Page 17 of Were-Geeks Save a Kitten

“Yup. Fairy deal. Got a fairy name in your books?”

“No. Just a detailed list of outstanding debts.”

“All of which shifted to Gamfay on Coffee’s death.”

“Gamfay?”

“Nickname. Don’t ask. It’s dumb.”

The Scot nodded. “So how is that a Get out of Dead Free card?”

Good question. Yordan held up the diary. “This covers the initial terms between Gamfay and teenage Dwayne. It doesn’t say anything about keeping him from dying.”

Without a word of discussion, the two of them switched notebooks. Yordan got five spiral notebooks (the ones The Scot hadn’t looked at yet). And the boss’s boss got the diary. Ten minutes later, McNabb sighed.

“What?”

“What happens if Coffee misses on his acolyte promise?”

“What?”

“What happens if Coffee didn’t make a bet? What if he forgot or he couldn’t because he was trapped in ice?”

Yordan thought back, a sinking pit in his stomach. “Wasn’t he in ice for a couple days? Conscious but frozen in—”

“Magical ice. Yes.”

“He thawed out okay. We called him Captain America for a bit until he got too obnoxious calling himself one of the hot Hollywood Chrises.”

The Scot’s lips quirked. “I remember that.” Then he sobered. “But he couldn’t have made any bets while frozen.”

“Shit.”

“Yup.”

Together, they started flipping through the spiral notebook dated the year Coffee had been turned into an ice cube. They found it quickly enough. It was a single bet on an otherwise pristine page.

“Double or nothing bet. Dwayne bets Gamfay that the fairy can’t find the Big Tits Bar tee in ten minutes of looking at human speed. If Dwayne wins, all missed bet consequences are gone, plus he gets a single Death Save. If Dwayne loses, Gamfay gets a Lost Love.”

McNabb frowned. “What’s a Lost Love?”

“No clue. You?”

“Nada.” Yordan pointed. “But it looks like it didn’t matter. He must have won. Had to have if he claimed he had a Get out of Dead Free card.”

“That’s g—” The Scot started to say but then caught his breath. Yordan, too, as dark, flourishing words appeared on the formerly white page.

Unless Dwayne cheated, in which case, all penalties and benefits are enacted at my whim. And I have a lot of

WHIMSY

The last word was writ large and with expanding lines of flourish until it ended in a grinning smiley face that kept winking at them.

“Oh shit,” Yordan muttered. When what he actually wanted to do was scream, What the fuck, you fucking idiot? at Coffee. But that would be undisciplined and completely unhelpful.

Meanwhile, The Scot proved that he was a quick thinker by grabbing a pen and scribbling his next words onto the page.

What’s your name? We want to make a deal.