Without waiting for a response, Alex went up to the front gate.
First Magic University took up quite a bit of space, enough to cover four large city blocks. Surrounded by a tall wrought-iron fence with stone pillars, it was one of the city’s landmarks and tourist attractions.
Every September 1st, large crowds flooded the place. But right then, two days before classes were set to start, the only people around were the occasional tourist and groups of freshmen hurrying to take care of what had to be urgent and extremely important problems.
Of course, there was also a sullen dark wizard wearing a very expensive suit. A cigarette was clutched in his teeth, and there was a cast on his right arm.
Alex clomped down the cobbled path that cut through the local park all the way to the central building. The colossal palace complex had been built in very ancient times by a very ancient wizard.
It had once been named Avalon, though that had sounded too pompous for the modern era. The name had therefore been changed to First Magic University.
Major repairs were the norm every century or so.
Needless to say, that was unsurprising, particularly after the invention of the Magic Lens. The university was where the brightest and most powerful members of the new magic generation studied, so the buildings took a lot of punishment.
The small towers and galleries, the great clock tower over the entrance, the oriels, the bas-reliefs, the statues on the rooftops, the stained-glass windows, and everything else were destroyed far too often.
But the restorations cost the city’s budget nothing. The expenses were covered by the tuition fees, which were exorbitant.
Alex stopped at the entrance, which was essentially a giant porch: twelve marble stairs ascending to a broad platform with a roof supported by statues of the great wizards of the past in place of columns. Merlin. Morgana. Baba Yaga. Faust. Flamel. Crowley. And so on.
“All they’re missing is Harry Potter,” Alex said through gritted teeth before trudging up the stairs.
As he walked across the marble, he felt somewhat uneasy, almost out of place.
The last time he’d felt like that was when, as a kid, he’d decided to rob a museum exhibit. He’d been a barefoot ragamuffin surrounded by fine art.
The feeling Alex was experiencing right then was awfully similar. He wasn’t a fan.
“Did you hear the news?”
“About the optional black magic course?”
“Yeah.”
“The freshmen are lucky. I’d have opted for it, too, if it weren’t for transmutation. I need it to pass my exams.”
“You do? I’m taking mathematical analysis.”
“Why? Tired of having a life?”
“No, I just want to study magic engineering and invent new spells.”
“Um…well, good luck.”
“And the freshman girls this year…”
Seniors chatted with each other as they walked up and down the wide halls with carpeted floors, plasma screens on the walls, and rippling protective spells over the windows. Ignoring their conversations, Alex made his way to the map that stood in the hall close to the entrance. It was right below the pointing finger of a giant statue of Prometheus, the main symbol of magic.
Prometheus actually hadn’t brought fire to humanity from Mount Olympus. He’d brought something very different.
“Amusing,” Alex said, commenting on the idea of putting a smart table with a map right beneath the ancient Titan’s finger. “So, where’s account—”
“Alexander Dumsky?”
The voice was strident. Strict. Arrogant.
Alex had never attended a school, though all the teachers he’d ever imagined had had voices like that one.
Turning around, he saw a classic erudite. Straight-backed, she was wearing an ankle-length skirt and a jacket with a white blouse, her graying hair tied tightly in a bun. The look was completed by her sharp, predatory face and the oversized glasses perched on her straight nose.
“Ma’am?” The word escaped Alex’s lips without his permission.
“Professor Theresa Bloom,” she replied, holding out a hand.
Alex may have been a dark wizard, but he wasn’t a total psycho, so he shook her hand calmly and was taken aback at the strength of her elderly, wrinkled palm. Some High Garden thugs didn’t shake hands as firmly as the old woman.
“We’ve been expecting you since early this morning.” Alex had an angry retort ready to go for when she reprimanded him for being late, but there was no reprimand forthcoming. “Honestly, it’s a good thing you were late. You missed the council.”
“Missed what?”
Alex looked around nervously. Atlantis as a whole was an enlightened place, but High Garden… “Councils” were gatherings of homosexuals, and homosexuals were treated horribly. It was common to drag them through the streets with their male parts tied to a car’s exhaust pipe.
A red-light tour it was called.
A terrifying, creepy sight indeed.
Anyway, Alex had little desire to attend a meeting of the kind of people he’d been taught to despise since he was very young. He was doing his best to overcome the attitude, knowing it was wrong, but the battle was still far from won.
The man who’d saved his life in prison slept with other men, and not because he had to. He just genuinely enjoyed it.
“The education council,” the old woman explained, sighing before continuing. “They’re important and entirely pointless meetings. Do you not have them back on Old Earth?”
Old Earth? The Asian major had mentioned something about that in the limo, but Alex hadn’t been paying attention.
According to his new backstory, Doom had come from somewhere in Eastern Europe.
“Yes,” he said. “Of course. But we call them something else.”
“Really? That’s interesting. What are they called?”
Lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, Alex replied, “Conferences.”
Professor Bloom nodded with the air of a person fully aware of the danger of divulging a secret like that.
Am I a dark wizard or what? Alex asked himself. He had a reputation to uphold, after all.
“I made a cheat sheet for you.” The old woman handed him an A4 sheet of paper.
Alex accepted it and read it over.
Point one: lecture program. The assessment sheet. List of learning outcomes in line with the latest state standards. Consultation schedule. Complete Reporting Journal No. 1 by September 30th, Reporting Journal No. 2 due by November 17th. Parent meetings. Attend courses No. 1-7 as you see fit. Have programs certified by the dean. Submit the certificate to the Rectorate to get…
The more Alex read, the less he understood what was going on. He stopped at point 32, which wasn’t even halfway down the list.
The list was entitled: First Semester Checklist.
“It’s so stuffy in here, Professor Bloom,” Alex said, his index finger tugging at his tie knot.
“It is?” The old woman seemed surprised. “The air conditioners are all on full blast. Ever since that incident with the fire magic department last week, we’ve been keeping them at sixteen degrees Celsius.”
“Really? Actually, I’m here to visit the accounting department.” As he wiped sweat off his brow, Alex realized he’d been following the old woman through the maze of a university as they talked. “I have a question about my salary. You know us Old Earthers…”
“Do you have a family back home?”
Alex nodded. “Cats.”
“Cats?”
“I support a shelter for homeless cats, so I’d like to know how much I’ll be able to send them.”
“What a strange hobby for a man of…your interests,” Bloom said tactfully, avoiding any mention of black magic.
“Professor, we’re not all scoundrels, villains, psychos, and dark overlords.” That may be true, but it doesn’t apply in this case, Alex added to himself.
“I see,” Bloom nodded.
“Well, let’s figure it out... You have a strong resume, but no lecturing experience whatsoever. Considering you’re at level 11 Adept…well, the reduction coefficients for inexperience are going to apply… Sorry, Professor Dumsky, but the university will only be able to offer you a minimal salary this year.”
Alex barely held back a curse. He’d already established a rather friendly relationship with the old woman, and he preferred to keep it that way. At least for the time being.
“12,000 credits per month, another 6,000 for research.”
Alex tripped, clutching at the windowsill as his eyes bugged out. The Professor, oblivious to his reaction, took a few more steps forward before looking back.
“Were you smoking a cigarette?” she squinted. “Professors are allowed to smoke in the hallways—our air-purifying spells can handle it. But you can’t smoke in the lecture halls.”
“Y-yeah, s-sure,” Alex coughed, exhaling smoke from the cancer stick he’d swallowed.
“What’s wrong, Professor? Are you feeling okay?”
“It’s just stuffy in here,” Alex replied, waved a hand vaguely and straightening up. “So, 18,000 is the minimum salary?”
“It’s 12,000, actually. Earning the 6,000 for research is challenging—you’ll have to prepare a report on how you spent each credit. It’s explained in point 49 of your cheat sheet.”
“Point 49? Ah, okay.”
Alex wiped more sweat off his forehead. During his wild youth, one spent risking his ass in every sense of the word until landing himself in jail, Alex had made 50,000 credits a month at most.
But there he was, about to get paid half that just to spend a few hours in a lecture hall full of youngsters.
“Here we are.” Professor Bloom stopped at a door marked B-52.
Thrilling. Do they have a minibar in there?
“Where is here?”
“Didn’t I tell you, Mr. Dumsky? As a young professional, you’re going to have to be a group supervisor. It isn’t much, but you do get paid extra for the work—250 credits. You need the experience.”
Bloom turned the gilded handle, opening the door.
“A group supervisor?” Alex replied. “What’s that?”
“Managing a group of students. You’ll be fully responsible for their academic performance and extracurricular activities.”
Alex entered the lecture hall and froze on the spot.
A moment of deathly silence ensued until a scream escaped the blonde bombshell’s lips.
“You??”
Oh, hell’s bells. Can I go back to jail now?
Chapter 13
Alex slammed the lecture hall door shut. Pushing his glasses up the way he always did, he massaged the bridge of his nose before turning to Professor Bloom.
The old woman looked rather shocked, adjusting her own glasses with a long, gnarled finger.
“Do you know them, Professor Dumsky?” she asked in confusion.
“Sort of,” Alex replied evasively. “Where’s the dean’s office again?”
“Straight down the hall, then take a right, and it’s the third door on your left,” Bloom blurted out automatically, still shocked. Not until Alex vanished around the corner did she remember to shout at his retreating back, “Wait, Professor!”
But Doom wasn’t about to wait. He followed her directions, his brisk walk almost a run. Fortunately, the university halls were almost empty. The semester hadn’t started yet, so he only knocked over a few dawdling freshmen before stopping at the dean’s office door. It looked just like any other lecture hall door save for the name plate being made out of marble instead of plastic.
Alex had no idea what etiquette was for walking into the office of your boss-to-be. When you never had a teacher, you take whatever learning you can get.
The Old Man, his actual teacher (may the demons of hell devour that bastard’s flesh), was rumored to have kicked open closed doors that got in his way back in his younger years.
Well, if it worked for him…
Bending his knee and swinging his leg in a broad arc, Alex slammed the sole of his shoe right against the lock. The door gave a plaintive groan; the thin wood cracked. The steel lock dropped to the floor as the door swung open.
Doom found himself stepping into the middle of an oval room with a stained-glass bay window facing a table covered with papers. Beneath the mountain of paperwork, a computer with a bitten apple logo on it was barely visible. A file cabinet made its home next to the table.
A short, slim, and dark-haired girl with clean, satiny skin froze on the chair she was standing on, her whole body stretched upward. Inexpensive shoes sat on the floor next to the chair. Her blouse was unbuttoned slightly to keep it from tearing, and the girl herself was trying to shove a book twice as wide as her torso onto the top shelf of the cabinet.
She had a pretty face, dimpled cheeks, and warm, brown eyes.
Basically, she looked like the kind of girl next door every male teenager is bound to fall in love with only to quickly forget her name once he gets older.
“You’re the dean?”
“N-n-no, I’m his secretary. Wait, what do you think you’re doing?” Suddenly, she came to her senses after the initial stammered shock. “Office hours for students start at noon! How did you open the door? I could have sworn I locked it.”
“What are you doing tonight?”
The secretary blinked her long eyelashes twice.
“Excuse me?”
Flashing one of his best smiles, Alex stepped closer.
“The tip of your nose is insanely beautiful. I’ve honestly never seen one like it.” The trick had never failed him. “So, let me ask you again: what are you doing tonight? I know a great place that serves—”
“I have a boyfriend.”
“And I don’t,” Doom replied instantly, his smile unwavering. “We have so much in common.”
The girl squinted at him. Then, suddenly, the enormous book barely missed Alex’s head. Growing up in the High Garden ghetto, he’d learned to be as fast as a mongoose, so he dodged it easily. The girl gripped the corner of the cabinet, doing her best not to topple over onto the ground, though she dropped a stack of files in the process. Dozens of papers covered in all kinds of graphs and tables flew out like startled birds.
“Am I just rusty or did I lose my touch?” Alex whispered to himself in surprise before continuing more loudly, the same smile on his face. “Well, have fun, miss.”
“Ms,” the secretary corrected him angrily. “Hey, young man, where are you going?”
Yes, he’d lost his touch. In the past, Alex had been particularly good at dealing with married women. That had been his preferred way of earning his dinner, in fact, back when he was fifteen. Some people didn’t approve, but it was something he’d had to learn. He hadn’t been born with it. And it beat dealing with a beef baton the way other homeless boys in High Garden lived.
Stepping past her, Alex entered the dean’s actual office. It also had a marble name plate, though it read: Dean Travis Lebenstein.
Alex entered a far more spacious room, closed the door behind him, and cast a simple smell on it. Nothing harmful, it just meant that anyone who tried to open the door would feel the sudden urge to release their bowels.
[Spell used: SHIT of the Black Magic School. Mana used: 18 points/cast + 2 points/min.]
It was hard to judge Alex for the name and the mana cost not being rounded—he’d written the spell when he was eight. In fact, it was one of the first he’d created after becoming the Old Man’s apprentice.
The dean’s office was large enough to accommodate a bit of open space. It had lots of bookshelves, the floors were carpeted, and a picture window made up the entire eastern wall.
The wall opposite the window was covered in portraits, all of them featuring the same man wearing a crown and holding an orb. Dressed in a scholar’s mantle and bent over a parchment. With some women. Surrounded by animals. Even—hell’s bells!—wearing a Roman toga and holding
a plate of fruit.
He was short and balding with a protruding belly.
The belly wasn’t featured in any of the portraits; it took glancing at the marble statue standing almost in the middle of the room next to a T-shaped table for Alex to notice it.
The dean himself was seated at the head of the table. A short man, no taller than 5’4”, he wasn’t really obese. Just a bit plump. He had a high sweaty forehead that gradually transitioned into the bald patch he was wiping with a handkerchief, shifty eyes, and fat fingers studded with rings.
“Who are you?” he asked in a low, velvety bass voice that contrasted sharply with his appearance. He pressed a button on the phone standing by his computer. “Judy, what’s—”
“Professor Alexander Dumsky,” Alex jumped in. “You asked to see me.”
“Really? I don’t remember that.” Still, he pulled his chubby finger off the button. A sound, something like a scream of indignation, had been coming from the speaker, but it ceased instantly. “Although, well, maybe I did. You’re the Professor of Black Magic from eastern Europe, aren’t you? Here to teach the optional course.”
“Exactly.” Without asking permission, Alex sat down at the opposite end of the table and put his feet up on another chair. They were aching after his brief run down the hall—he hadn’t gotten much exercise in prison. “I’d like to know if I can turn down whatever this ‘group supervisor’ thing is.”
“For starters, get your feet off that chair. What do you think you’re doing, Professor Dumsky? You’re in the holy of holies—”
“If this place were actually the holy of holies,” Doom said, “I’d be twitching on the floor. Which department is this, anyway?”
Lebenstein’s piggish eyes widened in shock.
“Wha-a-at?” he bellowed like a wounded bison. “You don’t even know what department this is? You don’t know where you were accepted thanks only to the rector’s personal patronage? I was right—you shouldn’t even be a lab assistant here!”
“Oh, I’m in complete agreement,” Alex replied with a nod. “I couldn’t be more out of place. Still, it was written in the stars that I’d come here, so here I am.”
Dark Wizard's Case Page 7