Page 5 of Coven

“How was the meeting last night?” Beth asked the second Kana arrived in their shared cubicle space.

Mika and Sora crawled underneath Kana’s desk where he had left them an overstuffed pillow. Kana retrieved his notebook from his bag, stuffed the bag in a drawer, and then turned to Beth.

“About as well as a meeting with vampires can go. When are we gathering so I can give my report?”

Beth clicked on her computer for a few seconds. “Calendar invite we got says ten.”

“Just enough time to check my email and have another cup of tea,” Kana joked, even though they were both buried beneath work over-assigned to the new employees. Every time Kana started to catch up, someone dumped another assignment on his desk, much like what had happened with the vampires last night. He would barely have time to get his notes in order before the meeting.

Kana logged in and got to work.

*

“SO YOU’RE SAYING they’re willing to be interviewed,” Stephen said. He sounded excited, and like Kana feared, he ignored everything else Kana said.

“I’m saying they might have an ulterior motive to being interviewed,” Kana repeated, hoping this time Stephen and the rest of the room might listen. “If you walk into their house, they consider you easy prey. You might not walk out again.”

Beth, at least, seemed to understand his worry. “They also weren’t certain they would even show up on camera, right?” she asked Kana. “Won’t be much of a story if it looks like we’re interviewing air.”

Stephen waved his hand as if he were physically brushing Beth’s words aside. “We’ve worked with less before; we can certainly work around that.”

Kana wanted to ask Can you work if they’ve stolen all your blood? but Stephen was past listening.

Except, Stephen seemed to have a moment of clarity as he looked around the room. “Now, I don’t want to offend our hosts by wearing a garlic necklace, but can anyone think of something slightly less gauche to encourage them to continue being good hosts?” No one answered, and Kana saw what was coming his way even before Stephen turned to look at him. “Kana, please research this.” Stephen picked up Ember’s business card. “I’ll give them a call and let them know we’re free all next week. They can pick the best date and time for them.”

Kana let out a breath as the meeting ended. The interview was still happening, but at least everyone was warned. And Kana had the opportunity to provide some protection. His coworkers didn’t need to know he was using magic to protect them, so if he could spell up an oil or perfume for them to wear, he could hopefully keep the vampires away.

Kana didn’t know what herbs would work best, though. Garlic, certainly, and he could get his hands on some holy water for the base, but even the humans, let alone the vampires, would be able to tell they were wearing vampire repellent just from the smell. No, Kana needed to come up with something smelling lightly flowery or of citrus, but still incorporated the protective parts of garlic.

Everyone started to stand and gather papers, so Kana did the same. His seat was at the far end of the room, so he had to wait for everyone else to leave first. Eventually, Kana was able to walk with Beth back to their desks.

“Kinda crazy, interviewing vampires like this,” Beth said. She sat and fluffed her pixie-cut hair for a moment while she thought. “I still can’t believe you went to the preinterview alone like that.”

Which was actually part of Kana’s problem. Because he had emerged from the interview unscathed, his coworkers, and Stephen in particular, probably thought they could do the same. Kana needed to keep his powers a secret for his own protection, but hiding them, unfortunately, caused his coworkers to dismiss the potential threat. Well, Kana would simply have to put together a good spell to protect them and they could remain blissfully ignorant.

“It’s going to be so exciting though,” Beth continued. “I’ve never met a vampire before, let alone talked to one!”

“Does the Herald interview a lot of supernatural creatures?” Kana logged into his computer, but instead of loading his next work project, he pulled up his favorite online herbalist. There had to be a combination of herbs he could use to help mask the smell of garlic.

“Stephen says he interviewed a guy possessed by a demon once, but I think he got played. The guy was probably a wannabe.”

Or he was a warlock, whose magic derived from summoning all kinds of creatures, demons included, to power their spells. Stephen probably didn’t know the difference, though, which meant it could have been any sort of magical whatsit, or just a regular human wannabe like Beth said.

“That’s why Stephen is so excited about this. None of the other local news agencies have ever even thought to try something so ambitious.” Beth leaned closer and lowered her voice, so Kana obligingly leaned close too. “I think,” she paused and glanced side to side to check whether anyone was nearby to overhear. “I think Stephen wants to pad his resume with this. If he has interviewing vampires on his resume, I bet he thinks the bigwigs at the national headquarters will pluck him out of our local station and give him a big-time job.”

“It might look good on a resume, but all the big stations have to do is talk to Stephen to learn better. We’re not getting rid of him so easily,” Kana joked, although at the back of his mind a twinge of worry that a vampire might actually “get rid of him” slipped through.

Chatter sounded from around the corner, and Beth and Kana sprang apart, swiveling their chairs around to return to their desks. Kana got back to work.

About four that afternoon, just when Kana was starting to save his work so he could head home, Kana and Beth’s emails simultaneously pinged.

“Monday at seven thirty,” Beth read. “Damn, that’s soon!”

Kana had all of Friday and the weekend to concoct his spell. Not much time, but he would have to make it be enough.

Kana shut down his computer and dug his backpack out of the drawer. He helped Mika and Sora inside and swung the bag onto his back.

“See you tomorrow?” he asked Beth.

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