Page 50 of Sigils & Spells

I felt him back up, no longer trapping me against the door. I twisted, looking back at him.

He shrugged. “If all you want is sex, I’ll fuck you.”

I closed my eyes, and turned back to the door.

“No, thank you, Dr. Armitage. That’s not what I want from you.” I opened the door and left.

I climbed back onto my moped. By the time I returned to the Archive, I was covered in road dirt splatter. There didn’t seem to be a reason to use my skills. No one would care.

CHAPTER3

Merle

The door didn’t slam shut behind Pandora. It bounced. It never automatically closed, as if the door wanted to be open. I always had to meticulously close and turn the latch.

Before I secured the front door to my apartment, I watched Pandora storm out of the Capitulum. Her backside moved with a boom-boom-boom that I physically responded to. And today she wore a little skirt that swished around her bottom in a very hormonally inducing way.

“Not my finest work,” I muttered. Clearly I handled that interaction all wrong. Completely wrong, and now she was mad at me.

My phone rang. I turned my head and cocked my ear to the side to narrow in on the location of the ringtone. With a grunt, I tore into one of the piles on the edge of my sofa. It wasn’t there.

“Keep ringing,” I growled.

It stopped. I couldn’t magic technology, as much as I would have liked to. Inanimate objects, sometimes, but if they had electronics in them, never. At least that’s what I told myself because I seemed to be completely incapable of holding my hand out and calling my phone to it.

I let out a general sound of frustration. Blame it on not locating the phone in time, but I knew why I was really pissed. Blame the tall, thin asshole whose nose was too big, and whose hair too unkempt. I didn’t have wholesome square headed conventional good looks.

Of course, Pandora would find Darren attractive. He was. I’m as hetero-straight as they make them, and even I can see the man is attractive. I pushed over another stack of notebooks and documents—photocopies and scrolls, yes scrolls, I was researching some old shit.

“Fuck!” And that had nothing to do with the stupid phone that started ringing again.

“Where are you?” I pushed power into my voice, as if that would help.

The coat rack with my coat fell over.

“Seriously?” It worked. I fished around in my coat pockets and came up with my phone.

“What?” I barked with overt aggression as I righted the rack. “Yes, I’ll be there.”

It was a good thing I had my coat in my hands. Instead of hanging it up, I shrugged it on. I turned and the full tails of the coat swirled around my knees dramatically. That was the whole purpose of the coat, dramatic flair. It’s why I stole it from some drama department decades earlier. I was a stupid kid, I thought it looked badass, and pirates were cool— they still are, I however am not, not even by default of wearing a cool coat.

I did not put on any kind of hat as I stepped out. There was effectively dramatic, and then there was overkill.

* * *

Pandora

“Day drinking?”

Looking up, I glared at my bad life choices. The beer I was having with my lunch was part of a healthy work-life balance. I needed it if I was going to survive the rest of my day at the Archives.

Darren slid into the booth across from me. A few moments later, a waitress delivered his lunch.

“Did you have to tell Merle?” I asked.

“Tell Merle what? I haven’t seen him since last night.”

I stared hard at Darren.

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