This ability had come as a surprise. I’d discovered it while knee deep in whiskey one night, bored as hell in my burned-out living room (before Darius fixed it up), making orbs circle each other like fairy lights. I’d felt a hankering for another sip of whiskey, but my glass was across the room. Clearly a ghost must have moved it, since I couldn’t remember putting it there. Deciding I didn’t much care about ghosts—they were easy enough for experienced mages to banish—I made a move to get up and get it. But the orbs flared, and suddenly there came my glass, floating through the air.

It was then I realized two things. I could move things with my power, so the myth about demons doing that while in a human host was probably true, and also, I did actually care about ghosts. A great deal. Because at first I didn’t realize I was moving the glass, and it scared the holy bejeebus out of me. I tore out of the living room for my sword, and the orbs winked out and the glass dropped, shattering across the floor.

At the time, I was more relieved I didn’t have a ghost than excited I could move stuff with my drunken mind.

From then, it had been on. I had a new thing to practice.

Turned out, making things move with my mind was way harder than making an orb of fire.

In the bright sunlight, I stood on my deck, staring at the smallest rock and keeping my hands at my sides. Pulling on my power, I imagined lifting the rock. It merely wobbled on the ground.

I pulled harder, feeling a strange numbing at the base of my stomach. The rock rose slowly into the air until it was three feet or so off the ground. Still focused, legs trembling, I moved it minimally before trying a larger one. That done, though not as successfully, I tried the next biggest, and then the next, until I was straining with the last and heaviest of the rocks.

The cold in my gut surged, pushing at my fire. I furrowed my brow as the biggest rock wobbled, an improvement on my last practice. The way my magic was acting, however, felt like a step backward. The fire in the yard, which had sprung up during my exercise with the first rock, had dwindled to nearly nothing.

I wiped my forehead and relaxed. All activity in my backyard stopped.

Though a little off balance from the feeling in my gut, I hadn’t yet practiced levitation, and I steeled myself to do so. I didn’t understand that new cold sensation, but I was confident my fire could fight it.

Maybe hopeful was a better word than confident.

Determination setting in, I shook out my arms and rolled my shoulders. I wasn’t far from using a boom box to blast “Eye of the Tiger.”

The thick air hung heavy around me. Distantly, a dog barked. Somewhere, a rattling, buzzing air conditioner clicked on.

Here we go.

Fire raged through me as I amped up my power to the red line. My heart thumped in my chest, feeding off the surge in adrenaline. Rushing sounded in my ears.

Slowly, I lifted my hands like Magneto in X-Men. Like Magneto, my feet lost connection with the wood under them, and I rose into the air. Heat rolled over my body, sweet agony. A foot off the ground, and I was still in my comfort bubble. I pushed a little harder and lifted a little higher. Two feet now. Three. The burn of using this much power ate through the pleasure of it.

Now for the hard part. Even drunk and totally committed, I had a hard time with this one.

Biting my lip, focusing with everything I had, I flexed my body and willed myself forward.

My muscles started to shake. I could barely hear through the pressure in my ears. It felt like there were weights on my shoulders, holding me down. Keeping me immobile.

Breathing heavily, fists clenched, I willed myself forward again. It felt like I was trying to move through a wall.

Gritting my teeth now, determined to make some sort of headway, I squeezed my eyes shut, held my breath, and gave it everything I had.

Air wafted against my face. At first I thought I’d gasped or exhaled, but I belatedly realized I wasn’t breathing at all. I’d moved forward!

Drenched in sweat, tremors running through my legs and arms, I tried again. And lurched again. It was then I noticed that the numbness now pulsed inside me, dull and cold, throbbing up my esophagus. Strangely hollow, too, like an echo through a vast, empty chamber.

“What in the holy fuck?” I heard.

My eyes snapped open and everything came crashing down. Rocks I hadn’t realized I’d lifted hit the ground. Orbs of fire fell, winking out as they did so. Flame, which had been crawling across my backyard, pulsing in all colors, sank until it extinguished. I followed, hitting the wooden steps of my porch and rolling to the bottom, thunking my head against the hard stone. Good thing my noggin was hard.

My neighbor, No Good Mikey, stood on his back porch looking into my backyard. His face was devoid of expression, but his eyes were rounded and his fingers had a white-knuckle grip on his banister.

“I’m a circus performer,” I blurted, sitting up. I rubbed the knot that was quickly forming on my head.

He shook his head slowly. “Nope. Try again.”

“I do magic. I learned it in Vegas and I’m practicing for a comeback tour. Neat tricks, right? I’ll crush it.”

He wiped his hand over his face. His gaze landed on the rocks spread around the yard. I’d even gotten the big one off the ground. A first. I needed to figure out what that cold sensation was. That seemed like the key.

His gaze shifted to the sides of my yard protected by the shielding spells, something he could clearly see from his vantage point. The air was filled with a sparkling purple haze reaching high into the sky. From the other side, it wouldn’t be noticed. In fact, the eyes would slip right past it, hiding the things behind the spell in plain sight.

“Have you done this before?” he asked through a tight jaw. He was clearly trying his damnedest not to freak out. He had balls of steel, that guy. If only he were magical, we’d make one hell of a team.

“Would you like the truth, or something that sounds good?” I asked.

“Don’t fuck with me.”

“Right. Yes, I’ve done this before. Not to this extent, because practice makes perfect and all, but…”

“Those rocks aren’t part of some shitty OCD decoration scheme?”

“Not really, no. Though thanks for pointing out my poor taste in decorating,” I said sarcastically.

“I haven’t heard or seen this before because…” He motioned at the shimmering purple air.

“I was better at keeping it under wraps, yes. I ran out of the…” I hesitated. “Hell, I’m just going to say it. Spells. I ran out of the spells. I only had two, and I needed three.”

“I ain’t never seen a witch in that cemetery light shit on fire without touching it, not to mention throwing shit around like that,” he said in a strangely accusatory voice. He swore a lot in general, but when his brain was bending, he apparently pushed it to the next level.

“Say, listen, why don’t we take this conversation indoors? People like you aren’t supposed to know about people like me. It could get me in trouble and you dead.”

As though I’d flicked a switch, Mikey bristled and straightened out, turning his meaty shoulders toward me. His hands flexed and then curled into fists at his sides. All hint of I’m freaking out left his eyes and demeanor.

“I’d like to see them try,” he growled.

We’d definitely make a helluva team. And Darius wondered why I didn’t want to move…

“Well, I wouldn’t. I’d have to kill them all, and then we’d both have to move.”

“Open your front door. I’m coming to you. I don’t want you to burn my house down like you did yours.”

“That wasn’t me, and you know it.”

He was shaking his head as he turned. I distinctly heard, “Looney tunes,” before he disappeared around the edge of my house. I heard his back door slam shut.

If only I’d heard it open.

Weak and shaky, I moved into my gloriously air-conditioned house. I heard the knock at the door, two fast raps, and ignored it. I needed to put something on that wasn’t drenched in sweat. A moment later, I heard another two raps, followed by the handle jiggling. I assumed my door was opened directly afterward.

“You gonna let me in, or what?” Mikey called through my house.