Blood Debt

By Michele Acker

Excerpt

THURSDAY APRIL 8, 1999

As I sit here contemplating my journal entries over the last couple of weeks, I have to wonder if someone is playing a trick on me. I have no memory of the events written on these pages, even though the handwriting appears to be mine. If the story it tells was written by me, then I have to wonder if I’m losing my mind, and if it wasn’t, I have to wonder if someone is trying to frame me for Doug’s disappearance.

The police seem to think that I know something, perhaps because we are, or were, best friends. They’ve been questioning me for the last couple of days. I’ve cooperated with them and told them everything I knew or could remember, which isn’t much, but I can tell that they don’t quite believe me. I’m not sure that I believe it myself, but for the sake of my sanity, I have to try.

Of course I haven’t shown them my journal, nor will I. Far from making things clear, it would only muddy the waters and I’d probably end up locked in some padded cell for the rest of my life. After all, would any sane person believe in the existence of fairies? Do I believe? I’m not sure. Sometimes I see movement just out of the corner of my eye, but when I turn my head, there’s nothing there. Something keeps nagging at me, some notion just beyond rational thought—embraced in my subconscious mind like a long lost lover—but every time I try to pull it free, it slips like smoke through my fingers. Does that make me insane? Perhaps, but if I destroy this journal before anyone else reads it, who can say?

Am I responsible for Doug’s death? I don’t know. I wish I could recall the past few days, but something dreadful must have happened to block my memory and if that’s the case, I don’t want to remember. One thing I am sure of though, Doug is dead. The police haven’t found a body, or any evidence of foul play, but I know. Deep down inside—I know.

THE PRICE OF MAGIC

By Michele Acker

Excerpt

“I want to learn magic,” Agave demanded as he strode into the shop.

The proprietor, an elderly man dressed in bright orange robes, glanced up and frowned. Agave wasn’t impressed. This was ‘Benoc, Master of Magic’? Shave the man’s head and give him a set of cymbals and he’d look more at home at an airport chanting rhymes.

“You’re Benoc?”

“I am.”

“I want to learn magic,” he said again, louder this time in case the old man was hard of hearing.

“No need to repeat yourself, I heard you the first time.”

The sarcasm in his voice made Agave’s teeth ache.

“How dare you talk to a paying customer that way?” he said. How dare you talk to me that way, his mind echoed.

I’ll talk to my customers any way I like. If you can’t handle it, you know where the door is.”

Agave’s teeth ached again, but this time he knew it was because of the cavity in his back molar that he refused to have filled. Why go to the pain and expense when, as a master of magic, he’d be able to cure anything himself? Soon, they’d be paying him, instead of him paying them, which seemed like a sensible arrangement all around.

“I’ll stay.”

“Let’s get started then, shall we?”

Benoc led Agave through a curtained doorway and down a narrow hall hung with several mirrors and lit with a single hanging globe. As Agave passed the first mirror, he paused, patted his full head of hair and smiled, impressed as always by his own stately presence. He had the looks and the money and soon he’d have the power. In a month, maybe more, there would be no limit to what he could accomplish.