"That's not good." I crossed my arms and cocked my head at Roma. "Where do you come into all of this?"
A ding from the kitchen drew her attention. "My pizza rolls are ready. I made enough for an army." She ran to get them while I repositioned the pillows to get more comfortable. A few minutes later, Roma returned with the little calorie-full bites of yum, a bottle of wine, and two glasses. "It's after noon. We can drink. Right?"
"Well, since we don't indulge all that often, I'm saying yes." Neither of us were big drinkers, and if ever there was a need to take the edge off... It was right now. "Finish telling me about how you got swept up in all of this.”
I poured the wine while she talked. "It's all down to you, actually."
"Me?" Staring at her in surprise, I tried to figure out how her involvement could be on me. "How?"
"You encouraged me to sign up with MDS and have my match made. She matched me with Bran."
Of course. How could I forget? "That's right. He was your first date. So, how'd you figure out he was a goblin?"
Roma smiled. “You remember the day you came over? I saw Bran without his illusions after you left. You’d seen something, and I wasn’t going to let it slide. So, he showed me what he and his friends looked like and told me about how they’d been exiled…”
“Fortuna told me about that.”
“Yes, well, some of them are mad and just wanted to come over and conquer. Bran’s not one of them, and they got in a big fight at the wine bar where we were meeting. On top of that, there’s some disease that makes them aggressive, too. They’re hoping for a cure. In fact, they agreed to hold off on the conquering part when I told them a cure was possible.”
“You’re getting in touch with Tanni?” Our old roommate was brilliant, but she’d been retreating from the world these past six months, refusing to say why. The challenge could bring her out. She never turned one down.
“Trying to. Feel free to use your channels too.” Her tone was dry. “There are also humans who want them gone, called the alchemists. And Franklin’s one of them. That worm had been doing magic that was causing my headaches and stealing energy from me for years!”
I’d never liked her brother-in-law, but the gleam in Roma’s eye as she spoke of him almost made me feel sorry for him. Almost.
“Did you confront him? How did Cassie take it? Wait, he can do magic?”
“Yeah. I guess I can too if I try to learn how. We should get you checked to see if you can, that would be cool. But. Then he kidnapped me!” She slapped her thigh for emphasis. She was hopping all over the place in her story and it was starting to give me whiplash. “The sorry excuse for a human being wanted me to join him in trying to take over the world and he wanted a threesome with me and Cassie going forward.”
My eyes almost crossed, and I made a ‘go on’ gesture, momentarily unable to speak. I had to swallow hard to keep my meal down. It sounded like “human being” was being a little generous when it came to her brother-in-law, but I wasn’t going to say that. If anyone knew that it was her.
“He had a chair that would send Bran to some prison place or dimension or something. I pretended I was ok with his plan, and then I pushed him into the chair, and he went ‘poof’.
Dang. I’d wondered where he went, but since I hadn’t liked him in the first place, I hadn’t exactly wept at his disappearance.
“What are you going to tell Cassie? When are you going to tell her?”
Roma winced. “Not sure yet. So once I knew the truth, and once Franklin was well out of the picture, I decided there was nothing I could do besides help the monsters. I was in the perfect position, as what I know best in this world is PR. If the monsters want to come back and be out of the closet, so to speak, I'm in a position to help them do that."
"I wish I could help now that I know the whole story. It's terrible what the alchemists did to the supernatural creatures." My heart did go out to them. The supposed “monsters” I had met so far had been perfectly nice, even if they were a little weird. But then again, weren’t we all?
"That's the thing. I was sitting here earlier wishing I could tell you all of this stuff so that I could ask for your help."
I straightened up and leaned close. "Of course! What can I do to help? I'm in."
"Your art. Your digital genius. I need you to design campaigns, flyers, digital media, and ads."
Oh, no. My heart sank. "That might be a problem."
"Why?" Roma popped a pizza roll and sipped her wine.
"My second date was with a muse. Apparently muses eat creativity."
Roma's nose wrinkled and she paused mid-chew. "That's gross."
"I know. Luckily he didn't have to touch me. Unluckily, he still was able to take my creativity. So, there's not much I can do to help."
"But you said he didn't touch you. So, maybe?"
