by Martha Carr
The woman laughed and waved back. “Afternoon, small motherfucker.”
He chuckled and scurried to the back, grabbing a takeout box and loading it with maple bacon donuts and half-a-dozen chicken wings. The place was raging busy since it was lunchtime in the city, but when the customers noticed him running along with a takeout box over his head none of them even blinked. It was DC; weird shit happened all the time.
Yumfuck jumped off the counter and made his way to the door.
“Whoa, little buddy!” A man laughed and held the door open for Yumfuck.
He looked up and nodded, “Thank you, pardner.”
“Uh...” The guy wrinkled his nose and shrugged. “You’re welcome...pardner.”
“Welcome to DC,” the woman behind him said. “You get used to it after a while. Probably an intern on the Hill.”
Yumfuck scurried back across the street and through the open door of the crowded Starbucks, which had a line stretching out the door and around the corner. Once on the platform he grew back to three feet and made his way down the stairs, this time looking around a bit more carefully. The train at the bottom took the long way home, but he didn’t mind. He had plenty of yum to keep him busy. The troll sat down in a seat, pulled his box into his lap, and licked his lips as he opened the lid. He pulled out a maple bacon donut with wide eyes and opened his mouth to take a bite. “Yum…fuck…”
“Ahem.” An older witch across from him said, pointing at a sign above her head.
The side read NO EATING in bold letters. Yumfuck sighed, took a quick lick, and put the donut back into the box, barely closing the lid as he eyed the witch. As soon as she looked back down at her phone he leaned down and licked the first donut. He popped his head back out and closed the lid firmly, whistling as he looked around the train nonchalantly. The witch glanced at him and narrowed her eyes, but went back to reading.
Farther down the car sat a homeless person, his bags in the chair next to him. He had been watching Yumfuck and was laughing. He was an elf of some kind, but between the matted hair and the long beard Yumfuck couldn’t make out exactly what he was. Throughout the long ride Yumfuck leaned down and licked different pieces of food, narrowly escaping the sideways glances of the witch across from him. When the train finally came to his stop he broke off a piece of donut and stood up, handing it to the homeless man. He blew a raspberry at the witch, who snarled at him, and tipped his hat, giving her a big grin of sharp pointed teeth.
“Have a good day!”
The witch rolled her eyes and went back to her phone, ignoring his happy mood. He high-fived the homeless man and strutted off the train into the station, holding his to-go box close to his chest. He would just have to wait until he got home to dive into his lunch, but it wasn’t far. He maneuvered around the other beings, none of them paying him any attention as they snaked up the five flights of stairs.
Yumfuck made it safely back out onto the street. He whistled as he looked at the bright blue sky, listening to the birds singing in the trees lining the sidewalks. As he approached the crosswalk to go left down the block he paused, watching an old woman struggling to get her groceries across the street, the neon green tennis balls on her walker snagging on the asphalt.
“Uh-oh,” Yumfuck muttered, putting down the box. “Looks like someone is in need!”
He quickly opened his backpack and pulled out his mask, taking off his sunglasses and tying the piece of cloth around his head. He ran to the old lady and tipped his hat, nodding as he took the bags of groceries from her.
“Well, aren’t you the cutest thing!” She took his furry hand as he helped her to the curb and smiled at him. “I was almost home.”
Yumfuck pointed at the corner townhouse in inquiry. When she nodded, He gave her a graceful bow, carried the bags up to the stoop, and helped her up the stairs. She patted him on the head and reached into her purse, pulling out a plastic change bag.
“No need,” he told her, hands on his hips. “All in a day’s work.”
“Well, thank you,” she smiled walking into her home. “You’re just like my grandson—big-hearted. A little hairier, but a good soul.”
Yumfuck trilled and hopped down the stairs, grabbing his box and heading toward the house. He looked up as a large group of people dressed in suits and carrying iPads walked toward him arguing loudly. He froze, waiting for a reaction, but they weren’t paying any attention to him. They were lost in their argument over the Nationals’ last game. Yumfuck let out a relieved sigh and jumped up on the stone wall that ran down the block, shrinking and scurrying along with the box over his head.
An old man sitting in his backyard taking in the afternoon sun squinted at the box, which was moving along the fence with a tuft of green fur sticking out from under it.
“Looks like the strays are getting inventive, Agnes. They got carryout boxes and everything.”
Yumfuck ignored the man as he hurried down the block and went quickly back into the house. Leira poked her head out of the kitchen, which had white sparks floating around in it, and shook her head at Yumfuck.
“Lunch-time,” Yumfuck sang as he happily trotted up the stairs.
“I would ask for one but I know you’ve licked all of them,” Leira smiled. “I see you’ve been crime-solving. Save any more cats?”
“Nope,” he told her proudly. “Public safety and public service today!”
“I’m not gonna ask what that means.” Leira shook her head as he trotted up the stairs.
“Don’t get sauce on the carpet!” she yelled after him.
Yumfuck giggled as he ran into his room, shut the door, dropped onto the green carpet, and opened his box. He picked up a donut and opened his mouth, eyeing a bit of icing that had dropped onto the carpet. He put the donut back and looked at the spot. “Uh oh.” Slowly he leaned down and licked the icing off, leaving his tongue hanging out of his mouth as he stared down at the green carpet fuzz that was stuck to it.
“Should have thought that one through.” Yumfuck cackled.
4
Sparks shimmered and fizzed behind Correk as he stepped through the portal onto a freshly mowed lawn. The backyard of the old Victorian-style home in a neighborhood outside of Wichita was shielded by eight-foot-tall fences. All around the yard were small statues, some of them fairies, others the typical human’s idea of a lawn gnome. A small section of the yard was cordoned off with chicken wire as a garden of sorts, but those weren’t normal human plants. He walked toward it and raised an eyebrow, staring at the swaying flowers that moved in time with his voice.
“Great, a witch in distress with illegal Oriceran plants in the backyard,” he muttered. “Not my fight today.”
He took two steps forward and stopped dead in his tracks in surprise.
A rush of dark magic hit him square in the chest, knocking the wind from his lungs. Correk quickly centered himself and put his hands out, pulling energy through his body and looking at the signs on his arms. His eyes glowed as he read them, but he didn’t get much information from Turner about the case other than it was a witch misfiring some magic. From the looks of it, this wasn’t just any spell. A trail of dark magic was seeping ever so slowly from the house.
Correk moved carefully toward a set of double basement doors covering a storm cellar. Small billows of smoke seeped from the cracks and a stale stench burned his nostrils. He tapped the metal handles to make sure they weren’t hot and opened one of the doors, dropping it to the side. The old rusted hinges squeaked as he pulled open the other, covering his mouth as the smoke rose out of the space. He could hear the witch’s faint groans from inside as he pulled a ball of light into his hands and slowly made his way down the creaky wooden stairs.
“Hello?” he shouted, squinting into the dim space through the rising smoke.
He tripped over a bucket and groaned, kicking it to the side. As he entered the cement basement a vine shot out in front of him, stopping him mid-step. His eyes grew wide and he whispered to the ball of
light, “Enchantments desist.”
The vine writhed, finally withering into dust around Correk’s boots. He stepped into the space, looking around at the different cauldrons bubbling on the table. Long glass tubes went from each to a center beaker with green liquid curdling inside it. A moan came from the other side of the table and Correk rushed around it to find a middle-aged woman with her long brown hair splayed around her and her hands crumpled against her chest.
“You really got yourself into this one.” He looked at a broken vial emitting dark smoke that was rolling across the tabletop. “Playing with dark magic?”
“I needed it,” she gasped. “The darkness is coming. I needed protection...”
Her eyes rolled back in her head and she began to shake. Small blisters spread up her neck, oozing a dark liquid onto her skin. Correk went down on one knee and closed his eyes, mentally sorting through the different spells he had learned during his apprenticeship. Come onnnn! There has got to be something here to slow this down.
Correk held his hands palms-down over the witch’s body, closing his eyes and trying a spell he had learned at the beginning of his training.
“Reversaro Intentus,” he whispered, the light from his palms racing over the witch’s body.
She stopped shaking and gasped a deep breath, her eyes opening wide. Correk rubbed his hands together as he examined the burns on her legs. A dark black tinge was slowly making its way up her legs toward her chest through the broken flesh. The spell had slowed the effects down, but he didn’t know how long it would last.
“Can you talk?” Correk looked the witch in her bright blue eyes.
She nodded.
“What spell were you trying to do?”
She opened her mouth, but only a squeak came out. She shut it again and closed her eyes, swallowing hard.
“Come on, I need you to muster the strength to tell me,” Correk urged with slight panic in his voice.
The witch shook her head, opening her eyes and calming her breathing despite the black ooze creeping toward her head. She slowly reached her hand into her pocket and pulled out a piece of paper, which she handed to Correk. On it was an ancient black magic protection spell that made it look like she was an ally to fool practitioners of dark magic, keeping them away from her home. Correk sighed and shook his head, knowing the older arts were harder to cure.
“I’m not gonna lecture you right now on the importance of staying away from dark magic, but you have to be more careful.” Correk stuck the paper in his pocket. “Let’s get you well enough to make it to a magical doctor on Oriceran.”
The witch shook her head, pulling her crooked fingers back to her chest. The bones were starting to curl and splinter. Correk looked down at her feet and noticed they were now more clubs than toes. He closed his eyes and rubbed his hands together, mustering everything he had. A bright light glimmered around him as he moved his lips, whispering an incantation he had used once before. This situation was much worse, but it was the best that he had.
“Interceptus darkened illusion, reverso incantation.”
The light from his hands grew brighter as it moved over the witch’s body and she stiffened and gasped as the magic began to pull the darkness from her veins, causing a stream of black liquid to flow into a puddle beneath her. The warmth showered Correk’s body as he repeated the words over and over. Slowly the light dimmed until all of his magic had flowed back into place.
He opened his eyes and looked down at the witch, whose cheeks were rosy again. Her hands had unfurled and her toes had stretched back out, lessening her agony. She breathed deeply and looked up at Correk with thanks in her eyes.
“That is so much better,” she croaked. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” he said, standing up. “There are still burns and blisters all over you. We need to get you to Oriceran before they begin to infect your body again. The physicians there will help you.”
Correk drew a swirling orb into his hands and symbols slowly rotated across his arms and neck. He stretched the orb to create a portal in front of him. On the other side, the bright-green grasses blew in the breeze and several Light Elves were making their way down an invisible staircase on the side of the Light Elf Castle.
Correk scooped the witch into his arms, stepping carefully through the portal just as help arrived. They set down the wooden stretcher they had brought and Correk carefully laid the witch on it.
Correk was careful to not make the blisters worse as he pushed her hair off her face. “Dark Magic won’t help you defeat dark magic, you know that. Eventually it infects everything. Look to the light for help—and stay out of the chemistry lab.”
She smiled as he nodded to the Elves, and they hurried off, scrambling up a staircase that appeared in sections and rose toward the hospital wing of the castle. He turned back to step through the portal, part of him not wanting to leave Oriceran so soon. He took a quick glance around for any sign of Perrom, even though he knew his friend wouldn’t be there.
But he had to return to clean up the mess of dark magic in the basement and get back to Leira and Turner.
He stepped into the damp, dark basement and turned back in time to watch the bright-blue skies of Oriceran disappear as the portal sizzled closed. He sighed and turned back to look at the mess.
“A Fixer’s job never ends.”
Leira teetered on the new couch she had magically created, recycled from parts she had found in the trash. She was adjusting the edges of a large picture on the wall to try to get it straight and she tilted her head, not sure if she had it right. Suddenly an intense stream of energy blew through her chest, momentarily taking her breath away. She spun around, her feet sinking into the couch, her eyes glowing and symbols running up and down her arms.
“Fuck,” she groaned, putting her hand to her chest, the magic fading. “You have got to quit sneaking up on people like that.”
In front of her Turner Underwood leaned on his cane, his mouth crooked in a half-smile and his hat planted firmly on his head. He looked tired, and older than the last time Leira had seen him. His thousand years was catching up with him.
Turner shoved a hand into his perfectly-pressed pants and the sleeve of his black sports coat scrunched up his arm. He was glad to see that Leira was doing okay. He lifted a finger from his cane and shot out a small orb, which traveled around the large picture of a deep forest that resembled Oriceran’s dark forest. The picture shook slightly and froze, perfectly straight.
“Still can’t resist helping.”
“You haven’t been returning my calls.” Turner shrugged and made his way to an overstuffed chair.
“I’ve been busy,” Leira replied quietly, hopping off the couch.
“So I see.” He pointed the end of his cane at the scar running across Leira’s chest. “That looks fresh. What happened?”
“A trap set by a lackey of the dark families.” Leira shrugged it off. “No worries. He won’t be causing any trouble anytime...ever.”
Turner raised an eyebrow and hung his cane over the arm of the chair, pressing his fingertips together, putting them to his lips, and staring at her. Leira stared back, remembering one of the rules from her days as an Austin homicide detective. Well, actually it was a Hagan rule. Whoever speaks first loses.
“We have some big things going on.” Turner knew he had lost that showdown, but didn’t care as long as they talked.
“Listen.” Leira put up her hand. “I appreciate the work you are doing, you and Correk and everyone else, but I am not coming back.”
Leira stood up and walked past him, waving her hand to move a couple of boxes out of the way. Turner sighed and grunted as he lifted himself out of the chair, steadying himself on his cane, and walked after her into the kitchen. Leira pulled a bottle of Coke from the fridge and held it up to Turner, lifting her eyebrows.
“No, thank you.” He cleared his throat. “Not really my thing, though I do like a good cream soda.”
Leira o
pened the soda and took a sip, her eyes fixed on him. He smiled and looked at the floor, knowing she was waiting for something.
“I know I’m losing at your detective games every time I speak first.” He chuckled.
“I don’t want you to think I have animosity toward you.” Leira leaned against the new counters. “I wanted autonomy—something I thought I would get when I left the government job—but it didn’t happen. I left one general for a new one. The old ways aren’t going to work with the new enemies. We have different ideas of how things should be done and that’s okay, but I couldn’t keep working for you—and I can’t go back into it either.”
“You have turned into a magical bounty hunter,” Turner said, half-joking but half-serious.
“I have a good thing going,” Leira said with a shrug. “I’ve made some good contacts and I have my informants, and the government knows that if there is something they need they can call and schedule a meeting—like the one I have tomorrow. I handle it my way; the way I think it should be done. Doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the work your team does.”
“How about this?” Turner searched through his pockets. “I accept your new...er...career choice, but I give you permission to use the gym at the old mansion whenever you want.”
Leira lifted her eyebrow and looked Turner up and down. There has to be another play here.
“I come and go as I please?” Leira narrowed her eyes.
“Yep,” he agreed, tossing her a key. “You can even have your old key back. None of the protective charms have been changed, so they won’t slow you down.”
“And you get...”
“Nothing.” He smiled. “Just trying to be friendly to one of my students. We’ve been through a lot together, Leira. You are still family to me.”
“All right…” Leira tossed the key up and down in her hand. “Thanks.”
Turner smiled and turned with the end of his cane held just above the ground. At least I’ll know you’re all right. He walked back into the living room, his cane tapping against the floorboards.
