There's Nothing Wrong With a Little Hocus-Pocus

Megan sighed when she finally got to leave the Calculus class. Maybe she’d actually managed to pass this one, since she’d managed to stay awake. Which was a surprise. And was, like she’d guessed, hell.

“Megan! Wasn’t 42-B just so easy?” Hannah stepped up behind her. Hannah Brown was tall and athletic and undeniably, part Asian. It was no wonder she was good at that.

“Hannah. We’re not going to go over the test again! Just taking it once was more than enough for me.”

Hannah laughed, and Megan knew that she could have taken it forty times over without having a single problem answering them all. Math was, predictably, Hannah’s subject. Megan’s subject was probably P.E., in all honesty, but that’s only because she had to be fit. It was in the job description - quite literally. And it was either be fit, and get some semblance of normality, or be overweight and work in the Protectorate’s offices. And being an office worker didn’t appeal to Megan - well, Queen Isabel wouldn’t allow her to be one, anyway. Megan was too much of an asset in the field to be wasting away in an office. And besides, being in an office for the Protectorate is an almost around-the-clock job. Extremely boring, too.

Megan brought herself back to the present, pretending to listen to the excited Hannah’s chatter about the test. Still.

It’s not that Megan wasn’t good at it - she just didn’t have the focus she needed to take the tests after working all night again. She got through her homework fine most nights, getting full or nearly full marks when they got the papers back. She passed everything usually, without the Protectorate having to tweak anything.

Yes, tweak.

For the Protectors that were of school age, the Protectorate would monitor grades carefully. If any student fell below a B, the organization would infiltrate and change the last test score to the lowest score it could be at for the Protector to still get a B. This was their precautions to keep the Protectors from having to be watched closely by the schools, to keep them off the radar.

The next class was English with Mrs. Harvey. Megan had this class with Chandra, the human worrier.

“You were late, weren’t you?” she asked promptly when she took the seat by Megan. “You weren’t with the group before school, so you must have been late.”

“No,” she said, smiling in a friendly way, despite how tired and irritable she was. “I was just running behind. Literally. I got to class just as the bell rang. You can even ask Hannah! She tried to go over the entire Calc test again, by the way, so be warned.”

Chandra groaned. “Great. Now I have to spend French getting yelled at by Madame Charmont because she won’t stop talking about how easy the test was. Am I right?”

“Most likely,” Megan smiled.

Chandra groaned again, letting her head fall to her desk.

“You’re only going to hurt yourself by doing that,” Megan scolded playfully.

“Then I’ll get to go to the nurse and I won’t have to bother with Hannah and her Calculus love affair next hour!” was the reply Chandra gave.

“Calculus love affair?”

Megan and Chandra both looked up at Mrs. Harvey, who was raising an eyebrow. She was a young teacher - one of the ones with the honey blonde hair that fell in perfect, shining waves, and the perfect figure. With cornflower blue eyes to match.

“Hannah loves Calculus,” Chandra explained promptly, probably already worrying that they were going to get in trouble if she didn’t. “She aces it, and then she thinks we have to go over each and every test after we’ve taken it. Megan said she was already doing it in the hall after they took it first hour, so I was dreading the yelling Madame Charmont is going to do when Hannah tortures me with the Calculus love affair next hour.”

“I love how we call it the Calculus love affair,” Megan muttered, just to make Chandra giggle. Mrs. Harvey kept her eyebrow raised, but a grin worked its way onto her features.

“I see,” she said, shaking her head. “I was never one for Calculus. I wish I’d had a friend around when I took it who knew what she was doing.”

Chandra and Megan laughed when Mrs. Harvey started to chuckle a little. It was kind of funny, in a way, but not something they would have laughed at if one of their friends had said it. It was the laugh that you do when you’re not sure whether the teacher wants you to laugh or not but you think the teacher does want you to.

Class started soon after that little incident, and Chandra and Megan were able to continue otherwise normally throughout the day.

*

Megan had rolled out of bed from her brief hour long nap and hit the floor in a wary crouch. The crunch of broken glass underfoot made her cautiously reach under her pillow for her Elven blade, which was enchanted with fairy magic. She slid it out of its sheath silently, inching slowly toward her doorway, which stood ajar. As per usual.

“Where is the human hiding…?” a low, gravelly voice said - but in Golem.

“Great,” Megan huffed, straightening. Mistaken for a human, again! And now she’d have to pay for a new window.

No, she’d just call the Protectorate. That would work. Make them pay for the golem that just broke her window, and interrupted the few precious hours of sleep Megan was able to catch daily.

Sighing, Megan called out, “Golem, I know you’re here. Which window did you break?”

“How does the human know what I am? Which room is she hiding in?” the golem mused aloud, stupidly.

“I can understand you, Golem.” Megan stepped out of her room to come face-to-face with the golem, spotting the smashed window in her small den. “Megan Haddix. You’re in my Protective Circle, and if you even think about hurting a single being under my care, you will be dealt with accordingly.”

Being a Protector came with certain perks, as Megan was well aware of. One being that, with little difficulty, she could understand everyone within her own Protective Circle with no difficulty. Outside, she had to resort to the actual languages, but while in her Circle, everything was automatically English once it reached her ears. Although she could tell what language it was if she cared enough to listen closely.

“Protector…? Megan Haddix…I see. Not human, all the way, then…?”

“No. Not all the way. Now, if you don’t want to be really sorry for waking me up - you know how busy I am, right? - if you don’t want trouble from me, you’re going to contact the Protectorate when you leave and send them enough money for them to have my window repaired. Got it?” Megan was forceful when she needed to be, and she didn’t need cops or neighbors coming over right now. The golem nodded at her demands, and Megan continued, “Then you are free to go. Tell them I want it fixed by the time I get home - whenever that is.”

“Sorry.” The golem apologized, bowing her head - for her it was, although it’s very difficult to tell gender with golems. “I go now.”

“Please.”

Once the golem had left, Megan sighed. She didn’t like to be that way, but it was necessary. She didn’t have enough money to fix her window, since she liked to keep up appearances and kept tons of food in her cupboards and cabinets and refrigerator. Maybe it wasn’t necessary that she dismiss the she-golem so quickly and bluntly, but it was probably for the best. She still had to come up with a quick excuse as to why her window was broken - if a neighbor came soon…there was a knock at the door.

“Megan…? I heard something breaking. Are you all right in there?”

Lacy Evans, Megan’s next door neighbor. They were the only two in the apartment complex right now, which could house four families.

“Hey, Lacy,” Megan opened the door to her twenty-four year old floor mate. “I had a little accident, nothing to worry about.”

“Acci…dent?” Lacy looked past Megan, and Megan knew that she was already examining the shattered glass that littered the carpet and sofa. “What did you do this time, throw your Wii remote, or something? Just like what happened with your TV?”

“Actually, yeah…” Megan scratched the back of her head, acting sheepishly. She’d gotten good at the act - she’d had problems with magic beings coming in for some dangerous reason before. The reason her TV had been broken was because of a tussle with a griffin. And the microwave had been knocked off the counter once when a shape shifter snuck in to try to assassinate Megan. After all, if the Protector is gone, so is the Protective Circle he or she casts, and then chaos can ensue.

After a bit of joking around and trying to get Lacy to believe that it was all just an accident, like the toaster and the microwave and the TV and the door and the toilet and - anyone would get the picture by now, Megan got to cleaning. Magic beings were breaking into Megan’s home all the time. And just when she finally thought they might have given up, the golem breaks in, thinking to have Megan as a snack. Now she’d have to watch out for hungry golems wanting to eat the people she was trying to protect.

Her cell rang about five minutes after Lacy left - which was a half hour after she’d come, because she insisted on helping Megan clean the glass up. Depositing her most recent find of a few shards of glass in the bin, Megan worked the phone out of her pocket and flipped it open in one movement.

“Megan Haddix,” she answered, businesslike.

“Miss Haddix,,” a professional sounding voice said over the line, “we received a call from a golem just a few moments ago. She apologized for breaking into your home through your window, and set up a place to meet with the money for repairs. Does this sound familiar to you?”

“Yes,” Megan picked up a piece of glass that poked out from under the couch. “She broke in at approximately four-fourteen, but I had approached her and made her see that she was in the wrong by four twenty-five. She agreed to my reasonable request that she contact you and have you send a repairman here to replace the window by the time I return from my duties tonight.”

“Mhm, I see. We just had to confirm the statement. Your request will be followed. Thank you for your time, Miss. Haddix. And, as a reminder, your Protectorate shift starts in-”

“In three minutes’ time, yes. Thank you very much, Mrs. Santana.”

The woman chuckled. “We’ve been through this conversation several times, haven’t we?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Megan grinned, knowing full well that Mercedes Santana couldn’t see her through the phone. “Now, if I’m to clock in on time, I really need to go change and get going.”

“Good Hunting, Megan.”

“Thanks, Mercedes.”

The women hung up, and Megan tossed her newfound glass shards into the garbage and returned to her room to throw on her uniform. Within a minute and a half, she was straightening the cuffs of her uniform top and standing in her living room. With thirty seconds before she had to be out of her apartment, she took a few running steps and leapt through the already shattered window.

Why not make use of its uselessness while she could?

Megan hit the alleyway below at a run, working her way quickly into the myriad network of alleys that ran to the center of the city.

*

Nearing midnight, it was, when Megan heard an indistinct rumbling of some sort. She paused in her movements, jumping gracefully from the rooftop she’d been running along to land in a crouch in the alley. Through her fingers and toes, she felt a slight quake - one that would be imperceptible to ordinary humans who had no sense of magical disturbances, other than full blown earthquakes or tsunamis or something.

Right on cue, her cell chimed. She pulled it out and glanced at the text.

“Magical Disturbance on 47th. Large being - Beast category. Underground. Please investigate. Immediately.”

Megan chuckled at the polite commanding tone of the message, and returned to her rooftops, running lightly and quickly toward the aforementioned 47th street. Her senses were tingling with the magic of the beast, tantalizingly close and within her grasp. Beings in the Beast category had no business in a city inhabited by humans. If it’s in the Beast category, Megan reasoned, it must be dealt with quickly and efficiently. Beasts cause damage to property and livelihood if left to their own devices for too long - they are easily bored, and very temperamental, if the others Megan had encountered in the past were anything to go by. And if the rumbling, which was growing into slightly more violent tremors, was any indication of anger or frustration, then the thing was definitely temperamental.

As Megan reached 43rd, just two blocks away, her cell rang. She flipped it open with one hand as she crept farther along the roof, saying as she did so her traditional phone greeting, “Megan Haddix.”

“Megan!” a fairy voice chimed. “It’s Vanille. What are you up to tonight?”

“I’m working, Princess,” Megan replied, creeping closer.

“I know, I know. I mean, are you having an easy night, or are there lean pickings? Because I hear a mean little beastie a few streets away, and I was wondering if you might possibly be able to get someone to take care of him? He’s a mean thing, you know.” the princess’ voice was cheerful as usual, but Megan detected the slight tremor that meant she was worried. And Megan knew, with a sense of clarity, that Vanille was worried that Megan would go to take on the ‘beastie’ herself. Which, Megan told herself, is a very plausible worry.

“I’m on my way to 47th street to see the cause of a disturbance, now,” Megan told her, “is he the beastie you’re talking about?”

“Yes. Oh, no! No, Megan! It’s dangerous! You shouldn’t be taking him on alone! He’s huge! I can sense it, Megan! He’s about the size of your whole apartment! And he stinks! I can smell him from my house with all my doors and windows closed and locked and with an air freshener right beside me!”

“I can smell him, too,” Megan said. “Wait…now I see him. Man, he’s an ugly one. I’m gonna have to go, Princess. I’ll call you later.”

If it was any other royalty, Megan would have been in trouble for abruptly hanging up on her like that, but Princess Vanille would be too worried to interrupt the fight, and she knew that Megan had to do her job. Vanille was too shy and scared of things, but she was the middle fairy princess, and a key target of kidnappers.

Shaking the thoughts from her head, and trying to avoid the awful stench tormenting her nostrils, Megan crept close to the edge of the roof. The Beast she was monitoring, and examining really did stink, and was watching the humans warily…and hungrily. It was a good thing for the humans that he was using the magical creature ability to conceal oneself, invisibility, and that he had chosen a blocked off portion of the road to sit in.

He was huge. He seemed to be somewhat of a sphinx, but with a worgen’s body, and the head of an evil sort of elfin creature. It took Megan a minute to realize it was a brownie’s head, blown up to giant proportions.

No, brownies were not as nice and helpful as old fairytales used to tell. They’re actually little demented versions of elves, with deep chocolate skin and beady red or black eyes. This particular head had red eyes, and what looked ominously like dried blood caked on the wickedly sharp teeth that protruded from its sneering lips.

And in the moment that Megan stood to leap down to him, preparing to make sure she herself was invisible, his head turned with lightning reflexes to snatch at a passing woman, missing a fatal blow by inches and gouging seven scrapes into the woman’s arm and side. There was a minor panic, but no one saw the beast because his invisibility was still in check.

Cursing the fact that she couldn’t be certain that the teeth were not poisonous, and that being bitten by a magical creature now meant that the woman could see through invisibility, Megan took a leap, letting out a throaty yell that diverted the beast’s attention from the woman and onto herself.

When red eyes met green, Megan began to feel slightly odd.