by K. M. Shea
Goblins Wear Suits
The Magical Beings Rehabilitation Center: Book 2
K. M. Shea
GOBLINS WEAR SUITS
Copyright © 2017 by K. M. Shea
Cover design by Myrrhlynn
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any number whatsoever without written permission of the author, except in the case of quotations embodied in articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historic events is entirely coincidental.
www.kmshea.com
Created with Vellum
Contents
1. Work Fun
2. Considering My Future
3. Warnings Issued
4. Mucking with Moonspell
5. The Museum Field Trip
6. Supervillain Krad Temero
7. Love, Elves, and Dwarves
8. Ugly Bling
9. Krad means Dark
10. I Receive More Bling
11. Meeting Ethan
12. Questioning a Dark Elf
13. Elf Proposals
14. Forming a Plan
15. Fear and Love
16. My Decision
17. Devin the Flirt?
A Special Note From the Author
Afterword
Other books by K. M. Shea
About the Author
1
Work Fun
When I arrived at the Best Buy parking lot, it was almost midnight. All the store lights in the area were dimmed, but the parking lot lamps were still on. They cast an eerie glow on the lone figure in the lot: A tall, boney man who appeared to be in his 40s.
I parked the borrowed car a little ways from him and got out. “Hey, Vlad,” I said, circling the car to climb into the passenger’s seat.
“Good evening, Miss Morgan,” Vlad said, tipping forward in a shallow bow.
“You ready for this?”
“I have prepared to the best of my abilities.”
“Uh, okay. Get in.”
Vlad eased himself into the driver’s seat and buckled up.
“Left pedal is the brake. The right one is the gas,” I said, fiddling with the heat vents. January in the Chicago area is no picnic—it’s freezing.
“This circular wheel is what one uses instead of reins, yes?”
Oh gosh. He wasn’t kidding when he said he’d never driven a car. “Yeah,” I said, double checking my seatbelt. “Twist the key and start ‘er up.”
Vlad was able to do all of that and shift from the park to drive without any mishaps. I was beginning to think my worry about tonight was unfounded. Vlad moved slowly with uncertain movements. Even if he didn’t know how to drive we would be fine if he was this cautious.
Hah-hah. Yeah, what a joke.
“Good. Now ease your foot off the break—GAAAAAH!” I squealed, like the car, when Vlad stomped his foot on the gas.
The car shot forward, tires squealing on the dusting of snow that covered the parking lot.
“Don’t push down so hard,” I said, clutching the door for reassurance.
“I don’t understand?” Vlad said as we picked up speed.
“You don’t have to floor it!” I said, my voice getting louder as he hurtled towards a lamppost.
“Floor it? I beg your pardon?” Vlad said.
“Get your foot off the pedal!” I screamed, my heart buzzing like a hummingbird.
When he stare blankly at me—instead of looking at our incoming doom—I shouted, “BRAKE!” and yanked on the steering wheel to avoid the lamp.
Vlad used his other foot and slammed on the break. The car made some really angry noises, but after I pounded Vlad’s leg he got my drift and removed his foot from the gas pedal.
We sat there for a few moments while I shook with adrenaline. “Okay. Yeah. Let’s review,” I said, launching into a rundown of pedal usage—emphasizing that only ONE FOOT is used when driving—even though I had already schooled him on this yesterday at our prep-meeting.
The car idled, recovering—like me—in the few minutes of respite.
Lack of heat was no longer a problem for me. My heart was going a million miles per minute. I was so high on adrenaline my nose no longer registered Vlad’s distinct old people/moth ball smell. (Thankfully he wasn’t so old that his body was in the reeking stage, or the tight quarters would be a lot more unpleasant.)
“Remember, this is not an all or nothing thing. Ease down on the gas pedal. Now…Let’s try again,” I said, shoving the words out of my mouth with great reluctance. (Luka so owed me for this.)
“Yes, Miss Morgan,” Vlad obediently said.
I braced myself, but, thankfully, this time Vlad was slower to start. He eased forward on the pedal until we rolled along at a steady five miles per hour.
“This is good. It’s great, even,” I said, breathing again.
“I thank you for the compliment,” Vlad said.
“Okay, great job. Now we’re heading towards a light. It’s a ways off so we’re good, but you’ll want to start turning soon so we don’t hit it. Cars don’t have the best turn radius so you want to start turning before you have to turn. Turn the wheel in the direction you want to go. In this case let’s take a right,” I suggested.
“As you wish, Miss Morgan,” Vlad said. As he started to turn the wheel he stomped on the gas pedal. Vlad then yanked on the wheel and, with our increased speed, we started going around and around in a tight circle, like a hamster running in its wheel.
Several curses tumbled from my lips before I managed to shout, “Stop, stop!”
Vlad frowned. “This vehicle appears to be broken. It remains on this circular path.”
“Straighten the wheel and use the brake!” I shouted, plastered against the window thanks to the hefty centrifugal force we had going on. (I guess I did learn something in physics.)
Vlad—who apparently never does anything halfway—yanked the wheel straight and slammed on the brakes.
I was thrown forward against my seatbelt—which cut into my chest and stopped my air supply. I wheezed for a little bit before I managed to say, “Why?”
“I’m sorry. Why is being applied to…?”
“WHY did you speed up?” I asked, irately turning to face the older man after putting the car in park.
Vlad stared at me as if I had lost my mind. “It is common knowledge that horses slow down in corners and turns. One must always hasten them if one hopes to keep the same speed.”
“Vlad, I told you driving cars has nothing to do with driving and riding horses,” I said, clasping my shaking hands together to keep myself from strangling Vlad—he was a powerful being, after all.
“I am beginning to sense the truth in your words,” Vlad said.
I breathed deeply to keep from planting my palm on my face in exasperation. “Yes,” I calmly said. “At this learning stage, what’s most vital is that you know how to use the brake pedal, and that you do not extensively use the gas pedal. If the car is getting slower as you turn, just leave it. You need to understand the basic mechanics before you attempt to do this at higher speeds.”
“Yes, Miss Morgan,” Vlad said, momentarily cowed.
I shut my eyes and tilted my head back for a few moments, mustering my strength before saying, “Take the car out of park, and let’s try this again.”
I clung to the door as Vlad moved his foot. Instead of switching gears the engine roared as Vlad pressed harder and harder on the gas pedal. “It will not move,” he frowned as I cursed more.
“That’s because you’re pressing the gas pedal, which is the WRONG PEDAL!�
� I said after expressing myself with enough swear words to get me grounded if I were at home.
“Oh, my apologies. I momentarily forgot the pedal order,” Vlad said, switching to the brake and changing gears. “Also what does this ‘crap’ mean that you are incessantly whispering?” he asked, his pronounced canine fangs flashing in the dim light.
“It means my life is doomed,” I groaned.
When I saw Baobab—my MBRC appointed and paid for administrative assistant—the following day, she raised her eyebrows. “You look terrible, Miss Fae.”
“Don’t even start,” I said, striding through my office with great anger. “Please make a note that anytime a MBRC board member asks me to teach a vampire that’s two centuries old to drive a car, it is an automatic refusal,” I hissed, turning to face my assistant—who also happened to be a fairy.
Baobab was brawny for a fairy. She was tall and thick, and her skin was a beautiful coffee color. Her hair was dark chocolate with swirls of green, and her wings—iridescent and rarely used for flying—were shaped like dragon fly wings.
“I believe several of your colleagues warned you that teaching Mr. Vladimeer might not be as simple as you were told it would be,” Baobab said.
“Yeah, well I didn’t think it would be so life threatening. We are going to take Luka to the cleaners for this—MBRC board member or not,” I said, plopping down into my chair. “What is this?” I asked, looking at my desk, which was shrouded in papers.
“Your mail,” Baobab said. “Everyone wishes to tell you what to do with the rest of your life.”
“Here too? I get enough junk mail from colleges and technical schools at home,” I groaned, flipping through the mail. Granted at home it was pamphlets that depicted clear faced 20-something-year-olds holding the obligatory armload of books and posed in various places on green college campuses.
My MBRC mail, keeping in step with the place, was also mostly pamphlets. However, these pamphlets were for services and companies somewhat similar to the MBRC—mostly working in the realm of magic rehabilitation—that were also, according to the handwritten notes scrawled on the pamphlets, conveniently located near random human colleges.
Because balancing my normal life with the magical community over the past two years hadn’t been difficult enough. No, No. I totally should continue with the fun into my adult life.
Perhaps I should explain.
I’m Morgan L. Fae. Once upon a time I was a normal high school student. But then, through the actions of one balding, fat vampire, and a tall, skinny werewolf, my life collided with the magical.
Fairies, elves, shifters, goblins, dwarves, vampires, all of them are real.
However, even with the existence of all these magical beings, they don’t go prancing around in the streets with normal people like you and me. Oh no. They went into hiding centuries ago, fleeing to places like the underwater city of Atlantis (it totally exists. One of my students went on vacation there and brought back pictures) the uninhabited parts of Asia, the North Pole (the Santa Claus rumor started somewhere) and so on and so forth.
Some of the creatures have been hiding longer than others—just ask any dinosaur and they can vouch for me.
After watching humans dominate the globe for so long, the magical beings decided that as we haven’t gotten ourselves all killed off yet, we’re probably here to stay. So now they want to rejoin the modern world. Thing is, after being out of touch with current events for anywhere from several centuries to several thousand years, magical beings know squat about everyday human life.
Things like toy dogs, malls, and ice makers totally freak them out. About eighty percent of them think the internet and computers are human magic, and most of the software and technology they use is about a decade or two behind the current trends.
So, in order to rejoin human society, a rehabilitation process is needed. Because of that need, the MBRC, or the Magical Beings’ Rehabilitation Center was founded by Administrator Vincent Moonspell. It is supposed to meet the needs of the magical so they can be taught how to function in the human world. It does everything. Seriously. The MBRC provides contacts and glasses to near sighted cyclopes, holds human sociology and psychology classes, and has an in-house hospital. You name it, they do it.
As illegal as my entry to the secret world of the magical was, I was allowed to keep my memories instead of having them wiped—as is protocol—because of my acceptance of the magical, and my knowledge as a normal high schooler—which is invaluable to the Center.
As a sophomore in high school I was a private tutor for a high elf named Asahi, who also happens to be one of Administrator Moonspell’s kids.
Now, an eighteen-year-old high school senior, I am an MBRC consultant. I teach an advanced placement course—which consists of Asahi and some of the students I started with as a sophomore—and technically a course called Introduction to the American Education System. I also hold at least one seminar a month, and I usually do personal favors for MBRC board members and personnel.
My little driving crash-course with Vlad was a deal I made with the vampire representative for the MBRC board. He was going to pay through the nose for putting me through that terrifying hour.
“I’ll deal with this later,” I said, shoving the mail pile into an empty garbage can. “What do you have for me?”
“Your presence is requested Saturday evening for the MBRC board meeting with the Chicago branch of Weller Goblin Enterprises. Dr. Creamintin sent you an invitation to a party—it is Aristotle’s birthday next week. Nickolas Vontreba and Sandra Koplin asked that you would take a look at a new contract they drew up with the MBRC regarding cyclopes’ donations. The field trip for your advanced placement course was approved, and Asahi requests your presence in Introduction to the American Education System tonight,”
You see, even though I’m listed as the professor for Introduction to the American Education, Asahi is really the one teaching it. He’s my registered teaching assistant. I speak to the class about once or twice a week when Asahi is feeling anxious about a topic. I don’t know why he gets so nervous. He can define high school cliques and explain the nuances of dodge ball better than any normal human.
“Did Madeline drop by?”
“Yes.”
“Did she have anything important to say?”
“She spoke of the Pooka for a few minutes before she ripped a cuticle and knocked herself out with the sight of her own blood.”
“She is so weird, even for a vampire,” I said.
“Perhaps, Miss Fae.”
“What did she say about Devin? He isn’t at the MBRC, is he?” I nervously asked.
Devin, or the Pooka as most magical beings referred to him, was a powerful guy who served as a member of the Fairy Council—the highest governing body the magical community has. He was also a close friend of mine who is unfortunately gifted in flirting and raising my heartbeat.
“Madeline did not mention it. However, as the Fairy Council does not adjourn for another month, I should think he is still in Britain,” Baobab said.
“That’s awesome,” I said, sighing in relief. “Alright. I need to track down Asahi and see what he wants help with. I have my Magic Mirror and cell phone on me if you need me,” I said exiting my office space.
I almost slammed the door into a tall, waxy looking man who stood outside my office.
“Sorry,” I said, before going on my way.
The MBRC is a maze of tunnels and chambers that lies next to and beneath Chicago’s Union station. My office is located in the magic mouse hallway where most teachers have their offices. My schoolroom was located three flights down in the pegasus wing, and it took quite a bit of walking to get to it.
When I finally reached the room I was thrilled to find my target. “Asahi, what did you need?” I shouted into the vast room.
The classroom was the size of a small high school auditorium, and it was fitted with the best technology in the center thanks to my friendship with a handful
of young centaurs that have a passion for human tech.
“Morgan, good afternoon,” Asahi said, popping out from behind a projector. “I’ll be with you in one moment,” he said before speaking to a young faun who clattered along behind him.
“Morgaaaan!”
I was nearly tackled to the floor by a pile of frilly skirts and blonde hair.
Madeline had found me.
“Get off. I can’t breathe,” I gasped, rolling the petite vampire off me.
“I talked to Baobab this morning, but she wouldn’t tell me when you were arriving today,” Madeline said as she stood and fixed her skirts.
“Was there something you needed me for?”
“Not really. Everything has become so dull, so I thought I would visit you.”
“Baobab said you stormed and raged about Devin.”
“Naturally. Devin is always doing something worth raging over,” Madeline scoffed.
Madeline wasn’t exactly a man-hater, but as she was turned into a vampire around the time of the women’s suffrage movement—and by a male vampire no less—she was generally distrustful of the gender and acted as my self-proclaimed white knight, working to keep as many males away from me as possible.
“He’s trying to get out of the council early, you know,” Madeline said.
“He’s always trying to get out of the council,” I said.
Madeline hesitated. “Yes.”
“But?”
“Pardon?”
“You think there is more to the story?” I asked.
Madeline flicked a lock of her hair over her shoulder. “I do. I think he’s worried about the political arguments taking place over here.”
“Ah,” I said.
