by Daley, Lysa
Slipping it into the pocket of my jeans, I thanked her, and walked over to the bank of three elevators. A moment ago there had been a whole cluster of people waiting for the elevators. Now they were all gone. Alone, I pushed the up button and waited.
Almost immediately, the elevator doors farthest to the left slid open. I had to manually pull the ornate bars of the grill open. Once inside, I pulled the grill closed to get the motor to engage. As soon as the grate clicked into place, the solid doors whooshed closed.
Even though this was an old building, you’d think they would have updated their elevators by now.
I pushed the button for the 13th floor, but nothing happened. I did it again. It wasn’t until the third time that I remembered the pixie told me to insert coin in the slot and then push the button.
Sure enough, there was a coin slot directly below the panel for the floor buttons.
I fished the coin from my pocket, inserted it into the slot, and it fell with a clank. This time, when I pushed the 13th floor button, the light came on and the elevator’s motor engaged.
But instead of going up, the elevator began to descend at an alarming rate.
“Whoa!”
I grabbed the interior railing with one hand to steady myself, while punching the number thirteen button over and over with my other hand. It did no good.
The elevator continued to drop.
I was living that collective nightmare where you’re in an elevator that’s plummeting out of control. Guess it wasn’t just an urban legend. I squeezed my eyes shut, held my breath, and waited to die.
Chapter Three
I couldn’t tell how many floors the elevator plummeted. It felt like four, maybe five, but I was busy concentrating on the fact that my life was flashing before my eyes.
The elevator eventually slowed and came to a jerking stop. I breathed a sigh of relief.
Before the door opened, I punched the 13th floor button one last time to see if it would reengage and bring me back up to where I was supposed to be going.
Nothing.
The familiar elevator ding sounded and the exterior doors parted, revealing a dimly lit basement. Through the grill, I saw nothing but unfinished concrete floors, cinder block walls, along with visible pipes, wires, and beams.
It was super creepy.
Because the number thirteen button clearly wasn't working, I tried to push the lobby button. If I could just get back to the lobby, I could start over.
But that didn’t work, either.
Next, I punched the third floor button. Nope.
Nothing seemed to be getting this elevator working again. I was stuck.
“Hello!” I called out from behind the safety of the elevator grate, hoping a maintenance man might come to my rescue. “Is anyone down here? I seem to be stuck. Hello?”
Except for the echo of dripping water somewhere in the distance, it was eerily quiet. After a moment, when it became apparent that no one was coming to help me, I had no choice. I needed to get out. Maybe I could find a stairway that would lead me back to the lobby.
I slid open the protective brass grill and stepped slowly out into the dungeon of the building.
“Hello!” I called louder, taking a few steps into the dimly lit basement. “The elevator isn’t working. Is anyone down here?”
I pulled out my cell phone, and of course, I had no cell service, not a single bar. So much for calling for help.
I moved out of the narrow cinder block alcove where the elevators were tucked away into an opening. A series of corridors fanned out in different directions.
I hesitated, not really excited about exploring the bowels of one of the oldest building in Los Angeles.
The sound of an animal moaning drifted down the hall. Like a cow or something. Which didn’t seem right. Or maybe it was a sickly groaning motor of some sort.
As I inched forward, a faint light seeped around a corner way down at the end of the corridor.
Out of options, I tiptoed toward it, cursing myself for coming here when my gut told me this was a bad idea from the get-go.
I should have just tried to get a job as a substitute high school teacher.
The corridor was lined with industrial metal doors built into the wall. Some large, some small. Some went from floor to nearly the ceiling. Others had three or four smaller doors, like kitchen cabinets, stacked upon themselves. But no matter how big or small, an iron padlock secured each one.
It was some kind of weird storage hallway.
When I came around the corner, the iron doors gave way to what looked like a row of jail cells. I froze. It felt like some sort of medieval dungeon down here. They were all empty, except for the last cell on the left, which emitted the faint light.
Sad, low guttural snorting sounds, like what a horse or cow might make, drifted toward me.
Perhaps, the animal was injured.
I tiptoed toward the cell, peeking around the corner. The head of a massive bull on the body of a man wearing an orange jumpsuit leaned against the cell wall.
I gasped.
The minotaur lunged at me with desperate eyes, stopped only by the iron bars. He may have tried to say something, but if he did, I couldn’t hear it over the sound of my own screaming as I ran away.
I backtracked, trying to find the right corridor that would return me to the elevators. Somehow, in my panic, I turned left when I should have turned right and ended up getting hopelessly lost in this maze of storage hallways.
Finally, as I was about to give up, I stumbled upon the elevator alcove.
But something wasn’t right.
Where the working elevators had stood a few moments ago, I now saw a gaping, open shaft with a few wooden boards nailed over it. The panel for call buttons had been ripped out, with only a brick wall with crumbling mortar where the elevator car should have been.
What was going on? Maybe the crazy homeless woman wasn’t so crazy after all.
I started to cry. How long would it take for someone to find me? How long would it take for the minotaur to get out and capture me?
Trapped and defeated, I slid down the cold wall to the damp floor. I shouldn’t have come here.
A moment later, the sound of cheerful whistling drifted toward me. I recognized the tune as “Witchcraft” by Frank Sinatra.
As the whistling got closer, a tall man wearing a crisp blue suit, a tweed vest, and expensive Italian shoes appeared. He had dark brown hair neatly combed back. In one hand, he carried a steaming mug of tea and in the other a copy of the Wall Street Journal.
“Oh hello there.” He smiled, seemingly unfazed by my presence.
“…Hello.” I scrambled awkwardly to my feet, swiping at my tears.
He asked, “How did you get down here?”
“I… uh… the elevator,” I said, pointing dumbly at the boarded up shaft.
He gave me a polite grin, the way you would acknowledge a small child or a mentally challenged individual. “These elevators don’t work.”
“I see that.”
“You probably came down on the other side.” His voice had the hint of an English accent.
“Did I?”
“I should think so. Those elevators are operational.” He nodded. “Are you okay, miss? Why the tears?”
“I’m fine.” I tried to wipe my eyes casually, like there really weren’t any tears in them. But I obviously wasn’t fooling him. “I got lost, and I thought the elevator wasn’t working, and I was supposed to be on another floor…”
“Ah.” He nodded like it all made sense. “Miss McCray, I presume?”
“Yes,” I said unable to hide the surprise in my voice. “I’m looking for Mr. Stroud.”
“At your service.” He extended a hand. “Come to my office, and we’ll talk.”
“But I thought you were on the 13th floor?” I asked, trailing behind him down a musty, narrow hallway
“Doing a bit of renovating upstairs.” He gestured to the gloomy surroundings. “T
his is just a temporary situation down here. We’re spread all over the building at the moment.”
We entered an office area, moving through a small outer office and past an empty secretary’s desk, through a doorway into the slightly larger, bland main office.
A beat up wooden desk sat in the middle of the room. It was nearly hidden beneath stacks and stacks of file folders teetering precariously in every direction. The slightest breeze would’ve likely toppled everything over. The side walls were lined with either more piles of file folders or cardboard file boxes each marked with a scribble of indecipherable letters and numbers.
“Have a seat.” He pointed to a spindly old upholstered chair that stood in front of the desk. Like the rest of the furniture in this office, the chair had seen better days.
I moved to take a seat, but the chair held yet another stack of files.
“Oh so sorry,” he said, whisking the files away and tossing them in a seemingly random box. “We’re in the middle of some reorganizing.”
I sat down. “Mr. Stroud, why am I here?”
“Right to business, are you? Just like your old dad,” he replied with a warm smile as he took a seat behind his desk. “I knew your father.”
That was the last thing I was expected to hear. “My father?”
“Yes, Cassius McCray III. He and I went to boarding school together.”
“You went to Salem Hall?”
“Class of ‘82.”
My father attended the most prestigious magical prep school in the country. Only the richest wizarding families or the most talented wizards were, and still are, admitted. Looking at Mr. Stroud in his dungeon-like office, it was hard to imagine that he would fit into either of those categories.
“And you’re the class of ’11,” he said. With the flick of the wrist, he added, “He wouldn’t approve, you know?”
“Of what?”
“Your father would not approve of you being here,” he replied. “But you need the money, now don’t you?” He must have read the grim expression on my face because he added, “Poor old Cassius has found himself in a bit of a pickle, hasn’t he?”
“Wait, what?” I stuttered.
Ignoring my question, he went on, “Oh my dear, don’t feel bad. I’m certainly not judging you. Or him.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. “Hold on. I haven’t been able to reach my dad. Have you talked to him?”
He shook his head. “No, not in some time.”
I narrowed my eyes. “But you know what’s going on? You said he’s in a pickle?”
“I can only assume since you’re here and need money.” His eyebrows arched and he squinted. “But please know that we only work with the very best here.”
In my gut, I knew he was lying. He knew more than he was telling me, which made me not want to trust him. On the other hand, he was offering me a job when I need one the most. And I was curious.
“Very best what?” I asked. “Where exactly am I?”
“I employ freelance seekers,” he said flatly.
“Seekers?” A smile curled up one edge of my mouth.
Before I could say more, he held up a hand. “I know what you’re going to say: No such thing. Seekers are just a myth. Those old buggers died out centuries ago. But I’m here to tell you that the League of Seekers is very real.”
A few centuries ago, seekers were sort of like the paranormal bounty hunters of the supernatural world. If a goblin stole your gold, you could hire a seeker to get it back. If a faerie plucked your newborn baby from his crib and left a changeling in its place, a seeker would cross the veil to the Faerielands and rescue your little tyke.
All of this was supposedly done for a price. They say the wealth of some of the richest wizarding families came from the success of their seeker ancestors.
Even if this was true — which I highly doubted — the last of the seekers were rumored to have faded away decades ago.
“Mr. Stroud. I’m an academic. I plan to finish my graduate degree and get a job teaching and doing research at a nice quiet university somewhere out in mortal-land. I’m not a trained to be some sort of new age bounty hunter.”
“When I was at Salem Hall, all students were required to study magical weapons, self-protection spells, and wards.”
I nodded. It was true. I knew basic protection spells and how to use a wand. Not that I even owned a magic wand anymore.
He leaned back in his chair. “But you and I both know that’s not your greatest skill.”
“Oh. I get it.” I nodded and smiled. Now I knew where this was going. “You’re interested in my family’s special ability.”
“Of course I am.” He sounded excited. “Being a second degree animagi is a rare and wonderful talent, and a very useful skill to have in my business. Second only to invisibility. Do you have that as well?”
“If I had the skill of invisibility, I’d be long gone from this conversation by now.”
He laughed. “I see you have your father’s wit, too. The ability to turn yourself into an animal could be extremely helpful in an investigation.”
“Why would I agree to work for you?”
“Money!” He clapped his hands. “Being a seeker is quite lucrative. If a dangerous supernatural criminal is on the loose, or an enchanted article of some sort goes missing, we find it. For a price. I accept the bond on dangerous supernatural criminals who have missed their court date, or stolen paranormal items whose owners are willing to pay for their return.”
“This is crazy.”
“Is it? I think you may have had a little run in with a minotaur we are currently holding.”
“He’s your prisoner? What did he do? I think he was crying.”
“As he should be!” Mr. Stroud bobbed his head. “He frightened an entire group of preschool children when he stole the van that was taking them on a fieldtrip to the zoo. He’s in one of our holding cells until another seeker can take him to court.”
“Oh. That’s not nice.”
“Nope. It’s not,” he agreed. “And we had to do a memory wipe on all the kids and their teachers too. Quite time consuming and expensive.”
Supernaturals generally kept their identities secret from regular humans. Because of the declining state of magic, things didn’t go well if a crowd of people saw a vampire or a werewolf. In a situation like that, witches were called in to do a basic memory wipe.
I had to admit my curiosity was piqued. “How much will that seeker make?”
“For the minotaur?” he paused, mentally calculating. “Twenty grand.”
My eyes went wide. “That much?”
“How much would you charge to capture a dangerous minotaur?”
Minotaur’s were extremely strong and nearly impossible to defeat in a fight. Most people foolish enough to tangle with them didn’t live to tell the tale.
“Twenty thousand sounds fair.”
“Indeed.” He smiled. “I understand you’re in a bit of a spot regarding your tuition. How much money do you need?”
Clearly, Agatha spilled the beans about my financial situation.
“For classes, books, and fees…. Just under $9000. $8272 to be exact. And more for rent.” The money sounded too good to be true. But the work wasn’t for me. “I don’t think I could capture a minotaur.”
“Oh goodness no,” Mr. Stroud agreed, pulling a stack of folders across the desk. “One of our top, most experienced agents captured him. We always start young agents on item recovery cases. Apprehending monsters and magical beasts comes much later.”
I waited as he searched the pile of file folders. Finally, he seemed to locate the one he wanted. Scanning the document, he smiled. “Yes, this might work. Your fee would be slightly over four thousand dollars if you can recover. That’s almost half of your tuition bill in one fell swoop.
“Four thousand! That’s amazing.” My interest was definitely piqued. “What is it?”
He looked up at me. “How do you feel about trolls?”
“Trolls?” I repeated.
“Big and dumb. You’ll be fine,” Mr. Stroud brushed it off.
“But you said no magical creature apprehending?”
“Oh good lord, you’re not capturing him. We need to retrieve an item he’s stolen.” He clapped his hands again. “Okay, do you have any additional experience with weapons? Wizard staffs, poisons, flamethrowers?”
“Um, no.” Flamethrowers?
He looked disheartened. “Nothing at all?”
Something occurred to me. “Well… one of the things I did enjoy in college was competitive fencing. I was quite good with the long saber.”
“Good to know. If I ever need someone to track down a pirate, you’ll be my girl,” Mr. Stroud said, and I wasn’t sure if he was making fun of me or not. “Do you own a gun?”
“No.” I hated guns.
“You’ll need a gun.” He got up and walked out the door. I followed him around the corner and into the hallway of doors I’d passed earlier.
He opened one of the smaller doors, revealing two green felt-lined drawers. He pulled open the top one, which contained a tray of various small guns. He picked up a small rose gold-colored revolver.
“For now, take this. It’s already loaded with silver bullets with wooden insert. Good against vampires, all types of weres, and the more aggressive humans.” Concern crossed his face as he turned back and pulled out an additional small carved black box. “I wonder if I should also give you brimstone bullets in case you encounter a demon?”
“Demon?!” I repeated, alarmed by the very idea of those hellish beasts. Demons were my worst nightmare.
“No, I don’t suppose you’ll run into a demon out in the valley.” Thinking better of it, he returned the rough black bullets to the drawer. He held the gun out to me.
I didn’t take it.
“Listen, Mr. Stroud. I appreciate this opportunity, really I do, but I’m not interested in any work that requires silver bullets.”
“I doubt you’ll need them.”