Playing with Fire: A Magical Romantic Comedy (with a body count)

by RJ Blain

  Of all the people on Earth, Magnus McGee came third on my list of those to avoid. His sister came in second.

  The polite, professional me took over, and still smiling, I chirped, “Is there something else I can get for you, sir?”

  How about a murder: his. I could do that. I had a spoon within easy reach. Surely I could kill someone with a spoon. I blamed my bad Monday morning shift for my inclination towards violence.

  “Audrey said you can find anyone or anything. Is that true?”

  Oh, God. Why me? Why was the woman I caught having sex in Central Park telling her brother about me? Who had told her I’d been the one to inform her husband—with photographs—of her deed? I really wanted to kill them, whoever they were. “No, sorry,” I lied.

  “She seemed pretty convinced.”

  Of course she probably believed I could find anyone or anything after I caught her cheating on one of the sexiest men alive. The mental image of Samuel Quinn’s wife and her college stud would never, ever fade. Every time I thought I could forget, someone had to remind me.

  At least I could hide the truth behind the truth. “I’m a vanilla human, Mr. McGee. Sorry.”

  On paper, I was as vanilla as they got, with my only recorded abnormality—or talent, as they liked to call magical abilities—being my immunity to pixie dust and a few other magical substances. Sometimes the cops called me in and paid me a cute little pittance to deal with some of the nastier substances, including gorgon vomit.

  No one wanted that job, especially me, but since a gorgon’s bile didn’t turn me to stone like it did everyone else…

  “That’s not what I heard. I really need your help. You’re good at finding people who don’t want to be found, right?”

  That was one way to put it, but instead of voicing my agreement, I pulled out my driver’s license and showed it to him. “V for vanilla. I’m qualified to handle dangerous substances, but that’s it.” Guilt, the type born of having ruined a man’s marriage, reared its ugly head. “Tell you what. I know a few people. Give me the info, and I’ll see what they can do. No promises. I’m not what you’re looking for, but maybe one of my friends knows something.”

  I was such a miserable, horrible liar. What friends? What help? I needed a life, one outside of making coffee and asking how high when the cops ordered me to jump.

  McGee pulled out a slender black cell phone and handed it to me. “Everything you need to know is on here. I’ll pay seventy-five thousand if you find him, and an extra twenty-five if you do so within the next forty-eight hours. Please. I’ll call you tonight, so keep the phone on you.”

  I gaped at him. He wanted to pay how much for me to find someone? Seventy-five thousand was more than twice what I made in a year, and that included all the buckets of gorgon bile I’d shoveled up so some cop didn’t get turned to stone trying to do it. Seventy-five thousand meant I could make good on my never-spoken threats of quitting.

  “Oh, and Miss Gardener?”

  “What?” I asked, tensing as I waited for the catch. There was always a catch. I should have known there’d be a catch.

  “This talk never happened.”

  Of course. I should have known. Someone willing to pay a fortune for someone to be found wouldn’t want anyone else to know he was looking. I sighed. “That’s going to make it difficult to ask my friends for help.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be smart or something? Figure it out.” He turned and headed for the door.

  I fumed. “If I were so smart, do you think I’d be working as a barista in a pixie dust shop?” Why did rich men always insist on ignoring me? Magnus McGee left without acknowledging my question. “Screw you, too, buddy. And your sister sucked at the reverse cowgirl, in case you were wondering!”

  Ah, well. It was probably for the better he couldn’t hear me. Who could he need to find so badly he’d pay so much for me to do the work for him? Had he missed the memo? I found people all right, in the worst positions possible.

  I blinked, and a thought struck me. What if he hadn’t missed the memo?

  Muttering curses, I shoved the black phone into my pocket to deal with after my hell shift ended.

  While I could understand the pixie sisters ditching their shift, I expected better from Branden. The satyr loved coffee and pixie dust more than life itself, and he worked at Faery Fortunes part-time for the discount. He had a far better paying job as a desk monkey somewhere, but until now, he’d never missed a shift. With Mary still a no-show, I was stuck with closing.

  If anyone expected me to open in the morning after an eighteen-hour shift, they’d get an unpleasant surprise. I locked the front door, flipped the sign, and cleaned up the mess. As soon as I finished, I wrote Mary a scathing note informing her she could find some other certified barista, invoked one of the rare New York employee’s rights laws favoring the workers, and told her she owed me for all eighteen hours I’d worked solo. In case she had trouble with the math, I gave her the amount along with a reminder she had promised to be back within an hour.

  I would regret my decision when it came time to pay my rent. Then again, maybe I wouldn’t. My certification opened doors, and everyone wanted someone who could handle dangerous substances without a hazmat suit. If I didn’t mind a life as a high-class janitor, I’d be set. There weren’t a lot of people who could fall into a vat of gorgon bile and live to tell the tale. I was one of three in New York City, and the other two were gorgons, powerful ones who didn’t need to petrify me before crushing me to teeny tiny Bailey bits.

  A little after one in the morning, I trudged home. Thanks to the late hour, it took four buses, and I staggered to my door in Queens at a little after three. All in all, I couldn’t complain. It could’ve been worse—a lot worse. I had run into only one drunk, and he’d been more interested in a leggy blond, who had enjoyed shocking the shit out of him with her Taser a little too much.

  In the relative safety of my apartment, I flopped on my battered, flea-market couch and dug out Magnus McGee’s phone. “Who could you possibly want that you’d pay me so much to hunt him down for you?”

  To add a bit of extra icing on my day, the asshole had locked the phone. I glared at the prompt. “Seriously?”

  Blocking the info behind a passcode meant he either wanted a little revenge or meant for me to earn my keep. Fine. Two could play at his game, and a four-digit passcode wouldn’t take too long to hack, especially if I pulled out all the stops. First, I’d try random bullshit luck. I’d save the hocus pocus for later, when I was frustrated enough I wouldn’t care if I broke the phone.

  I took a few minutes to test the device to make sure it was the real deal. A few swipes of the screen brought up the expected menus, and I even turned on the flash out of curiosity. Maybe after I got paid for the work, I’d buy my very own cell phone. I was probably one of ten people in the entire city without one.

  It took me until five after six to brute force my way in. The device clicked, the screen flashed, and it displayed a list of icons showing one missed call. It also clicked and gave an electronic buzz. Before I could do more than suck in a startled breath at the unexpected sound, the device detonated. A cloud of vapor, dust, and glass shards burst in my face. The sharp bite of shrapnel tore into my skin, and my eyes burned with the fires of hell.

  With tears streaming down my cheeks and blinding me, I staggered to my bathroom to flush my eyes. I cursed every painful moment I spent splashing my face with water. When I could finally see again, reddish droplets stained my white sink and had splattered on my mirror. I squinted to make out my reflection. The whites of my eyes had turned an angry red, but by some miracle I refused to question, none of the shards had cut me anywhere important. Being blinded would’ve really put a damper on my day.

  I picked out the fragments with tweezers. It was a good thing I hadn’t started life all that pretty, as my new collections of scars would ensure no man looked my way twice. At least I didn’t think I needed any stitches.

 
Who the hell turned a phone into a miniature bomb? Magnus McGee, apparently. The dust gave my skin and clothes a greenish cast, and after a few exploratory sniffs of my shirt, I picked up a faint trace of wet earth.

  Gorgon dust.

  No one in their right mind made the stuff, not even gorgons. Not only could it turn its victims into stone, they ran a chance of becoming a gorgon, too. The authorities refused to give a percentage on how many were turned, but I suspected it was high, as handling the stuff required a top-level permit, one I possessed thanks to my immunity.

  The truly insane dosed themselves with it on purpose. McGee hadn’t just tried to kill me. He had meant to make me a monster—one who’d never be able to look anyone in the eyes ever again.

  “That son of a bitch!” Had I been anyone else, I would have been transformed into a statue, easy pickings for anyone who came into my apartment. Petrifying someone was a great way to get rid of them—or cart them off before reversing the petrification with neutralizer. Spitting mad, I went to work purifying my apartment, tears pricking my eyes. It hadn’t been my fault McGee’s sister had cheated on her husband. What kind of idiot left someone like Chief Quinn for a college kid?

  Audrey McGee, apparently.

  At least I had everything I needed to neutralize the gorgon dust thanks to working with the police. They provided me with a new batch of neutralizer every call, and I kept every last pinch of it. After mixing the powder with some water, I’d be able to spritz everything and vacuum the pale residue when it was dry.

  Two hours and one thoroughly cleaned apartment later, I collapsed into bed and dreamed of wringing Magnus McGee’s scrawny little neck.

  Chapter Two

  I dragged myself out of bed at noon and spent an unreasonable amount of time glaring at the mangled ruins of McGee’s phone. Even if there was data on it, there was no way I could access it without exposing someone to the gorgon dust inside. Even after bathing it in the neutralizing solution, I worried someone would be petrified and possibly turned into a gorgon.

  I had two choices: I could assume Magnus McGee had lied to me or I could take a walk on the wild side and perform some magic to learn the truth. Choices, choices.

  Ah, hell. Hocus pocus it was. Until I got a new job, I needed something to do to fill the time. I’d do another round of spraying to make certain all the gorgon dust was neutralized, too. Thankfully, since I didn’t have any real friends, no one came to my apartment without good reason. In a day or two, my place would be safe.

  It’d take a lot longer than a day or two to get a reply from my job applications. It took me ten minutes to update my resume to reflect my work at Faery Fortunes and add a few lines to include my certifications. The hard part would be submitting to jobs, but I’d manage.

  I always did.

  After three frustrating hours, I gave up and decided to get my hands dirty. If McGee had a legitimate job hiding behind his stupid exploding cell phone booby trapped with gorgon dust, I’d find out. Either way, I’d make him pay for every last cut inflicted on me.

  To hide my magic so my talents weren’t classified, I used rituals and spells to make it appear like I was a harmless practitioner. Without tools, practitioners couldn’t work any magic, placing them firmly in the vanilla human category. Given the right tools, enough determination, and time, they could accomplish just about anything. Pretending I needed tools to tap into magic would keep me off the radar—mostly.

  Ideally, no one would ever find out there was something more to my ability to find what others didn’t want found.

  I really needed to sit down and have a chat with Magnus McGee about his exploding cell phone. Thanks to the wretched device, I’d have to do a lot of coverup work to stop anyone from realizing there was something more to me than I wanted them to see.

  To make my special brand of hocus pocus work, I needed two components: a piece of paper and some ink. Everything else I gathered, ranging from a big bag of marbles to a light bulb, served as props to trick anyone who might be watching. A little caution never hurt anyone, and I never knew when the walls might grow eyes. Magic worked in mysterious ways, and mine was a little more mysterious than most.

  I wasn’t even sure how it worked. It just did.

  Since the phone was the largest contamination risk, I’d put it in a plastic bag, which I set in front of me along with the paper and ink. I scattered everything else around me in a haphazard circle in a mockery of a practitioner’s ritual. Crossing my legs and resting my hands on my knees, I closed my eyes. Maybe one day I’d figure out how my magic ticked and learn to control it so it wouldn’t find some way to bite me in the ass.

  The first step was to concentrate on what I needed to know, but I often found the simple tasks were the most difficult. I had too many questions. Had McGee wanted someone found, or was he just after some good old-fashioned revenge? Then my thoughts wandered to the day Chief Quinn, easily one of the sexiest human beings alive, had barged into the coffee shop asking if I could help him find his wife.

  The camera he’d given me should have tipped me off he knew his wife had been cheating on him.

  Was the phone revenge for finding proof of Aubrey McGee Quinn’s infidelity?

  I reined in my thoughts and turned them back to McGee, the phone, and the possibility of revenge. Then I waited until a tingle swept through my body, the sole indicator my magic was working. I cracked open an eye and peeked at the page.

  Ink splattered over most of the sheet, leaving behind enough white space to form a single word: yes.

  How lovely. Why wasn’t I surprised? Yes was an easy enough answer to interpret. Revenge motivated McGee, and he had used the phone to get it—or tried to. Too bad for him I was immune to his stupid batch of dust.

  Still, the single confirmation wasn’t enough. I needed to take it a step further. Discarding the soaked page, I grabbed another and plunked it down beside McGee’s phone. The more specific I got with my desires, the harder it was to get an answer I could use.

  On a good day, my magic would seek out the truth and, using a single word, tell me what I needed to know. It tired me, and without fail, there were consequence associated with using my talent. Usually, the magic put me in the worst position possible, like witnessing Magnus McGee’s sister doing things I only fantasized about.

  With her ex-husband.

  I groaned and gave up all hope of concentrating on the problem without my mind diving into the gutter. My magic sucked. Samuel Quinn, quite probably the man of my dreams, was back on the market, and thanks to cheating and using some hocus pocus to do him a favor, he hated me. At least I didn’t care if the McGees hated me.

  Well, maybe I did. A face full of gorgon dust and glass shards wasn’t my idea of a good time. Why the hell would anyone risk contamination to get revenge on me? Only an idiotic moron would do such a thing.

  There were easier ways to kill or hurt someone.

  I opened my eyes. The marbles rolled across the floor and lined up, heading straight towards my door. One by one, they halted in a new position, stretching from my side all the way across my living room.

  Someone knocked at my door.

  A chill ran through me, and I picked up the bag containing the contaminated phone. Ink splotches on the page drew my attention, and I sucked in a breath. Written in the clearest words I’d ever seen my magic produce were two words: not you.

  Another knock at my door startled me to my feet; my heart drummed a frantic beat in my chest, echoing in my ears and throat. I was immune to gorgon dust. Some people knew. Most didn’t. Because most didn’t, whenever the police department needed my help, Chief Quinn came personally. He always did.

  Oh no.

  “Bailey?”

  Panic jolted through me. Yep. Chief Quinn was at my door, and unless my guess was way off, Magnus McGee wanted revenge—on him, not on me. I was just a bonus. “Oh, shit. Oh, shit, shit, shit, shit.”

  I hurried to the door and engaged the deadbolt. Until I could confirm
I’d neutralized every last particle of gorgon dust, I couldn’t let anyone in. Even with my cleaning and spraying of the neutralizing solution, I had no way of knowing if I’d gotten it all.

  If I opened the door, some might get out, and it only took a trace to petrify someone.

  “Bailey? It’s me. Open up,” he ordered.

  “I can’t. Seal the door, Chief Quinn.” If I had to lock myself in until they could napalm the place to prevent a gorgon outbreak, I would. Being napalmed fell really low on my bucket list of things to do before I died, but if I allowed anyone to be infected, I would never forgive myself.

  “What? What’s going on?”

  “Get someone to seal the door. Someone bombed my place with gorgon dust. Just go away, please. I have neutralizing solution here, I just need time to get it all.” There. If that didn’t send him a clear message, nothing would. “Please.”

  A string of curses spewed out of the man’s mouth, so potent my toes curled. “You’re certain?”

  “Of course I’m certain. I know gorgon dust when I see it. Don’t be insulting.”

  “Who did it?”

  I imagined him standing on the other side of the door, his arms crossed over his broad chest, and the muscles of his biceps flexed beneath his uniform. Damn. I wished my door had a peep hole so I could get a good look at him before I either starved to death, decontaminated my apartment, or was napalmed by law enforcement to prevent an outbreak.

  “Bailey? Who did it?”

  There was no point in hiding it, but I sighed anyway. “Ma—“

  The pressure of invisible hands around my throat cut off my breath. Thunder roared in my ears, and when the sound crested, someone turned out all the lights.

  I woke to Chief Quinn barking orders. My door shuddered in its frame, lost its will to live, and thumped against my back, shoulders, and head. Ouch.

  The universe obviously hated me and wanted me to die.