Page 27 of Midlife Witch Unexpected

"Okay," I said the word super slowly and dragged it out as long as I could as I slowly edged myself away from the front door. Although he was the locksmith, I was suddenly getting a creepy feeling from him, like he was planning on doing something evil and dangerous.

It was time to make a run for it. I didn’t like the way he was looking at me. I turned to run for the stairs, but he was standing in front of me smiling as I slammed against his ice-cold hard chest.

Like super cold.

This time when he smiled, I saw the glint of his canines. They were just a little extra too long and a little extra too sharp.

"What the fuck," I said. "Don't tell me you're one of those role-players also. I've had enough crazy for one day, thank you very much."

“You are the only one who is not seeing the day clearly for what it is,” Joachim said. “All the signs are around you and yet you continue to pleasantly ignore the truth. And what the others can’t show you because they comply to the accords, I can.”

I took a step backward. "Yeah. You're a whole new breed of crazy."

And as I watched he jumped up in the air and his body shrank and became dark and black and leathery and suddenly he was a bat floating and bobbing and weaving in the air keeping flight just barely in front of me.

I sank down onto the steps, staring up at him.

He bobbed back down and shifted back before he landed.

Joachim the locksmith in front of me.

“You’re a…” words failed me as my voice faded away.

“Say it,” he said. “You’ve got to say it. You’ve got to admit it to yourself.”

“I don’t have to admit anything,” I said, defiance coursing through my body.

“Not to me,” he whispered, “to yourself. I know what the world is like. I know what New Attica is. I know you’re a witch. But you have to admit it to yourself. The world is not just about a little bit of energy moving through your hands.”

My gaze went down to my hands, which were betraying me with sparkling purple and green lights.

“What the hell do you want from me?” I asked. Mentally I was tracing back through all the pop-culture vampire literature I had soaked up in the previous ten years. Thanks to my teenage, now adult, daughter watching everything from True Blood to The Vampire Diaries to Twilight, I had quite a good idea of how vampires interacted with humans and none of them turned out particularly well for the human. Unless, of course, the vampire was struck by an overarching sudden “in love” feeling and promised to protect the human until the end of his days. Which in this case probably wasn’t going to happen because Joachim was looking at me like I was the next meal to be served up for his party of one. Whatever he was planning, it was decidedly going to be one of the former, very much distressing options for humans.

“We want the same thing,” Joachim said.

“Great. You want to get the hell out of my house, too?” I asked.

“No.” He deadpanned.

“Well, let’s pretend I have no idea what you want.” I held my ground.

“You really don’t know anything, do you?” He gazed at me as if I was a novelty item in a Christmas shopping window. “Your mother didn’t teach you anything about New Attica?”

“No,” I murmured. “Apparently not.”

“We knew you weren’t raised here,” Joachim said, “but we didn’t realize you’d been raised so ignorantly.”

Thanks, Mom.

Yet another moment of my life I can basically trace right back to her lack of educating me on the weirdness of my family and heritage. So here I stand being insulted by a…a…

“How old are you?” I asked. “Because I’m thinking you’re the senior in this situation.”

“Three-hundred years old,” Joachim said, with a hint of pride in his voice.

“Alrighty then,” I said. “So, you’ve been around a lot longer than I have and I am sure I am ignorant of many, many things you are not. But I wonder if you remember this one. I cleared my voice and then loudly said, “I rescind my invitation. You are no longer allowed in this house.” I leaned slightly forward waiting for the whoosh of magic that would suck him out the front door and…nothing happened.

Crap.

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