Page 19 of That Ain’t Witchcraft

And when I saw him, I recognized him.

“Hang on a second.” I took a step back. “I was making a bad X-Men joke, since again, house of nerds, but until you realized that …” I stopped talking, mind racing wildly.

There are cryptids that thrive in cold places. There are even cryptids, like the yuki-onna, who can create cold when they need to, much as there are cryptids—like the dragons—who can create heat. It’s not a completely unheard-of trick. But James … I was willing to bet on James being human. Call it intuition or call it long training, but nothing about him screamed “cryptid” to me. My track record isn’t one hundred percent—I thought Sam was human until he showed me otherwise—and yet. Punching someone in the face is usually a good way to get them to reveal anything they might not want you to see.

Just in case, I leaned forward, well into James’ personal space, and squinted at his eyes. They were blue, but lacked the delicate snowflake scaffolding inside the iris that I would have expected from a yuki-onna. “Are you wearing contacts?” I asked. “Please be honest. I’ll poke you in the eye if you lie.”

“You’re really aggressive,” he said. “No, I’m not wearing contacts. Why?”

“Because you froze me with a touch, and you started getting nervous when I mentioned suddenly discovering abilities that people around you wouldn’t understand, and fire is more common, but we can’t all be Jean Grey, can we, Bobby?”

“Can you please start speaking English instead of geek?” demanded Cylia. “I’m not following you.”

“That’s okay,” I said, eyes still on James. “He’s following me, and that’s what matters. He’s a sorcerer, aren’t you, James? You freeze things with a touch. How many times did you shatter your pillow before you got it under control?”

“Wait, really?” Sam stood up straighter. For a moment, I thought he was just interested. Then he took a step forward, advancing on James, and I realized the uncomfortable truth: he was livid.

James realized it, too, and leaned back as far as the ropes would allow. “I don’t know where she’s getting any of this, but I swear—”

“Because see, if you’re a sorcerer, even a shitty one, you clearly have enough of a grasp of what you’re doing that you’re not freezing yourself all the time. You’re not pissing icicles. Which means you can mostly keep it under control. Which means you froze her on purpose, and I am not cool with that. I am sort of the opposite of cool with that.”

“I didn’t mean to!” James yelped. Me punching him in the face didn’t appear to have distressed him nearly as much as being loomed over by a shirtless man who looked like he could break way more than noses. “I thought I was being quiet, and she startled me, she hurt me, I was just defending myself! I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone! I thought I had time!”

“Time for a home invasion?” I asked, pulling his attention back to me. “What sort of schedule is that?”

“My cousin had been looking for renters all month,” said James. “I thought I could get him to agree to let me caretake the place. I was even willing to pay for utilities, since I knew he was heading for Europe. He wasn’t supposed to find anyone who was willing to stay in here.”

“Please don’t tell me the house is haunted,” said Cylia.

For the first time, James looked genuinely nonplussed. “What? No. Why would I be worried about that? Ghosts are harmless.”

“Depends on the ghost,” I said. “Eyes on me, Jimmy-boy. We’re not done talking.”

“Don’t call me ‘Jimmy,’” he said, suddenly scowling. His hands flexed. The oven mitts were my favorite thing. I loved the oven mitts. “That’s not my name.”

“Sorry,” I said. “Still, eyes here. Why did you want this place? What’s here that matters enough to break in when you know a bunch of strangers will be trying to sleep? We could have done a lot worse than breaking your nose, you know.”

James took a deep breath, clearly steeling himself. Then, choosing his words with exquisite care, he said, “There’s something horrible feeding on people who don’t know what else to do, who think they don’t have any other options. I need the books here so I can stop it.”

“Oh,” I said faintly. “Is that all?”

“I’d be a lot happier if the asshole was still wearing the oven mitts,” grumbled Sam, casting a narrow-eyed glance at the dining room table where James sat with Cylia and Fern. They had promised to hold off on figuring out what sort of comic horror was getting ready to eat us all until I could make a pot of coffee. I needed something hot to wrap my hands around as much as I needed the caffeine.

Sam didn’t need any caffeine. He’d been looking at James like he wanted to bounce the guy off the nearest bridge since the break-in, and he wasn’t calming down. I couldn’t blame him. If Sam had been the one hurt, I would probably already have been dragging James toward a shallow grave.

“He’s playing nice, so we’re going to do the same,” I said, picking up the tray of coffee mugs.

Fern’s check of the outside hadn’t found any sign that James was working with a partner. He hadn’t even driven to the house. There was a bicycle next to the mailbox, and a folding ladder propped against the wall outside the library window. So far, everything he’d told us had proven to be true, except for the whole “I didn’t freeze you I don’t know what you’re talking about” routine, and I genuinely couldn’t blame him for that. I would have done the same thing if I’d been the one tied to a chair with my hands covered.

It was funny. I’d never met an untrained sorcerer before, only people like the assholes at Lowryland; James Smith was possibly the closest thing I had to an actual peer, and I had no idea what to say to him, or even where to start. “I’m a sorcerer, too, but I sold my magic to the crossroads in exchange for not drowning, and maybe I’m never going to get it back, and maybe I’m okay with that” didn’t feel like the sort of thing that was going to fly. Either he’d think I was lying to build rapport, or he’d think I was out of my mind for ever letting my magic go.

To be honest, I wasn’t sure which side of that conflict I’d fall on. Sam following behind me like a particularly surly bodyguard, I walked back into the dining room and put the tray of coffee cups, sugar, and milk down in the middle of the table. My hands barely shook at all.

“Good news: I don’t think you did any nerve damage,” I said, with more cheer than I actually felt. “That means I probably don’t have to kill you.”

James looked abashed. “I really am sorry,” he said. “I’ve never frozen a living person before. I didn’t realize how much it would hurt you.”

“Makes sense,” I said. I took a seat and a cup of coffee at the same time. Sleep could wait. “Like I said, fire’s more common, and fire-based sorcerers generally can’t burn themselves. You probably can’t give yourself frostbite, so how would you know what it would do to somebody else?”