Who: Nate and Reagan When: Tuesday, October 17, morning Where: Reagan’s House Status: Complete
It had only been a few days, but Nate was beginning to worry that the bite he’d received on Friday was more than just a bite. He’d done all the normal stuff to try and help it heal-- he’d cleaned the wound, put antibiotic cream on it, and changed the bandage daily, but it looked worse now than it had three days ago. Magic hadn’t helped much either, which was even more concerning. Nate hadn’t had a non-magical injury that he couldn’t cure in years.
Which was why he was knocking on Reagan’s door on a Tuesday morning. It was rare that he went to her for magic. Most of what she specialized in, he didn’t have an interest in, and what he was good at, she typically didn’t need. Nate had always stayed away from the dark stuff, but considered himself an expert in charms and blessings, protections and things that made you feel good. Yes, he could suck all the air out of a person and leave them to suffocate, but it wasn’t his style and he didn’t want the blood on his hands. Just because he had the power to do something, didn’t mean he wanted to try. But in this instance, he thought he might be dealing with something darker than he was used to. The wound should’ve healed. He knocked on Reagan’s door, hoping she was home.
Reagan had the day off, so she was working on cleaning up one of the spare rooms for Caius to make into his home office. She was separating what to keep in her own home office, and what to box up, not that there was a lot to go through. But it gave Reagan something to do, and it was important for Caius to make this his home as much as it was hers. She was willing to part with most of her decorative choices if he had any different preferences, but it was a process. And step one was cleaning out unnecessary things. She was dressed in jeans and a button down she didn't mind getting dirty, her hair tied up out of her face. The windows were open to get rid of the chemical smell of some of the harsher cleaners, so Reagan had heard the car come up her driveway below.
She was already on her feet when the knock came at the front door, and Reagan headed downstairs to see who had come by to visit. She was mildly surprised to find her brother on her doorstep, and Reagan's face probably expressed as much as she stepped back to let him inside. "Hey... is everything okay?" Of course her first worry was that maybe something happened to their mom or dad, so it was best to get those concerns out of the way.
Nate realized from the expression on her face that he’d probably only shown up at her house un-announced a handful of times, maybe never, and that it was probably natural for her to jump to the conclusion that something was wrong. Something was wrong, but it wasn’t a crisis, he didn’t think. If it had been, he would’ve called on his way over. “Things are okay. But something weird happened to me the other night and I wanted to run it by you. Do you have a few minutes?” He didn’t know what he might be interrupting, but at least she didn’t look like she was going out or anything. She usually dressed up more for that.
"Yeah, sure. I'm off today, so I've got plenty of time. I'm just cleaning out one of my spare rooms for Caius," Reagan said, closing the door behind him before she motioned for him to follow her toward the kitchen. She had relaxed significantly now that she knew no one had died or been hurt, though she knew whatever Nate wanted to talk to her about was probably important, otherwise he would have just called or texted her. "Do you want some coffee?" she asked, walking over to the cabinet to take down two coffee cups, not waiting for his answer.
“Yeah, that’d be great,” Nate said, following Reagan back into the house. He started to run his hands through his hair, then stopped, rubbing the injured one. “He’s moving in with you? You don’t want to move into his big Overlook house?” he asked, a touch surprised. Then again, that was super close to both their parents and he knew, if it was him, he’d want some space. He’d never been in Caius’ house, but Reagan kept a clean home, so maybe she wasn’t eager to leave her space either. He hadn’t thought much of it before then.
Reagan flipped open the top of her Keurig and placed a new coffee pod inside to brew a cup for Nate. She looked at him once it started, smiling a touch. "Yes, he's moving in. We both agreed this is the best place for us. I do love Overlook, but this is home and he was willing to leave his house for me. Besides, I feel a bit more free, living more than a couple blocks away from mom and dad." She didn't want to mention that the second spare room might be a nursery in the future. Reagan still had no idea what was going to happen when they broke the curse, but she wasn't going to fill that room with random things. She wanted to plan her future and stick with it. "So what's going on, Nate?"
Sometimes it was the little differences between them that amused him. Nate was an old fashioned coffee pot kind of person. He liked to grind the beans himself. He knew how fast and easy and convenient a Keurig was, but there was just no soul in a coffee pod. He didn’t complain about coffee though. “Totally get that,” he smiled. “That’s why I am where I am.” Not in Overlook, not in any place specific, other than old town Point Pleasant. He liked his house. It had character. “So, me and this guy, Jack, we got attacked by black cats Friday night. One of ‘em bit me,” he said, beginning to unwrap his hand. “I have done almost every healing spell I know, plus holistic and everyday medicine, and the thing won’t heal. In fact, it’s getting worse.”
While the two of them had quite a few things in common, there was an abundance of differences. From the small things, like how they liked their coffee, to the bigger things, like how they used their magic. They weren't as close as some siblings were, but their relationship seemed to work. Reagan would still try to help him where she could. The coffee continued to pour into the coffee cup as Nate explained his problem and Reagan lifted both brows as he began to unwrap his hand. She hadn't even noticed it was bandaged. "Hold on," Reagan began, shaking her head, "back up. You were attacked by cats? How the hell did that happen? Were they wild? How many were there?" She stepped forward to take his hand in hers so she could get a look at the bite. "I've heard of dogs attacking people, but cats?"
“Yeah, I know how crazy that sounds,” Nate said with a little laugh as he finished unwrapping his hand. The bite between his thumb and first finger was now puffy and swollen, still open and angry. He hesitated to touch it, certain that pus would leak out, and Reagan didn’t need that on her sparkling clean countertops. “They looked like house cats, but they were all black. And there were, like, twenty of them. They came at us like… I dunno, Rae, there was nothing normal about it. And I couldn’t do anything because Jack was there with me and we were out on the street.” Not that anyone else had been around, but he knew better than to use magic out in the open.
It was both concerning and amusing and Reagan turned back to the coffee machine to get Nate's coffee. "My brother, attacked by twenty black cats. Had we lived anywhere else, I would have probably laughed and suggested you pay a visit to a shrink." But this was Point Pleasant, and Nate explaining how he'd been attacked by cats was just as crazy as Reagan blaming murderous intent on fog. Reagan placed Nate's coffee on the counter and switched out the pod with a new one as she began to brew her own. Then she went back to Nate's hand and took it in hers so she could examine it more closely. It looked terrible, like it had become infected. "Have you seen a doctor, or have you been trying to heal it on your own?"
“And you probably would’ve been right to,” Nate agreed. “It feels more like a bad trip than a memory.” But Nate had been sober and with someone else who could verify the story, even if Jack’s version was a little inflated. Twenty might not be exact, but he knew there hadn’t been a hundred. “I haven’t yet, that’s my next stop, but I haven’t been able to heal it on my own. I’m not anti-modern medicine, but if I can’t heal a cat bite, I should probably have my witch card revoked.” He was joking, but it bothered him more than he let on. This was the kind of thing he was good at. It should be looking better, not worse.
Reagan said nothing for a bit as she studied the bite and carefully felt around the swollen area. She was careful not to touch the bite itself, just in case. "If you haven't been able to heal it, then it's probably something dark," she said finally, looking up at Nate. "I'll give you some of my salve for it, see if that brings the swelling down. But... honestly, a swarm of black cats, a simple animal bite that should have healed right up... it's sticking around for a reason. I know you're not going to want to hear this, but I would go to mom and ask her. She's more knowledgeable about the weird stuff in this town than I am." Reagan chewed on her lip for a moment before continuing. "Black cats have always been thought of as omens of misfortune, Nate, so... something tells me you're not about to win the lottery."
“I was afraid you’d say that,” Nate muttered. Reagan was competent in the dark arts. He knew she was. And he’d really hoped this was something she could handle. It took a blow to his pride to go to their mother, acknowledgement that he needed her and the skills he had no interest in learning himself. He knew he’d hear about it, as well as a lecture about letting himself get attacked in the first place. As if he could’ve avoided it. “It was Friday the thirteenth. I couldn’t stop them from crossing my path if I wanted to. There were too many,” he said, starting to wrap his hand back up. “The guy that was with me got bitten too. I should check on him.”
"You should," Reagan agreed. "Although the bite of a black cat may affect you differently than it would a normal person. I just don't know. If they weren't normal cats, it's possible its teeth had some kind of, oh, I don't know... venom or something similar. A black cat attacking a witch on Friday the thirteenth though...how perfect is that?" She grinned and picked up her coffee from the Keurig to pour some cream and sugar into the cup. "I mean, obviously it's bad for you, but that's a story I wouldn't have believed anyone else telling me. Does it hurt? Do you feel strange anywhere else in your body?"
“It’s insane. I totally expected you to laugh at me because the circumstances are just a little too spot on,” Nate said, smiling despite himself. He really didn’t like the idea that the cat had venom in it’s fangs, or that he was a special case as a witch, but he supposed anything was possible. Checking in with Jack might help narrow it down though. “It aches a little, but nothing too bad. It hurts to touch though, and if I don’t get it healed soon, it’s going to start bothering me at work. Otherwise, I’m fine. No fevers, chills, anything like that.”
Reagan sipped her coffee, contemplating his hand for several moments before she set her cup down. "Okay, well, come with me. We'll put some salve on it and see what happens." She motioned for Nate to follow her out of the kitchen and across the living room to her work room. "It's probably not poisonous if you're feeling okay physically. And if it was just a bad reaction to an animal bite, you would have been able to heal it yourself. So there's definitely something weird going on. If what I have doesn't work, you definitely need to go see mom. Better that than to risk losing your hand, right?" She gave him a look at that and unlocked her work room to push the door open. She had cleaned it pretty well since those teenagers had brought a demon inside of it, but it still smelled faintly like sulfur. Reagan had been lighting incense to get rid of the smell, but it was lingering.
Nate nodded, willing to accept that he would have to go to his mother if Reagan couldn’t help him. He didn’t want to risk the alternative, and definitely didn’t want to risk his hand. “I know,” he sighed, abandoning his coffee to follow Reagan into her work room. As soon as he stepped inside, his footsteps slowed as a chill ran through him. He couldn’t see any evidence of whatever was last performed in the room, but he could feel it in the air. Smell it, sense it, taste it with each breath. It was a downside to being so in tune with his element and Nate swallowed back the taste of sulfur. “What happened in here?” He asked, looking towards Reagan, then realized he needed to clarify. “Recently.”
Reagan walked across the room to open one of her cabinets to find the salve she kept inside one of the jars. She had used some on Caius's injuries the morning of the fog, so she knew if this didn't help Nate, nothing else she currently had in her cabinets would either. Reagan arched a dark brow at his question and found what she was looking for before turning to carry it over to the work table, where she motioned for Nate to join her. "Unwrap your hand," she instructed as she began to open the glass lid. "Some kids fucked with a Ouija board and some entity decided to take up shop inside one of them. They brought him here. Caius had to banish it. I've been cleaning my ass off trying to get rid of the smell, but it's a stubborn son of a bitch."
While he unwrapped his hand again, Nate’s eyes scanned the contents of her work space. It was so unlike from his own, with a completely different set of ingredients on hand. He couldn’t imagine what he would do if someone showed up at his house with a demon possession. Probably call a priest. Or his mother. “Try burning fumitory resin, if you haven’t already. It can banish evil and purify a space without inhibiting your magic. Or black tourmaline in all four corners,” he suggested. Because while he couldn't do shit about a demon possession, he knew exactly what he’d do once it was gone. Sage wasn’t going to cut it in this instance. “Is Caius okay?”
"Fumitory resin," Reagan repeated. "I'll give it a try." She had cleansed the space as much as she could, but she knew the negative energy was lingering, and it drove her crazy. This was her sanctuary, and she didn't need it defiled by the remnants of some evil entity. Nate's suggestions might help though, and she wouldn't be quick to dismiss them, since his suggestion about the bones might actually be the jumping point she and Caius need to get rid of their family curse. "Caius is all right," she explained, dipping her fingers into the salve to scoop out a generous amount. It didn't smell great, but it was effective and that was what was important. "He's still healing, though. The demon got pretty nasty and left him with a few wounds. The backlash was rough. I try to remind myself that I did some pretty stupid things when I was seventeen, but... I mean, I was never that reckless. They're lucky Caius got through it relatively unharmed."
“That’s because you’ve always known that demons exist,” Nate said, offering to take the salve from her so she didn’t have to touch the wound herself. If it was dark magic, he didn’t want it leeching onto her as well. “They sell Ouija boards at toy stores. Hasbro even makes one, for fuck’s sake. The same company that makes Candy Land and Hungry Hungry Hippos. They have no reason to believe. I’m sure it was like, hey, let’s get drunk and talk to a ghost. Could be entertaining if you didn’t know better.” The thing was, they had always known better. Ouija boards were pretty standard doors into dark realms, but most of the ones sold in stores were fake. Cardboard junk. “Any idea where they got the board?”
"This was definitely a real board that they didn't buy at the department store," Reagan said, allowing Nate to take the salve for himself. She didn't want to risk any kind of infection herself. "They didn't tell me where it came from. But it's gone now. I destroyed it. Regardless of why they decided to use it, they know better now and maybe they'll make better choices in the future." It wasn't her responsibility to monitor other people's kids. But if they showed up on her doorstep again, they were going to have to have some cash on them. Her health, and Caius's health, was never risked for free. "Use a generous amount," she instructed, gesturing to Nate's hand. "Let me get you a clean bandage too."
“I’m sure it was an enlightening experience,” Nate said, his lips twitching up. He wouldn’t wish it on anyone, but for kids living in Point Pleasant it was probably a good thing. Hopefully they’d keep themselves out of trouble from now on. “How’d they even know to come to you?” How did anyone ever know to come to Reagan? It was something he was always curious about, as tight lipped as he was about his own powers. Nate cringed a little as he began to apply the salve, the bite tingling almost immediately. And then it began to bubble and smoke. “Is it supposed to do that?” he asked, apprehension quickly rising.
Reagan was drawn to Nate's hand before she could answer his question, and she arched a brow at his skin's reaction. "I've never seen it do that before, but I've never used it on a bite like yours before, so I can't tell you whether or not it's supposed to do that. Does it hurt?" she asked, looking up at Nate. "Because if it does you should probably wash it off before it does any damage. If it doesn't hurt, it could be healing the bite. You know how peroxide bubbles when you pour it over a cut or scrape?" She certainly didn't want the salve to make the bite worse, but sometimes there was a little bit of pain before the healing process began.
“Kinda stings like peroxide might,” Nate said, but the worry didn’t drop from his expression. He’d never seen anything smoke on skin. It felt unnatural and on his next breath he knew it was. It made him dizzy and immediately queasy, and he reached for Reagan with his free hand to steady himself. “Fuck. Somethin’s wrong,” he said, holding his hand away from himself so he didn’t have to breathe in the smoke. “Let’s get it off. I don’t think we should be breathing this stuff.” It didn’t hurt his hand, but he was worried about what the fumes might do to them if it kept on smoking.
Reagan was just fascinated enough by what was happening that she almost protested wiping it off. But, she didn't know what was in those fumes, and she didn't want to permanently injure her brother, and not knowing what this could lead to had her taking him by the wrist gently to lead him over to her sink. She turned on the taps and stepped back so he could wash the salve off. "Well, at least you have some more information to give mom when you go see her," Reagan said, aware now that Veronica would have to be the one to help out Nate. "I really hope this isn't some kind of amateur werewolf thing. Black cat bites you, so now you're going to turn into a black cat yourself every Friday the thirteenth. I'll have to leave a bowl of milk out for you on my back porch."
Nate felt immediately better the second the water touched his skin, though he knew the way the bite sizzled was by no means a good thing. It was like he’d put out a fire on his hand, which did make him wonder if Reagan had been thinking in the right direction. The salve might be eating through the infection, or something like that, but he didn’t want to risk it eating through his hand in the process. “Joy. Just what I wanted,” he said, shaking his head. He had no idea how his mother would take this kind of thing. At least he knew she really did want the best for him and that he wouldn’t become an experiment. He hoped. “Because that’s what this town really needs, a witch turned werecat,” he snorted, and began to dry his hand, feeling better now that the wound was clean again. It still looked bad, maybe a little fried at the edges now, but not much worse. “At least Friday the thirteenth comes around less often than the full moon.”
Having hurt herself more times than she would care to admit, Reagan had plenty of bandages stocked in her work room, and she pulled open a drawer to pull out some new gauze for him to wrap around his hand. "This town needs a lot of things, but not that," she agreed, offering him the roll of gauze. "Don't put off talking to mom about that. You don't know what it is, or how quickly it'll spread if it's some kind of infection. God forbid if it's a curse, because that's something else this family doesn't need. Oh, and speaking of which, I was able to track down Abigail Baron's bones," Reagan added, almost as an afterthought. "She's buried in the older section of the cemetery, and her headstone is cracked in two, but the caretaker helped me find it. Caius seemed to take to your suggestion about using the bones as a tracker."
“I won’t,” Nate sighed, still not pleased with having to go to his mother, but willing to accept there was no way out of it at this point. The bite didn’t seem to be improving and it wasn’t reacting well to anything he or Reagan had tried. He was pretty much out of options unless he went outside the family, which he was even more reluctant to do. Turning towards Reagan, he accepted the fresh gauze and began to wrap his hand up again. “Seriously?” He wasn’t sure what surprised him more, that they’d been able to track down the grave or the fact that Caius was on board with one of his ideas. “So what’s the next step? Dig her up?”
"That's it," Reagan said with a nod. She leaned against the work table to watch Nate as he rewrapped his hand. She wasn't sure Caius would be thrilled with her talking to Nate about all this now, but it was what it was. "We're going to try and get there this week. I've already told Rost, the caretaker. He won't stop us. But... we may need your help digging. Caius is still healing a bit from what happened and I'm not sure physically he'd be able to do it on his own. Do not tell him I said that." Her lips quirked into a small smile. "I'll make sure to give you a head's up if we do need your help, and I hope you'll be willing if and when we do." This curse affected Nate too, in a roundabout way. What would happen if Caius and Reagan died? Would the curse shift to Nate's children? Sera's? Who knew? It was best to work together to try and stop this now before they had to find out.
Nate had never been overly fond of Caius. He was a snob with a chip on his shoulder a mile wide, but Reagan loved him and he was family now. And even if he wasn’t, he’d be there if Reagan needed him. This could have easily been his curse to deal with, and still could be someday if they didn’t deal with it now. “I won’t,” Nate said with a hint of amusement. “If I’m going to spend hours shovelling with him, I don’t want him all pissy with me. Or you.” He had the feeling he would be anyways, due to the fact that they were digging up a grave. “But yeah, of course, just let me know when so I can get someone to cover for me if I need to.” He knew it would likely be after midnight, but if they waited till the weekend, then he’d need things setup.
"That's a good plan," Reagan said, amused, "because he's already going to be unhappy about getting his hands dirty." She wasn't going to tease Caius, or make fun, because Reagan was the one who refused to help dig. Yes, the bones were necessary, but she did not like to get her hands dirty - at least not in a graveyard. "We're working on a few protection spells, for both before and after we get the bones. We can't be sure there's not some kind of curse on the grave itself, to deter anyone from doing what we're going to do, so we need to be safe. I promised Rost I wouldn't unleash a vengeful spirit on his cemetery, so we need to be cautious. I'll let you know as soon as Caius and I come to a decision on when we're going. And you need to let me know if mom figures out what's wrong with your hand. If it still looks like that, I don't know that I want you handling a shovel and making it worse."
“I’ll let you know on my hand,” Nate said. “I’m sure mom’ll know what to do about it, or at least have an idea how to stop it from getting worse until she can fix it completely. It’s just a cat bite. It’s not going to stop me from helping you, even if I have to wear gloves.” He’d push through the pain if he had to. It was more troublesome than painful so far, and it worried him because it wasn’t behaving like he thought it should. But it shouldn’t stop him from helping. “And if you need any help in the way of protection spells, let me know. I’ve got a few I’ve been really happy with as far as keeping things out and trapping things in.” He doubted Reagan would need anything from him, she was generally a more accomplished witch than he was, but cleansing and protecting were more his gig. It never hurt to offer.
Reagan smiled softly. "Thanks, Nate." She didn't think she would need that kind of help, between she and Caius, but it was nice that he was offering and willing. She pushed away from the counter and touched his arm briefly. "Why don't we go heat up our coffee and finish it before you go. Unless you have somewhere else you need to be." She had a feeling he would be calling their mother sooner than later, and Reagan had to finish cleaning up Caius's soon-to-be office, but it never hurt to spend a bit more time with her brother. They didn't exactly hang out, and these kind of visits were rare.
“Not for hours,” Nate smiled, glad to spend a little longer with Reagan, maybe catch up on things that weren’t curses and cat bites. They’d never been super close, but had definitely warmed up to each other as they got older. It no longer felt like they were in some weird competition that Nate had never wanted to be in in the first place. It was better that way, especially when it felt like the rest of the world was out to get them, curses, cats, and everything else.