“Come on, ladies. Let’s not keep the mages waiting.” I filled out the visitor’s information.
“Who are you seeing again?”
“Ja—,” I began.
“John Whitely or Jason Nesbit?”
“I was told to see both.” I glanced at the women, who nodded slightly.
“Jason is probably your mage.” He offered me a handful of visitor’s tags. “Although I’m not sure where the girls will put them.” He laughed at his own joke.
I glanced at his nametag. It read, George Johnson. “Thanks, George.” I opened the door. “After you, ladies.”
As soon as I closed the door the women dropped back into their wolf forms. Creep, Tara said telepathically, I bet he still lives at home with his mom.
“Well, you have to admit that was a surprise,” I said.
Tara nailed me with a gaze. You weren’t salivating the way he was. He almost grabbed me, but thought better of it.
Luna nudged my hand. I’m sorry you had to see me like that.
“Like what?” I smiled at her. “You’re quite beautiful.”
She has problems with her shifting. Lorelei shook her mane out. She can’t fully control her wolf side.
Luna lowered her head. She looked ashamed. I’m sorry. I’ll understand if you want to break off our date.
“Why?”
Luna looked up. Normals can’t deal with me except on new moons. I can’t hold a job except at the Zoo, and it’ll be awhile before they open the supernatural exhibits.
I knelt down and gave her a hug. She and I had met at the Lycanthrope House when I was rescuing the Normals from a deranged sorcerer. The damage from his magic and a loose dragon had caused them to close down the Lycanthrope House for repairs. “You look amazing to me. If guys are turned off by your fur, that’s their problem, not yours. I think you’re incredible. I certainly don’t want to break off our date.”
Really? She looked at me with her sad golden eyes.
“Really. Although we may want to reschedule, seeing as we had a bunch of Boulder asshats screw up our date.”
Wow girl, you got yourself a keeper. Tara nodded.
To my surprise, Luna licked my face. Or rather, washed my face with her tongue. I laughed and she frenched me. “Gah!” I gasped. “That’s a little too weird, girlfriend.”
She and the others laughed by shaking their heads with their tongues lolling. Ah well. You date a werewolf, you get used to weird.
We walked to the hallway, turned right, and sure enough we entered an area that was filled with cubicles. They were the typical blasé mauve variety with light tan metal construction. I winced. I expected wizards to be in better accommodations. The five werewolves and I walked down the cubicle aisles apparently unnoticed. Men and women sat at their computers like drones, only paying attention to their screens.
Despite the heady aroma of tea, the cubicle set up looked like a scene out of “Office Space.” As we passed by them, I did a quick scan for magic users in the area with my magic sight. Magic sight allows wizards to see auras and traces of magic. It’s awesome if the objects have magic in them, or if the person had used magic recently, but everything looked mundane and not magical. In fact, I felt I was looking at Normals who were locked in their cubicles until 5 pm. It was 4 pm now.
On the off chance that I might have taken a wrong turn, I peered over the cubicle wall at a woman in her twenties. Her hair was blonde with purple tips and she had a number of piecing through her ears and one in her nose. She wore a blue and silver dress that looked slightly gauzy and her arm had non-magical tattoos on them.
“Hi!” I said.
She didn’t look up from her screen.
“Hello?” I said, a little louder.
She glanced up and started in surprise. She pulled an earbud from her ear. I could hear some kind of pop music playing from it. “Oh, I’m dreadfully sorry! I had my music on! What can I do for you?”
“I’m looking for the wizards here.”
Her brow furrowed. “Wizards?”
“Magic users?”
She bit her lip and looked down. “I’m not sure we have any of those here.”
I glanced down at Luna, who took a moment to scratch her ear with her hind leg. “I heard you have a couple of folks like Jason Nesbit and John Whitely?”
They were featured in Howling Magazine. Luna reminded me.
“You were featured in Howling Magazine, yes?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I heard about it, but as far as I know, there are just Normals here. But if you want to talk to Jase or John, you need to go down the hall.” She pointed to the left.
“Thanks,” I said as a dreaded feeling washed over me. Nothing here spoke of magic users.
As we walked down the hall, a man and a woman, engrossed in their own conversation about the latest sales figures, passed us my without even a glance at my furry companions.
Gods, are these people clueless? Tara asked.
They do look Normal, Luna said. Maybe the magazine meant Celestial Seasonings?
We passed by the breakroom and saw the remnants of a birthday cake. The weres trotted in and scarfed up the cake, while I got a disposable cup and filled it with tea, since they didn’t have coffee available. Tea company—go figure. After snapping on the lid, we continued in our quest for wizards. We had just turned the corner on the breakroom when a man walked out of his office.
He looked like the typical geek with khaki slacks, a blue oxford shirt, and loafers. He was maybe in his 40s but still had brown, curly hair. He pointed at us. “What are you all doing here?”
I glanced at the name plate near his door. It said Jason Nesbit. “Just looking for a GalaxyQuest captain.”
Jason rolled his eyes. “Seriously, dude? That is so lame. Why are there a bunch of werewolves running around in my
