Wizard for Hire
Chapter Twelve — Out of Time

“This way…” Felix grabbed a firm hold of my neck, like a lioness to her cub, and guided me fast towards Ms McCalls room. “Emergency exit.”

“POLICE! FREEZE!”

Ms McCall screamed as ear piercing scream and fell to the floor. Felix jumped over her bed and lifted his wand at the door. A large ornate dressing cabinet slid along the floor in front of the door.

“Open the window!” he cried.

I did as he said, fearing now that he wanted us to jump out. Heights were not my strong point. And heights with a concrete landing from a third story window, were defiantly not favourable conditions. The window took a good yank, but slid open, my stomach turned a flip at the sight of the drop.

Felix spelled the wardrobe and the bed against the door too. “That should hold them off for a minute. Mind you, I think Ms McCall might charge me extra for rent this month.”

Felix made a motion for me to go out the window first. “You’re not suggesting I climb out of this third story window?”

“You either climb out, or I throw you out.”

“What kind of a choice is that?”

He could clearly see I was unmovable on this, so forcibly grabbed me. The self preservation chemicals in my brain instinctively reacted and fought back. But he pinned me to the edge of the window until most of my body was hanging out. “Trust me!” he said.

“It’s really hard to trust you when you are pushing me out a windowwwwww!”

I screamed. The air rushed out of my lungs. Free falling through the air I saw the concrete patio beneath me and wondered how on earth I was to avoid being terribly mangled.

But I needn’t have worried. The next second, the nearest tree, swooped its entire trunk down towards me. I landed upon its sharp, prickly branches, a somewhat soft landing considering the alternative. The wizard kept his wand pointed at the tree as he leapt out the window too. Tree catching him, with far more dignity than I, and he was up and running in a flash.

Sprinting to the back of the unkempt garden we jumped over the fence. Felix turned at this point, and watched as the Police smashed through Ms McCall’s furniture and entered her room. Her screams of fright continued to fill the air, as we leapt cleanly over numerous garden fences, to a few neighbours amazement. Until, at last, we found ourselves on a main road.

“That was utterly ridiculous!” I said panting and feeling a stitch burn in my side. I couldn’t remember the last time I had one of those.

Felix gave a loud whistle. A black taxi that happened to be passing, indicated and pulled over. “Got any cash?” he said.

I hesitated. “Haven’t you?”

The cabby grinned at us as we got in. “What ya’ all out’ a bref’ for? Ya’ both panting like dogs.”

Felix pulled his notebook out of his pocket and flicked to Kriston’s notes. “Number 12 Fieldway Crescent, Islington.”

“No worries,” he flicked the meter on and set off. It was nice to have escaped. And just sit down for a bit after all that running. Felix still looked charged, he was not going to let anything get in the way of him finishing this job and getting paid. I had to admire his professionalism, if I wasn’t so shocked and worried about evading the police, AGAIN!

I wondered what my criminal record would look like now; perjury, evading police capture, accessory to the crime. Christ, they could throw the book at me, send me away for years!

Felix had his eyes closed, probably silently memorising the street names. “What’s up?” I said. “You thinking?”

“No, travel sickness. After all that potion.”

Felix insisted we get out a slight way from the house, jumping out and leaving me to pay the bill. The cabby drove off, we were in a pleasant, well maintained street, lined with trees and pretty townhouses. It was empty too, not a sign of life anywhere.

“Hang on, I’ve just realised!” I said. “You’ve got a pocket full of cash!”

Felix walked up the path to number 12, ignoring me, running a finger along the fence and iron gate. It was just at that moment, that we both realised, the front door was slightly ajar.

I mean, you know it’s never going to be good if a front door is slightly ajar. Especially in London, you fear the worst. However, maybe he was expecting our arrival and left the door open for us? I thought, optimistically.

Felix bit his lip, before marching ahead, pushing the door open and going into the house.

I stood in the hallway, Felix in the living room and felt that strange static tingle run down my spine again, coupled with that odd, otherworldly metallic taste in the air. I knew I knew, if that makes sense, what was around the corner, but my logical mind told me it couldn’t be so, more out of wishful thinking than anything.

Felix stood, cold and stiff as stone, peering down. I moved further into the room, against my better judgement.

The bile rose fast in my throat causing me to wretch. Swallowing it and taking a deep breath, I stood next to Felix who was just standing and looking at the body of Kriston, laying very dead in the middle of his living room. The cream carpet was stained brown. Red blood glistened in several patches of high density, which, if I was too deduce from that, would say this murder was relatively recent = the blood was still wet and had not dried or hardened.

Kriston’s face had terror blitzed across it. His eyes wide open, and frozen demonstrably at the point of death. But what was most disturbing, was the fact that he had a football sized hole blasted through the middle of his chest. The fibre ends of his shirt were burnt and singed around the hole. As if a ball of fire had gone clean through him.

Felix was frozen to the spot. I had no idea what he was doing. If he was in shock, doing something magical or just plain pissed off. Or maybe a combination of all those things. I found the breath to be rather short in my chest and had to turn away.

At this moment, the wizard shook himself from his gaze and appeared stoked and alert. He walked to the front door—for a second I imagined him sprinting away—he slammed it shut, then came back in and looked at me.

“What do I do?” he said, in a tight, constricted voice.

“Check his pulse?” I offered.

He gave me the disappointed look. “I think we can safely say he’s dead Norton.” He sighed. “You are kind of right. I am going to… touch him.”

“Okayyyy,” I said, slightly worried by this announcement. “What do mean touch him?”

Felix bent down next to Kriston’s body. “I’ve still got some potion going round my body, third eye still open, if I touch him I will perhaps see some of his last moments… just be ready in case anything bad happens.”

Before I could reply, asking him to expand on what he meant by anything bad, he lent down and touched Kriston’s hand.

At once, Felix’s head flew back like a rocket and he screamed at the ceiling. I stumbled back in shock as the whites of his eyes turned black and he sucked in air like a vacuum. Before returning to relative normal, closing his eyes and seeing, he read out what he saw.

“He was killed by magic,” said the wizard, fingers still perched atop Kriston’s limp hand. “A man was here earlier… I can’t see him, he’s shrouded himself in dark magic… clouding himself from the memories of the dead… AH! He came here for… the ring… and when Kriston told him he didn’t have it anymore, he killed him. Just as Kriston is falling back into death… I can see… the dog… it disappears! No… it teleports! Then the man, this horrible creep, screams… he knows now that it’s in the dog.”

Felix pulled his hand away and crawled back on the carpet, gasping for breath as the whites of his eyes returned.

“Oh christ,” he said. “I think I am starting to understand everything. It’s all connected.” Then he started muttering that the universe doesn’t make mistakes, that the universe isn’t so lazy as to conjure up a coincidence of this magnitude. His eyes darted about for a moment, in deep contemplation, darting through hundreds of thoughts.

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know but asked nevertheless. “What do you mean?”

He took a breath. “Kriston was killed the same way as the security guard; a hole through the chest. This Creep, the man who killed them both, was after Kriston’s ring. Can you remember what Karen told us?”

“That all this thief took from the robberies were rings.”

“Exactly! He’s been looking for one very specific ring, something that would perhaps magically teleport the wearer?” I raised an objection, but Felix was quick to continue. “I saw the dog teleport Norton, the ring is inside the dog. It didn’t do it willingly, but at the point of highest emotion, seeing his owner die.” He ruffled his hair and placed his cap back on. “That’s what this Creep is after. A Ring of Power.”

Felix stood, and looked again at the dead body. “But it also begs an another alarming question… how did Kriston get it?”

“We need to search for clues,” said Felix. “We need to find out what he was up to.”

“Felix,” I dug my heels in on this one. “You do realise that if we are caught here, with that,” I pointed at the dead body. “It will really not look great.”

“Help me search!” he cried. “There’s nothing to link us here, so we just get the money and leave.”

“Money?”

“I meant… clues, of course.”

Search for clues? The cheeky sod just wanted to find his money. I had a vested interest, you could say, I would quite like him to find that money too seeing as he owed me a fair whack.

“Perhaps it was the demon that killed Kriston?” I said as I rifled along his mantelpiece.

Felix snorted, obviously finding my lack of demon knowledge funny. “A demon can’t kill like that. A demon rips it’s enemy apart.”

Oh good, glad that’s cleared up then.

For the next ten minutes, Felix charged about the large, well-kept house getting angrier and angrier—for there was no wad or envelope of cash anywhere to be seen. It was a few minutes later, while both upstairs in the man’s study, which was a lovely room looking out onto a perfectly landscaped garden, that Felix’s mood turned from anger to fright.

His phone made an odd noise, like the sound of a radar blip. When he got it out and had a look, his face dropped. Turning it round to show me, the screen read:

YOUR LOCATION IS BEING USED

Shit!

13

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