Chapter 5

As ass reamings went, I'd grade this one only a C+, but then again I'd been called onto the carpet and screamed at by real professionals before back home. Numerous times. My old bosses at the Austin BMA could give these USA wankers some real management lessons in the art of attitude adjustment, but perhaps with me they'd just enjoyed a lot of prior practice. Back home I had the reputation of being a 'fuck-up' and was treated accordingly; here, I was sort of a visiting VIP, so the velvet gloves stayed on. It didn't hurt that we had more or less covered our ass on paper with our written report ... it. I might have been the smartest thing that we'd done so far.

Just so that it was quite crystal clear that we were on the bosses' shit-list, Probert made us sit and wait in his office for him for nearly an hour, just so we'd know that we weren't quite important enough for him to make a priority of his time for. We stayed quiet, as we were fairly sure there was a recorder active in the room, so we kept our remarks to each other vague; we remarked on the weather and discussed whether the Chicago History Museum or the Field Museum would be the most interesting to visit on Saturday tomorrow. The time was also useful for semi-overtly searching over the topmost contents of his desk, and I can read upside down with the best of them, no magic was even remotely necessary. Unfortunately, I didn't see anything the slightest bit juicy or even relevant. Probert was the sort of boss that liked his worker drones to generate lots of useless paperwork to keep them busy, and then he'd take his dear sweet time even reviewing, let alone later filing their reports. He had a junky Magi-Dupe brand copier on a credenza next to his desk that had to be at least thirty years old, even by US standards. I killed twenty minutes of waiting time trying to get the damned machine to make a single clean readable copy of one of our witness statements but eventually I gave up. I was almost finally bored enough to get up and try this time to photocopy my ass when Mason Probert finally arrived.

He bitched at us for nearly a full hour, but most of it was old material, given as if by rote, rather than any actual genuine enthusiasm. We got the intended point rather quickly; he was 'disappointed' in us. When Bel eventually managed to pipe in her two cents, she assured him that we had stayed working on his holy and incarnate Action List like good boys and girls ... and would continue to do so. Well, I did notice that her fingers were crossed. Eventually he believed her and we were admonished to go forth once again and sin no more.

Since we didn't have a single worthwhile lead left, it was going to be hard to be naughty ... but we were determined to give it a try!

For lack of any better ideas, we spent the rest of the morning back humping the non-suspects on the old boy's Action List, hoping for lightning to strike twice and find another lead we could exploit, but it wasn't looking promising. Each of the minor thugs could hardly refrain from smirking, as each had been expecting our visit, but still it was apparent to me that they didn't seem quite as happy to see us as their friends had been previously. This made us sure that another round of fresh warnings had been given to each and every one of them. Even charm spells weren't cutting through the very prevalent miasma of fear. The word had gone out – telling us the 'truth' would mean far worse things than just another mindwipe.

Frankly, my mood was in the pits. My investigation was now going nowhere and every time I looked into Bel's face my mind instead recalled the memory of her and Janice passionately embracing and kissing. Try as I might, I just couldn't get my brain kicked properly into gear today!

For lack of any better ideas, and with more than a hint of desperation, Bel took me for a late lunch to a noted south central Italian restaurant that she admitted was her usual underworld connection spot. The food I had to admit was good, but today our timing couldn't have been any better. After a brief private discussion with one of the staff, Bel returned back to our table with a smile. Sebestyen Dénes, probably the top Chicago mob boss, was expected a bit later this afternoon and he, or one of his lieutenants could probably spare a minute for us. Her message requesting a meeting had been received!

I still found the entire idea of 'organized crime' fairly laughable. Sure, Texas and the GWA had professional criminals, what place didn't? The part that I found amusing was the idea that here it was all nearly out in the open and utterly and boldly commonplace. Crime here had gone so professional it was almost legitimate. The laws up here made doing nearly any sort of business impractical and rather immoral, so nearly everyone had to work in the shadows with unsavory people upon occasion just to get anything done. Need some completely legitimate merchandise shipped interstate? You could pay a unionized trucker and wait at least a month or two and enjoy nearly 50% pilferage of the goods, or pay extra to a well organized gang that would get the job done swiftly and securely. Most would prefer and choose the gang. As for the police and other law enforcement, they were only a minimal concern. Since nearly everything was technically illegal, the police had to be relatively selective over what laws were going to be actively enforced ... and nearly everyone at some point needed to pick a side. Even Bel readily admitted that to even hope to do her job, to get the local information she sometimes needed, she had been rather forced to commit herself to picking a side amongst the various Chicago mob elements. Everyone in government service had, more or less. In Chicago there was little room for neutrals or folks who just wanted to go their own way.

It wasn't hard to kill the next two and half hours while waiting in the restaurant. We ordered endless baskets of warm bread, a couple of bottles of wine, and an apparently endless selection of goodies from the deserts cart. Sean, invisibly present as always, quite outdid himself. He wasn't much for red wine, and apparently he was keeping himself quite amused sampling the harder stuff kept behind the bar, for which he had a nearly unlimited gullet, but I discovered to my amusement and eventual dismay that he also had discovered a fondness for cheesecake. Bel and I ordered some, and enjoyed ours, but new fresh plates kept arriving ... and arriving ... and mysteriously disappearing. Worse, after an untold amount of pilfered Limoncello, I could start to hear increasingly audible giggling and 'om nom' sounds as entire rounds of cheesecake began to disappear.

'That wouldn't be your stomach giggling, would it?" Bel inquired, giving me a rather sharp concentrated look. She was a smart woman and Sean's antics were becoming obviously apparent.

"I'd prefer to admit to it, but I'm not at all sure I could be convincing. Perhaps they've got a resident gremlin?" If you can't convince, then confound.

I wasn't ready to fess up to having Sean yet, so my best hope was to shift off the blame elsewhere. Besides, when Sean gets a snootful, he can be just about impossible to control or remotely contain. At this thought, Sean just belched right into my ear and I could swear out of the corner of my eye I could see the little maniacal bugger take a piss right across the length of the dining table and directly his flow right straight into the rose vase by the window. Bel's eyes went fully wide; some things are just too blatantly unspeakable to be ignored or dismissed as fantasifull illusion. I sighed.

"Sean. Chill out now! You're making a scene and freaking the mundanes." I muttered, hopefully mostly under my breath. Already Bel was probing for a distant upper level Air Ley, and visibly pondering the application of a general area affect banishment spell.

Sean belched again, and rather more loudly, and now right before our eyes in the very center of our table a fresh bottle of Lemoncello appeared as a floating apparition. With further loud giggling, the top of the bottle was blasted open and its contents drained upside down, seemingly flowing into an apparently invisible mouth which was making loud clearly audible 'glub-glub' sounds.

This phantasmal apparition was more than enough to clear out most of the other patrons of the restaurant, many of which left running and screaming out in the street in mortal fear for their lives. In magic-phobic America, the sight of an invisible monster guzzling down booze and cheesecake in near equal numbers was more than enough to cause most folks to remember other much more urgent appointments elsewhere. Even the wait staff was horrified by this and most of them disappeared in a panic to the kitchen area of the restaurant, and for the duration, leaving Bel and myself more or less alone.

"Now Bel, don't be too hasty!" I muttered, while trying to grab the nearly empty floating liqueur bottle away from Sean. It remained just out of my outstretched arms until the last drops were gone and another new fresh bottle appeared to take its place. This was more than enough for Bel.

Leaping to her feet, charged full of magical power, she drew a circle of major banishing in the air and sounded off ever increasingly powerful and heavy duty commands of magical expulsion. I had to admire her efforts, futile as they were. Banishment is perhaps my strongest specialty, but I was suitably impressed by Bel's knowledge of the basics, and I let her have her fun for a good full ten minutes or so until she slid back into her chair exhausted and extremely annoyed, and grudgingly admitting defeat. There was nothing wrong with her willpower either, but she just didn't know any arcane rites strong enough to affect Sean. Even with all of my own superior expertise, I'm not sure I could have done much better either, if push came to shove. As visitors went, Sean was very much in a class of his own.

Sean giggled, and took another extremely long and quite visible piss into the next nearest rose vase, filling it to overflowing. He then gave a passing thought to giving Bel a good soak down as well, but I nipped that one in the bud.

"Damn it Sean, stop!" I mentally bellowed, and wonder of wonders he did stop, and then he disappeared in a snit. I can usually feel when he's about, hovering around invisibly, but for now he was gone. Still, I wasn't the least sure about how to explain this all to Bel. Since Sean was gone for the moment, I decided to cover my ass by trying a banishment spell that Bel didn't know. I made it look firm and impressive, but I'm not sure my audience was fooled.

"It giggled in my ear!" She muttered, after downing another full glass of red wine rather hastily. "I was sure it was about to take a piss down my neck too! What was it? And is this some sort of acquaintance of yours?" The look she gave was rather pointed and telling. This was a rather direct accusation, and my answer needed to be a good one. I could tell that she was good and ready to walk, and wash her hands of me and our investigation in a heartbeat if she didn't like the answers.

Choices. There are always choices in life, but for me they're usually always bad ones. My first instinct was to lie and keep lying ... and make her prove otherwise, but my gut instinct was nagging at me to stick a bit closer to the truth. Bel seemed to have an innate talent at detecting lies and I wanted, and really needed, to stay on her good side. She was the only friend I had up here and I needed to keep her trust, as much as could and still keep Sean's secrets ... not that I knew many. Plus, I was awful at lying and I've never gotten away with a fib in my entire life!

"I've sworn to keep your oath, now in turn you need to keep mine as well." I stated and stared her straight into her eyes. "Can you do so, and hold it to, even upon knowing the truth of the matter, for either weal or woe?" She raised a pretty eyebrow, her anger turned at once to curiosity and interest. I deliberately was using the elder and more arcane preamble to the Oath ritual, to invite an even more secure binding of the magical pledge than was customary, and intrigued, she accepted with alacrity.

"I so swear, affirm and bind myself to my Oath." She calmly asserted, while firmly poking a finger with her small ritual belt knife and taking my hand in hers, making her pledge a blood-oath, one of the most terrible and binding. Completely unnecessary and bit old-fashioned overkill, but the depth of her sincerity was reassuring.

"My invisible friend is named Sean, and I think he is one of the legendary Ùruisg, but I wouldn't swear to it. He finds me amusing and usually just likes to watch and observe, but he has been extremely helpful to me in the past. In truth, he's probably saved my life at least twice, although he's never overtly cast a single spell in my presence. I'm not sure the greatest word of Banishing that I know would even tickle him. Why he's here and why he's picked me to follow about, I couldn't venture a guess. In apology, he does find alcohol highly stimulating, but usually he keeps his thirst under somewhat better control. He's gone off in a snit right now, but he'll be back and I'll try and make him apologize to you. Actually, knowing him, I'd bet he's not quite as tipsy as he appears; I've seen him empty an entire case of whisky before without any apparent affect, so he's either found a weakness for lemon liqueur or he just needed a distraction to do something else while we're here ... my bets on the latter."

"That's the whole of the secret?" She asked, with her blood drops gently still running into my hand.

"As far as I know, yes. No one other than you knows of Sean, as he remains hidden and silent to all eyes other than mine. Why he has chosen me for his guest-host, I cannot say, other than I appear to amuse him and he thinks that among humans I am special, but how I couldn't say. He pretends to be utterly frivolous, but he's up to something, I'm sure of it ... but I have no idea what."

"Since we are speaking frankly and in secure truth-oath, might I also enquire about your magical ability? Your file said that you'd burned yourself out, and were possibly powerless, but I know that this is not so. I've seen your charm spells and the way you grab Ley's. You lack subtlety, and then some, but you have power well beyond that of a minor magician, or an Adept. You grab magic and wield it firmer than any wizard I have yet met, greater even my own ability to channel power. With patience, training and more forethought, you could be one of the greatest wizard masters of our time, yet you hide this power. Have you not always had it?"

"Like Sean, my augmented magical gifts seem to be also a recent acquisition, and you're right ... I have little knowledge of how to best apply them. When I was a weaker Adept, I was good at what I knew, Banishments and Protections, and I could craft skilled artificements to help cover my many weaknesses. Now, I can do much that I couldn't before, but I do seem to rely upon improvisation rather than technical skill. By sharing our oaths together we have gained trust, and perhaps we can help each other where we are weak, for your talents are different than mine, and your technical training seems to be considerably sharper than mine. I never was one for classrooms and textbooks, and even now I'm a slow learner sometimes."

"Help you I shall!" With a last squeeze of our hands the oath-binding was done and we drank another pair of glasses of red wine in relative silence until suddenly Bel's face went completely beet red in color and she downed another glass of wine nearly in one gulp.

"The miserable sneaking bastard!" She wheezed, half choking on her wine. "He stayed and was watching us last night! Janice and I!"

I sighed. Sean had always enjoyed watching the local porn channels back home and he certainly didn't get much detailed real-life practical observation by watching my love life, or near total absence of it. The nastier it was, the more he seemed to like it. I could tell if a porn flick was particularly hot or interesting if the living room became filled with the smell of conjured popcorn. 'Sick Degrees of Penetration', an 'everything goes' boy-girl, boy-boy, girl-girl, plus trannies and dwarfs added for good measure, orgy flick seemed to be his favorite film and he chain played it once non-stop for over a week.

"Well, I frankly don't blame him." I commented. "It was indeed quite rude, especially since the three of you had not been properly introduced, but I wouldn't have minded being an invisible fly on the wall myself, but then again my manners are acknowledged to be quite attrocious."

"You and your friend seem to excel at finding ways to violate privacy." She muttered, but not quite in actual genuine annoyance. He face suddenly turned beet red once again, but this time I could hear what Sean had whispered, this time into my own ears as I could hear him giggling, indeed he was quite nearly sober now, seemingly hardly affected at all by the immense amount that he had imbibed.