Right, so part 2 on this short story thing. I've decided to not try to sell this yet, so instead I'm just going to post it so that people can still read it. Again, I haven't done much revision yet, so hopefully my quick grammar/spell check will have been enough. I'm going to start posting these by working section titles. I'll come back next week with Part 3. Read on after the break for the section.
I walked quickly out of my office and around the corner to my apartment around the block. Yes, it conformed to the stereotype of wizards and their rat hole apartments. It was more due to the fact that the rent was cheap, and the location below ground made it less likely that I would ever be disturbed while actually doing any magic. It wasn’t that I couldn’t perform around people, it was just that they never believed that what I was actually doing was possible. It made it a lot more difficult to work the magic and no one wants to ever give away all his trade secrets anyway.
My apartment was at least relatively large for it’s basement location. It wasn’t exactly the best neighborhood, but the door was hidden in the side of the building on it’s way down a dimly lit alley. That’s why I had to rent office space around the corner. Asking paying customers to visit my office in this area of Minneapolis was already a stretch. The parking was terrible and the crime was a bit higher than the local suburban housewife really wanted to deal with, even in the light of day. It’s lack of windows hadn’t helped my case. There was a single window, it was smoked over with dirt and grime. It was the way I liked it.
I went in through the door and looked around pulling out my checklist. All my books were where I’d left them, check. My phone was still off the hook and making that beeping noise, check. The wheel on the wall calendar was pointed to Tuesday, check. It wasn’t Tuesday, but the wheel didn’t know that and having the day on the wall say it was a day different that today made it difficult for anyone trying to make sure things were back where I’d left them. I went and put the kettle on to make some tea and locked the door with all three deadbolts, the chain, and the little lock in the handle as well. The I pulled out my precious metal reproduction of a sonic screwdriver, put it to the door frame and uttered the words that would keep me from being disrupted.
Did I forget to mention that I tend to be just a tad paranoid? At least I didn’t prop up a shotgun to the door in case of intruders-at least not anymore. Scared the crap out of a chinese food delivery guy once, it left buck shot holes in the wood of the door and left the delivery guy with a twenty dollar tip. Now I just left the shotgun propped next to my little workroom. I made the tea and brought the rest of the boiling water into the workroom.
I keep it neat and tidy in there. Never really know when you’re going to need something quickly and it’s nice to know where things are. The water went on the low table along one wall and I started pulling what I needed off the shelves. The silver bowl came out, as did the bunsen burner and tongs. The hot water would help catalyze the dusts, copper and grass, and I measured out the right amounts to make a creamy green and orange paste and placed them in the bowl and set everything to start cooking.
In the meantime I was going to try the easy way, but the majority of the time the easy way either didn’t work, or the person was inside a building somewhere. Yes, it sucks that my easy way couldn’t see through walls. It would have made looking around a lot more entertaining. I didn’t see through clothes either, believe me, a younger version of me had already tried that one. Hormones of a teenager and magical ability lead to some creative and somewhat perverted attempts at seeing inside the girls locker room. Admit it, you probably would have tried too.
Back to reality though. I pulled out my trusty sonic screwdriver and pointed it at the map. It wasn’t really a sonic screwdriver. In fact it had no moving parts and didn’t make that whistling noise either. It was more an ironic poke at the fact that while it supposedly helped the Doctor through all of time and space, it actually helped me control time and space. Not all of it, but enough of it where I could change the course of events enough to warrant a real visit from the Doctor. Good thing he’s a fictional character and magic is real, right? Screwdriver, pointed at the map and I cleared my head of distractions. I read the name on the back of the Bernard Louis de Levine and pushed my consciousness out through my arm and into the map.
The lights changed from the dimness of my office to an arial view of the city. I was poised above downtown and had to make sure I didn’t crash my consciousness into any of the buildings. The buildings wouldn’t be worse for wear, but I would have a splitting headache for a week. I said the name again and pushed out my senses into the fabric of the city. I felt a tug to the east end of downtown, near the government building. I let my consciousness follow it until I was poised just above the walking heads. The area was filled with police and I was drawn to a specific head.
Bernard Louis de Levine. Odd. I said the name again, and my disembodied eyes followed the man. He was dressed in a pinstripe suit and carried a briefcase as he walked along in his patent leather shoes. I watched for a minute or two, but he was just walking from the city government center to the federal courthouse. It wasn’t all that interesting and being disembodied was just a little bit chilly. I was about to withdraw and call Rachel to let her know I’d found her husband when I saw a red dress come through the crowd from the opposite direction. It was Rachel de Levine.
She approached her husband with a straight face, reached into her purse, and pulled out a revolver. She aimed the gun straight at her husband and pulled the trigger three times. The muzzle flash and noise sent shivers up and down my disembodied spine and sent my self fleeing back into my body. It slammed back into my body with a shiver and I could do nothing but sit there rocking and trying to deal with the impressive amount of endorphins that were released all at once into my body. With a shaky hand I turned out the burner and crawled over to my couch. I pulled a blanket over me and fell asleep.
Always leave me wanting to know the next part - way to go, I want to know what happens next.
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