I didn’t even take offense to that. I just smiled and shrugged.
“I’ve learned how important trust is,” I told her. “As long as you play fair with me, I’ll keep it to myself.” I frowned slightly. “I mean, unless someone hooks a car battery to my nuts or something. Then, I’m squealing like a pig.”
She looked at me for a second, then took out a piece of paper and pen from her desk and started writing.
“Yeah. I think I’ll work up a magical geas in that case.
“Geas?”
“A magically binding agreement. It should keep you from blabbing about me, while still allowing you to do your job.”
“Fair enough,” I said, putting my hand over the paper. “As long as you’ll do the same for me.”
“Excuse me?”
“You might not have balls to shock, but you know things about warlocks that nobody else is supposed to. I’m going to have to trust you as I learn more about myself too, so you can use me better. My whole race, which is just me for now, depends on you keeping that to yourself.”
She stared at me, calculating.
“I respect that,” she stated after a few moments. “Fine. I’ll draw up a rune then we’ll go visit Pecker together and get it done. It will be like bros getting matching tattoos, hitting the strip clubs together, or docking.”
The way she said that last word caused me to make a mental note to never ever google docking.
“You know,” she said, crossing her legs, “it will be nice to have someone to share some of this with.” She tented her hands in front of her, like a mini Mr. Burns from The Simpsons. “In fact, I think I can trust you to know a bit more about why I brought you into my organization.”
Now it was my turn to be confused. “What do you mean? You found out I was a warlock and decided to use me against the Shaped, since I was the only one to kill one.”
Even as I said it out loud it sounded hollow.
Now, it was her turn to relax.
“Good, you didn’t become a genius overnight. I was a little worried you’d already figured that out too.”
She put her thumb to a spot on her desk and a secret drawer opened. She reached in and pulled out a picture, then slid it over to me.
“Does that look familiar, Mark?”
I studied it.
It was of me and my grandpa, from when I was around three years old. I looked closer and noticed I was holding something.
No, not something…
Someone.
It was Stone.
“What the fuck?”
She looked at me and giggled. I mean, a full-on Tinker-bell bout of laughter.
“You should see your face right now. It’s fucking priceless.”
I felt my eyes start to burn.
“Explain,” I said, through gritted teeth.
“Easy tiger,” she said, becoming businesslike again. “I knew your grandfather. Pretty well, in fact.”
“How?”
“That’s a conversation for another day,” she said. “Suffice it to say Amos and I go way back.”
She took the picture from me and put it back in her desk drawer.
“I’ve known about you for years. It’s my job to monitor threats to the PPD. I had to keep you moving to keep anyone else from suspecting though. Some officers are still around from the war, you know.”
This was a lot to take.
Stone looked at me, sympathetically, then waved her hand, revealing a minibar at the back of her office.
“Never know when you’ll need a drink,” she said, winking as she flew over and grabbed two glasses. “A tequila sunrise okay?”
I nodded dumbly, wondering how I’d ever thought I’d been in control of this meeting.
I watched her mix the drinks with her magic as she talked. Pixie dust hands emerged to pour and stir everything. I tried not to think about the other uses for magic hands like that.
“I’ve been watching over you pretty much all of your life,” Stone noted. “It was necessary to keep you safe…” She paused as if reconsidering her words. “Well, not safe, really. More like in reserve.”
The pixie hand reached into an ice bucket and dropped some cubes into each drink.
“I was against getting rid of the warlocks in the first place, you know. I knew better than to throw away a useful tool.”
She waved and one of the magic hands floated over to me, placing my drink on the desk. Its job done, the hand exploded into dust.
I took a sip of my drink, not knowing what else to do.
“So,” I said, feeling the burn of alcohol, “if you’ve been protecting me, why bring me in to fight the Shaped? I could have been killed.”
She picked up her own glass, which was almost as big as her whole body, and flew back to her chair.
“Not protecting,” she corrected, “saving you until I needed you. When the Shaped made their move I knew that time was here, so I used you to finish my investigation of them in Bangkok. Bonding with Bert took away any hope of hiding you again, anyway, so I made you more visible instead.”
“Saving me in case the Shaped did something?” I asked, taking too big a swallow of my drink.
I coughed as the tequila flooded my mouth.
Stone mixed a strong drink. Or the pixie-dust hands did, anyway.
“They were the most likely candidates, yes,” she answered, forming a straw out of magic to sip her drink with. “There were hints that the Shaped have been active for decades, and everyone but me ignored them. When you were attacked, it triggered an alarm and I was able to pull you out of the Netherworld before anyone ‘accidentally’ took care of you.”
I blinked at her in disbelief.
“You’ve really been watching me this whole time?”
I took another big drink. It went down easier this time. My glass should have been empty, but it seemed to refill. Some kind of magic, I guessed.
“Off and on, yes,” she said. “I won’t lie. Part of why I was watching you was to see if I would have to kill you.” She sighed. “A demon in the wrong hands is too dangerous to let live.”
She frowned as she sipped her drink.
“Don’t get me wrong, it would have gutted me, but you’ve already learned I’ll do anything to protect the supernatural world.”
“You thought it was possible for me to turn evil?” I asked, my jaw clenching slightly. “If you’d been watching me, you’d know the most evil thing I’ve done is forget to pay a parking ticket.”
She inclined her head, staring at me intently. “It was a possibility, and I couldn’t ignore it. People are afraid of the warlocks for good reason. I always had to be ready.” She smiled suddenly, lighting up her whole face. “But then,” she said, “you sacrificed yourself for a little girl you’d never even met.”
She let go of her drink and flew over to me, taking one of my hands in both of her tiny ones.
“You have no idea how proud your grandpa Amos would have been to see that. He loved you so much.”
She looked down at my hand in hers, then dropped it as her face flushed, looking embarrassed at her expression of emotion.
“Even that wasn’t going to be enough for some, though,” she pointed out. “So many people wanted you dead as soon as they found out what you really were. Luckily, Queen Für countered that by sending Volkbert.” Stone laughed. “Damn, she’s smart.”
“But why?” I asked, my anger returning because of the nameless assholes who wanted me gone. “All I've done since I found out I'm a warlock is help people.”
“I know that.” She said, walking somewhat unsteadily across her desk to her drink.
She took a long sip through the straw.
“What you did for the little girl in Kansas City, should have made that clear to everyone, but some people are just little bitches, afraid to take a chance.” She took another drink, then blinked slowly. “Damn, I made this strong, huh?”
I didn’t reply.
“I wasn’t afraid though,
” she continued. “No, I was happy to risk pissing the Powers off by putting you on a team. You've proven to be worth the risk, which makes me extremely happy and ready to rub it in the nose of everyone who doubted us.”
She shook her head, as if to clear it.
“I mean, you're just one person and you unearthed a plot from the Shapers. You also took down a couple high profile criminals from one of the five families.” She was beaming. “Not to mention helping to expose a corrupt Director.”
“Well, my team helped…”
She looked into my eyes.
“You did that in less than a week, Mark. Imagine if there were more of you.”
Things were getting serious, so I did what I always did when things got that way…I made a joke.
“Are you coming on to me?”
She laughed.
“If I was, your pants would already be around your ankles. My family isn't known for being very subtle when it comes to…well, coming. My mom screwed a wizard to make me, for fuck’s sake. I can’t imagine the yoga and stretching that must have taken.”
“Wait,” I said, putting the image of a wizard-pixie hookup aside for a minute. “You’re a wizard too?”
“Yep,” she said, starting to slur her words slightly. “A strategy wizard. Planning’s kind of our thing. Which made it even worse when two of my team ended up being Shaped, because I didn’t see it coming. They killed the others before coming after me, and I barely managed to kill them and get away.”
“I knew the ashes were suspicious,” I said, remembering how that’s all they’d found of the old team’s bodies. Obviously I knew now that the chief hadn’t been responsible, but it had been a clever diversion.
“Again,” she said, “something I did under pressure. I had to disappear to throw the Shaped off my tail.” Her face fell. “But someone sold me out. That should have been impossible.” She looked back up at me. “Aside from you, I can count how many people know my real identity on one hand.”
She held out her hand and waved it around. “I mean, I could when I’m sober. There seem to be too many fingers on this hand at the moment.”
She flew over, unsteadily, then landed on my shoulder.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go get you and me some magic rune tattoos to keep our secrets safe from ball torture. I think I’m drunk enough to handle the pain.”
She’d only had one drink, but that was a lot for someone the size of my fist.
I shrugged.
“Why not? Mira likes my tattoos.”
Chapter 40
The next day I was sitting on the beach in Phuket, sipping some juice and rubbing my ass cheek gently.
Mira looked over at me and giggled. “I still can’t believe you got a tattoo with the boss.”
She’d giggled a lot since I’d stumbled back to my apartment last night. I’d thought Stone was joking about getting tattoos, but apparently not. I’d have to ask her what was in that drink.
I didn’t remember much after getting the geas with Stone, so I couldn’t tell her secrets to anyone outside of the group. I did, however, remember her taking me to Pecker’s room and asking him to tattoo us.
I grinned weakly, waiting for the aspirin to kick in and take away my hangover.
“You liked the tattoo on the other butt-cheek,” I said. “I thought you’d appreciate this one too.”
She looked at me, fighting a losing battle to keep a straight face.
“You haven’t seen it yet, have you?”
“No,” I admitted, “but I was told it was suitably bad-ass.”
“Mmmhmm,” Mira said, pulling out her phone and scrolling. She turned her phone to me, showing off a picture of a newly tattooed ass. “I snapped that while you were sleeping,” she said. “What do you think?”
I leaned in to get a close look. Staring back at me was a picture of Tinkerbell in a pink dress. She was winking. Even worse, below the pixie were the words, “Pecker Rules,” written out in cursive.
I groaned.
“Remind me not to let Stone make me a drink again,” I said.
“Hey, neat,” Bert said from over my shoulder. “I knew pink was manly.”
I pulled my hat over my eyes and attempted to hide from the world.
Mira pulled her beach cot next to mine and hugged me.
“It’s cute,” she said.
I felt someone hug me from the other side. Fearing the worst, I rolled over, prepared to push Bert away. Instead my hand met something noticeably softer than demon skin.
At the same time my face landed directly in Lana’s considerable cleavage.
I pulled back like a snake had bitten me, which was entirely possible if Mira got jealous.
“What are you doing, Lana?”
“You seemed to be in distress,” she said. She then leaned back, exposing way too much skin in her bikini. “My research suggests that those in distress can benefit from the release of oxytocin. It’s released through hugging.” She grabbed me and pulled me back into a full body hug. “Do you feel relaxed?”
Mira’s laughter was only slightly louder than Bert’s sudden proclamation of how much distress he was in.
We spent the rest of the day at the beach as a team, and then split up to give Mira and I some time together.
It was our one-week anniversary.
Not much for most people, but considering how much we’d already been through, we felt like celebrating.
We ordered a private dinner and ate outside on the veranda, overlooking the ocean.
For a time we just watched the sunset, enjoying each other’s company.
“I feel bad relaxing while there’s so much crime going on,” Mira finally said, nestled in the crook of my arm.
I’d felt the same way, but Stone had explained the need to keep her teams rested. It helped keep us sharp and prevent PTSD.
“We’re like firefighters,” I explained. “We wait in reserve for the emergencies. We can help out a little, especially when it comes to following up with the Shaped, but we have to be available any time something major happens.”
She sighed. “Fucking Shaped. We never found out who Granger’s boss is, so I guess we’ll probably be dealing with that down the line.”
I nodded and rubbed her shoulder.
“Yeah. So let’s relish the downtime. We might as well enjoy ourselves until we’re almost certainly killed while fighting some horrendous creature that never should have existed.”
Mira smacked me on the arm.
“You suck at being romantic,” she said. “You know that, right?”
I smiled, then reached under the bench we were sitting on.
“Do I?” I asked, pulling out a small package.
Mira looked at the gift, then winked.
“Just a minute.” She walked into the house for a minute, returned with her own package. “Is your gift as horrible as mine?” she asked.
We swapped presents. I opened mine first. “What’s this?” I asked, pulling out what looked like two small padded socks.
“To cover your tusks,” she said. “I don’t know if you noticed, lover boy, but you’re starting to shift when you feel any strong emotion.” She winked and raised the bottom of her dress up. This exposed, among other things, a pair of scratches on her inner thighs. “And judging from last night I’d say lust definitely qualifies as a strong emotion.”
I blushed and pointed to the package she was holding.
“Smart move,” I acquiesced. “And I’m sure you won’t get upset about my gift now.”
She looked inside her package, then laughed as she pulled out a pair of gloves.
“Great minds think alike,” she said, her eyes flashing yellow as her claws popped out.
She took my hand and led me inside. “Come on, let’s test them out.”
The End
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Bangkok Warlock: A Mark Vedis Supernatural Thriller Book 1 (Southeast Asia Paranormal Police Department) Page 22