Epic Badassery: An Urban Fantasy Triple Threat | Ebook

Ebooks are delivered instantly via a link in your confirmation email. (You will also receive the link by email from our delivery partner, BookFunnel.)

You can read the ebooks on any ereader (Amazon, Kobo, Nook), your tablet, phone, computer, and/or in the free Bookfunnel app.

There was nothing like sitting in a shitty car with a broken heater covertly filming a teenager for cash to make me question my life choices.

My target, Charlotte Rose Scott, had taffy blonde hair, big blue eyes, and a manic enthusiasm that made me want to slip her an Ambien.

Not that I’d waste one on a child.

Her can-do spirit was currently being applied to a bit of breaking and entering. The sixteen-year-old had tried every point of entry on the ground floor of this weathered Craftsman house that was thirty-two blocks and worlds away from her own home. She’d graduated from tugging on the windows’ security bars to wobbling her way up a bare trellis to the second-story balcony.

Good to know all those gymnastics and dance classes of hers had a practical application. It was so hard to make it in the arts, but crime was always a growth industry.

I slapped another memory card into my Handycam, absently rubbing my right thigh. I’d been sitting out here in the damp cold for too long, exacerbating the dull ache from the rods holding my femur together, so I grabbed the Costco-sized bottle of Tylenol that I’d tossed on the passenger seat and dry-swallowed a couple of pills.

She wrenched on the sliding door handle and I winced. Leave a few more fingerprints, why don’t you? If it wouldn’t completely compromise my case, I’d show her how to break in myself and put us both out of our misery.

I zoomed in, ready to capture C.R. living her best truth. Or better yet, get some answers. Come on, you little adolescent fiend. Why the uncharacteristic foray into robbery? You’d even blown off piano lessons for this and you thrived in your overscheduled teenage existence.

What was I missing?

Denied entry, she shimmied back down the trellis to run at the solid back door. When she bounced off it with a yelp, only one of us was surprised.

Spare me from amateurs.

I dug my buzzing phone out of my hip pocket. My best friend and part-time employee, Priya Khatri, had come through with the land title search on this property. I frowned at the text, trying to place the homeowner’s name. Oh, fuck balls. I wasn’t being paid to save Charlotte Rose from making a really stupid mistake.

This was not my problem.

Charlotte Rose rubbed her elbow, red from where she’d smacked into the door, and bit her lip, eyes watery.

Grumbling, I turned off the camera and got out of Moriarty, also known as my car, using both hands to swing my poor stiff leg onto the concrete. Tucking my fingers into the armpits of my battered leather jacket, my breath misting the air, I limped over to the tiny backyard of the crime spree in progress.

“Yo, Cat Burglar Barbie,” I called out. “The jig is up!”

She froze for a second and then vanished into thin air.

I blinked, gaping at the empty space. “Charlotte Rose Scott, you get your butt back here this second and explain yourself, because you are not supposed to have magic!”

I’d done my due diligence before taking this case. Verified that she was a Mundane. No powers. Zero. Nada.

Except, apparently, she wasn’t. And now, thanks to this unpleasant and unforeseen magical development, I was about to get royally fucked by House Pacifica.

Charlotte Rose flickered back into view, just a fist with her middle finger extended. I mean, impressive control on invisibility magic, but what a little shit.

“Leave her alone!” Another girl about the same age, who spoke with a light musical accent, raced into the backyard. Her worn denim jacket had “Fuck the patriarchy” written in thick silver marker across the back and her dyed black hair showed the ragged edges of someone who’d cut it herself.

Interesting choice for a co-conspirator.

When Victoria Scott had hired me to spy on her kid who’d been “acting cagey” and therefore obviously had some drug habit, she’d casually sported a linen dress that cost more than my much-needed car repairs. We’d spent a grand total of twenty minutes together, all of them in her vanilla-scented Williams Sonoma kitchen with its neatly shelved cookbooks—written by obscure foodies—whose spines weren’t even cracked.

I’d bet anything that this wrong-side-of-the-tracks friend was not part of Victoria’s bourgie starter-pack vision of the good life.

“Stand down,” I told the new girl. “And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll tell Charlotte Rose to show herself.”

The newcomer called up a gust of wind and flung it at me.

I flew backwards, stumbling over a plastic Adirondack chair, and cracked my skull on the corner of the house so hard that I saw stars. My leg buckled briefly as I bounced off the wooden siding and staggered forward, choking on a hot rush of bile. Gritting my teeth, I touched a finger to the back of my head and came away with a wet, red smear.

Awesome. A pissy air elemental. Just what my day needed.

I found the tiny box stashed in my jacket pocket and pushed its single button. It produced a high-frequency sound barely within hearing range that made the newbie double over and caused Charlotte Rose to become visible once more, clapping her hands over her ears and moaning in pain.

I braced a hand against the bricks to combat my own dizziness. This admittedly illegal sonic weapon should not have affected me this way because I’d built up a tolerance.

Why, hel-lo concussion. On the upside, however lackluster the case had been to solve intellectually, I had solved it so at least I’d get paid. With C.R.’s true nature revealed, billable hours took a back seat to getting this kid home safely before she ended up with a juvie record, so I powered through the nausea and slapped a pair of cuffs on these criminal toddlers before they could regroup.

I dialed a number on my phone.

“It’s Ashira Cohen,” I said, when Victoria answered. “Tell your daughter she has permission to get in my car.”

Victoria stuttered out protests that she had no idea who I was or what I was talking about, but I cut her off with an exasperated huff. Not this again. Everyone thought they were so clever denying they’d hired a P.I. when things got tough. It didn’t work that way.

“Enough bullshit. If you want help getting out of the mess you’ve landed in with your unregistered Nefesh kid, then give the all-clear for me to drive her home.”

Victoria answered with a meek “okay.” Damn straight, you better comply.

Nowadays, most people preferred to hire private investigators who had magic, wanting the extra abilities that Nefesh brought to the table. I was the only female P.I. in town, very much outside the boys’ club of this industry, and a Mundane to boot. I’d worked my ass off to carve out a niche for myself and Victoria wasn’t going to jeopardize that.

I passed the phone to Charlotte Rose, who listened to her mother without comment, glaring at me the entire time. I held that gaze and raised her glower with an arched eyebrow. Snotty teens were the worst. I’d know.

C.R. handed me the cell and linked hands with her friend, the two of them edging closer together.

“I have rights,” the second girl howled, shaking the cuffs as if trying to blow them off.

“Nope,” I said. “You lost them under Statute 7.5, ‘demonstrating exceeding stupidity.’ And save your energy. Those puppies suppress magic.”

“You’re not a cop,” she countered. “You’d have identified yourself. And if you had magic you’d have used it. That means, you’re not Nefesh and you’re not allowed to have shit like this. Or use it on me.”

It’s true, the cuffs were totally a “fell off the back of a van” purchase, but a woman did what she had to. Just because I wasn’t allowed to work magic cases, that didn’t preclude supposedly Mundane ones from going sideways—like this one had. “Yeah? How would you know?”

“Television,” the girl said. “So what are you?”

I flashed her my P.I. license. “A real-life detective who knows what equipment she’s allowed to have far better than you.”

Charlotte Rose puffed out her chest. “I won’t let her hurt you, Meryem.”

“Aw. That’s… deluded.” I herded the girls to Moriarty, trying not to limp too badly. Never show those monsters weakness. Weirdly, I could still smell blood, as if it was gushing out of me like a waterfall. It wasn’t even that bad, kind of earthy and rich. I touched the back of my head. There was some matted in my dark waves, but the bleeding itself had stopped.

Meryem refused to get into my fine vehicle, holding her wrist pointedly against her chest once I’d uncuffed her as though I’d caused permanent nerve damage. “You gonna kidnap me?”

What a drama queen. “Much as I hate to deprive myself of your stellar company, no.”

“Then I can get myself home.”

“Mer—” Charlotte Rose sighed. “Be safe, okay?” She leaned in and gave Meryem a quick kiss.

Meryem blushed, scraping one of her raggedy high tops along the ground.

Even I, with my cold, dead heart, found their coupledom adorable.

“Here.” I fished out what was pretty close to my last forty bucks.

“Fuck you. I’m not a charity case,” Meryem said.

Maybe not, but she was in a jean jacket and had to be freezing in the miserable March weather. No way she had a good home to go to, if any at all. However, she was also prickly and if I was too nice—generally not an accusation thrown my way—she’d bolt.

“Consider it compensation for pain and suffering.” I shoved the bills at her.

They disappeared so fast into her pocket that I made a note to get this girl some help.

“Thanks,” she said, her eyes flickering uncertainly up to mine.

“Get lost before I change my mind.”

She squeezed C.R.’s hand and bolted.

I fumbled at the door handle because there seemed to be two of them, then sank gratefully into the driver’s seat, taking a couple of steadying breaths before I leaned over to unlock the passenger door, knocking the Tylenol bottle onto the floor.

C.R. got into the car, keeping her distance.

Using the rag that I kept to defog the windshield since the heater didn’t work, I wiped myself down because my hair was sweatily plastered to my neck. I ignored Charlotte Rose’s grimace that came with huffy sound effects.

Once I was dry-ish and reality had stabilized enough to drive safely-ish, I patted Moriarty’s dashboard twice and turned the key, whispering, “Who’s a good boy?” and praying this wasn’t the moment he died on me once and for all. Not like he hadn’t faked his death more than once. But he started with only the mildest choke.

Neither C.R. nor I spoke for the first half of the ride.

“You going to out me?” she said.

I braked at a red light and glanced over at her. The world swung sideways and I gripped the steering wheel tight until my equilibrium was restored.

C.R.’s words were sneered but her pupils were slightly dilated.

I slowly faced forward so as not to jiggle my brain. “Contrary to popular belief and genetics, I have a moral compass. It’s up to you to tell your mom about Meryem. So, why invisibility magic?”

“Mom used to play this game where she’d pull the blanket up over my eyes and say, ‘Where’s Charlotte Rose?’ Apparently, I went nuts for it.”

Uh-huh. Cute answer but there was more to it than that. While Nefesh were born with magic, the precise nature of it developed during childhood and was rooted in psychological primal drives.

The light turned green and I hit the gas, wincing at Moriarty’s jerky start. “And the attempted robbery?”

“I wasn’t going to steal anything,” she said hotly.

I let the silence grow.

It took her all of two blocks to break.

“It was my birth mother’s place,” she said. “I wanted to see…”

“What Darleen’s life was like without you?”

Charlotte Rose shrugged, a mess of emotions playing across her face that she tried to hide under a sullen disinterest. Then it hit her. “You knew? Is that why you stopped me?”

I made a smooth left. “Figured you didn’t want your big reunion to be from juvie.”

She crossed her arms and stared straight ahead.

Thankfully, it was a short drive from there, because by the time we pulled up to her large Tudor home with its pricy S.U.V. parked in the driveway, my skin felt two sizes too small, and the world’s worst itch had settled between my shoulder blades, exactly where I couldn’t reach.

This time, I met Victoria in her living room, decorated with that faux rustic charm involving unpainted wood, a chunky stone fireplace wafting out the scent of pine, and cutesy large prints with sayings like “Laugh. Live. Breathe.” that made me want to “Gag. Run. Drink.”

Victoria greeted me in a purple bamboo yoga number that would have been very comfortable to move in, except I doubted she did classes in full makeup, her blonde-streaked hair twisted in a chignon and large diamonds flashing in her ears.

Inner peace through Tiffany’s. Namaste, bitches.

“Charlotte Rose,” Victoria said. “What’s going on?”

“You hired her to spy on me?” C.R.’s glower at her mom should have incinerated her.

“I hired her because I was concerned that my daughter was a drug addict!” Victoria planted her hands on her hips and the two of them broke into a furious squabble.

I whistled loudly, pain flaring inside my skull. Eyes half-squinted shut, I massaged my temples. I could patch myself up with some aspirin and a good night’s sleep. Nothing to fear. “Your mom was worried. Suspicious and over-paranoid but worried. Charlotte Rose is not on drugs. Fight it out later.”

Victoria sat down on the sofa next to her daughter. “Then why has she been behaving this way?”

She’d hired me to get answers and I had them, but this was a delicate situation. “She was curious about her birth mother. It’s natural and isn’t any reflection on you.”

Victoria plucked at her sleeve.

“Mom?” Charlotte Rose reached out for Victoria and I braced myself for her mother’s hurt dismissal, but Victoria surprised me and took her daughter’s hand.

“I wish you had come to me first but I understand. When we adopted you, Darleen made it clear that if you wanted to meet her, she was open to it, but we need to do this properly, okay?”

“Okay.”

Victoria smiled at me and stood up. “Thank you. If you’d care to send your invoice—”

“Sit. Down.”

She dropped like a stone onto the cushions.

I perched on the edge of a scratchy wing chair, hoping my casually braced elbow on the back didn’t look like the desperate support to remain upright that it was. “Victoria, I specifically asked you in our intake interview if you could think of any Nefesh connection that would prevent me from taking this assignment. I’m not legally allowed to handle cases involving magic.”

The law was asinine, supposedly “designed to protect Mundanes like me.” Right. Try more money in House coffers since all Nefesh paid taxes towards House resources and protection. But it was what it was and if House Pacifica found out, I’d be brutally fined, because they took this very seriously. I was already existing by the skin of my teeth. This would ruin me.

“Magic?” Victoria said, and flushed a faint pink.

I stared at her until her shoulders slumped.

“Her birth mother was from a good Mundane family and there was no father listed on her birth certificate,” Victoria said. “Nothing in the adoption showed that Charlotte Rose might be Nefesh through the birth father.”

“Yeah, I’m aware of that part, since I investigated it thoroughly. However, you knew about Charlotte Rose and you kept it from me.” I practically threw my arm out of its socket trying to get at the itch but it remained maddeningly out of reach. “Why me? You could have gone to a Nefesh P.I.”

“I didn’t want them to suspect. And you were cheaper,” she admitted.

Slight as my accomplishments were, and my mother had written a treatise on that, they were mine and I was super proud of them. Maybe I didn’t have the interesting cases—yet—but a woman had to start somewhere and I was pulling this off on my terms. I’d get there.

I gave up on the itch and my anger. Victoria was not worth committing grievous bodily harm and losing everything. But man, it was close.

“Here’s my advice,” I said, catching myself before I did a slow slide off the chair and onto my ass. Okay, maybe my condition was a bit worse than presumed. “Take Charlotte Rose to House Pacifica and point her baby blues at them. Squeeze out a tear or two for good measure while you throw yourself on their mercy. Mom, you didn’t know. Kid, you were scared to lose the love of your adoptive parents.”

Charlotte Rose bit her lip, exchanging a glance with her mother.

“Hit the mark there, did I?” I said. “Let me guess. Dad has a few beliefs in common with the Untainted Party?” That explained the invisibility magic.

“How’d you know?” Victoria squeaked.

“I’m well versed on those people. They’re a pretty popular political affiliation around here.”

“I can’t tell him.” Charlotte Rose looked genuinely scared.

I softened my tone. “You don’t have a choice. If you don’t do it by tomorrow, I’ll have to because all people with magic must be registered with the House in their region. A fact you damn well know. But since it’ll be worse if I’m involved…” Mainly, for me. “It’s in your best interests to keep me out of it and pile on the remorse.”

“This feels really unsavory,” Victoria said. “There has to be another way.”

My dad’s voice rang out loud and clear in my head. There are two types of people in this world, Ash, my girl. Those who are marks and those who aren’t.

It had only taken me one harsh lesson to swear I’d never make that mistake again. Victoria had tried to play me. Operative word being “tried.”

“There isn’t,” I said. “Your kid is currently a Rogue. Fix it.”

Charlotte Rose surged up like a fury of Greek myth. “I’m not registering with the House. They experiment on people.”

Her voice hurt my ears. It was too loud, too grating.

“While I’m happy to think the worst of Levi Montefiore and House Pacifica…” I dabbed at the sweat on my brow. “They aren’t running some mad scientist lab. They’re legit, annoyingly so, and believe me, it’s much worse to be on their bad side than on the same team.”

My words sounded funny, all long and drawn out. Fuck. I was going to have to brave a hospital. Warning Victoria again to contact House Pacifica and reminding her that late payment on my bill was subject to interest, I made my excuses and stumbled out to Moriarty, whose headlights seemed to smirk evilly at me.

The drive to the closest Emergency Room was a blur. I pulled up to the entrance, tossed my keys at the attitude-laden valet in the fireman costume who totally wasn’t getting a tip, lurched inside, and collapsed, unconscious.

Mornings after sucked.

Walks of shame were a necessary evil, but that didn’t mean I enjoyed shimmying back into the same trollop togs twice. I picked glitter out of my hair, then straightened my sequined top. I was officially decommissioning it. Multiple washings never quite managed to remove the lingering aura of bad decisions I made while wearing party clothes. My philosophy? Cross my fingers and hope for the most bang for the bucks spent on new outfits.

The surly cabbie evil-eyed me to hurry up.

I complied, rooting around in my clutch for some crumpled bills before handing them over and stumbling out of the taxi onto the sidewalk.

Fresh air was a godsend after the stale bitter coffee smell I’d been trapped with during the ride. I pressed a finger to my temple, a persistent dull throb stabbing me behind my eyeballs. My residual feel good haze clashed big-time with the glaring sun screaming at me to wake up, and the buzz of a neighbor’s lawnmower cutting through the Sunday morning quiet didn’t help matters. Best get inside.

Smoothing out my mini skirt, I readied myself for my tame-my-happy-slut-self-to-boring-PG-rating body check when a wave of dizziness crashed through me. Whoa. I brought my gaze back to horizon level, swallowing hard. That sea-sickness technique was doing dick-all, so I rummaged in my bag for ginger chews.

No puking in the bushes, I chided myself, letting the spicy smooth and sweet candy fight my nausea. My mother would toss my bubble ass out if I defiled her precious rhodos.

Again.

The rise and fall of my chest as I took a few deep breaths spotlit a slight problem. My spangly blouse was missing two buttons. And I was missing a bra. Hook-up Dude had been worth the loss of a pair of socks, maybe a bargain bin thong. But the latest in purple push-up technology? No. I allowed myself a second to mourn. It had been a good and loyal bra.

The sex, on the other hand? Total crap. The girls, who were normally perky, generous handfuls, seemed a bit subdued. I couldn’t blame them. What’s-his-name had started out with all the promise of a wild stallion gallop, but he’d ended up more of a gentle trot. I didn’t know if the fault lay with the jockey or the ride, but it had been a long time since I’d seen a finish line.

Since I couldn’t keep examining my tits on the front walk with Mrs. Jepson side-eyeing me from behind her living room curtains, I thrust my chin up and clacked a staccato rhythm toward my front door on those mini torture chambers that had seemed such a good idea yesterday.

Every step made our precisely manicured lawn undulate. I clamped my lips shut, willing the ginger chews to kick in while fumbling my key into the lock. Dad had screwed up the measurements on our striking cedar and stained glass front door and, being a touch too big for the frame, it needed to be shouldered open.

I crashed into the door like a linebacker. Once I’d extricated myself and my keys from the lock, I brushed myself off and stepped inside. Our house itself was comfortably upper middle class, but not huge, since my parents preferred to spend money on trips and books instead of the overpriced real estate found here in Vancouver. A quick glance to my left showed that the TV room was empty. I crossed my fingers that Mom and Dad were out at their squash game, my main reason for picking this specific time to sneak back in.

Really, a twenty-year-old shouldn’t have to sneak. But then again, a twenty-year-old probably should have kept her last menial job for longer than two weeks, so I wasn’t in a position to argue rights.

I kicked off my shoes, sighing in delight at the feel of cool tile under my bare feet as I padded through the house to our homey kitchen. No one was in there either. Someone, probably Mom, had tacked the envelope with my final–and only–pay stub from the call center that I’d left lying around onto our small “miscellaneous” cork board. The gleaming quartz counters were now free of their usual clutter of papers, books, and the latest gourmet food finds. That meant company. Come to think of it, I did hear someone in the living room.

A study in tasteful shades of white, the large formal room was off-limits unless we had special guests. Mom had set that rule when my twin brother Ari and I were little tornados running around the place and while there was no longer a baby gate barring our way, conditioning and several memorable scoldings kept us out.

Hmmm. Could Ari be entertaining an actual human boy?

I beelined for the back of the house, past the row of identically framed family photos hanging in a neat grid. I cocked my head, listening for more voices, but all was quiet. Maybe I’d been wrong? I hoped not. Both finding my brother with a crush–blackmail dirt–and helping myself to the liquor cabinet were positive prospects. What better way to lose that hangover headache than get drunk again? Oh, the joys of being Canadian with socialized health care and legal drinking age of nineteen. After a year (officially) honing that skill, I imbibed at an Olympic level.

The red wine on the modular coffee table gleamed in a shaft of sunlight like its position had been ordained by the gods. I snatched up the crystal decanter, sloshing the liquid into the glass conveniently placed next to it. Once in a while, a girl could actually catch a break.

I fanned myself with one hand. The myriad of lit candles seemed a bit much for Ari’s romantic encounter, but wine drinking trumped curiosity, so I chugged the booze back. My entire body cheered as the cloyingly sweet alcohol hit my system, though I hoped it wasn’t Manischewitz because hangovers on that were a bitch. I’d slugged back half the contents when I saw my mom on the far side of the room clutch her throat, eyes wide with horror. Not her usual, “you need an intervention” horror. No, her expression indicated I’d reached a whole new level of fuck-up.

“Nava Liron Katz,” she gasped in full name outrage.

My cheeks still bulging with wine, I properly scoped out the room. Mom? Check. Dad? Check. Ari? Check. Rabbi Abrams, here to perform the ceremony to induct my brother as the latest member in the Brotherhood of David, the chosen demon hunters?

Check.

I spit the wine back into what I now realized was a silver chalice and handed it to the elderly bearded rabbi. “Carry on,” I told him. Then I threw up on his shoes.

* * *

Forty-five minutes later, I huddled on top of the closed toilet seat in my ensuite bathroom sucking the cheesy coating off Doritos while replaying my actions in grisly Technicolor. Even with all the lights off, the room was as bright and insistent as Martha Stewart’s smile. A dusty Costco-sized sanitary pad box lay open on the counter–the hiding place for my secret stash of arterial clogging happiness.

Now, though, the chips were less illicit joy and more bite-sized snacks of self-loathing.

I stuck my hand into the bag for another nacho, careful not to crinkle it and give myself away. Hard to say what had been the highlight of that little disaster: drinking the ceremonial wine, vomiting, or the wardrobe malfunction that had released my left boob into the world and caused my dad to strain his back jumping in front of me to block the view.

Go me.

Someone rapped on the door. Chip in my mouth like a pacifier, I froze, listening to the raised voices from downstairs–the rabbi yelling, my mother cajoling, and my father reasoning. That left Ari, and right now I was too chickenshit to face him. How could saying sorry cover wrecking the most important moment of his life?

“I know you’re eating Doritos,” he called from outside the door. “Let me in.”

“Nope.” I swallowed down the now-mushy chip and gave a lusty groan. “I’m making a hate crime.”

“If that were true, you’d be running the water because you’re paranoid people will learn you have an anus.” He jiggled the knob. “Let me in.”

I glared at the tap, assigning blame to the inanimate object for failing to carry out its part of my brilliant plan. Dumping the bag down on the counter with a sigh, I washed orange nacho residue off my hands before I tightened the belt on the fuzzy housecoat now wrapped around me, and unlocked the door.

“I’m so, so sorry, Ari,” I said, hanging my head. My fraternal twin deserved all the success and more. Ari never treated me like I was “less than” in any way, not even once. “I know you have no reason to believe me but–”

“Shut up,” he said, brushing past me in his navy-fitted suit. Very bespoke, except for the tired slump of his shoulders.

He lowered himself down onto the edge of the bathtub, knocking one of the many bottles of citrusy shampoo into the tub. With one hand braced on the mosaic shower tiles for support, he removed his kippah, tossing it onto the counter where its gold-embroidered Star of David winked among the chaos of makeup and hair pins.

“Damn, that itches.” He scratched his blond head with a relieved sigh, then jerked his chin at the Doritos bag still in my hand. “You gonna share?”

I locked the door, returned to my throne seat, and held the chips out between us.

We sat there in companionable silence, munching through the party-sized bag.

“These are so disgusting,” Ari said, stuffing about ten of them in his mouth.

I reached over and brushed orange crumbs off his suit. “Careful, bubeleh. Wouldn’t want you to get dirty. Oh, if the elders knew that their healthy-eating chosen one was up here taking years off his life.”

“Eh,” he said, spraying chips. “I’d just blame you, o defiler of innocents.”

“Useful having an evil twin, isn’t it?” My tone was light; my stomach twisted.

He wiped his mouth. “Don’t give yourself that much credit. You’re not evil. Just misguided.”

I drew myself up to my full height. “That’s a terrible thing to say.”

We finished the bag, then elbowed each other for first rights of tap water. A quick sip later and I slid onto the brown cork floor, bloated and happy. Well, as happy as I could be.

“I don’t know how you’re not puking given you were still drunk an hour ago,” Ari said.

“These chips have magic properties. Plus, I got it all out of my system on the carpet.”

He shuddered. “Don’t remind me. I think Mom is angrier about that than your spectacular entrance. She was a fairly impressive mottled red when I left her.”

“Merlot or tomato?”

“Nava Red,” my brother replied. “A special shade named in honor of you.”

“Why were you doing the ritual anyway?” I snapped. “The induction is tomorrow. The sixth.”

“Or, today, the sixth.”

Shit! I hugged my knees into my chest. “Ari–”

He stood up, one hand raised to cut me off. “No. You really want to apologize? Take a shower and get dressed so that I have one person who wants to be at this ceremony for me. Not for status or whatever the hell I am to those people down there.”

“Ace,” I gasped, “isn’t this what you want?”

He affixed the kippah back on his head, staring at his reflection in the mirror above the sink for a long moment. “I’ve never had a chance to decide whether I wanted it or not. We were five days old when they determined I was an initiate. I didn’t get a vote.”

We’d both seen the photo of our parents’ stunned faces when a somewhat younger, yet still astonishingly ancient Rabbi Abrams had visited my mother–a descendent of King David–to check Ari out. Since the Brotherhood is top secret, my parents weren’t clued in to the true nature of the rabbi’s visit until after he’d determined Ari as an initiate: a chosen demon hunter. The photo in question had been taken after a lot of explanations and convincing that yes, this was all real, and yes, their son had a hell of an important destiny.

I went into my bedroom to grab some clean clothes to put on after my shower.

Back in the day, and by day I’m talking Old Testament, this shepherd called David took out the giant Goliath for King Saul. While that landed David his place in history, there was more to him than his crazy rock-slinging skills.

I don’t know if David was an adrenaline junkie or a major do-gooder, but when King Saul was later possessed by a demon, David was all “leave it to me,” and cast the hell spawn out. Guess David figured demon removal was a good public service to keep up, because once he became king around 1010 B.C.E., he gathered up his buddies to continue the work. Kick-ass Jews. Awesome.

Though it had never made sense why he called his hunters Rasha–the Hebrew word for “wicked.”

I tossed my clothes over the hook affixed to the back of the bathroom door. “Talk to me.”

My brother had spent his entire life studying and training in preparation for the day he was formally inducted into the Brotherhood. I cocked an eyebrow at Ari, annoyed when he shrugged off my question. “Don’t pretend you aren’t excited to see what magic power you’ll end up with.”

His eyes lit up for a second. “Telekinesis or light bender. Those would be cool.” He jerked a thumb at the shower and I obediently ran the tap, waiting for the water to hit blistering temperature.

“Slime generator or asphyxiation via lethal ass gas, more like.”

“Ha. Ha.” Ari gnawed on his bottom lip.

“You want out?” I cracked my knuckles. “You could totally take all three of them downstairs. I’ll help.”

He shrugged, the motion bunching the dark fabric around his muscles. “I don’t know what else I’d do. What else I’m good for.”

I poked his bicep. “Kill the pity party, Mr. Perfect GPA. I’m sure between your chem major and biology minor some giant pharmaceutical company somewhere will have a small fortune and loads of interesting problems for you to solve.” I wasn’t jealous. He and I didn’t roll that way. He may have been chosen and wicked smart, but the only thing that bugged me about him was that he had prettier lashes than me. It was always the boys with those camel eyes. So unfair.

I tested the water temperature, shaking droplets off my hand until satisfied with its magma level of hot, and pulled the knob up to send the water cascading full blast through the shower head.

Ari mussed my hair. “You’re gonna do something great some day, too,” he said. I smacked his hand off of my head. “You just need to find your thing.” He rushed that second sentence as if hoping I wouldn’t remember that I’d found my thing a long time ago and the chances of finding something else I loved as much were pretty slim.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” I pushed him toward the door. “Go keep them from cutting me out of the will. I’ll be there in ten. The picture of respectability.”

Ari snorted. “Don’t strain yourself. I’ll settle for clean.” He sniffed me, fanning in front of his face with a grimace. “Were you screwing in a dumpster again?”

“Frat house. Same, same.” I reached for the belt of my housecoat.

He unlocked the door, half-twisting back to me. “Would you care? If I didn’t do it?”

I paused, belt still tied. “God, no. The few Rasha I ever met were dick-swinging balls of testosterone. Though I’d hoped for your sake some of them were also dick-sucking. Like that smexy Brazilian they brought in last year to train you in Capoeira.”

He failed to appreciate my eyebrow waggle. “Why do I bother?”

King David had realized pretty early on that even if he rid Israel of demons, there was a reason they were part of every culture’s mythology. Demons were an international problem. Since Jerusalem was close to this trade route called the King’s Highway, David sent his band far and wide to find all the best specimens of manhood from various races and religions including Muslims, Egyptians, Zoroastrians, Phoenicians, Celts, and Thracians to fight the good fight. The Brotherhood was formed.

It was kind of cool to see how far-ranging those original bloodlines had traveled into present day. What wasn’t cool was how serious and stressed my brother was, so I smacked my lips, hell-bent on getting a smile. “Mmm. High quality Brazilian meat.”

Ari made a sound of disgust and whipped my loofah glove at me. I ducked, laughing, and it sailed into my shower. “What? You don’t want a boyfriend? It’s an all-male Brotherhood.” I eyed him up and down and shrugged. “Statistically speaking, someone in that crew would find you attractive. ”

His lips quirked, despite his best efforts to look stern. “I have no time for dating.”

“Me neither. But I have a whole bunch of sex instead. Something you, my dear older brother, could use. Regular doing of the nasty might loosen you up.”

“I’m loose,” he said, tightening his tie.

“Yeah.” I shoved him out the door. “A regular whore of Babylon. Now get outta here. I’ve got to pretty up.”

One thing I’d say in my favor, I was not one of those girls who took forever to get ready. I was showered and dressed in something practically Amish in the allotted ten minutes. I twisted my hair into a bun at the nape of my neck, and fresh faced, headed downstairs.

Time for my close up, Mr. Demille. Bowing my head, I shuffled into the living room.

“Forgive me, Rabbi.” I prostrated myself like a wedding guest begging the Godfather for a favor. “I was involved in a car accident on my way home,” I lied. I stood up again. “It’s why I needed a drink. I was so rattled.” I infused as much pathos into my voice as possible while blinking up at him. Tricky, since I was four inches taller, but not impossible. “I’m sure you’ve never had that problem.”

Men, whether straight, gay, holy, or otherwise, could be such suckers. The rabbi patted my hand in forgiveness, his touch papery dry. “You need to show more respect, Navela,” he said, using the Yiddish diminutive of my name.

I nodded, side-stepping around the wet-yet-once-more-spotlessly-clean former puke site on the white, short-velvet-pile carpet. “You’re so right. I should come to schul. Isn’t your son the Cantor at Park West Synagogue? Such a beautiful voice when he prays.”

A look of abject horror contorted the rabbi’s features at the terrifying prospect of me getting my hands on his precious son. Trust me, the guy was a middle-aged balding chub. I had zero designs on his person.

“Start small,” Rabbi Abrams said.

While the rabbi had mentored Ari his entire life, having served as a head demon-hunter coach, my contact with him had been limited. In addition to coordinating training and fight instructors, he also taught my brother everything from demon types to creating wards and learning the various aspects of the Brotherhood itself. Ari tended to get pretty vague on those details.

“Shana,” the rabbi called out to my mother. “Now that the entire family is here, we can start the ceremony again.”

My mother handed him the newly washed chalice. “Of course, Rabbi.” Mom watched him shuffle off to prepare something, trailing a faint smell of mothballs in his wake, then, patting her sleek honey-colored bob, stepped past me with a murmured, “Carnage and lies? A busy morning.”

Mom was a lot harder to fool. A whip-smart, tenured history professor at the University of British Columbia with an annoying tendency to recall events best forgotten, she was also a best-selling author of, big surprise, a tome on King David.

My dad, Dov, dark-haired like me, was a prof, too. Law. Oy vey. Everything was fact-gathering to build a case with him. Case in point, he walked stiffly into the room, courtesy of his recent back injury, all pleated pants and sweater vest, the usual mug of coffee welded to his hand.

I gagged at the smell.

“What’s this about a car accident? Was this in the taxi? Did you get the information from him and the other driver?” His questions were gunfire fast. “You’ll need it for the claim.”

Shit. I hadn’t prepared for questioning.

Ace to the rescue. My brother tugged on Dad’s sleeve, leading him to his recliner. “Sit. Rabbi wants to start the ceremony.” Out of the corner of his mouth he muttered, “You owe me big time.”

I gave him a sheepish grin and sat in the brushed twill armchair at the far end like a good little girl, stuffing my hands under my butt.

Rabbi Abrams motioned for Ari to come stand beside him. While the rabbi was the picture of reverence as he lit the first candle, my brother’s hand jiggled madly in his pocket.

I threw him a thumbs up. Ari was going to be great.

The rabbi lit the last of the dozen or so large pillar candles on thick glass bases placed in a circle around the living room. The soulless space with its white carpet, white furniture and, wait for it, black and white brocade wallpaper was softened by their glow.

The ceremony involved a lot of singing prayer or chanting or something in Hebrew. I’d pretty much spent my Hebrew school classes reading Sweet Valley High so I didn’t understand it, but I’d been to synagogue enough that the singing and ritualistic gestures were familiar. The rhythms and cadence of the language lulled me, even soothing my grating headache a bit.

The old guy didn’t have a bad voice, probably where his son got his talent, and the ceremony itself was kind of lovely. Even my cold, dead heart couldn’t fail to be moved by the reverence and history of this ceremony.

All male descendants of King David–or of any hunter–were tracked as potentials. The first ritual, performed when they were a baby, determined if they could be bumped up to initiate–one who carried the Rasha make-up, versus the regular Muggle descendants. It weeded out about 98% of the potentials. If level two status was unlocked, they were labeled initiates and slated for training. Their second and final ceremony, the official induction to the Brotherhood where they became Rasha, happened at age twenty.

There were a couple of reasons for the wait. First off, it took initiates their entire childhood and adolescence to master the training and studying necessary to take on the gig. And, for more practical reasons, they needed to be inducted once they’d physically stopped growing and were in the prime of health for their body to accept the magic powers that this final ceremony would confer on them. After much trial, error, and loss of life, twenty had been hit on as the magic age.

Rabbi Abrams blessed the wine then handed the chalice to Ari. Once my brother had taken a sip, he dipped his finger in the wine and dripped three fat red drops back into the chalice. A reminder of the precious human blood that would be spilled if they lost their fight against evil.

I discreetly waved off some smudgy smoke, suppressing a tiny smile at my mom doing the exact same thing. If it had been up to my parents, they’d have rented a ballroom and invited every person they’d ever known to watch their little boy become a badass mensch. Let’s face it, a demon hunter induction had way more bragging rights than a Bar Mitzvah. Alas, the general populace was not to know the Brotherhood existed, so my parents had to keep quiet about Ari’s abilities and his big day today.

I’d always wished Ari’s induction would happen in a stone cavern with chanting, hooded members, but old David had mandated humility into Demon Club’s mission statement. The chosen one was supposed to selflessly devote his life to demon hunting for the greater good, not personal glory. Thus, it was always just a small ceremony with immediate family, if that, performed in the home.

The rabbi wrapped a small handkerchief around Ari’s wrist–white to symbolize piety. Yeah, right. Based on the very few Rasha I’d met, it would take more than a hankie to tamp down their enormous arrogance. Try a textile factory’s yearly output.

Rabbi Abrams held fast to the other end of the cloth as he lay his free hand on my brother’s head. More Hebrew.

I snuck a look at my parents. To their credit, they didn’t look disappointed. In fact, seated there, watching the ceremony with rapt looks, they pretty much glowed with delight.

My own chest warmed in tight mushiness and a tear leaked from my eye, streaking its way down my cheek.

Ouch.

I blinked against the sudden stinging. Everything took on a drugged, underwater quality as the room swam around me. I clasped my hands together, pressing them between my knees. Breathing through my nose. Determined not to mess up the ceremony.

Again.

Ari repeated some Hebrew phrases the rabbi gave him. Aww, look at that twin of mine, embracing his destiny. I focused on my excitement to be here with him as he stepped into his future.

Better him than me.

The edges of my vision flickered. The rabbi’s voice, harsh and far too loud, scraped over my skin. Clapping my hands over my ears didn’t help. My flesh broke out in goosebumps as whispers sounded around me. A million voices, a million Rasha spirits brought together to welcome the newly chosen.

Carpet fibers pricked the soles of my feet as I stood up. The room spun. Sweat dotted my brow, slid between my shoulder blades.

The rabbi had his back to me, but Ari glanced over, a flash of concern rippling through his serious expression.

Did I have delayed alcohol poisoning? I pulled at the neck of my shirt, fighting for air. Was that even a thing?

Rabbi Abrams opened a small, intricately carved box, revealing the fat gold ring that would mark Ari as one of the chosen. Gold from the ancient Judaic symbol for divine or celestial light, a holy blessing sought since David’s time.

Propelled by a force beyond my control, I opened my hand, reaching for the ring. Every atom inside me screamed out for that band.

“Sheli.” Huh? How did I suddenly know the Hebrew word for “mine?”

The ring floated free to hover in mid-air.

Every head in the room whipped my way. Mom tensed, her body straining forward to look at me. Dad’s eyes widened, his coffee mug falling to the floor, brown liquid pooling in a sludge.

Ari and Rabbi Abrams gaped, slack-jawed at me.

“Sheli,” I repeated, trance-like. My voice was a deep, rich, resonating command. Even though I was freaking out at my total lack of ability to control my actions, I also felt a deep sense of rightness in my gut as I spoke.

That freaked me out more.

The ring launched across the room to fit itself on my right index finger with the mother of all electric shocks. My hair blew back off my face. I snapped out of the trance, once more in full control of my faculties.

“Fucking hell!” I cursed, shaking out my hand while jumping up and down.

The candles snuffed out, leaving everyone in stunned silence.

Ari was the first to move. He reached over and snapped the ring box in Rabbi Abrams’s hand shut with a thud that cracked like gunfire. “It appears you had the wrong twin,” he said. He hefted the silver chalice. “L’chaim,” he toasted and slugged the whole thing back.

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that angry women get shit done. On the Richter Scale of Midlife Simmering, I was a solid eight, meaning I’d already crossed twelve items off of my to-do list and it wasn’t even 10:30AM.

As the librarian here at Chan Wilkins Shechtman LLP, I was researching some tedious historical legislation for one of the senior partners when my mojo was disrupted by Blake Cunningham, a husky blond Associate. He loomed over me like an inflatable tube man hawking discount cars, unleashing spittle and vitriol all over my desk as he informed me of a deadline I’d missed.

I’d fulfilled his last request three days ago, so if he’d stop speaking over me every time I asked for clarification, we could get to the bottom of this.

While I kept my expression neutral, ever the consummate professional, I eyed the fat law dictionary that sat out of reach on my desk, next to the Book Wizard mug that Sadie had given me last year for Mother’s Day. Had I been an actual book wizard, I’d have telekinetically brained Blake with the heavy tome.

Murder hadn’t been on my list for the day, but I’d been extraordinarily productive this morning, so I was willing to pencil it in.

Alas, it was also a truth universally acknowledged that single moms wanting to keep their jobs didn’t engage in such acts, no matter how justified. The chances of getting an all-female jury who’d acquit the defendant with high-fives while singing Aretha Franklin’s “Think” were pretty much nonexistent.

Blake jabbed a finger in my face and I jerked my chair back, clenching my fists to keep from breaking the offending digit. My performance review was coming up and unlike some, I couldn’t shit on people and still expect a raise. My track record needed to be stellar and it was, but Blake was higher in the firm’s pecking order and matching his boorish behavior would cost me.

He finally took a breath and I jumped in.

“I’m unaware of any new assignment that you gave me. What are you referring to?”

“The email I sent you yesterday,” he said, wiping spit from his face. “I need that Law on Remoteness for the Santos trial. I won’t look bad because you can’t be bothered to do your job.”

I twisted my monitor around to show him my inbox. “I didn’t receive any email from you. Please don’t disparage my ability or work ethic.”

He snorted. “You must have deleted it.”

I pried my fingers off the screen. “Excuse me?”

“You think that because Cecilia Chan hired you, you get a free pass? There isn’t a quota system for women here.”

No, but there was one for assholes. To be fair, most of our lawyers were great, but every now and again, a toxic jackass showed up.

Someone knocked on my office door, and Blake opened it before I could to reveal an unfamiliar young woman.

Her cheerful smile indicated that her soul had yet to be sucked out by this industry, while her bright eyes denoted that she hadn’t yet started pulling longer hours than her male counterparts to prove herself.

“You’re new, aren’t you?” I said.

“Is it that obvious? Articling Student in the house.” She held up a stack of periodicals. “I wasn’t sure where you wanted these.”

“Put them on the cart out there, please,” I said, pointing into the library outside my office.

Blake ran a hand through his hair. “Hey, Addison. You know you can dump that on a paralegal, right?”

“It’s good to familiarize myself with all aspects of the firm,” she said. “Oh, Tamara was also wondering if the books she requested were in?”

My left eye twitched. I’d explained to the lawyer that the law volumes were on back order, but she persisted in asking constantly, like someone repeatedly hitting an elevator button to make it arrive faster. “Not yet. Still coming in on the same date.”

“Okay, I’ll drop these off then,” she said, backing out, her high ponytail bobbing.

“Thanks,” I said. “The procedures around here can take a while to get the hang of, but if you have any questions about the library, I’m happy to answer them.”

“I appreciate that,” she said.

Blake kept his sleazy smile on full wattage until Addison left, at which point it dropped like a power outage. “Look, I can let the secondary sources slide until tomorrow if you need to take your extended coffee breaks or play solitaire or whatever you do when no one’s watching here, but get me that case law by end of day, Mara.”

Wait. What?

Mara was the sixty-something administrative assistant who worked directly for Daniel Shechtman, and as the senior partner always joked, the real power around this place. Blake had been at this firm for six months. Were all women over a certain age an interchangeable blob to this douchenozzle?

My skin was hot and itchy, my throat tight with a torrent of curses.

“I’m Miriam,” I said, evenly.

“Yeah, so?”

“You called me Mara. You sent the email to the wrong person.” I could just shove the law dictionary so far up his ass he tasted paper for a week. Or better still, follow the ancient Chinese practice of Lingchi, death by a thousand cuts. The classic tortures were the best.

Blake turned red and puffed out his chest like a blustering bagpipe. “Whatever. Get it done or I’ll take this to HR,” he said.

Chanting “performance review” like a mantra, I pasted a pleasant smile on my face. “You got it.”

I’d have to stay late to get everything accomplished, so I fired off a quick text to my kid, grateful she was sixteen and self-sufficient, and pulled relevant law books off the walnut bookcases. I wanted to throw something or stomp between the stacks, but the idea of damaging a book in my collection was anathema and my heels sank into the thick carpet that absorbed sound.

Days like today, I felt like I was being absorbed, especially when, hours later, I had yet to see another person.

By three o’clock, my eyes swam from reading small print, so I grabbed the Book Wizard mug and headed into the staff kitchen for a much-needed caffeine jolt.

“Miriam!” Fahim, a bright-eyed and eager recent hire, flagged me down. “I just sent you an email requesting you pull work safe standards on containing cast-in-place concrete on construction sites.”

“You mean, safety procedures for watching cement dry?”

He frowned. “Concrete and cement aren’t the same thing.”

Sighing, I cut him off before he could launch into an explanation. “I was kidding,” I said gently.

“Oh. Good one.” He sounded dubious.

I refrained from shaking my head. Law school had destroyed any sense of humor in our current batch of Associates. “I’ll get what you need.”

“Thank you.”

The staff kitchen was fairly quiet, with only one person ahead of me for the cappuccino machine: Mara.

The machine clicked twice and burst into a loud hum, firing two thin streams of espresso into the mug.

“A double?” I raised my eyebrows. “That kind of day?”

“Every day is that kind of day around here.” Mara patted a strand of gray hair back into her bun, watching the frothed milk dispense. “I blame my husband. If he hadn’t been so supportive of me going back to work after our sons were born, I’d have enjoyed a long and leisured career as a trophy wife.”

“Please. If you didn’t have all the lawyers to boss around on a regular basis, life wouldn’t have that same sparkle.”

She rolled her eyes, then grinned. “How’s my favorite librarian?”

“Eh.” I took Mara’s place at the machine, setting my cup under the nozzle and hitting the selection for an Americano. “Did you hear? Poor Blake suffers from acute myopia. Except with age not distance. He chewed me out for failing to follow instructions in an email that he’d sent to you.”

“Ah. I wondered about that. Well, fair’s fair, I guess. All those youngsters look alike to my feeble old brain,” she said, with calculating shrewdness. “I hope I don’t confuse him with someone else the next time he needs to see Daniel.”

“That would be a pity.” I grabbed my coffee.

“Wouldn’t it, just?” Mara patted me on the shoulder. “Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.”

I laughed. “Fake phrase, but good sentiment. To you as well.”

The caffeine put a spring in my step as I returned to the library, and my work smile reached my eyes when I saw the visitor in my office.

“I bring you glad tidings. And food crack,” my best friend, Judith Rachefsky, drawled in her Savannah Southern accent. She rubbed Vaseline on her red dry potter’s hands, avoiding the wrist brace she wore for her carpal tunnel. It was the major downside of working with clay, along with constant smudges of dust across her black T-shirts and jeans.

A familiar brown bakery bag sat on my desk.

I inhaled the heavenly scent of my favorite zucchini chocolate chip muffin. My stomach growled and I shoved a piece in my mouth, sighing blissfully. “Thank you, o dealer mine.”

She squirted out more petroleum jelly with a farting noise. “If I’d have known you’d be this grateful, I’d have insisted on house cleaning in payment.”

“Always have a contract in place.” I tore off some more of the muffin. “Today has not been fun. One of our junior lawyers accused me of being incompetent, discharged a half gallon of spit on my sweater, and topped it off by calling me Mara.”

“Ouch.” Judith got comfortable in my desk chair, tucking the small tube of cream into the pocket of her jean jacket. Balancing one cowboy boot heel on the ground, she pawed through my drawer until she triumphantly waved a letter opener. “Here’s the plan. We lure him in to the men’s room before he leaves and…” She made stabbing motions. “Then we prop him in a stall. No one will look for him till tomorrow. We’ll have plenty of time to come back after hours to dispose of the body.” She tapped her wrist brace. “No one will suspect me and I’ll cover for you.”

I picked up the scarf that had slid from the chair onto the floor for the third time this afternoon. The rose print was beautiful, but the silk was a pain in the ass. “Not unless you’ve upped your lying game. Ten seconds of scowl from that border guard and you were confessing your two pairs of smuggled socks.”

Jude scrunched up the back of her curly red hair with her hand. “To be fair, those guys are pros.”

“Body disposal isn’t necessary. I snitched to Mara.”

Jude crossed herself, then stopped halfway through. “Oh, wait. I’m Jewish. So what’s your resident blowhard got you doing?”

“Researching the Law on Remoteness.”

She shuddered. “This is why you couldn’t pay me to work a corporate job anymore.”

“Yes, but you envy my cornucopia of medical and dental benefits.” I pulled a paper napkin out of the bag and wiped my fingers.

“True.” She poked one of her teeth. “I swear this one is being held together by crazy glue and a prayer. In penance for that depressing reminder, you can be my mid-afternoon entertainment break. Hmm. Since I doubt you have pasties on under that wrap dress, you’ll have to amuse me some other way.” She snapped her fingers. “I know. Let’s check your dating profile.”

“Let’s not.”

“Come on, Miri. I could use a laugh.” She winked at me.

I twisted my shoulder-length dark hair up into a bun, and jammed a pen through it. “I deleted it, okay?”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have made fun of you. It’s hard putting yourself out there. Believe me, I know.”

“The emotional vulnerability of online dating in general is bad enough.” I shuddered and sat on the edge of my desk. “But this was a nightmare.”

“How so?”

“Two words for you, my friend: septuagenarian balls.”

“Ewww.” Judith shook her head. “That’s so wrong on so many levels. You’re attractive, you have all your own teeth, you’re gainfully employed.”

“Intelligent, funny…”

She snorted. “The two most prized qualities on dating sites.”

I pushed up my boobs. “Great rack.”

“True. We’ll list that before the teeth.”

“It won’t help. The boob game out there is too strong. Plus, I’m forty-two and I have a kid. Thanks for playing.” I beheld my little kingdom of books, covering such heart-pounding topics as construction law and application fraud. “I was so excited to turn forty. Finally, I could give zero fucks, free of all the BS that dragged me down in my youth. And that’s true to an extent, but mostly I feel like I missed some Kafkaesque ceremony where I was presented with a pair of mom jeans, the number for the easy listening station on my FM dial, and the admonishment to ‘go gentle into that good night.’”

“Where’s the rage and rock ’n’ roll when you need it?” Jude said.

“Oh, there’s rage.”

One of the paralegals waved at me from the library and I held up a finger, grabbing a memo off my printer to give to her.

“This should fix the login issues,” I said, “but let me know if you’re still having problems.”

The woman thanked me and left.

“Don’t give up. Forty is the new twenty,” Jude said from my office, once more rooting through my desk drawer.

I reshelved some more law books. “Tell that to the men on the dating site. And why the hell would I want to be twenty again?”

“No aches or sags.”

“True, but I earned my body. I like my body. Though the one thing I do miss from that age? That life was in front of me and I could be anyone.” I tilted my head, lost in contemplation, the book in my hand momentarily forgotten. “Forty isn’t the new twenty, it’s a fast track to invisibility and irrelevancy.”

“You need a new game plan, honey. Quit your job and move to Spain.” Jude shook the bakery bag with the rest of my muffin at me.

“Packing and downsizing would be so much extra work,” I groused, putting the rest of the books away. “Honestly, it’s not so bad here. Most of the time no one micromanages me, plus I wouldn’t have that sweet, sweet health insurance to cover all the therapy my daughter would require for pulling her out of school. My little Hermione Granger does love her structured academic life.”

“Sadie’s adaptable and this job was only supposed to be temporary while you got on your feet after your divorce ten years ago. Go sling sangria.” She held up my tube of lip gloss with a questioning look.

Walking back into my office, I nodded for her to go ahead and use it. “You’re ludicrous. Maybe I just need a purpose. Oh. I could start volunteering.”

She uncapped the tube. “Volunteering is good, but I’m not sure it would fulfill you. You need something that makes you feel powerful.”

I ate the last piece of muffin, talking while chewing. “You mean empowered, and slinging sangria hardly fits the bill.”

“It’s a blurred line. You can’t take control of your life, whether it’s slinging sangria or running for Prime Minister, if you don’t feel like you have the power to do so.”

“That’s free will. Choice.” I peered hopefully into the empty muffin bag, then threw it into the trash.

“And your choices are limited when you don’t think you have power. Thus limiting what you do and any further power you gain.” Judith sniffed the lip gloss and recoiled. “Bubble gum? What are you, twelve?”

“It’s Sadie’s.” I made a new to-do item on my phone to look into volunteering opportunities.

“Like that girl would use any scent other than grape with undertones of smash the patriarchy,” Jude said.

I licked my lips. “Mmmm. Coffee and male tears.”

“Bubble gum lip gloss will not get you laid, my friend.”

“The lip gloss isn’t the cause. It’s been so long that my vagina took early retirement.”

Judith tossed the gloss back in the drawer. “Did she get a nice severance package?”

“Not really. I forgot to buy batteries.”

“That’s it. We’re going for drinks tonight. My treat. You can get loaded and I’ll be your designated.” Jude never drank if we went to the bar on Fridays, since it messed with her ability to wake up early on Saturday morning and get in some pottery time on her successful line of dishware, mugs, and teapots.

“Can’t,” I said. “I’ve got to finish up this research for Blake, then I should go home and spend quality time with my daughter.”

“Your sixteen-year-old won’t begrudge you a night out. Fun, Miri. Remember that?”

I pushed her out of my chair. “I have fun.”

“Is that what we’re calling putting everyone else in your life first and then ending up on the couch in your pjs exhausted from all your emotional labor?”

“Ah, but I chase it down with a lovely vintage.”

Jude scraped at some clay under her nails. “Fun isn’t a trendy abbreviation for functioning alcoholism.”

“Another time. I promise.”

Jude bit her lip, eyes troubled and downcast.

“What?”

She sighed. “I wasn’t going to say anything but I’ve been having some health problems and I could use someone to talk to.”

I squeezed her hand. “What? Is it serious? Of course, I’ll go out with you and…” At her smirk, I brandished the law dictionary menacingly. “You lying cow.”

“A lying cow who is dead on in her assessment of you. Come on. Live a little.”

“Live a little, Adele.” My dad gave a lopsided grin and exaggerated hip wriggle as he beckoned Mom to come dance with him to Sinatra singing “Come Fly With Me.” Mom threw her bright yellow dish glove at his chest, laughing and saying the last time he used that line she lost a really nice bra. I shuddered and rolled my eyes with the heavy disdain that only a fifteen-year-old could. It would be the last time I ever did.

I blotted my forehead with the back of my hand, the buzz of the air conditioning drilling into my temples.

“Mir?”

Blinking away the specter of the past, I smiled at Jude. “A drink sounds good.”

My friend stood up, refastening her wrist brace. “I have pieces to glaze at the studio so once you’ve finished your overtime, meet me at Chambers.”

With something to look forward to, my task went a lot easier. Blake got his case law and even thanked me stiffly. I replied with equal enthusiasm and headed out for that drink.

The nearby bar on the waterfront that all the lawyers went to on Fridays after work wasn’t somewhere I’d frequent in my free time, but Chambers had one big plus: Jackie, the bartender, was generous in her pours. She said that I deserved the top up after dealing with some of my co-workers.

Sadly, Jackie wasn’t there tonight and Jude had yet to arrive. I politely waited my turn, fiddling with my sapphire engagement ring that I now wore on my right hand, but after ten minutes of being ignored by the new guy tending bar I got more forceful, waving and saying “excuse me” every time he got into my orbit.

Nothing.

I wrote my name in a spill of water from the pitcher on the bar, watching the letters dissipate, beyond done.

Life was like a night sky where every decision was a star winking into existence, some a faint pulse, others so beautifully luminous that we continually oriented ourselves by them even years later. Trying to order a drink was an ordinary action that I didn’t think twice about, barely visible in my personal constellation. Too bad I’d forgotten that even the most seemingly inconsequential choice could suddenly explode like a supernova, leaving you desperate to survive the blast.