In certain Urban fantasylands, they make a distinction between ‘real magic’ as performed by wizards and lesser forms of it. Often they do this by adding an additional terminal letter, the K. (What signifies a lesser form of magic? Well, perhaps unsurprisingly for a term popularized by Alistair Crowley, the answer is often as not “Well, can women do it? There you go then.”)

(Also unsurprisingly, the sort of wizards who insist on the additional K are often as not best characterized as “A bag of dicks,” to use the vernacular term.)

To be fair, in some fantasylands where this term of art is popular, the only distinction they are making is between “Actual magic” and “Stage illusions”, which rather ignores that “Stage illusions vs. actual magic” is a perfectly cromulent way to distinguish between the two, without relying on hearing you pronounce the K, and also that “Stage magician” is a much more prestigious and well-respected career than “Wizard detective”, since at least stage magicians are more likely to pay the rent on time and blow up their homes slightly less.

--Quote from an internally circulated employee email at Mystery Play LLC, presumably not for public consumption.

I settled into the back room of the office- when they’d rearranged things to retcon Friday into existence they’d added a divider to split the space in two, with the back being my office and the front desk being for Lorraine as Friday. I doubted Criss got enough work to really afford a secretary, but since Friday worked the job to convince her boss to go back to the stage and give up as a PI, she probably didn’t take that much of a salary.

But to be honest, we cater just enough to the prejudices of our customers that they generally don’t go poking too deeply at the setting structure. I pressed the intercom button. “Ms. Summerfield, any appointments for today?”

“Calendar’s clear, boss.”

“If we get any walk-ins, send them on through.”

“Will do.” The ‘will do’ had an unspoken “Unless it’s the actual killer, then I will take them apart” rider attached.

I had a corkboard in the office, so I started assembling a map of connections, starting with a picture of the deceased, Hugo Delacourt. What did I know about him?

Financial wizard- specialized in using mathematical magic to make dosh. He was connected to Lukas Martel and Spider Bonaparte, who in turn were possibly connected to each other, assuming Lukas was Bonaparte’s client for the snakes. But maybe I was just prejudiced against a man with all new skin.

I added Laura and Bastienne to the web and connected them by a line called “Finishing school friends”, then drew their connections to Spider and Hugo. I really needed to talk more to Simone as Bastienne, assuming she wasn’t just there to be muscle like I was. There hadn’t been any connections between my part and Laura’s in the original script, so I wondered what they’d workshopped about it.

I added another line for “So many fucking snakes” and tied it to both Spider and Martel, then attached “Gilgamesh?” to the snakes.

That pretty much covered what I had, I thought, at least until I could talk to more people.

“Sure would be nice if they’d have given Criss a backstory as a necromancer, instead. I could have talked to the corpse at the funeral.”

I made a note to see if I could get access to Hugo’s papers, and to do some digging into Lukas Martel’s background, and that’s when Lorraine intercommed. I flipped the corkboard around, just in case.

“Yeah?”

“Walk-in for you, boss.”

“Like I said, send them in.”

Simone D’Forneus- or rather, Bastienne Moran, stalked into the my office after a moment and slammed the door behind her.

“A secretary now? Moving up in the world.”

“She was off work the other day. What can I do for you, Ms. Moran?”

“You really should have taken that vacation we offered to send you on, Mr. Criss.” She didn’t make any immediate threatening moves, however, and just sat down in the chair across from my desk, crossing her legs.

“I thought about it, but what would I do with all that time off from people breaking my doors and trashing my furniture? It’d have a significant impact on the local office supply and repair businesses.”

She smirked. “Cute. So when I came and told you off before, I didn't realize you were working for Laura. I probably wouldn’t have phrased things like that at the time.”

I eyed her. “Would you have been more threatening or less?”

Simone paused. “I’m not actually sure, really. Probably less. Probably. She’s a good girl. Too good to be my friend, but she’s not willing to let go of one of her few friendships. Hugo...wasn’t good for her. He kept her in the same box her family kept her in, like he didn’t want to remove her from the packaging since she was still mint. I told her that when she married him, but she wasn’t about to disobey her family. But now she’s a rich widow of independent means who’s still very naive. I worry about her. So I’m glad you’re working for her, even if you keep poking into my boss’s business.”

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“If your boss’s business involved Hugo Delacourt’s organs rotting from the inside, I’m afraid I kind of have to get involved.”

She made a face. “Ew. No. I mean, Why would we want that? Delacourt didn’t work for us, but he did good work..on our behalf, if you get me. It’d be like killing the goose that laid the golden eggs. Most of the boss’s money is legit now, off making more money for us.”

I shrugged. “That’s how he died, and I don’t know anybody else importing shit that has the power to do that. Ever hear of a thing called “The Man Ripe-making snake?” It’s on a bounty list some of your boys have been toting around, along with a number of other hits. Now I don’t expect you to give me the client’s name, but I expect you know who wants them.

Simone locked down, face going from smirk to ice-cold in less time that it took to say it. “One, you shouldn’t be digging into Spider’s business like that and shouldn’t dig anymore or I will have to do something unpleasant to you, which would upset Laura, and since that’d be your fault, I’d have to make it worse. Two: Let me see this list.”

“I was glad I’d made several copies. I handed her one. “Unfortunately for you, the guy that provided me the details on the Ripe-making snake- number 13 on the list, very auspicious by the way- has left town. But I’m pretty sure you’ve got your own sources for that sort of thing. Normally, just meeting its gaze causes you to rot to death, but my source figured that maybe someone injected its venom directly into his kidneys. Maybe passed it to him in some booze. It wouldn’t show up on a regular autopsy, of course.” I shrugged. “But that’d explain how he died, even if I only have a few suspects for the who and nothing on the why.”

Simone looked over the list. “I’d only heard of about half of these. Some of them we’ve already got and have delivered to the client. We don’t ask questions when someone’s asking for a exotic animals- it saves trouble later.” She eyed me over the top of the paper. “Maybe you’re smarter than you look. I’m going to make some internal inquiries. You do your job. Keep Laura safe. Or I’ll break every bone in your body.”

And with that cheery threat, she stood up and stalked out of the office, slamming both my door and a moment later, the outside one. I sighed, and pressed the intercom “Anyone else out there for me, Friday?”

“No sir! I see you still have your way with women.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I sat back in my chair. I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to escape Simone picking a fight with me, because Simone absolutely wanted to fight with me, but as long as she’s in character, she’d restrain herself- hopefully the boss has her under strict rules of engagement orders. When playing the heavy you get used to those, and really, it’s nice to have structure on how many bones of rich assholes you’re allowed to break before it isn’t covered by the liability waiver.

We’ve got a few regulars, I’m pretty sure, that are 99 percent here because they -want to be worked over by a big hulking ugly brute or a stacked six foot four blonde. I’ve tried to suggest to the boss that the medical waivers also include safe words, because it’s hard to judge when someone’s cracking wise as you punch them and provide exposition because they think it’s how to play their character or if they’re just really into what you’re doing to loosen their teeth, but no one in legal’s bitten on the idea yet.

I decided to head over to the Delacourt home again- best way to see if Moira was awake and fulfill Bastienne’s not-so-gently worded request to protect her. Hopefully no one had slipped any killer snakes into the place that were just wandering around loose. Plus, it might shake the assassin out into another attempt- he’d gone after me twice at the Delacourt home, he might expect me to show up there again and try something new.

Which, of course, why I should have expected the truck that T-boned into the car at the intersection where right before I turned off into private road where the rich folks lived.

Fortunately he hit the passenger side, so I wasn’t instantly squashed, and the car was both smart and.resilient, flinging me free to crash onto the side of the road as it spun end over end and landed back on its wheels, the dents already starting to buff themselves out and de-crumple.

I couldn’t see the guy’s face when I stood up and cracked my neck- he was still wearing the fucking motorcycle helmet even as he tried to shake off the impact. I really would have liked a picture, because what I could hear of his voice sounded like a raw, panicky scream. He slammed the accelerator, jumping the curb to try and run me over directly.

And that’s when Lorraine dropped out of seemingly nowhere to land on the hood of the truck and stare into the cab with her eyes glowing with their own light. He screamed again and vanished from the cab as she punched through the windshield.

He appeared again back on the street, and the car started honking its horn, engine roaring as it repaired itself when he showed up, spotlighted by its headlights. It hadn’t finished repairing itself, but judging by his reaction- another hoarse scream- it was probably fucking terrifying if you weren’t sure about that. He vanished again, just as Lorraine leapt from the hood to his position, shattering asphalt in her wake.

She yelled to the sky, “GODDAMNIT, FOLLOW THROUGH ON YOUR HITS SO I CAN KILL YOU AND EAT YOU.”

I lumbered after her and reached out. She whirled on me, eyes still glowing. “And you! Next time play dead long enough for him to try and get out and confirm it.”

I held up my hands defensively. “Okay, okay. I get it. Stall him harder when he tries to murder me so you can get him.”

She straightened, mollified, and the glow in her eyes dimmed. Elves, man. “As long as you understand.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose to try and fight off the impending headache- whether that headache was Lorraine or getting hit by a truck wasn’t entirely clear- and headed over to check on the car.

It had mostly recovered, the last tire was just re-inflating itself after the impact. I patted the hood. “Sorry. You did good, though. Just give me a honk when you’re up to moving, okay?”

The engine purred, which I took as a yes.

Lorraine having calmed down, she looked me over. “So are you okay? Nothing broken, or anything?” It seemed like I was a distant second to the possibility of eating the guy trying to kill me.

I shook my head. “Nah, I’m fine. I think that guy is getting more unhinged, though. I wonder what he’s going to try next?”

“Well, he’s tried explosives, shooting you, holy water, and hitting you with a truck, plus whatever the hell he did to ‘you’ the first time with that wand, maybe he’ll cycle back around to that again.”

“That might actually hurt, even.” A pause, and I lowered my voice and whispered, “We’re bringing this up in case he’s listening to try and get him to give it a go again with whatever the hell he used the first time, right?”

Lorraine nodded. “For now, since the car’s not damaged and you’re…surprisingly sturdy, we’re just going to treat this one as not having happened. Go ahead and head on over for your next scene. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

I saluted. “I promise not to eat any vegetables while I’m there.” It was the only thing I could think of that Lorraine wouldn’t do.