“Okay, so run it back for me,” I said once we were driving. Some cops drove past us but didn’t give us a second glance because of the wards on my car. “How the fuck did we end up in a food court being attacked by nerds in cosplay?”

Alice was at the wheel because I didn’t remember where we were and it’d be smarter to have someone drive who knew where we needed to go than to feed me directions in my understandably confused state.

“Well,” Alice began, taking a turn hard enough to make me grab the handle above my seat. She drives faster than I do, Jesus Christ. “After we went to your brother’s place and you got knocked out by whatever was there, you contacted your hacker friend.”

“I remember that part,” I said.

“He looked into Conner’s online activity and saw that there was some unusual activity, not in Conner’s online interactions but in certain groups having an interest in him,” she said. “Which led us up North—oh, we’re in Seattle, by the way,” she added as an afterthought. I threw up my hands in the “of course” pose.

“Merde!” Ida said in the back seat as Alice made another sharp turn. “Concentrate on driving!” she growled before I felt her attention shift to me. “Initially your friend thought it was just something Conner was involved in that got the attention of these groups but, when he forwarded the data to us, I asked him to see if they were focusing on anyone else. He had to stop his investigation because the FBI or some other organization tried to track him down as soon as he broadened his search, and he reasoned he stumbled onto a major ongoing investigation. He forwarded what little data he got before they came down on him and hasn’t responded since. That was Monday.

“We followed several leads in the Seattle area, mostly connected to a criminal organization known as the Thirty-Threes. A motorcycle club, I think. We didn’t get anything substantial until we hit a bar they used as a front and hangout, where Alice discovered with her telepathy they had a kidnapped woman in the basement. You… got violent.”

There was a pause. I ran back the timeline and nodded thoughtfully.

“Two or three days without news on Conner, and a justifiable outlet,” I said in a low voice. “I was probably going batshit with worry.”

“They had it coming,” Alice said, her voice flat.

“The woman, Sandra,” Ida continued. “They—she wasn’t in any shape to be interrogated, but Alice did something to calm her down and she gave a description of someone who might be your brother before she was separated. We couldn’t get any more information from her but you took some of her blood on a rag and said we needed to pick up a few things. We called the cops, watched from the car to make sure they got her into an ambulance, and then went to the mall as it was the closest place that had all the things you need.”

I glanced in the back seat, not seeing any supplies besides my laptop and the case with the blood stick Guapo had given me. “I guess we decided to eat first,” I said.

“And that’s when they attacked,” Alice supplied. “Do you have any idea what you wanted from the mall? Because you get kinda quiet when you’re pissed.”

Ida made a noise of agreement from the backseat.

I searched my pocket and found the rag Ida had mentioned. It had a smear of blood on it. What would I do with this? We already knew where the woman was, we needed to know where she had been. So—

“Oh,” I said. “Yeah, I think I know what I was thinking. I was probably quiet for other reasons.”

“Oh?” Alice said, drawing out the word with dread.

“Yeah, I needed the stuff for a summon.”

Alice’s shoulders slumped. “Colm,” she said like a mother chiding her son for sticking a toy up his nose again for the sixth time.

“It’s a safe one,” I said quickly. “Mostly.”

* * *

It took four stops to get everything I needed. Copper tubing, two packages of Maruchan Ramen, a microwave, an outdoor generator, a bowl, a gallon of water, and a quilted pillow. We found a vacant lot that was obscured by trees on the edge of the city and began to set up. Alice and I had walked around the property hexing any security or cameras while Ida brought out the stuff from the car.

“You bought a laptop and a phone, as well,” Ida said as she poured gasoline into the generator. “You never mentioned what you do for a living?”

“I always change the subject when it’s brought up, too,” I said, glancing at her. But if we’re going to be dating, I thought, I should probably air the dirty laundry before it can really stink. “I, uh, cheat at cards. Not something I can really talk about.”

Alice barked a laugh from where she was laying down the copper tubing. “So THAT’S how you know how to make a luck charm! You fuckin’ cheat!”

I felt my face heat up a bit. I was distracted by my embarrassment, which made me use too much force on the copper tube I was bending into shape. I straightened out the kink as much as I could before deciding to toss it aside and grab another.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Ida stood up, frowning. Today she was wearing a denim jacket over a white t-shirt, black jeans, and combat boots. Her black hair was up in a tail with her bangs slightly framing her eyes. She put down the gas can and put the cap back on the generator intake. “Like counting cards?” She asked. “But with magic?”

I shook my head, placing a finished pipe in the pile. I looked at Alice’s progress and decided to make a few extra, just in case. “There’s a couple of spells that enhance luck,” I said. “That’s the layman's explanation, but that’s the result it achieves. Doesn’t do much in situations other than games, however, because of how it works.”

“How does it work?” Ida asked as she grabbed some of the finished tubes and brought them over to Alice.

“You familiar with the concept of Feng Shui?” I asked, receiving a nod. “It’s similar, but instead of aligning energies to be more positive, it straight up nudges things to go how the caster of the spells wants. If the caster wants higher cards, it’ll nudge cards along during a shuffle so that they are more likely to be dealt to him. If he wants his opponent to fold, that person may suddenly feel a drop in confidence.”

“How does it do that?” Ida asked.

“If that was known, it’d be science and not magic,” Alice said. “It’s a really tough spell to learn, too. A lot of subtlety involved.” She gave me an appraising look.

I shrugged, uncomfortable at the implied compliment. I’ve never been able to take them well.

After a bit, Alice called me over to check her work. We’d spent many nights talking shop over the phone and she’d adopted many of my improvements to summoning circles but hadn’t really had a reason to practice them until now.

I looked it over and gave her a nod. “Looks great,” I said as I crossed to the southeast part of the circle. “But you gotta adjust the wall symbol to be slightly giving if you have an electric item in the circle, or it’ll lose power during the summon.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t have thought of that,” Alice said. “I’ve never used an appliance as payment before.”

Alice was also sporting a jacket, though hers was a tighter fit and made of black leather. Under it were her golden necklaces over her faded Nirvana shirt. Her chain was once again around her waist, through the loops of her shredded jeans. If you feathered her hair, she might look like a cast member of Grease. She even wore a pair of Chuck Taylor’s.

“Technically the Ramen is the payment,” I said. “The entity just has very particular tastes.”

I had buried an extension cord under the circle, with one end exposed in the center and the other emerging next to the generator. I placed the microwave in the center, plugged it in, filled a bowl with water, and placed one package of noodles inside but used two flavor packets. I put the bowl in the microwave and closed the door. I then carefully placed the quilted pillow in the exact center of the top of the microwave.

“Can you start the generator?” I asked Ida.

She nodded and fired it up. It was one of the models with the lever handle you had to pump several times to get it going. Once the light on the microwave came on I programmed it for HIGH for five minutes and hopped outside the circle.

Ida came up to me and put her arm through mine, leaning into me. “When does it start?”

“Already did when I left the circle,” I said. “Though he won’t answer the call until the ramen is done.”

“Five minutes is a long time for ramen,” Alice commented.

“He likes it mushy,” I said with a frown.

“Gross,” Ida and Alice said.

After a minute: “And this is safe?” Ida asked.

“Summoning is never safe,” I said. “There’s always a certain risk. Having said that; this is probably the least dangerous entity I know how to contact.”

She shifted, reaching toward her back where she had one of my 1911s in her waistband. I felt her grip on my arm loosen as she got ready for action. “Should I be ready?”

“We’re protected,” I said. “I said the thing about every summon being dangerous because it’s the mentality I’ve had to adopt… Similar to how people are taught to assume every gun is loaded and to never point it at anything you don’t want to shoot. Summoning is dangerous, but if you do it right you mitigate the danger.”

Ida thought about this for a moment before relaxing and leaning into me again.

“Should probably be on your toes, though,” Alice said, one hand on her chain.

I hummed in agreement. Ida noticed my hand was resting on my Webley, under my shirt. She sighed and took a step away from me (aw, dammit), drawing her pistol and holding it relaxed, next to her thigh.

When the timer counted down to zero, the microwave beeped. On the second beep, the microwave burst into motion, hopping into the air and folding into itself like a transformer. One second there was a brand new Kenmore microwave and the next there was a little junkyard robot man with a pillow for a head. Ida raised her gun but I put a hand on it to stop her from firing.

The little man-that-used-to-be-a-microwave(plus pillow) made chewing sounds, his stomach convulsing. He let out a contented humming sound like he was eating his favorite thing in the world.

“Colm,” the little metal and plastic man said, his voice scratchy like a lifelong smoker. “Who’re your friends? You finally take my advice?”

“No one you need concern yourself with,” I said. It was hard to know where to look, because when he spoke, his “stomach” moved like lips, even though there was no opening. But there were two wrinkles in the pillow that suggested eyes. This is probably my fifth time summoning the little guy and I just defaulted to looking at the pillow. “And no one should take dating advice from you.”

The little monster shrugged. “Your loss,” he said. “You lookin’ to borrow Bogo?”

I nodded. “Yeah,” I said. “I promise to get him two Big Macs and a McFlurry.”

“No McFlurry this time,” the little man said with a shake of his pillow. “He’s developed lactose intolerance or something and he made a fuckin’ mess when I got him back last time. Get him a cookie or something else. No chocolate.”

“A sugar cookie,” I said.

“Yeah, deal,” The little man said. “Thanks for the ramen.”

And then he collapsed into a pile of scrap with a pillow on top of it.

There was a moment of silence.

“Well,” Alice said, turning toward me. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

“Aren’t you glad I didn’t spoil the surprise?” I asked with a smile.

Ida snorted, tucking her pistol into her jeans. “You had me pull my pistol for that?”

“You practice good habits all the time,” I said, turning and looking at the trees. “Not just when they’re convenient.”

Ida rolled her eyes and took my hand again. “What’s a Bogo? Sounded like you two were talking about a dog.”

“Funny you should say that,” I said, spotting movement in the trees.

Sprinting into the vacant lot was a golden retriever. But it wasn’t any golden retriever, it was like someone took every golden retriever and concentrated them into peak golden retriever. When you saw this dog, you saw the goodest fucking boy to have ever existed. This dog was such peak dog, looking at him made your heart melt and eyes water.

Then he barked.

A seam appeared on his lower jaw and between his eyes, split him down to just behind where the heart would be on a normal dog, and opened up showing teeth placed like theater seating, where each chair was a fang in this thing's mouth.

And just like that, it was the goodest boy again. No sign that it was half mouth.

“Ladies,” I said, stopping Ida from drawing her gun again. “Meet Bogo.”