Reginald groaned. “It likes you better than me, that’s all. All the damned appliances do.”
Malcolm almost laughed at his father’s petulant tone, but all the humor drained out of the room when his father noticed him.
“So you came, did you?”
“Yes, sir,” Malcolm replied.
Onyx turned his green eyes toward Malcolm, green eyes that matched Reginald’s. Green eyes that Malcolm had inherited along with his father’s magic, well sort of.
Reginald’s handsome face turned stony with a fresh scowl. “This year is your thirtieth. It’s time you came home and took your place on the Salem Witch Council.”
Malcolm had known this was coming. His father had promised him at birth to serve on the Council when he reached thirty years of age. The problem was Malcolm didn’t want anything to do with the Council or his magic. The Council was for powerful warlocks and witches, not for defective half-warlocks like him. He wanted to stay in New York and run his software company. Unlike his father, he had a far less disruptive effect on technology, because his magic by comparison was weak and ineffective.
“Dad,” Malcolm sighed.
Reginald arched a dark brow.
“They don’t want me, you know they don’t. I’m considered defective. I can’t control what little magic I have.” As he spoke, the trio of glass light fixtures that hung above the granite island countertop flickered, no doubt in response to Malcolm’s strained emotions. His father waved a hand and the flickering stopped.
“You’ve never tried. Not since that broom dropped you onto that barbed wire fence when you were fourteen.”
They both knew that he’d dropped himself, a broom always channeled the magic of the rider to work and he didn’t have enough power to keep it steady.
“Can you blame me for wanting to leave magic behind?” Malcolm’s left palm flashed with an echo of pain at the memory. He’d been riding well and had left Boston far behind him to explore the world around him on his first real broom ride without supervision. The moon had been full, but storm clouds drifted overhead, blotting out much of the landscape. He’d fought to control his broom as a storm picked up and pushed him farther from home than he’d intended. When the wind forced him into an unexpected dive, he’d nearly been hit by a semi-truck on the highway. The truck had swerved to miss him, and he’d been just able to force the broom to climb up into the clouds out of sight. A few minutes later, his magic completely abandoned him, and the broom plummeted. He’d been so startled that he lost control, falling, and he had grabbed the first thing nearby out of instinct…which happened to be a tall barbed wire fence.
He had walked several hours to get home, tears rolling down his face, his broken broom in his right hand and clutching his bleeding left hand to his chest. When he showed his injured hand to his father, Reginald had ushered him into the kitchen and cleaned his wound, then worked his magic to heal it, but the scar on his palm itched whenever he thought about the accident.
By the time his mother got home, Reginald had smoothed over the incident as an ordinary magical accident, insisting everyone had a fall off a broom at one point or another. Then he left the house, and didn’t return until after dawn. That was when Malcolm knew he’d let his father down. That he was a disappointment.
Now his father was staring at him with those green eyes they shared and his brows lowered in a scowl. He harrumphed and crossed his arms over his chest.
“You let the past hold you back, Malcolm. Accidents happen. It’s a normal part of childhood. Even I had my moments when I was younger.” He chuckled, much to Malcolm’s surprise. “I set my charm professor’s hair on fire when I was twelve.”
As usual, his father had missed the point. “Dad, I don’t want this. Can’t you respect that? I’ve built a normal life for myself. I don’t need magic.”
His mother nudged Reginald in the ribs and cleared her throat. “Sweetheart, you promised you’d talk, not fight.” His father took the cup of espresso his mother offered and sipped it, eyeing Malcolm as he did.
A loud ring caused Malcolm to jolt, and Hades gave a sharp single bark of alarm.
“Sorry! That’s me.” His mother dug her phone out of her jeans pocket. “Hello?” The lights above the kitchen island began to flicker again.
“Hello?” she repeated. “Joe? Can you hear me? Hang on.” She gave Malcolm an apologetic smile. “I’ve got to take this. I’ll go to my office. I get less magical interference there,” He knew from his mother’s pointed glance between them that she suspected the tension between him and his father was causing that magical interference. He gave his mother a nod, and she kissed his cheek with a whisper of “try to behave,” before she left the room.
Malcolm and his father were now alone. It did not make things easier.
“I put your name down on the Council scrolls the day you were born. I am bound by the promise I made for you to serve ten years.” He let out a sigh. “You must take your place by the end of the year.”
The “or else” was there, unspoken. Onyx paced along the counter, his slender black tail waving as he came to Reginald and brushed his furry cheek against his warlock’s shoulder as he purred. The cat then gave a contemptuous glance at Malcolm’s familiar. Hades stared at the cat with the intense focus of his breed. Malcolm stroked the dog’s head, trying to break the tension. Hades whined softly. The dog wanted to chase that cat down the hall, as he had when he was a puppy, but Onyx would swat him with those sharp claws.
“I can contact Serafina Batsford. Her husband has a talent for teaching magic to those who fall behind.”
“You mean Curtis Batsford? He works with kids, dad. I’m thirty.”
“All the more reason you need his help!” Reginald snapped. “If you hadn’t been so damned stubborn as a child, you would have learned to control your magic. Hell, you’d probably be witch-locked by now and already serving on the Council.”
“Witch-locked?” Malcolm scoffed. “You think getting married will solve this?”
“Of course! It’s a proven fact among our kind that falling in love increases the potency of one’s magic.”
