Page 78 of The Fantastic Fluke

“I figured you just acted that way with everyone,” I told him honestly. “I had no idea. David, what the hell are you—”

“Isn’t that the way of it?” he asked, a bitter smile on his face. “You try to be a nice guy, and all the gorgeous people ignore you. Would you have said yes if I’d driven a motorcycle and been covered in tattoos?”

Was he fucking kidding? What in the fresh fedora hell was this?

Part of my brain pointed out that tattoos and a motorcycle weren’t really my thing. More like a long leather duster and spurs.

That was when he pulled out the pocketknife and flipped it open. “They say you’ve got to bleed a witch. It’s messy. The Adler woman made it difficult. I don’t want this to be ugly, Sage.”

“A witch?” I asked. I realized I had backed into the broom cupboard and braced my legs to stop moving.

He motioned to me, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “A witch. Someone who manipulates natural forces that shouldn’t be played with. Some of the others believe in all that ‘deal with the devil’ nonsense, but that’s not it. You put us all in danger by fooling with ley lines. They’re dangerous.” He motioned through the wall in the direction of the greasy mess that had once been a person. “Lina Merton? I suspected she was the one killing mages. Low level mages of her specialty are always a risk.”

“You suspected her, but weren’t trying to stop her?” What the hell? My back stiffened and I stood straight up, my jaw clenching as I stared at him. Could he have kept Kurt from being killed? The victims before Kurt? What kind of monster had I spent years thinking of as a sweet guy, wishing I could find him attractive?

He shrugged. “I figured eventually she’d lead me to the witch. She would be able to see their power, and someone burning out mages to steal their magic wouldn’t be able to resist that. Only the Believers understand that witches aren’t like us.”

“I’m not a witch,” I denied, even though by his bizarre definition, I most certainly was.

He was wrong, though. The magic was the same. Okay, well no, it was different, but it was also the same. It was more adaptable, but learning to use it had been the same as learning magic the first time. I shook my head, slowly at first then faster, finally stopping with a hand to my forehead, dizzy. Reaching out for the frame of the broom closet door, I braced myself upright and looked back to David.

Still there. Damn, I’d been half hoping for a hallucination.

“I wish that were true,” he sighed, shaking his head and starting toward me. “I really wanted you, Sage. But the old religion had it right. Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”

“Oh you’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” I said, glaring at him with all the emotion I had left. It wasn’t much; I was running on freaking empty. Still, he stopped in his tracks and stared in shock. “What? You start spouting ridiculous dogma and I’m not allowed to be disgusted?”

“It’s not dogma,” he denied with a scowl, slashing his free hand through the air. His eyes were so wide I could see the whites all around them, and he stared at me with an unnerving intensity. “It’s a fact. You pose a danger to the whole world. Your kind destabilizes magic. Gives the demons that live in the ley lines a portal into our world. You can’t convince me that you’d have killed that woman without their influence. Hell, maybe you’re not even Sage anymore, just a demon wearing his skin.”

All I could do was stare at him, my mouth hanging open. Where the hell had this madness come from? Was it something he’d been taught, or was he mentally unbalanced? “I’m not—there are no demons, David. I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about.”

Except maybe I did. The childlike consciousness of the convergence had made itself known to me. I could imagine that under other circumstances, or linked to someone like Lina, that it could do immense damage. It wouldn’t understand that its new friend was a monster, and it would soak up the worst of humanity like a sponge.

“I wish I could believe that. Or even if I did, that it mattered.” He sighed, his shoulders lifting and falling with the dramatic flair of it, and he continued toward me, but slowly, like he mostly wanted to keep monologuing. “But it’s well documented. Witches can’t be rehabilitated. Once you touch a ley line, you’re forever tainted by it.”

Oh gods. Oh gods. I was about to be murdered in my own fucking kitchen. The same as my mother. I could almost see her lying there on the floor. Cheese, across the room. My stomach threatened again to empty itself everywhere, and I couldn’t help but think that would serve David right.

The black refrigerator behind him caught my eye, and I gave a hysterical laugh. At least the blood spatter wouldn’t give anyone nightmares.

Not like my mother. She would be so sad, me coming to the same ridiculous fucking end. Eighteen years of refusing to be around knives, refusing to buy any for my kitchen, and it came to this; David had brought his own.

I hoped Fluke was unconscious, and David would leave him alone. There was no reason to hurt an innocent fox. Not unless his ridiculous beliefs had some notion that Fluke was also “tainted” by my connection to the ley lines.

“Did Alan murder my mother because of you crazy assholes? Is it the whole Aureum, or just you? Or are you in some kind of murder cult as an extracurricular activity?”

He took another step forward, and my heart beat so hard against my breastbone that I was afraid it was going to bust its way out. I snatched the mop from behind me and brandished it like a sword. I wished I’d thought to bring Lina’s baseball bat, but why would I have? “Those old fools in the Dominus’s office would love to find a monstrous magic like yours and take advantage of it. We’ve kept it from them for a reason. They only care about power. As for Alan Brahms, he was charged with hunting witches long before he met your mother. He simply failed at his duty when he found her.”

“I don’t know about that. I was there when he murdered her, I think he did okay by your murder cult.” I swung the mop handle in his direction again, hoping to get a little space between us, but instead he grabbed it and stepped in close to me. My breathing stuttered at the proximity, and my brain seemed to have stopped working altogether.

His breath was hot against my face, his body pressed against mine in a horrific mimic of intimacy when he whispered, “We’re not a cult, Sage. We’re just trying to keep the world safe from monsters like you.”

As a last, and yes, unwise, recourse, I slammed my forehead into his face. The dizziness from earlier came back full force, and brought its friends, black spots and nausea. I meant to dive to the side afterward, to give myself some time and space. Unfortunately, between last night and today’s attacks, the sleeping pill, the exhausting attempt at a spell, and now the probable concussion, all I could do was slide down the wall next to the broom closet.

I gasped for breath, my pulse rushing in my ears, and now there was a bell ringing inside my head.

David took an unsteady few steps backward, lifting a hand to his head and looking dazed, blood trickling from his nose, but I couldn’t capitalize on the moment. I could barely move.

Oh gods.WasI cursed? Maybe Iwasa witch. All I knew was that I was about to die in my own fucking kitchen, exactly the same way my mother had died.

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