{"id":10109,"date":"2015-11-16T08:09:39","date_gmt":"2015-11-16T13:09:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/?p=10109"},"modified":"2015-11-16T08:09:39","modified_gmt":"2015-11-16T13:09:39","slug":"wizard-trouble-full-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2015\/11\/16\/wizard-trouble-full-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Wizard Trouble: Full Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

So, a funny story about this. I posted a snippet of a fantasy story back in August<\/a>, and enough people said nice things about it that I actually got off my ass and did some playing around to format the full story as an epub. This was, of course, complicated by the fact that computers are awful, but I think I finally got a version that doesn’t have gibberish characters all over. At least, as long as you’re not using the worthless free epub reader I initially downloaded, which makes a hash of even actual purchased professional ebook files.<\/p>\n

I was all set to post that– had the post all typed in, and was ready to hit “Publish” when my email beeped. It turned out to be a reader with a connection to a professional fiction outlet, who had mentioned it to an editor there and gotten an encouraging response. So I sent it off to them, because I’m evidently a poor man’s John Scalzi.<\/p>\n

Of course, I’m a very poor poor man’s John Scalzi, because after a few months, they turned the story down. Very nice rejection note, but, you know, still a rejection. And while this does suggest that I could probably sell it to somebody<\/em>, I don’t deal well with waiting, and this is not at all my primary line of work, so I’m going back to the original plan of posting it here. <\/p>\n

Anyway, here’s a Dropbox link to the full story<\/a>, because WordPress won’t let me upload an epub. It’s not all that long, so I’ll also put the full text below, in HTML.<\/p>\n


\n————<\/p>\n

I was staring out the diner window, watching it rain, when Jimmy the werewolf slid into the booth behind me. \u201cWe got trouble, boss,\u201d he said, and I spilled coffee over the back of my hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cAsshole,\u201d I said, not turning around. \u201cHow about a little warning next time?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t want to let on I know you. Because of the trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow can we be in trouble? We haven\u2019t done anything yet. What kind of trouble?\u201d I probably sounded a little petulant, but I was annoyed about the coffee.<\/p>\n

\u201cWizard trouble.\u201d That\u2019s a whole lot worse than spilled coffee.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAcross the street, bus stop.\u201d I did my best to look at the bus stop without obviously looking at the bus stop. An enormously fat woman talking on a cell phone was taking up most of the bench inside the shelter, and what room she wasn\u2019t occupying herself was filled by her two kids, engaged in some sort of punching game. Pushed out of the shelter by this little domestic scene were two young women with umbrellas, glaring daggers at the serenely oblivious woman inside, and a bedraggled little man in a tan raincoat, who was attempting to keep himself dry by holding a newspaper over his head, like you see in old movies. It doesn\u2019t work nearly as well as it does in Hollywood.<\/p>\n

None of them looked remotely wizardly. \u201cWho?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTan coat.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHim? He\u2019s no wizard. He doesn\u2019t have enough sense to stay out of the rain, for Chrissakes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah. One thing, though: why\u2019s he carrying an umbrella?\u201d I looked again, and sure enough. His left hand was holding the newspaper aloft, but down by his side, clutched in his right hand, was a long, narrow, fabric-wrapped object that looked like a golf umbrella.<\/p>\n

Magic\u2019s a tricky business at the best of times, but combat magic is a bitch and a half. The usual way to make it easier is to pre-load a bunch of stuff into some object, traditionally a long wooden stick. When the time comes, you trigger it, and hopefully wreak some havoc. And if magic doesn\u2019t do the trick, well, you\u2019re holding a nice solid chunk of wood, and can always hit the other guy with it.<\/p>\n

Problem is, it\u2019s not exactly inconspicuous. It hasn\u2019t been fashionable for healthy young men to carry walking sticks for nigh on a century now, so if you want to openly carry a staff, you have to either fake a limp, or raise a lot of questions. Or, you can wrap your wizardly stick in a piece of nylon cloth, and it looks for all the world like a large umbrella. Problem solved\u2014you just look like you\u2019re cautious about the weather.<\/p>\n

Until it actually rains. At which point, you look like a dumbass standing in the rain holding a closed umbrella.<\/p>\n

I stared across the street at the bus shelter, looking at that umbrella. And at its holder, who on, closer inspection, was clearly watching me back.<\/p>\n

\u201cShit,\u201d I said. \u201cWizard trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Half an hour later, I was walking through the rain, trying to come up with a good way to defend myself from the angry wizard a block behind me. My<\/em> umbrella was just an umbrella, and while it did a reasonable job of keeping me dry, it wasn\u2019t much use in a fight.<\/p>\n

Jimmy and I had tried to figure out who the fellow with the staff was, but neither of us recognized him. He didn\u2019t seem to connect Jimmy with me, and we tried to prevent him from making that association by talking to each other on our phones. We probably could\u2019ve saved the charges, and just pretended<\/em> to talk on the phone, but we were both a little rattled. We had planned to meet with a client who was hiring us to steal stuff, but we hadn\u2019t done anything that should\u2019ve pissed anyone off enough to come after me in public. Not yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe you slept with his wife,\u201d Jimmy offered.<\/p>\n

\u201cHa fucking ha.\u201d I was in a bit of a dry spell, and none too happy about it. \u201cHow can he know what we\u2019re going to do? I<\/em> don\u2019t even know what we\u2019re going to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe he\u2019s not after us? Maybe he\u2019s just following us to get to the client?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe client\u2019s got an office. He\u2019s in the phone book.\u201d William Shoreham (not his real name, so don\u2019t bother looking it up), some subspecies of attorney, with an office in a strip mall on Central. I\u2019d called him there to set up the meeting. \u201cIf you wanted to find him, you\u2019d go to his house, not tail me around town in the rain.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, we had an unknown wizard, armed for bear, looking for me. This obviously wasn\u2019t something we wanted to bring down on the client, so going to the meeting was out. And I couldn\u2019t very well sit in a diner all damn day. So, I was out walking in the rain, trying to think of a way to face this guy down and come away with my skin intact.<\/p>\n

Problem is, I suck at fighting. I\u2019m all about lies and misdirection, and skulking in the shadows. Given time to plan, there\u2019s no set of protections I can\u2019t get through, but I\u2019m a thief, not a killer. If somebody wants to kill me, I either talk them out of it\u2014I\u2019m very convincing\u2014or hide until they lose interest. Whoever this guy was, though, he was already on me, which meant a straight-up fight, and even with time to prepare, I\u2019m no good at those. I could probably lose him, but if he found me once, he\u2019d find me again, and I was too broke to go to ground comprehensively enough to avoid trouble.<\/p>\n

Lacking the time to make a complicated plan, we went with a simple one: since he didn\u2019t seem to know Jimmy, I\u2019d lure him into a convenient alley, and Jimmy would jump him from behind. The classics never go out of style. Assuming, of course, that the wizard in question wasn\u2019t bad-ass enough to take both of us.<\/p>\n

Thus, walking in the rain, trying to figure out who this guy was, and why he wanted a piece of me badly enough to come at me this openly. I snuck the occasional glimpse as I turned corners and crossed streets, but he didn\u2019t look like anyone I knew. South Asian, probably thirty-something, wet and annoyed. Also, completely unsubtle, like he either had no idea how to follow someone inconspicuously, or was too angry to bother trying to hide. Which I guess ruled out a professional hit; small comfort, that.<\/p>\n

Walking and thinking wasn\u2019t providing any answers, but it was bringing me closer to my destination, now a block ahead on the right. I jogged across the street just as the light changed, buying myself a little more time, then turned down a cross street that was barely more than an alley. Glancing back, I saw my pursuer waiting for traffic to let up so he could cross.<\/p>\n

Once I was out of sight, I closed the umbrella, walking the half a block to the dead-end alley behind a block of storefronts. Being wet wasn\u2019t a whole lot of fun, but I needed to be a little more in tune with the elements, as it were, if I was going to save myself with magic.<\/p>\n

Magic, fundamentally, is bullshit. I don\u2019t mean that it\u2019s not real\u2014it\u2019s how I make my living, after all\u2014but that the process is the same. If you\u2019re going to sell somebody a line of bullshit, you need to pitch it at them in just the right way for them to accept it\u2014you have to make them want<\/em> to believe something that isn\u2019t true. Magic\u2019s the same way, but you\u2019re not selling bullshit to a person, you\u2019re selling it to the entire universe.<\/p>\n

To lie effectively, you need to know something about the person you\u2019re lying to: where they\u2019re from, what they do for a living, what they like and dislike. Then you craft the simplest lie you can that makes them want to believe what you want them to believe. Getting two different people to believe the same wrong thing can require two completely different pitches.<\/p>\n

Magic\u2019s the same way, only you\u2019re conning the universe\u2014convincing it that while conventional reality would suggest A, B is really a more congenial state. The exact path from A to B, like the exact lie needed to sell a truckload of bullshit, is never exactly the same from one time to the next. Doing magic requires a feel for how things are<\/em>, and what you can do to nudge them closer to your goal. Small changes, like small lies, are easier to pull off: this lock really ought to be open, that security camera really ought to be on the blink right now. But if you\u2019re good, you can move the world an amazing distance. Provided you know where you\u2019re starting.<\/p>\n

So. I was starting in an alley, in the rain. A hard steady rain, not a blinding downpour, but cold and soaking over time. Except where the run-off from the roof above me poured out in a heavy stream, the gutter pipe long since having gone missing.<\/p>\n

Okay, I could use that. Some of the rain that wants to fall here<\/em> really ought to be falling there<\/em> instead. I raised my hands slowly, and pushed toward the mouth of the alley (the physical gestures involved are whatever feels right\u2014I hope they have a cool t\u2019ai chi sort of effect, but I\u2019m half afraid that they look ridiculous). Over my head the rain\u2026 diverted. Like it was hitting an invisible sloped roof, starting at the building behind me, and pushing forward to a foot or so in front of me. The resulting sheet of water blurred and distorted the mouth of the alley, and ought to make me harder to see.<\/p>\n

What else? Not much wind, here in the alley, but there had been the occasional gust out on the street. Okay, so how about some wind in here. I cupped my hands into the sheet of redirected rain, and poured some into my mouth. Then I spat it out toward the mouth of the alley in as fine a mist as I could manage, like a pro wrestler mugging for the crowd. A gusty wind sprung up beyond the sheet of water, spraying rain toward the mouth of the alley, into the face of anybody trying to enter.<\/p>\n

Now, a little misdirection. Closing my eyes, I took three steps to my left, picturing myself still at the center of the alley, willing that image to be projected out to anyone looking in. When I opened my eyes again, the view through the water was distorted even more, in ways that made my head hurt. I hoped that meant it was working, and tried not to look too closely. With a bit of concentration, I ought to be able to hold this all together, making myself hard to see, and harder to hit with anything painful. At least long enough for Jimmy to arrive.<\/p>\n

A second or two later, an indistinct figure stepped into view at the end of the alley. From the color of the coat and the staff clenched off to one side, I assumed it was my mysterious stalker. He put one arm up in front of his face for a second, then began to walk forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know who you are, but I\u2019ve got no fight with you,\u201d I called, imagining my voice coming from off to the right a ways. \u201cIf you start something, though, I\u2019m not going down easy.\u201d I pushed for a bit more wind and rain, hoping it added the right theatrical menace.<\/p>\n

The indistinct figure paused, then replied, with a faint hint of an accent, \u201cHow can you have no fight with me, after what you did?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, buddy, you\u2019ve got the wrong guy. I haven\u2019t done anything to you. I don\u2019t even know you.\u201d Any minute now, Jimmy ought to hit him.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t know me, but you knew Will.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWill, who?\u201d Really, Jimmy, any minute now.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2019Will who?\u2019 Seriously? Do you kill so many people you can\u2019t even remember their names?\u201d<\/p>\n

That rocked me for a second. I was already on edge\u2014it\u2019d been a rough morning\u2014and that was enough to break my already fragile focus. The rain that had been pushed away crashed back down on me. The wind died, and the mouth of the alley snapped back into focus. An angry wizard stood there, in the rain, holding a staff that was definitely not a golf umbrella, which was beginning to glow in an ominous manner. He was startled, but turned his head to find me again quickly enough.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, man\u2014\u201c I started, but he cut me off.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou killed him, you son of a bitch, and now I\u2019ll kill you.\u201d Jimmy continued to not jump out to save me, as he raised the staff, its glow brightening as the cloth wrapping burned through and fell away. I tried to think of something to save myself, but didn\u2019t get much other than Oh shit oh shit ohshitohshit\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

And then the damnedst thing happened. There was a weird flickering spark effect that I swear to God looked exactly like a killer robot shorting out in a bad movie. Then the glow winked out entirely.<\/p>\n

The angry man stared dumbly at the stick of wood in his hands, then fell to his knees, sobbing. I stood there and gaped like an idiot.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s<\/em> when Jimmy made his entrance at last, banging open the back door of the building just behind the crying man who had failed to kill me. He rushed out, then stopped, puzzled. \u201cWhat the fuck just happened?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHell if I know,\u201d I said. \u201cI\u2019ll tell you this, though: We\u2019ve got trouble, but he\u2019s no wizard. Let\u2019s get him inside.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The crying man made a feeble attempt to shake us off, but we were able to get him inside without too much resistance. A few minutes later I was toweling off in the kitchen of Jimmy\u2019s spare apartment (if you were prone to uncontrollably turning into an animal a few days a month, you\u2019d keep an extra place in a bad neighborhood, too). Our guest was slumped over at the table, his sobbing beginning to wind down.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat the hell took you so long, anyway?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat idiot Jackson piled a bunch of shit in front of the back door. Took a while to move.\u201d The tenant in the other apartment was working on a debilitating addiction to something or another, which led to a lot of erratic behavior. On the bright side, though, he didn\u2019t notice that his upstairs neighbor was occasionally a wolf. You take the bad with the good.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy\u2019d you come through the building, anyway? Why not just walk around the block behind him?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThought the door banging open would be more startling.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever. Let\u2019s just get this over with.\u201d I went and sat down in the other chair, across from the would-be wizard, who had stopped crying. I picked up the \u201cumbrella,\u201d which was, as I had thought, an elaborately carved piece of wood. The carvings looked kind of familiar, confirming a suspicion I\u2019d had.<\/p>\n

As I move the staff, our guest picked up his head. \u201cHey,\u201d I said. \u201cLet\u2019s try this again. I\u2019m John, but I think you already know that. This is Jimmy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHey,\u201d said Jimmy, leaning against the wall behind me.<\/p>\n

\u201cUm. Hi. I\u2019m Raj.\u201d (Not his real name, but it\u2019ll do as a placeholder.)<\/p>\n

\u201cNice to meet you, Raj.\u201d I turned the staff over idly. \u201cSo, Raj\u2026. What\u2019s your fucking<\/em> problem?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2014I\u2014\u201c He looked like he might try to make a break for it, though there really wasn\u2019t anywhere to run.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I know, you thought I killed Will. Which I didn\u2019t. But why in hell would you think that?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou were in his phone. I mean, not you, but your name, and contact. He met with you, then\u2026 So,\u2026\u201d He trailed off awkwardly, not that so I assumed you were the one who killed him<\/em> would\u2019ve been a less awkward way to end that sentence.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpeaking of things in phones,\u201d said Jimmy behind me. \u201cShouldn\u2019t we call to cancel our other meeting?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWouldn\u2019t be much point. The client\u2019s dead.\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAh. So, the guy you\u2019re supposed to have killed\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIs the guy we were supposed to meet this morning. This is the staff he had when he approached me.\u201d The carvings were pretty distinctive, up close. It was a nice piece of woodworking.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhich means this guy is\u2026 His brother?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cApprentice for sure, but I\u2019m going to go with\u2026 partner? Spouse? One of those.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jimmy made an unhappy grunt. His parents were some kind of ultra-Catholic, and that shit takes a while to get over. \u201cWhy do you say that?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, for one thing, the client was a middle-aged white guy.\u201d I looked back over my shoulder. \u201cThey\u2019d need to have a pretty close connection for him to even get this staff to light up, though, which doesn\u2019t leave a lot of options.\u201d Magic, being bullshit, is a highly personal business. If you\u2019re trying to something simple\u2014making a light, say\u2014there\u2019s a lot of carry-over between individuals. If you\u2019re trying to do something complicated, though\u2014say, blasting somebody with lightning\u2014everybody goes about it in a different way, and what works for one person will completely fizzle for another. Even a pre-made item, like a staff, will only work for the person who made it, and maybe their closest associates.<\/p>\n

I turned back to Raj. \u201cJust so we\u2019re clear, I had nothing to do with Will\u2019s death. I barely knew the guy. We were supposed to meet to set up a job, that\u2019s all. Sorry for your loss, and all, but it\u2019s not my fault.\u201d Raj looked kind of sick, but nodded agreement.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnless it had something to do with our job,\u201d Jimmy said helpfully.<\/p>\n

\u201cOr the dude might\u2019ve just had a heart attack.\u201d<\/p>\n

Raj shook his head violently. \u201cNo way. He was killed. By magic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re sure?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were at the store, and suddenly he just\u2026 couldn\u2019t breathe. He was gasping, and clutching at his throat like he was being strangled, but there was nothing there. Nothing visible.\u201d He looked like he might cry again.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen was this?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYesterday.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd what did the doctors say?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re doing an autopsy, but\u2026 Something about anaphylactic shock? Some kind of allergy thing, but he didn\u2019t have any allergies. I think they\u2019re just saying that because they have no idea. But I know, it was magic. The whole place reeked of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCould be.\u201d Almost definitely was, but I didn\u2019t want to admit it. \u201cBut it\u2019s not something I could swing. Even if I wanted to. Are you sure it wasn\u2019t just a freak thing?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo way. He\u2019d been nervous for a couple of weeks, warding the house at night, and that sort of thing. He said something bad was coming, and he was going to stop it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shit. That wasn\u2019t good.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not good, man,\u201d said Jimmy helpfully.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf somebody\u2019s after him, and then he came to us\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey could come after us, next.\u201d<\/p>\n

I turned around in my chair. \u201cYou\u2019re not fucking helping, you know.\u201d I turned back. \u201cOkay, so, somebody with some serious power was after him. Any idea who? People he worked with?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t imagine who\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

The late William J. Shoreham, Esq. (Will to his friends) was, to hear Raj tell it, a regular pillar of the community, friend to widows and orphans and small forest creatures. He had a small private law practice operating out of a strip mall up on Central, mostly real estate stuff with the occasional small business contract. No criminal work, no divorces. There\u2019s no telling when lawyers are involved, but it didn\u2019t seem like a disgruntled former client.<\/p>\n

He and Raj shared a good-sized three-story house from the 1920\u2019s, a mile or so from the university, and not too far from my day job at the bookstore where he approached me (pro tip, kids: when embarking on a life of crime, make sure you have a day job, and pay taxes\u2014that\u2019s how they got Capone, remember). The house was full of quietly expensive furniture and tasteful art, none of which was remotely helpful. He had a well-fitted-out workshop in the basement, with the usual collection of odds and ends.<\/p>\n

Raj was no great shakes in the magic area\u2014too fundamentally honest, I suspect\u2014and had only been learning for a couple of years. He could light a candle nine times out of ten, and move small objects from across the room, but Will was the real practitioner in the family. He\u2019d clearly been trained by a pro, but had gone beyond that to pursue studies of his own. I speculated that he made some use of, let\u2019s say \u201cparanormal persuasion\u201d in his legal practice, because I\u2019m a cynical bastard. Raj was offended by the suggestion, though, so I let it drop.<\/p>\n

The magical community up here isn\u2019t all that big, so the fact that I\u2019d never heard of Will before suggested he wasn\u2019t a heavy hitter. Then again, it\u2019s not like we all go clubbing on weekends. He obviously knew enough people to know where and how to approach me, so maybe he was more plugged-in than I knew. And anyway, he hadn\u2019t been in the area all that long, moving up from the City maybe ten years earlier. He and Raj had only been together five, and Raj was hazy on the details before then.<\/p>\n

The manner of his death was pretty gruesome, and would\u2019ve taken quite a bit of skill. I could only think of a few people locally who\u2019d have the chops to kill someone that way, and it didn\u2019t seem like their style. And Raj confirmed that none of them had any negative interactions with the late Will Shoreham, Esq.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomebody else, then? Somebody from before he moved up here from New York?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cProbably, yes, but who? You\u2019re the only criminals I know of that he knew.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, wasn\u2019t there anybody<\/em> he didn\u2019t get along with? I mean, people don\u2019t get magically choked just at random.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNot really\u2026 Well, OK, there was Emilio. Will studied with him, before we met, but they had some sort of falling out.\u201d That\u2019s not a surprising story at all\u2014magic being a highly personal business, there\u2019s only so much you can learn from another person. Some things\u2014small lights, telekinesis, sympathetic magic\u2014are pretty universal and reliable, but doing anything big requires figuring out what works best for you<\/em>. The better practitioners know and accept this, but this business draws a lot of people who don\u2019t accept rejection well. The magical community is full of burned bridges between masters and students.<\/p>\n

\u201cOK, now we\u2019re getting somewhere. Is Emilio somebody local?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, he moved here\u2026 two years ago? We don\u2019t see him often; he\u2019s not a pleasant person.\u201d<\/p>\n

A horrible thought came to me. \u201cThis Emilio. Is he about yay high?\u201d I held up a hand, an inch or so short of my height. \u201cBald head? Like, completely bald? No eyebrows?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes. Do you know him?\u201d<\/p>\n

I turned to look at Jimmy. \u201cThe Lizard,\u201d we said at the same time. \u201cFuck me,\u201d Jimmy added.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As I said, there aren\u2019t a whole lot of people up here who are seriously into magic, and it\u2019s not like we all hang out. Word gets around, though, especially about an unpleasant character like Emilio Lascardo.<\/p>\n

He\u2019d come up from New York about three years earlier, after being run out of town by one of the syndicates down there. He\u2019d pissed somebody off but good to get his Manhattan privileges revoked, and was none too happy about it. He\u2019d set about trying to recruit a troop of like-minded assholes, whether to make some money to buy his way back into the good graces of whoever threw him out or to build a power base to fight his way back in, it was hard to say.<\/p>\n

He gave his name as Lascardo, and tried to hint at some Mediterranean background, but the accent was erratic and hard to place. A syndicate guy up from the City one time rolled his eyes and called him \u201cEmilio Lizardo\u201d\u2014some kind of old movie joke that a bunch of people found hilarious. The name stuck, as it had down there, because he had a kind of James Carville thing going on. It didn\u2019t help matters that he was in the habit of shaving off all his body hair, eyebrows included, something that the truly paranoid do to avoid giving their enemies material for sympathetic magic. There was a rumor that he followed that up with chemical depilatories, basically taking baths in Nair. Gave him a really creepy look, and most people called him \u201cThe Lizard,\u201d though not to his face.<\/p>\n

Whatever he was up to, it almost certainly wasn\u2019t good. Any plan he might be pulling together would probably count as \u201csomething bad\u201d coming down the road. And if anyone local had both the raw power and the personality needed to kill somebody from afar, well, The Lizard was a good candidate.<\/p>\n

With that in mind, going through the late Will\u2019s effects provided a few more clues. His phone showed an appointment with an \u201cE.L.\u201d a few weeks back, around the time Raj said he\u2019d started getting twitchy. A paper desk calendar in his home office had a date about two weeks out heavily outlined in black, suggesting the probable date of whatever the Bad Thing was, though maddeningly, it didn\u2019t include any details.<\/p>\n

The house didn\u2019t have a safe, but Raj thought that Will might\u2019ve kept something in his law office up on Central. So we piled into Jimmy\u2019s car, and drove up there, arriving just as the fire trucks were leaving. There was yellow tape blocking off a big area, a slowly dispersing crowd of gawkers, and a couple of guys nailing a sheet of plywood over what had been the front window. What we could see around it didn\u2019t suggest there would be anything useful left inside.<\/p>\n

A couple hours later, Jimmy and I were sitting in a bar, nursing a couple of beers. We had left both Raj and Jimmy\u2019s car at the train station\u2014Raj headed for a short-notice visit to a cousin in Queens, and Jimmy\u2019s car waiting in the long-term parking lot until we were more confident that we wouldn\u2019t be traced by it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis sucks,\u201d said Jimmy.<\/p>\n

\u201cPretty much,\u201d I agreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have no idea what we were supposed to be going after?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNone at all.\u201d The late Will had shown up in the bookstore where I work, asking whether I might help him \u201cacquire some unusual items.\u201d When I asked the exact nature of what he wanted me to steal, he said he it was one of two or three things, and he would find out for sure that weekend. He was supposed to tell me at our second meeting, which wasn\u2019t going to happen, now.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou think it\u2019s related to whatever bad thing the Lizard is up to?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s a safe bet, yeah.\u201d If Will wanted to stop this Bad Thing without a direct confrontation, hiring a thief to steal some essential component would be an obvious way to go about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, what are we going to do?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, the Lizard doesn\u2019t know about us, does he? And we don\u2019t know anything about whatever he\u2019s doing. Smart play is to just walk away, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cProbably.\u201d I took another swig of my beer, and looked unhappily at my reflection in the mirror behind the bar.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not going to walk away, are we?\u201d<\/p>\n

I took another drink. \u201cIt\u2019d be the smart play.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not what I asked.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know.\u201d The thing is, the Lizard was a first-class dickhead, and other than the little misunderstanding where he tried to kill me, Raj seemed like a decent guy. And as shady as my own magical career is, killing people is a whole other level of wrong. \u201cNo,\u201d I said, sighing, \u201cWe\u2019re not going to walk away.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGood. That dude\u2019s an asshole. Somebody should take him down.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah.\u201d I swirled the last swallow or two of beer around in my glass.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, we\u2019re going to try to bust up a plot that we know nothing about, by stealing we don\u2019t know what, from a wizard who\u2019s willing to use magic to kill?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou got a better idea?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNot really. I just want to be clear what we\u2019re taking on.\u201d<\/p>\n

I tossed back the last of my beer, and stood up. \u201cLet\u2019s get to it, then.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Lizard had set himself up in a good-sized house a few exits up the Northway, where lawyers with long commutes start to fade into farmers with nowhere to go. It wasn\u2019t quite rural, just\u2026 widely spaced. The houses were separated by a hundred or so yards, not too far to be seen, but not right on top of each other, either. Lizardo Estates was screened from view by a thick stand of pine trees, and backed up on a stream that was technically public land, but not a good enough trout stream to draw a lot of fishermen.<\/p>\n

As I approached on foot the next day, I noticed a grey-haired guy raking leaves in the front yard of a house on the other side of the road, and fifty or sixty yards away. \u201cAfternoon,\u201d I called to the old guy. \u201cYou seen a dog come by here?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat kind of dog?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA great big shaggy grey one. Part wolfhound, part mastiff.\u201d I held my hand about waist high to indicate. \u201cAnswers to \u2018Buddy\u2019 if he answers at all. He was in the back of my friend\u2019s truck when we stopped at the sign back there, and he jumped out after something.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cProbably a rabbit. Damn things are all over this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, probably. Anyway, he headed down this way, but I lost him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHaven\u2019t seen anything, sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThanks anyway. Hey, if I cut through there,\u201d I gestured vaguely at woods adjoining the Lizard\u2019s house, \u201cDoes that get me to the creek? With my luck, he\u2019s already in there getting all muddy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, but I\u2019d keep off their land. Bunch of damn skinheads, would probably shoot your dog if he went through there. Probably shoot at you, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOuch.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a public path about a hundred yards down the road, just the other side of their yard. If you go down that, you\u2019ll be okay.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHey, thanks, man.\u201d I knew that already\u2014Google Maps is a wonderful thing. \u201cIf you see the dog, he\u2019s a sweetheart. My number\u2019s on his collar.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll keep an eye out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThanks.\u201d I waved as he went back to his raking, and headed down the road, trying to look like I was looking for a dog, but really looking at the house.<\/p>\n

It was set back from the road a bit, and looked like your standard boxy colonial house\u2014a big brick-red rectangle with a triangle on top, like a kid\u2019s drawing. In addition to the pine trees screening most of the yard, there was a three-foot wooden fence around the back. Two big black SUVs sat in front of the two-car garage, because criminal wizards have no originality. All in all, it didn\u2019t look particularly intimidating.<\/p>\n

Of course, there\u2019s not much point to being a wizard if you can\u2019t use magic to secure your property. This takes lots of different forms\u2014my own preference was a \u201cnothing to see here\u201d suggestion to keep people from getting interested in the first place\u2014but I\u2019d bet the Lizard would go for something a little more drastic. As I walked, I ran through the concentration exercises I do to get to the place where I see magic.<\/p>\n

Looking at magic is as individual as doing magic\u2014everybody who sees spells sees something a little different, and interpreting magical protections laid down by others is a tricky business. One of my old mentors had a very spiritual disposition, and as a result tended to see magic in highly metaphorical terms, all spirit animals and totems and shit. A lot of people see colored auras. Me, I imprinted on caper movies as a kid, which probably has something to do with my choice of career, and between those two, I tend to see magical wards looking like those grids of laser beams you see in heist flicks.<\/p>\n

As quiet and unassuming as it looked in normal sight, the Lizard\u2019s place was wrapped up impressively tight. The grid of lines involved three or four different colors, probably corresponding to a few different processes\u2014a tangle of yellowish lines leading up into the air and away down the road probably indicated a personal warning system (the lines ultimately connecting to the Lizard himself, off doing whatever he was doing that afternoon), while the red and blue grids looked like they would do something painful. There were also some green traces woven through the trees and shrubs around the property, that probably made it considerably more difficult to push through those trees than you might expect. Even if I had actually lost a dog, there\u2019s no way it would\u2019ve gone through those, and I\u2019d bet they didn\u2019t have much of a rabbit problem in that<\/em> yard.<\/p>\n

As I walked down the road, I looked for gaps in the web of lines, but there wasn\u2019t much to work with. The net continued along the public path on the far side of the property, binding the trees and bushes into a nearly impenetrable barrier. When I got to the stream, I picked my way a few yards upstream to get a look at the back, which was probably the best bet. There wasn\u2019t quite enough vegetation to make a good barrier on the water side, and whoever had laid down the painful and violent wards hadn\u2019t done as thorough a job here, presumably because there wasn\u2019t much traffic back there. The yellow warning net was everywhere, though, and getting through it without alerting the Lizard would be difficult. Getting back out, carrying God only knows what, would be even worse.<\/p>\n

After checking things out for a bit, I walked back out to the road. On the second pass, I laid down a couple of monitoring spells of my own. I waved ruefully to the fellow raking his yard again, then made my way up around the corner to where Jimmy was waiting in a pick-up truck. \u201cHow\u2019s it look?\u201d he asked, as I climbed in.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot good,\u201d I said. \u201cThis is going to be tricky.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Two days later, I was back in the neighborhood, this time with a big black SUV of my own (well, not really my own\u2014I\u2019d \u201cborrowed\u201d it from the parking lot at Time Warner Cable as payback for making me sit around the house for four hours to get the service activated). \u201cThanks so much,\u201d I said to the grey-haired fellow with the rake, whose name turned out to be Fred. \u201cI was starting to think I\u2019d never see him again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, he looks pretty scary, but you were right about him being a sweetheart,\u201d he said patting the head of the enormous shaggy dog panting at my side. \u201cHe showed up in the front yard this morning, and sat there quiet as can be all day long.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBig dogs get a bad rap,\u201d I said, opening the tailgate of the SUV. \u201cIf they weren\u2019t safe to be around, nobody would own them.\u201d I slapped the tailgate, \u201cHop on up, Buddy!\u201d The dog jumped into the back, the tags on his collar jingling, and I closed the tailgate. \u201cI can\u2019t thank you enough for watching him.\u201d<\/p>\n

We eventually agreed that $20 would be thanks enough and cover the cost of the chicken nuggets he\u2019d fed Buddy while waiting for me to get there, and I pulled out. When we got to the stop sign at the corner, I reached into the back, and unsnapped the collar. Then I did my very best to keep my eyes on the road and pay no mind to the awful noises coming from the back seat. A few minutes later, when things got quiet again, I risked a peek in the mirror. Jimmy lay across the back seat, naked and panting.<\/p>\n

I picked up a bottle of Gatorade from the passenger seat and tossed it into the back. \u201cClothes on the floor,\u201d I said. \u201cWhat\u2019re we looking at?\u201d<\/p>\n

As I drove the couple of miles out to the highway, he filled me in on the results of his canine-form surveillance: five guys in the house, plus the Lizard, all with shaved heads and a fondness for Nazi iconography. They didn\u2019t do much in the way of patrolling\u2014probably comfortable relying on the impressive magical protections on the property\u2014but they definitely had weapons. A couple of them went around wearing shoulder holsters, and all five were prone to carrying golf umbrellas on sunny days. The wards around the back were, as I had suspected, proof against animals as well as humans, with no clear path through the trees and bushes.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo they ever all go out together?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn Saturday they all piled into the cars and went off somewhere. They didn\u2019t come back for three, four hours.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, we potentially have a window.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you could get through the wards, yeah. Any chance of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s always a chance. I can get around it, but it\u2019s going to take a while. If I had some of Emilio\u2019s hair or blood, it\u2019d be trivial\u2014they\u2019re probably keyed to let him come and go. Not much chance of that, though.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd we\u2019ve got, what, a week?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWeek and a half, from Will\u2019s calendar.\u201d We\u2019d had no luck figuring out any significance of that particular date, yet another in a series of dead ends.<\/p>\n

\u201cFucking fantastic. Hey, can we get something to eat? That old dude\u2019s chicken nuggets sucked ass.\u201d<\/p>\n

We pulled off at the next exit, to a chain restaurant. We ended up at a table off to one side of the dining room, where it\u2019s easy to guard against eavesdropping. You put some room between yourselves and the folks in the booths, and a little suggestion easily keeps people from trying to listen in. And you don\u2019t need to worry about the wait staff\u2014it usually takes magic to get them to<\/em> notice you.<\/p>\n

Being career criminals and all, we probably should\u2019ve been sitting with our backs to the wall and our eyes on the door, but I\u2019ve never been good at maintaining a state of paranoia. And, anyway, who stages an ambush in a fucking Applebee\u2019s?<\/p>\n

So it was a complete surprise when two hands fell heavily on Jimmy\u2019s shoulders, attached to a large bald man. Another goon, conspicuously holding a golf umbrella, stepped up next to me. Well, shit. Jimmy looked at me, and I shook my head a little.<\/p>\n

Then the Lizard himself stepped up to the table. \u201cI expect you know why I\u2019m here,\u201d he said, smiling like that was clever.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo help me save fifteen percent on my car insurance?\u201d I said brightly. There are days when I can talk us out of trouble, but it wasn\u2019t looking like this was one of them.<\/p>\n

\u201cFunny.\u201d The smile went away. \u201cYou know what else is funny? Finding you two idiots in my neighborhood. Care to tell me what you\u2019re doing on my property?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHey, man, we\u2019re just here for the food. We didn\u2019t know you owned the place, but, you know, our compliments to the chef.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCut the crap. Your \u2018dog\u2019 was sniffing around my land, and I want to know why.\u201d Shit. Jimmy must\u2019ve tripped a detection ward. Which explained how they\u2019d traced us here.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know how it is with dogs. You go out for a nice walk in the woods, enjoying nature, they see a squirrel, and next thing you know, they\u2019ve blundered into some asshole\u2019s yard.\u201d Jimmy shot me a look that wasn\u2019t a whole lot friendlier than the Lizard\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cBullshit. I don\u2019t know what you and that little raghead faggot think you\u2019re doing, but it won\u2019t work.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, come on, man. He\u2019s Indian, not Arab.\u201d I heard Jimmy sigh.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRaj. He\u2019s Indian, not Arab. He\u2019s a lapsed Hindu, not a Muslim. And definitely not a Sikh\u2014they\u2019re the ones who wear turbans.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s your fucking point?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, get your ethnic slurs straight, you ignorant fucking wop.\u201d Definitely not a talk-my-way-out-of-trouble day.<\/p>\n

The Lizard smiled again, coldly, and nodded slightly to the goon with the umbrella. Who stepped up and backhanded me across the face. Hard. While my vision was still messed up, I felt a hand grab my chin, a thumb swipe across my mouth.<\/p>\n

When my eyes cleared, I saw the Lizard, with a nasty smirk and a red smear on the fingers of his right hand. Blood. My<\/em> blood, from my split lip. This was very, very bad.<\/p>\n

\u201cSmartass little thief, think you\u2019re clever. I could kill you now, but it\u2019ll be more fun to keep you around and let you watch. I have to protect my interests, though\u2026\u201d His eyes went a little vague in the manner of someone about to do magic. I started to try to stand, but Umbrella Goon put his hands on my shoulders from behind, pushing me back into the chair.<\/p>\n

The Lizard held up his blood-smeared hand, and began to speak; evidently, he was of the pompously declaiming school of magic. \u201cLittle worm, little thief, I bind you now, by blood and magic.\u201d Sympathetic magic is one of the most reliable forms, and he had my blood. I could feel the spell start to bite. \u201cYou will steal no thing that belongs to me. You will\u2014\u201c<\/p>\n

And then, a lot of things happened very quickly. Jimmy launched himself up and back, slamming his head into the nose of the goon behind him, who reeled backwards. Jimmy then leaped across the table and jabbed a hand in the Lizard\u2019s eye. The Lizard staggered backward, clutching at his face, and breaking the spell.<\/p>\n

The goon holding me eased up a bit, probably starting a move toward Jimmy. I kicked myself back hard, knocking the \u201cumbrella\u201d from his hand before he could bring it around. Lurching forward, I grabbed a half-empty pint glass and flung it at the Lizard, who reflexively brought up a hand; the glass didn\u2019t hit him, but the beer washed over his bloody hand, which was my real target.<\/p>\n

And then the tubby little guy who managed that particular restaurant was in the middle of it all, yelling about calling the police. The Lizard and his goons gathered up their stuff, trying not to look rushed, and stalked out. I made a big fuss about being assaulted by skinheads, how dare they, what sort of place is this anyway, blah, blah, blah, but Jimmy and I made sure we didn\u2019t stick around to file a police report.<\/p>\n

But hey, they didn\u2019t charge us for dinner, so there\u2019s that.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I won\u2019t bore you with the details of what we did to shake loose whatever the Lizard had used to track Jimmy, save to note that some poor Time Warner employee was going to be very annoyed with where his SUV ended up getting dumped. A few hours later, we slumped down on the beds of a cheap motel a ways off toward Amsterdam, and tried to take stock.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid you get hold of Raj?\u201d Jimmy asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo. Voice mail. He\u2019s probably fairly safe in Queens, though.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMore than we can say.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, we\u2019re safe for the moment, anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah.\u201d We sat silently for a while. \u201cSo, what do we do now?\u201d Jimmy asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, we can sit and wait for the Bad Thing, whatever it is, or we can try to stop it. that\u2019s pretty much the full range of options.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe could tell somebody else\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTell them what? The Lizard is up to no good? Everybody already knows he\u2019s a bad dude, and nobody with enough pull to do something about it gives a shit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTip off the syndicates? The Bad Thing is probably aimed at them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to be mixed up with those guys, either.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHmm.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHmm, what?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThose are stupid reasons, you know. You\u2019re just taking this personally.\u201d Jimmy could be disturbingly perceptive sometimes.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay. So what can we do?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell,\u201d I said. There was only ever one thing to<\/em> do. We break into his place, find the essential components of the Bad Thing, and take\u2026\u201d Pain shot through my gut as soon as I said it. I doubled up, gasping.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou okay?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I\u2019m not okay. I\u2019m under a compulsion not to steal from the Lizard.\u201d Just mentioning the forbidden activity made my hands shake.<\/p>\n

\u201cKind of takes away all our options, doesn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPretty much.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPity. Means I got these for nothing.\u201d Jimmy held up a plastic baggie with a few tiny brown things in it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat are those?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEyelashes.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the Lizard?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah. Nair in the eyes must sting like hell, so I guess he doesn\u2019t bother with them. I grabbed a few when I poked him in the eye.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s fucking amazing. With those I could totally get through his wards, and right into his house. Then I could figure out what he\u2019s up to and how to disrupt it by tak\u2014\u201c my stomach started to cramp up. \u201cGod damn<\/em> it!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n

Silence for a moment. \u201cInteresting thing, though.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s that?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou didn\u2019t twitch when you talked about breaking in. Just when you got to the taking.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d I thought for a second, and he was right. I pictured myself at the wards behind the Lizard\u2019s house, sketched out what I would do to get through them. Nothing. I pictured walking through the house. Nothing. I pictured myself picking up a book, slipping it into\u2014my hands started to twitch, and I quickly banished that image.<\/p>\n

I took a few deep breaths. \u201cThat\u2019s very interesting. I guess the compulsion only covers stealing<\/em> from him, not breaking in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCould we do something with that?\u201d Jimmy asked. \u201cBreak in, figure shit out, then tell the authorities?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it\u2019s personal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n

We sat, and thought. Breaking into places and taking things away is what I do<\/em>, and it\u2019s really hard to get past that. What good is just breaking in, if you can\u2019t take anything away? Then it hit me.<\/p>\n

\u201cHey, Jimmy? You remember that crazy militia asshole over in Vermont? Dude with the gun collection?\u201d We\u2019d helped him acquire some historically significant pieces from a rival collector. In addition to his old guns, he had an impressive arsenal of new stuff, stockpiled against the coming United Nations takeover, and a huge library of paranoid right-wing propaganda. In Vermont. Go figure.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah. Hugh\u2026 Jensen, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, that\u2019s the guy. I think we need to give Hugh a call\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Five days later, Saturday night, I stood in the shallow creek behind the Lizard\u2019s compound, with a heavy backpack and a baggie containing the last two eyelashes of the five Jimmy had gotten in the fight. It was a bit after midnight; the Lizard and his skinhead buddies had piled into their SUV\u2019s and gone out drinking a couple hours ago, and Jimmy was keeping an eye on them from a gas station down the road. Under normal circumstances, they\u2019d be at the bar until it closed an hour or two hence. The Bad Thing was still a couple of days off, and we were still no closer to figuring out what it might be.<\/p>\n

I breathed deeply, taking in the smell of the woods, the sound of the creek. I had already gone through the basic process I was about to repeat three times, but this was the trickiest, and the most important.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve always been good at getting into places I\u2019m not supposed to be\u2014even as a kid, I had a tendency to turn up in unexpected locations, something that gave my parents no end of angst. I was probably doing magic without realizing it, subtly reshaping the universe. This guard\u2019s looking the wrong way, that door\u2019s unlocked, and next thing you know, everybody\u2019s yelling at each other about how Johnny got into the lemur cage. We weren\u2019t real popular at the Bronx Zoo.<\/p>\n

Invisibility is the most straightforward of the ways to get where you\u2019re not supposed to be, but not much help against magical wards tuned to specific individuals. A better trick is appearing to be someone you\u2019re not. For that, it helps to have a little piece of them. Thanks to Jimmy\u2019s quick hands, I had that.<\/p>\n

I looked down at my feet, and picked up a few leaves that had fallen just outside the glowing grid of magical lines, and stuffed them in my pockets. I scooped a handful of water from the creek, and poured it over my head\u2014it was icy cold, but it felt\u2026 right. Another two handfuls on my head, then a long drink from my cupped hands. Then I carefully pulled one of the eyelashes out, put it in my mouth, and swallowed it. The other, I wedged in between my front teeth, where it stuck like one of those maddening piece of popcorn kernel.<\/p>\n

My skin tingled, in a way that went beyond the chill of the creek water dripping down my back. Looking at my hands, my they seemed to glow a faint yellow. That was it, I hoped. To someone looking from outside, I should now appear slightly shorter and much balder; an earlier run at a local mall had confirmed that even to a closed-circuit security camera, I should appear more or less like the Lizard. If I left fingerprints behind, they would look plausibly like his. That wasn\u2019t the most important thing right now, though\u2014what mattered was that I should also match his magical signature, at least temporarily.<\/p>\n

At least, that was the plan. But, of course, there was only one way to find out. So I stepped gingerly out of the creek, and into the glowing grid of magical protections.<\/p>\n

Which flickered briefly, then let me through.<\/p>\n

Having passed the magical barrier at the creek, the physical locks on the house were an absolute joke. There was another layer of magical protection at the back door as well, but nothing as serious as the web of stuff at the property line.<\/p>\n

The interior was about what you would expect from a house inhabited by an entirely male group of skinhead assholes\u2014empty beer cans, ammunition and Nazi paraphernalia scattered about. Charming. The furniture in the front room had been pushed aside to make a clear space around two heavy wooden trunks decorated with demon faces and carved runes; these were presumably the necessary components for the Bad Thing. I took the liberty of shifting these into a back bedroom, but as much as I concentrated on the fact that I wasn\u2019t technically<\/em> stealing them, the effort left me gasping.<\/p>\n

The kitchen contained a sink full of unwashed dishes, and also a door to the basement. This held a substantial armory of things that go \u201cBANG,\u201d and also a well-appointed magical workshop. A little heavy on the demonic iconography for my tastes, but some nice stuff. Just looking covetously at some of the better items made my hands shake, though, so I turned away, put down my heavy pack, and got to work.<\/p>\n

Half an hour or so later, I was back in the creek, with a much lighter pack. I scooped up a handful of creek water, and swished it around my mouth, using it to work that damned annoying eyelash loose. When I spat it into the creek, my skin stopped tingling and glowing; presumably, I was back to my normal appearance.<\/p>\n

I pulled out a revolver, purchased from Hugh along with a number of other things I had left inside, and emptied it into the opposite bank, not all at once, but in a pattern to suggest multiple shooters\u2014BANG\u2026 BANG BANG\u2026 BANG BANG\u2026 BANG. Then I pulled out a cell phone, and dialed 911 to report a loud argument, with multiple shots fired, at a particular address way out in the sticks. With any luck, some of the neighbors were making similar calls at the same time.<\/p>\n

Turning off the phone\u2014a burner that I\u2019d dump in a different river later\u2014I took a deep breath, then reached out very carefully to the magical grid around the Lizard\u2019s compound. I picked out one of the yellow alarm threads, and plucked it like a guitar string.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You probably heard about it on the news later, but the reconstructed sequence of events went like this:<\/p>\n

A few miles away, Jimmy watched two carloads of skinheads charge out of a bar and go roaring up the road, driving fast and somewhat unsteadily. At about the same time, two State Police units were dispatched; they drove more sedately, having already made the trip to this particular address a few times.<\/p>\n

When the Lizard and his goons got back to their house, they found the front door standing open, and all the inside lights on. Some prominent items had been removed from the living room, which led to a lot of shouting. A mix of outrage (\u201cThey took what?!?\u201d), recriminations (\u201cI thought you said nobody could get in here!\u201d) and angry orders (\u201cFind the bastards! Take them out!\u201d). You know, skinhead stuff.<\/p>\n

About this time, the State Police rolled up, lights flashing. A couple of the goons, who weren\u2019t the sharpest tools in the shed even when not pumped full of cheap beer and adrenaline, popped off some shots. The resulting firefight put three skinheads and one patrolman in the hospital, and two more skinheads in the morgue. One of the dead was the Lizard, whose real name turned out to be Emile Lascar; he wasn\u2019t actually from Europe after all, but Canada\u2014he\u2019d started his career as a Quebecois separatist. Go figure.<\/p>\n

The story got some national play for a few days, thanks to the contents of the basement. Not only did this particular group of Nazis turn out to be Satanists (the news media\u2019s catchall term for anything remotely occult, to the loudly expressed dismay of members of the actual Church of Satan), but there were lots of guns, military-grade explosives, and detailed plans for a number of violent terrorist attacks. These involved bombs to be planted at a mall, a local mosque and the train station.<\/p>\n

The surviving skinheads insisted loudly that this was all a frame-up\u2014sure, they loved guns and hated Muslims, but the explosives weren\u2019t theirs\u2014but nobody really believed them. After all, security camera footage from the mall and the train station clearly showed someone matching Lascar\u2019s description in both locations, and the bombs found there and at the mosque bore partial fingerprints identified as his. And while cops could maybe plant stuff in the house, well, you\u2019d need to be some kind of wizard to fake those…<\/p>\n

We never did figure out what Bad Thing they\u2019d been planning though. That still annoys me, but I guess you can\u2019t have everything.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, a funny story about this. I posted a snippet of a fantasy story back in August, and enough people said nice things about it that I actually got off my ass and did some playing around to format the full story as an epub. This was, of course, complicated by the fact that computers… Continue reading Wizard Trouble: Full Story<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,37,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal","category-pop_culture","category-sf","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10109\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}