The Wizards on Walnut Street Page 9

  “50 Thousand has a reputation—they’ve never dabbled in Dark Magic as long as they’ve been around—and they’ve been around for easily two thousand years or more. That’s part of the reason 50 Thousand is so prestigious.”

  The idea that wizards, somewhere, were specifically targeting people with deadly spells, and that our firm was their defense, strengthened my resolve in the matter of my employment. The company I now worked for was doing a good service, and I needed to be on top of my game or people’s lives might be in danger.

  Of course, I reminded myself, working in a dusty file room was unlikely to have any effect on anyone’s health, unless one counted the risk of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease from the dust.

  “Hey,” a voice came from the door, and I turned to see Carrie, flush-faced, gesturing me to follow. “Come on, you’re supposed to go to Casting.”

  I rubbed one of my eyes with a free hand while I laid another folder down which was showing the aftereffects of a fire that had broken out in a client’s basement. The fire control system had nearly malfunctioned, the report read, but had clicked on at the last minute. To the mundane eye, it was simply an averted accident and a lucky break, but to the wizards of 50 Thousand it was a jinx that had been unjinxed just in time.

  I followed, stretching my arms above my head to relax the joints. Regardless of my aching desire to do better at the job I had already spent a week slacking off at, the aching in my muscles from sitting bent over a dusty file box for hours at a time was undeniable. “Do I need to actually do anything at Casting?”

  Carrie shook her head as I followed her past the now-empty rows of cubicles toward the elevator. “No, you being there is mostly just a formality. Though if you screw something up it’s easier to point fingers if they can physically point at you.”

  I took in a deep breath, thankful that the wizard, whatever-his-name-was, had already told me that my ingredient procurement had met with his satisfaction. It occurred to me that I was slowly uncovering a long plethora of things in this company that, if they were not done with the utmost care, would lead to disaster.

  Carrie, for her part, was a strange component in the 50 Thousand machine. While I knew she was my supervisor, and I knew she was constantly in a state of heavy breathing and reddened face, but the exact specifications of her job remained a mystery to me. Did I have coworkers who also reported to her? And when would I end up meeting them? I briefly considered vocalizing these thoughts to Carrie as we boarded the hallway elevator, but she seemed to be stretched so thin with whatever tasks she was currently completing that I figured any further burden of inquiry might have caused the poor woman to snap like a rubber band.

  We boarded the elevator and there was a beep as Carrie waved her card against the electronic pad that gave access to the upper floors of the building. I looked down at my feet and tried to appear perfectly engaged in examining my shoelaces as Carrie took out her phone and began texting at breakneck speed. The small patter of key-presses did not stop until we reached the 73rd floor, at which point the phone again vanished into her pocket and elevator doors slid open.

  The decor of this floor was completely unlike the muted grey and beige of my own cubicle farm. The floor was a deep, swirly green and appeared to be made of single, massive sheets of marble interfitted with such exactness that I could not see where the edges connected. The walls, covered in a deep walnut paneling, were lit every few feet by silver and gold lamps that were both timeless and modern in their appearance. The ceilings were more marble—a light, glossy white canopy dotted with mini-chandeliers. I must have been standing with a look of awe, as Carrie tapped my shoulder and ushered me down the hall. We passed a few unmarked walnut doors and then arrived at a larger, double door labeled with a single brass plate: Casting Room Two.

  The inside of this room was like a miniature arena. Audience chairs filled the upper level where I was now standing, many of them already filled with the many casting techs and other employees of 50 Thousand. The whole upper level could easily hold several hundred people, it appeared, and I glanced at Carrie to see where I was supposed to go. She was back on her phone again, however. “Find somewhere to sit. See you later,” she said without looking up, and disappeared into the crowd.

  I walked toward the front rows to get a better look at the main area. There, a long wooden conference table was laid out in view, the center of which was elevated and covered in an assortment of different items. Buckets, cups, sticks, bags of herbs, musical instruments—no two things were alike that were laid out upon the surface of the table, each tagged meticulously with printed labels. Around the raised part of the table, dozens of chairs were lined up, each with a placemat and a small folder bearing the 50 Thousand logo.

  “Andy!” I turned to see Killian in a nearby seat, waving me over. Thankful that I wouldn’t have to make new friends, I gratefully took a seat next to her. “This is your first Casting, right?” I nodded. “Well, it’s a lot of pomp and circumstance but otherwise pretty routine. But educational. All of the different casting reagents that were collected throughout the week are all lined up near the Wizards whose responsibility it is to cast those spells. See right there?” I followed her gaze to a part of the table near the end, where the calfnot and other items I had collected on Tuesday were arranged in an aesthetic manner.

  Before I could comment, the lights in the upper floor dimmed and the room became very quiet. The sound of a door opening echoed throughout the chamber, and a line of Wizards in impeccable suits spilled out around the conference table, quickly taking assigned seats. When they had finished, only four seats remained empty: one near the door, and three near the far end.

  Another door across the room opened, and three Wizards entered slowly. Two of the three were quite pale and frail-looking—one had a long and quite wizardly beard that flowed down his chest. The second was an old woman with a snow-white perm atop her head and lips that stretched tightly over her teeth in such a way as to leave a contour of the gaps in between. The third was younger than the other two but still an older man; his hair still retained some of its color and his beard was slightly more kempt.

  I glanced at Killian. “The managing partners,” she explained in a whisper, “Hemlock, Willin and Blake. Hemlock is the older man: most senior Wizard at the firm. Then there’s Willin. She’s older than dirt and hates everyone but she knows more about countermagic than anyone in the world. And Blake is the younger guy. Appointed last year. Those three are some of the only people who work for 50 Thousand.”

  I wanted to ask more about that, but she stopped me. Down below, the three partners having taken their seats, Blake raised a wooden gavel and rapped it. It was apparent that despite his junior status among the managers, he was in charge of the proceeding for one reason or another. “Lord Wizard Chamberlain. Are you satisfied that those present are only those under the strict and bonded employ of this circle of sorcery?”

  One Wizard at the end rose and made a point to gaze around the room searchingly. Whether it was for show or for actual reason was not clear, but he gave a curt nod to the Managing wizards. “I am satisfied.” He resumed his seat.

  Blake rapped the gavel again. “Lord Wizard Ritekeeper,” he addressed another at the table, and I realized that he was referring to each of these people by titles and not by names, “Are you certain that the rites and reagents of the spells ascribed for this Casting are complete and correct?”

  The Ritekeeper stood. “I am certain,” she said simply, before taking her seat again.

  The gavel came down a third time. “Lord Wizard Archivist,” he addressed an older man near him, “Are you assured that all who receive the benefits of our Magic today are entitled to do so, and have paid this circle of sorcery a due sum for those benefits?”

  The Wizard arose and nodded. “I am assured.”

  Hemlock nodded approvingly as the wizard took their seat. Blake continued on, in a deep and authoritative voice that pierced the hall. “Before we proce
ed with the ceremony, I would like to bring your attention to the empty chair at the end of the table. For many years, this chair was occupied by a Wizard of distinction. A man who was known for his devotion to the firm, to this city, and to our Society.”

  I froze. The empty chair at the end of the table had been my Dad’s.

  “His life was ended too soon, and in the service of our firm no less. While his body is lost to us today, I know that his personal integrity and loyalty will live on in our hearts and in the exercise of our ancient and revered tasks. Video et taceo,” He said in conclusion, and all of the Wizards at the table responded with the Latin phrase in unison.

  I took a deep steadying breath, but it could not stifle the anxious shiver that had crept up my skin, making me feel cold and tingly. The deep, soulful proceeding and the unexpected tribute to my father had made me feel thoroughly uncomfortable. How many people here knew my Dad? How many knew I was his child?

  Killian seemed to sense my discomfort. “You ok?”

  I nodded and gave Killian a half-smile, half-grimace as Blake resumed the ritual. “With no further preparations to make, let us proceed to cast.” He rapped the gavel twice, and all of the wizards around the table stood. “Let us begin. Lord Wizard Hemlock will lead us today.” He nodded to Hemlock and they exchanged places.

  “Assembled Wizards,” Hemlock said in a frail, but magnetic voice that still seemed to fill the room as he spoke, “we are present here this 12th day of October to invoke…” he glanced at the notes in front of him, “…seventy-four spells for the benefit of our clients who have reposed their trust in us. Let us repel the darkness in these times of trouble.” He reached into his pocket. “Wands, please.”

  Each of the wizards drew a slender rod from their jackets or bags and held it out in front of them. I was glued to the sight, with the several-dozen wizards standing as still as statues awaiting their next instruction from the head Mage.

  “Prepare to cast on my command,” he said, and the hair on the back of my neck began to stand up. I glanced around the room to see that most of the audience was thoroughly unimpressed by this proceeding—they had probably seen it hundreds of times by now—but to me, I was lost in the sheer power of the moment. “Three, two, one…” All of the wizards then spoke in unison, and I strained my ears to try and understand what was being said, but it sounded like pseudo-Latin gibberish. When they were done, there was no flash of lighting or loud noise, and for a moment I wasn’t sure that anything had transpired at all. The lights then flickered, and I felt a sort of a hum, like the deep hum of a motor or an electronic device, that lingered a moment before dissipating. As the wizards all lowered their wands, there was a sort of static feeling in the air that wasn’t there before, and I became acutely aware that I had been holding my breath. I tried to gulp down some air without attracting attention from anyone around me.

  The wizards began to file out of the room and I turned to Killian. “That’s it?”

  She nodded. “That’s it.”

  I turned my gaze back to the empty chair at the end of the table where my dad had once sat. Killian followed my gaze and seemed to understand. “Hey. Your Dad did a lot of good work around here. He’d probably be proud that you’re following in his footsteps.”

  I wasn’t so sure. If he’d wanted me here, why hadn’t he told me about The Secret in the first place? Did he think I couldn’t handle it, or that I would somehow screw it up? Did he think I didn’t have the fortitude or the willpower? Worse that the reasons he didn’t tell me are the reasons why someone so respected by the people of 50 Thousand would have met such a terrible fate. “In the service of our firm,” Blake had said. Dad had been doing something for this firm, and he had been killed. The unanswered questions bothered me immensely. It occurred to me, as I surreptitiously scanned the room that his murderer might be in this room somewhere.

  I thanked Killian for the support and headed back toward the elevators, following the throng of departing employees. Despite my assurances to the Moddey Dhoo, I still wanted to find answers…and I had found myself with another piece of the puzzle that, like the others, didn’t seem to fit in anywhere.

  Chapter 9

  A sense of relief washed over me as I pushed out of the glass doors at the base of the glassy green tower. I had survived a week here and was no worse for wear, unless you counted the occasional twinge on my ear where the goblin had bitten me.

  And the storeroom! It had a sort of sense of organization now, and I was pretty sure that I had gotten the hang of sorting things into places. While the whole thing was sort of soul-crushing when I considered it as a work prospect, the fact that I had made some kind of progress was still satisfying enough to give me an accomplished feeling.

  “So what’s the plan?” I asked Apollo as we started down the block toward my condo. He had been nice enough to meet me at the door to 50 Thousand, and the plan to do some scrying was finally going to come to fruition.

  “Well, we need a few ingredients are you familiar with the Goblin Market?”

  “Unfortunately,” I replied, rubbing my ear.

  We started off toward the Market as Apollo dug in his pockets, finally pulling out what looked like an old page torn from a book. “Here you go.” He handed it over.

  The page was definitely torn from a book; and an old one, if the hand-lettered text was any indication. It was written like a recipe, with ingredients and instructions that seemed relatively simple to follow. “Is this a spell from a spell book?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. Most of them look like that. I dunno if it was so they could hide them inside cookbooks in the event of snooping, or if it’s honestly just easier to write them like that. When you think about it, though, you’re basically cooking up a result using ingredients and actions. So it’s not completely unusual.”

  This spell seemed to be relatively simple as far as ingredients went: A rose quartz, some local dirt, and a crow’s feather. Having already made my first foray into the Market over the week, I was pretty confident I could do this in under an hour.

  The Market was a lot calmer this time, perhaps because it was the end of the week, and I made a beeline for the store where I had bought stuff before. Dingo was sitting on the counter—at least, a goblin wearing his nametag was. It was clearly not the same goblin, however, and I thought to ask why this might be the case but stopped myself. It didn’t really matter, and the answer was probably something stupid anyway.

  Having bought the quartz, feather and even a baggie of local dirt, we headed out of the Market and back onto the Cincinnati street. Apollo seemed concerned that I was eager to get out of there so quick, but if he had questions about it he at least didn’t vocalize them which I told myself was a good excuse to explain it later. Instead, he turned the topic of conversation to my meeting with my Silencer. I explained about my meeting with the mangy dog, the Moddey Dhoo.

  “Moddey Dhoo?” He sounded genuinely surprised. “That’s an English Black Dog legend. Not very common, if I remember correctly. Glad he seems like a nice enough guy though.”

  “Nice enough,” I supposed with a shrug, “But still creeped me the hell out. What are these Silencer things, anyway? I mean…like, what exactly are they?”

  “They’re part of a society called Empyrean,” he explained. “At least most of them are. Empyrean includes ghosts, myths, legends, spirits, and other ethereal things. They’re difficult to contain but they govern themselves with a strange hierarchy that seems to work for them. As long as they’re under control, right? That’s sorta the point.”

  I furrowed my brows. “I don’t follow.”

  “Control and governance. I was talking about that before, right? Like Sorcera’s paperwork to prove to the other societies that they can govern themselves without intervention. They’re proving that despite being one of the more powerful groups, they can manage to keep themselves so tightly under control that none of the other societies feel threatened. Compare that to, say the Vulnerabl, where our w
hole thing is a sort of a, uh, class system thing. We have local leaders in sort of a royal family who keep us all from going too crazy.”

  It did make sense. I considered the idea that Wizards were among the most powerful creatures in the Secret World, and it seemed a little crazy given the fact that Dragons still sat at the top of the food chain. But wizards had spells that were flexible enough to do all sorts of things, and from so far away, too…a single curse could cross thousands of miles and without firms like 50 Thousand they could wreak massive damage.

  We lugged the bag of spell reagents upstairs and to the condo. I was happy to see that some of the furniture I had ordered online had arrived, and Apollo helped me drag the big boxes inside and unpack them. In a few minutes I had unfolded a small table and chairs, which made the otherwise creepy-empty condo seem just a slight bit more livable.

  “Don’t you have a TV? Or a bed?” Apollo seemed appalled, particularly at a lack of the latter.

  “Not yet. I’ve been wrapping myself in a blanket and snoozing on the floor.”

  Apollo gave me a concerned mom-look. “Okay, darling, we’re going to need to fix that soon, alright? People don’t live like this. You have yourself a nice little condo here in the middle of Downtown Cincinnati and the least you can do it put something in it.”

  I dismissed his concerns with a hand wave. “I will, I will…but for now let’s do this scrying thing.” I opened the bag and started sorting through it.

  Suddenly, there was a knock on the condo door. Apollo and I looked at each other and then stuffed the reagents back away; he tossed them in a closet as I opened the door.

  “Nice place,” Killian observed. “Good location. Your dad’s?”

  I blinked. “Yeah…it was. Killian, what are you doing here?”

  She smirked. “Company sent me a message that you might be doing irresponsible things tonight. Now I’m not here to stop you, mind you,” she added as I opened my mouth to argue, “I’m just here to be a responsible adult for the apprentice who has had a magical learner’s permit for all of six hours.” She raised an eyebrow with what I hoped was bemusement rather than scorn. “But if you go buying spell ingredients after hours at the goblin market, someone might just notice. In this case it was one of your coworkers. Some guy named Devin.”