1
I stepped out of the back room of my apartment, wiping a bead of sweat off of my forehead as I nodded to the small pixie who followed me. Her wings were bandaged, taped up against her body, and she smiled widely at me. She bore other injuries as well, including a small laceration on her forehead, but that would heal on its own without much involvement on my part. I didn’t want to do much in the way of healing magic, knowing that if I were to try anything more aggressive than simple traditional medicine, it would lead to unwanted consequences.
“Now, remember,” I said, pausing near the kitchen and handing her the glass of water that Lilah lined up for me on the counter, “you need to leave the dressing on for the next couple of weeks. Don’t try to use your wings until they are fully healed.”
“Why does it take so long to heal?” Sadie asked. She was a younger pixie, and had just taken to leaving her home. Unfortunately, she’d gotten caught in a tree and twisted, fracturing one of her wings. Such repairs were generally straightforward, though, and I had enough experience with of them to offer her some help. I wouldn’t have wanted to leave her tormented in any way.
“To be honest, I don’t really know. Most magical creatures heal fairly quickly, which is why it’s only going to take you a couple of weeks—a human would take a month or two to heal a broken bone. Other pixies I’ve healed have taken about that long. You might find that your wings are a bit sore when you first start using them, so get back at it carefully.”
“Thank you, Leo.” She grinned at me. She had a pointed chin and long eyelashes, which she fluttered at me. “Are you sure that you won’t take any payment?”
“Just leave whatever you think is appropriate,” I said.
She reached into her pocket and handed me a flower. “This is all I really have. I grabbed it on my flight. It’s what’s called a Maidenhood flower. They’re pretty rare.”
I took the flower from her, holding it carefully. I had no idea whether it was anything magical or not, but given that she had gathered it during her flight, I had to always be prepared for the possibility that there was something dangerous about the flower. I knew better than to risk a dangerous flower.
“Thanks.” I patted her on the good shoulder and pointed to the door.
“You don’t get much of a break,” Lilah said. Her blue hair caught the light in a way that made the colors seem deeper, and somehow masked the occasional colorless streaks within it. “While you were in with Sadie, we had a couple more come in.” From the line of plastic cups she’d been filling at the counter, I figured we had at least five more people to work with. It was going to be a busy night.
My offices were open every night, though most the time, I didn’t have it so busy as to be overwhelmed. These days, I had started to get more of a name in the magical community, partly because I was bound now to several fairies, along with Lilith, Queen of the Damned. Somehow, that had made me more appealing, not less. I would’ve expected that people would be a bit concerned that I was somehow bound to a vampire, though for the most part, they didn’t seem to care.
“Why are they still coming?” I asked, looking into the living room. There were now four other people sitting on my sofa. One was a goblin, though not Mumbles, so I had to wonder what he might be after. Another was an older elf, with graying hair and glasses visible off to the side of his head. The third was seemingly a human, though that wasn’t likely. Maybe a witch or a wizard? The last was a leprechaun. I’d worked with a leprechaun once before, and I couldn’t imagine that there were all that many in Minneapolis.
“You have a reputation now,” Lilah said. She looked past me to where Mumbles sat at the kitchen table. “And you can probably blame him a little bit.”
“What did you do?” I asked Mumbles. He wore an eyepatch, and though I knew that the glass eye beneath the patch worked, he tried to pretend it didn’t. I’d seen him playing with the eye, and I half expected him to flick it at me, just to taunt me.
“I didn’t do anything,” Mumbles grumbled. The other goblin didn’t look at him. Mumbles’s greenish skin clashed with the deep purple shirt he wore, though it matched Lilah’s eyes, making me think she’d dressed him. “I’d rather not have anybody here. I can’t watch my shows.”
“You can watch them.” Lilah looked up at me. “I gave him a tablet to watch them on. He got so upset when you started getting more patients over the last few weeks that I grabbed one.”
“You grabbed one?” I asked, arching a brow.
“I didn’t steal anything, if that’s what you’re getting at,” she said, handing me a glass of water.
I took a long drink, breathing out and relaxing. Normally, I would love a beer at this time of night, but these days, I just didn’t feel comfortable having very much alcohol at all. Mumbles, unfortunately, agreed with that decision, which made it even more unpleasant to me.
“I bought it,” she explained.
“You bought something?” I asked.
“I have ways of buying things. Besides, it’s not like I was going to steal anything. I wouldn’t want to sully my reputation like that.”
“No,” Mumbles grumbled. “You have other ways of sullying your reputation.”
She walked past him and scratched at his chin. “Who should we start with next?”
“Who needs the most attention?” I asked.
“I don’t think anybody really needs attention,” Lilah said, leaning in conspiratorially. “Most of them have little bumps or scrapes. I think they just want to come because they’ve heard about you.”
I frowned. “Really? Why would that make such a difference?”
“It’s more about your growing reputation. They think that maybe you can help them heal things more quickly than they would otherwise.”
People in the magical community—and by that, I meant creatures in the magical community—didn’t always need my services. For the most part, they would heal rapidly on their own, and they wouldn’t need much in the way of augmentation. Still, there were certain creatures that benefited from having a warlock like myself work with them, ways that they could recover that they wouldn’t otherwise. I had taken to working with as many people as possible, offering my services as often as I could, trying to heal some, but there were others who required a bit more of a magical touch. As much as I tried to avoid using magic to heal people, not wanting to steal too much luck from them, there were times it was simply necessary.
“Send in the next one,” I said.
I headed back to the office. Wide boards hung on the walls, and panels of plywood still covered the window where the Order of No had blasted flames in. I could feel the magical layer hanging over the wall, the protections that Moses and I had placed in order to ensure that we didn’t get attacked by some other magical creature easily again. My makeshift bed had been destroyed in that last attack, and I’d replaced it with another massage table for examinations. It wasn’t always necessary, but it did give me an air of respectability. At least, I liked to think that it did. My cupboards had remained intact after the fire, and thankfully, I’d been able to restock all of my supplies. What I couldn’t source locally, I ordered from international markets. I liked to keep a general supply of medicines on hand, and given that I didn’t have a legal medical license in the state of Minnesota, I had to source much of them from Mexico or other questionable locales.