Ian

There are two kinds of magic in the world: serious shit for people who know exactly what they're doing, and pathetic lies for desperate losers. Nothing I'd managed to find about the shop called Pure Darkness had told me which kind it dealt in, and I was getting desperate for any kind of insight. I guess that made me a loser from the moment I stepped through the door.

The shop was dark inside, but it was a warm, cozy kind of darkness, not ominous theatre. The tint on my glasses didn't help, but for what I was about to ask for, I didn't really want anyone getting a good look at my face. The space was larger than I'd expected, more like a supermarket than a boutique, and the gloom swallowed most of the shelving.

Along the back wall, though, the counter was brighter. The sorcerer I'd seen making a delivery at the ranch on my stakeout was rising to his feet behind it, blonde cowlick honey-gold in the yellow light. Up close, he had a wide mouth that promised seductive cruelties, but his smile seemed genuinely welcoming. The wall at his back was rack after rack of jars, like nothing so much as an old-fashioned sweet shop. Pictures hung wherever racks weren't, except for one conspicuous gap where, from the contrast in paint colours on the bare wall, a frame had recently been taken down.

Gritting my teeth and trying to look nervous rather than humiliated, I hunched up to the counter. The spicy scent of the shelves gave way to something more acrid, like a loose electric wire, as I approached the sorcerer. His halo of violet flame was almost invisible with most of the light behind him, just a heat-haze rippling of the air.

"Eyyyy there, how can I help you?" He said easily.

Playing my part, I mumbled and slid a slip of paper I'd prepared beforehand across the countertop at him. Hoping the shadow of my cap brim combined with the glasses would be enough to prevent him reading my face, I watched his response. He frowned at me for a moment, like a late-night cashier eyeing a type of weirdo he recognised.

His frown deepened when he looked down at my note, and then he rolled his eyes. "Wait here."

Moving stiffly with obvious anger, he stalked along the counter and disappeared through a door to the back of the shop. I suspected that already gave me my answer, but I couldn't leave until I had some sort of confirmation of what the shop was. From behind the door, I faintly heard the sorcerer call a name.

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Dread trickled into the gaps between my lower vertebrae as the door opened again, but the figure that emerged was so comical I almost choked on laughter. She couldn't have been more than four foot seven, but she wore a hat almost as wide and tall again as she was. A cat lay across its brim, black fur swallowing the light except for a pair of fierce yellow eyes.

She marched up to stand opposite me across the counter and slapped my note back down on the varnish. "Just what kind of shop do you think we run here, young man?"

The witch – I assume that's what she was – looked about fourteen, but something about the way she said it made my cheeks flush. Everything on my list was legal, but there wasn't much you could do with that specific combination of substances that wasn't at least technically in violation of some law or other. And the less said about the main use the better.

That she recognised all of that and had the reaction she did told me all the information I was likely to be able to get out of this visit. I bowed my head deeper and hunched my shoulders, trying to look young and chastened.

I started to turn to leave, but her voice arrested me. "Hold it right there, mister." There might have been magic in it, I had no way of telling, but it stopped me in my tracks. Feeling my neck creak with reluctance, I met her eyes again. She waved the list. "This stuff is bad, you know? It's dangerous and it's wrong. You shouldn't be messing around with stuff like this. Why do you want to try?"

"No, it's fine, I won't do it," I stumbled over the words, none of my mumbling feigned anymore.

"No confidence, huh? Listen, we can help you with that, but this is not the way. Wait there a moment, okay?"

The back of my neck felt like fire as she scuttled along behind the counter and out through the gate at the end. Her cat watched me the whole time, its gaze uncannily steady. Hat standing up above the shelves like a military banner, the witch bustled around the shop for a minute, then returned to stand opposite me across the counter, slapping three transparent plastic sachets of herbs down on top of my forlorn and embarrassing shopping list.

"Here. Parlick, leagram and lark's bleasdale. Brew 'em in a tea, about two to two to one. Puts the fire right up you. You'll get used to the taste, it builds character. Try that next time you're going to see the one you like, it won't change their mind any but it might help with yours."

Another minute later, I was standing in the drizzle outside the shop's door with the herbs in my hand and wondering about what I'd just experienced. Whatever the mob connection to that strange, isolated farm, it was hard to imagine the witch who'd just lectured me so angrily being in on it, and the force of her kindness proved that was principle, not prudence. But Lachlan had seemed sure that something illicit was going on.

I looked down at the packets I was holding and smiled, ruefully. I doubted they'd do anything for me, but maybe I'd try them sometime and see.