Tomorrow Wendell (White Dragon Black) by R. M. Ridley

wrappers, and began to slowly turn the contents widdershins.
    After a moment or two, the orange slowly lost its vivid color and faded, an ember turning to ash. Only a few flakes of what looked like copper dust remained in the end.
    “Nothing there,” Jonathan informed Bao. “Just give the container a shake and the flakes will fall to the bottom. They’re not harmful, taste vaguely like flowers actually.”
    “I have tasted some unpleasant flowers, Mr. Alvey.”
    “I was thinking roses, but . . .” He shrugged.
    “But no other customer will get cookie with fortune like your friend?”
    “He’s a client. But no, no one else will get anything but the usual.”
    “Thank you,” Bao said and then looked askance at the fortune cookies. “Sorry it did not help.”
    “Yeah, well, I’ll figure this out, Bao.”
    The older man nodded as though Jonathan’s statement was a given.
    Jonathan went back out through the swinging doors with the steam of the kitchen clinging tenaciously to him. He sat down across from his client once again.
    Wendell questioned the outcome of the excursion with a single raised eyebrow. Jonathan merely shook his head slightly.
    The sigh Wendell gave in response bothered him. Jonathan didn’t like his clients to feel out of luck, or options. Although Jonathan steeped in frustration, he wasn’t out of hope yet. He had over forty-eight hours to find answers, assuming the threat was actually real.
    It still remained quite possible the whole thing was a hoax, a sick joke, or cruel retribution for an unknown slight. Should that be the case, then he had even longer to track down the sick individual who thought carrying out the concept had been a good idea.
    Jonathan still hadn’t made up his mind as to just which it was: real threat or simple mind tamper. He didn’t have enough information to know so far, but either way, Jonathan wasn’t willing to fret about his client’s safety just yet.
    If real . . . well, if real, Jonathan had one good day to stop whatever was behind it. If worse came to worst, he would take Wendell to a random hotel, get a room on a upper level floor where they could watch over-priced movies and eat food pre-purchased from the Lucky Monkey.
    He would keep Wendell from the windows and cover the place in wards and sigils of safety and obfuscation. They would simply sit tight until the ill-fated day had slid into the next.
    An end game solution wasn’t going to give his client the help he needed right now, however.
    Jonathan didn’t know what to do with, or for, Wendell’s current problem. He could see no real need to have him watched at this stage, nor could Jonathan think of any reason to make the man hang around. He just didn’t need him for anything at this point in the game.
    However, the whole ‘death threat’ deal made it seem in poor taste to simply brush his client off. Even Jonathan could figure that one out, and he knew he wasn’t the most compassionate or empathetic of creatures.
    He wasn’t in a good place and everything tasted like ash, until he finally had Bao bring him some saké. After a couple shots to fight back the need having risen from just one spell, to bring his mind back to earth, and to ease the aching in his bones from having hauled the energy through himself, he could think again. The Dragon Black still held him in its teeth, but he could work.
    He considered other questions to ask his client and alternate ways to approach them. Eventually, he regained his equilibrium and began to press Wendell for details he hoped might later in the investigation reveal themselves to be important.
    That killed twenty minutes.
    Finally, he could do nothing more for his client except send him home with instructions to get as much rest as he could. Jonathan told Wendell to pick up some sort of sleeping aid on his way home, if he thought he would need it.
    “Sleeping pills, booze . . . whatever is going to work for you, Wendell. It won’t do anyone any good