“What?” she protested. “Yes, I can. I’m...” She stumbled and braced herself against the bar. “Mostly fine.”
The boss shook his head. “No, you’re not, and after what happened previously, I don’t think you should leave your bike here either. Come on, I’ll help you load it into the back of my truck, and then I’ll take you home.”
They locked everything up, checked the security cams, and headed out into the back lot. It was empty and quiet.
Kera did little. She tried, but Cevin had to do most of the work of hauling Zee into the bed of his vehicle. As they climbed into the cab, it occurred to her that she owed too many favors to the people she knew.
Her boss piloted the truck out onto the road and headed toward her home.
“Okay, Kera.” Cevin sighed, “I can see that you’re not in any condition to talk about things in detail. Let’s just say that this shouldn’t happen again, right?”
She nodded and rubbed her eyes. “I completely agree.”
“Good. You’ve been a good employee so far. As long as this was a one-off incident, I don’t see any reason to get upset over it.”
Kera scowled out the window but didn’t protest. He was, if anything, being lenient with her.
Once they arrived back at her place and had Zee inside, Cevin gave her a final wave from the truck. “Goodnight. And if you need help, ask for it. See you soon.”
Kera waved back and locked the door. She barely made it to bed and was unconscious within seconds of striking the mattress.
“Whuhh!” Kera grunted, flinging sheets around as she thrashed up into a sitting position.
Someone was knocking on her door, and according to her alarm clock, it was 1:58 pm.
“Oh, God,” she gasped. She had come awake too quickly.
The knock came again. Struggling to her feet, she threw on a light bathrobe and scampered toward the door, shouting, “I’m coming! One minute!”
When she reached the window and checked, it wasn’t a delivery driver. It was Sam Kim.
Kera threw the door open. “Hi, Sam. Sorry, I just woke up. How are, uh, things?”
The boy smiled, and for a second, it looked like he might blush at the sight of her in a bathrobe. “Things are pretty good. Mom is feeling a little better, so that’s, um, great. But yeah, Dad wanted me to bring you this.”
He’d carried a tray all the way to her warehouse, and she realized it was piled with prepared Korean food covered with plastic wrap. Wisps of steam rose from it, and it smelled divine.
“Oh, man!” Kera exclaimed. “I think that’s exactly what I need right now. Thanks.” She accepted the tray and brought it in to set it on her table while Sam waited awkwardly on the doorstep.
He cleared his throat. “There’s no charge for that, of course. My dad was worried about you. He said I should stay for five minutes or however long you wanted to make sure that you could eat a decent meal before you had to go in to your job. He also said to let him know when you’re feeling better.”
Kera decided she needed to guzzle some water, but aside from that... “I’m feeling pretty okay for the moment, thanks to him and you. I know you helped yesterday also.”
“You’re welcome.” Sam shrugged. “So, is there anything else you need?”
The girl glanced up and caught a glimpse of her reflection in the shiny surface of her fridge, with the mop of night-black hair standing out.
“Nah,” she told the boy. “Unless you have a blonde wig I can borrow.”
Sam shot her a look of puzzled concern. “A wig? No, sorry, I don’t.”
She got up and waved her hand. “Joke. It’s a joke. We females have a thing about our hair. Like, if there was a way to flip a switch and change the color from day to day—or better yet, hour to hour—that would be way better. Anyway, thanks again. Bye.”
She saw him out and nodded as he waved at her and trudged down the sidewalk toward his family’s store.
Kera sat down to eat her meal, savoring every bite and half-hoping the Kims would invite her to dinner in the future. If not, she might have to start hitting up Korean restaurants. There wasn’t exactly a shortage of them in Los Angeles.
Since she’d slept well, she found herself feeling mostly back to normal after a little relaxation and a hot shower. She wasn’t scheduled to be at the Mermaid until six today. When the time came to get ready for work, she swelled with confidence that everything would go well. She intended to more than make up for the near-fiasco of yesterday.
If Mrs. Kim was any better, it was worth all the misery and inconvenience. Anyway, she would definitely take the leathers tonight. It was supposed to rain.
The weather had been unusually drizzly lately. L.A. still had far less precipitation than she’d been used to back east, but rain was by no means nonexistent. Of course, summer would be on its way soon, and everyone would remember that they lived near the edge of a subtropical desert.
As she mounted her bike, she wondered idly if there were spells to control the weather.
Chapter Twenty-Five
James Lovecraft and Mother LeBlanc walked side-by-side down the paved walk. When someone else strolled by, they fell into single file, trading positions based on who was closer to being out front.
There was a school up ahead. Classes had let out a few minutes ago, and since it seemed to be a tight-knit neighborhood where many of the kids walked to and from school, many of them had lingered to make use of the recreational equipment, harass each other, or prepare for curated after-school activities of some sort.
James adjusted his glasses. “You or me?”
LeBlanc responded, “I’ll do it. You’ll look like a child-stalker.”
He tried to argue but she waved him off, her expression and demeanor indicating that it would be pointless to waste her time. In near-perfect unison, the pair sat down on a bench across from the main building.
Their guess was that the person involved was either a teacher or a student at this school since it was one of the common threads in their research. LeBlanc stared at the edifice, her gaze steady and unblinking. Seconds turned to minutes, and her eyes grew unfocused, hazy, and vacant. She did not move, and her breathing had grown so shallow that she seemed catatonic.
James was not fazed. All he had to do was keep an eye out for anyone who might notice how strange the woman looked.
Such as the young, pudgy-cheeked black kid approaching them right now.
Shit, James thought. It won’t be the first time, though. Children seemed to notice far more than adults.
The kid, who had to have been in whatever the youngest grade at the school was, squinted at the witch-woman, then turned to James. “She okay?” he inquired.
“LB?” James gestured at her as though he could have meant anyone else. “Oh, yeah, she’s fine. Occasionally, you see,” he leaned forward, put a hand beside his mouth, and spoke in a whisper that was about the same volume as his normal voice, “she just wanders off in her head. You know what I mean?”
The boy looked skeptical but nodded.
James went on. “I stay with her when she gets like this and keep an eye on her so she doesn’t walk away. See, last time she did this, the poor woman almost stumbled right onto some railroad tracks at the exact moment a train was coming! I was off volunteering at the local animal shelter—I can only be in one place at a time, after all—when I noticed her, and at the last minute, took a heroic dive and knocked her out of the way of the train. ‘Oh, thank you, J,’ she said, and ever since then, she’s trusted me to keep watch over her when she has her little ‘episodes’ and doesn’t have her pills on hand.”
By the time he finished his anecdote, the kid’s attention had turned to LeBlanc. James looked at her and saw that her eyes had returned to normal.
“Oh, she’s back!” Lovecraft exclaimed. “There. Everything’s fine.”
LeBlanc swiveled her head toward him. The look on her face was only an iota short of a legitimate Evil Eye spell. “What did you s
ay? I need your attention to protect me, all of a sudden? More often, it seems to be the other way around.”
James coughed. “You heard that?”
“Mmhmm.” She continued to eye him with concentrated malevolence.
He leaned toward the kid, who’d continued to watch them both in fascinated confusion. “You better run along,” he told the boy. “She’s dangerous.”
“Dangerous?” the kid repeated, glancing at the witch-woman. He was so perplexed by their behavior that James was pretty sure he’d accidentally piqued the boy’s curiosity.
He clarified, flicking his eyes toward LeBlanc, “Well, dangerous to me. Not so much to you. Nonetheless, if I scream, find an adult and have them call 911.” At this point, he couldn’t suppress a grin.
Mother LeBlanc relaxed her expression a notch, then looked at the boy and smiled. “Don’t worry, I won’t do anything too awful to him with you around. I’ll just make him cry. He likes it. Don’t you?”
It was James’ turn to swivel his head in consternation. “I like it?”
The kid interrupted them. “You two are best friends, ain’t you? I hear stories about older people who argue all the time, but they’re really best friends.”
James bristled. “I’m young,” he pointed out. “She’s the older one.”
“Older?” LeBlanc asked dangerously. “Well, maybe this older woman is going to beat your scrawny white–”
“Nah-ah!” James interjected, waving a finger at their audience. “Young ears don’t need to hear such filth.”
Mother LeBlanc sighed and caught the boy’s attention again. “Sweetie, would you run along so I can make him cry? Like I said, he likes it. Trust me.” She winked.
“Yes, ma’am,” the boy said. He added, “You two are funny as hell.” He scampered off.
When LeBlanc returned her attention to James, however, his eyes had gone out of focus in much the same way hers had a couple minutes earlier. “What are you doing, James?”
His vision returned to normal with a swiftness that bordered on abrupt. He smirked. “I was looking for a miracle, and I got one. Our kid is over there.” He nodded in the appropriate direction.
The witch-woman looked toward the child he’d indicated, and she did a quick mental scan of her own to confirm it.
“Well,” she conceded, “aren’t you lucky today?” She stood up, brushing off and gathering her colorful flowing skirts, and James got to his feet beside her.
He offered his elbow. “Shall we?”
She accepted it but said, “Yes. But next time, I’ll give you a sound whooping with a switch if you tell a young kid that I need your help to keep from wandering onto train tracks. Lord have mercy!”
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Zee!” The woman named Sara laughed and slapped the surface of the bar. “You named it Zee! Oh my God, I love it. Honey, did you hear that?”
Her boyfriend, Maurice, chortled into his whiskey and Coke. “I heard it. You said you spelled it out? That makes all the difference. Like, it’s not as funny if it’s just the letter.”
Kera smiled. “Well, I went to college with this chick from Australia, and apparently everyone else pronounces it—the last letter of the alphabet, I mean—‘zed.’ I never knew that. Fucks up the rhyming scheme of the ‘A, B, C’ song, doesn’t it? Anyway, I named the bike in honor of weird American pronunciation.”
Sara laughed again and hoisted her screwdriver in the air. “I’ll drink to that. Here’s to doing all kinds of shit differently than the rest of the world. An American tradition!”
They raised their glasses in a brief toast and drained them. Kera wasn’t supposed to drink on the job, so she did the bartenders’ trick of making a fake shot. A lot of customers wanted to drink with the bartender, and they were usually so nice about it that she didn’t want to disappoint them.
It had been a fun night, and thus far, Sara and Maurice were among her favorite new customers. Not only were they nice—and inclined to tip generously—but they were fellow motorcycle enthusiasts. Obviously they rode bikes, and they ran a shop together that created custom rides. Maurice had slipped Kera a business card about ten minutes ago.
As much as she was enjoying her job for the moment, though, she was a little down. Something within her gnawed at her heart, a faint but persistent disappointment. Stupid as it was, she could identify it. Christian still hadn’t shown up. Hadn’t he said he’d be back soon?
Calm down, Kera, she told herself. He’s an office drone, and it’s Thursday. He probably can’t afford to go out drinking on weekdays most of the time. Wait and see if he shows up tomorrow or maybe Saturday, and we’ll go from there.
She didn’t know why she wanted to see him again so badly. Her life had been strange and hectic lately, and her time so consumed with both work and her continuing education in the arts of thaumaturgy that she hadn’t had enough time alone with her thoughts to examine them in detail.
She worked her way down the bar, checking on patrons, refilling drinks, and taking orders from people who’d just sidled up.
“So, Kera,” Sara called once she drifted back toward them, “as a fellow biker, what are your thoughts on you-know-who?”
Kera frowned. She felt as though she ought to grasp what the hell the other woman was talking about, but she was stumped. “Uh,” she countered, “no offense, but I don’t know who. Sorry?” Hopefully, she added, “You mean, the Harry Potter character?”
Sara laughed it off, and Maurice picked up the slack.
“The mystery rider on the I-10 the other day.”
Kera made a noncommittal noise and turned back to her work, hoping they hadn’t seen the look on her face.
“Didn’t you hear about that?” Maurice pivoted on his stool to look at her with interest. “He pulled a family out of a burning car after they crashed, then drove off before anyone could get a name or a picture. Hell of a thing, but I have noticed that people have been looking at us a little different since then. In a good way. Guy gives us all a good name with his heroics, I’ll say that much. A lot of people still think all bikers are scumbags and criminals, but maybe that’s changing.”
“Oh. Yeah.” Kera swallowed and shot a look over her shoulder. “I did hear about that briefly. Was busy at the time, so I guess I didn’t delve into the details. Nice to have a good story on the news for once, I guess.” Was she talking too much? She concentrated on scrubbing a table.
“The news was all over it,” Sara elaborated. “He still hasn’t come forward, and the family has been asking all over social media. They want to know who it was so they can at least thank him.”
Kera thought of something then. To both cover for herself and gather information while she was at it, she queried, “Did they get a description of the bike?”
“Pffft.” Sara snorted. “Nah, not really. None of the witnesses were the types who’d notice. Granted, they were busy making sure the people in the car were okay.”
Maurice concurred. “If it had been us, we could have IDed it out of the corners of our eyes while checking those folks over, but most people can’t. All I ever heard was someone said ‘it was black.’” He cracked up and pushed his glass toward the bartender.
Kera refilled it with three fingers of whiskey and topped it off with Coke. “Black, eh? Well, that’s a start.”
Sara snapped her fingers. “I think someone did say it was a Kawasaki, but they couldn’t tell anything else beyond that. I mean, that narrows it down slightly.”
Brushing a strand of hair away from her face, Kera added, “That means they had good taste, whoever they were.”
Maurice leaned forward and squinted at her sidelong, his lips pressed together in a weird expression. “It wasn’t you, was it?”
Kera froze in place, but the biker burst out laughing again, and she let herself relax. Artfully, she sighed and shook her head. “No, Maurice, but thanks for your assessment that I look like a man. I was off that day. And, uh, didn't that happen way out by Culver
City? I live downtown.” Shut up, shut up, stop babbling!
“Whatever.” Sara scoffed. “We’ll just say he was, like, the incarnate spirit of every decent, law-abiding motorcycle enthusiast who ever got ogled like they were getting ready to rob a store.”
Kera had been ogled before, but she was pretty sure it wasn’t because people thought she was a criminal. “Well, I think we can all agree that if any of us sees someone in trouble, we’ll try to help.”
Maurice raised his newly-replenished drink. “Amen.”
A little later, Kera found herself serving another pair farther down the bar. She could tell they weren’t an established couple, though they seemed to be hitting it off. The woman was thirtyish, petite, attractive, and nicely dressed. The man was a good fifteen years older than her but obviously a committed bodybuilder, and dressed as though he’d come to the Mermaid straight from the gym.
The man motioned to Kera. “Beers,” he stated.
“Coming right up.” Kera grabbed Buds for them both and set them on the bar.
There was a lull in business for a couple minutes then. Listening to the seemingly mismatched would-be couple, Kera learned that the woman had a Ph.D. in Ecological Science.
A minute later, the big guy got up and excused himself to go to the restroom, leaving his half-drained bottle behind him.
Kera had turned to check on the bar’s supply of available ingredients when Ph.D. Lady said to her, “I bet you’re wondering what a smart lady like me is doing talking to a guy like him, right?”
Judging from her slurred tone, the beer had sent her well into the proverbial bag. She’d had a Tequila Slammer beforehand, and she didn’t look like she weighed more than a hundred and ten pounds.
Kera turned to the woman. “Should I be wondering?” she inquired. Her eyes moved toward the bathroom, where the man had temporarily vanished.
The lady flapped her hand, dismissing the half-rhetorical question.
“I get all the brainpower-intensive problems I can handle at work,” she drawled, “trying to clean up the State of California’s messes and keep overdevelopment from killing every goddamn species that isn’t homo sapiens. But when I’m done? Hell, no. I don’t need any more intellectual stimulation.”
How to be a Badass Witch Page 20
