by Amber Garr
She stepped back and smiled. “Who said you had to deliver on any of those promises? You just have to let them think it’s possible.”
“That’s dangerous.”
“You’re magical.” Brit winked and I smiled. “Plus, you carry a rather large knife with you everywhere you go.” Gesturing to the bed, she crinkled her nose at the smell again.
“I’m only doing parlor tricks tonight. No necromancy.”
Brit bounced over to the bed and lifted the skirt. She began brushing out the wrinkles, totally oblivious to my eye roll. “Parlor tricks?”
“Yeah. They hired me as Mystical Marianna tonight.” I grabbed the corset and pressed it against my body. Perhaps this would help get me more tips. “Besides, you know the Imperium tracks my magic use.”
At that thought, we both froze. A sudden realization stopping us cold. “Shit,” Brit mumbled. “Your scars.”
Unconsciously I lifted my hand to my shoulder, rubbing the small bumps hiding under my blouse. They weren’t scars, exactly. More like branding tattoos or scarification marks. Every time I raised the dead, a piece of them stayed behind. Permanently etched into my skin as a reminder that I’d touched their soul.
I had twenty scars on my back now. Only one mark from a human though.
“We can…” Brit looked around the room. “We can hide them somehow.”
“We’ve tried that before.” So much for the corset. I was surprised when a little part of me felt disappointed. But if my clients saw the “artwork” on my back, they would run the other way. And so would my tip.
“I have an idea,” Brit said. She ran out of the room and I heard her swear as she slammed into the door jamb leading to her part of the apartment. Several crashes and curses later, she reappeared with a purple shawl in her hands. “I never thought I’d wear this,” she said. “But it’s perfect.”
I looked at the getup on the bed and smiled. Brit really did know what she was talking about sometimes.
“See, told you it would look good.”
“Are you a mind reader now?” I asked with a laugh.
“No, just the most awesome roommate ever.”
Thirty minutes later, Brit finally gave me permission to leave. Not only did she help dress me, but she’d done my makeup in a way that made me look like a gothic supermodel and had added a silver butterfly clip to the fake purple wig.
“Okay, so call me when you’re finished and I’ll meet you at The Spider Hole.”
“And what if these boys get all crazy over my can-can outfit and won’t let me leave?” I pulled up one of the thigh highs and yanked down my skirt. Both moves almost sent my breasts flying out of the corset.
Brit giggled and punched me in the arm. “Stop fidgeting. And if they give you a hard time, you stab them.”
“I’m not going to stab them,” I groaned.
“No, but you tell them that you will and they’ll back off. Most people are scared of you guys.” She looked up at my clenched jaw and shrugged. “Sorry. You know what I mean.”
“That most humans have a completely unjustified fear of those of us with gifts?” I tried not to be angry with her, but I felt an instant urge to defend. “They’re just prejudiced. They don’t have anything to fear about us.”
“Really?” Brit asked quietly.
“Yes. We saved the humans!”
“From the other magic users who tried to kill us all.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but she had a good point. Had the Diviners not started a magical war against humans two decades ago, my kind would still be hiding in the shadows and masquerading around in costumes with a bag of tricks on their shoulder.
I ran my hands through my wig and adjusted my own bag of tricks. The irony didn’t amuse me. “Whatever, I’m late.”
Walking past Brit, I grabbed my keys and opened the door.
“Oh wait!” Brit called out, running into the kitchen. “Hold on a sec.” She slid back around the corner carrying a can of Lysol and a large Ziploc bag. “For the stench,” she said with a wink.
After making me seal the chicken foot in the plastic, since she refused to touch it, and spraying almost the entire can of deodorizer into my bag, Brit deemed me ready to go.
“Don’t forget to call,” she shouted after me.
“Yes, mom,” I groaned as our dented metal door screeched shut.
Tucking my breasts inside the corset, I started down the dark and musty stairway. A slight shuffling against the worn concrete platform caught my attention just a few steps later. Mr. Padlo, the building’s resident Conjurer, hid in the shadows and watched as I slowly removed my hands from inside my costume. His eyes never left my chest.
“Hi, Mr. Padlo,” I said, crossing my arms and trying to will away the chills crawling down my spine.
“Ms. Cressa,” he said with a slight nod.
“I didn’t even see you standing there.”
“Is that supposed to mean something?” With his ebony skin and even darker, cropped hair, he really did blend in with the shadows.
“No, Mr. Padlo. You know what I mean.” He always accused everyone of being racist, when really they were more afraid of what he could do than his skin color.
A small smile skittered across his mouth. We’d had the same conversation once a week for a year now, ever since I moved into this crappy little apartment complex in Durham. It was all I could afford considering the cost of tuition and the fee I had to pay the Reformatory to get my mother out of there. At the end of the day, I lived on rice and cheese while trying to blend with the students who had no idea how to even boil water.
“Entertaining tonight?” Mr. Padlo’s once dark irises turned opaque and I shuffled past him down the last couple of stairs. I had no desire to see him set his magic loose.
“A girl’s gotta work,” I called out after him, knowing if I turned around, I’d see more than I bargained for. Most Conjurers could keep their spirits under control. But Mr. Padlo wasn’t like most Conjurers. And I didn’t care to see the spirits I knew would be surrounding him now.
Once I reached the street, I breathed a sigh of relief. While I appreciated Brit’s intentions and her perseverance for knowing what I needed to do to maximize my tips, I didn’t like creepy old Conjurers staring at me. They were just as bad as drunken frat boys.
The chill in the air forced me to walk quickly to my car. Whether it was the impending autumn air or Mr. Padlo’s uncontrolled spirits, I couldn’t tell. I just wanted to get off the street. Digging my keys out of my bag, I fought with the lock for almost a minute. I dreamed about having a fiery red Fiat some day. But for now, my puke brown 1992 Buick would have to do. Fortunately, I have a very good Caster friend who used her magic to make the ugly car look like my dream red Fiat to everyone else.
Perhaps one day I might be able to afford the reality.
Slumping into my front seat, I tossed my bag onto the floor and turned on the heat. I’ve always thought I belonged somewhere closer to the Equator and not in central North Carolina. The minute the temperature dropped below eighty degrees, I fought the urge to run further south.
And if my mom wasn’t trapped in this awful state, incarcerated by the Imperium, I would have left a long time ago.
“So where am I going?” I mumbled to myself. Flipping through my phone, I finally found the address buried amongst a thousand other “to do” notes. With warm hands and an anxious knot of dread dancing in my stomach, I waited until the car clanked into gear and then started my drive to the Pi Kappa Pi fraternity.
The first thing I noticed was how nice their eighteenth century brick house looked.
While I slummed it in the Westside Apartments, these boys lived it up in style. A large wrap-around porch, intricate stone work shaping archways and windows, and a large, iron chandelier in the foyer that could be seen from the street. Stop being so jealous, I thought to myself. They can’t raise the dead.
With a smirk on my face from the private conversation going on in my head,
I climbed out of the car and adjusted every part of my outfit. Boobs in place: check. Butt covered: check. Garter belt hidden under the skirt: not so much. Good thing I kind of liked my legs.
Just as I was bending over to check that I hadn’t accidentally pulled off the fake eyelashes, someone whistled softly behind me.
“Well, shit. Are you Mystical Marianna?”
I turned to see a young man, not much taller than me, with a look on his face that made me want to either thank or kill Brit. Under a mop of shaggy brown hair, his hungry eyes honed in on the garter peeking out from underneath the skirt. And despite my earlier hesitation, I knew that I was going to get a big tip tonight.
Swallowing any sarcastic comments and snapping into my role, I gave the guy my best playful smile. “I am. Are you Peter?”
It took him a second to realize that my voice was coming from my face and not the top of my thigh. Finally, he reached a hand forward and stepped closer to me. “Yes,” he said, shaking my hand with a short squeeze. “I’m Peter. Thanks so much for coming. The guys are going to love you.”
Not quite sure what to make of that comment, I flipped into work mode. “So I have a pretty standard set that I do. Card readings, small magic tricks, and—”
“Yeah, I wanted to talk about that,” Peter interrupted. He wrapped his hand behind my waist and directed me around the car. An overwhelming scent of cologne almost made me cough, but it was the fear of what I thought he might be doing that really made me sick. Please don’t ask, I begged to myself. Please don’t ask.
Just as we reached the sidewalk and left the comfort of the street light, Peter stopped us both. Positioning himself between me and the house, he looked over his shoulder to make sure no one was listening. “I understand that you’re a Necromancer, right?”
I swallowed the lump growing in my throat. Not liking where this conversation was going, I nodded my head. We were all registered in the national database, so it was no secret. But the reason behind why Peter had looked this up led me to fear his next question.
“I want you to bring something back from the dead.” His pale blue eyes practically glowed with excitement while I tried to hold my emotions at bay.
“No”, I stated flatly.
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t do that. For anyone.” Now it was me looking around in the darkness checking to see if any spies were listening. Was this another test? Did my brother set this whole thing up to catch me using my magic? The moment I thought of River, anger broiled deep within my bones. I wouldn’t even put it past him to do something like that. After all, nothing mattered more to him than his status among the Imperium. Not even his own family.
“Oh come on,” Peter continued. “I’ll pay you extra—”
“No,” I cut him off.
“Would an additional two hundred dollars change your mind?” Peter reached into his pocket and pulled out two crisp hundred dollar bills. “Consider it a bonus. I’ll pay you double if you bring something back to life tonight.”
Despite all of the questions racing through my mind, the one I ended up asking surprised me. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you want me to use magic? Most of you are afraid and the rest would rather pretend people like me didn’t exist at all.” I took a step back, crossed my arms, and waited for his response, all the while resisting the urge to hike up the thigh highs when his eyes drifted in that direction again.
After a moment of contemplation, Peter sighed. “Because I need to show them something spectacular,” he said, jerking his chin to the frat house behind him. “If I bring them someone like you, then they’ll have to accept me.”
“You’re a pledge?” I asked, a part of me starting to feel sorry for Peter. A small part.
“No, I’m already in. But I need to prove myself again.”
I sighed. As much as I hated to admit it, I knew exactly how he felt. Ever since the war on humans revealed that some of us were different, we’d been fighting to fit into society again. No matter what we did, magic users were delegated as second-class citizens. The registry, the forbiddance of practicing magic, the fines…all of it made us different. Isolated.
“I’m sorry,” I said to Peter, not really sure why those words slipped from my mouth.
His eyes lit up and he leaned in toward me. “So you’ll do it?”
“No.”
“No?” His face dropped and I could practically smell the disappointment.
“I can’t, Peter. It’s too big of a risk.”
“How about three hundred dollars?” His smile grew, no doubt hoping that I wouldn’t be able to resist his charm.
“Not going to happen,” I said. “And if you ask me again, I’m leaving.”
We stood still, staring at each other in the darkness. Finally deciding that I wasn’t bluffing, Peter shoved the money back into his pocket. “Fine,” he grumbled. “But you better be worth your fee.”
The one hundred dollar an hour charge would get them exactly what my ad said—entertaining magic. While the extra money was tempting, I simply couldn’t risk being caught by the Imperium. Especially when was only doing this so that I could get my mom out from under their grasp.
Following Peter into the house, I couldn’t help but noticed how his shoulders now slumped and he’d lost all of his excitement. I did feel bad for him, but I wasn’t a magic whore. Sure there was money to be made in the underground world of magic-for-hire, but I didn’t want to live my life on the run. I also didn’t want to feel like a freak show.
Walking into the house was like stepping back in time. Well, except for all of the modern devices college boys like to showcase. Flat-screen televisions, cell phones, laptops, neon sports lights…none of it really fit in well with the floral wallpaper and cast iron railing surrounding the large spiral staircase in the middle of the foyer.
“This way,” Peter said.
A little irritated with his attitude, I stomped along behind him and adjusted my shawl one last time to make sure the scars were covered. If I was going to make any tips tonight, I needed to forget about the conversation outside and simply entertain for the next hour or so.
“She’s here!” Peter yelled, quickly changing his personality now that we had a crowd in front of us.
The twenty or so guys standing around the living room area stopped speaking the second Peter opened his mouth. Anxious eyes focused on me—many of them on my chest, the rest on my legs. I held the shivers at bay and plastered a smile on my face. Hoisting up the bag of goodies a little further on my shoulder, I winked through the smell of lemon Lysol wafting around my head.
“Hello boys,” I cooed, but the words sounded hoarse. With a small shake of my head, I sucked in a breath and pushed my hesitancy away. “Who’s in the mood to party?”
A chorus of cheers, catcalls, and bottles slamming together filled the room. Thirty minutes into my set, I was surrounded by a captive audience and getting ready to do one of my dad’s favorite tricks he’d taught me many years ago.
“Okay, who wants to be my volunteer?”
“Volunteer for what?” one guy asked, sliding up to my side and wrapping his hand lightly around my waist. With a cute smile, and a physique appealing to me, I briefly thought about the possibilities. But then I focused on the task at hand and worked on increasing my tip.
I smiled at him, pursing my lips in a way that would send him mixed signals. “And what’s your name?”
“Cowboy!” someone shouted and the room erupted in laughter.
“Cowboy?” I asked him.
He chuckled and shook his head. I swear I caught a faint glimpse of blush creeping up his cheeks. “They call me that because they’re assholes.” He shouted the last word at the group, only to incite more laughter. “My name is Cord.”
“And they call you Cowboy?” I asked, preparing my cards for the next trick.
Cord leaned his head in next to my ear. “They think my name sounds like I should be a c
owboy. But really I’m from New York City and have never even been on a horse.”
I didn’t know if his closeness was due to the noise in the room or his flirtatious ways. Regardless, I let a little bit of my guard down and enjoyed the attention. His scent rushed over me in waves of shivers. A good scent. Like fresh air and male hormones. I cleared my throat and stepped away slightly.
“Okay, Cord. I want you to pick three cards and I’m going to make one of them melt away.”
Cord winked and a small dimple appeared on his right cheek. After selecting the cards, he turned to his frat brothers and cheered. While they were distracted, I replaced one of the cards unnoticed, and continued with the trick.
“Okay Cord, I want you to watch carefully.” Looking up at my audience, I captured their attention by sticking out my chest just a few inches more. I felt the skirt riding up in the back, but I also had my mind on dollar signs. Moving the cards back and forth in my hand, I started the trick. “You see? The bottom card is melting through the one above it—”
“I have a request for you, Mystical Marianna!” Peter interrupted my performance, and when I looked over at him, my heart sank. “I need you to bring this kitten back to life.”
The silence in the room felt like it pierced my soul and then shattered it into a thousand pieces. Shards of anger, despair, and sadness ripped through me in the split second I realized what was happening.
“Dude, what happened? Did you kill that kitten?” someone asked quietly.
“Not cool, man.” Cord had stepped closer to Peter, shaking his head in disgust. “Please tell me you didn’t do that?”
“Relax, I found it. And it’s all going to be okay because Marianna here is a Necromancer,” Peter replied with a twisted smirk.
All eyes turned their attention to me. Some were filled with fear, and some were swimming in excitement. Whether it was the alcohol or the need to impress, all of the boys immediately jumped on the bandwagon.
“You have to save it!”
“Can you really bring things back from the dead?”