“I mean… What I meant was…” I stammered.
“First things first, Jessie—we need to square away business,” Niamh said, completely unperturbed. Edgar’s wide eyes said he was not so blasé about the whole thing. “After that, we’ll get ye enough bells and whistles to have ye singin’ the Lord’s name. Ye won’t want to come out’ve that room for a week, so you won’t.”
“That’s… No. What I’d meant to say was—”
“Austin is practically beside himself with preparing for whoever might come calling,” Niamh went on. “That poor fella is actin’ like he’ll be the only one defending this town against ’em. We need backup we can trust.”
“How do we know we can trust them?” I asked, face still blazing like a furnace as I pretended to be as mature as my age.
Niamh gave me a long look. “That’s your department. The house will help, I believe…”
“Yes.” Edgar entwined his fingers as he neared the table. Surely the gesture was meant to keep him from scratching his head, but Niamh’s look made him pause and retreat to the other side of the kitchen. “The summons should call all the able-bodied that your magic deems worthy. You will need to choose who works for you and who doesn’t. This will just be the first wave, I believe. The first summons. As you progress, you’ll send out more, the first few accidental, like now, and then on purpose as you fill in your team. It is expected that you be choosy. Very choosy, if you want to. Downright picky—”
“We get it,” Mr. Tom drawled, putting the finishing touches on the sandwiches. “Edgar, you don’t want a sandwich, do you?”
“No, no.” Edgar smiled, his long canines looking ghastly in his gleaming smile—he’d been using whitening gel on his teeth, a subtle hint that he clearly wished Ivy House had spruced the color up a bit. “I stunned some trespassers I caught sneaking around in the woods before the house called us in. I’ll just go tuck into them.”
“You don’t…” I cleared my throat. I’d asked this before, but I always worried the answer would change. “You don’t plan on killing them, right?”
“Oh no, of course not.” Edgar laughed. “I only kill for sport. No, I’ll just take enough to tide me over. Don’t fight today, save it for another day.”
Niamh shook her head. “You’ve missed the mark on that cliché.”
“Right, well.” He nodded at me. “Probably best you didn’t jump. There was a possibility of Niamh running you through with her horn. You might’ve healed from that, but then what if I didn’t catch you? A horn and a splat? That might’ve been too much for even Ivy House magic to patch up.”
“Run her through, me arse,” Niamh grumbled. “I would’ve gotten her. The height was tough, though. We should find a higher point to drop her from. That way I’d have more time for maneuvering. You know, since someone is too afraid to miss and drop her.” She gave Mr. Tom a pointed look.
I let my jaw drop, looking at each of them in turn. “Really? You were all thinking this and didn’t bother to mention it?”
“If we’d mentioned it, you wouldn’t have jumped,” Mr. Tom said, coming around the island with the plate of sandwiches.
There were no words.
“Now, about this dating—let’s see what you’ve got there.” Niamh moved around the table and motioned at my laptop. “Who’s this fella you’re goin’ out wit’ tonight, then?”
3
I had told them all when I confirmed the date. I’d even broken down and told my son on our last call. Surprisingly, Jimmy had wished me well. The others had mostly ignored me. Given I hadn’t canceled the date, something I was sure Mr. Tom hoped I’d do, since the guy wasn’t magical, clearly Niamh now wanted some specifics.
My stomach rolled over. “I found him on a different site. I was just checking this profile…”
“Sure, yeah, fine, let’s have a look. Come on.” She stood behind me.
A second opinion probably wasn’t a bad idea. I hadn’t been incredibly choosy on the guy I’d agreed to meet tonight, not really knowing what to look for in a dating profile, let alone which not-as-obvious red flags to avoid. He was about my age, somewhat in shape, based on his profile pictures, and said he liked to stay active. I figured that was a good start.
I inched the laptop open and clicked into my account again. “I’ve only posted a profile on this site. I haven’t talked with anyone yet…”
My voice trailed off and my eyes widened at the number of messages waiting for me.
“How long has that profile been up?” Niamh asked, leaning closer.
“The chosen of Ivy House dating?” Mr. Tom placed the plate on the table and huffed. “Ridiculous. With your prestige, you’ll have your pick. It’s as I’ve told you: you need but wait.”
“I don’t want someone who’s after my magic,” I said. “Besides, anyone interested in my magic is going to assume I’ve been turned young again. They might be put off that I’m not.”
“The only thing they’ll be put off by is your social awkwardness.” Mr. Tom turned and headed back to the island. “Eventually they’ll warm up to you.”
“He’s a real treat,” Niamh said, reaching over me and touching the message icon on the screen.
“This isn’t a touch screen,” I said, clicking in. “The profile has only been up for a few days. There’s no way I should have— Oh my God!”
The very first message was an erect member of the male persuasion. Grainy and angled, obviously taken as a still life in the heat of the moment with a bad-quality camera, it was one of the worst dick pics I’d ever seen.
And I would know—I’d seen quite a few since entering the world of online dating. “I hate this part of dating sites.” Disgusted, I trashed it and moved on to the next. “Come on, really? Two in a row? Why do they do this?”
Niamh leaned a little closer, examining. “You’ve got this all wrong. It’s best to see the willy up front. This way, ye don’t have to go through all the rigmarole to check out the equipment. Good size? Well then, sure, let’s try it out. Too small or big? Keep moving, my dear, I haven’t the time.”
“It’s not the size of the vessel, it is the motion in the ocean,” Mr. Tom said.
“That’s only what women tell you, ye old goat. They’re trying to make you feel better about yerself,” Niamh said as I trashed the pic and moved to the next. Yet another one. Trash.
“In my prime, they were too speechless to say anything at all.” Mr. Tom puffed up in pride.
“I think I just died a little inside,” I groaned.
“This many photo peep shows can’t be normal.” Niamh clicked into the profile section.
“What do you know about it?” Mr. Tom asked, pouring hot water into the teapot.
“I’ve done a great many of these dating sites for Edgar. Before he got his vitality back, we had to lure his food in under false pretenses. It’s easier to get guys on board, o’course, so I did the profile for a younger me.” Niamh blinked at the screen, then moved back a bit. “I keep forgetting that Ivy House fixed my eyesight. I’m a new woman.”
“Still wretched, sadly,” Mr. Tom muttered.
“Ah. Here.” She pointed at my list of favorite ways to relax. “You put ‘watch Netflix and chill.’”
I nodded. “I figured saying ‘watch TV’ was dated, Prime isn’t as popular, and I just don’t see the point in Hulu—Netflix seemed like the obvious winner.”
Niamh leaned to the side so she could see my face. “Are ye jokin’?”
“What?” I asked.
“‘Netflix and chill’ means you are looking for sex,” Mr. Tom said as though that were common knowledge.
“What’s this now?” I asked, staring harder at the words as though they might morph before my eyes.
“Single sex, group sex, dirty sex—”
“Yes, we get it, Niamh.” Mr. Tom brought the tea over. “Let’s not get carried away.”
“Well, clearly she doesn’t get it.” Niamh hooked a thumb at me.
“That explains the plethora of dick pics,” I said softly, trashing the whole lot and clicking in to edit my profile.
“Nope, don’t do it that way.” Niamh shook her head as she moved back around the table and took her seat. “You’ll want to start over. You’ve ruined the algorithms. They’ll send your stuff to the wrong people, now.”
“Are you sure?” I asked, hesitating.
“You should trust her,” Edgar said from the corner. He’d been so still and quiet that I’d forgotten he was there. “She did a great job of luring men to her. They were so excited, they didn’t even notice me sneaking up behind them.”
“Edgar doesn’t realize that, unlike Janes, Dicks are rarely afraid that a stranger will attack out of the blue,” Mr. Tom said, setting the tea tray down on the table. Janes and Dicks were what magical people called non-magical women and men.
“Yes, true.” Niamh poured milk into her mug before reaching for the teapot. “Janes are used to being prey. They often have their guard up. Dicks, however—la-dee-da until they have a vampire attached to their necks. They’re asleep before they even react.”
“Not like our Jessie,” Edgar said, beaming with pride. “My eye hurt for the rest of the night. I thought I might lose it.”
He was talking about the night he’d bitten me to keep me from discovering the magical world too soon. I’d gouged him in the eye before I succumbed to the sleeping agent of his bite.
“What is all this shite in me sandwich?” Niamh nudged the lettuce and tomato off her turkey. “Where’s the butter? I bet you didn’t put any Irish butter on it, did ye?”