Page 6 of Bewitched By the Sea Monster
“Oh, suck it all, I remember now!” Kai started.
Jessa and I both looked at him in confusion.
“I wanted to tell you something earlier, Pips.” He wriggled his arm free of mine, springing his keys from his jeans pocket. “Lemme get my car started first…to make sure the POS actually starts.”
He punched his clicker.
At the end of the row, his silver SUV blared in annoyance and then the engine gave a creaky grumble as it turned over.
“Abracadabra!” He waved his arm in a showman’s style. “It’smagic.”
“Oh, golly gee. You’re a Sorcerer? And you never told me?” Jessa poked him playfully.
Kai wiggled his fingers. “Wait ‘til you see the spells I can cast with a keyboard. But as I was saying, about that whole VitalTech fiasco…I don’t know if this’ll make you feel better or worse, Pips, but I don’t think us messing this order up is gonna make one iota of difference to their bottom line. They were already in boiling water.”
“VitalTech is?” I asked.
“Yepper. And I’m guessing by your blank faces,” Kai added, “that neither of you read the news bulletins?”
“Why would we?” Jessa mumbled.
“Insider information.” Kai said.
“I think you’re the only one who cares about that, Kai.” I squeezed his arm.
“Maybe youshouldcare.” Kai harrumphed. “See, we started talking about how SorcerSoft went belly up, and it made me think of the news bulletin from the other day. Magix is coming for places like VitalTech too.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope.” He popped thep.“They’re claiming the technology isinsidious.Causing more harm to people than good. Like, go-in-with-a-broken-arm,-get-an-X-ray-and-come-out-with-terminal-cancer kinda claims.”
“That,” Jessa and I said, almost in unison, “ishorseshit.”
“But that’s what happens when the Standies take money outta the Sorcerers’ pockets.”
“So that’s the claim they’re making? That people should paythree times as muchto hire a Sorcerer?” I asked.
“Yepper.”
“Unbelievable.”
“Looks like it’s gonna go to court. There’s a sparkling new lawsuit.”
“Well heavens. No wonder Mr. Hollingdale went full Oscar the Grouch.” I blew out a breath. “Poor man. He was getting hammered by bad news on all ends, wasn’t he?”
Standies were people like me, Kai, Jessa, and Andy, and probably Mr. Hollingdale. Normal folk. Hapless, some would say. People without an ounce of magic in their veins.
Sorcerers were the magic folk—the extraordinary. People who never had a care in the world because nothing in the world was inaccessible to them. Humans who were above technology.
Technology, after all, was for the Standies—to give us a sprinkle of magic. Atasteof what it could be like. And some Sorcerers didn’t even like us having that. It made us too independent for their tastes.
“He still shouldn’t have yelled at you”—Jessa broke away, skipping over to the door of her car—“and I would’ve told him as much. No matter what he’s got going on, ain’t no excuse to take it out on you.”
“The poor man was probably wound so tight, a hairpin would’ve snapped him. And I dropped a bomb on his head.”
Jessa waggled her key in my face. “You’re too damn nice, Pips. That’s your problem. You can’t keep making excuses when people hurt you. Sometimes people are just buckets of shit who need to be chucked in the sewer.”
Chirp. Chirp. Chirp.
