At the sound of footsteps, I dove into a copse of bushes near the base of the exterior staircase. My heart hammered in my chest as I positioned myself to surveil the path leading into the building. It was dark and illumination from a streetlight beamed down on the sidewalk giving me a clear view of the newcomer.

His perfect teeth were gritted, and he was yelling into his phone. “The wry little bastard has been giving me the slip all day.”

When Jared Travis stepped in front of the bushes where I’d concealed myself, he stopped and rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know, Mom, but last month it took him almost a week to pay up and I’m getting real tired of trying to hunt him down.”

Linda, Jared’s mother, owned Shady Acres Apartments. She’d retired a few years back and left the management of the building up to her son. That she’d taken a personal interest didn’t bode well for me at all.

“Okay, okay,” he said turning his back to me and shaking his head. “Calm down, no one said anything about evicting him.”

Okay, did I hear that right? I shook my head and discounted the notion. Linda was a far sight more pleasant to get along with than her son. She’d been the most easy going landlady from whom I’d ever rented. That being said she’d evicted more than a few people over the years, it seemed unlikely she’d spare me a second thought.

Jared growled under his breath, tapped the screen of his phone and slid it back into his pocket. He glanced back toward the bushes one final time and for a second I was sure he’d seen me, but then he turned away and disappeared back into the building slamming the door shut behind him.

I waited a few tense minutes, certain that he would return, but when he didn’t show his face, I pulled myself out of the bushes. After brushing myself off, I made my way back into the building keeping my eyes and ears open. It was late, and the hallways were devoid of anyone or anything which made it a lot easier for me to get back into my apartment unnoticed.

Still, where Jared was concerned, I’d learned to be cautious. When I got to the elevators, instead of hopping in, I walked past, taking the opposite doorway and made my way up the staircase.

I lived on the third floor and the effort shouldn’t have winded me, but I’d spent all day booking my ass around town and hopping from bus to bus. I submitted my resume to more than half a dozen places and I still didn’t like my chances. Needless to say, I was tired.

When I got up to my floor, I paused at the door, glanced out the little window and cursed under my breath. “Dammit all to hell.”

Jared, my super, waited just outside my apartment door, arms folded across his chest and, as cliché as it sounded, tapping his foot on the floor. The slick bastard must have figured out I wasn’t inside and was waiting for me to get back. Which meant I would either have to confront him or wait him out.

I chose the latter cursing the pretty boy under my breath as I slumped down to the ground and let out a long sigh. Must be nice to have a rich mother to hand you a damn job. Meanwhile people like me had to do things the hard way. Given that I froze up during interviews, I didn’t have much success.

I sighed and pulled my phone out of my pocket confirming what I already knew, the thing was dead. So, I put it back and looked around.

That’s when I saw something which caught my eye.

I grunted and reached over retrieving what looked like a rolled-up magazine which someone had jammed into a slat in the railing. Once unrolled, I peered into the thing and snorted. It wasn’t a magazine at all, but a catalog titled ‘Aethermysts: Your number one source for all your magic needs.’

I flipped through the pages and snorted again.

“Give me a fucking break. Mach-O-Blaster, Gend-O-Matic? What the fuck is this?” I asked no one in particular then crumpled the catalog into a ball and threw the damn thing as hard and as far as I could.

With a long plaintive sigh, I folded my arms across my chest and gritted my teeth. Something told me I would have one long ass wait on my hands.

#

The wry little bastard lingered for another three hours before finally giving up and traipsing out of the hallway. I had to hand it to him he stuck around much longer than I expected. I guess it just goes to show how big of an annoyance I’d been. I just needed to keep away from him until tomorrow morning. After that, there was a good chance I’d have the money.

I waited ten minutes after he left, then opened the stairwell door and glanced about the hallway before slinking my way toward my apartment door and slipped inside. I dropped my coat at the door, so tired I didn’t even give a fuck about expending the extra effort to put it on the coat rack.

My apartment wasn’t much to look at, and, to be honest, I was no interior decorator. By almost any standard my living space was damned spartan, but that suited me just fine. I didn’t need to clutter up my place with useless crap. I had everything I would ever need.

Moving through my modest little living space, I cut a beeline to the bedroom. Once inside, I fell face first into bed. I rolled onto my side, and just before I slipped into a semi-vegetative state, I noticed a wadded up piece of paper resting on my nightstand. Within seconds, I was out and lost in the blissful world of dreams.

#

It was late by the time my tired ass woke up. Had it not been for the sound of several loud thuds, I would have slept longer. At first, I convinced myself the sound resulted from muted gunfire, but as I came fully awake, I realized something much more mundane was at work. Someone was at the door.

I stumbled out of bed, knocking the crumpled up wad of paper off of my nightstand, and staggered toward the door. I had just enough presence of mind to glance through the peephole before swinging the door wide open.

“Waddya want?!” I demanded barely capable of even grunting it out and squinted at the little fellow as I scratched the back of my head.

“Hi, I’m Steve we talked yesterday on the phone about your Gregslist ad? You’re Harry, right?” He looked at me eyes wide and darting away from the door.

“Oh? Right, right,” I said throwing a hand over my shoulder and let out a loud yawn. Shit, I’d forgotten all about him. “Sorry had a late night. Why don’t you come in and we can do this thing?”

I moved away from the opening and Steve stepped inside. Once I closed the door behind him, I glanced around and held my hand up as I emitted another loud yawn. “Uh, wait a minute I’ll be right back.”

I slipped into my room and stopped dead in my tracks. I walked over to my nightstand and furrowed my brows.

What the fuck? The clumped up wad of paper was again sitting on my nightstand. I could have sworn I’d knocked it to the ground when I stumbled out of bed. It looked an awful lot like that weird catalog I’d found in the staircase. I shook my head, convinced I must have been mistaken, tossed the wad into the garbage and retrieved the item for which Steve had come.

I found him waiting where I’d left him and motioned toward the couch with an open hand. “Uh, I guess you’re gonna want a look at the merchandise.”

Steve nodded, took a seat, and I set the laptop down in front of him. He flipped the thing open and booted it up. I sat opposite him. “I put in new hinges, upgraded the ram, replaced the original hard drive with a solid state drive and did a clean install of the OS.”

Steve nodded, but didn’t say a word, eyes glued to the screen as he logged into the computer. I waited with bated breath, ever since I lost my job I’d been eking out a meager existence by refurbishing damaged laptops and other electronics. Some folks made good money that way, but I’d only been at it for less than half a year. While I was pretty good at repairing things, I wasn’t much of a people person.

Steve continued with his inspection, and I leaned back into my seat waiting for him to finish up. He continued for a good ten minutes before he flipped the notebook shut and looked back up at me. “I’ll take it.”

Next came the haggling, and as I expected, I ended up selling it for less than my original asking price, but it would be enough. The laptop hadn’t exactly been high end, and I’d come out of the deal with more than I’d put in. With some money I’d already collected from another repair job, I would have enough to pay rent for the month and not much else. I guessed I’d be living off ramen for the foreseeable future. I was getting real tired of scrimping by like this month after month. Shit, I needed to find a job and fast.

After letting Steven out I returned to my bedroom, just a little disconcerted to find that the paper wad had again found its way back onto my nightstand. Either someone was playing a prank on me or something strange was going on. As much as I strained my mind I couldn’t think of anyone beyond Jared or the super who might have access to my apartment and there would be no reason why either would punk me in such a manner.

I picked the ball of paper up, collapsed into bed and retrieved my phone from inside my pocket. I dialed Jared and put my cell against my ear while un-crumpling the wad with my free hand. Sure enough, it was the same catalog from the stairwell. I turned the thing back to front and began to flip through the pages as I waited for Jared to pick up, but he never did. So I left a message and hung up.

I set the phone down and eyed the catalog with all my attention. Again, I flipped through, this time looking for a website or a phone number and found neither. Instead, all I found was a P.O. Box. Thinking, perhaps, that it might be outdated, I looked for a copyright date and found one the very bottom of the back cover. It was less than a month old.

I wasn’t sure what convinced me the thing was authentic. The whole teleportation act it pulled seemed impressive, but, face it, with enough time I would have rationalized it. Maybe, I wanted it to be real. A part of me was still wary of the catalog, even if the items listed within were real, there was no telling how well they worked or if they worked the way they advertised.

I have to admit, the Mach-O-Blaster piqued my interest, for that matter, so did the Power Potion, but the item that really caught my eye was the cheapest in the entire book. It seemed a little ironic given the item’s intended purpose, but that didn’t raise the red flags it should have.

The catalog listing called it a Prosperity Spell and from what I could tell it was meant to help the user be successful in their future endeavors. Was it so surprising given my current predicament?

I was getting desperate, and tired of trying to eke out a meager existence on almost nothing. Something needed to change, or I’d be out on my ass in no time. Most people would scoff at ordering a spell out of a catalog, myself included, but the thought didn’t give me much pause.

I ended up sending in the five dollars with the order form. My budget was already slim, but that small amount of cash would not make a lot of difference. I just wish I’d read the small print before completing the order form, it would have saved me a lot of trouble.

#

Her hips swayed and her breasts jiggled with each step. She leveled her gaze on me and I stopped, ramen-packed grocery bags clenched in my hands and stared at her with wide eyes. She wore a skimpy little black formal dress, and she was easily the most attractive woman I’d ever laid eyes on shy of the television or big screen.

Something was wrong. I saw it in seconds. For one there was a strange vacant expression in her eyes, and for another she was moving straight toward me. Don’t get me wrong, I was far from ugly, but we didn’t even exist in the same league. Hell, I doubted she’d even give Jared a second glance, and women loved the guy.

The elevator doors started to close on me and I lurched forward letting the doors hit my shoulders and open back up. I eyed the woman, bit my lip and smiled. “Hey, how’s it going?”

She didn’t pause, or even acknowledge that she’d heard me, but just kept coming. I took a few awkward steps to the side and as I did so she turned to adjust course. Now, I don’t mean she turned upon seeing me step away, but did it in perfect sync with me. It was freaky as hell and it raised the old shackles on the back of my neck.

She held a little envelope in her hands and when she got close, she raised her hand holding it out to me. I froze and stared at her with wide eyes. She didn’t budge a muscle, keeping so still that she may well have been a statue.

I looked into her eyes and waved my hand in front of her face. She didn’t respond, but stayed in place hand still extended. When I took a step back, and she moved forward, again in sync with me.

I glanced toward my apartment door, contemplating making a run for it, but sheer morbid curiosity got the better of me. It was obvious she wanted me to take the thing, and I was dying to know what could be in it.

I gritted my teeth, shifted both bags of ramen into one hand and snatched the paper out of her outstretched palm. The moment I had it, she shook her head and looked around. It was almost as if someone had switched on a light inside her mind.

“Where the hell am I?!” She demanded her eyes settling on me.

“Uh, Shady Acres Apartments,” I replied.

She stood there eyeing me with a pair of striking blue eyes that seemed to look right through me. She lifted a wrist glancing at a jewel-encrusted watch that probably cost more than I’d made in the last year and started cursing under her breath.

“Dammit, I’m late!” She took off down the corridor, her high-heels clicking and clacking against the hardwood floors of the hallway. The tight little dress limited the movements of her leg and coupled with the height of her heels I thought for certain she’d lose her balance and take a tumble. Somehow she made it all the way to the elevator, and she soon disappeared through its shiny metal doors.

Like a jackass I stood there and watched the elevator doors, still, just a little freaked out by what had happened. It took me well over a minute before I had the bright idea to examine the envelope. It seemed ordinary enough, save that someone had sealed it with wax. There were no addresses or post office box numbers, but it had my name on the middle of the front. In the top left instead of a return address it listed Aethermysts Order Fulfillment Services.

If I’d had any doubts about the legitimacy of the catalog, their delivery method damn well put them to rest. I slipped the envelope into one of the grocery bags and walked straight for my apartment.

Once inside, I dropped both my grocery sacks onto the counter, retrieved the envelope from inside and plopped down on the couch tearing it open. Inside I found pretty much what I expected, directions for completing the prosperity spell that I’d ordered. It was all hand-written in a simple, impeccable script that resembled calligraphy, but which appeared to be written with a ballpoint pen.

I read it front and back and leaned back on the couch letting out a long sigh. The whole thing just seemed a little too good to be true, a prosperity spell that promised to bring wealth and well-being to whoever cast it and it had only set me back five dollars? I bit my lip and eyed a particular line at the very top of the paper that was just a little disconcerting.

‘Warning, be sure to follow the directions exactly as instructed and pronounce each portion of the spell as written. Failure to do so may result in transfiguration, and/or chronological displacement.’

I didn’t know what the fuck the warning meant, but, I think, it would give anyone pause. I almost crumbled the spell up and tossed it in the wastebasket, but stopped eyeing a second envelope sitting on the coffee table before me. It contained another bill.

I didn’t have more than a few dollars to my name and unless I sold half of the crap in my apartment, managed to sell another device or landed a repair job, I wouldn’t be able to pay it. I was getting damned tired of scrimping by just to make ends meet. The spell might be the answer to that.

So, against my better judgement I moved into the bedroom to retrieve what I needed. When I had a candle and a little lump of sidewalk chalk, I returned to the living room. The candle from a small supply I kept around in case of power outages, which were frequent in the area, and the chalk had been left by one of the previous tenants and I’d never bothered tossing it.

I pushed the couch out the way and upturned the ragged old rug that protected the hardwood floor. Had I any money, I would have replaced it months ago.

I plopped down, and put the paper down in front of me, as the instructions mentioned and drew a circle around myself. According to the spell, it would contain the thaumaturgic energies and prevent them from hemorrhaging into the worlds beyond. I didn’t know what the hell that meant, but it didn’t sound like something I wanted to happen. Needless to say, I was really careful while forming the ring.

Next, I put the unlit candle in front of me, clenched my eyes shut and started to chant the words on the paper as instructed. “Subponatis… Adolebitque illud… advocabit potestate.”

I opened my eyes and almost jumped out of the circle in sheer shock. The candle was lit! Fortunately, I kept still. I didn’t want to screw this up. I continued with the incantation, careful to read each line as specified. When I got to the final few bits of text, I paused sweat dripping down my whole body. I opened my mouth to speak the final few words, and the damned doorbell rang.

Startled, I jerked sideways and knocked the candle over. I didn’t dare leave the circle, I had no idea what kind of effect that might have in the middle of the spell. I righted the candle and glanced down at the spell reciting the final few words and then broke the circle. An odd tingling sensation coursed down my body as I stood and moved towards the door.

Before I got there, a sharp stabbing pain shot through my gut and I hunched over collapsing to my knees. The oddest sensation wove its way through my chest, and as I slipped my hands over one of my nipples, it swelled outward. I collapsed to the ground as my bones cracked and popped. My throat burned and I let out a single scream which sounded far too high-pitched to my ears, just before everything went dark.