“Laps?” I repeated, wondering if I could manage any more running today.
“Yes, we must do laps of the city to evade the demon. It’s a precautionary tactic that I always do, or face the consequences of it finding us,” he said in a deathly tone.
“Fine,” he had suitably scared me into submission. “What do I need to do?”
“Just drive around, I will direct you.”
“Drive around?” I said, suddenly thinking how much I wanted my bed. “You want me to drive around London aimlessly in the rush hour?”
“It’s either that, or wake up to a demon brutally murdering you and then eating the evidence.”
I turned the engine on. “Well when you put it like that.”
The wizard put his seat belt on, his hand catching something. “Oh look, my wand!”
If I’d have known that we would have to drive around London all night, doing three laps of the M25, countless stops and two full tanks of fuel, I would have given serious thought to taking my chances with the demon.
The journey was made all the more intolerable by the fact that the wizard firstly kept moaning about Alister: “The annoying thing is that Alister is the good guy. I am the bad guy. But he’s still a prick.”
And secondly, that he kept reading out long passages to himself, seemingly narrating the book he wanted me to write about him. Mind you, I suppose this was better than listing fucking road names all night.
He went on like this: “Reader: please imagine some moody, atmospheric jazz playing underneath me as I speak… my life is like a noir film, all black and white, the constant thud of rain in the background beating down upon my beige duster with the collar poked up. I light a cigarette—”
“You don’t smoke.”
“It’s all about image Norton,” he said clearly annoyed at my interruption. “I must project an image.”
“Neither do you wear a beige duster.”
“So?” he shrugged, nonplussed. “In this book I’d like to.” He continued: “I walk through the driving rain, a man on a mission, ready to take on the world. I flick the cigarette into the drain, and set forth to… the bathroom pub. There to meet a man about a dog. And perchance some food. I am a wizard, not of this world… well, born in this world but not wanted by it, not believed, treated like a charlatan wherever he goes. Sad and lonely, he marches on, determined to keep the people safe from the things they most fear…”
He even started doing this odd little accent that sounded like American. In between these unannounced episodes of narrative, he would bark directions at me. Leading us to abandoned warehouses, industrial estates and riverbanks. How he knew where they all were was beyond me.
Each time he got out, he took a little bag of magic with him, insisting I stay in the car, I wasn’t going to grumble at that, however I was curious as to what he was doing.
“Laying scents,” he said after I asked. “There’s seven steps to avoiding a demon,” said Felix. “This should keep it busy for a while.”
I repeated “laying scents?” back to him in a curious way until he expanded upon it.
“It’s how demons operate, by smell. If I lay enough scents traps, it won’t be able to sniff us out. There must be seven, no more or less. Hence the seven steps.”
It was past midnight by the time we returned home and I climbed, grateful beyond belief, into bed. I could say with absolute certainty, that this day had been the strangest I had ever had. Unless, somehow I was dreaming, hallucinating or in a coma, three options of many which I had not ruled out just yet.
But, I had forgotten in my tiredness, to do one rather important thing… lock my door.
8
The Morning After The Night Before
You know how when you are ill with the flu, or some other nasty, and you dream such vivid oddities? That’s what became of me last night, journeying through my tepid subconscious mind and all its ridiculous presentations, including flying across the Arctic on a giant Albatross. And others, of the like I won’t bore you with: dreams are like relationships, your very attached to your own, but it’s fucking boring hearing about other people’s.
I slept like I had been made to stay awake for a week, such were the tremendous events of yesterday. Around 5am I woke briefly, having a quiet think to myself, and I remember now, wondering if the whole day had, in fact, been a dream, or perhaps someone had put LSD in my drink, or a prank for a TV show.
Dozing peacefully as the sun beat it’s mid-morning Saturday vibes through my window, the soft flow of nearby traffic like the rise and fall of soft waves. It was all to be disturbed, very abruptly.
Fortunately, dreams of demons didn’t occur to my subconscious mind. But they did, in the real world. I had forgotten to lock the door to my room last night, being in the state I was.
I was in a comfortable mid-morning slumber, when my door flew open and hit the wall. It was like a gunshot going off.
“How do you make the fucking coffee machine work!” Screamed the wizard. “It’s broken!”
The coffee machine smashed into the wall above me, with a terrific bang. My heart jumped into my throat and I had to clutch my chest like you do. Anger like only that of being rudely awoken coursed through me.
“It’s definitely broken now!” I said croaky voiced. “What do you think you’re doing storming in here like that?”
As he stood in my doorway, with his bottom lip curled down, I was reminded of a child throwing a tantrum because his playstation wouldn’t turn on. “I wanted to make coffee.” I told him to wait for me in the kitchen while I got ready, giving myself time to calm.
Saturday mornings were a strict routine for me, one which I enjoyed: read the weekend edition newspaper and talk about it, listen to Radio 4, drink lots of fresh coffee. In the afternoon, walk the mother-in-law’s dogs in the woods with Ginny. Since being alone I had adapted it, seeing as I had no one to talk to about the week's news and no dogs to walk.
Placing my small battery operated radio on the kitchen table, I turned on the familiar dulcet tones. Ah, comfortable, normal, predictable. No magic, no wizards, and most of all, no demons.
A minute later that all went to pot. “Ergh!” said Felix walking in dressed in a long dressing gown and pointing at the radio. I asked what was the matter. “Radio 4, pretentious nonsense, faux-intellectual bull-crap for the middle-classes who think they understand the world better than anyone else. Most biased news station ever!” I couldn’t remember asking for his opinion. He grabbed a mug and poured himself a coffee from the percolator. “Fixed it then?” he said.
“Yes,” I said opening the Daily Telegraph.
“How?”
I fixed him a stare. “I plugged it in.”
It puzzled me how one so obviously talented could be so stupid, like all his brain power was used for his wizardry and none allocated towards normal daily tasks.
He sat opposite me gratefully sipping his coffee, watching me read the paper. The colour seemed to return to his face after this first mug, for when he first walked in he was whiter than Alister’s teeth.
I felt like he was about to say something about my precious Saturday morning routine, but he didn’t. Eventually after another three cups of coffee (he didn’t offer to top me up once), he did speak.
“Don’t you have that…” he struggled for the right words. “Place you have to go to?”
“You mean work?” I said, without looking up. “No, it’s a Saturday.”
This news seemed to come as a surprise to Felix. I wondered how much about the world he actually knew, for instance; that most people didn’t work the weekends.
“Look at this Norton.” I looked up long enough to see a newspaper appear in mid-air between his fingers. It was folded up to the correct page. “It made the papers. Don’t crease the page,” he said holding a pair of scissors, presumably he was going to cut it out and put it in his scrapbook.
As I remarked on this, he frowned. “Scrapbook indeed!” he said. “It’s a m
agical memento and wizarding news index.”
I read the article: ‘Break in at Covent Garden has the Fuzz in a Muddle: A break in at a safety deposit bank in Covent Garden last night, where two security guards were killed is thought to be a highly efficient operation and took place at around 3:30am. The thieves gained entry to the bank, and the underground vaults via a sewer tunnel that ran parallel. Exploding their way in, they took over £1.5million worth of jewellery, banknotes and antiques. The investigation took an odd turn with the horrifying revelation that one of the security guards was murdered with what appeared to be a homemade weapon that according to sources ‘blew a hole straight through his chest’. It is not known who the criminal outfit are, but we are assured that the Police have now allocated extra officers to this case, after the second high profile bank robbery in 3 years.’
Felix snatched the paper back and started cutting it out. “All over social media too, I checked this morning. Some interesting comments on the news articles about it on Facebook—”
“Hang on,” I said stopping him. “You’re on Facebook?”
Felix looked slightly offended. “Of course, who isn’t?”
For some reason, my stereotype of a wizard was some kind of luddite who didn’t nor couldn’t handle modern technology.
“Christ sake Norton. We don’t all sit in caves making potions all day, we do have lives too.” He said passionately. I held my hands up in apology, I had obviously touched a nerve.
The wizard was getting anxious for attention, not allowing me to read the paper in peace without banging around the kitchen, or singing, or tapping. He had to always be doing something, even if it was inane. So I folded my paper away, there were a few rather pertinent questions I had to ask him that were at the forefront of my mind, and I felt reasonably eased into the day.
His ears pricked up when I started talking. “What did Alister mean when he said you were a criminal?”
This may not have been the question that Felix wanted to receive, but it bugged me that Felix had admitted in the car last night that Alister was: the good guy.
Felix put the spoon down that he was using to tap on the mugs with. “I started working a year ago, opening up myself to independent work.”
“Like a PI?” I said.
“No, I couldn’t get a license. And the git Alister wouldn’t let me get away with doing it without one. So, I just did odd jobs. It just so happened that some of the people who needed my help and expertise, also happened to be connected with the criminal underworld. And I got sort of… sucked in.”
“So you helped criminals?”
Felix weighed up the question, rolling his head from side to side. “Kind of. I mean, I had little choice. I was desperate for money.” He pleaded. “My mother’s inheritance ran out.”
I felt that awkward pull in my stomach when someone mentions a dead relative. “I’m sorry,” I muttered.
“I tried to go straight, but you don’t understand how hard that is.”
I asked what held him back from getting one, to which he replied coyly that he was involved in a court case, he would never get one while that continued.
“The free time that money bought me was incredible,” said Felix, sitting back down at the table with a fresh mug. “Studying magic so intensively, deepening my knowledge, meeting mentors and teachers around the world, collecting magical old relics, deciphering forgotten books.” His eyes sparkled with passion as he spoke; I wished I could borrow some.
“They think I killed my own mother Norton.” He sighed. “How could they think that? And now all this,” he pointed at the article he had cut out. “That demon made it look like I made the fire.”
He drew his hands through his hair, before massaging his temples. “If I don’t prove my innocence I could go to magical jail.” He looked me full in the face with his grey-speckled eyes. “And trust me when I say this… I would rather die.”
Downing the rest of his coffee, he put the mug in the sink and looked out the window. “But worse than that, if I don’t start getting some work through soon I will have to get a normal job.” He shivered. “Given the choice between a normal job or magical jail, I think I’d choose magical jail.”
I didn’t know what to say. So I kept silent. He was opening up to me. Only knowing him one full day, this felt slightly premature, but in hindsight, I suppose we had been through more in our one day together than most people would in their entire lives.
“This court case I mentioned,” said Felix standing stiff at the sink, still looking outside. “It’s only fair that you should know, what with you writing a book about me… that er…”
He stopped, for another man appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. I learned later that his name was Dave Parry, another housemate who lived in the room opposite mine. “Oh good morning,” he said coming into the kitchen. “And what time did some of us arrive home last night?” he had a really condescending voice, and looked, with his beady beetle eyes at Felix and I.
Dave Parry was middle-aged, with no hair on the top of his head. He worked in IT, had silly little glasses, and a flabby little belly. “I’ve told Ms McCall that I’m not happy about it.” His voice was exactly the same as a kid in school who would say: I’m telling the teacher. I bet he was bullied.
Felix and I left the kitchen shortly after, leaving Dave Parry, the most annoying housemate in the world. Getting dressed and wondering what to do with the rest of my day, it wasn’t long before the wizard was back, to decide that for me. Halfway through dressing, I heard Ms McCall calling his name and stomping around the house for him.
He opened my door and slid inside, closing it quietly behind him. Ms McCalls voice carried upstairs: “Have you paid your rent yet? It’s overdue!”
“Shit!” Felix mouthed, trying to peer through the keyhole.
After few more moments of silence, he came to sit at the end of my bed. Before looking around at my room. “Hm,” he nodded. “Minimalist.”
“My ex-girlfriend kept all the stuff we had. The rest I sold. Reminded me of her.”
“You have a bed, a desk, clothes, a laptop and an Arsenal mug. How can you survive with so few possessions?”
It wasn’t a question, he was genuinely curious. But then his mind switched back to whatever he was thinking about before. He got his iPhone out, after flicking around for a minute started tutting. “No work, nothing, nada, not a bean!” he huffed. “See this is the sort of stupidity I have to deal with… people sending me emails asking about Harry Potter trivia, or how to do a card trick.”
He slammed the phone down on my bed.
Ms McCalls voice echoed around the house once again. “I know you’re still in the house Felix Freeman!”
“If she finds you in here, she’ll chuck us both out!”
“Oh stop worrying your tiny-mind. Let’s go get breakfast, before she checks your room. But probably best if we find another cafe. Best to avoid Sid for a bit, til he calms down. We’ll have to sneak out, so Ms McCall doesn’t see us,” said Felix peering through the keyhole again.
“This was not how I planned my weekend.”
“No? What did you have planned exactly, walk around all lonely, pining after your stupid ex-girlfriend, feeling sorry for yourself?”
I thought how wicked of me it would be if I called for Ms McCall, that would teach the know-it-all wizard not to talk about my ex like that. But my retort was interrupted by Felix’s phone suddenly making loud ding — he had a message.
Looking at it for a moment wondering why it had made such a noise, perhaps he did not get many messages, he snatched it up and read.
His face dropped and went white as a sheet. “What is is?” I said.
After a long pause, he looked up. “We have to go. NOW.”
9
A Job For Felix Freeman
Felix didn’t tell me what the text read. Obtusely withholding that information from me, until we were out the sights of Ms McCall and far enough away from the house. He made m
e drive too, unlocking the car with magic and getting inside.
“Drive me to Trafalgar Square!” he called, like some rich prima-dona celebrity. The cheek of it.
“Not until you tell me what the text was about.”
Felix grinned, rubbing his hands together like the cat who’d got the cream. “Looks like I may have a job at last!”
And there’s me thinking something terrible had happened. The wizard was so excited about this job, the details of which he omitted to tell me, that I rather delayed sharing my reluctance at having to drive to Trafalgar Square. Driving in London is bad enough, but driving that centrally is like navigating your way out of hell.
Felix ran off and found a cafe while I attempted to find a parking space, he got annoyed at my fussiness at finding the right parking spot, so got out, saying he would text me the whereabouts of the cafe. Someone pulled out of a space nearby, so I raced into it, beating a BMW to the space, and just narrowly avoiding a double decker bus. This was central London, where car parking spaces must be battled for.
Felix had found a chain cafe, which he looked uncomfortable in. He liked familiarity too. We were not that dissimilar. It was a small cafe, with a good view of Trafalgar Square.
“They don’t bring your drink to the table!” he said as soon as I walked in. “You have to go up and get it yourself.” Genuinely annoyed by this. “So, you will have to go up and order.”
“Why can’t you?” I said.
“I need to keep a look out…” he used his fingers to demonstrate how he was looking out. The thing is, he had already cost me a shit ton of money and showed very little gratitude, but he didn’t mean to. Now, I run the risk of sounding like a parent. But he was genuinely fixated upon watching the Square, to the point that if someone came through the door he shot them an angry glance. So, his seeming avoidance at paying for anything, no matter how small, made sense, he didn’t mean to, he was just so fixated on his goal. That took 100% attention. Unless he was just a con artist.
Wizard for Hire Page 6