Aberrant Magic: Durance (Patreon)

I think one of my problems with the new book is that it became all about what happened, and not how people felt about those events happening.  I've decided to focus more on moving the Kavon-Darren relationship, this time by developing Kavon.  So I'm redoing some parts in significant ways, and others in minor, but I'd love feedback on the new chapter one.  This gets into a little darker material in terms of racism.  Tell me if the n-word is too much.  And no, I won't repost the whole novel, but when I finish editing, I will put up a call for betas because this one is going to be significantly different.

Darren groaned as he walked through the apartment door. “Long, damn day.” He passed the kitchen island and collapsed onto the couch.

Behind him, Kavon closed the door. “All we did was paperwork.”

“Exactly, that's what made it such a long day. Why is it so much harder to file reports than it is to chase down criminals?” Bennu had taken off, so Darren hadn’t even been able to get a little shamanic energy boost. Most days Bennu was better than coffee, but not today.

“Because you like one more than the other?” Kavon followed Darren into the living room and dropped the mail on the coffee table before he doubled back to the refrigerator.

Darren flipped through the stack. “You might have me there. That and my supervising agent is a real bastard who just insists on having every T crossed and every I dotted.”

Kavon schooled his face into a stern expression. “Yes, he is.” The corner of his mouth twitched.

Darren laughed. Kavon held up two beers, but Darren shook his head. If he started drinking, he was going to turn into a couch potato for the night, and he had to get some laundry done. And apparently pay bills. Joy. He came to a classy cream envelope and tore it open. “Huh.”

“What?” Kavon settled on the couch with his beer.

“Art and Zach are getting married.” Darren held up the announcement. 

“The El Paso cops?” Kavon leaned closer to read the invite. “I guess they’re angling for a gift.”

Darren backhanded him. “I suspect Zach is trying to mend some fences between Bennu and Pochi. I get the feeling that they have a contentious history.” The longer Darren partnered with Bennu, the more he got flashes of emotion that suggested Bennu had been the bad-boy of the ifrit crowd, breaking rules at every turn. That explained why Bennu had never partnered with Kavon. 

Before they became lovers, Darren suspected Kavon had an intense and potentially sexual relationship with his FBI rulebook. If mystical guides chose partners with similar personality traits, Kavon and Bennu were a horrible match. Bennu, like Darren, was a little more flexible about working around rules. 

After a long silence, Kavon asked, “Do you want to go?” Confusion drifted across their bond.

Darren flashed Kavon a smile for even making the offer. “Nope, but we can buy them a nice card. I’m glad they’re finally tying the knot. They seem to really work as a couple, ya know?” Darren dropped the card on the table. “Did you ever think about getting married?”

Kavon put his beer down and his emotions grew sharper.

“Like when you were a kid,” Darren clarified. He wasn’t fishing for a proposal. Besides, the bond they shared with their guides would last this lifetime and the next. It didn’t get more permanent than a soul bond.

Kavon’s emotions settled. “I guess I assumed I would get married one day. Almost all the adults I knew were, so I’m not sure I considered any other options. But having Talent changed things.”

“Lots of people with Talent get married.” Hell the invitation from Zach and Art proved that. “Why did that change anything?”

Kavon rolled his beer bottle between his palms. “It wasn’t easy. Even before I chose to follow the shamanic path, my Talent put distance between me and other people.”

Darren toed off his shoes and tucked his feet under him. Kavon rarely shared stories from his childhood, and Darren tamped down his rabid curiosity out of fear that it would push Kavon into an emotional retreat. He asked quietly, “Why?”

Kavon huffed. “A lot of teens have shamanic markings when they first get their Talent, even if they haven’t chosen to be a shaman. The glow fades later if they choose to take the path of using dead magics.”

“Yeah, that’s how most of them find out they have magic,” Darren said. No matter shows and books for young adults suggested, Talent didn’t give kids unlimited cosmic powers. That took hard work and years of practice. 

Kavon grunted. “Those markings are particularly difficult for teenagers. A faint light that highlights every blemish plus adolescent acne...” He tipped his beer up, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed.

“That would have sucked.” Darren had been a popular athlete in high school and he still felt like he’d barely survived. He couldn’t imagine how much worse that would have been.

“Oh yeah.” Kavon untied his shoes and pulled them off before propping his socked feet up on his coffee table. “Being black made it worse. Kids were judgmental anyway, but when the Talent marks appeared, they were cruel.” Given Kavon’s habit of downplaying his own pain, the reality would have been much more sadistic than anything Kavon would admit. 

Darren asked, “Can we go to your class reunion so I can threaten some people?”

“I’d have to arrest you for intimidating idiots.”

“Oh, it would go beyond intimidation.”

Kavon finished his beer in one long swig. “I won’t go to my reunions. Do you know that makeup that shamans use to hide their marks?”

“Sure.” Les had a few tubes of the stuff in his desk to hide his adept marks on his hands. They were even more conspicuous than shamanic marks which only glowed when a shaman was using his power. 

Kavon’s voice grew distant. “They didn’t make that stuff dark enough for my skin, so my mom tried adding dark eye shadow to make it match. She told me it looked fine, but...” He took a deep breath and the bond was ominous devoid of any emotion.

“This isn’t going to be a happy story, is it?”

“Some kid called me nigger-rig, and that’s what my classmates called me the rest of senior year.” Kavon’s voice was utterly flat, and before Darren could come up with a response, he headed for the kitchen, empty beer bottle in hand.

His uncle Jack used that phrase for any rush job or half-assed patch that he didn’t expect to last. His mother used to scream at her brother every time he’d said it, but that didn’t stop him. But taking that incredibly offensive term and then applying it to a person—a kid who was struggling to begin with... Darren definitely needed to make these guys pay. Their newest agent was a weedy man who looked like he had endured his share of teasing. Maybe Darren could send Milton on a search and destroy mission through these assholes’ credit reports. However, if he showed any sympathy, Kavon was going to shut down tighter than a clam.

Darren blew out a breath and projected as much normalcy as possible. “My mom wasn’t thrilled when I started showing more interest in boys than girls around fifth or sixth grade, but even after I settled on the gay side of the street, I assumed I would get married, adopt, and shepherd a gaggle of children to church twice a year.”

Kavon came back with a second beer. “Do you want kids?”

“Now? Hell, no,” Darren said firmly. Even if they managed to reduce the number of hours they worked, there was still the impending threat of war. Other people could keep living their lives, but Darren and Zach and everyone partnered with one of the old ifrit guides had to focus on the coming battle. The evil ifrit could break through into Earth’s dimension at any time. “Besides, I gave up religion for Lent. I can’t exactly take kids to church when I can’t find one.”

“It’s not Lent,” Kavon said dryly.

Darren snorted. “Like you’d know.”

“Oh, I would. Your mother would be calling to make unsubtle hints about serving the church. Apparently she gives up manners for Lent.” Kavon turned on the local news station. His emotional lockdown on the bond started to ease, and the jagged edge of exhaustion and grief stained the air.

Darren cringed. His mother was obnoxious in her new-found Catholicism. But it wasn’t like Kavon to point that out. 

“If you want to go to the wedding, we have quite a bit of saved vacation time.”

Darren wondered about Kavon’s sudden willingness to take the time off. As much as Darren saw Kavon as Superman, apparently even the Man of Steel got worn down sometimes. “They should celebrate with their friends,” Darren said, “but we should spend that banked vacation time on us.” When Kavon gave him a confused look, Darren continued. “We could go to the beach, waste some money on fancy hotels or restaurants, you know, take a vacation.”

Kavon’s frown deepened. “We just had a vacation.”

“No, we had two days where we visited my mother after her heart attack. That's not a vacation.”

Kavon shrugged. “If you want to take time off, just file the paperwork.” Despite his calm tone, his emotions felt conflicted—almost hurt.

Darren rested a hand on Kavon’s knee. “I don't want to take time off by myself. I would like to be a normal human being who takes time off with his family.” Darren still got a little flutter in his stomach when he said that out loud. After years of unrequited love, he got to tell Kavon he loved him and publicly claim him. “Give me one reason why you can't take some time off right now.”

“Our unit is the only one handling Talent cases. Criminals don’t stop because we want time off.” Kavon turned the volume up on the television. The commentator was complaining about the city resources diverted to cleaning up magical spill areas.

“There are two supervisory agents,” Darren said over the television. “You might want to consider letting the other supervisor carry the weight for a while. Otherwise she might suspect you don’t trust her to do the job.” Darren doubted Coretta would ever reach that conclusion, but her sarcasm was starting to get a little sharp, at least when she wasn’t retreating into overly polite language. A polite Coretta was always dangerous.

“There's too much work for one team.” Kavon had a mulish expression.

In the past, Darren had allowed Kavon to get his way, but enough was enough. They both needed down time. “Six months ago one team handled everything. Coretta can handle it for a week or two weeks. Hell, she can borrow Milton and Anne, and she'll have more personnel than we ever had.” The two newest members of the team would probably appreciate a break from Kavon’s intensity. It took getting used to.

“Coretta is an able investigator, but she's a magic user. She needs someone who can handle the shamanic end of the Talent pool.”

“I thought that's why you two hired Joe,” Darren said. “He's a shaman. I even recall you saying that he felt like a strong shaman, so he can handle it.”

Kavon grimaced. “He has an octopus guide.”

“I'm starting to regret telling you that.” Darren only knew about Joe’s guide because Bennu delighted in meeting new guides. The small white cattle egret looked out of place perched on the giant orangey sea creature.

“Octopus guides are secretive and clever. You should be cautious around a shaman with an octopus guide.” Kavon sounded ready to launch into lecture mode.

“I imagine that's why he did so well working undercover when he was in the California office,” Darren said dryly.

The tone must have hit home because Kavon narrowed his eyes and, more significantly, quieted the bond. “Do you want to leave Rima with Milton and Anne? She’s going to shoot Milton if she spends too much time with him.”

Darren felt a twinge of pride at getting Kavon to use first names. A year ago, Kavon had even referred to Coretta by her last name. “She threatened to shoot Les more times that I can count. She never did it. I’m a good eighty percent sure she won’t shoot Milton.”

Kavon pressed his lips together, and every line of his body was tight with displeasure. “I have a responsibility to the Shamanic Council, and what about the ifrit war?”

Now Kavon was reaching. “You ignore the counsel so often that I’m not sure they’ll notice we’re gone. And the ifrit war could be thirty years away. Put on your supervisory hat. If you had an agent who refused to take time off and was in danger of burning out, what would you do?”

“If you're suggesting that I can’t handle the stress, we have a problem.”

Darren grabbed the remote and turned the volume down. He didn’t need to hear about the statistics on rising Talent-based crime and hate crimes against those with Talent. “If you plan on going years without a break because the war could start tomorrow… well, you can’t. It’s not healthy.”

“I know what I can handle.” Clearly expecting that gruff comment to end the debate, Kavon retreated to the kitchen.  However, he had underestimated Darren’s powers of annoyance.

“You are exactly like your guide, a big stubborn bull who won't back down even when you should.”

Kavon crossed his arms. “Do you think we have decades?”

Darren had to admit that Kavon had a point. Darren had seen the numbers. In the past, a few young people would end up with guides like Kavon’s bull—big, dangerous, and full of old magic. However, most new shamans partnered with small, innocuous guides: birds, fish, or squirrels. But in the last six months, the DC Council had registered several large land predators including a buffalo, two whales, a shark, and a Steller's sea cow. For a guide to prefer the form of an animal that had gone extinct hundreds of years ago, it had to be old. Something was shifting, and all the guides knew it. Unfortunately, the guides lacked the ability to explain what.

“That’s even more reason for us to get away while we can. We can't work ourselves to the bone, and then expect to be on the top of our game if something happens.”

Kavon slapped his hand against the counter. “And we can't afford to be off on vacation when it starts. You and I both know it’s coming.”

DC, Mexico City, West Texas, and the Vatican were all showing vast increases in the number of magical “hot spots,” so Kavon was probably right. Darren knew for a fact there were ancient ifrit in Washington DC and El Paso, so that suggested that ifrit guides might have also returned to Mexico and the Vatican. Considering that Mexico was aligned with the Catholic Church, it would be normal for them to hide information from the Egyptian authorities. Some days, Darren regretted that the Talent community was so stereotypically human with political divisions and prejudices.

“There are these wondrous devices called aeroplanes,” Darren said. Sarcasm was never the best approach with Kavon, but damn it, he was tired and cranky and he just wanted to win one God damn fight. “If something happens while we’re away, we can come back. In fact, Selma would happily authorize the use of the private jet.”

“Selma will approve anything you ask for.” Kavon’s tone made it clear he didn’t approve.

“We can go visit your family. You know you miss them.” This was Darren’s biggest carrot. While Kavon kept a distance between himself and his family, when he talked to them, he radiated a soul-deep joy and longing.

Kavon looked away. “I do,” he admitted in a much softer voice. “However, I don't want to be visiting my family when some evil ifrit decides to turn us into a smoking crater. Bennu might have astounding powers, but so will every other ifrit that comes back to this world.”

Kavon was annoyingly logical sometimes. “Okay, so we can visit someplace that you don't like. How about that town in Alabama where the local police captain called you the n-word? We can visit there and hope evil ifrit blow up the whole town. That would be a plus, yes?”

Kavon glared, but emotions leaked into the bond again, and amusement dominated the landscape.

“Look, I don't even care where we go. DC has beautiful resorts, so we can do a staycation. We can take a week to get away from the apartment and turn the phones off. And at the end of the week, we will be more prepared to handle any problems. As a bonus, Coretta will have time to gel with her new team without you glaring at them.” 

“Her team is untested. I don’t want them to leave her or Les or Ahtisham hanging if there’s an emergency.” That felt like a more honest answer, and Darren shared a tiny bit of his trepidation. After Traci Frane’s betrayal, Darren had struggled to trust anyone, and the lingering effects of that still made him search Milton’s nervous gestures for evidence he was faking or watch Anne type and wonder what she would say about the rest of them in her reports. But he tried to shut down that part of his brain. Joe had done extensive undercover work and Jen had top scores at Quantico. Anne was an experience field agent and Milton… well if anyone tried using him as a spy, they were idiots. All of the new people on Coretta’s team and theirs were ambitious agents looking for a fast track to promotions, and nothing in their behavior was objectively suspicious. 

“Not only are the number of Talent crimes increasing, but we have additional scrutiny on us as well.” Kavon’s bull showed up, a chunk of grass hanging from one side of his mouth as he looked for a threat. Darren braced himself for more of Kavon at his cantankerous best, but after a minute, he sagged against the kitchen island.

“We’re not leaving town,” Kavon said in a stubborn voice that someone else might have assumed meant he was digging in on his position, but Darren recognized a retreat when he saw it.

“Pick a resort.”

“My magical shields are strongest here.” Kavon crossed his arms over his chest, a touch of that stubbornness returning to his expression.

Darren sighed. Sometimes compromising with Kavon felt like putting his shoulder up to cape buffalo bull and pushing hard. But he’d take what he could get because Kavon needed the time off as badly as he did. “We turn all phones off, don’t check email and veg out on a week of bad movies.” Darren laid out his terms.

After a second, Kavon gave one jerky nod. “Deal. I’ll fill out the forms. But if the office blows up and Kaslov shoots Coretta in the back, I’m going to remind you of this.” Kavon abandoned his beer and headed for the spiral staircase that led up to the small office where Kavon liked to meditate.

Darren sighed. Apparently Kavon had demoted Joe to surname-references only. Baby steps. Darren glared and Kavon’s bull. “This is your fault. Your protective instincts are all turned on high and it’s sending him into overdrive.”

As usual, the guide ignored the complaint and kept chewing his imaginary grass. Guides. Darren frowned. When Kavon’s bull was around, Bennu usually rode along. Darren’s guide was conspicuously absent.  He shook his head. Kavon’s paranoia was contagious.