The man looking to hire me was a tech mogul. He not only programmed some of my favorite software, he was also behind some of the biggest sites on the web today. So, why would he want me? The answer was clear, he was very New Age, his business practices of using tarot readers has been laughed at by nearly every other CEO. Got to love old money, if it's not our way it's silly. One look at his net worth had to show he was doing something right.
Still, the whole proposal smacked of Hilter wanting to and ultimately trying to win World War Two with the Occult. Jared Barnes wanted me an unglamorous college going medium and all purposes aside slacker to find him the Necronomicon. Part of me wanted to be snarky and send him Simon's Neronomicon but, my mother raised me with manners.
Why me?
I'm Lux Shimshi and I'm a lightning rod for the paranormal and while it's interesting, sometimes I wish I'd just been ordinary. See, I'm a mermaid, who's also a medium, and lately very popular. I'm 22 years old and going to college, working most nights at Coffin Candy's a strip club as a DJ. When I'm not doing that I'm usually on a ghost hunt with ORACLE my roommate's paranormal group.
It wasn't me specifically Barnes wanted, he probably knew my father's passion was that book. The last fully Japanese Merman Toru Shimshi, leader of the biggest Merfaction died looking for that book.
I was my father's daughter.
Part of me wanted to call Daniel, my twin, but it was late and knowing him he had 3 or 5 house guests. Best not to wake them, I'd call in the morning. Something told me the icky feeling wouldn't go away anytime soon.
Curling up into a ball tighter, I knew exactly what I needed, and where to get it. Soon I was relaxed and I slipped into a crack. Upside, I was left standing in front of a bar. Instinctively I knew he'd be here. I followed them through the crush of people making my way to the back corner table. Where he sat in his usual unshaven dirty but just enough to be sexy. I still catch myself wondering how he managed to pull it off.
I slipped into the booth across from him.
"Hello." He said softly not yet looking up from his paper.
"Hey Jack." I said softly smiling.
"I'm not going to help you find it, so don't bother asking."
"Can't a friend just drop in to say hello?"
"Not the kind of friend you are and the kind of dropping in you do. That's my final answer. You don't want anything to do with this. Just let it go and walk away," he said as he pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, shifting them around a little.
"You just don't understand." I started to say, but stopped, seeing him glare at me.
"I don't understand? Girl, you're looking for what is, in your world, reputed to be the source and cause of a great deal of the world's suffering. Not only that, but you're going to take it back, through the divide, into a world that it was never meant to exist for real in under any stretch of the imagination. You're going to do all of this, and you still have the stones to say I don't understand that you feel you have something to prove for this little bit of insanity, yeah, I guess I don't understand then," he said, fidgeting with his lighter.
His ability to make a person feel only a few inches tall never ceased to amaze me as I stared at him, trying to regain my composure. Something shook deep in my core as he started again.
"What I do understand, however, is the burning need to find something you know you better damn well leave alone. That's normal in our line of work. Hell, I'd be even more worried if you hadn't taken the job." He lit a cigarette.
"I haven't taken it...yet." I said stammering. I felt myself flicker. See in Jack's world I was not corporeal. I was like a ghost, with out that icky being dead part.
"Yes, you have. I can see it in those beautiful translucent eyes of yours,."
"Charmer but, no I haven't."
He only smiled as he took a long drag on his cigarette, the smoke trailing upwards. "Right. Anyways, I'll see what I can find. I know some people who know some people who get their jollies over rare, human-leather bound tomes that could bring around the destruction of all life as we know it," he said with a smirk, blowing a stream of smoke through me.