Ted spoke for a long time. The words kept drifting out of his mouth, floating over to me, and popping like soap bubbles before they ever made it to my ears and deeper into my brain. The only thing that kept repeating in my head was a simple phrase.

The magick world is real.

The magick world is real.

The magick world is real.

“Hey.” Ted placed his hand on my shoulder. The physical touch uprooted me from thoughts that were slowly burying me alive.

“Hi,” I said in a completely bizarre voice.

“Hi.” He pursed his lips and smiled at me. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I'm fine. What were you saying?”

“When?”

“Sorry, I'm a little hung over. The last thing I remember you saying before I zoned out was something about the dumpster exploding?”

He raised an eyebrow and chewed on his lip. “Are you okay?”

“No.” It was the truth. “I'm not okay, but I think I will be if you just tell me what happened.”

Ted shrugged, not really the type to examine things deeper. “Okay. So, when Luke and I got here in the morning the dumpster was split down the middle and flipped upside down. Kinda like someone had placed explosives in it or something.”

“Explosives?” I asked.

Ted shrugged again. “I don't know. I guess. I don't know what else would split a metal dumpster down the middle and flip it over at the same time.”

I nodded.

The magick world is real.

The magick world is real.

Magick is real.

“That's… strange,” I said, my way of being agreeable.

“That's not even half of it,” Ted said.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, as soon as we got here this morning, we made a call.”

“A call?”

“Yeah, to sanitation, to get the dumpster fixed. Replaced. Whatever.”

“Right. That makes sense.”

“So, we call sanitation and five minutes later this group of guys shows up at the bar.”

“Five minutes?” Nightsbridge wasn't a large suburb by any stretch of the imagination, but five minutes seemed like an insanely miniscule amount of time in which to answer a call and then show up.

“Yeah,” Ted said. “Five minutes and they came with a replacement dumpster, almost like they were waiting for us to call.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I mean the timing. The speed.”

I nodded. It doesn’t make any sense.

“You know what else was weird?” Ted asked.

If he says there’s a slug drawing letters for him, I will fucking scream.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

“No,” I said. “What else?”

“All three of the sanitation guys were wearing black.”

“Black?”

“Yeah. Black. Black robes. Like, cloaks. At first, I thought they were looking for the Renaissance Festival. I was all ready to give them directions, but then they introduced themselves as Nightsbridge sanitation.”

“Weird.”

“Yeah, like I said.”

“What else?”

“They asked if we had any video surveillance.”

My heart just about stopped at that moment. I was already sweating in the morning heat, but this made my sweat double in volume.

Out of the corner of my eye, I glanced up at the camera mounted to the wall above the dumpster. “What do you mean?”

Ted shrugged. “Video. They wanted to confiscate it, I guess. To give to the police maybe?”

I swallowed and did everything in my power not to make the swallow sound like a gulp.

“Did you?” I asked.

“Did I what?” Ted asked back.

“Did you give them video?”

Ted snorted. “You think a cheapskate like Luke actually runs video in that thing?” He kicked his chin up at the camera.

Thank heavens for incompetent bosses.

Ted was right. If Luke could cut a corner, he would. If Luke could cut eight corners, he would absolutely do that and then cut an additional five.

“So, no video,” I said, wanting to be crystal clear.

“No video,” Ted agreed and laughed. “I kinda want to know what happened though. Like… what did they use in the dumpster to make it explode the way it did?”

“Yeah,” I agreed, hoping my poker face was impenetrable. “I wonder…”

“You know what else was weird about those guys in the cloaks?” Ted asked.

I shook my head no. “Besides the cloaks?”

“They kept whispering to each other and acting like they were examining a crime scene. Like they were detectives or something.”

“Oh?” I asked, trying to phrase it innocently. My voice cracked.

“Yeah. When I showed them the dumpster, and of course it was me, you know how Luke is, not wanting to talk to anyone in the mornings.” I nodded and Ted continued. “Anyways I showed them out back, out here, and they all began circling the dumpster at the same time. They had their hands held out to it, like they were… I don't know, trying to force levitate it or something? It looked like something out of Star Wars.”

“Did the dumpster levitate?”

“No, Hexana.” Ted looked at me like I was insane. “The dumpster didn't levitate. They just held their hands out and walked in circles. There were also moving their lips.”

“Moving their lips?”

“Like whispering. But without sound. Like mouthing words but not actually saying anything.”

“As they walked around the dumpster with their hands out.”

“Exactly.” Ted shrugged. “Like I said, the whole thing was strange.”

My mind raced.

Are the people in cloaks the magickal police? Are they tracking the spell back to Lebec? If Lebec gets caught will he pull me into it? Am I an unknowing accomplice to an act of domestic magickal terrorism?

“Strange,” I said, and my voice cracked again.

Ted raised an eyebrow. “Right. Strange.”

“Anything else?” I asked.

Say no, Ted.

Ted snorted. “Yeah. When they finally finished walking around the dumpster, they all came together in front of it. They stood there in a tiny circle, placed their left hands at the center of the circle and started walking counterclockwise whispering. Doing the mouthing words thing again.”

“Are you sure you weren't drunk?” I tried to give Ted a smile, but it sat on my face like a fraud.

Ted didn't smile back. “I got this whole weird mystical vibe off them. Like they were… I don't know… wizards? Or something?”

A laugh shot out from my mouth before I knew what I was doing. It had a frantic, desperate sound to it. “Wizards? That’s crazy. That doesn’t make any sense at all. Ted over here saying wizards.”

“I know,” Ted said, his eyebrows pulling together. “I’m not saying they were wizards, just that the way they were acting was strange and that they reminded me of wizards.”

“Yeah,” I said through another forced laugh.

My breath was coming out a little too fast. Everything around me felt like it was moving too fast.

“Yeah,” I said again, not meaning to, but not being able to stop it.

“Hexana?” Ted asked.

“I'm fine,” I said. “Totally okay. One-hundred percent.”

Not fine. Not okay. Not even two percent.

“Yeah, one-hundred percent.” The sarcasm in his voice dripped from every word. “You sure seem it…”

“Yeah.” Stop repeating yourself, Hexana… “Yeah.” Oh my God… I took in a deep, calming breath and let it out. “Sorry if I'm being weird. I just lost my job, and now you're talking about wizards and magickal stuff.”

“Magickal stuff?” Ted frowned. “I just said that they reminded me of wizards. I never said anything about magickal stuff.”

I swallowed, again trying to ensure that it didn't come out as a gulp.

“Right,” I said. “Wizards. Sorry. Hung over.”

From the look on Ted's face I could tell that the hung-over excuse was starting to wear thin.

“Right... Oh!” Ted snapped his fingers. “There was something else.”

Why? Why does there have to be something else?

My heart started pounding again. I wanted off this wild ride.

“What's that?” I managed.

“They gave me the weirdest card.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” Ted slipped his hand into his pocket, rummaged. “Check it out.”

He removed his hand and held out the card to me. It was heavier than I would've expected. It wasn't made from paper, but something leathery. There was a single number, a phone number, embossed at the center of the black card.

It was the same phone number that Lebec had given me on the same type of card.