Chapter 3
Ivan
Now, Ivan knew for a fact he was home alone. His darling husband was at work, and their daughter Anna was at a sleep over, so he should be quite alone in the house.
Except, y’know, the splishy splashy coming from his master bathroom said otherwise.
Ivan couldn’t fathom how any such sounds could occur when that particular bathroom hadn’t been used since a steamy shower session with Aiden last night.
But he’d heard distinct water sounds. Having been friends with Glenn and company for years, he knew the world was not as it seemed on the surface, so wild shit could definitely happen.
Were there bathroom shenanigans in the world of magic?
Ivan decided caution was due, so he retreated enough to pick up his Glock, slipped an earbud into his ear, and called K. Let’s face it, if shit went down, he’d need someone to call in the right person for the job, and he didn’t know who that was—yet. Or if he even needed backup.
K sounded grumbly as he answered, “ What, Ivan ?”
“I have odd predicament. Is age-old question, da? Do you really want to know what the weird sound is behind the bathroom door?”
“ Ivan, if you’re trying to be cryptic, congrats, you’ve succeeded. What the hell are you on about ?”
“I do not know what this is yet, hence why I call. I am home alone, but my bathroom is making sloshing noises.”
A long pause. “ Did you leave the bathtub full ?”
“Njet, no one has taken a bath in a week, just showers.”
“ Okay, first, I’m so proud of you for calling me and not just opening the door. It shows amazing growth on your part .”
Ivan snickered quietly. “I can make responsible choices.”
“ Lies. Lies and slander. All right, you armed ?”
“Da, with Glock. I open door now.”
“ I’m poised to send in help depending on what you see next .”
He grunted and eased the bathroom door fully open, Glock coming up.
Only to stop dead.
A truly attractive man stood in his bathtub. He wore red checkered pajama pants rolled up to his knees, held a generously thick book in one hand, and wore the most befuddled expression. He blinked at Ivan.
Ivan blinked back.
“ Ivan ? Ivan, you’re killing me. I can’t take the suspense. What’s happening ?”
“I have strange man standing in my bathtub. He’s not armed,” Ivan relayed quickly, still studying the man and wondering how he had managed to get past Ivan’s very expensive alarm system. “You. Who are you and how did you get in?”
“I’m Declan,” he answered, frowning at Ivan. “I, uh, was trying to figure out how the portal magic worked? I thought I could reverse engineer it? Who are you?”
“Portal magic?” Ivan cocked his head and looked the man over once more. “Ah, you are of the Others. This makes more sense now.”
Kyou could clearly hear everything as he was making strangled noises. “ DECLAN IS THERE ?!”
“You know who this is?”
“ Long story very short, he accidentally portaled himself into Ross’s bathtub about four hours ago.
Ross called me to help contact Declan’s family and get him home.
He doesn’t remember anyone’s social media or phone numbers.
I’ve been working on contacting someone to fetch him. Why the hell is he in your house ?!”
“Do not ask me such question. You know I don’t know.
” Ivan was starting to enjoy this role reversal.
He’d always been the one to break into other people’s homes.
Having someone break in was a novel experience.
Aiden would surely have a different opinion, but it was fine.
He’d see the humor in it later. “This problem cannot be solved by violence, so it’s outside of my wheelhouse. ”
Kyou groaned, and from the sound of it, he was ready to binge three Monster drinks. “ Well, he’s harmless, so you have that going for you. Can you bring him to me ?”
The offer surprised him. “Eh, really?”
“ It’s fine. I need him here to get him home again. In fact, you come help me with this. ”
“If you insist.” Ivan had nothing else to do, and he was now invested.
He fetched a towel for his guest and offered it to him. “Dry off? Then I take you to my friend, da? He’s close to reaching your family.”
“Oh, splendid.” Declan took the towel, set his book down carefully on the closed toilet lid, used the towel, then paused and looked thoughtfully at the water while picking up his book again. “Say, was this tub full?”
“Njet.”
“Oh. Oh dear. So the portal magic isn’t reliant upon an already full tub? I did not factor in that possibility.” Declan frowned at the bathtub as if it had personally insulted his intelligence. “I’d best find a way to experiment with this when we can control the conditions.”
“Probably for the best, da. Borrow some slippers from me so we can leave.”
Declan asked no questions, just clutched his book to his chest as they found house slippers for him. It was fortunately a short trip to Kyou’s, as Ivan didn’t live far away.
Ever since Kyou had married Brannigan, he had, of course, moved into the man’s house, but he’d kept his apartment as a lair of sorts. He liked to work from there, and it was a secure location, so Ivan knew where to go without asking. If Kyou wasn’t there, he would have specified.
The entire drive, the strange man flipped through the grimoire and muttered to himself, clearly trying to work out where everything had gone wrong.
Ivan couldn’t help him with that. He couldn’t explain how any of this worked, but he was intent on enjoying the show.
How many could claim a man had used their bathtub for a magical portal? Made for an excellent story.
One that no one would ever believe.
They arrived without fanfare, and Ivan took him straight up. Since Kyou was expecting them, he didn’t knock, just opened the door and ushered Declan inside. He could hear Kyou talking as he came in.
“—yeah, he just walked in.” Kyou tilted his head sideways to see behind his chair. His blue-black hair was tousled around his head, dark brown eyes half obscured behind yellow-tinted glasses. “Seems fine? Declan, you okay?”
“I do apologize for the trouble,” Declan said with a world-weary sigh. “I tried to reverse engineer what happened. I did not expect to be portaled to yet another random location. I am, well, quite embarrassed.”
“No more attempts, okay? Portal magic is clearly not your friend.”
“Indeed, that does seem to be the case.”
Kyou focused on the phone in his hand. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll keep you updated.
I think we can get some kind of action plan in the next hour, if one of the two chuckleheads will actually check their damn messages.
Neither’s picking up the phone right now, which is equally frustrating. Sure. See you, Ross.”
Ah, of course, Ross would be alarmed when his guest suddenly disappeared. A responsible man indeed.
“Declan.” Kyou gave the man a firm look and pointed to a nearby chair, obviously a dining room chair repositioned for the sole purpose of babysitting. “Sit.”
Declan huffed a laugh and obediently sat. “I promise not to touch the spell again.”
“Chance would be a fine thing. Also—” Kyou cut himself off as one of the burner phones on his desk started vibrating while playing a cheerful little ditty.
Wait, was that the theme song for Overcooked ? Ha, funny use of it.
Kyou snatched up the phone and blew out a relieved breath as he put it on speaker. “Thank god. Hello? Yes, is this Kittichat Konkaeo?”
“ Yes, this is he .”
The light tenor was smooth on the ear, but the man sounded wary.
Declan leaned in. “Hi, Kit.”
“ MASTER ?!”
“I, uh, accidentally did a portal spell.” Declan grimaced. “I got my new grimoire wet. Twice.”
“ Master, for the love of— Wait, what do you mean portal spell ? I would like to remind you that you cannot create code words for book shopping. Books might be a portal into the imagination, but you can’t claim they’re a spell .”
“No, I mean an actual spell. I’m still trying to figure out what happened, but I somehow portaled myself to—” Declan paused, brows drawing together. “Wait, where am I this time? I was in Salem before, yes?”
“Boston,” Kyou inserted dryly. “Look, Kit, as wild as this situation is, he’s not hurt. Just lost, wearing borrowed pajama pants, and with no easy way to get home.”
“ Boston ?!” Kit exclaimed, the word sounding strangled. “ How’d you even— No, we can figure that out later. For now, I’m buying plane tickets. I’ll come fetch you ASAP. Shit, hold on. GUNNAR !”
“Gunnar is my other child and Kit’s husband.” Declan explained with a happy smile. “They don’t normally go anywhere without the other.”
“ It’s because I fucking need backup with you !” Kit grumbled. “ Uh, if you’ll give me an address, I will be there as soon as I can. I’m getting on the first flight there .”
“How about this?” Ivan offered. “You buy the flights, we’ll get you a hotel nearby. When you’ve landed in the city, I come get you, da? Take you all to hotel. You won’t be able to fly home tonight anyway.”
“ That’s a really generous offer. Thank you… ?”
“Name’s Ivan. I meet you soon, da?”
“ Sure, just text me your number so we can contact each other. I do not want to pass you in that big city. And, uh, someone give Master something to read. A new book will keep him out of trouble . The thicker the better. He’s a speed reader .”
“Will do. Send your flight itinerary to this number as soon as you have it.” Kyou hung up, then typed out a text.
“I sent him your contact info, Ivan. No worries.” He sucked in a fortifying breath.
Then stood and walked to a bookshelf nearby.
“All right, Declan. I have very few books in this house, but how about a book on hacking and chaos theory?”
Declan blinked at the book being offered to him and balanced his grimoire on one knee in order to accept this new offering. His steel grey eyes lit up, lips curling up into a grin. “I’ve never seen a title like this before. Oh, are you a technomage?”
“Am I a what, now?” Kyou’s head canted in confusion. “No? Just your normal hacker.”
Ivan took a seat and watched as the whole concept of technomages was explained, which sounded fascinating, and honestly like something Kyou could do in his sleep.
If he’d had any magic in him, of course.
Then the two of them got to talking about chaos theory, whatever that was.
Their words mostly went over Ivan’s head, but he loved how animated these two got as the discussion spiraled.
All he was missing was the popcorn.