Page 2 of Marcus-stiltskin

White hot rage boils within me and just before I can kick him again, something explodes inside of me. I take a deep breath and, suddenly, I can smell smoke. Not just smell, but heat seems to emanate from the man. I kick out hard against him as he starts to scream.

“FIRE! FIRE! I’M ON FIRE!” he’s screaming, as I scoot my ass back away from him. There’s nothing on him–no fire, no smoke–but it definitely smells like it. The putrid scent of burning hair and flesh fills the air. He’s screaming at the top of his lungs as his friends abandon him, backing away quickly as he rolls and writhes on the floor. Darla gets to him before any of the bouncers do. She puts a hand out to grab his arm, but then pulls back quickly in surprise.

She straightens up and meets my eyes, a smile lighting up her face. It’s the weirdest reaction I’ve ever seen to dudes beinggross. She turns and heads back to the bar, grabs her bottle of water, then says a few words before pouring a few drops on the man. The screaming stops as the horrible man’s voice dissolves into blubbering cries.

She lifts him up to standing as if he weighs nothing and turns back to the nearest man in his party. “Get him out of here and never come back.”

Apparently, that’s all the time the groom needs to recover. He tries to wiggle out of Darla’s grasp as he spits. “Fucking bitch, get your hands off me!” She turns her eyes back to him.

“May that bride of yours take you for every single penny you have when you fuck up enough for her to leave.” The ways she says it makes it sound more like a curse than a prediction. She shoves him into one wolf, who shoves him towards another wolf as if the groom is a kid between two bullies at school. They shove his drunken body back and forth between them until the group finally makes it out the door.

I’m still sitting on my now-aching ass when Darla turns back to me and offers me a hand up. “You okay? That bit of magic was really impressive.”

I stare at her, blinking, not sure what she’s going on about. “Magic? I don’t–” my words are stopped by the pain shooting from my tailbone. I balance on my heels, and my ass, no longer compressed against the floor, immediately starts aching painfully in time to my heartbeat. I’m getting too old to be falling like that, even on the parts that provide the most cushion.

She tilts her head, studying my face. “You really don’t have any magic?”

I shake my head as I wobble off toward the dressing room. “No. I’m just a human.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I’m just a regular, boring person.”

She follows me to the dressing room, stopping me with a hand on my arm before I can open the door. “Sarah, that bit of magic you did was huge. Wars have been won by witches who can create that spell. It’s called ethereal fire. It’s the most difficult spell a fire witch can cast.”

I shake my head, unease creeping up my spine. “Darla, I’m not a witch.”

“Sarah, I think you are, and if you don’t figure out how to control it, you could end up hurting someone who doesn’t have it coming.”

I’m exhausted, my ass hurts, and I can still feel that man’s hand on my ass. The look he gave me as I tried to fight him off will be burned into my brain for a while. “Fine, Darla. Even if I am a witch, what am I supposed to do about it?”

She smiles. “Funny enough, witch apprenticeships start next week. I still have space in the first rotation.”

“You have space?” Somehow, it doesn’t surprise me that Darla’s a witch. What surprises me is that she’s kept it quiet this long. “I don’t have a lot of extra money to pay for classes.”

She shakes her head. “Witches don’t pay for the internship with money. They pay for it with future acts. One day, you’ll be called upon to help other witches. It is the way of things.”

I sigh. I guess I have nothing to lose. “Fine. I don’t think I’m a witch, but if you think it will—”

“Sarah, you’re far more powerful than you realize.”

I roll my eyes. “So I’m not like the other girls?” I ask, fearing she’s going to tell me that the world’s fate is in my hands.

Darla laughs. “Sorry, you’re totally like the other girls. Witch magic isn’t like that. You aren’t the chosen one. Think of it more like me giving condoms to a teenager who just discovered sex.”

“And with that analogy, I think I’m going to hide in the dressing room for the rest of the night. My ass is killing me.”

“I’ll leave something on your porch tomorrow on my way to work to help with the soreness. Until then, if you start to feel really angry, try to force yourself down a notch or two. Hopefully, this was just a fluke, and the fear and the anger came together to create just the right conditions.”

I look at her strangely. “Why? What would have happened if you hadn’t, uh, did what you did?”

She takes a step back and grimaces. “Without the counterspell, the person with ethereal fire dies. It boils you alive from the inside.”

“Fuck.”

She turns on her heel just as a thought crosses my mind. “Darla! What if I set it off again and you’re not there?”

She looks at me for a moment, then takes a bracelet made of purple crystal off her wrist. “This is amethyst. As a fire witch, you wouldn’t normally wear stones that represent water, but if you place the stone near or on the object on fire and concentrate on controlling whatever emotion caused the fire, you should be able to stop it. Normally, you wouldn’t get to that part of your apprenticeship for a year, but you and I can start tutoring sessions on the side after we get you started with the apprenticeship.”

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