Seth stood from his bed. He entirely expected his legs to grind in protest from the workout last night, but the protest was more of a quiet squeak. He could tell he’d done work, but no soreness ran throughout his body. Seth picked up his phone. Five in the morning. Too early risen from another restless night. Seth crossed over to his desk and opened his laptop, rubbing his eyes to try and clear the cobwebs of nightmares he couldn’t remember.

He opened Firefox and pulled up his bookmarks, clicking on the folder labeled ‘Research’. A long list of blogs, a few vlogs, and a couple of articles published in actually reputable places stared at him. Seth sighed and navigated to Google, staring at the search box for a moment before typing.

No soreness after working out

He paused, stared at his query for a moment, and then modified it.

Paranomal, no soreness, no scars

Seth ran his fingers over the almost-gone scar on his stomach as he pressed Enter. The usual list of bullshit articles, stories from the nosleep subreddit, and blogs written by crazy people showed up. Seth immediately clicked to the tenth page of search results and began scanning from there. After a few more pages, the only thing he could find was a travel blog about Shaolin monks using chi to resist injury. Seth bookmarked it, but doubted it contained anything pertaining to his condition.

Seth searched the Internet for a few more minutes, trying variances on his query, all to the same aggravating result. Seth sighed and opened his phone, scrolling down the contacts until he reached ‘O’

Olivia.

No last name, only a heart next to it. Andrew was right. Seth tapped the message icon.

We need to talk. I need help.

His phone buzzed back at him before he sat it down.

Thank god, this plane ride is fucking boring and Ben is snoring.

A picture appeared of Ben passed out with his face smashed against the window. Seth didn’t question how she had service.

What am I?

The phone did not immediately buzz this time. Seth held it in his hands, staring and waiting.

I’m afraid I don’t know, Seth.

But you’re a wizard, right? Isn’t there some way to figure out? Nicole could see my aura was different.

Long explanation incoming.

Seth sat his phone down and tried a few more half-hearted Google searches. His phone buzzed again.

Your aura is human, but what Nicole referred to is a unique ability of powerful diviners and some species to see through what we like to call surface auras. If someone has a magical taint in their blood, it won’t be visible on the surface, which unfortunately current technology is limited to viewing. The most I could do would be to diagnose you through symptoms. So, do you have any new ones since we last spoke? I’m tracking high-tier durability and low-tier regeneration.

Seth thought a moment before typing.

I don’t get sore, and I’m suddenly a lot stronger.

How much stronger? Are we talking suprahuman or high-human?

My squat jumped by over a hundred pounds and I did three hundred pushups without stopping.

High-human, then. Well, that eliminates any entities from the green plane. Scratch that, most entities. Does your family have an esoteric history?

What?

Did anyone in your family fuck with magic?

I have an aunt who’s Wiccan.

Well, that would be more of an argument for the green plane.

Seth was typing his response when a second text came through.

Seth, you need to be careful with this search. You’re still living at your parents’ home, and can’t be taken by an Order to be trained. You’re basically sharkbait. Talking to the wrong people about this could put another person like Nicole in your life. When you’re done with school, you can come to me and we will run a full gamut of tests until we know what you are. But until then, I can’t encourage this. Goodbye. XO.

Seth set his phone down on the table, angry, and sat back in his chair. The questions burned in his head as he thought of talking to Nicole on Ben’s mountainside, of the inhuman core to his aura. He wished he could see for himself what it looked like.

Seth leaned forward to the computer again and typed another search in.

How to see auras

Seth scanned the first page briefly. This one had some decent stuff, the most notable an article from the Monroe Institute, a site he had encountered in previous searches. They were an organization that hosted multi-day retreats where they claimed they taught people how to astrally project. The other was a paper from Project Stargate, the now-mostly-declassified CIA program from the eighties that the movie The Men Who Stare at Goats had been based on. Seth opened both in new tabs and read the Monroe article first.

A lot of fluff and self-advertisement. The whole thing seemed to be a teaser for one of their retreats. On a whim, Seth checked out the price.

$4,000.

Seth pressed his lips into a fine line, thinking just for a moment he could easily afford that if he withdrew from the account his MRI check resided in. To top it off, the retreat was two weeks after he graduated. Two weeks in the countryside of Virginia didn’t sound too bad. Seth bookmarked the page, then clicked over to the one in the CIA archive page. Seth had read a few from this project before in his searches, and it came as no surprise to him that there were references to the Monroe Institute in the paper.

The article was redacted like a lot of the others, but it did mention the ability to see auras. Seth crossed his arms on his desk. No, wasting four grand on possibly a dead end wasn’t a good idea when Olivia was offering services he already knew to work for free. And even if they didn’t, he’d lose nothing in the process. Seth closed his laptop and started getting dressed. He would text Olivia later.

***

Seth’s phone buzzed just as he pulled to a stop into the school parking lot. Claire.

Hey.

Seth stared at it for a moment.

BANG!

Seth nearly jumped out of his skin as someone’s beater car behind him misfired. Seth twisted in his seat, staring with wide eyes, his pulse pounding in his ears, the demon awake in his chest. He let out a long breath and turned back to the front. The image of him blowing a hole in Nicole’s skull swam to the forefront of his mind and stayed there. Seth tried to respond to Samantha, but his hands were shaking too much for him to type anything out. Seth dropped his phone. He leaned his head on the wheel and gripped it hard, just staying there for a moment.

His phone buzzed again, laying on the floor mat below him. Sam again. Seth reached down and opened it with facial recognition.

I’m going to be at CFA again tonight. You?

Seth hit the voice-to-text button. “Yeah. I’ll be there.” Send.

Seth let the phone lay on the ground while his thoughts roiled like a storm cloud under the roof of the car.

See you then, future black tab.

Seth snatched the phone up and left the car in a flash, barely remembering to lock it behind him as he shoved his hands in his pockets, pulled his black CFA hoodie over his head and walked into Northwest High. He lost himself in the anonymous crowd, making his way to first period and trying to ignore everyone around him. He heard his name a few times, but not in connection with Madeline like the first day. Today everyone was talking about the quarterback’s trip to the hospital. Good. Maybe they wouldn’t talk about Seth like they had been before, then.

Seth mentally kicked himself for the thought. He didn’t want people to be afraid of him. People knew he wasn’t anyone to mess with, but he had no desire to become someone everyone avoided out of fright. Seth came to his locker to see Jessica leaned against it, hands behind her back and her playful smile on her face. “You survive the psychiatrist?”

Seth jerked his head for her to move and she did as he opened his locker. “Yeah. Wasn’t fun.”

“What do you want me to bring to your bonfire?”

“I don’t know. Andrew is handling all that.”

“Yeah, but you know how Andrew is with responding to texts.”

Seth shrugged as he pulled his notebook and history textbook out. “Andrew likes vodka. A friend already gave me something to drink.”

She leaned against the locker next to Seth’s. “I can bring something not to drink, then.”

Seth raised an eyebrow. “No idea what you’re talking about.”

“Course not.”

He looked over at her to see mischief scrawled across her face like some kind of socialite trickster goddess. “Don’t get us in trouble.”

“I would never.”

Seth closed and his locker and spun the lock to zero. “Never seen you in trouble, so I trust you.”

“And I never will be. I have my ways.”

“Gross.” Seth made an exaggerated grimace.

“Shut up.” She pushed Seth’s shoulder. “See you later, Seth.” She walked off to her class, drawing eyes the whole way in her usual style. Seth shook his head and headed to history. He only overheard one conversation about his absence on the way, and none about him and Madeline. That lifted his spirits just a little as he slid into a seat in the back of the class a few minutes before everyone else got there.

Mr. Bergeron, a studious-looking African-American man in his late forties, reviewed papers at his desk. Without looking up he spoke. “Early to make up for absence?”

Seth shrugged. “Something like that.”

“Very well. I hold no issue with you being gone, I understand you went through some difficult things. Your grading starts now, I’m not going to be the teacher that makes you do all the things you missed, and besides, we just ended a unit. You’ll need to read back up on the Industrial Revolution before finals, but you’re good in my book otherwise.”

“Thank you.”

Mr. Bergerron nodded and continued grading papers. Maybe, just maybe, today would be a good one.