Timothie Hill and the Cloak of Power E-Book

Kenna McKinnon

• Herausgeber: Next Chapter
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

When superhero hairdresser Timothie Hill dons his spangled cape, all hell breaks loose.His former friend and current nemesis, Reginald Smith, has sinister intentions of enslaving all mankind. With the end of the world at stake, Timothie must stop the leaders of the free world and the repulsive demon, Bael, from stealing the souls of six billion people on Earth.Armageddon has begun on Earth, and only Timothie can save the day. But can he prevail against enemies both human and inhuman?

Leseprobe

Timothie Hill and the Cloak of Power

Kenna Mary McKinnon

Copyright (C) 2018 Kenna Mary McKinnon

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2019 by Next Chapter

Published 2019 by Next Chapter

Cover art by Cover Mint

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.

Chapter One

“Wow, Timothie, I love the purple spikes.” The older woman perched on a silver chair while her stylist twirled his hands through her lavender hair. She settled the salon's cape around her shoulders.

“Why don't you try this, luv?” he asked and spun on one shiny black boot, the silver buckles sparkling in the sun that poured like honey through the spacious windows of his salon. “I can put you under the dryer, and the color will last longer. Then style your hair like this and this – that's right. Come with me. Magazine? Coffee? Is the music too loud for you?”

“You promise you'll make me look young again?” The woman pulled at her left earlobe and smiled. She strode to the dryer and settled herself under the hood. Timothie brought her black coffee. The roar of the dryer drowned out the sound of Jann Arden singing “Under June.”

* * *

In the district of Oliver, across the city, Timothie's old friend and nemesis hunched over a pentagram carved into the floor tiles of his condo penthouse. Something sloshed in the basin by his elbow. New York, where he'd last worked in advertising, was a checkered memory. Only Edmonton was real; the gateway to Hell.

Reginald Smith chuckled. New York hadn't worked out. They'd hated him there, like the company he worked for in Edmonton hated him until he'd promised to make them billions with an invention from the dark side. TopStrategy Marketing didn't know they were dealing with the dark side. They didn't care to know.

Thick clots of blood and smoke combined to choke the stocky blond man, who peered into the eyes of the summoned apparition. Bael, the head of sixty-six legions of demons in Hell, desultorily granted supernatural powers to his minions on Earth. Reginald's lip curled below his blond mustache. He seldom made use of invisibility. Surely, there were other, more potent, superpowers denied to him.

He poured the holy water into the middle of the pentagram. Bael roared and flowed clockwise down the drain set into the blue tiles and the symbols that had summoned him. It was not yet the demon's time to make his presence known to Earth. Reginald would help it with that awful task when the time came. This was only a trial run for the man and the demon, and Reginald made sure he was in control. He feared the power of the demon but was excited, as well.

* * *

Timothie threw the black cloak with the silver stars across his bulging biceps. A blast of cold air buffeted the glass doors and rattled the sign in front of his salon.

Maude slipped out the side door, knowing more than she ought to know in this moment of his transformation.

“Turn off the lights,” she called as she strode to her 1979 Mercedes Benz parked at the curb. Smoke coughed from the exhaust as the engine roared to life. She and her vintage automobile vanished from Timothie's sight as they rumbled beneath the Old Towne of Beverley sign and west on 118 Avenue.

“'Bye, Maude,” the hairstylist whispered. Since his assistants, Skye and Paula, had gone home, the salon now sat in darkness. As he glided outside, the wind whipped Timothie's lithe form to an angle reminiscent of the superhero he really was. His cloak billowed over his broad shoulders. He rose into the air. All dust, wind, and fury, the Angel of the West flashed by, and Timothie was held in her arms, invisible, and hurled to the pinnacle of the tallest building in this city of champions. In a spacious room at the top of the towering apartment spire, he confronted his old friend, Reginald, who cowered as the dark froth that had been Bael swirled down the drain to the nether regions.

“What is this?” Reginald asked and held out his arms. “Timothie, you must be a ghost.”

Reginald intermittently still clung to Timothie and the hairstylist's goodness. Timothie's superpowers were a surprise when he unveiled the Cloak of Power that allowed him to fly and granted invisibility. His friend's secret weapon, the Cloak, was alarming to Reginald, whose own secrets were darker and far more dangerous.

Timothie's baritone voice soothed the hunched figure who sprinkled holy water across the cursed blue tiles of his penthouse floor. “I'm the spirit of Draxxt, not to harm a soul on this enchanted planet, Earth.”

“Draxxt, that planet you say you're from? You're a hairstylist from Vancouver. You don't seem to have a family. Maybe you are a ghost; a disembodied spirit who can fly through walls. I know you, old friend. You can't fool me. I haven't seen you for months. Now you just appear here, and I must have left the door open, because I don't believe in aliens who can fly through walls, and I don't believe in ghosts. You're not welcome. Get the frig out, little bastard.”

“I was born with two good parents. Both were killed in the Troll Wars. The king was like a father to me. You choose not to believe that I'm the favorite of kings. Now there's something bigger than both of us that needs our attention, because you're smack in the middle of something dreadful.”

“You didn't grow quickly; you grew crazy, dude. What's this about Trolls?” In the background, a small TV droned on about the President of the United States, Dennis Ducksworth, and his policy against globalization. Somehow the news of the day seemed to fit their conversation.

“The magic of the Trolls threw me back to Earth, darling. You know that, and I think you're afraid. I'm a superhero on Earth, Reginald. You never believed that part of me. It's only now coming out, the magic, the blessing, the Angel from God.”

Reginald rubbed his eyes. “I don't know you as Superman,” he said. “I know you as an old friend. I think you spout nonsense, dude. You aren't from another planet, though I've often thought you were! If anything…” The hunched man placed the basin by his feet and stood. “…if anything, Tim, you're a fool. I knew that all along when I was abusing you, when you left our relationship, and now that you've come back like this, when I don't need you anymore, I think you could be an angel. Marriage was too easy here in Canada. It didn't work out. You see now what I am?”

Timothie frowned. “Yes, and it doesn't change anything between us, anything we thought we knew about each other. Both of us are spiritual in our own way.”

A faint whiff of sulfur curled among the beams above his head. “Though spiritual can be a two-edged sword, my old friend. You chose the dark side, and Draxxt be damned.”

His friend snorted. “You're wrong, darling. Everything's changed now that I've reached my maturity.” He pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. “Now, we have a demon to engage, I think, and soon, too.”

“No!” cried Timothie. “Don't interfere with my powers!”

“That's my destiny.”

Timothie chewed on his lower lip. “I'm a force of good in a universe of evil.”

Reginald smoothed his fair short-cropped hair. “I'm not evil. Bael is evil. He's my servant. He does what I tell him now that I have my mother's old book of spells, and I use him for good purposes. He has power, and I have the destiny. Now get out of our friggin' way.”

“Impossible. You don't use evil for good purposes. He's twisted your brain, Reg. I'm here to help you overcome what could be the biggest mistake of anyone's life – getting involved with the dark force.”

“Not all bad,” Reginald said, his hazel eyes glinting with an unholy light. “It's pleasure, Timothie, not pain. The dark force uses pleasure to get through this unholy life that God has given us.”

The penthouse seemed to sway with the force of the gale outside that pounded the glass windows and whipped blinding sleet against their reflections in the pane. Timothie's black, star-speckled cape swung about his manly shoulders as he levitated three feet above the floor. Invisible to anyone else, the Angel of the West embraced the stylist with the salt and pepper hair, the dark eyes, and the stubbled chin, and loved him with tender eyes.

“I love you, too,” murmured Timothie to the Angel. They joined hands and disappeared through the wall of the apartment.

Reginald was sure this apparition of his old friend and the heavenly host had something to do with the demon Bael whom he had summoned a short time ago. He glanced at the wall clock. Three o'clock in the morning! The tiles were dry, the basin emptied, and Bael gone.

“I'm not evil,” Reginald objected.

“You're just drawn that way, like Jessica Rabbit.” A deep hollow voice guffawed from the corners of the room – whether the voice originated with Bael, Timothie, or the Angel of the West, Reginald was uncertain. The cream-colored walls of his entertainment room erupted with filthy cartoon pictures, caricatures of famous presidents and premiers, he and his former partners posturing obscenely across the expanse of wall to the gold Venetian blinds where the black sleet pounded on the windows. There was Nancy and John, Little Jim, Brandi, Maryjane, Klein, rabbits and Elmer Fudd, the fat boy in the striped shirt with a hard-on for Lucy, and his mother and father! His friends and family, and there – there was a young Reginald, doing what he did behind closed doors coming out of the closet where he had melted the hangers and hinges. There was his first piano teacher he called Mr. Roboto, and then – marching across the walls in a riot of black and white, the pictures changed to neon colors and slithered out the window into the night where, Reginald was sure, the entire world would learn of his infidelities and the obscene drama of his life.

* * *

Timothie, secure in the arms of the Angel, plummeted down to Ada Boulevard where he lived in a condominium with a southern river view fronting a quaint old Victorian mansion. Wrapped in his cloak, the stylist's limbs and body remained warm and dry. Suddenly, he was home. Timothie's bedroom sparkled with fairy lights. A Himalayan salt lamp burned cozily like rock candy. He pulled back the crazy quilt on his double bed and spread the black velvet warmth of his cloak over it. What a day! He couldn't sleep.

True power did not come from a demon like Bael. The demon would grant power to those who spoke the correct incantations, but Reginald could not summon the entire coterie of attending sprites. His spells summoned only Bael, and Bael was limited when alone. Timothie's cloak, however, possessed abilities beyond anyone's imagination.

The Troll, Mindbender, provided the perfect opportunity to leave the security of Draxxt and engage in the magic which brought Timothie to Earth. He found the old magic and the old books. The blessed prayers taught to him by the great Troll would eventually summon an Angel to help him in his new life on this confusing Earth. Maude, a witch on Draxxt, came with him to assist.

The Angel of the West, alive in fire and kindling crimson eyes, warm arms, and powerful beating wings, offered a direct link to the existence of the God whom Timothie only recently comprehended. The cloak served as a bedcover at night, slipping him into restful dreams. It tendered protection and power during the day. It loaned invisibility when needed, the ability to fly beyond his dreams of flying, and the ability to see spirits. The cloak was his lover and friend, and he needed no other. Except, of course, for the Angel who had supplied it.

He knew that to an orphan and superhuman traveler such as he, magic had its price, and he may pay dearly for the privilege. Somewhere in the night, he knew, the Angel shielded his home with relentless huge and beating wings.

His protective Angel of the West. Timothie shuddered. “I love you, too,” he whispered.

Chapter Two

Timothie threw the covers off his bare chest and leaped to the side of the room. There was no alarm clock. He didn't need one. He knew, though, that he had overslept. His salon business could not be neglected, and yesterday had been a day of adventure and plans following Maude's purple hair visit.

“Reginald!” he remembered. The universe cried out for redemption.

Timothie knew that Bael's appearance was only the first of many. Reginald, his old friend and nemesis, was an antihero wrapped in a cloak of invisibility and power provided by the demon. There was work to be done, not all of it as a super hairstylist, but some to be done that night back at the penthouse tower. The Angel had whispered in Timothie's ear earlier that week that all was not well at the Oyster nor with the world, and the Angel was always right. Timothie's mouth curved upward in a wry smile and his stubbled face smiled back at him in the sweat of the mirror.

After a quick power breakfast shake, shower, and shave, Timothie dressed in his black jeans, western belt, and tight white lace sleeveless shirt. He tucked his cloak into a gym bag, threw open the door to the adjoining carport, and vaulted into the seat of his red 1967 Volvo GT 123. The engine purred as he threw it into first gear and quickly accelerated into overdrive along Ada Boulevard. An instant later, the car sprouted silver wings and careened to the back of the salon and spa on 118 Avenue as though teleported, and perhaps it had, thought Timothie. He shoved the stick shift into “Park” and strode into the back of his salon.

The salon business was slow that morning, and Skye, the aesthetician from the backroom spa, melted into his arms to slow dance amongst the chairs, mirrors, and horse chestnut vines. Over the blare of the antique stereo, they conversed in short witticisms. Skye wore a smart black pantsuit and oxfords, her long auburn hair bobbed.

“I finished my advanced certificate exam this week,” she explained as they twirled. “I can now do sugaring.”

“Your certificate exams – what did you get on them?” Timothie asked. He pirouetted.

“Nail polish,” Skye replied, and they both laughed.

“Dear,” he said, “you look very like a man.”

She peered at him with twinkling eyes and replied, “So do you.”

He grinned his crooked smile, said, “You're beautiful,” held her tightly, and they whirled to the door as a portly gentleman entered the narrow lobby.

Surprised, he beamed at them both as they broke apart. kd lang crooned “Bird on a Wire” from vinyl on the stereo. Skye skittered to the spa in the backroom, and the client settled into a silver chair. Timothie whisked his best apron around the gentleman's neck. Paula peered out from the waiting room.

“Dancing again?” she asked.

“Go, go,” the stylist insisted, waving his hands. “I can't concentrate. You see I'm working.” The client glanced up and grinned at the second aesthetician dressed in a purple smock and pink skirt.

“I've embarrassed you,” Paula laughed.

Timothie examined his work, his client's greyish locks curling on the shiny hardwood floor. “You could never embarrass me. But go back to your spa, now. I can't concentrate when you're twittering.”

“Ooo la la,” Paula said and was joined by Skye, who took her by the arm and led her back amongst the mirrors and vines and brightly colored paintings to the rooms they rented for pedicures, manicures, and facials.

The gym bag shuddered in its place on the corner table by the spacious windows. The client tipped handsomely and left. Pages of a magazine fluttered. Paula came out and swept the floor. Timothie stood silhouetted at the window, the storm of last night dissipated into the fog of early morning, and an orange and lavender sunrise broke over the buildings to the east. He longed to don the cloak and be swept southwest to the spot where Bael's power was greatest, to confront the demon and its minion, and draw on the might of the Angel of the West. The tips of his sensitive fingers tingled. He felt cold.

With quick movements, he ransacked the gym bag, drew out the Cloak of Power, and threw it over his shoulders. The cloak swirled and covered his manly chest. The cloak was darker than a black Labrador, and the stars shone like silver holes seen through a velvet drape. Timothie's red shoes hovered six inches above the floorboards. He felt that rush of adrenaline that only the superhero can experience when his future explodes in his mind's eye – suddenly he knows that in the next instant he will be miles above his mundane neighbors and another adventure has begun.

No time for styling hair today, no time for Paula or Skye simpering in the backrooms, no time, no time! The door blew open with a thud, Jann Arden sang “Living Under June” on a vinyl LP, and Timothie was gone, transported into the orange-lavender burst of dawn, a twinkle of white soles, red shoes, a billowing cape, and the beat of the Angel's wings, no more but the grit of morning blowing about the Olde Towne of Beverley. He disappeared, teleported into Reginald's entertainment room in the district of Oliver, southwest, where the minion crouched by the flickering images on his wall and drooled in anticipation of another visit from Bael.

“Not you,” Reginald whined. “It's the demon I summoned.” The pentagram writhed in the middle of the room. Smoke, blood, and vomit poured from the basin Reginald held in his shaking hands.

“STOP!” Timothie roared, and extended a strong fist.

The apparition in the middle of the blue tiles hesitated then strengthened, erupting into a figure twelve feet high whose tentacles touched the beams on the high ceiling. Each black appendage sprouted a red eye with a white slit for the pupil.

The ultimate shapeshifter, Bael had usurped the throne of Hell from Lucifer and now set loose on Earth to imprison as many human souls as possible. He sought to strengthen the armies of Hell and, finally, become God in Heaven himself. All this Timothie knew from the whisperings of the Angel of the West. All this he knew from the Troll on Draxxt, the planet where he had grown as a youth and then been propelled to Earth by a burst of Mindbender's magic. Timothie knew his place in the universe – to vanquish the demon finally and lay peace to the nations of Earth.

Even Maude, the purple dream maker of spiked hair, didn't know the extent of his powers. She guessed because in her dotage she was wise. In a previous life, she had lived as a witch on Draxxt who sold the new queen a fertility charm to keep the pregnancy safe.

It worked, and Timothie remembered the queen and her husband, and of course, Tevron, the king's brother, and Tevron's wife. They raised him to a strapping adolescence. Then Mindbender took over Timothie's tutelage and instructed him in the art of magic. The Troll taught him his destiny on the world from which the humans of Draxxt had sprung so long ago. From Earth.

In Vancouver, he learned a trade, his skillful fingers deft and finally, practiced. The magic they held transferred to the flowing strands of his client's heads. Timothie was eager to learn, and the Angel of the West took him under her beating wings and her beating, loving heart. He learned well.

Now he confronted his nemesis, Bael, and his old friend Reginald, who had in his way taken the demon's form and power.

The black, white, and red image before him swayed in the putrid air of Reginald's room. Reginald drooled in his corner. The demon slobbered and groaned, tentacles in the place of its head. Timothie stood tall, hands on his slim hips, a silver sword suddenly at his side. He placed wiry but muscular fingers on the hilt of the sword, and drew it.

Bael lunged. Reginald lunged at the same time, a mirror image of Bael. Reginald's left hand gripped Timothie's right shoulder, the arm that held the sword. Through the dank, putrid air his hand blurred like silver fire, the sword slashed blue with sparks, and Reginald collapsed, screaming. Bael roared and fell on the caped figure, enveloping Timothie in blood and vomit. “You don't need me, superhero. Do it now!” The stylist could hear his Angel whisper. He rose above the clinging tentacles and the moans of the demon, rose to the cedar beams of his former friend's ceiling, and slashed at the writhing head.

The room was devoid of human sound. Only the echo of a demonic wailing and the roars of Hell below deafened the stylist. His sword glowed like a supernova a. Pierced by light, clouds scudded to the north. A south wind was always good, Timothie thought. Fog tendrils clawed at Reginald's windows. Designs of yellow and blue curled in intricate patterns on the floor.

Timothie slashed with the striking sword; sparks and lightning flew, a cacophony of sound rose, and Reginald gasped, “Enough!” He drew the basin of unholy fluids into his arms and emptied it onto the pentagram. He uttered the spell that would send Bael back to its kingdom beneath the ground.

Bael laughed.

Timothie groaned, and the sword catapulted from his hands. Fatigued, he collapsed to the floor. The cape with the silver stars covered his body. “My Angel, where are you?”

His spent words rasped into the silence. There was no reply.

Chapter Three

ZAP! Timothie's head reeled. His brains were scrambled. He staggered to his feet, Timothie the son of Jevil and Tara from Draxxt, the parents whose death in the Troll wars had orphaned him as a young lad in the badlands. Saving people, including himself, was what he'd been taught to do. For most of his life, he'd been forced to live in the shadows, never revealing his true powers. Now, faced with the cowering Reginald and the simmering drain on the floor, the superhero bent and grasped his sparkling sword. On the planet Draxxt he had been almost inconsequential, a mere orphaned boy, until the king's court and the great Troll Mindbender molded and formed his character and physique to be this, an Angel's favorite on an alien world.

Reginald grinned in the corner. There was something odd about his appearance. Timothie swirled his Cloak of Power around his shoulders, the tight white lace of his shirt rippling across his chest.

“It almost had you there, Tim,” Reginald said. “If I hadn't sent it back where it came from, you'd be a grub on the far wall.”

“I owe you, Reg,” agreed Timothie. “We go back a long way. Maybe I had you wrong.”

His former friend cracked his knuckles. “Clever.”

“I've never known you to crack your knuckles.”

Reginald's face wavered. “Trying to butter me up, Tim? Think you can get a hold of the dark side that way? Win your fight without your precious Angel?” He cracked his knuckles again.

“My old friend never cracked his knuckles. Bael, the shapeshifter, doesn't have a policy against using his friends for professional reasons. Where is Reginald?” Timothie strode across the room in two strides, gripping the shuddering creature by his throat. Reginald's face dropped into gaping, bloody fangs and a core of putrid smell. It was Bael, the master shapeshifter, and the human lay inert, as though asleep, on the other side of the room.

“It is you!” Timothie cried and threw the demon against a wall of scrolling obscenities. “What have you done to my former friend? Is he dead, you monster? I swear I'll send you back to Hell, and you'll stay there!”

“HUMAN,” Bael roared and dissolved into a pool of thick black fluid surrounded by crimson eyes. Only white slits in the eye sockets showed Timothie the demon's soft spots. The stylist planted his feet into the mire. Forks of lightning flashed from the mirrored panes of the windows. He hovered above the swirling fluid and the white slits that glared and sparked; the crimson eyes pulsed below his red shoes as he levitated six feet from the floor tiles.

“You're stronger than I thought,” Timothie said. “Let's talk.” He drew his sword and plunged it into the midst of the froth. He grinned his crooked smile and rubbed the stubble on his chin. Translucent in the ambient lighting, his close-cropped salt and pepper hair sparkled like the blade. Slouched in a corner, the real Reginald roused himself and watched.

“I have a spell. I won't use it, though,” his human friend offered, lifting a limp hand in greeting.

Timothie's sword slurped as he pulled it from the mess on the floor. He catapulted to the ceiling and spread his sinewy arms. “I have a spell, too.”

The demon heaved. Reginald pounded his fists on the wall of crude caricatures. “You're no match for his magic, Tim.”

“Magic,” Timothie said. “I learned it on my world.”

“Your world? You mean Vancouver?” Reginald, his former friend and nemesis, rubbed his eyes and waved his arms in a circular pattern. “You're a simple hairstylist from Vancouver. You learned your trade at Marvel Beauty Schools. I know you. You are nothing. Get him, Bael!”

“If spirits threaten me in this place, Fight Water by Water and Fire by Fire, banish their souls into nothingness, and remove their powers until the last trace. Let these evil beings flee, through Time and Space.”

Huge snowy wings beat-beat. The Angel of the West spread her arms around Timothie, the black, star-spangled cloak secure on the stylist's shoulders. A river of scalding water cascaded from the vaulted ceiling and washed the demon toward the center of the blue tiles. Bael screamed and slithered down the drain. Timothie bellowed another incantation. “It's fine, Uriel. Thank you, my Defender of the Element of Water and of the West.”

Bael in the form of Reginald was gone. The real Reginald adjusted his glasses, stood, and lit a joint. Outside, grey spires struck through the morning fog. Traffic crawled below. All seemed like a normal day in downtown Edmonton.

Timothie's mobile phone played “Dixie.” The small blue instrument squawked. “Cut and color at one thirty tomorrow? Just a minute, let's see. Okay, can you make it for three? I'm down for that.”

A normal day for superhero Timothie Hill.

Something obscene swirled on the edges of the blue tiles. It would be back.

Chapter Four

Initially, the next day at the salon proved interesting. Timothie swirled into the backroom, through Paula's waiting room, past Skye putting on her makeup, and grabbed a quick coffee before he entered the front rooms as hairstylist extraordinaire. His Ralph Lauren military brown belt with silver buckle coordinated perfectly with an Alexander McQueen white peasant boy lace shirt with brown French military boots and matching silver buckles. Black lambskin low-rise jeans completed the outfit. He tossed his gym bag onto the table by the ceramic pot of blooming impatiens. He imagined the Cloak of Power stirring inside the bag.

Now, his coffee cup to his lips, Timothie waited for his first appointment of the morning, a 30-something woman who worked in graphic design at Sapphire Designs on Alberta Avenue. She asked him to use his “special powers” to create a stunning hairdo that would knock them out at the annual meeting that night of creative designers from all over North America, including those with the best and most innovative stylists.

Timothie was up to the challenge. Starr, his client, sauntered through the front doors, threw her foxy cape on a hanger, and plumped into a silver chair in front of the mounted wall mirror. She smiled and wriggled herself into the chair as he settled the salon's cape around her shoulders. “Do your worst, Timothie. Surprise me. But you remember, no stripping the color from the lovely auburn I already have.”

“Rainbow hair?” he asked and swept his hands through her blunt shoulder-length cut. “Five or six weeks ago, we ordered these rainbow gradient hand-dyed hair extensions just for you, Starlight. They'll add a pop of rainbow color to your lovely crown. They're hand sewn, clip-in, and double-woven at the back. Your shoulder length hair is perfect for these psychedelic tresses. I'm so excited!” He began initially to clip in violet and shocking pink extensions – seven of them – then neon yellow, lime green, screaming purple, crimson, and silver. Starr moaned.

“They're gorgeous!” she cried. “Just right. The girls will be so jealous. I have the best hairstylist in the world.”

“If only you knew,” Timothie remarked cryptically. “I'm the best in many worlds.” He chuckled and drew out another bright extension, carefully weaving it into Starr's natural hair. The whole process took more than an hour and cost in excess of four hundred dollars, but the end result was well worth it. His client agreed. She paid him generously for the fiery, Woodstock-era tresses that cascaded down her back and twisted in psychedelic colors over her shoulders.

“Perfect. Is Skye still doing sugaring?”

“Of course.”

“Does she have any openings this morning? My chin…”

“Yes,” he said and smoothed his hands over the snug black leather jeans that slung low on his hips. He drew water in a basin and washed his hands to above the wrists, pushing the French lace closer to his manly forearms. “Just a minute, I'll call her.” His assistant appeared almost instantly at the door to her waiting room, by the horse chestnut vines and the limited edition stainless steel coffee Bodum, which had been purchased on holiday.

“Ooo la la,” Skye exalted. “That's fabulous, Timothie!”

Starr grinned and swung her legs off the silver chair. “Can you sugar my face quickly, Skye? I need to be at the office in forty-five minutes. Tops.” She clapped her hands.

Skye pirouetted on one cream-colored Valentino canvas espadrille. “No problem.”

Paula poked her frizzy pink head around the corner. “I could do a quick manicure.”

“No, thanks,” Starr declined. “I so need a sugaring. By the best.” She winked at Skye, who threw her hands into the air and beckoned for the client to follow her into the back salon. Paula grasped her hand as she pranced by.

“Ooo, nice nails. Who did them?”

“I did them myself. Do you like the designs?”

“Pretty blush pink gel polish with lime palm trees – why didn't I think of that for you last time you were in? I know how you love Maui.”

Starr and the assistants swished into the back rooms, past the French press and the horse chestnut vines, with a toss of lurid tresses and shoes clacking on the hardwood floors until, muffled by carpet, they disappeared from Timothie's view. Very pleased with his morning's work, the stylist slouched in his silver chair. With deft fingers, he dialed the bistro west of the Beverly sign. He ordered a gyro and diet Pepsi for his lunch. Momentarily, his next client would arrive. He would have time to eat and drink between afternoon appointments.

Timothie exhaled and studied his Android phone, the many icons blinking in psychedelic colors. Several calls had come in while he had been working on Starr's hair extensions. He began to call them back but was interrupted when his next client clacked through the front doors, throwing her light summer stole onto the hangers in front and settling herself in the chair Timothie had just vacated.

“Cut and color?” he asked, weaving his slim fingers through her black hair.

“Something different,” she entreated. “How about something wild this time, my friend? The grey roots are beginning to show. I'm tired of matt black. Maybe something more youthful?”

Timothie clapped his hands. He laughed. He did enjoy a challenge. “I have just the thing.”

“Gold highlighting?” he suggested. “Or should we try ash blonde?”

“I think that would be glorious,” his client replied. “Oh, is that your lunch I see coming in the door? A deliveryman is lurking outside, and his little truck says, 'Italian Bakery.' I didn't know they were open again.”

“Oh, yes, no problem,” said Timothie as he smoothed the metal comb through her long, shining hair. “Just put it down there, dearie.” He tipped the man and left the sandwich and soda on the table by the window. “I hope you don't mind, luv?”

“Oh, no,” she said. “Not at all. A man's got to eat. Especially a superhero.”

Timothie stopped mid-stride. “What?”

She laughed. “I think you're a super stylist. A real hero. As far as I'm concerned, anyhow.”

“Oh.” He laughed and levitated six inches off the floor. She didn't notice. He knew she wouldn't. He had power over minds like that – they didn't notice his peculiarities, or if they did, they loved him for them. Not unusual to levitate off the floor, he thought and smiled to himself, his handsome stubbled face thoughtful as he drew himself to the problem of how to make Mrs. Cardinal look young again.