It was curious, uncertain about me. I’d never felt that from another spirit before, but then again, I’d never been four hours past a murder attempt before. Taking a deep breath, I reigned in my anger until I was able to speak without it sounding like a werewolf’s growl. There was no sense in scaring the bush back to a seedling.
“Hey there,” I said. “Look at your leaves. I don’t think I’ve ever seen leaves like that before, they’re so… green.”
Luckily, the bush didn’t have eyes, because it didn’t see me wince and smack my own head with the heel of my hand. I immediately regretted the action, because I’d gotten slightly too close to the bruise from McCallum’s muscle. Spots of light exploded across my vision, like my head was a giant disco ball in a roller rink.
“I think you’re the tallest one here. You’re way taller than the other bushes and you grow in your own shapes, unlikethem.” I jerked my thumb at the matching row of bushes every seven feet along the fence. “Theyneed some gardener to prune them and show them how to form interesting shapes, butyou. You’respecial. I bet, if you wanted, you could even grow down the fence. You would be like an arch. Usually they have to train a bush for years to get it to do that, butyou…”
I could already see the tendrils growing, climbing and supporting each other as they began tentatively moving down the other side of the fence. Plants aren’t usually meant to grow down, it’s not in their nature. They grow towards light; theygrowup. They can grow sideways, and if you train them right, some will grow along an archway, but growingdownward…
Well, I had the magic to help the bush-turned-ladder, even if my charisma was still at freshman-trying-to-explain-anime-to-a-girl-he-liked level. I reached inside me, but took a moment to calm myself before feeding the plant more magic. I wanted to end up with Jack’s beanstalk, not the three magic beans. If I fed the plant the magic that was currently swirling around inside of the vessel in my chest, there was no way it was going to do what I needed. It would take one hit from me and shrivel up in fear.
Normally, I don’t think too much about my magic. It’s always there, it always feels like me, and it always feels like a warm summer day.
Four hours post waking up in a shallow grave and realizing that by some miracle I wasn’t actually dead, my magic wasn’t gold like I was used to seeing. It didn’t have the warm precious metal hue of Summer magic. Instead, it was red, my anger tainting it, my need for revenge so strong that it overwrote the magic’s natural balance.
I was wrong. The plant wouldn’t be afraid of this magic. If I fed the plant this magic, I’d end up with man-eating plant from Little Shop of Horrors. The next gardener that came by trying to prune it would end up screaming when the thing ate his arm and then went for his leg.
I took a slow breath, calming my heart rate, and listened to the low hum of spirits around me. They weren’t angry. They existed, they were part of the flow of reality, each taking its own place, each with its own wants and needs. I was part of that, I reminded myself.
My need to murder Derek McCallum was just anotherwantamong an entire planet full of them. The small patch of ornamental daisies a few feet away were getting too much water, and wanted drier soil. The delicate Japanese maple wasdesperate for more shade. As I listened to the low hum of the surrounding garden, I realized that Derek McCallum also needed to hire a better landscape company. Whoever took care of his garden right now was leaving a lot of plants wanting.
When I was sure my head was in the right place, I checked in on my magic. While it wasn’t the pure gold I was used to, it also wasn’t the color of blood and fire. It was more like a rose gold, some new Apple product designed for women with Hermès handbags and matching pooches to go in them.
I unspooled magic from inside myself, feeding it to the receptive shrub.
The plant grew like it was one of those sped-up videos in science class, the frames sliding by until we were watching a year’s worth of development in a few minutes. There was my ladder.
The thing had even bothered to create distinct footholds for me that were stronger branches. Even I was a little surprised. This was the sort of work that would get the plant put in honors class, if plants went to high school and cared about things like college admissions.
“Wow,” I said. “That’s… you really are incredible.”
I withdrew my magic slowly, giving the plant the magical equivalent of a pat on the back before I squared my shoulders and climbed over the fence. I could feel the moment I hit McCallum’s second wards. But something about them was strange.
Instead of sending me spinning, or hurting me like I expected them to, they just felt uncomfortable for a moment as I pushed my way through. I had expected to have to take them down by force, to have to use my pool of magic to shatter them. If they kept out people who wanted to harm McCallum, I definitely fit that bill.
But instead, it was mere discomfort, as though they no longer held the primary directive of keeping McCallum safe. Maybe I was reading too much into it. Maybe his wards didn’t have the clause that said, “keep this guy from getting his head blown off,” because McCallum had too many people who wanted to see him dead.
I couldn’t imagine being in business with so many people who wanted me six feet under that I didn’t even bother with wards to protect me from that very thing.
When I got to the house, I kept myself low enough that I wasn’t visible from the inside. I crept along, hoping that someone had left one of the ground-floor windows open so that I could sneak in. By the time I reached the backyard, I realized I was out of luck and I would have to make my entry forcibly.
I picked up one of the decorative rocks near McCallum’s patio and glanced inside the French doors leading from his pool deck. It was dark, and I didn’t see the flicker of a television or any movement. With my magic, I reached out, but all the spirits inside were still, asleep.
Taking a deep breath, I pulled back the rock, ready to smash it through the door, but then thought better of using my hand to do it. Moving backward two steps, I hefted the rock like a baseball and threw it directly toward the door.
The sound was so loud there was no chance I hadn’t alerted people inside the house. I moved to the side, ready to take on whoever came out first. Hopefully would be the muscle who had brained me, because I was looking forward to showing him how it felt. No one came.
Was the house empty? Was I right, and they were all out at some party or dinner?
The idea of setting a trap, one that McCallum would walk right into, made me grin so broadly I was glad there was no one around, because I must’ve looked demented. I grabbed oneof the pool towels from the supply cabinet that ran along the exterior wall. Protecting my hand, I reached through the broken glass and unlocked the back door. Inside, my feet crunched over the remnants of the window and I dropped the towel on the countertop. I had walked into some sort of game room, complete with a bar that looked like it was from the set of Cheers. A pool table, foosball, even a dartboard were all arrayed around the room.
The image of McCallum playing darts struck me as bizarre, but the idea of him playingfoosball… I imagined that if he played with his henchmen, he always won. He probably didn’t even notice, because he was so used to winning.
Walking through the house was unsettling in the dark. I’d only been there a couple of times, once when McCallum and I discussed our original agreement, and the second when I was dropping off his property. Both times, there had been so much security that it might as well have been the White House. Every room had been lit, as though McCallum didn’t care at all about the electricity expenses.
McCallum’s taste ran towards nouveau riche. He hadn’t met a giant painting that he didn’t want to display on his giant walls. The furniture was modern, except in his office where it looked like he had kidnapped the set designer from Citizen Kane and demanded that they re-create a 1900’s oil tycoon office. All wood, massive furniture and a bookshelf that was filled with tomes he never read.
I picked my way through the house, not wanting to trip on any of the uncomfortable Scandinavian furniture. Standing in the entryway, I glanced around. If I set my trap in the entryway, McCallum wouldn’t have time to defend himself.
