I didn’t quite cry on the way home, following Nergal’s giant footprints back to my apartment, walking away from a girl who felt like the best thing that ever happened to me.
Could anyone on Earth save me? Bluestar 7 could kill Lydia easily enough, but she would just keep coming back, over and over, for the rest of my life. The only way to be safe was to move to a place without magic, but walking home from that party, with the taste of Denise on my lips and the warm glow of her power in my chest, I decided I would rather die than give this up.
Every authority I considered asking for help would have the same answer. An angel safe house, a trip through some portal, a lonely cabin in the woods, it was all just different kinds of prison.
Could Evan and Denise save me? Could I make my case to the regents at Newbury Tower and recruit some kind of badass wizard lawyer to void my contract? Such a dumb idea, it wouldn’t even make a good TV show. Every one of my ancestors had been smarter than me, and if none of them had found a way to break this thing, what chance would I have?
But if no one else could save me, did I really have the strength to save myself?
* * *
I wasn’t really feeling better when I made it home, but something about seeing Lydia there, patiently waiting for me - it pissed me off and comforted me at the same time. There was a kind of animal comfort to it, just having someone else there.
“Well, if I learned nothing else tonight, I now understand why there is a no-touching clause in my contract. Holy. Fucking. Shit.”
Lydia sniffed me and made no effort to hide her astonishment or her outrage. “You had a witch tonight!”
“More accurate to say a witch had me.” I sat there for a minute staring at my phone. “I need to update my apps, but I’m not sure if I just had sex or not.” I looked up at Lydia. “I need a ruling here, does swapping magic with a witch count as sex?”
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“Oh, there are so many levels, you’d have to describe it for me.”
I laughed, despite myself. “Dammit, stop trying to cheer me up, and stop making me laugh at shit that’s not funny.” I sat behind my desk and leaned back in my chair. “You’re taking this way better than I expected. You’re supposed to be jealous.”
“Of course, I’m jealous!” Lydia snapped, suddenly raising her voice. “You’ve made me work for every minute of our time together, but some random witch trips you in one night? I’d love to know how she did it.”
“Well, she wasn’t subtle, I’ll tell you that. She damn near—” I stopped. “And you’ve immediately got me describing it.”
“At least admit you had a good time,” Lydia said. “People are already starting to notice how special you are. Are you starting to believe it? Are you starting to see what this power can do for you?”
“I definitely had fun, but it felt like everybody was excited by the idea of me, before they really knew me at all. Everybody just found out I won the genetic lottery and suddenly I’ve got a witch stuffing chicken livers in my mouth. But I didn’t earn this. I didn’t pull a kid out of a burning building; I didn’t even go to the gym.
“I got to make out with the hottest girl in the tower tonight, but she didn’t want me, she wanted this,” I said, making my aura flare in the dark. “All that matters is what I was born with, like I suddenly woke up with rich parents, twenty years too late. Do you realize what kind of asshole I would become if I started walking around like I was hot shit, just because I got hit by lightning? Maybe one day I’ll be worthy of all this attention, but right now, I’m still just Timmy Kovak, who just inherited a car I can’t drive.”
* * *
Lydia followed me to the bedroom and took a perch across from me as I flopped on my bed.
“Her power is still in you, and it’s beautiful.” Lydia said, peering at me like she was taking some kind of magic X-ray. “The power in this witch is so old, it’s mellowed somehow, aged like wine. The level of control she would have, the level of control she could give you…”
Lydia lowered her head and was silent for a long time. Then she said, “Please excuse me,” and vanished, the first time she had really left me alone since she got here.
I couldn’t see her, hovering invisible in the next dimension, crying silently in the gray. Lydia was crying because she had just discovered a cure for the madness that destroyed my Grandpa Jim, an entire generation too late.