In my dream, King Surmium and Queen Cypsela were sitting cross legged on the floor playing dominoes with me.
Surmium asked, “Are you positive this is your first time playing?”
Cypsela said, “I’m glad we agreed on low stakes. So it looks like the Frog, Snake, Rabbit and Cat all took the bait.”
Surmium said, “Was there any doubt? As soon as the cat figured out the refreshments would link them to your Fairyland, he was ready to smuggle them to his compatriots. So the first part of their plot is off to a good start. Till we can be sure--”
#
That’s when I woke up and looked over the side of the bed. Surmium was cheating and looking at my dominoes.
I cleared my throat.
Surmium smiled up at me. “I figured the game was over and I just wanted to see if your string of wins was luck or skill.”
I asked, “Queen Cypsela, I am surprised thou art letting him get away with this.”
Cypsela said, “Just call me Olive, no matter what the company is. I saw the surveillance tapes. You managed three notorious and well ranked wizards by yourself with not a clue left showing how you did it.”
Surmium said, “Well then if he can call thee, ‘Olive,’ can I?”
Olive shook her head. “It’s my real name and I don’t know thine.”
King Surmium said, “I have living relatives I would rather not end up used against me as hostages or for information. How about if I take a nickname?”
Olive said, “Fine, but since thou wert cheating, Josh gets to name thee.”
I said, “Well since it goes with ‘Olive,’ and it describes thy plotting nature, how about “Onion?”
Onion said, “Perfect. I rather like it. And since you were kind enough to give me an acceptable nickname, I will have to come up with a good reward. But for now, I too insist that we speak informally and with these names. My only chance that it will catch on is if you call me Onion in front of others.”
Olive said, “It suits you, so Onion it is. And since Josh brought us together in this, his code name will be, “Dirty Gibson Martini.”
Onion said, “Perfect. Josh, if someone uses that full name, you will know that they are part of our team. If they use Gibson, you will know that I gave them the password and if they use Martini you will know that Olive did.”
I said, “It seems like you live for this sort of complexity.”
Olive pointed to Onion and herself. “Fairy royalty. It’s expected of us.”
Onion said, “Quite.”
Olive got up and sat on the side of the bed. “Prof Austri was asking if I could manage thy gifting and training with sculpture and art. Do you know anyone suitable to teach Josh?”
Onion said, “I can think of several I would love to pull into my schemes, but we might be best off having him get training in Real. I think having him sculpt with clay would be ideal, but doesn’t Jack do wood carving?”
Olive said, “Functional only and we should try to encourage Josh’s artistic side.”
I asked, “Do all of you do music and art?”
Onion stood up. “We all do art. A lot of us do music.”
Onion turned away from us. “I was just summoned so excuse me for a moment. Yes, Surmium here?
“Oh really?
“Great, so they took the bait entirely?
“Brilliant work. You have earned a soft pretzel. Do you want mustard with it?
“Mustard it is then and lots of it.”
Onion turned back to us. “He hates mustard, so that clenches it. He is going for the mass and not picking food he loves. I have to respect an agent with ambition.
“Olive, they will be in your little Fairyland with the grove soon, so we need to decide on the group of wizards we want Josh to infiltrate.”
Olive said, “The one that decided to get into politics.”
Onion frowned. “We don’t want him swearing a binding oath.”
Olive laughed. “Of course not. So he will have to go in disguise. Josh, I need to go and set it up. You need to go down to the stables and get a shovel.” Olive disappeared.
Onion looked me up and down. “My guess is that you will be able to manage four forms. Get the shovel and a spare set of clothing and start walking to the woods. When you transform for the first time, drop your bag with the extra clothing and turn into yourself. That’s in case you transform and end up nude. You will probably be able to turn into sixteen versions of yourself. If you can, you should try and keep some young so turn into most of them and then avoid using the ones you don’t want to age. Your detail oriented so I suspect you can manage multiple inventories, but what transformation allows is inconsistent.”
#
In the stables I was looking at several shovels when Frog summoned me. “Joshua Bear, this is Frog. You have some grave digging to do so get a few shovels and summon me back.”
I answered, “I’m in a stable near the tool room. Let me grab a few.”
I didn’t know what to dig with. Digging wasn’t something I had done since I found cat poo in my sandbox years and years ago. After I held it up and asked what it was, my mother made sure the sandbox was gone the next day.
I picked up three shovels. “Stay clear, the shovels are steel, I’m holding them above my head so it should be safe to bring me through.”
#
The Frog looked up at me. “Let me kiss you so you can become the prince. Then sit at the table and read the wizard’s diary. Don’t just read it, learn it.”
#
The diary was dated but disjointed. It was more of a collection of diagrams and instructions for casting spells but there were notes with names and descriptions of people. He listed what name they called him by and other people they knew and how they knew them. He mentioned the spells they had used and descriptions of them. He had so many names for himself that I began to doubt his real name was in the diary. Most of the wizards called him, “Mr. Journo.”
I read through the diary. Mr. Journo had killed several people and detailed how to get to where he had buried their remains. The last entry said, “Tomorrow I kill Queen Cypsela and take her Fairyland.
#
I asked, “Who’s grave are we digging up?”
Frog said, “The Daemon Mr. Journo poisoned. The one he called Medon. He’s perfect. Mr. Journo complained that Medon didn’t talk much and he used brute force to win duels or concede them early and gift the winner with nearly useless languages. Since no one knows what happened to Medon, you can infiltrate his wizards guild without anyone suspecting.”
#
Gifted with transformation and a dozen obscure languages, I was sent through a gateway set on a pillar holding up the roof to the gazebo.
On the edge of a corn field that had been left to rot, I set down the shovels and my bag of clothing before turning into myself. I was naked. I put on clothing from the bag and picked up the shovels. I turned back into my original me and wondered if the other form was me as much as this form.
I walked along the edge of the field till it ended at a fence and then followed the fence line till I saw a car drive by. I found a place where the wires were loose and made my way through the fence. My shirt was ripped from being snagged on barbed wire so I was glad I had another shirt in another form.
Walking along the road, I was passed by several cars before a man in a truck pulled to a stop beside me.
His wife, or so I assumed asked, “Do you need a ride into town?” Her head gesture indicated that I would need to get in the back of the truck.
“Thank you, that is very kind.”
The town wasn’t large, but it had the cafe that Journo mentioned meeting with wizards at before going to the lodge. I wasn’t sure where the lodge was but I wanted to be able to get back here. I looked the place up on my GPS and the town was on the edge of a state park that was probably the state park he buried Medon in.
The cafe was a nice place to eat and rest before going to a small grocery and getting a few things to eat and drink later.
Since I had shovels in my other form with clothing on, I had to carry the groceries as I walked to the park. I had skipped over the spells Journo had detailed so I could get through the diary quickly, but now I was studying the gateway spell so I could return here when I needed to. In the notes to the gateway spell it said it would go away after it was closed or left alone so I didn’t have a magical way to get back here. I wasn’t sure if this was the park Journo mentioned. If it wasn’t I was probably going to have to summon someone to bring me home and then drive a car out here. Preferably a rental. I didn’t want to have to explain grave digging to anyone.
#
I found the rock mentioned in the diary and stood on it. The big tree was obvious. I was itching as I got close and saw some tattered cloth. From the looks of the area an animal dug up the body. I looked around and there was a human looking jaw bone with worn down teeth. Wonderful. It was probably Medon’s jawbone, but it could easily be someone else’s. As the sun started to set I took off my shirt and picked up the Jawbone before summoning Jack.
“Jack, are you on the estate? This is Joshua looking for a quick way home.”
#
Alone in my room I summoned Frog. “Frog, this is Joshua.”
Frog asked, “Did you get the bones?”
“I have a jawbone with worn down teeth. The body had been dug up by animals. I am not sure it’s his jawbone.”
Frong said, “If it’s his bone it will be tough. The sinew and flesh would rot, but those bones will be hard as a file and tough as an anvil.Test a tooth with a hammer.”
In the tool room I put the jawbone on a vise that had an anvil surface and took a heavy hammer out. I hit the jawbone hard and it bounced with the hammer. I realized that I should have worn the goggles that were hanging nearby, but the bone didn’t hit me. The bone and teeth were intact and showed only a metallic shine where the hammer hit it.
To be sure I locked it in the vise and got a large pair of pliers to try and break it. After a few tries and slips with pliers and wrenches, I gave up and decided that whoever had this jaw bone was tough enough for me.
In the bathroom I washed the bone and then touched it. Using it, I turned into a huge, naked, square jawed hero looking man with a deep, all-over tan and muscles. Long dark tightly waved hair and in my case, he had good teeth so I hadn’t turned into him with the years of damage but him at his prime. I changed back and wondered how I was going to get clothing for the fellow.
Frog summoned me. “Joshua, Frog calling, is it his bone?”
I answered. “Probably, Was he big handsome, muscled and did he have dark wavy hair?”
Frog said, “Summon the Fairy Queen mentioned in the book. It seemed that she and Medon knew each other.
I summoned Queen Cypsela. “Queen Cypsela, Joshua is in need of your advice.”
Olive answered, “What advice?”
“I have managed to turn into a Daemon named Medon. I think. Would you recognize him?”
“Let me see!”
“No, he’s naked and I don’t have clothing that will fit him.”
“Come to me and we can arrange clothing.”
“No chance. I’m naked in that form.”
“Then if your going to be a chicken and a spoil sport, wrap up in a sheet and come here.”
I went to my bed room grabbed a blanket and wrapped up in it, in muscle guy form before letting Olive bring me through the summons.
#
In a grove of trees lined up like fruit trees on a hillside several of the girls I had danced with had easels set up and they were painting. It was all gossamer paint and gossamer canvas, so it was just for fun and practice.
Olive said, “All right, lets see him.”
I turned into him. It was embarrassing as the girls looked me up and down despite the blanket.
Olive asked, “Anyone ever meet this fellow.”
One of the girls said, “No, and I am pretty sure I would remember if I did.”
Another girl came over and knelt near me looking at my feet. She touched my foot and then turned into the same man I had turned into. “Worth a form, girls, how do I look?”
The girls painting applauded. I dispelled the gossamer paint one of them had splattered me with while clapping and holding a brush.
I was even more uncomfortable standing next to a naked copy of the form I was in.
Olive shouted, “Clothing Fairies, thou dust not wish to miss this one.”
The sky darkened and then the darkness resolved to a cloud of small winged Fairies with measuring tapes and bronze pins. I cowered in fear, the onslaught of tiny creatures taking measurements was too much to tolerate.
#
I had returned to the Fairyland with the Gazebo where I had read the diary. I turned back into me and summoned Jack. “Jack, this is Joshua, can I get you to bring me back home?”
#
In my room there was a note on the bed. “Bedroom next to this one has the clothing for your new form. P.S. Your a big chicken.”
I dressed my new form in sixteen outfits. My new form had nicer clothing than I did. I put the groceries in one of my new forms and went down to the stables and put the shovels up. I have been known to go a day or so without eating when I got involved in programming but it seemed that changing into me in different forms made me hungry. No one ever mentioned that magic was inconvenient.
#
Jack and Randal were in the field near the lake talking as they cropped the grass.
Randal spotted me and galloped over. “Josh, we need you to research converting gold to cash. We need credit to make some purchases and we may end up needing a lot of it.”
I was itching terribly.
Jack joined us and asked, “When did you get into poison ivy?”
“I don’t know what it looks like. It might have been when I went through the woods or climbed through a barbed wire fence.”
Randal said, “Don’t scratch. Go wash up now and change clothing. Use lots of soap. You’ll just spread it by scratching.”
I stopped scratching. “Great. I’ll check my notes and look up the latest on gold, but I think I can manage this for you.”
#
I was in a form that wasn’t itching. I needed to get shoes and cloths for all the versions of me I could be. I needed to have food and something to drink on all of them. I looked through the notes on the business arrangements my lawyer partners had come up with and found one that looked perfect.
I called my friend Jason. “Jason, how’s it going?”
Jason said, “I’m well. As far as our business conglomerate goes, we almost have everything in order, but we need some cash to get the finance end of it all. We may need to borrow from you after you get your first lump sum from you soon to be ex employer.”
I said, “I can get a good influx of cash, but I need a mostly secretive business with a credit card and foreign connections that sound like it does research and mining.”
Jason said, “You’ll need to open a bank account for the company. A lot of banks will let you do it for nothing, but the one Greg likes needs a thousand dollars as and initial deposit or they won’t talk to you.”
#
I called Greg. “Hey Greg, it was good seeing you.”
Greg said, “You too. I wanted to talk with you so this was good timing. We are ready to pull the trigger and make the corporations we haven’t set up go live, but we need about ten thousand to really make it work. It will all be investments so you will get interest on it. Not that interest will keep up with the cost of living, but as time goes by you can get it all back.”
I asked, “How much to set up the international part? I want a mostly secretive business with a credit card and foreign connections that sound like it does research and mining.”
Greg said, “Once we get started, someone will need to travel and set up an account and corporation in another country. Preferably a tax haven but not a notorious tax haven. International law forces you to learn more than one set of legal rules so it can get interesting. You might want to learn some of it unless this sort of thing puts you to sleep.”
I asked, “Where do I get started? From programming I have had to learn about exchange rates and required bookkeeping but I don’t know where to begin.”
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
Greg answered, “One of the projects I have my students do is pick a tax haven and give me an example of the benefits, rules you have to follow and the legal arrangements. I can email you some of the better papers.”
#
After hiking down an overgrown road and changing forms several times to bring out folding aluminum ladders to climb fences, I was finally inside the abandoned cement plant. From all the graffiti on the walls, there had to be an easier way in than the one I used. I stopped and took notes on one of the bits of graffiti that was duplicated on most of the walls. It bore a resemblance to the ward the wizard used to wake me up. Since that ward kept the Fairy chickens away, this might be the reason none of the Fairies could visit this site. There were a lot of examples in spray paint and various colors so I could easily enough figure out the order the symbol’s marks were drawn in.
I went to a large building where the roof was long gone and only the cement walls, supports and cross structures remained. In the center of the area was the location were the wizard lodge met when they had duels.
Beside one of the magic circle things the wizards used to open their battle area for spell casting there was a spent paint marker. That gave me a sample of the product I needed to look up and order. I was copying the fifth version of the gateway symbol and trying to figure out how it worked, when it opened for me. I panicked and backed up so it closed again. After a few tries I managed to open it.
I put the jar with the alfalfa sprouts in it down and closed the gateway. The jar was still beside me.
I opened the gateway again and summoned King Surmium. "King Surmium, Josh here in the wizard’s Fairyland with no clue how to leave the jar in Fairy. For that matter, how do I speed time?”
Onion answered. “I thought the cat gifted you properly. Then again, what wizards know and what Fairies know can be quite different. Since your in the Fairyland bring me through.”
He looked up. “Kneel so I can gift you. I owe you something anyway.” He kissed my forehead several times. “Can you speed time now?”
I sped the time up.
Onion walked over to where a tuft of grass was growing and knelt by it. “This is from Real but it might have seen enough time in Fairy. You could also sleep here. That’s the more common way to connect since eating gossamer could kill you.
“You are in Real with Fairy overlaid. Switch your presence so you are in Fairy with Real overlain. Then, put down the jar and then switch back to Real. Close the gateway, wait five minutes and then come back for the sprouts.
“I’m going to take a nap here. I always wanted to link with one of the wizards battlegrounds. Every full moon, I’ll have free entertainment. I probably won’t be here when you get back. So take care and have fun. Oh, and over there. See the gateway? It would be interesting to see where it went.”
I put down the jar in Fairy returned to Real and closed the gateway. Since I had five minutes I went over to examine the gateway King Surmium had pointed out. I had five minutes so I spent them copying the small detailed painting. It was old so I wasn’t sure of the brush strokes but it was more of a magic circle than a symbol so it might not matter. Nothing opened but I had two other gateways to compare it to.
After five minutes I opened the gateway again and returned to the Fairyland. The sprouts had been moved. I picked up the jar and checked for mold. They looked fine so I ate some. Looking down I saw that the jar had been placed over a gateway. I started examining and taking notes on the gateway when I felt the connection to the Fairyland I was in. Feeling the change after the connection made me realize I had connections to quite a few Fairylands. King Surmium’s, Jack’s, The Fairyland with the gazebo where I had read the diary, Queen Cypsela’s and sixteen others that I didn’t know how I had gotten connections to.
The gazebo and Queen Cypsela’s was probably from the refreshments at the party. I spend three weeks in Jack’s Fairyland and as much time in King Surmium’s, but the rest was a mystery to me.
Looking through the notes I realized that the gateway pattern in Journo’s notebook was the same but had an error in it. Several errors. Some of the symbols were wrong. I looked at the other spells. Journo had used a code but it looked like he was consistent so it might be possible to figure the other spells out.
I examined the gateway here in the wizard’s battleground but nothing was drawn so I didn’t have a way to figure it out and I wasn’t feeling brave enough to try. I returned the speed of time to normal switched myself to the Real world and closed the gateway. I was walking to the first fence when Jack summoned me.
“Joshua, this is Jack. I’m in my Fairyland, can you join me?”
I let him bring me through the summons.
#
Jack pointed to the table where several gold coins were sitting. “Ducats and florins since they are some of the more pure old coins, we don’t want to waste too much on other metals as it lowers the value. We are going to need packaging, I don’t want to waste material on packaging. So for two hundred and fifty pounds of this, after all the expenses, you get half. But between us, Randal, Eloise and Renate, we have four thousand pounds we would like go get cash for and then order equipment with. What rate would you charge for converting gold for us and making orders?”
I said, “I need to take a trip to Ireland and I will need a passport and the longer out I book the trip the lower the price of the plane ticket. I was thinking next month. If I order the scientific equipment, I can deduct and depreciate it all, so over time I will get tax deductions on everything I buy you.
Jack asked, “Will ten percent do? We would like to do this in a hurry, so we will pay for first class.”
#
Olive gestured to a small fairy who was eating cupcakes. His face was a mess. Beside him was a little girl who was slowly licking the icing on top of a cupcake she was hugging.
Olive said, “I found a recently deceased lawyer who can gift you.”
The Fairy with the mess all over his face, stopped eating long enough to raise his hand and get out the words, “That would be me.”
Olive pointed to a lady who was painting. “We have been running an art contest among artistic Fairies who can gift and this was one of the winners.”
The lady paused painting and nodded to me.
Olive pointed to another lady who was making a sculpture of a dragon out of gossamer clay. “She won the sculpture contest and she is an expert in various gossamer forms so this would be ideal. And all you have to do for all of this is to convert nine thousand pounds of gold to euros for me. Hold back enough for taxes and the expenses and keep ten percent. Unless we want to deal with the Unseelie Courts that’s the best rate we will ever get.”
Onion said, “You can use this Fairyland and speed time. I have another three thousand five hundred pounds of gold to convert and a few friends of mine set up a pool. they would like to convert thirty thousand to euros. Of course the standard rates will be given. I have a few more gifts to give you before you leave for Ireland, but with art and law coming, I probably shouldn’t push things by having too much gifted at once.”
#
We called the cupcake eating lawyer Fairy, "The Maw." He managed to convert everything he ate to Fairy fee so Olive and Onion were happy to keep feeding him. In turn he gifted me with a lot more than just law. He helped me put together an altered version of what my lawyer friends were putting together. I needed something immediately and The Maw knew the tricks the really, really rich used.
After he gifted me with Galic, we started practicing it. I asked The Maw, “With all the horrible people you associated with, I am guessing you were bit tainted yourself. How did you manage to escape hell?”
He paused and swallowed. He gestured to the little girl beside him who had, after about six days, finally managed to eat most of the cupcake she was working on. “I was a horrible and greedy lawyer. My only redeeming act was when I saw her about to get hit by a car. It was a waste, we both died, but I would probably not be eating cupcakes in Fairy if I hadn’t done it.”
In English, he asked the girl, “That cupcake has to be dry and stale by now. Let’s get you a new one.”
She skooted away from him. “NO! I wan to finish it.”
I asked him in Gaelic, “So we agree that we should market the gold as artwork?”
He nodded. “Your good now, more than good, but the lovely sculptor over there has more feeling to her work and she would love to cast it in gold. This way they can use 24 carat gold, you can deduct the original gold as material costs and hide the source while only paying taxes on the added value. Then you donate most of that to the scientific research charity. In turn your charity donates the equipment and apart from your relatively small cut, you can move all the gold with minimal taxes.”
#
I woke up as the plane’s wheels were retracting and the captain started making announcements. After getting coffee at the airport and getting a taxi to the bank I was dealing with in Dublin, the forms I had to fill out were simple enough.
Out on the streets I went pub crawling. I ignored the busy ones and looked for pubs with empty upstairs areas or private nooks. I ordered Guinness and tried the pub food out. I had plastic containers in various forms, so this was all part of my expenses. I sat, took a portion to taste, and practiced the gateway spell Onion had taught me. He wanted gateways to pubs so I was happy to oblige him. It took me thirty minutes to set up a gateway and I got hungry afterwards so if I liked the food at the pub, I ordered another before I left.
After collecting a wild assortment of Irish stews, mashed potatoes, cabbage dishes, fish and chips, sausage, mussels, meat pies and more wonderful potato dishes than I had known existed, I made one last gateway in a park and returned to the airport. My next stop was Scotland where all of The Maw’s old contacts were. On the flight, I took out my laptop and started working on a program to manage my new business and financial arrangements. I wanted to be entirely legitimate. What I was doing was exactly what someone did when they were money laundering. I wasn’t taking money from dictators and mobsters, but legally, Fairies were in the same category so if I messed up I could end up in even more trouble than someone who laundered money for dictators, since I wouldn’t be able to tell my source.
My goal in Scotland was to obtain old companies that had been around a while and moved money. I wanted companies that might have moved cash and arranged transfers in the past but were easy to purchase now. I needed layers to hide my transactions and this was just one of the layers I needed. The final step that I needed was a dead end with a questionable history but before that, I needed a few more legitimate layers.
#
I summoned Agnes again. “Agnes, this is Joshua Bear calling from Luxembourg. You can talk to me. If you want you can come to Luxembourg. We are just a short way from France, Germany and Denmark. I can gift you with Dutch, French, German and Luxembourgish.”
There was no answer but I could tell she was listening.
“You stopped showing up after the wizards attacked. I just want to know if you are okay. I have a job that will be easy for you, should be safe and will pay really well. If you come, I will give you advance pay and I am right around the corner from a chocolate shop that you will not even believe.”
Agnes said, “I’m alright. I just want to stay clear of wizards.”
I said, “I have a job where the only magical being you will have to deal with is me.”
Agnes asked, “What is the job?”
I said, “You are faster on your feet than I am. I want you to find the best places in Europe and text me. I’ll pay your expenses and all you have to do is let me summon you so I can come to you. Bonuses, lots of cash and you get to tour Europe.”
Agnes said, “I don’t have a cell phone.”
I answered, “I have an extra one right here.”
She asked, “How do I get home?”
I said, “The moment you get tired of Europe, I’ll summon you to the States. I can gift you with reading and writing as well.”
#
Olive sat across from me and watched as I programmed. She sighed so I knew she wanted to talk.
“Okay, Olive, I can take a break.”
“It’s not fair you putting all the gateways in Onion’s world.”
“As I recall Olive, you didn’t want one to your world.”
She said, “But this world is mine and you could put a few here.”
I asked, “What happens when a wizard finds the gateway?”
She smiled broadly. “Then I can spy on a wizard.”
I asked, “Where do you want a gateway to?”
“Italy and Greece.”
“I don’t have any down that far. We haven’t even hit Spain.”
“What are you programming?”
In Real, I just made it to Panama. I needed to catch up on sleep so I came here to speed time. Then I decided to do some programming before the banks open in Panama.”
Olive asked, “Why Panama? You have businesses in Delaware, Ireland, Scotland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.”
“I want my trail as hard to investigate as possible. I need a legitimate source where I could have gotten gold from and I am trying to nail down a contract with a company that had a contract with a mining company and Panama is where the fellow who owns the company fled to.”
“If he fled, is he the sort of fellow you want to do business with?”
“It’s complicated but yes.”
#
I checked in to the hotel, took my empty luggage to my room and carried my guitar out to the beach.
I played for an hour and went to the restaurant. In the restaurant I saw the man I was looking for. He turned and looked right at me. He could have been a relative to the Daemon I had as another form. He gestured for me to come and sit at the table with him. I considered that the Daemon form I had could reach out and crush my throat before I could do anything. I didn’t know anything about Daemons apart from the information I had from moving in the Daemon body. They were tough, fast and strong.
I went and sat down with him.
He smiled. “You were looking for me and then you were scared of me. You aren’t planning to kill me so are you going to tell someone where I am?”
I shook my head. “I want control of a company you used to own.”
He shook his head. “It’s worthless now. If I try to recover anything from it, well, I tried. Since you were looking for me, you probably know. Tell me the truth, how did you find me?”
I shrugged. “I don’t reveal sources. Let me just say a Fairy told me.”
He gave me a long serious look. “Say that again.”
“I would rather not.”
Then answer this question. "Have you ever seen a Fairy?”
I stayed quiet.
“Well then you know a lot more that you look like you should know. Why do you want my company?”
“I need a dead end. Your company handled a lot of things. Gold is one of them. All I need is a receipt from your company to another company.”
He said, “Your in luck. Since you found me, I need to disappear again. To disappear I need money.”
I asked, “Clean money? If you just want gold, I can provide that a bit more easily.”
“Are you part Daemon? How much money?”
“Gold just dropped a bit. I expect it to climb again soon. I can be more generous and faster if you just want gold.”
“How much gold can you give me?”
“I have five pounds of gold here in Panama. Worth over a hundred thousand right now. For a company worth nothing, that’s a lot of money.”
He said, “Let me tell you a story, I trusted a human. He took everything and then, when I went after him the Deaths in three countries warned me I just had to take the hit. Now I have to be careful. I can’t go after a human that swindles me so I can’t trust a human.
“Now let me give you another bit of advice. Since I have to disappear, the owner of the company disappears forever. You don’t want the company and it would take a bit to transfer it. I can write you post dated blank receipts. It costs me nothing and since I need to disappear, I need to seriously disappear. I’ll never show up to argue the validity of the receipts. This way you have receipts. You can say you got them from me and be telling the truth. So your next let’s say, ten transactions are taken care of as well. I don’t care how big you make them. But I need some cash to go with the gold. Give me the gold up front so I can trust you.”
#
I led him out to the beach where I had sat playing the guitar to hide where I had dug sand. I kicked the sand aside and revealed the small bag with fake ducats made of real gold. He picked up the bag and smiled at me. “How much cash can you provide? Each thousand gives you a receipt.”
I said, “I can pull maybe two thousand. I have four thousand in euro’s I can spare you.”
As I watched him, I figured out how he was reading me. He could read my emotions like they were written on me. When I played poker I learned the one way to make sure I didn’t have a tell. I learned to control my emotions. I had key memories that I had practiced using to go to the emotion I wanted to go to. It wasn’t perfect. In a mirror and when I recorded myself with my cell phone, I still had flaws, but it was better than nothing and a lot better than the straight face most poker players tried to use.
I started stabilizing my tell. I started thinking about the programming I still needed to do. We went to his room and he took out a suitcase with several seals, and made me six receipts. Watching his tells, I got nervous. I didn’t think he planned for me to escape despite his saying he couldn’t go after a human. He made receipts out to the three companies that I had obtained that were old enough to have done business with his.
As we approached the teller machine I thought about girls so my fear would drown the rest of my emotions.
He watched and tried to see the number on my pin as I covered the view with my body. I had everything ready to escape when I turned and handed him his money.
He smiled. “Sorry. Watching you panic was just too fun. No really, I don’t dare kill a mortal and I wouldn’t anyway since you have dealt with me fairly.”
I smiled. “Then we can remain friends.” I activated the gateway I had put at the ATM so I only appeared to be in the real world and waved to him before shutting the gateway and disappearing. I had set it up thinking a crook with a gun might choose to loot me and I had no idea how far I could trust the man. Since he turned out to be a Daemon, I was almost more scared than I would have been if I was faced with a gun. Maybe I was more scared. I sped time and got rid of the gateway.
#
Onion said, “Before you go find these wizards, let me watch a few of their duels. Then we can decide if your ready to take them on. Don’t worry, I have distractions planned for the Frog, Cat and Snake so they won’t be pressuring you.”
“It isn’t the pressure, Onion. We made an arrangement and I want to try and make good on it. Harvey is always impatient, but Snake and Frog are both playing their own long game. What I am wondering about is, “Which one of them is your informant?’”
Onion said, “I knew you would grow into this. When I found out you were feared at the poker table I figured there was more to you than just your brilliance at statistics and programming. Statistics and the skills of a programmer certainly help with playing poker, but there is the human part that you never showed any sign of.”
I said, “Thanks, I think.”
“Your welcome, Josh. I’m just taking care of my main hero here. So you met a Daemon?”
I nodded. “Yes, I need to know more about them. Also, what is a Death?”
“Deaths are the ones that keep us Fairies from getting active in Real. Deaths are one of the reasons why we need someone like you to broker our gold. Don’t face down a death. Flee, but expect them to be able to show up no matter where you flee to. When a Death shows up, remember, it’s every Fairy for himself. Don’t be a hero and don’t stand up to them. Just run. Imagine an angry and dirty cop and then multiply it by a thousand. Then give him the powers of Hell. That is a Death.
“Daemons, well they are the remnants of what folk used to call gods back when pantheism was still big. Tough, strong, charismatic and able to read your emotions and more. Some do magic. The old ones mostly do. A Fairy king like me could take one, and so could a good wizard if he was ready to. A good wizard could take most Fairy kings unless the Fairy king was also a Duke or clever.
“Olive has taken a couple of them down, but she is outright brilliant. You never know what surprise she has coming up next.
“Oh, and thanks for taking care of Agnes. She won’t answer my summons, but you came up with a great plan. I realize you don’t have any real reason to take care of her, so I count it as a personal favor you did me and not a small one.”
“Your welcome, Onion, but she is kind of like Harvey, my cat. Hard to like, but you have to take care of them. Besides, she is helping me set up all the gateways you wanted.”
#
Harvey whipped his tail. “Snake and Frog are getting nervous. I don’t thing they are as committed to this as I thought. They got a few extra Fairylands they can go to and now they seem complacent. You’ve gone back to programming all day and combing the horses. Did you even find the place the wizards battle?”
Harvey made like he was about to bite me. “Scratch on my arm but next to my throat. Can’t you even learn the order of these things?”
I scratched his breast where is arm joint started. “I need to at least find out where the lodge is before I join the wizards and the diary didn’t give a clue on that.”
Harvey batted my hand. “Enough scratching. Go comb the horses. I need to think.”
#
It was a nice day outside and the Fairies cleaning out the stables were singing show tunes.
I got the bag of grooming gear and took it outside.
Randal came out so I started with him. As I expected, the other three horses came out and Renate was carrying her bag of grooming gear since she didn’t like sharing hygienic equipment with the other horses.
Grooming one horse is good exercise. Grooming four horses while they talk is a serious exercise. Jack only seemed to need grooming once a week but since Renate insisted on having her mane combed out at least once a day when I was available, the entire gang had decided to take advantage of the opportunity.
While I was combing Renate’s mane, Professor Austri came out of the stables and shouted, “I was looking at the equipment at the auction sites you sent us and changed my mind. We want you to go to several of them and have a list of what we want and how much we are willing to pay.”
Eloise lifted her head high and shook it. “Why the sudden change?”
Professor Austri had gotten closer so he didn’t have to yell. He did anyway. “A lot of our research may have been done for us already. Where we can, we may find a lot looking through the points of data that were ignored as outliers. If we can duplicate their equipment, we may be able to reproduce their outliers. If we can eliminate flaws in the equipment and maintain proper test form, we might find outliers that provide meaning.”
Randal said, “Okay, I approve. Anyone else?”
The rest of the horses said, “Aye.”
Professor Austri said, “Good. Josh, you need to leave in the next thirty minutes if you are going to be there in time for the first auction. It starts at one.”
#
When Renate turned into a vehicle it was not what I expected. I had heard she was a truck but a four wheel drive military looking flatbed was not what I expected. She was flamboyant and bouncy as a horse so I figured she would be more stylish than the ultra functional vehicle she was.
At the university auction there were quite a few students among the older buyers. I had time to look at the items Prof Austri wanted me to bid on. As far as I could tell they were all in good enough shape. The items I was buying were down on the list so I could have come an hour later.
After most of the crowd had left, I bid on a lot of twenty bicycles. My brother had taken mine while I was in the coma. I was going to have to buy a set of tools to take care of it, since he took that too, but the lot of bicycles had a few mountain bikes in with the racing bikes so I thought it would be worthwhile. Three people came and asked if they could buy a single bike from me. One of them wanted one of the two I wanted to keep most so I ended up selling two bikes and getting eighteen for less than the cost of a new tire.
I had to go to a bathroom and turn into Daemon form to load some of the equipment onto Renate’s truck bed, but no one asked the questions I expected them to as I did.
#
When we got back to the barn and I got everything unloaded. Professor Austri was looking at the bicycles. “You bought those with our money?”
I shook my head. “No I am paying for the bicycles personally.”
He was working his jaw. I asked, “Are you okay?”
He continued working his jaw before saying, “I’m going with you next time you go to auction.”
He walked off like he was angry at me.
#
I was waiting outside for a couple of trucks coming in with scientific equipment and working on the bicycles. Professor Austri came out and watched. I looked at him and he grunted and went back to the stables.
When the trucks arrived I abandoned the bicycles so I could open the doors to the barns loading dock. When I looked over at the bicycles, Professor Austri was crouched by one, holding the back up and turning the crank. The bicycle had a smaller frame than I would ever use so I considered giving it to him. I didn’t particularly like him but didn’t need the bicycle.
Two days before the full moon, while I was grooming the horses, Randal asked me. “How much did you pay for the bicycles?”
I said, “A hundred and ten. At a hundred the competition dropped off. I sold two of the bikes for fifty each, so they only cost me ten.”
Jack said, “The Dwarf keeps muttering about the bicycles and how you wouldn’t have gone to the auction if he hadn’t said to and how unfair it was that you are keeping them.”
“Does he ride?”
Renate shook her mane. “Probably, but I think he wants some for his collection. He keeps complaining that you don’t know anything about torque and how humans never get torque right.”
#
Jason emailed me. “We are all looking forward to seeing you. Greg will be coming later, he has a class to teach, but the rest of us will be arriving before noon. The attached documents are the final version of our main instrument. I know law wasn’t what you studied, but you manage it pretty well, so read through it and make notes on what’s unclear. There is a lot of legal trickery built into this sort of thing, so it isn’t as innocent as it looks.”
Because I needed to move quickly, I had already used my gifting as a lawyer and worked out my version with The Maw. The difference between their methods was subtle but important. What Jason, Lawrence, Jenn, Davis and Greg had put together was what honest people made when they wanted to use the methods and loopholes created by crooks. What the Maw and I had put together was what the pathologically selfish used to protect themselves from laws while appearing to be honest people.
I wasn’t sure what that made me. My own bias was to try and do no harm. When working, I had on several occasions been pressured to make alterations and additions to my software that would allow for behavior that could damage people but I have always had other requests for software that I managed to prioritize higher. I am sure that my software has helped some people who were not living by my standards, but then, when I went into the coma, I didn’t go to heaven so my standards might not be the highest a man can aspire to.