“Okay. I’ll text you her contact information and when to call. She has an assistant who deals with all the financial stuff, though. He’ll call you after you talk to her and discuss payment.
“Thank you.” Carter leaned back against his seat, feeling overwhelmed.
“All right. I’ll send you that text right away. If you have any questions you can call me.”
“I will. Take care, Owen. And if you ever need anything, don’t hesitate to let me know.”
Finishing the call, Carter hung up and let his phone drop into the cup holder next to the seat. He started his engine and backed out of Grayson’s driveway, heading toward his house.
He could go to work later.
***
“So you need this attraction to be both lasting and stable, and with no side effects,” Yolanda Mirikoz said, her voice brisk and professional. Carter had been video chatting with her for ten minutes, describing his problem and the fix he was looking for.
“Yes. It has to bereal.” Carter clenched his sweaty fists under the table. “Can you help me?”
Yolanda squinted her eyes, staring at Carter through the monitor. She was younger than Carter had expected, her face unlined and pretty, and she had the best poker face Carter had ever seen.
“There are several routes we can go, depending on how willing you are to get your hands dirty?”
Carter blinked, wondering what she meant bydirty.
“What do you mean?” he asked, watching her carefully. The complete lack of expression on her face was incredibly unnerving.
“The easiest way to acquire feelings is to steal them. The best way to do that is to sacrifice the person you’re stealing the emotions from, using their life to power the spell. It’s permanent, you can filter out which feelings exactly you want, and there are no side effects.”
Carter blinked. That was… out of the question.
“And the less easy way?” he asked.
“If human sacrifice is off the table, the next easiest method is to take feelings of attraction you already have for a specific person, and mutate that attraction so that it’s directed at someone new. This method is stable, as long as you consummate the spell without delay.”
That sounded better.
“And there’s no sacrifice when doing it that way?”
“Not in the way you’re thinking,” Yolanda said, folding her hands on the desk in front of her.
Carter didn’t ask her what she meant by that.
“So that’s how you’d recommend we do it?” Carter fidgeted, feeling nervous and on edge.
“I think so, yes. I could also manufacture feelings of attraction from the ground up, but spells like that tend to be more volatile. The benefit, of course, would be that you didn’t have to sacrifice any feelings you already have.”
“Then that’s what we should do.”
“Very well. My fee for a spell like this is one point five million dollars; payable in full at least six weeks in advance. I’ll have my assistant call you to arrange the transfer, and to set up a time for when I will perform the ritual. Does that sound agreeable?”
Carter nodded.
“Good. If you change your mind about which of the two spells you want to go with I’ll need at least a few days notice. The payment will be the same no matter which spell you chose, however.”
“Okay,” Carter said, totally overwhelmed by the fact that this was actually happening.
“My assistant will call you by the end of the day. Goodbye, Mr. Peterson.”
“Goodbye,” Carter said, but Yolanda had already disconnected the call.
