The Problem With Black Magic Read online

Chapter Five

  Sam’s scuffed hiking boots kicked some pebbles on Cassie’s driveway as he approached the front of the house. Cassie stood on the sidewalk, not sure how to act around him now that Jay wasn’t around to serve as a buffer. The kid had taken the bus with them, peppering Sam with whispered questions Cassie mostly couldn’t hear, none of which Sam had deigned to answer, although one did make him laugh.

  Jay had wanted to see the spell performed, but Sam had sent him home to his house two streets away, saying it was suspicious enough that two of them were poking around the house this late. Cassie had a feeling there were other reasons why Sam might not want Jay around, but she wasn’t sure what they were; maybe he didn’t want anyone witnessing his magic who wasn’t strictly necessary. Jay had only gone home when she promised to tell him all about the spell in excruciating detail.

  Sam scowled as he looked at her house. “You would have to live in a brownstone,” he said quietly.

  “Sorry,” Cassie snapped back snottily before she could stop herself. “Why does that matter?”

  He turned to her, looking tired. “Does it look like I can pace a circle around your property?”

  Cassie exhaled in realization; part of a complex of townhouses, her house was physically connected to all of the other ones on the block.

  Sam looked away, perplexed. “Either I make a really huge circle around the whole block, which is hard to maintain, or I just put some sort of hex on your front yard and driveway. Easy, but unsafe.”

  Cassie knit her brows, thinking about that. She didn’t want to seem needy, but after her experience with vampires, she wasn’t sure she wanted any sort of half-baked protection spell. If that meant asking Sam for a favor, so be it.

  Cassie gave him what she hoped was a winning smile. “Do the big circle, if it’s safer. You’re a big, powerful demon, right? I’m sure you can handle it.”

  He gave her a look that couldn’t have been much more frightening if he was using his red glare. Oh my God, she thought, what ever made me think that saying that was a good idea?

  He broke eye contact, looking at the prim row of brownstone houses. “I suppose I can,” he said quietly.

  Cassie looked down at her shoes while Sam considered the property. There was something she wanted to ask him, and he probably wasn’t going to stick around after the spell was cast. Now was the time.

  “Hey, Sam….” she began. He turned to her, one eyebrow raised.

  “Cassie!”

  Annette flung open the front door, running out on the driveway in her nightgown and fluffy slippers, Jon following close behind her. Cassie stifled a groan; great, now on top of everything else, she had to introduce Sam to her parents.

  “Your parents are still up at this hour?” he whispered to her.

  “I guess they were waiting up for me,” said Cassie, feeling miserable as her parents approached, both eyeing Sam warily.

  “There she is! Do you know what time it is?”

  “I told you I was going to be home late, Mom.”

  “You also said you were going to be coming home with Jay. This is not Jay,” said Annette, crossing her arms. Cassie thought she looked ridiculous trying to act tough in a pink nightie, but Annette didn’t seem to care.

  “He did come home with us, Mom. He only left just now, to go to his house. Sam walked me home.”

  Annette fixed her eyes on Sam. “So, I take it you work with Cassie at the shop, Sam?”

  Sam smiled in what Cassie assumed was his best attempt at being non-threatening. “That’s right. Sorry we kept your daughter out so late, it won’t happen again.”

  Jon at least seemed pacified by Sam’s apology. “That’s alright, we’re her parents, we can’t help but worry.”

  Annette shot dagger eyes at her husband, then back at Sam. “Excuse me, young man," she began, and Cassie inhaled sharply, sensing what was coming next. “—but Cassie works at that shop fifteen to twenty hours per week, for shopping money. She’s not going to be serving coffee for a living, and I don’t think it’s fair to expect a high school student to put in these kinds of hours for what your place pays,” she finished bitterly.

  Sam kept up his warm smile with some apparent effort. “Well, I’m not a manager, ma’am, but I’ll be sure to pass that along to Dwight.”

  “If you’re not a manager, than aren’t you a little old to be working there? What are you, a drop-out?”

  “Mom!” shouted Cassie, knowing everyone could see how red her face was even in the dark. She’d expected her mother to be rude, but this was beyond the pale.

  “That’s enough, Annette,” said Jon, quietly, putting a hand on his wife’s shoulder. “Look, he was kind enough to walk Cassie home, and we’ll tell the manager she’s not allowed to stay after midnight anymore, alright? Problem solved.”

  “Oh yes, it was so KIND of him,” spat Annette, making the word sound like a curse. “Listen, ‘Sam’, you can see Cassie at work, but beyond that, you will have nothing to do with her. Is that clear?” she said, pointing at him with a pink-lacquered fingernail.

  “Mom, it’s not like that…” Cassie said desperately, wondering why she bothered even as she said it.

  “Cassie, I let you work at that dive so you can have some independence, not so you can get involved with uneducated men twice your age.”

  “Mrs. Tremblay,” said Sam, no longer bothering with his perfunctory smile. “I understand your concern. If you would just give me five minutes to finish a discussion I was having with your daughter, I’ll leave and you won’t see me around here again.”

  “Cassie, inside the house now,” said Annette icily.

  Cassie stamped her foot, knowing it was childish, but her mother tended to bring it out of her. “Mom, this is ridiculous! He just wants to finish answering a question about work for me, okay? You can even watch through the front window, we’ll just be talking.”

  “Come on honey, let them finish their conversation. No need to be unreasonable,” said Jon, using the same calming tone Cassie had heard him use with her mother a million times.

  Annette sighed. “Fine. Five minutes, then you’re out of here, buster,” she said, turning on her heel. Jon gave a little embarrassed shrug for his wife’s behavior, nodded at Sam and went back in the house. They could see Annette settle on the couch in the living room so she could watch them talking through the front window.

  Cassie let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. “Sorry about that,” she said quietly, not caring if Annette could read her lips.

  Sam turned so his lips were hidden from Annette’s view. If he was mad about anything her mother had said, he didn’t show it. “You shouldn’t have told her she could watch us.”

  “She would have anyway.”

  “Unfortunately, I need a drop of your blood for the spell, and I don’t think I can get it with her watching. Can you come back outside after they’ve gone to sleep?”

  “If Mom catches me, she’ll make me quit DG,” said Cassie. And Annette would catch her; there was no way she would let her guard down now, when her only daughter might be absconded with any minute.

  Sam gritted his teeth, thinking. “Then rip out a few strands of your hair and hand them to me. Try not to be too obvious about it.”

  Cassie did so, trying not to imagine what Annette’s face must have looked like behind her. “Do you need anything else?” she asked.

  “No, that should be enough. After you go back in the house, I’ll wait a while for all the lights to go off, then I’ll do the spell and leave,” he said softly.

  “Can you do it without waking them up? I thought you had to say incantations and draw symbols in the dirt and stuff,” Cassie asked, genuinely interested. The one time she’d seen Sam use magic, it hadn’t involved any posturing or supplies at all, but the fact that he needed her hair led her to believe his magic required some set-up.

  Sam fixed her with a sad smile. “That’s what people who summon demons need to do— and I’m alread
y here, aren’t I?”

  Cassie gulped. Well great, she thought, so glad we cleared THAT up.

  “Weren’t you going to ask me something before?”

  Cassie’s eyes widened, surprised he remembered. “This familiar thing…you can’t undo it, can you?”

  Sam paused, running his tongue over his teeth. “I don’t know.”

  Cassie stared. “You don’t know?”

  “You’re even more annoying than usual when you repeat everything I say,” he snapped, not looking at her.

  “So this is my life now? Forever?”

  They both stiffened as Annette knocked on the window, hard.

  Sam began to back away. “I’ll look into it, alright? I don’t know if there’s a process for letting a familiar go, but I can find out. Now, get in the house before your mother kills both of us.” He turned, pretending to leave; Cassie figured he was probably walking around the block, marking the circle like he said he was going to.

  Cassie went back in the house, still not sure why she hadn’t wanted to ask him that question in front of Ser. It was academic now, since Sam was probably going to ask for Ser’s opinion on the matter; he was the only one who seemed to know anything useful.