Chapter 6

  After a warm cup of tea and the biggest meal she felt she'd ever had in her life (two whole pizzas and an extra-large box of French fries), she felt she had enough strength to tell the story.

  She did apologise all the time about her mistakes and her missteps.

  Mirabelle listened carefully, never interrupting her once until she got to the end.

  “I see,” she said. “On one hand, I applaud your bravery. On the other, you realise your own mistake. You grew overconfident; while your curses were powerful enough to kill the cultists you never thought that they would have ways of defending themselves. Do you think you are the first powerful witch who has gone against them? Our local graveyard is full of women who thought they were God's gift to mankind and are now lying dead in an unmarked grave. These cultists know not only how to defend themselves, they also know how to seal our powers. There are magical binds that can seal our powers and leave us helpless.”

  “I am sorry,” she said.

  “Don't apologise; tell me how you can do better. I'm very interested that your curse caused a fire to start in the office, but as you correctly guessed, it also drew attention to you. Of course, you couldn't curse the machines. Our curses work on the energy body of the human, the aura that surrounds every living tissue. Machines have no aura and cannot be cursed or controlled. With artificial intelligence, the cultists have built robots that are smart enough to hunt us down, as you discovered.”

  “That said, machines can be controlled by magic, but you are not yet at that stage and will not be for many years, so I would avoid getting into a fight with robots of any kind.

  Anyway, we need to think of our next steps. The cultist would have moved the girls by now.”

  Yuki started crying. “It's all my fault, isn't it? I'm so stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.”

  “Now, dear remember what I said about self-pity? Instead of thinking about what you did wrong, think about what you can do better in the future. You don't have to panic yet. I'm sure we have time. There's a blood moon in a 2 days’ time, and I'm 100% sure the cultists will make the sacrifice that night. The Red Moon has special significance for black magic, and they will not hesitate to use it with the advantage which gives us some breathing time. That said, I'm all out of ideas.”

  The door to the storeroom opened and a man wearing shabby and torn clothes stepped out. Yuki realised he must have been the man who was bleeding. There was a small hole in the middle of his forehead.

  “Royce!” said Mirabelle. “Go back to rest.”

  “I have rested enough, Mirabelle, and I'm grateful, but my energy is back, and like you said, you're out of ideas and time. Let me help.”

  “Sorry, Royce, but clearly you're in no position to help. I'm sorry, but you can barely walk.”

  “I know I'm not I may not be able to help you directly, but I can get you some ideas on where to go next. Besides, I am done lying here. I would like to go back to my own place to rest.”

  “Ok,” said Mirabelle. “Let me get you a taxi, and we'll go together.”

  Yuki stared at the new man. He was handsome but in a strange, slightly crazy way. If he dyed his hair (which was currently mostly grey), he could pass for a younger, dashing man. He was tall, handsome, and while not overly muscled, had a sort of quiet strength. Yuki knew he could take care of himself in a dark alley. He caught her staring at him and she blushed to cover up her embarrassment.

  She asked, “Does it always hurt like that when you use your powers?”

  “Not really. Usually, it causes a few minutes of discomfort that might go into a few hours. I can usually sleep it off. This time, this shadow being I'm in contact with had to use my powers, my life force, to close the portal to hell. That's why it took a lot of me.”

  Yuki nodded. “You weren't born with magic. I cannot sense any magic on you.”

  “No, I wasn't,” said Royce. “I was forcefully-exposed to the invisible world when my mind was ripped apart by a parallel being trying to cross into our universe.”

  “You mean like a demon?”

  “While there are such things as demons, they're not like the Christian mythology. They don't want to end the world or anything. They just want to feed on us. Demons aren’t even the worse threat out there. There are beings and creatures in this universe that make demons look like little puppies. The reason we have survived so long is because they don't really care about us. Any more than you would care about an ant hill in your back garden.

  It was one of those strange beings that was trying to cross into a universe and almost killed me. He ripped me apart, and my shadow self was born. She lives in the shadow world, but she's nothing like me.”

  Before he could explain more, Lady Mirabelle returned. “The taxi will be here in 10 minutes,” she said.

  “I don't need a taxi, I can walk back. In fact, I do need the walk home to clear my mind. I want the two of you to take a taxi and explore this place where Yuki was attacked by the cult.”

  Mirabelle shook her head. “I talked to my friend in the police, they say the whole place has been emptied, it's like no one was there.”

  Royce said, “Yeah, but it's not so easy to just get up and vanish. There will be clues there. Trust me, Mirabelle. I haven't lasted as a private detective for so long by not knowing a few things. Normally, I would offer to go with you, but I am too tired. You take the taxi to that place, and once you're there, call me, and I'll tell you what to do next.”

  Mirabelle was conflicted but made up her mind. “Okay, let's do it that way. Won't the walk tire you?”

  “It might tire me, but that's fine. Lying on my back for three days has caused me a lot of body pain and muscle pain. I need to move to get that my blood flowing and my muscles working. So I'll deal with it, don't worry about it. This is not the first time I've had to deal with this. I've had worse. Don't worry about me, get there and call me as soon as you are there.”

  Yuki was surprised when she entered the warehouse. It had been thoroughly cleaned. All offices were empty. All the computers, big monitors, and telephones had been removed. She was surprised that they had done so fast and made a comment on this. Mirabelle replied, “Well, they must have had a hundred cultists here. They could have cleaned the whole place in one hour, especially if they knew that the place had been exposed.”

  Yuki saw the place where she had started the fire. The whole corner of the building was burnt and she was lucky the fire hadn't burned the whole place down. She wasn't sure how they had put the fire out because she didn't see any fire extinguisher foam or anything like that.

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  When she asked Mirabelle, she replied, “If it was a magical fire, it's possible it went out by itself. Uncontrolled magic is unpredictable—no one can know how it will react.”

  Mirabelle called Royce. “We are here, but there are no clues. The whole building has been ruthlessly emptied out.”

  “That's fine,” Royce replied. “They wouldn't be so silly as to leave any clues. No, think of the place they might have forgotten. Go out the back and check the garbage and recycling bins. I'm willing to bet they would have forgotten about those.”

  They went out back, but there were no bins. Mirabelle walked around till she found a security guard at another warehouse and charmed him. He told her that the bins should have been empty today, but because of a strike they've been left on the side of the road. Thanking him, they ran to that place where he had pointed out and found the bins as they had been told. They called Royce again.

  “Just due to blind luck we found that the bins hadn't been collected because of a strike. That's the reason the cult must have forgotten about them.”

  “You'll realise that a lot of detective work is just being lucky at the right place. Now here's the thing: Look through the recycling bin and take out any paper that you can find. Bring it to my office, we'll look at it here.”

  They collected all the papers they could, which fit into two large black bin bags. The taxi driver had been waiting for them. Yuki was sure Lady Mirabelle had charmed him and he would only charge them half price. She was beginning to regret having her powers. Surely Mirabelle's powers would be more useful.

  The drive to the office was very short. As they were about to enter Royce's building, Mirabelle leaned into Yuki. “Listen to me carefully,” she said. “Royce has a new assistant, but we are suspicious of her. Keep an eye on her and try to get her talking. See if you can find out any background about her.”

  “Ok,” said Yuki, “but wouldn't you be better at this seeing as you can charm people?”

  “No,” replied Mirabelle, “if she has any experience of magic, she'll realise I'm charming her and that will make her suspicious. No, we want to keep her in the dark. We don't want her to know that we are suspicious of her. That's why I'm asking you. You're just a child; she won't suspect you. Just have innocent conversation - what she did for school, where she went to university. Note what she says and more importantly what she doesn't say. Good Luck! Try your best!”

  As they went into Royce's room, Yuki saw the new assistant. She was drop-dead gorgeous - there was no other way to say it. Even without magic like Lady Mirabelle, she could charm any man or woman into doing what she wanted, Yuki was sure. She wore the most glamorous and form-fitting blue dress Yuki had ever seen. She thought only people on TV wore such dresses. The type you wore when going to big shows.

  The new assistant saw Yuki staring. “Hi, can I help you?”

  “You are beautiful,” said Yuki. “Are you a movie star?”

  The assistant burst out laughing. “Hardly. My name is Eve, I'm Royce's new assistant. You are?”

  Lady Mirabelle pushed past her. “Expected. To have a private meeting with Royce. Excuse me.” She went into Royce's room and locked the door. The assistant didn't seem offended.

  “Do you know Royce for long?” she asked Yuki.

  “I don't,” said Yuki. “I just saw him once. Lady Mirabelle, my boss, has known him long.”

  “Oh that's sweet” said Eve. “Are you here for business?”

  Yuki wasn't sure how much to say. “I don't know, my boss just said we have to go see him, so I came along with her.”

  The assistant nodded and went back to cleaning up some files. Yuki remembered what Mirabelle had asked her to do. “How long have you been working as Royce's assistant?” she asked.

  “Only less than a week. I'm fairly new here, I just joined. I wanted to be a private detective.”

  “Oh,” said Yuki, “did you go to like a private detective school?”

  Eve burst out laughing. “Sadly, there is no such thing, that's why I'm here. The only way to learn is by shadowing an experienced detective. I actually went to Oxford to study historical architecture, but I found the field very boring and have no interest in becoming an archaeologist; it's not really a woman's thing, you know.”

  Yuki shrugged; she had no idea about archaeology. “I barely finished school,” she said, “but I do love watching History Channel. I remember that big dig they did in Iraq where they found that new city.”

  Eve was very impressed, “Brilliant!” she said. “You might be surprised to know that I was a part of that.”

  “Really?” asked Yuki, a bit surprised.

  “Yes,” said Eve, “In fact I can show you a few pictures.”

  She opened up her laptop and took out a brand new, light-weight, sleek Mac laptop. She went to the page of the official page of the dig. In a few photos Yuki saw that Eve was a part of it. She looked a lot different. She wasn't wearing glamorous clothes for once. She was wearing plain and well-worn clothes of the sort that Yuki wore normally.

  Even wearing rough outdoor clothes, Eve looked still looked a lot prettier than her.

  “But then you must have been famous,” asked Yuki. “That dig was one of the biggest new discoveries in more than a hundred years, if I remember correctly.”

  “Yes,” said Eve, “the first new city discovered buried under the dessert, at least 3000 years old. It was famous, they even made a documentary out of it. For some reason, they cut me out of it. Maybe because I'm a woman. It pissed me so much I quit on the spot and came back.”

  “Wow,” said Yuki. “Still, it must have been fun discovering the new city. So, did you come straight back here to become a private detective?”

  “Yes, it was fun. The actual technical work was fun, but not getting credit for my work was not. Anyway, I didn't come straight back here. That was almost three years ago. I tried to work with my father, who's a high court judge, as his assistant, and later with my brother, who's a hedge fund manager.”

  “Hedge fund manager - those are the rich people who make a lot of money?”

  Eve smiled. “Yes. My family is quite well off, so I had a lot of career options. But I found law and investment boring, which is why I came here. I want to be a private detective.”

  “That is so cool. I wish I could be a private detective instead of just a shop assistant girl.”

  “But you are still young, aren't you? You plan to go to uni?”

  “Not really, no. I can't afford to. I didn't even finish school; the kids there bullied me, so I dropped out.”

  “The question is, do you want to go to university? If so, I can help you. You can finish school in the evening on your own at home. There's no reason to go to school for that. Once you pass your exams, you can start applying for colleges. If you want, I can show you how.”

  Yuki felt almost teary. Nobody showed her any interest, nobody looked at her, nobody had ever treated her like a human before. Eve noted her discomfort and came and hugged her. “Hey, it's okay. We've all been there. You know what? I'll help you out. Do you have email? Write your email on this pad of paper, and I'll send you details on how you can finish your schooling at home by attending free online classes. Once you've passed your A-levels, I'll show you how you can apply for universities. Okay?”

  Eve gave her email just as Lady Mirabelle and Royce came out. They were very animated.

  “This is outrageous,” said Mirabelle. “You say they are clearly a fake company. How did they get away with it for so long?”

  “As long as they maintained a facade of a real business and paid their taxes, the government wouldn't care, right? There was no reason to suspect them.”

  “What did you find?” asked Yuki.

  “Royce found the company is clear clearly fake,” said Mirabelle. “They seem to have put random numbers for all the companies they were representing. And the same numbers repeat multiple times in different companies which cannot be a coincidence. It is clear they were making all this fake data. But why bother? Like, why?”

  Royce shrugged. “Maybe they were worried about an income tax investigation or investigation by one of the other agencies. If they have fake records, they can pretend to be a real business. That's what I think they were doing. It looks like a lot of data, but one person could have created all this garbage in one afternoon, and after that, they can pretend to be a proper company for anyone who investigates.”

  “So we are back to where we started. We know nothing,” said Lady Mirabelle.

  Royce reached under a pile of papers and took out one paper. “Except for this-- looks like a receipt to a club. Unlike the other papers, this one seems genuine. I think it was thrown away by mistake. But I have never heard of this Club Masquerade.”

  The room went quiet, and Yuki was sure Mirabelle knew.

  “Oh, darling,” said Mirabelle, “of course you haven't. Masquerade isn't the type of place someone like you would be invited to. They hate normies - that is, normal humans. They even hate us witches and wizards and would kill us on sight.”

  She looked at the receipt. “100 pounds for two glasses of whiskey. Yep, seems like the place I'm thinking about.”

  “What type of club is it?” asked Royce. “You said they hate wizards and witches, so must be something supernatural related, right?”

  “Something like that,” said Lady Mirabelle looking at Eve with suspicion. “But I'll tell you later.”

  Eve went to the other room like she had something to do.

  “I'll tell you later,” whispered Lady Mirabelle. Then loudly she said, “Come on Yuki, let's play Club Masquerade a visit.”