Solving the Vampire Murders

five

Torren clenched his fists. "I'm not in the mood for games. Tell me who the hell you are and what you want, or I'm leaving."

"Dude," Zach whispered. "This is the Jay Kaegan. Practitioner of the Stone and Bone Order."

"Bone and Soul," Jay snapped. He whirled to face the pair, eyes glowing with enchanted light. "The Order of Bone and Soul. How long could it possibly take you to memorize the orders, Z-Dog? You've had your Gift for over four months. You're in a magical secret society, not the damn Mickey Mouse Club. The training wheels need to come off."

"I haven't had a lot of time to study this summer," Zach muttered.

Torren's brain tried to decipher how the word Practitioner could fit with Bone and Soul. Unfortunately, he was coming up short.

"The Gift certainly chooses the worthy," Jay said with a distasteful shake of his head. "Why don't you go check on Austin. Make sure he hasn't set the hospital on fire. I don't need you here."

Why would Austin set the hospital on fire?

Zach's cheeks flushed bright red. "No probs. The only issue is that my truck is blocked in."

"Then use a drop point," Jay growled. "You're a Practitioner of the Magical Arts! You don't need a truck."

Zach smacked his forehead. "I totally forgot. I just use the medallion, right?"

While Torren didn't care for Jay's tone, he could understand his frustration with Zach. He, too, found it incredibly annoying when people couldn't trouble themselves to study, then expected everyone to spoon-feed them the material. Jay marched Zach to the side of the road and helped him draw a chalk circle on the ground.

"Hold up," Zach exclaimed. "I almost forgot the cat."

He sprinted back to Torren's old Civic. He extracted a very sleepy looking black cat from the passenger seat and the bag of clothes from Goodwill.

"T, do you mind if I take these?" Zach asked, waving the bag in the air. "Austin will need a change of clothes."

Torren forced a smile while his only clothes were snatched away. "No, it's cool. I'll catch up with you guys later."

With the cat and the bag tucked in the crook of his arm, Zach gave Torren the same sliding hand gesture Jay had, then jogged over to the chalk circle. After a few moments and some hushed words, Zach was surrounded by a cloud of sparkling blue mist as he stepped inside the mercury-like pool of liquid now inside the chalk circle. He waved, giving Torren an impish grin before being sucked inside the puddle like a tether had been attached to his ankles.

Watching Zach disappear was the second most disorienting experience he'd had tonight. The anger Torren had been holding in his chest gave way to an entirely new set of feelings. Ones that questioned the very fabric of the world he had come to know. The world he had been born into.

This was magic. But, magic wasn't real. Logic demanded an explanation.

"Wh--what's going on? What happened to Zach?"

Jay dusted a piece of imaginary lint off his collar. "Nothing dangerous—unless that cat scratches his face off."

Torren stared back at Jay, arms crossed.

"It's a joke. Don't mundanes still tell jokes?"

When Torren didn't laugh, Jay made a great show of sighing into his hands before saying, "God, this never gets easier. Alright, the quick and dirty is like your friend Zach, you've been chosen by some cosmic power to carry the Gift of magic. Congratulations, and welcome to the club."

"Be serious."

"I'm dead serious." Jay pulled out what looked like a deck of playing cards from inside his tailored suit jacket, except they were much larger than regular cards. He thumbed through the thick stack until he landed on one and carefully withdrew it.

Torren recognized the face drawn on the card and the name printed below. Plain as day. Plain as his reflection in the mirror. But, how could his face and his name be on this card?

The midnight blue border surrounding his face was dotted with stars that twinkled like they'd been stolen from the sky. Set into the border in gold foil were the words, The High Seer.

"What does that mean?"

"You seem like a smart chap, so try and keep up," Jay said. "As it turns out, magic cannot be created or destroyed, much like matter. It's finite. Normally, the Gift of Magic departs a Practitioner at death and seeks out another host to carry it. When the Gift has chosen a worthy host and forms a bond, the host's picture appears on my regional deck. Every once in awhile a Gift goes astray and a new name isn't replaced on the card, but that's rare. In your case, Davey's magic left his body and chose to reside here." Jay poked Torren in the chest with his finger.

"Davey's magic is inside of me?"

"Pretty wild, right? Even the most learned Practitioners don't understand how magic manifests inside the body, only that it does." Jay took the card from Torren and slipped it back into the deck, tapping his fingers gently on top. "You must be true of heart."

Magic sought out a worthy vessel—a worthy person. If there was such a thing as magic, which apparently there was, this was logical. You earned the right to have magic. The strangeness in his chest, that echo beating alongside his heart—that was magic?

Did that mean magic had been watching him all his life?

"I hope that confused look on your face means you're pickin' up what I'm puttin' down."

"Maybe," Torren said around a sigh.

"Maybe is good. Maybe is a start. Come on, walk with me." Jay snapped his fingers, brandishing a wicked smirk. "I got a lot to download, and very little time."

Jay pulled a silver medallion from underneath his dress shirt, planting a kiss on it before it started to glow with a brilliant amber light. "Tell me, Mr. Jacobs, where is the one place in the world you'd like to visit?"

Torren's thoughts raced to Mazia. "Like, right now? I kinda want to see one of my...friends."

"No, not somewhere in Ypsilanti. I mean anywhere in the world."

Torren thought on this for a moment. He had never left Michigan before.

If he could go anywhere, where would he go?

"But, you just said you don't have much time."

"I don't," Jay admitted, lifting a shoulder. "But I can make time for this. So, where will it be? Paris? London? Shanghai? Cairo? I have a fondness for Rio, but that's neither here nor there."

"Boston," Torren blurted out. He had always wanted to see Boston and the ocean.

"Beantown. Nice."

Jay set the drop just as he had for Zach, tracing a chalk circle on the ground and a puddle of silvery liquid appeared.

Torren and Jay stepped forward into the puddle, and a cool blue mist shrouded their forms. Doubt nudged him in the chest as he snuck a look at Jay.

In the sparkling light, his skin had an ethereal glow. He wanted to trust that Jay was telling him the truth, but Torren knew life didn't give you handouts, not without strings attached.

Torren closed his eyes and sucked in a breath as a rush of cold air pulled him down and away from the street.