“Kara?”
“That sounds about right. Maybe even a little high?”
Sol sharked down another shrimp.
“How about forty thousand?”
Forty thousand? That’s a big number. Wait a second — forty thousand?
“Seriously?”
“Oh, academics will debate these things well past last call. Some will say the maximum is no more than ten thousand, others will tell you that it’s more like one hundred thousand. My feeling — an unsubstantiated guess, mind you — is that it is somewhere in between. So forty to fifty thousand.”
That was a lot of people. Maybe not significant in the overall course of history. I knew that 20 million Russians had died in World War II, and just as many Chinese. Six million Jews had lost their lives. Those were horrible numbers, stark evidence of humanity’s inhumane nature. Hell, you didn’t need to be a combatant in a war, or even the innocent civilian of a nation at war to recognize that mankind was gifted when it came to killing one another. Rwanda, Darfur, the list went on.
But forty thousand was still not a number to ignore. Cultures had gone to war for a hell of a lot less.
“The fact is that witch hunts, the condemnation of occult practices and the persecution of practitioners, all have gone on since pre-Biblical times. Exodus 22:18 — ‘though shalt not suffer a witch to live.’ A lot of men, women and children have died because they were suspected of being witches, or having occult powers. Tens of thousands of people burned at the stake, stoned to death. The Witch Trials during the so-called Age of Reason. Heck, in 2011, a young woman and her mother were stoned to death for witchcraft in South Africa. 2011! And there are many other more recent examples. If you don’t believe in magic, these deaths are a travesty. If you do, it’s genocide. No, even in the best of times, practitioners have kept low profiles.”
“But look at Arcane. Look at our business. We couldn’t stay in business if people weren’t interested in the occult. And it’s not just a handful of folks. We must be talking hundreds in the GTA alone.”
“Yes, but look to the simple math. When the witch hunts took place, there was half a billion humans on this planet. If you were to assume that all of those people who were executed were practitioners, and you were to apply it to our world today, you would end up with a number in the hundreds of thousands. However we know that a significant number of the trials were politically or personally motivated. So cut it in half. You still end up with a number in the six figures. And that’s practitioners. I’m not including dabblers, or the simply curious.”
I did the math in my head. Couldn’t help myself. Let’s face it, I was running a business here. So, just under six million in the GTA. Seven billion worldwide. Call it one in eleven hundred. So if there were one hundred thousand occult types worldwide, and maybe ten times as many who dabbled or were just plain curious, that worked out to more than 1,000 potential customers in the GTA.
I was going to work out market share, but I noticed Kara and the Prof both looking at me in silence.
“Sorry. Just trying to see how that compared to what I’ve seen so far.”
“And?”
“Sounds about right. Might even be low, if you assume even distribution globally.”
“Well, that’s another interesting point.”
After an hour of chatting with the Professor, I excused myself. My head was spinning with way too much information.
Harper had said we had the run of the place, and a group was settled into the living room, two matching tan-colored sofas on either side of a sunken sitting area, with a pair of wicker chairs pulled up to accommodate the head count. My mother was fussing with a stack of cushions, moving them aside to give Clay more room to sit. I kept my head down, and stepped through the first door I saw. In front of me was a short flight of stairs leading to the basement.
Small bedroom to my right — looked like a guestroom. Washroom. Then a room that smelled of leather and appeared to contain a very large TV set.
My kind of room.
Turned out Clay had real nice taste in electronics. Sixty inch widescreen LCD set. Built-in sound system. Two rows of black leather theatre-style seating, with the works — built in consoles and drink-holders. Small bar in the corner. I wandered over to the bar, looking for nothing stiffer than a Coke. I found a Ginger Ale in the bar fridge. I was checking out some knick-knacks displayed in a glass cabinet on the wall behind the bar when a voice startled me out of my reverie.
“So, what do you think of my little hidey hole?”
Clay was looking better. He still walked with a cane, which made his trip down the stairs awkward. But his strength was improving, and his skin was no longer the dull shade of grey that had given me such concern in the hospital.
“Very nice. Something to aspire to.”
“Heh.” He shuffled over to one of the theatre seats and took a seat. “If you told me forty years ago that I was going to own a color TV, I would have laughed. Now I’ve got three, and every HDTV, HDMI watchamacallit going.”
“Not bad.” I gestured to the cabinet and some of the keepsakes on display. “I like the salt and pepper shakers.”
“Neat, eh?” The shakers were miniature Mason jars, one filled with salt, the other with pepper (go figure). Both bore the Arcane Transport logo, engraved on the side. “We did them up for our 10th anniversary, way back when. Sent a set out to all of our customers. I can dig up a pair for you, if you like. I’m sure we have extras floating around.”
“That’d be great. Thanks.”
“My pleasure. Take a closer look, if you want.”
I opened the glass cabinet and lifted the shakers out. Pretty neat. Must be my geek nature, but I love quirky things like that. As I replaced them, I glanced at the other items in the cabinet. On the same shelf as the shakers, there were a few other items bearing the company logo. Mouse pad, keychain, sleeve of golf balls. The next shelf up was occupied by several photos — one showing the office staff, standing out front of reception. The other two showed Clay receiving business awards. I had seen similar photos at the office, along with the actual awards.
“Is that Mayor McCallion?”
“That’s right. Hurrican Hazel. We won a Board of Trade award a few years back, and she attended the ceremony. Harper had always wanted to meet her, so we caught up with her afterwards, and she agreed to have her picture taken.”
“What was she then? Eighty-five?”
“Eighty-seven. Amazing.”
“No kidding.”
The top shelf appeared to be personal items — a pottery jar, Eskimo soapstone bear and a glass bowl. The jar immediately caught my eye. Black on black, with matte images carved into the polished surface. The decoration reminded me of some of the Pueblo art I had seen in the past.
“Where did you get the-,” I reached out to lift the pot from the shelf.
“Don’t!”
“Huh?” Too late. I spun, just managing not to smack the pot on anything.
“Oh! I’m sorry, Clay. Didn’t mean to presume.” I reached to place the pot back in the cabinet.
“No, no. It’s OK. Just — don’t worry about it. Feel free to take a look.”
I glanced at him and noticed he seemed a little flustered. Not a good thing in his condition. I was debating getting Harper when she descended the stairs.
“There you are! I wasn’t sure if you’d gone to lie down, or — oh, hi Darnell.”
“Hi Harper.” I glanced down at the pot in my hands, to give her and Clay an opportunity to talk for a moment. She was no doubt checking in on him to make sure all was well.
The pot was maybe four inches tall by five inches wide, and seemed to be half-full with salt or something similar. The polished parts of the clay surface were so reflective that they served as curved mirrors, and I could see my own face looking back at me. Several bands had been etched into the circumference of the pot, with geometric representations of various animals, reminiscent of the totem poles of the Canadian Pacific Coast.