Friday Flash: The First One

This was inspired by a prompt sent into my short story club by the sparkling Iapetus999 some time ago. It just needed to find the right home…

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Cathy had known something was wrong when her boyfriend rolled the twelfth ’seven’ in a row. Now he was in the cold casino car park, lip spilt and eye blackening, she wished she’d realised that nine rolls earlier. But with the crowd gathering around them, and the adrenalin of the winning streak making them practically delirious, she’d just watched as he kept rolling the damn dice and the pile of chips in front of him grew absurdly large.

“Poor darling,” she cooed, kneeling down to cradle his head in her lap. “Do you think anything’s broken?”

“No,” he groaned pathetically.

She scowled at the casino bouncers who chuckled their way back to the entrance, but she wasn’t really angry with them. This was someone else’s fault, someone who’d pay soon enough.

“Baby, I dunno what’s going on with me at the moment,” he whimpered. “I honestly didn’t cheat. Last night, I could swear I was the best dart player in the whole of London, and the lads accused me of cheating too, but I wasn’t! I was just on my game. Now this…” His words unravelled, unable to withstand the creaking self-pity that riddled his body.

“Listen, I left my coat behind,” she lied. “Give me five minutes, then we’ll go back to your place and get some ice on that eye, ok?”

He’d barely nodded by the time she was halfway across the car park. With a last minute check behind her, she ducked round the side and behind the industrial sized dustbins. Certain she was out of sight; she clicked her fingers and whispered the summoning command under her breath. With an audible pop, the fairy appeared in a shower of poppy petals.

“You little tart!” Cathy hissed. “You did this deliberately!”

The fairy planted her fists on her hips and matched her scowl, hovering level with her eyes. “I’m here for less than a minute and you insult me already?”

“Listen, you droplet of troll sweat, Lord Poppy gave me those wishes and you’re bound by him to grant them to me. Not screw everything up!”

“What are you talking about, Miss Mundane?”

“I’m not a mundane!” Cathy hissed back, taking a swipe at the fairy who dodged effortlessly. “I wished that my boyfriend would be the luckiest man in London.” At the fairy’s blank expression, Cathy stepped out and pointed over at the crumpled man in the car park. “Look what happened? Your magic is useless!”

“My wish magic is only as exact as the person making the wish,” the fairy spat back. “Besides, he is the luckiest man in London.”

“No he isn’t!” Cathy retorted. “If he was, he wouldn’t have been beaten up!”

“‘Luckiest’ is a relative term, you sorry sack of blood and bone,” the fairy sneered. “The next luckiest man in London is in Putney at the ‘George and Dragon’ pub, and I can assure you that he is significantly less lucky than that sorry creature over there.”

They both looked at him and watched as a huge bird dropping landed inches from his head with a loud splut on the asphalt. He chuckled. “Missed!” he called up into the evening sky.

“You’re telling me that he is going to get beaten up and accused of cheating just because I didn’t specify an absolute?” Cathy raged. “God, you sound like a bloody Sorcerer!”

The fairy gasped and flew back in disgust. “How dare you! I’ll tell my master!”

“Come back here, you little elf-dropping,” Cathy snapped, “and tell me how to fix it.”

Peevishly, the fairy floated back slowly. “You could use your second wish…”

“Then I’d only have one left, and I might get it wrong.” Cathy bit her lip, remembering Lord Poppy’s words. Remember, little sunlit one, one of those wishes has to impress me… Her mouth went dry. She didn’t want to pay the price of failing, it was too high.

“Blimey!” her boyfriend’s squawk pulled her from that fearful place. “Fifty quid!” he was holding a soggy banknote plucked from the nearby gutter. Cathy rolled her eyes.

“Oh this is ridiculous,” she sighed. “Will it really last for the rest of his life?”

The fairy grinned. “He’s only a smelly mundane. Lord Poppy didn’t place any limits on the wishes, he’ll be the luckiest man in London until the day he dies.”

“God, is that a…” her boyfriend’s voice floated across the car park but Cathy couldn’t bear to look at what fortune was delivering at his feet now. She had to think fast. She’d squandered the first wish in a post-coital fit of passion, and now she only had two left. It made her throat tight.

A screeching of tyres and a nauseating thud grabbed her attention though. She ran out from the bins to see her boyfriend being pitched across the car park by a black Lamborghini. She wanted to scream and run to him, but the air around her felt soupy, her body frozen in shock.

The driver’s door opened and a redhead who was seventy per cent legs, thirty per cent Gucci, jumped out and ran to her victim. He rolled over and they stared at each other, but Cathy still couldn’t move. It was like a film playing out in front of her, one in which she’d once been the lead.

The bouncers ran over as the redhead gushed an apology and introduction. Cathy watched in disbelief as they lifted him into the passenger seat and the woman got back in.

“What the…” she finally managed to say as the car sped out of the car park.

“Aw… love at first sight, what a lucky man!” the fairy chirruped. Cathy balled her fists and swung for the fairy who simply giggled and stuck out her tongue. “Don’t doubt my magic, Miss Mundane. He is the luckiest man in London; he got away from you!”

—

Read the next installment: The Second One

This Friday Flash is part of a year and a day of urban fantasy stories set in the Split Worlds. There is an index of the the stories here and some more info on what the year and a day is about here. And if you liked it, you can subscribe by email if you like, so you get the rest delivered to your inbox.

Tagged as: fairy, Friday Flash, short story club