The Inquisitor's Apprentice Read Free Page B

good, honest profession. Why, Inquisitors have become mayors, senators ... even president!"
    "Right," Bekah snorted. "And everyone knows how honest politicians are."
    Now it was Mr. Kessler's turn to roll his eyes. "And you think Mordechai's Wiccanist friends wouldn't be just as bad the minute they got into power?"
    "Well, they certainly couldn't be any worse, could they?" Bekah crossed her arms defiantly. "Benjamin Franklin founded the Inquisitors to protect ordinary people from magical crime, and what do they do instead? Run around giving tickets to poor Mrs. Lassky while J. P. Morgaunt and the rest of those Wall Street Wizards get away with murder!"
    "Bilking widows out of their life savings in the stock market might not be nice," Mr. Kessler pointed out, "but it's not exactly murder."
    "Besides," Mo added, "the Inquisitors
do
catch rich men. They caught Meyer Minsky—"
    "And he was out on parole six months later and running Magic, Inc., just like always. Besides, he's a gangster. A
Jewish
gangster. When was the last time you saw an Astral or a Morgaunt or a Vanderbilk in prison?"
    "Fine," Sacha's father teased. "Run upstairs and join the Wobblies. I've seen you talking to that skinny redhead up there. In my day if a boy and a girl liked each other, they did something about it, end of story. But if you'd rather run all over town making speeches about magic-workers' rights, be my guest."
    Bekah tried to look outraged, but her face was so red that Sacha had to smother a laugh. He glanced at his father in amazement. Mr. Kessler worked such long hours that he was barely ever home except to eat and sleep—but judging by Bekah's blushes, he'd spotted something that even their mother's sharp eyes had missed. Sacha knew who the Wobblies were, of course: the Industrial Witches of the World, whose makeshift headquarters were located in a cheap rear flat on the top floor of the Kesslers' own building. But obviously he was going to have to take a closer look at the idealistic young Wobblies who traipsed up and down the stairs past their apartment every day. Especially the redheads.
    "I don't even think about boys that way," Bekah protested, still blushing furiously. "Especially not—I mean, I have no idea who you're talking about!"
    "Good," their father said mildly. "Then I guess I don't need to meet him."
    Bekah bit her lip. "And—and Mama doesn't need to hear about him?"
    "I'm sorry. Are you saying you
do
know who I'm talking about?"
    "Gee, Daddy, maybe you ought to join the Inquisitors instead of Sacha."
    Meanwhile, Uncle Mordechai had finished with the
Yiddish Daily Magic-Worker
and picked up the
Alphabet City Alchemist.
The main headline screamed "The Robber Barons Are Stealing Our Magic!" in letters Sacha could read all the way across the table.
    "Of course Bekah's completely right about the Inquisitors," Mordechai announced, as if the conversation had never strayed from politics in the first place. "Asking them to catch magical criminals is like setting a fox to guard the hen-house. Which just goes to prove my original point: America is a myth founded on a fable founded on a—"
    But instead of finishing his speech Mordechai grabbed his pocket watch, read the time, and clapped a hand to his handsome head. "My God!" he cried. "I'm late for rehearsal! Again!"
    He leaped from his chair, knocking over a pile of IWW newsletters, which knocked over Grandpa Kessler's
Collected Works of Maimonides
in fourteen volumes, which toppled Bekah's teetering stack of schoolbooks—and sent her civics essay slithering into the soup.
    "Farewell and adieu!" Mordechai cried, ducking out on a fresh family debate—this one about how to get the soup stains out of Bekah's homework and the taste of civics homework out of the soup. "I'd love to stay and help clean up, but we're opening Sunday, and the show must go on!"
    The rest of them spent the next several minutes blotting soup off of Bekah's essay and hanging the damp pages