Date Published: 10-05-2021
Publisher: Cinnabar Moth
Jake had drifted to Japan without any serious intent, and it was going… okay. He had made friends in the local Salsa community, his Japanese was improving, but for Jake the familiar feeling that had dogged him most of his life—that something special should be happening—had struck again.
Kenneth had been assigned to Japan by the pixie queen years ago, which is just enough time for a pixie to get bored and complacent while keeping tabs on the local talent. Most humans had no magic, and most magical humans didn’t know it was their power that made their food taste better, their paintings more vibrant, or people like them more.
When the two met, the spark in Jake gave Kenneth’s role a new urgency. Jake didn’t just have magic, he had a wild and unpredictable kind seen only once in a generation. How could Kenneth keep Jake’s magic from falling into enemy hands? Kill him? Recruit him? Somehow keep him ignorant?
Jake’s magic had quietly led him to Japan, subtly influencing every choice in his life. That something special Jake had been waiting for was about to happen, ensuring his and Kenneth’s lives would never be boring again.
Excerpt:
Kenneth smoothed out the short, red spikes of his hair with
one hand as he stood in front of the train’s mirror. He could feel the glances
of the other passengers, though he pretended not to notice. He finally had a
night to himself. While it had only been three months, it felt like a century
had passed. He would know, having lived long enough. The constant grind of
finding magical humans, or marks, and handling them rarely left him with any
opportunities to enjoy himself. He tried to loosen the stiffness in his
shoulders as he thought back over his responsibilities. Over the next few days,
he would have to work to increase trust with two marks. And he would need to
squeeze in time to reach out to his connections to several others that he had
already gotten processed. The life of a pixie was never dull.
For the evening, he had the opportunity to put those
concerns to the side. He resisted the urge to smile as he thought about it. A
night of dancing was exactly what he needed to feel relaxed and settled. Despite
the years of experience, adopting different personas to deal with people still
took its toll. A single night of free expression was the perfect fix.
With many different hobbies, chief of them being Latin dance, he keeps himself physically active as well as mentally active as much as he can. The Latin dance community in Japan is alive and, surprisingly, quite large.
Rasta has lupus and hereditary coproporphyria. Given their complicated nature, he’s had to learn a lot to adapt and manage them. The process also taught him a lot about managing other aspects of his life, and all of this influences his writing.
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Twitter: @RastaMusick
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