Wish You Weren't Here

by Janeen Ippolito

  One blink, and suddenly her hair looked like it had a blue and green kilt embedded in the straight strands. A grin tugged my lips. Josie frowned. “What is it?”

  “Nothing.” Another blink of my eyes, and her hair was back to normal. “Let’s go inside and see how I can help you.”

  I really did want to help her. Normally an anxious client wouldn’t bother me like this. After all, they were hiring me to solve their romantic problems. Which meant they weren’t exactly going to show up super composed.

  But the throbbing in my temples reminded me I was sorely deficient in caffeine. And I’d only gotten one piece of toast.

  I clenched my hands, then released them. Coffee after the meeting.

  I could make it until then.

  How bad could this be?

  Chapter 4

  Due to a strong desire not to die, we only worked with clients who were at least partly sane. Those clients could be full humans with tech that let them play with magic, Sensitives with traces of magic, grayling half-breeds like me, or full-blooded Fae. We’d even decided to allow in Unspoken. It would be hypocritical not to, considering that Jinn sort of fell into the Unspoken category and Cendric was a vampire.

  Bottom line: we were open-minded. But some amount of psychological soundness was a necessity. Desperation and supernatural romance were a bad combination, and the last thing I wanted was for my matchmaking clients to turn into romantic investigation clients, even though I would get paid double.

  Unfortunately, Josie, who was seated across the desk from me, couldn’t seem to understand the need for sanity. I blamed the firebird lineage that showed up just enough in her Sensitive blood to make her green eyes flare with a touch of flame. “He hasn’t contacted me in a week!”

  “Josie, I’m sorry you had a bad experience. That sounds obnoxious.” She was an otherwise quiet, law-abiding person I’d met during an evening mission over two months ago. I’d been working for Momoru Investigations at the time, running a classic honey trap on Josie’s date, a human jock who made the incredibly stupid life choice of trying to pass as a dragon shifter in order to get into the pants of naïve females. I’d lured the guy away so he could be locked up, then clued Josie in on the realities of living among the Fae in Pittsburgh. We’d hit it off, and it turned out she had a knack for administrative matters—aka, all the tedious paperwork that I’d rather swallow a live wolverine than deal with.

  She’d agreed to take her start-up fee in romantic consultation, since the lovely Miss Framer was intent on getting a shifter mate with fiery abilities, and matchmaking was one of the services on the menu. But she was getting a bit too nitpicky for my taste and going off-plan in dumb ways.

  “You must understand, I have certain …” she leaned forward and lowered her voice to a whisper, “needs. A human man simply won’t work.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I know.”

  “Neither will an ice dragon.”

  I raised my hands. “Look, we didn’t tell you to go out with Rafe. Gideon set you up with Rafe’s friend Melvin.”

  “Melvin’s got a girlfriend.”

  “Well, that must be a recent development. The point is, you striding over to Rafe and scolding him about improperly sharpening his knives was your own business. So was making out with him later on.”

  “It was just a kiss!” Josie touched her lips. “One kiss.”

  The way her expression suddenly grew distant definitely made me doubt it had stopped with a kiss, but I wasn’t about to pick that fight. Even though I didn’t see the appeal. I’d dated Rafe myself … somewhere in the last ten years. I’d dated a lot. The guy was particular about who he locked lips with and had some baggage about needing to be needed. Just one of the reasons I had called the date quits and hadn’t added him to my matchmaking pool.

  Still, I could be flexible.

  “Well, did you like the kiss?”

  “Augh, don’t even go there.” She shook her head vehemently. “Never mention that low-down dog of a dragon ever again. Rafe was a mistake. Never should’ve tried that.”

  “You two have a fight or something?” It was hard to imagine Rafe fighting.

  “To have a fight, you have to talk with someone,” she huffed. “Something he’s not very good at when it doesn’t suit him.”

  Aha, maybe something to do with conflict avoidance.

  I nodded. “So how did you end up hanging around him?”

  “I’m stupid and … and … augh!” She made a sound like water on a hot frying pan. “Forget Rafe. I need someone with fire.”

  “Yes, I’m aware.” Even if she hadn’t been very specific, Josie’s desire for a flame-tolerant—preferably flame-producing—mate was at the top of her mind, along with her fear that I wouldn’t be able to find her one. I hid a wince. My ability to read fears and desires had gotten stronger since my curse-mark had been broken. It wasn’t as much of an issue around vampires. In general, they tended to project a cool exterior. Josie, however, did not.

  “Allis? Allis, are you listening to me?” Her normally sweet face twisted in a scowl. “You said you could help me!”

  Who knew someone normally so quiet could be so … not? I leaned forward on the desk. “Yes, I did. And I can. We can, and we are. Gideon has been scouting around the shifter community.” Gideon, who was oh-so-supportively hiding in the kitchen. Dealing with angry people was not in his job description. “But shifters of the fire variety don’t often show up on the list. They tend to prefer their own kind.”

  “I am their kind!”

  “No, you’re not. One of your ancestors was similar to their kind, which gives you an immunity to fire, an ability to see into the magisphere, and a longer lifespan.” And a fiery temper, but I wasn’t gonna go there. We really did need a secretary. The desk between Josie and me was currently neat only because I had shoved the papers helter-skelter into various drawers.

  She slumped back in the folding chair, her shoulder-length brown hair falling in her face. “It’s gotta count for something,” she grumbled. “It’s gotta.”

  “And it does, but …” I sighed. “I can’t make a firebird or dragon shifter appear out of thin air.”

  “Can’t you? You’re a Jinn, after all. It’s your job to grant wishes.” She chewed her lip. “And you can teleport.”

  “Teleporting someone here against their will for your immediate gratification is both kidnapping and rat’s ass stupid. You won’t die because you’re single.”

  Josie pouted. “You know, for a matchmaker, you’re awfully cynical about love.”

  “I’m a romantic consultant, not a miracle worker.” I sighed. “We are doing the best we can. If you’re unsatisfied, you can keep trying things with Rafe or go somewhere else. Not that I want you to. I’m excited to have you working with us. But I’m not forcing you to stay here.”

  Something in my expression must have reached her, because the fire left Josie’s eyes, and thankfully, her fears and desires stopped pounding at my head. “No! I’m okay. I’ll be okay. I can wait. I’m just frustrated.” She sighed. “Isn’t there any way you can just … sneak me a potion or something that would make this easier?”

  “Nope.”

  Josie paused. “So Gideon can’t make them?”

  “I didn’t say that. But we don’t sell them. At all. Love potions are unethical for a romantic consulting business, and there’s always a side effect.”

  She tapped her fingers against her knee. “Yeah, but even then … maybe just enough to give someone a little jolt in the right direction—”

  “I don’t do chemical nudges.” I leveled a stare at her. “Would you want someone using a love potion on you, forcing out feelings that you may or may not actually have?”

  ‘Well, no. That’d be creepy!”

  I gave her a smile. “Exactly. Do unto others, and all that.” I pushed away from the desk and stood up. “I’ll keep you updated on other possible dates.”

  “Thank you.” Sheepish words spilled o
ut of her. “For everything. You’ve done so much for me, from helping with the Fae stuff to that new apartment across the way.”

  Josie had left behind everything to come to the big city. She could use all the friends she could get. Seeing her standing there, mid-twenties, in her secondhand blue dress, compassion trickled through me.

  “You’re good.” My smile widened. “All in the job description.”

  She huffed. “Helping others without pay after hours? You said Fae never do anything for free, and to be wary of their gifts.”

  “Yeah, well, fortunately I’m not entirely Fae. And I know what it’s like to not have much in the world.” I walked around the desk and gave her a side hug, then we walked toward the doorway of my small office. “Gideon’s doing inventory, so see about helping him with the paperwork side of that. It’ll go faster.”

  She nodded. “Got it. I’ll add it to the database I’m constructing.”

  “Database? Fantastic.”

  I gave her a gentle push toward the back kitchen area, which had been turned into Gideon’s second alchemy lab. As soon as the door was closed behind her, I turned around and breathed out a long sigh of relief. My shields relaxed with the motion— not just the outer ones protecting me from Josie’s pinging emotions, but the inner ones that protected me from my own thoughts. Thoughts that surfaced as I stood in the front room.

  A long counter with a cash register on it spanned one side. Across the opposite side was a wall with a glass window so I could see the main area from my office. The center of the room was filled with three tiers of circular shelving organized in such a way that made shoplifting almost impossible, between Gideon’s nose, Josie’s sharp eyes, and my additional mental perceptions.

  I could have teleported someone in for her. Transmuted matter into the facsimile of a man. A perfect man. So very many options.

  I snorted as I walked into the main display area. “Yes, and none of them are happening.”

  With the recent emergence of my Jinn magic had come certain urges. Not a new personality, but more like a part of myself I’d never really had to deal with before. Part of me was actually pretty glad about that, as much as I’d resented the curse-mark the Fae court had mandated upon my birth.

  I could have even breathed life into it.

  “Now that’s just arrogant. Only God can do that.”

  Are you sure about that?

  “Not listening …” I grabbed a rag and one of Gideon’s cleaning potions from behind the counter, a potion left over from when he and I had run our own house cleaning business on the side. Ironically, neither Gideon nor I enjoyed cleaning, but that only made us more determined to do it quickly and effectively.

  Perhaps not new life. Life that already existed. Transferring a soul, as I released so many souls before.

  A shudder rippled through me. “Yeah, true.”

  A memory flashed through my mind. The magisphere, clouded with fog and steam. A room full of deadwalkers—vampires who had used dark magic to transfer their souls into the bodies of Fae, and so become truly immortal. The rush of power through my body. The thrill of it, setting every nerve on end. Communicating with Cendric in the Dreamscape. Following his guidance, because he knew way more about helping people pass on than I did.

  One snap of my fingers.

  All those Fae bodies, falling to the ground, each of their brain stems severed, their mortal souls released into the afterlife.

  A strange giggle had escaped me then. Another escaped me now in the quiet of the front room. Not malicious but somewhere between delight and shock. My magic rose within me, ready to create or destroy again, as I wished.

  I shoved it down. “Not today. Nope.”

  The last thing I wanted to do was lose control or hurt someone.

  Unless they need to be hurt.

  I let that thought slide. Mostly because I agreed with it.

  I sprayed some of the iridescent teal concoction on the rag and started wiping down the metal shelves nearest to me. They held a variety of cleansing products, labeled safe for shifters in both forms and able to clean both forms at the same time. The last part had been my addition. I don’t know how I did it. I just dumped in a little raw magic. Story of my life.

  I walked over to the next shelf. My shoes scuffed on the tile floor as I worked, the only sound in the store. I yawned.

  Coffee! I needed coffee.

  All the coffee. I’d even chew roasted beans right about now…

  A sudden wave of rich, smoky flavor filled the room, along with a potent whoosh of my Jinn magic, dancing eagerly in deep sapphire flames.

  Dancing…around the ceiling. I glanced up. An avalanche of coffee beans rained down.

  “Oh hell.”

  I dropped to the floor, locking my arms around my head. Endless hard, round beans pelted me. My Jinn durability meant I wouldn’t bruise, but the missiles still hurt like bullets. This was ridiculous.

  “Allis? Allis!”

  Gideon. Now it was embarrassing.

  “Stop!” The beans kept coming. Anger filled me, curling my fingers into fists. “Just stop already! Augh, I wish someone would help me with my magic. What’s up with you? STOP!”

  The rainfall of coffee beans ceased. My heart pounded in my ears, and I stayed crouched on the floor, lest this was only a trick. There was nothing, only a quarter inch of coffee beans on the floor. I slowly rose to standing, wiping off my bean-oiled hands on my jeans.

  All was quiet. Too quiet. Something was off. It was as if a part of me had zoomed off into the magisphere with my words. Well obviously it had, a little bit. I’d stopped the coffee bean downpour.

  But this felt different, somehow. Like a long-forgotten scent faintly trickling through the air again.

  “Al, you okay?”

  I turned around to face Gideon and Josie, who stared at me from the doorway to the kitchen. “Yeah. I’m good.”

  “You must really want coffee,” Josie said.

  I shot her a glare, then sighed. “It didn’t get back there, did it?”

  Gideon shook his head. “No, just out here. You need help cleaning up?”

  “Can you make it disappear?” Josie put in. “Teleport it somewhere else?”

  “Such as?” I asked.

  “Uncommon Grounds?”

  “I’m pretty sure these beans aren’t food-grade quality after falling on the floor.”

  “True.”

  I kicked at some of them. “And they’re from the magisphere. Magic beans.” I giggled a little. “Who knows what will happen if you try to brew a cup?”

  I sure didn’t.

  Gideon made a little papery-squirrelly sound. “Josie and I will head out back, get some more brooms and dustpans and vacuums from the other shops along here. Maybe get some extra help too.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  That weird tickle of magic still pinged at the corner of my mind. It felt like something … trying not to be something. But it was still something. No, someone. A familiar dread and annoyance twitched through me. I was pretty sure exactly what—who—that someone was.

  “It’s okay Allis,” Josie called out. “We’ll get you some coffee too.”

  The door slammed behind them.

  I let out a huge groan.

  “Come out.”

  Silence. But I could somehow feel the magic from the front right corner of the room, behind the counter. An orange glow that both called to and repelled me, like a mix of warm hot chocolate and bitter tea. Only I was tasting it on my skin.

  Jinn senses were weird. But the sense was unmistakable. It wasn’t as strong as my sense of Cendric, who I could clearly detect. But a dim beacon was still a beacon.

  “So help me, if you don’t get out of my shop this minute—”

  “What? You’ll assault me with a double espresso?”

  “I’d never waste that on you!”

  A dry chuckle sounded, and a figure suddenly appeared in front of me out of thin air. A very distinctly male
figure who was all too familiar. He grinned. “Hello, gorgeous.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You can’t be here.”

  “Why can’t I?”

  “Because this entire building is warded against jackasses.”

  “You need better wards.”

  I huffed. “The wards are fine. You just have no sense of personal boundaries.”

  “As I remember, you were always the one invading mine.” His voice took on a deeper, huskier timbre. “And when I returned the favor, you didn’t complain. Far from it.”

  My skin flushed from his tone and the memories it evoked, the sensations prickling my skin as my heart beat faster. Then all six feet two inches of Kiran moved closer to me, only inches away. The same rakish good looks and warm-washed sepia skin, face framed by unruly black hair and a bit of scruff on that square jaw. One very quick glance over the rest of the Jinn revealed a gray zip-up hoodie, faded jeans, and some kind of thick-soled shoes, everything paint-splattered from his work as a visual artist and gallery owner.

  Every last bit of him way too attractive and curiously irresistible. Had to be a Jinn thing. Or maybe just a Kiran thing.

  I took a step back, the nearest shelving unit pressing into my spine.

  “Kiran, what the crap? You show up in my Dreamscape, and now you show up here?”

  His eyes glinted. “Where else would I be? After all, you wished for me.”

  “I wished for help! And the wishes of a Jinn can’t be granted.”

  “You’re not entirely Jinn.” Kiran made a show of looking around the coffee-carpeted room. “It seems you could use all the help you can get.”

  Another groan escaped me, and the headache I’d forgotten about came raging back.

  The fact that my ex was right about my magic only made the pain far, far worse.

  Chapter 5

  “What’s the catch?”

  He raised his hands. “No catch. In fact, I can help you with that headache right now.”

  Before I could stop him, he pressed a kiss to my forehead. With the action, the almost-migraine disappeared. The sudden relief threw me off guard so much that I wasn’t even able to smack him. Augh. It wasn’t fair, tricking me with kindness—and sneaking in a kiss.