Chapter Twenty-One
I spend the week trying to keep a little bit of distance from Bastian.
He’s looked into the moon timings for the hellhound and since we can’t do it before Sunday, our not-date still stands.
Avoiding him is helped by the fact that he has an essay due that requires him to work with some texts that can’t leave the college library, where he knows I don’t want to be.
I try to forget the hug that sent static electricity through my blood and focus instead on ducking Kira, who keeps sending me messages, wanting to meet for coffee.
I don’t know how she got my number, but I have no intention of having another conversation with Kira Tavi, whatever Professor Wallace mandated.
By the time the second weekend of October blows in on Saturday, the weather is so appalling I almost think of calling in sick for work.
It’s that kind of sideways Manchester rain where the sky presses against the chimney pots and tops of trees and the wind whips damp leaves in circles and gets up underneath my coat.
Then Bastian messages, telling me to meet him at Barrio on the Beech Road after I finish work, so I wearily put on the shroud and get out of bed, at least thinking that the sweaty weight of it will keep me warm.
I’ve never been to Barrio, but as soon as I step inside I think I’ve made a terrible mistake.
It’s a Mexican place, moody and dark, with raw-edged wooden tables, black paint on the walls, and an air of a place you go for strong drinks and spicy tacos on an intimate first date.
Which this absolutely is not, I tell myself firmly, unwinding my scarf from my neck and looking around the steamy interior that smells like softening onions and rich, dark chocolate.
I don’t see Bastian anywhere and check my phone.
I’m surprised when I see a message telling me he’s in the garden.
I frown and squeeze my way past the people drinking and laughing against the windows, fogged by the hot breath of customers, past the giant overworked coffee machine and the bartender salting margarita glasses to the rear door with the sign SECRET GARDEN on it.
I step out. The backyard is completely sheltered by an awning; black metal furniture is interspersed with oversized plants in pots, and strings of hanging Edison bulbs shine yellow light.
The wind howls against the plastic above and Bastian is the only one sitting at a table under the directional red glow of a heat lamp, a blanket across his lap.
It’s much less intimidating than the hustle and bustle of laughing people inside, but I’m suddenly awkward with the expectation of this lovely, secret space just for the two of us. Not a date, I remind myself.
“Come round this side, you get the best of the heat lamp,” he says, shuffling over and lifting the blanket so I can slide in next to him.
“Thanks,” I mumble, pulling off my peacoat and enjoying the warmth against the damp skin at the back of my neck. I look at the drink in front of me: it’s pale green with a wedge of lime on the rim.
“I got you a margarita, it was two-for-one.” He pushes it toward me. “I hope that’s okay.”
“I’ve never had one before,” I admit, taking a sip. It’s shockingly good, limey and salty and fiercely strong. “Wow!”
I lick my lips in delight and Bastian laughs.
“Go easy,” he warns. “You’re not much of a drinker?”
“I’ve not had much practice,” I say, dissolving a flake of salt on the tip of my tongue.
I’m the youngest in third year and I feel it, the weighty difference in age between me and my peers and how ahead of me in life they seem.
“Fun dungarees, by the way.”
His finger is playfully tracing the flower pattern on my knee. It’s very distracting but, somehow, I know I don’t want him to stop.
“Thanks, I painted them myself. I was bored last summer.” I’m trying not to follow the shape of his fingers with my mind and keep up a conversation, but it’s like trying to pat my head and rub my stomach at once. I can barely get my words out.
“That’s clever. You look cute in them.”
When he pulls his fingers away there’s a confusing sensation inside me, part regret and part relief.
I wonder if I should shuffle slightly so my knee is no longer touching his but I realize I’m pleasantly content.
My mouth tastes like tequila and lime and my body is warm with the press of a handsome man against it.
I realize that if I turned my head at this moment, we would practically be nose to nose.
This thought produces a thrill of absolute terror and I cough, looking away.
“So, shall we talk about the Black Shuck?”
If Bastian notices my inelegant attempt to deflect his flattery, he doesn’t show it. He reaches into his satchel and pulls out a heavy, musty-smelling book.
“Look what I got,” Bastian says, dropping it onto the table. Exorcisms and Conjuring Spirits and Demons: Volume One.
“Where’s Volume Two?” I demand. “This seems like the kind of thing where you read both volumes.”
“Don’t worry, this has everything we need.
” He flicks to a page he has bookmarked, a grand double-page spread with a woodcut print of Manchester cathedral, tall, spiky, and gothic, and then, prowling around its edges, a black dog with long fangs, dripping with a dark liquid. Bulging, violent eyes. The Black Shuck.
“We have to summon it using a conjuring circle and trap it.” Bastian flips forward to a page with a ragged drawing of a circle made of salt and blood on it. “It’s not permanent—”
“Obviously,” I mutter into my drink, and Bastian smirks.
“But I think I can hold it in place long enough for us to get what we need. Then we release the spell, it goes back to its dimension, and no one’s the wiser. Pretty standard.”
“Pretty standard?” I stare at him in amazement. “Done this before, have you?”
A month ago, I would have scoffed if he said yes, but since then I have watched him deter a boggart with a preposterous spell. If he says yes, I won’t be surprised.
“Sadly, no, this will be my first time.” He grins.
“And what if we get caught summoning a hellhound in the city center?”
“I honestly don’t know about the legality of performing a hellhound summoning on sacred ground,” Bastian says cheerfully. “But we won’t get caught.”
I nibble my lip anxiously. It tastes like salt. I look down at the circle of blood and try to imagine the power needed to contain this hellish creature from another dimension. I can’t do it.
“You’re sure it will work?” I try not to sound plaintive but I know I do.
“I’m going to do everything I can to make sure it will.
” Bastian places a hand briefly on top of mine and I resist the urge to turn my palm upward and grab his fingertips, taking comfort from him just like I did in the face of the boggart.
“Look, we’re not going in unprepared. We’re going to read and do research.
I’m going to do the spell but you’re going to understand it, too. We’re a team, right?”
I take a deep breath and try to focus on remembering Bastian standing above me, blasting the boggart away with his magic.
If I’ve seen him do that and he managed to magically resuscitate me on the beach, do I have any reason to doubt him facing the Black Shuck?
Unbidden, Elizabeth’s face in her last moments comes back to me.
The fear, yes, but also the confusion. She never expected to fail.
That’s not going to happen this time, I reassure myself. I try to believe it.
“Right.” I nod, giving myself a little shake. “So when will we do it?”
“The new moon is best for hellhounds.”
“Okay. Pretend I’m a bad witch who doesn’t follow the moon cycle and tell me when that is.”
“Tuesday the twenty-fifth of October.” He chuckles. “If it goes well and we get the hair, then we can do the ritual on Samhain.”
“Got it.” I try to look and sound more confident than I feel.
Bastian must notice because he says, “You could bring some vegan Babybels to make yourself feel better.”
I laugh and my anxiety dissipates slightly, the tension in my shoulders dropping.
“Yeah, well, maybe I will.” I nudge his shoulder playfully. “Tell me about the spell.”
We drink; we talk about conjuring circles but then conjuring circles turns into talking about witchcraft in general, Bastian telling me about cool spells he and Shasta saw when they went on holiday to Haiti to visit their second cousins, and me hesitantly revealing some of the things I’ve seen my parents do.
Soon, the book with its terrifying illustration is closed, the threat of the Black Shuck tucked away for the night and reduced to a coaster for the nachos we ordered.
“You’re really good at all this, all this serious, intense magic,” I say, folding a napkin into a crane. “You’re what my father would call a prodigy, I think.”
“Coming from a shifter, I’ll take the compliment.” He smiles. “But magic doesn’t have to be serious.”
He gently takes the crane from my fingers.
“May I?”
I nod nervously as he sets his hand into the preparatory triangle, his ring glowing softly. Then he links his thumbs and floats his fingers, and suddenly, the little crane is endowed with the luminous blue glow of Bastian’s magic and its tiny napkin wings flap slowly.
“Magic doesn’t have to be permanent to mean something,” Bastian says quietly.
“Whoa.” I stare at it with a slow grin, feeling a flush in my cheeks as the crane wobbles on the air and then descends into my palm. No one has ever done this, made a spell just for me, to impress me or to bring me joy. “That’s amazing.”
“No, you’re amazing.”