by Jade Alters
Mates & Magic
Jade Alters
Contents
The Sharing Spell
1. Victoria
2. Victoria
3. Victoria
4. Ian
5. Victoria
6. Mitch
7. Victoria
8. Victoria
9. Ian
10. Victoria
11. Brendan
12. Victoria
13. Darren
14. Victoria
15. Victoria
16. Mitch
17. Victoria
18. Darren
19. Victoria
Afterword
Also by Jade Alters
The Spell’s Price
1. Hope
2. Jared
3. Hope
4. Max
5. Hope
6. Hope
7. Hope
8. Freddie
9. Hope
10. Hope
11. Hope
12. Dylan
13. Hope
14. Jared
15. Hope
16. Hope
17. Hope
18. Freddie
19. Max
20. Hope
Epilogue
Afterword
Also by Jade Alters
Backfired Magic
1. Dora
2. Nathan
3. Dora
4. Dora
5. Brett
6. Dora
7. Dora
8. Dora
9. Grant
10. Dora
11. Dora
12. Jesse
13. Dora
14. Grant
15. Dora
16. Brett
17. Dora
18. Nathan
19. Dora
20. Nathan
21. Jesse
22. Dora
Also by Jade Alters
Afterword
The Sharing Spell
Mates & Magic
Victoria
When the bell jingles over the door at Baker Books, I peek around the corner of the fantasy section just to see who’s come in. It’s been horribly slow today. All the kids have already bought their required reading for the summer, and everyone seems more invested in the sunshine outside than the books inside. It’s a bit of a respite though. When I took this job, I had the idea that everyone was buying ebooks nowadays. But Baker Books gets much busier than I’d imagined. Still, the first warm days of summer must be its slowest, I bet. The guy walking into the store now is older, handsome in kind of a weathered way, with graying brown hair. I tend to avoid male customers if I can. They always want to flirt, even when I can see the wedding ring sparkling right there on their finger. This man looks like he’s just browsing, so I continue shelving in Fantasy. The hype over the new Swords of Saturn book has only just begun to die down, but I still suspect that the copies I’m carefully shelving won’t remain there long.
When the bell dings again, I glance around the corner and grimace. The customer this time is a familiar one. Much too familiar. He’s good looking too, objectively speaking. He has a narrow face and a mop of carefully mussed up hair and wears wire-rim glasses. If you look closer though, there’s something just a little bit off about him. He looks about twenty years older up close than he does far away, and he never quite looks you in the eye. None of that really means anything, but the guy is creepy whenever he comes by so that colors my impression of him.
“Creepazoid at twelve o’clock,” Allie whispers as she passes by me, fixing her name tag to her t-shirt.
“I know it,” I mutter under my breath.
I’ve been working at Baker Books for two years and this guy, who we generally refer to as “Creeper” or “Creepazoid,” really makes my day worse whenever he shows up.
When I graduated from college and discovered that there was nothing out there for an English major that I actually wanted to do, I was pretty freaked out. I’d just studied what I was most interested in studying, which was books and English Lit. I didn’t think much about the future. Then, I graduated and realized that I didn’t want to teach. I like to write, but I’ve never felt very confident in my writing. Sometimes I think, I should try to go into publishing. But when I found an insanely cheap apartment that’s actually pretty nice and got a full-time job at the bookstore, I realized this was all exactly what I needed. I’m happy to be around my books all day, and I love introducing customers to books that I think they’ll enjoy. I also adore hearing back from repeat customers once they’ve read things. It happens much more often than I’d imagined. People are quite loyal to their favorite bookstore. The truth is, I love working here.
But Creeper makes it awful whenever he comes in.
He hits on everyone and holds us up talking for far too long. He’s generally awkward and creepy as hell. We all hate him but he hasn’t done anything bad enough to warrant any kind of talking to from Becca, our manager. I wish he would though. I wish he’d do something awful enough that we had to ban him. Every time he comes in, I feel a sense of dread.
I try to lay low now, staying near the back. I generally enjoy shelving more than working the front register, but today I’m especially grateful that I’m in the stacks right now. Maybe I can manage to avoid him.
When I feel two hands on my shoulders, I jump about a mile. Nobody who works here does that, and I pull away and turn, clutching several copies of Swords of Saturn Book 5 to my chest.
It’s Creeper, of course.
“I’m sorry to startle you,” Creeper says. “I wondered if you could help me find a book?”
I take a deep breath and sort of brace myself. I try to assume the best about people and because I have no choice but to deal with this guy, I start to wonder if I’m maybe exaggerating his creep factor. Maybe he’s just one of those socially awkward people who has no idea how he comes off and he doesn’t mean to be bothering us at all. Maybe he thinks he’s being friendly. With hope in my heart that his intentions are better than we’ve given him credit for, I sum up my capacity to withstand cringey behavior and smile at him.
“Sure. What are you looking for?”
The guy makes a point of leaning forward to look at my nametag, “Ah, Victoria,” he says. I could swear I’ve told him my name before, but maybe he’s just trying to be friendly again. “You’ve helped me before.”
“Yes, I definitely have,” I say, laughing a little nervously.
“I’m looking for a book…”
I bite my lip, hoping against hope, that he truly is looking for a book I can help him find and not just here to ogle and make us all uncomfortable. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure he’s staring at my chest.
“I know it has a blue cover!” He says brightly. He grins at me as if we’re old friends and I smile as genuinely as I can manage. Perhaps this will be my good deed for the day.
Just help the guy, a voice in my head says. Be nice.
“Blue cover,” I say, nodding. “Well...it would be good to have more to go on?”
“I believe it’s about a whale…”
“Moby Dick?” I say hopefully.
“No…”
Jesus Christ.
“What’s your favorite book?” He asks. He’s doing that thing where he’s smiling but looking just past me. He reminds me of a skeleton somehow.
“Ah, oh I don’t know. Who can pick just one?” I chuckle and Creeper chuckles with me. For a second there, it does feel normal. “I like ah...fantasy. A lot.”
He keeps me talking fo
r awhile and I make a real sustained effort to figure out what book he’s looking for until he finally gives up and leaves. He stood too close to me the entire time, and his gaze really weirded me out. When it’s done, I decide to take an unscheduled break since I’m not covering the register. I go to the break room in the back and pour myself a cup of coffee, plopping down at the table and angry scrolling Instagram on my phone without actually looking at anything.
I come away from Creeper still unsure if he’s deliberately messing with me or if he doesn’t know any better. Which means that I don’t know if I should feel guilty for kind of hating his guts. Anyway, I tried. He walked away thinking that he’s on good terms with Victoria from Baker Books.
He’ll probably ask for me next time he comes in though. Yikes.
“Are you okay?” That’s Winny popping in. She’s supposed to be covering the front register, but now she’s leaning and looking at me with concern. “Did he do anything?”
“I mean no, not really,” I say, shrugging. “He just…”
“Creeps you out.”
“Yeah, kinda. He held me up for ages.”
“Next time it happens, you can grab me, if you want,” Winny says. “To help? If I’m available. Then it’s two on one. It might get rid of him quicker. And you’d have some support. I’ll keep my eye out for him though if I see him.”
“Oh, thanks Winny,” I say. “That would be great. I’ll keep it in mind.”
“If he never finds the imaginary book he’s always looking for, he might switch to Amazon.”
“From your lips to God’s ears,” I say sighing. Winny heads back and I drink some coffee, just taking a minute before I head back out on the floor.
I’m starting to wonder if I should try a spell to get rid of the Creeper, since following the rules isn’t helping at all. My aunt was a witch, and technically, my mother was too, and I have some experience. It’s more of a hobby than anything, but every once in a while the idea that I might be able to use magic to solve a problem comes to me as an afterthought. It can be pretty useful on occasion. I can’t think of any spells I know off hand that would help, but maybe I’ll consult my books.
Using magic can be dicey. That’s one of the reasons I don’t bust it out very often. But it’s definitely an option.
I feel a little better about having magic as a hypothetical alternative and I start to calm myself down. The rest of the day passes calmly enough. I’m only working until four today. When I finally clock out and wave goodbye to Winny, I’m not thinking of Creeper at all. I go outside and head to my car and the weather is still warm and pleasant out. The parking lot behind Baker Books is small and shared with a couple of other businesses. That means the employees go with street parking, which I’m used to at this point. This area of Pasadena is popular, but it’s not packed enough that I have much trouble finding a space within a few blocks, and being that it’s Southern California, the weather is almost always good for walking. Most of the time, I rather like taking a nice walk around the neighborhood where I work, just blocks from the downtown area of Pasadena.
But today turns out not to be one of those days because the Creeper has decided to follow me.
I see him appear on the first corner east of El Portal Avenue. It’s a quiet street. There’s hardly anyone around. He just seems to pop up from behind a tree a couple of blocks down as I’m walking. I only notice because my earbuds get tangled up and I happen to turn my head and see him way down there behind me.
At first, I don’t think anything of it, even though the sight of him when I didn’t expect to see him really does startle me. So the Creeper is out on the street. He’s allowed to walk around. I don’t assume he’s following me.
Until he starts following me.
He stays back a couple of blocks, but he’s there, hanging around, waiting to see me get in my car. When I start up my car and pull out and get away for a couple of blocks, I think I’m in the clear.
Then I see a red car a little ways behind me and Creeper is driving.
Now I’m starting to get legitimately scared. It might be a coincidence, I think, as I keep driving. But given his previous behavior, I just don’t think it is.
When he follows me all the way to my house and pulls over a block away, I know it’s no mistake. I pretend like nothing is wrong because I’ve never been in this position before. I’m not sure how to handle it. When I get out of my car, I see him pull away again and drive off. Suddenly, I feel like a complete idiot. I should have driven in a beeline as far from my house as possible and tried to lose him. Instead, I led him straight to where I live and the thought is kind of terrifying. I should have known better, but nobody’s ever followed me like that. Not as far as I know.
I feel really rattled for the rest of the night and I hate it. When I’m making dinner, my hands are shaking and that sucks. I don’t deserve to feel like this just because some asshole feels entitled to me. A while back, I bought pepper spray because my best friend, Shea, convinced me I should. I thought it was a little excessive. Pasadena has always felt safe to me. I live near the college where the cheap apartments are, but I’ve never run into real trouble once. Now though, I dig the little pink pepper spray out of my underwear drawer. It takes me a while to find the instructions and give them a quick going over. I don’t want to screw up and spray myself in the eyes.
That night I text Shea and tell her what’s happened. She wants me to call the cops and request a patrol car drive around the block a few times at least, but I keep checking out the window and I don’t see that red car. I probably should take her advice, but for now, I watch Netflix under my blankets. My pepper spray is on my nightstand. I even test how quickly I can grab it a couple of times.
I don’t sleep very well.
I consider myself a morning person but when I wake up with my alarm, I feel that sense of dread again. It’s as if Creeper has come home with me and I hate that. It’s bad enough he makes work so unpleasant when he’s around. I try to distract myself with a podcast after I shower and dress. I make myself a microwave omelet and eat quickly before feeding my tuxedo cat, Gus. But I still feel a chill run down my spine as if something bad is happening. I should have researched spells when I got home last night, but I couldn’t even concentrate.
Goddammit, Creeper.
I can’t stop thinking about it, and when I drive to work, I keep looking for him following me. I even skip my usual morning stop at the good coffee place close to work because I’m afraid he’ll somehow show up there. If I can just get to work, I think to myself, I’ll feel safer. Which isn’t even true. I’m really mad at myself now for not researching spells. And I’m mad that he saw where I live.
When I get to work, I find croissants for everyone in the breakroom. That cheers me up a bit. Becca brings pastries sometimes to treat us. She’s married to the owner of the place, and she really knows how to treat her employees. I grab a cheap coffee from the breakroom (it’s not very good, which is why I like to stop on the way to work, but it’s passable) and eat my croissant and talk to Winnie about how the fifth book of Swords of Saturn stacks up to the expectation. We both think it’s building up to a giant climax and that the author may never finish writing it, but we still like it anyway.
By the time, I’m out on the floor, I’ve practically forgotten about Creeper. We’ve just gotten in a huge shipment of contemporary romance, which is my weakness, and it takes me a ridiculously long time to shelve it because I have to look at everything. Every time we get a shipment like this in, I remember how I used to be a snob about reading heady literature. But nowadays, I’ll read just about anything, as long as it catches my interest.
When I’m done shelving the romance section, I have six books put aside to buy later. It’s a good thing my employee discount is so good.
Just before my first break...everything goes sideways.
Creeper shows up again.
I happen to walk out in front near the register just as he walks in and I imm
ediately feel a little afraid. The back of my neck gets hot as a jolt of adrenaline courses through me. That might be a total overreaction, I don’t know. But the guy did follow me home for God’s sake.
He’s holding a coffee from a place called Kitty Coffee which is my coffee joint where I like to stop every morning. He’s giving me that creepy smile, his thick, dark hair sticking out every which way on top of his head. It makes him look like a bit of a mad scientist, especially with his glasses.
“Victoria,” he says, leering as he walks up and stands too close to me. “You didn’t get a chance to stop by Kitty this morning. I know you usually like to get your usual pick-me-up. So I bought you a coffee. Your favorite. Americano with cream and stevia?”
I stare at the cup in his hand like it’s full of poison, and now, I’m so freaked out, I’m shaking.
This is what I get for trying to be nice. I feel like this is always what women get for trying to be nice to creepy dudes. We really should try to be ruder.
The only way this guy could possibly know that I stop by Kitty Coffee every morning is if he’s been following me every morning. Or at least several mornings. But he’s hassled other women here too. For all I know, he’s been following other people as well. The thought of this is just too scary. The guy isn’t just “creepy,” he’s a total stalker.
