Tallow Jones: Wizard Detective (The Tallow Novels Book 1)

by Trevor H. Cooley

  “Of course, I didn't see the logic in this at the time. They had to bind me with air magic before dragging me away. I spent the first few weeks at the school plotting my escape. But the Alberri Mage School isn't like some prison. It's a place of learning, much like a college. It's downright cushy, in fact. The food's great, the library is massive, and they have access to all the luxuries that world has to offer.”

  Tallow leaned his head back on the headrest and sighed. “As I learned more about the world I found myself in and the talent I had access to, I realized I needed to take advantage of the situation if I was ever to return home. I learned all I could and eventually left the Alberri Mage School to join the main mage school in the country of Dremaldria.”

  Douglas ignored the foreign sounding places, his thoughts focused on one major inconsistency in the story. “How long were you in that world?”

  “Oh, it took me many years before I knew enough to come up with a spell to bring me back,” Tallow explained.

  Douglas’ brow tightened. In the research he had done into his uncle’s past, there had not been any large gap of time unaccounted for. Surely if he had been missing that long, someone would have noticed. Bills can’t go unpaid for that long, he knew that for sure. “Many years?”

  “Yes,” said Tallow. He noted the expression on Douglas face. “I know what you’re probably thinking. From an outside view the timeline seems impossible. Believe me, by the time I finally managed to put together the spell to bring me back I thought I had taken far too long. I expected to come home to a life in upheaval. I would be assumed dead, my house gone and my possessions given away. But I hadn’t considered how important one aspect of the spell was. You see I had no true frame of reference as to where our world is in reference to the world I was in. It could have been anywhere. So I tied the spell to myself as the anchor point.”

  He looked at Douglas as if that explained everything.

  Douglas just blinked at the traffic ahead of him. “I have no clue what that's supposed to mean.”

  “Right.” Tallow rubbed his chin. “Explaining the ins and outs of it aren't going to help much. Suffice it to say that when I came back to our world it put me right back to where and when I left. It was like I had never gone . . . except that now I was wearing wizard's robes and carrying a trunk full of supplies.”

  “So you traveled in time?” Douglas said.

  Tallow nodded. “And maybe space. You know, to tell you the truth I'm still not sure where that other world is in reference to our own. It could be across the universe or in another dimension. Or it's our same world but simply another time. Our distant past or distant future.”

  “But that doesn't make sense, does it? With all the weird monsters and things?” Douglas asked.

  “It's true that there are many creatures that don't exist in the here and now. But there are also many that do. They have cows and chickens and mosquitoes and lizards of every common variety. Most of the plants are the same as well. And yet, there are enough different species and races that it's hard to pin down.”

  He tapped his chin with his index finger. “If it was in our past we would surely know about it. Society there is medieval in technology so it can't exist so far back that we wouldn't have written record. Believe me, scholars over there are just as into writing books as they are here. So I am more inclined to embrace the theory that this other world is an alternate dimension from ours.

  “The only thing that dissuades me is the existence of creatures and races from our world's folklore. The basilisk, for instance. Aggie brought it up earlier. Ancient mythology but real and alive. Then there are the elves and dwarves and gnomes and dragons. Why would our folk tales exist in their reality? I suppose that there could theoretically be a limitless version of realities and in one of them our mythology is real. But what are the odds that I would find myself in that exact place? And what are the odds that here in Atlanta, items and creatures from that same world are being brought over here?”

  All of these theories were making Douglas' mind spin. “You've got to come up with a better name for that other world. All this back and forth is giving me a headache.”

  “True,” said Tallow with a smile. “I suppose it is a bit ridiculous to keep calling them, ‘this world’ and ‘that other world’.”

  “Exactly,” Douglas said as they finally arrived at the station. He pulled into the back lot. “So what do the people in that other world call . . . that other world?”

  “They call it Earth,” said Tallow. “Just like we do.”

  Douglas sighed. “That's not helpful.”

  “True,” said Tallow again.

  “Well, what about the part of the world you lived in? The continent. What did they call that?” Douglas suggested.

  Tallow’s lips curled in amusement. “The Known Lands.”

  Douglas laughed. “Seriously?”

  “They couldn’t make it easy on us, could they?” Douglas said. He pulled into a parking spot. “What if we just simplify it and call it, ‘World M’?”

  “M? For what? For magic?” said Tallow.

  Douglas shrugged. “Why not?”

  “Sounds a little too anime for me.” Tallow said with a dissatisfied look on his face.

  They got out of the sedan and Tallow paused. He laid his arm across the roof of the car and looked over it at Douglas. “There is one other possibility. There was an old book I found in the Mage School Library. It was a dusty old tome written by a long forgotten scholar. It spoke of the creation of the Known Lands, born in the ashes of another fallen civilization. It was all a bit vague, but there was one mention of a name for that world. I didn’t mention it before because no one there uses it.”

  Douglas shut his door and dropped his keys into his pocket. “I’m not picky at this point. What was it?”

  “The book called it, Gaiana.”

  Chapter 20: Apples and Accusations

  “I dunno. I kind of prefer ‘Planet M’,” said Ross after Douglas had caught him up at their desks. As they approached the elevators to head down to forensics, he was carrying a manila folder in one hand and seemed to be in a pretty good mood. Perhaps he was just glad that the threat of the basilisk was gone.

  “I didn’t suggest, ‘Planet M’. I said, ‘World M’,” Douglas replied. He pressed the down button and waited for the car to arrive. Atlanta’s Metropolitan Police Headquarters was a ten story building with three sublevels. FIU was on the eighth floor and the forensics department took up the first basement level.

  Ross shook his head. “But ‘World M’ is too anime. ‘Planet M’ sounds more sci-fi. Like an old-school black and white movie from the 50’s.”

  “Why is that any better?” Tallow asked, eying the elevator with unease. “Gaiana at least sounds like a real place.”

  There was a ding and the door opened to an empty elevator car. Ross stepped in first and pressed a floor on the controls. “Gaiana sounds like a brand of shampoo. The slogan writes itself.” His voice took on a smooth tone. “Cleanse your hair with the silky softness of Gaiana.”

  The doors shut behind the three men and the car lurched slightly as it started to descend, causing Tallow to back up against the wall, his face paling. “Come on. This is Atlanta. Boise PD had a better elevator.”

  “What’s his problem?” Ross asked.

  “Afraid of elevators,” Douglas said to Ross’ delight.

  Tallow scowled at his nephew. “I just prefer the stairs!”

  There was another ding and the car lurched to a stop, causing Tallow to groan. Douglas frowned. “Why are we stopping on the second floor?”

  “I’m taking you two by Brenda first. There’s some things she wants to show you,” Ross said. They exited the elevator car and headed down the hallway towards Brenda’s office.

  When Douglas had first come to Atlanta, this floor had been filled with filing cabinets and boxes upon boxes of paper files, but a few years back the place had undergone a severe overhaul. The City of Atla
nta had invested a cool million dollars into bringing their records department up to date. All those ancient files were scanned and digitalized. Now the physical records were kept in a warehouse and the records department looked like any average office space.

  The responsibilities of the department had been overhauled as well. Half of the floor was taken up by the offices of the standard clerks who processed all incoming bookings, collating them and scanning them into the database. The rest of the floor was part of a new division, one that in Douglas’ mind really didn’t belong in the Records Department. They were the Digital Forensics Division and Brenda was their best investigator.

  Being the best in the department didn’t mean Brenda was the boss though, and she took the opportunity to mention that just about every time her work helped solve a case. Her office was a smaller one at the back of the floor with a window overlooking the parking lot. Still, it was better than what any of the detectives got, something that Douglas was prone to remind her any time she complained about it.

  Ross gave the door a quick knock before opening it. The lighting in the office was dim. Brenda didn’t like the harsh light of the overhead fluorescents. She preferred to work by the light of her window and even then kept the blinds only partially cracked open.

  “You never wait for me to say come in,” she complained mildly as Ross and the others stepped inside.

  “You knew we were coming,” Ross replied.

  The interior of Brenda’s office was an orderly place. On the right side of her desk the wall was lined with two tall bookshelves. The shelves closest to her full of reference books, the others packed with paperbacks. The left side of the room was lined with filing cabinets. On top of her desk were two enormous high tech monitors and one large ergonomic keyboard with round LED backlit keys.

  “Well, just a sec, I’ve got to send off an email to the chief,” Brenda said and her fingers flew across her keyboard. The keystrokes were loud, reminiscent of an antique typewriter. Douglas wondered where she had gotten that keyboard.

  When she finished, she stood from her desk and stared at Tallow through large hazel eyes. Sergeant Brenda Petersen was a pale creature, her nose covered in a smattering of freckles. Her head had a sort of triangular shape, her thick red hair piled atop her head and held in place by a huge spiderlike-clip.

  Brenda was in her late thirties and was what Douglas’ wife would have referred to as, ‘an uncommon beauty.’ By that she meant that the woman was pretty, but only in an uncommon moment. Specifically, when she wasn’t gazing awkwardly at someone.

  Douglas cleared his throat. “Uncle Tallow, this is Brenda, our resident records wiz. Tallow is consulting with us on my son’s case.”

  “Charmed,” Tallow said with a pleasant smile, moving his cane to his left hand so that he could reach out to her with his right.

  Brenda’s eyes remained fixed on Tallow as she leaned across her desk and shook his hand. “So you’re the wizard?”

  Tallow gave Ross a stunned look.

  “I should’ve warned you,” said Ross sheepishly. “I sorta told Brenda everything.”

  “Why did you do that?” asked Douglas.

  “I dug it out of him,” Brenda said, still holding on to Tallow’s hand. Her eyes hadn’t left him and she was cocking her head as if Douglas’ uncle was some sort of odd zoo specimen. “With all the types of questions Bob was asking and the different reports coming back from forensics things weren’t adding up. I knew there was an angle that explained it.”

  Douglas shot his partner a glare. “Who else have you told, Ross?”

  “Nobody else. Except, uh, Judy,” he admitted. “But you knew that was gonna happen, Doug. Judy and I don’t hide anything from each other.”

  Douglas sighed. “Listen to me. Both of you. This can’t go any further. People will think we’re crazy and if word gets out that we think magic was involved and we ever get these guys in court, they will go free. All because you wanted to share.”

  “Hey, I agree with you,” Bob said, his hands raised. Brenda, on the other hand, didn’t agree right away.

  “Prove it,” she said to Tallow, her grip on his hand tightening. She pulled him a little bit towards her. “Show me your magic. If this is real, I swear I won’t tell unless the rest of you do.”

  Tallow raised an eyebrow. “Of course,” he said, his eyes set on hers.

  Tallow set down his cane and grasped her hand with both of his. She allowed him to turn her hand palm up. Then, with his right hand under hers, he raised his left hand several inches above.

  There was a slight buzzing in the air. A small ball of electricity formed above his right forearm and rolled down his arm in a rippling cascade of white electric arcs. The ball came to a stop just above her palm and twisted lazily, sharp flashes of light within the ball sending flickers throughout the room.

  Brenda let out a gasp as, slowly, he removed his hands and left her holding the ball. “How did you do that? Why is this not shocking me?”

  “First, I coated your hand with a thin layer of earth magic to insulate it,” Tallow explained. “Then I formed the ball of electricity by intertwining threads of earth and air and setting them vibrating against each other. The arcs of light are formed by the electricity interacting with tiny specks of dust in the air.”

  “Cool,” she breathed, smiling as she reached up with her other hand.

  Tallow caught her wrist before she could touch the ball. “Careful. This hand’s not insulated. Not only would you shock yourself, but you are standing really close to all that sensitive electrical equipment.”

  “Oh. Right,” she said, suddenly looking worried.

  Tallow bent forward and blew at the orb of light. It disappeared from above her palm with a soft pop. He smiled at her. “Will that do for proof?”

  Brenda breathed a soft sigh. “Bob, I’m afraid I’m gonna have to disagree with you on this one.”

  “What?” said Ross.

  “I think this man is on the up and up,” she said.

  Ross gave her an open mouthed look of betrayal. “But you agreed with me that he wasn’t who he said he was.”

  “Sure, but that was before,” she said. “His being a real wizard fills in the wild gaps in the evidence quite well.”

  “The fact that the man is a wizard isn’t my problem,” said Ross through gritted teeth.

  “Why Detective Ross,” said Tallow, folding his arms and turning his arched brow towards the detective. “Was this a trap? Is that why you have been so cheerful while bringing us down here?”

  “I thought we were past this,” said Douglas.

  Ross’ lips tightened. “Show ’em the pictures, Brenda. The proof. Come on!”

  She shrugged and typed a couple keys, then swiveled one wide flat screen monitor to face them. “It wasn’t easy to find these.”

  Two old photos of Errand Jones took up the screen. One of them was from his high school yearbook and the other was a group photo. Part of an article about a group of investigators that had brought a serial killer to justice in Boise.

  “I thought it was real cool that you were part of the crew that took down the Spudnut Strangler,” Brenda said.

  “That was . . . just before I quit the force,” Tallow said, a displeased look on his face.

  “Come on!” said Ross. He flicked the switch on the wall, turning on the harsh overhead light and causing Brenda to wince. “Look at him! You think those are pictures of the same man?”

  Douglas frowned at the images. There were some slight differences. “His hair in those photos is quite curlier.”

  “And darker,” said Ross.

  “I’ve started using a product to straighten my hair,” Tallow explained. “Otherwise my hair would be just as frizzy as Douglas’ in this Atlanta humidity. No offense, Douglas. As for the color, I have grays now.”

  “And those round cheeks?” Ross said, pointing to the images.

  “I’ve lost weight,” Tallow said with a laugh. “And I’m dec
ades older now! I grew into my good looks.”

  “He sure has,” Brenda agreed, giving Tallow an appreciative once over. “And look at those eyes. They match the eyes of the man in the photos.”

  “Grandma called them ‘Hawk eyes’.” Douglas agreed. “They run on my side of the family.”

  Bob growled. “But can you explain how hard it was for us to find these photos? On every site Brenda could find with an article referencing Errand Jones the photos had been removed. She had to go to Facebook pages of your classmates to find them!”

  “I had them removed. I’m a P.I.” Tallow said. “If people know me by sight I’m no good hunting down the bad guys.”

  “Like I said,” Brenda agreed. “I think he checks out. That photo stuff was all circumstantial. It means nothing after he’s proven his story.”

  “What is this thing with you anyway?” Tallow asked, looking genuinely hurt. “Why do you think I would lie about who I am? What possible reason could I have to do that?”

  “It’s my gut, okay?” Ross said. “From the moment I met you I’ve felt deep down that something was off.”

  Tallow put a hand on his chest. “You think I’m one of the bad guys? What have I done to make you feel that way? Better yet, what can I do to prove myself to you?”

  “I don’t know!” Ross said, and now he was looking more embarrassed than angry. “Look, I have one last thing I’m looking into. If it checks out . . . you’re off the hook.”

  Douglas reached out and grabbed the front of his partner’s suitcoat. “As far as I’m concerned, he’s off the hook now! We have a case to solve and if you are going to snipe at him the whole time you’re just going to be a distraction!” Douglas swallowed, his voice thick with emotion as he continued. “We are going to find my boy. And we will also stop whatever craziness is going on with this other world before other people get hurt. If you can’t handle being on the team . . . I’ll talk to the chief about getting a new partner.”