1
“If you would just learn to say no, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”
Garlick the cat strutted ahead as Daffi, Daffodil McGee to those not her friends, negotiated the busy rush-hour streets with a loaded tote bag and a coffee. Negotiated was a very loose term. Currently, most of the negotiation could be considered hostile, and Daffi was definitely on the losing side.
“Sorry... so sorry... if I could just squeeze through that g... Oh, I do beg your pardon. No, please, after you...”
She finally emerged from the mass just in front of the entrance to the tube station to find Garlick, her familiar, sitting and waiting for her. If he’d been human, he would have been tapping his fingers on his arms.
“You cannot blame me for rush hour traffic,” she told him as they descended into the bowels of the earth, otherwise known as the tube network.
Even though the day hadn’t yet heated up, the wash of pungent, sticky air from below was enough to make her start sweating in sympathy. It never truly got cold down here, the heat actually increasing as the two descended. Garlick’s tail waved like a banner above him. The normals whittered about braking waste heat from the trains and the mass of people who used it every day. Personally, Daffi thought it had more to do with the dragons. But whatevs. Norms never saw what was right in front of their noses, with or without magic, so she wasn’t surprised they hadn’t noticed the nesting beasties in the abandoned side tunnels. Probably thought they’d stumbled across some kind of subterranean weather balloon storage.
“I can blame you for being out half the night because you just ‘couldn’t say no’ to Daisy Bannerton,” the cat retorted smartly, flicking her a look over his shoulder as he somehow managed to navigate a path through the throng of office workers, students, and tourists. Quickly she tucked in behind him as they crowded onto the escalator down.
Rush hour was the worst time to travel in London, but she had no choice. She’d already been late for her job at the Unnatural History Museum twice this month and her boss, Ms. Whipsnide? Well, Daffi was sure the woman slept with a clock and a staff agenda. Probably a stick up her ass too.
A commuter in a smart suit almost trod on Garlick, but a deep, dangerous growl made the man look around quickly and skitter away, his gaze sliding over the pair of them. Norms didn’t see witches and their familiars. Not unless they wanted to be seen anyway. And even for a witch’s familiar, Garlick was unusual.
He claimed to be demon-possessed. She thought he was making it up so he could call himself Lord Mephistopheles of the third circle. When he’d first been assigned to her, all fat kitten belly and big paws, he’d insisted she call him “his lordship.” She’d booped him on the nose and fed him treats instead.
“Don’t scare the norms,” she hissed as they followed the crush down onto the platform. The museum was five stops down the line. “Remember the last time? They shut three tube stations because they thought there was an escaped panther from the zoo.”
Garlick flicked an ear, unconcerned. “Not my fault stupid humans can’t tell the difference between a domestic cat and a feline of the larger classes.”
“You were six feet at the shoulder!” Daffi hissed, just as she collided with a commuter.
It was like slamming into a brick wall as her hand closed around her coffee mug. Made of the thinnest paper possible before either burning her fingers to the bone from the lava-heat of the fluid within or simply disintegrating, it didn’t have the structural integrity to stand up to a claw-like grip. The lid popped off, shooting up into the air, and was eagerly followed by her triple expresso shot, mocha-choco-latte.
Which then ended up decorating the front of Mr. Big City’s very expensive looking suit.
“Oh my goddess, I am so, so sorry!” she stammered as he turned and fixed her with an irritated glare. Mostly norms couldn’t see a witch, unless of course, said witch threw hot coffee all over them. Her hand waved ineffectually at the brown mess all down the front of his suit and dribbling down his leg. “You’re soaked… I am really sorry!”
“Good job it wasn’t the back,” Garlick muttered. “If he’d taken off his jacket, it would’a looked like he’d sh—”
She trod on the cat’s tail to shut him up.
“You clumsy oaf!” Mr. Big City hissed, yanking a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbing at the stain. It resisted all attempts at cleanup. Instead, it merrily smeared itself around some more.
“Do you know how expensive this suit was?” he demanded, his handkerchief sopping wet now.
“It’s rags now. I wouldn’t give two hairballs for it.”
She ignored the cat in favor of offering a very apologetic smile. She was clumsy. She knew that. She always had been. When her sisters, all lithe and graceful compared to her short, dumpy form, had been the apple of the teacher’s eye at ballet, she’d barely mastered the basic movements. Anything more complicated and let’s just say… Swan lake had more drowning victims than a tsunami. She’d been banned from the end-of-year show. And every show. Ever.
“No.” She winced, biting her lip. “I’m sorry. It looks very expensive.”
Casting a quick look around, she wriggled her fingers unobtrusively and muttered quickly under her breath.
“Maiden, mother and crone, hear my plea,
Cleanse and clean, I think you’ll agree,
Is best to bring this suit back to its former glory,
And bring an end to this sorry story.”
White sparkles, the color of her magic, flew from the ends of her fingers and wrapped around the commuter, still dabbing at himself in irritation.
“This will need proper cleaning, and I don’t have time to go home. I have a big meeting at eleven and I’m going to need to order out for a new suit because of this…”
He blinked as the stain on his jacket grew smaller with each swipe of the now-clean handkerchief before disappearing altogether. “Oh… perhaps it wasn’t so bad after all.”
“See? You can barely see it.” She smiled. Norms rarely saw what was right in front of their noses, especially if it didn’t fit with their rigid view of the world.
Daffi waved her hand again.
“Maiden, mother and crone, aid me here,
his memory of coffee and me clear,
And set him on his merry way,
No thoughts to let him stray…”
“I could have sworn…” He looked confused and then glanced down at his watch. “Shit. Gonna be late.”
He turned and disappeared into the crowds, pushing his way toward the train just arriving without a backward glance. It was a norm one, and the crowds on the platform surged forward as all the suited and booted office-y peeps tried to get on at once. Now clean of coffee, Mr. Big City collided with another suit as they both tried to get through the gap at the same time.
Garlick hopped up onto her shoulder. “I wonder if they’re like walruses… they should drop it like it’s hot and fight for dominance right there.”
“You’re bloodthirsty,” she told him. “It’s a very distressing quality in a kitchen witch’s familiar, you know.”
“Pfft,” Garlick blew a raspberry in her ear.