I snapped awake suddenly, unsure of where I was. Floods of memories were washing through my mind. Blinking, I stared up at an unfamiliar metal ceiling.

Was this some low-budget hotel that couldn’t even afford insulation for its tin roof?

I ran through my mental checklist like I always did when I was on tour.

Check the business bank account and email address.

Answer any voicemails that came in while I was asleep. Hoping against hope that some big break might’ve come through.

Then it was time to get up and make coffee. Getting the rest of the band in gear for a day filled with travel.

I was already dreading the morning stiffness that took hold of me. All the days of hauling equipment and sleeping in bad hotel beds had taken their toll. It never made the early morning business routine any better.

But then something strange happened.

I recognized the distinct sound of two different people breathing. Right next to me. Then I looked down and realized that I was completely naked under the rough knitted blanket. What the hell had happened last night? My ears were still ringing a little bit, which meant I’d probably been running the show.

The figure next to me cuddled closer into the crook of my left arm. A tousle of black hair all I could see… Except for the horns?

My breath caught in my throat, and I took better stock of my surroundings. Looking to my right and finding another mess of hair. Orange with fox ears. Then everything came flooding back to me.

My departure from my old life, and the chaotic goddess Jodi who’d put me in this one.

The whirlwind romances and incredible magical powers I’d been blessed with.

I let the breath out with a broad smile and slumped back into the bed further. Laughing softly. I couldn’t have been luckier. Especially now that we were putting on shows. For a moment I admired Evelyn and Jade as they slept. The two of them couldn’t be any different, but they worked so well together. Jade: outwardly boisterous but secretly a sweetheart. Evelyn, who was seemingly calm and put together, but an absolute animal in the sack and on the battlefield. She’d decided we’d all sleep together every once in a while, but that she wanted her own bed for the most part.

I was of course welcome wherever she slept though, she’d said.

I shook my head in wonder, still in disbelief about how quickly everything had fallen together.

A few rays of light beamed in from the shuttered window to my left. I finally got my last bearings and realized we were cuddled up in the back of the RV after the crazy show the night before. Thinking of what we’d done made me realize how hungry I was. How nice a cup of coffee sounded. I gave the ladies a squeeze, admiring their calm sleeping faces—and yes, their smoking hot bodies. Evelyn’s thick tits and ass, and Jade’s tight athletic frame. They both looked incredibly sexy even in the pajamas they’d packed for sleeping together.

I shook my head in disbelief and slipped out of the bed before I became too turned on to go get breakfast and some air. I got dressed quietly at the foot of the bed that we’d squeezed into after the show. Then I eased out of the RV and stretched out in the morning sun. Taking in the sights and sounds in the town of Strayton, where we had performed our first big show as Luis and the Unlicensed Fornicators.

I laughed heartily at the band name.

We had parked the RV and stage coach at the edge of the town square. I had no idea what time it was—having no watch—but by the look of the sun it might’ve been around eight o’clock. I yawned and stretched in my leather jerkin and pants, savoring the ease with which my new body moved. The power in its muscles. The stiffness and pain I’d normally associated with the morning was a thing of the past.

Incredible.

The town square was a mix of cobblestone and something like limestone. There was a little outdoor market set up, with a variety of local vendors flogging their goods. Squat one-story wooden buildings stood or leaned in place, their little chimneys pumping out smoke or steam. The crowd was either strictly fantastical, or completely run-of-the-mill—fairies, elves, and the half-animal half-humanoid combinations I’d come to see so often.

A week ago it would’ve been the thing of absolute fiction for me, but now it was just another day. The air was crisp with morning freshness, but also loaded with the smells of the market. Cooking meat and powerful spices. The earthy smell of hay and overturned dirt mixed in with cut grass. I made my way along and stopped by a cart run by a friendly looking elf. I picked up a cup of coffee in a surprisingly modern clay to-go cup, along with a BLT sandwich on sourdough.

“On the house,” he said, waving away the gold coins I tried to pay him with. “I haven’t heard music like last night in all my life.”

“Come on,” I said, trying harder to get him to take the money. He simply shook his head and swatted it away, even handing me a second sandwich wrapped up in a little paper parcel. Finally I gave up with a shrug and thanked him before moving on. My smile faded as the stench of something foul reached my nose. It hit me just as I reached the edge of the town square, near an open lot that was filled with trash and other scraps. Probably to be hauled away at the end of the day.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

What looked like a human hand was sticking out from underneath a pile of discarded chicken bones. It was thinner and more elegant than a normal human hand. I could see that the dead body it was attached to was wearing a sharp business suit. The combat of the night before came back to me in a flash. The elven assassins who’d tried to kill us before we could finish our show. The attack that had been so sudden.

We’d killed one Duke but had another one to go. Then Lord Manageer himself. The kind of combat we were laying down on his empire wouldn’t go unanswered. He’d already proved that.

My body stiffened, and I scanned the area intently.

It was just a bunch of locals, or at least that’s what it looked like. The two elves in the crowd had looked normal enough—despite their bad attitudes and city-style dress. Whoever came next might be sneakier though. My heart slammed in my chest as I scanned harder. Reaching out with my metal magnetic magic. Feeling for anything dangerous. Most of the weapons were in the hands of butchers and chefs though.

The sickle in the stout bull-man farmer nearby as he cut tall wheat.

Change jangling in the register of a little general store nearby.

Then far off, a lot of metal. Massive variety in size, quality, and texture. I licked my lips like a starving man approaching a buffet. Then stopped, feeling for the dagger at my hip.

“Good,” I muttered, realizing I’d put it on either out of instinct or habit. Ajax Baylor—the shapeshifting barbarian Smokehide I’d inhabited—probably never left home without a weapon. It was a tendency I was glad I had.

Still, I’d have to make a conscious decision to carry more metal with me at all times. If I ever got ambushed it would be critical to have something to work with.

The RV was across the whole town square. Maybe forty yards or so away. I hadn’t tested my distance lately, so I decided to give it a shot, reaching out to the stage coach and meaning to unlatch the stage gate. To my surprise I was able to do it with relative ease. It still felt like a reach, but doable. I slipped the hook out of its housing and lifted the garage-door style wall that hid the stag. Then pulled out one of the biggest shields we had on the stage walls.

I yanked it out with a grunt, feeling that fine-tuned efforts at this distance were harder. Then I lifted it above the stage coach and got everything buttoned up again, locking it tight. A quick mental flick got the shield spinning with a metallic hum over the courtyard. Its ringing sound was incredibly pleasing.

I reached up and caught it with a grin, feeling it snap into my bare hand without any pain.

“Yes!” a little gray boy whooped from on top of a haybale nearby. Orange hues flashing across his skin. “Luis and the Unlicensed Fornicators!” he roared. I waved the shield at him with a smile as his mom pinched his ear and dragged him away, chiding him until he was a flat gray again.

Were they licensed to have kids because grays typically weren’t magical?

Was that why I’d seen so many grays?

Did Manageer want them boring and gray, too. Easier to control?

I shrugged it off and finished off my coffee and sandwich. Taking in the scenery. The place was like a painting. Butterflies flapping and bees buzzing. High pungent flowers along old gnarled fences. Long rows of lettuce and tomatoes and all kinds of crops. I set the cup down to get on the way back and finished breakfast. Then I started off at a brisk jog down the country road toward the cache of metal I felt, trying to get some exercise instead of flying everywhere.

As I ran I started to work up a minor sweat and decided to push into an all-out sprint, feeling my body burst into action. The sensation was incredible. I was much faster than any human would’ve been on foot. I covered the miles between the RV and the odd cache of metals within very little time, arriving at the little road that jutted off the main one barely out of breath.

A sign that looked like it’d been crafted out of a car bumper sat beside the road, bolted into a huge oak tree. Rivets, screws, gears, and little wrenches spelled Tisha’s Engines and Scrap. I pulsed again, sensing into the yard beyond—which looked to run for miles. A great clearing was tucked into the nearby forest. The variety of metal scattered around was more appetizing than the breakfast I’d had. Steep scraps of junked cars rusted in huge piles, intermixed with something more recent.

Great patches of dirt stood out where oil or machine fluids had choked out the grass. Little stubby shrubs and trees were struggling to survive in the yard. I hopped onto my shield and hovered upward, getting a better look. As I floated I saw a nearly seven-foot tall machine. It looked like a child’s drawing of a robot, with tractor wheels and two huge articulating arms. Gears covered its exterior, and there was even a little bubble at the top that looked like a helmet. While it had rust on some of its edges, the interior gearing looked well maintained and oiled.

I squinted at it as I blew past, wondering what the hell it was.

In the past, it would’ve been a boring dingy junkyard—but now, with my powers, it looked like pure potential. I had big plans for the house I was putting together back in Clontikus.

Well, it wasn’t exactly just a house.

It would be a flying house.

If I could pull it off in the way I wanted.

I shot forward on my shield, like a surfer riding an invisible wave, eventually flying toward what looked to be a big garage with an open door. It was surrounded by a smattering of car parts and even some engines in various shapes. Tons of piping were littered around too—which made sense with everything running on steam.

As I set myself down I pulled out my change from my pockets, seeing that I had a few spare platinum coins. It would’ve been more than this gearhead had probably seen in a few months. Probably plenty for whatever gruff mechanic there was. I might even buy everything they had. Haul it off with me. I’d need a lot for what I was planning.

“Hello?” I called into the garage. Loud enough for it to carry over the banging of metal on metal. “Are you open for business?” The interior was covered in photos of ever kind of vehicle imaginable. Ranging from basic movers, on to haulers, and even dozens of what looked like airships. The designs and features of the airships were more dignified and delicate than what I’d seen with my own eyes. Many of them looked to be made of wood and decorative gold.

I heard a tool hit the ground, then saw a shape emerging from the shadows of the garage. Coming around the corner of a big truck—or hauler as they called them around here. The shape of the mechanic was not what I expected.

Strutting out of the garage with a huge steel wrench over her shoulder was a short blue-eyed blonde woman in what appeared to be her early forties. A pair of metal welding goggles sat on her forehead. She was curvier than Evelyn and covered in grease. A beautiful golden necklace hung around her neck, with a sigil of some kind dangling down between her cleavage and out of sight. She was wearing a set of overalls that she managed to make sexy somehow. She froze when she saw me, bringing the wrench in front of her overalls as if to hide behind it. For a second she flashed a tiny smile, but it faded into a pressed line as she stared at me.

It was the woman I’d seen last night at the show. The one who’d been dancing in her tiny denim booty shorts and revealing top. She’d been dancing to the music but ignoring everything I’d tried to get her attention. As if no one in the world but her existed.