by Gary Jonas
“Hmm,” he said.
He grabbed my right arm, turned it over, and stared at the tattoo.
“Riddle me this,” he said. “What does the Tarot say about my future involvement in your protection?”
“Huh?”
“Ask the tattoo.”
“Whatever, dude.”
“Humor me.”
It couldn’t hurt, so I asked the question and shook my arm. The tattoo shifted to reveal the Nine of Wands.
“Plenty of conflict,” he said. Then he smiled. “But it can be overcome. Still, we must be wary.”
“Typical Tarot bullshit,” I said.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“When is there not conflict? When can it not be overcome? When should you not be wary? It’s all crap.”
“Not if it makes you think about it.”
I walked to my car, studied the ass imprint on the roof. I could fix it, but I didn’t feel like drawing any blood right then. I wanted to take a nap before heading over to Michael’s.
“We should take my car,” Gideon said.
“What makes you think we’re going to be hanging out together?”
“It’s my job. You wouldn’t want me to be unemployed, would you?”
“Dude, I don’t know you.”
“I told you, I’m Gideon Barnes.”
“Yeah, I got that part. I also got that you have other side jobs.”
“Yes, but I’m going to keep an eye on you. It’s easier to do if we’re together. Hey, think of it like this. We’ll conserve gas this way. You don’t want to have to drive everywhere. I’ll be your chauffeur and bodyguard.”
“And executioner?”
He laughed. “What do your cards say about that?”
“To be wary?” I asked. I didn’t bother to tell him that I couldn’t ask the cards another question for twenty-four hours. Not that I cared, but asking the cards about his future with me broke my four month streak of not using them at all.
“I have no plans to kill you in the immediate future. We should be together, Mr. Masters. I can help you. And I’d much rather take my car because it has more leg room.”
I grinned. “You don’t want to fold yourself into my old man’s Ford Focus?”
“Why did your father buy that?”
“He needed a car to get around one day when he didn’t have a driver with him, so he bought the first car he found for sale. It’s normally at the airport in his hangar.”
“And you chose to drive it. Why?”
“Because it was the only car in the hangar that day.” I hadn’t considered that. Was my old man keeping tabs on me? Was there a tracker on the car? Then I shook my head because if my father wanted to track me, he would never think of technology. He’d hone in on my blood signature with magic.
Would someone else use technology to track me? Hmm. It would have to be someone with access to the hangar.
“Are you hurting your brain?” Gideon asked.
“Huh?”
“You look like you’re trying to do long division in your head.”
“Right. Tell you what. You go hop in the unemployment line because I don’t need a bodyguard or a chauffeur or someone who can get things off the top shelf for me.”
“Sorry, Mr. Masters. We’re linked now.”
I gave him a confused look.
He shrugged. “When I grabbed your shoulders, I linked us with magic. You and I have to be within ninety-four feet of each other until the spell wears off.”
“Ninety-four feet?”
He nodded. “The length of a basketball court.”
“Right,” I said and climbed into my car.
He didn’t try to stop me.
I started the engine, put the car in gear, and stepped on the accelerator. I waved to Gideon as I left my parking spot. He waved back, all polite.
I drove to the end of the parking lot, turned right toward Seawall, and made it a few more yards before the car jerked to a stop.
I glanced in the rearview mirror.
Gideon stood back there waving. I didn’t measure the distance, but I knew it was ninety-four feet.
I stomped on the accelerator.
The tires screeched. Rubber burned. Smoke billowed. And the car didn’t move an inch.
“Well, shit,” I said. I put the car in reverse, and it moved backward with no problem.
Maybe I should try backing over him.
But if that didn’t work, it would piss him off.
He was a lot bigger than me.
I veered to one side to go around him, and stopped beside him. I lowered the driver’s side window.
“Nice trick,” I said. “You cast the spell, so you set the parameters. Is that right?”
He nodded.
“Which means I can’t go more than ninety-four feet of where you want to take me.”
“I’ll have to let my employer or employers know that you’re not that slow a learner.”
I winked at him, bit the inside of my cheek, and focused my magic. “I’m not a big fan of leashes,” I said, and stomped on the accelerator again.
I was still in reverse so the car shot backward.
Oops.
Oh well, I didn’t want to admit that was an accident, so I kept going in reverse down the road. I focused on severing his link to me.
And bam!
The car jolted to a stop ninety-four feet from him. Again, I didn’t measure, but I figured I’d take his word for the distance.
He turned around and when he took a step toward me, the car backed up that distance.
He stopped and put a hand up telling me to stop.
I sighed, shifted to drive, and pulled over to the curb. I shut off the engine, and climbed out of the car.
“Not sure how you managed that little trick,” I said as I walked over to him.
He smiled and held up his right hand. His fingers were adorned with golden rings. He did a weird flex thing with his fingers and tiny needles poked out of the bottom of the ring bands. That would explain the left shoulder pain when he touched me.
“Blood binding,” he said. “As long as I have these rings, you’re stuck with me.”
Traces of blood remained in my mouth, so I focused my magic on yanking the rings off his fingers.
He laughed. “Nice try,” he said. “As I have your blood in the rings, your magic won’t work on me. You might think of it as an auto-shielding spell.”
“I’m going to sing the most annoying songs all day every day until you give me those rings. How’s your tolerance level for ‘It’s a Small World’ or ‘Achy Breaky Heart?’”
“Two of my all-time favorites. I’ll sing along with you.” He draped an arm around my shoulders and guided me toward the parking lot where his big limousine waited. “Now let’s get going. Where were you headed first?”
“To my hotel for a nap.”
“Oh, I love nap time,” he said. “You and I are going to be the best of buds.”
“I prefer a different kind of bud.”
“Of course you do.”
He put me in the back of the limo and drove me to my hotel. On the ride over, he shoved a CD into the player and Billy Ray Cyrus sang “Achy Breaky Heart.” Each time the song ended, Gideon pushed a button to play the track again. And he sang along each time.
Some days it’s better to just stay in bed.
CHAPTER EIGHT
It’s hard to nap when a strange man is in the next room talking on his cellphone about you. I’d rented a suite, so the bedroom was separate from the rest of the place. I wanted to sleep, but it wasn’t going to happen. Unfortunately, I could hear only Gideon’s side of the conversation. I couldn’t tell who he was talking to or anything that I felt was useful to me, but it wasn’t for a lack of trying.
“This is Gideon,” he said, no doubt answering the phone. As the phone didn’t ring, I applied my best Sherlockian skills to determine the ringer was on vibrate.
“He’s in the next room. N
apping.”
Silence.
“I wouldn’t know.”
More silence.
“Of course.”
The way Gideon’s voice shifted in location and volume, I suspected he was pacing the floor. He remained calm the entire time, and kept his voice low in an attempt to not wake me.
“I haven’t determined that yet,” he said.
Silence.
“Yes, he does.”
Silence.
“Not that I can tell.”
Silence.
“I will.”
Silence.
“Of course. He wants to know who hired me.”
Silence.
“No, I didn’t tell him.” I sensed a slight disgust at having been questioned.
More silence. I imagined Gideon staring at the ceiling.
“I’d rather not.”
Silence.
“You asked, I answered.”
Silence.
“I’ll be taking him and his friend Michael to Austin this evening.”
Silence.
“Yes, the vampire.”
Silence.
“No, I’m not concerned.”
Silence.
“I’m not afraid of vampires.”
Silence.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Silence.
“Is that all?”
Silence.
“Yes, it worked. I’d like to go now.”
Silence.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Silence.
“If necessary.”
Silence.
“No, I won’t hesitate.”
Silence.
“You do realize, this entire conversation would have been easier with texting, and I wouldn’t risk waking up the subject.”
Silence.
“You wizards are all the same. Technology is not your enemy.”
Silence.
“I don’t care what you think, say, or do as long as the money is in my account. I’ll do my job. Goodbye.”
Wizards. Unfortunately, that didn’t narrow things down. I suspected he’d been hired by the Magic Council or my father. The fake me could have hired him, too, but I didn’t think so. The issues with technology made it less likely.
I rolled over and closed my eyes.
The TV came on in the other room. Even though Gideon turned the sound down, I could still hear it. Steve Harvey gave some guy grief for a sexual answer on Family Feud.
Next thing I knew, I was trying to think of answers to: Name something people enjoy licking.
Even ice cream cones came off sexual in that survey. Lollipops, too. Yeah, I wasn’t going to be able to sleep.
I grabbed my phone off the nightstand and texted Michael:
Dude, we have a chauffeur to take us to Austin.
I waited.
No answer.
Stupid vampire didn’t take his phone into his damn coffin?
“Screw it,” I said, and joined Gideon for the rest of Family Feud.
He glanced at me and raised an eyebrow. “Short nap.”
I shushed him, pointed at the TV, and sat down.
He nodded.
At the commercial, he repeated his comment. “Short nap.”
“Even a short nap can be refreshing,” I said.
“Just makes me groggier.”
“How long have you known about the magical communities?” I asked.
“Oh, you want to talk about real shit.”
“Only during commercials.”
“Right. My aunt was a voodoo priestess.”
“Cool.”
“Not if she practiced her voodoo shit on you.”
“Not so cool.”
“I’d rather know than not know, though,” Gideon said. “All these people around us are clueless. Crazy shit happens around them and they don’t even notice.”
“Sometimes they do.”
“Drives some of them crazy.”
“True that.”
Gideon smiled. “You want to order a pizza?”
“Hell yeah.”
Cut to us kicking back, eating a hand-tossed meat lover’s pizza, drinking soda, and swapping tall tales about growing up around magic.
Some of what I said was even true.
Some of what he said might have been true, too.
“This one time,” I said, “my father was meeting with a wizard from London. Tall guy with a long gray beard. Looked like Gandalf from Lord of the Rings only he wore an Armani suit instead of gray or white robes.”
“Damn wizards tend to blend right in,” he said.
“That’s one of the rules. Wear clothes that fit the current style. Anyway, they were going to have a magical contest to make butterflies appear out of nothing, and the biggest most beautiful butterfly would constitute the winner.”
“I know where this is going,” he said.
“No you don’t.”
“Your old man conjured a butterfly that filled the whole room, right?”
“No. Let me tell the story.”
“Sorry. Go ahead.”
“So my father conjured a butterfly that filled the whole house.” I waited for him to smile, then said, “Just kidding.”
He shook his head.
“Seriously,” I said. “I was just a kid, but back then I wanted to be like my old man. I wanted to show that I had magic powers too.”
“Uh oh.”
“Not uh oh,” I said. “Let me tell it.”
“I’m listening.”
“So I go into the living room, and I’m wearing a pink silk robe I took from my mom’s closet. I was maybe six years old, and I had my hands in the pockets, acting all nonchalant. My father told me to go to bed, but I said I wanted to show them that my magic was powerful. The Brit was smiling, so my father encouraged me. I stepped forward, pulled one hand out of the robe and pointed at the TV set saying, ‘To life!’ and at that moment, I pressed the power button on the remote control in my other pocket. The TV came on.”
“What was playing? Please tell me it was Mothra.”
“No, it was an episode of Magnum P.I. Both the Brit and my father stared at the TV in amazement. I said, ‘Go away, Tom Selleck,’ and pressed the power button again. The TV turned off. The Brit clapped his hands. My father looked from the TV to me and smiled.”
“See?” Gideon said. “He’s not all bad.”
I grinned. “He said, ‘Son, I’m impressed.’ I beamed, took a bow, and the Brit kept clapping. ‘Jolly good,’ he said. ‘Can you turn the TV on again and this time make the volume go up and down?’ My father said that might be a bit much for a boy my age. The Brit laughed and said he thought I could do it.”
“Wait a minute, your father didn’t know about the remote?”
I shook my head. “So I turned the TV on, but when I moved my finger to the other button, I changed the channel to an old episode of Gunsmoke instead of changing the volume. My father said, ‘Focus your magic, son.’ The Brit laughed harder than ever. ‘The other button, Brett,’ he whispered. ‘You can do this.’ And my father got pissed. He grabbed me, pulled me close and found the remote control. The Brit tried to pass it off as all in good fun, but my father was embarrassed that he’d been fooled. I’ve been an embarrassment to him ever since.”
“Damn,” Gideon said.
“What kind of stuff did you pull?”
“More like shit got pulled on me,” he said. “My aunt had a voodoo doll of me, and anytime I didn’t clean my room, she’d do stuff to the doll that happened to me. The worst was when I was in grade school. I was in front of the class doing Show and Tell with my basketball tricks. I wasn’t allowed to throw the ball, but I could roll it up and down my arms, around my neck, spin it on one finger, all that stuff. So I’m at the front of the room, arms outstretched, ball rolling from one hand over my arm, over my neck, down my other arm to my fingers, where I flipped it over my head to my other hand, right? Aunt Vera chooses that exact moment
to yank the pants down on the doll, and my pants dropped to the floor in front of the whole class. Underwear dropped too. So I’m standing there, pecker flopping out in front of God and everyone. The class laughed. Girls pointed. I dropped the ball, and pulled my pants up. Teacher grabbed me by the ear and dragged me down to the principal’s office calling me a pervert. I got kicked out of class for a week.”
“Wow,” I said.
He grinned. “Wasn’t all bad, though. Few years later, I hooked up with a couple of those girls. I guess they liked what they saw.” He elbowed me and nodded while raising and lowering his eyebrows.
And we kept telling stories.
After bonding over food, I found that I liked Gideon. He seemed to like me as well.
I wonder if he thought about the Tarot card warning us to be wary too. Stupid Tarot cards took all the fun out of making a new friend.
Then again, when the new friend was the driver for the crazy hot chicks who wanted to kill you, maybe being wary was a good thing.
My phone buzzed as a text came in.
Michael: Ready when you are.
CHAPTER NINE
Michael met us in front of a coffee shop on Post Office Street. He didn’t like strangers knowing where he kept his coffin. Gideon pulled over to the curb and I rolled the window down.
“Hey, Michael,” I said.
“Sparing no expense, I see,” he said. He picked up his overnight duffel and approached the limo.
Gideon popped the trunk, but didn’t get out.
“Not exactly full service,” Michael said as he tossed his bag in the trunk and closed the lid.
“I don’t serve vampires,” Gideon said once Michael opened the back door to slide into the vehicle. “No offense. Just a rule my mother set when a vampire ran off with my father.”
Michael shot me a look.
I put up my hands. “I didn’t tell him anything. He already knew.”
“I’m in the business of knowing,” Gideon said.
“Just as well,” Michael said. “I don’t like people waiting on me hand and foot. Makes me uneasy. As you seem to know who I am, how about you tell me your name.”
Gideon turned in his seat and extended a hand. “Gideon Barnes, pleased to make your acquaintance.”
Michael shook his hand.
“Your hand is cold,” Gideon said.