Wizard for Hire Page 18

  “That you?” he asked, sounding almost friendly.

  Ozzy stood up. Ed didn’t know he lived at the cloaked house, and there was a chance he had no idea how connected Ozzy was to the place he had torn apart.

  “You okay?” Ed asked.

  “Yeah, sure,” Ozzy said, trying as hard as he could to sound casual. “Just getting some snacks. How’ve you been?”

  “Fine, fine. So, did Brian . . . I mean, ‘the wizard’ help you out?”

  “He did.”

  “I don’t think you mentioned that you lived out this way.”

  “Yep, just up the street.”

  “Huh. What street?”

  “Forest Drive,” Ozzy lied.

  “Forest Drive? Don’t know it. But the number of things I don’t know’s too long to talk about here. Well . . . have a nice day, kid.”

  Ozzy took his bags and exited the food mart as fast as he could.

  “What’s happening?” Clark asked from the pocket.

  “Hold on a sec.”

  Ozzy quickly climbed into the car. He pulled out of the parking lot and back onto the highway. Clark shimmied out of Ozzy’s pocket and hopped onto the dashboard.

  “What was that about?”

  Ozzy looked three times in the rearview mirror to make sure nobody was following them.

  “That was that Ed guy.”

  “I saw that.”

  “He was wearing one of my father’s old shirts.”

  “So—he did know your dad.”

  Ozzy was shaking.

  “No—he was the one who messed up our home. He was even riding a dirt bike. Which means he’s the one who smashed the tapes and stole my things.”

  “Why didn’t you punch him?”

  “Really? I can’t even call the police.”

  Clark was hopping mad. “I can’t believe this!”

  “What do we do?” Ozzy said angrily. “I know—we’ll tell Rin, he’ll know what we should do.”

  “I think I need some air,” the bird said. “Could you crack a window?”

  Ozzy felt for the button on his door and then rolled down the passenger side window about four inches.

  “Thanks,” Clark said. “Oh—and I’ll be right back.”

  “What?”

  “I’m the twerp of reason and it’s payback time.”

  Clark shot out the gap and into the great outdoors.

  “Clark!”

  There was nothing to do—the bird was gone.

  Ozzy kept driving. He had no idea where Clark had gone or what he meant. Rin needed to know about Ed, so Ozzy pressed on the gas and flew down the highway.

  Ed said goodbye to Mick and exited the Bell’s Ferry food mart. He hooked the plastic bags holding his Cokes onto the back of the dirt bike and threw his right leg up and over the seat. Ed was a bit unsettled. He was at the food mart at least once a day and he’d never run into Ozzy before. He wasn’t a smart man, but even he found it coincidental that two days after he had raided that hidden cabin in the forest, the very kid who had reminded him it was there showed up again.

  “Whatever,” he said.

  He pressed a button and the dirt bike noisily came to life.

  Something small and black passed between him and the sun creating a tiny, brief shadow. Ed looked up but nothing was there.

  Rin and Ozzy coming to visit him had been a nice surprise. Ed was always in need of money, and the memory of the small cabin and the thought that it might be abandoned had been too strong for him to ignore. So he’d taken his dirt bike into the forest to find the house. It had been a long time, but he’d made so many trips carrying boxes years ago that it wasn’t too hard to find again.

  Once he was sure no one was there, he went through the house box by box looking for any kind of valuables. He didn’t find a lot; some tools, picture frames, a couple of chairs, a cassette player, and a tablet. There was enough for him to have to make four trips back and forth to his house. He was hoping he could sell the haul to one of his less upstanding friends for a bit of cash.

  As he drove home from the food mart on his dirt bike he smiled at his good fortune.

  The smile didn’t last long.

  Something hit Ed in the back of the head, causing a good deal of pain and making his sunglasses fly off of his head.

  Ed swore.

  He slowed and stopped the bike on the side of the road and got off to see if he could find his glasses. He felt the back of his head. When he brought his fingers back to his face, there was blood on them.

  “What the . . . ?”

  Something slammed into the right side of his face. Ed spun around twice before regaining his footing. He crouched down a few inches, scanning the sky to see what it was. Walking slowly, his head on a swivel, he moved back up the road to where his sunglasses had flown off.

  He saw the shades lying on the side of the road in the grass. As he bent down to pick them up something whizzed past his left ear. He heard it whisper, “Ed.”

  He stood up quickly and saw something fly into the nearby trees.

  “Ed.”

  Twisting around, he kinked his neck—and still saw nothing.

  “What is happening?” he cried, frustrated.

  Cautiously, he walked back to the motorcycle and got on. He glanced around and started the bike back up.

  Three seconds down the road, something hit him from behind again. He considered stopping, but now he just wanted to get home and get indoors. Something slammed into and stung his lower back. It took everything he could do to keep the bike under control. Ed pushed on the gas and went faster.

  Clark dived in and smacked him on his back again.

  “Go away!” Ed yelled. “Whatever you are, leave me alone!”

  Clark didn’t like being called a whatever. He shot down, and with the point of his gold beak, pierced one of the big bottles of Coke hanging from the dirt bike. Cold soda blasted from the hole and shot up Ed’s back and into the air.

  The bird looped around and poked another hole in the second bottle. The spraying soda and numerous hits to the head were too much for Ed. He tried to slow down, but while braking, the front wheel wobbled. The whole machine went sideways and slid along the side of the road. Ed rolled off and slammed into a mound of old dirt.

  He scrambled up screaming and swearing.

  Then, looking like a man who had truly lost his mind, he waved his arms above his head and ran screaming away from his soda-squirting bike and into the trees.

  With the satisfying feeling of accomplishment that comes from a job well done, Clark dusted his talons in flight and headed home. He’d never been a fan of theft or vandalism and felt pleased that he had righted a few wrongs with one bird.

  Ozzy parked the car in the trees near the tracks and hopped out. He started jogging and after a few steps switched to an all-out sprint. Part of him was relieved that it had been Ed who had invaded the cloaked house. Ed was less powerful than the police, or the men in green, or almost anyone.

  Another part of Ozzy was livid.

  It hurt his heart to know that someone like Ed had the ability to affect his life in such a painful way. Those tapes were irreplaceable and now they were gone forever.

  Once he reached his home Ozzy ran through the front door.

  “Rin! I know . . .”

  The inside of the house looked amazing! The boxes were stacked in neat piles of different heights. It made the room look like a small mountain range. The couch had been moved to the middle of the room and two folding chairs from the basement were sitting next to it.

  “I’m in here!” Rin yelled from the office.

  The boxes in the office were stacked in a way that surrounded the desk and chair that Rin was sitting in.

  “How’d you do all this?” Ozzy said, blown away by wha
t he saw.

  “Sometimes when others aren’t around I cheat a bit.”

  “You used spells?”

  “Who’s to say?”

  “Well, you could.”

  “Yes, I used a couple of spells.”

  “Wow,” Ozzy said, looking at the boxes with new appreciation.

  “Magic is very satisfying. Now, what were you screaming, ‘I know’ about?”

  “I know who did this.”

  “Of course you do—I just told you it was me.”

  “No, not the stacking up, the tearing down.”

  “Who?”

  “That Ed guy we met two days ago.”

  Rin sat, silently moving his lips and stroking his beard.

  Ozzy told him everything that had happened during their stop at the food mart. The only part he left out was the near-accident he and Clark had almost had before they got there. Rin listened closely and at the end of the story closed his eyes and thought.

  “Are you okay?” Ozzy asked after what felt like five minutes.

  “Things are happening,” Rin whispered. “Strings have been pulled that can no longer be woven back into the pattern they once were. Where’s Clark?”

  As if he had been lurking just outside the office waiting for a reason to come in, Clark flew through the door and landed on the desk.

  “Where’d you go?” Ozzy asked.

  “I wanted to right a small part of a big wrong.”

  “It makes me nervous to hear you say things like that.”

  “I’m perfectly aware of that. Let’s just say . . . Ed might be hiding in a roadside ditch, crying.”

  “Is he?” Ozzy asked.

  “No, but he’s probably running and crying.”

  Rin closed his eyes again.

  “What’s he doing?” Clark asked.

  “I think he’s thinking.”

  Rin’s nose twitched and his top lip went in and out a couple of times while his eyes remained shut.

  “That makes me uncomfortable,” Clark whispered. “Maybe we should go out.”

  “No,” Rin said softly. “Stay just as you are.”

  The room was quiet. No running appliances, no fans, no TVs—just silence.

  Rin’s eyes flashed open. He stood up and reached into the front pocket of his off-white robe.

  “I found this,” he said, holding something orange. “I moved a bunch of boxes and found it behind that wall. A tree root outside buckled the wood and I could see a small black box inside the wall. When I pulled it out, I found this inside.”

  Rin handed the object to Ozzy.

  It was a solid-orange cassette tape with his father’s handwriting on each side. Side A said The Formula. Side B said The Problem.

  Ozzy stared at the tape. The thought of hearing his father say things that he hadn’t heard him say before was exhilarating and almost worth the damage that had been done to his home.

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “I guess your dad was the kind of person who liked to hide things in the wall. It’s lucky I was here to find it. Also, I found the deeds and maps to the land you own. Let’s just say . . . most of this forest belongs to your parents.”

  Ozzy just kept staring at the tape.

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “Sometimes reality is blindingly incomprehensible,” Rin said.

  “Ed took the tape player,” Ozzy said, looking at the tape closely. “I have no way to listen to this.”

  “Can’t you buy a new one?” Clark asked.

  “I guess.”

  “Not around here,” Rin informed them.

  Ozzy flipped the orange tape over in his hands, wondering how he was going to hear what his father had hidden.

  “Someone must have an old one,” Ozzy said.

  The wizard closed his eyes again. They flashed open two seconds later.

  “Someone does,” he said, resignation in his voice.

  “Who?” Ozzy asked.

  “My ex-wife.”

  Rin looked weak and had to sit back down. His breathing was labored and uncomfortable. Ozzy didn’t care—he wanted to hear the tape.

  “Will she let us borrow it?”

  “Probably,” Rin said, sounding a bit like a big baby. “But she’s already going to be mad at me for using her car.”

  Ozzy and Clark exchanged glances.

  “Did you tell him?” Clark whispered.

  “No,” Ozzy mouthed.

  “Tell me what?”

  “Um. About the car . . .” Ozzy said. “There may or may not be a few scratches on it. And some dents.”

  “How many’s a few?”

  “Is twenty considered a few?”

  “I think that’s a bunch,” Clark said.

  Rin stood up again. He looked at Ozzy and tried to smile.

  “The scratches and dents I can fix with magic,” he said. “Let’s just hope Patti’s in a good mood. In the past she wouldn’t even let me touch her old stereo. I guess a guy named Marco gave it to her when she was a freshman in high school and he was her boyfriend. Seems highly inappropriate to me.”

  “Him giving his girlfriend a gift is inappropriate?” Ozzy asked sincerely.

  “It was if it made every gift I gave her for the next twenty years look bad. Neck pillows aren’t cheap. Now . . . let’s go before I change my mind.”

  Rin stomped out of the room and out of the cabin.

  “This is going to be good,” Clark said.

  “I don’t care; I just want to hear the recording.”

  Ozzy slipped the cassette tape into his pocket and followed the wizard.

  Rin was not happy about the amount of scratches on his ex-wife’s car.

  “That’s going to take a lot of magic.”

  He was too overwhelmed to cast any spells, though, so he climbed into the driver’s seat while Ozzy took the passenger seat and Clark planted himself on the dashboard.

  “Where does your ex-wife live?” Ozzy asked.

  “Near the ocean in a house that overlooks the ocean near a pier that stretches out into the ocean.”

  “Do you not like the ocean?” Clark asked.

  “It’s fine.”

  Thinking about his ex-wife made Rin act more like a hurt child than a wizard.

  “How long were you married?”

  “Almost ten years, but if you ask her she’ll say just over nine. Isn’t that petty?”

  “Very pretty,” Clark said, having misheard Rin.

  “Can I be honest with you two?” Rin asked while driving.

  “I thought we promised each other days ago that we always would be.”

  “Right—but this is the kind of honest that evil would love to get its hands on.”

  “Go on,” Clark encouraged him.

  “Wizards have weaknesses. We’re not human, but we do have things that can harm us. For example, I know a wizard who cannot master his allergies. On more than one occasion, epic battles were almost lost with his endless sneezing and sniffling.”

  “Oh,” Clark said, disappointed. “This kind of truth.”

  “Yes. And a wizard’s weakness is often what his enemies attack. Well, I have a weakness.”

  “What is it?” Clark asked.

  “Patti, my ex-wife—I thought that was implied. Our marriage was happy, but it ended poorly. It was soon after that that I discovered Quarfelt. I spent years there becoming the wizard I am, only to discover that my one weakness was the very woman I once loved. She will stop at nothing to make sure I don’t succeed.”

  “But she lets you borrow her car.”

  “Well, borrow is a strong word.”

  “She doesn’t report you to the police,” Ozzy pointed out.

  “Not for this, at least. But she m
akes me human . . . and that is the one thing a true wizard must shake off.”

  A few miles later, they passed right through Otter Rock. Rin turned onto a beautiful road that twisted between the trees and took them in the direction of the ocean. Ozzy could see the water on the horizon. A mile more and they were at their destination.

  Patti’s house was old and impressive. It had two stories and a four-car garage. There was a fountain in front of the house that sprayed water up in various patterns.

  Rin parked the car on the circular driveway near the walkway to the front door. They all climbed out and began the impressively long walk to the front door.

  “When we get in there, let me do the talking,” he said.

  “Of course,” Ozzy replied. “I don’t need to say anything.”

  “I’d like to say a few things,” Clark chirped up.

  “Hide the bird,” Rin said. “There might be a time when I’ll need him for effect, but until then, keep him hidden.”

  Clark reluctantly flew into Ozzy’s pocket.

  Patti’s front door was massive and covered in ornately carved waves and fishes. Ozzy thought Rin would knock first, but instead he opened the door and walked right in. Ozzy followed and shut the door behind him. The home’s entry was bigger than the cloaked house but considerably less interesting. It looked like a hotel lobby—or the entrance to a showy mall.

  “Patti?” Rin yelled. “I’m here.”

  “This is a nice house,” Ozzy whispered.

  “It’s fine. We lived here when we were married.”

  “Didn’t you say you were a teacher? I read somewhere that teachers are underpaid.”

  “They are. Patti’s rich. Her father owned all the beachfront around here at one time. Patti!”

  Clark peeked his beak out to get a look at the surroundings.

  A woman emerged from a hallway to the north. Her skin was the color of brown ink and her dark hair was short and neatly cut. She was thin and wearing jeans and a white tank top. She looked as if she couldn’t decide whether to smile or frown about what she now found standing in her foyer.

  “Hello, Rin.”

  “Hello, Patti.”

  “Who’s this?”

  “It’s good to see you, too,” the wizard said.