Small Magic
It was six inches long and mostly green with little bits of yellow all over its body. In its claws it held a small scroll. Most people don't see a Dragon Flyer every day but if you do, you don't generally look forward to it. Right away I knew his lordship wanted me for something. I grunted at the Flyer and held out my hand. It dropped the scroll and vanished.
There wasn't any use in putting it off, so I opened the scroll. I'd been about twelve when my mom took me aside to have a talk. At first I thought she was going to tell me about the birds and the bees, but I was wrong. She started making coins and other small object vanish and reappear. I'd never seen her do that and I was impressed. Sleight of hand stuff seemed really cool to me. That’s when she lowered the boom. Said it wasn't sleight of hand. Told me it was real magic.
I was skeptical at first but she proceeded to show me, and I was impressed. She told me she thought it was some sort of recessive gene or something; said that very few people had it, and that those that did kept it a secret. I was wondering why she was telling me all this stuff when a little light went on above my head (No not literally) "You mean I have this power?" I asked her. She nodded her head solemnly. "Alright!" I exclaimed. I was really happy. She just smiled at me in a sad way.
I found out that some pick pockets and small time magicians had the gift. They were generally looked down upon for wasting their talents and shirking their responsibilities. If there was one thing my mother didn't go in for, it was shirking ones responsibilities. So I got to learning some of the history of people like my mom and I. It turned out we'd been burned as witches and warlocks for centuries though in spite of the Salem witch trials there were very few formal witch hunts in the colonies back in olden times.
It turned out the age of science had been a real boon for our type of people. Almost nobody believed in magic any more, and witch burnings were way down, especially in the western countries. Heck, some people even viewed it as a good thing. But I'm straying from the subject. It was one of John's scrolls. "The Great John" as he liked to call himself was the area rep. Sometimes I called him Lord John to get his goat since he was a bit too full of himself for my liking, but he did his job done alright.
Turned out some small time mage was getting out of line. Now we don't try to tell people their morals, but we got the wellbeing of the group at large to think about. People ever got to actually believing we exist and things might get kinda sticky again. Nobody wants to be hung or burned to ashes you know. Least wise not while they still have a desire to breath. Even worse would be spending the rest of your life in a lab somewhere being cut up and tested. No thank you.
The guy’s name was Rick Blade. Fancied himself to be a master pick pocket according to the scroll. As long as members kept their take within reason we left 'em alone. Like I said, we don't dictate morals. But our buddy Rick was getting a bit ambitious. Seems he'd planned a rather big heist. That was bad enough. What was worse was that he'd apparently taken a few of his friends into a deeper confidence then we generally liked. Add in the fact that he looked like a burn out case, and it was not a pretty picture.
See, Magic takes something out of you. The minor stuff really doesn’t amount to enough to matter, but when you try for the big stuff... You can really mess yourself up if you don't know what you’re doing, and even if you do, it still makes you a little weaker. Wasting or burnout is what most of us called it. Now not everybody was built the same. Me, I had a fairly high resistance. That made me a prime candidate for law enforcement, and my Mother never would have forgiven me if I'd shirked my responsibilities.
So the fact I was on vacation didn't really mean much overall. I'd have to go into town and check this guy out.
I checked his home, but he wasn't in, and I couldn't track down any of his friends either. Seemed his main haunt was a bar called “The Barrel”. I got myself a seat in the back and waited. Sure enough, a couple hours later he came in. I didn't approach him, since I wanted to get him alone. He had a wild look about him, and I could almost smell the magic.
He sat down and started talking to a group of fellows at one of the tables. I'd brought along one of those listen from a ways a way devices. (No use using magic when you don't have to.) It looked a lot like a cheap MP3 player. Being real subtle I got the mic pointing in their direction. They weren't really talking about anything important as far as I could tell. It stood to reason that this guy wasn't that dumb. They was just shooting the breeze and drinking beer.
I ran over my options. Easiest thing would be to take Rick buddy aside and have a little chat. As of now what his friends knew really didn't matter that much. Most people just don't believe in hocus pocus as anything more than a game. They might sell a story to one of the scandal rags, but we didn't care. Heck, we sometimes sold a story or two ourselves, mostly for humor value. The problem with this option was it would let him know we were on to him. If he didn't take it well he could make it real hard on us. I wanted to avoid having to bring in the big guns.
Of course there was another option, but I didn't like it much. Rick was real close to the edge. A little nudge at the right time would probably put him over. We in the business called it the ‘it’s better to burn 'em out and then fade away' gambit. It wasn't quite murder, but it was close. I didn't give it very serious thought. It was really something of a selfish thing. If I was ever going to soil my hands that way I was going to make sure I did it on somebody worthwhile.
I decided that I'd just hang around and see what happened. No need to work up a sweat if I didn't have to. Maybe just being around to pick up the pieces would be enough. (Yea right.)
Eventually they left of course. I'd been getting a bit bored listening to them talk and I almost missed it. Following them was a minor problem. I had to keep a low profile all the way around. Don't let anybody tell you that it’s easy to keep somebody in sight and not be noticed; especially when the person you're following has more than the usual five senses.
They headed downtown and entered one of the old warehouses in the industrial area. It didn't look like it'd been used much recently. They'd used a service access door in the back. Now this was a problem. One of the things I haven't mentioned up till now is the fact that some metals cause problems with magic. It tends to vary from person to person. For some its lead, for others is steel. Rarely it’s with gold. My weakness is aluminum. Yep, the stuff they make soft drink cans out off. It’s not like it burned me. I just couldn't see through it, and it interfered something fierce when I tried to cast any spells. (I still drive an ancient Dodge Dart because of this.)
Now guess what the siding of this warehouse was made of..Yep,my friend Aluminum. A lot places used steel. This would have to be an exception. This left me in a bit of a quandary. I Couldn't see in and I couldn't use magic. Only thing I could do was wander up and check things out by conventional means.
I circled around to the other side in the hopes that being subtle would give me an advantage (In my experience, breaking down the front door and screaming "Freeze, Magic Police!" Just didn't work all that often.) The report John had sent me had been a bit vague on the size of the gang. I didn't think they were all that well run, but I wasn't sure. Things were quiet on the other side. There were a couple of doors and half a dozen windows fairly high up. I didn't see anyone in any of them either visually so I moved up.
The door was locked, but that wasn't a problem. I pulled out my pick set and had it open in about 15 seconds. I might as well have knocked. As soon as I stuck my head in to look around I was clobbered and down for the count.
I couldn't have been out long, because when I came around I was still in the front room I'd glimpsed before getting knocked unconscious. There was a scrawny intense little guy that I hadn't seen at the bar standing over me. I was propped up against the wall by the door. There was a painful pounding in my head, but other than that I felt OK.
He backed off a few steps and pulled a wallet from within the blue denim jacket he was wearing. He either had one a lot like mine, or he'd been busy while I was out. He gave me a look that let me know he'd do something nasty if I moved. He talked less than I did. I didn't sense any magic about him, so I wasn't worried.
He was thorough in his examination. I suspect he was disappointed since I had no plastic and only carried 10 bucks cash. He took the money of course. Finally he asked me a question.
"So you’re a private eye eh?"
I had to make a living somehow when I wasn't fishing or chasing down small time mages gone bad and it was a good cover. "Yes I am."
"What you doing down here?"
I smiled to buy some time to think. "Well I'm afraid, that comes under the category of client confidentiality." He didn't like that answer.
"You can talk now, or you can talk later. I know what my choice would be." He replied.
I was getting tired of the subtle approach. I was supposed to be on vacation, and here I was getting hit on the head and asked stupid questions. The time had come for action. I looked at the guy and shock my head in the negative. "If you want me to answer your questions take me to your boss. I'm one tough SOB and I don't think you can get anything out of me by yourself." I expended a small amount of magical energy to nudge him towards the decision I was hoping for.
He'd already searched me, so he probably figured I wasn't carrying a gun or anything else obviously deadly. I knew that he'd missed a few things, but I wasn't planning on using them anyway.
He was sort of muttering silently to himself, almost thinking out loud. Finally he came to a decision. "Get up nice and easy and head for that door." He said backing off a bit. I followed his instructions.
I hadn't seen a gun up till that time, but it was easy to tell that it wasn't his finger that jabbed me on the way to the door. I didn't bother to do a positive ID. Whenever possible I avoid using the magic. The reason for that is coming up.
We went through a hall and a couple of doors before we meet up with anyone else. There was a fast explanation followed by my escort growing. We finally reached a large door marked “Manager”. Bill had the other guy knock. I could sense the other mage.
We went inside, and there he stood. It was obvious he'd been doing some serious stimulants. I'd suspected as much, but hadn't been sure up till now. Chances were this was going to get ugly fast.
I could see him sizing me up. I didn't try to hide who I was, even made the secret hand gesture.
"I suppose you've come to talk me out of my life of crime?" He said and smiled in a devil may care way.
I looked around at his compatriots and raised an eyebrow. There were a half dozen of them standing around the room.
"We have no secrets here. I think it’s about time we stopped hiding don't you?"
I pretended to be bored. "I don't deal in politics. I'm just the law. You know the rules."
He smiled at that. I guess he liked to smile. "I'm familiar with them. I believe we should be able to use our powers any way we like. Survival of the fittest is nature’s way."
"Look Mr. Blade. You think magic is going to get you lots of power and money. And if you were unique, you might be right. But there's a whole heck of a lot of us that don't agree with you. We like things the way they are. Besides, at the rate you're going you'll be dead before the end of the year."
Seems I'd hit a sore spot with my death comment, because that’s when he decided to attack. Nothing to obvious, this was fortunate for the others in the room. I could feel him trying to squeeze my heart. He was direct and to the point anyway. I managed to fend him off, but only just barely. He wasn't half bad, and he didn't much care what he did to himself apparently.
When his initial attack failed he backed off a little to give me a second look. I decided to take care of the innocent bystanders during the lull. I looked over at them. "Leave NOW." They wavered for a bit but left in a hurry when I looked at each of them in turn. I can be very convincing when I want to be.
I turned my full attention back to Rick. He was getting a bit frayed around the edges. That’s when he played his ace in the hole. I saw the gun just before it went off. It was a small Derringer he’d had hidden up his sleeve. He'd gone for my heart again. Luckily for me he missed, but the numbness in my shoulder told me that his effort hadn’t been entirely wasted.
Now this put a whole new spin on things. If he was going to shoot me I'd just have to get nasty. You see, I don't use magic much. But it’s not because I'm bad at it. It’s because of the cost. When you’re in my line of work you can't really afford to waste any effort, because there will be times when you're going to have to burn bright and fast. I wasn't tired and I wasn't on edge. I had a lot in reserve right then.
His next move was to heat up the slug that was still lodged in my shoulder and push it towards my heart. That had the potential to do a lot of damage. Right then I wasn't really feeling anything much from the wound, and I figured I had another minute or two before I did. The human body has a wonderful way of insulating one from this sort of thing. After all, you can't run for your life or defend yourself if you're on the ground in agony.
I was having trouble getting ahold of the bullet. It felt like some sort of composite, and Aluminum was apparently one of the metals. Rick was a smart guy to have thought of that angle. Mix in enough metals and you’d have a decent chance against most of our kind. I could almost get a grip on it, but not quite. Rick was having no trouble, probably because his least favorite metal wasn’t in the mix. He certainly had me on the defensive, and it was time for me to strike back. All I needed to do was break his concentration.
Fire is tacky. It’s messy, and it does a lot of collateral damage. Water on the other hand... I'd spotted the sprinkler system on the way in. I had just enough in reserve to make a fast modification. My buddy Rick had that annoying smile on his face, right up until the pipes above him burst and he got drenched. I guess he'd been watching for something direct. I'd already made my frontal assault for the day when I’d come through the door to this place earlier.
Now the water wasn't going to hurt him, but the surprise broke his concentration, and gave me a chance to go on the offensive. I mentally grabbed ahold of a nearby file cabinet and slammed it into him as hard as I could. He managed to deflect it at the last moment, but it still nailed him good on his left side. From the sound of things I figured I'd broken his arm and maybe a rib or two.
At that point I was getting tired. Between the damage Rick had done, the knock on the head, and the effort I'd just expended I was nearing the end of my reserve. Luckily for me he wasn't much better off. I managed to pull my cell phone out of my jacket pocket and call up John. I knew when to call in the Cavalry. It was about then that Rick fell to the ground. I didn't know it then, but apparently he had a heart attack. I tried to get over to check him out, but about that’s when the pain hit me and the world got fuzzy around the edges. I was out before I hit the floor.
Obviously I lived. It was a close thing though. Rick didn't make it, but I didn't feel much guilt. In my book he was as bad as they come, and considering the stuff he'd been doing to himself it could almost be called natural causes.
My survival was a big magic to me, the sort that made my ability to do small magic insignificant.
Copyright 2011 by Michael J. Miller Jr.
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