Page 4 of In the Dark

Huh. Funny things, dreams.

**

Morgan Gauthier sat at his desk with a mess of papers in front of him. College papers. College freshman papers. He felt an ulcer bursting to life at the thought. It definitely wasn’t going to make his night go any faster.

He considered the pile with a scowl and wished he’d been born with the ability to shoot lasers out of his eyes. That way he’d never have to read any of the research essays given to him by his less-than-helpful teaching assistant. College freshmen were the least succinct group of people he’d ever had the displeasure of teaching, and their papers reflected such incompetence.

Amateurs, one and all, with no sense of drive or pride in their work.

He’d been around his fair share of humans over his many millennia. Every so often he wondered what was wrong with him that he continually felt the need to interact with academia. There had been Socrates. Aristotle. Michel FoucaultandDavid Hume. Those were great minds, he thought with a swell of nostalgia.

Then he looked down at the misspelled title on top of the pile and grimaced.

A couple of those babies and Morgan would need a bottle of whiskey to deaden the headache. Okay, maybe not need, but desire. Deeply desire until it consumed his waking thoughts. Maybe it was time to take another break and get out of town for a while. Surely his father would be happy to see him. He hadn’t paid a visit to the Underworld in…ugh, no, too long.

Morgan suddenly felt old.

He turned his attention back to the papers. One would think with the invention of the Internet, those kids could easily find a good abstract to emulate. No, instead they bedded down with that evil seductress known as Wikipedia and fought to see how many adverbs and adjectives they could fit into a single sentence.

Savages.

His position at Carthage College was a hard-won thing and suited his personality to a T. Mythology and the history of language were in fact more than a hobby. He knew from personal experience that the stories he taught, the theories passed down through the ages, were true. Extraordinary things happened. Magic existed. And it took a special person to instill wonder in the general public. The days of being worshiped as gods were over, and sometimes the best he could do was remember them fondly and relish seeing the past come alive in the joy of the people he educated.

Being able to teach a subset of his favorite subject put his mind at ease and helped him relax. Sure, the little monsters were rude and inconsiderate, obstreperous and incorrigible. Hormonally charged, more than anything. On the cusp of adulthood. More into wild nights of partying than studious days of class. It was all he could do to keep himself to himself when they fell asleep in class. Nature took over then and he sometimes took the opportunity to mess with their dreams.

It was in his nature, he thought. Did one’s genetic code make one human, or was it one’s actions? Could society ever view a half-blood god as human?

Morgan chuckled to himself. Yes, they could. And they did. He was living proof.

It was easy for him to blend in with the masses. The small spark of something human inside of him—due to an unfortunate mixing of parentage—afforded him more than any of his other siblings the ability to intermingle. He could emulate any form he chose with the ease of breathing. He could be anyone. Anywhere.

It was what he was known for.

Swiveling in his chair, Morgan peered out the window at the radiantly lit campus, the faint play of light bouncing off the reflective surface of the lake. There were so many other things he could be doing instead of procrastinating. That’s what had got him into this last-minute rush in the first place.

He once again contemplated chucking the entire stack of papers of his mythology class out the window and letting the snow deal with it. That sounded much more appealing than the hours it would take him to get through the mess of grammatical errors, poor spelling, and idiotic comparisons.

He bent to the lowest drawer of his desk and removed a slim metal flask filled to the brim with liquid libation. Just a little pick-me-up, he assured himself. He hardly ever felt the need to overdo it without an extenuating circumstance. Tonight qualified as an extenuating circumstance.

The first sip of fiery hot ambrosia slid down his throat and the answering warmth flooded his bones, had his hair rising and goose bumps bursting to life along his skin. Good stuff. He had to make it last, of course; otherwise it would mean another trip to Mt. Olympus and the horrifying consequences of such a visit. The jokes, the teasing, the rude comments about his mother…

Definitely not something he wanted to do anytime soon. It was a bad day when visiting the Underworld was preferable to visiting the home of the gods.

The thought had Morgan recapping the flask with more than a little regret and settling for a small sip.

Then the door to his office exploded inward.

Wood slammed into the neighboring wall with a thud, chunks of dust and splinters littering the floor.

“Whoa!” Morgan stood and nearly dropped his flask. “Excuse me—”

The beauty in front of him stood at a whopping five-foot-four-inches, with a cascading mass of dark reddish-brown hair. At first, he saw only the outline of her silhouetted against the garish hallway fluorescent lights. She stepped forward, scowling at him, and Morgan felt his heart do a somersault. Then he felt it a second time. Lower.

His mind refused to form the words as he took her in, from the scowl marring her face to the delicate V of her eyebrows.

“Are you Professor Gauthier?” she asked, her voice high-pitched and melodic.

Her frown spawned an answering look on his face despite his intrigue. What could a woman like her possibly want with him? And at that hour of the night? Then he felt the power wafting off of her. He drew it into his lungs. Ah, an earth elemental witch. Not many of those in his neck of the woods.

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