by Dan Wingreen
He understood the needs of the many came before the needs of the few, but he never really understood why it was such a hassle to make it easier for everyone to follow the law.
Another piece of trash—a food wrapper—skittered across the sidewalk in front of Aidan, and this time he snatched it up before it could escape. Ha! No more dirtying up my neighborhood for you. Aidan frowned. Now what do I do with it?
He decided to roll it up and put it in his pocket so he could burn it in his fire sink when he got home, only to discover it had been used to hold something greasy and covered in sauce. "Oh, gross," Aidan said, dropping the disgusting thing and holding his hands away from his clothes. He tried to see what his hands were covered in, but the light from the power lines wasn't enough to identify it beyond "wet" and "ew".
Why can't anybody ever drop clean napkins on the ground? Aidan thought as he looked around for something to wipe himself off with.
"Hey! What are you doing?"
Aidan jumped and spun towards the voice only to come face to face with a dark alley. Sudden terror squeezed his throat. It's coming to eat me! He stumbled back from the alley into the street, for once unconcerned about the possibility of being hit by of one of the rare carriages ambling past. He was about to turn around and run away when two men stepped out of the alley. Two human, not-nightmare-monster, men. Aidan paused, then relaxed when he saw the gray and white uniforms of the state police.
"Oh, thank Merlin," Aidan said, chuckling with relief. He almost clutched his hands to his chest, but at the last second remembered the mess and averted disaster. "I'm sorry for running, officers, I thought"—Hmm, 'I thought you were a hideous death monster' might not be the best thing to say to police officers—"you scared me."
Instead of apologizing or even laughing at the jumpy weirdo in the blue sweater, they advanced on him at a steady pace. The laughter died on Aidan's lips as he got a better look at the men. Something was…off. They both towered over Aidan by at least three inches; the one on the right slightly stocky and the taller one on the left with a bit of a beer gut. Stocky had a small scar under his right eye and a nose that looked like it had been broken more than a few times, which was strange, since most people preferred to use magic instead of fists when they got into fights. Beer Gut was immaculately put together; crisp edges on his uniform, not a single strand of silky blond hair out of place, his boots polished to a mirror-sheen, even after walking through the less than pristine alley. He felt a bit guilty about giving them such unflattering nicknames since they were officers of the law, but none of that was what set Aidan on edge.
They both looked…threatening in a way Aidan had never seen in any of the daytime law enforcement officials he'd encountered. Stocky had a small, cruel smirk on his lips and Beer Gut's eyes blazed with malice.
Aidan swallowed heavily and fought the urge to run again. Which was crazy. They were police officers. They were there to protect and serve. Only criminals and terrorists needed to fear them.
So why did Aidan?
They stopped less than five feet in front of Aidan. Beer Gut bent over and gingerly picked up the greasy food wrapper between two fingers of his white gloved hand. Aidan's breath caught in his throat. They can't possibly think…
Beer Gut stood up straight and studied the trash he was holding before slowly turning his full attention to Aidan. He raised an eyebrow, a mildly curious gesture completely at odds with the callous gleam in his eyes, and slowly pointed to the ground in front of him. Aidan licked his lips nervously. Was he ordering him to come closer?
"'ey!" Stocky snapped. "What do you do when a police officer gives you an order?" His voice was rough and thick with some kind of east coast accent. New York? Boston? Aidan couldn't identify it, but it was strange hearing it from a cop in California. Law enforcement personnel didn't usually get transferred across the country, did they?
"Wh-what?" Aidan asked.
"You obey," Beer Gut said, his voice an arrogant drawl, cold as a sharp winter breeze.
Before Aidan realized what was going on, Stocky had rushed forward and grabbed him by the front of his shirt. The officer dragged him off the street, past Beer Gut, and shoved him up against the wall of the nearest building. Stocky let him go, but when Aidan started to push off the wall, he shoved him back, hard.
"Stay, doggie," Stocky said with a smirk.
Aidan stayed.
Oh shit. I am so screwed.
Beer Gut walked over to Aidan and held the wrapper up. "I assume you're aware of the laws against littering, yes?"
"Ye—"
"Don't speak," Beer Gut cut him off. "Just nod."
Aidan nodded.
This whole thing was so wrong. Even if they thought he was littering they shouldn't have been treating him like this. They should be arresting him so he could sit in jail for a few days before he got assigned community service or something. Instead he was being treated like he was back in school and being picked on by the older kids. Cops didn't act like this!
So…maybe they're not cops? That made the most sense, but impersonating an officer was punishable by death, and no one would risk it just to push around some guy they'd never met for littering, would they? No. They had to be cops.
Suddenly, Aidan was very scared.
"Good boy," Stocky said.
"So," Beer Gut continued, ignoring his…partner? Accomplice? "Since you are in fact aware of the law, I can only assume you decided to break it knowingly."
Stocky shook his head and tsked just like Aidan's mother used to when he was a kid. "Not good."
"I didn't!" Obedience to government officials had been as much a part of Aidan's upbringing as basic math, so speaking when he was told not to wasn't exactly an easy thing to do. He didn't see any way out of this besides trying to explain what actually happened, though.
"Aww, he didn't," Stocky said, his ugly face twisting up into a mock pout.
"I didn't litter!" Aidan was panicking and making himself look guilty, but he couldn't help it.
"Oh really?" Beer Gut raised a skeptical eyebrow.
"It was on the ground, and I picked it up—"
"Which is why I picked it up off the ground just now, I take it?"
"Yes…no."
"It can really only be one or the other." Beer Gut sounded amused now.
Aidan didn't care, at least he was listening. "I really did pick it up, but it was covered with something and I got grossed out and dropped it. I was gonna pick it back up once I found something to clean my hands off with, I swear!"
"Oh, he swears. So, he must be telling the truth then, eh?" Stocky grinned and nudged Beer Gut with his elbow.
"Don't touch me," Beer Gut said, glaring at Stocky.
Stocky's grin melted away. "Sorry," he apologized and looked away.
Great, the violent one looks scared of the other one. Nice to know which one I should be terrified of.
"So, you didn't litter, then?" Beer Gut asked, turning his attention back to Aidan.
"No."
"You were going to get rid of it the whole time?"
Aidan nodded. "Yes."
"This was all just a big misunderstanding," Beer Gut said, smiling.
Hope swelled in Aidan's chest. "Yes. Exactly. Just a misunderstanding."
"Well then." Beer Gut crumpled the wrapper up into a ball with one hand and squeezed. There was an orange flash and when Beer Gut opened his hand again, the piece of paper was reduced to a small pile of gray ash. He tilted his hand and the ash slid off and blew away with the breeze. Aidan slumped against the wall with relief.
"Do you live around here?"
Aidan was startled by the random question. "Um, yeah. Two blocks that way." He pointed down the street.
Beer Gut's smile widened. "So, I assume you have your license then, wizard?"
"I…yeah. Of course."
"May I see it?"
"Um. Sure."
Aidan pulled his wallet out of his pocket and opened it, but before he could get
his license out Beer Gut snatched the wallet out of his hand. Aidan bit off a protest before it could get out. It looked like he was going to get off without even being arrested for littering; he didn't want to mess that up.
Beer Gut took his license out, but barely glanced it at before going through the rest of Aidan's wallet. He pulled out all of Aidan's cash, flipped through it, then pocketed it.
"Hey! That's—"
That was as far as Aidan got. Beer Gut gestured sharply, and Stocky punched Aidan in the stomach. The rest of his objection died as the air whooshed out of his lungs. He doubled over, coughing and gagging and desperately tried to suck down oxygen.
Aidan fought not to throw up as Stocky picked him up and held him against the wall. Pain and fear pulsed through Aidan's body.
Beer Gut leaned in and held Aidan's Wizard License up in front of his face. "Now, here's what's going to happen. We're all going to go back to your apartment where you will sit down and Officer Barnes will pour you a glass of water while you catch your breath. You will drink it while we have a look around. Anything we find that looks valuable, we will take. Anything we find that looks like we might enjoy it, we will take. When we're done, we will leave, and I will take this with me." He wiggled Aidan's license. "It's the middle of the month so you should be getting your labor compensation check in two weeks, yes? That's when we'll come back. Before we get there, you will endorse your check and when we arrive, you will give it to us, and I will return this to you. That sounds like fair compensation for wasting our time tonight, don't you think?"
Aidan felt the blood drain from his face. He couldn't do anything without his license. Even going outside his apartment without one was a death sentence. "I—" He coughed. "I need it."
Beer Gut just stared implacably. "And?"
Aidan swallowed, but pushed on. "It expires at the end of the month too, and—"
"Oh?" Beer Gut asked unconcerned. "Well, then you better hope your check isn't late this month, hmm?"
"I can't leave my apartment without my license. I-I don't have enough food to last two weeks—"
"Yes, yes. This is all very fascinating," he replied, sounding bored. "The problem is, none of this is my problem, is it?"
Aidan stared up at him in complete disbelief. It wasn't fair. He wasn't a criminal; he wasn't a liar, or a cheat, and he'd never broken a single law in his life. He helped children, for Merlin's sake! He didn't deserve this. He didn't deserve being harassed by the same police officers who were supposed to protect people like him from situations like this. And for what? His tiny government allowance and a few crappy possessions? Why? Because he was a wizard? Because he couldn't use magic to defend himself without also destroying half the block?
Aidan had never felt so helpless in his life.
"You know," Barnes—Aidan couldn't really keep thinking of him as Stocky now—said, "he don't look like he's saying yes."
Beer Gut cocked his head thoughtfully. "I do believe you're right. Officer Barnes?"
"Yeah?"
"Burn his—" He paused and looked back to Aidan. "Which hand do you write with?"
Aidan started trembling. This can't be happening.
"It doesn't matter," Beer Gut said without waiting for an answer. "Burn his left hand, please."
"You wan’ a stump?" Barnes asked.
"Mmm, no, no I don't think so. Just burn it enough so he can never use it again."
Barnes grinned. "You got it."
He slowly reached his hand out towards Aidan. Aidan tried to back up, but he was already against the wall. He darted to his left, but Beer Gut raised his hand and Aidan bounced off a shimmering white-blue wall that hadn't been there a second ago. Another one appeared on his right, boxing him in. He was trapped.
Aidan looked around, panicked, for something, anything that could help him. The streets were deserted, but even if they weren't, he knew no one would try to step in. Not if it meant going against uniformed police officers.
As Barnes' outstretched hand got closer to Aidan, fire suddenly sprang to life in his palm. Aidan started shaking all over. He was going to be burned. Burned badly. The panic turned into terror, and the only thing keeping Aidan from screaming was the fear lodged in his throat.
And then he felt it. A tiny, answering fire deep inside his chest. A fire he hadn't felt in over two years. A fire he first felt when he was ten years old…
No!
The magic swirled inside him, practically begging to be let out, and for the first time in his life, part of Aidan didn't want to stop it. It would save him. He could just let go, and Barnes and Beer Gut would be the ones going up in flames. The ones screaming. The ones in pain. His resistance weakened.
The building behind him would go up too, and Aidan almost giggled at the mad irony of only being able to open an escape route by also getting rid of the things he needed to escape from. It wouldn't be the only building destroyed. The one next to it would go too, then the next one, then the one across the street, and the little shop with the family who had an adorable little girl; they lived above the store, and she sometimes waved to him when he walked by.
Aidan clenched his jaw and fought the fire down. He couldn't do it. There were people in all those buildings. He couldn't kill dozens of people—people he knew, as much as he knew anybody who wasn't Carl—just to save himself. Even if the terrified, cowardly part of him wished he could.
Barnes' grin got wider as he reached out to grab Aidan's left hand. Aidan squeezed his eyes closed. He couldn't look. He thought he might throw up if he looked.
My hand's about to be burned off and I'm worried about puking. I don't even think there's a word for what's wrong with me. A tear slipped out of one of Aidan's clenched eyes as he felt the searing heat of the magical fire get closer to his hand. Maybe he'd get lucky and faint before it touched hi—
"Well, this looks like a bit of fun, does it?"
The heat stopped coming closer as the strangely accented voice echoed down the empty streets. It was a bit rough and lilting, almost lyrical; definitely foreign, but Aidan couldn't place it beyond that. He didn't really care either. All he cared about was that his hand wasn't being burned to a blackened crisp.
"Yes. It is," Beer Gut said, his voice low and threatening. "And you're going to want to move along before you end up having a very similar kind of fun."
Aidan waited a few seconds. When the heat didn't come any closer, he decided to risk it and cracked his eyes open.
The first thing he saw was the fire still flickering in Barnes' palm, less than six inches away from his hand. He swallowed and quickly looked away. He looked past Barnes and Beer Gut—who at the moment didn't seem to be paying attention to him—just in time to see a man step out of the alley across the street.
Everything about him was dark except his skin, which was almost as pale as Aidan's. His black hair was long—much longer than Aidan would have ever consider growing his, no matter how much he claimed he didn't care about fashion—and Aidan was slightly scandalized to see it was tied back into a long tail. It looked like something he'd find on the back end of a horse, and Aidan couldn't figure out why anybody would want to make themselves look like an animal's ass.
Stop being an idiot. It doesn't matter if he's naked and screaming in tongues; at least he's distracting them from burning your hand off.
As the man walked casually over to them, Aidan noticed more details. He looked like he was in his early to mid-thirties. His black beard was just thick enough not to be stubble, but it looked like it was maintained, much to Aidan's relief. Even if he wasn't sure why he cared.
Up close, his hair looked washed, clean and shiny, in the soft blue light. He was wearing black jeans and a black shirt under an old and battered black leather jacket. Aidan thought he even saw a scorch mark on the left sleeve. The monochromatic color scheme should have looked ridiculous, but somehow it seemed to fit him.
As the man stepped up on the sidewalk and stopped several feet away from Aidan and the
officers, Aidan noticed the stranger was tall—not quite as tall as Beer Gut but definitely taller than Aidan—and broad, not stocky like Barnes but wide-shouldered and thin-waisted while still being relatively lean. His eyes, a muted, grayish color, gleamed with amusement.
"I told you to leave," Beer Gut said, his eyes narrowing.
"Aye. I heard," the man said cheerfully. "Thought it were a bit rude, to be honest. Here I am walkin' around all night, bored out of my mind talkin’ to myself saying, 'Self', I says, 'what I wouldn't give for something fun to be happenin' right now', and not even two minutes later, here I come across you having all sorts of fun and, instead of inviting me to join in, you tell me to go away?" He gave them a disappointed look. "Although, if you wanna be technical, what you really said was if I stuck around I'd get to have the same fun he's having. So"—he spread his arms slightly—"here I am."
Beer Gut and Barnes just stared. Aidan's heart sank. The man was obviously insane. Or drunk. Either way, he wouldn't be helping Aidan.
Then, the annoyance faded from Beer Gut's face and his lips quirked in amusement. "Well, I suppose if you want to join in, then it would be a bit rude to exclude you."
Barnes head snapped around. "You serious?"
"Of course. When am I not?"
Barnes hesitated, looking back and forth between the man and Beer Gut, then shrugged. "If you say so."
"Great," the man exclaimed clapping his hands. "So, what are the rules? Wait. No, lemme guess."
He looked at the tableau in front of him, frowning in concentration.
"So," the man said, "seems like the fat one and the ugly one holds down the small one and…burns his hand?" The man raised an eyebrow. "Well, that don’t seem very fair. What’s he get out of it?"
Barnes growled softly under his breath, and Aidan felt a tiny bit of hope flicker back to life. Maybe the new arrival would piss them off so much they'd forget all about Aidan, and he could escape?
"He gets to live," Beer Gut said, his eyes narrowing again as he stiffened slightly at being called 'the fat one'. "Something that seems increasingly unlikely for you."