Sunlight happily shone into Nathaniel Jacobson’s tired eyes as he walked. Turning the corner into the park where he was to meet the woman he had been thinking about all night long, he came face to face with her brown locks splayed over her customary button up shirt and had only one thing to say:

“Get to bed earlier, Sarah. I can’t sleep when you pull that shit at 1 AM. You’re driving me mad.”

“I did get to bed early. Whether you’re lying down or not hardly makes a difference when it comes to magic.”

“Impossible as always.”

He sighed. While losing some sleep because she was using Sight was troublesome and while he did wish she was more considerate, her results were undeniable—They were the reason they were there at all that day.

“We should get going. Lead the way,” he said.

She led him towards one of the buildings bordering the park and then ducked into a side street. The street came out behind the building to reveal a dilapidated house, skillfully hidden from view behind a new construction, it’s walls cracked and crumbling, gently wrapped in a blanket of vegetation consisting of the overgrown remains of what might have once been a nice garden.

“A homeless guy, I’m guessing? Do we have to worry about anyone else being here?”

“Overdosed in the building last night. His pals called it in, I think. Either way I doubt they’ll be back this soon. And besides, I Locked it up.”

“Ooh, a freshy! Ladies first.”

She clicked her tongue as her back disappeared into the lush foliage of the overgrown shrubbery, slipping past the iron fence. He followed so as not to be left behind. When they arrived at the front they were met with an doorless, empty door frame. Sarah faced the doorway and touched her necklace; "Open," she called, causing an almost electric shift in the air.

A change could be felt within the open doorway. Not one that could be seen or smelt or touched, but it was clear to all present that something had changed, even if it looked, by all appearances, to be exactly the same.

“It’s a dark, dirty, and disgusting drug den,” he complained.

“Use Sight. It’s what I’ll be doing,” she replied ignoring the attempt at alliteration.

He could tell she meant it by the fact that he immediately felt a pull on his magic. The twist in the back of his mind as the borrowed spell—his spell—flowed through her. The sensation never quite lost its novelty, which is precisely why it made it so difficult to sleep.

Ignoring the sensation, he activated Sight as well. The inside of the house now seemed as bright as daylight. Though both the grime and the thin blanket of litter that coated the floor took away from the effect. He started to take out his gloves, having learned to bring them after the third time he did this, when Sarah interrupted his thoughts.

“Is Dan already at the hut? I think this’ll be enough to start production.”

“Yeah, yeah. The rest of his family is out of town on vacation so there’s really nothing stopping him.”

“Good. It’s that needle over there,” she pointed.

He was only slightly miffed at the fact that she was better at using his own spell than he was. Only slightly. What was more irritating was that the charm was a needle. He was not prepared for that, what if it pierced his bag and stabbed him? Did the guy have Hepatitis, HIV or rabies even? He did not want to get pricked by a needle and roped into looking for a spirit which could give him a spell to cure AIDS if, that is, a spirit like that even existed in the first place. He could always count on AZT, he supposed.

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The ghost-but-not thing, remnant really, was sitting next to the needle low on the floor. The tiny thing was an off-orange color and you could just about make out the decaying memories or whatever other psychic mumbo jumbo made it up with a little effort. He kind of wished that whoever had moved the body (The police he was guessing) could have moved it too. Though that would defeat the point of coming here—They were looking for it, after all. Sometimes he wished spirits would take money as trade and not something as unreasonable as the psychic equivalent of a half-rotten corpse.

At that point a bit of thick collage paper was shoved at his hands, breaking his train of thought.

“I thought it might end up like this, so I packed appropriately. Dig in.”

They finished quickly. The needle was wrapped in paper, packed securely and the house left behind. Having done what they came to do they set course for “the hut".

“Dan probably has everything set up and ready to go. We’re trying auto parts first?” said Nathan.

“Yeah, they’re sure to be more profitable than the knitting and even that did well.”

Through bargains with spirits they had obtained several spells: Lock, Knit, Shape and Wash. Sight was a spell that Nathan had always been able to use, which he very generously shared with his friends/co-conspirators.

“It’ll be nice to not have to go out gathering these things as often as we do. Shape shouldn’t use nearly as much energy per dollar earned. We’ll have more time to devote to actual research and maybe find something game changing. Or fun, our spells are kind of plain so far.”

“Hmm,” she added noncommittally.

The sun had begun to set by the time they reached the forest at the edge of town. From there on it was only a short jaunt through the lovely greenery to get to “the hut”. Frankly, all of them thought that a hut in the woods was too stereotypical a location to do magic in, but they picked it out before they had any money to spend on non-abandoned accommodation. Later on they were too lazy to move their stuff just yet.

When they approached the hut Nathan felt a happy tingle coming from his ankle.

“Bitey!” he shouted, smiling, and turned on Sight.

“Woof!” howled the spectral dog in an overly excitable tone.

“Here boy!”

Nathan patted the creature on the head several times, cooing lovingly.

“Woof! Good pets...” it said haltingly. The creepy talking started to seem cute after a while.

“The talking still creeps me out,” said Sarah.

“Warm… comfy… blood…”

The creepy talking mostly seemed cute after a while. Not that that made Nathan any less enthusiastic.

“Woof!”