The vampire glanced over his shoulder at me, his eyes tight and body language nervous. It occurred to me that I was standing in the middle of open space, staring off in the distance—in his direction. He probably thought I was staring directly at him, with crazy eyes and an unhinged personality. The poor guy was clearly wondering if he would make it out of the house un-dead.
“Thanks for ironing, by the way,” I said to lighten things up. “I mean…if you were the one who did it.”
“Of course.” His formal bow turned into another wary stare. When I didn’t say anything further, he scooted into the pantry, where I couldn’t see him.
Grimacing, because that hadn’t gone well, I let myself out the front door and took one of the chairs facing the cemetery across the street. I glanced up at the light, considering whether I should flick it on. It would look creepy sitting here in the dark. I was still within the bounds of the ward, which covered the whole house and backyard, so I was safe even in the light.
Then again, I was looking over a cemetery. Creepy fit in.
The moist chill covered me like a blanket, the neighborhood quiet and subdued, which made sense, given the late hour.
I thought over what Veronica had said. Callie and Dizzy were nervous, which was more telling than all of the visitors who’d come bearing questions. They didn’t rely on their intuition much, from what I could tell, but it was still there, working away below the surface. Their subconscious minds would be processing body language, tone changes, and anything out of the ordinary, feeding the information to their brains on the sly.
They thought something was amiss. And I’d learned to pay attention to that sort of thing.
Movement caught my eye. A grizzled-looking older man clad in black drifted out of the cemetery entrance across the street. Dark clothes hung off his bony frame. He stared at me as he peeled off to the side and stood in front of the wall.
A thrill ran through me as I wondered who he could be. A drug dealer sounded about right, with his rough look and the hours he kept.
Then again, would Reagan put up with that kind of thing across from her house?
I doubted it.
So then what? A thief, maybe? A guy casing houses?
Whatever he was, I knew what he was not. He was certainly not a mage. He didn’t have the satchel, for one, or the pompous strut that said he was somebody. Even Callie and Dizzy, lovely people, had a certain lift to their shoulders and height to their chins.
This character stooped, and not because he was trying to be sneaky, but because he didn’t want to be noticed.
I knew that posture well.
I watched him…watching me.
The scene should’ve been awkward, yet as I stared, and he stared back, I didn’t want to look away. I wanted to see if he did something fantastical that identified him as a magical person of some kind.
And strangely…it seemed like he was waiting for the same thing.
A car rolled by at the end of the street, the engine clunking badly.
The man’s head turned slightly, catching the motion, but it immediately snapped back, like he expected to catch me sprinting away.
That was when I felt something drift toward me along the air currents. It felt…welcoming, almost. A come-hither sort of invitation.
Wisps of colorful magic wafted up over the walls of the cemetery, curling into the air. Light and playful. They fizzled out at a certain distance before more, stronger streams of magic blossomed.
The man near the cemetery didn’t turn around. He didn’t so much as glance up at the sky. If I didn’t know better, and I really didn’t, I would say he couldn’t feel the magic going on behind him.
Unable to help myself, I leaned forward and pointed. “Do you feel that?”
He didn’t start, or jerk, or do any of the things I would have expected from a stranger with whom I’d engaged in an impromptu stare-off. He merely shifted one shoulder toward the cemetery.
“No,” he said. “Is it bad or good?”
I frowned at him. I’d expected him to say “yes,” or ask “what?” Instead, he’d asked about the danger level of something he could neither see nor feel. That spoke of a magical creature. Or…maybe just the sketchiness of the neighborhood.
“It’s good, I think. Done by people.” I braced my elbows on my knees. “Am I allowed to ask what you are?”
“Yes. Am I allowed to ask what you are?”
“Um…that depends.”
Joy and light and radiance flowered in my middle as I continued to watch the colorful display in the cemetery. Nature danced and sang and asked to be pulled into spells. I closed my eyes so I could savor the delightful feeling of it.
This—this was what I loved about magic.
“I’m human,” he said. “But…” He looked around before slowly crossing the street at an angle, heading for the neighbor’s house on my right. Once outside, he turned to face the street again. “I know what goes on in that house. Mostly.”
“Which house? This house?”
“Yes. Reagan and I are friendly. I know her…friends.”
The way he said friends left no doubt he knew they were vampires, or at least not human. It seemed the rule of not allowing humans to know about the magical world wasn’t followed as closely as I’d been led to believe.
“I watch over things,” the man said, his gruff voice low as he scanned the street. “I make sure all is calm in the neighborhood. You’re new here. Reagan hasn’t mentioned you.”
“Oh.” Magic drifted into the organized mass above me and my fingers longed to weave spells to add to the glory of whatever was happening in the cemetery. “I’m kind of…”
I stopped myself.
Great, Penny, nearly tell a creepy stranger that you’re hiding out.
He nodded like he’d heard my thought. “You’re in a good place,” he said. “A safe place. She has things pretty well tied down.”
“Right, yeah.” I frowned at him again, wondering how much he knew about Reagan. And if he’d be willing to fill me in.
“Are you…of her kind?” he asked.
“I don’t even know what her kind is, honestly,” I said without thinking, feeling a strong pull toward the cemetery. Almost like, if I didn’t show up, I’d miss out on a truly startling awakening. “I am of a magical kind, though you’re not supposed to know that.”
“I hear you loud and clear.” He touched a gnarled finger to his nose. “What did you say you felt over there?”
I stood, impatient, and rapped on the banister softly. “Wholeness. Unity. Nature. Everything that is good and right with the world. It’s really hard to explain—”
“That must be the Ladies of the Light. They’re the nice witches. We’ve got some bad ones that come through here, trying to call Satan and what not. I don’t mess with them. Reagan or No Good Mikey always chase them out. But if it’s the Ladies of the Light, they won’t hurt anything. They come here every so often to call the corners. They don’t get too loud or anything.” The man’s head turned toward the left and he looked down the sidewalk.
When he didn’t look away, I followed his gaze. A large, slope-shouldered man, thick from head to toe, ambled down the street looking at his phone. I straightened and stepped closer to the house, not trusting the sheer size of the guy. He looked like he could do some damage.
“Don’t worry about him, he’s a resident,” the creepy guy said. “Keep your mouth shut about what you are, though. He doesn’t know about any of that.”
A human…warning me not to talk about magic…to another human. What a strange neighborhood. Then again, Reagan chose to live here—of course it was strange.
“Hey, Smokey,” the newcomer said as he got close. Seeing me, he startled, his body jerking, and his phone sailed out of his hands. He grabbed for it, hitting it with a finger and then the back of his hand. It struck the ground with a hard plastic cack.
This man had no problem with swearing.
Phone back in his possession, he looked over the screen to make sure there were no cracks before finally straightening up and looking at me a second time. He exhaled in relief, one foot on the street and one foot on the sidewalk, leaning away from the house. “Oh, thank God. You don’t look like no serial killer.”