He felt the Skype interview this morning had gone well. And hoped to hear back within a few days for another in-person interview. He’d doctored his résumé as best he could, leaving out the parts where he did spin for a group that slayed vampires and, in turn, spinning his skills to show that he worked with the local news outlets and reported on current events that could impact the residents. Spin was making the unordinary sound ordinary. Vampires? Get real! It’s just a bunch of satanic idiots.
And while the accounting firm employed number crunchers, someone in the human resources department didn’t require such skills. So he was safe there. And he could make nice with humans and paranormals alike. Changing a man’s mind after he’d witnessed a werewolf tromping through his gardenias in the backyard? Not a problem. Did he know that gardenias gave off an intoxicating scent that was actually studied and determined could alter a person’s thoughts and give them illusions? No? Well, it was true.
Fake science worked every time.
Tor took pride in what he did. Every single thing he did. He pushed aside the growing pile of orange carrot cubes and eyed the bag of celery.
Everything.
Half an hour later, he set down the knife after a round of near-tears with the onions.
Mel bounded into the kitchen and set the container with the heart on the counter. When she eyed Tor’s work, her jaw dropped.
Behind her, Bruce floated over to levitate above her shoulder. The reptile croaked in the most judgmental enunciation Tor had ever heard.
“That’s a lot of vegetables,” Melissande declared at the sight of the piles that Tor had heaped onto the countertop on a piece of waxed paper. She noted the empty plastic bags that the carrots and celery had been in. “You chopped them all.”
“You didn’t say not to.”
“True. And...” She bent to study the meticulously chopped bits of orange, green and white. All remarkably uniform. “Did you use a ruler?”
“I have very good spatial awareness. I like things in order.”
“I guess you do, Monsieur OCD. It looks like a machine did this.”
“Thank you.”
Mel didn’t really care what she was going to do with a shit ton of veggies all chopped into perfect half-inch squares. This was too wonderful. The man was a marvelous freak. And she could fall in love with him right now if he wasn’t holding the cutting knife like he intended to defend himself against her.
“You trying to decide whether or not to stab me with that thing?” she asked carefully.
“Huh?” Tor noted the knife he held, blade facing outward and arm pulled back as if to stab. He quickly set it on the cutting board. “Sorry. Force of habit.”
“Right.” She pulled a big soup pan out of the cupboard, and with a swish of her fingers, she swept a third of the vegetables into the pot. “Thanks to you, I’ll have mirepoix for weeks! I should invite you over more often.”
“Always happy to help. What sort of soup are you making?”
“Whatever strikes my fancy. I’ll get the veggies simmering then toss in whatever is on hand. I’ve some gnocchi and chicken stock. Toss in some spices and spinach and there you go.”
The man straightened his tie, watching as she went about the motions of adding oil to the pot along with the veggies and a good helping of butter, because life wasn’t worth living without lots of butter. She and her family bought all their dairy products from a witch who lived an hour outside Paris. She milked her cows by hand and churned butter and made her own cheese. It was heavenly.
Meanwhile, she handed Tor a couple of plastic freezer bags. “Hold those open for me, will you?” He did so, and she again swept the chopped veggies into the containers with but a few magical gestures.
“Handy,” he said, sealing the lockable bags.
“It’s just...me,” she decided. “Kinetic magic. Never known any other way of life. We witches got it going on.”
“I’ll say. Makes normal look so...”
“Normal?” She leaned a hip against the stove. “How long have you been in the know with us paranormals?”
“Most of my life. Like you, I haven’t known much different. But I feel like it can be better away from all this...supernatural insanity. It’s hard to explain. It’s something I need to do.”
Unconvinced, Mel shrugged. “I’ll have you know I’m the normal one in my family.”
Tor’s eyebrow lifted in question.
“It’s all about perspective. Family full of dark witches? Then there’s little ole sparkly me.” She winked at him, knowing her purple glitter eye shadow caught the sunlight. “Do you know what it’s like to be the odd witch out?”
“I actually do. Which, again, is reason for me to want to pursue this job.”
“I suppose I can understand that. You need to see if the grass is greener. Trust me. It’s not.” She turned and stirred the pot. “Too bad for us paranormals. Not having you to have our backs.”
“Someone else will take up the reins.”
“How will that happen? How did you take up the reins?”
“Monsieur Jacques taught me after I moved to Paris. Well, uh...hmm...it’s not important.”
He hadn’t thought about passing along his knowledge to anyone? Mel felt sure he hadn’t thought through the whole idea of normal either. But who was she to overexplain something the man had to learn for himself?
“Did you get the heart cloaked?” Tor asked.
“Yep.”
He bent to study the container she’d set at the edge of the counter, cracking open the lid to peer inside. “It looks...like a real heart. Wasn’t it more glassy when you first showed it to me?”
“It was. And it’s not glowing as much either.” She seasoned the ingredients with pepper and her favorite smoked black sea salt. “But it doesn’t smell, so I think I’m okay.”
“That’s your determination of an efficacious cloaking?”
She shrugged. “Doesn’t it work for you?”
“Well—okay, I can agree with you on that one. Not like I know much about hearts left over from long-dead witches. What, exactly, is this spell you plan to invoke on the night of the full moon?”
“The full blood moon,” she said.
“Really? Ominous.”
“Right? There’s a lunar eclipse on the night of the full moon, which will make it appear reddish-orange. The blood moon portends the closing of struggles and new beginnings. Couldn’t be more perfect timing for such a spell, if you ask me.”
Placing the bamboo spoon across the top of the pot to keep the brew from boiling over, Mel turned her back to the stove to face Tor. The setting sun beamed through the front window in a cozy orange glow and backlit him in the most delicious manner. He looked less uptight this evening. More amiable. And she still wanted to run her fingers through his hair.
It was easy enough for her to reveal a few things to him. As a means to gaining his trust. Because he still wasn’t completely on board with her beyond this merely being a job she would pay him for.
“My mother needs protection,” she started, then cautioned herself from saying from a ghost. The man didn’t do ghosts? What did that mean, exactly? “And since she’s only recently died—again—my dad is busy getting her back up to speed with life, so I offered to do the spell and take that worry off his hands.”
Tor put up a palm to stop her. “So many questions.”
