Succession of Witches (5 page)

Cassie barely suppressed a curse as her character died for the fourteenth time that evening. Broken Halo Messengers wasn’t a hard game, but she didn’t usually play games with shooter elements, and the other players seemed to love shooting her from alleyways.

However, she wasn’t playing to improve her gamerscore; she was playing because being on Xbox Live was the easiest way to talk to Ethan, the boy she’d met at court last fall. Ethan had been kidnapped from his parents so a particularly unscrupulous demon could tap his latent magic, and Cassie had been trying to figure out a way to get him un-kidnapped since they’d met.

Pascal seemed to be pretty cautious and didn’t allow Ethan any internet access, but he hadn’t realized that the boy could communicate through a game console. Apparently right after kidnapping Ethan, Pascal had walked into a game store and dropped several thousand dollars on all the latest consoles and a slew of games just to keep Ethan busy whenever Pascal didn’t need him, which was most of the time. But the demon’s knowledge of games seemed to be limited to the Super Mario Bros. era, and didn’t realize the opportunities that in-game chat presented.

Ethan had contacted Cassie at the email address she’d slipped him at court in the fall, and ever since they’d been meeting for periodic gaming/strategy sessions, completely unbeknownst to Pascal. Cassie smiled as her avatar killed a monster that exploded into a shower of purple blood and golden coins. Typical demon arrogance; they could be invincible if they weren’t so overconfident that they overlooked the details.

She and Ethan had hashed out a few strategies with in-game chat, but they had yet to come up with anything that Cassie felt confident would work. As much as she wanted to rescue him, she wasn’t going to be stupid about it; she wasn’t going in to Pascal’s mansion in the Connecticut suburbs without a plan, preferably with a back-up or two.

Unfortunately, at 8 p.m. on a weeknight, the Xbox was a contested resource.
“Mo-om! Cassie’s been on the Xbox for an hour and she won’t get off!” Hunter yelled from the hallway outside the den.

“Did you finish all your homework?” Annette yelled back. Cassie winced; couldn’t anybody in this family learn to start a conversation from within the same room?

“I finished everything but my country report.”

“When is the country report due?”

“Not until Friday.”

“Friday is in two days, you should do it now.”

“I’m going to do it tomorrow!”

“Start it now.”

“But Mo—oooom!—“

Just then, Cassie exhaled when she saw Ethan enter the game. “Finally,” she breathed.

“Guess what, guess what?” Ethan’s high voice bubbled into her headset.

“What?”

“Pascal is going to be away this whole weekend.”

Cassie froze; the reason most of their plans weren’t good enough was because there was no way to deal with Pascal, who could pop in at any time. Cassie might be a desired familiar, but she couldn’t cast any spells and had no way to fight off a powerful demon. Sam could, but she’d been trying to think of a way to avoid involving him if at all possible.

“Are you sure? I mean, are you absolutely positive?”

“Yeah, I saw the plane tickets. He was invited as a speaker at a convention and he has to speak on Saturday and Sunday.”

That was good; if Pascal was the center of attention, that made it a lot less likely he would decide to cut his weekend short and come home early. The demon didn’t leave his home base often, so this was probably the best opportunity she was going to get for a long time.

“Okay then.
Looks like we’re going to do it this weekend.”

“Really?
You’re coming?” The raw hope in Ethan’s voice made Cassie’s chest feel tight; he was only 11. And as far as he knew, a demon was going to keep him like a caged pet for the rest of his life.

“Yeah,” she said, completely ignoring the game at this point; her avatar lay dead in the middle of a pack of monsters, and she didn’t even bother to use a revival scroll. “I haven’t worked out all the details yet, but we have to do it this weekend. We may not get another chance.”

“Okay,” said Ethan in a tight voice, trying and failing to sound casual. Cassie smiled.

“With just a little luck, you’ll be back with your parents soon.”

There was a pause, then Ethan surprised her by changing the subject. “You have to tell your master,” he said, while his heavily armored avatar charged effortlessly through mobs of snake creatures, the monsters exploding into coins at his approach. It was easy to level up your character when all you had to do all day was play games.

“I’m not telling him,” said Cassie, finally bothering to revive her character. “He’ll just try to convince me not to do it.”

Ethan’s character gifted her a pack of 10 revival scrolls, which she would no doubt need if they kept playing this game. “But if you don’t tell him, who’s going to break the bond with Pascal?”

Cassie nearly dropped her controller when she realized what he meant. She had been so stupid; there was no way to rescue Ethan without involving Sam. There was nothing quite like getting schooled by an 11-year-old.

Even if she could extract him from Pascal all by herself, which was questionable, she couldn’t break the bond that tied him to his master. She’d been so focused on how she was going to get Ethan out of his suburban prison, she’d completely forgotten that his bond needed to be broken by a more powerful demon. If Sam didn’t break his link to Pascal by overwriting it with his own bond, Pascal would still be able to sense Ethan and possibly steal him away again.

“You’re right, I’m sorry. I’ll convince him.”

“Are you sure?” His pleading tone clashed with the image of a powerful warrior mage on her television, and to Cassie, it made him sound even younger than he was.

“Don’t worry. I don’t care what I have to do, I’ll convince him.”

Cassie heard a buzzing noise through her headset. “That’s the garage door opening. He’s home— I have to hide the headset.”

“Okay,” said Cassie quickly, “I’ll play again soon.”

She logged out of the game immediately and took off her headset, feeling the weight of it in her hands for a few moments before setting it down next to the Xbox. She had to rescue Ethan this weekend; she’d all but promised him, and you don’t promise small children that you’ll save them from a monster and then not deliver. And now she knew there was absolutely no way to do it without Sam’s involvement.

Now that they were finally starting to get along like proper human beings, she was about to jeopardize it to try to fix something that wasn’t her business. It sounded foolish even to her, but
she couldn’t shake the feeling that it was right.

Sam rang the bell twice, wishing Serenus would hurry up and open the door already. This apartment building was much nicer than he was used to, and it made him feel motley and out of place. Like the stench of Bob’s Motel somehow clung to him.

Serenus answered with his typical smile. “I didn’t believe you’d really come.”

“I said I would,” Sam muttered, following Serenus into the older man’s apartment. Despite the fact that he’d known Ser for his entire life, he’d never been to this particular dwelling. Usually he saw the professor more often than he wanted to at The Daily Grind, and there had never been a need.

“Yes, and you always do exactly what you say,” said Serenus, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Can I offer you something to drink?”

“Seltzer if you have it. Otherwise, water.”

“Seltzer it is.” Serenus disappeared into his attractive kitchenette to procure Sam’s beverage, leaving Sam a moment alone to study the apartment.

It looked like a spread in an architectural magazine, without any household clutter besmirching the surfaces of the white, ultra-modern furniture. Sam knew that Ser was a neat freak, but he wondered whether or not that tendency crossed the line to OCD; Ser had been living here for half a year now, and the place still looked like it was ripped from a brand-new furniture showroom. The neatness was almost oppressive.

It also looked very different from the house he’d grown up in, filled top to bottom with Helen’s books in myriad languages. Sam smiled to himself, remembering one time when Ser had tried to organize his mother’s books. According to her, they were already organized; the fact that no one else could possibly understand the system she had worked out for herself was of no importance to her.

Sam frowned as Serenus came back into the room with two wine glasses, one filled with seltzer. When he was young, he’d resented Ser’s love for Helen, but now he was only baffled by it. How such an unpleasant woman managed to have two men wrapped around her little finger, one of whom was virtually a god, was probably something he would never understand.

Ser gestured to his blindingly white couch, and Sam sat down, suppressing a bizarre concern that the seat of his jeans would leave a blue denim imprint on the fabric. He drained most of his seltzer in one gulp and waited for Ser to start the conversation; he usually did.

“So, what’s so important you actually graced me with your presence this evening?” said Ser, holding his wine glass in his affected pinkie-outstretched grip. “I assume it has something to do with young Miss Tremblay.”

Sam gently put his glass on the glass table between them and looked into the older man’s eyes. “I saw my father today.”

Serenus blinked and took a deep breath. “Was this just now?”

“No. It was this morning.
At the shop.”

“I see why you came,” said Serenus after a pause. Neither of them had ever seen Sam’s father during the daytime before.

“How did he do it? Has something changed in the Realm so that full-bloods can come here during the day now? Because if it has….“ Sam clutched at the fabric of his jeans at the knee.

“No, I don’t think so. It’s not common, but I think if a full-blooded demon uses a good familiar, he can appear in the human world during the daytime, at least for a little while.” Serenus looked unusually tense, like a large predator had crept into the room and he was afraid any sudden movement would startle it.

“Did he…tell you anything?”

“Does he ever?”

Sam exhaled and sank bank into the couch, releasing a tension he realized he’d been holding for over 12 hours. “So it’s not a major change. He must have just gotten a good familiar, like Cassie.”

Serenus seemed to cough into his wine a little bit. “Well, he is a Lord of Hell, Sam. I would imagine he gets first pick.”

Sam took a deep breath and vocalized the real reason why he’d come to see Ser that evening. “What if he decides that’s not enough, and he goes after Cassie? Ser, he knows about her.”

Serenus stood and walked toward the window, his back to his guest. “Don’t worry about that.”

“How can I not worry about it? He came to see me, for the first time in years, and he showed me that he knew what she looked like. If he’s not after her, then why—”

“He won’t, Sam,” said Ser, turning to face him. “Don’t you know your father by now? He enjoys toying with you far more than actually hurting you, and ripping your familiar away would hurt you. He won’t take Cassie because then he would lose the threat of taking her.”

Sam looked down at his old Timberland boots, thinking. Ser was probably right. As much as he hated his father, he had to admit that the demon had done very little to actually hurt him directly. He sensed that it was the demon’s love for Helen that had protected him more than any semblance of love for his own son, but it was still true.

“Besides, Helen would be pissed,” Ser added.

“You’re right,” said Sam, reaching for his drink. His throat suddenly felt dry. “Maybe I was panicking, but I just got her to agree to start training with me. I don’t want to lose her now.”

Serenus visibly perked up. “She’s training with you?
When?”

“Friday.
She’s going to come to the shop before her shift.”

Serenus clapped softly. “Excellent.
Better than excellent.”

Sam drained his glass and stood up. “Actually, that’s what I came to see you about.
Other than the thing about my father.”

When Serenus didn’t respond with anything more than a raised eyebrow, Sam continued. “I want to give her something on Friday. Something that will show her…show her that I don’t just see her as property,” Sam finished awkwardly. He couldn’t quite vocalize what he meant.

Ser crossed his legs. “What did you have in mind?”

Sam took the jewelry box out of the pocket of his windbreaker. “I want to enchant these so that I can’t read her mind while she’s wearing them. That should make her feel more comfortable with our…with the situation.” He opened the box, showing Ser the earrings he’d just bought that day at the jewelry store across from DG. He hoped they looked nice, because he didn’t know anything about women’s adornments. They’d certainly been expensive.

Ser’s eyebrows seemed to be trying to escape his brow as he examined Sam’s purchase from across the table. “Very pretty, and quite a nice idea. Did you actually come up with that by yourself?”

Sam snorted. “I’m going to try real hard not to be insulted by that.” He snapped the box closed and put it back in his pocket. “It’s just, I was trying to think of something I could do to show her that she has some say in this too and I just started thinking…” he trailed off. He’d thought some things that weren’t worth thinking, frankly.

Serenus grinned; the man knew him entirely too well. “You started thinking what it would be like if the situation was reversed, and she could read your mind while you couldn’t read hers.”

Sam cursed inwardly as he felt the blood rush to his face. That was one among many unworthy thoughts he’d entertained last night.

“You know, the traditional gift for a familiar is an enchanted gemstone ring. Why didn’t you go with that?”

Sam felt his color deepen. “I thought I might give her the wrong idea if she came into the shop and I tried to put a ring on her finger.”

Serenus leaned forward, an impish smile on his face that was slightly disturbing in a man his age. “You realize there’s no recipe for that, right? There’s no spell on the books to protect Cassie’s mind from you because no one ever gives their familiar that liberty. You’ll have to create an original spell.”

Sam nodded. “That’s why I’m here. I was hoping you could help me do it.”

Serenus stood up, brushing imaginary dust off his pants. He might just have OCD after all. “I can’t, but I know someone who can.”