Page 13 of Magical Academy for Delinquents
Her eyes were solemn and didn’t look at me as she recited just the facts, her voice thin as she recalled that night. "I was attempting a PhD in Spell writing. My dissertation was on writing under pressure.”
“Oh.”
“Why were there seven magicals? Did they—”
“Three of them made the transition. They completed the circle and their spell writing was perfect. Their bodies were able to absorb the magical blast. It’s black, did you know that? Kind of looks like a black light. A big, dark black mass with purple edges. Scary.” She shook her head. “Three became full-fledged wolf shifters. But four of them didn't. They went rabid. And turned into...”
She trailed off. But she didn't need to say it. I knew exactly what they turned into. The same thing that my brother had turned into. Anyone who attempted a spell to become a shifter and failed turned into a bloodlust-filled monster. A vampire.
Chapter 7
My sessionwith Doctor Potts was … odd to say the least. She didn’t ask me to sit in her office and talk or anything. Instead, she made me stand out in the lobby the entire time. And she seemed to talk about herself more than anything else. I learned she was in a bowling league with a bunch of norms, and a lot of other trivial stuff.
At one point I asked, “Aren’t you supposed to ask shit about me?”
She shrugged. “Kinda. But my strategy is to bore you enough that eventually you’ll want to talk just so I’ll shut up.”
I laughed. “We’re not there yet.”
“Don’t worry. I have two cats. And an iPhone. We’ve got about a thousand pictures to go through.”
I thought she was joking. She wasn’t. I only made it through one-hundred-eighty-seven photos before I caved. “OMG. Ask me something. No more Buggles. Please.”
Potts smirked up at me. “You’re pretty easy to break, know that?”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “You challenging me to keep silent?”
“Maybe.”
“I don’t think you’re a counselor at all. I think you’re a crazy old lady who wants to talk about her cats—”
Her laugh was a raspy, throaty sound, like a smoker’s laugh. “You got me pegged. You know, most of us only become therapists because we’re so messed up, we want to study ourselves. It’s all very narcissistic.”
“Is this reverse psychology or something?” Was she seriously telling me she was nuts?
She grinned at me. “I dunno. Is it convincing you to trust me?”
“Nope.”
“Then it wouldn’t be very good reverse psychology, would it?”
I squinted at her, trying to determine her true purpose.
“Let’s take a drive,” she jerked her head toward the door and started walking that way without waiting for me. She switched off the lights, leaving me standing in the dark in the middle of her office. I could still see using my infrared vision, but it was weird, and rude as fuck.
“Hey!” I scolded, following after her.
She just waved me out of the way so she could lock the door. And then she marched right over to my car. “This fancy one’s yours, right?” she asked, trying the handle.
I almost felt like my car had been insulted. Fancy? Ugh. Cool would have been an understatement. Fancy was just awkward. Then again, Dr. Potts was anything but normal. I couldn’t even come up with a response more than, “Um…”
“You lock your car?” she looked at me, shocked.
“Yeah.”
She raised her eyebrows. “I thought you’d have written an electric shock spell or something by now to keep people back.”
“The voltage for that can be hard to manage with temperature changes,” I lied. Voltage was a bitch, but I really didn’t change the car for nostalgic reasons. I wanted it to stay exactly as it had always been.
