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happen.
    Someone might have used an incantation whose residual magical energy wouldn’t show up with his final formulated concoction, but the odds were so low that he couldn’t allow himself to worry about it.
    If he was honest, Jonathan still thought the whole thing a prank—that someone, somehow, had played this out on poor Wendell. He just couldn’t figure out why. At this point, he had no fucking idea how either.
    Whoever had targeted his client had to be using magic. There should have been something for Jonathan to pick up on.
    Suddenly, his mind supplied the last ingredient needed to make a paste that would turn different colors as it reacted to each residual energy left by an incantation or conjuring.
    Jonathan wouldn’t bother making much of the mixture since the very nature of the concoction would inherently make its effectiveness last only a few hours. No use wasting the ingredients on something that would shortly be good for nothing, except possibly masking bleach spots on dark natural fibers.
    Jonathan got up and opened the only other door in the office, revealing his own little apothecary.
    Stored in the large closet were glass jars, small boxes, hanging plant material, cork plugged bottles filled with various liquids, and assorted writing materials, on shelves lining the walls .
    On the back of the door, among other paraphernalia, hung his shoulder holster. The gun currently lay in his desk drawer, but he almost never left the office without it, so he took a moment to strap the thing on before collecting together the ingredients he needed.
    After he’d gathered everything required, Jonathan carried the tray to his desk and, shoving a few papers out of the way, set it down. He got to work using a mortar and pestle to crush herbs, minerals, and other organic materials.
    Occasionally, as he added an ingredient, he would chant in languages—most of them obscure and quite dead—to activate certain properties inherent in the substance or call on the innate power of the herbs.
    His brow began to bead as he fought against the urge to summon up his own energies. Jonathan fought his addiction and concentrated on the making the paste.
    He knew the mixture was a success when it suddenly congealed into a waxy substance. It also turned the color of green one expects from the blood of overgrown frogs or bloated lawyers.
    Jonathan went to search the front office desk for a suitable container. He knew that one of the secretaries no longer in his employ had to have left something he could use.
    Sure enough, at the back of a bottom drawer, he found a small circular container of lip balm with only half the yellow waxy substance left inside. The label said something about bees, but Jonathan didn’t care what it had been, just that its former product would be a great cover for his potion.
    Jonathan took the lip balm into his miniscule, and admittedly grungy, washroom behind the secretary desk. He turned the hot water tap on, placed the container in the sink, and walked back to his office.
    He took the tray of ingredients back to the closet and put each jar, box, and herb back in its place. The closet looked a disaster, but Jonathan knew where everything was, give or take the odd item.
    The walls shuddered and the industrial clanking of old steel pipes choking on their own load filled the air.
    Jonathan took in another portion of the bourbon and finally wandered back to the washroom. He put his finger under the stream of water and, taking it back out, returned to his office to get a smoke.
    He leaned on the washroom doorframe, smoking, until a particularly loud and disturbing rattle came from the wall behind the sink. For a full five seconds following the clattering, nothing came out of the spigot. Then, water sputtered and spurted forth.
    Steam began to curl around the tap and Jonathan stuck the rubber stopper over the drain hole and allowed the sink to fill.
    He tossed the cigarette butt into the toilet, where it died with a