📜🎩 T H E ☆ M A G I C I A N - Act 74 (BOOK IV)

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T H E  ☆  M A G I C I A N
- 𝓜𝓮𝓵𝓸𝓭𝔂 𝓸𝓯 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓢𝓽𝓪𝓻𝓼 -

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Act 74

Mel

Melchior! Buddy!! You were fuckin’ fire out there! The people ate you up!! the snake cheered loudly within Mel’s head as they walked up to the VIP room behind the stage, with the audience’s muffled applause still audible in the distance.

“I did, didn’t I??” Mel answered excitedly once they were inside the room, away from the ears of the backstage workers, who also all congratulated and smiled. “I can’t believe it, there were so many people! And they laughed and applauded so often!”

“So they did, ventje,” a voice resounded behind Mel, making him jump. His manager, Mrs. Morris, sat there in a seat, put out her cigarette in an ashtray next to it, and got up. “No reason to not be careful, though. Check rooms before you start talking with your pet demon.”

Mel felt Lusje leave his body, wriggling out of his pants and appearing as a normal-sized, white snake.

“Did you see the kid? Did ya watch? Ain’t he a marvelous, whimsical, handsome little piece of shit?”

To his surprise, his manager smiled, for what felt like the very first time.

“He wasn’t half bad. Way more charming and confident than I thought,” she admitted.

“Uh, duh! That’s ‘cause he knows his business—so long as you don’t rip him a new one. Wouldn’t have chosen him otherwise,” Lusje shot back while stretching itself up, so that it was more on eye level with Mrs. Morris. It looked ridiculous.

“I can admit when I’m wrong. He’s better than I hoped, climbing up the ladder shouldn’t be any issue. After hearing that he doesn’t actually have any powers, I feared for the worst.”

“H-hey,” the demon commented, “teleporting stuff is a power.”

The manager scrunched up her nose and gave Lusje a derogatory, single laugh. “Pah. You forget that my ex is a demon, too, and that I know that switching between dimensions is nothing more than your main way of transportation. It’s like walking to us, jij kleine worm.”

Lusje wheezed, and its little head seemed to turn red. 

“May I remind you, mijn lieve heks, that my client does his very best to make my part of the bargain as hard as possible? That, with him refusing to sip on just a tiny bit of human vigor, there’s not much more that I can give him?”

“You’re just weak, slijmerige kutadder.”

“Demonenneukende kutkroket!”

“Vleesgevulde tuinslang.”

Lusje gasped.

“Jongens…” Mel interrupted them sheepishly, blushing upon the dirty words the two exchanged in his mothertongue, but couldn’t hold back a tiny smile upon feeling weirdly at home and euphoric. “I think it’s an amazing power. I can think of a hundred ways to use it in shows. I don’t think a magician needs any more than that.”

Lusje gave the middle-aged woman a comedically triumphant grin. Mrs. Morris ignored it.

“I’m way more concerned about, well…” Mel began, but then blushed even more, averting his gaze.

“What is it, ventje?” the manager asked. 

Lusje turned its head around to look at Mel.

Melchior tucked nervously at the bottom of his waistcoat, which stretched over his rounded abdomen. He could feel the Umbrae shifting around, demanding sustenance, as always.

“Are you questionin’ my powers again, human?” Lusje barked, offended, and puffed.

“What’s the kid referring to?” the manager asked while lighting another cigarette on fire.

Lusje nodded towards her. “See? Even though she technically knows about it and sees what yer doin’, she doesn’t get it. Believe me, it’s a pretty strong shield.”

“The demon is right. Their charms are pretty reliable, or else they couldn’t move around that easily in our world or clean up the messes they create. If even I can’t notice what you’re talking about, I can guarantee you that nobody in the audience did.”

Mel relaxed a little. “That’s… that’s good. Sorry, I don’t really get this whole charm ordeal yet, I think.”

“Let’s test it, then. Tell me what it’s about, and I will do my best to break it.”

“It’s… It’s about—” Mel began, but he wasn’t able to say it out loud. 

“His gut. Fucked my spawn into him, you know how it goes,” Lusje blatantly stated, making Mel wince, “Because he’s a lanky leek, it’s rather visible. The others were about his gender, making it rather unimportant, and lastly, making others more attentive to his own charm.”

Bente Morris took a deep drag on her cigarette while looking up and down at Mel, making him very nervous in the process.

“I can see the attentiveness when I think hard about it, maybe. You have something about you that makes me curious to see more of. I think I can feel that it’s artificially scaled up, but that’s really hard to tell, because you do look interesting and charming on your own. About the gender thing… it’s true. I don’t care. If the demon would call you a gal, I wouldn’t be confused at all. Or a boy… I think you’re a he, right? I can barely tell what we went with when you introduced yourself.”

Mel blushed a little more. This… this felt nice.

“And… and the third one?” Mel reluctantly inquired.

“What third one?” Mrs. Morris asked.

Lusje laughed smugly. “Told’cha,” it said, commenting on Mel’s dumbfounded expression.

“My… my stomach…” Mel pushed further, even pointing his hands vaguely in its direction.

The manager's eyes followed the gesture but turned away quickly again.

“Hm. Yes. It’s pretty hard to grasp. I know what you’re talking about, in theory. I know how it works when demons give humans power. But the best thing to describe it is: It’s so vastly unimportant, I can’t bring myself to give a flying fuck about it.”

Mel looks at her, then at Lusje, confused.

“Ya don’t need to get it, kid,” the demon joined in. “Just relax. You really, really don’t have to worry your pretty little head about it.”

“You have a sorry excuse of a demon, ventje,” Mrs. Morris added, “but you can trust it on that. Their charms are so powerful because they are subtle. They can clean up massacres by making a whole police station simply not care, get degenerate idiots in positions of immense power without people noticing, and even make the whole world look away from blatantly obvious things like political flaws. Only few are resistant to the charms, usually nutcases or people who really, really want to see. It’s way more powerful than actually manipulating reality or tinkering with people’s memories.”

“You heard the old hag. Now stop thinkin’ about it, bud. Let’s fucking celebrate your first real gig! Can we get champagne and caviar, Morris? In a strip club or something??”

Bente Morris sighed. 

“Sure. Why not. But only this one time.”

“Fuck yeah!” Lusje screamed out, “Motherfucking Las Vegas, get gekoloniseerd! Here we come!!”

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Spotify🎵 Mel | Mary | Bastet | Lusje | Lynette 🎵

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Rose: Hey guys! We're finally continuing with Book 4! Hope you'll enjoy the wild ride that is about to come, hehehe