Page 26 of Road Trip with a Vampire
The only reason I was so unsettled by Lindsay asking Peter out was that he was a vampire.
Right?
Six
A letter from Mr.Archibald Steves to Ms.Grizelda Watson, dated February 9, 1978
Dear Miss Watson,
The answer to your question is no. I will NOT return your security deposit once you vacate my property at the end of your lease. Despite your claims that the fires you set were “accidental” (claims which I do not, incidentally, believe), the fact remains that you have burnt my kitchen cabinets to cinders. You are lucky I am merely evicting you from my property, not suing you for damages.
Yours sincerely, and get out now,
Mr.Archibald Steves
The following morning, I blinkedawake right at six a.m.
I was immediately aware of two things.
The first: My bedroom lights were on. I must have fallen asleep without intending to the night before, without doing any of my nighttime rituals.
The second: My bedroom curtains were on fire.
I leapt from bed, frantic as bright blue flames licked their way up the once-lacy fabric of my now former curtains. The room was sweltering, the air filling with smoke. Sweat had plastered my hair to my face and neck as I’d slept. Beads of it now slid down my back as I stared in horror at what was happening.
This was no ordinary fire. Blue flames burned the hottest, and as an elemental witch, I recognized the tar-black flecks sparking off the curtains as manifestations of raw kinetic energy. Ofmyraw kinetic energy.
I didn’t have to consult a spell book to know thatIhad done this somehow. Analyzing exactly how it had happened would have to wait. These sorts of fires spread with terrifying speed. It was only a matter of time before it spread to the rest of the building.
I had to act now.
For the first time since waking, I turned my gaze inward. I was bowled over by the jagged ferocity of the power racing through me. It was a raging inferno of its own, hot and fever-bright beneath my skin.
The need to tap into it was staggering in its urgency.
Ten years ago, when those people had been rushed to the hospital after my terrible prank gone wrong, I’d vowed to never again use magic without thinking. But the need for expediency was about to make a liar out of past-me. I didn’t think, didn’t even indulge in one last moment of second-guessing before I lifted my hands and directed a small fragment of my power towards the curtains.
My magic poured from my fingertips like a cool breeze on a hot summer day. The relief was so immediate, so intense, it left me gasping. One of my hands shot out to the wall to brace myself so I wouldn’t collapse to the floor as the other directed the current of my power directly at the fire, smothering it in an instant.
When I opened my eyes again, my curtains were a charred, smoking mess. I barely noticed. I was shaking, both because I felt entirely physically at ease for the first time in ages and because now that the immediate danger had passed, the horror of what I had allowed to happen was sinking in.
This fire had manifested because I’d gone too long without using magic. I knew this like I knew my own name. Except this was much worse than that time I’d accidentally set that display of shitty greeting cards on fire.
Somuch worse.
Because this time, I’d been doing my candle ritual faithfully every night for months. Until last night.
One extra night’s worth of pent-up magic should not have caused…this.
Had my symptoms increased recently? I’d been more distracted since Peter had arrived, but I hadn’t noticed any big changes. All I knew was that if I hadn’t woken up when I had, this could have ended very badly.
I threw open my window to clear the thick, acrid smoke out of my bedroom. My mind was racing. This fire was a flashing neon sign that my nearly teetotal approach to magic these past ten years had to come to an end. If the charred remains of my ex-curtains could talk, they would have said loud and clear that my nightly candle ritual wasn’t cutting it.
But how much magic was too much? There had to be a sweetspot between using so much power that my baser instincts took over and I backslid into being Grizelda the Terrible again and using so little that I became a walking fire hazard.
What that sweet spot was, I didn’t know.
I closed my eyes, turning my gaze inward again. The fire, and the magic I’d used to douse it, had used up enough of my power that the nearly ever-present buzzing beneath my skin was gone. Physically, I was at ease. For the moment, that was enough.
