How To Be A Badass Witch: Book Two Page 4

  “That’s quite clever,” LeBlanc told him. She was smiling.

  James sighed. “I suppose. Man, this wasn’t how I thought this would go. Who would have thought there are so many magically sensitive people out there?”

  The woman gave it another moment’s thought. “We’ve never tried to test hundreds or thousands at once before. We have no benchmark.”

  James closed his laptop and stood, shrugging. “The modern age is a pain in the ass. What can I say?”

  Chapter Four

  The roar of Zee’s engine faded to a purr as Kera pulled into the lot behind the Mermaid. She parked and secured the bike where he’d be visible from the back door’s little window, not to mention illuminated by the new security lights that Cevin, the manager and proprietor, had recently installed.

  Cevin didn’t know it, but Kera had dealt with the people who had threatened him. She smiled to herself. Bullies didn’t know how to deal with it when someone stood up for themselves, and she was prepared to keep doing so if they came back.

  She let herself in through the back and walked down the hallway toward the break area so she could deposit her pack in her locker and prepare for her shift. As she reached it, her boss leaned on the doorway.

  “Hey, Cevin,” she greeted him over her shoulder.

  “Hey.” He paused, then asked, “Uh, you’ve lost weight, haven’t you? Not that you were chunky to begin with or anything, but still. You’re not on that throw-up diet, are you?”

  She stopped and grimaced. “Gross. And no, I’m not. In fact, just watch. I’ll eat all night to prove you wrong.” Her stomach growled at the very thought.

  Maybe endless baskets of onion rings would be enough to put some pounds back on her.

  Cevin, however, was wise to her tricks. “Yes, and if I allow that, I’ll be eating the bill, so to speak.”

  Kera tossed him a grin.

  “Smartass,” the manager grumbled. “Take that con-game someplace else. Or, you know, pay for your meals like a normal person, I guess. But be safe with your body, okay?”

  “Yes, Mom.” She finished putting her things away and stood up, dusting off her hands. Cevin had been nice to her lately, though, giving her paid time off and paying for her bike’s repairs when someone came after the Mermaid. With all of that in mind, she said genuinely, “But thanks for the concern.”

  He nodded and disappeared. Cevin liked to take care of his employees, but he wasn’t fond of emotional displays. He got taciturn and borderline-grumpy when people were genuine with him.

  Kera got to work putting on the blonde wig Mrs. Kim had lent her. Someday, the girl intended to find a way to change her hair color at will via magic, but until she could figure out how to do that, a wig was a perfectly respectable method of having it both ways. Though her new black hair suited her, she missed her natural blonde locks.

  There were still three minutes until she had to clock in when her phone buzzed. She pulled it out, half-expecting her mother to harangue her again, but then relaxed. It was Chris.

  “Hi,” she answered, her tone bright. It would be nice to talk to someone other than her mom for once.

  On the other end, the young man cleared his throat. “Hi, Kera,” he began. “Is it okay if I come by this evening? Not trying to get all smothering or anything. I just don’t want to work at my desk again. I’d rather get something to eat, have a drink, and work at the bar. You know, on my laptop. If that would be weird, though, I can head to some other restaurant.”

  “Oh. Yeah, that’s fine.” She had been worried that he was calling to say the dinner plans didn’t work for him after all. “You can sit at the end; there’s a power plug there if you need it, and we have Wi-Fi.”

  “Great.” He sounded relieved, too.

  “So,” she inquired while walking toward the timeclock, “what are you working on, anyway? I miss being able to talk about geeky computer shit with people. No one at work cares about that stuff.”

  Chris laughed. “Ugh, it’s this new language the boss wants to implement for basically no reason whatsoever. Like, he thinks he’ll end up getting featured stories written about him for being on the ‘cutting edge’ of information technology, regardless of whether or not it serves any real purpose.”

  “Oh, God.” Kera groaned. “Sounds like so much fun!”

  They talked for another minute or two while Kera punched in and did her initial inspection of the bar one-handed, keeping one eye out for customers. When Cevin wandered in, she told Chris that she needed to go but that she’d see him later.

  When she hung up, she plunged straight into her work. Though it was still early, she suspected it would be a busy night. Customers were already drifting in.

  Her suspicions were confirmed after the first hour on the job. Business was steady, though not overwhelming, and she found the time flying by as she mixed and refilled drinks and engaged her patrons in the usual idle chat.

  One man, a friendly fortyish guy she’d seen once before, sat near the corner and sipped a pair of beers. Here and there, he discussed how he hadn’t been feeling so good lately, and he thought it was something to do with his sleep schedule or his shitty mood.

  He’s sick, she decided. She wasn’t sure how she knew, but she did. Perhaps it was something to do with her healing Mrs. Kim—a skill getting stronger, an intuition she could use like the one she followed to find trouble.

  Whatever it was, she was absolutely sure of it. Manuel was sick. He had a latent disease of some sort, and it was getting worse.

  Except he believed it was seasonal depression and an unresolved crush.

  Kera did a quick visual scan of the bar to make sure she wasn’t needed elsewhere, then stopped close to him, opting to try something different—a suggestion spell, one she hadn’t had the opportunity to practice yet. She twisted her fingers under the bar and spoke the incantation in her head while saying something else aloud.

  “Manuel,” she told him seriously, “it might be a health issue. You should see a doctor. Really. I’ve heard of people who were sick but didn’t realize it, and it affected everything, including their mood. You might have it backward. Get yourself a checkup and soon.” She channeled power into her words as she spoke.

  She might have used too much because Manuel stood up from the stool, eyes wide. “Yes,” he agreed and slapped a hand on the counter. “I’m going to one of those twenty-four-hour clinics right now!” That said, he walked out the front door.

  Without addressing the issue of his bill.

  “Well, shit,” Kera muttered. “At least it worked.”

  Cevin drifted over from where he’d been wiping down a table. “Did that guy leave without paying?”

  Damn. Kera frowned. Like many successful bar owners, Cevin had developed eyes in the back of his head. It didn’t matter where he was looking or how many patrons had been in the bar that night; he could tell if something was going the wrong way.

  She ran damage control. “Yeah, sorry, my fault. I was trying to cheer him up, and, uh, I guess he got emotional or something. I’ll pick up his tab, though.”

  Cevin nodded and headed out.

  “Great way to start the night, Kera,” she muttered to herself as she grabbed Manuel’s cup and put it in the bus tray. “What next?”

  “Here you go.” Kera smiled as she set a Killian’s Irish Red in front of Christian. It was good to see him again.

  He blushed. “Thanks, Kera. And I appreciate you saving me the best seat in the house. You know, next to the plug.”

  She laughed. “Right? Also, you said you wanted dinner, so here’s the menu.”

  Stephanie, the waitress who worked the floor, wandered past. “Aww,” she quipped, “it’s so weird seeing Kera with a boyfriend. Cute, but weird.” She grinned at Chris and sauntered off to grab an order from the kitchen.

  Kera blushed and coughed. She wasn’t sure what to say. Would Chris think this was too much pressure? Was she overthinking this?

  Maybe a little.


  Chris had booted up his laptop and gave her a smile when he caught her looking.

  “She’s…” Kera didn’t really know what to say.

  “No, it’s good.” Chris took a sip of his beer. “It’s good to know I’m not just the latest in a long line of men, all sitting here and drinking Killian’s while working on ridiculous software conversions.”

  Kera laughed. “No, the rest of them were all working on reasonable software conversions.”

  “I knew it,” Chris muttered. He shot her a grin, though.

  “Feel free to ask for help with your homework,” Kera suggested.

  “Ha, will do. In fact, I’m pretty sure you and I worked on something similar to this crap in our first study group, didn’t we? Here, have a look...”

  They spent the next ten minutes conferring about the logic of the problems involved between Kera’s duties to the other patrons, which she performed quickly and politely. By the time Christian’s dinner was ready, he was on the verge of making the necessary breakthrough to move on to the next part of the project.

  He nodded at her. “It’s like study time again. Oh, and the fish smells great. Give my compliments to the chef.”

  “Will do,” Kera lied. The chefs grumbled about the fish stinking up the place, so compliments would probably do more harm than good.

  She liked that he was being polite, however.

  He’s so low-stress, she mused as she cleared some tables. That’s what I like about him. Not all hyper-competitive and high-strung and status-obsessed like…well, like Mom is. Chris had a good head on his shoulders, and he clearly went all-in on his work, but he was chill most of the time.

  And although he could be self-conscious, he was beginning to forget that around her, and his sense of humor was just as good as she’d remembered it being in college.

  Business picked up, and, to her chagrin, Kera could only check on Chris briefly every few minutes. She had only seen him in passing by the time he was ready to leave.

  It seemed early to her, but she realized that it was late by his 9-to-5 standards. He laid bills down on the counter.

  “Here, I’ll leave a suitable tip since I took up a spot where someone else could have sat. And also tipped.”

  Kera grinned. “Fine with me. Thanks, Chris. See you soon!”

  He waved and wandered out with one last look over his shoulder. He blushed when he saw her still watching.

  “Awww,” Stephanie said from beside Kera.

  “I will punch you,” Kera warned her.

  The other waitress knew Kera was teasing…up to a point. She smiled but made sure to stay out of range for the rest of Kera’s shift.

  The storage room at the back of the hardware store was spacious enough to accommodate all forty-two of the individuals present, including the more important ones, who sat in compact but comfortable chairs that had been brought in for the meeting.

  The walls were covered with a discrete layer of thick padding. The people who managed the front business had been told that if asked, they were to say that the soundproofing was to prevent stocking noises from disturbing the customers out by the lobby.

  “Okay,” Vincent Mariani began, adjusting the lapel of his jacket and looking out over the troops, “everybody’s here, right? Shut your phones off. I don’t want interruptions.”

  Three of the newer, younger guys quickly checked their phones, then slipped them back into their pockets and looked toward their leader. The rest, familiar with the drill, already had theirs turned off.

  Mariani cleared his throat. He was a tall man with big, bony hands and oddly narrow shoulders, and his thinning dark hair was combed straight back. Like everyone else in his branch of the organization, he dressed as nicely as he could afford in a three-piece gray suit. Old tradition.

  “Good. Now, we got a lot of business to discuss today, but first, I want to talk about something I heard from one of you guys—Keith, right?—about a gang fight between two groups we ain’t heard of before. It’s always smart to keep abreast of the competition's doings.”

  He pointed at Keith and motioned for him to speak.

  The younger man, swelling with pride at having potentially important information to convey, stood up. He was one of the lower-level employees who wasn’t of Italian or Sicilian descent. In fact, he was Scottish or something. It was a new millennium, after all, so Mariani’s faction had to be willing to hire halfway-competent people where it could find them.

  It still made him uncomfortable.

  “So yeah,” the kid began, “I was hanging out down in Little Tokyo right after the bars closed, and I saw this fight between a beaner in a suit and this biker in all-black leather wearing a big-ass helmet. First guy has this really nice Mustang, so it was tragic what ended up happening to it. I figured the beatdown was over a woman or something. Y’know, none of my business, but then I overheard them saying some shit that might be of interest.”

  Mariani nodded. “Go on, and stick to the important stuff. We don’t need to know what aftershave they were wearing.”

  “Okay, yeah, sorry,” Keith remarked, doing his best to be deferential.

  His heart was in the right place, Mariani reflected. Pity about his manners.

  “The Mexican guy was definitely working for someone,” Keith said, “but I don’t know who. Probably trying to shake down this bar they got over there, the Mermaid, since word on the street is that Vox and Dread are trying that lately. I don’t think he was with either of those, though. Then the fuckin’ biker says, ‘This is the LA Witches’ turf, get off,’ or whatever. Then he lights the Mustang up, I think with a firecracker that he stuck under the hood?”

  “You think?” Mariani asked him. “Was it or wasn’t it?”

  “Uh…” Keith shuffled his feet. “I was a little stoned, to be honest. Can’t recall all the details.”

  “No more drugs.” Mariani stared the man down.

  Keith swallowed and nodded.

  The boss looked around the room. “Anybody else heard of the LA Witches? Might just be dumb kids pretending to be badasses, but something riled up Vox and Dread last week, and now we have people from gangs we haven’t heard of before. This is worth taking serious.”

  No one had, but another man mentioned that he’d heard of a new drug outfit. Yet another had seen two guys lurking around Little Tokyo, a wiry Chicano and a big guy who was Russian or Swedish or some such. He hadn’t seen them do anything strange yet, but when a few odd things began to pile up, it was best to mention little details.

  Mariani rubbed his chin. “I don’t like this.”

  “You shouldn’t,” said a new voice.

  Everyone jerked around to see a Chicano man standing in the doorway. He must have eased it open while people were talking, but how he’d gotten it unlocked and how he’d sweet-talked his way past the people at the front of the store was anyone’s guess.

  Mariani gave the two men who were supposed to be watching the door a cold look. Both of whom swallowed nervously, then lunged at the newcomer.

  He evaded them smoothly and took his hands out of his pockets to light a cigarette. He was making a show of not reaching for a gun, which Mariani respected.

  “I assume you have business with us,” he said to the man.

  “I do, indeed.” The man nodded to him. “Johnny Torrez. Would I be correct that I’m speaking to Mr. Vincent Mariani of the Union?”

  “The same.” Not too long ago, it had been fine for every outfit to call themselves the Family, but now it was not so easy. You needed a different name, or some fuckhead from another Family came knocking to claim you were infringing on their turf.

  Mariani waited for Torrez to speak. Thankfully, the other man didn’t seem inclined to waste time on theatrics now that he had made his entrance. He came a little closer and took one of the unoccupied chairs, then sat forward to look Mariani in the eye.

  “What your man saw,” he explained, nodding at Keith briefly, “was an outfit called the LA Witc
hes. New. They made some trouble for us a while back, and a couple of them ran off rather than face us. A friend and I came to finish the job.”

  Mariani sifted through the layers of bullshit. “You were the one whose car got burned up?”

  “Yes.” Torrez almost snarled the word.

  Interesting. “Tell me about them.”

  “They like to play with people’s heads. Hidden speakers, flash-bangs, that sort of thing.”

  “I see.” Mariani sat back in his chair. “So, what do you propose?”

  “Nothing you wouldn’t already be doing,” Johnny said smoothly. “If you hadn’t heard from me, I’d guess you’d find their representative and speak to them. Explain the hierarchy. Come to an…agreement.” One dark eyebrow lifted. “Or not.”

  Mariani nodded. That was how things were done around here. If people came onto your turf, it was a fight. Everyone knew that.

  “All I’m asking is that we stay in contact with one another,” Johnny said. He took out a business card and passed it over. “And of course, I’m asking for permission to operate on your turf. Can’t think you’d mind me taking out a rival too much, but…”

  Mariani gave a thin-lipped smile. “I will consider keeping you apprised of our movements.” He generally did not make promises. “Anything else?”

  As the man hesitated, several emotions chased one another over his face. Finally, with a low growl in his tone, he said, “I’d say leave them for me. There’s bad blood. The truth is, those bitches are dangerous. If you get a chance to take one of them out, I’d take it if I were you. Don’t make the same mistakes we did.”

  Mariani’s eyebrows shot up. The man standing in front of him was steeped in this culture; he could tell. It would eat him up if someone got revenge before he did.

  If he was saying this, there was a reason.