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The three went from groggy to bashful, dazzled by Houston’s grin. Couldn’t blame them. I’d fallen victim to the radiance myself.
Angelica squatted next to him, wearing a kind smile. I started at the sight, so used to her being haughty and commanding.
“Are you girls staying hydrated? The air-conditioning barely works in here, and it’s very hot out. Did you have anything to eat today?”
They glanced at each other, then shook their heads. “We were in kind of a rush to get to Southridge. We thought we’d have time to grab some drive-through, but, you know. I can’t remember why we were in such a hurry to get here.”
Angelica offered her hand, then helped the girls to their feet. “That explains it. You’re probably starving. Here. Nice and easy. Let’s get some lunch.”
I blinked hard at her back as she left. I didn’t know Angelica could be so sweet. Then she turned her head over her shoulder, blasting us with a wide-eyed glare and mouthing the words, “Figure this out.”
“There she is,” I said. “That’s the Angelica I know.”
Morrow rubbed the back of his neck. “So where do we start?”
Houston sifted through his pockets, then pulled out two drawstring bags. “Right here. Time to trade.”
They squatted right there on the floor, very seriously assessing their charms, like schoolboys exchanging marbles. I rolled my eyes, feeling like I’d lost my marbles myself.
CHAPTER 6
Houston chewed on his lower lip, assessing the assortment of charms spread out on the table.
“I’ll give you a martini glass for your lipstick,” he finally declared.
Morrow put down his iced tea. “That’s not a fair trade. Make it a martini glass and a teddy bear.”
“Theodore. Buddy. That is a lopsided trade and you know it. Throw in that froggy and it’s a deal.”
“Deal.”
I tried not to groan as these two grown men slid their respective charms across the table. I’d convinced them to abandon the playground huddle and dragged them to a fast food place instead.
Like Chunky Sneakers and her friends, I was starving. We ended up at the Happy Cow, of all places, Happy, Inc.’s burger chain and the most successful of its enterprises.
Maybe we were tempting fate. I liked to think of it as testing a theory. Were the wearers of the charms somehow magnetically attracted to ones that they didn’t yet own, a sort of hypnotic drive to collect an entire set by any means necessary? Only one way to find out. We’d made sure to pick a table in a faraway corner, but those girls had found us in the abandoned Southridge corridor anyway.
And coming to Happy Cow was part of our research. As far as we knew, there had never been a case of a Happy Cow diner walking out their restaurants in a trance. What made the business model so different? If Happy, Inc. was so intent on mesmerizing the mundanes at large, why not just throw something horrible and magical in their food?
Fear of retribution, maybe, from the other corpos, or even mundane law enforcement and agencies. Scrambling someone’s brain with enchanted jewelry was one thing. Feeding them tainted burgers was quite another.
But whatever they put in their food had to be borderline magical, anyway. I’d ordered some large fries and some sliders. Houston and Morrow were too engrossed in trading charms to be bothered with food. I was three sliders deep and still had plenty of room for more. Melted cheese, crisp edges, juicy bites of quality beef — Happy, Inc. knew how to make good burgers, all right.
“You know what bothers me?” I said, speaking through a mouthful of slider. “We’ve got all these charms, but not a single one of those Happy charms those girls were wearing. They definitely had something to do with making them all angry and violent. I’m sure of it.”
“Yeah, about that,” Houston said, looking up from the table. “It’s what Angelica and I discovered. Well, to be more accurate, it’s what the eggheads in the SeraphiCorp labs discovered.”
Despite the corpo rivalries, I couldn’t think of better people to handle the problem of mind-controlling trinkets. That was probably why SeraphiCorp was so invested in Paralumen and her cultists in the first place. Where demonic magic specialized in destruction and corruption, celestial magic worked wonderfully for healing and cleansing.
That meant curing hexes, curses, and mind control, too. Not that the celestials lacked in magical firepower, of course. I didn’t relish the idea of being on the business end of one of their signature golden weapons, or a holy smiting spell, for that matter.
“And what have you learned that we haven’t?” Morrow asked, leaning in curiously as he sucked down the rest of his iced tea.
“There are specific triggers for these charms, and they have everything to do with their shape and design.” Houston picked up a beach umbrella, holding it between his thumb and forefinger. “Wear a bracelet with one of these babies, and you’ll enter a catatonic state if you so much as take a stroll by the seaside. Work out? A dumbbell will have the same effect. Drink a cocktail? Martini glass.”
I stared at Morrow with my mouth open. Maybe making drinks had a similar effect. Anita Cocktail was wearing one of those charms when she went into her trance at Debussy. And the little money bag charm — had it charmed her from the mere act of shopping at Happy Links?
“But that doesn’t explain why some wearers go into a trance,” Morrow said, “and why others become completely enraged. Now that’s proper arcane distortion — these clearly magical objects don’t function as intended. Though to be fair, we’ve only seen it happen once. So far.”
