“You still look like a sexy Irish Barbie doll, don’t worry,” Mads jokes, and I turn to grin at her, seeing her smart work uniform that suits her curves, long blonde hair which she has pulled up into a bun. We are both Irish, though somehow Mads has a stronger accent than I do, and her curse word list is pretty impressively mixed between British and Irish words.
“Coming from the actual Barbie doll with big boobs,” I reply, because she damn well looks like one of those little feckers she used to steal from me as a kid. “Though you look great, and you will be fine today.”
“What are your plans for today?” she asks, and I glance down at my hand, seeing the name John Markson in black ink tattooed on the back. I flip my hand over, seeing the black Celtic circle knot in my palm, which when touched will take me to wherever John Markson is so I can deliver his karma. When the ink is black, it’s my favourite kind of karma to deliver. The bad kind. Usually I ignore the ones that are gold, because I’m not the type to give good things to people all the time. My brothers and parents are much better at those jobs.
“I have a date with a John Markson,” I say as honestly as I can. It won’t be a date, more of a bad surprise depending on what I can sense he hates the most. It will be funny either way.
“Sounds like fun,” she says, winking at me before grabbing her bag and leaving her apartment. I turn my hand over and press the mark, disappearing into a puff of green dust.
Chapter 2
When I reappear, shaking the green dust off my clothes, I look around at the street that I’m in. Each house is a good distance apart and filled with massive mansions protected by big metal gates stopping anyone from getting in. I’m taking a wild guess the house right in front of me is my guy, judging by the fact it is the biggest on the row. Usually, rich guys need a good dose of bad karma because they are born dickheads. That isn’t always the case, but years of this job have taught me those born with a silver spoon in their mouths tend to think they can do what they want with no consequences.
I walk across the street, pull the mailbox in the brick wall open, and look for a name on the letters inside. John Markson. Perfect. I shove the letters back in before going to the gate and pulling my necklace out of my top. I flip past the lucky charms until I find the magic key charm and press the key against the metal gate. It glows purple for a second before the gate swings open. This is going to be easy. I love my lucky charm necklace; there is not much that my charms can’t do. Each charm was a birthday gift from my parents over the years. The important ones are on my necklace, and the less important ones are on an ankle bracelet of mine. All twenty of them have been useful somehow over the years, or they have got me into trouble somehow. Either way, my necklace keeps things fun.
I walk up the expansive driveway, admiring the flower beds that my mum would adore. I pass some very nice cars that I have no idea what they are, but man, would one of my brothers love them. I jog up the rest of the driveway, which is straight uphill, and I'm out of breath by the time I get to the top of it. Maybe I should go to some of those cardio classes with Mads. I straighten up once I get my breath back and look at the posh manor house. There is loud music coming from inside, and two motorbikes are parked outside the house in pride position. Clearly this guy loves his bikes, maybe his fear is they get stolen or something. I could make them disappear for sure.
I walk up to the front door and turn the handle to find that it is open. That’s some good luck right there. I try not to whistle as I sneak into the white tiled entrance hall and see the white walls with a surfboard hanging on the wall by the stairs. The place is posh, like the kind of house a celebrity would live in. Everything from the vase of vivid flowers in the middle of the entrance hall to the art deco painting of a beach on the one wall makes me think this guy has a lot of money.
I follow the noise of the music and pause outside a closed door, knowing I don’t need to make him aware I’m here. Sometimes it is better to get a feel for the karma I need to deliver rather than actually working out if the person is a good guy or not. I close my eyes, calling on my karma powers to sense if the guy I want is in there and what exactly he is scared of. It doesn't take more than a second to feel him close, close enough for his deepest fear to slip into my mind. I get an image of bees, dozens of bees attacking a child that I bet was him when he was younger. Well, this should be funny. Bees are highly intelligent insects, and I like them. They won’t attack you unless you piss them off first or attack their home. Luckily, there is another way to get them to attack someone. I flip through my charms, finding the animal calling one which looks like a fox, and grin. A swarm of bees is pretty bad karma if you are scared of them. I lift the charm to my lips and press a kiss onto the silver metal.
"I call a swarm of bees to help me in my time of need. A man is due a karma kiss. Come to me, it is my only wish," I finish off my call, and the charm glows a bright green before rapidly fading. Thank god I'm good at rhyming, considering half the charms will only work with a rhyme for some odd reason. I'm pretty sure it's because my parents got the charms second hand at a magic stall at the magical market. Though we have money that would be considered a good amount for humans, it is pennies to the rest of the magical world. We are on what they call minimum wage that simple gods and goddesses like us get paid to make the world keep going, but it is a hell of a lot of money. I cross my arms, leaning against the side of the door as I listen to his god awful choice in music. It’s now time to wait for my handiwork to play out. Usually the bees don’t take too long to get here, and my family will be hella impressed that I did a job without messing it up as usual.
I freeze as the door opens in front of me, and a man walks out, holding a pair of keys in his hand. Crap, this is my guy, and there is no way I can let him get in a car right now, but I also can’t explain why I’m in his house. I wait until he walks out the door before running after him, pushing the door open and jogging outside to see him get on the back of a motorbike. Double shite. That little eegit is going to get himself killed…and I will get the bloody blame.
"Stop!" I shout, but the sound of his engine’s revving hides my shout, and he speeds off down the road. I glance over at the spare bike resting on the side and know I don't have a choice at this point. I need to catch up with him and make sure he is on the ground when those bees come. I can't let another guy get away without bad karma because he is too injured, and then have to call my family for help. A swarm of bees attacking him while he is on a bike is only going to cause a big problem for me.
I run to the bike, swinging my leg over it, and turn the key. Thank god for that bad boy dating stage I had at eighteen. Darren, the dickface, as I decided to name him, may have slept with my science teacher, but at least he taught me how to ride his bike before I found out. I quickly speed down the driveway, just sliding through the closing doors before they shut on me. That might have hurt otherwise. The wind whips against my ears, no doubt making my hair more wavy and messy. I swing the bike to the left, turning down the street where I can see John disappearing into the distance. I speed up, trying to chase him as he heads onto another road and disappears around a corner.
I speed around the corner of the empty road just in time to see a swarm of bees fly straight into John on the bike. The helmet does little to hide his pure panic as the swarm attacks him. He screams and lets go of the handles of the bike to no doubt pull the helmet off where the bees must have gotten inside. The bike rapidly turns, heading straight into a barrier of the cliff. Like it’s a damn movie, everything slows as John is flung off the bike as it crashes into the barrier, and he goes flying into the air over the very large and steep cliff. I slam on the brakes on my bike in a panic, letting it fall to the ground as I set off running to the barrier, expecting to see a flat and very dead John at the bottom of the cliff. I breathe out a sigh of relief when instead I see John holding onto a branch, hanging over a very dirty looking pond at the bottom of the cliff. It’s one hell of a drop, though. Poor John is having a very bad day.
"HELP!" he screams at me. “Please help me!”
"Yep, I'm coming!" I shout back at him, climbing onto the barrier and getting to the other side. I pull my charms out, finding the one for rope. It’s a plain flat circle, but if you look closely, you can see the never ending rope that is tied inside it. I shake the circle sphere a few times, pretending that John’s screams aren’t getting louder and more desperate. I glance down at him, seeing his beefy arms that make his head look ridiculously small in comparison. It’s okay, he can hold himself up for sure. The sphere spreads out into a bigger flat circle after a few shakes. I reach into the silver shimmering liquid inside the circle to pull out a long piece of magic rope that will never end. John continues to scream, like that is helping anybody, as I tie the rope to the barrier and the other part around my waist.
"For the love of gods, can you be quiet? I need a moment of silence to talk myself into this as I don't like heights," I shout to John, who doesn't seem to care one bit as he continues to scream. I shake my head, wondering why I'm bothering when I could leave the douchebag to fall into the pond. It looks deep enough for him survive the fall. Possibly. No, I’m the better person, and I can’t just walk away from this when I’m pretty sure this is all my fault. Or at least that is how my family will see it when they find out. I turn myself around while muttering about how high the drop is before forcing myself to start walking down the rocks, lowering myself on the rope as I go. I don't know how long it is before I get near John, and he straightaway grabs my ankle. The grip is so strong that I cry out from his weight.
"Wait a second, don't do that!" I shout at him, trying to shake him off as he pulls on my leg, trying to climb up me. I'm no rope, dude. The idiot lets go of the branch altogether, wrapping both his arms around my legs, and the rope drops us a tad. I scream, trying to shake him off as the rope slips from my hands, cutting into them as I desperately try to hold his weight up with mine. This is not what I had planned. What kind of feckin’ gobshite is he? He is going to kill us both.
"Do I look like a bodybuilder who can hold your weight as well as my own, you feckin' eegit!" I shout at John, who is screaming and shaking as he holds onto my legs, completely ignoring me. My first hand slips just before I can do nothing but shriek as the rope falls from my hands, somehow letting me fall through the rope tied around my stomach. As I fall through the cold air, I brace myself to hit the pond water just as someone slams into me. I open my eyes, seeing my brother floating in the air above me, struggling to hold us all up with a shiny barrier of blue light. He holds a spear in his hand, and the tip glows the same blue as the barrier. My brother and his magical stick to the rescue again.
"Karma Maria Kismet. Give me your friggin’ hand." Ah crap. I smile up at Peyton as he shouts his demand, sounding just like mum when she is mad as hell. I reach up, slamming my hand into his just as John, the moron, pulls hard on my leg as he screams. My leg slams through the magical barricade, my hand slipping from Peyton’s, and there is nothing to stop us as we all fall into the dirty water. I swim up to the surface, gasping air into my lungs as I wipe my eyes to see John come up right in front of me. He screams as he sees me, like I’m not the person that just tried to save his sorry ass. How ungrateful. A second later, my brother’s head appears out of the water to my right, and he looks like he just wants to murder me. Fair enough, I can’t actually blame him.
"Hey, bro...how are you?" I awkwardly ask. “I see you had a haircut…”
"Why am I always saving your arse, Karma?" he asks, glaring at me before swimming towards the edge of the pond. After a while, I see that Peyton pulls himself out of the pond and shakes his long red hair of the green water before crossing his arms. I shrug before turning around and swimming to the end of the pond, a bit away from him as I’m not stupid, and pulling myself out. My clothes are ruined, and I hold in a squeal as I pull out a small fish from my hair and throw it back in the pond.
"I didn't need any help. The pond broke our fall," I point out as I see Pey looking at me like I should be saying sorry or thank you. I don’t know which one he expects, but he isn’t getting either.
"Y-you were flying!" John shouts, saving me from having to say anything at all. John screams at Peyton as he gets out of the water and then starts running into the forest in front of us. I look at Peyton, and we both burst into laughter, neither one us able to stop laughing for a little bit.
“See, it’s not all bad. Just a little mess up, and I could have handled it,” I say when the laughter dies off.
"That pond has sharp rocks at the bottom, and it would have killed you if you fell without me stopping you," he points out. "Now I'm going to find whoever that screaming idiot is, wipe his memory, and then we can get going. I feckin’ stink, Karma."
"I didn't know he was going to fall off a cliff, now did I?" I say, squeezing the pond water out my hair as Peyton walks past me.
"Somehow, you never seem to have any blame for every job that goes wrong," he tells me. "Lucky you have a family to get your arse out of trouble, isn't it, little sis?"
"I don't mess up every job," I point out. "It's like one out of five, and I think that's pretty good."
"Not for a karma god, sis," he reminds me. "Now your guy is going to forget today, including his bad karma and get away with whatever he did. Without true karma, the world would be ruined. You need to get better at this." With his gloomy warning that makes me feel bad, he jogs into the forest after poor John. I lie back on the grass, looking up at the rocky cliff and bright blue sky. At least it's a nice day for John to have gone swimming.
Chapter 3
I’m not sure whether it’s the stench of the pond scum or the fact that there are rocks digging into my ass, but I’m unable to get comfortable lying alongside the water, so I stand up, giving my long red tresses a squeeze to try to wring some of the water out. It doesn’t do much good; I’m sopping wet, and I smell like something that’s been sitting at the bottom of a lake for about a century. Still, at least I’m able to pluck a couple of stray sticks out of my unkempt red curls and give myself a desperate wipe-down with my hands. Damn, I think. I really liked this top. Maybe Mum will be able to reverse the damage when I get home. She seems to have a charm for everything, and if not a spell, then she might at least have a rune or potion that will keep it from getting stained. My clothes stick to me uncomfortably as I begin to make my way in the direction Peyton went, the rocks crunching under my boots. I struggle to keep my balance along the shoreline, and once glance back up the cliff face confirms what I already know: it’s going to be a long way back for poor John. If I’m lucky - and he’s not too pissed off at me as it is - maybe I can get Peyton to magick us back to the road. The thought of hiking when I’m wearing leather and dripping wet isn’t something I relish, and given what a botched job I’ve done here, it might be best if I go lay low at home for a while before continuing about my duties.
First things first, though, I’ll need to catch up with my brother. We’re far away from the main highway out here, and the sounds of the wilderness around us are the only thing I can pick up. Contrary to what you might believe, gods aren’t physically much more powerful than humans; we get injured almost just as easily, our bodies age, and we get sick the same way humans do. The only difference is that we have access to magic, which makes our jobs easier. But make no mistake: if Peyton hadn’t been there to help me just now, I might very well have died - or at the very least, broken a few bones. Granted, there are exceptions - gods of physical strength and virility tend to be more durable than the average human, and others (like luck gods, for example) never seem to have accidents, no matter what they do. But I’m neither of those things, and at the end of the day, I’m more or less just a squishy flesh sack like everyone else in the mortal world.
That might explain why I’ve always been told that I have shit hearing for someone my age. Come to think of it, maybe that’s why Mum yelled at me so much when I was a kid (although to be honest, I think it’s less a matter of not hearing and more a matter of not listening). Either way, the sound of my brother going after John has been muffled by the forest, and I have no choice now but to head in the direction he went and hope I’ll stumble upon him eventually. I could easily see him leaving me by the pond to teach me some kind of lesson, but I’m damn well not going to let this turn into another cautionary tale if I can help it. I mean, come on - I’m just trying to do my job, here.
The day is bright and warm, and the sun feels nice on my damp skin as I make for the edge of the trees. There isn’t a cloud in the sky, and if I weren’t on duty today, I would think this the perfect time to wander the streets of town, or maybe even go into Dublin for the day. But karma never sleeps, apparently, and therefore, neither do I. I stifle a shiver as I enter the forest, the thick canopy blocking out the warmth of the sun and the world growing gloomy and shadowy as I go. There’s no path - just my luck - but I think I can hear the sound of footsteps in the distance, and so I continue in that direction. It’s always a bit entertaining to see a memory wiping happen - it’s never been something I’ve been very good at, although I’m going to have to learn how to do it sooner or later. Granted, I have a charm for it - it was one of the first ones my parents gave me - but it’s tricky to use, and I’m not the patient sort. Considering how often I manage to bungle my jobs, though, it would really come in handy.
It goes without saying that normal humans can’t ever be made aware of the existence of magical folk. It’s not just about gods, although we’re certainly a large part of it, since our actions affect the everyday human world a great deal; there are plenty of other magical beings whose existence is safeguarded from prying human eyes. Fairies, for instance, and leprechauns. I’ve also heard of dryads and sirens, although they’re more rare, and I’ve never met one personally. The difference is that they tend to keep to themselves, and work for themselves. Gods, however? We exist to serve the human world, as shitty as it can be, and that means hiding among them in plain sight. If you ask me, it’s not all that fair; we’re stuck with our assignments from birth. Being sent to deal with selfish, spoiled, and cruel people all the livelong day starts to wear on your nerves after a while, and there aren’t many gods who actively seek out bad people the way I do. But someone has to do it, and I for one enjoy seeing people get their comeuppance. It’s far more entertaining than bringing fortune to the goody-two-shoes of the world, although I know I’m in the minority to think so. The only problem, of course, is that when something goes wrong like it did today, it’s on us to clean up the messes we make, one way or another.
