by Clare Kauter
“Unauthorised use of magic.”
Oh, man. He had to be kidding.
“You have to be kidding! I’ve never used magic in my life!” Not strictly true, of course, but…
“I just saw you talk to a dead dog.”
“That’s not magic! I just talk to dead things.”
“Are you hearing yourself?”
Yeah, OK, he had a point.
“So why are you here? To fine me? Arrest me? I can see why they chose you, what with your imposing physique and all.” He narrowed his eyes at me. I narrowed mine back.
“I could take you in a fight.”
“I’d like to see you try.”
He sighed. “Fine.” Henry stood and clicked the fingers of his right hand. Suddenly there was a huge bang and we were encompassed in a cloud of sparkly smoke, the international symbol for “some magic is happening here”. The smoke began to clear and I realized I might have underestimated Henry’s ability to drag me away. Before me now stood a huge silverback. As in, a massive gorilla.
“Ah,” I said. “So what were you saying about this audit?”
He sat back down, now causing a lot more strain on my second-hand wicker chair. I noticed that his tiny glasses had grown to accommodate his now much larger head. It was like magic. “Basically, it’s my job to see how you conduct yourself and whether you’re qualified for a licence. I’ll be staying with you until I’m able to complete my observations.”
“Right. And how long is that likely to take?”
“Well, really, it depends on the quest.”
Oh, great. Of course, there had to be a ridiculous step in the licensing process. “The what?”
“I haven’t been given the instructions for your quest yet, but generally it’s a way for me to see how you conduct yourself in a pressure situation, and how well you’re able to control your magical abilities.”
“What magical abilities? I talk to ghosts! What possible use is that for a quest? It’s not like I can do actual witchcraft or shamanry or alchemy or see the future or something useful.”
Henry looked at me over the top of his glasses. “That’s not what I’ve heard.”
What? How could he possibly know about… He couldn’t! No one knew. (Well, almost no one, but I doubted the devil was going to talk to this guy.) But then how did he know about me at all?
“Who’s been telling you stories about me?”
He shifted in his chair and looked like he might fall straight through it. “We had a tip off from that coven that meets nearby.”
Of course. Who else? If they couldn’t get me to join them, they were going to… What, exactly? Have me arrested? Get me sent on a quest? What exactly was their agenda?
“Right. So what happens now? Am I in trouble?”
“No, no. We’re just waiting for someone to turn up with our orders for the quest. They’ll usually try to pick something that plays to your strength. Someone will be here soon and give us our directions, then we just go from there.” He relaxed back in his seat. I wondered what this would look like to a passerby – a girl and a gorilla eating tacos by the cemetery. Not that there were too many passersby around here. Except, you know, for gho–
“YOU NEED TO FIND MY KILLER.”
I screamed – again. This really wasn’t my night. A ghost (a poltergeist, to be specific – I could tell from his slightly green aura) had just appeared less than a metre in front of me. Just – POP. Out of nowhere.
Henry yawned and stretched, completely unfazed. “I guess this is it,” he said. “That was surprisingly fast. It usually takes them weeks to send out a quest.”
The ghost looked at Henry and frowned as if trying to figure something out. Probably why the hell there was a talking gorilla sitting across the cemetery eating tacos.
“This is a, uh, special case,” said the ghost. “They said you’re to get started right away.”
“They always say that,” said Henry. He turned to me. “They’ve done a pretty good job here. I mean, this is going to involve a whole lot of talking to ghosts. You should have your licence in no time. What’s your name, ghosty?”
“Ed,” Ed said. “I, uh, I’m dead.”
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