The Wizards on Walnut Street Page 3

  I had done it. Somehow, I had done it and gotten the job.

  “I…you…” I spat out question-sounding words. “I…the Job. You…Incubus? Baba Yaga? License exam? What?!?”

  Apollo gave me deep look, and I suddenly found myself able to look at nothing but his dark, caramel-colored eyes. “Breathe. Calm down.” And I did, instantly—my heart suddenly became calm and my breathing slowed, and he looked away.

  He continued to talk, while I blinked, shaking myself mentally from whatever had just happened. Did Apollo just use…mind control on me? I felt a little violated.

  “One thing at a time,” he said, standing up suddenly. “First: I’m an incubus. You know what a succubus is, right? Well, I’m the dude version. Incubi and Succubi—a race called Lilin—we feed off pleasure. Not just physical pleasure, mind you, which is why I work here: people love coffee in a way that’s almost inappropriate. And I feed off that every time they take a sip. Plus, with 50 Thousand just down the street, I get a lot of repeat customers that generally feel pretty safe here. You follow so far?”

  I nodded and offered him my empty teacup. He took it and went behind the bar to refill while he continued his explanations. “The woman who interviewed you is a Baba Yaga—contract dealers. Things they write down and contracts they make have magic powers, which is why you’d imagine a corporate firm wants them in Human Resources. That contract you signed was magically binding, and that magical binding is marked there on your arm.” He returned with a cup of tea and took my arm gently. My skin tingled under his touch and I felt my cheeks burn. “This mark says you’re Sorcera. This one means you’re human. This one means you’re employed by 50 Thousand. The marks are a Sorcera thing, don’t worry about it. Your whole group’s got ‘em. It’s a really old tradition. I think you guys should just have IDs, but that’s just me…”

  I swallowed and took the second cup of tea, inhaling the herbal scent deeply. “What about the licensing?”

  Apollo took his seat again, and I noticed his forearms didn’t bear any marks at all. I pushed my question to the back of my mind as he spoke. “Yeah. Sorcera, since you guys aren’t born with magic, you all have to be licensed. So you go, take a basic knowledge exam, and get a learner’s permit. Like a car,” he added sheepishly. “And I think you might have to buy insurance. I dunno. Sorcera is way too much paperwork in my opinion.”

  “What do I even need to know on the exam?”

  “Basic history. Names of the people, places, things, some basic rules. I think it’s even multiple-choice.”

  A long silence fell between us as I sipped my tea and he watched me, curiously, as though analyzing my reaction. I wondered if he had this conversation with people often. Finally, he stood up. “You should probably head home and get some sleep, by the way. And then, just…relax? I can even call you a lift.” I shook my head and stood up; the condo was only a few blocks’ walk. “Okay then. Read over your Handbook. See ya. Stay out of trouble.” I didn’t get a chance to ask any other questions before he disappeared into the back of the shop to turn off lights. Shaking, and with most of the tea finished, I gathered my things and went to the door. It had stopped raining but the dark wetness outside was not a fun sight.

  The walk back to the condo was long and very quiet. Cincinnati at night was beautiful and bright colored for sure but the people were cold and self-interested. It was as if someone had switched the whole city into scary-mode.

  Not a single glance in my direction met me as I walked a whole three blocks to the building which, this late at night, was eerily quiet and dim. My shoes clicked on the marble of the entrance lobby and up the stairs to the elevator, and the echoes down the hall made my ears tingle.

  I couldn’t help but feel entirely, utterly alone as I rode the elevator toward the top floors and mulled over the ridiculous, unbelievable nonsense I had just experienced. But for the marks on my arm and the monstrous form of the Baba Yaga’s mouth full of teeth seared into my memory, I might have not believed it, but I had long passed the point where doubt was an option. Unless I had simply gone insane. I wasn’t ruling that out quite yet.

  I arrived at the door of the condo and stopped, taking a moment to recompose myself completely. My dad was a wizard…and I never knew. Did mom or my brother know? Maybe she never noticed? Or she never thought it was important? I was tempted to call her and get more answers from her but the thought of more guilt-trips and “why don’t you love me”s and “when are you coming home”s made my stomach churn.

  I pushed the door open and felt it hit something on the floor on the other side. Cautiously, I looked around and saw a brown package just inside the door, with a single label: “To: Andy LaFayette”. Groaning at what was sure to be yet another surprise today that I really didn’t need, I closed the door before heading to the bathroom. One anxiety pill and a glass of water later, I was ready to open the package and find out what awful thing was inside. Taking a seat in the middle of the empty living room floor, and by the light of my cell phone’s flashlight, I pulled apart the packaging.

  Inside was a thick, spiral-bound tome which bore the words “50 Thousand Employee Handbook”[4] accompanied by the 50 Thousand logo. I opened it and thumbed through a few of the sections, a little taken aback by the style and the nonchalance with which things like “Company Policy on Time Travel” and “Potion Addiction Resources” that filled the many numerous corporate policies. It seemed so amazing and yet so utterly boring at the same time, and as I felt another anxiety attack rising in my stomach I closed the handbook and laid back on the carpet, closing my eyes and feeling the warm fuzziness against the back of my neck.

  Work would start on Monday.

  Chapter 3

  My orientation leader, Lisa, handed me the next of the many brochures I had been presented with since the day had started. This one, bearing the blazing words Your Healthcare is Simple: We Promise! got tucked under the others inside my folder haphazardly as I continued to listen. She handed out the other brochures to the other three people who accompanied me, most of whom had a lost, deer-in-the-headlights look. I wondered if I might have that same expression and not realize it; to compensate I tried to rearrange my face and hoped it would be read as attentive, professional interest. I didn’t want them to think I was scared or anything. I wasn’t scared. Not at all.

  In fact, I was pretty excited.

  Of course, we still hadn’t gotten to the office building and I didn’t know what to expect. We were told to meet at Fountain Square over on Vine Street, and we had spent the last half hour walking from the heart of downtown several blocks to our destination. I couldn’t figure out why they had decided to start the day this way; the only explanation I could think of was that they wanted to give us a sense of normalcy before dropping us on our heads in insanity.

  I did notice that one of the guys didn’t look apprehensive at all; in fact, he looked downright bored. Tall and lean, wearing his suit jacket collar turned up and his dark, thick-rimmed sunglasses hiding whatever douchebag expression was hidden in his eyes behind them, he gave the immediate impression of a complete slimeball. He seemed to hang to the back of our orientation group as though he had no interest in what was going on. At the moment, he was looking over into the reflective glass of a nearby window, cataloging his appearance in detail as if he was the protagonist in the first chapter of a badly-written novel. I glanced at his nametag, spotting the name “Devin” for a second before we rounded the corner onto 9th Street. All at once, the building came into view.

  We all stopped simultaneously and stared at the glistening tower, its face a smooth sea of green glass glittering in the morning sunlight. It positively dwarfed the older, historic buildings on Walnut Street, and surely the rest of Cincinnati as well. Frantically I shook myself mentally, trying to recall why I had never noticed this building before, either in the few weeks I had lived in Cincinnati nor in the many images of the Cincinnati skyline that were plastered on windows and on placards in stores aimed at tour
ists. In the way it glittered, it almost appeared to be a single huge chunk of green crystal, but as we crossed the street and moved closer, I could make out the brass trim around the frame of the doors and windows. People bustled in and out of the single revolving door at the base of the tower, which was planted firmly where I was sure the 9th and Walnut parking lot used to be.

  We followed Lisa through the revolving door and into a warm, glossy lobby that was a nice respite from the end-of-summer heat. The walls, the pillars, the desk, the ceiling—all of it was a green or white marble, and the richness—and surely the cost—of this room alone staggered my mind.

  “So, let’s get started with a brief tour of the parts of the facility you may visit in the near future, as well as the place you’re going to be working after your training is done. You’ll be given a swipe-badge like this one which you’ll need to get access to…”

  I looked over to a small segregated area that looked kind of like a café in the lobby about twenty feet away. A man in a wrinkled suit sat in one of the padded chairs reading from a tablet device. Was he one? I eyed a girl sitting near him, unwrapping a granola bar. Maybe she was one. Nobody particularly stood out to me or gave me the impression of having some dark secrets. How would I know one when I saw them?

  “…So don’t ever do that and you’ll be perfectly safe,” Lisa was saying. Crap, was she saying something really important and I missed it? Okay, I reminded myself, pay attention. Stop ogling.

  As we stepped onto the company elevator, I tried to keep myself from looking like a kid in an amusement park. I briefly noted the dozens of buttons on both sides of the elevator door and then tried to busy myself by looking through my first-day folder. The Keys to Your Benefits Packages one brochure read. Security: More than Just Passwords! read another. Keeping Your Mind Safe from Intruders read a third. Wait—what? I went to take a second look at that third one but was interrupted as the elevator door slid open and I was forced to stash the brochures back away.

  Beyond the glass doors ahead the corridor spilled out ahead of us. On either side, I could see winding rows of open-air desks, each adorned with a pair of monitors and peripherals. At the far end, doors to offices ran from one wall to the other. “We don’t believe in cubicle farms here,” Lisa said, gesturing as we passed the rows of desks. “Open air communication leads to open minds and open ideas!” I resisted rolling my eyes. Lisa stopped and reconsidered what she had just said. “By the way, related to ‘open ideas’, be careful about your thoughts, you don’t want them to get overheard, especially if they’re inappropriate. Some of your coworkers can read minds.” I took in a deep breath, as my mind at that moment decided to think some very loud swear words. Why would you do this to me, brain? “So keep your mind nice and closed. But also…keep it open.” She seemed momentarily flustered, and I could almost hear the sound of a hamster rapidly running on its wheel as Lisa untangled the conflict between her own uncannily cheery demeanor in the crossfire of corporate policy.[5] “Anyway, moving on!”

  ~

  Finally, we were led to a small lobby where Lisa instructed us to take a seat and cool off. The white and blue vinyl chairs weren’t particularly comfortable, but after walking for an hour and a half it was at least some form of welcome respite. I took a seat and listened to my new coworkers chatting; maybe I could try and take my mind off my nerves.

  Carma was a curvy, loudly-dressed young woman with a bright smile that could melt ice. Her hair, in dark curls around her eyes, bobbed erratically as she talked, and her voice was poignantly accented by the sharp jingle of several metal bracelets around her wrists, which she was at this moment complaining about—she had been told never to wear silver ones.

  “…and so, I tried to explain to Lisa that they’re family heirlooms and that I’ve worn them ever since I was a little girl, but she said no and told me that it was something to do with magical flow. Now my grandmami, she was a bruja and I’ve never heard her say anything like that before, so I don’t know if it’s one of those real safety things or some kind of weird corporate policy that doesn’t have any real reasoning, but it really messed me up, man.”

  “Mhm.” Jake, on the other hand, was the complete opposite of Carma. Quiet, bearded and painfully blonde, he seemed to just be an observer on the ride around him, listening quite actively and occasionally indulging in a brief word or vocalization from the back of his throat to indicate assent or dissent.

  Elmer kind of kept to himself, his eyes focused on his phone and always appearing to only half-listen to anything. He almost didn’t seem interested in his first day here at all, and I admit I made some pretty harsh initial judgments about his work ethic in the first few minutes we had met. Now, however, he looked up and tuned into the conversation.

  Then there was Devin, the slimy-looking young man I had noticed earlier. He seemed completely uninterested in doing anything but looking smug and correcting everyone around him as if he had invented the word ‘actually’. “Actually, it’s because it’s silver. It rejects magic. Too much of it and it’s a liability. There’s a reason these decisions get made, you know. But I wouldn’t expect you to understand. This is your first day after all.”

  “Yours too!” Carma retorted in indignation.

  Devin shrugged. “Yeah, but I’ve been coming here since I was little. I know most of the people here already just through…you know. Networking.” Oh, how I instantly disliked this child. I say child because, despite being an adult, his mannerisms were far too reminiscent of a spoiled man-child who desperately would have benefited from a smack across the forehead with a glass bottle.

  Carma opened her mouth to argue buck but Lisa chose that moment to reappear at the doorway. “Alrighty folks. It’s getting to be close to noon and your testing is scheduled at 12:30 at the Sorcera offices down the street. Let’s get going!”

  ~

  We departed the 50 Thousand building and headed toward Vine Street, to the entrance to a dirty Fountain Square parking lot. Passing a beaten sign which denoted the fees for parking (to which I utterly balked at the idea of parking for $18 a day), we entered a side door and went through an underground corridor to arrive at a set of glass doors which read in lasered lettering “Sorcera Society, Cincinnati Office”. Lisa bid us good bye and we went inside.

  Beyond the glass doors was an utterly pristine lobby, in an impeccably white decor. It was as if the whole room was designed and maintained by a person who feared the slightest speck of dust would tarnish a perfect reputation. A secretary with greyish-blue hair gestured to a sign nearby which directed us toward a testing room.

  “What is this place, anyhow? The magical BMV?” Carma was asking no one in particular.

  “Actually, it’s the Society satellite office,” Devin interrupted in his ever-increasingly slimy fashion. “The headquarters is in Tampa but every city with a Dragon has an office. All the societies have an office, if you know where to go. Of course, I know where all the offices are located…” He continued on, but I ignored him, instead focusing on calming my heart rate that had suddenly shot up into a massive tizzy.

  I know, looking back, that I shouldn’t have freaked out about the test. The way Apollo had described it was pretty accurate: a basic knowledge check of basic things that had simple answers. And they did mostly happen to be multiple choice.

  The man handing out the tests was dressed in a dark suit and deep purple tie, and his lapel bore a shining gold pin that I got to glance at as I passed him at the doorway. I recognized it instantly and looked down at my forearm—as I suspected, the same symbol was there, etched into my skin like a scar. I rubbed the tattoo gently with a finger and felt very awkward.

  “Hello,” he said in a tone of utter indifference, “I work with the Sorcera Society Regional Licensing Director for the State of Ohio. This is an open-book test. You have forty-five minutes to complete your test and your results will be sent to you within the week. When you’re done simply leave your paper up here and you are free to leave
for lunch. Begin.”

  I took a deep breath, thanked myself for remembering to take my anxiety medication, and started down the list of questions, frantically perusing the 50 Thousand Employee Handbook for the answers.

  Janice has been bitten by a werewolf. Should she (A) turn in her resignation and tell no one; (B) resign herself to a life as a werewolf; (C) scrub it with a silver-infused antibacterial soap and then inform HR; or (D) Nothing. Werewolves don’t exist.

  C, maybe? Or D. I scanned the Employee Index and found a whole three pages on werewolves, and confirmed it was in fact C. OK, one down, about fifty to go.

  Some of them were particularly easy to find the answers to and I was beginning to feel a bit more confident by the time I was fifteen questions in, but others confused me quite a bit.

  Your supervisor recently got back from a hiking trip in Massachusetts. Which of the following is a sign that your supervisor might be possessed by a Pukwudgie? (A) He forgets your birthday; (B) He invites you over to his house after work; (C) He spends the afternoon eating lots of berries, or (D) He seems to have lost the ability to speak anything but puns.

  The Handbook didn’t have anything that would indicate anything like this. I searched through it twice, and for a moment I could have sworn that the book was different each time I looked through it. I was starting to get confused so I skipped the question and moved on.

  Halfway through our allotted time, Devin stood up and strutted over to the desk, slammed his paper down, and walked out. I wondered, vaguely, whether it was his real intention to have such a desperate lack of redeeming features, or if it was innate to his personality.