Page 28 of Reluctant Witch (A Course in Magic #2)

28

Dan

Of all the things that Dan might have expected, finding Ellie Brandeau and Lady Prospero at his door wasn’t on the list. He was sitting in his desk chair reading a book he’d checked out of the library, after filling a card out that vanished into wherever checked cards went, and Axell was sitting on the edge of the bed with a lute, writing a song, when there was a tap at the door.

Dan opened it and froze. Fear tangled around him as he looked at the woman he’d helped mentally erase as she was fighting to escape and the woman responsible for that heinous act. They were holding hands.

As he stood there, mouth opening soundlessly, Dan felt Axell come up behind him.

“May we come in?” Ellie asked, looking not at him but over his shoulder at Axell.

“How much danger will there be if we say no?” Axell was staring at Ellie as if Lady Prospero were not at her side.

“We come in peace,” Ellie said, flashing a brief smile at Dan.

He glanced at the second witch, the one he’d amplified. “Do you ?”

“Her idea.” Prospero glanced at Ellie with a question obvious on her face. “I have no idea why we are here.”

“She needs a spy,” Ellie started.

Dan started, “I’m not—”

“Not you,” Ellie said. “There is an underground here, a market where things can be acquired that are deadly. I need Axell.”

“Why?” Axell asked.

“You can only enter if you are an addict or with her. ” Ellie gestured at Lady Prospero again. “And when I went with her, I left Howie pinned to the wall. He won’t talk to me or her right now, but we need information.”

Axell stared at her. “I am not using any drugs.” He glanced at Dan. “I swear I am not—”

“I’m not asking you to. I’m asking you to go see if you can buy magical poison from him. Drugs or otherwise.” Ellie pointedly did not look at Prospero. “You will tell him I was bragging about trapping him, and you want to bring me down.”

“No.” Dan and Prospero spoke at once.

“May we come in?” Ellie asked, still talking to Axell.

Axell stepped aside and motioned them in with one arm. He hadn’t said no, but he had a drawn expression on his face that Dan attributed to fear. Which fear was unclear, but there were several options.

Inside the room, Ellie pulled a bit of wood and a scrap of fabric from her pocket. The fabric was patterned and looked familiar. Dan frowned at it.

“That looks like the curtains in the lower hall,” Prospero said quietly.

“It is. I cut a piece off.” Ellie grinned. Then she dropped both things on the floor, and in the next moment, the wood and fabric expanded, twisting and writhing into an elegant sofa. The gold-and-blue fabric was now a Victorian-style sofa, and the wood had grown into clawed feet. “It’ll stay if you want it. Sometimes it’s nice to have a spot to cuddle up.”

Axell sat on the bed again, and this time, Dan curled up there rather than in the desk chair where he’d been earlier. They neither one had any defenses beyond Axell’s ability to become invisible, which only worked on Dan if they were touching, but he wanted to be closer to him while Prospero was here.

“Only addicts can find him, and you’re the only addict I know here.” Ellie gave Axell an awkward look, as if she hated putting it on the table.

“There are others,” Prospero said quietly.

“I do not want to be able to find magic drugs.” Axell tensed.

“Look, Lord Scylla isn’t healing. Without her, we have a half-there barrier I built out of sticks and rocks.…”

Dan bit back his three-little-pigs quip. This didn’t feel like a quip-friendly moment. Instead he said, “I could boost you, amplify your magic”—he shot a look at Prospero—“and you could make the barrier stronger.”

“Then how would we get in and out to bring in supplies?” Prospero asked. “We can find someone else, someone I know and trust to—”

“Ellie trusts me.” Axell stared at her. “We decided to be friends. There was a raccoon.”

“Chester,” Prospero muttered. “That beast is not a child, no matter how often they put him in costumes.”

“What is it you need?” Dan interjected. Later, maybe, he’d have raccoon-in-clothes questions, but he wanted this topic resolved and these two out of his room.

“Scylla isn’t healing, so we wondered if there was poison on the bullet.” Prospero sounded rattled, which wasn’t the most comforting thing.

When the bad guys are frightened that means that everything has gone to shit, Dan mused. Or does it mean the good guys are winning? He glanced at the two women. They were trying to save Crenshaw. That was a definite “good guy” thing. Maybe good and bad are relative to where you stand, what you want.…

“I don’t want him to have to take any strange drugs,” Dan blurted out. “His body, his choice and all that, but addiction killed him.”

Axell reached out and took his hand as he asked, “He can come, too?”

Ellie looked at Prospero, who shrugged.

“Then I will go.” Axell nodded. “What do I do?”

They all left the castle together and went into the village. Passing the woods made Dan pause, thinking about seeing Prospero carrying Ellie through the woods like she was a victim. Honestly, Dan still couldn’t decide what he thought of either woman. They made him nervous; that was the whole of it.

He squeezed Axell’s hand and whispered, “Are you sure you are okay with this?”

“ Ja. ”

“I’m staying with you the whole time,” Dan said, half expecting an argument.

Axell just smiled. “To protect me.”

And although Dan felt foolish at the thought that he could be at all threatening, he nodded.

From in front of him, Ellie said, “We’ll be right outside. Just yell, and we’ll be there. I just think… he’s so arrogant. Get him talking. Play to his ego. Fear doesn’t work as well on him.”

“Fear is exhilarating to some,” Prospero said lightly. “Howie can be complicated.”

Ellie offered, “He liked pain.”

“Also fun,” Axell said with a sort of knowledge that Dan found tempting on its own. Axell glanced at him. “Fear. Power. Pain. Adoration. Many drugs we make in our own selves with emotion.”

To that, Dan couldn’t argue. He’d courted those natural feelings with gambling and sex. The things that were addictive were because of how they made a person feel. Dan squeezed Axell’s hand. Maybe his drugs were no different than my risk-taking. Maybe we are not that different at all.

No one spoke as they neared a different part of the village. Dan had thought they’d visited all the shops already, but Prospero led them to a shop that had neither sign nor display window. The building itself had a strange look to it, as if it had been blackened by something wet and sticky and fire-tempered.

“There’s no door,” Dan pointed out.

“There is,” Axell whispered. He spoke as if he were reading words Dan could not see. “‘Place hand in the spot to knock.’”

Prospero nodded, as Axell spread his fingers and pressed his hand on a darker section of the door. Then she and Ellie crossed the street and Dan held tightly to Axell’s hand as he followed him into a building that smelled of something sweet and acrid.

“Poppy and powder,” Axell whispered. “They have both things. Calm and energy.”

It took Dan a moment to realize that Axell meant opiates and cocaine. He could see Axell tense, whole body held taut like someone about to run. Then a voice came out of the shadows.

“Come in, my friends, come in.”

Dan’s stomach knotted at the sickly sweet voice, but he kept his mouth shut. He followed Axell, who glanced back and whispered, “Trust me.”

Once they were inside a cavernous shell of a room, where a pallid man sprawled on filthy pillows, all Dan wanted was to carry Axell out of here, run away, and maybe torch the building.

“I wondered if you would find your way to my door.” The witch zeroed in on both of them. “The gambler and the junkie. Your sort often get sent back.”

“Unless someone finds us useful,” Axell said, accent thicker than natural.

The dealer laughed. “You are a pretty morsel.” Then he looked at Dan. “And you, cupcake, seem to be under the gaze of the headmaster. I didn’t think he liked”—he motioned at Dan from head to toe—“that.”

Dan tensed, not sure what to say. He knew that Sondre’s friendship wasn’t sexual. Right? Was he planning on using me? I thought we were becoming real friends.… Dan shook his head, chasing away such foolishness. He knew better. Sondre was his friend. The dealer was stirring insecurities.

“So what’s your poison?”

Axell aimed a cocky grin at the man. “I like a lot of things, but tonight, I want to make someone suffer.”

The words rang true, and the dealer leaned forward. “Tell Howie all about it.”

“I was eavesdropping…” Axell glanced at Dan, who gave a nod. They’d practiced this. Literally stood away from Ellie and Prospero, who talked together but not to them so they had eavesdropped. Truth could be so very relative.

“And what did you learn, pretty?” The dealer patted one of the grungy pillows. “I will give you a discount if you want to convince me.…”

Dan’s stomach twisted at the predatory tone and tried to put it in his voice. “We want to buy poison. This bitch was bragging about trapping you, and we thought… maybe you’d cut us a deal.”

“Something liquid to put on a blade,” Axell added.

“Revenge is silly. Pleasure, that’s the good feeling.” Howie cupped his crotch, and for a moment, Dan thought they were going to get an unwelcome show.

“Maybe we’d try some powder later.” Axell smiled, watching Howie’s hand like it was enticing. “Or molly?”

Howie shook his head. “Got things like molly. Get you some real hallucinations.…” He glanced at Dan and added, “Have a spell that is like the little blue pills, too. Keep you up for hours.” His sentence was accompanied by a tug on his crotch. “Like a rock.”

Axell wrapped an arm around Dan’s middle. “We don’t have any need for that.”

“Poison, though,” Dan added.

“My lover has a temper.” Axell said the words like it was endearing. “Such a vicious man.”

For a moment, Dan was frozen by the reality that they could not lie here; most witches could read a lie. They could twist and dissemble, but Axell was saying that Dan had a temper, and that they didn’t need pills for sex, and… those were truths.

Was his interest in drugs for later true, too?

“Look. We just want to hurt that bitch,” Dan blurted out. He didn’t specify which one. There were faces of people he’d wanted to hurt, although it wasn’t a thing he’d acted on as a rule, maybe the occasional petty revenge. “Some people deserve what they put out there.”

“Ah, there it is.” Howie rose to his feet. “The headmaster likes you because you’re a Grendel like him. Vengeful boys. Maybe you want something to bulk up? Make yourself fight-ready?”

Dan didn’t flinch as Howie approached. He had a moment of thinking it might be amazing to be able to toss people around, to overpower them, to take what he deserved. “Prospero took advantage of me. I want her to get what she deserves.”

Howie stopped midstep. “No. I don’t cross that one, and you won’t get any poison here if she’s your tar—”

“Do you have any?” Axell asked, reaching out as if to take hold of Howie’s hand. “Or know where we can get any?”

“If I did, she’d already be in pain.” Howie shuddered all over. “Canny thing. She’d know, and what I did have wouldn’t be strong enough to take down a house head over here in Crenshaw.”

Axell nodded. “Thank you.”

“Doesn’t mean we can’t do business.…” Howie oozed closer. “Plenty of things to distract you. No good comes of crossing her or her wife.”

“I think we should go.” Dan stepped backward. “Err, thank you, though.”

“You’ll be back.” Howie grinned wider than a human mouth ought to stretch. “Once you come here, your kind always come back. Addicts are the best customers.”

Axell shook his head. “Not tonight, though.”

“Bye.” Dan waved cheerily and tugged Axell along with him, stumbling and looking back as if Howie would follow. He didn’t, though. He was back on his pillows, pants shoved down, staring after them.

Axell shoved the door open, and they stood in the clean air. He pulled Dan in for a long hug. “Do not let me go to this village alone, Daniel, if I am sad or we have fought. Ever.”

“I won’t. I swear it.” Dan looked back. This perfect magical world still had a flaw, and Dan wanted to remove it, to yank it out and destroy it.

Ellie’s voice drew his attention away from the building. “Well?”

“Not him. Also he hates you both,” Dan said bluntly.

“I’m not his biggest fan, either,” Ellie muttered. She looked at Axell then, as if no one else was there. “Are you okay?”

Axell’s expression was tense. He looked at Prospero. “Take this memory. I do not want to know this is here.”

And Dan was impressed by his audacity. “I’ll keep mine. Not to visit but because… I want to remember how much I hated this.”

“I can do that.” Prospero paused, looked at each of them, and said, “Thank you for the bravery, gentlemen.”

Then she erased Axell’s memory of the drug dealer’s den, and Dan led his beloved to the tavern for the drink they both wanted after that encounter.