Wizard for Hire

I walked a free man from the police station. As soon as I was out of sight, I ran. There was no time to waste. Zoey had made it perfectly clear that time was against us.

Guilt and confusion mired my admiration for Zoey. She had beauty and brains—to me, the perfect woman—before reminding myself of the fact that she was Felix’s sister. Of all the bombshells and revelations over the last week, this one had to be worst, that I fancied the girl version of Felix!

Pushing it out of my mind, for fear of going insane, I rushed onwards and caught the tube. Letter and instructions from Felix hidden beneath my coat, laden with the implicit knowledge of raising a demon, and with it, bargaining Felix’s freedom.

My phone rang. It was work. Christ, what did they want on a Saturday?

“Hello?” I said sounding a little rushed as I raced out of Canning Town tube station.

It was Gemma, my manager. “Hi Will, just checking in and seeing if everything is okay?”

Pausing for a second to analyse her voice, for she never rang me on a weekend, I knew something was up. “Fine, why?”

“… Well, we’ve just had the police here, asking questions. Would you mind telling me what’s going on? They said something about a murder investigation?”

I knew this voice, she was playing it soft and kind while she got the information out of me, but was about to go crazy with rage—something that I would ordinarily be scared shitless of, but right now, had more pressing matters. “Listen, I am really busy right now—” I said.

“You listen here Will,” she dropped all pretence. “You better start telling me why the police have taken your computer, and have been asking us questions, because it’s not ON!” she screamed. “You can explain yourself in my office Monday morning!”

“Yeah, that depends,” I said full to the brim of her shit. “I’ve got to go home and raise a demon to break my friend out of prison. So, if I survive that, I’ll maybe see you Monday morning, maybe not. Tatty-bye bitch!”

I hung up before she could scream back at me. I guess that was my resignation.

They would have sacked me Monday morning anyway.

Shit, no job.

But christ, that felt great.

Running the rest of the way home, I felt a renewed sense of optimism, or it might have been the adrenaline. I knew that if I didn’t manage to break Felix out of the cell, he could very well wind up dead. As soon as the Creep got wind of where Felix was, he would be there like a shot. And Felix had nothing to defend himself with.

I stood in the middle of Felix’s messy room and made a large space, piling his clothes, empty bottles and random stuff out of the way. Placed the scribbled instructions upon the desk, I read through them several times, not wanting to get any part of this wrong.

The letter also told where to find the necessary things, they included; chalk, box of salt, seven different coloured candles, a vial of Felix’s blood that he had prepared earlier, and the book of incantations.

My heart was beating faster than a freight train as I made the chalk markings; a large circle covering most of the floor, followed by symbols and squiggles that made no sense to me, scattered inside the circle like a clock face. At times it was like playing twister, having to redo squiggles as I lent over and smudged them, followed by lots of swearing.

There was a part of me that wanted to just run away and leave all this behind, let the wizard fend for himself, he had managed this long. He had already ruined most of what was left of my life. But, for all his numerous faults and idiosyncrasies, he was my friend.

Finally, the candles were lit and positioned correctly, the small bowl of blood sat a foot away from the circle of salt in the middle of the marked chalk circle. Taking a deep breath, for it could very well be my last, I began to read aloud the incantations.

It sounded like made up gibberish, but after perhaps a minute, I could feel it working. Describing that feeling as best I can, I would say, I felt on the periphery of a dream-state with the wherewithal of knowing what I was doing, but that the world around me had changed.

The candle flames burned red. Symbols upon the floor took on an orange glow and seemingly rose from the floor. I maintained my consciousness in the now, however much it begged to drift away, feeling my heart beating hard, but unconnectedly.

Inside the salt circle now rose the demon. Silky black like concentrated smoke, it rose from the floor like a snake rising to a snake charmer.

A spark of terror paralysed me into place as an ice cold chill ran down my spine. The breath caught in my throat so I couldn’t swallow. I wrestled some courage from the darkest depths of my self.

“Zagakowski,” I called. The demon took a moment to look upon me with its fiery eyes. Then, bowed. “I need you to break Felix Freeman out of the prison cell. For this he offers you his blood.”

Zagakowski took a long, curious look at me. “Yes master,” said Zagakowski with, if I was not mistaken, contempt, but waited still.

Remembering, I passed the bowl of blood over the salt threshold. Zagakowski bent down and sucked it up. It was just as disgusting as last time, but with that, he vanished with a loud pop!

I felt my body fall to the floor with a thud, before wretching. The fear and stress thinking the best way to cope was to evacuate the contents of my stomach. I took deep breaths as the dream-like feeling dripped away and consciousness resumed.

Standing up, I knew I didn’t have long, the final part of the plan was still waiting to be enacted.

Following the instructions on desecrating the raising circle, so that the demon couldn’t come back of it’s own accord, I jumped up with chalk covered hands.

Taking a breath and calming, I wondered about my old life. If some magical being was to offer to old me this adventure, I would have refused. But here I was standing over a desecrated raising circle, having just raised a demon to break my wizard friend out of jail.

The last part of the instruction Felix had written down were easy in comparison (or so I thought); drive straight to Paddington Green Police Station and wait, engine running, on the corner.

So that is what I did. Trundling through Saturday traffic, I now understood the expression “jelly-legged” for thats exactly how my legs felt. My nerves were shot to bits, my hands shook and a feeling that I could accidentally evacuate my bowels at any moment loomed over me. The latter was made all the more insidious seeing as it had happened to me before, when I was a kid in school. I won’t go into the details now. But ever since, I had been terrified of the incident repeating. And in this terrifying situation, I was most at risk.

I parked the car where I was told, around the back of the police station. Signs stood reading NO PARKING everywhere. As I was early, I whipped my iPhone out to look busy, tapping on Google, I input: Zoey Dylan.

Up she popped straight away…

Zoey Dylan is a member of parliament for the Labour Party of United Kingdom and outspoken backbencher. Credited for her work in bringing peace to a London gang estate, she is nicknamed by some as the ‘Cameron Diaz of Westminster.’

Christ, she’s an MP as well!

Felix had written in his letter that I was to be ready at 3:33pm (why so specific, I don’t know). But 3:33pm came and went, 5 minutes past and I started to worry.

3:38pm.

By 3:45pm, I was full blown panicking. If Felix had said be ready by 3:33pm, then thats when it should have been here, something must be wrong. Had I performed the ceremony correctly? Perhaps, I had messed up some part of it and the demon hadn’t fulfilled his part of the bargain?

At peak of panic, there was a knock on my car window.

“Oi mate?” came a man’s voice, he had authority, but was plain clothed which told me was, perhaps, an off duty policeman. “You can’t park there. Why have you stopped?”

SHIT.

My mind went blank, no credible excuse presented itself. I slowly wound the window down. “Yeah I know, but I’m er… waiting for someone.”

He gave me a perplexed expression. “This is a private road for police cars only, you’ll get more than a parking ticket for waiting here. I will have to ask you to move on…” he took a step back from the car, and gave me a fixed expression.

It was time to start getting good at lying. “You don’t understand,” I said in a meaningful voice. “I was invited here. I am secret service. Now do yourself a favour and leave.”

I saw a moment where he almost believed me. But things took a worse turn…

He whipped a badge out and flashed it at me. “Can you step out of the car please sir,” he said, I think he actually thought I was a terrorist. “Nice and slowly.”

Sighing, I clicked open the car door. “I don’t know what you think this is, but you’re making a mistake.” I said.

“I’ll be the judge of that.” Obviously he had himself down as a ‘have a go hero’. “On your knees,” he said, taking a step towards me. I heard hand cuffs being pulled out of a back pocket. I couldn’t let this happen, I had to do something.

Thankfully, I didn’t need to attack to the poor off duty policeman, because something else happened…

BOOM!

A bomb blast exploded terrifically close. My ears popped and all I could hear was a high pitched ringing noise. The blast was strong enough to throw the policeman back and off his feet. Plumes of dust and plaster rained down like confetti around us. I jumped back in the car and turned the headlights on, coughing against the vile acrid dust. The sound of car alarms, panicked screaming and sirens filled the air. It was like a war scene.

When Felix said in his letter that the demon would break him out, I didn’t think he would be bombing his way out. I assumed it would unlock the cell or something. A second later I saw the billowing coat of Felix running through the dust. By his side a running black shape. Felix jumped into the front seat, bringing a cloud of debris with him. “GO GO GO!” he screamed.

Zagakowski the demon, was holding onto the door. “My payment?” he said.

“Piss off Zagakowski!” Felix cried, just as the off duty policeman was rising. “Floor it Norton!”

With not a second to lose, I put my foot down and sped away.

Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.

I was panicking. I was terrified. The streets were cluttered with drivers manically trying to get away and others stopping to see what was happening.

“Was it really really a good idea telling a demon to piss off like that?” I cried. “It did just break you out of jail!”

Felix rolled his head. “That’s the least of my problems.”

“You didn’t tell me the demon was going to bomb you out of their?! Christ sake Felix, they’re going to be treating this as terror-related now, and you’ve got me involved. Christ, I’m your getaway driver. And it was terrifying!”

“Not as terrifying as the alternative,” he grinned, completely oblivious to the chaos he had caused. We passed several police cars, armed response units, ambulances and fire engines going the other way.

“Not to mention the fact that this will probably make prime time news! And we we’re the main suspects!”

I tried to calm my breathing as we drove sullenly through the traffic, away from the danger. “What now?” I said.

“I’ll think of something,” he said calmly.

“This might help,” I passed him Vitalies poker chip that I had found at Kriston’s house. “I put it all together, I know who the Creep is. That’s what I came to tell you the other night when you were taken by the Magic Government.”

“Council,” he corrected.

“Yeah, but they—“ I stopped mid-sentence. My heart dropped in my stomach, we had company.

“Oht-oh,” said Felix spotting it too. Flashing blue lights. Directly behind us. Lots of them.

“They’ve found us. Can’t you do some magic or something?” I cried desperately. “To hide us or whatever?”

“It’s all at home!” he said.

“What about your emergency magic bag in my boot?”

“Used it all.”

Great. So the wizard had no magic. We had just bombed a police station. And the five police cars were flashing me to pull over. I took a deep breath, I knew what I had to do, and it would take all of my character to pull this off.

19

Chapter Nineteen — Pondering a Quandary in the Sanctuary or The Sanctuary’s Sibling Scuffle

One often thinks back to school with fond memories. You would be forgiven for thinking upon seeing me now with my limpness, that I was perhaps, bullied in school. But that was not so. I was short and scrawny, but plucky and feisty (I don’t know where it all went). I belonged to a great, adventurous and loyal group of friends. There was Gonzo, Siclops and Rooster. I was called Shrimpy, on account of my being the shortest of the bunch.

Gonzo was my best friend, we called him Gonzo because he had a big nose that he liked to poke into other peoples business and always seemed to provide good gossip on account of his well connected mother.

We called Siclops that because he only had one eye, owed to an accident when he was a baby. His real name was Simon, it was a kind of play on word between Simon and the one-eyed monster—Cyclops.

And Rooster was so called because his last name was Cock, we thought Rooster was far more dignified than the alternatives.

But to the point of this meander; we had an arch nemesis gang led by Jimmy Jones, a little shit. They were pretty similar to us in academic and sporting aptitude, neither top of the class nor bottom. But for some reason, since we were 4 years old, we had a mutual hatred of each other and at every opportunity we would seek to undermine, mock or belittle one another.

One day, during one heated feud, Jimmy and his friends managed to rile up the majority of the rugby team into thinking we had said nasty things about them, or some such lie. The rugby team squared up to us on the school field, their natural environment. Our mutual enemies stood nearby, watching and giggling. We tried to reason with them, but fourteen year old boys, are not known for their diplomacy. There was a stand-off between us and them, before they charged at us like stampeding buffalo. My friends ran, but like a deer caught in headlights, I froze.

For a moment, I thought about my poor mother receiving my mangled body. Were it not for Gonzo, grabbing my collar and yanking me after them, I would have been trampled by the heavy footed rugby team. We ran, the rugby team became riled, running about the school looking for us. We hid in the last place they’d ever think of looking—the sports hall.

But why am I telling you this?

Well, experiences when we’re children often come back to us when in similar situations. Like now, it felt eerily similar; being chased by the police for something that we had not done, orchestrated by an arch-enemy.

And I was all but frozen with fright in my seat.

I pulled my attention back the situation at hand. Glares and sharp looks flew at us from inside nearby cars, who pulled over, only to see the wizard and I continue. My right foot hovered over the accelerator. The picture in front of me came into sharper focus. Felix kept glancing worriedly at me, holding onto the roof handle for support.

“You’ve got to do something soon Norton, there’s traffic up ahead.”

I took a deep breath, one last glance in the rear view mirror at the ten flashing blue police cars, and floored it.

The car squealed and took off. Up ahead were three lanes of cars, and the lights had turned red. With teeth gritted, I swerved the car onto the pavement. “Hold on!” I cried as we sped over the crossing with cars coming the other way.

There was a cacophony of beeping horns and car brakes screeching to a halt as I sped across a six lane crossing!

But… we made it!

It was the most dangerous thing I had ever done. Quickly glancing in the rear view mirror, the police cars were caught up in the chaos and I sped away, taking the first turning off, turning right, then left, to make sure the evasion was complete. I stopped the car in a dark passage under a bridge, like they do in films.

“Well,” said Felix. “I did not think you had it in you. But that was inspired.”

Resting my head upon the steering wheel, I took great lung fulls of air to calm myself. “I’m a criminal.”

Felix patted me on the back. “Yes.”

Felix’s usual bubbling energy had subsided, his demeanour sour and quiet. He sat, dull and silent, as grey in personality as the concrete bridge above us. At this point I would usually expect the wizard to come up with something, a plan, a direction, an idea. But he just sat as cars passed us by and a soft shower of rain began to fall.

“So what now?” I said, unsure if I wanted to hear the answer.

He made a small noise, sighed and didn’t meet my gaze. “I’m sorry for sucking you into all this Norton.”

His face sagged under the weight of the challenge ahead, perhaps too, the lack of sleep. I didn’t know what to say or suggest, it flummoxed me seeing him so… well, different. He was, in that moment, like a normal depressed person. Half expecting him to burst into tears at any moment, for which I really did not want to be burdened, I went on. “There’s always something to be done!”

He shook his head. “The Magic Council want the ring back in…” he looked at the clock on the dashboard. “4 hours. That’s impossible.”

The repercussions of not doing as The Magic Council asked of him seemed to be a bad thing, much worse than anything else and the highest of priorities.

“But you have the ring.”

He rolled his eyes. “I put Harry in a void. To make sure he couldn’t be taken. It’s complicated magical stuff you won’t understand so there’s no point trying…” he said, as I awaited an explanation for what a void was (but didn’t get one) “the special instrument to unlock a void is extremely expensive, there’s no way I can afford it.”

“Why put the dog in a void if you wouldn’t be able to get it out again?”

“The only thing that would stop the Creep finding it.”

In the adrenaline fuelled car chase, I rather spectacularly forgot the one detail that would spring the wizard from his funk. So billed with excitement was I at relaying my information that I rather tripped over my words.

“Slow down and speak normally,” said Felix eyeing me with curiosity at this uncommon sight.

“I know who the Creep is!” he turned to face me as I explained in rather unorthodox fashion that the poker chip he was still holding for Vitalies Casino, was found at Kriston’s house. That the Creep had been spotted at the same Casino having a disagreement with management. And, that Kriston was an undercover policeman investigating Jonnie Reed’s gang, who’s main hub of operations was run from that casino.

“You mean to say,” said Felix life drawing back into his face. “That the Creep is Edward Rappaport?!”

“Yeah, do you know him?”

“No.”

I sighed, but buoyed by his resurgence in energy, got my iPhone out and searched his name. Felix snatched it off me and scrolled. “Source?” he said to a puzzled face. “Who was your source?!”

“Oh, it was an old friend,” I said.

He screamed at me. “Why you didn’t tell me all this before!”

“I didn’t have chance! When I’d worked it all out you were being taken by the Magic Government—”

“Council!” he corrected.

“Whatever! And then, you were in police custody. So what chance did I possible have?”

He bit his lip. “You could have told Zoey.”

“Oh yeah,” I cried. “Thanks for telling me you have a sister!”

Felix looked around for some imaginary audience as if to prove his incredulity. “Why should I need to tell you that? Anyway, she’s a half-sister. We share a mother.”

Karen and Bob’s voices rang about my head for a moment. Bob had smoothly reminded me that my belief of being with Felix at the time of the robbery could have been a carefully staged hallucination—as good and real as that of Nelson’s Column appearing to fall. Unsure where the frustration at the wizard had suddenly arisen, I blurted out: “Did you have anything to do with the robbery in Covent Garden?”

His eyes swam up to mine. “You wearing a wire?”

“Don’t be fucking stupid. I just want to know the truth, if you had something to do with it, then it affects me!”

He sighed softly. “It’s what they do, put doubt in your tiny mind about me! Get it to all make sense that I was there stealing jewels and rubies. That is NOT my style. I don’t steal. Nor am I in cahoots with any gangs. But if you don’t trust me, there isn’t much I can do—”

“Of course I don’t trust you. I never have!”

It was true. How could you fully trust someone that could make you see whatever they wanted you to?

Felix went quiet and turned away to stare from the window. He was silent for a few good minutes. I had pissed him off. But then, he said in a slow measured voice. “I can make this all go away for you, if you like. Make your life go back to normal, make you forget everything that happened. No police coming after you. No demons. No magic. All back to normal.”

Nothing came out of my open mouth, it hung for a long moment because I couldn’t compute what he was saying. That he could reset everything back to normal exactly as the way it was before.

My mind flicked between both possibilities as the rain began to fall harder, the rhythmic patter sound lulling me through my quandary. “You don’t have to answer now,” he added. “Just so you know. I can do that.”

I wish I had said something, given an answer, but my reluctance to be definitive hung in the air between us as we drove in silence to a nearby pub that Felix knew. He said he needed a drink to help him think a way out of this mess.

When he said he knew a pub, I didn’t realise it was a pub only frequented by wizards. It sat in a place called Borough Market, near London Bridge, opposite a huge sign which read: BOROUGH MARKET.

The three storey pub looked like a traditional British pub, with green panelling around the outside and a pretty array of pink and red hanging flowers. Huge gold lettering spiralled up the side of the pub reading: THE SANCTUARY.

As Felix and I walked closer, I witnessed a young couple try and open the doors to go inside, but fail as it was somehow locked. But when Felix opened the same door a minute later, it opened straight away. Holding it open he ushered me inside. To say I was a little spooked by the apparent wizard-only pub in the middle of central London was an understatement. If this existed, what else did? Interior was not as nice as the exterior, I could safely say, for it looked to be in major need of a clean. The carpet was sticky, the tables had cup marks, and a strange smell like burnt toast hung in the air.

Felix pushed me towards a booth as he went to order some drinks. “Julie!” he called brashly causing three limp-eyed sour men nearby by to look up from their glasses. It wasn’t just the pub that needed a clean, the clientele could too. It was empty, bar the three sour faced men and an older lady propping up the bar in the corner silently swigging a mug of beer.

It felt really odd.

I saw Felix take a few shots of something while he thought I wasn’t looking before coming back to the table. “Here’s a beer,” he said handing me a pint of cloudy beer. “And a vodka chaser.”

When I turned my nose up at it, he took it and knocked it back. He was getting drunk. Brilliant. We had our lives to try and save and the wizard was getting drunk. At least he didn’t have his wand, I bet that would be like giving a mentally unstable drunk a shotgun.

Finally, he sat still for more than ten seconds and opened his mouth to speak with a firm look on his face of a man that was about to talk serious. But this moment of truth was interrupted in one flash, as Zoey burst into the pub with such force the old lady dropped her mug of beer.

“You!” Zoey cried, pointing at Felix apoplectic with rage. She charged round the table and slapped Felix so hard across the face, that the noise echod. “You broke out of the fucking police station!”

Felix was holding his face which had gone a snow white colour. “C-course I did, you told me to.”

Zoey opened her mouth, looked around at the inhabitants, seemed appeased and leaned closer. “I did not tell you to. I just enabled you. Anyway, I did NOT think you would cause an nationwide manhunt for a terrorist—I thought you would just… disappear out of your cell.”

“Yeah well, I might well have done, were it not for that idiot…” Felix said glaring at me. “He told the demon to break me out.”

“Hang on a minute!” I cried. “I’m not taking the blame for that.”

Zoey fixed me with a look. “Did you tell the demon to get him out or break him out?”

I swallowed, how was I suddenly the bad guy in this? “I can’t remember, I just followed the instructions.”

“Yes, so did the demon,” said Zoey. “Which meant it broke Felix out of the cell instead of getting him out. Anyway that’s not your fault, you should have made it clearer Felix.”

He rolled his eyes. “It’s all in the wording,” he said.

“And…” Zoey continued. “Might you also tell me what the fuck you’re both doing here? You have 3 hours to get the ring back to the Magic Council, and your drinking?”

Felix puffed out his cheeks. “I needed to think. Vodka helps.”

“Bet it does.” Zoey jumped up on the seat next to Felix and fixed him a maternal look. “Why haven’t you been taking your meds?”

This struck a nerve in Felix and he looked embarrassed to have this aired out in front of me. “Why would you… I can’t believe you.”

Zoey took one of Felix’s vodka’s and downed it.

“So,” I said. “How did you know we would be here?” My thinking was if she had tracked us down, maybe the authorities could too.

Wincing from the drink, she said “he always comes here when he’s been bad.”

“God sake, you’re just like Mum,” said Felix. And suddenly, as I saw them sitting next to each other, I saw two squabbling teenagers. “You’re just jealous of me because Granddad never taught you any magic.”

“PISS OFF!” Zoey cried in a voice that implied the complete opposite. “Just hand yourself in to the Magic Council with the void before you go away for the rest of your life. And no, I will not represent you if it goes to court. Now I’ve got to go back to Westminster.” She went to leave, before turning back and whispering. “I miss mother too, but there’s no need to be like this.”

Felix’s face turned inwards as Zoey left the pub, her presence still lingering long after she’d left.

“My brain hurts,” he said eventually, head in hands.

I was half way through my pint, but it was doing nothing to alleviate the worry. “What are we doing here when you only have 3 hours left to get the ring?” I said parroting Zoey.

“I need to work out what to do. Vodka helps me think.”

I was about to say that if he thought Vodka helped him think then he was stupid but I changed tack. “It’s inside the dog. Just give the void to them, like Zoey said.”

“Shush.”

“Don’t shush me or I will follow Zoey out.”

“Bet you will,” he said swigging his vodka.

“Whats that supposed to mean?”

He shook his head softly like a person does before they give you bad news. “You were like a puppy staring at it’s owner. Man up, girls don’t like guys drooling all over them. You’re not looking for a girlfriend, your looking for a second mother.”

His words cut deeper than a six inch knife.

“Truth hurts,” he muttered. “If I give them the ring, then I have no leverage left to prove my innocence. It may look like I couldn’t care less about Karen and their investigation, but I do have to live in this world,” he said anguished. “I don’t fancy being enemy number one, being followed and watched constantly. I like London. I want to stay here, I was born here.”

“Can’t you just change your appearance?” I said.

He fixed me with the disappointed look. “Do you know how painful it is to change your DNA?”

My notion of magic was perhaps beyond naive, equating magic to some kind of cure-all, but the truth was rather more sobering. It had quantifiable limits. Magic in stories was brash and colourful, a spell that would unlock a door for example had little pay back. But Felix was teaching me that for every piece of magic performed, there was a cost. It must be thought and planned meticulously. Not to mention the cost of magical items, which, I later learned, came at a price because they had to be smuggled out of the magical world.

“I need a plan to prove my innocence to both the Magical Council and Karen,” he started bashing his head with his palm. “There is a plan in here, I just can’t extract it!” He slammed a fist on the table causing the bar lady to tell him to stop.

It was a quandary, the way I saw it, if he gave the ring to the Creep he would face Magical Prison. If he gave the ring to the Magic Council he would go to our Prison and be at risk from death by the Creep and lose his leverage to catch the Creep and prove his innocence.

But time was running out.

Sooner than we thought.

The pub door opened slowly with a slight squeal, with a wand pointed firmly at us, Alister smiled. “Gotcha!”

20