Wizard for Hire

by Jack Simmonds

  Karen looked sheepish. “They’re too busy.”

  Felix looked incredulous, and for once, lost for words. I sensed a spot of rivalry between himself and this Alister character. After a second of puffed-up-ness he sniggered. “So, just because I am the only non-busy wizard you know, that makes me the prime suspect in a break in of a bank?”

  “Pretty much,” said Bob facetiously, knowing it would wind the wizard up.

  Karen fixed her emerald eyes upon Felix. “Where were you between the hours of 2:30 and 4 this morning?”

  A few seconds elapsed before I said something. I had to. “He was with me,” I said. Bob’s eyebrow raised. “Not like that, we just stayed up talking, until about 3:30am.” Slight exaggeration, but it was around that time.

  Bob maintained the raised eyebrow, passing it to Felix. “You live with ya’ lawyer?”

  “It’s a… temporary arrangement,” I said.

  That was the worst of it, I don’t think they really suspected the wizard too strongly. What followed was an admission from Karen that they needed help of an occult angle and seeing as the specialists at the Wizarding Private Investigation company (PI Wizz), a team which this Alister character ran, were busy. Then they needed Felix to help clarify a few things.

  Felix negotiated more information out of them, needing it for “context”. They went on to say that this break-in was the third in two weeks around the capital. Of which all had a strange angle to them. One bank with safety deposit boxes near Regents Park had been broken into and searched, but nothing was taken except several rings. A trait which followed to the next break in days later at Belgravia. No cash or other jewellery was taken, again, only rings. The other strange aspect included how no power tools were used to break in. By all accounts it was as if the thief just walked in and locked the doors behind him on his way out. The police were alerted when the CCTV was spotted to be on a loop. Finally, the death of the security guard last night had been picked up by the media, which meant they had to act fast.

  Karen read aloud from the Daily Express. “… killed by a shot of electricity so powerful it must have been done by a homemade weapon. This can’t get out.”

  Bob grinned like a weasel that caught its first prey. “If it does leak out, then we know whose leaked it.”

  Felix agreed to help them straight away and go to the site with them. Then followed a short interchange in which he said he wouldn’t come unless I did too. Karen relented.

  “The car is waiting round the back,” she said ushering us out the room. Felix followed Bob smartly up the way as Karen turned on me with her piercing green eyes. “If you really are Felix’s lawyer, I’d quit. That man is more trouble than he is worth. It’s not worth getting involved in. And that’s coming from a friend.”

  5

  When I Came Face to Face With a Demon

  The car was posh, leather seats set far enough back from the two front seats to make it feel like first class on an aeroplane. Bob drove. I got the impression he wasn’t happy about any of this. He was clearly the sort of man that did not believe in magic and never would. Heck I wasn’t even sure if I did. He clearly suspected Felix and his ways, wondering if Karen’s clear sentimental spot for the wizard was leading to trouble.

  As we drove, his eyes were firmly closed, before he proceeded to reel off the road names as we turned onto them.

  “Chandos Place, Bedford Street, Bedfordbury, William IV Street…” he continued muttering in this way, before I interrupted him, giving him a cursory tap. He didn’t open his eyes but waved his hand giving me the sign to proceed with speech.

  I leaned closer, trying to whisper as he kept muttering. “Why am I here?” It came out a little harshly.

  “Thought you would be interested—A400, Duncannon Street to the left. Seeing as you are writing a book about me. Strand, coming up to the roundabout with the equestrian statue of Charles the first.”

  I was stunned, and not just by his seemingly encyclopaedic knowledge of London roads, but of his brash assumption. “When did I agree to write a book about you?”

  “The Mall, Spring Gardens to the right, coming up to Horse Guards Road.”

  Cursing under my breath at his lack of compliance, I turned back and gave him a bigger nudge. “Where did you go… in that telephone box?”

  “The Mall road continues for ages until we get to Victoria Memorial,” he opened his eyes, finally, and blinked at the light. “Hm, I was right.”

  Karen and Bob were muttering between themselves.

  “Well?” I said, frustration growing. “Where did you go? I got out because you left your… wand, in my car and then I see you disappear inside a phone box.”

  “Booth,” he said. “It’s a telephone booth.”

  “I don’t give a shit, just tell me, it’s winding me right up.”

  “I told you, to see a man about a dog.” On seeing my exasperated face, he relented. “I’ll tell you another time, not now.”

  Sometimes I get an instinct for how to weasel information out of people, you know, how to push their buttons to talk. I could have made a good police officer, if it didn’t scare me too much. Muttering under my breath, just loud enough for the wizard to hear. “Can’t write a book about him if he doesn’t tell me anything.”

  That worked, his head swung at me like a dog when you say walkies.

  He made a gruff noise, seemingly agreeing on something in his mind. “I had to meet someone, another wizard, I couldn’t do it in broad daylight. So we use that booth, it’s a magical lift, goes underground. No one sees.”

  I nodded appeased.

  “And how did they,” I pointed subtly at Karen and Bob, “think that I was your lawyer?”

  “How does a hypnotist make someone think they’re a chicken?” Then his eyes snapped shut. “Constitution Hill, Piccadilly on the right, onto the A4202.”

  The car pulled up outside a large, yellow stone, faceless building, teeming with more police than fleas at a flea circus. Felix was writhing in his seat, reminding me of a Labrador, whining and scratching at the car door, itching to get out. The bank had no discernible features telling you it was a bank. In fact, if I passed by this building a hundred times a day, I would still argue that it wasn’t. It could have been anything. Blue ticker tape surrounded the area, which was not a busy street anyway. Five people in all white suits, forensics I assumed, were entering together with bags of equipment.

  Karen turned in her seat as Bob parked up. “Now remember Felix, please be good. If anyone asks, you are with me, don’t give any more information than that—”

  “Yes I know, I know!” Felix bounced in his seat, clutching at the door handle which had a child lock on it. “Come on Norton.”

  Bob proceeded to tell Karen why I couldn’t come in. I was all for staying in the car, but Felix threw a temper tantrum until I was allowed.

  We approached some sort of organiser policeman with a clipboard. They exchanged credentials, Karen was obviously someone who held good rank, and we were given lanyard passes. Some snotty nosed DI behind the organiser saw Felix, and her face blew up like a balloon. “Why you bringing the freak in?” she said. “Don’t you think this crime scene is messed up enough?”

  To get to the crime scene, we entered a large marble floored hall, passed through two body scanners and escorted by management down three flights of stairs. The first thing that hit me was the stink; it was worse than anything I’ve ever come across. Caked across the entirety of the bottom floor was the remains of the sewerage that had been used as means of entry. We were given wellington boots to wade through the brown-green sludge. Felix didn’t seem to be paying much attention to the smell, his eyes darted all over the place, up at the ceiling, down at the floor, then intently at a mark on the wall. But there was something in his eye as he did so. To me I would describe it as a glazed expression. However knowing what I do about him now, I would rather suggest he had his magical mind on. All the better to hunt for magical clues I supposed.


  We went down into the dark depths of the bank’s smelly belly, through two metal doors which buzzed as we entered through them.

  “And,” said the manager of the bank, a rather portly, camp fellow, “these doors were smashed open with what we presume was a small boring drill.”

  Bob chuckled. “That don’t mean it was boring,” he said with a glance at Felix and me. “That means it was used for boring out tunnels.”

  Felix wasn’t paying attention, he was already inside the safety deposit box room before anyone could tell him not to. “Felix, you can’t just—”

  “Leave me in peace!” he cried.

  Karen tapped Bob to check over something further down the tunnel. As they passed me, I heard them muttering, Bob was not happy about leaving Felix alone. Apart from the vile smell of the leaked sewer, there was another smell that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Kind of metallic.

  “Found anything?” I said, looking at the boxes that had been jammed open. He didn’t respond for a moment as his fingers ran up and down the metal drawers. Suitably appeased, he turned to me arms a-wide.

  “It’s odd. Doesn’t match up with what they were saying about it being a wizard suspect.” I asked why. “Well, the other break-ins, the suspect only took a select few rings. In this one, not only was it broken into, but a lot of stuff was taken. Which leads to a conclusion I don’t think they will like.”

  In a spurt of energy and change of thought, he was off, speeding past me towards Karen and Bob. Three people in white suits and one photographer were standing over a body that lay in the filth and muck. As I got closer, I had to hold a hand over my mouth, never had I seen a dead body before. He was a bald man with grey stubble and a portly stomach. Navy uniform stained black around the abdomen. Right in the center was a small black hole. The finality of it hit me. One minute he was here working, with his life that he’d built, and the next he was shot dead. Just like that. He looked like the sort of person I could talk to in the pub over a beer. An honest man.

  Felix glanced over the body, gently placing his index finger between the man’s eyes and closing his own. He sighed softly and nodded to himself.

  “Yep, thought so.” He stood sharp. “Where’s the other one?”

  Felix said other one, in such a way as to make one think that this was what he was really here for. The manager tentatively guided us down a narrow passage. The light in the passage ceiling flickered, like a good horror film. I cowered behind Felix as he knelt down beside another man.

  Felix made a small, unhappy noise. This rather more unfortunate man had a football sized hole in the middle of his chest. The mix of blood and sewer filth stirred the bile in my stomach. It wasn’t just the sick sight of it, but the strange metallic smell in the air that I’d smelled earlier. It did something that raised the anxiety in me.

  “First guard shot, second pierced with an electromagnetic pulse through the heart. Around 12 minutes between deaths.”

  Felix looked around again with that same glazed expression, like he was looking at something we couldn’t see, shushing any potential noise.

  He took a deep breath, beckoning us in closer. “This was a double break-in.”

  “How dya’ work that out?” said Bob arms crossed.

  “And I know how he got in,” said Felix happily, despite the dead body on the floor beneath his feet. “What was this guard doing here? Why was the bald one shot and this one killed by magic 12 minutes later?”

  Karen looked eager to know, but without the dramatics. “Hurry up and tell us Felix.”

  “This wall has high levels of electromagnetic energy, which tells me, that this person is breaking into banks, using magic to get through the walls. Then rebuilding the walls when he leaves. Unfortunately for…” he bent down to look at the man’s name tag. “Brett. He must have heard the wall coming apart, after trying to save his colleague and gone to check. That’s when he came down here, face to face with the wizard who was spooked and killed him. But this wizard was too late… the bank had already been broken into moments earlier via the entrance over yonder, coming up through the sewers. Hence why that man was shot, and Brett killed by magic.”

  Bob looked affronted, like he was annoyed at such an explanation. “Anything else?” But Felix’s gaze was already taken. He made an odd noise, like a whine.

  “Fine,” said Karen. “We will go and report this new evidence, see what comes up.”

  Karen and Bob left telling us to wrap up as quick as we could, taking the manager to the safety deposit room.

  Felix was still staring at something, looking frozen stiff. “Shhh,” he whispered finger to lips, creeping forwards out of the passage like a tiger.

  “What is it?”

  “I can sense a…” he didn’t say the last word. “It’s holding a spell, but where is it?”

  I backed away against the wall at the sight of a scared Felix. It was rather unsettling.

  He patted his coat. “Please tell me you have my wand.”

  “Oh, err… it’s still in my car.”

  The look he gave me was like I had just condemned him to death. I was about to say it wasn’t my fault, he left it there.

  But, the next second this comment was null and void. Because I was about to have the shit scared out of me, which wouldn’t have even mattered, I was surrounded by it.

  It swooped out of a dark corner. The appearance of a flapping bat, suddenly morphed into a black smoke cloud. A pair of bright red eyes, like fire came face to face with my own.

  Absolute terror did not do it justice. I was petrified beyond belief, paralysed into submission. This thing stared into my eyes, I felt its ice cold contempt, its murderous intent, the very antithesis of good.

  Out the corner of my paralysed eye, I saw Felix dart towards it. The thing, that I now know as a demon, flashed at him like a snake. Felix flew back off his feet as if hit by a car, skidding through the crap into the wall.

  The demon’s black smoke body hung in mid air for a second. Sparks of purple collected around its abdomen, for it had no arms.

  “No!” Felix cried coming to stand.

  The demon dropped the purple sparks which were now a spell, fell to the floor beneath Felix’s feet. It burst to life, as the demon shot out through the wall. “Shit!” Felix screamed, the purple spell turned to a raging purple fire in a split second. It covered the floor and raced to the murdered bodies. Felix yanked me out of the way of it, into the wall just as Karen and Bob came running back to see what the noise was.

  “What have you done?!” Bob screamed at Felix, running down the passage to him and grabbing him by the collar. Karen cried at Bob for answers.

  Bob screamed back. “He’s done magic! He’s trying ta’ destroy evidence!” he screamed.

  “Detain him then.”

  Bob shouted that he was trying.

  “Don’t be stupid! You can’t detain me you fool. This wasn’t me, the wizard came back to finish the job and make sure we didn’t find anything!”

  “You expect me to believe that rubbish?” cried Bob, struggling to keep a hold of Felix as the purple fire started to spread up the walls. “I knew we shouldn’t have trusted ya’, I told her and told her. Well now you can get ya’ just desserts.”

  “Piss off Bob!” Felix did something, because there was a short sharp CRACK! noise with the effect of a taser. Bob relinquished his hold immediately and danced backwards. Felix grabbed me, dragging me along after him as we ran past Karen and out of the underground.

  “Get after them!” I heard Karen scream.

  Felix and I skidded round the corner, ran up the stairs, finding ourselves in a marble hall full of police.

  6

  An Explosive Explanation in Sid’s Caff

  For a moment, I thought that was it. We had been caught. Twenty police officers, mostly armed with heavy machine guns stared at us. My imagination started to run quickly through how I would survive a one year jail sentence for perjury, if that’s all I was charged for.
But the wizard had a trick up his sleeve, and not the magical one I was expecting.

  Felix started pointing frantically at them. “He’s down there!” he screamed in an authoritative voice. “Get after him!”

  At once, the twenty police officers charged down the way we had come from. Felix and I burst out of the bank and sprinted away as fast as we could. The fresh air hit my face, I felt like a free man. Except the extent of what we had done hadn’t quite hit me yet, but it was about to. The adrenaline coursed through my veins a moment longer as we cornered two roads and came to a jog down a cobblestone alley. And then my mind went into panic mode.

  “Please tell me why we… just ran away… from the police!” I cried panting.

  Felix did not look the least bit worried, as if he did this all the time. Mind you, he was just as unfit as I was, puffing and gasping for breath, which is pretty tricky in amongst the fumes and London smog.

  Without saying a word, I think he was just trying to recover after the run, I followed Felix like a good little boy. The choice was made for me, I had just seen the scariest thing of my life and had to stick with the wizard out of protection.

  We walked along Embankment, where to, I didn’t know. It was on this rather silent walk, in which I suspected the wizard was thinking, for his brow was furrowed, that I remembered my car. Twas still parked at the multi-storey in Paddington Green. Shit. More money wasted.

  Felix pushed the door open to: Sid’s Caff, just off Westminster, after a 30 minute walk. It was odd, but a cafe was the last place I expected him to go. Especially after coming face to face with a demon, lying and running away from the police. When I said this, he asked if I had a better suggestion than a fry-up and a strong tea. I had to agree.