Page 71 of A Shade of Myself
“Less murder, more romance.”
“I have yet to meet my match.”
“But if you did, you’d want that individual to be kind about your feelings, right?”
He sucked on the toothpick, a grim expression on his clay face, like he was about to go into a sure-death battle or unclog a toilet. “Listen, toots. You’re like a sister to me. A much, much older sister, but—”
“Not me! Marjorie.” I stacked the secured bundles in a neat pile.
His eyebrows shot up. “Say what?”
“She likes you and…” My eyes narrowed because I hadn’t realized that someone made of red clay could blush. “Emmett, do you like her?”
“I mean she’s okay,” he mumbled, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“That’s wonderful. And you don’t have to do anything right now other than get to know each other better.” It elated me that Emmett had someone he really liked.
“And then what?” He motioned to his groin. “I don’t have the equipment to do anything else.”
Never in my wildest dreams had I imagined having “the talk” with a golem. “If the two of you get to the point where you want to be intimate, there are a lot of options available for pleasuring each other, both with and without toys.” I kept an encouraging smile on my face, hoping he didn’t sense how awkward I felt.
He slammed his hands over his ears. “This is weird. Stop.”
We sat there in silence for a few moments listening to Billie Holiday singing “The Very Thought of You.”
Emmett scratched his head. “Maybe you could send me some articles?”
“I can do that. Segueing to a different topic, look at these.” I handed him Jake’s letter and he flipped through the pages.
“This is some creepy shit.” The golem cracked his knuckles. “You want me to handle this psycho?”
“No. I want you to use your divination magic and see if you get any deeper meaning out of it.”
He handed me back the pages. “My magic doesn’t work on command. You know that.”
I pulled the flask of whiskey that I’d taken from my personal stash out of my bag and set it on the table between us. Emmett reliably accessed his magic when he was either drunk or scared.
He unscrewed the cap. “Give me ten minutes.”
Did I feel guilty for encouraging his drinking habits? Only mildly. The golem didn’t seem to metabolize alcohol like humans, and while I’d seen him pound back the booze, he’d never gotten blackout drunk or passed out.
Once half the bottle was consumed, he belched, his eyelids heavy. “Oh yeah. That’s the good stuff. ’Kay, gimme.”
I pushed the pages back to him and he held them up to his face, squinting bleary-eyed at them. He sat that way for so long that I thought this was a bust, but just as I reached for the papers, a starburst zipped across one eye.
“The shark seeks the star, the flowers seek the shark,” he crooned.
I hurriedly typed out his dreamy words on my phone. Another shark? Or did it mean me, since James had asked if I was a baby shark?
Cosmic swirls and stars danced in his eyes. “You seek the flowers and the star seeks you.”
Did that mean the Ascendant? Could something that sounded like a mystical force be actively looking for me? I shivered. This was a little too close to the Eye of Sauron. Props to Eli for making Sadie and me sit through all the Lord of the Rings movies so that disturbing thought could be stuck in my head now.
“Anything else?” I prodded the golem’s shoulder, but he didn’t answer. “Emmett?” He usually snapped right out of these trances. My brow wrinkling, I lightly slapped his cheek. “Hey, buddy. Come back to me.”
His expression remained slack and dreamy, my friend lost to the universe dancing across his gaze. An asteroid flitted from one eye to the other before flaring brightly and disappearing.
“Emmett,” I said sharply.
