Clark woke up extra early that day. He made it outside his front door in record time. He was still pulling on his coat when the wizard tumbled out into the street with the surprised cries of his parents ringing out after him.

It was still snowing, and Clark’s hands were shaking. Cold wind blew back his hair as he focused his eyes next door. There, he saw Emmanuel also turning around to face him.

When his heel came down on his own driveway, time itself slowed to a crawl.

The cars slowed. The voices in the street became a droning blur. They echoed hollow and distant around him—around them—before fading altogether. Emmanuel reacted quickly. He looked up, saw the very clouds in the sky stop moving; and when he turned back to the street, he found a similar scene playing out.

The cars were all stopped now.

They did so in mid-motion, with their wheels pressing over the pavement. The vehicles were still being propelled forward at a micro-fraction of their original speed, and the pedestrians around them shared the same fate. All halted in the middle of what they were doing.

Some were looking down at their phones.

A jogger hovered with his legs stretched before and after him.

At the nearest light, a mother was turning around to say something to her little daughter, holding on to her finger as they crossed. The lights did not change. An invisible clock ticked down the seconds as the world itself stood still.

Clark continued moving. He did so at normal speed. He pushed through the dreamlike atmosphere, and the wizard ended on his own driveway next door. There, Emmanuel waited.

The two men faced off in the middle of a still-life three-dimensional photograph of Toronto frozen in time. The real-estate agent was shocked; and above his tall collars, his brown eyes flashed at the wizard from behind his spectacles. His hands were draped loosely at his sides, his fingers twitching faintly over his pockets. He had spread his legs, and wore a grim look on his face. The corners of his mouth tightened as a small sparrow hovered in mid-flight over his head. Somewhere behind him, a squirrel was frozen while bounding halfway up a tree. Surreal scenery aside, Emmanuel looked exactly like what he was: A modern interpretation of a gunslinger from the Old West, preparing for a showdown at high noon.

Clark stopped at the end of his driveway. The two men stared each other down in this crucial moment.

There was no wind.

The sun also stopped in the sky.

Light flashing over the nearest treetops fell over the street in unmoving strands, and the two men traded looks. They held each other’s gazes unflinchingly. Between them, sparks flew as the moment lingered.

Magic.

The stoppage of time had no effect on those who possessed knowledge of the arcane arts. The trap was designed that way. Despite outward humble appearances, Clark had set up numerous invisible wards around his house. He had learned the hard way that it was worth investing in protecting his own property.

Someone had to speak first, and the newcomer did so with a sweep of his hand at his surroundings. He asked: “Your doing?”

There was no point in denying it. Clark nodded.

Emmanuel’s eyes narrowed. His lips moved, twisting into a scornful scowl beneath the tall, straight bridge of his nose. He practically spat, even as he subtly shifted his weight from one leg to the other: “Temporal manipulation. Time magic. Don’t you know how dangerous that is?”

Clark replied immediately, in the same heated tone-of-voice: “What are you, the magic police?”

He was rude, crass, and already his hackles were bared in barely restrained hostility. Clark hated Emmanuel when he first laid eyes upon him from his own bedroom; and he hated him even more now, in person, as they stood facing each other from opposite ends of the driveway. Some people just don’t get along. It seems the feeling was mutual.

“You,” Emmanuel said. Again, he shifted his weight, and Clark mimicked his gesture. Both men had hands poised over air. Their fingers wriggled in anticipation of the signal to draw, “are a monster.”

Clark only replied: “How did you see me?”

That was the million-dollar question. Back in his bedroom, Clark could not have been more shocked. He might as well have been punched clear across the room when Emmanuel stared up at him and called him out. It was years in the making; years of communicating through unwilling mediums. Years of concealing his identity from those he loved most—

—until now.

Someone had seen him for what he really was; and someone spoke to him, addressing the wayward spirit instead of the vessel of flesh he inhabited.

Someone can finally understand what he’s been through, all the suffering he has endured because of his unique condition.

A projection of consciousness had locked eyes with a real human being, and saw each other as equals for the first time in what seemed like an epoch.

It was just Clark’s luck the only person who really saw him in the last four years now wanted him dead.

Emmanuel shook his head. He chose to answer Clark’s earlier question instead: “As a matter of fact, I am.” He paused, then took in a deep breath. He drew himself up to his full height and announced pompously: “I am Emmanuel, Master of Mystical Arts, Anointed Gavel of Justice, Knight-Executioner and Judge of the White Assembly. I’m here to destroy you, monster!”

Clark didn’t know what any of those words meant, and only replied sarcastically: “I’m not quite familiar with that branch of the Canadian government.”

All the while, his eyes remained focused on Emmanuel’s hands.

“Maybe once more, eh? Just which magical department do you represent again?”

Emmanuel fumed.

“Do you mock me, creature—”

Clark didn’t let him finish: “Are you sure you’re not here to evaluate my certificate? Because I didn’t officially graduate from Wizarding School or whatever else it is you people swear by? You know they do license renewals online now. Maybe you should tell your people to get with the times.”

“You are a menace—”

Again, the wizard cut him off: “I’m going to stop you right there.” Clark cocked his head slightly to one side. He asked, “I just want to know what you were doing here. With that woman.” A pause. “Are you even a real, real-estate agent?” Another pause. He answered his own question before Emmanuel could speak up. “Scratch that. Of course, you are. Given the market, I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re at least doing it as a part time gig in between your day job as an Anointed Knight-Warrior-Assembly-Judge whatever.”

The dickishness was only partly intentional. Truly, Clark hated Emmanuel, but he also seemed to understand—from the very beginning—things were going to end badly. As he spoke, Clark moved one hand behind his back, and that hand gestured, forming seals with his fingers as he prepared spells for the inevitable. In the meantime, he continued putting on a flippant act. He wanted to appear reckless and dumb, before throwing hands with Emmanuel. If the other can be convinced to underestimate him, that was an advantage he didn’t want to pass up when the two of them finally came to blows.

The other said, with an arrogant toss of his head: “I know what you’re trying to do.”

Clark laughed: “Oh?”

A nod.

Emmanuel—in his thinking—refused to be baited. “I’ve been looking for you a long time, monster.”

The wizard said: “How long is that, if you don’t mind me asking?”

For a moment it looked like Emmanuel wasn’t going to answer, but apparently, he decided better of it. “A year,” he said very seriously. “And change. You are very difficult to track down. All this time we were looking for a man—a Black Mage. Instead, it turns out we should have been trying to find a demon.”

The crucial word didn’t escape Clark’s notice.

He asked: “Who’s we?”

Emmanuel didn’t elaborate.

Not yet.

Oh well, it was worth a shot.

“Well,” Clark said, committing what he had heard to memory, “I hope you and your fellow Ghostbusters are up to the challenge.”

Again, he had the satisfaction of seeing Emmanuel’s face turn purple. The real-estate agent turned Anointed Knight-Judge (something, something) gnashed his teeth. Then, he spat out: “You won’t trick me, creature.” He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at the house. “That poor woman, Mary. You’ve made her home into a haunted house. You are tethered to her invalid of a husband right now, and I have opened the Third Eye, so I see your tricks—the long-bundled strings that run from your puppet to the window behind me. I don’t know what you really are, but I would wager on some sort of spider demon to have ensnared these innocents in your webs.” Emmanuel tapped a finger against his forehead. A tiny yellow spark went off there. “Well, rest assured you won’t do the same to me. You will sever your control over this household and its residents. You will relinquish control of your current host. You will submit yourself to my judgement, and you will be destroyed!”

Emmanuel’s hand moved closer to his pocket, but Clark made no sudden moves on his part. There was no hurry to show his hand. Emmanuel did not strike him as a particularly incompetent individual, but he had taken what he knew and ran in completely the wrong way with it.

Clark wasn’t a demon. Clark was actually the invalid husband, and Emmanuel was trying to save him from a non-existent malevolent spirit. It was obvious now that there was no romantic entanglement; and, probably, not even a real, real-estate deal in the works. Emmanuel had cozied up to Mary for one reason—his investigation on behalf of the organization that ‘we’ belonged to.

To his credit, he did make the most of his leads, which led him here with admittedly good intentions.

Clark sighed.

That still didn’t explain why Mary stopped coming in at night. Or why she was always so late returning home. But one crisis at a time. He looked Emmanuel over as if giving the man a second evaluation. Maybe they just got off on the wrong foot. In the other’s defense, Emmanuel’s assumptions about the situation, given what he knew and what he saw himself, were far more logical than the actual truth. He could hardly have been blamed for making them. In fact, Clark could use his help in the matter of the Prophet.

Also, the mysterious organization he belonged to; if only they, too, can be persuaded to offer assistance—

The wizard made up his mind.

He was willing to put their differences aside, for there were bigger problems at stake. The matter of the Prophet was one thing, but also, Emmanuel was the first other human wizard Clark had ever run into. Given all he ever wanted was a solution to his own problems, having another colleague to pool minds and resources couldn’t be a bad thing. That, alone, was probably worth trying to make amends with Emmanuel for.

Clark opened his mouth: “Look. I’m sorry. But you’re wrong. I’m not a spider demon. I’m not any kind of demon. I do need your help, though, and I’ll gladly tell you what I really am if you’ll listen—”

That was as far as he got before the dagger smashed against his face, bouncing off the shielding ward there with a ringing echo.

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