What The Circus was really about, was success , and they knew that it took teamwork to get there, which was why I found myself, once again, sitting across from The Fortune Teller.
Today, though, his wizened features were more smug than usual, though in a grandfatherly way. It was hard to be mad at him for it.
“I see you've become The Magician,” said The Fortune Teller, leaning in so heavily that his glasses started to slide off of his nose.
“It was stupid to doubt you,” I replied, trying to forestall any bragging that might occur, though he didn’t seem to be the type.
“There’s really no need for self recrimination,” responded The Fortune Teller, “In fact when I was your age I often thought badly of myself too, but then I realized that—”
Last time, it was really, truly, dreadfully easy to interrupt him, but going from strangers to co-workers had a way of changing things.
“ —And of course the other boys would always mock me—”
So now, it was easier said than done. I didn’t want to be on the bad side of someone so useful.
“ —Then there was the shark incident you know, which was a real bloodbath if I do say so myself—”
Sorry, what? Sharks?
“ — And that was how the ants got into all our honey, clever creatures. Ah, those were the days…”
I nodded politely and swore I would definitely listen to the whatever he was ranting about next time. What the hell even was that bit about the shark?
“So,” he started, eyes refocusing on me, “you needed my assistance?”
When the future lies in the palm of your hand, all that’s left is to grasp it. Of course I was going to consult him on absolutely everything. That’s how the ancient Romans did it with their fortune tellers and they had an empire, so that’s how I’d do it too.
“Yes, you’ve already told me everything you dug-up about Glenda, but there seemed to be two other people looking for her. In fact they asked me about the incident.”
“Oh?”
“Shockingly enough, it was my doctor, Andrew Wilkins, and a giant, humanoid dog named Roderick.”
If anyone could help me out here it would be him. I’d already asked some of the others, and they didn’t really seem concerned, mostly they just brushed it off as me being confused. The other thing was that all of the others were just incredibly busy. They were hardly ever here in the circus and they definitely didn’t have time for “weird hypotheticals.” The Fortune Teller was at least always available.
“Hmmm. That seems nonsensical to me,” said The Fortune Teller straightforwardly, “Are you sure you’re fully and entirely aware right now? Now I know that when I was a newbie sometimes I couldn't quite keep a hold of my thoughts, nothing quite this bad, of course but still, the same principle should apply. In fact, ...”
The skepticism dripped from his eyes and flowed freely into the crevasses of his aged expression, like tears shed by a desperate man.
“ — But with time I learned to focus and hone my attention. However—”
Why was everyone so dismissive? I could understand The Clown laughing at me, and The Freak jiggling aimlessly, especially with how busy they were, but The Fortune Teller? He didn’t seem the type.
“ — Sadly, that was about the time when he lost both his eyes. No one has ever baked a pie as good in all my life, and they won’t either, trust me I’d know.”
What? Again?
“What I’m saying is: it’s ok to be behind on the learning curve, as long as you keep trying.”
Thank whatever passes for a god here for small mercies. At least now I knew what to say.
“Thank you for the advice. Honestly, I was a little bit worried about my performance, but I’m sure that the dog is actually real. Could you please look into it anyway? It would reassure me.”
“I suppose I could,” he said, voice reassuring, oddly proud even.
And so does the gentle breeze of humility cleanse the harrowing prospect of being dismissed for no reason at all. Hook, line and sinker.
Lazily he drew a card from the tarot deck, and looked at it. His smile went from fatherly to something that might need turning upside down. Then he drew another, and another, and another.
“Too peaceful,” foretold The Fortune Teller, the “too” feeding off the peaceful like a crow feasting on the liver of the freshly dead.
“My father always told me,” he began, “that when a woman says that everything is alright is when you’re in the most trouble. Personally, that hasn’t been my experience, with one exception—Lady Luck herself.”
He flew out of his seat without warning, and slammed his hands down on the table like the wrath of god descending from the heavens. Loose cards fluttered into the air, before settling down on the ground all around us, all face-up. Bodies of water, gentle streams, cute wildlife. It didn’t take an expert to agree with his assessment of it being too peaceful. Not that it made the situation any clearer. So, I retreated back into bluntness.
”Is there anything actionable you can tell me?”
He paused for a moment, looking uncertain.
“I have a guess. It’s hardly a sure thing. In a way, a very metaphorical and highly simplified way, it is I who peers into the future and decides the cards. If, for some reason, I thought everything was fine, perhaps some external influence, then that would be sufficient for something like this to happen. I can work around it, but I will require more time. In the meantime be careful. I’ll pass this on to Jarqual.”
That wasn’t really what I’d wanted to hear.
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I wouldn’t say that I was deaf to whatever dire portents hid behind the beautiful art of the tarot cards, but the maximally cautious approach was already in play. Unfortunately, shy of dropping the whole thing, I couldn’t just eliminate risk, I was stuck mitigating it.
That was why I’d caused a car accident.
“Krrrrt!” was the sound of someone hitting the breaks in a nick of time.
A minor one. The driver was only a little shaken up.
There were two things I wanted to avoid with Glenda. Her figuring out that someone was after her, and her death not seeming like an accident, in that order. This made the situation somewhat — complicated.
I just couldn't get a car to stay on-target from out of her “illusion detection range.” It was bad enough she noticed anything at all during testing, but if she actually figured out the situation who knows what fucking voodoo she could pull out of her ass. She kept sending people into comas, with no signs of struggle. I really didn't want to find out that she could instantly KO me.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
The day of, I woke up early and started the day off with a nice breakfast. I made pancakes for the whole family and it was fairly well received. Fun was the name of the game. We talked a bit about a movie that my sister had recently seen — an old-ish one about a killer jester, very similar to my boss, actually.
I heaped so much syrup and butter onto my already fat stack of pancakes that it made Anna visibly react. But I wasn't going to go into danger potentially distracted by hunger — or my sweet tooth for that matter. Imagine me not paying attention because I had a craving for sweets and winding up dead because of it. All together it was a brief affair, as we all had places to be going.
My morning started by skipping class. At my college, no-one cared and most classes didn't even take attendance. Professors in some of the smaller classes might not be as accommodating if you made a habit of not showing up, but once did not a habit make, so I was in the safe zone.
My plan was simple. I would lure Glenda to her department head’s office, on the top floor, via an email I would send her from the building's front desk. The email would say that someone had come to meet with the both of them. Easy, right?
Then, I would fetch her house keys from the office; I had already tried looking for spares all around her front porch, but none were to be found.
After that it would be a simple matter poisoning all of her food, and then torching the place to wipe out all evidence. Was it as elegant as I hoped? No. I was really expecting the whole thing to be much easier with magic powers. And it would’ve been if I was fine with just gunning her down in the middle of a street rather than wanting it to look “natural.”
But here, complicated was better. As long as I put her to bed and there were no signs of deliberate arson, I could get away scot free. And to make sure of that I'd fucked with the cheapest extension cord I could buy, no fuses, no safety features. Draw a little too much current and the thing would straight up melt. I'd tried it in my room, and it wasn't long before I started to smell burning plastic.
I was going to sit down at the same cafe where I'd been waiting for Glenda, wait for a good point in the work-day and then go and do what needed to be done.
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Sending an email from the front desk when the person working there went to the bathroom was shockingly easy. They should really lock their computers when they leave their posts, you know, so that they can better ward off magical assassins.
Just as I was about to head back into the corridor, a black spot I knew well passed in front of the door. It was the dog-man from the other day. He was so close to me that I didn't dare breathe; he might have felt the air shifting.
I would ask myself what they were even doing here, but it was obvious he had his own plans for Glenda. I wished I was able to just ask him straight out what he wanted. Maybe there wasn't even a reason to be afraid of the guy, but that would’ve been too risky.
He kept on walking down the hallway, so I must have done something right. But it was towards the elevator. Where I needed to be. Great.
Every step I took behind him felt unusually heavy, even though I was trying my damndest to not make any noise. Funny that. From behind, I could actually appreciate how terrifyingly buff he was. The dude had biceps that looked heavier than me. The enormous sword on his back didn’t really fill me with love and hope either.
He reached the elevator, but we weren't the only people that wanted to use it. Rodrick looked at the small Asian lady waiting for the elevator, then he threw a glance at the absolutely tiny elevator. The door opened. And his tail drooped behind him. The small office worker said nothing, she did move out of his shadow though.
“Ping!” was the sound of the elevator door closing. “Ugh!” was the sound of the woman coughing. Altogether it was the music of victory.
Dog boy made his way towards the stairs. And it felt like I could finally take a breath deeper than a puddle as I joined the woman in the elevator.
The elevator doors opened on the 5th floor, letting the old woman out of the hallway. I would've been worried about how quickly Rodrick could climb up the stairs but he had seemed fairly relaxed about the whole thing, and our target was all the way up on the 11th floor.
“Ping!” I stepped out and made my way to Glenda’s office. It was empty. The lucky girl had it all to herself! Her purse sat there at her desk tantalizingly, and I dug in like a mole ready to ruin a garden. There was a lot of random stuff in there, makeup, her wallet, aspirin, that sort of thing. The layers were near geological, but I managed to dig out her key from a side pocket.
Jackpot. I could see why my sister enjoyed snooping so much. It was fun.
The key jingled in the air, visible and loud.
“Invisibility won't help you now,” declared Roderick from the doorway. Loud and bold.
If he said anything else, I was far too focused on the shiny edge of his blade to pay attention to it. The way the tip kept moving slightly after Roderick’s hands came to a halt really showcased the sheer inertia of the blade. Once, I’d seen a youtube video where a pair of industrial shears cut a man’s hand off. They were barely even slowed down. That’s what the sword looked like as it cut its way into the ceiling too big to fit comfortably in the room.
I dropped the keys. And deftly moved into a corner of the room. If he broke the windowpane, maybe I could jump out? People have survived falling from airplanes before, an eleven floor drop couldn’t be too bad, right?
The blade swung through the air where I’d just been. The swing itself had a heft to it, and the sword's steady glide ended with the tip hitting the far wall. It thunked in, but a swift jerk of Roderick’s hand quickly freed the thing, sending concrete dust all over the floor.
“Smart. But dogs have a keen sense of smell.”
The next strike split Glenda’s desk in half like a ripe apple, completely missing me. The sound of the wood and metal being split in half made an ear splitting screech.
“What the hell is all that noise?!” someone screamed from the hallway.
“Fuck,” answered Roderick.
And I bolted towards the exit, grabbing the fucking keys right off the floor.
I didn’t know if Roderick’s sword was stuck in the floor, or if something else stopped him, but I managed to make a clean getaway. I made a mad dash down the staircase and hid in one of the bathrooms, this time making sure to make the key invisible too.
Glenda’s office was trashed. She could be anywhere in the building by now, and within detection range of either me or the Dog. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
All I could do was wait. And wait some more. Until I felt it was safe enough to finally leave, hitching a ride on the elevator with one of the office workers. I tailgated in after someone to make sure that the door didn’t seem to open all on its own, and I threw one last longing glance at the nearby cafe.
It was there that I saw Dr. Wilkins, surveilling the company’s front door. I didn’t linger.
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The keys gave me unrestricted access to Glenda’s house, which I was milking for all it was worth. First up, I’d poisoned her food as planned, though given how today went I wasn’t so sure that the original plan would work. Then, I did a lot of rummaging. I would’ve invited my sister along if it were any other occasion. I’m sure it would’ve made for a great bonding activity.
I won’t bother you with the titles of all the Stephen King and Agatha Christie books that I found on her shelves, or the shades of foundation in her make-up collection, her family portraits, or the contents of her intimate journals. Well, I did mark that last one as something I should come back to later, along with her laptop. it would’ve been too obvious that something was even more wrong than she was surely already thinking, what with her ruined office and all.
I did find something worthwhile under her bed though. It was a box of… rainbow-colored items. Most had some kind of ambiguous or amorphous shape, but there was one that stood out.
It was a white knife. Completely white, with a strange shimmer to its handle and a texture that was much rougher than what the seemingly smooth surface should allow. It was a bit ethereal, honestly. And moreover, it was obviously the sort of magical bullshit that I should be on the lookout for.
Once I was done rifling through her stuff, I made my way to the house furthest from the direction she’d be coming back from and sat my invisible ass in their yard. Waiting.
It took her maybe an hour to get there, no doubt giving a statement to the police about what the hell happened to her office. Her car drove in smoothly into her driveway and parked picture-perfect.
The door opened languidly—and stayed that way. It took her a minute or two to start getting out of the car, and even then it was a slow, careful process that had her turning her head every which way and thoroughly examining every inch of her home. This was going to suck.
When she finally made her way to her front porch, she froze. Her head was fixed forward, looking towards the door. For an instant or two, she didn’t move, and then she “calmly” turned around. Her head turned back to the door with the key still inside it right as she made a beeline for her car.
Fuck it. “Bang!”
Her car window shattered into a cloud of glass shards. I’d missed. And the woman started running away from her own car. She must've panicked to do something so stupid.
“Bang!”
Blood splattered on the white of the car as she dropped down onto her driveway. She was wiggling on the ground, clearly still alive. And dangerous.
“Bang!” went the third shot.
“Bang! Bang! Bang!”
And shots three through six.
Thoroughly killed people couldn’t pull a fast one on you while you were busy stealing their stuff.