8)

Cassy- In Khalid’s office watching a magi at work

Seven different colored sigils sprang up in the air and then dropped back down. Empty.

"Well, that sucked." Noted my boss, some disappointment was clear in her voice. She even stomped her foot.

This was a mild reaction compared to the first two tries and failures.

The sparkly ill cat phone was produced and a number was punched in. From memory.

“Hi party marty, you done did it again. Your spell is such a mess I can’t get a lock on you.”

A murmuring voice came from the phone.

“Oh hell no, I could totally overpower one of your spells. If that was all there was to it, and if, you know, I really wanted to. It’s the tangled up mess you made of it, not a matter of personal power and that’s how everyone is going to hear the story when I tell it.” She looked around to get me and Johanson’s obligatory nods and rolled her eyes at Kinkade’s frown.

She tapped the speakerphone option on.

“Whatever aunt Nat, just get me out of here.”

“How exactly? You're right in the middle of the shifting lands and the portal you left behind goes to a different copy of the store all the way down in Hell. Fittingly with the guy who shot you trapped with a breath stealer, a flesh eater, and a short tempered orc woman with a big ass sword.’

She smiled in a... anticipatory way. "I couldn't have set it up better if I tried, which I will if he ever gets loose."

“Don’t be so hard on him, his eyes lit up with a spell flare when he pulled out the gun. Someone compelled him.”

Natalie had a what the hell? look on her face followed by one of outrage and baffled anger. "Who the hell would set a mind controlled killer after a store clerk?”

“Your concern warms my heart.” Deadpan from the phone.

Khalid cleared his throat. “His companies are beginning to step on some toes, especially the new one.”

She spun around. “Companies? As in more than one? Just how many does he have? I know about the staffing one. I even hired a cleaner for my apartment from it, but what all else are we talking about?"

I began to count off the ones I knew of. “He started with Martinet Staffing, branched off to Martinet Solutions when some of his customers wanted him to take care of various problems for them. And when some of those ended up needing muscle, he started Martinet Security."

Khalid added in. “He offered to invest in my grandson’s plan to open a Seeker supply shop, but they haven’t agreed on a name yet.”

Kinkade spoke out as well. “I don’t know how official it is but he has worked with some people to provide live music at parties and events and joked about it being the Martinet Talent Agency.”

My boss blinked a few times, then held up her phone. "Sounds like you've been busy Marty, anything else I should know about?"

“I keep finding opportunities, and as long as you are working for the Bureau I would rather you did not know what all of them are. But, if you ever need a new job..."

She snorted "Yeah like our Patriarch would ever let me walk away.”

"For now find a spot to hole up and I'll work on getting an expedition to go looking for you and try to shake loose enough of a bribe to get a healer willing to travel widdershins."

Kinkade cleared her throat.

My boss gave her a confused look, then brightened up. “Oh yeah, wild mage, you guys do healing.”

“Got the healing covered Martin, your girl is willing to leap into another layer of reality for you. Are you sure you two broke up? She paused for a moment to grin at Kinkade's look of annoyance and an exaggerated sigh from the phone. "Anyways, just remember to be careful out there, and keep my number this time.”

Martin- Off the phone in the shifting lands.

Right, rescue plans are being made but I am stuck here for at least the moment. So now would be a good time to get online and let everyone whose livelihoods depended on me know I would be out of circulation for... longer than I wanted to think about right now.

Really most of the day to day operations ran by themselves at this point. I had gotten good at picking the right people for the jobs, which included managers for a lot of my interests. Most of which didn't even have actual offices. Everything was either online, by phone, or at meet ups since Arcanes were used to thinking in terms of neutral grounds.

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I turned the sign for the store to closed and locked up before heading out the back door into the alley and then up the stairs in the back. Where two single serve packs of Shaker oats instant oatmeal, apple cinnamon flavored, were dumped into a bowl with about a cup of water. Then the microwave. And would constitute my breakfast.

A trip to the front of the tiny living room to open a window made it possible to hear anyone arriving at the door to the store. At least if they made sufficient noise.

While heading into my bedroom on the way to the walk in closet sized room in the back that I used for an office, I noticed the horned, red headed woman, dressed like a Hot topic customer poking around my room. Or at least the reflection of my room in the mirror mounted on the dresser.

Okay? “Er, excuse me.”

She looked around wildly, “Who’s talking” her voice sounded thin, kinda hollowed out.

“In the mirror, allow me to...”

Which is as far as I got before she threw a bolt of force into the mirror, shattering the glass into hundreds of pieces spraying out around me as I threw myself to the floor, instinctively protecting the oatmeal, and presumably destroying the mirror on her side as well

So I’m guessing she was in the copy of the store I had been told was down in hell. The horns were a bit of a giveaway.

Of course, since my mirror was hit from her side and mine ended up being shattered it meant... actually I did not have a clue what that meant and standing around feeling confused wasn't going to help anything.

Plus the glass was regrowing with a light twinkling sound while the glass that had been scattered across the room looked to be melting away so there was no need to worry about cleaning up.

So, I headed for the back room, had a seat, took a bite of apple cinnamony goodness, tapped my mouse, took another bite, and so on before I opened a video meeting with everyone online.

Which at this time of the morning consisted entirely of my Chief Communications Officer, Cyra Khalid.

Lots of people wished to talk to someone about the things they wished to get done and all straightened out, so it was a perfect job for a djinn.

The absurdly pretty green eyed woman who resemble a middle eastern human with intence yellow green eyes grin at me from out of my screen. "What is thy wish Dark lord. A little late for you to check in. Busy night?"

“Bad night, got shot, miscast a...”

Her eyes went wide and she started shouting. "What the hell! Are you serious? Why aren't you in a hospital? Are you okay? Who shot you?”

“In order. I’m not the one in hell. Yes I am. The spell I miscast send me and the store to the shifting lands and kinda healed me. Kind of. Some kid under a compulsion spell.”

She stared at me for a bit. "Let's decompact that a bit, start with are you all right?"

I gave her what amounted to a full report now that she was ready to listen.

“Well holy shit. Should I put together a team to head down and get you?”

“Not yet, we can let the Bureau have first try at their expense, and I could see Sally in Khalid’s office from my aunt’s phone so she can make the call when it’s time to take over.”

She slowly nodded "So you're going to trust the Bureau, let me say that again, the Bureau, to save you?" The sound of disbelief in her tone was very clear.

I grinned, “Not so much the Bureau as my Aunt, Plus as long as I stick tight to the store, the wards will keep me safe, I trust the person who put them up.”

They had been her graduation project.

She turned her head and blushed, praise always made her flustered. “Well, okay. But I’m still letting the boys know what is going on so they can be ready.”

I nodded. "Sounds good. So to make it official, I wish for you to brief the Rough men and ask them to prepare for a rescue mission to the shifting lands. They can forgo the normal rules on what they can carry, but they are to ensure that anyone or anything they encounter is hostile before opening fire.”

She nodded, “Granted”

I hesitated, building up and running my little empire had been the focus of my life for the last four years. “I wish for you to take over all operations for so long as I am out of the picture.”

She hesitated as well. while she had been on my case from day one about micromanaging, she also knew how hard this was for me to let someone else take control. "Granted, and don't worry, I'll take good care of your babies."

After some assurances she would still call me in an emergency and give me a report at the end of the day, basically more micromanaging, we signed off and I was left with... nothing... that is, nothing to do.

I considered the barely touched games on the computer or watching a movie, but I knew I wouldn't be able to focus on anything.

I did take the time to do the dishes, consisting of one bowl, one spoon, and the measuring cup. Before packing a bag with the few things I didn't want to leave behind for when I was eventually rescued. Then I ended up heading back to sit behind the counter in the Party-Mart. With the door unlocked, the sign turned to open, and passing the time deeply focused on slowly pulling at the mana reserve of the store. Straining my ability to hold it, increasing my reservoir a tiny bit more. Increasing the amount of magic I could use when I did have the chance to use it.

Same as every other day since my family dumped me in a year round boarding school at the age of seven.

Donovan – Taking a moment in front of the Party-mart

I was trying to not think about my situation when a shout and something like a gunshot sounded off above me followed by yelling from multiple monster girls.

I don't wanna know. Not my circus, not my crazy bitc...witches.

The plan was working out alright until I could hear Red screaming something about “asking the peon” which I assumed was me, and what the he... fuck is a peon? Then a window opened up from the fake sloped back shingled roof and gothy leaned out to yell down at me. “Do you know anything about this place being haunted?”

Ah, what? “No, I don't know anything about this place.”

Red bitched about "some help he is" as gothy ducked her head back in and protested "How would he know?"

I got up to get ready to run in case someone decided I deserved a sword in the face for some stupid female reason and the thought occurred to me to wonder why I decided to rob this store in the first place. I mean, I did need some cash and with a gun in hand knocking over a Stop and Rob seemed obvious. But why drive nearly two hours away to hit one.

And... where did the gun come from? Someone gave it... wait, when did that...?

"Object lesson! Get your ass up here!" Great, toothy this time, at least she wasn’t coming after me.

I had seen the steps out back when I had drove up in my old beater, which... Shit, goddamn, motherfucker, had been in the part of the parking lot that wasn’t there anymore.

Walking around to the back of the store showed the stairs, and for some reason, the dumpster, still present, along with Mean green waiting impatiently for me up top. "Hurry it up pincushion.”

I wanted to ask “or what?” but I could kinda already guess. I hadn’t given much thought as to what was up the stairs, maybe some storage, but it turned out to be an apartment with most of the stuff in it one half of it packed up in labeled boxes, some brand new furniture which looked like it might not be making the move and the other two... witches, waiting for me by a computer sitting in some bare brick room in the back.

Red pointed at the screen going through random photos. “Who is that?”

The pictures seemed to be selfies featuring a scrawny little guy with slightly wavy gray hair. Not all that old, but with the so called platinum blonde hair some people get. With maybe a little more muscle on him than I had guessed at first look, kinda a pretty boy. It took me a moment to recognize him as the same guy that had been working the counter.

I shrugged and decided to play dumb. I didn't owe them any answers. "I dunno?"

Red looked annoyed, even more so when gothy snorted over from where she was looking at some papers in a binder. “His name is Martin Thibedeau, a business major at Burgundy university. That's the same one you two went to last year isn't it Damia."

Red blinked a bit while she thought that over and looked at the photo on the screen, “Yeah, the Thibedeaus are some hot shot human magi family, one of the ones that run the place up top. I guess however this store ended up down here it’s still connected to another one on the other side of the mirror.

She leaned back in the rollie chair and tapped her fingers together, a smirk on her face “Having to fight someone for ownership of the place will make taking it all the more satisfactory.”

I jumped as Toothy spoke up from behind me. She was awfully sneaky for a big gal. "Oooh, do an evil laugh now.’

Red glared "Oh screw you!