Too Much Magic (WereWitch Book 3) Page 7

  Chapter Six

  When Bailey and Roland returned to the Nordin house, everyone was asleep. Roland had been spending his nights out in the pole barn, with a space heater when necessary, and they shared a quick hug beside the house and said their goodnights before he headed out back.

  For her part, Bailey crept into the house on soft, careful feet. She didn’t want to wake her brothers and then feel obliged to explain to them everything that had happened. She was just too tired. In the morning, they’d see her truck out front and the door to her room shut, so they’d know she was home safe.

  She succeeded until she reached the staircase. The damn thing always creaked, no matter how stealthy she tried to be. As a little girl, her parents walking up and down it as they got ready for work used to wake her up.

  A mattress crinkled in the room closest to the stairs. Then a voice came through the wall. “Bailey?” Jacob asked, his voice ragged and slurred with sleep. “That you?”

  “Yes,” she responded. “I’m fine. We’ll talk in the morning.”

  He let out a heavy, sighing groan. “Okay. We were worried.” The mattress rustled again, and his faint snores were back by the time Bailey reached her room.

  She was not looking forward to having to discuss all that had transpired. Her brothers were continuously wracked with concern for her already, and it seemed like things had grown more and more complex and dangerous as time had gone on.

  For now, she forced herself not to dwell on any of it. Both mind and body were near exhaustion, and within moments of her head sinking into her pillow, she was asleep.

  She was glad it had been Russell’s turn to make the coffee this morning since he always made it strong enough to kill a mid-sized domestic animal. That much caffeine, delivered via something that tasted almost like motor oil, was exactly what she needed after last night.

  Kurt, meanwhile, was talking an awful lot despite having his mouth full of pancakes most of the time.

  “So,” he began again, chewing madly, “this ‘Other’ place is like, made of the leftover magic juices that leaked into a crack between worlds? Some shit like that?”

  Roland raised a mug of coffee in something like a salute. “That’s the gist of it, yeah. You guys had a Norse goddess in your backyard recently, so I can’t imagine a parallel dimension is all that hard to believe.”

  Kurt gave a vigorous nod. “Touché. You two always find the best quaint little places to go on your romantic vacations, don’t you?”

  As he said this, Jacob’s hand shot out and pulled his plate away, so his fork ended up hitting the tablecloth.

  “Aw!” he lamented.

  Jacob burst out laughing, and everyone else followed suit.

  Once they got themselves back under control, Jacob had a few more questions. Roland seemed happy enough to answer them, even despite his own seemingly mixed feelings toward Marcus and the man’s training philosophy.

  “So,” Jacob started, “this godawful place is supposed to help you master your magic powers and stuff more quickly than if you trained on, uh, Earth, right? And according to our pal Marcus, this is necessary because it’s too dangerous to delay?”

  Adding more syrup to the remains on his plate, Roland said, “Yup, that’s what he said. I’m not as certain about it, although I’ll concede that there’s stuff we learned in there that would never have occurred to me otherwise. I just wish he was more…I don’t know, systematic about it instead of just throwing us in there with vague Jedi platitudes about how ‘you will know when the time comes’ and expecting us to figure it all out by ourselves.”

  Bailey listened to her partner’s opinion with mixed feelings. Clearly, Roland didn’t trust Marcus as much as she did. In her view, anything he had to put them through to get the job done was ultimately justified, even if she disliked it. But on some level, she appreciated that Roland was worried about her.

  She decided to shift the focus of the conversation. “I’ve made a lot of progress,” she stated. “I mean, I’m sure there’s more to go—I don’t even know how much—but I can control my magic a lot better than I could even a week ago.”

  Her brothers nodded. “Good,” Jacob commented, speaking for them all.

  Roland pointed his fork sideways toward the girl without looking at her. “It’s true—she’s advanced by leaps and bounds. Marcus’s methods might be better suited to her since he made more progress with her than I did.”

  Kurt cleared his throat. “Well, she and Marcus are the same, uh, species or whatever. Pretty sure that makes a difference.”

  “Probably,” the wizard acknowledged.

  Jacob seemed distracted. “Didn’t you say something about how these powers could be dangerous to the person who has them if they’re not careful?”

  “Yeah,” Bailey replied. “The more you can do, the more ways there are to screw yourself over. That’s part of why we need Marcus. He’s helped us a lot.”

  Roland gestured vaguely with his fork. “That, and our friends in black suits—well, more of a dark gray or green, really—telling us to shape up or ship out. Those guys are not fun to deal with, so I really hope we don’t have the pleasure of their company again.”

  Kurt pursed his lips. “Uh, on the plus side, wouldn’t they, like, step in to restrain those witches if they show up? Hell, they admitted Bailey wasn’t the one starting all the shit lately.”

  “Yes.” Roland sighed. “But it’s better if it never comes to that.”

  Jacob stared at the table. “It’s going to come to something,” he muttered.

  Bailey looked at him, and he looked up. His face was getting that awkward grimace, the look he got when he had “serious business” to discuss and really didn’t want to, but felt like he had to.

  “Bailey,” he began, his voice a register lower than usual, “you have been attracting a lot of trouble lately. Mainly toward yourself.”

  She stabbed at the last fork’s worth of thick, spongy pancakes, dabbing them in the remaining pool of syrup and melted butter near the edge of her plate. “Yeah, tell me something I don’t know.” Her tone was dark, even if her words were flippant.

  To everyone’s surprise, Russell was the one who replied to her. “The details,” he intoned. “You know what Jacob just said is true, but you don’t know the specifics. And sometimes that’s the shit that kills you.”

  Her muscles tightened as she looked up at her towering middle brother. At the end of his statement, he’d used a generic “you.” He was making a general statement, a platitude; he hadn’t meant to imply that someone was out to kill Bailey.

  Probably.

  “Yeah,” Kurt chimed in, “there’s been some, you know, developments. Not that any of them are surprising. I mean, this is Greenhearth, for fuck’s sake. When was the last time anything happened here that was a surprise? Not counting the stuff precipitated by you two, I mean.” He waved a hand at Roland and his sister.

  Jacob looked at his youngest sibling. “Well, Kurt, I’d say most people were pretty damn surprised when Dan Oberlin turned out to be kidnapping local girls. Everyone knew he was an asshole, but not that much of an asshole.”

  Kurt shrugged. “Okay, yeah. Fair enough.”

  Sighing, Bailey caught their eyes. “Stop bickering and tell me what these developments are, then.”

  Roland patted her hand in thanks. He’d gotten pretty familiar with her brothers by now, but he still relied on her to yell at them when they needed yelling at. For him to do it would have been presumptuous toward his hosts.

  To no one’s surprise, Jacob took the lead in answering the girl’s question.

  “People are uneasy being around you,” he stated. “Weres, especially. I mean, ones who used to think you were just fine. They didn’t mind back when all you did was get into fights and act like you didn’t want to get married. They just figured it was none of their business. Now some of them are starting to act like you’re a menace to society, even if they’re glad you saved those girls.”
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  Bailey fumed, staring straight ahead at nothing in particular. Her brother didn’t name names, nor did she ask him to. Instead, he continued, “And that’s just the people who were okay with you. You want to imagine what’s been going on with the people who already thought you were an asshole?”

  She pushed her plate away from her. “I don’t need to imagine. I already got a damn good idea,” she grumbled.

  Nonetheless, Jacob enlightened her.

  “They’re painting targets on your back with their eyes, Bailey. Probably rocking themselves to sleep thinking about how they’d hit that target. Of course, right now, most of them are too chickenshit to do anything, but they’re thinking about it. Talking about it when they think we can’t hear them. Stuff like that.”

  Roland cut in, “That sounds about right. I don’t claim to know this town, but people aren’t that different no matter where you go. I dealt with a lot of that kind of crap back in Seattle after word got out that I was different. Sometimes it’s dangerous, but usually it’s just annoying. You guys know these people, so I’d say the most important thing is which one you think it is—dangerous, or annoying.”

  Bailey snorted. “Some of both. That’d be my guess, knowing the dipshits around here.”

  Silence reigned in for a few moments, until Kurt, predictably, broke it. “I mean, those guys were already annoying, so it’s not like much has changed on that front. The ones who are more likely to be dangerous are usually the stupidest ones anyway, right?”

  Chuckles went around the table.

  “I guess,” Bailey conceded. “Some of the real morons seem to have…other people behind them, though. You know, sponsors. People who point their dumb asses in the right direction.”

  Jacob and Russell clenched their hands, and the former added his two cents.

  “That’s what worries me.” He turned his head to Bailey, holding her gaze. “I’ve been hearing second- and third-hand gossip that some of these shitheads think, with all your power and prestige and attention now, you’re going to make a play to become a pack alpha. Overthrow the old farts and start your own pack, instead of marrying one of them like they all thought would happen. That’s setting some of them on their heels. The Weres around here are getting pretty goddamn antsy.”

  Bailey’s jaw clenched. She wanted to growl.

  “Well, maybe,” she snapped louder and more sharply than she’d meant to, “it’s time for other Weres to just fuckin’ deal with it. They’ve gotten awful cozy hunkering down in these mountains over the years. They’ve stayed away from the outside world, thinking that everything will always be the way they’re used to. Things change, and I’m not gonna bend over backward just to accommodate their ignorant, paranoid bullshit.”

  The only one who looked mildly surprised by the outburst was Roland, and even in his case, it wore off quickly. Her brothers smiled gently.

  “Bailey,” said Jacob, “that’s what we figured you’d say. And mostly—mostly—we’re with you on that. You know we always have your back. We care about you. Don’t want anything bad to happen.”

  She let out a long sigh. “Yeah, yeah. I know. Thanks.” She took a sip of coffee. “So, Dad went back to waste more time with that Frederson idiot and his lazy-ass wife?”

  Kurt snorted. “Yep. Those two would be living in the ruins of their house right now if he didn’t keep checking in on them. Like, they’d have a ratty old bathrobe strung between two protruding pieces of wood and use that as their roof and then complain it was leaking.”

  Russell turned his head away, snickering, and Roland chuckled, despite having no idea who Frederson was.

  Bailey rubbed her eyes. “Sounds about right. Also, I think Kevin’s rubbing off on Roland. ‘Jedi platitudes?’ Really?”

  The wizard shrugged. “Phrasing it that way seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  The mood lightened as breakfast progressed, with the four Nordins trading stories from around the town, and Roland occasionally chiming in with something similar, or at least amusing, from his time in Seattle. The worst of the tension was gone by the time Bailey stood up and started to gather everyone’s empty plates.

  “Roland,” she said, “I want you to stay behind and keep the boys here company. They could use an adult around in case Kurt tries to stick a fork in a wall socket or something.”

  “Hey!” Kurt protested. “I was wearing a rubber dish glove the one time I tried that.”

  “And,” his sister continued, patting the wizard on the shoulder, “that reminds me. It’s your turn to do dishes.”

  He tried to look put-upon. “Okay, fine,” he whined. “Where are you going? You said ‘stay behind,’ which kind of implies that you’re leaving.”

  “True,” she stated. “I’m gonna go see Gunney and maybe help him get some work done. Especially if he’ll put me on the clock for it. All this shit you and I have been doing hasn’t provided a paycheck.”

  That was true, but her family pooled their money to pay the bills, so all she needed her job for was gas and pocket cash. Mainly, she just wanted to see the old man and talk.

  The wizard slowly hoisted himself to his feet and trudged toward the kitchen sink, carrying the last of the dirty utensils. “Fine. Go have fun. See if I care. No one appreciates all the work I do around here.”

  Jacob shook his head. “Good thing we know him well enough by now to understand he doesn’t mean that.”

  Chapter Seven

  Bailey left the boys behind, pulling on her boots and hopping into her truck almost as soon as Roland had left the dining room. It was a short drive to Gunney’s auto shop, which lay on a ridge in the north-central part of town, adjacent to a fenced-off car lot that the aging mechanic also owned.

  It was Sunday, and the shop was technically closed. Gunney spent most of his free time there, though. It was more his home than his house was. She wasn’t surprised in the slightest to glimpse him standing in the farthest of the three repair bays from the road, tinkering with a brown sedan on a lift.

  She parked on the far side of the front lot and climbed out. He glanced at her as she approached, then went back to work, knowing she’d find her own way in.

  Bailey wandered up to his side. “You’re getting rusty, old man. I could’ve snuck up behind you and brained you with a wrench or something. You barely even noticed when my truck pulled up. Tsk, tsk.”

  He smiled without looking at her, his attention focused on the elevated car’s underbelly. “Dumbass. There’s a big difference, young lady, between not noticing something and knowing it so well that there’s no point in making a big display of watching it. People say you’re a wild card, but you’re almost as predictable as the goddamn sun.”

  She stuck her lips out in a fake expression of hurt and indignation. “I take offense to that one. There’s also a big difference between me wearing the kid gloves when I come to see you and the way I am with most everyone else. As far as the rest of the town’s concerned, I’m more like the rain. Comes and goes, never know for sure.”

  He nodded. “Fair enough. Grab me a funnel?”

  She had pivoted to look for one, finding it almost before he’d asked. She handed it off to him with the easy familiarity of one who’s performed a given action hundreds of times.

  He didn’t need to ask, then, as she helped him through a routine oil change and filter replacement. Most likely, the car needed other, more complicated work done tomorrow when Gunney had a full crew, and the old man wanted to get the minor stuff out of the way in advance.

  “Once we’re done,” he told her, “help yourself to one of them orange sodas in the fridge. Glass bottles, don’t you worry.”

  Her favorite. “Pssht,” she shot back. “You don’t have to mention they’re in glass. That’s standard. I’d be disappointed otherwise. Just warn me if you have to resort to plastic, is all I ask.”

  “Noted.”

  They finished up, and Bailey grabbed a soda as he’d suggested. Sauntering back over to him a
nd sipping the sweet liquid, the weight of her worries seemed to come back all of a sudden, bearing down on her head and shoulders, trying to flatten her.

  “So,” she began, “I can help for a little while—and let’s put this on the clock, by the way—but I’ll probably have to go again soon. Have another training session with Marcus sometime today.”

  The mechanic gave a soft grunt. “Okay. Waiting on parts for this thing anyway,” he reported, gesturing toward the sedan, “but there’s some basic organizational shit we could stand to do around the shop. Grunt work, but it all pays the same, so if you’re down for that, you got yourself a deal.” He took off the baseball cap he always wore on his shaggy head and wiped the sweat from his brow.

  Bailey agreed, and the two of them set about putting myriad tools back in their proper places, cleaning things that were getting too greasy, and then washing their hands before putting stacks of invoices in order in the office.

  As they worked, they talked.

  Gunney opened with the questions Bailey had hoped he’d ask. “How’s training going with that guy, anyway? I mean, he seems all right, but still, no one here really knows him.”

  “Great,” Bailey responded. “Well, I mean, it’s been an adventure, but we’re making progress.”

  She glossed over the details of her experience in the Other and the supernatural dangers they’d encountered there. Not only did she want to avoid making Gunney too concerned, but she wondered if he would believe it.

  Gunney knew and had known for many years that their town was full of goddamn werewolves. He’d even seemed to accept the notion that Roland was a wizard and that witches were after him and all that. But at heart, he was a salt-of-the-earth type—open-minded, but grounded. She didn’t want to overwhelm him with the sheer bizarreness of all that had happened lately.

  But she did want him to listen, and if possible, to offer advice.

  “My magic. I’m getting the hang of it, sort of. But it’s like a whole new world is opening up, and I’m expected to know everything about it as fast as possible. I’m pretty smart, but it ain’t easy.”