Free Magic of Home: an Uncollected Anthology story by Annie Reed Page B

said. “He likes me. Will that be a problem for you?”
    The bouncer shook his head. Beads of sweat had popped out on his forehead, but he hadn’t yelled for help. He probably didn’t want anyone to know that he’d let a little elf girl get him by the balls.
    “I didn’t think so,” Twig said.
    She let go of him, and he sank to his knees, his hands cradling his bruised privates. Twig walked past him into the club without a second glance.
    Jocko had made few changes in the years since he’d bought the place. Other than the battered surfboards that hung from the walls at the sides of the club, testaments to Jocko’s favorite pastime, the decor was still the same combination of exploitation and desperation that Twig remembered.
    The elevated stage up front still dominated the windowless room. The same battered round tables were scattered on the floor in front of the stage, and Twig could have sworn the same tired drunks sat at those tables sucking down the same overpriced drinks while they watched the dancers perform.
    Except for dim candles on the tables and the discrete lights behind the bar in back, the only lights in the place were the spotlights focused on the three women dancing on stage.
    The tips of Twig’s ears tingled as she heard the tone of the women’s magic.
    Make that three changelings who had shaped their bodies to look like human women.
    The sound of oldies rock pounded at Twig’s sensitive ears. Surfing music by the Beach Boys to go with the new wall decorations. Only Jocko would make his strippers dance to something like that.
    She took a moment to admire the changelings as they danced to beats that had never been meant for a bump and grind routine. Jocko always did know how to pick quality staff, even if his choice in music left a lot to be desired.
    Twig made her way to the bar.
    The bartender was human. He was dark and muscular but not as beefy as the bouncer, and he possessed no magic that Twig could hear.
    She leaned over the polished wooden surface of the bar so she wouldn’t have to shout over the music. “Jocko? Is he here tonight?”
    The bartender raised one eyebrow, probably wondering how a kid made it past the bouncer, but instead of telling her to get the hell out, he merely nodded toward a table at the far corner of the room.
    She should have known. Jocko never used to hire bouncers for inside his club, and it didn’t look like that had changed. He’d always preferred to do that kind of work himself.
    Jocko, now he had changed. Twig saw that immediately when she got close to his table. It wasn’t that his hair was longer and thicker or that his beard was clean. It wasn’t even the tropical print shirt he wore to hide the massive bulk of his body, or the sandals on his hairy feet.
    It was his eyes.
    When Twig had seen Jocko last, those deep brown eyes had held a twinkle of excitement. Back then the club had still been a new adventure. He’d renamed the place to deliberately poke fun at an old fairy tale the humans used to tell their children, and he was always surrounded by friends and drinks and laughter.
    Twig had been one of those friends right up until the day she decided to leave Moretown Bay.
    Now Jocko sat alone at his table, an untouched mug of beer in front of him. He looked at Twig with eyes that appeared to have forgotten laughter existed in the world, and for a moment, she didn’t think he even recognized her.
    Then he snorted. “Never thought you’d come back here again,” he said. “I’d tell you to pull up a chair, but you won’t be staying that long.”
    “Hello to you, too,” she said.
    She turned one of the empty chairs at Jocko’s table around backwards and straddled it, giving herself a moment to listen to the eddies of magic that swirled around one of her oldest friends in Moretown Bay. She sensed no spells at work, no mood dampening hexes or defensive glamours that would account for Jocko’s reaction to her.
    He was genuinely annoyed. She’d