Elements of Mischief

by Tate James

  Almost as soon as I acknowledged it, the ball started bouncing around like a happy fucking puppy so for lack of anymore spiritual ideas, I just sort of mentally pointed at the shop assistant's body. Thankfully, that seemed to be all the encouragement the glowing ball needed and it happily whooshed back into the girl, leaving me with the overwhelming feeling someone had just ripped a giant Band-Aid off my soul.

  “Did it work?” I asked, cracking one eye open cautiously.

  “I think so …” George still had his fingers pressed to the girl's throat, so when she sat up abruptly with a dramatic gasp, she nailed him right in the nose with her forehead.

  “Take that as a yes,” I muttered. “That was surprisingly easy, too.”

  “Good. Now you'll know what to do next time you steal someone's spirit when you come,” Billy snickered, helping the shop assistant back to her feet while George clutched at his bleeding nose in pain.

  “You okay?” I asked tentatively, trying not to laugh as he pinched the bridge of his nose to try and stem the bleeding. It had been pretty funny, seeing a girl come back from almost dead only to deliver a Glasgow Kiss to George's face when all he'd been doing was trying to help.

  “Fine,” he grumbled, looking anything but. “Let's just get these clothes and get the hell out of here before Billy tries to suggest a three-way at the coffee shop down the road.”

  Ugh, I couldn't believe my tap actually turned on a little at that suggestion. Swear to fuck, my lady bits had developed a mind of their own since meeting these godforsaken dragons. Sorry, sorry, not dragons. Elementals.

  “Sure thing,” I agreed, struggling to my feet and giving George a solid eyeful of my swollen lips—not the ones on my face either. “You look seriously sexy in bondage wear, by the way.”

  “I might say the same to you, Blossom,” he said, wiping his nose on a piece of fabric that was on the floor. The bleeding seemed to have stopped now, but his nose was purple and swollen, so probably hurt like a motherfucker.

  Billy, meanwhile, had sat the confused salesgirl down on what looked like some sort of saddle and was speaking to her in a low voice, too quiet for me to hear. Whatever he was saying, she seemed to be okay with, because she was nodding up at him with a dazed look on her face.

  “Alright, get changed and I'll pay for these. You don't need to try on the other outfits, Firebug. That one is perfect.” Billy's eyes smoldered into me as he returned from the spaced-out sales chick.

  “Just maybe with different panties?” I joked, but neither Billy nor George were laughing.

  “As much as I'd love to say wear none at all, I don't really want Charlie and the rest of COCS catching a glimpse of what’s ours.” Yep, there he is. Billy the domineering asshole was back. I wanted to say it wasn't sexy in the least but once again, I'd be a big fat liar.

  Rolling my eyes, I decided against taking the bait this time, because I was suddenly overwhelmingly exhausted. Yawning heavily, I retreated to the changing room and looked around for my clothes.

  “Hey, have you guys seen my shirt?” I asked, popping my head back out of the curtain, “the one with um … with the fox on it?” Fuck that was really embarrassing to say out loud. Maybe I really did need a new wardrobe?

  “Oh …” George looked awkward, holding up the fabric he'd just cleaned up his bloody nose with. “It wasn't this was it?”

  The wad of fabric he held was covered in splotches of blood and yup, definitely had a cartoon fox on it, too. Great.

  “Here, take mine,” he offered, holding out his own shirt for me. “I hardly ever wear one anyway.”

  Huh, he had a point. I accepted it gratefully and struggled my way out of the ridiculously whorish outfit.

  Back out in the less adult section of the shop, Britt had somehow found the time to change and now had the troll bitch giggling and flirting way harder than she had been with Billy; when she rejoined us my bestie had a very smug look on her face.

  “Why the grin, Fluffy?” Billy asked as we all climbed back into my hearse.

  “Well, William,” she teased, “I am so glad you asked, seeing as I know you came up empty-handed from the troll gossip channel …” Clearly she’d won the troll over far more than Billy had, because his eyes narrowed at her.

  “If you’re such a fucking lady-killer, then tell me, what the hell was she so freaked out over?” Billy lit a cigarette, and I promptly rolled down the window, stole it from his fingers, and chucked it outside. He glared daggers at me.

  “My car, my rules, you useless bum,” I told him, realizing that the boys had rolled into my life with a fucking van with toilets emblazoned on the sides and nothing else. Okay, well, there were a few other things the guys were packing that were worth something, but that was another subject altogether.

  I still planned on leaving them. Er, if it was even possible to leave someone that you weren’t really with in the first place.

  “There's something happening in the underground,” Britt said, digging through the large shopping bag she'd carried out of the store. I had literally no desire to know what was in it … and every confidence that I'd find out anyway. “Like, literally as well as figuratively.” Britt paused and leaned up between the front seats. “Hey, can we stop at a Starbucks or something? I'm jonesing for a chai tea latte.”

  “Britt, focus, please,” I said, driving back towards Gram's place and wondering when she was planning on making her next appearance. Why not when I was on the toilet? That would be just my luck. Or rubbing one out in my … er, her old bedroom.

  Eww.

  Okay, I was so changing rooms.

  “Mmm, sorry, right,” she said, flopping back into her seat. I still had yet to hear what'd happened with Britt and the local … alpha, was it? How medieval … Anyway, it wasn't like her to withhold information from me. Usually it was the other way around—me, trying to escape while she laid it all out, completely unrestrained. “The Hudson Valley pack mentioned something similar …”

  “Mentioned what?” Billy asked, lighting up another cigarette. When I reached out to take that one next, he stuck his hand out the window to keep it from me.

  “Relax, William,” George said from the backseat. “I'm sure Brittany's working her way up to it.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Billy growled, leaning against the door so he could smoke his cigarette in peace.

  “There's been some weird shit happening in the supernatural community.” Britt paused, reconsidered her words, grinned big at me in the rearview mirror. “Supernatural—your people's word for non-humans, not ours.”

  “Not her people,” Billy said, flicking his cigarette out the window. I cringed. God, he might be calling me Firebug, but I was going to start calling him litterbug. “She's one of us, remember? According to dear old Gram …”

  “Does anyone else feel like we're in an episode of Charmed?” I asked and Billy snorted.

  “What do you mean by 'weird shit'?” he asked as we pulled into the line for Starbucks. Somehow, even at three in the afternoon, the fucking place was packed.

  “Disappearances, fluctuations on the power grid, unexplained deaths.” Since the windows in the backseat didn't roll down (the hearse was made for dead people, remember?), Britt leaned back into the front and practically fell into my lap trying to check out the specials. “Is it pumpkin spice latte time?”

  “Wow, you really are a walking cliché, aren't you?” Billy asked with a smirk. “A promiscuous pink vinyl wearing gossip with a penchant for oversharing and coffee drinks with more water and sugar than actual caffeine.”

  “And you,” Britt said, putting on her best California girl bitch accent, “are the typical bad boy—angry, brooding, tattooed, and so insecure with himself that he insults others to bolster confidence in his four inch dick.”

  “Hey, Ari,” Billy said conversationally, “you tell me—is four inches an accurate estimate?”

  I rolled my eyes to the car's gray felt ceiling and tried not to make a plumbing joke, something li
ke four inches? sorry, but Billy was packing one hell of a pipe.

  I swatted Britt in the backseat again and eased up on the brake as the cars in front of me scooted forward.

  “What's a power grid?” I asked, praying that it was George who answered this time. He seemed like the only adult human in the entire group, someone capable of answering questions with more than sarcasm, snark, or inappropriate wordplay.

  “That's not an official term,” he said, and I had to wonder if maybe some god—gods?—were listening in and decided to answer my prayers. “Not all non-human species get along; we all have our own culture, rules, ways of explaining things …”

  I pulled up to the window.

  “Pumpkin spice,” Britt repeated.

  “Coffee, black,” from Billy.

  “Can I get an unsweetened iced tea?” And George.

  “You don't happen to have some whiskey to spike the coffee with?” I asked into the speaker, and there was a long, strange pause with some unintelligible mumbling from the barista. “Just me give me an iced mocha,” I said with a tired sigh, and then repeated the orders for the others.

  The total was … fucking expensive. Screw you, Starbucks.

  We pulled forward again.

  “So power grid …” I started and George continued his explanation.

  “Generally, there's a certain amount of power, raw energy, magic in an area. Any major addition or subtraction to that is going to draw attention.”

  “What would that mean anyway?” I asked as we finally hit the fucking window and got our drinks. I passed them around and then pulled back onto the street, sipping my mocha and wondering if this is what heaven tasted like.

  No, heaven probably tastes more like elemental c—

  I stopped that thought in its tracks. Fill that word in however you choose.

  Home, packing, driving to city to see Siobhan.

  Those were my orders.

  As soon as I saw the COCS head, that is.

  “I don't know,” George said, and there was a weird tone in his voice, “but bringing out your powers, that's a fluctuation that a lot of people are going to take notice of.”

  We drove the rest of the way back to the house in silence.

  “Should I be scared of COCS?” I asked as Britt attacked my face with gobs of makeup, doing her best to cover up the black eye I'd gotten from the incubus. She was obsessed with those makeup subscription boxes, the ones that send surprise cosmetics in the mail every month. She was a member of like four different clubs and had brought a literal duffel bag to my house filled with makeup.

  “I don't know? Think you're maybe a little closer to gay on the Kinsey scale than you first thought?”

  “COCS, Britt. C.O.C.S.,” I said, knowing she was just being a cheeky bitch. I adjusted myself on the chair and heard my outfit squeak. Outfits should not squeak. I wanted my cotton pj pants back.

  “Right,” she said with a stupid grin, “you're clearly not afraid of cocks, considering you had four of them in your—”

  “Finish that sentence and I will punch you right in the tit,” I growled out, slapping her hands away. I was having a hard enough time being in this house with all the guys, my body covered in runes, and constantly fucking aching for them. One afternoon. One. That's how long I'd been stuck in a house with them after the marking and it was torturous.

  Alright, Ari girl. One step at a time. Get through this meeting with COCS, then get changed and drive to the city to stay with Siobhan. Surely a bit of distance would help ease the addictive pull of these otherworldly handymen?

  “Girl, I gotta tell you,” Britt said, stepping back and narrowing her eyes at my face, “you look ridiculously bangin' right now. Like, you've always been a pretty hot piece of ass, but since your screaming orgy last night your shit is just seriously on point.”

  “Uh thanks,” I muttered, “but can we not call it a screaming orgy please? It was a sacred ritual to complete our magical bonding.” Jesus I sounded like I'd been drinking the magical Kool-Aid.

  “Pah!” Britt coughed. “If that's the case, then I must have participated in a sacred ritual or two myself!”

  Um, pretty sure that was the line I used last night. Had she actually heard us that well? Ewww ... she'd heard my sex noises?

  “Anyway,” I hedged, frantically changing the subject, “are we done? I want to get this meeting with the cock head over with so I can get the hell outta dodge.”

  “They're called COCS, Ari,” Britt said, correcting me this time. I just shrugged; I meant what I said. “Sure, whatever. You're done, you beautiful bitch.” She gave me another considering look, her lips pursed. “You sure there's no room in your little reverse harem for another girl? The rumors about dogs and cats not getting along are all false, you know. I lick pussy like a champ.”

  Fuck me, I'm too sober for this shit already, although that was kinda funny.

  “No, Britt. I like my drains pounded by real plungers thank you.” I rolled my eyes at my own plumbing joke. It was like I couldn't help myself anymore!

  “Suit yourself, girl.” Britt tossed her long dark hair over her shoulder and led the way downstairs with a sexy sway to her walk. She had decided to tag along on our introduction to the COCS Head, and seeing as she was already a card-carrying member of the supernatural community, no one could stop her.

  She'd bought her outfit from the sex shop earlier and was now decked out in neck to ankle hot pink PVC.

  “Hooooooooly shit,” Britt exclaimed as she entered my living room where, presumably, the guys were waiting. “Damn, someone better call a plumber because I think I just sprang a leak!”

  My eye twitched a little with that possessive jealousy and I pushed past her into the room myself.

  The guys were all decked out in their own versions of my slutty bondage wear and looked like a smorgasbord of pure sex just draped all over my living room.

  Must. Not. Maim. Best friend.

  She better stop looking soon though, or shit was going down.

  “Brittany, maybe you want to wait for us in the car? We just need a moment with Arizona.” Shane phrased it as a question but it was clearly an order. “Alone.”

  My bestie gave me a knowing look and a wolfish grin before flouncing out of the door. She clearly thought I was in for some sort of group quickie before we headed out, which was so not happening. I meant what I said. It was a one time thing. Absolutely never again. Not even if the fate of the world depended on it.

  The little changing room incident didn't count, obviously. That was just lingering madness from all the um ... all the drain snaking … but I was better now. All out of my system. Nope, no lingering horniness here. I was done. D.O.N.E. Done.

  Dear lord, is Reg in hot pants right now?

  Moisture flooded my new panties and made a big fat stinking liar out of my own brain.

  Fuck. I truly was screwed, blued, and tattooed.

  “So ah, what did you want to tell me?” I found a particularly interesting pattern on the rug and inspected it thoroughly in an attempt to avoid looking at any of my new husbands in their fetish wear. Oh geez. I just called them my new husbands in my own inner monologue. This was bad. Bad, bad, bad. The sooner I got some distance from them, the better.

  “George and Billy passed on the information that Britt gathered,” Shane started, moving to stand closer to me. There was something odd about his pants, but I stubbornly refused to take a better look, for fear of trying to rip them off him with my teeth.

  “Uh-huh.” I nodded. “And?”

  “And we made some calls. It seems similar disturbances—disappearances and unexplained deaths in the supernatural community—have centered around other quints completing their groups in the past.” He paused and my gaze swung back to him involuntarily. He looked worried; Shane never looked worried.

  “Okay, that's good in a way, isn't it?” I frowned. “Then someone knows what's causing it?”

  “Not … exactly. It appears that in several
quints, sexts, or septs”—the hell if I knew what he meant by all that (we were considered a quint, right, because there were five of us?)—“the disturbances start slightly before and continue long after the spirit elemental comes into her powers …” Shane paused, his deep blue eyes locked on my face.

  “… and stop right after the same spirit elemental turns up brutally murdered and drained of her magic,” Reg finished for him, a bitter twist to his words.

  “Ahhhhh …” What the actual dingo-loving fuck did one say to that?

  “We wanted to tell you now, because we aren't sure the COCS Head will be honest with you, and we need you to be alert.” Shane's mouth tightened and his jaw clenched. “We just found you, sugar plum, we can't lose you now.”

  “Can you elaborate please?” My tongue darted out to lick my suddenly paper dry lips. “When you say 'brutally murdered' …”

  “We mean, torn to tiny pieces and stuffed down a storm drain,” Reg replied, his face dead serious.

  A sharp spike of panic rippled through me and my runes sparkled. Outside the living room, a single lightning bolt slammed into the grass.

  “That's … odd,” George murmured, frowning at the spot through the window where my bolt had left a sizzling scorch mark. I noticed that he, too, had covered up his facial injury with a bit of makeup—I could hardly tell he'd been head butted by a sex shop employee. “Did you mean to do that, Blossom?”

  I had no words; they just told me I might be ripped into little pieces and stuffed down a storm drain. Were they fucking serious?

  My head shook frantically. No, fuck no, I hadn't intended to let my lightning loose. What if it had hit Britt?

  “You shouldn't be having any power spikes like that now that the marking has been completed …” George mumbled to himself, frowning thoughtfully. “I need to look into this more.”

  Shane turned toward the window, to get a better look and I almost choked on my own tongue. He wasn't wearing pants at all. He was in ass-less chaps with a matching man-thong. He looked a little like he was about to attend a gay pride parade in San Francisco, but like, in a good way.