Oops! I Summoned a Liderc (Witches Love Monsters #1)

Chapter 1

Coral

No words could express the depth of the annoyance I felt as I stared at the pile of junk I had to haul back. Dear, sweet, and extremely obnoxious Angelique always had to find a way to be a thorn in my side.

When I left the apartment I had been sharing with her and Sophia three months ago, I thought I was done with her nonsense.

Granted, I bailed out before the end of our lease, but I paid my remaining share up front so they couldn’t claim I had screwed them over somehow.

It had been an amicable split. As I left so early on, my two ex-roommates agreed that they would tackle the final cleaning before their departure.

Sophia did her part, as expected. But miss diva Angelique had to leave some other crap behind.

And the landlady wasn’t having it. With Sophia being out of town for a wedding, and Angie conveniently being stuck in some other engagement also out of town, it all fell back on me.

It didn’t matter that she only had four bags and a couple additional knickknacks.

None of this should be my problem anymore.

But as I didn’t want to be stuck paying cleaning penalties since my name remained on the lease, here I was sacrificing my time and playing movers.

Mrs. Hopkins cleared her throat with a less-than-subtle impatience. I much preferred dealing with the superintendent than with this dragon of a landlady. To be fair, she wasn’t rude or mean per se. She just made you immediately stand up straight as if under military review.

Tall and skinny, the older woman in her late fifties, stared at me with her obsidian eyes assessing me over narrow glasses.

Her long black hair was held tightly into the most perfect bun.

You’d think every single strand was so scared to misbehave she didn’t even need gel to keep them in place.

She always wore black suits with the appropriate knee length skirt, a pristine white shirt beneath the vest, and black high heels so polished you could see your reflection in them.

You’d never catch her without makeup on, flawlessly applied, which enhanced her features in a natural and elegant fashion.

Every time I stood in her presence, I felt like an unruly child about to be scolded by the head mistress of a strict reform school for girls.

Not wanting to try her patience longer than necessary, I reached for the big bags she’d thankfully prepacked for me.

My body leaning in a way to hide what I was doing, I cast a discreet strength spell on myself.

I should have done it before I entered the apartment but never expected there would be this much stuff left.

Although most people believed magic to be an old wives’ tale, you didn’t go around advertising that we were active in the craft.

And even less so when you were just a dabbler like me.

First, I picked up the fancy ermine cloak sitting on top of the bags and stuffed it under my left arm. Then, I grabbed two bags in each hand. The wretched things were overflowing. How she managed to zip them shut could qualify as witchcraft in and of itself.

“Off I go and sorry for the inconvenience,” I told Mrs. Hopkins with a stiff smile.

She gave me the strangest look, my senses going into high alert when the most subtle smirk quirked the corner of her thin lips.

“Not so fast, Coral. You forgot one thing,” she said in that overly polite tone receptionists sometimes gave you.

I blinked, confused as to what she was referring to, then glanced at the floor around the narrow entrance for any signs of what I might have missed. She snapped her fingers, making me jerk my head up.

“Not down there but up here,” she said, pointing an elegantly manicured index finger at the console propped against the left wall.

She reached for an egg-shaped black stone sitting atop it.

“What is that?” I asked, confused.

“Another of Angelique’s belongings,” Mrs. Hopkins said with a blase tone and a dismissive shrug.

“That’s trash!” I exclaimed disbelievingly. “Who cares about a rock? And anyway, you can see that I have no room to carry this.”

“Tut, tut,” she replied with a mulish expression. “Everything is to be removed as I am not getting sued for missing property.”

“But—”

Before I could finish whatever I intended to say, Mrs. Hopkins stuffed the rock under my armpit, right above the ermine.

“See? All set!” she said in an overly smug tone that made me want to kick her. “Now off you go!”

Annoyed to no end, I muttered something under my breath, gave her a stiff nod, and turned around to leave.

“Just so you know, Miss Reef, the most insignificant objects are often the most valuable,” she said in a mysterious tone.

Ya, that was me, Coral Reef. My parents were the hipster type who thought of themselves as witty and the most hilarious of comedians.

Instead, they just stockpiled the Darwin Awards of Cringe.

Sadly for me, I’d been born during the craze where parents were trying too hard to be overly clever with baby names.

I actually liked my first name. It was the combo with my surname I could have lived without.

But hey, it beat funky given names like Tu Morrow, Angel Face, and Skibidi like some unfortunate souls I met got ‘blessed’ with.

Still, I loved my parents with all their quirks.

“What?” I asked, confused as I glanced over my shoulder at her.

She gave me that mysterious look again. But this time, the intensity of her dark gaze unsettled me.

“You’ll see. But you should hurry before your cab leaves,” she said with an almost taunting smile.

“Oh fuck!” I muttered and immediately flinched. “Sorry!”

She didn’t say a word but only stared at me. I mumbled another apology before hurrying out. I hated being this loaded, but my strength spell was working its magic, making the otherwise heavy bags feel like nothing. I rushed to the elevator only to cabin flying down.

I stopped dead in my tracks, threw my head back, and closed my eyes as I groaned loudly.

As much as I had loved living in this antique building—which was classified as historical—I always had mixed feelings about the old school wooden elevator.

It stood out with its ornate detailing and glass windows that allowed you to look around the building as you climbed up and down.

It also possessed a retractable metal grid that served as a safety door, which had to be closed on every floor in order for the cabin to move.

Sadly, it was as beautiful as it was slow.

As I couldn’t risk waiting forever for it to come back—assuming a different floor hadn’t called it before me—I settled for the stairs.

Once again, I patted myself on the back for that strength spell.

Without it, I’d be freaking out. It didn’t make my legs any less wobbly by the time I reached the lobby from the fifth floor.

As I hurried towards the entrance, I inwardly uttered a string of unladylike curses when I found the elevator empty and the cage door open.

If I had still been upstairs, I’d be waiting for that lift until the cows came home as it would never move until that door was closed.

A part of me almost felt guilty for not going to close it for whoever else might need it.

However, not only was this no longer my problem, but I had a cab to catch.

I half jogged out of the building only for my heart to sink when the spot where my cab had been waiting stood empty. Panicked, I jerked my head in both directions of the street only to see the rear end of my cab with its blinkers on as it was leaving without me.

“Are you fucking kidding me?!” I exclaimed, utterly pissed off.

I hadn’t been gone so long that it couldn’t have waited. Granted, time was money, and with the amount of business the drivers got, it paid more for them to do runs than to sit idling while waiting for a customer.

I glared up at the window of my old apartment only to find Mrs. Hopkins staring down at me. Even from a distance, I could see the weirdest smirk on her face. If I didn’t know better—or at least hoped better—I would assume she had sent my cab away. But how would that benefit her?

Defeated, I put the two bags in my right hand on the ground, whipped out my phone, and dialed with one hand to call another cab. As I feared, they informed me of the excessively high volume of requests which meant it would be close to forty minutes or more before they could have someone pick me up.

The depth of rage that burned in my guts couldn’t be put into words.

For one very serious moment, I considered just trashing all Angelique’s belongings.

I wasn’t her fucking maid or errant girl.

But being my dumb people pleaser self, I sucked it up again and just made my way to the nearest bus station. It truly felt like a conspiracy theory.

I had my own car, which conveniently happened to be at the garage getting an oil change and tuning.

Had they warned me sooner that this needed to be handled today, I would have postponed the maintenance.

But nope, Mrs. Hopkins called me not even an hour after I dropped off the car to tell me to come fetch everything since the others couldn’t. Otherwise, we’d all face a fine.

Next time, just pay the fucking fine.

With it being early fall, the weather was already a bit chilly. Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait long for the next bus to arrive. However, there was a reason I avoided public transportation as the damn things were always packed here. And today was no exception.

I squeezed my way to the middle of the bus before getting sandwiched by far too many bodies.

With so many of them wearing coats or thick sweaters, it didn’t take long before I started feeling a bit too hot.

I encouraged myself with the thought that it was only a ten-minute ride.

If I tried to pretend I was in a sauna instead of a sea of humans, it might be a bit more bearable.