It takes a moment for Mike and I to catch up with Todd, who is walking around the place with the picture in his fingertips comparing every female in the room with that image. I don’t believe for a single second Todd needs that picture after he saw it the first time. He just took it to amuse himself. I spot her coming out of the bathroom wringing her freshly washed hands right before Todd’s head snaps in her direction as if catching her by scent alone. That picture didn’t do her justice. Her blonde hair shines in the horrid mood lighting in this place, her skin is so smooth even I want to just stroke it in awe. Luxurious lashes almost touch her rosy cheeks as she straightens her clothes. Completely natural breasts hold up her slinky top at a height a woman half her age would pay good money to attain, the beads dangling from them like diamonds as she moves with such grace, I have to admit, I wouldn’t kick her outta bed.
“Hardly a challenge, little man.” Todd points her out to Mike who stops moving completely at the sight of her. “There’s your girl. Go on and get her.”
Mike trots off towards her and Todd backs toward me. There’s a tension in Todd’s back that roots me to the floor. When the woman looks up to see Mike bouncing toward her, her eyes double in size from pure terror and her mouth opens in a scream that never generates any sound. I look back down at Mike and he’s covered in a sheen of gray light. The entire place quiets as if Mike pulled the plug on the world. The woman turns to bold and after I blink, she’s on the floor with Mike on her stomach.
“What-” Todd cuts me off with an arm in front of my face and I curse his height. I look around the suede enclosed arm and nobody in the room is moving. Mike lifts the woman’s face in his tiny dark hands, denting her skin with a strength no child could ever have. From where I stand, her eyes roll back as the grey light around Mike surrounds them both, glowing and twisting till I have to close my eyes at the force of whatever he’s doing to her. The silence is horrid. I almost beg Todd to say something stupid.
When I hear my djinn’s arm move, I open my eyes. The woman is alive, left there on the floor like a broken doll. Little Mike is gone, replaced with a towering shadow of a man with eyes as white as stars and a green knot of tattoos in place of hair shining against the midnight hue of his flesh. Mike’s new limbs are waif thin and so long it hurts my senses. He moves them with the grace of a winter tree swaying in the breeze as he steps toward us.
The new Mike smiles when Todd backs toward me further. To protect me? How sweet. I’ll decide if that’s worthwhile ammunition later. “I mean your master no harm, djinn.” Mike’s new voice is very much like the wind through winter trees movements me makes; haunting, threatening, and frigid cold. He stretches his limbs, savoring the bend of every joint, the twitch in each muscle. Relief is thick in the air and written in his eyes. “In fact, she has done me a great service. You both have.”
“What is going on?” I manage not to babble like a complete idiot but my voice cracks. If anybody noticed, they didn’t say.
Mike nods slowly. “She cheated a bargain with me. Stole my power. Locked me in a child’s body.”
Todd is completely blocking me now so I have to speak around his shoulder. “Why us?”
Mike’s mouth forms a grin that makes me sorry I asked. In that grin, I know Mike knows. So much for hiding. Shit… “You will have nothing to fear from the fae all your life, Missy. As for you, Todd.” Mike’s voice gets light with amusement. “Consider part of your debt to us resolved.”
Mike doesn’t disappear. He is simply not there, his existence erased. Activity bursts back on around Todd and me. The drunken revelry and sloppy appreciation of the female form is almost comforting.
“Jean!” One of the other strippers runs over to the woman on the floor. Jean groans and there’s something odd about the way she struggles to her feet. The grace she had was gone and her skin has no luster. As her friends help her, I see Jean’s face is lined and tired, her hair stringy and thin.
“That fae gave her all that beauty and she thought she could keep it without paying.” Todd turns to me and starts to shuffle me out the door. I don’t resist. “Mike made her pay. Stupid woman.”
Really stupid. She’s lucky she’s not dead for fucking up a deal with a fae. Mike had every right to not only kill her, but eat her if he was the type of fae to do so. Recalling his gift was an extreme kindness. Jean probably won’t see it that way.
I stare in to my coffee mug as if I can will the pot to brew faster. Todd pretends he’s not watching me by giving and revoking sentience from dust bunnies found under my bed. In a way I envy them; reborn entirely fresh and clean about ten times in the last hour. Ten fresh chances. There’s another spark from the sofa. That’d be eleven chances now.
I flip my bangs from my eyes and marvel at how much of a sick fuck I am. I should be more haunted by Jean’s silent screaming face as Mike sucked the pretty right out of her. But I don’t even care. I’m pissed Mike was able to find me and guilt ridden for every time I called Todd a selfish prick. A woman nearly dies and my primary concern is my exposure. I am now honorary selfish prick in training.
“Sulking doesn’t suit you, Missy.”
“Oh, shut it.” I shove myself off my counter and turn my vicious glare on my coffee pot. Discount store piece of crap…
A throw pillow bounces off my head and the mug clatters across the floor. Cheap plastic saves me a cleanup and I whirl to meet Todd’s dancing eyes. “Quit that bullshit already. It’s annoying.” He smirks.
That’s it. I’m gonna beat him to death. I lunge toward him, offending pillow in hand and targeted directly at that flapping mouth. He ducks it but my entire body lands on top of him and we both roll off the couch. I don’t know how long vicious, pillowy death rained down on us both, but the coffee I’d been waiting for is rancid by the time I’m collapsed on the carpet with a formally firm throw pillow in my grip.
Todd sits cross legged by my head leaning over my face. “Feel better?”
“No.”
“More will come now. Word will spread.”
“I know.”
“Care to tell me why?”
“Care to tell me what you owe the fae?”
Todd smiles, his shirt still perfectly creased and every hair in place while I’m covered in sweat and my hair at every compass point. “I would love to tell you that story.” He croons, a sick gleam in his eyes.
“Oh, geez. Never mind.” I roll up and pull my t-shirt back in to place.
Todd shrugs with a disgusting wink, extending his legs to where my head was. “Your loss, Missy.”
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