Random Acts of Sorcery (5 page)

It was a busy Saturday afternoon at The Daily Grind. Francesca, a middle-aged Brazilian woman Dwight had recently hired, was working the register while Sam manned the espresso bar. He was a little concerned about bringing another person into the somewhat bizarre situation at DG, where who knew what supernatural horror might walk in the door at any moment, but he supposed that Dwight did have a right to staff his store properly.

Typically his mind wandered when he made drinks for hours on end, which normally wasn’t a problem, but today he kept thinking about Cassie. He was already nervous enough about his plans with her without dwelling on every single thing that could possibly go wrong, but he found he couldn’t stop. No matter how he tried to edit it in his mind, every view of the night ahead seemed to end with her looking at him with horror-filled eyes….

She’s not a helpless little child. She can tell you what she wants, what she likes and doesn’t like. Stop making up problems before anything’s even happened
.

He was so lost in thought that he nearly jumped when Khalil tapped him on the shoulder.

“What do you want?”

“We need you in the back for five minutes.”

“Do you?” said Sam, wiping his hands on a wet towel and drying them on his apron. He had a feeling this meeting was not going to be coffee-related.

In the break room, Dwight and Jay were waiting. Dwight was wearing his shades; he was one of the few people Sam had ever met who could truly pull off wearing sunglasses indoors without looking silly, but it hid his eyes from view. Jay was standing with his arms crossed, looking at Sam over his glasses with a glare that was probably supposed to be menacing. Khalil moved next to Jay and crossed his arms as well, mimicking the boy’s pose.

“What’s this about?”

The three men (or two men and a teen) exchanged a quick glance. Jay spoke for them.

“Is it true you’re going out with Cassie tonight?”

Sam sighed; he had thought this was probably about her.
“Yeah, what about it?”

The three exchanged another glance, their faces solemn. Khalil stepped forward. “Now Sam, my friend, you are a demon superpimp; we all know this.”

“I am not a pimp! I am not anything remotely like a pimp.”

Khalil waved his hand dismissively.
“A super-duper wizard king, whatever. We puny humans know better than to pick a fight with you super-powered dudes. BUT—”, and with this his eyes narrowed, “—if you hurt Cassie, I swear, I will find whatever your kryptonite is and I will shove it up your ass. So far up your ass.”

Dwight and Jay nodded solemnly, in unison.

“She’s my best friend, and if you don’t treat her right, I will hurt you,” said Jay, still giving Sam his best death glare. “I will make you sorry you ever touched her, and even your magic won’t save you.”

“I’m not going to be all melodramatic about it, I’m just saying: Watch yourself, man,” Dwight contributed.

Sam just stood there for a moment, not quite sure how to respond. For a moment, the silence grew awkward. Jay sniffed loudly and shifted his weight.

“Is Cassie aware that you three have appointed yourselves her knights in shining armor?” Sam asked finally.

“No need to tell her. Just know that we’re watching you,” said Khalil, pointing to his eyes and then to Sam.

“Yeah, this is between
men
,” said Jay with great emphasis on the last word. Dwight and Khalil exchanged bemused glances over his head while Sam tried not to laugh out loud. He didn’t want to hurt Jay’s feelings.

“Where’s Mike anyway? He’s not part of Team Chivalry?”

Something changed in Jay’s face. “He’s not part of this.”

Mike was the practical sort; he probably figured that Cassie could take care of herself. Sam exhaled slowly, wondering how to get them all to drop it.

“You know I don’t have a choice, right? It’s not like I asked her out because I wanted to. ”

Khalil made
a
pshaw
noise at that. It sounded contemptuous. “Yeah man, I’m sure it’s just a chore to have to ask a cute girl to go back to your place—wait, you do have a place, right? You’re not taking her to freakin’ Bob’s Motel, are you?”

“No! I have an apartment now, Eugene set it up,” Sam said, defensive. He was kind of embarrassed by how long he had been living out of a suitcase at Bob’s. Of course, if he hadn’t been stuck at the budget motel for months, he never would have met Vladmira….

“Oh, well thank God for that at least. Anyway, don’t lie and say you don’t want her. We’ve all seen how you look at her.”

“I don’t look at her.”

It was true; he made a point not to. Unless she was speaking to him directly, he tried to act like she wasn’t in the room. It was safer that way.

“Yeah, my point exactly.
You’re the only man at DG who doesn’t stare at her boobs. It’s abnormal,” said Khalil in an accusatory tone. To Sam’s surprise, Dwight nodded at that.

“Stop objectifying her!” Jay interjected, red-faced. “D-don’t talk about her like that.”

Khalil threw his arms up. “Look, she’s a sweetheart and she’s my friend, but the girl’s got nice breasts, okay? That’s just a fact. ”

“I am going back to work, you people do whatever the hell you want,” Sam said, turning on his heel and leaving the break room behind.

Francesca turned at the sound of the break room door closing. Her eyes widened in surprise at the look on his face. “Is everything all right?” She had a thick accent, but other than that, her English was perfect. He wondered if she had heard any of what they were talking about in the back. Normally, you couldn’t hear what was going on in the break room from anywhere in the café, but they had raised their voices a few times.

Sam ran his tongue over his teeth, thinking; they were going to have to be more careful. The fact that, until now, every worker at DG had been a part of the entourage had allowed them to be far too sloppy.

“Fine, I’ll get back to work,” said Sam, wasting no time priming the espresso machine to make the drinks that Francesca had marked during his brief absence. He was annoyed at Khalil and co. for getting under his skin, but he knew he couldn’t really blame them; they were right to be worried about Cassie. Hell, he was worried about Cassie, more than they knew.

His feelings for her had always confused him, but everything had gotten especially muddled once he’d found out that she wasn’t entirely human. Did he feel the way he did because she was part-angel and he was part-demon, and there was that temptation of something rare and forbidden? Was it because of the familiar bond, drawing them together like magically-charged magnets?

Or, maybe it was just that he was a man and she was a pretty girl with a woman’s body. Were his desires really that simple?

A little while later, the subject of his musings entered the shop; Cassie had a four-hour afternoon shift, after which she would be coming with him. He noticed immediately that she was wearing one of those sweaters that he liked, and he wasn’t sure if he was pleased or not.

Cassie
thought that she would be a nervous wreck at work, dropping plates and maybe even hot coffee all over the customers in her nervousness. Instead, the opposite was true; she was in the Barista Zone, if such a thing existed. She repeated back complex orders without missing a beat, found time to clean the condiment bar so regularly that not even a tiny splash of skim milk dirtied it, and rang up orders so fast that the customers were visibly impressed.

Once, she even grabbed a drink that was teetering over before it could spill. The customer, who had accidentally knocked the cup over with his elbow not a half-second before, let out a low whistle.

“Whew, nice reflexes girl!”

“No problem.”

“You an athlete?”

“No, I just didn’t want to waste good coffee,” she said with a laugh. “Have a nice day.”

“You too, sweetheart.” The man took his drink and scone and walked away, after a little tip of his hat to her. After he had left, Cassie’s smile faded.

I have good refl
exes? Since when?

She wasn’t clumsy exactly, and she had been pretty good at sports when she was little, but she wasn’t particularly fast or graceful; she never had been. Would she have been able to catch that coffee cup six months ago? What had changed?

Cassie frowned; she had a gut feeling that the answer to that question was somehow very important, and she probably wouldn’t figure it out until it was too late.

Dwight interrupted her revelry. “Cassie, can you run in the back and grab me some more UBB packets?”

“Sure,” she said, moving for the break room door.

“After you do that, punch out,” he said, wiping down counters absentmindedly as he talked.

She suppressed a cough as she entered the break room. Was it 7 p.m. already? It felt like her shift had flown by.

There were no loose packets of the beverage mix on the shelf, so she knelt and used a boxcutter to open a fresh box of the stuff. They always had a few boxcutters around in the back, if you knew where to look, but now that she thought about it, maybe keeping them around wasn’t such a wise practice. Ethan was in this room periodically, and a child could really hurt himself with a sharp blade. Granted, the kid was smart and would probably never cut himself, but why take the risk? Keeping the things in a locked locker or drawer would get annoying every time she needed to open a box, but she was going to suggest it to Dwight anyway.

Taking a fistful of the white packets, she left the breakroom and put the beverage mix in the appropriate place behind the counter. Jay had already taken over her register, so she had to nudge him aside so she could punch out. As she did so, Khalil walked by and stooped to whisper in her ear:

“Just lie back, and think of Narnia.”

“Khalil!” she yelped, but he was gone before she could retaliate.

“Sam, stop stalling and punch out already,” said Dwight from behind her.

“I’m not stalling,” Sam said, wiping his hand on a wet cloth and walking slowly to the opposite register to punch out. When he was done, he turned to her, his expression blank. “Are you ready to go?”

“I just need to get my coat,” she said quickly. He nodded, and she went to the back to get it. Before putting her coat on, she untied her work apron and put it in her locker; no need to start the evening smelling like steamed milk.

Well, no more than she already did.

When she was back in the main room, Dwight finally glanced up from his clipboard and looked at both of them. He popped his gum once,
then looked back down. “Be safe, you two.”

It was the kind of thing Dwight typically said to his employees when they left at night, but the connotations of the word “safe” made Cassie’s cheeks burn.

“Call me if you get a rush you can’t handle,” said Sam over his shoulder.

“If I can’t handle it, you would be useless, my friend,” said Khalil solemnly.

When the two of them were outside the shop, Cassie stopped suddenly. “Oh, oops.”

“What?” said Sam, sounding
guarded.

“I forgot to mention the boxcutters to Dwight. We shouldn’t be keeping them loose. I’ll tell him next shift.”

“Why’s that?” he said, heading off to the right with the expectation that she would follow.

She fell into step with him. “Isn’t it obvious? Someone could hurt themselves with one of those things.”

“An idiot, maybe,” said Sam. “Everyone retracts the blades when they put them back on the shelf. It’s common sense.”

“You think that anyone who makes any kind of mistake must be an idiot,” said Cassie,
then flinched slightly when she realized how accusatory she sounded. Did she really want to start this evening off by bickering with him?

“Sorry, force of habit.
Where to?” She was following him, but wasn’t sure where they were headed.

“My apartment, if that’s alright with you,” he said quietly.

“Oh. So we’re going in, instead of going out.”

He stopped suddenly. “If that’s not what you want, we can go to a restaurant, whatever you like. Only, when I talked to you about it yesterday, it didn’t seem to matter to you where we went, so –”

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” she said hurriedly. “I was just making conversation.”

They walked for a few moments in silence. Cassie figured that they were probably walking to the 110
th
street bus stop, since there were few apartment buildings in the direction Sam was taking them. She cleared her throat.

“Are you going to…cook? Do you know how?”

He looked as though he was about to snap at her, then changed his mind. They were working on it, this not-bickering-constantly thing. “Well enough. I can’t make too many things, but what I do make, I make very well. Or so I’ve been told.”

“What are you making tonight?”

“Chicken parmigiana,” he said, then his eyes widened. “Wait, you’re not lactose-intolerant, are you? If you are, I can change it and do a—”

“No no, it’s fine. I like chicken parmigiana actually,” she said, flustered. It wasn’t like it was unusual for him to check that she would like what he was making, but the words sounded odd coming out of his mouth. It wasn’t that he didn’t care about her, but it had always seemed like little details like what she liked to eat and drink were completely beneath his notice. Being in a situation where he was expected to care about her tastes felt weird.

As they reached the bus shelter, a cold breeze ruffled her bangs, lifting them off her forehead for a moment. Before she realized what was happening, Sam was in front of her, tilting her chin up to look at her face. She almost gasped.

“What is that?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.

“What’s what?” she said, then remembered when she saw his eyes focus on the left side of her face. In the harsh light of the bus shelter, it probably stood out far more than it had in the relatively dim shop. “Oh, Hunter threw something at my face. It’s okay, doesn’t hurt.”

He frowned. “It was your brother?”

“Yeah, and I need to talk to you about that, but maybe not here,” she said, shifting her eyes. There were several people milling around the bus station, and a few of them were glancing their way.

He let go of her. “Okay. As long as you’re alright,” he said, and put his hands in his pockets. Cassie stared: was he…disappointed?

Yes, of course he is. He wanted someone to have done something bad to me so he could hurt them for it. That’s what I am to him: an excuse to take out his rage in the guise of protecting me. I’m the perfect excuse.

She knew the thought was unfair, because the fact was that she did need protecting and he really didn’t have a choice. But still; as they waited for the bus silently, she wondered how much of whatever regard for her he had was due to the fact that she gave him reasons to use his powers without guilt. She felt pretty confident that he would never use a really nasty spell on her—and had for a while, actually—but in some ways, that only made it worse.

He wouldn’t hurt her because he needed her too badly, and the depth of that need scared her. She frowned; could he even see her as a person, when what she really was to him was a walking Get Out of Jail Free card?