The Problem With Black Magic Read Online Free PDF Page B

Khalil don't want to talk about it."
    Cassie felt her mouth tighten as she pulled the shots for her mocha. "Why should they want to talk about him? He's an ass."
    "Well yeah, but he works full time and he hasn't been here all week, and the managers aren't saying anything. I mean, if he quit, they would have said something, right?" said Jay as he cleaned the other espresso machine, looking as lost as she felt.
    "I dunno, Jay, no idea what's up with him," she said quietly as she poured some of the foamed skim milk that Jay had put aside into her cup. She'd lied to Jay before-- normally when he asked her if she thought being into certain games made him seem excessively geeky-- but never so boldly. A slight wave of nausea gripped her, but passed, mercifully.
    He paused his work on the machine and looked at her. "I don't believe you...something happened and you all decided not to tell me," he said. "Something that has to do with Sam."
    "Jay, don't be stupid," she said, taking a few sips of her piping hot drink. Well, if nothing else, at least she could still make a delicious mocha, if she did say so herself.
    "I'm not being stupid, it's just really obvious. Every time I mention him to Dwight or Khalil, they change the subject as fast as they can, and now you're acting weird, too. Tell me what's going on."
    Cassie made a show of rolling her eyes theatrically over her drink. "Okay Jay, you've got us. Sam cast a magic spell over the city, and we're the only ones who know. We have to keep his secret safe, so the vampires won't kill us all," she said.
    Jay's eyes widened for a minute, and Cassie wondered if she'd miscalculated; she'd thought that giving him an abridged version of the truth (with the addition of vampires, because why not?) would sound like a joke, but Jay, who surrounded himself with role-playing games and "Magic: The Gathering" might have a different view on the plausibility of magic than most people. Eventually, he frowned and she exhaled.
    "Fine, be that way. Y ou know I'll find out eventually," he said, making his best attempt to sound menacing, and not really succeeding. His voice hadn't quite changed yet, making the tough act a hard sell.
    Cassie went to the register, not sure what to do about Jay. She'd always thought of him as naïve because he was quick to believe in aliens and other urban legends. Not to the point that he was gullible enough to fall for any kind of phony psychic, but he insisted that there was "something" out there that people didn't understand. She thought it was his desire to believe that any of the magic in his beloved games could somehow be real, but now that she'd seen what she'd seen, Cassie wasn't sure who the naive one was anymore. When she thought about it, it kind of hurt that he was right and she couldn't tell him about it.
    Putting him from her mind, Cassie looked up to see a gangly college student digging his wallet out of his messenger bag, his eyes fixed on the menu scrawled on the chalkboard behind her. "Hi, what can we get for you tonight?" she asked, with her practiced, fake cashier's cheerfulness. Normally she didn't like it, but right now, she was just as happy to role play the part of the cheerful valley girl in an apron, with nothing in her head.
    ***
     
    After closing, Cassie was nibbling at the remains of a rainbow-chocolate cookie while counting up her till. Most of their unsold pastries went to a local soup kitchen in the morning, but the staff was entitled to help themselves to any cookies that broke throughout the day. One might think that policy encouraged cookie abuse, but the big, gooey cookies they sold broke often enough through normal handling, there was no need for sabotage.
    Jay was refilling the small refrigerators near the espresso bar with dairy and substitutes, while Dwight and Khalil finished cleaning up behind the counter and in the cafe. Later, they would count out all the money and put it in the safe, and everyone could go home. She wondered if