by D. Levesque
“Dad!” Lori scolds him.
“Don’t dad me here,” he grouses at her. “She would have deserved it.”
Eight worlds? Did he say there were eight Magical worlds? What does that mean? “Did you just say eight worlds?” I ask him incredulously.
“Correct. This is Vraka, the world of the Changelings. Let’s see. There is Vamir, the world of the Vampires; Gotro, Beast world; Lotri, Fairy world; Kratar, Werewolf world; Ilia, Elven world; and Rima, the Dwarven world,” he says, counting them on his fingers.
“And Grog, Dad,” Lori says to him with a snort of disdain.
Sighing, Magus Targun ticks off his last finger for eight. “And Grog, the world of the Goblins.”
I just stare at him in shock. Is he saying that there are not only eight worlds other than Earth, but that there are worlds full of Vampires, Beasts, Fairy, Werewolves, Elves, and Dwarves? Oh, and Goblins?
“How?” I croak out, my mouth suddenly dry. I clear it and try again. “How is that possible?”
“Thousands of years ago, we Magical beings all lived on Earth. That is where we were born and created by the Gods. But we lived with humans who had no Magics. Humans wanted Magic and would do whatever they could to try to get it. But the issue was, humans did not and still do not possess the ability to do Magic. So no matter how many of us they killed trying to get it, it was futile. We finally begged the Gods to do something for us as our races were dying. So they created a spell for us that allowed us to travel to another world. Each race picked their own world to go to, and each went their own separate way. Over time, the Council of Magical Folk was created to make sure that no one race warred with another. We, the Council, are responsible for making sure that the rules are followed. The first rule we all enacted was Article 1.”
After the explanation Magus Targun just gave me, I can well understand why Article 1 was enacted. I mean, if I was them and the human race was hunting me down to possess something they could never do, I would have been praying to whatever Gods I could to get out of that. I guess their Gods listened. Wait, does that mean that Gods are real?
“And now, we have to see if my daughter goes to jail for a very long time,” Magus Targun says, with sorrow in his voice.
“What exactly was in that vial, anyhow?” I ask him, making a face. “Because it tasted like shit.”
“Ah, that reminds me,” he says, grabbing his staff from behind him and pointing it at me.
“Whoa!” I start to say, but unexpectedly, I feel something wrap around my throat. My hands grab at what’s there and try to pull it apart.
“Sorry, young man. Just a precaution. It’s a Magical collar to make sure you don’t attempt to escape. I should have done that from the start. But, yes. That stuff you had, I am sure, did taste like shit. It was the most powerful thing in the eight, well, I guess, nine worlds. It was an elixir that grants someone the ability to do Magic. Years after we left Earth, a powerful Elven Mage created something that granted someone who could not do Magic the ability to do, well, Magic. He had created, before his death, over 200 of those vials. But what was in that vial was the last of it. Before it was stolen we had been studying it in order to recreate it. But alas, it seems you are now the last recipient of it. And since you are a human, it might be a waste as we have never tested it on humans,” he says, without much hope in his voice.
Shit, so what happens to me if Marrisa goes to jail? Magus Targun must figure out my question from the expression on my face because his next words are even sadder.
“If you do not possess Magic, the penalty for you, young man, is death.”
Chapter Four
“So let me see if I get this,” I say angrily. “Because of what your daughter did, I am about to die?” I say, glaring at Marrisa, as she glares back.
“You shouldn’t have been there, human. That complex was empty. You just had to be in the wrong spot at the wrong time,” Marrisa says, with daggers in her gaze.
“Listen, you fu—” I start, but Magus Targun cuts me off.
“Kevin!” he says, slamming his hand on Lori’s desk, which makes all of us jump in surprise. “Young man. You might not die. Trust me. The last thing I want is for one of my own daughters to go to jail for a minimum of thirty years.”
“Thirty years?” Marrisa cries in horror, looking at her father, her face now pale.
“Yes. Thirty years. That is the minimum sentence as given out by the Council of Magical Folk. Even for something like this, I can’t give leniency,” he tells her, shaking his head.
“Then, can you just test him now for Magic!?!” Lori pleads with her father.
“The good thing is you called me to do it. Anyone else on the Council would not have taken kindly to having a human here. Yes, I can test him. But Kevin, it won’t be a good feeling. And also, I need to wait. How long since you swallowed the elixir?” he asks, looking between me and Marrisa.
“Maybe an hour? Hard to tell time since I don’t have a watch or even a phone,” I tell him, shrugging my shoulders. I don’t use a cell phone or even a watch. I can usually tell time without it. As for a cell phone, I can’t afford one. The apartment I rent came with a land line included, so I never bothered to get a cell phone. Mike had offered to give me one, but I told him no. He asked once, and that was it.
“Shit!” I suddenly blurt out.
“What?” Magus Targun asks me suspiciously.
“I was out drinking with two friends! I was supposed to call them when I got home. I didn’t drive because I had been drinking, so I left my car at the bar,” I say, but stop when Magus Targun shakes his head.
“I am sorry, young man. But your life on Earth is done. For all intents and purposes, you are to them a missing person.”
“What?” I ask him in dismay.
“What if he has Magic in him, Dad?” Lori says. I look at her uncomprehendingly.
He looks at me for a minute and then finally grunts in annoyance. “Fine. If he has Magic in him, he will be allowed back to Earth, eventually. We don’t want him showing up years later unannounced. That will cause the Earth government to look for us again. You are what they call American, correct?”
“Yes,” I nod at him numbly.
Nodding back, he looks at Lori. “Call it in. Use the resources you need. Hmm. Make it so he is on some kind of vacation. Can you imitate his voice?”
“Yes, I should have no issues,” Lori says, and I stare at her in surprise since it’s my voice that comes out of her mouth.
“How the fuck did you do that?” I blurt out without thinking.
“I’m a Changeling,” Lori says with a shrug. “It’s one of our powers. Though, it wouldn’t work on other Changelings, they would still hear my voice. But you are human, so it works on you. No problem, Dad. I will call his friends and tell them he is gone on vacation,” she begins to say, but I shake my head. “What?” she asks me in a huff.
“They won’t believe you. I’m poor. Me going on a vacation will not work. I will need to talk to them,” I say.
Lori looks at me suspiciously. Then, after looking at her dad and Marrisa, whose head has been going back and forth between us all throughout the discussion, she nods, almost reluctantly.
“Fine, but I will have a weapon to your head. If you say anything that you shouldn’t, I will stun you and take over,” she tells me, looking me dead in the eyes.
“Fine,” I say with a sigh. “So how do I do this? Do we need to head back to where she took me from?” I ask, pointing to Marrisa.
“No. We can do it from here. Who will you be contacting? Your parents?”
Shaking my head, I say, “No. My mother died three years ago, and my dad couldn’t take it. He drank himself to death a year later.”
“Damn, I’m sorry to hear that,” Lori says, nodding sympathetically.
I shrug. “It was a shitty time in my life, but I had already moved out of the house. I tried to help my father, but he missed her. It was too much for him. It wasn’t that he too
k his life. He was drunk one night and took a walk in the night air, and someone else who was drunk and driving hit him on the side of the road.”
“Damn,” Marrisa says, looking at me with something other than anger for once.
“Do you have a piece of paper? I can give you the number of one of my best friends. His name is Mike Dunn.”
Lori reaches on the desk her father is sitting at, grabs a pen and a piece of paper from a stack and passes it to me. I look at it, and it’s stationary for a damn name we have on Earth. I look at her with a raised eyebrow.
“Oh, humans aren’t allowed here, but we do trade with you humans,” she says with a laugh. “Some of our people did not wish to come over when we left Earth, and so they still live there. So we trade through them.”
“Wait, you’re saying that there are these Vampires and other species living on Earth?” I ask her, stunned by the revelation.
“Of course. How do you think all those stories on your world got there?” Lori says with a grin.
“So, what is a Changeling then?” I ask her, remembering that when she changed her voice, she mentioned that name. Magus Targun had also mentioned that this world, Vraka, was the Changeling World.
“Can we get on with this!” Marrisa interrupts, annoyance in her tone. “I need to know if I can get back to work.”
“Oh, you aren’t going back to work,” Lori tells her sharply.
“What! I can’t be not working! I have bills to pay!” Marrisa says in annoyance.
“Right now you are on administrative leave,” her father barks at her. “Count yourself lucky you aren’t in lockup.”
“How was she able to get to Earth anyhow?” I ask, wondering about something.
“She is a Bounty Hunter,” Lori answers me with a shrug.
“What does that mean?”
“Well, she goes after criminals who the Magical Council of Folk have deemed needing to be brought in or eliminated. Though, I didn’t think you were licensed for Earth, Marrisa?”
“I’m not, except with the caveat that if I was already chasing them, I could go. I couldn’t go after them, say, to investigate them on Earth.”
“Ah, so you had that, at least. It might cover your ass there. Barely. Marrisa is a M.A.G.I. Hunter and works for the Council. Well, technically, we do as well, but my jurisdiction is only on Vraka. Whereas she can, based on the type of Bounty license she has, go to all eight worlds, and Earth. But Earth is special.”
“Magi?” I ask.
“M-A-G-I. It means Magical Agency for Galactic Investigation,” Lori begins to explain, and at my confused look, she says, “hey, don’t look at me. I didn’t make up the name. We go after all those Magical beings, be they Magician or not, who don’t want to follow the law. We are the top-notch investigators. It was some dumbass that named us that.”
“It wasn’t some dumbass,” growls Magus Turgun. “It was done by Brothran Mitgar, Elder Magus of the third Circle in—”
“Dad! Who cares,” Lori says, rolling her eyes at him. “It was over 4,000 years ago. Anyhow, M.A.G.I. Hunters are technically just Bounty Hunters with a capital B, since they are sent on behalf of the Council. They have the right to go into jurisdictions that we don’t, as cops. My sister has been one for a good five years now. Before that, she was a Vrakan police officer. One of the best, actually. Which is why she got tagged to become a M.A.G.I. hunter,” Lori says, looking at her sister proudly.
“Yeah, then I fuck up with this,” Marrisa says with a snarl, waving towards me.
“That was your own fault. You wanted Twoshoes too badly. You should have just let him go when he used a Portal to Earth,” Lori says, admonishing her sister.
“I was so damn close! I had been chasing him for over three months!” Marrisa shouts into the room.
“And you would have found him again!” Lori retorts back. “And just maybe, that vial would have been found, unbroken!”
“He was looking to sell it to someone on Earth,” Marrisa says defensively.
“What?” her father suddenly asks in a hard voice.
“That was why I chased him to Earth! He was going to his buyer.”
“Please tell me it wasn’t a human?” he growls. I think I can feel static in the air, and when I look at the hair on Lori and Marrisa, which has started to stand on end, I know I’m right.
“I don’t know! I ended up killing him before I could ask. So yes, that’s on me. I just wanted to find that damn vial. That was what the warrant asked for. His life, and the vial. I figured I had the vial. When he said he threw it through the window, and it landed where we were, I figured I had it. But then, he,” and she points to me, again, “he ingested it.”
“Hey, don’t blame this on me,” I finally say, my anger boiling over. “I was heading home after having drinks with my best friends, after finding out that I was dying and had less than two weeks to live. So fuck you and your fucking high horse. I just wanted to get home, take some pain meds, and go to bed. I didn’t fucking ask for this shit.”
All three in the room stare at me in surprise at my outburst, and probably also at the anger I must be showing on my face.
“Did you say dying?” Lori asks softly. She’s the first one to speak after my outburst.
Sighing, deflated now that I let my anger out, I nod. “I found out I had cancer four months ago. I was going to treatment, but it didn’t stop the pain. I had a doctor’s appointment last week and I was told that it was spreading fast, and I had less than two weeks. I was meeting with my best friends tonight to tell them.” I shrug my shoulders. “But I couldn’t tell them. So I had some drinks and was heading home to take some pain meds and go to bed. Maybe try to tell them again tomorrow. Honestly, I hope that this shit that I took kills me quickly because I was told that once the cancer spreads, it will be even more painful.”
“I am sorry to hear that, young man,” Magus Targun says, and I can hear the sincerity in his voice. “I shall not make this any harder than it needs to be. If you will come with me, we shall head to my office to administer the test.”
“Sure,” I tell him quietly, basically giving up. I don’t need this shit, but if I am going to die, why not die with the knowledge that Magic is real? Right?
Magus Targun nods, gets up from his daughter’s desk, and grabs his staff. He slams it down onto the floor three times, and suddenly, we are no longer in Captain Lori’s office but are in some kind of hall. The hall is on a grand scale. The stone floor looks like marble, and the walls have a brickwork type pattern, but only if the bricks are 5 feet long and 3 feet high. They are also more black than the reddish clay I am used to. The ceiling is way above my head, a good 25 or 30 feet. Looking around, I notice that Marrisa and Lori are still with us. Marrisa was is getting up off the floor where she must have fallen when we did whatever we did to get here. Lori glares at her father and brushes off her business suit.
A huge pentagram is inlaid into the middle of the marble floor, and it seems to be made of silver. I almost bend down to check, but Magus Targun clears his throat.
“Touch nothing. Follow me. Deviate from me, and that collar around your neck will explode. Do I make myself clear, young man? Kevin?” he says, quietly at the end.
“Yes sir,” I tell him, nodding emphatically.
“Good. This way,” he says.
Chapter Five
I walk beside Lori, as Marrisa hadn’t wanted to walk with me, and instead had gone up ahead to walk with her father. They appear to be having a whispered conversation. Pretty passionate too.
“What the hell is her problem?” I ask Lori.
She turns to me and grins. “Marrisa hates fucking up. And as fuckups go, this is a doozy.”
“So because I am part of that fuckup, she hates me?” I ask her with a raised eyebrow.
“Bingo,” she says, touching a finger to the side of her nose.
“So, what is a Changeling? No one answered my question in your office,” I ask her.
“A C
hangeling is someone like us. Usually either cat, fox, or a weasel form. But we can also change our looks to be human,” she says and suddenly next to me is a human-looking Lori.
Gone is her tawny brown fur and her tail that had been sticking out of the top of her ass through a slit in her business suit. In her place is a stunning-not that she wasn’t already stunning in her Changeling form-woman with long brown hair and blue eyes.
“Holy shit!” I blurt out. Seconds later, she is back in her previous form.
“Also, as you heard, we can change our form. Ages ago, on Earth, we would be switched at birth with a human child, to be raised human, always knowing we were different. One day, we would be visited by our real parents, and we would go with them.”
“Aren’t the stories about that pretty gruesome, involving deaths and such?”
Lori shakes her head. “Changelings, before we moved to this planet, had many children, and could not feed them all. Many times, the human baby that was being replaced was dying already. So we as a people, gave joy to those parents instead of having them deal with the death of their child. And at the same time, a Changeling child could grow up in the human world.
“Isn’t that sort of deceitful?” I point out.
“Oh, we have had many debates about the practice since then. Mostly scholarly ones. But the past is the past. We strive for the future,” she says with a soft smile.
“And Vampires are real?” I ask her skeptically.
“Yes,” she says with a cute laugh.
She might be older than her younger sister Marrisa, but Lori seems easier to talk to than her sister. She definitely has less of an attitude.
