Dues - Chapter Two

Dues

Chapter Two
By Imogen Cassidy

"We explained our rates to you before you engaged us, Mr Bailey," Ian was busy on the phone when she got in the next day - late, necessarily so - but early enough to deal with whatever business they might have. She didn't understand why Ian was always in before her, no matter what time she decided to show. She figured he had some latent prescience that told him what time he needed to show up at work in order to impress people. It would certainly be a useful application of magical talent.

God knew there were few enough of those.

"I understand, Mr Bailey, if you feel disappointed, but the rituals were performed and your house was completely cleared, if you're still experiencing problems…"

Jade rolled her eyes and dumped her bag on her desk. Therein lay the problem. Useful applications of magic - there were too few of them. It was all very well being able to light your way without a torch or levitate something across a room, but when it got down to it, electricity was more reliable and levitating stuff got boring very quickly.

What magic was good for, and this was the basis for her entire business, was getting rid of the effects of magic. Bringing things back to normal. Making life predictable and easy and not full of unexplained manifestations or leaks through rendings and tears in the fabric of whatever people were conveniently labeling as reality these days.

Because there were always people who thought magic was more useful than it was. There were always people who wanted to use it to control other people, or make themselves rich, or control other people into making them rich, or some sort of combination of them all. And using any magic without training lead to the sort of things that she'd been called out of bed at four this morning to investigate.

"Mr Bailey, she's not here at present, but I'll be certain to get her to talk to you about this. I know you're upset, but our credentials are all legitimate and you won't find another agency…"

She sighed. Then there were people like Mr Bailey. People who were convinced that they were more important than they actually were. If magic wasn't the problem something else would be - a government conspiracy perhaps, or was a returning client - certainly crazy, but mostly harmless. He believed his house was a centre of mystical energies. He believed any house he lived in became a centre of mystical energies. That spied on him. Or stopped his toaster from working. Or tried to control him into blowing up churches or leafleting for the local Green candidate. It was certainly the mystical energies which had caused his wife to leave him (although Jade had her own theories on why that had happened). It was a cycle for him. He'd reach the top and ring her, or one of her competitors, and ask her to cleanse it, repair any rendings, make it normal and she would do it, or Ian would, and the house would be fine, after wards (usually it was fine before) but Mr Bailey would never be convinced.

Ian had dealt with him three or four times now. The first time he'd been horrified that Jade took the man's money, but Jade had patiently explained to Ian that if they didn't do the work he was asking for, the man would just go to someone else, who would charge him more and tell him the problem was more complex than he thought and they needed to do more research and it would just pander to the man's paranoid fantasies. As it was, with a certificate from their agency stating that they'd already performed the rituals, any agency who accepted work from Mr Bailey after them (and several would, she knew it) would be guilty of fraud. As long as he was asking Jade to do the work, she knew it would be the end of the line for him. Despite his arguments.

She settled into the desk next to Ian's as he continued to attempt to assure Bailey that they'd done their job, and started sorting through mail. Business was slow at the moment. The last big rend had been six months ago, and enough people had been scared by it that the usual idiots who decided to turn to magic for their personal needs were still wary of doing anything that might cause another. The honeymoon period would end soon, though, she knew. She thought of the warehouse, the small rectangle of card now in the hands of Matheson at his precinct.

…Or possibly already had.

Ian finally managed to get off the phone and heaved a dramatic sigh. "Truly, that man gets more paranoid every week. Are we allowed to suggest counseling?"

"He's already in counseling," she said, absently, opening bills and spiking them to be paid. "But they can't force him to take his meds. And if we suggest he goes back on them he accuses us of necromancy."

Ian rolled his eyes. "Never could master necromancy," he said.

"That's a very good thing, Ian," she said. "Nothing more likely to cause rendings than raising the dead."

"And the Catholics get so very irritated by it," Ian added. He turned back to his computer and started typing - a report probably, for the last job they'd done. Ian was good at reports. He had a knack for language that she lacked. "There's a phone message for you from Phillips," Ian said as he typed, "they want to know if we need to postpone our order again."

It had been a very slow month. Apart from Bailey's job, they'd only had one other call out and the supply cupboard was practically full. She fingered the message pad and picked up the phone to call them back.

"Boss?" Ian said. She blinked. What had she been doing again?

"What?"

"You've been sitting like that for five minutes. Did you not get back to sleep?"

She looked at her hand, the phone receiver still in it, and frowned, puzzled. Something wasn't quite right.

"You call Phillips," Jade said. "Tell him we'll have our regular order this month."

Ian cocked an eyebrow. "Oh ho!" he said. "Getting a hunch are we?"

She smiled at him. "No, just being sensible. If there was a rend in the area - even a small one - chances are there'll be more. It's never just one."

"You are a font of wisdom and beauty," Ian said, picking up the phone and dialing. "Also, you pay me, which makes me happy. Where are you going?" he asked her as she got to her feet, picking up her bag again. She hadn't realised where until he asked.

"Back to the warehouse," she said.

"Have fun."

She chewed her lip absently. "Sure," she said.

The police car was gone and the warehouse door was barred with scene tape. It didn't have a lock on it, though. She wondered why there were no squatters, then stopped wondering. The warehouse was too far away from everything for squatters to be attracted to it. No shops, no transport, just featureless, wide, empty streets and warehouse after empty warehouse. Like a ghost town from an old western.

She pushed her way in and made her way to the room where the rend had been, keeping her senses on alert. There was nothing out of the ordinary at all, which in itself was out of the ordinary. Rends were not simple things. Even the smallest left ripples - the kind of ripples that set off the alarms at in the Occult Rooms of the local precinct, the kind that resulted in hauntings like the ones Bailey was sure he was plagued with. Here, there was nothing.

When she reached the spot where the card had been lying she knelt, feeling the ground with her fingers and smelling the air. Still, there was nothing. She frowned, concentrating harder, slowing her breathing and centering herself the way she'd been taught by her mentor, all those years ago…

..there. A small ripple. The slightest echo of a tear in what was real…

…except that it wasn't a tear. She could see that now. It was too precise, too exact.

It was a cut.