The rain twirled up behind Chet in another weird whirlpool and I grabbed my necklace. No way… nuh uh. It was the wind, it happened, that wasn’t a cyclone and there was no way in hell it was controlled by magic. Because what did that? A witch? Why?
“Chet, get your ass in here. It’s cold!” I yelled.
The girl appeared in front of me, just outside the doors. Black hair hung over a pale, naked body, shorter and slimmer than me. She met my eyes.
And smiled.
What teeth were left stuck out, like a girl born in a time before dental care. Her flat, oval face and almond eyes said Asian.
She said something. Her breath smelled of fish so strong I had to breathe through my mouth five feet away. She turned on Chet.
“Holy fuck!” he screamed, like he just saw her now and not a few seconds ago when she appeared.
“Chet, run!” I ran outside, holding my necklace. I threw my hand out, pulling magic out of my core and letting it take its most natural physical form in my hand. I pointed and blasted the bitch with a whip of fire. My flames died on her chest with the sputters of drowned fireworks and she appeared next to me with a blink.
I threw up a shield so fast I got whiplash and she placed a hand on it.
Chet pulled his gun from his hip, focusing the laser pointer on her. “Freeze.”
She said something probably along the lines of, “You asked for it,” and raised a hand. Hoarfrost grew from the nose of his gun up like flesh eating disease of the metal kind and he dropped it before the cold could catch his hands.
I pulled water out of the air, gathered it around me, and turned up the heat, using my diamond necklace to focus the magic. Steam burst out like a cloud and I wrapped it around the water ghost thing, sealing it with a prayer. Chet ran towards us, grabbed my hand and yanked me inside.
The steam hit the ground and dispersed, leaving rain and nothing else on the blacktop as the doors swished shut in front of us.
I looked over and the girl wasn’t at the counter anymore. Is she in on this? Is she the ghost? I walked over to the counter and peeked over it. The girl was curled up on the floor, little shushing noises saying she was merely asleep.
“A sleeping spell, or maybe a potion?” I said out loud. “Why? If the demon could do that, why not do that to us?”
“Potion? Demon?” Chet asked behind me.
I whirled. “Shit!”
“What!” He looked around, whirling and checking behind him too.
“No, nothing’s there,” I said as he turned back around. “You’re not supposed to know about magic. Humans can’t know! We get in serious trouble with our government if we let humans know.”
Gremlin walked over and sat at my feet. “Meow?”
I picked him up and slung him over my shoulder like a big, furry baby. “Yeah, we’re in trouble.”
“He talks!”
I gave Chet a look. “Yeah, he says ‘food, no, outside, and now slave.’ Usually in the form of a meow, but you learn to differentiate.”
Chet closed his eyes and took a deep breath before opening them. “Okay, so you’re magic, the cat isn’t, and the thing outside is…?”
“You’re the anthropology doctoral candidate. You tell me. Any Asian magic water thingies you know about?”
“You don’t know?”
“I’m not Asian! You want a golem, that’s my people’s magic. That thing out there is sooooo not.”
He shrugged off his windbreaker and rubbed his head, crunching his short spikes. “I don’t know. I can’t think. This is crazy!” He let go of his hair and met my eyes. “Wait, where’s Zach?”
Comentários