A/N: in the last chapter I mentioned Dr. Pepper because it is the BEST SODA IN THE ENTIRE WORLD!!!!!!!!!!! Now that I’ve shared that… I’m not getting any constructive criticism uu. With that in mind, even just pointing out where I missed a word will help, cuz editors like newbie authors to have good grammar and to not miss words… (or at least that’s my guess)… and thank you for reviewing, everyone, I really appreciate it… one more to my goal of 25, then the goal will be 42, cuz that’s the meaning of life… or something like that… I didn’t actually read the book. ::blushes::

Chapter 9: Window of Opportunity

“How strong is your magic?”

“What?” Torri looked up at Blade, surprised, and put her Algebra II book in her locker.

“How strong is your magic?”

“Didn’t you tell me that I could be the most powerful witch in over a century provided I didn’t die?”

“Yeah…umm…there’s some fine print. You’ll need to practice a lot. You need to exercise your power regularly and do some spells and rituals…. Joining the local coven wouldn’t hurt.”

“Hold on? What?” Torri slammed her locker door shut, turning to face Blade.

“There’s fine print to the whole most-powerful-witch-in-over-a-century thing.”

“I heard you the first time. Why are you telling me this now and why in the name of—umm—in the name of someone are you telling me here of all places?”

“Because I just found out yesterday and I thought you would want to know.”

“Well I obviously have to practice, you ought to know that.”

“Why would I know? I’m not a witch—wizard, rather.”

“You would know because you’ve basically memorized the entire section of the library that relates to magic.”

“You’re the witch. But that isn’t the point. You need to practice a lot. I mean really dedicated, Torri. You can’t just be an idle practitioner, once or twice during the week and weekends. I mean every day, at least an hour and a half. You need to really work your magic. You have the ability for such great magic that it isn’t even imaginable. There is a very narrow margin. If you have even the slightest amount of too little power, you’ll find that you’ll never be able to develop the powers that you want to.”

“Who says I want to be all-powerful?” she retorted, starting down the hall to her first class.

“Who says you don’t?” Blade looked surprised. “Why would you not want to have that sort of power? Torri…I don’t think you get quite how difficult it is to even have the option of gaining half the power you could get. If you lived 300 years ago, this would be such a high honor, and you would be revered as something of a god.”

“But this is now.”

“You seemed fine with the idea of power a few months ago when I first told you of the sort of power you could achieve.”

“Why do even care? It’s my power, and I can choose if I want it or not.”

“It’s your responsibility to learn your power. You don’t have a choice.”

“I do too. I can choose to not use it.”

“You don’t realize how damn lucky you are, do you? If you don’t want your power, why don’t you cast a spell and get rid of it. See what happens.”

“There are spells for that sort of thing? George told me there weren’t.”

“George lied,” Blade muttered.

“How do you know that there are spells on that sort of thing? I’ve seen a lot of spell books—even a few Black Books. Not even a mention of a spell like that.”

“Those spells are…very archaic and ancient. Most people think that they were lost, and would prefer to think that, honestly.”

“Why would they prefer to think that?”

Blade hesitated in his answer, but Torri covered for him unwittingly.

“Do they just not like the idea of someone not wanting their power, even long ago when magic was most likely revered and respected and honored and stuff like that?”

Another subtle hesitation, “Yeah,” Blade agreed, “that’s it. Most people like having power, unlike some people named Torri.”

“Don’t start with me, Blade. Class is starting soon, so I better not hear that you cut class again,” she turned to enter the classroom, but Blade caught her arm.

“Think about it. You don’t want to look back and wish about the power that you could have had, but lost.”

“I don’t want to look back and wish I hadn’t pursued the kind of power you’re talking about. I’ll see you later.”

Blade let her go, and ambled down the hallway to his class, as Torri ordered. Getting a B-minus was an official requirement if he wanted to hang out with Torri now, ever since his report card, as was going to class, doing his homework, going home at night, and eating regular meals. Goddamn she was hard to please. There were plenty of guys in the school that were perfect for her, but those guys had chosen to not consider Torri entirely because she hung around him a lot. That was all the better for him, because he wanted Torri to himself right now, and other guys would provide unwanted distractions to Torri.

The kind of power he was talking about was the sort of power that rivaled that of even the most famed witches, wizards, and even the most powerful of demons. That sort of power would definitely attract the attention of anything magical with a lust for more power. That sort of power would also enable her to perform some of the most archaic and difficult spells that were ever created—such as spells to reverse or advance time, rearrange events in time, or even erase them entirely, and even possibly restoration of a soul. After so many years, Blade wasn’t entirely sure if he wanted his soul back, but he wanted to keep his options open. Torri was most likely the only one in the entire world who could perform that sort of ritual, although a large group of witches could if they were in sync and had the timing right, and many complicated variables he didn’t want to get into. Torri was also the only witch who knew he didn’t have a soul. There was one other person who knew, and he didn’t exactly have a soul either.

Blade knew that there were demons that might be able to restore his soul for a price, but that price would most likely be Torri, and when he got his soul back, he’d feel guilty about trading Torri in, so that was simply out of the question. At sixteen, he was deeply fond of not giving a shit about anything. He simply did whatever the fuck he wanted whenever the fuck he wanted, and that was that. Torri was screwing this up, but he tried to think of it as a trade. He did what he was ‘supposed to do’ and Torri hung out with him and was, for now, allowing him to slowly seduce her, although he was certain that she didn’t know what his final plan was.

Blade didn’t bother paying attention during any of his classes, sitting with his sketchbook on his desk and drawing an image of a dragon eye, with a cat-like pupil, set in scales. His teachers ignored him, having gotten used to him drawing during all of his classes, and they simply didn’t give him credit for class participation. He still had a SPED study at the end of the day that he wasn’t allowed to skip, and did all of his homework before the end of the period. He went down to the library, as usual, but he went alone, despite a minute spent shoving books around in his locker hoping Torri would appear, but she didn’t. He gave up and went down to the library, and decided to head down to the library. He wanted to see if there were any texts about soul-removal, and, if there were, erase them from the library records and hide them somewhere Torri would never find them. Torri wasn’t there when he entered, and after dropping his bag at the table, went to find the books he wanted.

He found more books than he would have preferred, but about half of them were small enough to fit into his bag without detection. He took all of the books, stacking them in his arms, and went into the back room, and went through all the way to the back. He found an empty book crate and stacked them all in there, and hid it behind other boxes of books. He hadn’t gone through the new text arrivals, and decided to do so now. Any books mentioning soul removal were added to the crate, and the new ones were added into the computer and card catalog system and he put them on the shelves. He deleted all of the books he had hidden, and ripped out their cards, stuffing them in the crate along with the books, lacking a place to put them that Torri wouldn’t find. When he settled at his table, opening a book about the growth of witches’ powers, Torri still hadn’t shown up. Blade didn’t worry about it. Torri had somewhere else to be.

She showed up when he was a little over an hour into the book, around the eightieth page, and he stashed the book under the table and pretended to be working on the dragon eye as she approached, looking happy and excited.

“Bryan came to visit again. He forgot about time zones, so he ended up spending an hour outside the school. We went for ice cream and I got to catch up on everything that happened in Concord! Claire won Homecoming Queen, of course!”

“You didn’t tell me?” He didn’t want Torri hanging out with Bryan, at least without him chaperoning. If they were doing anything more-than-friend-like then he doubted he stood much of a chance.

“You don’t like Bryan.”

She had a point. She looked at him, her face reflecting something sort of sad—disappointment, it seemed, that they didn’t get along—and also still flushed slightly, probably in part from the walk here to the ice cream parlor. He didn’t answer, and Torri got out the homework that she hadn’t finished. She was halfway through the second math problem when he interrupted her.

“That’s wrong.”

“What?”

“That’s wrong.”

“What is? The math? I thought I was doing it right…” she trailed off and looked back at the sheet, studying it.

“Parentheses first, then exponents.”

“Oh.” She erased her work, and started again, getting the correct answer.

She didn’t say anything as she finished working, and Blade continued to draw. When she finished her Spanish and math, Blade brought up the subject of magic again.

“Have you thought about anything I said?”

“Yeah…I did parentheses before exponents,” she looked confused, failing to maintain any idea what the hell he was talking about.

“This morning. Magic.”

She sat back in her chair and exhaled in the form of an annoyed sigh. “What about magic?”

“My motive in mentioning it isn’t to piss you off, so hear me out.”

“Well you wouldn’t really care that you pissed me off, anyway,” she muttered.

“That too. Why are you opposed to gaining more power? What’s wrong with being able to teleport yourself and other objects. Instead of levitating stuff to you, make it just come straight to you? What’s so bad about that?”

She sighed again. “Nothing…. I just really don’t understand why you’re pushing this so much.”

“Why does it matter?”

“It doesn’t, I guess. I don’t understand why you care what becomes of my magic.”

“I don’t.” I care a shit-load, but I’d prefer you didn’t know that right now. “I just thought you would like to know that you’ll need to work hard to get the kind of power that you’re capable to achieving. I was being considerate and shit like that. Part of the “Make Blade into Functioning Member of Society’ plan, remember?”

“Don’t make fun of me, Blade. I’m trying to help you.”

“I know, I know!” he muttered. He didn’t really care about pleasing her for the sake of pleasing her, but, as he wanted her, he had to please her. “I’m being helpful. You should be proud of me.”

She sighed. For the third fucking time. “I’m very proud of you. But when you give people suggestions and advice, you generally don’t demand that they take it.”

“I know how suggestions and advice work. I just thought you wanted a little real power.”

“And my Soul Sight isn’t what you call ‘real’ power?”

“You can see if people are happy, sad, sick, evil, good…not exactly worth much unless you’re trying to pick out a murderer who feels guilt or trying to find out who’s going to heaven and who’s going to hell.”

Torri’s expression looked hurt. “Few people develop Soul Sight. It’s one of the reasons I’m friends with you, you know.”

He probably should be grateful for that. “You’d still be hanging out with that bitch Carly if it weren’t for me.”

She glared at him, “I would definitely not be, and you shouldn’t take me for granted. I’m the first friend you’ve had in years, I bet. Unlike you, I have feelings, and the way you go, they’re usually hurt.”

“If I had a soul, that would have made me feel guilty. That’s low. And don’t get pissed at me. It’s not my fault I don’t have a soul.” That was a lie.

She slowly breathed out, trying to calm herself—Blade was, indeed, pissing her off. “I have to get home. It’s getting late.” It was, in truth, only about four, and she didn’t need to get home. Torri would forgive Blade overnight and be friendly to him tomorrow.