Maker

Chapter: 5-2

“Hey man, what’s up?” He said. “How’s the East Coast enforcer doing?” I’d have laughed if I weren’t so nervous. At least I think I would’ve.

“It doesn’t count if you’re just getting lucky,” I said.

“Six warlocks in two years? It counts man. That’s six I didn’t have to take out myself—and that means something with the whole world coming apart.”

“Eight, as of tonight.” I said it and almost flinched. I didn’t technically kill any of them with magic. The wildmen had their minds wiped so they may as well have been dead already and of course, werewolves didn’t count. “I blew up some trees, they died in the confusion another was in one of my traps and we already talked about how that doesn’t quite break the law so when you find out the—”

“Whoa, slow down dude. Start at the beginning,” he said.

I spent the next ten minutes telling him everything that had happened that day. He only had to tell me to slow down one other time. When I was finished, there was silence on the other end, then some paper shuffling. I was getting angry; I hadn’t done anything wrong… well, mostly, and here I was waiting for Gomez to come kill me.

I sighed; add him to the list I guess.

“Dammit!” He said, back on the line. “I can’t get out there for at least a month. You need to get your gear back. Can’t have your pack in anyone’s hands we don’t trust. I’m texting Myer to see if he can make it.”

My stomach dropped. If he sent Myer to handle this I was leaving the state until it was done. I bet a mile beneath the most isolated swamp in Georgia was nice this time of year.

“I can get my pack, I think.” I hoped I could anyway. “I can’t deal with these guys though; you said yourself that sometimes Martinet defect, right?”

“That’s the rumor—nothing official.” He said. He was lying, but I didn’t call him on it.

“Right.” I said. “So, I can’t do anything about most of them. After I take back my gear, they’re gonna be after me. Someone is gonna have to—”

“No, you are.” He interrupted

“What?”

“Just texted Myer.” He said. “No one can get there before next month and it’ll be too late by then.”

“But—”

“Listen, dude. I don’t like it either,” he said. “But you know what’s going on. We’re swamped. That attack on Giza last month, Great Wall of China a few weeks ago… and Tuesday night a clan of leopard morphs just fricken decided that Chichen Itza should be theirs. Victor is still out there hunting down the last of them. We do what we can, but it’s not enough. We’re all on our own. Listen, I’ll be there as soon as I can, but I think you’ll have it handled by then. If I could, I’d send you the number one warlock killer in the U.S., but as of tonight, that’s you. Understand?”

“Yeah,” I said, dejected. “I understand.”

“Dude, you’re smart. You got magical theory out the wazoo. So out-think him and keep me posted.”

“I will,” I said. “Maker out.” Well that didn’t help. I hung up a bit harder than I wanted to and stood there in the phone booth feeling disappointed.

It was unrealistic to think that the Martinet taking care of the whole damn continent would drop everything to come save me. Guess I got my hopes up. At least he’s not coming to kill me… I think.

As for being the number one warlock killer, the judges will take the trophy away once they learn that five had died in traps I wasn’t even in the room for, two in car accidents, one was completely unintentional, and the last had essentially killed herself.

Never a face to face battle. That was a good way to get dead. Never pitting my magic skill against theirs as the Martinet did. I snuck around in dark corners, waiting for them to do something stupid and capitalizing on it.

Sure, I got results—there was no arguing that, but I wasn’t a hero like Gomez or Merlin. I left the phone booth and looked up. I had about five hours of dark left; there was nothing more I could get done tonight. As tired as I was, sleep was the most productive thing I could be doing. Warlocks tended to be active at night, so I’d find and break into their place tomorrow.

Zora was waiting outside the booth, standing tall with a giant smile that tugged at her scar, as always. She was cleaner at least. Showered and powdered, she no longer looked like the female protagonist at the end of a low budget horror flick. She was wearing a blue tank top this time, and like the tan cargo pants, it was baggy enough to hide the curves she had. The shoes she wore were simple and brand new. Zora went through a lot of shoes, for obvious reasons.

I nodded to her and started limping home. She fell in beside me. “Heard you’re going hunting,” she said.

“Nope,” I replied. “Where’d you hear that?”

“From you,” she smiled. “I was upstairs lifting when you were talking to Miles, and I was listening to your convo with Gomez. What’s he like?” Zora lived in an apartment above Miles’ diner. There was also a boxing gym up there. Miles never got around to getting anyone to use it, so Zora rented the whole thing. There were also three other empty apartments and one empty floor that served as Zora’s lab. Must be nice living above the best food for a square mile, two blocks away wasn’t bad either.

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s rude to eavesdrop?” I said.

“Sounds like something somebody would’ve said at some point. Now, tell me—what’s Gomez like?”

“He’s a hot Latin dream,” I sighed. “Like Enrique Iglesias, only sexier.” I said it in as flat and dry a tone as I could manage.

“Ooooh, citation needed,” she sighed. She said that a lot. My time on the internet was limited to research. I didn’t find it any better than books, but I still knew what she meant. I spent a lot of time on Wikipedia, clicking the random article button. I probably knew more about obscure European royalty than anyone.

“No matter what you heard, I’m going to bed, and whatever comes after that I’ll handle by myself.”

She just shrugged and kept walking beside me.

“You aren’t going,” I said.

She nodded, not turning to look at me.

“I mean it this time.”

“Where else am I supposed to get my adrenaline fix?” She whined.

“Head downtown and kill some vamps or something,” I said.

“Without you to make sure I get out alive? Me thinks not. I’ll go lift some more.”

I sighed. She didn’t sound sarcastic or patronizing, but one could never tell with Zora. “This is dangerous. I’m only going to steal back my gear. Hell, after I find Rollo’s kids I’m thinking of bailing off the grid until Gomez or someone else can get here and take care of things.”

“Rollo’s kids?” She asked.

“Yeah,” I sighed. “There are two kids missing.”

“Aren’t there always two kids missing?” She asked.

“Technically, yes, but Rollo wants these two found,” I said.

“Why?”

“He got assigned the case,” I said. “You know they send him all the weird s**t. Whoever got to the scene first probably saw the circle drawn in blood and passed the buck.”

“No, I meant why are you bothering?” She said.

“What? Uhh… because there are two defenseless children who—”

“Maker,” she interrupted. “We don’t do rescues. We kill monsters. One could argue that it’s the only thing we do well. I believe we have a rule about playing to our strengths.” You know you’ve taught your student well when they start quoting you, to you.

“I’m not gonna let two kids twist in the wind just because,” I said.

“Why not?!” She said incredulously. “If it was Andre, or Nakeisha or another one of Miles’ kids, then of course. If it were Rollo’s actual children, I’d make the time, just so I could hold it over his head forever, but whoever these kids are, we don’t know them. We can’t save everyone, and we’ll get killed trying. They may as well be a cat in a tree.”

“Seriously, this s**t again?” I said. It wasn’t the first time we’d had this conversation, or one just like it, and it wouldn’t be the last. “We aren’t doing crap to save starving children in India. We aren’t curing cancer. We are not out to save every cat in every tree, but when life sticks a tree right in front of us and there happens to be a cat in it, we’d be assholes if we didn’t climb up and get it.”

She smiled, “And we’d be smarter assholes if we just killed the dog at the bottom of the tree.”

I sighed. She wasn’t exactly wrong, but I didn’t have the mental capacity to explain everything I was feeling after the shitty day I’d had. If I were more articulate at the moment, I might’ve won this debate. Instead, I got annoyed.

“Don’t expand my metaphors; you know how that annoys me.” I said

“In this case it’s apt,” she replied. “If we kill every warlock, vampire, ghost, fairy, werewolf, and whatever for a thousand miles those kids don’t have a problem, no matter what tree they’re in, so why aren’t we doing what we do best?”

“We’re branching out,” I smiled.

“Did you just make a pun? I’ll cut you.” No one I knew did a deadpan expression better than Zora. Probably because she’s so animated at other times. I laughed a bit and kept walking.

“I’m gonna find them, and you’re going to help.” I sighed. “If nothing else it’ll score some points with Rollo.”

“We can’t spend points with Rollo!” She said, looking outraged. “Hey goody two shoes, can you look the other way for a few days of felonies?”

“Fine. You’re helping because it’ll give me a warm, fuzzy, feeling.”

“Whatever,” she shrugged. “Here,” She tossed me a small clear jewel, on a chain made of the same material. Whatever it was, it was heavy, and it cooled off slowly as it lay in my hand. Weird. “Pretty sure that’s what Blueboy was after,” she said. “Makes dead goblins into undead goblins. Pretty useful if you wanted to rule all of Outland or Faerie. Works too. After I ate, I went back to the warehouse and had them all doing the electric slide. Then I had them all march into a furnace, I dropped the loot at Micheal’s, and Blueboy’s body got sucked back to Faerie… so that’s case closed, I think.”

“Good enough for me,” I said. I’d just add this to the long list of things in my pack that someone would be coming to kill me for. Once I got it back, that is. Realistically, Blueboy wasn’t nearly powerful enough to have this. It took some serious mojo to punch a hole in the universe. Whoever he was running errands for—or being manipulated by—would show up eventually.

I didn’t realize we were at my house already. I waved and headed in.

“Oh, and Maker, one more thing,” I stopped. “If ever we find an orange tabby in a tree, or a toyger, you won’t have to twist my arm so much.” I just exhaled audibly at the joke, but she thought it was funny enough to walk away giggling and talking to herself. “OOOooo or an abyssinian, nah savannah. Angora’s are pretty too. Maybe go simple and we can rescue an American longhair. Bengal? Hmm… Nope savannah, definitely savannah. There’s gotta be a savannah in a tree around here somewhere. I’m gonna…” Her voice trailed off as she walked away.

I just sighed again and limped inside, wrapped a bandage around my midsection, downed four aspirin, elevated a thigh that had swollen to the size of a basketball on a couple pillows, and went straight to sleep. Didn’t even brush my teeth.