Mage Again Chapter 1 Novel

C’mon, you BASTARD!
It’s the last of the cameras, but of course, it’s the goddamn hardest one to attach. The trunk is thicker than the others and I can’t tighten the strap, even though it’s right in front of me. Up in the tree, everything disappears. I can’t chance using my headlamp.
“Fuck,” I grunt when my foot slips on the bark and I slide. The camera drops, hitting my eye and forehead. At least I have the other end of the strap to hold it so it doesn’t hit the ground.
I dig my boot back into the trunk and hoist myself up. It has to get above the lowest branch so it won’t be seen.
“It doesn’t have to be this tree,” comes the sarcastic voice of my uncle. He never thinks anything I do is good enough or smart enough. Even when I get kicked out of Cavendish, he’s more worried about how it will affect him. “You always choose the most difficult, weakest, pathetic option.”
“Shut the fuck up,” I tell him, the damp November air swallowing my words.
The voice has been visiting me a lot lately, maybe because I’ve sent Cat on his mission. I don’t have anyone to talk to anymore.
“You don’t need anyone. Especially not that woman.” I hitch my shoulder up to rub my ear. The voice sounds so real, breathing right into my ear. But I won’t look around. The day I look to see my uncle will be the day I fucking lose my sanity.
“I need that woman, but not in the way you think,” I say out loud, not because I think my uncle’s behind me. I say it to reinforce my plan. Saying it loud makes it real.
When I jerk the strap tight, I whoop. Fina-fucking-ly.
I loosen my grip and slide down the tree. The bark bites into my hands and legs, but I don’t care.
I hit the ground with a thud, landing awkwardly and tumbling.
“Shit! Shit, shit, shit.”
I reach out with my arms and legs to slow my roll, my heartbeat thundering in my ears when I feel the evergreen branches I’ve laid over the pit.
“Another stupid decision,” comes the voice. “First cheap cameras, and wasting time digging some hole.”
“Shut up,” I tell it. I know the cameras are a good idea. Wireless. Night vision. I’ll be able to watch every step my prey takes into my masterpiece.
The pit trap is the jewel in my plan.
“My coup de grâce,” I tell the voice, sure that he’ll appreciate the pretension of using a French term.
“It’s stupid. Something only a low-life, idiot, worthless—” the voice berates, tickling the skin behind my ear, pushing me closer to the edge of insanity.
“No. No, no, no—” I hit my ears until the only thing I can hear is the sound of the blows.
Then the noise comes over me, forcing me to chant my mantra.
“She will be mine, she will be mine,” I murmur, over and over, the words turning down the dial on the roaring in my ears but not stopping it completely.
“Mine, mine, mine, mine,” I promise the visions that flood my mind.
The woman falling into the hole. A knife. A new knife, sliding under her clothes. The fear in her eyes. The terror.
My cock is hard, and I squeeze it.
The woman in my mind is featureless, just the white skin of arms and legs. But when I slide my imaginary knife over her skin, it leaves a ribbon of red. Beautiful, warm red. Trailing over the white, spilling into the dirt. It coats the knife and when I touch the edge to my tongue—
The vision disappears in a blinding flash of pain and when I open my eyes, I’m several feet away from the hole. I sit up, wheezing out the last of the bloody image and breathing in the frosty air.
The pain hums from my thigh, and I reach for my headlamp, shielding it as I point it down.
I hold my new knife in one hand and rest it on my thigh. Just above a tear in my pants where a fresh cut oozes red.

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My blood. Not the woman’s blood, which makes me hard. My blood which sharpens my mind.
I pull the edges of the material together and hold it over the wound. It stings, but I don’t think it’s as deep as the others.
I roll to my feet and gather my bag, shoving my knife and light into it. I should have followed the fence to the gap, but it’s too long, too long, too long…
“No,” I mutter, covering my ears until the looping words stop.
I will cut across the property, cross the pavement, then go through the field. It’s faster than following the fence, but not as safe.
“It’s okay, it’s okay.“
Nobody will see me this early. Nobody hears me when I cut the bars or dig the hole. Stay low and be quick, that’s the way. Quick. Quick. Quick.
When I get to my car and my gin, everything will be back under control. It’s my new medicine, giving me focus. Drowning out the voice. It will help me with my new project.
My new hunt.
2
Nita watched her former boss, Kensley, laugh at some lame joke her husband, Ellis, made. They sat on the other side of the meeting table, facing each other, oblivious to her presence.
She could have just done the practice test at home and dropped it off, but the hour of Kensley’s time to go over her answers was invaluable. The trade off was watching the two lawyers coo over each other.
She cleared her throat, but the couple continued to murmur to each other.
Nita waited, staring beyond them to the drizzly Seattle morning. Over the water of the sound, right at the horizon line, the sky was cobalt blue. Exactly like the color her black hair shone in the right light. But stretching above that were black clouds that spat out intermittent rain.
It was the kind of morning that made Nita glad she didn’t have a job like most people. Thousands of robots, trapped in their cars on the highway, fighting their way into the city from suburbia. They’d be relieved it was Friday, living for those two cherished days off ahead of their dismal last workday of the week.
Not her, though. This was a day off for her. And this early time in Kensley’s office, Nita’s old office, was her mentoring time. Which was why this extended gooey shit the two of them were doing was getting irritating.
Kensley and Ellis were both successful lawyers, and frankly, people Nita looked up to. But when they were around each other, it got a little sickening. Like now.
“And how’s my baby, baby?” Ellis crooned, leaning to voice this against Kensley’s baby bump.
Good Lord,Nita thought. Even the Harlequin Channel would throw up watching these two.
“Why don’t I come back later?” Nita suggested in an obnoxiously loud voice. She reached for the stapled papers Kensley had been marking and waved at them.
They just smiled at her and went back to their cooing.
“He moved!” Kensley gasped, then “Awwwd” and stroked a hand through Ellis’s hair.
“Gllaaawwww,” Nita gagged, unable to take it anymore. “Don’t you both have law practices to run?”
Kensley looked at her, then leaned back in her seat.
“She’s right. I need to grade her test, convince her to become a partner, and then meet with that woman I told you about,” Kensley said to him, giving him a sappy smile when he stood up.
“The wrong egg case?” Ellis asked.
“The wrong egg case,” Kensley affirmed.
What the what?Nita thought, waiting for them to go on. When they didn’t, she bit her lip. Damn them, if they wouldn’t tell her.
“Wrong egg case?” Nita blurted after staying silent for a full minute, unable to help herself.
“You’d know all about it if you were back here instead of at Cavendish,” Kensley teased, looking at her smugly.

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She had a point.
“Just give me the overview,” she said with a long sigh.
“Right sperm, someone else’s egg. The child is three years old, but not biologically the woman’s child. Bio mom is suing for custody,” Kensley summed up.
“Shit, that’s messed up,” Nita said, frowning.
“Messed up enough to lure you back?” Kensley asked.
“Not a chance,” Nita vowed.
She’d told her friend Becca last week that she was ride or die for Cavendish Club, even though the business might be on its last breath of life. At Cavendish, she knew exactly what they expected of her. Reviewing client and consultant contracts might be boring, but she had a history of knowledge about the club that the current owners didn’t. It gave her some leverage and respect that she liked.
Kensley and Ellis made a few more kissing noises before Ellis headed for the door.
“Any dinner requests for tonight?” Ellis asked.
“Something deep fried, please,” Kensley said, and blew him a kiss. He blew one back, and when Kensley pretended to catch it and tuck it into her blouse, Nita slammed her hand on the table.
“Jesus, you guys, can you quit it?” Nita begged.
“One day you’ll fall in love—” Ellis began, like he always did.
“And then you’ll be doing the same stuff—” Kensley continued.
Nita snorted.
“No way and not a chance. You two are the ultimate prophylactic for monogamy,” she stated.
“See you tonight,” Kensley said to her husband and waved away a chuckling Ellis. Then she turned back to Nita. “Where were we again?”
“My practice test,” Nita sighed, picking up her pencil and pointing it at the papers.
“Right,” Kensley said, and picked up the stapled pages and her red pen.
Nita wiggled the pencil in her fingers, watching Kensley’s eyes run over the answers. The red pen made small marks from top to bottom, pausing when Kensley flipped the page.
Nita wasn’t sure if she was going to take the bar exam or not, although she loved taking the practice tests. She had nothing to lose by doing them, and usually did well, so they were a nice boost to her ego.
Her job as a legal consultant at Cavendish Club was well paid, offered the side benefit of sex parties, and gave her lots of free time. Although truthfully, they were pretty low on clients, so the free time came with the threat of the club not making next month’s payroll.
It’ll work out, she told herself, shrugging away the worry.
“Remarkable,” Kensley murmured, flipping the pages over and writing on the top corner. She slide the test to her and Nita saw the red 95% written neatly.
“What did I get wrong?” she asked, flipping through the pages.
“What does it matter? You should take the actual test and start practicing actual law,” Kensley said. “I can schedule the test online right now.”
“What I do at Cavendish is good enough for me,” Nita replied, noting which questions she got wrong on the test. “These are about constitutional law. I don’t care about that.”
“I’m not joking about you becoming a partner here,” Kensley insisted, leaning forward. “We’ve worked together for what, eight years? It’s time for you to move on, don’t you think?”
“I have moved on,” Nita looking at the other choices for the nature of judicial review. “Is this one C?” she asked, holding up the page.
Kensley squinted at the paper, then shook her head.
“It’s B. I’m serious. How can reviewing contracts at Cavendish be challenging for you?”

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“It isn’t. Work doesn’t need to be challenging. I have roller derby, if I need a challenge.”
“Ugh,” Kensley said with a shiver, shaking her head. “How you skate around a track body checking people is beyond me. But I see how it’s more challenging than Cavendish. Really, though, why do you stay there?”
Nita sighed, then thought about the question.
“I think I feel obligated to stay and help the new owners out. They know shit about running a business, and if it hadn’t gotten so dangerous lately, it’d be fun to watch them stumble around. But for me, I guess I stay because I believe in the club’s values,” Nita explained.
“Values?” Kensley scoffed, rolling her eyes. “The value of rich people paying for kinky sexual fantasies?”
Nita tutted at Kensley.
“Wow, I’m hearing some sex shaming in your words,” she murmured. “That’s surprising, coming from an OG Cavendish founder.”
“No shame intended. Sex of any kind is great. I’m shaming rich people who could be using their money for loftier purposes,” Kensley said. “Like when I sold my share and opened this family law firm. Which you could be a partner in if you’d ever take the bar exam.”
“I couldn’t buy into a partnership with you even if I wanted to,” Nita said.
“You wouldn’t have to—”
“Look, I have my pride. I don’t take handouts, and you making me a partner without a buy-in would be exactly that,” Nita said, flipping the pages of the test back over and folding the bundle small enough to fit into her tiny clutch purse.
“You think you’re not taking a handout at Cavendish? That they didn’t offer you a lot of money for a cushy job so you could help them get them out of a bind?” Kensley challenged, standing up.
Her baby bump came into full view and it made Nita stand up and walk to the door.
The whole idea of motherhood made her anxious. Kensley’s relationship with Ellis made her nervous, too, but as long as she didn’t look directly at them, she could stomach it.
Imagining the two of them with a baby, watching their interest in their law practices take back seat to their new family, went against practically everything Nita believed in.
More like what I stopped believing in a long time ago,she corrected herself. The family unit, whole, complete and fulfilling. It was bullshit.
“I’m not under any delusion about why they asked me back,” Nita said, shifting all images of happy families out of her mind. “They offered me a good-paying job, and I took it.”
“But how long will it pay? I’ve heard rumors—” Kensley said, but Nita cut her off.
“They’re struggling to get regular clients back, yes. But we have a new client and her engagement is in a couple of weeks. And speaking of that, I have to get going,” she said, and pulled open the glass door.
“Do you want me to keep you posted on the wrong egg case? I think you’ll find it interesting,” Kensley tempted, following her to the door.
“Sure. Maybe we can meet for coffee next week and talk about it,” Nita said, but continued down the hallway to the elevator.
“Think about scheduling your exam,” Kensley called after her. “I’m pretty sure you’ll ace it.”
Nita didn’t answer, just gave a finger wave behind her as the elevator doors slid open.
Once down in the lobby, she pulled out her phone, firing off a text.
Any free time today?she texted, stepping outside but standing under the overhang. It was a small office building, but had been modernized to fit in with the newer buildings in Seattle’s downtown South Lake Union neighborhood. It wasn’t exactly her style, but it inspired fear in the deadbeat dads that came to meet with Kensley’s clients.
A gust of wind swept a sheet of rain under the overhang, making her pull out her 1950s rain bonnet. She shook it out and tied it under her chin. A young woman in Uggs striding past gave a double-take before scurrying down the block.
“It’s vintage, you trend-following, plastic-proliferating, world destroyer,” Nita muttered to herself.
When a reply to her text didn’t appear right away, she walked up the block. She felt unsettled. It wasn’t the insulting look from the Gen Z’er, it was the idea of working with Kensley.
She’d sworn her allegiance to Kensley years ago after Kensley recruited in New York from her legal assistant course. When Kensley left Cavendish, Nita had gone with her. Despite feeling good about the women they helped, she’d missed the sexy, secretive surroundings of the Cavendish Club. Hobnobbing with mega-millionaires and being included in the most advanced technology nobody knew about made her dizzy. It was boring work, but it was safe work. Nobody, not clients or consultants, would sue an illegal sex club because a clause in a contract was mis-worded.
But the idea of working in Kensley’s practice where a single misplaced word could have major consequences? It scared the shit out of her, no matter how many practice bar exams she passed.

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