Swift (Strangetown Magic Book 1) Read Online Free Page A
Author: Al K. Line
lighthearted, but he still expected me to cook.
Then the front of my house exploded.
Time to Move
"For fuck's sake, Mack, what is wrong with you?"
We clambered over the rubble, once I'd found my boots, and stood in the street with numerous witches of varying ages accompanied by various Strange lodgers, all staring at first my house then at Mack. There was a lot of muttering. Witches are experts at it, there are lessons and everything.
Mack, the no longer tiny dormouse-cum-demon, but now the demon-cum-very-large-and-very-red-and-very-scary-looking-demon, all sixteen feet of him, not including tail or horns, said, "Oops."
"Oops!? Look at my house! What the hell were you thinking?" Like my day wasn't bad enough already.
"Sorry, Swift, I thought I was still a dormouse and walked to the door to go through the little gap like I usually do. You know, just chillin', and er—"
I held up a hand. "I got the rest. The fact half my house is missing explains it." I had to lower my gaze, even though I wanted to burn holes through his red hide with my anger. It was making my neck hurt looking up so high, plus, he had something nasty up his nose—probably coal boogers or something equally unpleasant.
"You're worse than the damn trolls, I swear. Now where am I supposed to live?"
"Don't you compare me to a troll. I've got brains, and I've got rights. I'm a person, you can't treat me like that. Anyway, I can fix it."
Demons, they drive me nuts. "You are not a person, you are an otherworldly demonic creature that eats the damned and defecates them out and does it for eternity. Anyway, there is no way in any kind of hell you can fix this mess." I watched, dumbfounded, as Mack tried to stack the red bricks into a makeshift wall. He stood back, angry slash of a mouth spreading wide revealing more teeth than in a shark museum, inordinately pleased with himself.
I wiggled my eyebrows at him as the dodgy wall collapsed in yet another display of dust. "I liked you better as a dormouse," I said before storming off through the rubble to see what I could salvage.
"She's touchy, isn't she? Needs to chillax." I heard Mack say, voice echoing up and down the street. Him and his damn out-of-date, so-called street talk, he seems utterly oblivious to the fact he sounds like an idiot.
"She's always been a bit of a hot-head," I heard one of the witches say, others agreeing before they went back to their homes with all the walls still standing. Me, hot-headed? Damn cheek. I'll tear their faces off and... Joke. Sort of.
"Hey, hey, isn't anyone going to comment on me not stuck being a dormouse any more?"
I honestly wasn't in the mood for congratulating him, although being referred to as male is just a personal preference and what Mack likes to go by. Truth is, they are all the same between the legs and he is no more a he than a blade of grass is a cabbage, whatever it may like to think.
*
It says a lot about a person's life as they stand out on the street staring at the ruins of their home, beside a dumb demon and a hot elf, and all they have to show for so much living is a couple of bags of clothes and a few knick-knacks.
I had no photos of my parents. I had no keepsakes from my youth, just clothes, bits and pieces of technology like laptops and phones, no books as I went digital to save on clutter, and that was about it.
There was some nice furniture still intact inside which could be moved when I had somewhere to put it, but when you got right down to it I was a bag lady with a sudden newfound sense of freedom.
Have you ever felt tied to your life? To things and to the restrictions society puts on you? Felt like just running away and leaving it all behind and starting afresh where no one knows you? Where you can be whoever you want to be, do whatever you want, where there is nobody to recognize you, nobody to tell you how to behave or what to do with your life?
Yeah, well, I had none of that.
In the past, yes, many times.
Then the front of my house exploded.
Time to Move
"For fuck's sake, Mack, what is wrong with you?"
We clambered over the rubble, once I'd found my boots, and stood in the street with numerous witches of varying ages accompanied by various Strange lodgers, all staring at first my house then at Mack. There was a lot of muttering. Witches are experts at it, there are lessons and everything.
Mack, the no longer tiny dormouse-cum-demon, but now the demon-cum-very-large-and-very-red-and-very-scary-looking-demon, all sixteen feet of him, not including tail or horns, said, "Oops."
"Oops!? Look at my house! What the hell were you thinking?" Like my day wasn't bad enough already.
"Sorry, Swift, I thought I was still a dormouse and walked to the door to go through the little gap like I usually do. You know, just chillin', and er—"
I held up a hand. "I got the rest. The fact half my house is missing explains it." I had to lower my gaze, even though I wanted to burn holes through his red hide with my anger. It was making my neck hurt looking up so high, plus, he had something nasty up his nose—probably coal boogers or something equally unpleasant.
"You're worse than the damn trolls, I swear. Now where am I supposed to live?"
"Don't you compare me to a troll. I've got brains, and I've got rights. I'm a person, you can't treat me like that. Anyway, I can fix it."
Demons, they drive me nuts. "You are not a person, you are an otherworldly demonic creature that eats the damned and defecates them out and does it for eternity. Anyway, there is no way in any kind of hell you can fix this mess." I watched, dumbfounded, as Mack tried to stack the red bricks into a makeshift wall. He stood back, angry slash of a mouth spreading wide revealing more teeth than in a shark museum, inordinately pleased with himself.
I wiggled my eyebrows at him as the dodgy wall collapsed in yet another display of dust. "I liked you better as a dormouse," I said before storming off through the rubble to see what I could salvage.
"She's touchy, isn't she? Needs to chillax." I heard Mack say, voice echoing up and down the street. Him and his damn out-of-date, so-called street talk, he seems utterly oblivious to the fact he sounds like an idiot.
"She's always been a bit of a hot-head," I heard one of the witches say, others agreeing before they went back to their homes with all the walls still standing. Me, hot-headed? Damn cheek. I'll tear their faces off and... Joke. Sort of.
"Hey, hey, isn't anyone going to comment on me not stuck being a dormouse any more?"
I honestly wasn't in the mood for congratulating him, although being referred to as male is just a personal preference and what Mack likes to go by. Truth is, they are all the same between the legs and he is no more a he than a blade of grass is a cabbage, whatever it may like to think.
*
It says a lot about a person's life as they stand out on the street staring at the ruins of their home, beside a dumb demon and a hot elf, and all they have to show for so much living is a couple of bags of clothes and a few knick-knacks.
I had no photos of my parents. I had no keepsakes from my youth, just clothes, bits and pieces of technology like laptops and phones, no books as I went digital to save on clutter, and that was about it.
There was some nice furniture still intact inside which could be moved when I had somewhere to put it, but when you got right down to it I was a bag lady with a sudden newfound sense of freedom.
Have you ever felt tied to your life? To things and to the restrictions society puts on you? Felt like just running away and leaving it all behind and starting afresh where no one knows you? Where you can be whoever you want to be, do whatever you want, where there is nobody to recognize you, nobody to tell you how to behave or what to do with your life?
Yeah, well, I had none of that.
In the past, yes, many times.
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