Chapter fifty seven

"So what are you ?"

Apparently Mike's curiosity won't be deterred by idle chatter this time so I thought about all the answers I could give him. It had to be something believable yet not so powerful that it would attract any more of his scrutiny, preferably something simple that I could imitate easily. After a second an idea popped into my head that fulfilled all these criterion.

"I have a small power in manipulating air."

He blinked very slowly, somehow conveying disbelief even though his face was completely covered by his blank white mask. He spoke carefully articulating every word and making sure that I heard the skepticism in his voice , "You are an air mage...you expect me to believe that an air mage scared a demon to submission..you honestly believe that that is a feasible story...really?"

I performed the little trick I learned while fighting foggy the soul shredding ball of gas. I waved my fingers causing a very small disturbance in the air, then I magnified the effect of the disturbance that my fingers caused using the same method I used to blow foggy away, causing the air molecules to move in the right direction at the exact same time or as I liked to call it 'the butterfly effect'. By the time the small disturbance reached Mike's face it was a decent breeze that ruffled his hair, "There , do you believe me now?"

"No! In fact you just proved that you are lying because that isn't even how a wind mage performs magic! No mage is ever able to perform magic effortlessly without chanting some mantra to focus or using some instrument to compliment their powers. You on the other hand just made that breeze wearing nothing but a towel and by just waving your fingers lazily!"

Damn it! How was I supposed to know all that? I tried to play it cool as I scrambled for an excuse but I knew that he knew that I was lying and my last ditch excuse was so flimsy that it came out sounding like a question, " It's a special towel?"

At that moment there was a *thunk* and Mike fell face first onto the counter banging his head against the granite countertop before sliding onto the floor, unconscious. Delilah was standing where Mike had been a few seconds ago, holding a rolling pin. She started to speak nonchalantly as if she wacked people over their heads with a rolling pin all the time,

"You see a lot of things in cartoons and never think that they would ever work in real life but look at this, one of the classics and it worked like a charm."

I quickly went to check if Mike was still breathing and had a pulse , he was doing fine except for a bump on the back of his head the size of a goose egg, "Why did you do that Delilah?"

"You had a secret you didn't want him to know and you were doing a sucky job of hiding it so I did the only thing I could think of to help you, you're welcome by the way."

"How did you even know that was going to work? He is one of the Atelli, what if he went berserk instead of passing out?"

"What do you mean he is one of the Atelli? "

"Oh yeah, I forgot that I didn't tell you about Mike. Well, no harm no foul I guess. Can you pass me the milk? "

She passed over his prone body and handed me the milk, grabbing a cup of coffee for herself on the way. She sat down next to me , took a sip of coffee and sighed in contentment before continuing, "So you're friends with an Atelli? How did that happen?"

"That's a long story. It all started when we met during a meeting the mob organized......."

* * *

We both left before Mike could wake up but at least we put a blanket over him so he wouldn't get cold and also left him a note explaining how one of the kitchen utensils had fallen off the rack and knocked him out.