Lyra's Magic: Witches of Manhattan Book One

by Langley Keaton

  I spent the better part of the hour hanging up my clothes and vacuuming my bedroom. I nodded my head, satisfied that everything was back to where it was supposed to be. Then I opened the bedroom door to go back into the living room.

  Holy fuck!!!!!

  Everything was a mess again.

  Exactly the way it was before.

  3

  Okay, somebody is playing a really dirty trick on me. Pun intended. Maddy and Olive, wherever they were, were going to pay for this when they got back. It’s really dirty pool to do something like this the day after an important birthday. I mean, really – I should be laying in bed, nursing a hangover, and having somebody peel me grapes while giving me a massage. But no, I have to clean up their shit, and I have to do it twice.

  “No fucking way,” I said, “I’m getting the hell out of here.”

  I wrote a really nasty note to my roommates, telling them to hire a maid to come and clean up the mess, because I wasn’t about to clean it up again. And then I took the elevator down to my car, which was located underground.

  We lived in a high-rise condo complex in Lower Manhattan. Our condo was on the 10th floor, and had an amazing view of the New York City skyline. I ordinarily loved to live here, but, after seeing that state of that apartment, I was feeling completely out of sorts.

  No, I wasn’t out of sorts, I was thoroughly pissed.

  I got down to the parking lot, and I saw, in every single open stall, one fast-food cup that was full of liquid. I shook my head, seeing that, not five feet away, was a trash can.

  “How can people be so lazy?” I asked myself, as I picked up each of the fast-food cups and threw them in the trash. I could never understand the mind-set of some people – they throw their trash wherever they stand, instead of trying to find a receptacle. I saw it whenever I went for a walk – cigarette butts would line the street, potato chip wrappers would be strewn around, condoms thrown carelessly in bushes. And I lived in a nice area. I could just imagine all the trash that would be thrown around in a poor area.

  I got in my car and prepared to drive to the store. I had no idea why I was going to the store, but I did know that I needed to get out of the house. Besides, we needed milk and eggs and cheese and things like that. It certainly couldn’t hurt to go to the store at that point.

  When I got to the store, I saw, in the underground parking lot, shopping carts. Everywhere there were shopping carts. None of them were in the corral like they were supposed to be. I shook my head. That was yet another pet peeve I had – people who were too goddamned lazy to put their own carts back. It was the same thing as with the littering – there would be a corral literally inches from somebody, and that person would choose to leave the shopping cart right in the parking space instead of walking the extra two feet to put it where it belongs.

  There was more than one occasion where I would catch somebody trying to pull that crap, and I would yell out the window “hey, you put that cart where it’s supposed to be!” So far, I succeeded in shaming these people, but Olive always told me that it was only a matter of time before I ended up getting shot by somebody who had no desire to dispense with his own shopping cart.

  So be it.

  Going into the store, I picked up an ad and saw that chicken breast was on sale that week. Boneless, skinless for only $ 1.67 a pound. I nodded my head, knowing a good deal when I saw it. But I got back there, and there was no chicken breast to be found. I looked at the ad, seeing that it was only the second day of the sale, and saw the words “while supplies last.”

  I sighed, knowing that buying cheap chicken breast was not to be. It was really bullshit, though – it’s the second day of the sale, and they’re already out?

  “Excuse me,” I said to the man in the butcher’s apron. “Do you have any of this chicken breast in the back?” I pointed to the ad.

  “No, I’m sorry. We’re out.”

  “I’ll come back, then. I would imagine that you’re going to get some more, right?”

  “No, sorry, we’re out. That means we’re out.” He shook his head, grimaced and went back through the swinging double doors.

  Another pet peeve. Rude people. I was only asking a question, a simple question. He certainly didn’t need to bite my head off.

  Was this pet peeve day? I hated, absolutely hated, to be baited and switched by an ad. You come into the store, excited about getting a good deal, only to find that the deal in question is gone, and the store has no plans to make it right. That happened to me during St. Patrick’s week, when I went to a store to buy some cheap corned beef, only to find out that the supplies were gone. The expensive corned beef was available, though. Of course. What store runs out of cheap corned beef during St. Patrick’s week? The store that wants you to be forced to buy the expensive stuff, that’s who.

  I picked up the milk, then noticed that the expiration date had come and gone. What’s more, all the other milk was the same. The expiration dates were last week.

  “Excuse me,” I said to a lady in a red apron. “Do you have any milk that’s not expired?”

  “No,” she simply said, and continued what she was doing before, which was stocking the shelf with Nutella.

  “Do you have any idea when you might get some unexpired milk?” I was incredulous. This store has nothing but bad milk, and nobody seemed to care.

  The woman just shrugged her shoulders, and walked away to go and stock something else.

  Where was I? I was in the store that I always went to. The store where people were always helpful and kind. If you asked them for something, they were always quick to help you out. Yet these people…they definitely needed some additional customer training.

  I decided to see the manager of the store. I went up to the little booth that was at the front part of the store, with the words “Customer Service” written above it in steel block letters.

  “Hello,” I said as pleasantly as I could. “I would like to speak with the general manager please.”

  The man behind the counter looked at me. He was a large man, fat, with a bulbous nose and a balding head. His eyes squinted at me and he shook his head. “I’m the manager, what do you want?”

  I cocked my head. “Excuse me?”

  “I said, what do you want?”

  I opened my mouth and shut it again. “Nothing. I want nothing. But know this – I’ll be writing a letter to your corporate headquarters as soon as I get back to my apartment.”

  “Oooh, I’m scared.”

  I gulped and suddenly felt enraged. “Well, you should be scared. Because I’m going to have your job, Ronove,” I said, reading his name tag. What kind of a name was Ronove? He certainly didn’t look like a guy whose name would be Ronove. That name sounded exotic. This guy looked like a typical brute whose name would be George or Harry or something ordinary like that. An ordinary name for an ordinary guy.

  I walked out of that store, vowing never to return. I had never in my life been subjected to such rude people. Never.

  On top of it all, all the empty parking spaces had shopping carts in them again.

  I clenched my jaw as I got in my car. It was turning out to be a really bad day. A day of constant frustrations. Maybe it was time to go on home and see if my two ne’er-do-well roommates, which included my sister Maddy, were home. I could have a talk with them about getting a maid over there to clean up on their dime. That would show them.

  I drove home, getting behind really slow cars that were clogging up the fast lane. What’s more, they were driving at the precise speed as the people next to them, so I couldn’t even pass them on the right. I flashed my brights at them, but they didn’t move over, and they continued to just go at the same pace as the people in the right lane.

  What is it with these people today? My god, I was used to rude drivers, especially in New York. This was the city where people refused to let you on the highway, on a regular basis, when you tried to enter the highway from an on-ramp. This was also the city where people woul
dn’t let you get over a lane, even though your blinker was on – they would see you wanting to get over and gun their cars from behind so that you wouldn’t have a chance to change lanes. Yeah, I was used to shitty inconsiderate drivers in this city, so these slow-ass people in the “fast” lanes shouldn’t bother me.

  But I was on my last nerve after all the other things that had happened, and I was in no mood to be accommodating.

  I turned on the radio and caught a snippet of news. Some woman was talking about a drive-by shooting in Lower Manhattan in the early morning hours. I shrugged my shoulders. Shootings like that happened way too often in way too many cities. Too many guns, too much anger, too many weirdoes who just could not let people live their lives.

  That I had dreamed about this shooting, and it was now on the radio, didn’t even occur to me at that moment. I turned the station onto some music and headed back to my apartment.

  When I got up to my apartment and turned the key, I sighed with relief. The living room was back to the way it was supposed to be. I guessed that Maddy and Sybil had come home, saw my note, and sheepishly decided that enough was enough. The joke was over.

  “Thanks guys,” I said, going from room to room, looking for them. “It was a funny joke, but come on out.”

  Hmmm. I guessed they left again. Without telling me. They better not be enjoying some delicious brunch at a Village restaurant while I sat there in the apartment, alone and pissed about all the different irritations that were piling up. That was bullshit. They always included me, so if they came home, saw my note, cleaned up and promptly left again, I would be really, really pissed.

  Whatever. I plopped down on the couch to try to catch up on my DVR. I had a ton of shows that I had recorded, and I figured that I might as well try to cheer myself up some. I was having a really bad day, and I could use some TV time to bring my spirits right back up.

  “What the hell?” My shows were erased. Every last one of them.

  I shook my head. Maddy and Olive were going to pay. It was one thing to mess with me by trashing up the apartment. Twice. But to erase my shows? I mean, I had hundreds of hours recorded. So did they. We had all decided that we would each get about 1500 hours to record at a time, as our DVR recorded up to 5000 hours before it would get full. I would never, ever erase their shows. Why would they mess with mine?

  Gah! So, I’ll watch regular television. That’s all.

  I flipped through the channels. I blinked as I realized that there was literally nothing but sports channels on there. No, wait. There was a non-sports channel. One. I looked at the menu for that channel and saw that it was showing “Keeping Up With the Kardashians.” To my dismay, this was ALL that this particular channel was showing. I went through the menu for that entire month, and saw that there was nothing but that show on the entire time.

  So, I could watch sports or the Kardashians. Those were literally my only choices.

  I threw the remote across the room. Somebody was playing a really elaborate trick on me, and I wasn’t liking it. Not one bit.

  I sat down on my easy chair and crossed my arms in front of me. There was nothing really to cheer me up, and I was feeling like a bundle of raw nerves. I liked my life, ordinarily. I was finishing up college at NYU, and bartending part-time. I loved my filmmaking courses, and I adored my friends. Yeah, there were minor irritations from time to time, but, by and large, things went fairly smoothly for me.

  That is, things went smoothly when I didn’t have stupid roommates playing ridiculous tricks on me. I mean, come on. How immature can you get?

  I stood up to go into my room when I felt it. A cold wind chilled me to the bone. All at once, it seemed like the temperature in the room had dropped about 50 degrees. I wrapped my arms around me and opened the door to my room. I suddenly needed a heavy winter coat.

  I got a heavy coat, and went into the living room.

  And stopped cold.

  There was an enormous man, about 6’4”, standing there.

  And he didn’t look happy.

  4

  “Can I help you?” I said to the man. He was elegantly dressed, although he was enormous, and extremely pale. His lips looked like red raspberries against his alabaster skin, which all contrasted with his jet-black hair. His eyes were peculiar, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. When I got up close to him, though, I saw why – they were dark eyes, very dark, so, when I stood several feet away, I couldn’t see how enormous his pupils were. When I got up close, however, I saw that his eyes were almost entirely pupil. There was very little iris. I looked even closer and saw that his eyes weren’t dark brown. They were dark violet. Like a midnight purple, the color of a dark purple rose. Very peculiar, yet hypnotic and beautiful at the same time.

  Other than his rather odd, yet beautiful, appearance, there was nothing else amiss about him. He was dressed in a three-piece charcoal suit, with a pink double-Windsor tie and a little handkerchief stuffed into his breast pocket. His hair was perfectly combed, and his shoes were buffed to a glass-like sheen. I noticed that his suit looked like it was tailored and high-dollar. I doubted that he bought it off the rack at the Men’s Wearhouse. Not that there was anything wrong with the Men’s Wearhouse, but it seemed that this guy was shopping at Nordstrom’s or Nieman Marcus instead.

  He nodded his head a little. “Miss Yates,” he said in an Australian accent. I heard his voice and almost melted. Finally, something was going right. This handsome, no beautiful, man was standing in my living room and his voice was the sexiest voice I had ever heard. It was deep and masculine and slightly throat. And that accent!

  “Yeah?” I said. I mean, he was beautiful and had a hella sexy voice, but still – he was in my living room, unannounced, so I was wary of him. Plus, he had weird eyes, and really pale skin. He looked like a vampire. That is, he looked like a Hollywood version of a vampire, because the vampires were always beautiful on-screen. This man was certainly that.

  “Sit down, Miss Yates.” He gestured to the couch.

  “Oh, gee, you’re going to tell me to sit down when I’m in my own home. Thanks for that.” What was with this guy? He comes into my home and tells me to have a seat. I mean, what the fuck?

  Nevertheless, I sat down and he still stood.

  “Listen, I don’t know who you are, but I think that I’m a little too young for you to be calling me Miss Yates. Or ma’am or anything like that.”

  “What would you like me to call you?” the man asked calmly. He was way too calm for somebody who just waltzed into my home unannounced, if you ask me.

  “How about calling me by my name, which is Lyra? Which I would imagine you know, since you know my last name. For whatever reason. I mean, I don’t know you, so I have no idea why you’re here or why you would know my name.”

  He shook his head. “You’ve always been a problem.”

  I made a face. “What’s that supposed to mean? And, excuse me, but if there’s a problem here, it’s not with me, it’s with you. You’re the one who just came on in here, as easy as you please. You’re lucky I’m not calling the police.”

  “You may call the police. Of course, I don’t think that the police would be of much assistance to you anymore.”

  “Anymore? What’s that supposed to mean?” What was going on? First, those rude people in the grocery store wouldn’t give me the time of day, and now this man, this oddly beautiful man, was telling me that I wouldn’t be able to talk to the police. No, he didn’t say that I couldn’t talk to the police. Just that they wouldn’t be of any help.

  I grabbed my cell phone out of my bag.

  “What are you doing, Miss Yates?”

  “The name is Lyra, and I’m calling the police.” I raised an eyebrow. “You might tell me that the police won’t be of any help for me right now, but I’m not buying what you’re selling. And…”

  “911, what is your emergency?” a calm voice asked me when I called.

  “Yes, there’s this odd man who broke into my a
partment. I don’t know who he is or what he wants, but I do know that he’s not supposed to be here. So, I’d like for you to come to my place and get him out please.”

  “I’m very sorry Miss Yates,” the voice on the other said. “But we cannot help you with that. Goodbye.”

  I hung up the phone and looked at the man, whose raspberry lips were now forming a smile. It wasn’t a devious smile or an evil smile, but, rather, an amused one.

  “What is so funny?”

  “I told you…Lyra,” he said, as if saying my first name was an absolute chore for him. “I told you that the police would be of no assistance to you. Yet, it appears, mate, that you don’t believe me.”

  “And that’s funny to you because?”

  “It just is.” He shook his head. “Humans. God made your race so stubborn. So independent. I can never understand what He was thinking when he created you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? You’re a human, aren’t you?”

  He shrugged. “I suppose. Well, no, I suppose that I’m not. I was at one time, though.”

  It was my turn to order him. “Sit down,” I said, pointing to the chair next to me. “And let me make you a drink.”

  “Lyra, I don’t drink. At least, I don’t drink what you drink.” He nodded his head slightly at me and raised both of his black eyebrows.

  “Okay, well, I think that I need a drink. I mean, after last night….”

  He cocked his head at me. “After last night?”

  “Nothing. I mean, I had this weird dream where I was drinking a lot at this bar a few blocks away in a rooftop bar in Lower Manhattan, and…” I shook my head. “But that was all a dream.”

  “Was it?”

  “Yes, it was. I mean, I dreamed that I was shot in the back. I know that was a dream, because here I am. So, I would imagine, with my enormous powers of deduction, that if I dreamed that, I dreamed the rest of it too. I didn’t go to the bar last night at all. Which means that I missed celebrating my 21st birthday altogether, which really sucks, but life’s hard sometimes, huh?”