Chapter Text
Penelope Park was officially having the worst day ever. Chasing a crusty white dog between alleys was just the hot fudge with a cherry on top of her shit sundae.
“Stop! Heel! Fuss! Aus! Fuck!” she yelled breathlessly. Penn really thought the German route would work on the thing.
None of the spells she knew seemed to affect it, and she could barely concentrate on anything at all as she chased the dog, or, more specifically, the folder it had stolen from her hands. The metropolitan streets were unforgiving on her heels and her business-formal dress.
She wasn’t going to get the job. That meant a final goodbye to her flat and returning to her mother empty-handed.
As she turned another sharp corner, she saw the impish creature sitting perfectly still, staring back at her.
“Hey, buddy. Tired? Me too. I really need this job… a job… something, and I won’t be able to get one if you don’t give me back my résumé,” she said, slowly inching toward the dog.
“God, I need a fucking Red Bull. Or a gun. Whichever at this point,” she huffed as she reached for her manila folder.
The dog suddenly leapt up and bolted inside the dilapidated warehouse to the right.
“Fuuuuuck,” Penelope yelled as she gave chase yet again.
Inside, the place looked more nouveau chic than the crumbling exterior suggested.
She scanned the wide space, spotting a small desk in the far corner. Penelope decided to see if whoever worked there could help her find that dog, maybe an owner, if she was lucky.
As she approached the desk, the surprisingly put-together woman behind it looked up and smiled.
“Ahh, Miss Park. You are just on time!” she said, clapping her hands giddily. The whiteness of her teeth was almost cutting, the way they contrasted with her blood-red-lined lips.
“Miss Park!” came a deep male voice from right behind her, making Pen jump. “I am Rudolphus Grey. Here, let me show you to your workstation.”
The man, salt-and-pepper beard, matching hair, grey pin-striped three-piece suit, patted her left shoulder. Before she could get a word out, he ushered her toward a nearby staircase.
“I am so glad young talent these days are as enthused about magic and its regulations as you are!” he said, beaming with corporate pride. “We at the Janus Corporation take your future very seriously. After all, magic is eternal… but magicians tire so easily.”
He clapped his hands, and a faint shimmer of gold rippled through the hallway’s sigils as if answering the sound.
“Now! Let me show you where, and what, you’ll be doing.”
He guided her through a series of unnervingly businesslike floors. Glass-walled conference rooms flickered with illusion screens; enchanted briefcases hummed along floating conveyor belts; a troll in a tailored vest argued quietly with a banshee wearing noise-dampening runes.
“Obviously,” he continued, “we want you to get proper training and supervised experience before sending you out into the wider world. But! You’ll be delighted to know we just nicked a fellow off the streets of Georgia, interesting potential in that one. Voracious appetite to boot. He’s already eaten the better part of our pixie problem. So you two can go through the trial by fire together!”
They stepped onto a floor filled with nondescript cubicles, the bland office chatter mingling with the faint clinking of potion mugs and the rustle of wings. A mix of clearly magical and more humanoid beings worked side by side under flickering charm-lights.
“Alright,” he sighed at last as they stopped in the dim, far-left corner of the maze. “Penelope Park, meet your new partner and fellow trainee: Ryan Clarke. And welcome to your new life, six months at the latest.”
He threw up his hands in a pair of weary jazz hands. And vanished in a gust of wind that smelled like moth balls.
The tiny cubicle’s occupant turned around: a gangly, curly-haired man in his late twenties, or possibly early thirties, blinked at her. He had the sort of dweeby, well-meaning face that tried too hard to smile, and the most pathetic red-rimmed eyes behind clear frames.
“So… what was that?” she asked finally.
Ryan gave her a look that somehow managed to be both encouraging and deeply depressing.
“Congrats. The universe has officially decided you’re enough of a loser to offer you an olive branch.”
“Huh?”
He walked his chair toward her, the wheels squeaking like they were protesting his entire existence.
“Okay, short version: the girl I had a crush on basically destroyed my human life. To the point that I was homeless, unemployed, and being hunted by an evil corporation full of magical beings.”
Pen stared. “Wow. Okay. That’s… that’s a lot.”
“Yeah, well,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “So I’m running for my life, right? And I stumble across a bunch of pixies torturing some small town and Janus Corp guys. And I… uh… helped.”
“Right,” Pen said slowly. “Capitalist Gandalf said you ate one?”
Ryan blinked at her offended. “One? I ate plenty.”
She recoiled a little. “Why?!”
He shrugged like this was a perfectly reasonable Tuesday.
“My dad’s a bottomless pit. Literally. And I used to be inhuman, but my friends made me ‘almost human’ to free me from him. Which, surprise, obviously made me something else instead.”
Pen just stared at him.
Ryan offered her a weak smile.
“Welcome to Janus Corp. You’ll fit right in.”