Happy Friday! Note, this story is NOT polished. I will be posting a scene or chapter weekly. Expect an urban fantasy world. Romance and mystery. And magic, of course. Enjoy!
PART 6
The tourist kept babbling about pictures of mountains, eagles, and sunsets to poor Nola next to him. Nola, another local, worked at one of the boutiques down the street. A pretty brunette with a wide smile and a charming gap between her teeth, she seemed like someone I might have become friends with if I intended to stick around.
She looked to be of a similar age, in her mid-twenties. And she didn’t give off an evo vibe. If I had to bet, I’d call her a citizen or low-level evo. Likely a mindmage, and if she scaled above a two, I’d eat my sneakers.
I’d seen plenty of people since wandering into this town. If they were Feeds customers, they seemed to be some type of evo. I still didn’t know why Lobo had taken to me so quickly, and without demanding proof of identity or evo status. But I hadn’t questioned his acceptance, mostly because I’d grown tired of running. I needed answers, but slowing down long enough to find them had never worked in the past.
I continued to take orders and refill waters. Mason left, thank goodness. With the breakfast rush gone, we focused on middling through until the lunch rush. Feeds served until three, when we shut down and cleaned up, gearing for the next day’s crowd.
By the end of my shift, I was tired. I’d readied to bus the last of the tables when I overheard two women in a heated debate.
“There’s no way they’ll vote that in,” the taller, blond woman said. She was pretty, with a twitchy nose and a slight overbite.
“You can’t believe that. You know how badly most of the citizens in the east want us all gone. Hell, most of the citizens in town feel the same way, if you want the truth.”
A man behind them in a booth snorted. “You got that right.”
The blond glared at him, but he ignored them and walked up to the front to pay. Lobo manned the register, so I continued to bus my table, but slower, so I could overhear the conversation but not act like I was eavesdropping.
“See?” The brunette speaking waved her hands around, the bangles on her wrists clanging in jarring disharmony. “He’s only saying what a lot of them feel.”
Them. So obviously she and her blond friend were evos of some kind. I could usually spot power, but I hadn’t paid too much attention to these two. Which was interesting in itself. I’m a low-level finder with a freaky ability to morph into a mouse and a hawk. And a fox, I reminded myself, because even one time counted. But my biggest power, to my way of thinking, was an ability to recognize power.
That I’d overlooked these two hinted at the women’s abilities. I’d bet on witch or a very strong mindmage for the brunette. The way the blond moved with such fluidity hinted at an animalistic nature. As I thought it, something shimmered inside me, and I knew I’d been right.
Yes, a witch and her familiar. They fit.
The blond shook her head. “Amelia, they’re not all a bunch of bigoted haters.” She’d raised her voice, but the man at the register ignored her.
Lobo took his money with a grunt. The man left. Lobo turned back to wiping down counters. Only the witch, her familiar, and a set of handsome twenty-something twins remained with Lobo and me.
“They pretty much are,” one of the twins cut in. “If up to them, we’ll be interred in camps or shot on sight.” Identical to his brother, he had dark hair and eyes dominated by the white of his sclera, no visible pupil or iris. The lack of color in his eyes made him an elemental of some kind. He also had a light brown tan, a rangy build, big hands, and a smile that could knock a girl dead from twenty paces.
I doubted anyone but a family member could tell the twins apart…until you looked closer at them. Glints of red in the speaker’s eyes came and went. A fire elemental.
“You’re way off base, Kyle.” This brother’s eyes had glints of blue, marking him a water elemental. “Citizens aren’t that bad.”
“Not here, but step outside our little town and you’ll see a pretty hostile world out there.” Amelia nodded. “Lyle, your brother’s right.”
Kyle and Lyle, twins of fire and water. A nice balance.
Amelia finished with, “We need to start protecting ourselves.”
Lyle disagreed. “I’m sorry, Amelia, but that kind of insular thinking is what’s spurring this ridiculous notion by the federal government to regulate us.”
Kyle snorted. “They’re already trying, by way of regulating people’s religious affiliations. It goes against every principle this country was founded on, but with the integration of religion and government, the traditionalists just might get the vote to quarantine evos. They’ll pray to the right god and get ‘deified permission’ to kill us all. It’s happened in the past.”
“Way in the past, nearly two hundred years ago.” The blond familiar huffed. “Quarantine. Yeah right. We’re not contagious.”
Even Lobo scoffed at that.
“No, We’re worse.” Amelia sighed.