Nascent Shadow (Temporal Armistice Book 1) Page 6

  Mom’s in the first group, but she’s pretty strong in divination. Once she got the hang of it, she started doing the fortuneteller bit, but before long, she wrote a book on mysticism and self-published it. The thing sold enough to become addictive, so she kept going.

  She mostly writes mystical things like interpretations of visions or candle magic, but she’s also putting out a fiction series. No one will accuse her of being rich, but she lives okay off it, and she doesn’t get bitched at by people for undercooked meals anymore.

  After wandering away from the guy, I put my sharps away and roam the dance floor until bumping into Natalie. She’s had her fill of it too, so we head over to the restaurant section.

  On the way across the space with the tall tables, an odd feeling pulls my attention to the bar at my right. The bartender’s over six feet tall with broad shoulders. His tight, pale grey t-shirt doesn’t do much to conceal the shape of his prominent musculature. Mind you, he doesn’t look like an overinflated pool float, so I doubt he’s using steroids. The boy’s not too big, but he’s impressive. Straight blond hair frames a handsome, chiseled face that makes me think of an elf from a fantasy movie, but he’s far too buff for that, and his ears have no points. Oddest of all, when I stare at him, I get nothing. No sense of intention whatsoever. That’s never happened before, and I don’t like it.

  The man gives me a little nod as if to say, ‘hey, what’s up?’ Like he recognizes me or something.

  I return the gesture and hurry after Nat to a table. For the first time in my life, I suppress one of my sudden urges―to tell her about what’s happening with me. Maybe she’d know what I am or if I’ve been cursed. But this goes beyond the ‘oh, by the way, I like girls’ kind of conversation. You think you know someone and… they’re gay. From her, I’d expect a ‘oh, hey that’s cool’ and we’d go right back into whatever other topic we’d been discussing. Somehow, I think ‘oh, by the way, I’m a demon’ would get a different response.

  Maybe.

  I’ve known her for five years. Second to Mom, she’s the person I trust the most.

  She’s also an enchanter, and a decently skilled one at that. Magic works different ways for different people. Lifemages, for example, can channel magic until they pass out from the effort, and they’ll never create fire. Likewise, elementalists can strain until they crap their pants and they’ll never heal even a paper cut. Hydromancers have command over water and ice-based spells, but no matter how much they study, they’ll never make lightning or fire.

  I have to tell her… but I can put it off until after I get a chance to talk to my mother.

  “The bartender’s all about you, girl,” says Natalie. “I bet the guy’s had some cosmetic enchants. No one is that perfect without help.”

  A girl our age in dark tights and a purple t-shirt with the word ‘Niflheim’ over a battleax walks up to our table. Her shirt matches the colored streaks in her otherwise-black hair. “Hey. I’m Jen. I’ll be taking care of you tonight. Can I start you off with something to drink?”

  “Uhh, Cherry Shift for me,” says Natalie.

  “I’ll go for a Steve Adams. Whatever’s on tap.”

  “Gotcha.” Jen grins at us and zips off.

  Natalie notices my smirk and leans close. “What?”

  “Why do you waste money on that stuff? What’s the point of drinking soda if it disappears?”

  “Brook!” She giggles. “Were you drunk or stoned last time?”

  I shrug. “Flip a coin.”

  We both laugh. In truth, I can’t recall ever being so far gone I lost track of myself. I’ve been drunk, and I’ve been high on various things, but I got bored with it before eighteen. For one thing, it takes a shitload of alcohol (or weed) to get me stumbling, and it got expensive. For another, if I want to stay with the fire department, I can’t test positive for drugs. I figure the amount of experimentation that went on from sixteen to eighteen got it out of my system.

  And by the way, peyote is some wild shit.

  “I explained it already.” She swats her hand at me.

  “So you did. I forgot, or I wasn’t paying attention. Don’t worry about it.” I glance at the bar. The Viking warrior god is―“He’s still looking at me.”

  “It doesn’t disappear. It’s called ‘shift’ because it turns into water after you drink it. No calories, no chemicals. The bubbles and flavor are illusions.” Natalie grins. “I love magic. Wait, he what?” She spins in her seat to peer at the bar. As if he expected her to, the man turns to a guy ordering a drink a second before her gaze finds him. “He turned away, didn’t he?”

  “Yeah.”

  Jen comes back and sets our drinks down. I got a bog-standard beer, but Natalie’s fizzy red concoction is glowing. The cherry flavor is so damn strong I can taste it in the air. “Do you guys need a minute?”

  “Nah, I’m good.” I grab one of the menus from a cubby on the left side of our booth, and order the first thing my gaze falls on. “Can I get the rib tips, please?”

  “You get two sides with that,” says Jen.

  “Right… garlic mash and the house salad.”

  Natalie studies the menu until Jen’s about to offer us more time to think, but she goes for boneless hot wings plus fries and a Caesar.

  I tell her about the fire Wednesday, which grabs her undivided attention for most of the time we spend waiting for our meal. I leave out my change―for now―replacing the story with the ceiling falling in and ‘nearly missing’ us before we scrambled down a stairwell. The whole time, that bartender is giving me the eye. I hate not being able to tell what he’s planning. I pretty much suck at reading body language since I’ve spent my whole life simply knowing people at a look.

  The reads don’t lift secrets. I can’t like dive into someone’s head and dig out their email password, but if a guy really loves cats, or if a big scary biker’s a softie at heart, yeah, can’t hide that. Also, if the harmless looking guy who seems friendly to everyone is really on the hunt for a little girl to grab, I read that shit like a damn book. Maybe that experience did traumatize me. I keep wanting to kill that guy over again.

  My secret admirer behind the bar’s got a raised eyebrow the next time I look at him. Did someone nearby say something he didn’t expect? My sense of unease worsens.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to do something safer? Good grief, Brooklyn, you could’ve died!” Natalie reaches across the table and grabs my hand.

  I give her my best reassuring smile. “I’m fine. It’s my calling. You know, the trailer. Feels like the universe let me slide away from death, and working this job is how I pay it back, helping others.”

  “That’s like really deep.” She sighs, smiling. “Oh, hey, I make baubles.”

  “You make expensive baubles.” I wink. “How’s the shop doing?”

  “Oh, a little slow. Only had three enchants last month.” She rests her elbows on the table and leans her chin on both hands, making a face like a little girl who’d been denied a pony for her birthday.

  “Didn’t you tell me once that if you made ten enchants in a year, you could pay rent and not worry about food?”

  “Yeah,” she whines. “It’s not the money. It’s fun. The ideas my customers come up with to request are never the same. It’s a challenge to figure out how to make magic do what they like. I hate sitting around watching dust build up on my shelves.”

  You could make me a shirt that lets my wings out without shredding off me. I purse my lips in thought. I’d ask, but I can’t afford her. Something like that would probably be a couple grand. Of course, the shirt would become indestructible and never need to be washed. Maybe if I get rich, and stop being a coward. I’d kinda have to tell her about my having extra body parts.

  The bartender’s stare drills into my skull like an annoyingly bright sun that keeps getting in my eyes, and this table has no shade to offer. At least when our food comes out, I have an excuse to focus my attention on something specific. While we
eat, Natalie describes her most recent enchant, basically a flying Roomba that wields a featherduster. Exciting.

  We decline dessert, but get coffee. Mr. Perfect continues watching me. He’s either an ex-cop who thinks I’m still a terror, or he’s sizing me up for a chloroform-soaked rag as soon as we leave. Maybe he hates Goths. I’m so pale, I ‘goth’ without even trying. Sometimes I get attitude for the way I look. Sometimes, idiots really need to mind their own damn business.

  “You about ready?” I ask.

  Natalie nods. “Wanna hit the floor again?”

  “I’m stuffed. I’d throw up all over everyone if I tried to dance.”

  She sticks her tongue out. “Yuck. I’m guessing you don’t feel like grabbing some shots at the bar?”

  “Nah. Creep alert. I’m feeling kinda introverty tonight. How about my sofa? Movie?”

  “Aww.” She holds my hand again. “Is it the fire? And sure. Whatever you want.”

  I shake my head. “No, it’s not the fire. This place is making me uncomfortable.”

  “It’s the way that guy’s staring at you, isn’t it?” She glances over her shoulder at him, but again, he’s already doing something else by the time she looks.

  “Yep.”

  She scoots out of her seat. “Okay. Your place.”

  “Wait. We haven’t paid.” I reach for my AATM crystal.

  “Put that thing away.” She winks. “I picked this place; it’s my turn. Wheel of food, remember?”

  Right. We rotate who pays as well. Unless we screw up and stumble on a place that turns out to be way more expensive than we thought. Then we split it.

  After a few awkward minutes of standing under the bartender’s piercing gaze, I spot Jen bopping around at the back corner, chatting with three other employees. I stare at the side of her head, wanting her to get over here.

  She stops talking mid-sentence, and looks toward me.

  Whoa. Did I actually do something or was that a freakish coincidence?

  I smile and wave at her.

  Jen’s expression goes apologetic. She darts out from behind the servers’ station and runs over to us. “I’m so sorry about that. I could’ve sworn you guys had left already.”

  “It’s okay.” Natalie smiles. “We needed a few minutes to let the food settle.”

  “I feel bad about making you wait.” Jen takes Natalie’s AATM crystal and plugs it into a combination reader hanging from her belt that also takes magnetic cards for the ‘magic averse’ crowd.

  Natalie puts her thumb on the crystal and uses her finger to write on an illusory document, adding a huge twenty-five dollar tip.

  “Thank you so much; you guys were great!” Jen looks ready to hug us, but only smiles.

  I grab Nat by the arm and drag her to the door. The last time I wanted to get the hell out of somewhere this bad, I’d been in jail. Hey, jail is scary for an eleven-year-old. Even a cell in a tiny local police station. I’d been stuck there for one day as an ‘object lesson.’ Not that I’d ever have admitted it at the time, but those twenty-six or so hours had been utterly terrifying. ‘Course, as soon as they brought me to my mother in the lobby, ‘tough girl’ came back. Mom knew though. She saw the fear in my eyes as soon as we were in the car. And, okay, maybe I did cry a little when she hugged me. I tried to act brave and said at least she didn’t have to worry about a babysitter. Maybe that’s why she let the cops keep me all weekend two years later.

  “That guy was ridiculously good looking,” says Natalie as she flops on my sofa.

  “He creeped me the hell out. I don’t like being stared at the way a guy stares at steak.” I toss her the remote on my way to the bedroom. “Pick a movie. I’m gonna get comfortable.”

  “‘Kay.”

  After I change, I glide back into the living room in a long t-shirt and sweatpants, mercifully free of underwear or shoes. Natalie’s got her heels off and stoops forward while sitting cross-legged on the sofa. My TV emits a constant ping, ping, ping from her scrolling across movie titles. I keep going right past her and enter the kitchen, where I open the cabinet and stare at my popcorn stash.

  “Butter or cheese?” I yell.

  “Sounds like a personal problem.”

  “Popcorn, dumbass.”

  She laughs. “I don’t care.”

  I toss a pack of ‘butter flavor’ popcorn into the rune oven. Twenty seconds on blue should be perfect. The constant chiming from the living room continues, louder than the thrum of the blue energy stream hitting the popcorn packet. After nineteen seconds, a brilliant flash fills the oven and the bag inflates in an instant.

  Buttery goodness fills the air.

  Awesome. Didn’t turn into cherry-banana this time.

  Speaking of which, I really need to complain to the superin―“Hey, Nat?”

  The pinging stops. “Yeah?”

  “How good are you with rune ovens? Can you fix someone else’s enchantment?”

  “Oh, those things are so cheap.” She rolls her eyes in contempt. “One ‘chanter who’s way over his school spreading a low-grade spell over fifty blanks at once.”

  Bowl tucked under my left arm, I wander to the opening connecting my kitchen to the living room, lean on the frame, and munch. “I have no damn idea what you just said.”

  She uncrosses her legs and looks at me. “Okay, you know magic is rated in schools, right?”

  “Yeah, beginner, novice, acolyte, that sorta thing.”

  “Okay, so if you have someone who’s like, oh, Second Order tossing an acolyte level spell, they can add more power to it. They use a diffusion crystal to spread an enchantment that’s supposed to affect one item, or blank, to work on twenty or more at a time.” She waves dismissively while rolling her eyes again. “It’s so annoying. Zero respect for the craft.”

  I sit beside her and offer the bowl. “So you’re saying you either can’t fix it, or it’s so far beneath you that you’ll feel dirty for touching it.”

  “Yeah, basically.” She grabs a handful of popcorn, grinning. “I’ll check it out before I go, and if it’s in bad shape, I’ll make you a real one.”

  “Nat, you know I can’t afford custom ‘chants.”

  She pauses mid-munch, eyeing me sideways. “I’m kinda hurt you’d think I would charge you. It’s not even a complex spell.”

  “I didn’t mean that… I mean I didn’t want to assume you’d work for free.” I press a fist to her shoulder and give her a light push. “I respect what you do too much.”

  Natalie’s wounded expression fades. “Okay. You can pay me back by letting me study you a bit.”

  Popcorn gets stuck in my throat as I cough. She swats my back a few times, hovering over me. Great. I survive a massive hotel fire and die to a piece of junk food wedged in my trachea. My eyes water, but I manage to hack it up before suffering permanent brain damage from oxygen deprivation.

  “Whoa. You okay?” She keeps rubbing my back.

  “Yeah.” A few deep breaths later, I blink away the tears and exhale hard. “Wow, that hurt. Umm, what do you mean by ‘study me?’”

  “Remember a couple months ago how that Aznian crystal in my shop glowed crimson when you touched it? I still haven’t been able to figure out what that means.” Natalie shrinks in on herself, widening her eyes and holding her hands together at her chin. Her voice shifts pitch to that of a little girl. “I really kinda want to.”

  Oh, whew. She didn’t notice my horns. I think I’ve discovered why it glowed, but not what it means. I’m going to tell her eventually, but not yet. “Sure. As long as whatever you’re going to do to me doesn’t involve body parts disappearing or appearing.”

  Oh, wow. I could so mess with her. I grin at the thought.

  “Done.” She pops up and thrusts her hand out to shake.

  I grab it. “So, pick a movie yet?”

  “No. I’ve either seen all these or they look stupid. Why aren’t there any decent ones here?”

  “Streaming.” I shrug. “Gotta
sign up for the physical crystals to get the good movies.”

  “Ugh.” Natalie shakes her head. “Physical crystals for movies? Seriously? Hello, everyone’s got high-speed Aethernet. What century are we in?”

  We finish the popcorn before a movie is chosen. No sooner do I get up to make another pack than she yells in victory.

  “Aha! Got one.” She points at a ‘haunted mansion’ type title. The cover art looks creepy as hell, some guy stretching into a warped/ghostly image.

  “You sure? The last flick like that we watched, you hid behind me for most of it.” I laugh all the way to the kitchen.

  “But you’re big and strong,” She fake-mewls before laughing.

  I zap another bag of popcorn and dump it in the bowl. As I’m returning to the living room, Tracy and Frank start going at it again. Shouting, with the occasional thud of something thrown across the room. Great.

  Natalie stares at the wall on the left. “This happen a lot?”

  I plop down beside her, set the bowl on the sofa between us, and hit play. “Yeah, three, four nights a week. On a good week.”

  Frank gets stuck repeating ‘stupid bitch’ with the occasional c bomb thrown in. Whatever Tracy’s screaming back at him is too distorted to make out words. Natalie flinches at every thud, crash, or slam.

  “Damn, Brook… you should complain to the building manager. How can you stand living next to that?”

  Feet on the coffee table, I scoot back into the sofa with a pillow clutched to my chest. “Won’t help. The manager’s not exactly responsive. Sometimes I swear he’s a construct.”

  She gives me the side eye again. “They stuck you with a golem for a super? That’s illegal.”

  I laugh. “No. He’s got the personality of one, and about the same amount of thinking capacity.”

  Frank bellows loud and long for another few seconds before lowering his volume to the point only a continuous murmur leaks through the wall. Why is she still with that moron? This is why I’m still single. Well, that, and being able to know a guy’s intentions. Occasionally, I hook up with one of the ‘just wants to get in my pants’ types for some no-strings fun. Hey, a girl’s got needs, right? Anyone who’s looking for a possession or a servant? No thanks.