Page 43 of A Spark of Something (A Librarian’s Guide to Witchery #1)

N oble wouldn’t say ‘okay’ was the best word to describe how he was feeling, but also… “Supposedly?”

“You have to understand that this is hard for me to accept!” Ollie huffed. “But fine! You’re okay with me being a w-witch?”

Truthfully, at this point, he didn’t care that Ollie was a witch. He was, however, worried because he was one. But more than what he was, Noble was concerned about the man displaying powers that were well beyond what should be the capabilities of a baby witch. Truly, it was beyond anything he had heard of or witnessed.

The fact that Ollie being present had been enough to give a ghost the ability to not only pick up something physical, but then use it with enough strength to cave someone’s skull in with a single blow, made him…nervous?

Yet…if Noble really examined how he was feeling, it wasn’t the strength of Ollie’s abilities that worried him. His little witch being that strong didn’t worry him at all, nor did the thoughts of what he could do with it. No, what was making Noble nervous was how easily such powers could draw unwanted attention. Witches were at their most vulnerable when they were new, because uncontrolled power was hard to hide.

“Baby, I don’t care that you’re a witch,” Noble said honestly, since it wasn’t as if he could admit the rest. “I’m okay with it.”

He glanced over and found Ollie shyly looking at him. Such a look usually came with flushed cheeks, but the man was so very pale at the moment… Could he find blood somewhere? What even was Ollie’s blood type?

“I…like when you call me baby.”

Noble chuckled. “Then I’ll keep doing it.”

Ollie smiled, a soft giggle coming out for the first time since he’d found him injured, but it dropped almost instantly as he hissed in pain.

“Rest, my little witch, until we get back. And then rest some more, as I have a body to burn.”

“I am not that little!” Ollie glared, before he blinked. And eyes widening, the man gasped, “You are planning to b-burn it the-there?!”

He didn’t answer at first, while the witch stared at him silently. Based on Ollie’s shifting expression, all bad thoughts were running through his head.

“Stop worrying. I can hear your mind spinning around in the silence. It will be fine. I have no connection to William Parker whatsoever. And you wouldn’t either, beyond the car. But no one is going to be looking into who now owns the Volkswagen that William owned six years ago.”

“How…” Ollie gnawed on his bottom lip. “How can you be so calm about this?”

Noble sighed, even though he had known the topic would come back around eventually. “Like I said, this is not my first body.”

He was, in fact, way past double digits at this point.

Ollie swallowed audibly. “Part of me wants to know, but?—”

“But it’s best not to ask questions.”

“Yeah… Also, it wouldn’t be right for me to judge since, you know, I am the reason there even is a body right now.” Ollie worried his bottom lip again. “Are you sure this won’t get you in trouble?”

“Not unless we get caught.”

Or pulled over. Yeah, obeying all the traffic laws when you have a body in the trunk was always the best course of action.

“But what if we—” Ollie abruptly cut himself off as he had a horrible, horrible realization. “OH, MY GOD! I’ve been out of contact with everyone for HOURS!”

“Yeah, you did sleep for a while.”

“No, you don’t understand. I silenced my phone yesterday. And when I don’t answer… Well, with the whole fainting problem?—”

“You did faint, several times, soo?—”

“No, I told them I’d be back soon, right before I started driving out to William’s house. Then I silenced my phone after that, as they were being nosy and asking a lot of questions. I was just tired, and I wanted to drive and get things over with… without listening to my notifications constantly going off. And well…Jahla tends to do rash things when I don't do what I said I was planning to do, and I fear with me not coming home…”

Well, he had never not come home. He’d been late before, but never this late.

“Check your phone, Ollie.”

“I don’t want to,” he whined.

Noble chuckled. “Baby, you are going to have to check it sometime, and I fear waiting, depending on whatever ‘rash’ decision she made for you disappearing, will not help us in our current situation.”

Ollie groaned, even the pain in his arm was not strong enough to beat the dread he had over potentially ignoring multiple calls from Jahla.

Taking a deep breath, he pulled out his phone, flinching as he caught sight of the number of missed calls and voicemails. “Oh…this… This isn’t…this isn’t good.”

Swallowing hard, he clicked on voicemail, and selected the latest message that was from an hour ago. Meaning Jahla had probably not slept…

“OLIVER WISTERIA CROSS, if you don’t call me back right this instant, I will FILE a police report.”

“Do not file a police report ,” he heard Red say briskly. “ Ollie, call back as soon as you can. You have a lot of explaining to do .”

“Oh,” he whimpered. “My cat is going to kill me.”

He glanced over at Noble when he made a choking noise.

“I can…explain that.”

“No, it’s fine,” the man chuckled. “He’s your family's familiar, right? Red, that is? That was him talking, wasn’t it?”

“Yes…” He let out a relieved sigh. “You know, it’s sort of nice not having to explain.”

“I imagine.”

“Did your paranormal hobby lead to you knowing about witches?”

“You could say that,” Noble mused vaguely.

“Well, I’m glad you know, and…thank you. Thank you for coming. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t.”

Likely he’d have bled out, so probably die.

“I’m glad you called me.”

Ollie winced. “To be honest, you were sort of my only option. I couldn’t call Red, as he doesn’t have a phone. Now I’m having the insane thought of getting my cat a phone. So that’s fun. And Jahla…I just couldn’t call her. For that same reason, I couldn’t call anyone else; I didn’t want to get them involved with something like this. I-I…wouldn’t even have called you, if you hadn’t mentioned working for the mob…”

Though now that his head was a bit clearer and less panicked, he supposed he could have called a few people that he knew who were likely in the mob. But they weren’t really friends…more acquaintances…even if they had always been nice to him.

“Then I’m glad I told you. And you did the right thing. Getting anyone at the library involved wouldn’t have been a good idea.” Noble sighed. “Ollie…this was a close call, you know that, right?”

“I know…”

He knew, yet it hadn’t really hit him that he had almost died. Well, he would have if so many things hadn’t fallen into line.

“Baby, please promise me you won’t do something like this again alone. I’m not saying you shouldn’t help the ghosts you meet, I’m just saying that without knowing how they died, don’t go off alone without any sort of plan in place for your safety.”

“I…I promise.”

“Thank you.”

Noble frowned on realizing something. “Ollie, what about your godfather? Though I suppose he may not be close enough to help.”

His hands tightened on the wheel when Ollie’s expression shifted, the man looked like a kicked puppy.

“I…I mean…I’m sure if he knew, he’d answer. But…” Ollie let out a soft, sad sounding chuckle. “To be honest, my godfather has a hatred for phones. He takes a long time to get back to me… And to most people, it’s not just me. But as he has yet to respond to my slightly panicked and distressed voicemails following the whole witch thing, I figured calling him and leaving a message would likely just worry him for no reason. By the time he listened to it…well, whatever was going to happen would have already…happened.” The man’s uncertain gaze flicked away from him to look out of the window.

Clenching his jaw, Noble barely managed to swallow the anger down, but he did, as he didn’t want to yell at Ollie for making excuses for some asshole, or…scare the man.

What in the ever-loving fuck? Was this…where Ollie’s self-doubts came from? His godfather? Maybe I gave up killing witches too soon?

He rolled his eyes at the thoughts. Like he’d really kill his little witch’s godfather. Yeah, that would be a great way to try to stay by the man’s side.

Which he couldn’t do anyway, as this was only temporary. It could only be temporary! And maybe if he told himself that enough times, he’d start to actually believe it—fuck…