Witch Eyes (8 page)

Fourteen

The first thing I did when I woke up was smack my hand against the phone next to me, sweeping it off the bed and onto the floor with a clack.

Fantastic. I reached up against the nightstand for my glasses and slid them on slowly. There wasn’t any trace of pain left over from earlier, just an overwhelming sluggishness trying to pull me back down into sleep.

I leaned over the side of the bed and fumbled around for the phone. The room was pitch black, so it took awhile. Muttering annoyed protests at the inconvenience, I struggled up out of the warm, comfy bed and went for the windows.

After I was done pulling down the towels and opening the curtains, sunlight streamed into the room once again. It was good to know I hadn’t slept the whole day away—just the school day.

I don’t know what I was expecting when I dialed our number in Montana. Would he let me go over to voicemail? Or would he pick up the receiver only to sla
m it down again? I expected each of these and worse, so when Uncle John answered the phone like nothing had changed, I sat there in silence.

“Braden? What’s wrong?” Uncle John’s voice came through crystal clear, not even a hint of static across the line.

Every ounce of tension slid out of me, and I eased back into the still-warm bed. It was so good to hear his voice. “Hey,” I said. A master co
nversationalist, I was.

“Are you okay?”

“Why didn’t you tell me about any of this?” It slipped out, along with all the hurt and confusion I was feeling.

John didn’t respond right away. “Lucien told me you’re in school,” he said carefully. “How do you like it?”

“Someone tried to kill me yesterday, and you’re asking me about
schoo
l
?”

I heard him suck in a breath. “You all right?”

“I’m fine,” I snapped. “But why didn’t you tell me about this? About my father, about Catherine Lansing … any of it!”

He asked me a question instead. He softened. “Why did you run, Braden? What happened?”

“Would it kill you to answer even one of my questions?” I leapt off the bed and stalked to the window.

“It could,” he said, and at first I thought he was joking. And then I realized he might not be.

“Uncle John?”

I heard bedsprings squeaking as John said, “Remember we’re not the only thing out there in the dark, kid. There’s a lot more to the world than witches and magic.”
A phone
rang in the background, which didn’t make sense because we only
had
the one phone, and he grunted. “Remember when we talked about when it’s best to use tools for your magic?”

That was another difference between casting spells with just your will, and casting them with tools. The former used a lot more power, and that power called attention to itself. Ritual spells, meanwhile, could float under the radar. “Yeah, I remember.”

“You probably haven’t picked up anything, have you?”

I shook my head, not even considering that he couldn’t see me. So finally I added, “No.”

“There’s a place on Fourth Street. It’s called Gregory’s ’Mix. Don’t be shocked at what you’re going to see.”

Before I could say anything else, the phone went dead. Uncle John was gone.

¤ ¤ ¤

Most occult and New Age shops had an overly bright display of everything even remotely mystical. There were friendly people behind the counter full of good intentions and pseudopsychic vibes. And there was always, always a prominent display of pentacles and runes spread out throughout the building.

Gregory’s ’Mix was none of those things. In fact, as far as I could tell, it wasn’t even an occult store. There weren’t any voodoo dolls hanging in the window, no elaborate knives or chalices displayed in the front window. The windows were reserved for names like Alan Moore and Frank Miller. Posters for comic book characters I’d seen on television, but never read, were plastered everywhere.

I had to have the wrong place. John had to be messing with me. If it hadn’t been for the tingling at the corners of my eyes, a vibration in the air that suggested old magic, I might never have gone in.

The man behind the counter wasn’t as young as the store itself would suggest. Comic book stores appealed to kids, or so I thought, and I figured whoever was working would be closer to my own age. At first I thought he was Uncle John’s age, somewhere in his forties, but his novelty T-shirt and messy hair suggested younger. He had a laptop opened next to him, the screen turned away from me.

“Help you?” He had light gray eyes underneath his glasses, the color of the sky after a particularly strong storm had let up.

“This is just a comic shop?” I wasn’t sure how to say ‘Hey, is there magical contraband hidden in another room?’

The man’s expression grew guarded. “It’s
my
comic shop, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Oh, so this is Gregory
. “But you need an adult for anything you’re looking for. Unless it’s the new Wolverine.”

Well, that wasn’t the reaction I was looking for. By far. “You have anything Old World?” I asked instead. It was a term I’d heard my uncle use before, an expression that was supposed to refer to the old days when magic and monster
s
had still walked the earth.

The man’s expression intensified even more, but ultimately he shook his head. “No adult, no access. This is not the store you’re looking for.”

“But you have something,” I pushed. I craned my head over the iron racks that held this month’s comics, to look for a do
or, or an entrance. Nothing I could see.

The man turned back to his laptop and started typing furiously. “Another scoop for me. Haha, beat that Legendseeker10.”

“Excuse me?”

“I wasn’t talking to you,” Gregory said loftily. “I’m talking about the S.A.C.”

He sounded so serious, and so self-important, that it was probably not a good idea to laugh. My lips definitely twitched though, a lot. The sack? I’ll admit, part of me wanted to snicker. “The, uh, what?”

“Belle Dam’s Supernatural Apparitions Committee,” Gregory said. “Maybe you haven’t figured it out yet, but there’s more to this sleepy little hamlet than what you can see.”

“Oh.” A website about the weird in Belle Dam? This I’d have to see. “Right. Anyway, I need to get into that back room,” I said, trying to turn the conversation back around. I had a feeling that if I let Gregory go, he’d ramble on for an hour about ho
w awesome he was.

“Like the fact that I’ve got a witch standing in my shop right at the moment. Most witches know better than to come here.”

Sonofabitch. I whipped around, to see how many other people had heard the declaration. Seriously, was there something on my shirt? Some giant sign on my back?

But no one else in the store seemed to be paying any attention. “Don’t go freaking out. I have a friend on the outside, lets me know when anyone
interesting
comes to town.”

The only person who knew about me being a witch, besides Lucien and Jason, was Drew. “If you know what I can do, then you know I can handle what’s back there,” I pushed. The urge to do something pretty bad to Gregory was growing every time he opened his mouth.

“I haven’t even Googled you yet,” Gregory chuckled with surprise. “I don’t know anything about you.”

“Just what Drew told you about me, right?”

Gregory’s eyes narrowed before he inclined his head. “What’s your name, anyway?”

“Braden.” I relented. Only slightly.

“Sorry, Braden. No adult, no access.” Gregory turned back to his computer and didn’t look up again.

I sighed in annoyance. Freaking figures. I was walking out of the shop when inspiration struck. I grabbed my phone and scrolled through the tiny handful of numbers.

“Hey, are you busy? I kinda need your help.”

¤ ¤ ¤

Gregory looked up when I came back twenty minutes later, but didn’t say anything. Just a slight shake of his head.

“He’s with me, Gregory. It’s okay. I’ll take full responsibility.” I turned to watch Trey follow me inside. He’d said an adult. He didn’t specify how old of one.

Gregory’s expression didn’t waver, but he jutted his head toward the back. “Your mother know about him yet?”

Trey winced, but recovered swiftly. “Don’t know what you mean. He’s just a friend.”

I could see the wheels in Gregory’s head start turning, the way his eyes narrowed at the two of us. He opened his mouth, and I was sure he was going to say something even worse than normal stupidity. The word “witch” was going to hit the air, and Trey would never look at me the same way again.

“Well, I’m going back then if it’s all settled,” I said quickly, shaking my head enough that my glasses started to slide down my nose. I was rather proud of the movement, as it lacked the dramatic implications but got the job done. Freed my eyes enough that when I glanced at Gregory, I had enough time to slam the spell into place before the words slipped out of his mouth.

Gray and black and silver, shades all too different from one another for there to be any blurring.
A silence spell, one that John had used with glee when I was younger. It barely required any thought at all—I’d seen the spell often enough that even without my vision, I could duplicate it.

There was nothing but blissful silence as I followed Trey into the back room, hidden in a corner I hadn’t noticed before. I pushed the glasses back up my nose, glancing over at Gregory as I did so. His mouth opened and closed several times, and then he resorted to furious typing at the keyboard as we left the room.

“You really believe in all this stuf
f
?” Trey asked, flipping through a box of quartz crystals set up near the landing. The door had opened onto a stairway. The second floor of Gregory’s ’Mix was devoted entirely to the supernatural. Books lined the walls, and it was pretty much every cliché I could have thought of. There were even authentic voodoo dolls hung up on one portion of the wall, complete with an authentic price tag: $49.95.

“Sure, I guess. Everything’s got a spirit,” I said lightly. “You don’t have to babysit, you know. I’m fine on my own.”

Trey glanced up at me from the voodoo dolls. “Sure you are,” he said.

“I am,” I repeated, trying to sound more stern.

“I’m not arguing,” he said, holding up his hands in a classic “I surrender” pose. His smile, however, was more mischievous than anything else. It was almost like there were two different Treys—the one I met that first morning, and the one who gave me a ride home yesterday. I didn’t like how quickly he could annoy me, either.

I busied myself picking up some of the essentials. Clove oil, sage, and some candles. Things that could be used in a wide variet
y of spells with a minimum of effort. Uncle John was clearly worried about me using too much “big magic” and attracting unwanted attention. A fair assessment, all things considered.

I added a small vial of sea salt to my collection. “So what did he mean, about your mother?” Did Trey know more than I thoug
ht?

It got so quiet that I thought Trey had left the room. He was standing on the far side of the room, looking out the window. “My mom’s … selective about who I spend my time with. She thinks I’ll jeopardize my future.”

“Why would hanging out with me jeopardize your future?” That was an easier explanation, at least, but it still didn’t make any sense. Or did it? “Wait. Let me guess, you’ve got a habit of trying to pick up strays, right?”

“Something like that,” he said, the tension easing between his shoulders, although he was staring hard at me.

I wish I knew what you were thinking.
The staring made me uncomfortable, and I turned away, but it became hard to concentrate on anything. I thought I could still feel his eyes on the back of my neck. I started downstairs, figuring he’d follow when he was ready.

There was a girl behind the counter now, and no sign of Gregory. Or his laptop. She smiled broadly at the two of us. No, she was smiling broadly at Trey. She hadn’t even noticed me.

She was the kind of girl that should do skin commercials. Or was voted Prom Queen. Or was doing skin commercials while being voted Prom Queen. Her hair was a deep chestnut, where mine was just brown, and s
he smiled a lot more than I probably ever did. I wanted to dislike her instantly, but no one in their right minds ever disliked this girl, I figured.

“Haven’t seen you around here in a while, stranger,” the girl said, tossing her hair to one side, like in a shampoo commercial.

“Hey, Kayla. You know how school is, keeps us busy.” I looked up to see Trey shifting his weight from one foot to the other, looking at Kayla and then looking away.

That answers one question, I muttered to myself. At that moment, I wanted nothing more than to finish buying my stuff and get out of there.

As much as she might have rather spent her time mooning over him, Kayla added up my purchases quickly and recited the total. I handed her one of the credit cards Lucien had given me, interested to see if it actually worked.

She swiped the card in the little credit card machine and handed me one of the slips that printed out. I signed it, slid it across, and grabbed my bag of goodies. Rather than intrude on what was clearly a private conversation, I headed for the door.

I was almost a block away by the time Trey caught up with me. “Old friend?” I asked, hating the neutral sound in my voice.

“I’ve known Kayla all my life. She works for her uncle to help pay for school. It’s just her and her mom now.”

“She’s pretty.”

“She’s gorgeous,” Trey corrected.

Of course she was.

“So you get mixed up with Lucien Fallon, and then the next day you’re going shopping at the Oogie Boogie store? You sure you know what you’re getting into, Cyke?” There was an irreverent charm to the way he chewed on the piece of gum he’d popped in sometime between the store and catching up with me.

“Not entirely,” I admitted. “‘Cyke’?”