"We left that party just in time," said Harper. "That song is just starting I hate that song."
She and Gabe were only a short way behind the rest of their friends, and she ran down the front steps of the house to catch up.
"The person controlling the Tower is always a jerk. There's nothing you can do about that. Always has been, always will be," said Simon.
"Forget the Tower," said Aubrey. "Mages have been fighting over that thing since they built it. This jackass bought the damn Skydome and renamed it after himself. It couldn't be more obvious what he's up to."
She took another sip from her red plastic cup.
"Hey," said Gabe, arriving just behind Harper, "is that an open container?"
The group had only taken a few steps out of the house party. It was like he had been waiting to pounce.
"Oh don't be such a cop, Gabe," said Simon.
"I am a cop," retorted Gabe.
"Not until you pass the exam you're not," said Simon. "They have procedures set up to keep whack jobs like you from becoming actual cops."
"The law is the law," said Gabe.
"Don't you have other friends you could be narcing on?" asked Cicero "Ones that can't turn you into a frog?"
"Leave Gabe alone," said Harper, hugging him from behind.
"He can't actually turn me into a frog can he?" Gabe whispered to Harper.
Aubrey took another sip.
"As I was saying, it's obvious what Rogers is doing. It's magical geometry on a city-wide scale. He's trying to assert dominance over all of Toronto. Turn the whole thing into his private genius loci."
"That's not the half of it," said Jackie. "A city the size of Toronto has a spirit of its own. What Ted Rogers is trying to do is enslave that spirit to his own will."
"I mean, yeah, that sucks," said Simon.
"It doesn't just 'suck' Simon," Jackie snarled at him.
"Fine, it's an egregious crime against nature," conceded Simon. "But what are we supposed to do about it?"
"That's my whole point!" exclaimed Aubrey quite loudly. She was a little drunk. They all were.
"If the Northern Lights Council isn't going to do anything about it and the Lotus Court isn't going to do anything about it someone has to."
"Yeah but what babe?" asked Simon "What could the six of us possibly do about the machinations of the most powerful archmage in the city?"
"Six?" asked Gabe, who didn't like being included in things he didn't understand.
As usual, the others ignored him.
"No I think she's on to something, Simon," said Cicero. "If the Northern Lights made a move Rogers would know. But we can operate under his radar. We can surprise him."
"And do what?" asked Simon. "That's the part I'm struggling with."
"We fight magical geometry with magical geometry," said Aubrey. "When Ted Rogers twists the city around his finger we untwist it right back. The only reason he gets away with any of this is that he can do it unopposed. The mundane world doesn't know what he's up to and the magic orders are afraid of him."
"I'm in," said Harper. "Aurbey's right. This needs to be done and if not us then who?"
"As am I," said Jackie.
"Me too," said Cicero.
"What the hell are you people even talking about?" demanded Gabe. "Ted Rogers? The internet service provider? The philanthropist?"
"Yeah he's the strongest wizard in Canada," said Cicero, matter-of-factly. "Possibly in the entire western hemisphere although who knows what those lunatics down in Chicago get up to."
"There's a coven in Sao Paulo that could probably give him a run for his money," Harped added.
"Definitely Canada, though," said Cicero. "All those things he names after himself are just means to gather puissance. He was the first wizard to figure out how to use mass media as a means of power."
"Not the first," said Jackie, "just the most successful."
"Forget I asked," said Gabe.
"I suppose that just leaves you, Simon," said Aubrey. "Can we count on you."
"You're all drunk," was all Simon said.
"Granted," said Cicero. "So are you with us?"
Simon looked at Aubrey and spread his arms in a helpless gesture.
"You're really serious about this?" he asked. "Like wake up sober tomorrow serious about it?"
"I'm as serious as I've ever been in my life," said Aubrey, looking him dead in the eyes.
"I suppose it would be ungentlemanly to let all my friends go off and die without me," said Simon. "I don't want to pull a Gabe."
"Hey eff off Simon!" snapped Harper. "Gabe's helping too!"
"I am?" asked Gabe.
"Of course you are," said Harper. "You want to be a cop? Well I'm officially deputizing you as part of our mage posse."
"Well I refuse to do anything illegal," Gabe said.
Everyone ignored him.
"I want to go on the record, before we begin our slow motion suicide, that this is the craziest idea I've ever heard and I've taken mushroom with Cicero."
"That's why it's going to work!" said Cicero, pointing at Simon and grinning like the madman he was.
* * *
It all began with a little vandalism. One night there was a sudden and coordinated effort to disfigure prominent displays of the Rogers Communications logo. This mostly consisted of adding an extra loop to change the 'R' in Rogers to a 'B' so that the signs all read 'Bogers'. Someone even managed to climb up the 18-story Rogers Building, undetected, and 'Bogers' the sign at the top. It was a minor story in the mundane press, taken mostly as a mildly amusing prank. It set the magical underground on fire.
The next night something even stranger occurred: there was a freak electrical storm that knocked out wireless telecommunications across Toronto, but only those controlled by Rogers Communications. The company's stock took a massive dip as they began to hemorrhage customers.
People joked about how it was a consequence of the "Bogers" incident. A jinx. Those in the know didn't joke.
The 'Bogers' thing really caught on. People began to vandalize smaller scale Rogers logos out of sense of fun and mischief. Torontonians, already upset over the renaming of the Skydome, began to mockingly refer to it as the 'Bogers Center'. People were losing respect for the name, and they were using it less in conversation. The company was losing money, and along with it power.
Although they would insist they hadn't intended to, the disc jockeys at the radio station CFRB spent a week referring to it as "CFBB" before this was shut down by management. The Bogers curse continued.
All across the city tiny little pranks, accidents, and coincidences were slowly draining away all the seriousness associated with the name 'Rogers'. It became a joke. A few brave souls started calling Ted 'Bogers' to his face.
Ted was enraged. He fought back. He learned, however, that you can't fight a joke. That only makes it stronger.
YOU ARE READING
The Fox and The Wolf: A Tale of Modern Magic
FantasyA mysterious figure from the past just got his memories back - everything that was important to him and everything that should have stayed forgotten. Now he's tearing through the magical underworld like a storm in the pursuit of a singular goal: rev...
