Temporary Magic

“Hayes,” the man greeted him, and set down his book. He peered over the edge of the counter with wide eyes. “Who’s this?”

“Jimmy, this is Kea, my – my daughter.” He stumbled over the word, and felt the sharp sting of a kick on his ankle.

Jimmy leaned back and gave him a look filled with regret. “I am sorry, but I can’t let her in the building. It’s not bring your daughter to work day and nobody told me, right?”

“It’s all right,” Kea said in a soft, clear voice. She gave the security guard a winning smile. “I can just stay here with you while Dad runs in and grabs what he needs.”

“That’d be lovely,” he agreed, turning to face her.

Just in time to get a handful of golden glitter blown into his face. She smacked her palms together, scattering glowing dust mites onto the floor where they faded against the uneven marble floor.

“Thank you for the guest all-access badge, Jimmy,” Kea said coolly.

He blinked and dug into a drawer filled with a row of badges in a wide rainbow of colors. “Of course.”

Hayes waited until they entered the elevator. “What was that?”

Geo poked his head out from underneath his suit lapel, where he’d hidden in Haye’s shirt pocket. “Jimmy’ll be fine. Stop worrying.”

Kea nodded agreement with the frog. “It’s leprechauns all the way down.”

He threw out a hand and rolled his eyes.

She laughed at his impatient confusion. “Temporary magic.”

The ancient elevator dinged onto his usual floor, for once cooperating with something resembling more speed than a snail on its reluctant way to a medieval battle. He suspected Kea’s silent assistance.

“You’ll be able to do that soon,” she added just as he exited the creaking box of doom.

He caught his stumble against the table, spilling Geo unceremoniously into a flowerpot, as she flounced down the hall toward his office.

***

I’m late! Just a quick snippet today (and apparently switching POV again, whoops – still drinking coffee). Becky inspired this piece with leprechauns all the way down, while nother Mike got my prompt this week, over at MOTE: “You don’t want to know what happens next.”

It’s been rather hectic here, for a number of reasons, but the goal is still to make LibertyCon. Who’s with me?

An administrative note: On the off chance someone reads this and wants to sign up for the newsletter — hahaha, no one signs up for the newsletter, I did it as part of a contract requirement and haven’t sent one in two years — for the time being, you will no longer automatically receive the free download of the Paladin University newspaper interview with June.

Why? Turns out, no one had downloaded it for two years. Plus, generating content is more important than getting all this set up properly as a business — I’m writing again, and Paladin’s Legacy is back in progress— especially since this is a side gig I do mostly for fun. It was enough of a pain to set it up that I’m not going to remove the option on the website, either, because eventually I will need it again and no. I am not going through that again.

The point being, if you sign up for the newsletter and want a copy of the (very) short story, just email me.