Magic Dude
Page 20
Gary craned his neck forward, scanning for damage. Tyler pulled at his shoulder. Peering at a crazy woman’s cleavage would do nobody any good.
The woman’s face twisted with anguish. “Do you know what happened?”
Wilma looked at their guest, slowly scanning from head to toe. “It mucked up your fashion sense?”
The woman turned and shoved her face close to Wilma’s. “It. Did. Nothing.”
“Well, that’s a lucky break, isn’t it?” Gary said. “We wouldn’t want something that terrible to happen to someone as young and pretty as you.”
The woman spun, her face twisted into a scowl that rivaled Wilma’s on a bad day.
“You think I wanted to live through that?” She turned back to face Tyler, wagging her finger at him. “I’ve been trying to kill myself for three weeks. I’ve jumped off a building, I’ve weighed myself down and walked into the pool.”
The woman raised her hands to the heavens in frustration. “I’ve run out into the desert with no water and then trapped every scorpion I could find in my hand. You want to know what happened? Nothing!”
Tyler put a hand to his forehead, partly to block out her horrendous breath, mostly to remember what command he’d thrown at her as their car sped away.
“I put a protection spell on you,” he said.
“You cursed me,” she shouted back. “And I want you to take it off me. Right now!”
Her footing slipped again, the heel digging into the dry dirt while the trainer stayed level. She staggered to her left, and Wilma hugged her around the shoulder to steady her.
“Come inside,” Wilma whispered as the woman burst into tears. “I’ll get you a cold beer, and you can tell me everything.”
“I don’t want a beer,” the woman said, sobbing as she let herself be led inside the office. “I want to die.”
“Come on, now.” Wilma pushed the woman down into her office chair. “What’s your name, love?”
“Meredith.”
Gary stuck his head around the door. “No wonder you want to kill yourself.” He shook his head. “Meredith sounds like something my granny’s friend would likely be called.”
“Not helping, Gary.” Wilma stood up and slammed the door.
Tyler listened at the window, curious as to the words of wisdom their resident bad-mood operator would bestow.
“You’re looking at this the wrong way,” Wilma said. The words were muffled by the glass and wood, but Tyler concentrated so he could catch most of them. “What you have here, Meredith, is a marketable skill.”
Tyler smiled as Wilma started to extoll the virtues of hidden bank accounts, private clients with strange fetishes, and bitcoin. He pushed away from the wall, nodding goodbye to Gary and strolling for the relative coolness of his trailer.
“Hey,” Gary called out after him. “What’s next, Magic Dude?”
Tyler stopped at the door, looking back over his shoulder at his friend. He grinned, feeling a wave of optimism wash over him. With Wilma’s skills on the black market, there was no need to worry about finding people to help with the magic of the stone. Tyler should just allow her to work her contacts and let the troubled souls come to him.
“Next stop, Gary, we’re going to put everything right with the world.”
Thanks for Reading!
I hope that you had as much fun reading Magic Dude as I did writing him (and that was a lot!)
Magic Dude will offer up another adventure early in 2018 - Magic Dude: At Your Service. In the meantime, you might also enjoy a new futuristic Urban Fantasy novel that I’m releasing early in December, called Nerves of Steel.
This is the first volume in a trilogy featuring a Cyborg, a Vampire, and a Cat as they take on the evil empire to free vampires from the shackles of slavery.
You can check it out by clicking on the book cover below. Otherwise, I hope you’ll join me in another Magic Dude adventure in the new year!
Warm regards,
Lee Hayton
About the Author - Lee Hayton
Traveling is a great expander of ideas and the understanding of other cultures, and although I’ve explored this facet of the world many times, in the end I’ve always made the return journey to my home—just a hop, skip, and a jump from from my birthplace.
I love entertaining readers with a good story, whether it’s one designed to make your blood curdle with fear or have you explode into fits of laughter. I’m delighted you’ve found this short story and hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to explore my worlds in more detail over in Ye Olde Amazon Shoppe.
Stay in Touch
You can find me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Google Plus. Stay on top of every new release by clicking “Follow” on my Bookbub Author Page or visit me at http://leehayton.com to download my starter library for FREE.
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