The Dark Magician, Part 2

Staring at my screen, I tried to think it through. The shadowed man had picked Mesmeria -but why? If the plan was to get in and out with magic, there were easier targets around the city. Mesmeria was in the heart of the Iron District, with several of the shops being owned by hedge witches or proper magicians. Honestly, it was a miracle no one had put a ward up around the store in the first place. No. No, I’m thinking about this wrong. He didn’t know the Iron District was populated with magicians. How could he? His magic was so raw that he couldn’t be a part of the wielder community in Lisrael -no one would put up with it. He got lucky. He must have.

His spells were rudimentary. And klarala has been stumbled upon many a time by an unsuspecting soul who felt forgotten. But did they? Did the shadow man feel forgotten? No, no. Someone who was forgotten would cave in on themselves, or at least lack the confidence required to stick around at an active crime scene -leaving after the officers arrived. His discovery of magic was no doubt intentional. But why? To what ends? Mere robbery? Unlikely.

Grinning, I leaned back, “Time for a fox hunt, huh?”

A sly grin still on my face, I made my way through the dreary halls of the precinct. Nodding every so often as a passerby would say hello. The walls were bare on the fifth floor, and a dingy tan. As I passed by the other offices, I began moving faster -the grin sliding off my face entirely. I needed to see Sydney. She might have something. Still, after working in the 12^th precinct for years, the only floor that I struggled with navigating was the basement. Well, navigating around Sydney. As I called the elevator, I took a deep breath.

Marcus, she cannot push you around. You are her superior.

The basement was home to the techs and the evidence locker. The floor itself was split into two, with all hallways eventually looping back to the elevator. Steadying my mind, I turned on my heel and headed for the tech side. Sydney would have something I could pretend was enough for me to get a hunch. Hopefully. It had only been three days, but I had hope.

As I reached for the doorknob I took one more deep breath, ignoring the agitated chatter I could hear through the wood. Keeping a neutral expression on my face, I pulled open the door. Only to see Sydney, face red and hair in a disheveled bun, jabbing another tech in the chest with her finger. By all accounts she was beautiful. Her skin was a deep tan, her hair a coffee brown. The softness of her eyes, constantly in contrast with the severity of the rest of her face -and the tone of her voice.

“What did I tell you, huh? You can’t just ‘run a search in the database’ -that’s not how it works.” Sydney’s voice, which was usually was soft on the ears, had an angry hitch to it, “If you’re not going to do your job, then what are you even doing? Did you even ask them if they had a pool of suspects? Did you? Now we have to hunt them down again -and god knows that’ll take us hours. Hours we don’t have – we already have a backlog!”

Looking at the other tech, I sighed. Wide eyed, he nodded quickly, not daring to speak and risk interrupting her tirade. Which means this is yet another tech she’ll hate. She preferred techs that had some fight in them.

“Sydney, let the poor kid go.”

Sliding her eyes to me, I almost regretted butting in. Almost. The smile she gave me as she stepped back from the other tech would have made my heart skip a beat –if I hadn’t just seen her harassing this poor kid.

“Detective Caid! Good to see you.” Gingerly she leaned back, propping herself up on the edge of her desk, miraculously not knocking over any of the stacks of folders that were littered behind her. “How can I help you?”

Taking another step into her office, maneuvering around the fleeing tech, I looked briefly at the monstrosity that was Sydney’s desk, “I’m here about a robbery that occurred Tuesday -the Iron District jewelry store.”

Sydney hummed briefly, then turned and ran her fingers along the side of a stack of folders towards the back corner of the desk. She had to practically pitch herself across the entirety of the desk to reach for it. Barely two heartbeats later she pulled a folder out from the middle of the stack. As far as I could tell, the only identifying mark was a blue marker on the spine.

“It’s uncanny how you can do that, you know.”

“It’s a knack -otherwise I’d lose everything.” Sydney wasn’t exactly bragging, her voice was flat. It was more a statement of fact. But that didn’t cause it to irritate me any less.

Pulling down her glasses from the top her head, she flipped through the file.

“The hair didn’t match any of the DNA from any robberies in the district, but the fingerprint appeared recently,” She paused, then looked up, “But it wasn’t a robbery. Someone broke into the mayor’s officer and wrecked the place. But nothing was missing.”

I hum’d, “How’d you make the match? The mayor’s office is in the Marsh, not the Iron District.”

Sydney huffed, “Well, if you must know, it’s because not everyone reports when something is missing. So I looked into breaking and entering cases around the Iron District -as well as the surrounding districts, hence the Mayor’s office.”

Reaching out my hand, I met Sydney’s eyes, “May I?”

She handed me the file, and as I skimmed through the details the gears in my head began turning. This was good. This I could use. I grinned. Tough luck Lorna. The excitement began building up in my stomach. I was going to win.

“Sydney, you’re a godsend.”

“I know.”

Handing the file back to Sydney, I couldn’t keep the excitement out of my voice, “Lorna is gonna be pissed.”

Sydney suppressed a smile, her lips twitching, “You two still have that stupid bet going on?”

I huffed, but couldn’t feign indignant very well, “It’s not my fault Lorna likes to see me fail. Besides, I’m about to wreck her -thanks to you.”

“You owe me lunch -and I know how much the bet is for so don’t you dare.”

Turning to leave, I passed the file back to her, “No promises -but I might get you something from that ophelian restaurant down the street.”

Once I made my way back to the elevator, I had already decided what was on my agenda for today. Sending a message to Lorna, ‘headed home -stomach issues. tell hydel for me’, I left the precinct. Pulling out a piece of glass from my pocket, I gripped it tightly. As I stepped out of the building, I made my way to an alley off to the side. Loosening my grip on the glass, I held it up to my face and breathed lightly over it. I watched as faint tendrils of magic began to waft off of the glass. The shadow man’s magic wasn’t pleasing to sense, it was as if there was roadkill under my nose.

But, the hunt began now.

Taking a deep breath, I prepared myself for the assault on my senses. I whispered a light ilorina qa. And then the world forced its way into my heart. Today was different than usual. Today the magic didn’t settle right away. It didn’t allow me to adjust. And though I had been mentally ready, the physical tax was greater than I was used to. There must be another magician nearby. I took another deep breath, and evermore magic was sucked into me. Foreign magic. This time it began melding with my own. No longer was my heart arrested with pressure. My stomach stopped turning and the fever that had started to bloom subsided. One last breath. This time of clean air. All was calm in my body. Though the magics still fought each other, it was no longer against me.

Focusing, I began sifting through the wisps of foreign magic I’d taken in -some had the warmth of a summer sunset, others the embrace of a knife to the chest. But there was one, it was barely noticeable among all the more intense magics. It was the stench that drew me to it. Not of oranges or vanilla, not of liquor or spoiled meat, but of hatred. I used to liken it to the taste of black licorice, but now -now I would say it was more akin to blood. Not fresh blood, with its sour copper taste. No. This was stale, rotten, as if it was forced out onto the pavement and left to be boiled away by the sun. It matched the glass. The faint tendrils that had been wrapping around the glass pulled themselves into the air and merged into a wisp hovering above my hand.

Ilorna qa wasn’t strictly a tracking spell. Not truly. In a way, it gave magic a life of its own. That life just tended to lead the magic back to its user. And this wisp was no different. I held it in my mind, I urged it forward. To find what it was missing -its owner. The wisp didn’t take much convincing before it began to move. As I followed the wisp, I would have to remind the magic of who I was. That it was both bound to me and owned by another. That it should return home. Without such a reminder, magic could wander -following an old, yet familiar, path. Sometimes that meant to the user’s favorite bar, or their path to work, occasionally I’d been led to an old lover’s house. Magic hates to be restrained, but if you leave it alone it will trace these paths until the wisps either disappear into nothing -or attach itself to a stronger magician. That was another problem with this wisp. Its user was weak -and that meant it was drawn to me. Yet another thing I had to convince it of. Again, I reminded the magic that its user is still out there. Let’s follow it together, I whispered, you still have a home. Sometimes, such words don’t work. This time it does, and the thread of magic grows stronger. It loops through the city, searching, leading me down an unknown road in Midtown.

Going between buildings, down an alley, the wisp brought me to a door. The magic paused outside. Slowly it circled the door knob. Settling around the knob, the wisp of magic began to seep into the keyhole. From ten feet away, I watched as the magic disappeared behind the door. That was when I truly took in the emptiness around me.

The alley it had taken me to was lined with buildings of white brick, each building reaching into the sky. As I looked at the buildings around me, I saw only brick. Not a single window or security camera hang in the alleyway. I also noticed there weren’t dumpsters here. While an odd thing to notice, it was an equally odd thing to occur. Why? Focusing back on the door, I looked around. The door was settled at the bottom of a stairwell, surrounded by grey brick. I took a single step down the stairwell and ran my hand over the metal railing, rust rubbing off onto my fingers. That was when I saw the nails. Copper. Not iron, or steel. Squatting down, I looked closer at the railing. The railing itself was old, rusted over, but the nails were new – probably within the last year or so. The area around the nails showed scraped metal. It must have been wrought iron nails. Copper doesn’t rust -not like this. This meant he was worried about his cantrips getting dispelled. I felt some wards coming off the door -but any ward dispelled by iron? That couldn’t hope to keep any decent magician out. A parlor trick magician. A hack. He can’t even cast over iron.

I brought myself back up and frowned at the door. It would be simple to destroy the wards, to bust through the door. But I can’t see through it. I don’t know what’s waiting for me on the other side. I just know there’s a magician. Pulling a pair of black gloves out of my jacket pocket, I slid them on and stretched my fingers.

Focusing my mind, I outlined the wards in front of me. There were only two layers. Weak. Raising one hand, I began twisting my fingers into position. Like a thief clicking through a vault, I moved the wards, shifting the curtains so that the door became a gap. A security flaw. An entry point. Looking down I checked my shadow. It was rippling.

“Jilel heimel monst.” With a whisper I felt my shadow begin to truly move.

I had to remind my shadow once again that it was alive. Calling to it was not enough on its own. Gently, I tapped one foot twice, sliding it back swiftly -leaving my shadow disconnected. This time, the other foot. Tap, tap, slide. Reaching down with my free hand, I grasped the disembodied shadow and pulled it up into reality. What once had been made in my image, was now taller, leaner, more solid. The shade was merely a silhouette, without the finer details of a person. But still, I could make out daggers in its hands.

With a wicked grin, I released the shade from my hand and focused back on the door.

Now was when the fun began.

<Part One>