Magic Girls of Multiverse Inn: A Reverse Portal Fantasy, page 17
“Yep,” I said absently as I continued in my stare-down with the air fryer box.
Finally, I picked it up and hoisted it into the cart.
The cart was literally overflowing by the time I headed to the checkout line, and I carefully ignored the people who turned around to stare at us.
I walked out of the store with several hundred less dollars in my bank account, but buying this shit still made sense to me. It would be idiotic to walk back into the Grymm on an empty stomach, after a night of bad sleep in a chilly room. If college had taught me anything, it was that “brain food” was a pretty legitimate term, and that lack of sleep can pretty much turn you into a dumbass.
Investments in things food-related and sleep-related were pretty sensible, and it wasn’t like I was walking out of this store with one of the memory-foam mattresses or the fancy, obscenely expensive barbecue grills I’d glimpsed on the other side of the store.
Not yet, anyway. Eventually, I could plan to renovate the inn’s kitchen, but for now, this would do quite nicely.
This time, I drove through the cul-du-sac and then up onto the driveway. The night seemed incredibly silent once I turned off the rental car.
“This is the weirdest feeling ever,” I murmured as I stared at the inn looming over us.
“What is?” Kaz asked. “The inn?”
“All of it,” I said. “You know, this is an area that I absolutely wouldn’t have been able to afford living in. Like, ever. And now, not only am I about to move in here, but I’m moving specifically into the oddest home imaginable, with a stunning, otherworldly, magical woman who I literally just met. And…”
“And?” Kaz prompted. She used the sassy, lighthearted tone that I heard from her most often during our conversations, but her voice sounded slightly anxious, too.
“And I fucking love it.” I shook my head in astonishment and grinned. “Come on, let’s go inside.”
Kaz loaded up her arms with as many bags as she could carry, and I wondered how she could possibly see over everything to walk.
“We can make two trips, you know,” I chuckled as I slung a few bags of clothes over one arm and propped the air fryer box on my hip. “We don’t have to get it all at once.”
“We don’t?” Kaz asked with a current of tension in her voice. She glanced around as if she suddenly remembered that we were alone on the driveway in front of the enormous inn. “Oh, yes…”
The Enchanted woman returned a few bags to the trunk of my rental car as she gave me a sheepish smile.
“At the markets, you must never leave your wares unattended,” Kaz explained. “Things walk away faster than you could blink.”
“Is stealing a big problem there?” I wondered.
“Yes,” Kaz said, and she tilted her head in that way I’d come to find adorable. Then she gave me a serious look and mimed a walking motion with her index and middle fingers. “But also, things will walk away.”
“Riiight.” I arched an eyebrow at the imagery that brought up, and I thought back to all the octopus jars that were lidless and empty. Maybe those sea beasts were more sentient than I first thought. “Well, this stuff won’t walk, and we can close and lock the trunk to keep anyone from taking it.”
“That’s helpful,” Kaz said with a bright smile before she turned and started to stroll toward the house.
Her arms were still pretty full, and it was obvious she didn’t lack good work ethic or motivation. I bet if Mairo had treated her better, she would have been the best muse in all of the Grymm. I smirked as I realized his loss was my total gain, though, and I slammed the trunk closed.
I was so enthralled by the sway of Kaz’s hips that I nearly jumped out of my skin when my phone started ringing.
“Shit,” I hissed.
Chapter 10
I took a breath to settle my heartrate back to normal, and I laid the air fryer box on the trunk of the rental car. Then a quick glance at my phone’s screen told me it was my best friend, Kevin.
“Hey, man,” I said as I answered the call.
“Duuuuuude, Sammy!” Kevin’s excitement leaked through the phone like a fog. “How is it? I couldn’t wait to hear more, and it’s not like you’ve answered any of my texts!”
“Sorry,” I chuckled. “It’s about as crazy as it sounded when I told you about it.”
Kevin had been my roommate in college, and we’d become best friends during our four years together. He’d been the only person I’d really told about this whole inheritance insanity, and he’d been invested since the first second.
“So, are you going to keep it?” Kevin asked, and I could hear his grin through the phone. “Please tell me you’re gonna keep it! I so badly want to have to drive all your shit up there so I can see it, too!”
“Yeah, man,” I laughed as I stared up at the creepy-looking inn. “I’m gonna keep it. Would you please haul all my crap up here?”
“Fuck yes!” Kevin had pulled the phone away from his mouth, but his shout was still loud in my ear. “I’ll load up your shit first thing in the morning! Oh, I can’t wait to see the place. What’s it like? I bet it’s like an old grandma’s bed and breakfast with horrible flowery wallpaper everywhere. Wait, no, that’s totally not Wersnop’s style. Oh! I bet it’s filled with all kinds of crazy antiques!”
“You’re not wrong,” I chuckled as I thought about the piles of random shit inside. “Look, it’s been a crazy-long day here, and I’ve got some shit to do before I can crash tonight. Get my stuff here, and you can see it for yourself.”
“Yeah, yeah, cool, cool, cool,” Kevin said, and it was clear in his voice that he was already planning out the next several days. “I’ll shoot you a text when I get on the road, man.”
“Sounds good. Thanks, dude,” I said, and before I could promise him some good food and a bit of cash for helping me out, he hung up on me.
I shook my head and chuckled at my phone as it flashed back to the home screen, and I scooped the air fryer back onto my hip.
“Hey, sorry about that,” I said as I walked through the front door. “I got–”
My words stopped dead when I spotted Kaz with her arms still loaded as she stood in the middle of the room. There was a look of strain on her face, and I realized she must have been holding all that stuff while I’d talked with Kevin outside.
“Where would you like these?” Kaz asked, and she hauled them back up like a toddler slipping down her hip.
“Uh, anywhere,” I said hastily. “You didn’t have to wait for me.”
“I did not know where you would want your goods,” Kaz said, and she gave me a shy look.
I stared at her for a long moment, and I reminded myself she’d basically been a slave until earlier today. She probably wasn’t used to making decisions like that, or even being allowed to consider making a decision. Kaz’s free will had been locked away for… hell, I didn’t know how long, and it was something she would have to practice.
“Just put it on the floor for now,” I suggested. “We’ll get the rest from the car, and then we can choose which room we want to start on.”
Kaz nodded and placed the bags gently on the floor like the knock-off branded clothing inside was precious fine China. That’s when I realized the way Mairo had cranked her arm back today probably wasn’t the first time he’d punished the Enchanted woman.
It was amazing how unafraid she seemed to be of me, and I marveled at her strength and resilience. She was so strong.
“Come on,” I said in a softer tone as I realized how much I wanted to protect her from ever having to be scared again. “Let’s get the rest.”
We carried the rest of our stuff in from the car in two more trips, and then I locked the inn’s front door. I started to make a mental checklist of all the things I’d need to hire professionals to do to secure this place and turn it into the home I envisioned.
Thankfully, Kevin was skilled in woodworking, and I knew he would be more than happy to hang around here for a few days. I was going to have to find a way to keep him off the fourth floor, and I’d have to decide what the hell to tell him about Kaz. Kevin wasn’t an idiot, he was going to take one look at her and know there was something going on here. Hell, he’d probably be able to smell the insanity of this place before he got out of his truck.
Kevin had always been interested in the “more” stuff, and he firmly believed in not only ghosts, but Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster, too.
But figuring out what to tell Kevin was tomorrow’s problem.
For now, Kaz and I took some time to sort through our huge haul of stuff, and we started a few piles. Kaz naturally took over the first category, which was all the clothes we’d picked to sell at the markets. She carefully folded and sorted them by color.
Meanwhile, I started to organize the Earthy things like the air fryer, a cooler with ice, and a few groceries that would get us by. The kitchen I’d discovered earlier didn’t have a fridge, and the oven wasn’t exactly something I knew how to cook on. It looked like we were gonna be eating out and eating air-fried food for a while.
I dragged a sturdy-looking wooden table over to what was thankfully a three-prong outlet, and I added “check the breaker box” to my mental checklist. The presence of a modern grounded outlet gave me hope this place wasn’t still on old glass fuses, but I didn’t want to start a fire due to old wiring. That didn’t even bring up the possibility of galvanized piping in the inn.
I groaned softly at the hassle it might be to get this place up and running, but I reminded myself that at least I would have plenty of money to do it all once I cashed in those golden coins and made even more in the Grymm.
Then I picked up the broom and dustpan and started to clear away some of the cobwebs and dust from the main parlor. I figured the entryway was as good a place as any to start cleaning.
“We have many wonderful things here, venturer,” Kaz said. “You will be rich very soon.”
“We,” I corrected her with a grin as I stood there with a loaded dustpan and no garbage can. “We will be very rich.”
“You are a strange man,” Kaz said with a tilt of her head.
My eyebrows furrowed as I used one of the plastic store bags as a temporary garbage can. “What do you mean?”
“You clean without complaint,” Kaz said. “That is… uncommon.”
“Not really,” I chuckled. “Not on Earth at least.”
I looked around at the slightly improved state of the parlor. The floor wasn’t as dirty-looking, and I’d set up a small spot for us to cook with the air fryer. I figured it was good enough for now, and I could see Kaz was getting tired. The skin under her violet eyes was puffy with exhaustion, and we still had a fair bit to do before we could sleep.
“How about we pick a room and get it ready for sleep?” I said.
“Yes, venturer,” Kaz said, but her violet eyes widened with what looked like sadness, and her shoulders slumped just a fraction.
I wondered why the idea of getting some rest would make her so sad, and I could only assume she was worried she might go to sleep and wake up to find herself back in Mairo’s clutches.
I couldn’t really blame her, I was still a bit nervous that I would wake up tomorrow to discover her gone and this place just a falling-down shithole of an old inn filled with junk. But, like testing the rooms earlier, there was only one way to know for sure.
Kaz continued to stand there silently, but the sadness was gone from her eyes. She’d pulled her shoulders back once more, and she had that appearance of confidence she’d worn as a muse.
“Uh, let’s see,” I said as I tried not to think about how much I wanted to kiss her. “Air mattress, blankets, pillows…”
I rifled through some of the home goods we’d bought until I found the bag of toiletries, and I set them all aside for us.
“Okay, that should do it,” I said more to myself.
“Will we sleep in the same bed, venturer?” Kaz asked, and there was a hint of curiosity in her seductive voice that sent heat through my body.
“We– uh,” I cleared my throat at the sudden tension in the air. “Well, they only had one mattress at the store. It’s a queen size, though, so it’s big enough for us to share. If you’re not comfortable with that, I could…”
I started to grab the cushions off the floor to bring upstairs, but Kaz stopped me with a shake of her head.
“No, it is fine,” the Enchanted woman assured me. “I did not know what you would be comfortable with…”
“Well, your charms don’t work on me,” I said in a playful voice. “So it’s not like you can seduce me or anything.”
I meant to reassure her that I was comfortable, but the air between us suddenly crackled with electricity.
“I mean…” I mumbled as I tried to figure out what to say to alleviate the delicious tension.
“I am fine with sleeping beside you,” Kaz said, and her voice was rougher than normal. “If you are.”
“Yeah, I am,” I said in barely a whisper.
I glanced around at our supplies to try and kick-start my brain, and then I started to scoop up the mattress and other things. Kaz followed my lead and picked up the rest of our bedroom things before she tilted her head in a silent question.
“Uh, come on,” I said.
I started up the stairs, and I debated between going to the room that led to Berta’s inn or checking out one of the rooms on the second or third floors. I didn’t really think waking up in another realm first thing in the morning without food or coffee was the best idea, especially when we hadn’t had a chance to inspect any of the other rooms. Plus, if we didn’t have to haul all this stuff up three flights of stairs, all the better. I was sick of trekking up stairs to my old apartment, and one staircase felt like being pampered at this point.
We stopped at the second-floor landing, and I rifled for my keyring at the first door. The plain master key was exactly what I thought, and it easily opened the plain, very earth-like wooden door.
The room inside was a pretty standard, if not dusty as hell, bed and breakfast-style room. There was a queen-sized bed on an antique wooden frame with a cushioned bench at the foot, a heavy dresser with a huge dirty mirror on top, and a small table with a washbasin and pitcher below the window that overlooked the back. A simple painting of a sunset over a lake hung above the dusty bed, but the room was otherwise undecorated.
“Do you think this room goes to another realm, too?” Kaz asked.
“No, I don’t think it does,” I said as we walked into the room. “I think it’s just the fourth floor rooms that do that.”
“We should not wake up somewhere else, then,” Kaz said with a look of relief.
“That’s the plan.” I nodded, and I looked around. “We should clean this up a little before we sleep. I don’t feel like waking up covered in dust.”
“That would be unpleasant.” Kaz smiled.
We dropped our stuff on the table and bench for the time being, and I set to stripping the bed of the dusty sheets. I wondered where the closest laundromat was in town, and I hoped they had a change machine. No way did I have enough quarters to wash everything that would need it.
Kaz started to dust and sweep the floors while I tested the mattress of the bed. It was clean enough, if a little squeaky, and I debated whether the air mattress would fit on the floor. It didn’t look like it would, so we were left with the need to sleep in the same bed again.
I stifled a grin at the fact, and I shoved away the potential of sleeping in two rooms. I didn’t like the idea of separating in what looked like a mansion from any good horror movie. Never split up, it was like the number one rule in scenarios like this.
Besides, Kaz didn’t seem to mind the idea of sleeping next to me, so why not treat myself to her company all night long?
“Do you think someone would want to buy this in the markets?” I asked as I nudged the air mattress box with my foot.
“What is it exactly?” Kaz asked. “I do not understand a mattress of air. Is it magic?”
“No,” I chuckled. “It’s like… Do you know what a balloon is?”
“I have heard of those flying machines,” Kaz said with interest. “They have them in Madolid, I believe. Is this a flying machine, venturer?”
“No.” I grinned. “It’s just for sleeping on. But it’s filled with air like a flying balloon. It’s like a big, flat bag that you fill with air. You can let the air out and fold it up to make it easy to take with you. It’s good for camping and stuff.”
“Yes, many would pay a hefty price for something like this,” Kaz said. “Straw and feather mattresses are expensive and difficult to move around. Only those with large caravans can keep them.”
“Cool,” I said, and I checked the box to see if it had a manual foot pump. “This doesn’t need electricity, either, so we’ll save it and sell it…”
I stopped when I saw Kaz’s confused expression.
“Elec–tick–ity?” Kaz stumbled over the foreign word. “What is this?”
“Right,” I chuckled. “It’s like a power source? You know those strange lanterns you mentioned? They’re powered by electricity. It’s sort of like lightning that’s been captured inside… string.”
I shook my head at the insanity that was coming out of my mouth. Kaz must have thought I was nuts, but it seemed the best way to try and describe modern earth electricity.
“Straaaange,” Kaz droned.
“Would you hand me that package, please?” I asked and pointed at a queen-size sheet set.
“Your realm is full of the mysterious, Venturer Sam,” Kaz said as she handed the sheets to me.
“Just wait until you see TV,” I laughed.
Kaz just arched one elegant eyebrow at me as I worked to cover the bed in the new sheets. The Enchanted woman obviously knew how to make a bed, though, because by the time I turned back to her, she’d put the pillowcases on and opened the blankets.
The bed looked much more inviting now with a thick, woven cotton blanket and clean sheets, and I realized there wasn’t exactly a bathroom in here. I figured there had to be a community bathroom on the floor somewhere, and I grabbed the bag of toiletries.
