Arcane Detective 1 (Patreon)

I heard someone approach my office door, when I had no appointment. He was not someone I know, he didn't sound right. His footsteps fell more heavily, jauntily, and he whistled. A new guy. Still, I didn’t feel particularly alarmed. He whistled his way to my office door, his steps careless. 

He was either supremely confident in his abilities, or he didn’t have a bad intention. 

Then he laughed, confirming that he didn’t know what to expect. My business sign had evoked that response occasionally, often as much as derision. 

Then he knocked.

I winced even as I stood up. Meeting new people was not something I particularly enjoyed, especially they were clearly not a client, as evidenced by their reaction to my business sign. 

I got up out of my office chair and opened the door, only to meet with a middle-aged man that strangely resembled an old melon that stayed under the sun far too long. Roughly the same shape, with a nasty sunburn on his balding head. He was still chuckling, which didn’t exactly help his looks. 

He glanced at me for a moment, before hooking a thumb toward the sign. "You must be joking. This can’t be a real business."

“Unfortunately, it is,” I said. 

“What do you do?” he immediately followed. “Children parties or corporate engagements?” he asked, his tone suggested that if the answer was the latter, he might have acted much kinder. 

“Neither,” I said even as he looked past me, as though he expected to see a cage full of rabbits, but only saw a bunch of old and shabby office furniture. I could already feel his respect toward me disappearing faster than a snowflake in the desert, nor that I particularly cared an old basketball in his middle ages thought about me. 

Seeing nothing, he tried to take a step forward, but I positioned myself at the door, not allowing him to pass forward. “Can I help you before you burst inside like a hoodlum?”

“I’m the new owner of the apartment. I wanted to check the room, to make sure everything is in order,” he said. 

“Not unless you give me an official notification a week before,” I answered calmly, watching as his face evolved from melon to a tomato as the anger infected his face, suggesting a fragile ego. It wasn’t the first time I dealt with someone with an overinflated sense of ego, fed by their sense of superiority toward an inferior target. 

And most of the time, those were much more dangerous than a balding man a head shorter than me. 

“I don’t appreciate smart asses,” he growled in anger. “Look here you two-bit…” he started, before looking at the business sign at the door. “… Sorcerer. I can kick your failing business out of my building immediately if I wish so,” he growled. 

“No you can’t, not unless you want to spend the next year in the courthouse,” I said even as I grabbed the door, ready to slam the door to his face. I knew his type. Unless I showed him that I had no intention of dealing with his nonsense, he would push continuously. 

I learned my lesson with the Council. 

Before I could slam the door on his face, however, the elevator door opened, revealing a sexy blonde with a fit body, wearing a tank top and a miniskirt. “Dad, what are you doing here? Mom promised that we’re going to buy a car before I leave for college.” 

The man murmured something suspiciously close to whore at the mention of the mother of the bombshell that stepped into the corridor. “Sure, let’s go,” he said before making eye contact with me, in a way he no doubts thought to be threatening when he noticed my appreciative gaze toward his daughter.  

Pity that I had faced the literal creatures of the Abyss without blinking —metaphorically of course, as most of the creatures had the ability to devour the soul or destroy the body through actual eye contact, making direct eye contact extremely inadvisable. 

“And I’ll keep an eye on you, you two-bit fortune-teller, and if you miss the rent just by a day…” he growled just before leaving. 

"Typical," I muttered, and shut the door.

Just what I needed in my exile, another busybody who decided to make his life’s mission to annoy me. 

Like I hadn’t had enough of them thanks to the Council. 

                                        ***********************

Trying to make a living as a full-time Sorcerer-for-hire was a difficult thing, especially without an accredited education certificate. I doubted that a growing technology company that pays its employees in six figures would appreciate a glowing certificate from an interdimensional magical university. 

As a true Sorcerer, making money through magic, even in a low-magic dimension, would have been extremely simple, if it wasn’t for the truly impressive number of Custodians that was observing my every move, hoping to find an excuse to deliver a much more final punishment than just exiling me back to a low-magic dimension. 

Still, a full-time Sorcerer-for-hire was hardly the best way to actually make a living, even with the renaissance in the public awareness of the paranormal thanks to social media. Most of the belief came from lies and hoaxes rather than actual evidence, but was better than nothing. At least, it gave me enough people with supernatural concerns to give me an excuse to cast magic. 

I worked as a Sorcerer-for-hire, because helping people to defend against the supernatural threats was the only way I could cast magic, a responsibility that superseded my terms of the exile, because it was embedded in the charter of the council. 

Every member of the council is responsible for defending the denizens of the dimension they were in against predatory magical threats. 

I grabbed that excuse with both hands, driving the Custodians assigned to my observation crazy, even though most jobs barely netted me enough money to pay the rent and the other necessities. Of course, my lack of money was mostly because of my pride as a practitioner, choosing the information my client about the truth of the matter rather than tricking them with elaborate rituals with enough incense to represent a fire hazard. Even the times there was an actual problem to solve, a hand gesture and a muttered phrase that resembled the bastard child of Arabic, Latin, and Mandarin after it was passed through the blender hardly helped. 

Still, if I was slipping a few personal spells between the ones required to solve the problems of my clients… Well, unless my dear Custodians had any evidence… 

Without a client to keep me busy, I sat on my chair, and pulled my laptop, typing a complicated pattern of symbols rapidly in a program of my own design, creating patterns that would drive a lesser man crazy with a glance. 

Another loophole in my terms of exile. Casting magic was forbidden. Researching magic, less so, driving the concerned council members who had been hoping that my exile would turn me into a nonentity… 

A few minutes into my research, however, my phone rang, distracting me from the complicated and confusing world of magical research. I stared at it in a somewhat surly fashion, like I expected the caller to know I was on the cusp of a breakthrough. “It’s Harvey Reynolds, the Sorcerer,” I said, trying to keep my tone calm. 

After all, I actually needed the money if I wanted to pay the rent on time. “And I don’t do parties, neither corporate nor children’s birthday, no matter the child in question is looking for a rabbit from a hat,” I added, a habit I generated after endless calls I had to explain the disappointed parent who had forgotten to arrange a proper entertainer for their children. 

“Sorry? This is the office of Mr. Reynolds, the Sorcerer, right?” a female voice asked, trembling apologetically, as though she was terribly afraid of insulting me. 

As much as I wanted to be grumpy and tell her that I already answered the question, as an exiled sorcerer who was having trouble paying his bills, I didn’t exactly have the luxury to be grumpy to a potential client. “Yes, this is he. How can I help you today?” 

“Um… I’m… My brother has disappeared. I was hoping that you might help you…” she murmured. 

“Do you have any reason to believe there’s a supernatural aspect to his disappearance?” I asked immediately. As much as I would have loved to help a normal disappearance through my magic —helping people was nice, especially when it comes with a hefty payment— my exiled status didn’t allow me to do that. Unless there was enough circumstantial evidence of the supernatural, I couldn’t use magic. 

Not unless I wanted to give the Custodians the excuse they desperately wanted. 

“Yes, there was some…” she answered after a moment’s pause, only to freeze halfway. “I’m sorry, it’s ridiculous that I even called. It’s not something I could explain on the phone. Sorry for wasting your time,” she said, before the phone went off. 

I sighed. Another potential client, gone before a dozen sentences. Perils of working as a full-time practitioner. But before I could try to call her back, my phone buzzed again, but this time, a familiar number on the phone. 

“How can I help you, detective-” I started, only to be cut off by a sharp tone. 

“Be at the Hotel Glory, in ten minutes!” ordered a sharp female voice before closing it off immediately. 

How interesting, I thought. Detective Joanna was hardly the warmest person in the room, but usually, she was perfunctory enough to ask for my availability before forcing me to join the case. 

Unless there was an emergency, of course…   

I stood up, put my trench coat on —the only article of clothing that I could wear that somehow made my identity as a Sorcerer convincing without looking like I escaped from a circus in a hurry— grabbed a small briefcase that was filled with several select items I managed to find at Earth —most acquired through a very interesting job for a museum, against a threat with a potential to destroy the western hemisphere if it wasn’t for my timely intervention— and left my office. 

Whatever made Detective Joanna ask me in such a hurry must be an interesting job…