A Touch of Brimstone by McKenzie Hunter
2
Cameron was all smiles, as expected. Small crinkles had formed around her eyes that I suspected were from the toothy, wide smile she handed out freely like candy on Halloween.
Her wiry thick curls were pulled into a low ponytail. A few escaped curls framed her face. In her midfifties, she had a lively personality and contagious smile.
“New releases tomorrow.”
For five years we’d had new releases weekly, and her face still lit up each time as if it were the first time. Her honey-colored eyes reflected a liveliness that would excite even the most apathetic person. Even if the books were releases I wasn’t expecting, she stirred the anticipation and excitement that often led me to buy a few.
“And the shipment of Morrison’s Beloved is in, too,” she informed me. An influencer recently mentioned it as a book that “broke” her. As a result, we couldn’t keep adequate stock of a book published over thirty years ago. Seeing classics revitalized and award-winning books reach the hands of new-to-them readers made me appreciative of the double-edged sword of social media and influencers.
A year ago, a coffee enthusiast, who had more followers than a person should, whose favorite coffee preparation was basically just creamer and sugar, recommended our coffee shop; it became overrun with new customers. We were overjoyed for the business, but with new customers requesting sugary specialty drinks, I was convinced the next post about us would be about our snarky barista. It was also during that time that Emoni revisited her suggestion about pelting people with coffee beans.
To our complete surprise, it didn’t run people off. It actually became the draw: Come get your coffee from the surly, quick-witted barista. Instead of a biscotti, you’ll get a thinly veiled insult and a lovely smile. It convinced me once again that pretty people get away with far too much.
“Frankenstein, Ender’s Game, and Lolita should be in the shipment as well,” Cameron informed me. Another surprising uptick in sales, but we didn’t know the source of their renewed popularity.
We quieted when a tall body slid in next to us, his studious good looks belied by the off-putting set of his rigid frown. Pushing his wide-rimmed glasses up his nose seemed to have been done for theatrics.
“Pardon me, purveyors. Has my copy of Howard Zinn’s APeople’s History of the United States come in?”
Purveyors? Seriously, Peter?
Cameron said that Peter was an eccentric old soul. Emoni and I were convinced that he also enjoyed being a know-it-all. Or perhaps it was a combination of the two. In his early thirties, Peter had the airiness of an aristocrat, but his tattered jeans that hung low off his waist, his shirt that played homage to Q*bert, and his disheveled flaxen-colored hair was diametrically opposed to his patrician demeanor.
Spending most of his days in the store, Peter divided his time between his work as a day trader, roaming the aisles of the bookstore, and sitting in the corner with a cup of coffee. Typically, he was unobtrusive unless he was accosting some unsuspecting customer with his unabridged version of history. His wealth of knowledge was simultaneously impressive and off-putting. I admired his dogmatic refusal to tell history for the side of the “victor,” but I believed unfiltered history needed to be administered in small doses. Something he had no interest in doing.
“I’ll check,” I told him. He excused himself with his customary bow and departed to the small table in the corner of the store that he’d claimed as his spot. Be weirder, Peter.
Heading back to the storage area, I wasn’t able to intercept the unsuspecting woman who sauntered over to the table where he’d taken a seat. Enjoy the free lecture—see if you can get college credits for it,I thought.
Peter would always ensnarl some woman. When he removed his large glasses, he revealed expressive brown eyes. His tall, slender build reminded me of a runner, and he gave off a casual air of indifference while engrossed in a book. His studious good looks and quasi look of apathy alluded to a sexy brood that drew many women into being recipients of his informal and interminable lectures.
Usually, if I saw someone heading in that direction or unwittingly involved in his one-sided conversations, I would ask if they’d found the book they were looking for or remind them of our rewards program.
Searching through the boxes in the storage room, hoping to quickly get to Peter’s copy of A People’s History of the United States, my mind kept revisiting the situation in the coffee shop. The ominous way the stranger’s partners looked at me, his scrutiny of me, his questioning me about being a witch, and the certainty of his words. “He’s not a witch.”
Was I missing something? Despite feeling foolish for giving this more than just a passing thought and not dismissing it as the ravings of a person who beliefs bordered on psychosis, I pulled out my phone, texted Reginald, and asked if we could talk during my break. Since he tended to be busier on the weekend, he responded quickly. His weekdays were spent on his phone, reading, and, if needed, bartering his help for a reduction in rent space from the shop owner.
I stumbled on the step and spilled into Reginald’s office. He had a broad build, and his chocolate-brown hair was shorn close, showing a wave pattern. Biracial—Mexican and white—he was the kind of golden brown that people spent hours trying to achieve on a beach or tanning bed.
“Luna,” he greeted me, extending his hand toward the seat on the opposite side of the small table where he sat. He moved his tarot cards out of the way. Immediately he caught sight of The Discovery of Magic and his face brightened.
“Are you enjoying the world of magic?”
“I am, there’s so much wonderful information.” I opened the book. “It’s better than anything I’ve read in fantasy. A real immersive experience. Like the author was speaking from real experience. Witches, people who turn into animals—”
“Shifters,” he offered.
“And vampires.”
He nodded. “Have you got to the part where they all can be linked to one god and the eternal curse that extended to them and their descendants?”
I nodded. “Yes, but…”
I hesitated because when Reginald loaned the book to me, I got the impression that for him it was more than a fun fantasy read. If it was more, then that was just another fun quirk about him. Even when he alluded to the existence of the supernatural, it was a vague and abstract concept that tied in with him being a tarot reader. But discussing it, saying it out loud, brought a validity to it, for which I wasn’t prepared. But the strangers looking at me like that had weirded me out. I wanted this to be fiction. All fiction.
“This is just fun reading for you, right? You don’t think this stuff is real?”
He looked at the closed door and leaned toward me. “Are we speaking in confidence?” he inquired in a low, conspiratorial voice.
No, because depending on what you say, I’m staging an intervention. Is an intervention what I need? Do I call a therapist? A psychiatrist? Your parents?
My heart was pounding in my chest, my fingers becoming increasingly clammy. I’d honor our confidence because for the three years we’d worked next to each other, I’d considered him more than just a business acquaintance. He was my friend. If I swore to it, then that was that. We were in a trust circle. But was I ready for any conversation that would follow us discussing this book?
I nodded, unable to put words to it.
“Of course I believe in this.”
I pointed at the bookmark on the open page. “You believe in witches, shifters, and vampires?” Leaning closer to him, I looked around the empty room. “Do you see them now? In this room?”
He threw his head back with a peal of laughter. “No, they’re not here. But they exist, Luna.”
“Okay, they exist and they came from one source.” I flicked through the book, skimming the pages that discussed them, looking for the source.
“It’s not in there,” he said. “It’s rumored that all magical beings came from one source and how they changed was a result of a curse. Experiment, maybe? But I’m so glad I ended up with the good curse.”
Was there such a thing as a good curse? Wait, what? He’d ended up with the good curse? Silence stretched taut as I debated the incivility of me placing the book on the table, walking out, and never speaking to Reginald again. But curiosity overrode all.
“Good curse?” I finally said.
“Yes,” he whispered. “I’m a witch.”
“A witch?” Surprisingly, my skepticism sounded like curiosity.
He nodded, his face alight with pride.
“Casting spells type of witch?”
“You saw in the book that there are different types. Witches born of witches are stronger. And we all have different magical abilities.”
“Yes.” I flipped through the parts of the book where I’d stuck Post-its. Reading the book as fiction, they were just interesting passages I wanted to revisit, not study the way I would nonfiction. “Elementals, necromancers, and spell casters, who are said to be the strongest and able to perform spells and manipulate the world.” The book focused so much on them because they were the strongest and the most abundant.
“My magical ability isn’t listed because so little is known of it. I suspect because it’s so fluid,” he admitted.
“What’s your magic?”
“I’m an influencer,” he said cryptically, his smile growing wider.
That’s an Instagram job.
Committed to not closing my mind to any possibilities, I kept my opinion to myself and from my expression.
“It’s very nuanced,” he added.
Also sounds very made up.
“I make things work in my favor. I guess it would be considered… probability magic. If the odds are close, I cast a spell to move things in my favor.”
My mouth dropped open. He took it as intrigue.
“That’s amazing,” I said. “Do you ever feel like you’re cheating? Making yourself so lucky?”
“I try not to use it. We all have laws we must abide by, and one is remaining hidden from humans.” He leaned forward, taking my hands in his. “You must keep this between us.”
Believe me, buddy, you do not have to worry about that. If I tell anyone about your fake-ass witch power and this world you believe in, I’m going to get some looks.I glanced at the clock on the wall.
“I have to go, but you have my word. Thank you so much for this and for trusting me with your secret.”
He was so full of crap, but still a nice guy. I’d give him that. Mr. Not-a-Witch had to see the absurdity in what he just told me. If he could change the odds in his favor, why not go to Vegas and make a killing, or at least make enough to just tarot read and not have to work a second job? Reading, which he seemed to really enjoy, could be his full-time job.
Before I opened the door, I turned. “The tarot reading, is that linked to your magic?”
He gave me a coy look. I had no idea what it meant.
“No, that’s taught, but I do believe my magical gifts help me be more skilled with it. And perhaps occasionally I cast a spell to ensure the accuracy of my reading.” He was a talented tarot reader, but I suspected it had nothing to do with his alleged magical ability.
“Thank you,” I said again. There was a small part of me that wanted to live vicariously through him and his belief in magical worlds of spell-casting witches, people who shifted into animals, and eternal beings of the night.
But realism and pragmatism reared their heads and I was back to regarding tales of witches, shifters, and vampires as nothing more than fiction and the stranger in the coffee shop as one of the peculiar people who populated this section of the city.
Our unconventional area seemed to be the catchall for the weird, nontraditional, and self-identified outcasts. There were the night owls, who’d created a small club named the People of the Night. Despite it being in reference to people who performed better at night, some of the members took it to the extreme, usually sporting midnight-black or platinum-white hair and dressing in dark colors, the scent of weed or patchouli oil wafting off them announcing their presence from some distance. It was quite obvious they were going for the noir of the modern vampires from television and movies.
Other than Reginald’s recent revelation to me of being a witch, we had people who identified as Wiccan. With Wicca becoming more mainstream in our area, where eccentric was a sport and everyone was going for gold, these people decided to be a little extra. If someone was dressed as if they were on their way to a Steampunk or Renaissance festival, they were most definitely our Broad Street Wiccan.
In need of a breath of fresh air, instead of using the doors that connected the stores, I took the longer route outside. Just before I reached the bookstore’s entrance, I thought I caught a glimpse of the stranger. Hugging the book to me, I stopped to take another look. There were pedestrians walking, but not him.
Get it together, I scolded myself. Had it been that long since I’d been with someone that I couldn’t get this particular handsome stranger out of my head? Or was the Broad Street weird just getting a little too weird?