The Wizards on Walnut Street

by Sam Swicegood

  “And we shall,” Grimsbane said with confidence. “Let us not forget who it is who empowers the authority of this Circle—oh here’s breadsticks.” Rosie laid down the basket and asked if anyone wanted additional drinks. After taking her order and disappearing again, Grimsbane continued. “We will prepare the ceremony at next full moon.”

  “Actually,” La Rouge piped up, checking her calendar on her phone, “The next full moon is actually the weekend I’m out of town for that leadership conference I signed up for.”

  Grimsbane looked irritated. “Alright, we shall instead meet at dusk on the thirteenth day—”

  “The thirteenth is no good for me,” another Magister added, “My daughter has a dance thing.”

  “How about the…last Thursday?” Rathnul offered. There was a general agreement around the table.

  Grimsbane pulled out his phone and checked it. “No, no, that won’t work. I have dental surgery in the afternoon and I’ll probably be on pain meds.” The others grumbled in frustration and began comparing calendars. “How about Tuesday, the 21st?” he suggested, glancing at some of the phones around him. Everyone seemed to find that acceptable.

  Grimsbane grinned menacingly and resumed his dramatic posturing. “Yes. On the 21st, we shall perform the ritual, and His Magnificence will rise again and take over this city.” He began a guttural, deep laugh in the back of his throat but it turned into a cough. La Rouge patted him on the back as he took a drink of water to make the coughing fit subside. At this moment Rosie made another appearance. “Is this all on one check?”

  “Separate,” Grimsbane choked out. The others at the table made frustrated noises. One of the Magisters piped up. “Can we stop meeting at Olive Garden every week if you’re not even going to pay for our dinner, Manny?”

  “Lord Grimsbane,” he shot back, “and if you can’t afford it, Magister Bloodstone, you don’t have to order anything.”

  Bloodstone closed his menu. “OK, then I’m good.” The other Magisters agreed.

  Rosie made a clicking noise with her tongue. “If you don’t order over $50 in food, then you can’t have this private section and you’ll have to eat in the main dining area,” she reminded, “How about I let you all decide and I’ll come back?” She excused herself from the room.

  Grimsbane looked quite put out, and stroked his goatee impatiently. “Fine, fine,” he said to the group, “But don’t go over ten dollars.” they made more frustrated noises and started looking for the lowest-priced items on the menu. “We wouldn’t have these restrictions if Cory—I’m sorry, Magister Thorne—hadn’t made mistakes with our budget.”

  “It was a simple math error!” Thorne protested. “And now that LaFayette is gone we can hide the errors and get the budget back on track, OK? Can we let it go?”

  “Your ‘math error’ almost got us caught,” Rathnul said sternly, closing his menu, “But you’re right—we can blame LaFayette for any discrepancies in the ledger. Lucky you.”

  Grimsbane nodded. “We all can learn from LaFayette’s mistakes. And I expect nothing like it will happen again. Now decide on what you want to eat before the waitress gets back.”

  “They’re servers, Manny,” Thorne interjected, “Waitress is such an outdated term.”

  Grimsbane silenced him with a glare. “Choose…your…food,” he said slowly, and Thorne resumed looking at his menu.

  La Rouge stood up very quickly, making Grimsbane jump slightly in surprise. “You know what? If we’re all agreed on plans and the meeting is over, I think I will just get my food to go. I’ll just…I’ll go place my order directly with the server.” She gave Grimsbane an irritated glare and left the room. The other Magisters, seeing no reaction from their leader, slowly packed up and excused themselves as well.

  Finally, only Grimsbane was left, to sulk at an empty table with a half bottle of wine that he pulled close to him. “Yes, very well,” he said to the empty room. “It is just as well that Lord Grimsbane dines alone. Yes. Grimsbane dines…alone.” He sniffled slightly, feeling quite deflated, and poured himself another glass of wine.

  Chapter 12

  I had mentioned the weird people in the storeroom to Killian the next time I’d seen her. Her eyebrows knitted together for a moment and then she rolled her eyes. “I wouldn’t even worry about it,” she had said. “People cause trouble all the time, but it rarely goes anywhere. And they might actually be working for a wizard.”

  “But why would they be interested in Todd’s file?”

  “Who knows? 50 Thousand is the steward of Todd’s protective spells, for obvious reasons. They might be checking to make sure they’re all still up and running in time for the Symposium.”

  That did make sense. At Killian’s urging, I put the weird file-stealing people out of my mind and focused on the task at hand.

  I was downtown and ready to go an hour and a half before my scheduled appointment with the Dragon. My first stop had been to the coffee shop, where I had tried to garner some useful knowledge about what to expect from this visit into the City’s powerful leader.

  It occurred to me that I had never even seen or met the mayor of a town I had lived in before learning The Secret. So many machinations of the normal, mundane world were controlled far above my head even outside of the realm of magical influence. How often had I personally bitched about local or national officials on facebook? And with jurisdictions of countless people the idea of being able to meet any of those lawmakers was a foreign concept to me. Now, of course, the stakes were higher and the jurisdiction stranger, but the same sense of talking to giants was lingering over me.

  “So I know the rule is ‘don’t get eaten,’” I told Apollo, “But what exactly is the Dragon like?”

  Apollo shrugged. “I’ve met him a…couple times. There’s a Dragon Symposium every year where all the dragons get together, and at the last one, which was in Louisville, he gave a great address to the Societies…but I don’t know how much of that is PR. He seems like a nice enough guy.” Apollo pulled another shot of espresso into the cup waiting below, and then moved on to steaming some milk. I watched him do his coffee dance as I had many times before. He looked up and smiled as he handed over my latte. “You promise to be careful right? And you left the you-know-what at home?”

  I nodded and shuddered internally, for a moment thinking about the evil pixie on the bus. “Well, I’ve got to be off. I have to get to this address…” I pulled out my phone. “It’s not too far but I don’t want to be late—”

  As if on cue, my phone rang in my hand. I glanced at the unknown number and answered. “Andy LaFayette.”

  “Andy!” It was Hampstead. “Meeting’s been pushed up. I’m texting you the new address. You’re over at the coffee shop, right? It’s about two blocks from where you’re at right now. But you have to get over there fast.” The call ended and my phone buzzed with a new text. “Oh no…” I looked up at Apollo. “I’ll text you see you later bye!” I was out the door.

  I dashed down the street, coffee still in hand, trying to navigate the numbered streets of Cincinnati as best I could. According to the text, I had about 4 minutes before the lair moved on. I stopped at 8th street and waited, bringing up my map on my phone and trying to discern which direction I was headed. The 8th street traffic finally slowed and the light changed; I dashed across, ignoring the painful burning in my lungs as I tore down the sidewalk toward 7th. I dodged an old lady carrying a grocery bag and two potential drug dealers outside the library, glancing down the street to be sure there was no traffic before dashing to the opposite sidewalk leaving me just one crosswalk away from where the entrance to the Dragon’s lair was supposed to be. I got a glimpse of a decorated archway that had come up inexplicably in the center of the opposing sidewalk. I checked my phone to see that I had literally less than a minute to cross through those double doors into the space beyond.

  How did I let it get this bad? Last minute change of plans were a major frustration of mine. I wasn’t even su
re what the procedure was if I missed the building before it vanished for the morning. The final light change was too slow for me, and I took my chances, jaywalking—jayrunning—and dashing across corner toward the archway. I was going to make it. Just barely, but I was going to—

  I was easily a foot and a half from the door when the archway, and the doors, simply ceased to be there. I stumbled in surprise, landing in a heap on the asphalt and ripping my knees up across the rough surface. I clutched my leg with a frustrated cry, and desperately tried to catch my breath.

  My heart was sinking. What would I do? Was there a number somewhere I would have to call? Surely Hampstead would be upset. Would I lose my job? Would the Dragon be mad at me? Would I get eaten?[15]

  “You ok?” I heard a voice behind me. Dammit, I must look like a spectacular sight for sure, what with having just taken a nasty fall after dashing across a Cincinnati sidewalk for absolutely no reason.

  “Yeah…I’m fine,” I said, pulling myself to my feet as quickly as my bruised legs and scraped hands would allow me. “I just, uh…” I turned around to face the bystander who has just witnessed my embarrassing wipeout and stopped.

  Magnificent and pale, before me stood a beautiful winged horse. I stood silently, my mouth agape and no words to fill them whatsoever. The noble beast shook its head with a pitiful look at my bloodied knee, his mane shimmering as it moved in waves of silk around its face. Around its neck was a jeweled charm Vulnerabl necklace.

  The Pegasus gave me a curious look. “You okay, kid?”

  I composed myself. “Yeah, I just…um…I was…uh…” I couldn’t properly string words in the presence of such an intimidating and beautiful creature. I could never imagine a sight. It was even saddled! A tawny leather saddle, lined with gold, which it opened gently with its muzzle and delicately removed a…uh…

  The Pegasus closed its saddlebags and looked at me, the menthol cigarette hanging from its mouth like a little stiff worm. “You got a light?”

  I blinked as the Pegasus took a step toward me, and the smell of cigarette smoke—and something else—was that gin?—was noticeable. “Uh….yeah.” I pulled a lighter from my pocket and lit it. The creature smiled with its rather yellow teeth and moved close enough to light the cigarette. It took a long draw and I recomposed myself. “I missed the…the door—”

  “You work for 50 K?” The horse had now sat back on its haunches and I vaguely considered the fact that I probably appeared to passerby as someone talking to myself.

  “Yeah. Wait, no—I work at 50 K. Do you? I mean, is there a way to—”

  “You trying to get to the Dragon’s Lair?” The Pegasus was now fiddling with a second cigarette and trying to chain-light it to the best of its ability while hindered by hooves. “And no. 50 K doesn’t hire felons, didn’t you hear?”

  Trying to ignore the logistics of how a Pegasus might end up with a criminal record, I pressed. “Do you know how to get in once the building’s flown off?”

  The Pegasus nodded. “Oh yeah, for sure. I can give you a lift. I can track the Lair. It’s a Pegasus thing.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh thank goodness. I thought I was toast.”

  The Pegasus gave me an apathetic look. “Yeah, no worries. Also, it’ll be forty bucks.”

  I blinked. “What?”

  “Ffrty bcksh,” the Pegasus repeated, his mouth now holding two cigarettes, which he adjusted to be able to talk properly again, “and a pack of Newport lights.” He gestured with his wing down the block. “Garfield Mini Mart is around the corner. Get me some cash and some smokes and I’ll get you there in a flash.”

  I looked around. My gut told me this was an awful, awful idea…but there was nothing else to be done. It was either this or potentially not having a job tomorrow. “Alright, alright, deal.” Remembering what I had learned about Vulnerabl, I offered my hand and hoped that Pegasi adhered to the whole Promise Code thing like the Kobolda.

  He look at my hand and offered his hoof, shaking it. “Get to it. I got places to be. You got any weed?”

  A quick jaunt to the mini mart later, I was climbing on the back of the winged horse. I had ditched my coffee; the idea of accidentally dropping a hot coffee onto someone from a hundred feet up was terrible. In a moment, with a loud belch from the Pegasus, we were up in the air. I gasped and held tighter to the reins as the ground slipped away below me, and the Cincinnati buildings become very visible beside the roaring Ohio River.

  “So my cousin,” the Pegasus was saying, “he decides to get involved in this whole black market deals thing. Starts selling something that looks like love potions, right? Because they’re banned in Cincinnati. Problem is, it’s not a love potion at all, and it’s like…orange soda or something. Then he acts surprised when a bunch of angry customers come back and say it didn’t work and they didn’t find their one true love…and then he tries to get me to defend him. Can you even believe the nerve of that—” I stopped listening.

  Above us, in the clouds, a building began to materialize. It was a castle: Gothic towers and buttresses swept upwards toward other castle-specific architectural words that surrounded the massive keep in the center.

  The Pegasus led me over the wall and into the courtyard, where he landed and bent a knee to allow me to dismount. “Thank you,” I said politely to the Pegasus as I waved good-bye.

  “Next time it’s fifty bucks,” he snorted and flew away. What an asshole.

  I looked around the courtyard, which was empty, in search of where I was supposed to go. There were several doors leading from the courtyard that might potentially be the right ones, but it was impossible to tell without any kind of map or building directory which I had half-expected to be plastered somewhere nearby. In front of me, I could see the massive keep on the other side of one of the interior walls, so I headed in that direction, hoping luck would be on my side at least in the short-term.

  It was. I hadn’t gotten thirty feet before the door swung open and a well-dressed butler gestured me forward. His face was long and his eyes were sunken and for a moment I was reminded of a living version of a cartoon villain. “Apprentice LaFayette?” he inquired. I nodded. “You will head through that door, up the first flight of stairs, and then take the elevator to the tenth floor. I would advise that you not be late. He so hates lateness.”

  I thanked the butler and dashed off toward the doors, and then though them, to arrive in a massive front hall with a sweeping staircase. I had only a moment to admire all the marble and brass before I forced myself to take the stairs two at a time. I reached the elevator and headed upward, finally catching my breath in the few moments of silence between floors. My anxiety steadied and my breath caught up, I straightened my jacket as the door opened.

  The tenth floor was one large office. A massive desk was the centerpiece of the door, flanked by a clock on one side and a row of paintings on the other. A comfy-looking couch was pressed against one of the walls next to a coffee table, and I spied a small mini-bar in one of the far corners. To the left, two gigantic wooden doors filled nearly the whole wall, easily twenty feet high and just as wide. I had never seen an office so spacious and grand, and I couldn't help myself letting out a soft whistle at the sight.

  “Aha. You’re here.” It was Hampstead who rose from the couch and gestured me over. “Let’s all get acquainted before he arrives. These are Lord Wizards Columbia, Kilwinning, and Blake…and apprentices LaFayette, Mariemont, and Birch. This is going to be a short meeting for the apprentices, and a long one for the Wizards.”

  My heart sunk a little. This wasn’t about my dad at all; it was some kind of group thing. I hate group things in general. In fact, I might just go on record and say I dislike people as a whole. Has that been obvious?

  Case in point: to my left, I heard a familiar voice sneering. “Oh, it’s you.” I looked to see Devin, dressed in an impeccable suit, standing up and looking me up and down. “I didn’t expect to see you. I figured you’d be in a filing room somew
here.”

  I returned his derisive look with one of my own, silently mouthing WTF is your problem at him before shaking hands with everyone else politely. I immediately recognized Blake. “You’re one of the managing partners, right? You led Casting last week?”

  Blake nodded. “That’s right. Was that your first casting? I’m made to understand you’re new.” I was taken aback by how immediately personable Blake was; he seemed to lack the air of haughtiness I had come to expect from the other wizards. Perhaps, I mused, he was more modest given his junior standing among the managing partners of the firm. “I knew your Dad. Heck of a guy. I guarantee he would be proud to know you’re here with us.”

  I’m not so sure…I thought to myself as I smiled, hiding my gritted teeth. I didn’t have a moment to think too deeply on that thought, however, as that moment the main doors to the room opened wide.

  I honestly can’t say that I know exactly what I expected to see walking through those doors, from a huge scaly beast to a smooth eastern creature, but I did not expect the Dragon of Cincinnati to look so utterly normal. He was tall, and lean, with thinning but distinguishedly-cut hair and a neat dark suit accented with silver jewelry. As he neared closer, I spied a fancy gilt jewel hanging from his breast pocket featuring a scaly reptilian beast curled around a red gem in the center. He extended a hand to Blake first and then introductions were made.

  “Lord Wizards,” Todd said, shaking hands and giving quite familiar smiles to them. “And these must be…?”

  “Apprentices Andy LaFayette,” Hampstead said, “Nannette Mariemont and—”

  “Devin Birch,” the slimy jerkward interrupted, offering his hand to the Dragon. Todd shook it and gave Devin a polite smile. “It’s a distinct honor to meet you, Most Venerable Sir, here at your most magnificent Lair.” Oh god. Every word Devin said made me hate him more. He was like that brown-nosing older brother that always sucked up to the family members who had money so he could badger them later for cash.