Chapter 2
More goddamn bills. Some day—probably in a decade, given his luck—they’d finally pay back all the damn medical bills.
Admittedly, they’d had a pretty good streak the last couple of years, managing to avoid any more hospitalizations, but between his spinal injury and Mason getting shot, they still had outstanding debts.
At least the business was doing well enough that they were able to do more than just the minimum payments. And Eleanor seemed to think that another five years was all they’d need to get back in the black, even with the renovations to the house.
He wondered how much it was going to cost to adopt kids.
I sighed, wiggling my fingers a little as I put the letter-opener back into the cup on the desk, and reminded myself for probably the dozenth time that I should remember to put my gloves on when I opened up envelopes.
I usually did, but the machine-run ones that were mass-mailings rarely had any impressions on them—but I’d forgotten, again, that sometimes other people used the letter opener if they got to the mail before I did because it was the only one we actually had.
Maybe I should just buy another one. Or a set, and give them to everyone else to keep in their offices.
It wasn’t that I minded occasionally getting impressions from Ward—or from Mason or Beck, since I liked them all—it just sometimes, like now, felt a little personal. Invasive. Like I knew things I wasn’t supposed to know.
I knew Mason and Ward liked kids because they brought Jackson to work sometimes, and they both clearly adored him.
Part of me felt a little jealous that the boy got the kind of childhood I’d never had—the kind of thing I’d wished for from the lonely solitude of my room, especially in the aftermath of a so-called ‘therapy’ session when they’d forcibly stripped magic from me.
Jackson was being trained to use his abilities by people who loved him. My family had tried to strip mine away, not cultivate them.
Sometimes, Mason or Ward worked with both of us—Jackson was a death witch, like me—on a particular skill, and I had to remind myself that it wasn’t some sort of competition or indication of worth if I was more or less adept at whatever it was than a twelve-year-old.
Jackson had been raised by a family who cultivated and applauded witchcraft, while I’d learned nothing about mine that I hadn’t taught myself until I was twenty.
But I was also twice Jackson’s age, and there were definitely things that I understood much faster—and that shouldn’t have been a point of pride.
I wondered how far they were in the adoption process—if Ward and Mason were simply thinking about it or if they’d gotten serious.
And then I reminded myself that it really wasn’t any of my business.
Still flexing my fingers, I threw out the mass-mailing telling us about window replacement sales and tried to push Ward’s worries about bills and future kids out of my mind.
I was back at the front desk, sorting through email requests, following up with those that needed following up, booking those that I knew Ward, Mason, and Beck would want prioritized.
I had green tea in my mug, heavily dosed with sweet cream creamer.
I liked tea lattes, but I hated going to coffee shops and I couldn’t realistically afford to buy them regularly, so I made do with creamer.
I was focused on the spreadsheets in front of me when the door was essentially flung open, admitting an average height, ruddy-faced man in a business suit, a few drops of sweat forming at his thinning temples despite the fairly cool temperatures.
He wasn’t wearing a mask and didn’t pull one out of his pocket, which made me a little nervous—shifters and other Arcanids might not have to wear masks, but this man was neither.
I could tell from the lack of magic around him.
He stopped suddenly, staring at me, and I stared back, perhaps because his surprising entrance had startled me into forgetting that I wasn’t supposed to stare at people.
I was also supposed to welcome them and ask if I could help, but he spoke before I managed to do more than pull up the gaiter-style grey mask I wore around my neck for when people came in.
“Where’s the medium?” he demanded, turning away from me, his eyes focused down the hallway, as though by looking for Ward, he could summon him.
The man’s accent was one that I couldn’t quite identify.
It was vaguely southern, but not familiar enough to be Virginian.
I thought perhaps Georgia, or maybe Tennessee.
“Do you have an appointment, sir?” I asked politely, as I managed to realign myself with the walk-in client script.
“What?” He seemed surprised that I’d spoken. Or maybe just that I’d questioned his presence.
“Do you have an appointment?” I repeated.
“Where’s the medium?” he repeated.
“Currently occupied with another client,” I replied.
“Would you like to make an appointment?” It was what I was supposed to say when Ward, Mason, or Beck were busy and someone wanted to talk with them.
Since he’d asked for a medium, I didn’t offer Beck up as an option—I wasn’t supposed to do that, anyway, even if whoever it was happened to be free.
She’d be back in an hour, where the other two would be gone all day.
Mason and Beck both wanted people to get in the habit of making appointments, rather than marching in and demanding that they drop everything. Ward was far more likely to break that policy than either of them, which usually earned him an eyeroll from one or both of the others.
“No I don’t want a fucking appointment,” the man snapped, turning a contemptuous expression back at me, a few flecks of spittle flying from his lips.
I was glad he wasn’t very close to me—saliva doesn’t carry psychic impressions, but it is both disgusting and deeply unsanitary. “Where’s the fucking medium?”
While I was glad Ward wasn’t here, I really wished that Mason was—people tended not to get hostile or violent when a very large orc was present.
Beck might have been feisty, but she was barely over five feet—shorter even than Taavi—and I hoped the man would be gone before she got back, anyway.
And while I had a bit more than average height, I knew I wasn’t particularly strong.
Neither one of us was well-equipped to handle an irate man who probably weighed over two-hundred-and-fifty pounds.
That isn’t accurate.
I am fully equipped to handle myself, magically speaking. The problem was that I was just as likely to kill the man as I was to just stop him if I unleashed magic against him. And killing him wasn’t a reasonable alternative to profanity and some spittle.
I was now regretting my lack of discipline in both the psychic and magical realms. I’d let Ward teach me to call and speak to the dead—although Sylvia herself had been more helpful—and Mason had spent time with me on control, but I hadn’t bothered actually learning how to do anything.
Just now not to do things that I didn’t want to do.
Which meant that I could shut my magical abilities off, but I couldn’t focus them. I could choose not to kill someone who threatened me, but I couldn’t hurt them to make them back off without killing them. Or, at least, I wasn’t sure whether or not I could stop them without killing them.
I knew that Ward and Mason really wouldn’t appreciate it if I killed this man, no matter how irate he got.
Unless he tried to kill me, but I didn’t think he was going to.
He struck me as all bluster and very little actual capacity for violence.
Or critical thought, if his lack of mask was any indication.
“He’s not available,” I told the rapidly-reddening man. “The best way to make sure that he is available is to make an appointment.” I tried to make my voice placating. Polite.
The man puffed up his chest and took a couple steps toward me, clearly trying to be intimidating. I didn’t like the fact that it worked, feeling my pulse increase and my lungs tighten. I could feel the fear rising in the back of my throat.
I started counting to ten.
“Then you fucking make him available,” the man snapped. This time, the spittle came flying at me, speckling my keyboard.
I tried not to cringe.
Swallowed. Counted to two. “I can’t do that,” I said, trying to make my voice firm, but not angry.
Getting angry was dangerous—and it would only antagonize this man.
He clearly wanted a fight, although I suspected that it would be the kind that involved yelling and threatening to sue rather than fists or some other form of violence.
I hoped.
“I think you’d better rethink that, you useless piece of shit. I demand to see the medium, and if you don’t get him out here right now—”
“Is there a problem here?”
I let out a squeak because I hadn’t heard him come in. Him being Agent Parikh.
The man turned back toward the front door, which had just admitted both Parikh and Hart.
I immediately felt safer—calmer. I knew that Hart could more than handle himself, and I assumed Parikh was probably just as capable.
Not only did both work for the FBI, which I assumed came with some sort of self-defense or combat training, but both shifters and elves are much stronger than humans.
“None of your business,” the man hissed, looking Hart over with obvious disgust.
One of Hart’s elegant eyebrows went up. I recognized the expression.
I scooted back a little from the desk.
But it wasn’t Hart who responded. “No?” Parikh drew the word out on a drawl. “Why don’t you let us be the judge of whether or not threatening Mr. Alverno here is our business?”
“And who the fuck are you?” he spat. The man’s face was turning an odd shade of purple. If I hadn’t been a death witch, I might have wondered whether or not he was going to have a heart attack—but that’s one thing I do have the capacity to tell—when someone is about to die.