Holy crap. That’s not a cat, that’s a damn Shetland pony!
The man lounging behind the counter was equally unusual looking, appearing to have stepped straight off the set of Gangster Squad. Dressed in a light blue button-front shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows and a dark grey vest he looked as though he belonged in late 1940s’ Los Angeles rather than a charms shop in downtown Denver. The only aspect of his appearance that went against the gangster motif was the dark brown hair that fell well past his shoulders.
There was also a sense of something otherworldly about him, unrelated to his antiquated style of dress. Watching him lean against the counter, his stubble-covered chin resting on one hand while he flipped through a comic book, I struggled to puzzle out what it was about him that tugged at something in the back of my brain. Maybe it was that he was easily at least six foot four, or maybe it was the fine tracery of faint, almost opalescent, scars that covered his hands and forearms.
At the sound of our footsteps, eyes the color of roiling thunderheads rose to regard us, the sheer weight of his presence crashing into me like a physical blow, making me stumble. He looked to be only a few years older than me, and yet there was something lurking in the depths of his eyes that held the weight of centuries. The scent of ozone, heat, and something akin to burnt feathers flowed off him, mingling with the incense filling the air to create a heady perfume that was utterly mesmerizing.
Whatever he was, he wasn’t human, and I was sure I’d never met one of his ilk before.
“Can I help you folks find something?” he asked as he brushed a long trail of hair away from his face. The weight of his eyes passed over me as he took us in, seemingly unconcerned by Loki’s presence.
“I’m looking for some information on a couple charms,” Holbrook said, striding forward.
“We carry the usual fare you’ll find most places, and a few more specialized items. Are you looking for something in particular? Some heat charms? A stay dry spell? They’ve been our biggest sellers lately.”
“No, I actually want to know about a couple specific charms you might have sold to someone else,” Holbrook said as he fished his badge out of his jacket and laid it down on the counter.
“FBI, huh? Well, Agent, if they were bought here, I’ll be able to tell you.”
“And you are?”
“Killian Hunter,” he replied, though he didn’t offer to shake Holbrook’s hand.
“Do you own the place?”
“No, my landlady owns the joint, but I work most of the shifts now that she’s getting older,” he said, his tone sorrowful as if the thought of his boss aging was heartbreaking. “Which charms did you want to know about?”
“We’re looking for a pretty powerful glamour charm,” Holbrook said. “A woven band worn around the wrist.”
“He had to have been wearing something for pain too,” I piped up from my position just inside the door. “There was no way he was strutting around without any pain after the ass-whooping I gave him. And there was the weirdness with Santos, like he wasn’t seeing what was really there.”
Killian quirked an eyebrow at my words, but chose not to say anything. I just shrugged my shoulders in reply to the unspoken question as if to say “the bastard deserved it.” Moving to stand beside Holbrook I was glad to see that Loki was sticking close to me. I wasn’t in the mood to be scouring every inch of the place looking for him when it was time to leave.
“A persuasion charm, perhaps?” Killian offered as he reached beneath the counter and withdrew a large, leather-bound tome.
He extended a long, slender finger to prod the cat, who at some point had awoken, and was now watching us with gleaming yellow eyes, ushering him off the counter.
“Get down, Ash.”
Emitting a meow that spoke clearly of his displeasure at being roused, the large cat made a show of stretching and yawning, before stalking to the end of the counter where he sprawled out once more.
Rolling his eyes at the dramatics, Killian muttered “pain in the ass” and laid the book on the counter with a muffled thump. The massive book would have looked as at home in a museum as it did in his long-fingered hands, and I was overcome with the urge to touch its lustrous leather cover. The leather creaked as he opened it towards the middle and began flipping through the pages. Curiosity made me lean closer, eyeing the thick paper that held the almost metallic tang of ink. It was a ledger, one that looked like it had been maintained for decades, if not longer, each entry written in the same looping script. Reaching the most recent entries Killian ran a finger along the edge of the page, his eyes tracking down the columns.