The Exchanger of Wishes

Ian Dovecombe reached into the tepid waters of the mall’s fountain and scooped up another handful of coins. For ten years he’d been living like a beast, like half a man, but this haul would finally overturn his fortunes. He knew a guy, Warren, who could help him for a steep price. Not the coins – the wishes on them.

“Hey!” a mall security guard shouted, from down one of the wings. Most of the place was abandoned at eight PM and those few people who were still there dutifully ignored Ian and the guard, lowering their heads.

Ian didn’t spare him a second glance. There were way too many coins for him to grab all of them, so he squinted and tried to see them the way Aoede taught him to see a decade ago. He looked behind them, at the shadow they cast beyond the veil – and a number of them started glowing faintly.

These wishes were potent. They had attracted the universe’s attention and the cosmic pathways were conspiring to make them come true – or something like that. Even after a decade of this life Ian still had little idea how it all worked. Little idea or desire. If he had a time machine, he’d go back to before Aoede showed him what was beyond the veil, and gouge his own eyes out.

Then he spotted one particularly polished penny, glowing almost as bright as a lightbulb. A very strong wish indeed. Ian lunged for it and then launched himself from the fountain just as the guard was raising his stun gun.

“Hey!” the guard shouted again, nearly slipping on the wet mess Ian made on the floor. Another guard down another wing had spotted them too and ran towards them, but Ian’s business here was done. He bolted, veered around a bench, and then sprinted down a side path with the first guard following.

Ian made his way towards a derelict store that used to sell clothes. Most of the mall’s lights had already been turned down for night time, and the ones that were left cast ominous shadows from anything in their path. Anything save Ian himself. If the guards had been more attentive, they might have noticed their quarry didn’t have a shadow. Or rather he did, only it wasn’t on him anymore. Aoede had stolen it when she broke him.

When he glanced over his shoulder he saw the guard gaining. Since when did these guys care so much about their jobs?

Focus, he told himself. Keep your eyes on the prize. Soon he’d have his life back, and the wealth and fame he was due.

He turned a corner and saw the derelict shop. Doors and windows shuttered, closed to normal humans living normal lives. But Ian knew there were other paths in the world. He accelerated, ran right at the wall, and then into it.

And he was gone.

***

“You must unburden yourself of rules,” Aoede told him ten years ago. They sat at his hand-me-down table in his ramshackle kitchen, in the dive apartment he rented across the street from the even divier bar Jinx. The only good things about Jinx were the dirt cheap vodka and the fact they let his band play semi-regularly.

Well, and the girls he met. Like Aoede.

“Rules are meant to be broken, right?” he said. Although it was night, she insisted on closing the blinds and was now lighting the candles. With her finger. He wasn’t convinced about all the hocus-pocus junk she rambled on about, but the flame dancing at the tip of her matte magenta nail was mesmerizing all the same. One hell of an illusion.

She placed her hand on his. “No,” she said. “Never broken. But rules are meant to be bent.”

“Right, bent. I get it.”

Her subtle eye roll expressed both their convictions in his statement.

“Do you trust me?” she asked.

“Yeah, of course.” The last two weeks had been the best of his life. This chick – he never really thought about things like settling down or marriage or the L word, but Aoede made him feel something deep and irresistible in the darkest pits of his heart. He didn’t think she was the one, he knew it.

“Do you believe me when I say I can make you a star? Famous everywhere, beloved by everyone?”

“Yeah,” he said, with a coy smile and the barest hesitation. He wanted to believe her, but come on. That was quite a boast for a girl that hung around Jinx with the likes of him.

“There’s doubt in your voice.”

“No, I believe you!”

“You must place your trust in me.”

“I do.”

“Stardom is hard work, especially for a musician.”

“Tell me about it.” She didn’t respond and the silence dragged. “So, uh, what do you need me to do?”

“You need to cut away the parts that don’t serve your art.”

“Cut away? Uh…”

She placed a small velvet bag on the table and pulled out a wishbone. “Take it. With both hands.” He did, and she wrapped her hands around his. “Now, open your eyes, Ian. The way I taught you.” He nodded. “And put your faith in me.” Another nod. “And wish.” He swallowed, seeing a faint light arcing over the bone.

“And now, may the best man win.” She withdrew her hands. “Pull, Ian.”

Ian did. He snapped the bone in two, and Aoede tore him in half.

***

Ian made his way through the night of the city, keeping to the alleys and shadows. Ever since his own shadow was torn from him, he’d found that normal people were unsettled around him. He didn’t know all the rules of the world behind the veil, but he did know it was dangerous to introduce normal folk to it, so he figured the fewer chances he took the better.

There were, admittedly, some advantages for being unburdened of his shadow. It left him inexplicably lighter, and was what allowed him to pass through the odd wall or other solid object, and that made navigating the city all the easier.

He travelled down side streets ever heading to the docks, which was where Warren had set up shop. A mutual acquaintance – a self-described “failed witch” perpetually down on her luck and indebted to unmentionable entities – had put him in contact with Warren in exchange for a favour. Said he was a reliable “exchanger of wishes.”

Ian trusted him about as much as anything else from beyond the veil – which was not at all – but Warren seemed willing and able to help him get his shadow and his life back. For an exorbitant fee.

Warren’s office was the back of a dingy white van parked on cinderblocks right by an ancient warehouse. To casual onlookers he took the seeming of a jolly rotund man with a big mustache, selling counterfeit shirts and watches and whatever-your-heart-desires. Ian had learned to pierce the illusion though, and he saw Warren’s true nature.

A grotesquely tall creature hunched over severely, with gangly limbs and dozens of fingers per hand. In lieu of skin he had scales in an alternating pattern of dark and light greens – all glistening wet – and his face was three-fourths mouth, filled with thousands of needle teeth. And atop his head, a crown of horns.

When Warren spotted Ian approaching he muttered something to his goons and they ushered his normal customers away. Warren opened his hands in welcome, and smiled a tiger’s smile.

“Ian,” he said. “So nice to see you.” He sniffed the air with his flat bump of a nose. “You’ve been busy.”

“I have,” Ian said, careful not to get too close. After a decade of this life, he knew that even the friendliest of the hidden creatures were dangerous. And Warren wasn’t particularly friendly. He scooped some of his wish coins out of his pockets and held them out for inspection.

Warren sniffed again. “Mm, not bad, not bad, yes. A decent haul, some workable wishes here. But, still not quite enough for what you need. And, for what you owe–”

He gasped when Ian produced the bright penny.

“Ooh,” Warren cooed, his serpent eyes widening. When he reached out for the coin Ian pulled it back.

“Is this enough?”

“Mm,” Warren hedged. “I need a closer look. Let me hold it.”

“No. You can see it just fine.” All of these creatures trying to pull fast ones, all the damn time.

Warren grinned cruelly. “Well, maybe that’s so.”

“Is it enough? Or do I walk?”

“Wait, wait,” Warren said. “It’s strong. Is it strong enough? To undo the curse of a muse?”

Ian’s lip curled involuntarily. Aoede had seemed like just some bar fly, maybe with an unusual interest in the occult, but everyone he met from beyond the veil spoke of her with reverence and fear. And they were pretty insistent she was literally an ancient Greek muse, or something. Well, Ian couldn’t deny the fact she had made his shadow into the foremost rock star of the day. Fame and fortune that rightly belonged to him.

But hell, he knew he’d settle for just being a whole man again.

“You said you could do it.”

“And I can. You just must be aware that this kind of thing won’t go unnoticed. My craft might be seen as… unwholesome, by some. Aoede may take it… poorly.”

“Let me worry about that.”

Warren’s impossible grin widened. “Good. So long as we have an understanding.” He held out his palm with its foot-long fingers uncoiling. “Give me the wishes.”

Ian looked at the coins in his hands, at the bright penny. Tried to ignore the cold blooming in his gut. “What, um, exactly will you do with them?”

“The universe has decided to grant these wishes, and the wheels of fate are already in motion. I will simply nudge their path, in a way. And when the universe finishes its business, it will arrive at a slightly different destination. Our destination.”

Ian bit his lip. “And what will happen with the original wishes.”

“They’ll have been spent and left unrealized. To the wishers, it will appear as though nothing has happened, though they may feel a burst of hope and then a period of despair. No matter, your people are used to disappointment.” His fingers writhed. “Give them here.”

Ian swallowed. “And what are these wishes?”

“You try my patience, human.” Warren rolled his eyes. “Oh, very well. It’s the mundane rubbish a species with no imagination would wish for.” He pointed to a couple coins as he prattled off, “A wish for money. One for love. One to quit smoking. One–” his grin became all the viler “–for the famous Ian Dovecombe’s autograph.”

“And the bright one?”

Warren hesitated a moment. “What do you want me to say? Injured puppies, lonely kids, broken homes, leukemia – who cares? What’s the difference? Why dwell on their suffering? Isn’t it time you were happy, Ian?” His fingers roiled again. “Hand them over.”

Ian took a deep breath and made a decision.

***

Over the past decade he had met many people and things that were aware of the veil, from humans that practiced ancient and forbidden arts, to nameless and unfathomable monsters. Most of them were dangerous and saw him as prey, but he’d also found a few sympathetic to his cause, and he’d tried dozens of times to undo his curse.

But none of them panned out, and he ended up right where he began every time – square one.

There was the college fraternity that promised him the moon, only for him to realize they were just using him – and his ability to pass through walls – to steal for them.

There was a goblin noble that ran a number of upscale nightclubs in New York, but when some of his debts were called he decided to sell Ian to cover them.

There was a friendly coven in Rhode Island that wanted to help, but were too weak to do so. There was the other friendly coven in New Mexico who also were sympathetic and were powerful enough to help, but they were wiped out by an unfriendly coven in a turf war.

And the story repeated over and over. Several times he had even tried to dabble in magic himself, but he had little idea of where to start and nobody was willing to teach a cursed half-man like him.

The most promising lead he had found was a firm of lawyer-sorcerers, but the price their faceless patron exacted was too much for what Ian was willing to pay.

And then, finally, there was Warren.

One dream built upon the bones of countless others.

One more bridge Ian had burned.

***

Ian found himself back at the mall again, at midnight. No customers now, no security. No one between him and the fountain.

He approached the still waters and dug the coins out of his pockets with a sigh. And then he tossed them in again, one by one.

Tomorrow was another day, after all. Maybe he was at the bottom again, but that just meant there was nowhere to go but up.