Time God Warlock [Chapter 2]

Hey peeps!

More of the practice date, lol

Shami

Chapter 2

            Finch parked his Toyota in the parking lot of the fanciest Chinese restaurant in all of Stockton. Dave Wong’s.

            There it stood, the bright back-lit letters DAVE WONG’S buzzing, casting a heavenly glow across the windshield. The building itself looked like a Cantonese casino. Lights everywhere, Chinese words hung on the outside walls, and large entranceway for guests to wait.

            It was absolute chaos. Family after family waited in line, some inside, and some out. They each spoke over each other, creating a din of innocuous conversation.

            Finch stepped out of his vehicle, walked around to the other side, and then opened Kull’s door. She leapt out, smiling like a lunatic.

            “I’ve never been here before,” Kull said with an energetic laugh. “It looks so popular!”

            “It’s a shining glass bottle in a landfill full of rusted cans.” Finch closed the door. “Let’s hope we can get a table.”

            As they walked to the front door, Kull slipped both her arms around one of Finch’s, holding him close. He fought off the urge to rip out of her grip and then sighed. He supposed, on a good and normal date, this would be acceptable behavior.

            Once inside, Finch took a deep breath. The air was a perfect storm of Szechuan pepper, duck fat, and perfume. Waiters weaved through the chaos like battlefield medics, wielding trays piled high with sizzling beef and pots of green tea, dodging handbags, and small children with the grace of seasoned stuntmen.

            Finch exhaled as he made his way to the hostess. She frantically wrote and scribbled out names on a long piece of paper, so distracted that she didn’t even realize Finch had arrived until after he cleared his throat.

            “Oh, welcome to Dave Wong’s,” she said, never glancing up. “How many?”

            “Two.”

            “It’ll be an hour wait. Name?”

            Finch pulled out his wallet and then slowly slid three hundred dollars over the waiting list. The hostess, finally glancing up, gave him a thousand-yard stare only restaurant workers and war veterans could achieve. Then she looked him up and down before taking the money.

            “Let me seat you right now.” The woman grabbed two menus and gestured for them to follow.

            She eventually pointed them toward a booth sandwiched between a family of eight and what appeared to be an influencer couple livestreaming their dumpling experience.

            “Here you are.”

            It was a C-shaped booth, and Finch waited for Kull to scoot in first before he sat down. The hostess smiled as she left. It almost seemed genuine.

            Tucked away in the booth, the chaos of the restaurant seemed distant. Finch was pleased with the acoustics, though he wasn’t entire sure what to talk about. Struggling to come up with a topic of conversation, he grabbed the menu and half-heartedly glanced through the options.

            Kull didn’t even reach for her menu. She nervously chuckled and scooted closer to Finch. “So, this is the part of dates I hate the most. What do I talk about? You know? Uh, what do you think is best, Adair?”

            He set his menu down. When he turned to her, he steeled himself to discussing romance, but he was determined to do in a clinical fashion. “The first thing you should do is compliment them about something you genuinely find appealing. Maybe even the first thing that really drew you to them in the first place.”

            Kull’s eyes widened. “Oh! That’s a great idea.” She poked Finch in the shoulder as she continued, “When you summoned me, you had this aura about you. It was, like, harsh, but kind. And the way you looked after Bree… I could tell you were gentler than you wanted to let the world see. It made me think you were a trustworthy human. Honest. Good. Beautiful in a way you can’t see with your eyes.”

            Finch’s face heated. He hadn’t known Kull had felt that way. “Well, thank you… but that’s not quite… what I meant.”

            “It’s not?”

            “Since you probably don’t know much about your date, I meant you should compliment them on something physical you like. That let’s them know you’re attracted to them.”

            With an ever-widening smile, Kull nodded. “Oh! I get it now. Okay, well, I love the bulge in your pants, Adair. You must be hung like a horse.”

            Finch grabbed the nearest napkin and pressed it against his crimson face.

            Maybe he could suffocate himself with it? At least then he could exit this conversation in an ambulance. Unfortunately, the napkin was too thin. Instead, he used it to shield his face so that everyone in the restaurant wouldn’t see his tomato-red embarrassment.

            “Are you okay?” Kull whispered as she leaned in closer. “Because I’ve watched a ton of romantic comedies. I know men are, like, worried about their length, and people calling them small, so I figured I’d give you a compliment that also boosted your self-esteem!”

            “I meant you should compliment someone on their face, or hair, or clothing,” Finch said directly into the napkin. “Something not so… forward.” He lowered the cloth, his face still scarlet. “Subtly goes a long way. You want them to know you’re interested, but not that interested, or else they’ll start thinking about you like a hamburger.”

            This was an inside joke the two of them shared. Whenever someone lusted after Kull, they referred to it as “treating her like a hamburger”—something to consume and then forget. It was also a general term for any sort of sex-first mentality, and Finch hoped he could steer Kull away from turning all of her dates into hamburger events.

            Finch’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He ignored it.

            Then the waiter came by. Finch ordered the Mongolian beef and fried prawns. Kull ordered the egg drop soup. Then the waiter was off, rushing to another table that looked like they were having a chopstick emergency.

            Finch phone buzzed a second time. Probably voice mail.

            “You know, speaking of auras, and weird feelings…” Kull lifted an eyebrow. “You seem different, Adair. Magically. Have you made any new pacts lately?”

            He shook his head. “No. I only have the three. Chronos, the Titan of Time; Ke-Koh, the Ifrit of Rebellion; and Heslop, King of the Simonside Dwarves.”

            He had two cores left. He could make two more pacts, and develop more magics, but he currently didn’t have the need. Additionally, Chonos was bond to the crown core, Ke-Koh to his heart, and Heslop to his eyes. That meant that only his spirit and loins were left, and both were complicated cores that required a little more focus than Finch was willing to give at the moment.

            Kull sniffed deep, practically smelling Finch’s shoulder. “You seem… extra Chronos this evening…”

            Finch nervously chuckled. “You’re imagining things.”

            “Hmm. Nope. I know you too well.” Kull sat straight and playfully waggled her finger. “You’re hiding something from me. That’s okay, I’ll forgive you since we’re on a date.”

            “Practice date.”

            His phone buzzed a third time. He wasn’t sure who it was, but they were persistent. And annoying.

            “The last date I went on, the guy wanted to make a viral YouTube video.” Kull’s shoulders slumped, and she frowned. “He wanted to do spank wars. It made me feel really icky.”

            “I’m going to regret this,” Finch said with a groan, “but what is spank wars?”

            “He said it’s when we should take turns spanking each other until one person gave up because it was too painful.” Kull huffed out a sigh. “When I said no, he just kept pressuring me to do it. What would you do in that situation? Maybe say no in a different way?”

            “I’d break his fucking nose and throw him out of place,” Finch stated matter-of-factly.

            “Huh. I hadn’t thought of that. Maybe I’ll try it next time.”

            “Next time? How do you keep finding yourself in terrible dates in the first place?”

            Kull shrugged. “I don’t know. I live in LA, and I got to lots of parties looking for people, but I just keep finding the same types? If that makes sense. I really want to find love, but it seems, uh, everyone else doesn’t.”

            “It can happen sometimes. Maybe you should find a good dating site where people state they’re looking for a long-term relationship.”

            “Well, I really keep hoping I’ll just meet someone like you, Adair.”

            The statement caused him to tense a bit. Surely, she hadn’t meant that. He was a wreck. There were plenty of other good men out there—she just needed to meet them.

            For a fourth time, Finch’s phone buzzed. He wanted to be polite. He didn’t want to look at it. But the temptation was becoming almost unbearable.

            “Which reminds me.” Kull brightened again as she tilted her head to the side. “Can we practice kissing? I gave a man a kiss and he said, That’s it? All grumpy, too. I think I messed it up.”

            “No. I’m not doing that.”

            “But I think I need a little bit of instruction. Just a little.”

            “No,” Finch drawled.

            Kull held up her fingers, nearly pinching them together. “Just a tiny practice session.”

            The waiter returned with plates full of food, as well as two glasses of water. His presence didn’t deter Kull from her mission, though.

            “I really want to practice kissing with you,” she said, scooting closer. Her hips were pressed against his.

            This was the strangest conversation since Finch last spoke with Kull. She always managed to one-up herself. “This is a bad idea.”

            “I read a romance book where a woman ran a kissing booth, and she became really good at making out because of all the practice, and I really want that! C’mon, Adair. Help me master kissing with my tongue.”

            The waiter, transfixed, almost dropped a plate onto the floor. His face grew redder than Adair’s. He caught himself at the last second and managed to drop off everything before leaving without uttering a single word.

            Finch dragged his hand down his face. “Kull. Please.”

            “You’re not going to break my nose and throw me out of here because I was pressuring you, right? I hope not.” Kull grabbed her soup and pulled it close. “Because I also just wanted to try kissing people—to see if there was a spark or something. A lot of romance novels have this sort of description that talks about how someone made them tingle. Will we feel that? We don’t know until we try!”

            Finch pulled his Mongolian beef close, a small portion of his thoughts focused on Kull’s physical contact. He hadn’t really felt like this in some time. Years, really.

            He took a bite of his beef and savored the flavor. Then he glanced over to Kull and held up a piece on the end of his fork. “Would you like a taste?”

            She smiled wider than before. “Really?”

            “It’s… romantic… to share food on a date.”

            “Oh, heck yeah. I love food so much!” Kull leaned over and gingerly took the beef right off the fork without even touching the utensil. She chewed it, looking thoughtful, and then swallowed. “It was tasty—ten out of ten—but I don’t feel romance.”

            “Hmm.”

            Finch tapped his fingers along his fork. Compliments about physical appearance and feeding each other food were some of the only things Finch could think of. When he glanced back over to Kull, she was pulling her soup closer, obviously forcing a smile. When she noticed him staring, her smile became more genuine, but just barely.

            Kull was clearly waiting for him to do something.

            “Uh, I like your hair,” Finch said.

            He had never felt more inadequate at a task in his life.

            Kull touched her the bun on her head, her red hair lush and shiny. “I miss the ability to change my shape, but this hair is nice.” Then she rolled her eyes. “But I have to clean and style it so much that I almost wish it would fall off.”

            “Right…”

            “You know what I just thought?” Kull giggled and then shrugged. “We’re a reverse vampire couple.”

            It took Finch a good thirty seconds to mull over that bizarre statement. “What?” he finally asked, incredulous.

            “You know. In movies and books, the vampire is always a man, and he’s super old. Thousands of years old, sometimes! And the lady is like eighteen or nineteen.” She leaned in closer to Finch and whispered, “But in this relationship, I’m the lady, and I’m four hundred years old. You’re only thirty-nine, so I’m ten times older than you. That’s funny, right?”

            “I…” Finch gritted his teeth. “First, this isn’t a relationship. Second, you haven’t been a human for four hundred years, so I don’t think it’s the same.”

            “Shh!” Kull pressed her finger against his lips. “You don’t want anyone to hear! Human women are supposed to hide their age at all costs.”

            Finch sighed. He had thought she was keeping their magical nature hidden from non-magical humans, but it seemed he was incorrect. She was hiding her age. Because that was what humans did.

            Finch was about to try a different topic of conversation when the front doors of Dave Wong’s slammed open with the force of a drugged-up meth head.

            “Where is it?” a man roared. His ragged voice sounded as though he had gargled gravel. “Where’s the egg?”

            Every head turned. Chopsticks held mid-bite. A spring roll hit the floor with a tragic plop.

            Egg?

            Finch’s chest tightened.

            Framed in the entrance stood a man straight out of a supernatural fever dream. His long duster coat flapping in a wind no one else could feel, and the man had a scarred face that looked like it had lost a fistfight with a wood chipper and came back for round two. In one hand, he held a large black duffle bag. In the other, he held a crossbow that looked retrofitted with divine sigils.

            “This cannot be happening,” Finch said under his breath.

            His phone buzzed again. This time Finch glanced at it.

            Enzo had been calling him from the office. Over and over and over again. Finch answered the call and brought the phone to his ear.

            “Adair?” Enzo asked on the other line. “Are you there? Because some lunatic broke into the office!”

            “Let me guess—a man in a duster?” Finch whispered.

            “That’s right. And he’s carrying a crossbow, and he’s screaming something insane. He tore through your office, shouting about an egg. A damn egg.”

            The man in the duster stomped forward, his boots ringing against the tile. “I know the egg is here in the city! You can’t hide it forever! The temporal distortion is too noticeable!”

            Kull sipped her soup. “Wait a minute. Is he talking about you, Adair?” She took another sip. “That’s crazy. Do you know him?”

            “I doubt it,” Finch muttered. Then he addressed the phone. “Thank you, Enzo. I’ll be at the office shortly.”

            Enzo snorted. “Okay. But watch out. I think that psycho is coming for you.”

            “Oh, he found me,” Finch quipped.