“Oh, is that who sent you here?”
“She said you’d have time to listen.”
Annabella now officially owed him snacks.“Alright, how do you take your coffee?”
“Two sugars?”
“Sure.I’ll make that up.What’s your name?”
“Keane.You’re Ross, right?”
He was only now checking?“I am.You start reading.”
Keane did.What he read made no sense whatsoever.It sounded possibly Latin, or perhaps a Latin-based language.Ross only held that opinion because it sounded like the man was summoning a demon, and spoken Latin seemed to hold that power.
“—es sut emn.Close bracket.Open bracket.Tre qua—”
Ross wanted to ask about the close bracket/open bracket thing.No, actually, he didn’t.That seemed like a rabbit hole he did not want to open.He’d let the man read him the parchment.Really, reading it aloud to a goldfish would have been just as beneficial—Ross had no clue what the man was saying.But it didn’t do any harm to pretend to listen.
Keane droned on for nearly a half hour.Ross checked out three people during that time.A werewolf in wolf form sauntered by for a bowl of water, then flopped down nearby to watch Keane with amusement.His head cocked at Ross, silently asking what this was all about.
Ross shrugged and let Keane be.
One customer even seemed a normal person.He was a trucker by the looks of it, stopping off for gas, coffee, and some powdered donuts.As Ross rang him up, the trucker gave the magician and werewolf a long, strange look.“Mighty big dog there.”
Ross glanced up.Sure, the werewolf in the corner—with the same body mass as a large man, who was without a collar or leash—was a dog.Uh-huh.Were all humans this oblivious?
Undeterred, the trucker asked next, mouth screwed up in a dubious manner, “What’s he reading?”
“Dissertation coming up,” Ross lied smoothly.
“Oh.Huh.Well, good night.”
“Good night, come again.”
The third customer looked human, and Ross was ready to steer him subtly away from the corner, but the newcomer only snapped a finger at the werewolf.“We’re late.”
The werewolf heaved himself up to his feet and sauntered out.As the man turned, Ross got a better look at his ears.Sharp, very pointed ears.Ah.Fae, then.Ross really had a hard time telling the difference some nights.
Ross tuned in a little, checking to see how his guest was doing.Keane was doggedly reading, eyes crossing as he tried to focus.Sometimes the words tripped over themselves and he had to go back and correct himself.Seeing that he was out of coffee, Ross went to fetch his cup and refill it.The magician definitely needed a refill.
When Keane felt the tug on the cup, he blinked owlishly up at Ross.“Oh.Crikey.Thanks.”
“No problem.Keane, just wondering, but you said ‘open bracket’ a while ago.I never heard you say ‘close bracket.’Are the brackets important?”
Keane stared at him, expression perfectly frozen and blank for a full ten seconds.Then he jerked the parchment back up to his face and frantically skimmed through it.Victoriously, he stabbed at a spot with a finger.“THERE!Bloody buggering fuck, but it’s always something so STUPID like this.Pen, pen, I need a pen—”
Ross reached across the counter, fetched one of the pens, and handed it over.Keane snatched it and frantically scribbled for several seconds.Then he bounced up, beaming and alight, like he’d seen Buddha.Without warning, he hugged Ross hard for a second, clapped him on both shoulders, and withdrew again.“You are seriously so helpful, thank you!Here, let me do you a favor.You have no protections in this place.I’m going to ward this area, right here around and behind the counter.”
“I’m sorry, what’s a ward?”
“Think of it like a police shield, or a force field,” Keane advised.He pulled a pencil from his pocket and gave the air a double-tap, repeating this every few steps as he worked his way around the counter.Wait, that wasn’t a pencil.Was it a miniature wand?It looked like a pencil, but light shot out where there should have been lead.“It’ll protect you if something happens.”
Ross tried to study what Keane was doing, but aside from the subtle flashes of light from the pencil-wand, there wasn’t much he could see with the naked eye.He was bemused at the idea of having a ward up.In here.The supernatural customers that came and went felt transient to him.But the ward…that felt more permanent.It left him with some mixed feelings he wasn’t sure how to properly sort out.
Keane seemed oblivious to this.“You just have to duck in here, okay, mate?Seriously, good on ya.I’d never have figured it out on my own.Hooroo!”
Ross still only vaguely understood what had just happened.But the magician left with a happy smile and a bounce in his stride.He’d even paid for the coffee, which not all supernatural customers managed to do.Ross returned to his seat.Or he intended to until the bell above the door chimed again.
