The man glanced over the penthouse. He took in the news playing in the background, the laptop and notes spread across the coffee table, and the toaster pulled out on the counter. His eyes lingered on the open office door. He looked like the kind of guy who could wear a fedora and carry a walking stick as if he had just stepped out of the early twentieth century. Jeremy wondered if he was one of the guys Uncle Howard played polo with.
“Where are your Aunt and Uncle?” The man asked.
“Dead.”
The man nodded a few times, lips pursed, completely unphased. “I bet his beloved Toutatis ripped his head off when everything went wrong.”
Jeremy exchanged a look with Caleb. So, this guy was another human-sacrificing asshole. Or he at least knew about the human-sacrificing activities. And he did not seem too broken up about Uncle Howard and Aunt Angie’s deaths, even though he was close enough to them to have a key to their place. Maybe all these families who practiced magic before it became widespread a few days ago were a bunch of sociopaths. Even Moira had hardly given her aunt and uncle’s deaths a second thought. But they did try to kill her. That had to cut through the grief a little.
Moira’s arms dropped to her side, and her voice ratcheted up several octaves. “You knew about the sacrifices?”
“Of course, dear.” The man snapped at his goons, and they began prowling around the penthouse. Jeremy’s hackles rose as he watched them step past his bags. “You’ll find that most of your father’s close friends are in on the big secret. The bigger question is why you don’t know about it.”
He peered at Moira like she was a bug pinned to a board for inspection.
“Nobody told me.” She snapped.
“Didn’t you have your coming-of-age ceremony this past year?”
“No, because everyone was a little too busy with my parents' funeral to worry about my birthday last year.” Moira glared daggers at the goon leaning over the coffee table to read her notes. “I didn't know about any of this until my Aunt and Uncle tried to sacrifice me!”
“Oh?” The man’s eyebrows shot up, then he chuckled like someone in on an inside joke, “Unbelievable. They tried to sacrifice you. This is too much.”
He rubbed a hand over his mouth and burst into another fit of laughter. “About half the council insisted Howard killed John, but not enough to win the vote to pass the spell-keeper title to another family. Ah…they are going to be livid when they hear he tried to sacrifice his niece and failed!”
He trailed off into another fit of laughter. Moira regarded him with disdain. Jeremy and Caleb stood there awkwardly. One of the goons emerged from the office and came over to report.
“There is a bit of material here.” He said, “The kids were going through it. Do you want us to do a more thorough search?”
“No, no.” The man waved him off, “Now we know Howard and Angie are dead. Howard was never all that interested in magic anyway. He was all about his precious god. Thought it all was some divine gift and whatnot. I doubt he stored any spells in the floorboards. Just gather up everything you can find.”
He turned to Moira, “Well, why don’t you introduce me to these fine gentlemen?”
She sighed, “This is Jeremy. He’s the one they tried to sacrifice with me. And his friend Caleb. Boys, this is Sean Morgan. He’s one of the polo players.”
Jeremy knew it.
“Pretty smart of you to come here looking for information.” Sean said, “That’s what I am here for as well. And because everyone wants to hear exactly how Howard and Angie bungled the spell so bad that they undid it.”
Jeremy scowled as a goon closed the laptops on the coffee table and slipped them and Moira’s notes into a briefcase. He was glad he could feel the outline of his own notebook in his pants pocket. And that he’d put the ancient rune book in his duffle, which they ignored. Sean might be a wealth of knowledge, or he might steal everything from under them.
“Since you know about magic, why don’t you tell us what the hell is going on?” He asked. Sean smiled at him, all teeth like Aunt Angie and Uncle Howard, but at least his eyes smiled as well. He was the type of man who was difficult to age, but there were laugh lines etched into his face.
“Sure.” He leaned one hip on the edge of the island counter, “There are several families whose main lines pass down the knowledge of magic. Our ancestors made a contract with a god who was powerful enough to suppress the world’s magic, except for those induced into the spell."
“That induction is the coming-of-age ceremony.” He gave Moira a pointed look. “At any rate, one family that serves on the council is designated as the spell-keepers. They make yearly sacrifices to keep things as they have been for millennia. That was your parents, Moira. Until they died. Then your uncle wanted to take over. You see, only the family's main line can be inducted into the spell. Or else an eighth of the population would know about magic already.”
One of the goons set the tub filled with paperwork on the island, then shoved past Caleb to get a glass and fill it with ice water from the fridge door. He shot Sean a long-suffering look, but was ignored.
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“I don’t want to bore you with council politics, but usually when all of the spell-keepers die, as was the case here since you hadn’t come of age yet, there is a vote to pass the job to another family. In this case, your uncle wanted to keep it in your family and get permission to have his children inducted. That wouldn’t be unusual, except you were still alive, so technically, the family's main branch still rested with you, and his children couldn’t be inducted.”
The goon cleared his throat.
“Anyway. They ended up voting that Howard could be the acting spell-keeper for this year alone. Then, you would take it over again after you had your coming-of-age. His children were not given permission to be inducted.” He chuckled again, “But instead, he never inducted you and even tried to sacrifice you. Hysterical. Your father is rolling in his grave. I tried to tell the council he was too up his ass about all his old god mythology to be trusted with the sacrifices. He was never very good at the minutia of magic, all the little things that make sure things go right. Like timing and such. I’m not surprised he messed up the sacrifice.”
Jeremy frowned, “So when you say inducted into the spell, what exactly does that mean?”
The goon slammed his glass on the counter. His buddy came over to set the briefcase full of laptops on the tub. He also sent Sean a pointed look. They seemed to be on a schedule.
“A ritual has to be performed on a person so that the spell stops preventing them from accessing magic.” Sean straightened up, “Lovely chatting with you. Boys, let’s go.”
“Hey!” Moira stepped forward to snatch the briefcase into her arms. At the same time, Caleb put a hand on the tub and glowered at the goons.
“You can’t barge in here, dangle little bits of information in front of us, steal all these resources, and leave.” He said.
“Oh, I can, and I will.” Sean snapped his fingers. The goons advanced on Moira and Caleb.
“That’s stupid,” Jeremy protested. “Even if Moira never had a technical coming-of-age ceremony, she’s now inducted like everyone else on the planet. Since she is from the main family line, doesn’t she get to be a part of the council?”
Sean flapped a hand dismissively and turned toward the door. “Sure, whatever. If she wants to come, she can.”
“They are coming too!” Moira insisted. She glared at the goons some more, then turned and hissed at Jeremy and Caleb, “Grab your bags and let’s go.”
It sounded like a good plan to Jeremy. His goal for coming to the penthouse was to get some information and orient himself in this new reality. Going along with people with experience in what was going on was a better option than sorting through letters to piece a picture together. He grabbed his bags, slinging one duffle over each shoulder, and called for Atticus. Who did not come running.
“Jeeze.” He huffed, “Caleb, let one of them grab the tub and help me with these bags so I can go find Atticus.”
Moira hugged the laptops to her chest as she slung her backpack over her shoulder. She joined in poking around the penthouse. When the cat could not be found immediately, Jeremy returned to the bags and grabbed her treats. As soon as the bag crinkled, she padded out from some random shadow and slinked between his legs.
“You have a black cat?” Sean observed. Jeremy ignored his amused little smirk. He tossed a few treats into the carry backpack. Atticus leaped after them like the little predator she was. Jeremy zipped her in before she could abscond with her catch. One of the goons checked his watch.
Moira flipped off the soft desk lamps and crackling fire in the office, plunging the books and effigies into darkness. She turned off the TV and the kitchen lights, plunging the rest of the penthouse into silence. They filed out the door.
They rode the elevator down in silence. Sean looked bored. Jeremy watched him pick his nails through the blurry reflection on the elevator doors. When they stepped into the lobby, he positioned himself beside Sean as they walked.
“So, how exactly do you perform magic?” he asked.
Sean glanced at him out of the side of his eyes, “Haven’t you figured it out yet?”
“Well, I was starting to get a picture, but then you interrupted.” Jeremy defended. Sean scoffed, and the conversation dropped as they passed through the revolving doors out onto the street. The burnt, dark red sun was not visible through the haze above them. It was darker than the dim light that had been present throughout the day, which meant night was falling around them. Jeremy had not realized they were in the penthouse for so long.
“It is a very individualistic process,” Sean said when Jeremy fell in step with him again, “There are basics. If you practice, you get better, but mostly, it is visualizing things in your head.”
“Are there different kinds of magic?” Jeremy asked, “Like, do you have healing spells? Is it all elemental magic?”
“Like I said, it's all about visualizing. There are old runes that help with putting together more complicated spells, but otherwise, it is up to you.” Sean said as they reached the car. He stood back from it, a sleek black number like out of the movies, and scratched his ear. “I know people who have been able to wipe memories and diviners who are able to predict exactly which financial decisions they should make."
One of the goons opened the back hatch and loaded the tub in. The other one opened one of the back doors and held it for Sean to get in.
“All things that make rich people richer.” Caleb supplied. He tossed the duffels into the back beside the tub. “Nothing like curing cancer or whatever.”
Sean shrugged and ducked into the car. Moira followed him, and Jeremy grabbed Caleb’s arm and held him back for just a moment. He watched the goon close the back hatch and walk around to the driver’s seat. The one holding the door looked at them expectantly.
“Play nice.” Jeremy told Caleb in a low voice, “It would be nice to know everything they know so that we can figure out how to cure cancer or whatever ourselves, yeah?”
“I think there are more urgent matters than cancer right now,” Caleb muttered.
“Whatever.” Jeremy let him go when the lackey cleared his throat. “Tell that to someone who has cancer and can’t get medications because all the roads are shut down.”
They climbed into the car. The lackey joined them, slamming the door shut. The tinted windows made the dark gray outside even harder to see.
“What about the meditation?” He asked. “You said if you practice, you get better, but I read in one of the letters that you have to cultivate it.”
“I read that,” Caleb grumbled.
Jeremy shot him a look, “Buckle your seatbelt.”
Sean made a long-suffering noise and reached into a compartment below his seat to pull out a crystal decanter and bar glass. Jeremy watched in total amazement as he poured himself a finger of what smelled like whiskey and sipped it.
“Yes. You have to internalize it.” Sean said, “Again, it is a pretty individualistic process. What works for one person often does not work as well for others. So really, all I can tell you is that you have to meditate about the things you just practiced.”
Jeremy sighed and looked back out the window. Maybe these people would not be so helpful. For a bunch of families who ran a complex spell to trap an old god for thousands of years, they did not seem to understand very much about magic.