* * *
By the time I returned home my mind was a hurricane. It felt as if a barrier had come crumbling down, letting a torrent of previously ignored information come pouring in to dominate my mentality. I had gone from bad dream, to demon, to suicide, in the course of three days.
Things that I had previously given about as much thought to as the eating habits of a moose were suddenly the single focus of my life. The feeling was surreal. Overwhelmingly surreal. Like learning that you had accidentally put on a pair of sunglasses and forgotten you were wearing them, only to have then removed a decade later and realise you had come to believe the world was tinted, by default.
Angry? What makes me angry?
I had to think. This was now a matter of life and death. Find the demon or be driven to insanity and suicide.
Driven to insanity? Was that even possible? Yes. I believed it was. The panic that had gripped me during the second attack had been a new experience. Never before had I felt so completely helpless, so completely at the mercy of an exterior force. The idea that there was no escape, that there was no resisting the assault on my body, was the most terrifying thing I had ever been faced with. Not only the pain, but the fact that in that realm, in that dream world, there may well be no end to the torture. In that realm it may seem a lifetime, or even eternity. Insanity.
I entered the house and started to pace a frantic circle at the foot of the steps. What made me angry? What a vague question. No, it had been; what made me angriest. Options flashed into my mind; traffic. Yes, that pissed me off something fierce; traffic and bad drivers. I wasn’t a very angry person by nature, but having to sit for unpredictable hours heartily snorting up poisonous fumes, just to get to a job that satisfied me about as much as a block of ice in my shorts got me a little hot under the collar.
My job. As long as we’re talking about ice in my shorts, let’s go for the whole nine yards, shall we? So boring it was almost certainly a form of torture. Hours ticking by. My life ticking by. A company that pretended so hard I didn’t exist most avoided eye contact, just in case I started assuming I had the right to speak.
Critter had made me angry, the filthy, fat monster of a feline. He had made me angry and look at him now…
Well, perhaps when I said “I’m not a very angry person by nature” I was stretching the truth a bit. In fact, it was a wonder I didn’t have demons crawling out of the wood work.
The phone rang and I snatched up the receiver, managing to not break the pattern of my pacing.
“Yes?”
“Jet? Brent.” The voice sounded foreign, an intruder from an outside world. My mind was still grappling frantically with current events, and sleep deprivation was starting to take its toll. “Heard you managed to get some time off. You know, they don’t pay you if you look at porn on your home PC.”
I gathered my thoughts. It was the first time a person from The Whisperer had called me at home.
“Brent?”
“That’s what I said. You okay, buddy? You sound a little… disorientated.”
“I’m fine. I mean, I’m not really fine. It’s been a crazy day.”
“Yup. I hear you, buddy. Benny went through the same thing. I understand training can be a real kick in the nuts.” A pause. “Let’s grab a beer at lunch.”
“I’m not sure it’s the best time, Brent.”
“Hey, don’t let that shit dominate your life. Get your mind off of it. Trust me. Beer. Lunch. I insist. There’s something huge I want to run by you.”
I hesitated. “Fine. Fine.”
Probably best. Take a breather; get my ducks in a row. A quick cup of coffee, then back to my still steaming car.
A little pub called The Holy Carousel was the regular watering hole for Whisperer employees. Some may have called it quaint, but that was only if you were optimist enough to see something charming about poor lighting, sticky floors and a bartender who spoke a version of English inspired by missing teeth.
I arrived to find Brent looking rigid, perched on a bar stool and already one beer down. A foaming pint was waiting for me on the cigarette-burned wooden counter beside him. He looked up at my arrival.
“Whoa, Jet,” he exclaimed, a little too brightly, “I’m not being a dick or anything but you look like shit.”
“Thanks.” I was in no mood for witty banter. I grabbed the beer and poured half down my gullet, almost immediately regretting it as I remembered that alcohol didn’t agree with me on the best of days. A splitting headache had now eagerly taken up position to wait for me a few miles down the road.
“So, how’s the training going?” Brent asked, raising a finger to summon the barman; a shambling, hunched creature who appeared to be permanently squinting his left eye. But this may have just been a reflex action become habit, since a smouldering cigarette was almost always hanging from the left corner of his mouth.
“It’s been educational,” I admitted, slipping onto a stool. The bartender delivered Brent a second beer, and then turned to me;
“Yoo wha nuther eer?”
“No, thank you,” I responded, and the bartended shuffled off. The language became comprehensible after about your fifth visit.
“Selena Stephania, right?” Brent continued, “Heard she’s smoking.”
“She is. And terrifying.”
“Nice.”
I could sense he was going through the motions of being friendly, working up to something bigger. For some reason, possibly the fact I had recently learned that insanity was a definite possibility in my near future, the beating-around-the-bush was getting on my nerves. “What is it you wanted to talk about, Brent?”
He looked at me with a hint of surprise, then seemed to wrestle with a slippery thought as he sipped his beer. Finally, when he spoke again his tone had shifted, dropping the façade.
“We’re going nowhere, Jet. Either of us. Our jobs are shit and we’re destined to never leave that hell hole.” The words were level. Genuine.
“You’re just figuring this out?”
He let out a single sharp laugh, more a snort. “I’m glad we see eye to eye on that.”
“Where are you going with this?”
“Well,” he continued, taking a quick glance to confirm that the only other customer, a degenerate at a corner table, was indeed asleep. “I have recently become aware of an opportunity. A big opportunity. And I want you in with me.”
“Go on.”
“Look, I know we’re not exactly tight, Jet. We’re hardly even friends. But this thing could set us both up for life. We could tell The Whisperer to kiss our asses and do whatever the hell we wanted. All I need to make this work… is you.” He waited to gauge my reaction, then shifted his chair closer towards me, leaning in and lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I need a magic user, Jet. But not just any Joe off the street, I need a man I know I can trust. And you’re that man.”
“Get to the point.”
“Right, right. What do you know about poker?”
“Not much. Played online a few times.”
“Good! Great start!” He was getting excited, finding his flow. “Poker is one of the only fair ways to gamble. No unfair advantages, just skill versus skill, man versus man, winner takes all.” Here came the pitch. “I know of a private, high stakes game. Once every two months, penthouse of The Marlon. And when I say high stakes, Jet, I mean high stakes. Minimum buy in is five thousand. Pots have been won worth over…two million.” He let the words roll off his tongue with slow deliberation. “Two…million…”
“That sounds great.” I downed the rest of my beer, grimacing. It was becoming clear where Brent was going with this.
“So all we need are two things. The cash to buy-in and…” His eyes were now shining with barely contained glee, he had clearly been planning this for some time, “…an advantage that puts us head and shoulders above the rest. You, buddy.” His grin was so broad it bordered on maniacal.
“You want me to train to have
a magical advantage.”
He nodded fiercely in response, enthusiasm oozing from every pore.
“That kind of training is illegal, who would do it?”
“I happen to know a guy who is capable of such training. It doesn’t even take very long.”
I let the idea roll around in my head. A few days ago I would have thrown back my head with a hearty guffaw at the notion of such a proposition, but at that moment, sleep deprivation likely having a great deal to do with it, I was intrigued.
“You know I’ve only been for a single day of training,” I said, still having the clarity of mind to consider the flaws, “And all I really achieved was being scared shitless.”
“No problem, no problem,” he reassured me, “It’s not even particularly difficult magic, you’ll have it in no time.”
“Fair enough. But surely they must have taken this possibility into consideration…”
“Oh, they have, of course. An Enforcer is hired to stand by and look for any magical activity.”
“But then…”
“And that’s the best part. The same guy who’s training you is the exact same Enforcer that they’ve hired. It’s beautiful!” He stared at me.
I hesitated, giving my brain a minute to jump in and tell me it was a flimsy, poorly thought out plan at best. But it didn’t. Instead it considered never having to see The Whisperer again and rejoiced. What did I have to lose? Maybe I could be driven to insanity in a Porsche.
“Sounds good,” I said at last. “Where is the money coming from for the buy-in? Because if this is about conning me out of a few thousand, you’re out of luck; I’m broke…”
“You let me worry about that,” he declared confidently, snatching up his beer, having a long swallow and slamming the mug back onto the counter. It was meant as a gesture of celebration, but the sound drew the bartender from the kitchen; his head poked through the open doorway.
“Ey! Whuh oo doon in ere? Doh geh ruh-dee or I kee yur ass ouh.”
“Sorry, didn’t mean to cause a stir,” Brent said, giving him a cheerful wave.
The head disappeared and Brent turned back to me. “I’ll call you when I’ve set up your first training session.”
“Fine. Who is the trainer, anyway?”
“It’s Benny, of course.”
“Of course.” I stood, tossing a few coins on the counter. “Let me know. I need to get some sleep or I’m in trouble.”
“You got it buddy. And hey, don’t forget, Cecil’s party on Friday. Right?”