CHAPTER 4 #3
My voice came out a little rougher than expected but before I could think to be self-conscious, the door beside us burst open. Where I expected to see a random theatre staff member stepping outside with a bag or trash or for a smoke, I saw a familiar face. An annoyingly bothersome familiar one.
It was jerk-face from the bathroom.
And his expression clearly showed that he absolutely had not been expecting to walk out into this alley – probably following me, I was a realist – and see me kneeling before a man holding a severed arm.
His eyes went comically wide, mouth opening and closing like a fish as he stopped in the doorway. The hand holding the doorknob fell and before he let it close, he fumbled to grab for the handle to run back into the building. Cam and I both jumped to our feet at the same time.
“Oh, no you don’t,” I said, grabbing a stone from the ground and throwing it at the door with a burst of magic. It tinged off the metal and slammed it shut, nearly taking the man’s fingers off.
He plastered his back to the door dramatically, eyes wide, and gave me a shocked look bordering on pants-shittingly terrified.
“The fuck?” he gasped. “The fuck is that?”
His eyes darted to the arm in Cam’s hands then back to me, as if afraid to look away from me for too long.
I glanced to Cam holding the arm before he rushed to hide it behind his back. As if the man hadn’t already seen it. In doing so, he dropped it once more and this time it managed to hit the wall. Slowly, so very slowly, I turned back to the stranger,
“It’s an arm,” I said carefully, fully intending to make him feel stupid. “No wonder you try to pick up guys in a theatre bathroom.”
“He what?” Cam asked, gaze whipping to me and forgetting about the arm he’d just tossed aside.
“Unimportant,” I smiled up at him and patted his shoulder. “Now...” I looked around and, finding what I was searching for, I strode over to the stack of boxes and pulled a loose wooden board free. Holding it like a baseball bat, I swung it forward to test its weight.
“Time to induce amnesia.”
The guy’s eyes widened even further. “What the... You crazy bastard!”
He tried the door handle once more, but it only jiggled and obstinately remained shut.
Giving up, he then turned and fled toward the parking lot.
But my swing was faster. The board cracked into the back of the man’s head, not hard enough to cause damage but just enough to knock him unconscious.
At most he would wake up with a decent lump.
But he wasn't going to remember where it came from.
His body slumped forward, and he fell face first into the cardboard boxes which crumpled under his weight.
I discarded the board to the side and brushed my hands off for a job well done. Well, almost done.
I walked over and grabbed the man’s feet, preparing to move him to a more secluded spot. However, he was heavier than anticipated and I barely managed to move him a few inches before I grunted and gave Cam a pathetic, pleading look.
“Help. Please.”
He blinked dazedly before snapping out of it. He agreed easily with an almost eager nod.
“Okay.”
Together with a foot in each of our hands we dragged the unconscious body, hiding it behind the dumpster.
Just to ease my conscience, I checked his pulse and when I felt its steady beat, I grabbed a lone piece of cardboard and leaned it over where his shoes were sticking out slightly.
Couldn’t let anyone find him before the spell had time to work.
Might as well let him lay here for a bit to learn his lesson.
Well, he technically wouldn’t be learning anything.
I dug into the pocket of my jeans and felt around for the small fabric bundle.
I always carried some arcane essentials on me wherever I went.
A few basic spells, ingredients, chalk for runes, items to use to power certain incantations...
Things for just these occasions. Not that I made a habit of knocking people out with two-by-fours, but one couldn’t be too careful.
Says the guy who forgot his mace at home, I thought sardonically.
This spell looked just like a little black firecracker. It was one of the many nifty tricks I had come up with. One of my favorites too.
So far, Cam hadn’t said a word. He’d merely watched on in stunned silence. But he finally seemed to find his voice,
“Victor, what’s that?” He asked, eyeing the tiny object between my fingers with curious suspicion.
“Watch and see,” I told him with a mischievous grin. Before forgetting, I leaned down and grabbed Cam’s jacket where it had fallen then his arm from where it had been tossed. Urging us several steps back, I said, “Now for our daring getaway. Hold your breath!”
With no hesitation, I then threw the magic firecracker onto the pavement near the dumpster hiding the unconscious man’s body. It snapped and crackled and immediately a massive burst of glittering black smoke began to fill the alley.
Sucking in a lungful of air, I quickly grabbed Cam’s hand and booked it straight for the parking lot.
By the time we made it back to my car, I was panting from our rapid sprint, and Cam looked only a little flustered, totally unaffected by our mad dash. Once we were seated and buckled up, Cam clutched the oh shit handle as I sped from the parking lot, tires squealing on the pavement.
“Victor?”
“Hm?” I hummed, keeping my eyes on the road.
“What was that smoke?”
I smiled broadly, “It was just some amnesia dust. Or, as I like to call it, the Morning After Powder Bomb. It’ll just make him forget the last hour or so.” I think only an hour, I didn’t voice aloud.
His head tilted to the side. “If you could make him forget, why did you hit him?”
He didn’t seem upset in the slightest about my crime of assault, merely curious. I shrugged,
“He was a jerk. And karma’s a bitch.”
The traffic light turned red, so I slowed us to a stop. I checked my rearview mirror for some reason, as if the guy would have suddenly come to and jumped in his car to give chase.
Then I heard it.
A laugh.
Cam’s laugh.
My breath caught in my lungs on a sharp inhale.
And yes, it was sappy of me, but his laugh was...
Damn, it was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard.
It was deep like his voice, hearty and wholesome.
Musical and sweet as a song. It left me staring at him, lips parted on the release of my soft exhale.
Then something I could only describe as magical occurred.
I watched as the glassy film over his eyes began to fade, slow as a rising dawn. It revealed the most beautiful, stunning, dreamiest blue to me.
“Wow,” I breathed.
The smile Cam gave me was the most gratifying reward.
Broad and charming. If smiles could kill, I would have been dead on the spot with an arrow straight through the chest. It was a smile that could steal anyone’s heart in an instant, causing the deepest, sweetest dimples to make their appearance in his flushed cheeks.
Adorable enough to compete with the one on his chin.
But unholy shit, those eyes were something else entirely.
A horn blaring behind me broke me out of my stupor and I shook my head clear.
Those blue eyes were still watching me as I drove us home, cheeks burning hotter than they ever had before. My heart was pounding almost painfully hard in my chest and my stomach squirmed with a feeling I hadn’t experienced in a very long time.
And it was only the first date.