The Problem With Black Magic by Karen Mead Read Free Book Online Page B

“sense” how I feel right now?”
    “Don’t worry, I can’t read your mind, it doesn’t work that way. It’s just that if you’re threatened, like you were before, I sense it and I can come help you. That’s really all being a familiar means,” Sam said in a poor attempt at nonchalance.
    “If that’s all being a familiar meant, a bunch of vampires wouldn’t have tried to kidnap her right out of our store,” said Khalil, giving Sam a look like he didn’t trust him as far as he could th row him. “What else does it involve that you don’t want us to know?”
    Sam rubbed his eyes, something Cassie was beginning to realize he did often when he was stressed. “Look, I’ve been running from this culture for pretty much my entire life, and I try not to think about it. I really wasn’t prepared to give you all Demonology 101.”
    “And maybe I’d be a lot more sympathetic to that if you hadn’t gone MIA- - for days-- when we really needed you,” said Khalil. He stood up, but not to glower over Sam; instead, he started pacing the length of the room.
    “Do you know what that was like? Waiting for days after you left, thinking you were never going to come back and we were never going to get an explanation for anything? That I would never know what the hell I had even been working next to for months?”
    Cassie now understood why Khalil was so pissed. She worked with Sam once or twice a week, tops; Sam opened the shop with Khalil practically every morning. She didn’t know if the two were exactly friends, but they were close, in a way. Cassie hadn’t felt betrayed when Sam ran off because she’d had no expectations for him, but Khalil did.
    Sam sighed, and sat back in his chair. “I’m sorry about that.”
    “Fu-stuff it,” Khalil said, still pacing. It was obvious he had meant to curse, but changed tack at the last moment.
    “I just had no idea what to do…at any job, once someone starts getting suspicious, I usually take off,” Sam said. “I felt like I couldn’t face any of you, but I knew I shouldn’t leave town because someone might come after Cassie. So I waited- - afraid to come back, and afraid to leave,” he finished bitterly.
    Cassie sat down again, not sure what to make of him. He did seem genuinely regretful that things had turned out this way, but she wasn’t about to let that “servant” thi ng go so easily.
    Dwight looked thoughtful for a moment, then looked at Sam. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but if you hadn’t been here, wouldn’t everyone here except Jay have probably died when the building next door collapsed? Doesn’t sound to me like you have much to be guilty about.”
    “He abandoned us, Dwight!” said Khalil, spinning to face the smaller man. “You heard what the vampires said, she was fair game because he was gone! How can you forgive him for that?”
    “But the thing is , he did come back. And I’ll have a bruise on my head for a while where that…thing hit me, but beyond that, we’re all fine.”
    Khalil glared at him. “So, you’re just going to let him get away with everything because he saved us once? Excuse me,” he said, turning in Sam’s direction throwing his hands up theatrically. “Thank you, oh great one, for sparing our miserable lives! How dare we puny humans question our demon overlord!”
    Sam’s face went redder than Cassie had ever seen it. “Khalil, shut up!” he yelled.
    “Or what? You’ll make me go poof?”
    “You’re already a poof,” said a voice from behind them.
    Cassie turned in her chair and saw Serenus standing at the door to the break room, both hands resting on the head of his cane. “Sorry for busting in on you like this, but the door was unlocked-- well, technically, the lock was broken.”
    “Dr. Zeitbloom?” said Dwight, looking confused with his red-blond bangs in his face.
    “You got here awfully fast,” Sam said, the anger draining from his face.
    “You? Explaining the how and why of demons to your