Well, Ella didn’t know that once Jasper tried to use a dark spell to make me go on holiday with him. Right now I was anxiously waiting for a phone call from Dad; I knew Jasper would grass me up. He wanted to punish me because I left him.
‘Seriously, Julia, what are you waiting for? He is dangerous!’
I bloody know that, but he is also an exceptional magician.
‘I’ll deal with this, don’t worry. I think I need another drink.’
‘Me, too.’ She waved toward the waiter and then cursed about Jasper for the next few minutes. When she finally changed the subject I exhaled with relief. ‘By the way, my brother keeps asking about you.’
I groaned. ‘I don’t need this right now, Ella. All I want is to be left alone.’
‘He would be perfect for you.’ She beamed. The waiter approached to take our order. After going through what we wanted to eat I asked him to bring us a bottle of wine as soon as possible. Then Ella added, ‘I need to tell you something.’
‘You’ve got a date with a guy you met at the club,’ I told her. I didn’t have to use my gift to know what my best friend was going to say. She had been searching for the right guy for her since she broke up with her long-term boyfriend, Bryan. She was signed up with most dating sites and she never lost hope. I was amazed how she could switch so quickly, forgetting about the life-threatening situation with Jasper.
‘Oh my God! How did you know?’
‘It’s magic.’ I chuckled.
‘I think that he might be the one,’ she sighed. ‘He works as a solicitor and we are seeing each other tomorrow.’
‘Ella, you know how much I love you, but you say that with every guy you meet. Can you take a break for a few weeks? If there is someone out there for you, then let him come to you.’
She waved her hand. ‘I’m tired of dating. All this work will pay off soon,’ she assured me.
‘I like your enthusiasm.’
Ella giggled. ‘Tell me, what’s new with you?’
As usual, people kidnapping my cousin, a vampire wants to have sex with me, and my ex-boyfriend nearly kills someone again.
I drank a bit of my wine and smiled. Ella was a normal human being and she didn’t need to know about my paranormal life. She worked as a beautician in a posh salon in central London.
‘Nothing spectacular, just an ordinary day at the office,’ I explained. ‘Although I went to a meeting the other day and…
‘And what?’
‘Well, the managing director of this huge corporation was hitting on me.’
She put her glass of wine down. ‘What? Did he ask you out?’
‘He did, but I said no. Besides, he was just playing with me,’ I said, dismissing her comment. I glanced at my phone again, but there were no missed calls or text messages. Maybe I got away and Jasper didn’t give my name, but I still had to stay alerted.
‘Why not? You need to go on a date. Imagine if you went out with him. That would so much fun,’ she said.
‘No I don’t think so. He is just a stuck-up rich guy,’ I said, trying to ease off the memories about La Caz. I didn’t need another alpha male, so I shifted this uncomfortable subject away. ‘How is your mum, by the way?’
‘She doesn’t want me to do this diet…’
Chapter nine
But you wanted him, too; your body was drawn to his as if you’d known each other for centuries.
I was listening to Ella, I was, but sometimes I had trouble with concentration, especially when I was expecting a phone call from my father. If he knew that I was in that bar with Jasper he would have dragged me to the station to give a statement. As Ella was talking about her mum, about her diet and dating, I was trying to keep my thoughts away from the meeting with La Caz Corporation and Jasper. An hour later, I had to tell my best friend that I wasn’t feeling well. After we paid the bill, Ella gave me a lift home.
I lived in a block of apartments in a quiet neighbourhood. The area wasn’t great, but I couldn’t afford anything else in this economy. Rufus paid me decently but not always enough. It was close to nine when I relaxed in the bath and thought about Jasper. I wouldn’t think about him normally, but I was pissed he still didn’t want to leave me alone. I wanted him out of my life and regretted that I’d been so blind. When I was just about to go to bed, my mother called. She asked if I would come for dinner this Sunday. I agreed, and then we chatted more about my other cousin, who just had a baby. She mentioned that Dad was still at work, which meant that I wouldn’t get anything out of him anyway.
The next day was Thursday and the day in the office passed without surprises. I filled a couple of vacancies, talked to Jennifer, and made a few mistakes with the payroll. At lunchtime I tried to call Dad again, but he just wasn’t picking up the phone. I couldn’t sit still, wondering if he’d questioned La Caz already. While I was eating lunch, my phone rang and Ella persuaded me to go out for a dinner with her on Saturday night. For Ella this was the only day of the week where she got drunk and I always ended up carrying her home. Alcohol and Ella—well, they didn’t go well together. We arranged a dinner in our usual place.
I ate my cheese and onion pasty as fast as I could and sent Mum a text message, asking her what she was cooking for Sunday. When I went back to the office, I had around twenty new CVs to sort through.
‘Has anyone been in?’ I asked Kate. She shook her head while filing some paperwork with yet more magic, waving her wand fast.
Once I went through all the CVs, I made a list of names I needed to contact. I was hoping by Monday I would have a few more to choose from. Half of them were vampires; the rest was a mix of giants, trolls, werewolves, and witches. Then I saw another email flashing through and froze instantly, seeing his name on the top of the screen.
Julia,
As I said earlier, I'm persistent and you won’t get rid of me until you say yes.
Nathaniel La Caz
Managing Director of La Caz Corporation
My heart started racing again and I deleted the email. I wasn’t going to reply. He could be persistent as much as he wanted to be, but I wasn’t going to go out with him.
But you wanted him, too; your body was drawn to his as if you’d known each other for centuries.
When I got home, I made dinner and watched a few romantic comedies, but I still couldn’t stay in one place, knowing that Dad probably already spoke to Nathaniel about the Magic Shot. In the end I took a taxi to the police station after confirming with Mum that he was still at work.
Of course he wasn’t too happy seeing me there.
‘What are you doing here Julia? I told you that you shouldn’t be out so late,’ he growled when he spotted me on one of the benches.
‘I need to know if you found anything on Claudia. Besides I’m the one that told you about Magic Shot.’ I folded my arms together. He narrowed his crystal blue eyes and barked at me to follow him to his office.
‘How did you get here in the first place?’ he asked.
‘I took a taxi, so don’t worry. Just tell me already, did you speak to that managing director, Nathaniel La Caz?’
‘Yes, I have spoken to him. I also looked through CCTV’s around the city, but no sign of a black van. I don’t get this. Someone must have known that I would be checking the cameras because all the CCTV from around that area has been damaged with dark magic,’ Dad complained. ‘Your aunt wants to go to the media, but I’m advising against it. We have to work quietly.’
‘That guy La Caz came to the office earlier,’ I said. ‘I’ve got a feeling that he knows a lot more than he is prepared to say.’
Maybe I was getting ahead of myself, but Dad needed to know that I had seen Nathaniel, plus, knowing Claudia, she wouldn’t last long, being kept in some dark basement. She was way too sensitive and she was a year younger than I.
Dad sighed and brushed a hand through his hair.
‘Why would he come to your office?’ he asked ‘Besides, I told you not to get involved. I don’t
want you to get in any trouble.’
‘Because Paranormal Personnel signed a contract with La Caz Corporation to supply people, and I’m the main point of contact, and somehow I’m already involved with this.’
‘Then you shouldn’t talk about this matter with anyone. I gave you strictly confidential information. Now I want you to go home and stay there. Don’t do anything stupid. I’ve got enough on my plate hiding this from your mother.’
‘Tell me what he said. Do you think he is a suspect?’ I pressed, annoyed that he didn’t want to reveal anything.
‘You’re worse than your mother. The production of that shot only just started, but he told me that one of his vans that contained the first unofficial batch of the product had been highjacked about a week ago. We found some evidence of fairies’ blood in the shot, but he said that he didn’t use paranormal blood for production. Apparently he has human donors and wizards. I made him show me the production. He wasn’t lying’
‘Highjacked in London?’ I repeated, feeling like a complete idiot that I started to question him before Dad.
‘Yeah, and I checked this, so he was right; the robbery has been reported. The van has been found a hundred miles east, completely empty,’ Dad said. ‘At the moment he isn’t a suspect, but I’ll keep an eye on him.’
‘Are you sure that he doesn’t use paranormal blood for that shot?’ I pressed, but Dad got angry.
‘Julia, that’s enough questions for today! I don’t want to see you at this station at all. Understood?’
‘Fine, fine, but I only want to help.’
‘Then stay out of this, and let me do my job.’
My Dad was terrible. He never wanted me to get involved with anything. I always thought that I would end up in police work like him. The only reason that I didn’t join the force was because of Dad. He wanted me out of any danger, so I went to study journalism, but there weren’t any jobs in that field, so I ended up in recruitment.
My father had always been fond of Ella., but he wanted me to embrace being an elf. Although he had nothing against humans, he preferred when I was surrounded by elves and fairies. I asked him once whether he was ever going to tell Mum about his second nature. He said my mother wouldn’t be able to handle it, so he decided against it. When I found out I was an elf, I didn’t understand why he married Mum; after all, she was ordinary—not magical—and she hated anything abnormal.
As the years passed by, I did understand it eventually. My parents loved each other very much, maybe even more than they loved me. He had chosen her because he wasn’t going to live without her, even if he had to go against his better judgment.
Chapter ten
Great. She left me to die here alone. Fantastic.
‘Hey, Jen, I got a CV for that tooth fairy,’ I said on Friday afternoon ready to end my long day shift. We had been looking for a tooth fairy for about a week and I finally got the right candidate. I was looking forward to a relaxing weekend with Ella and work was the last thing on my mind.
‘That was pretty quick,’ Jennifer said, and narrowed her green eyes.
I was just about to hit the reply button, when I heard someone entering the office. A large, well-built man stormed through the door holding a chain saw.
I have to backtrack that; yes, I was seeing right—he was holding a chain saw.
Jennifer dropped her coffee, and I got up so quickly that my chair swirled. We both looked at each other in panic. My mind was still processing what I was seeing. For a split second I thought that I should have stayed in bed today; my day would have been so much easier.
‘Where the hell is he?’ he roared, waving the saw in his arms like a maniac. ‘Where the hell is that bastard?’
I swallowed a giant lump in my throat and stared at this lunatic who was storming towards my desk, chain saw aimed at me. I couldn’t seem to move from the spot but was paralyzed from head to toe.
‘Where the hell is that fucking vampire?’ growled the stranger again. His chest heaved and his whole face turned scarlet.
‘What vampire?’ Jennifer mumbled, glancing nervously at his weapon.
‘Mathew,’ the man screamed with rage. He obviously didn’t like Jennifer’s response because he switched on the saw. The loud noise filled the space, and fear shot through my body like an electric bolt. I started to imagine how he would slash us, cut our limbs off, and then take our body parts for trophies. Jennifer and I would die here and no one would ever find us.
Me and my imagination.
‘Mathew has left. He doesn’t work here anymore!’ I managed to shout over the noise of the saw, as I struggled to stand straight. My legs were like jelly and my heart started pounding fiercely in my chest.
Disbelief coursed through his face, but then he switched off the saw. ‘I want to kill that bastard.’ The stranger sneered, approaching us. I glanced at the phone and calculated whether I would have enough time to call 9-9-9. ‘He fucked me right off! My money ain’t in the bank.’
‘Just calm down. I’m sure we can help you,’ I said and turned to look towards the entrance. There was another man standing in the doorway, and everyone’s eyes fixed on him. He glanced at the chain saw in front of him and then moved his gaze to me. I blinked rapidly, recognising George, one of our call centre wizards. I tried to wave to him to tell him to get out of the office, but he just stood there, like he was rooted to the spot.
Great, now we will have a triple murder in the office, bloody paperwork.
‘Is there a problem?’ George asked, but the angry stranger was already grabbing his killing machine and switching it on again. I wanted to shut my eyes because I was expecting the worst, but curiosity won me over and I kept staring. The roaring noise of the saw whipped through the office. George went pale, almost green. His gaze followed the man holding the saw.
‘Get the fuck out of here!’ snarled the crazy man. George didn’t need to hear it twice. He was gone within seconds, screaming like a banshee, leaving us alone again with the man who was going to kill us.
Please, God, if you’re there, I promise I’ll go to church every Sunday from now on.
At this moment in time it didn’t matter that I was agnostic. I was hoping that I could somehow survive. My skin tingled with a current of magical energy. There had been days when I couldn’t control the excess magic and this was one of those moments. My stomach lurched. I glanced with desperation at Jennifer, but she couldn’t help me. She’d already passed out.
Great. She left me to die here alone. Fantastic.
Then the stranger approached my desk, this time with his weapon lowered. He sat on the chair in front of me, taking long oozes of air. ‘I want my money. I worked for two months and I still haven’t gotten paid,’ he said. I was still standing, staring at him blankly. ‘Sit down,’ he said. ‘You’re distracting me.’
I obeyed and then found my voice. ‘What’s your name?’ I asked, clicking on my internal system. ,which often happened when, and I sensed he didn’t mean true harm. This allowed the feeling to come back to my limbs.
‘Michael Longbridge, a shape-shifter.’
I don’t know why he came to see a vampire in the daytime. Maybe he didn’t realise that they only work at night?
I nodded and typed his name into the computer. I tried to focus, feeling that he was watching me. I saw that Michael Longbridge had been on our books for more than two months. He was working as a security guard in one of the supermarkets.
Shit, he was right. He hadn’t been paid because some arsehole put him on cheque instead of BACS payment. Now I'm going to die.
‘Well?’ he asked impatiently.
‘You’re right; it’s our error. You should have gotten paid last month,’ I said, and wiped the sweat off my forehead. I looked at him, noticing his eyes. They were beautiful, dark ebony, but the image of a chain saw flashed through my brain and I quickly waved it off.
Michael wrinkled his forehead and moved closer to me. ‘I’ve called every single day for the past
two months. That fucker Matthew kept telling me there was a problem with my bank. I had to borrow money for cigarettes!’
I wasn’t surprised Michael was angry. Matthew had lasted here only a few months. He’d had no clue how to run an office. I didn’t understand on what basis Rufus gave him a job.
‘I’m sorry that you didn’t get paid, but I’ll fix that right up,’ I assured him, plastering a smile on my face. ‘You’ll get your money within twenty-four hours.’
‘So, hopefully tomorrow?’ he asked.
I nodded.
‘I want to smash the face of that fucking prick,’ he growled.
‘The money should be on your account sometime tomorrow,’ I added quickly before he lost control again.
‘Fine, do whatever you’re going to do,’ he barked.
‘Not to worry, Mr. Longbridge,’ I said with confidence. ‘Matthew is no longer employed by us. He has been dismissed.’
‘He better be,’ said Michael. ‘Thanks for your help, love.’
Then he stood, picked his saw up off the floor, and left. For a long moment I wondered if he was going to come back. When he didn’t, I flopped on the chair, breathing hard, hardly believing that I was still alive. My mind was spinning and my palms were damp with sweat. I took the phone and dialed.
‘Julia, I’m busy at the moment,’ he said, picking up after the third ring. ‘Is everything okay?’
‘I don’t care that you are busy, Rufus. Someone just tried to kill me with a fucking saw!’ I shouted into the phone. There was a long silence on the other end of the phone so I continued. ‘If you want me to do this job, you need to hire security. First my cousin, now this.’
‘Julia,’ repeated the smooth, calm voice of my regional manager, ‘calm down and tell me exactly what happened.’
I took a few deep breaths, shut my eyes. He needed to know that, although I handled it, things could have gotten bad. I could still visualise my death by chainsaw.