Hunted Magic
A Wildes Chronicles Short Story
Dominika Waclawiak
Contents
A Wildes Chronicles Short Story: Hunted Magic
Hunted Magic
Extras
About the Author
A Wildes Chronicles Short Story: Hunted Magic
When did being human become a deadly liability?
The last thing former police detective turned private eye Mabry Wildes wants to do is draw the attention of the LAPD vampire goon squad that now governs Los Angeles. Being a fae-witch hybrid has kept her safe so far. But when a hedge-witch hires her to find her missing human husband, Mabry’s path collides with everything she’s been trying to avoid: the vampires, the powerful mage ruling the city, and the resistance that has sprung up against them.
Caught in the quagmire of human-magic politics surrounding the San Fernando Valley ghetto, Mabry is forced to face a decision she’s been avoiding ever since the Unveiling. Can she stand up against the new regime and help the humans trying to survive or will she turn a blind eye like many of her magical brethren?
Hunted Magic
Strange things have happened since the unveiling. For one, I’m no longer a Los Angeles police detective. Not after the whole place was overrun by President Dixon’s vampire storm troopers. I know, I’m using the storm trooper name tongue-in-cheek but that’s essentially what they are. Dixon empowered the darker elements of the magical folk to come out and be themselves.
It’s a scary place out there especially if you’re human. I had always known that my mother was a witch but didn’t think that kind of magic was passed down through generations.
I was wrong.
When Dixon’s power surge raced across the United States uncovering all the magical creatures that had managed to keep themselves hidden for centuries, I discovered I was Fae and a witch.
Being a witch was surprising enough, but my mother’s powerful magic kept my Fae side hidden from me until the day of the Unveiling as we now called it. President Dixon declared it a national holiday.
I don’t know the exact kind of Fae my father had been but definitely had something to do with water. My new magical powers saved me from most certain death in this new world unlike the pure humans who’d been herded god knows where by the Dark Folk and their werewolf minions.
I wasn’t strong enough to stop them but I sure as hell wasn’t going to join them either. When the registries officially started, I knew I had to do something and opened up my own private investigation shingle. Staring at the bare walls of my office, I abandoned any hope of knowing what tomorrow would bring.
The cramped room I called my office sat a block off La Brea Avenue once a thriving strip of furniture and clothing stores but now taken over by magic shops, curiosity stores, fortune-tellers and assorted magic specialty shops. Magical creatures had been in the shadows for so long that when the opportunity presented themselves they cashed in their magical knowledge to make some money. This was the United States after all.
When Dixon’s spell unveiled all the magical creatures, we all realized how few true humans there actually were. Last I heard on the news it was more like 35% and Dixon had sworn he’d lower that number down. As so far as I could see, the Magical Folk and the Fae delighted in the mass slaughter of the human race. I was too horrified to even begin to imagine what was happening in those internment camps. I’d heard certain groups of Fae hunted humans for game, mostly around Washington D.C. No one blinked an eye about it.
I sighed and wished for a new client. No one except for me had walked through my doors in at least a week. I’d started doing small claims for insurance companies and divorces but my main bread and butter cases were human missing persons. Magical folk, whose parents or sisters or brothers were humans and had disappeared on their way to work or on their way to school, made up the bulk of my clientele.
President Dixon hadn’t yet stopped the schools from working even though they were still trying to round up every human they could find and bring them into the massive ghetto that was now the San Fernando Valley. It reminded me of the ghettos I read about in World War II. I despaired for all of us. The Magical folk were taking from the human playbook and it was threatening society’s very existence. Genocide being perpetrated in the United States? I wished I hadn’t lived long enough to see it.
Another one of Dixon’s detestable spells had created a barrier on all our borders. Even if humans wanted to escape into Mexico and Canada, they couldn’t. I had to believe that the magical folks living in other countries were trying to find a way to break Dixon’s stranglehold over the United States. It’d been a year now and no one had penetrated his defenses. Yet.
Dark and depressing days indeed, I thought. But I believed justice would prevail and I’d be damned if I wasn’t on the right side of history. I helped any human I could find and took on cases that my former self would have scoffed at. I wasn’t that picky anymore. A girl had to eat.
Footsteps sounded on the floorboards outside my door and I stiffened. New client or something much worse? I sniffed at the air and inhaled scents of damp earth and living things. Definitely not Caruso. I relaxed in my chair and pulled back on the spell I’d been formulating to protect myself.
I had crossed paths with LAPD Detective Caruso, a nasty piece of work vampire, on my last case. He’d come after me fully intending to be rid of me once and for all. He’d gotten a shock when he discovered I was half Fae. I’d refrained from turning him into a puddle because I didn’t feel like having the entire LAPD come after me. Vampires feared the Fae still. I’d been waiting to be dragged in by them for attacking a cop. So far none had come.
Much to my relief, a small hedge witch came through my door, her fear wafting in behind her. She gave me a pursed smile.
“My name is Catherine Forsythe,” she said and clutched her purse to her person as she sat down in the chair across from me. The smell of earth and magic coming off of her overpowered my senses momentarily. My sense of smell was something I couldn’t control and certain scents made me faint. Her’s was one of those smells.
I’d never met a hedge witch before but she looked exactly like I’d imagined one to look. She glanced around my spare office and nodded her head.
“It’s not a profitable business finding out what’s happening to the humans, is it?” She asked me.
“Missing persons cases are always tough and now that humans are far and few, it’s true. Sometimes figuring out how to pay my bills is a very perplexing problem. But I am here to help, so how can I help you?” I asked
“My husband has gone missing. He’s been working at the San Fernando ghetto since the Unveiling happened. Because I’m a witch, we were able to secure ourselves a home in the hills right off of Laurel Canyon. He left for work, as usual, yesterday morning and he never came home. I went to his store to see if anyone could tell me where he was.” She paused as several tears escaped from her green-brown mossy eyes.
I’d grown accustomed to such displays and handed her a tissue. She took it and dabbed the corners, regaining her composure in the process. “He owns a grocery store on Burbank Boulevard but no one had seen him since yesterday afternoon. I’m worried he’s disappeared for good. I’ve heard what’s happening at the camps as well and we’ve had so many friends go missing. I suppose I need to know for sure.”
“His store must be very popular if it’s a grocery store,” I said. Major food shortages had plagued the San Fernando ghetto since its inception and each time I visited the despairing people living within its walls, they grew thinner and more vulnerable. Dixon hoped they’d die of starvation and save him the resources to d
o the job himself, I thought darkly. The shamefulness of what was being done permeated my mind and I choked on the bile that rose into my throat. I coughed several times to cover up my gagging and took a sip of water.
“It’s a very respected and popular store. He was sensitive to the bleakness all around him and he wouldn’t have missed work without provocation. Not to mention, he’d call me and let me know his whereabouts.”
“I usually charge about $200 a day plus expenses. From experience, I should have some sort of answer in a day or two. Will that amount be something you’re able to afford?” I knew I was a bleeding heart but times were rough for everybody and this distraught woman didn’t need any more problems. Mrs. Forsythe clutched at her purse.
“So that would be an initial $400?” She asked, gnawing on her bottom lip from what I assumed was stress.
“Let’s just say 200 for now and I’ll do my best to track him down today.” I mentally checked my calendar for the day.
Who was I kidding? Oh yeah, that’s right, she was my only case in the last month, I said to myself. Even my inner thoughts went delusional at times trying to ward off the awfulness. I’d already sold off everything I could and I had even taken to selling magical trinkets to one of the dealers on La Brea. I know, I know, but money was even tighter last month than this month.
“I can handle 200 dollars. Are you sure you’ll be able to find him today?”
“I have a lot of contacts in San Fernando and if he’s gone missing for real there’s typically only two places he could go. That’s just filing paperwork but I should be able to find out if he’s been sent there.” I didn’t name the internment camps or the pit that was right outside of town in Malibu. No need to distress this woman anymore until I knew for sure the disaster I was sure had befallen her husband.
“Thank you.” She said and shuffled through her purse. She handed me ten rough worn twenty bills, her hands trembling.
Fury rose above me at the injustice of what was happening. What was the point of hurting so many people? I thought for the millionth time. It was hard to reconcile what the States had become. I grabbed her hand and held it, letting some of my calming magic flow into hers.
“You’re a witch?” She said in surprise as she pulled her hands away.
“I am half witch. The other half is some sort of Fae. I never knew until the Unveiling that I had that in me,” I said, trying not to frighten her. Even the mages and sorcerers were afraid of the Fae and made sure to keep the Fae population happy. No one really truly understood what the Fae were capable of and so they were appeasing them the best they could.
The appeasing was taking on horrific shape for the Fae had ugly tastes. I swallowed that thought down. I checked my watch and figured I’d be able to be in Burbank in half an hour.
“I should get going if I’m going to make it to San Fernando with enough time to avoid curfew. You just keep yourself together and I’ll find out what happened to your husband,” I said. Her face flooded with such relief that I had a slight pang of guilt. I hoped I would be giving her news that she wouldn’t regret finding out.
Richard Forsythe’s wife had given me an old photo of the man before the Unveiling. He had a shock of brown hair and a smile that went straight to his brown eyes. She had told me he’d lost about twenty pounds in the last year. I used an aging spell to recreate the photo to her specifications and went searching. In the end, the spell had sucked out all the joy from him and left a gaunt cornhusk of a man. No one was well-fed these days. Except for the vampires and the werewolves who were doing quite well for themselves. I passed the checkpoint at Barham Boulevard without incident and traveled through the canyon towards Burbank proper.
I pulled up to a dilapidated storefront with grocery painted along the top of it in green. The paint was flaking and the green was faded through but then what did that really matter. I walked indoors and nodded to the Indian man behind the counter.
The shelves were empty and the smell of rotten vegetables and mildew assaulted my nostrils. The ghetto had been cut off from most supplies for a number of months now and this grocery store was a perfect example of the horrors that were happening here. I went up to the cashier and gave him my warmest smile. If I played my cards right, I was sure he’d tell me what I need to know.
“I’m a PI investigating the disappearance of Richard Forsythe. I believe that he’s your boss?” I asked. I noticed that when I treated witnesses with sensitivity and respect, they talked. And a lot.
“That’s correct. Mr. Forsythe is my boss. Did Mrs. Forsythe hire you to find him?”
“She fears for his safety,” I said. I usually didn’t divulge who my clients were but whatever got him talking. I trusted him and he could trust me.
“Where was he headed the last time you saw him?” I asked. The man looked towards the door and when he found it empty he leaned into me.
“Did you know the Russian mob owned San Fernando Valley?”
“Yes, I did know that.” I’d worked a case some months back in Glendale and had found out the hard way that the Russian and Armenian mobs present before the Unveiling had quickly consolidated their power in the new era. They teamed up with the vampire squads to create the ghetto as it stood today and helped police it. They ran all sorts of rackets in the ghetto and managed to live quite well within its walls.
“Did he go to pay tribute?” I asked him and nodded.
“You know who the point person is for this District?” I asked. The mob bosses had created districts that ran along the former township lines and handed the tribute responsibilities over to their lieutenants.
“So you know what they’ve been doing to us?” He said, humiliation stooping his shoulders and anxiety making his hands shake. I nodded. There wasn’t anything I could say that was going to make him feel better so I kept my mouth shut.
“His name is Sergei Porodov and he works out of the old Italian restaurant on Magnolia just off Hollywood Way. That’s where the base of operations is for all of Burbank.” He said. The chime above the door jingled and a young woman and her small child entered.
“Welcome to Forsythe Grocers. Please let me know if you have any questions or can’t find anything.” The cashier intoned in a cheerful voice.
It was hard not to laugh at the response he’d given the woman because the store was basically empty. I could understand why he wanted to have a semblance of normalcy in the store.
The haggard woman walked with a pronounced limp as her dirty, dishwater blonde hair stuck to her skull. The child’s apathy disturbed me. She didn’t remember the time before as she couldn’t have been more than three years old. My heart bled for them.
I had to figure out a way to help these people. I had all this power and had no idea how to harness it to help. The best I could do was give clients the closure that they asked for. If I took care of the individual people then maybe I could assuage my guilt for being part of the apathetic masses that allowed this to happen in the first place. The thought subdued some of my pain only slightly but it was all that I had to hold onto.
“Thank you very much for your help. What is your name?”
“No names. If you need to know who I am you can ask Mrs. Forsythe.” He said and I didn’t blame him for that. He belonged to the most vulnerable class and put himself in grave danger for even speaking with me. If the Russian mob knew that he had given me the information that they hand him over to the vampire squads and I’d be looking for his body next.
“Tell Mr. Forsythe I said hello,” I said, thinking I could make sure to not give him his own death sentence.
I knew exactly where that Italian restaurant was and would take me ten minutes to get there. I wasn’t sure what my angle was going to be but I had my trusty LAPD badge to pave the way. I kept it when I quit for precisely this reason.
Using my magic was a no go since I had no way of controlling my Fae side. I’d had the misfortune of zapping beings into puddles of water with no way of reconstituting them. Th
ose already sat too heavy on my conscious.
For practical reasons, I didn’t need more law enforcement in my life. I preferred investigating in a quiet manner. Find where the goon squad had sent the victim and then let the family know. No magic involved.
I looked up and down the street and noted how few people were walking by. The cars had a layer of dust on them and appeared not to have moved from their parking spaces in years. Gas was no longer needed as cars powered by magic popped up all around town. I’d always heard that magic would be depleted if its use was not balanced by times of rest but apparently that wasn’t the case. Except for here. And the humans chose to stay closer to home, I assumed, to conserve their energy. I was using the terminology that Dixon used. They, them, that species. We were all descended from humanity. Except for the Fae and who knew where they came from. I got into my car and drove to the restaurant.
I took an empty space outside of Piccoloni, the former spaghetti joint that Forsythe’s clerk told me about. I didn’t see the lines of people I was expecting. Compared to the Glendale headquarters this place was bleak. Actually, it looked shuttered which was odd.
The Armenian mob that ran Glendale ran things differently than whoever was in charge of this place.
Glendale had barbed wire and lines of people waiting to part with a significant portion of their meager earnings.
I tucked my former LAPD badge into the back of my jeans and lifted my nose to the air. Since my Fae side was unleashed from underneath my mother’s spell, smells enveloped and overwhelmed my senses.
I’m sure it wasn’t as good as a werewolves’ nose but I could typically figure out how many people gathered in a room from some distance away simply by their scent. I hesitated, suspicious of what I was sensing. Why did the place appear deserted while a gathering took place inside? Was I about to step into some sort of mob sit-down?
Hunted Magic (The Wildes Chronicles) Page 1
