Carrot and Stick - How to Practice Responsible Witchcraft in a High-Crime Neighborhood - Chapter VIII

Chapter VIII

Silas woke up the next day feeling, if anything, worse. 

Part of that was physical. Sure, the Ordo’s training had included plenty of running and some amount of physical exercise. The Ordo Venator was one of the only ones that actually insisted that its members learn the basics of some martial arts. Partly to help its members keep fit and partly because there may be a time against certain daemons where knowing how to throw a punch could come in handy, and on rare occasions, they were tasked with combatting more... wizardly foes.

Still, a couple of days worth of pushing himself, coupled with being tossed around, didn’t leave him feeling great.

Maybe he was just getting old?

The other part was magical. If anything, his circuits hurt more today than they had the day prior. Where they had ached before, now they itched as well. From unfortunate experience he knew that that was a good thing. It meant that things were regrowing. 

Given another two, maybe three days, he’d be able to regather magic and maybe cast the most basic of cantrips... painfully. 

The biggest pain, however, was mental.

He had been escorted to this little rental home by Carrot, the girl walking next to him with his old hat on her head, now transformed to be a dozen times larger than it had been just that morning.

That...

He took a moment to close his eyes while still in bed and reflect on that. Carrot seemed to treat it was a neat magical trick, and in some respects she was correct. Soul-bound items like that could be rewritten to be used by another. The fact that he’d willingly given her his hat simplified things immensely. 

There was some very old, very complex magic at work even in such simple items. The society had been using and improving upon that design for literal millenia. 

In any case, her using the hat for its intended purpose was fine. What he expected to see was... nothing. That the hat would protect her from the soul-affecting magic of the bat daemon and he had hoped that she’d be able to take it down in turn.

The hat had, instead, transformed. That was something it was supposed to do, certainly. His had darkened a little, turning a bit more brown. The badge at the front had grown a little larger, because he was proud of being a member of the Ordo. The hat had shifted to fit his head perfectly, when he’d bought it, it had been a bit too small, but time and magic and a connection to him had changed it.

Carrot’s changes were significantly more drastic, and under other, less dire circumstances, he may have liked the opportunity to examine them. 

The shape was... something. It looked witch-y now, in a strange way. He knew that culture and personal belief affected soul-bound items, but... yes, that was strange. 

Mostly it was the size that baffled and, to be perfectly blunt, scared him a little.

Soul-bound items were a reflection of the user. 

What in the name of all that was holy did it mean for her hat to be so massive? Was it a reflection of some sort of internal reservoir of magical energy? If so, how much did she have? She couldn’t have that much more than him, right? That was ridiculous! She was a child!

He groaned, pressing the palm of his hand over his eyes. This was so much.

Her spells were concerning as well, but maybe less so... except for that one she’d used to rip the energy out of the daemon. Rite of Dark Purification?

She’d just done a diffusal, only instead of either pushing the magic out into the air--somewhat safe, but usually only suggested when no other options were present, since the lingering magic could corrupt more daemons--she had taken it into herself.

He had to ask himself, honestly, if Carrot was a daemon herself. Only.. no. Maybe if she’d been an ordinary, reserved young woman, he might have believed it, but if Carrot was a daemon then he’d have to seriously start poking his own moral compass.

So, she had figured out a way to absorb the magical energy consumed by daemons into herself without turning into a hideous monster, both physically and mentally. 

The girl was crazy.

And now he needed her.

Sighing, he gave up on sleep and scooted over to the edge of the bed. The moment he’d arrived at home last night, he had been hit by a wave of despair. He wasn’t one for depression, but damn if he didn’t feel it now. 

The failed mission, the mounting stakes, the loss of his spellbook, and then his hat. When all of this came out, he was screwed. 

Initially, he was worried that he’d have a black mark on his record, but now he was genuinely afraid that he might be demoted outright, or worse, kicked from the Ordo entirely. 

He didn't know what he would do if that happened. So he decided not to think about it at all. Standing, he waddled over to the washroom and ran through his morning ablutions. A warm shower, with the water so hot it was scalding, helped him a great deal. 

Silas was entirely aware of what the sunk-cost fallacy was, and he knew that he was giving in to it, but... no, he wasn’t going to report this. He still had some small amount of hope that he could pull through.

First, retrieving the phone. That had to be doable. All it would really require was tracking down the daemons in this city. He could do that on his own, under normal circumstances, with some of the tools he’d brought and a few simple spells. 

He’d have to rely on Carrot for that. And for any eventual combat as well. He wasn’t proud of the fact that he’d have to rely on a teenager to do his dirty work for him, but it was what it was. 

Silas figured that he could at least make it worth her while. She wanted a bit of an education when it came to spellwork, and he could give her one. Maybe a few cantrips here and there? Nothing from the Exterminator Arts that were the prerogative of the Ordo Venator, but a few easy spells? 

And her own spells had seemed a little crude. Powerful, yes, but those chains of hers looked a little mischapen and he bet that she was doing the thing that a lot of gifted--in the sense that they had lots of magical energy--students used to do. 

His own reserves were middling at best, so he had to learn to be efficient with his magic, to get the most out of what he had. Carrot seemed to take the opposite approach. He was a man with a full cup of water, taking a sip as needed. She was a dog with a garden hose snapping at the flow whenever she was thirsty. 

That would actually maybe make it difficult for her to learn any normal spells. Her control had to be atrocious.

He was just poking his head into the kitchen and deeply regretting the fact that he hadn’t stopped by to restock on food recently when there was a knock at the door.

Silas froze, then moved to the front to eye whomever was standing outside through the curtains. There was only one person it could be. No one else wore a massive hat over pale orange hair, and no one else he knew bounced on their toes in excitement like that. She really was like a puppy.

“Hello,” he said as he cracked the door open.

“Hi Sensei Silas!” Carrot said, far, far too loudly for this early in the morning. She raised a large plastic bowl with a cover over it. “I brought soup!”

“Huh?”

“It’s mom soup. It’ll make you feel better!” And then, even though he hadn’t exactly invited her in, Carrot was inside his place and wandering into the kitchen. She flicked her hat onto the dining room table, taking up most of it.“Oh, it’s so big in here! Okay, where are your bowls? Have you figured out the microwave yet? No, never mind. Sit, sit, you’re sick. Sick people sit down and recover.”

“Carrot,” he said, but she just moved around the--rather small he thought--kitchen’s island and pushed him into a seat. A moment later a blanket was draped over his shoulders and Carrot was dumping still-warm soup into a microwave-safe bowl. 

He caught the scent of it. Warm broth and chicken and cooked veggies. 

“Okay, fine,” he said.

Carrot’s smile could have lit up a street. “Good! You won’t regret it, my mom made it special, see!” There was some text on the plastic container. For Mister Stickbach, get well soon!

“That’s not my name,” he said.

“Mom has a hard time with names, but it’s okay. She makes up for it by being the best soup-maker in this hemisphere!”

That was high praise, and a few moments later, he was hard-pressed to disagree. The soup was warm and tasty, and maybe he really did need it. Though he wouldn’t have minded a big cup of coffee to start the day.

“So, today you’re gonna rest,” Carrot said.

“I need to track my phone down, and the place those daemons are hiding,” he said.

“Nope, you’re sick.”

“I’m not. I’m injured. And only mildly. Two more days and I’ll be fine.”

Carrot nodded. “So we’ll go looking the day after tomorrow. Got it!”

“Time--”

“Is limited, because we all die eventually, but you don’t need to make it miserable by not resting while you’re sick,” Carrot said. She placed her hands on her hips and gave him a look that she probably imagined was very stern. It really wasn’t, but he found himself almost folding all the same.

“Fine,” he said. “Fine. I suppose I can take a day.” He was tired. The shower and the soup were dragging him down. “But... but I don’t want to waste two days. If we’re going to fight these daemons, then I need you to be able to help.”

“I can do that!” Carrot said.

“Good... I think you spoke about wanting some amount of magical training?”

She nodded her head so fast her hair waved. “Yeah! Please teach me, Sensei Silas!”

“Right... tomorrow we’re going ot patrol the city.”

“But--”

“No. A day’s rest is... justifiable. Two isn’t. Tomorrow is as far as I’ll push it.”

She pouted, but didn’t protest. “Okay, fine. So... spells?”

“Do you know how to read spell notation?”

“Nope!”

“Then I don’t see the point in writing any spells down, and I’m certainly not going to instruct you verbally though the casting of anything. That would be a waste of time. And likely dangerous. Come on, there’s a backyard.”

“You need sleep,” she said.

He shrugged. “I’ll take a nap once you’re gone. Don’t worry. Come on.”

***

Carrot bounced on the spot. She hadn’t been this excited since... gosh, it had been a while. Maybe when that little video store downtown had closed down and the nice old man running it had given her all of the DVDs that she’d been renting over and over for the last decade as a parting gift? 

She had her hat on again, because it made her feel particularly magical-girl-y and because it kept her head warm against the wintery chill.

Mister Silas grabbed one of the chairs off the little porch out back and tipped it forward before tapping it on the ground a few times. It dislodged the snow stuck to it before he sat. He was all bundled up in his big coat and a scarf, and she’d insisted on him wearing a blanket over the top, just in case.

Sure, he didn’t have a cold, but that didn’t mean he needed one.

Silas first had her grab some magic doo-hickeys from a leather briefcase and set them around. They were measurement tools of some sort or another and looked and felt very expensive. Silas said that they were for him to properly get a grasp of her magic as she did stuff with it.

“Okay! What are we starting with, Sensei Silas? Is it Fireball?”

“No,” Silas said. “And stop calling me sensei, I’m not. This is just a favour. We’re going to see how good your control is first. What spells do you know?

“I know Rite of Dark Purification, and--” she paused as Silas raised a hand. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m not familiar with those names. Nevermind, false start. Okay... what was that offensive spell you used yesterday, the one with the seeking missiles?”

“Black Petal Thorns?” she asked.

“Yes. That seemed decently potent. I think... given that we only have a day or two at most, the wiser thing to do might be to refine what you have, rather than teach you something new.”

“Aww, but I wanted more spells! Do you have a costume-change spell?”

“No?” he said.”Can you show me that spell again? Just... aim at the ground over there?”

She nodded, then cast, moving her hands together through a set of three signs in time with her chanting. “By the sorrow of fallen blossoms and purity lost, by the grace of darkened roses, Black Petal Thorns! Bloom and pierce!” 

She concentrated her magic, forcing it into the shape of her spell and creating three bladed missiles before her that soon shot out in three different directions before swooping around and stabbing into the dirt. They landed with hard thumps, but other than tossing up some snow, didn’t do much.

“Was that good?”

Silas stared, then pressed his hand over his face. “I think I’m going to have a headache,” he muttered.

“What?” she asked.

“That was... you just forced everything. And that incantation was nonsense. And why were you wiggling your hands like that?”

“I saw ninjas do it?”

“What? No! It’s... okay, let’s start this over. First, a single... petal. We’ll work this out from the very basics. The amount of magic you’re using to cast what looks like a first level spell is ridiculous. You could use a tenth as much for the same effect.”

“Yeah, but it works?”

“Only because you have ridiculous reserves,” he grumped. “And imagine how much stronger it might be if you weren’t so wasteful? The spell isn’t bad, as far as offensive ranged spells go. But it’s just a kinetic strike with some guidance worked in. The fact that there’s three is novel, but that’s all. Imagine if you refined it a little. Faster movement would mean a stronger impact, the ‘petals’ could easily be shaped to penetrate better, and you’re using enough magic there to cast ten petals like those. If you refined the spell, you could actually cast ten for the same cost!”

Carrot was a little disappointed that her magic wasn’t great, but she was just as excited to make it better. 

Ten petals? Well then... that would be more like a Black Petal Bouquette, wouldn’t it?

***