THE EXPERT

THE EXPERT

By Andrew Paul Grell

“Alright, let’s get a whiff of the effector.” Virginia, 52 but perpetually looking 22, third of the inner circle of three, handed Dave, the Quality Control Officer of the operation, a Revereware stew pot containing something that looked like stew. David, sub-optimally treated in his youth for scoliosis, took in the kitchen as if he hadn’t been inside Virginia’s Sanctum Sanctorum many times before. Dave had gotten into the life as a lucky hunchback beggar in Rio when the locals realized he was a little too lucky. The almost-straight engineer still had trouble dealing with hot and heavy cookware, but everyone in the bunch had a crookedness of some kind.  He took a sniff and commenced criticizing.  

“I think you’ve got eye of frog and toe of newt. Honest mistake. But the real problem, looks like to me, is someone put in a bad batch of Liver of Blaspheming Jew.” Just to go through the motions, David checked the flame temperature of the antique Elmira stove. “Stove is a go. Let’s tackle the liver first.”

“I got the liver myself from Sammy’s Kosher Deli on Tremont. Sammy swears like a sailor,” Caleb, the procurator, defended his position.

“Cal, listen, did you ever hear Sammy say anything like ‘Moses never talked to God’ or ‘Jesus never resurrected’ or anything like that? Any actual blasphemy?”

“Well, no. Not exactly, Dave. But statistically, some percentage of the stuff Sammy shouts at the kitchen staff must be blasphemous.” Caleb’s eyes lowered and became involved in looking out of the kitchen, through the Moorish arches of the old Art Deco apartment and toward the front door in desperate hope that someone would come in and break up the psychic flagellation.

“Cal, you’re still basically an intern, a gopher. If you wanna be one of us, impress us. Look, try Izzie’s on Jerome Avenue. Izzie is involved in countering the Baptist Mission to the Jews, you know, those creepy people in the subway with the t-shirts asking people if they’re Jewish. He’s sure to have said something that’s blasphemous to somebody. And bring me back a couple of knishes, the round ones, not the square ones. Be gone!”   David made a complex finger pattern and Caleb found himself out of the kitchen with no recall of his taking a single step.

“Dave, how long is this going to take? You know I have business in Cornwall. And I also have to get to Irkutsk, we’re almost out of mushrooms. If we can’t get this fixed, I’ll have to go down and change at Raleigh Durham, then take a Lat to Nairobi. And then make my way to England.” Jenny, senior acolyte, contributed well above her nominal rank and her requirements were always prioritized. The entire coven needed her to have access to working Ley Lines. Most of the members had sub-optimum experiences in getting rare botanicals past customs after coming back from a mundane flight. The USDA beagles were rarely wrong.

“Depends. If there’s a Yankees game, the subway’ll be jammed. Otherwise 20 minutes or so.” It wound up taking only 15 minutes, and Cal did impress.

“I bought some from Commie Carl.”  Carl Horowitz was an Inwood fixture, constantly raving about religions being the most horrendous tool of social control ever. The Shackles of the Morons, he called them. Comrade Horowitz had been slowly drinking himself to death since Stalin died.

“Good thinking, Cal. Wait. Do you mean we’re using the actual liver from inside a blaspheming Jew?” Dave was seeking information; some of the lower ranks were reconsidering the organization they had joined.

“Five grams, Dave. Fortunately, I had the 4-credit cross-over course on Psychic Surgery. Carl won’t miss it, and it’ll probably improve his condition, at least for a little while.”

“Third time’s a charm, I guess. Let’s see if it kick-starts the effector.” The assembled members focused their eyes on the big iron tub. Jenny was inspired to walk round the pot, chanting “Double, Double, Toil and Trouble” all the way.

“LOOK OUT!!!!” Virginia leaped on a very tall young woman wearing a novice’s brassard on her left arm. They managed to rise and uncouple gracefully.

“It’s Phterota, isn’t it? You were on KP duty today?”

“Yes and Yes. I usually go by Terry. How did you manage to see it, whatever it was?”

“Lamb, look up.”

“By Dagda’s laughing dick, what happened?” The women were staring up at two pots, handles still on ceiling hooks, deformed and shredded.

“Sweetie, time for a little advice. Someone should have prepared you for a Coven Kitchen. First, don’t play games with your name. If it’s Phterota, it’s Phteroata. If it’s Terry, it’s Terry. You look at least smart enough to not have released your Thaumic name, am I right?”

“No. I mean yes, I guard my Name like Y Drach protecting the jewels of her grand-fledglings.”

“I see. Continue to do so, please. Kitchen rule one when there are wet-spells used for Ley lines. INSULATE THE POTS. You’ve got a copper pot right next to an iron pot. There’s a potential difference between them. When the effector burped for a second, it caused a virtual Ley line right in the kitchen and the plasma jumped from fire to frying pan.” The novice was smart enough to not say that Calliope was in charge of the pots.

“Thank you, Virginia, for the education. I shall not forget this lesson.”

Sometimes Kings and Queens can solve problems merely by being exemplars of the way things should be, inspiring the populace to follow the Royal opinions. That didn’t work well in a coven environment. Even the most junior of witches were experts at problem solving and each witch clung to an individual opinion of the way things should be. In the Thaumic Nation of Inwood, every year the tallest woman would be Queen and the fattest man would be King. The doorbell was rung in the Royal Cadence and the door was knocked with a Micky Hart rhythm. Everyone stopped what they were doing, entered the sunken living room, and rose to welcome their highnesses, Queen Delila and King Arphaxed.

“Magi of all types and ranks, gather together. The King and I bear sad news. Two Diviners and a Rain Dancer were sent to the relief of the parched fields of Nebraska. Nina, Elfaz, and Tony were the only things on the mission that rained down. We are not the only coven to experience Ley line issues. Twenty effectors were tested, all the ingredients were present and accounted for. The problem is not in the soup, it’s in the sky. And perhaps a greater problem is that the covens are so insular. No group wants to be seen as weak or ineffective. I picked up a suggestion of a hint of a rumor that there was a previous incident two months ago.  It was around the time the Ley system was being upgraded with the medium range Ley-Max 19 connectors.”

 Cal the intern picked that bit of information as a cue to continue making a good impression.

“Your Highnesses, I am Caleb, newest of members. Three days before the last new moon I met someone I knew from Broom Camp. He mentioned a fatal Ley line failure in Bucharest. I thought he was making it up, trying to look like he had better information chops than I had.

“Two failures of the world, perhaps a third. Perhaps more. Look at all of us. It’s edifying to see how people of power look when the power is itself in danger.” Jenny had one course in Political Science and achieved high marks at a Mock United Nations. She could be a regular Demosthenes.

“I can bring all the pee we want from Siberia, four ounces at a time on Aerroflot in transparent containers. I can Fed-ex more urine bowls, I can take Delta to Heathrow and a cab to Saveok Water to bathe your crystals. We can go back to being baristas and cab drivers, rent boys, systems analysts and left-handed glass blowers.  But all of us know the real reasons we need the Ley lines to operate.” She had them, they were moments away from chanting “Let us march against Philip.”

“Who will speak the truth of this? Who will say what it is we need to do?”

Phterota and Caleb rose as one and faced each other. Caleb pointed to the wooden captain’s chest in a cubby just below the ceiling. His new comrade-in-arms said what had to be said. “We need to open the treasury because we will need to pay to fix the Ley lines because we need the Ley lines because we are addicted to Thaumic power and we may at any time need to GET OUT OF TOWN when next someone decides there should be a witch hunter.” The two young members resumed breathing, held hands and sat back down. Delilah, the tallest, pushed the button to release the chest. Arphaxad emptied the contents and the inner circle began sorting the ducats, florins, dinars, lira, pounds, shilling, pence, and thalers. The king set aside their sole rock coin from Yap as being far too eldritch infused to part with

“We will have enough money to hire Shadrach for one hour and still have 14 thalers, 317 ducats, and 29 guineas remaining in the treasury,” reported Delilah. “We can do it.”

In Jennifer’s case, anxiety and paranoia were the parents of invention.

“The coins have collectible numismatic value far greater than their monetary worth. If you sold half of them for mundane money and purchased mundane gold with it, the kind that doesn’t turn into chocolate at the burial of the sun. If we sold half, we could have six hours of Shadrach and still have half our treasury.” Some of the higher-ranking members avoided mixing mundane with enchanted, but eventually the argument yielded to mathematics, a neutral Switzerland between the seen and the occult.

“I will go and make the exchange. My genes will keep me from being sniffed out by a witch-catcher while I’m alone in the open. The cave with the escalator to the IRT #1 train, downtown to Canal Street, where the wooden water pipes of the Dutch still generate diviner current.” Nephil, descendant of the Watchers, easily moved between realms, magesteria, planes, and spheres. Dave cautioned the volunteer to not charm whoever was on the other side of the transaction. What would happen to gold acquired that way was far worse than transubstantiating into candy. In under an hour, Nephil came back with a Speed-o swim bag filled with Krugerrands.

“Sorry for the delay, I always wanted to see if I could swim underwater while being underground. Let’s hope this works!” He joined Their Majesties and the other two members of the inner circle in placing the coins in the communication septacle using Shadrach’s call symbol. Clearly, Mr. Premium Tech Support didn’t have a problem with the Ley line transit system; either that or he prognosticated a need for his talents in a specific place at a particular time. Either way, the doorbell rang in a creepy Wizard of Oz leitmotif.

“Good None to you all, lesser magi. Shadrach is here, your issue will be solved for sure ere Vespers, or Compline at the latest. I cede you back a third of my fee, since I have already seen that what ails you now having ailed another. If you will begin collecting Red Gold, I will start the systems checks.”

“Red Gold, he wants,” Virginia whispered, as if it would keep any of the assembled from hearing her, “How come none of these spells call for fresh white germ?”

“Careful what you wish for, Virginia, you might be asked to harvest it,” the Queen quipped. "Twenty Zlotys says I know what he’ll want next.” The women of the group made their exeunt to the master bedroom. There was a complex protocol for the collection of Red Gold without any of the women receiving information about any other woman’s availability for a donation. As if there weren’t dozens of first-form spells to gain that knowledge. And sure enough, as soon as the women of power returned to the Salon, the first thing they heard was Shadrach saying how the work would be done collectively and sky-clad.

What does one call a Thaumic tech support person? Wizard and Guru had been culturally appropriated by a mundane magic, as if such a thing could truly exist. Shadrach cracked his knuckles and the wall behind the Winchester became a chalkboard covered by a giant flowchart.  

David was closest in temperament, talent, and mission tenacity to Shadrach. As doused as he was in the mundane due to his quality control duties, he still had a hard time digesting the issue sufficiently to spit it out to the rest of the group.

“Shad, are you telling us that there’s software involved in the Ley line system?”

“Well now, maybe there is, and maybe there isn’t.” Their potential savior’s voice had developed a lilt of questionable provenance. “Ley traffic has been so heavy, there had to become accommodations made. Right now, the lines are either parallels or a limited number of great circles. Our High Table, I’ve found out, approved a project for Leying great circle segments to relive the congestion. That caused a problem of potential vector intersects. The solution to that was a computerized alarm and override system. An Auto-spell app shuts down the effected Ley segments before there could be a physical intersection. That wouldn’t do at all, at all.” Shadrach, and probably most of the assembled as well, heard a mumbled “Guess it works about as well as autocorrect…” and he gave a glare that only a wizard could burn into a soul.

David actually raised his hand before asking his second question, and Shadrrach formally called on him.

“Shad, what good does this do if nobody knows that it’s there? Doesn’t that defeat the purpose?”

“That depends on what the purpose is. If the purpose is to move people around the world without being seen, then yes, that defeats the purpose. If the purpose is to keep it so that every flier thinks that the Ley lines are spell fueled and charm controlled, then no, it does not defeat the purpose. And just for the record, the details of the Max automatic collision avoidance system were published in the Autumnal Solstice Runic Journal, pages 693 through 702. Up and at ‘em, folks. We’re going for a walk in the woods.”

In groups of three, the Inwood Magi crossed Sherman Avenue, entered Ft. Tryon Park and began ascending to the Gazebo and the Cloister. A triad of older members began singing “Tits and Ass” from Chorus Line. Eventually, avoiding the magnificent flowerbeds and the runic graffiti on the boulders, the members managed a reasonable septacle between the two power points. Shadrach placed the wet work bowl in the center of the seven-pointed Conga line and rejoined his fellow magi.

“STOP RIGHT THERE!!! BEFORE YOU GO ANY FURTHER!!! DO YOU LOVE JESUS??? YOU CAN LOVE HIM FOREVER!!! REPENT OF YOUR WAYS!!! ACCEPT THE WORD OF GOD OR FACE THE CONSEQUENCES,” Phterota was screeching.   The Conga line was laughing hysterically until they saw Phterota’s hat. The buzz shifted from laughter to nervous whispers and then frightened shouts: She has the hat, Endor’s hat, the first witch’s hat, the Witch of Endor, the Necromancer. It was the one thing that could stop any mage.

“REPENT OF YOUR EVIL AND SINFUL WAYS!!!”

“Delilah! Think fast!” Shadrach took advantage of the witch hunter’s insane need to proselytize and tossed her an amphora of spell accelerant. The Queen’s reach matched her majestic height and her CYO softball years came into focus; she pitched the bottle square into Shadrach’s spell bowl. It shattered and released its contents into the Ley line cure, instantly lighting up the now-functioning lines. Everyone hopped on, leaving the poor, confused evangelist alone in the dark. The rally point was Broken Bow, Oklahoma. Everyone was hoping the little city would have a good Dominican place and a proper kosher deli. Even if not, they would be far away from whatever High Table cluster-fuck came about from the original Ley line circle jerk.