“But we caught him, so does it really matter that—”
With a high-pitched sound like a kettle on the boil, she threw her hands up. The air around her blurred into mist. The condensation coalesced into a giant orb of shimmering water that she hurled at Aaron.
The magical water balloon slammed into his chest. Liquid splashed across the floor and he fell into the bar, knocking over stools, more drenched than before.
“Oh, come on,” he complained loudly, wiping water off his face. “I said I was sorry!”
“You don’t know the meaning of the word,” she snarled, raising her hands again. Mist formed into another water orb.
Okay, I’d seen enough. I pushed my shoulders back, lifted my chin, and bellowed, “What the hell are you doing to my bar?”
All eyes turned to me. Laetitia hesitated, water swirling around her hands.
Aaron cringed. “Oh, uh … Tori. Is it four o’clock already?”
I marched across the floor, my ponytail bouncing with each step. “What is this? If you’re going to have a water fight, take it outside!” Halting in front of Laetitia and Aaron, I folded my arms and glowered. “Do you expect me to clean up this bullshit mess on top of my bar prep?”
Laetitia lowered her hands, the liquid dissipating into a foggy cloud. “I’ll clean up the water.”
She waved at the nearest puddles. The water flew into the air and gathered into an expanding liquid orb between her palms. As the final droplets joined her super-orb, she raised it up, pivoted toward Aaron, and brought the whole thing down on his head like she was slam-dunking a basketball.
Water flew everywhere, but not a single speck touched the floor. It evaporated into a fine mist that dispersed in seconds. Smirking, Laetitia sauntered away, leaving Aaron with liquid streaming off his clothes and puddling around his feet.
Muttering under his breath, he straightened his sopping shirt. The white fabric clung to his toned chest and droplets ran enticingly down his biceps and hard forearms. As my attention wandered, I reminded myself that I was angry with him.
“Hey, Tori.” He pushed his red hair off his forehead and gave me his most charming smile, as though a water mage assaulting him was no big deal. “How did apartment hunting go today?”
“Don’t ‘hey, Tori’ me,” I said firmly, immune to his charisma—or close enough to fake it. “Get cleaning!”
“Eh?”
I pointed behind me. “Everything you knocked around. Fix it.”
He started picking up stools. Positioning myself in front of the bar, I supervised his efforts. When he’d straightened the last chair, I was waiting with the mop in hand. He looked from the mop to the water he’d tracked all over the floor, then took the handle from me with a grumble. As he mopped his water trail and the other customers returned to their seats, two guys emerged from the darkest corner.
I arched my eyebrows as they joined me, doubting their innocent airs. Where Aaron went, Kai and Ezra were usually close behind, keeping the pyromage from burning buildings down or getting himself kidnapped … again.
Kai leaned against the bar beside me, casually adjusting his sleek silver watch. Cool as ice and scary intelligent, he was the brains to Aaron’s brawn. Not that Kai was a pushover—his impressive physique aside, he was a dangerously skilled electramage—but with his striking good looks and classy style, he was easy to underestimate.
Taking the spot on my other side was Ezra. Super hot too and my favorite sweetheart of a badass, butt-kicking aeromage. As he turned a quiet smile on me, the light gleamed on his pale left eye, damaged by the mysterious attack that had left a thick scar running down his face from temple to cheekbone.
“So,” I drawled, “what did you three do this time?”
“Kai and I are innocent of any wrongdoing,” Ezra protested. Despite his hurt tone, his meltingly smooth voice was as deliciously appealing as always.
“Uh-huh. What did you do?”
Kai brushed nonexistent lint off his designer t-shirt. “We went after a bounty on a rogue summoner, but we didn’t realize Laetitia was already working on it.”
“We burst in right as she was about to take him down,” Ezra admitted. “Kind of ruined it for her. But we did catch the guy.”
“Aaron wasn’t apologetic,” Kai added. “Laetitia didn’t appreciate that.”
“And when she and Aaron got in a shouting match, you two disappeared,” I guessed.
Ezra shrugged. “No sense in all three of us getting drenched.”
“Cowards,” Aaron complained, stumping over to the bar with the mop. “What they aren’t mentioning is how they knew Laetitia would blow up as soon as we got back, so Kai goaded her into flipping out on me first while they slipped away.”
“I did no such thing,” Kai deadpanned.
Aaron growled. Stepping away from us, he squinted in concentration. Heat rolled off him and hissing steam rose from his clothes. Leaving him to bake dry, I grabbed the mop and circled the bar.
“I’m going to start prepping,” I called back. “Wait for me.”
Hurrying into the kitchen, its cook absent, I returned the mop to its spot and pushed the office door open—smacking it into something solid.
“Oof!” Clara stumbled back, the stack of papers in her arms wobbling precariously.
“Sorry!” I exclaimed, grabbing her arm before she dumped her paperwork. Whacking my boss with a door. Smart. “Are you okay?”
“Fine, fine,” Clara said breathlessly, her brunette locks falling out of her messy bun. “How are you, Tori?”
“Good. Do you need help?”
“No, I’ve got it. Just working on the usual … everything.” She squeezed past me and took three rushing steps, then stopped. “Tori, did you leave your MPD form on my desk last week like I asked?”
“Sure did,” I said brightly, not asking the obvious question.
Her face fell. “Oh.”
Yep, she’d lost it again.
“If you leave another form for me, I’ll fill it out right away,” I offered. “And give it to you in person.”
She straightened from her slouch. “That would be wonderful. Thanks.”
Before I could respond, she sped off to do whatever “end of the world” paperwork was next on her list. Which, apparently, did not include the essential paperwork that would determine whether I got to keep my job. She’d lost my form five times. How did a person lose a one-page document that many times in six weeks?
I dropped off my purse, tied on my short apron, and grabbed an armload of cleaning supplies. Pushing through the saloon doors that hid the kitchen, I found the bar much quieter than when I’d arrived. Kai, Ezra, and Aaron, now dry, sat at the bar, a laptop open in front of Kai.
As I sprayed a section of the bar top with cleaner, Aaron welcomed me back with a grin. My stomach did a stupid little flutter.
“So,” he prompted. “Apartment hunting?”
“Found a decent place,” I told him as I diligently scrubbed every surface in reach. “It’s in my budget and I think it’ll work, pending one faery eviction.”
Kai and Ezra looked up from the laptop.
“Faery eviction?” the latter repeated.
I told them about my and Sin’s confrontation with the green horror-movie buff. “The creepy shrimp’s been chasing off everyone who’s viewed the place, but Sin said a witch can get it out.”
“Yeah, that shouldn’t be difficult.” Aaron glanced around at the other patrons, presumably searching for a witch. “I can call Philip, if you want. He can help out or assign another witch.”
“I don’t want to be a bother.”
“It’s not a problem. They can probably get a bonus out of it—MagiPol doesn’t like fae interfering with humans.”
Though I’d be delighted to help a witch earn extra dough, any mention of MagiPol sent a shiver down my spine. More formally called the MPD, MagiPol was the regulatory body that controlled the lives of all mythics. Being a lame-o human with no magic, I was t
echnically outside their jurisdiction—but they were the ones who’d kick me out of the Crow and Hammer the moment they got their hands on my paperwork and learned of my existence.
Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing that Clara kept losing my form.
“I can’t wait to get my own place. It’s going to be heaven.” As I investigated the liquor quantities in my well, I frowned at a half-empty rum bottle. “Furnishing it might be tricky, though.”
“Buy a new bed and get everything else second hand,” Kai advised. “I know a girl who’s moving next month. I can check if she’s selling off her old furniture.”
“Is this the girl you went out with last night? You had a date, right?”
Aaron and Ezra snickered.
Kai’s expression went oddly blank. “No … different girl.”
“Ask how his date went,” Aaron suggested, his blue eyes sparkling.
“How was your date?” I asked immediately.
Kai, being exceptionally gorgeous and radiating the perfect blend of mysterious and disinterested, attracted women like hummingbirds to nectar. I swear, they just threw their phone numbers at him as he walked down the street. He was always out with a new girl and usually good for a bad date story at least once a week.
But this time, he said nothing, focusing intently on his laptop.
“Aww, come on, Kai,” I cajoled. “It couldn’t have been that bad.”
“Oh, it was,” Aaron said gleefully. “Tell her, Kai.”
He hunched over the laptop, ignoring us.
Leaving Aaron to tease him, I zipped through my opening routine—cleaning, stocking, and preparing for the small dinner rush. As I was chopping oranges into wheels, the back door opened and Ramsey breezed into the kitchen, his arms loaded with grocery bags.
“The freezer broke again,” he announced, tossing his head to flip his black hair—shaved on one side and chin-length on the other—out of his eyes. “I bought a few packs of burgers and frozen fries, but that’s it for menu options today.”
“Damn.” I dumped the oranges into my garnish tray. “Need any help with that?”
“Nah, I’m good.” He set his bags on the counter. “By the way, the collector is offering $35,000 now.”
My stomach turned over in an unsettling way. “I’m not selling my Queen of Spades card. You should never have told him it was up for sale.”
“I was buttering him up so I could buy a grimoire off him. He really wants the card.”
Despite his day job as a cook, Ramsey was an apprentice almost ready to graduate to big-boy sorcerer pants. He specialized in enchanted artifacts of the counter-magic variety.
“Not happening,” I replied. Not even for—I shuddered—thirty-five grand. I could really use the money, but I could use my ass, undamaged, more. The Queen of Spades artifact was my only magical defense and I wasn’t letting it go for anything less than a wand that could turn all my enemies into frogs.
Not that I had enemies—the murdering kind, anyway—but when it came to mythics, a girl never knew when she might need to lay an overpowered dickhead out.
That was the thing about this job. I never should have set foot in this building, but through a combination of coincidence and stubbornness, I’d gotten a job at the last place a human should work: a guild.
So here I was.
By the time I finished prep, the bar was hopping with customers. I’d worked a lot of restaurant jobs, but before this one, I’d never encountered an establishment that attracted such a bizarre mix of people. For good reason, though. This wasn’t your typical bar, and the Crow and Hammer wasn’t your typical guild.
Tonight, my customers ranged from the ever-irascible sorceress Sylvia, an old hag who loved to hate me, and her banana-haired apprentice, Alyssa; Bryce and Drew, who looked like teeth-bashing bouncers but were actually psychics—a telepath and a telekinetic; Laetitia, the water-flinging hydromage; and Rose, a grandmotherly diviner with turquoise glasses and an endless supply of colorful knit caps.
Sin, who’d successfully skipped the whole shouting match when we arrived, surfaced with her alchemist friend Riley. The curly-haired, dusky-skinned young woman had acquired odd yellow sparkles down one arm since I last saw her. Alchemy was tricky, or so I’ve been told.
I dropped off three rum and cokes for Aaron, Kai, and Ezra, then got to work, taking food orders and mixing drinks. The pleasant buzz of conversations filled the pub, and the dinner rush sped by.
When things cooled down, Kai came over with three empty glasses. He, Aaron, and Ezra had moved to a quiet corner to work, leaving their usual spot at my bar empty.
“Another round, if you don’t mind.”
“Sure.” I pulled out three new glasses. “Was your date last night that horrendous?”
He sighed. “You never let anything go.”
“Come on. Let me live vicariously through you.”
“Why don’t you go on dates yourself?” he asked dryly.
I raised a finger. “One, I’m not the James Bond type like you.” He opened his mouth to speak but I held up a second finger. “Two, I don’t have money to pay for dates. I’m saving up for my new place.” A third finger. “And three, it’s way more fun to hear about your dates than put in effort myself.”
“James Bond?” he repeated bemusedly.
“Dark and handsome, mysterious, dangerous. Just embrace it, Kai.”
“Do I seem dangerous to you?”
“Not at first, but I’ve seen what you can do.” I waved a hand. “Anyway, my point is I’m not cut out for dating right now.”
“You have a willing victim dying to treat you,” he pointed out.
Across the pub, Aaron was gesturing at the laptop while Ezra frowned doubtfully. Aaron had asked me out weeks ago, but between my schedule and his, we’d managed four last-minute cancelations, one no-show when the guild had called him to an emergency, and a lunch date that had gone surprisingly well—until two members of a rival guild interrupted us.
That had been my first experience with rival mythics in the wild. Not fun. Other guilds didn’t think highly of the Crow and Hammer, and the pair of mages had taunted Aaron, knowing he couldn’t retaliate in public. They’d antagonized us right up until I’d asked one if his ass ever got jealous of the shit coming out of his mouth, and at that point Aaron decided we should leave.
“Well, yeah,” I muttered. “We tried …”
“Try again,” Kai suggested. “Unless you’d like me to take you out instead. I’ll show Aaron how it’s done.”
My heart skipped a beat. Wide-eyed, I wondered if he was joking.
He picked up the three drinks. “Join us when you have a few minutes.”
“Right …”
He walked off and I shook my head. Joking. He’d been joking. I was pretty sure, anyway. Kai had no shortage of willing women to date, and in the two months I’d known him, he’d never so much as flirted with me. The only person I’d be more surprised to have ask me out was Ezra. I shot a flinty stare at Kai’s back. He enjoyed messing with his friends a bit too much.
My glare faded, replaced by a small smile. Humming to myself, I resumed wiping up the drips and spills along the bar.
An hour later when I exited the kitchen, Aaron, Kai, and Ezra had shifted back to their usual spot at the bar. I splashed champagne into a glass and topped it with orange juice, then slid the mimosa to Alyssa. Tucking my towel into my apron, I joined the guys, the bar between us.
“Finally,” Aaron complained good-naturedly. “Got a few minutes?”
I’d thought Kai had invited me over to visit with them—or, more likely, to distract Aaron so he and Ezra could get some work done—but apparently it was more than that. Curious, I pulled my spare stool over and sat across from them. “What’s up?”
The three mages exchanged a somber look as though deciding who should speak first, and my curiosity morphed into unease.
“Well.” Aaron cleared his throat. “There’s a job we want to take on, but … w
e need your help.”
My mouth fell open. “Me? My help?”
“Yes, you.”
“Uh, in case you’ve forgotten, I’m a bartender, not a guild member. Also, I’m a human. Like, a ‘not one drop of magical blood and didn’t even know mythics existed until two months ago’ human.”
Kai smiled, the expression somehow chilling. “Exactly.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What’s the job?”
Propping his elbow on the bar, Aaron said, “We should have drinks first. Make yourself one, too.”
I poured them another round of rum and cokes—at least they were easy customers—then pondered what I wanted. After a moment’s thought, I scooped ice into a shaker, added light rum, lime juice, and my favorite sweet syrup, and gave it a vigorous shake. Pouring the mixture in a coupe glass, I popped on a lime for garnish and returned to my seat.
“A daiquiri? Good choice.” Aaron turned the laptop around to show me the screen. “Perfect drink for a chat about the dark arts.”
Chapter Three
The laptop screen glowed with the image of a girl—mousy brown hair in a boyish cut, pale skin, sunken cheeks, and big blue eyes that stared hollowly at the camera.
My heart constricted. Though I’d only seen the photo once, I remembered her face. Four or five weeks ago, Aaron had shown me the MPD Archives—an online database of everything mythic-related, from the different guilds to job postings to bounties on criminal rogues. He’d clicked on a listing about a missing girl—this girl.
As I tore my eyes away from the screen, my brain caught up to what he’d said. “Wait, dark arts?”
“Yep.”
“Oh, finally, something I understand. I’ve read all the Harry Potter books.”
Ezra snorted, his mismatched eyes—one warm brown, the other pale ice—sparking with humor. “As much as it disappoints me to say it, Defense Against the Dark Arts won’t be much help.”
“Damn.”
“Real-life dark arts aren’t as cool as in Harry Potter,” Kai said. “Scarier, though.”
My gaze drifted back to the photo of the girl. “I’m afraid to ask what scary dark arts have to do with her. Is she still missing?”
Dark Arts and a Daiquiri (The Guild Codex: Spellbound Book 2) Page 2