10

I looked at him and brought my sight up. Art remained Art. “Umm, Art, did you notice anything weird like lights going out and loud noises from my room?” Art got an alarmed look on his face and his eyes darted towards the door. “Should I have heard something?” he asked nervously. “Yeah, I fired four rounds at something in my office, you darn well should have heard something.” I said tersely. “That, and the lights went out all over.” “Lights went out?”, he said to me as he put his coffee cup down on his desk. Maybe you blew a local breaker Fern, 'cause I haven't lost any lights”
It took a moment to sink in and I returned quickly to my office. Art followed me out of his office and back to mine. “Fern, what are you doing?” he asked me. “I'm going to find out what kind of magic someone used on me.” I as certain that SOME kind of magic was used. I just didn't understand why yet. “Can I watch if I don't get in the way?” Art asked, as he looked in on my office. He seemed surprised at its dingy condition and the clutter. He looked at me again. “When was that last time you cleaned up?” he said curiously to me.
I flipped the wall switch, and the lights came on with no problem at all. I flipped them off and on twice more to make sure I wasn't just imagining the lights. Finally, I went back over to my possibles bag, and pulled out my machete' and an iron nail. I put the nail in my pocket and pulled out a bag of salt and a second bag of iron filings.
I chose an open part of the floor, and laid the machete' down by my feet, then at arm's reach, made a salt circle around me, then a iron circle inside the salt. I tossed the bags back next to the possibles bag, and picked up my machete', then I unsheathed it and laid the blade edge-on in my palm and wrapped my fingers around the blade, and tugged it sharply, cutting my hand slightly. I dropped blood inside of the other two circles, South, North, West, East. Then I made a third circle by dragging the tip of the machete' through the blood drops in a clockwise manner. Art watched all the preparations with fascination. I stepped carefully over the circles, and got some toilet paper from the bathroom to cover the cut on my hand with.
“This is where it gets tricky” I told him. The creature I'm going to call up will be outside the circle and won't be happy, you sure you want to stay?” “Uh, thanks, but I'm not that curious” Art told me, and hurried back to his office and I head a door slam. Heh. I wasn't going to call up a creature, but I did want him somewhere else. The circles were made and I was ready.
I sheathed the machete' ,pulled the iron nail, and focused my will. “Truth in salt, truth in iron, truth in blood.” I said as I turned in place. Once I finished a complete rotation, I dropped the nail to my feet. It sped to the ground like a released arrow and buried itself halfway into the floor. My office remained the same, dingy AUTHENTIC 1930's style gumshoe office. That ruled out external glamour. The room did not have the illusion on it, I had it on me.
I could deal with that too, but I might have already. The magic I'd most likely been around was fae, since “Mr. Cobb” had been my client today, and he was most definitely fae. The iron nail and the filings could have inadvertently disrupted any fae spell cast on me, but would leave some kind of trace that could be spotted by a good, meaning expert, wizard. There were other ways too, one that a simpleton magically could use, but they were liable to hurt the caster.