9. Fiella
Ifelt much better once I had a mission in mind.
Step 1, convince Kizzi to help me get rid of the demon-spawn beetles, but without impacting her business in the process.
Step 2, clean up my shop enough that the vampire stranger can start rebuilding my shelves. I really need to figure out his name at some point.
Step 3, rebuild and reorganize.
Step 4, sell everything in the shop, get rich, and never have to work again in my life unless I want to.
Goblet-half-full, or whatever.
I burst into Kizzi’s shop desperate for some help. I knew she would have my back, as she always did, but I didn’t know if her magical expertise would extend to beetle extermination.
“Kiz!” I shouted as soon as I caught sight of the witch behind the counter. Thank the gods there weren’t any customers in the shop today, I didn’t want to make a habit of scaring away her clientele.
We all needed as many customers as we could get during the slow season.
I didn’t waste any time getting straight to the point. “I need your magical brain to figure out how to get rid of wood-munching beetles!”
Kizzi just stared at me for a moment. “A quick hello would have sufficed, but I suppose that works too.” She set a bundle of herbs on the counter and dusted her hands off on her thighs. “I’ve been thinking about this since you came into my shop this morning, but I need all the details. You didn’t really explain much when you were blubbering on my shoulder, which is totally understandable, by the way! I’m not judging at all. I’m just saying. Explain, please.”
I did. I told Kizzi everything, even including the parts where I drowned my sorrows in lavender blueberry ciders and encountered the nameless vampire with my face smeared in snot.
Kizzi’s face filled with compassion as she absorbed my story. It wasn’t that I didn’t like pity, because who didn’t like to be the center of attention every once in a while, but coming from my best friend, it made me feel squirmy.
What I needed was some help and a kick in the ass to get things fixed.
“Girl… no offense, I know you’re having a delicate moment right now, but that’s so embarrassing,” Kizzi said. Her hand pressed over her mouth muffled her words. “That guy was pretty cute too! Rude, but cute!”
“Don’t remind me,” I grumbled. It was bad enough that anyone had seen me during a humiliating low point. The fact that the guy was an asshole and a hottie made it a million times worse.
“You’re lucky your best friend is a magical genius!” Kizzi proclaimed. She was many things, but humble was certainly not one of them.
Kizzi went on to explain to me that, while she didn’t have all the necessary ingredients to create a fumigation brew, she knew exactly where to find them.
I didn’t ask for all the details, because I didn’t understand most of what the witches got up to, but I trusted her to handle it.
“Will you bring me one of those beetles when you get the chance? I’ll get it to the coven so we can start investigating,” Kizzi asked.
“Now how in the realms am I supposed to do that? Just pick it up and carry it in my hand?”
She flapped a hand in my direction. “I don’t know, Fi, figure something out. Use that beautiful brain of yours.”
“Whatever. Sure, sure. I’ll bring one of those demon-spawn beetles over as soon as I can.”
Discovering where the enchanted beetles had come from or who had sent them was going to be a whole different situation to sort out. But that was a problem for another day. I could only do so much at a time. Hopefully the coven would be able to perform a ritual or something and they would have answers for me.
I left Kizzi’s, feeling hopeful now that I knew I could get rid of the beetles and rebuild my shop, one step at a time.
Iburst back into Fiella’s Finds, completely forgetting the vampire stranger I had left behind earlier. Once I had my mind set on an idea, I got tunnel vision and couldn’t think about anything else.
His presence was so startling that I let out a humiliating squeal, my heart launching into my throat. I think I even jumped a few inches in the air.
“Woah there!” the vampire called out. “Just me! No need for theatrics.”
I was lucky that the stranger wasn’t a criminal looking to rob me of any trinkets that survived the avalanche.
I could not believe that he didn’t just leave after I had abandoned him earlier. To my utter shock, it looked like he was actually… cleaning.
He wasn’t cleaning very well, mind you. It looked like he was trying to sort through the mountain of wreckage and trinkets and form some sort of pile system. There was a pile of decimated wood chunks, a pile of items that looked only moderately damaged, and, to my disgust, there was also a growing pile of beetle carcasses. Gross.
He was touching those with his bare hands–how nasty. Who knew what sort of magical remnants would leech off them?
Hopefully Sookie hadn’t eaten any. She was smarter than many folk but… she had her moments.
The vampire was tucked away behind some fallen roof boards, looking vaguely distressed and quite dusty.
“I didn’t know where to start, and I was assigned here today, and there is clearly a lot of clean-up work needed, I figured I’d just…” He trailed off, gesturing aimlessly around the shop at the meager piles he had sorted.
My heart unexpectedly warmed a degree at the stranger’s explanation.
“I can’t really tell what’s salvageable and what’s not, a lot of these items are rather… unique.” He didn’t quite sound judgmental, he sounded more perplexed than anything.
I felt strangely touched by this stranger’s actions. Even though I knew he just wanted to get his job done, the fact that he stayed to clean up when he could have easily left made me soften towards him. Just a bit. I still thought he was an asshole.
“That’s pretty kind. Thank you, stranger,” I said, fighting to keep my cheeks from warming. Was I actually blushing right now? What was I, a little? Embarrassing.
“I should’ve done this before but… Hello, my name is Fiella. And you are?”
The corner of his mouth lifted slightly. I couldn’t tell if it was a grimace or a pitiful excuse for a smile. “Oh, you are ready for my name now? It’s Redd.”
Redd. That was a nice name. Strong.
“Well, thank you, Redd. My friend Kizzi is going to help me with a fumigation brew to kill the rest of these gods awful beetles, but it looks like I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me. Care to stick around? I can’t pay you, but I can bless you with my presence and my lovely conversation.”
He didn’t laugh like I had expected him to. Like I hoped he would. Tough crowd. I’d make him crack one of these days–I was determined.
He waved a hand dismissively. “Mayor Tommins is paying me. I was assigned to help rebuild this shop, so I’m going to rebuild the shop. It needs to be cleaned first, though. This is clearly too big of a mess for one folk to manage,” he stated matter-of-factly, though he appeared to be only half paying attention to the conversation. Offensive. He was too busy gazing around the room and looking a bit ill.
“Looks like we’re in this together,” I said. “At least for now.”
I carefully made my way over to him, sticking my hand out for him to shake. His hand was warm and rough, his calluses scraping against my skin in a way that made a shiver run down my spine.