My thoughts became all the more bitter until finally Max appeared to come to a decision.
A relaxed, easy smile spread across his face as he reached a hand out and selected one of the bricks. He pushed it in. There was a grating sound as his fingers shoved against the brick, and mortar and dust filtered out from the move, dashing against his camel-leather boots.
He never took those boots off. It was almost as if they were part of his uniform or something. They were always perfectly clean, too. Not a scuff. It didn’t matter if he spent all afternoon in the garden, didn’t matter if he chased some magical fiend away from the front door – those boots were always clean and shiny.
“You want to stop scowling at me?” Max spat as he whirled on his foot, brought a hand up, and jammed his thumb towards the wall. “Now come along. Like I already said, we’re running out of time.”
I looked at him blankly. “It’s a wall, Max. What exactly do you want me to do with it?” Just as I finished that bitter little insult, the wall… well, it shifted. It happened abruptly, smoothly, too – kind of like a door opening. It went from being there one second, to not being there the next second.
And it revealed? It revealed a bar.
I knew my cheeks became pale, sallow, slack. I felt my heart quicken, felt sweat slick across my brow.
Max didn’t give me the option to stand there and stare. He leaned forward, locked that same strong hand on my shoulder, and pushed me in.
Despite the fact it was 9:30 in the morning, the bar was open. In fact, it was packed.
Though we’d arrived here by magically selecting the right brick in a tiny laneway, the bar itself… it looked relatively normal. Or, at least the decor did. The patrons?
I shivered. Boy, did I shiver. Tight, pulsing nerves raced up and down my back, seizing every muscle in turn.
I had never seen a collection of such creepy looking people in my life. None of them overtly looked magical – there were no 10-foot-tall pixies dragging chains around. Nope, at first glance, they were human. At second glance? Oh, at second glance, the primal instincts of your brain kicked in, telling you to scream and run.
The guy to my left was creepily tall, wore a massive leather jacket that ran all the way down to his scuffed leather boots, and had the kind of broad-chested body a professional wrestler would be proud of. But that was nothing whatsoever to mention his face. He had all the right features – eyes, chin, mouth, and nose – even if it looked as if his nose had been broken by a sledgehammer. And yet, his features didn’t quite work. It was as if they’d been painted there by Picasso.
“You’re staring. Stop staring,” Max said as he leaned in and whispered into my ear.
Though my heart wanted to tremble at his proximity, we didn’t have time. He pushed me in the small of my back, and I let out the cutest little squeak as we shifted through the bar.
Though I was just starting to learn about how magic felt, I swore I could sense it. Swore it was a faint crackle in the air, a distant hum as if a radio had been left on in a nearby room. Heck, I even smelt it – like melted candle wax, old incense, and snow.
We pushed all the way through the bar, and I discreetly stared at all the patrons in turn. One of my grandmother’s journals had listed most of the various magical races, from witches to wizards, pixies to fairies, to seers. I imagined the three long-legged, stunning brunettes in the corner were witches. The creepy guys in long leather jackets with bodies that looked like bulls crossed with wrestlers – wizards. So that just left the guy to my right—
He pushed up from his chair, turned hard on his foot, and shoved his hand towards Max. “Max, crap, is that really you? It’s been a long time.”
According to my grandmother’s journals, fairies looked the most like humans. They didn’t feel like humans, though. The more you became acquainted with magic, the more you learned to feel its subtle vibrations, the more you appreciated that fairies existed in a different realm. Their magic was more direct, more powerful, and unlike witches and wizards, they could utilize every cell in their body to create power. Their magic tended to cost more, too – whether it be their memories, their mind, or their lifespan.
Max looked put-out and even paled slightly. It was obvious he hadn’t been expecting an interruption. It was just as obvious that he knew this man, however, and just as obvious – to me at least – that they were not friends.
Tell the other guy that, though. Because he shoved forward, reached a hand across, and clapped it on Max’s shoulder with a resounding thump, thump, thump.
Then his gaze narrowed as he tilted his head towards me. “Friend?” he asked. He said friend, stressing the F with a hissing purr. Though the guy was measurably less creepy than the leather-clad wizards to my side, I stiffened as if somebody had run their fingernails up and down my spine.
The guy was obviously a fairy. Or, at least he kind of looked like one.
It took several seconds for Max to react. He spread a seriously fake, seriously forced smile over his lips. “Dimitri, it’s been a long time.”
Maybe Max thought he was doing a good job of hiding his disdain for this Dimitri fellow, but it was as obvious as painting “I hate you” over his face in giant great big neon letters.
Yet Dimitri, if he noticed, didn’t appear to care. Again, his
