“Touché,” he said, chuckling.
“He’s probably going to make a shrine out of the clothes.” Daisy jerked the peeler over the first carrot, taking more of the skin than was absolutely necessary. “After he gets whatever he wants, he’ll kill her off. He’s already collecting mementos. Whack job.”
“Daisy,” I chided.
Jack laughed harder as he unpacked the meat. “You don’t have to worry about Demigod Kieran. He’s trying to shelter you from what may come. He may not reveal all his cards at the get-go, but if you put your trust in him, he’ll see you through any storms. I know from experience.”
I shook my head as I washed the potatoes. If Kieran planned to go up against Valens, he might not be able to see himself through, never mind me. Working for him might be a suicide mission.
I needed to find another source of income, and quick.
37
Alexis
“Alexis!”
I jolted straight up in bed, ready for an emergency. Light blanketed my curtains, telling me it was already full day. I’d had a late night on Sunday, poring over all the listings on several job boards, sending resumés until the crack of dawn. Frustratingly, lower-level positions hiring magical people were as sparse as ever, and half of the companies listed I’d already worked for (and been fired by). The scant few left paid next to nothing.
It looked like I’d be at the freak show for a while longer.
“Alexis,” Daisy shouted again.
“Coming.” I ripped the covers away and swung my legs over the side of the mattress. “Coming!”
Fear pumped through me, all the things that could’ve unexpectedly befallen Mordecai running through my head. I pulled open the door and staggered out, never entirely alert after coming out of a deep sleep.
“Here she comes,” Daisy said as I thundered down the hall.
A strange tent of scarfs, old blankets, and weird mystical pictures greeted me at the edge of the living room near the front door. A weathered wooden chair sat in front of the setup, and my trusty fold-up chair was tucked inside the makeshift fort.
Mordecai and Daisy stood off to the side, surveying the mystical monstrosity.
“What’s…going on?” I rubbed my eyes, swaying as adrenaline, fear, fatigue, and the beginning stages of annoyance created a heady cocktail.
“It’s afternoon. We need to get some training in before heading to the fair.” Daisy held a clipboard and a pen, with an architect’s pencil tucked behind her ear. “Let’s go over the setup first, shall we?”
Annoyance took over. “You woke me up to walk me through how to properly sit in a festival of awful?” I noticed Mordecai’s “beloved” turquoise blanket mixed in with the other pieces of the “tent.”
He slumped under the force of my accusatory stare.
“Daisy said that it adds brightness to the overall ensemble,” he explained. “And I have that gravity blanket now, which is warmer than all three of my other blankets put together. I don’t need as many.”
“Oh, sure, pick a domineering Demigod’s gift over mine. Great.” I pulled my hair out of my face as I turned for the kitchen and a giant cup of coffee. Mordecai’s explanation had stung me. I knew almost everyone could provide for this family better than I could, but the fact that it was him doing it…
“We’ve got another one,” came Frank’s muffled voice through the door.
I groaned, finishing the trek to the kitchen counter and reaching for the empty coffee pot. Frank had kept checking in all day yesterday, cataloging the many movements of strangers around my house. Jack and the smiley blond guy, who’d introduced himself as Donovan when he’d forced his way in to make pot pie yesterday evening, had been spotted numerous times, but a couple of others had been hanging around too, taking shifts and going so far as to peek in the windows.
That wasn’t all they were doing, though.
They were trying to make their lives easier by setting up surveillance around my property. So far, Frank had spied them putting up four cameras, covering both exit points (the front door and a never-used back door) and the sides of the house. I’d left them to it. I wanted my watchers to rest easy, comfortable in the knowledge they could monitor me from afar. Then, when I needed to get out undetected, I’d rip down their electronic eyes and set them to scrambling.
“He’s hiding in his favorite bush. I’ve got my eye on him, don’t worry,” Frank yelled. “I got Genevieve out back. She has eyes like a hawk.”
Frank was working on a network of nosey spirit neighbors, but so far, the two other spirits he’d brought around were more than pulling their weight.
Class-five magical worker, look at me. Invisible network at my service. If only they could, I don’t know, throw a punch or push someone off a cliff. Then I’d be cooking with gas.
Beggars can’t be choosers.
“Hurry up, Alexis,” Daisy said with obvious annoyance.
“She thinks she’s created a genius business plan,” Mordecai said.
“I have created a genius business plan, you troll,” Daisy shot back. “This setup will bring all the freaks to the yard.”
“She is the freak. We want the norms.”
“Whatever. Ew. Stop raining on my parade.”
I was getting it from all sides. I didn’t think I was up for it. Not before caffeine, anyway.
“I’ll be right there,” I said tiredly, scooping grounds into the filter. My plastic scoop scraped the bottom of the metal tin, and buying more wasn’t in my budget until I got a new job.
All sides.
“He’s big, but I can take him, don’t you worry, Alexis,” Frank called through the door. “The bigger they are, the slower they are. I move like the wind.”
“He must register that strangers can’t hear him,” I said, clicking the on button and wandering back to the living room, “or why would he be screaming at me through the door?” Daisy’s eyes widened, and she looked warily at the door. She was trying to help me with my trade in spite of being constantly creeped out by it. It showed her commitment to the cause. “But then, he is talking about tumbling with a large magical person hiding in the bushes. It makes no sense.”
“It’s easy to picture yourself taking down enemies when you know it’s only a fantasy,” Mordecai said softly.
Daisy shook herself out of her creeped-out daze and put her hand on his shoulder. “We’ve got this, Frodo. We can’t help you carry the ring up Mount Mordor, but we can help carry you.”
“Wow.” I braced my hands on my hips. “You need to stop watching that movie.”
“I see you,” Frank called. “I see you looking.”
I shook my head and tried to ignore the aggressive spirit turned poltergeist outside. “Okay. What of this”—I gestured at the makeshift setup—“will you let me burn?”
“Um, none?” Daisy scoffed before stalking to the visitor chair. “We need to paint this, obviously. I found it a block away next to a dumpster. It looks like it was sitting there awhile.” That was an understatement. With the weathered, badly stained wood frame, and wet, rotted-looking cushion, it appeared to have been sitting there for decades. “Ms. Nicolas, next door, has some extra paint from the latest art…thing she’s making. It’s sitting by her back door. I’m pretty sure she’s just waiting to illegally dump it like last time, so I’ll grab one of those when she goes on her walk.”
“Stop peeping in Ms. Nicolas’s backyard,” I muttered out of parental duty. Ms. Nicolas created horrendous paintings and sculptures that were impossible to ignore. How they sold, I did not know, but it was a train wreck Daisy hated to miss.
“Okay.” She waved the comment away. “But it’s really sturdy. Check it out.”
I was a little afraid to touch it.
“Instead of your TV trays—”
“He’s moving,” Frank yelled. “He’s on the move. Where are you going, you—”
Frank’s voice drifted away.
“—we have a lovely little breakfast bar.” Daisy lifted the edge of one of my rugs, revealing a length of badly pockmarked wood with a stretch of empty spider web spanning the top. I shrank away. “It needs a bath and a paint, and it will look just fab. Check out those legs. Strong and sturdy. That’ll give our clients confidence.”
“Our?” I asked, pushing the pad of my finger against my temple and rubbing.
“We’re all going into business together,” Mordecai said, and he wasn’t being sarcastic.
“No”—Daisy pointed at my face—“don’t do that. I can see you about to pull hero and try to go it alone like some cowboy out of the Wild West.”
“Cowboys in the Wild West were actually farmers in most cases,” Mordecai said. “Hence the term cowboys. The fabricated idea of gun-slinging cowboys was made famous by Hollywood, and nowhere near depicts real events—”
“We don’t care,” Daisy interrupted.
“I care,” I said. “I did not know that—”
“Okay, then, we’ll table that for circle time.” Daisy used her pen to point at the top of the tent, which was two peaks at different heights held up by leaning broomsticks. “Everyone else has a tent, so we need to join that parade. It makes us look legit. Once we have more working capital, we can replace these blankets with more scarfs, but for now—”