Magic, Dragons And Hairballs Who: Shimmer/James. Where: Curiosities, Las Vegas. What: Shimmer makes a profitable suggestion.
Deliveries had been made, sights had been seen, songs had been sung… Now came the down-time.
Technically, Shimmer’s services had been procured as a third party, though she seemed to regard herself as a part of the team, such as it was. At least, in terms of somewhere to go and haunt. She could be relied upon to keep an eye on things, if need be and, somehow, managed to get passers by involved in peculiar improvised games with a moral about energy flows, karmic repercussions or how to teach little kids to levitate.
Today, she had herself a copy of a large newspaper, which, due to her not being the tallest soul in Nevada, was bigger than her entire torso.
“Sooo…”
The would-be sentence trailed off and Shimmer turned the page, noisily rustling the paper as she did so.
“Sooooooo…”
And she cleared her throat, sounding like a gruff-voiced Victorian gentleman who had smoked a pipe one too many times.
“Sooooooooooo… How ‘bout that them stock market shares, huh? Goin’ up, I see,” spoke the helpful-minded nymph, addressing one James Hutchins. Shimmers eyes looked gingerly over the top of her paper, checking he was listening, then dived immediately back down. “Yep-yep-yep… Lotsa’ people makin’ money… Through financially successful ventures. They got graphs and pie charts and all sorts, like a proper scientifical thing, it is. Yep-yep-yep-yep...”
Clicking her tongue, Shimmer loudly turned another page of her newspaper and chose a strategic moment to make a gasp of surprise.
“Why, look at this! Here’s, like, a manager of a company who listened to an idea and now he’s making crazy money, man! Like, fives, tens… He can just throw ‘em out the window of his big, bad car as he’s rumblin’ on by! And he can afford said vehicle on account of being so rich! Imagine that, huh?”
James watched her performance over a container of takeout food from Siam Square. He was sitting in one of the comfortable green lounge chairs away from the counter, ankles crossed, boots resting on a table next to a statue of Boreas, the purple-winged god of the North wind. “Do I look like a guy who wants a nicer car?” he asked after swallowing a mouthful of chicken pad Thai. “You can do better than that.” He smiled and opened his mouth for the next bite.
He wondered how many pop culture cliches Shimmer would dole out before she got to her point. It was weirdly endearing. Also unnecessary, considering it was Shimmer’s idea that they start doing delivery orders and that worked out pretty well. Even if she had a self-serving interest in it, Shimmer had an entrepreneurial mind and he’d hear her out.
Briefly, he also wondered if she’d found the crystal balls in the closet yet. After the party at Derek’s house, he and Celeste hid them. Maybe Shimmer was limiting herself to balls filled with electrical currents, and maybe not. It was a shame Izzy wasn’t around to see that display.
She could do better? Shimmer was in with a chance! And eyes quickly darted between James and the paper, retreating back under it like a submarine on an attack course.
Load tubes one and two…
“Why limit yourself to a car? You could get some, um… Some of that expensive German lederhosen for Celeste, huh? One of those sexy feathered caps and leather breeches, yeah! Mmm-mm-mm! That would be one successful courtship ritual ensemble! See, it’s continental, so, it’s cultured,” she confided, stage-whispering with a hand cupping her mouth. “But how could you possibly afford to enrich your life thusly?”
Seizing the opportunity, Shimmer made to turn her newspaper, shaking it, none too subtly, until a hand-drawn poster fell out the bottom.
“Gosh, what could that possibly be? Hmm, I wonder…” Smoothly retrieving it, James’ courier affected a gasp and held it aloft for him to see. “Why, it’s a gold-plated money-making business opportunity, Mister Hutchins, Sir!”
It was mightily colourful. Stick figures in capes, wizard hats and fairy wings were marching into a depiction of Curiosities with happily smiling faces. It somewhat looked like cult members entering a tower of doom, on account of the thunderbolts, but the sentiment was there.
“Role-playing games, James! People pay to go places, dress up and hit each other with sticks! E-e-e-e-except, if you let me use this place out as a venue for a boardgame, they’d be potential customers! Do you know how much it costs to put together a decent costume?! And they’d see all your actual occult whozits for sale! It’d be like… Memorabilia! But real!”
“Role-playing games.” James shook his head. That was not where he predicted this conversation going. He set the plastic container on the floor and picked up a bottle of water. “When you told me this place had power and we ought to let people use it, I thought you meant practitioners. Not dungeon masters.” Here he’d been thinking Shimmer was a do-gooder. James took a sip of water. “Where are you thinking they’d play?” He asked. “Upstairs? One girl walks out of here wearing an Amulet of Artemis, and the next thing you know, her boyfriend’s a deer getting eaten by the family dog.”
James ran a thumb over the sticker on his hydroflask.
“Hey, I still think that! Figured you’d sort that out by yourself. I mean, you want to give me shares or something, I’ll totally get in on that,” Shimmer suggested, making a faux casual shrugging of shoulders, trying to disguise the desirability of such a thought.
Yeah… Holding him to account as a one-person board of shareholders. Talking truth to power! Waiting until the weekly meeting and showing him incriminating evidence of his nefarious activities at the dog track! Then inviting Robocop in, so he could stab a computer and prove it all! She could do that!
But first things first.
“But, James, see, I like that. Upstairs would be good. This is why you’re the shop-keeper. You’ve got that business acumen,” Shimmer praised, tapping the side of her head. “I could plug in a stereo and we could have spooky-time music! And I found this old projector. I can get coloured tissue paper and make it flutter up by the lens, so everything looks like a flashback dream in disco style!”
A thought occurred and Shimmer gave one of her happy little smiling gasps of inspiration.
“Hey! Remember that big cardboard dragon you used for the Black Friday sale? Can we use that?! I could tape a lighter to a hairspray can and make it breathe fire!”
“No!” James said, laughing. “They are absolutely not going up upstairs.” He could be open-minded about magic users getting access to materials, but there was a line and this was it. The books and tools they kept in the loft of the shop were off the main sales floor for a reason. James got up to put his leftovers in a minifridge. “Wait. What cardboard dragon?” He gazed at her over his shoulder as he made his way to the small appliance. The pad thai went in next to a jar of an unnervingly red liquid.
Was that a Sam thing or had a decoration randomly appeared in his shop? The problem with having a space cramped with dusty inventory was noticing quickly when someone was out of place. “I don’t even know anyone who plays. What’s the point of role-playing when we live surrounded by the real deal?” James picked up her stick figure flyer.
“You didn’t put it there? I thought you used a spell to animate it. It was beckoning people with a talon. Darnedest thing… Never did see those people after that.”
Not lingering enough to dwell on it, Shimmer’s more immediate concern meant she immediately brightened up and swept a hand across the poster, magician assistant-style. “That’s what I’m saying,” she enthused with an inspired waggling of fingers, all around. “This place! It’s the perfect venue! I’ve been snapping up interest, all over town, for, like, a month! I already found the people. It’s like we’re in that baseball movie: If you build it, they will come. Except it’s already built and they don’t know where to show up. All you’ve got to do is say the word!”
James ran a hand over his short beard, torn between letting her try it and destroying her dreams. Chaos seemed to tag along with the brunette. When he was younger, he used to worry about all the harm he could do with his hands. If he kept them to himself and didn’t work any spells, he was fine, but there was no tamping down Shimmer’s magic because she was magic. “Fuck it. Yes. I guess.” James shook his head at himself. If there was a button on a wall that said ‘do not push’, he would push it twice for good measure. “But don’t tell Sam!” he advised of the older man, who was back to working in the shop part-time. “He won’t be upset, he’ll want to join you.”
“But… Oh, because you want the honour! I getcha’,” Shimmer observed, finger gunning at her client. “Sure, invite him over! You can make it a date night with Celeste, too - it’ll be like a family thing! Want to get hitched, too? Metaphysically speaking, I can officiate matrimonial duties in over 23 dimensions? Just bring along the rings, a couple of urine samples and we’d be good to go!”
Yay! This was looking good! All she had to do was tell Umbrella Girl and the rest, then she could convince James to do it again and again and again. It would gather momentum. And make money… Definitely money.
“Any thoughts about a costume? You could play a pretend wizard, instead of a real one! Or how about a Slather-Beast? You’re gonna’ have to hawk up a ton of saliva if you want to be in character for that, though. Like… Kkkkk! Kkkkkk…!”
She kind of looked like a cat trying to regurgitate a hairball.
The whole spiel about a costume that was not going to happen was set aside for a moment as James got stuck on something else. “I think I’ll pass on the wizard suit,” he said, “But you did give me an idea for Valentine’s Day. I was going to suggest we get dressed up and go out, but now I think you’re right. Matrimony is the way to go... We can do the handfasting and jump a broomstick, but why stop there? I could spice it up with an abduction and a ritual bloodletting. And don’t worry, we’ll still collect the urine.”
James pretended to look around for a container, then picked up his forty ounce hydro flask. “Would this be enough, or do you need more?”
“Alriiiiight! I can go put on those big chains with the-”
Shimmer twigged, mid-leap off the counter, that something was up. Pausing, she narrowed eyes. Look from James to the flask, from the flask to James. Over and over, again, the mental wheels were turning.
“I want to say…” Eyebrow liiiiift. “Yes?”
Oh!
“You-you-you tricked me, again, mortal! You tricked me!”
James raised his palms in self-defense. “Alright, alright. You got me.” He grinned and put some distance between himself and Shimmer. “No need to get the bear spray…” The magic user collapsed in his comfortable chair. “I wasn’t joking about the game, though. You can try it.” He wondered if Shimmer would tell Celeste about this and how much of it would come out the way he remembered it. “Hey, do me a favor. Would you mind drawing that cardboard dragon before you head out later? We can’t have bargain hunters being lured to their deaths.”
Pleased with herself for defeating the trickster activity, Shimmer puffed up with pride, making a ‘go-to’ action with an arm and swivelling on heels - before swivelling right back. “Of course!” Then proceeded, tongue visible out of the one corner of her mouth, to draw the image of a black dragon in Chinese serpentine-style. Its grin at the viewer was almost perverse, beckoning any onlookers forth.
“Therrrrre y’go, Mister Hutchins-Henry,” she spoke, offering it forth. A big, happy smile was emblazoned across her face, like a you-can-do-it gesture in facial form. “Oop! And speaking of nuptials…” She was starting to move towards the door, gathering up her newspaper. “I believe the Big V is comin’ up? I’m kind of fuzzy on the origins, but I believe it’s a thing for human relationships. You want me to whip something romantic up for you and the Missus, you just say the word, OK? Huh? Huh…? Yeah, I’ll do you a good one! Flower petals? Sex pheremones? Bigfoot orgy? I can do it all! Think about it!”
“Will do.” James picked up a book he’d been perusing before eating. He could hear the sound of his father’s car door shutting outside as he came back from an errand. “And, hey, I think it’s Henry-Hutchins.”