I sat down hard. I hadn’t meant to say that much. Nobody got under my skin enough to get that much truth out of me. I wiped my face which was really wet all of a sudden. Tears. That settled it. He had to go. I hadn’t cried over anyone or anything since I was a kid. I tried imagining that wall again.
He sighed and a letter slot and speaking tube appeared in the wall. His voice came over the tube. I know. Just my lousy luck. Finally finding what I always wanted when my time’s almost up.
I shook my head, knowing he could feel it even if he couldn’t see me. No, you haven’t. The mana decided to pair us up. And I’m sick of supernatural roofies. You don’t want me. You can’t. Of course he couldn’t. Nobody did, and I had made sure of that once I was old enough to. Bad attitude and a sharp tongue go a long way toward backing all the boys away, whether they’re fourteen or forty.
I do. Enough to spit in the reaper’s face to stay with you. Enough to argue with the Witan. Hell, enough to argue with me Ma, which I don’t do.
I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry at that, so I settled for getting pissed. I imagined nailing the letter slot shut and ripping the speaking tube off the imaginary wall.
That was when the T-Rex stomped my mental wall flat.
I looked up from the desktop I hadn’t been seeing for the last ten minutes and saw Bran standing over the desk, his hair sweaty and standing on end, the rest of him glowing. Bright blue.
“Don’t shut me out, Admire.” He came to my side of the desk and spun my chair to face him. Before I could move, he pulled me to my feet and folded me close in his arms. One thumb came up and smudged away the tears I’d missed on the side of my nose.
I stood there in his arms, letting him hold me. I didn’t need to cry now. I just wanted to stay where I was, where he was. I wanted both of us to stay right here, in my office, far away from demons or wizards or anything that would harm him.
“Don’t push me away.” I looked up at him. He stared down at me. And there was too much truth in his face for comfort. “I love you and that’s something I’ve never told a woman.”
I didn’t say anything. And a second later I couldn’t say anything because he was kissing me. Kisses. I’d had more kisses in the last three days than I’d had in my whole life. After a moment I was kissing back. He loved me.
That was too much, too big. I didn’t want it. The mana seemed to say differently, that this was for both of us. Having meant losing and I was done with losing. I’d been done with losing for a long time and didn’t plan to take it back up.
“Your shields are getting better, love. I had to work to get through this time. Had to be careful and not hurt you.” He kissed me again, less need in it this time, just deep feeling that I didn’t want to taste, but couldn’t stop myself from devouring.
“Come to bed, love. Nothing acrobatic. Let’s do it like wizards do. If you learn this, we can make love over the miles.”
“Thought we already had.” I let him guide me over and pull down the bed.
“That was just a taste. I’ll teach you the best.” He eased me out of my clothes and dropped his own in a pile on top of them. “Lay you down, my girl.”
I lay back on the bed and he joined me, lying beside me. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him less aroused looking. He reached over and took my hand.
“Shut your eyes, love. It helps.”
Behind my eyelids, he still glowed blue. A soft blue glow crept up my own arm from where I held his hand. It tingled and made me feel a little high, not booze-high, but more a lightheaded sort, one that some junkies I knew would kill to get.
“Tell me what you want, sweetheart. The deepest, darkest sexual secret you have.”
“I don’t,” I said. “Until you walked into my office, I thought I was asexual. Nobody moved me one way or another. I wasn’t even autoerotic. No fantasies, no sex drive.”
“Then let’s play.”
The blue glow spread all over my body, making all of my skin feel like my clit did when he licked it. I squirmed on the bed, wanting more, maybe a little harder of a tingle.
“Send it back, love. Make me feel the same.”
I tried. I envisioned the blue pouring all over him, making him feel as good as I was, giving him a hard stroke around his cock.
“Good girl. In this space, we can do anything we like. Ever fancy having a cock of your own, sweetness?”
“Perv. Not a bit. My own equipment is enough of a nuisance, bleeding all the time, hurting when it does. Why would I want something with a mind of its own?”
He chuckled and upped the intensity. It wasn’t like the time I’d grabbed the electric fence, but close to it. This was pleasant instead of awful.
I clutched his hand tighter and sent it back, wanting him to lose his cool as fast as mine was going. I wanted to see if I could make him come before I did. I poured the blue all over the tattooed cock ring and the rosary, and felt them constrict around him. I imagined the cock ring sending little lightning bolts all over his cock and balls, the good kind that would make him come. He groaned at that and I knew I was on the right track.
“Come on, baby, come for me. I want to watch you come from all the lightning, just shooting off right in the air like a fountain.” I felt silly saying it, but it was what I wanted, and the words made his cock jerk a little like it wanted to do just that.
He lifted his hips off the bed, bucking against the thin air.
“Yeah, just like you’re inside me.” I tightened the grip of the energy on him. My own arousal had noticeably faded as I distracted him. Good. I liked this. I got some backwash from his that kept me turned-on. “Just like you’re fucking me.”
He groaned again and came. The energy world rendered this as a red spark fountain off the end of his cock. I opened my eyes and rolled over to kiss him.
“Sexy sheep-fucker.”
He had just opened his eyes and pulled me into his chest for more kisses when my phone went off. The klaxon blared through my office.
“Dive, dive! Red Alert!” He laughed and handed me the phone from his side of the bed, sounding a little breathless.
“Whaddaya need, Jinx?” I sighed. “And this had better be good.”
“Deej?” he sounded flustered. Then again, Jinx usually sounded flustered. “I won.”
“Won? Won what?”
“I won the Magic Million! I need help. I’m worried about getting this home.”
“Huh?” Clever, Admire. Really clever. Your cousin is a millionaire and all you can manage is “huh”?
“Deej, just come down to Tunica and ride shotgun for me? Your muffin can drive your car back. I can pay.”
“Of course you can. We’ll be there in an hour. Try not to get mugged, or lose it all on blackjack.”
“I’m just letting them load it into my car. I might go get something to eat. They said they’d comp me dinner and a room if I wanted it.”
“Be there in an hour.” I set the phone down and kissed Bran. “How are you at blackjack?”
Chapter Ten
Jinx
I’d done the meditation, seven repetitions, seven times a day, just like the seminar had said. So far nothing much had been going right for me. I made my usual deliveries for the King that afternoon, and decided to go to Tunica. It had been a while since I’d been there. Most of the time I just go for the food, but tonight, I felt lucky. Of course, most of my luck would probably be getting a medium-rare steak instead of a well-done one.
I wasn’t hanging out at Deej’s this week. Her love muffin had taken up residence. That was so weird. She was the toughest person I knew, not an ounce of sentiment or feeling. Now she was letting the big guy hold her and sleep naked with her. I stopped thinking about that. I’d seen way too much of him the other morning. Way too much of her too.
I walked into the casino, feeling a little weird. D.J. in love was like saying the sun had decided to rise in the south and set in the north. The charm detector pinged me, and security wanded my neck.
“Just general stuff, no luck enhancers,” one said. Of course not. I always left all of those at home when I went to Tunica.
They waved me in. Just on the floor, facing the door, stood an enormous promotional machine. Magic Millions, Win One Million Coins blared from all its neon. The pretty girl in the skimpy uniform smiled at me, the usual fixed look all casino workers get after about four hours on shift.
“Free play with your club card, sir,” she said, gesturing to the lever arm that was level with her head.
Why not? I recited the meditation in my head and then tapped the machine seven times. I pulled the lever. Of course I wasn’t going to win. Nobody ever won the million coins.
I watched the reels spin. One million symbol on the first line. That was about all I’d see. The second reel clicked in with the million symbol. I couldn’t win. There was no use getting my hopes up. The last reel would land on cherries or a blank space.
Sirens went off, wailing and flashing. I stared as the symbols all lined up and the first of the coins started hitting the tray. I had won a million.
A million nickels.
I hadn’t paid any attention to the denomination on the machine. And I felt like a fool. I did some fast math. That was still fifty thousand dollars. Not a fortune, but a big lump.
I sat down hard in a nearby chair. The nickels kept pouring from the enormous jar on top of the machine. They must have bought every nickel in three states for this promotion, since casinos didn’t keep actual coins on hand anymore. The siren and the noise had drawn every eye in the house, and not all of them were friendly. D.J. thinks I’m kind of dim, but I’ve gotten enough hostile stares to know what one feels like.
Two slot attendants started scooping nickels into buckets for me. I had honestly expected a paper ticket, like all the slot machines pay out these days. But no, they were stacking buckets filled with nickels near me while I stared.
I did the only thing I could think of. I pulled out my phone and called D.J.
She sounded annoyed and I expected I had interrupted something. But she agreed to come down.
I looked at the security guy standing nearby and read his nametag. “Jevon, can you watch my jackpot? I’m going to get my car so I can load it in.”
“Sir, don’t you want to cash it out?” the slot attendant, Crystal, asked.
“Not really,” I said. “I’ll just take the nickels and go. The harder it is for me to spend, the better.”
Crystal stared as I picked up three buckets and went to get my El Camino. I love my car. It’s perfect for my courier job and so far nothing’s been able to kill it. I pulled up front of the casino and the valet came out.
“I hit the million nickel jackpot. I’m loading it.”
He just nodded and moved on to the Lexus that pulled up behind me.
The floor manager was standing by my buckets, which had multiplied a lot in five minutes, and coins were still falling. “Sir, you might want to consider cashing this in? Although we no longer handle coins at the cage cashiers, we have made a special provision for this.”
I thought about Bran and D.J., so earnest in trying to save the world. There might never be another April fifteenth. I would enjoy it while I had it. “No, nickels will be fine.” I scooped up four buckets—whoof, they were heavy—and hauled them out to the car.
I’d gotten most of the nickels loaded when D.J. pulled up in her beater, with the boyfriend along for the ride. They got out and he looked around, a little fuddled by the casino. D.J. looked at what was happening and got that expression I know so well.
“Do I want to know? I don’t even want to know.”
“I won,” I said, with a smile.
“How?”
“I said the meditation, tapped the machine and pulled the lever. And I won.”
She raised an eyebrow at me. “Tapped the machine? How?”
I demonstrated on the back of the chair, seven taps.
D.J. covered her face again. “Of course. The old ‘shave and a haircut’ trick. What else would it be? Only you, Jinx. So, yeah, the Magic Million. So where’s the million?”
I held up the bucket. “One million coins.”
“One million nickels. Perfect.” D.J. shook her head and almost laughed. “Of course. Of course. Why didn’t you take cash?”
“Tax reasons,” I said loftily.
Bran had started carrying out buckets, undeterred by our discussion. I went back to carrying them out. They filled most of the back of my El Camino.
“Can he drive your car and you ride along? Are you armed?” I asked.
“I’m always armed,” D.J. said. That didn’t surprise me. “Bran doesn’t drive a car. He can ride in the back and I’ll follow. We want a hundred for this, that’s gas and lumper pay.”
“That’s fine. Is he armed?”
“Jinx,” her tone said I was being really dumb. I mean I knew he was powerful, but I wasn’t sure what kind of a wiz he was. “He’s a combat mage. The man is better armed naked than your average Marine is in full kit.”
“Good.” Then I remembered him naked and put that thought right out of my mind again.
“Bran, honey, you mind riding in the back with Jinx’s million? I’ll follow.”
He kissed her, just light, but it felt like I was standing on the edge of a thunderstorm. “Nah, nah, ‘twill be like body-flying.” He hopped into the bed of the El Camino and made himself comfortable among the coin buckets.
He rode back there, a look of sheer pleasure on his face as the wind blew all that shaggy gray hair out. He looked like a satisfied wolf. I sure hoped D.J. knew what she was getting into.
D.J. followed tight on my tail. She didn’t even let a determined speeder get in between us. I parked in front of my place and Bran hopped out, then scooped up five of the buckets.
I grabbed one and dashed ahead to unlock the door. We carried them up the stairs, four and five and six at a time. On our tenth trip up, Saraphina came out.
I like Saraphina, but her temper scares me. I’m never sure if she’s going to hex me into next week and I don’t know how well my charms will work against a full-fledged Rom witch.
“What are you doing? Tromp, tromp, tromp, up and down the stairs at an hour to make the saints blush! Allan, what is this?” Saraphina’s the only person in my life who calls me by my real name. Even the King calls me Jinx.
“I won! You’ll never have to worry about the rent being late.”
“What do you win? Why is it buckets and buckets of coins?”
“I won a million.”
“A million nickels,” D.J. threw out as she walked by with an armful.
Saraphina tapped at her smartphone for a minute. “Eleven thousand pounds? On my ceiling? Have you lost your mind? Allan, I will have nickels raining on my head!”
“We’ll spread it out,” I promised. “And I’ll convert a bunch of it at the grocery store tomorrow, and pay up my rent for the next six months.”
“You lie to me, I will turn you into a frog,” she said. I didn’t doubt her.
Bran passed me with the last armload. “Don’t worry. I can change you back.” He started up the stairs. “I think.”
D.J. caught up with us on the porch. “Pay your rent. Pay your bills. And I want you to promise me you will not spend one single, solitary nickel of this at Hellzapoppin. Not even on a coffee mug.”
I crossed my heart at her. And then at Saraphina for good measure. I meant it. This was the chance to get out from under my bills and put something back for the future. I waved as my cousin and her muffin left, and chanted the mantra again.
Chapter Eleven
D.J.
I drove back to my place, arms and legs aching from Jinx’s stairs and nickels. Fifty thousand dollars. In nickels. That was two years’ pay for me, on a good year. And he’d gotten it in a single night. I wondered if I should be chanting the meditation with everyone else.
Was continuing to live worth scraping by hand to mouth? Or would it
be better to make a haul and enjoy it while the world burned?
I looked at Bran, all beat up. He’d had his face ripped off for the world. He’d fought all his adult life. He lived in motels, his entire life in a bag on his back and ate shit food, while dedicating himself to being the world’s fire extinguisher. Yep, we were the good guys and had to do it right.
Dammit.
We slept late Sunday, and Bran took me to breakfast again. Afterward, he insisted on a walk along the Riverfront. A two-mile walk and then a trolley ride back. If this kept up, I was actually going to develop some muscle tone. All I wanted when we got home was a nap.
He let me crash while he went to practice. I wondered if I should hit the gun range. But that wasn’t worth the bother. Nothing we were up against this time could be shot.
Bran came in around mid-afternoon carrying a big basket.
“Up, my lovely. I have a plan for the afternoon that is involving you, a large picnic hamper and a very private grove out-of-doors. Since you didn’t seem to fancy the sofa in the alley, that is.”
I rolled over and reached up to him. “I’d rather picnic on the floor and spend the evening in my own bed. At least I know where all the lumps are there. And I’m not liable to end up with a pine cone up my ass.”
Bran sat down on the edge of my bed and kissed me. “Don’t be making me jealous of the pine cones, darlin’.”
I covered my butt with one hand. “I don’t think so. I like you front and center, big guy.” I got one hand under his vest and teased his nipple, then stroked the rosary. “Besides, I didn’t know you were the jealous type.”
“When you get a good thing, you hold on to it.”
“Mm-hmm.” I wrapped both arms around his waist and snuggled in to him, smelling leather and Bran and happy.
“Now, up, ya lazy bint. Let’s eat, the chicken salad’s getting warm.” A teasing swat landed on my ass. I considered staying put for more swats. “And the chocolate’s melting.”
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