Epilogues )
Donovan- A few moments later
The whole store was filled with colored lights with weird symbols spinning around me and everything felt like it was lifting up.
Except for me, and even as the store seemed to lift, it was also still all around me. From what I could see out the front windows me and the store were still in hell.
Then I heard Linda speak up behind me. “Oh, I guess there are three versions of the store now, one here, one in the realms, and one all the way up top.”
I turned to see my favorite demon, still stuck down here with me, looking around and up at the ceiling. "I can't see any farther than that, but I wonder if there are more copies going even higher. Did the heavens get a Party Mart of their own?"
It took me a second before I could finally ask. "Why... why are we still here when the other three went up?"
She smiled and took a step forward to take me by my hand. "I... get a little crazy if I go up to the Realms. They're a little too close to the middle world. It brings back memories of when people got silly and worshiped me up there, so I decided not to go.”
She hugged me before trying her best to look sad. It came off more like a pout. "And you, you just gave up on leaving here by telling Doublevan to take your place up there. In your heart, you had already decided you belong down here.”
“Words and symbols are just extra steps to make sure you focus on what you want. Intent is what matters."
Yeah, not liking that. I pushed her back. "Just give me a moment."
I stepped out the door while she practically beamed at me, arms crossed behind her back as she watched me step out.
I looked out at hell.
A damaged place, full of damaged people. A place where you end up and you can’t sink any lower…
I guess I do belong here.
I headed into the store and waved at Linda to follow along as I headed into the tiny little manager's office and had a seat.
I grinned up at Linda “Not sure if I’m saying this right, but I’ve been told intent matters.”
“I Donovan Arthur Riggs claim this store and as much of the land around it that I can as my domain and name myself its lord."
Linda squealed as she jumped up and down a few times in excitement and even clapped.
"Yep, that covers everything, all you have to do now is keep anyone else from taking it from you. Any chance you'd like some help?"
I stood up and this time I was the one to hug her.
“Yeah, it would be nice to have a friend around.”
Cassy- A few days later.
I leaned back in my chair. The introductions part of the job interview had been done and now it was time for some small talk. As always, it was all about the rituals.
“At first I was worried the new director was going to fire me since Natalie had been my mentor, but before she left she warned me that her brother is the type to keep a few handy scapegoats around to shift the blame onto for his next screw up.”
“Since I didn't like that idea I quit without notice before he could start setting me up for a fall.”
Martin Thibedeau leaned back in an expensive looking chair behind the antique oak desk which sat oddly out of place in the now empty storefront of the Party Mart.
"Glad to hear you got out of his reach before he did any damage. Now we should move on to the formal interview. So tell me, what do you have to offer to Martinet Enterprises?”
I sat up straighter and made my pitch. "Operating a business using nonhuman employees and spell work is always going to put you at odds with the Magic Incident Bureau. Even with most of your clients also being magic people. Your very existence means more work for the Bureau and it’s always going to be easier for them to harass you and try to shut you down, then deal with any problem that might happen in the future.”
“Plus, and sorry to bring this up, everyone will assume any trouble they cause you will put them in good with their new boss, your father.”
He shook his head. “Oddly, while I agree that most people will believe that, the opposite is true. Now that he can not make a move on me in secret, and doing anything to me in public would make the family look weak. He is more likely to bring the hammer down on anyone who targets anyone, even me, that has the Thibedeau name. But, I do think your familiarity with the Bureau would be helpful.”
I nodded. "There's also my experience with covering things up, the less attention your company attracts, the less reason the Bureau to look for violations. They can’t find anything to complain about if I take care of the problems before they do.”
Martin smiled and stood up to hold out his hand, “I think I’ve heard enough Miss Varrow, if you want the job of Chief compliance officer, it is yours.”
Yes! I returned his handshake, but he wasn't done.
“Otto had good things to say about you and is looking forward to working with you again.”
I froze. “Otto?”
He nodded, a glint of mischief in his eyes. "While I will need you to check into every one of our businesses. It is when the Rough men go out in the field that I would need someone to babysit them the most. I can not think of anyone better for the job than a former MIB agent who worked with my sister."
“Congratulations.”
Oh crap. "Uh, I hope you don't mind me asking, but why are we meeting in this store? I thought you were freed from the spell and fully healed?"
He forced a grin even as he rubbed at his arm. "Oh I am quite recovered, but thank you for your concern. As far as the store goes, like it or not, this has become a place of power, so I will be continuing to use it as my place of work. Just a better, much more profitable type of work.”
“So now, let us talk salary and benefits."
It was a good talk, with a cute guy. Too bad he’s so short.
Martin- A few weeks later.
The Lambert estate had been built by a collection of young men of means as a place to house their mistresses without having to build and staff individual homes for each of them.
Lechery on a budget.
Over the years it had been a bordello, an orphanage, a commune, and then the home of an aging mystic who nobody had even noticed had died.
I found out about it when the Rough men tracked down the creature that had been eating some local livestock and then looted the place after sending the creature back to the Realm it had been summoned from as a familiar years ago.
Manticores may start out cute, but the mystic really should have done his research on how large they can grow.
It turns out that with no living heir all I had to do was fix the place up and live in it for five years under a variant of the state’s eminent domain laws and it was mine.
Well, mine and Sally Kinkade's. She wanted to move out of her grandmother's house officially, and I had gotten used to having her around.
The place looked like the Adam family’s house with some repairs done and a fresh new coat of pale blue paint with a Thibedeau Blue trim. I had even added a conservatory enchanted to focus enough mana to grow some of my grandmother’s blue roses to further the theme.
I may not have any use for my family, at least the men, but the name is useful.
Sally had been busy laying out various gardens for the plants she wanted, in the places where she wanted them to go instead of having to do things her grandmother's way. Her new boyfriend turned out to be a gardening enthusiast as well. He was even a former 4-H member.
Appropriately, he did in fact have a green thumb, and both his arms back as well.
To sum up. The gunshot wound, healed. My arm, reattached. The Party-Mart, returned to earth and now being remodeled as my central corporate office. In these days of decentralized workspaces, I only needed a place for in person meetings and to separate my workspace from my home.
The store was now an artifact that siphoned the trace amounts of raw Chaos from Hell by way of the copy down there. Then filtered it into usable mana by being passed along to the copy in the Realms, and was then converted into Orderex up here by the rituals involved in running several businesses from inside it.
So far the squatters in my other two branches were not being a problem.
The store on this level of reality no longer made new snack cakes on demand, but it did provide me with a large, replenishing pool of mana for my employees to draw on as needed.
Or by me. Not that I had any use for it myself. When It came to practical magic, I had people for that.
Still, it was nice that word had gotten around that I could personally cause massive destruction on a level that the devil himself came to earth to ask me to restrain myself. This tended to earn a degree of wary respect from a certain kind of people.
As for the imps. The grounds of the estate are large and isolated enough to let them roam about at night without being seen. And it was not the first time the basement had been used for a lair.
It also turned out their dropping makes an excellent fertilizer for magical plants. So Kinkade has become very, well not fond, but tolerant of them.
I had not heard much from my family. There had been nothing from my grandfather and his son to my relief, most likely because someone who even they had to listen to told them not to bother me again.
My sister had finally reached out through social media. In return, I had given her an open invitation to visit. I hope one day she will take advantage of it.
I had not heard anything from my aunt, likely because the family had messed her up to the point it was just not something she would think to do until she needed a favor.
Fortunately, I have a friend living in the newest Umbral Realm who signed up to work for my aunt as a Regulatrice. I get regular updates on my aunt, and my friend, she lives close enough now that I get to see her almost every night.
