The mansion in Beverly Hills has a clear patch of sky over it, as if the winds were forcing away the yellow haze of smoke and soot around it. If the normals even notice it their brains will fill in some explanation and move on. It’s just a weird weather phenomenon. Not like it’s magic or anything, right?

This is how powerful mages show they’re powerful. Sure, they throw their money around, but for us it’s all about letting everyone know how badass we are. Keeping this spell around the whole mansion takes a lot of power, keeping it up takes a lot of control. And then there’s being able to do anything else while it’s happening, like sleeping.

Things took longer than I expected, and the coke’s pretty much worn off. I do a bump to keep things moving along. Drugs do the same things to mages as they do to normals. We just get more side effects. Normal people doing ayahuasca puke their guts out, they think their arms are turning into snakes and that they can see the future. Mages do that and the snakes are real, a demon rises out of the puddle of your own bile, and you really do see your future. Which tends to be very short.

Adderall, for example, can keep anybody awake and focused, but for a mage it makes their magic easier, faster. You see a lot of newbies depending on it, same with pit fighters. Yeah, we have pit fights. Two mages in, one mage out. It’s fucking brutal. But at one point or another we all use it. We’re bending reality into pretzel shapes, after all, and anything that makes that easier is going to be a popular choice. The only people who do more Adderall than mages are med students.

Pot doesn’t really do much for us unless it’s for a ritual that involves complete relaxation, and Valium works better. Acid is amateur hour. You’re a mage and need acid to expand your consciousness, just get out of the game.

Another popular one is ecstasy. Because A) it’s awesome and B) if you’re doing any kind of sex magic you get really good results. You can pull some impressive shit out of your hat on that stuff. But man, are you gonna feel it the next morning.

Now cocaine is special. Cocaine hits mages like it hits everyone else. It boosts confidence, gets you all jittery, generally feels good for a while, helps you make really bad decisions. Like doing more coke.

But the weird thing it does is fuck up truth magic.

It’s ironic. People on coke are horrible liars. It’s so fucking obvious they’re shoveling horseshit that nobody bothers to use it to defeat a truth finding spell.