Carny's Magic by K.Z. Snow

Author:K.Z. Snow [Snow, K.Z.]
Language: nld
Format: epub
Tags: erotic MM, Romance MM
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

* * * *

“Yo, boss!”

Jackson reread the message he’d written, grimaced with indecision, and peeled his

attention away from the computer. “Hello, Carlos.” He scanned the flotsam of papers

spread out before him, looking for the McDermotts’ invoice. After pulling it from

beneath a fan of furniture sketches, he held it out to the right.

“You need a filing system,” Carlos said.

“I got one.” Jackson waved the invoice. “You’re delivering a display pedestal. It’s

under that white drop cloth.”

Carlos sauntered over, his boots scuffing through the omnipresent drifts of

sawdust and wood shavings. “You gave it the final polish?”

“Yeah, that’s done. All you guys have to do is wrap it and haul it.”

“Looks like Jerzy’s late again.” Snapping and popping the gum he chewed, Carlos

dropped into the chair beside Jackson’s cluttered desk.

134

K. Z. Snow

Jackson minimized his e-mail message. “When isn’t he late?”

“I don’t think he can even blow a wad on time,” Carlos said without cracking a

smile. “We’re doing shop cleanup when we get back, right?”

“Correct.”

Carlos and Jerzy were Jackson’s part-time employees, a couple of local boys with

good driving records, no criminal records (to speak of), and enough strength and

sobriety to hump fine furniture around. Whenever exceptionally large and cumbersome

pieces had to be delivered, there were plenty of other unemployed men in the area

willing to earn some fast cash. Jackson had a long list, albeit one he needed to update

every couple of months as potential helpers went to jail or vanished from the

neighborhood.

None of them knew, just as most of Jackson’s friends and neighbors didn’t know,

what his avocation was. Why even bother bringing it up? Most people were unaware of

how vast and varied paranormal reality could be. They might be willing to consider the

existence of elusive ghosts and UFOs and a yeti or two, but whole hidden communities

of good wizards and bad sorcerers and creatures of the night? Hardly.

Jackson always smiled to himself when he thought of telling anyone, or most

anyone, the truth about his gorgeous, erudite partner: that Adin was born in the

fourteenth century; that he thrived in the midst of the Black Plague because a much

older Celtic woman had turned him into a vampire; that he was stripped of both his

taste for blood and his immortality when he killed one of his own kind. If Jackson were

to blab about that, he might as well ask for a one-way ticket to a mental hospital.

Jerzy finally blew in, wrapped in a bunting of heat and humidity, and Carlos got

up to meet him. Together they looked like a modern version of Mutt and Jeff. Carlos

was short, stocky, dark, and desultory. Jerzy was tall, lanky, fair, and hyper. In spite of

their tendency to talk bullshit and bicker, they were good friends and worked well

together. Jackson couldn’t ask for more than that.

“Make sure the door’s closed,” he called out.

Carny’s Magic

135

Mouth already running, Jerzy reached behind himself and gave the doorknob a

yank.

Jackson was fanatical about climate control. Wood, as well as the compounds used

to treat it, required pampering to remain tractable. He would rather stick a wire in his

ear than work with wood that was warped, shrunken, swollen, split, or mildewed.

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