Page 16 of Throwing Shade
5
Emmett passedout after dropping this bombshell, snoring softly on the carpet, his clay limbs splayed and his bathrobe bunched under one hip. I’d caught the bottle, which now sat on the desk, and had crouched down next to the golem as if staring at him long enough would make sense of all this.
Golems, while rare, were useful because of their “no task left uncompleted” work ethic. This made them great flunkeys, but they didn’t have natural divination powers, so what the hell had happened?
The drive home was a blur, punctuated by me screaming in frustration two or six times. This was ridiculous. Some kind of practical joke that Emmett had played. I was a divorced single mom who worked as a librarian in a very dry law firm. Magic didn’t come with some contract stating, “By accepting these powers you agree to any and all vague prophecies about your person.”
I always read the fine print and I’d have demanded an exclusionary clause to that wording big time, because I had a plan. Short-term magic use for greater good and then done.
Once home, miraculously in one piece, given how distracted I’d been, I found the contraband bag of Doritos that I’d hidden for emergency PMS salt cravings, thrilled that Sadie hadn’t rooted the chips out. If my vacuum cleaner of a child saw them, there’d be none for me, but Sadie was still out with her cousin.
I tore the bag open with my teeth. Screw you, universe with your dominoes. I’d always hated that game because it was dependent on the luck of the draw. And I wasn’t going to be the opening gambit in anything, especially when golems couldn’t predict shit.
Delilah nuzzled against me and I dropped my head into my hands.
Emmett hadn’t looked or sounded like he was messing with me. If getting my magic was the first move, then whatever this was had already been set in motion, but one play wasn’t the entire game, and I wasn’t some inanimate object. I had free will.
But to do what? Yesterday morning, I’d passed as just another Sapien, off any magic radar. Last night had changed that, but I’d determined the least dangerous way to report Alex. Now, my best friend was missing, some golem was making pronouncements about my existence, and every minute risked something else sucking me back into that world.
Fuck that.
I shoveled nachos into my mouth like the fate of the universe depended on me amping my salt intake to comically elevated levels, then sighed.
Did Jude have a clay army poised to take over the world? What was she up to? Any lingering self-righteous anger that she’d never confided in me about her powers or this side of her life drained away, because I’d done the same. She would have assumed I was unable to see it anyway.
The only salient point was that Jude was out there somewhere and I had to find her.
I muscled down a cheesy lump. It was plausible Alex could be stopped based on an anonymous tip, but Jude’s disappearance warranted questions I’d have to answer since I might have been the last person to see her. I mangled the chips in my hand into an orange mess that rained onto my shirt. Swearing, I brushed them into the bag, which I tipped into my mouth. Waste not, want not.
I couldn’t chance getting up close and personal with the Lonestars for Jude’s case, which left me with the VPD. There was no waiting period here in British Columbia to report a missing person, but if I went to police headquarters saying an adult friend stood me up a couple times and that the only factor in her disappearance might be due to a golem side hustle, they’d ask me what I was on and call Social Services. I gnawed on my bottom lip.
I’d have to bring Eli into this if I were to go the VPD route, except I didn’t know if it was even possible to tell a Sapien about magic. Sure, he’d be safer knowing of its existence and he’d be a better resource for finding Jude, but would I be able to break through the perception filter?
Okay, I’d keep my magic for a while longer to convince Eli. Also, feeding him couldn’t hurt. My rule-happy baby daddy was always more amenable to my ideas after food.
I checked in with Sadie about what time she was coming home and then went grocery shopping, soldiering bravely through the packed store to the produce, which had been thoroughly picked over. I was sorting through containers of bruised and shriveled strawberries, trying to find one that was halfway decent, when an elderly man joined me.
He grabbed a package and the berries inside plumped up to fat, juicy pieces of fruit.
Ordinarily, I’d have kept my expression neutral, but Eli really liked berries and whipped cream, and the fruit on offer was crap.
I caught the shopper’s eye. “Help a compatriot out?” I said quietly.
“Happy to.” The man revitalized another bunch and handed them to me.
Ohrists took their name from “ohr,” the Hebrew word for light, and the Kabbalah concept of a supernatural life force that existed organically in the universe. While Sapiens couldn’t sense or tap into the “ohr,” Ohrists were gifted. Their ability to manipulate light and life energy manifested in a ton of different ways: from healing, to animating objects, manipulating organic material like Alex had done with my body parts, to screwing with emotions, and a slew of abilities involving light.
My mother had said magic was analogous to singing. Some people had raw talent, some had to unlock it with training, and others, even with the magic gene, were tone deaf. Regardless of their power levels, most only had an affinity for one form of manipulation. A magical disposition, as it were, so if you were a shifter—a common Ohrist ability—you couldn’t also shoot lasers.
Before I could ask the man how to contact the Lonestars in order to deal with Alex, a boisterous family showed up. He wished me a good day and headed for the check-out counter.
I sniffed the container, my mouth watering at the ripe scent that flowed off the fruit.
The mother nodded at my stash. “Lucky. You got the last good one.”
“It’s my day.”
An hour later, I was surrounded by the wreckage of my dinner making. Flour was spilled on the butcher block countertop and down the front of the red maple shaker cabinets, while oil heating in the cast iron pan splattered on the gas stovetop. Messes could be cleaned up; rooms were made to be lived in.
