A black scorch mark rips across the concrete in front of the door and into the street. It’s steaming, and little embers of orange heat still glow in chunks of the blasted sidewalk.
“Holy fuck,” I whisper.
“Yes, I do like my privacy,” Bastian says behind me.
“This isn’t going to happen to customers, is it?” I ask.
“No, only those who are magical and do us harm get the lightning,” he says. “Anyone else who means ill will simply get confounded and turn around.”
“Fuck…the sidewalk,” I murmur, realizing this is another setback.
I’ll have to call the city. And heck, what will I say to them? Lightning struck right at my door but didn’t hurt the shop at all? I mean, that’s what it looks like…I hope I don’t have to pay for this.
Movement across the street catches my eye and I focus on it immediately. There’s someone lurking between the alley of the bank and the confectionary, but I can’t make them out.
“Who’s there?” I call, and the figure goes still.
Bastian leans over my shoulder. “I see them,” he growls.
“The warlock from before?” I ask.
“No, someone else. Their magic is bright red. His was opalescent blue.”
“I’m gonna call the cops!” I yell.
The figure doesn’t move, and the longer they’re still, the more they bleed into the shadows.
“I can’t see them anymore,” I whisper.
“They’re camouflaged, but still there,” he says.
I close the door and lock it.
“Spell book. Protections. Now.”
twenty-seven
Soup to Nuts
Bastian and I reinforce every door and window. He teaches me the powerful lightning spell and I experiment with the Latin, changing up the words from reactionary to offensive. The first snap of lightning that comes off my fingers makes me scream in shock, but then, in joy.
I can shoot lightning from my fingers.
Very small lightning, and not consistently…it only happened once. But I’m going to practice. No hunters are going to catch me off guard, and no one is going to keep us trapped in this home.
We spend the day pouring over the spell book and its content, using the back empty pages to write down Bastian’s spells. When evening comes, he sits me down beside his Bookhenge.
“We need to discover your unique magic,” he says.
“Agreed, but how?”
“I believe if you focus on externalizing your energy, it will manifest its identity,” he says.
I blink a few times. “Meaning?”
“I’ll guide you through the process of expelling your magic in raw form. Once it’s free of you, it’ll take its natural shape, revealing itself.”
“And if that shape is a pink elephant, what then?” I ask. “It doesn’t tell us much.”
