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.

Dues - Chapter One

Dues

Chapter One: You Can't Afford Me...

by Imogen Cassidy



Cities at night are interesting things. Black and sleek and mysterious. Some parts try to deny the darkness with neon and noise, but even in the brightest of night spots there are patches of black where things are unseen.
This part of the city was far from bright, even in daylight.
The warehouse was deserted. Despite the business of the night outside, no sound penetrated into the room at its centre, but a spark of light grew in the air. It shimmered for a moment, before cracking open. If anyone had been there to look through, they would have seen another world through the hole, one that defied logic and description and made eyes hurt and minds squirm.
Something started to push through.
On the other side of the hole, it was the same as its environment. A thing without form, of colour and madness. But as it dipped into this world it took on almost familiar shapes - a hand there - a face there.
If they weren’t the kinds of faces and hands one normally saw on humans… well, there was always room for improvement.
The form was halfway through the hole when something went wrong. Colours flashed across what passed for its skin and there was a strangled cry. There was a moment of pull and push, a second where it looked as though the creature would make it all the way through, before it was snapped back with an audible “pop” and the hole snapped closed.
As the light from the rend faded, all that could be seen was a small rectangular card, fluttering to lie on the wooden floor. It lay there, innocently, as the sirens started.

~~~

“Any possibility you can get a normal job?” her husband’s muffled voice came from under the pillow he’d jammed onto his head to blot out the sound of her pager, which was set necessarily loud. She was a heavy sleeper. He wasn’t.
“Sorry,” she muttered, even though she was certain he couldn’t hear her. “Your job’s normal enough for both of us, though.”
Warehouse in Orwell Street. Rending. Come now.
She pulled on jeans and a t-shirt, grabbed a light jacket and kissed her husband’s foot where it hung over the edge of the bed. He groaned and pulled it back, mumbling - halfway back to sleep again - and she grinned, before heading out of the flat.
Driving in Sydney in the early morning was always a pleasure for her. The fact that you could get places without seeing a single other person, the emptiness of the wet streets, the way the lights shined on nothing made her feel as though she owned it, as though it were built for her amusement. The journey only took ten minutes, but when she turned into Orwell street she was nearly blinded by the flashes of the squad car. Silent, now. Eerily so.
She heaved a sigh. A rending wasn’t normally police business. Not normally hers either if the truth be known. They happened often enough, but unless something got through successfully the police were usually circumspect and discreet.
One squad car wasn’t enough to deal with an incursion though. And why would Ian call me? She wasn’t enough to deal with an incursion either.
She felt a twinge in her arm and clicked her tongue irritably. Not by a long shot.
Ian was leaning against his car, looking grumpy. When he caught sight of her, however, his familiar sunny grin eclipsed the frown.
“Jade, you’re impeccably prompt, as always,” he said. “I really should employ you.”
She snorted. “You can’t afford me,” she said. His grin widened.
“You can say that again.”
“Cops won’t let you in?”
“Not without you, you know the drill.”
“No apprentices without their adepts,” she rolled her eyes. Ian was just as good as she was, if not better, but the police were sticklers for the rules. She supposed they had to be, when it suited them.
“In any case,” Ian said, “I think this time it’s got something to do with you personally. Matheson looked… “
“Bored?”
“Strangely enough, no. He displayed an emotion. I think it might even have been worry.”
“There’s no incursion though?”
“Not that I can tell. There’s definitely been a rend, but I’m not getting anything else. You?”
She tilted her head and reached out with her senses. Rends were hard to detect, without training. She’d had the training, though. Months of it. Mindnumbingly boring, hard, desperately annoying months. She often wondered how the hell attention deficit Ian had managed it, but there was a lot about him that she didn’t know. She was only glad he’d come to her after he’d finished that part of the training. Doing it herself had been bad enough. Putting anyone else through it destroyed her soul from the inside.
The door to the warehouse opened and the man himself appeared. Detective Senior Constable Matheson.
“Constable!” Ian said jovially. “Lovely to see you.”
Matheson looked blankly at Ian, who grinned back, then to Jade, who gave him a warm smile. Matheson was a good policeman, steady. Perfect for his work. She was glad it was him and not the Detective Sergeant, who had a tendency for the dramatic. Matheson wasn’t fazed by the arcane. Matheson wasn’t fazed by anything.
“Ms Miller,” he said softly. “I’m glad you could get here so quickly.”
“There’s been a rend?” she said.
Matheson nodded. “And an incursion,” he said. She drew in a breath in a shocked gasp. “Nothing serious, at least, we don’t think. It was a very minor rend, from what our adepts say.”
“Why call me?”
Matheson chewed his lip. “Something we haven’t seen before,” he said. “If you’ll follow me?”
Jade nodded, motioning for Ian to come with her.
“It showed up on the instruments about two hours ago,” Matheson said as they picked their way through the warehouse. It was almost certainly slated for redevelopment - probably had been before the GFC - the area was on the up, but Jade knew there were many many streets like this one, filled with old, useless, industrial buildings that no longer manufactured anything but sat on the landscape like sad old dogs - past their prime, blind and arthritic.
And smelly.
“Would you get a whiff of that?” Ian’s voice was high and incredulous. “Jesus, you’d think they’d… well, no you wouldn’t I suppose. Still. Who’s been living here? A family of giant stink bugs?”
Human waste, filth, the remnants of chemicals used in whatever processes the building had been dedicated to, all combined to make a wall of scent almost overpowering in its intensity. At the back, however, Jade could catch the slight metallic smell and taste of the arcane. If her sense hadn’t already told her there was a rend, that smell would give it away.
“Lead on, Senior Constable.”
It was the room at the centre of the warehouse. Windowless. The floor was thick with dust, the only light came from the flimsy portable lamp set up by the police first on the scene. At least, Jade thought it was the only source of light. Until she noticed another.
“You see it?” Matheson said. She nodded. A small rectangle of white, in the middle of the room. “That’s our incursion,” the Senior Constable said.
“You’re kidding!” Ian said. Matheson simply looked at him and Ian gave a little nod. “Oh, yeah, right. But… why would someone go to all that trouble to create a rend if all they wanted to push through was…”
“It looks like a business card,” Jade said quietly.
“You’re surprisingly close,” Matheson said. “But it’s what’s on it that made us call you.” She raised an eyebrow at him and knelt beside the small card. “It’s safe to touch,” Matheson said. “But you already knew that.”
She picked it up and held it tilted towards the light, then nearly dropped it when she saw what it said.
Jade Miller
Access Number 5039549
The Library.

~~~

“Why’d you let them take it?”
“It’s evidence, Ian.”
“But it was yours.”
“They’ll give it back to me when they realise they can’t do anything with it.”
“They might damage it!”
“They’re not stupid. They’ve got their own people. They’ll analyse it and give it back to me. I’m not worried.”
“But it’s a library card.”
“Ian, the library will still be there in a week. I can wait.”
“What if they gave it to you because there’s an…”
She stopped in the middle of the street and rounded on her apprentice. Ian towered over her, but he was like a puppy sometimes. If she ever got angry with him, and she didn’t often have cause to, he would fix her with those big brown eyes as though he were five years old and she’d taken his toy.
She was well past the age where that sort of thing worked on her though, even if Steven wasn’t at home waiting. Didn’t stop Ian from trying though.
“Ian, I trust Matheson, don’t you?”
He looked down and shifted from foot to foot. “Of course I do. He’s the law.”
“Then why are you so keen for me to get this damn card?”
He slumped forward, mouth dropping. “You can’t tell me you’re not? It’s the library for Christ’s sake!”
“From all accounts, an extremely dangerous and often fatal place,” Jade pursed her lips. “One that I’ve never been keen to visit.”
“Never?”
She rubbed her arm again, wondering if things might have been different if she’d been equipped with more than just her training. “Never,” she said.
“So….” he folded his arms. “Are you telling me you’re not going to use it? Or tell anyone you’ve got it? The business could…”
“I know,” she closed her eyes and shook her head. Really, there wasn’t any choice in the matter. If she didn’t use the card, she’d be losing a significant advantage over her fellows.
Steven was not going to like this.
“Let’s just say I’m quite happy we won’t have to worry about it for a week or two,” she said.
“You’ll take me with you, won’t you?” Ian said. “When you go?”
She smiled at him. Of course that was what this was about. “I wouldn’t leave you behind, Ian. I need you to watch my back.”
He smirked and she rolled her eyes.