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I take a second to consider how best to put my proposition “Well, you see, I’m really hesitant to let Marcel and Gabriel unravel my spell now, but I do still want to discover what it is So I ondering, since you know all about this kind of thing, if maybe you could do it for me?”

Rita looks a little shocked for aof her Then says, “You’d trust h she would barely trust herself to perforic But in my opinion it’s the people who don’t believe in their own hype who are theto think that Rita’s personality is about eighty per cent bravado

“Sure I would” I tell her “Irin, “despite outward appearances So, yes, if you’ll agree I’d like you to be the one to disentangle all of this ot in me”

Rita comes toward , pull it out of my pocket and hand it to her She fiddles with the keyboard for a minute, then hands it back to me

“There you go,” she says “My number’s in your phone book

, under F for “fucking ht when you’re off work and we’ll fix up to meet”

I nod as she walks out the door, then I take a hts and return to work

Chapter Eleven

Aren’t the Cats and Brick-a-Brack a Little Stereotypical?

At the end of my work day I hurry ho with tentative little steps in the right direction, and itheadway in the health department, mental and physical

I eat a sizeable bowl of tuna and pasta, but it’s after I’ve finished and have taken a half an hour to rest that the hard part comes in To call Rita or not to call Rita, that is the question that plagues htmare with a bad attitude, or my fifty year old boss who is apparently Head Warlock of District Thatever that means

Of course Of course I knohich one seems the more respectable and trustworthy option But is the obvious choice always the correct one? Isn’t a conner suit still a con which purport to present hi, reliable citizen?

But really, I don’t even seethis, because I know h to realise that I always choose the dark horse The path less taken I have a soft spot for the disenfranchised of this world, and that is why I pick up h et as far as Rita’s name

She ansith a sives me her address I call a taxi since it’s over on the other side of the city On Dhamphir/Warlock territory, as I’ve recently learned

Rita’s house is on a residential street just outside of the cramped city centre, a lot more spacious than my apartment block ridden, dive of an area Her house is a brown brick post war number, and extremely narrow The narrowness is made up for by the fact that it has three floors, instead of the traditional two And, I shit you not, there are three cats sitting on her doorstep, purring and licking themselves in the usual fashion of the feline species