Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
In the dimly lit bathroom of the Downtown Expresso, Mateo’s arm is raw and angry but nowhere near as bad as it was.
Only a long divot sits where the blade sunk in, and a deep heat in the meat of the muscle.
A freak-out needs to happen about someone showing up at his job to violently shake him down about his mom, but he can’t deal with that yet.
So he wrings the blood out of his sleeve as best he can with a dozen gauzy paper towels and then shoves them to the bottom of the trash.
Favoring his injured arm, he pushes out of the bathroom. Topher is vibrating at a table in the back of the café, a to-go cup in each hand. Mateo gives the café a quick look for Dagger Lady, then drops into the seat across from Topher, trying to play it like this isn’t terrifying.
Topher presses both cups across the table at him. “I didn’t know what you like. I got a triple tall cappuccino and a caffe generra with whip. I can get something else, though. Anything else. Many elses. Or food. Croissant. There was a donut. It looked old.”
One of the drinks sounds like sugar, so Mateo takes it, watching Topher wrap both hands around the cappuccino.
Someone should slap it away from him. The last thing this guy needs is caffeine.
But the same can be said for Mateo, heart still jackrabbiting in his chest. Whatever Topher wants, he’s seen Mateo’s secret.
This is now as close to discovery as he’s ever been.
It requires no great imagination to get to experiments-medical- types-might-like-to-run-on-him.
Not that Topher said anything about selling him for parts to the highest bidder. He’d distinctly said he wanted help. With no idea what to say, Mateo waits for Topher to explain anything.
Topher drinks his coffee like a mouse with a prized morsel of food, both hands lifting it and a lot of small, rapid sips. “There was a WorkList ad.”
“I pulled that.” There’s no world where this is a confused, sexual proposition situation, but Mateo’s mouth moves on defensive autopilot.
“I know,” Topher says, squeezing the paper cup hard enough that the lid pops up on one side.
“I just … I need help. A lot of the other magic people ads were really long and had all of these weird credentials and certificates I’ve never heard of, and I couldn’t look most of them up, and the ones I could were made on really bad free websites that didn’t even use basic website templates, so they were really ugly.
Like with gifs. And your ad sounded … normal.
Like, not made up or conceited. And you didn’t have any social media or a site or whatever.
And the last line of the ad made me laugh. ”
Mateo makes a low sound of emotional distress in the back of his throat. How can he be embarrassed, freaked out, and annoyed all at the same time? He sips his coffee while trying to pick a lane. “I didn’t list my place of employment in the ad.” Annoyed won.
Topher’s skin, which had faded back to the alabaster pallor of an anemic ghost, flushes so entirely it’s like his hue setting got slid all the way to magenta.
“I know. I’m sorry. I screen-grabbed the post before you took it down.
When I tried to call, the number was disconnected, so I hired someone to look up who the number belonged to.
A professional someone I mean. That sounds bad.
I mean, it was bad, probably. I’m sorry.
I just … I really need help, and I don’t know who else to go to. ”
Most of the components of that sentence are alarming, but there was a bright shining nugget in there: Hired.
As in: With money.
New eyes consider Topher as Mateo takes another sip of his sickly-sweet drink.
Topher is brandless and styleless, but maybe that’s money.
There are different kinds: Gucci/Hermes/Louis Vuitton rich—which is easy to spot—versus so rich your clothes look like whatever the hell.
Those kinds of rich people are so rich that a plain gray t-shirt could cost thousands of dollars.
Mateo licks his lips, trying to rejigger the situation in his head, wanting it to make sense. “But why did you get a job at the print shop?”
Topher’s gaze averts so fully that he actually whips his whole head to the left. “I … I came in a week ago to talk to you but … um. I mean, I saw you and … I mean, there’s nothing wrong with, um …” He starts and stops, looking like he wants to flee the table.
Mateo relaxes a little bit. “Right. Goth posting about magic. Looks fake.”
Topher’s head bobbles in agreement, his relief at being understood palpable.
“So, you saw my ad.” Embarrassing. “Tried to contact me, couldn’t, hired someone to track me down.
” Scary, but meant money. “Popped in to talk to me but got nervous from my cool style.” Understandable given the context.
“Decided the easiest thing to do was get hired and feel me out.” Insane.
“Worked a shift.” It was hard not to say badly.
It was hard to say worked. “And now we’re here? ”
Topher bobbles.
“Here, meaning you want to hire me?” Mateo asks slowly.
Another bobble and Topher deflates, shoulders slumping and eyes lowering to his cup as he starts spinning it between restless hands.
Mateo gives him the moment he obviously needs. Because … money.
When Topher’s pale eyes find Mateo’s again, they’re wet. “That lady mugging you was my fault. Bad things happen around me. I’ve gotten five people killed in the past few months. Eight others really hurt.”
Mateo’s never seen someone’s eyes get so wet without tears falling. Must be the sheer surface volume available to the liquid. Some of that is bullshit, though, since Dagger Lady definitely had nothing to do with Topher.
Reading his expression, Topher’s voice gets quieter.
The dam holding back the volume of water in his eye gives out, and tears slide free.
It’s a silent crying that doesn’t involve the rest of Topher’s face, just twin rivulets streaming.
“I know how this sounds. I tried to get the police to arrest me, then I realized there’d be people trapped in a cell with me.
But something’s really wrong. It’s definitely me causing these horrible things, but no one believes me. ”
This guy might be deranged. But if Topher’s story’s true, it sounds like a curse.
Doesn’t take a magical genius to figure that out—which is great because that’s not what Mateo is.
And it wouldn’t take a magical genius to uncurse him, either.
Meaning Mateo can theoretically handle it.
He can theoretically handle anything if the price is right.
“Nothing’s guaranteed. I do a consultation first. Five hundred for this talk, and we’ll figure out pricing from there,” Mateo says, tone matter-of-fact, like he does this all the time and isn’t reaching wildly for numbers.
As soon as it’s out of his mouth, he’s positive the ask is too high, but Topher nods tightly.
It would be inappropriate to cheer, what with all the death and crying, so Mateo focuses on the still-throbbing knife wound to remain sober.
Money is good, but curses are a big deal.
They can kill and maim. Doom bloodlines.
Not that Mateo’s bloodline isn’t already absolutely fucked.
Healing from a slashing seems really cool until you realize that’s magic. And that flare of magic will cost him.
Every time he uses magic, the world’s shittiest prize wheel spins. He could win: More blackouts—no clue what he does during them. More anger—going to become a real problem soon. That horrid dream—please no.
But no one else is offering him a bunch of money, so whatever danger this curse represents, he’s game to deal with it. “Elaborate on how people are getting hurt.” Mateo says.
“All sorts of ways,” Topher says, trying to make the world’s smallest, waxiest napkin do anything about his tears. “An air conditioner … horrible. Tree branch … speared. A For Lease sign got caught by the wind. It was arrow-shaped. A wiggly inflatable arm car dealership thing.”
Holy actual shit. Mateo desperately wants to ask about the wiggly arm guy, but Topher’s not done, and it feels kind of insensitive, maybe.
There’s lots of car crashes: the bus thing that very morning, multiple intersections, at a drive-thru, and even in front of Topher’s house days ago. Topher hesitates on that last one, fingers drifting up to his damp cheek as he whispers. “That woman died. Very badly.”
The face off!
Okay. Wow. If any of it’s real, that’s a lot.
However much he can get out of this guy isn’t worth dying for.
Unless it’s, like, really a lot of money.
The lack of reaction to the consultation fee is a bright blaring siren call in Mateo’s mind, drowning out the fact that he was just knifed. If he’s doing this, he needs to get paid even if he can’t figure out what’s happening or fix it.
First, show that he’s compassionate. “That sounds difficult.” Second, say some shit to sound smart about it. “If it’s a curse, and I’m assuming it is right now, it has some interesting characteristics. Abnormal, even.” Solid.
And it’s only sort of bullshit. He didn’t put the ad on WorkList with nothing to offer. Being raised by a powerful bruja who was also a shit mother meant that he’d heard and seen a lot of things he was forbidden from seeing and hearing. He’d picked up some stuff.
Topher’s eyes become watery balloons again.
Hope. And a willingness to pay for said hope.
He’s on the line. Mateo just has to not reel too fast or jerk the line or however the hell fishing works.
“If it’s a curse,” Mateo says, taking the last sip of his coffee to work out something cool to say, “That means someone cursed you.” Fucking obviously. “Got any enemies? Make anyone mad? Classmate? Or a coworker at whatever your real job is? Anyone hate you?”
Like a wet dog left alone in the rain, Topher’s head dips.
“No. I mean, not that I can think of. I finished school two years ago, and this stuff only started about three months ago. I don’t have a job.
I mean, I did today. But normally, I don’t.
I don’t talk to a lot of people. But. I mean …
I’m also not very good with people sometimes.
Most times. All times. So. Maybe? But not that I remember it being bad enough for all this. The, uh, killing.”
Useless. Okay. Other routes. “What about your parents? Do they have any enemies?”
“My dad works on Wall Street.”
They share a beat of silence.
“Right. So, dad pissing someone off is an angle,” Mateo says. “What about mom?”
Topher bodily curls around the cup, intensifying the sad dog look into ASPCA-commercial levels.
This dog has never known love. Dramatic music’s already blaring from the overhead speaker.
“Probably nothing to do with her. She left a little before Easter. Left my dad, I mean. I mean, she left the house, so … she left me too, I guess. Technically. But, I mean … it’s him she was leaving.
Not me. We haven’t really talked since. But she’s busy. She has a busy job.”
Jesus. This guy is a bunch of yikes topics.
Also, he’d just basically said his mom did it.
Curse stuff starts happening right around the time she bounces?
Not answering calls? Sounds sus as hell.
He can’t say that, though, or he won’t be able to run up the bill.
Except now he has no idea how to respond because that was a slightly too intimate information dump he’d absolutely asked for.
“Okay. This gives me a place to start.” Nailing it. “I’ll need you to email me some basic info. Your parents’ full names, any close family or friends, and any of your father’s business partners or associates’ names.” Wall Street guys had partners and associates, he was pretty sure.
Topher bobbles his head.
“And just to be perfectly clear,” Mateo says, needing to stress this disclaimer so hard. “I don’t know if I can help you.”
Topher bobbles again, the song overhead crescendoing.
Channeling every crime procedural Ophelia’s made him sit through while painting his nails, Mateo says, “Put me on retainer for a week. The rate is—” A pricing structure for magical research based on knowing the guy’s dad works on Wall Street forms. “Two grand. Half now, half at the end of the week.”
It’s too much. It’s deranged. Mateo braces for Topher’s shock and then outrage.
“I don’t think I have that much on me right now,” Topher says, like there was a possibility he could have that much on him right now.
Phone is in hand without a thought, tapping away.
“The banks are closed … you probably don’t take card.
I have PayNow?” Topher’s suddenly striking, engaging, beautiful, and not-too-big eyes look at Mateo questioningly.
“PayNow works,” Mateo manages as Topher hands over his phone so Mateo can type in his username with hands that want to tremble.
He hits enter, and the cell in his pocket chirps.
As he fishes it out, he has to use every ounce of self-control to keep his customer service smile in place and not just, like, cackle.
A one. A five. A pair of zeros. Four-dollar twenty-cent service fee subtracted.
It’s the most beautiful email he’s ever received.
This is a plane ticket to Puerto Rico amount. Extended stay in a bad hotel amount. Track down someone who might understand what his mother did and not automatically try to kill him for being an abomination amount.
“Cool. Very cool,” he says, which isn’t the pro response he’d hoped for but at least he hadn’t screamed it in primal joy.
Once outside, coffee cups tossed and a multitude of possibilities suddenly attainable, Mateo offers a goodbye handshake. A thing he’s never done in his life, but it feels like something a professional should do. “Give me a few days, and I’ll be in touch.”
Topher power walks out of sight, and the café front becomes uncomfortably devoid of life.
Mateo checks up and down the street for Dagger Lady, wishing he’d borrowed Ophelia’s car.
Long-term-fix might be brewing with this cursed rich guy, but that doesn’t do anything about his mom’s enemies showing up in the dark.
Keeping his head on a swivel, he hurries home.