Page 14 of Clinically Bewitched
Chapter Four
Athena
Las Vegas wasalive.
I mean, I knew it would be because, well… it was Las Vegas, but knowing something intellectually and experiencing it with your entire soul were two completely different things. The moment I stepped out of the airport, I felt it. The energy. The vibration. The cosmic hum of a thousand destinies colliding at once.
“Oh my Goddess,” I whispered, stopping dead in my tracks to take it all in.
The lights. Thelights. Even in daylight, they were everywhere—flashing, spinning, beckoning. Neon signs advertising shows and buffets, and wedding chapels. Digital billboards that were the size of buildings. Everything was bright and loud and excessive and absolutelyperfect.
Someone bumped into me from behind.
“Sorry!” I called over my shoulder, not really paying attention because I was too busy staring at a massive LED screen showing a tiger. Or maybe it was a lion? Some kind of big cat. It was roaring silently, its mouth opening wide enough to swallow the sky.
“The universe brought me here,” I said to no one in particular, or maybe to everyone in particular, because wasn’t that the same thing? “This is where it all begins.”
I started walking, though “walking” might be too generous a term. I was more... drifting. Floating. Moving in the general direction of the Strip while my head swiveled in every direction at once, trying to absorb everything.
A fountain shot water fifty feet into the air.
A man dressed as Elvis walked past me, talking on his phone.
Someone was handing out flyers for a magic show.
“Magic,” I breathed. “Of course there’s magic here. The universe isspeakingto me.”
I pulled out my phone to take a picture of the Elvis impersonator, but he’d already disappeared into the crowd. That was fine. Some moments weren’t meant to be captured. They were meant to be experienced. To be felt. To be absorbed into your soul like spiritual nutrients.
I was so busy contemplating spiritual nutrients that I didn’t notice the man in front of me had stopped walking.
I crashed into him with enough force to make him stumble forward a step.
“Oh! Oh my Goddess, I’m so sorry!” I grabbed his arm to steady him, which, in retrospect, probably just made things worse. “I wasn’t looking where I was...”
He turned around, and I forgot what I was saying.
He washandsome. Not in the obvious way, not like the shirtless men on the billboard I’d just passed advertising some show called “Thunder from Down Under.” This was different. Subtle. Refined. He had dark hair that was perfectly styled, sharp cheekbones, and eyes that were currently narrowed in what I could only describe as profound irritation.
He was also wearing a suit. A full suit. In Las Vegas. In the middle of the day.
“You should watch where you’re going,” he said, his voice clipped and precise, as if each word had been measured and approved before being released into the world.
“I know, I’m sorry, I was just... the lights are so... and there was an Elvis.” I gestured vaguely at everything and nothing. “The energy here is just sointense, you know?”
He stared at me as if I’d just spoken in tongues.
“I don’t have time for this,” he muttered, more to himself than to me. He adjusted his suit jacket, which hadn’t even wrinkled from our collision, and started to walk away.
“Wait!” I called after him. “I really am sorry! I didn’t mean to...”
But he was already gone, swallowed up by the crowd, moving with the kind of purposeful stride that suggested he knew exactly where he was going and exactly how long it would take him to get there.
I stood there, watching the space where he’d disappeared, feeling oddly... unsettled.
“Where was he going in such a hurry?” I asked the universe.
The universe, as usual, didn’t answer directly. But I felt something. A pull. A tug. Like a string had been tied around my heart and someone had just given it a gentle yank.
