he was a wizard, anytime he noticed anything strange, from bad weather to a headache, he feared magic was involved. His daughter Emmy was blonde, around the girl’s same age, and played volleyball. So, the missing girl reminded him of Emmy—and of course, that would upset him. Besides, his heart always raced when he saw a missing child. Two of his own children had been missing for a long time. And even though they were now safe at home, the fear and grief would never leave him.

He tried to turn his attention back to scanning job listings on his tablet, but he couldn’t focus his eyes on anything except the television report and all the other sounds turned into a whirring buzz.

David usually dreaded hearing “Vandergraff” called over the loudspeaker, because that meant he would be asked to pay a large bill with money he didn’t have. But this time, he appreciated getting away from the television. The report about the missing girl had played three more times while he’d waited.

He had memorized every word. Julie Prescott, age fourteen, 5’3”, 120 pounds, blonde hair, green eyes, last seen on July 22 in Sugar Land, Texas.

He stood at the counter and thumbed through credit cards, trying to remember which one he hadn’t maxed out yet. Their SUV had broken down three times this year, and the truck, four times. He believed all the dark, and therefore destructive, magic floating around his house caused their vehicles to self-destruct. And the water heater, and the AC unit, and the dishwasher. Either dark magic was at work, or the rental home they had moved into was a piece of crap…probably both.

As David had suspected, or at least hoped, practicing dark magic hadn’t turned them all into raving lunatics or given him a Voldemort-esque snake face. However, the destructive power of dark magic, even unintentional dark magic, should not be trifled with. In any case, dark magic had many limits. For example…he couldn’t fix the transmission. He had to rack up more credit card debt and leave it at the mechanic’s for days while they puzzled over it and ordered the wrong parts, just like a Mundane.

Reveling in the smoothly-running engine of the fixed Expedition, he pulled out of the service center and Julie’s face assaulted him once again. A billboard. He idly wondered how much money her parents dropped to get her face on a billboard. Whatever they had to pay, they did it at least twice, because he saw another billboard as he pulled into Fuzzy’s to grab a bag of tacos for his kids.

While he waited for his order, he saw Julie’s face again…on a bulletin board flyer, and no longer found it surprising. Her face had permeated his world. He didn’t know why, but he could no longer comfort himself with the thought that he might be overreacting. Magic was in play. Julie Prescott was following him.

As he got out of the Expedition at home, he noticed something white on the ground. He plucked a missing person flyer off his shoe. She had followed him home. Julie Prescott with David’s footprint on her pretty, smiling face. He half-folded, half-crumpled the flyer and stuffed it into the pocket of his cargo shorts.

“Hello?” David opened the door to a too-quiet house. He shivered in the aggressive air conditioning. If they were spending this much electricity on the AC, they better at least be home.

In some ways, he didn’t mind that the house was small. That meant he could keep track of the kids. They had nowhere to go. The backyard consisted of nothing but a tiny square of dead lawn marred with a large stump. This also meant Xavier and Patrick shared a room, and Evangeline and Emmy shared a room, which felt cruel and unusual, but he couldn’t think of a better alternative.

David looked through the rooms and only found Patrick, in his bedroom playing a video game.

“Hey,” David said. “Where is everybody?”

“I don’t know,” Patrick replied, not taking his eyes off the game. “Did you check the living room slash kitchen?”

“Of course…” When Patrick didn’t say anything else, David continued. “The Expedition is fixed.”

“Okay.”

“You could show a little more enthusiasm. You’ve been complaining about sharing your car all week.”

Patrick shrugged, still not looking away from his game.

“I brought lunch.” David held out his bag of tacos.

“Okay. Thanks. You can leave it.”

“Is everything okay?” David asked.

Patrick paused his game and turned to scowl at David. Patrick was the only one in the family who wasn’t a winter wizard. His magic fell in the Fall, perhaps as warm as September. But when he wanted, Patrick could give a glare as deadly as the other Vandergraffs.

Patrick always glared when asked if he was okay. David knew Patrick heard the unspoken question—
are you turning dark like Jude?
Before Jude had surrendered to the darkness, he had been withdrawn, depressed, and different from his usual self…much how Patrick had been lately. Patrick seemed to sense and loathe the comparison. David understood why, but he had to keep asking. He didn’t know what else to do. He had no intention of ignoring it and letting his children fall to darkness one by one.

Amanda had put it quite sensibly when she said, “He may not be likely to surrender to darkness, but he can still be a depressed teenager. That’s bad enough.”