39 Self-serving

Yakov's call made me restless with anticipation. In just a day, I was going to meet a bunch of other witches and learn how to do magic myself. Me! Magic! I had to pace around the office to let some of that energy out of my body. Then I dialled up Rita.

"Hiii!" I chirped in the phone. "Are you busy?"

"Hi you too, girlfriend! I'm in the storage, so I can catch five minutes while nobody's looking. Have some good news for me?"

"Oh yeah. I finally found someone to teach me magic! Yesterday, actually."

"That's great! Does that mean that you will finally have time to meet up after I get out of this dusty place? Did you learn any cool tricks already?"

"No, not yet. I just had a small lecture on magic safety from a Caucasian in a bathrobe. Well, it was just a robe, but it looked like bathrobe made from a carpet. Though he wasn't the most ridiculously dressed psychics I've met, and he, most importantly, was a real thing."

"A carpet robe? Was it all fluffy?" Rita laughed. "Did he have a turban?"

"No, but he had a room full—"

A muffled noise from the other end of the call interrupted me. I waited for a couple of seconds, but when Rita returned, her voice was apologetic.

"Sorry, girlfriend, but I have to go. Duty calls. See you later!"

"Goodbye, Rita."

She dropped the call, but its mission was at least partially accomplished already—I didn't have an irresistible urge to pace a hole in the floor. It was still there, but I could push it away to deal with all the things I neglected in the past week.

I updated the store's site, checked up on vampires' forum (nothing interesting besides inane vampire talk), cleaned the basement from dust and checked store's paperwork (not that it needed checking, even sleep-deprived JJ was better in that than a wide awake me).

JJ returned a couple of hours later. His appearance distracted me from the page I had opened, which was (to my slight shame), not anything business-related, but just some memes. If not for the sound of the opening door, I wouldn't have noticed him entering.

"Hi, JJ!" I couldn't help the smile that appeared on my face when I saw him.

He smiled back, his green eyes glass-clear and his skin glowing with vigour and probably the blood he drank. I was glad to see him fresh again. "Hello, ma chèrie. How was your morning?"

JJ walked up to me and stared at the screen over my shoulder. "'Waiter, I want to order steak, with blood… a lot of blood. You can eat the steak by yourself,'" he read aloud and chortled. "Were you looking at these pictures all morning, ma chèrie?"

The image, or a comic frame, specifically, picture a comically goth-looking vampire in a restaurant. There were more of similar comics frames at the site I was currently browsing, all bound by a common theme of the supernatural.

I coughed in embarrassment. "Nooo, no, no. Just the last several minutes. By the way, I found your note earlier, at the rest. Thanks a lot! Hey, do you really don't know how to cook?"

"It was my pleasure. As for cooking…" JJ leaned on the table and I pushed away from computer to see him better. He had a wry smile on his face and looked somewhere to the side, away from my face. "I know several recipes that always received a positive reaction from everyone who tried them out, and I know how to cook simpler things, but I find myself confused by all the modern appliances. There is no uniform instruction to them I could find."

"Oh." I nodded in understanding. "Yeah, people just have to come up with more weird buttons for stuff. If you want, I can show you how everything works in the kitchen, though… That would be kind of self-serving, eh?"

JJ grinned, flashing his fangs, and sent me a predatory look that made blood move quicker in my veins. "I wouldn't mind feeding you more, ma chèrie, not at all, especially if you will feed me later in return." Then the heat dissipated from his eyes and the air in the room became light again.

As flushed as I was, I had to chuckle anyway. "Do you want to fatten me like a pig, too?"

JJ responded to that with a thorough visual inspection of me from top to bottom before shaking his head. "No, you are perfect as you are, ma chèrie. Neither starved, nor obese… beautiful."

I blushed further and had to remind myself that it would be better for me if I never considered JJ more than a friend-without-benefits. Just a friendly compliment. What one would do with a friendly compliment?

"Thanks, you too, JJ." I didn't lift my eyes at him as I spoke. My hand shyly played with a lock of my black hair. With a pure force of will, I switched mental gears. "So, witches. I actually got a call earlier, and I'm invited to a coven meeting tomorrow evening! Oh, do you have any advice for me, maybe? The witcher I've met seemed to be fine enough, but I'm out of my depth here."

JJ hummed thoughtfully. "I've never interacted with them a lot in the past. In medieval ages many witches were bitter with vampires and vice versa, blaming them for the witch hunts that plagued all supernaturals at the time. Because of that, I avoided them and that didn't change in later ages. Looking at you, ma chèrie, I think it was a mistake on my part."

His cat-like eyes glinted playfully, and I blushed again, biting down my smile. In the next moment, my mirth changed into disappointment. "So you don't know anything?"

"Nothing I can warn you about, no. But I wish you best of luck on your endeavour, my witch. Soon you won't be so ignorant anymore."