Sorceress, Interrupted - By A. J. Menden Page 0,38
and shot Cyrus an incredulous look. “Dude!”
Cyrus shot him an amused grin. “Enjoy the rest of the game, boys. Let’s go, Fantazia.”
At the mention of my name, all eyes in the room flew to me. “Bye, boys,” I said, waving. “By the way, I’m not a crone and this is definitely not an illusion spell. I’m all-natural.” I blew them a kiss. “Bye, now.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Nice borrowing of my car, Fantazia.”
Lainey greeted us as the doors dinged open at the top floor of the EHJ headquarters. We’d spent most of the day bothering small-time magic-users Cyrus knew, and nothing had come of it except my discovery that my reputation didn’t precede me much anymore. Most people thought, like Chad, that I was an urban legend.
“You have several,” I grumbled at Lainey’s annoyance. “How could you tell, anyway?”
“A little thing called surveillance cameras,” she said. “And the huge dent.”
“I glamoured that away!”
She gave me a dark look. “I can see through glamours, Fantazia. I’ve got magic, too, remember?”
“Borrowed magic,” I said. I think I was looking for a fight.
Cyrus stepped in. “I can probably fix it, Lainey, it’s no problem. I’ve pounded a few dents out of cars in my time.”
“Thanks, Cyrus,” she said. “I appreciate it.”
“Lainey! There you are!” Selena Curtis ran up, a stylish Amazonian-looking woman also known as Granite, with flawless, chocolate brown skin and snapping dark eyes. Her excitement was visible through her animated movements and breathless speech. “Toby’s going to be on that cable program that makes fun of reality shows!”
“The one with Mr. Cute Host?” Lainey looked confused. “Why?”
“Apparently there’s some new reality show where people compete for an open spot on a team I’ve never even heard of. Mr. Cute Host is going to pretend to want to join, and Toby’s going to be giving him pointers.”
“And Wesley and Paul are okay with this?” She seemed horrified.
“I convinced Paul it would be okay. Fun publicity,” Mindy said, coming up to us. “Wesley agreed because he thinks a television reality show putting people in danger for a chance at fame is a horrible idea, and he wants Toby to say something to that effect. I think Toby just wants a chance to be near Mr. Cute Host.”
Lainey sighed. “Wouldn’t we all?”
“You two are married, and Toby’s with Forrest. If anyone should be near Mr. Cute Host, it should be me,” Selena groused.
“Why is his name Mr. Cute Host?” I asked, grimacing. “Is this another weird hero thing?”
“They’re talking about Todd Matthews,” Cyrus said. “He’s a comedian. He hosts this snarky television show. It’s really popular.”
“I can never remember his name,” Lainey explained. “I always ended up calling him Mr. Cute Host, and the name stuck.”
“An in-joke. How fun,” I said. I hadn’t had been part of an in-joke for years. I still wasn’t.
A beep sounded, and Mindy unearthed a strange device that looked like a combination tentaclelike being and one of those portable—sorry, cell—phones that everyone but me seems to carry. She consulted it, then grinned. “He just texted me. His segment’s coming up after the commercial break.”
I heard Paul call out from down the hall. “Mindy, if you’re going to watch this, you’d better get in here! It’s already started.”
Her phone beeped again. Mindy looked at it again and squealed. “Mr. Cute Host says hi!”
Everyone started down the hallway. Selena turned back and said, “Oh, Cyrus, my computer that I keep all of the schedules in isn’t working right. Mindy said she thought it might have some sort of virus.”
“So you thought you’d send a Virus to catch a virus?” Cyrus chuckled. “I’ll take a look.”
“Thanks!” She smiled brilliantly and walked off to join her friends.
I watched her go. I watched them all go. They’d watch their show and laugh at all their little in-jokes, and it was sweet enough to make me sick. “Aren’t you Mr. Fix-It?” I said to Cyrus. “First cars, then computers.”
“It’s nice to be handy,” Cyrus replied.
“They certainly are awful trusting of you.”
Cyrus sighed. “What would they fear? Really. I was never particularly ambitious as a villain, Fantazia. You know that. I certainly wasn’t an ‘I’m going to amass lots of power and crush everyone’ type. It was . . . well, it was just easier to steal what I wanted than work for it. My laziness is vast and has no bounds.” He gave a wry smile.
“And that’s changed?”
He shrugged. “I stumbled into your place at the right time, I guess. Got pulled into that EHJ caper, helped save