by D. Levesque
“Idiot, he just came through a Portal. Now come on, move up to the Sergeant’s desk. I don’t have all night. Not like you have never stumbled before,” the uniformed officer, I guess, says, pointing to the large desk at the back of the reception area.
I stare around in complete, utter confusion. What the hell is this? Did I just walk into a twilight zone episode?
“Fucking hell, you’re a pain. Move it,” the cat woman says to me. She grabs the back of my shirt and using her strength, she shoves me forward towards the same desk that furred uniformed officer had been heading.
Once there, we wait in line. I’m so confused that I just stare around with my mouth open. I’m behind the thing I stumbled into, but it stares straight ahead. Then, it’s the thing’s turn.
“Oh, by the Gods,” the officer looking down at him says. He looks like the first officer but somehow I get the impression he is older and more tired. “McNabb? Really? You were just in here three nights ago,” it says in an aggrieved tone. “What are you here for now?”
“Four charges of assault. He tried to pick a fight with three Vampires and another Beast,” the first officer tells him, shrugging his shoulders.
“And how are the other four?” the older officer asks.
“Two are in hospital. One is just being released. The other Beast is fine.”
Sighing, the officer at the desk says, “Fine. Lock him up for two nights. Eighty credit charge,” he says, then stamps something and hands it to the first officer. “Next.”
“That’s us,” the cat woman growls and pushes me forward.
“Ah, Marrisa,” the officer at the desk says with a scowl. “To what do I owe the honor?”
“Fuck you, Peterson. I brought in the bounty for Twoshoes.” Marrisa says. I guess I can stop calling her ‘the woman’, now that I know her name.
Peterson looks around and ignores me. “That’s Officer Peterson to you. And I don’t see him. The bounty was for him or the item that he had. Do you have that, maybe in the tight pockets of those shorts of yours?” Peterson says with a smirk.
“No, I have him,” Marrisa says, thumbing a finger at me.
Peterson smirks at her and looks at me. Then he gets an angry frown on his face. “Did you just fucking bring a human here?” Peterson starts to growl in a dangerous sounding tone.
“What? Of course I did. It has the fucking items!” Marrisa says in a pissed-off tone. “Of course I fucking brought it here.”
“Kevin,” I blurt out.
“What?” she says in an annoyed voice.
“My name’s Kevin. Not it,” I tell her in a just as annoyed voice.
“Barker!” Peterson suddenly shouts, causing everyone around to jerk in surprise at the deafening sound.
“Sergeant?” I hear from above.
“Tell Captain Lori Marrisa has fucked up, and we need her support. You,” Peterson says, pointing at Marrisa with a furry finger. “Upstairs. Captain’s office. You,” he says, growling at me. “Follow her, or you’re a carcass.”
“Hmm. Sure,” I tell Peterson, having no clue what the fuck is going on.
“You said your name was Kevin?” Peterson asks me suddenly.
“Yes, sir. Kevin,” I answer.
“Last name, Kevin?”
“Johnston, sir.”
“Well, at least you have manners. Fucking hell, this is going to end up going to Central. You just watch,” Peterson says, but I’m sure he’s not talking to me. “Take this with you, Marrisa,” Peterson says, stamping a paper and handing it to her.
Marrisa takes it with a scowl, and I see that she now has a worried look on her face. Just who is this Captain Lori?
My thoughts are interrupted as Marrisa grabs my arm and drags me away, just as I hear Peterson say, “Next!”
I follow Marrisa, my abductor, but really I’m more being dragged by her than following her. Damn, she’s strong. I mean, she lifted me a foot into the air earlier.
We come to a set of stairs, and we head up them. This place is an exact replica of an old police station that you would find in Queens. I’m sure of it. Not that I have ever been to Queens, but I do watch tv.
We climb up two flights of stairs and once we get to the third floor, Marrisa drags me towards a door and stops in front of it. There is lettering written on it, but I can’t make it out. It’s in a script I have never seen before. Marrisa hesitates before she finally knocks three times.
“Come in,” I hear a female voice call out.
Marrisa opens the door and drags me into the room. It’s an office with two chairs and a desk. Behind the desk is another cat woman, but she is in a business suit, and she is glaring at Marrisa. Whereas Marrisa had black fur, this woman’s is tawnier. A light brown. The desk she is sitting at is made of dark wood, and on it are what you would find on a typical cop’s desk. A computer, paperwork, knickknacks, and other shit. On the wall are pictures, and some things that I’m sure are awards, but I can’t read them. Remember? Script I can’t read?
“Marrisa, please tell me you have a really, really fantastic reason for bringing a human here?” the woman who I assume is Captain Lori says in a deadly quiet voice as Marrisa reaches over the chairs and places the paper Peterson had given her on the desk. She doesn’t sit, so I don’t either.
“He has the item that Twoshoes stole, resulting in the bounty on his head,” Marrisa says, and I look over at her in surprise since her tone is timid, almost shy.
Captain Lori looks at me and puts a furred hand out over her desk. “Give me the item,” she tells me.
I look over at Marrisa. “So, how do I give her something I ingested? Am I supposed to just throw up?”
“What?” Captain Lori says in surprise.
“Yeah. It came flying out of some window, hit me in the forehead and I guess broke, and somehow I ended up getting the contents of it inside me. By the way, it tasted like shit. But she,” and I point my thumb over at Marrisa, “won’t tell me if it’s poison. Not that it matters anymore anyhow,” I finish with a shrug.
“Marrisa, is what he is saying true?” Captain Lori asks her, slowly enunciating her words.
“Maybe?” Marrisa says, now sounding scared.
“Fucking hell!” Captain Lori suddenly says, slapping her desk so hard that a number of items end up falling to the floor. “You’re saying that you allowed a human to ingest the last vial of something that was in the Museum of Magic? Something that is irreplaceable?” By the time she is done, Captain Lori is screaming at Marrisa.
“In my defense, it wasn’t me who threw it through the window!” Marrisa says, backing up towards the door, leaving me to stand in front of Captain Lori’s desk alone.
“That doesn’t change the fact that Article 1 of the Magical Code of Worlds was broken!” Captain Lori says with a growl.
“Excuse me?” I say, lifting my hand up as if asking for permission.
“What?” Captain Lori responds, glaring at me.
“What the fuck is going on here? Because I have no clue. She dragged me here. I just want to know, am I going to die faster because of that stuff I ingested?”
“What do you mean, die faster?” Captain Lori asks me with a frown.
“Well, was it poison? And if so, does that mean I will die quickly, or will it be a horrible death? Because honestly, if it’s a horrible death, can you tell me now so I can, so I can do something about it? I’m already dying,” I tell her with a shrug.
Captain Lori starts to answer but then shuts her mouth. She sits down with a sigh and points to the two chairs. “Sit.”
I decide that listening to her right now might be a good idea, gun to my throat or not, and I sit down in one of the chairs. It’s actually a soft leather of some sort, I would say. Captain Lori’s next words interrupt my thoughts on the chair.
“I should have you shot,” she says quietly, shaking her head. “You’re not even supposed to be here or even know about us. Marrisa, what the hell were you thinking?”
&nbs
p; “I don’t know,” Marrisa says in a quiet voice. “I just thought maybe you had a way to remove that stuff from him, so I figured I’d get him here as fast as possible.”
Captain Lori looks at Marrisa and snorts. “You, of all people, Marrisa, should know there isn’t any way that we can do that. Magical or not. Now we have a dilemma. If this young man tests positive for Magical ability, we can’t kill him.”
“What?” I shout in surprise, and it takes me a second to notice that Marrisa had shouted the same thing. Did she just say Magical ability?
“Yes. That item that you were after was the last vial of a formula which grants a person Magical abilities. It was created ages ago by a powerful Mage. It was the last one in existence,” Captain Lori says with a sigh, pinching the bridge of her nose with her eyes closed.
“That means, if this,” Captain Lori looks down at the paper from Peterson and reads something, “Kevin Johnson has Magic in him now, he does not fall under Article 1.”
“Oh shit,” Marrisa says.
“Oh shit is right,” Captain Lori agrees.
Chapter Three
“Can’t we? I don’t know. Uninject it out of him?” Marrisa asks Captain Lori.
“Marrisa, you were the best student in your year at the Academy. Are you seriously asking me that? That’s not even a damn word,” Captain Lori tells her with an annoyed scowl.
Sighing, Marrisa says, “I guess not. Just what can we do then?”
“Do? Marrisa, you broke Article 1. The only thing that will save you from being jailed for life is if this human ends up possessing Magic. But that brings something else into play. Humans have never had Magic. Period. That was why Article 1 was created in the first place!”
Sighing, Marrisa leans back in her chair with her head behind her and closes her eyes. “How bad will it be, Lori?”
Lori answers in a soft voice, which surprises me since she seemed so hard-assed on Marrisa. “If you’re lucky? No jail time. Loss of your Bounty Hunter license. A large fine? I’m not sure. This has never happened before. And this is above my pay scale. I need to bring in someone.”
“Oh shit. Please,” Marrisa blurts out, suddenly standing up in front of her chair. “Not him!”
“I have no choice. He is the one that we are required by law to contact for this,” Captain Lori tells her, and I hear sadness in her voice.
“Fuck,” Marrisa says, but there is resignation behind that one word.
Captain Lori picks up an old-style phone and dials a number on it. After a couple of seconds, she says, “It’s Captain Lori from Precinct 12. I need to talk to Magus Targun. I have an Article 1 breach, and I require his expertise. Yes, I can wait.” Captain Lori puts her hand over the mouthpiece and says to Marrisa, “It might not be that bad. Yes, I’m still here. Yes, thanks for taking my call. I have an Article 1 breach, and I need your help in deciphering something about the law.”
Captain Lori nods now and then, humming in agreement. “Yes, I know that. But the subject is alive.” Suddenly she takes the phone away from her ear, and I can hear shouting. She slowly brings it back to her ear as the shouting lessens. “No, he is still alive because he ingested the last vial of that stuff from the Museum of Magic that was stolen. Yes. Yes.” Suddenly the Captain looks directly at Marrisa. “It was Marrisa. Yes. She is here with me.”
Suddenly there is a crash as the door behind me opens, causing me to turn around. I notice that Marrisa has scrunched herself down into the seat as if to hide.
The man who comes through the doorway is a cat man, like Marrisa and Captain Lori, but he is taller, bigger, and if his face is any indication, he is angry. His fur is silver-gray, and his tail is puffed out behind him. He’s wearing a black robe with silver stars on it, and is holding a staff that is as tall as him. I’m six feet four, and I would say he is close to my height or slightly taller. His shoulders are broad like mine, and I would say he has at least 30 pounds on me, but I doubt it’s fat.
“What is the meaning of this, Marrisa!” he says in a loud booming voice, and thank God his glare is directed at her because damn, if looks could kill.
“It was an accident!” she says in a small voice, her head tucked into her body.
“An accident? Why in all the three Hells were you on Earth!” he practically shouts at her. I look at Captain Lori, and she has a grimace on her face. She puts her phone down.
“Dad,” she starts to say, but the man looks at her and she shuts up. “Do not defend your sister in this, Lori.”
Sister? What the Hell? Marrisa is Captain’s Lori’s sister, and this is their father? I can’t help but stare with my mouth ajar.
Magus Targun looks over at Marrisa again. “Explain!” he barks at her.
“Well, I went after Twoshoes. He had a Bounty on his head,” she starts, and I can hear the emphasis on the word bounty. “You know he stole that vial from the Museum of Magic, and I was able to find out where he was. He was in the Beast world, Gotro. Well he ended up using a Portal to Earth, and so I followed him, and I was able to stop him. Except there was a tiny complication.”
“What tiny complication?” Magus Targun, her dad, growls out at her.
“I guess Twoshoes threw the vial out a window before I threw him out of it and killed him,” Marrisa says, but stops. Well, that was kind of true, but it wasn’t the fall out the window that killed him. It was her shooting him in the head.
“And?” Magus Targun enunciates slowly.
“And the vial fell down two stories and hit this human on the face and broke. And he kind of ingested the liquid.”
At that, Magus Targun’s face clouds over in fury.
“Are you saying the last vial of a liquid that we can no longer produce, even with our best minds, mine included, working on it, is gone? And this,” he looks at me, and holy shit, as the heat of his glare is directed at me, I want to piss myself. I have never felt that feeling before. “This human ingested it?”
“Yes?” Marrisa says in a tiny voice.
Magus Targun is still staring at me, and it feel like my bladder needs to explode. He finally removes his gaze, giving me relief, and motions me out of the chair I am sitting in. I move with such speed that I’m sure I break a record for the fastest game of chairs. Magus Targun sits down heavily and sighs deeply.
“Shit.” That is all he says as he pinches his nose.
“So you went to Earth,” he begins once more, “killed Twoshoes, lost a national treasure of the Museum of Magic, and then broke Article 1 by bringing this human here to Vraka? Is that about right?”
“But,” Lori starts, but Magus Targun holds up his hand and his daughter stops speaking.
“That’s about right,” Marrisa says, and there is resignation in her voice. The defiance is gone.
Magus Targun looks at Lori and says, “She fucked up big time, Lori.”
“I know, Dad,” Lori says, nodding her head in resignation as well.
“Hmm. Sorry to intrude, but can someone please tell me exactly what the hell is going on? Because I was simply heading home after a night out with friends, and shit happened, and now I am here. Against my own will, I might add. I think you said Vraka? Which is what exactly? And why does it look like an NYPD police department down there?” I say, but then I stop talking as I am suddenly pinned against the wall. Magus Targun has his staff pointed at me.
What the fuck! How the hell is he doing that! He lifts his staff slightly, and I end up rising higher against the wall behind me, until my head touches the ceiling. What is this?
“Listen here, human. You will be quiet. I am trying to figure out a way to save your life,” Magus Targun growls my way, showing me his teeth.
“Kevin,” I say, without thinking.
“What?”
Lori sighs. “His name is Kevin, Dad, and will you put him down already? The man is scared, and we just pulled him into something that even I would be freaking out about, but he is taking it rather well.”
Lori’s dad looks at he
r, not lowering the staff or me, and glares.
“Don’t glare at me. I called you because I need your help to keep my sister, your daughter, out of fucking jail,” she growls back at him.
Again, Magus Targun sighs, and then he lowers his staff, and suddenly I am falling towards the floor. I catch myself just in time and am able to stay upright without falling on my face.
“Sit,” he tells me, pointing to the chair I had vacated for him earlier. Slowly, not understanding what the hell just happened, I do as instructed. He looks at Lori and waves her out of her seat. She glowers at him but reluctantly moves out of the chair and goes around and sits on the arm where her sister, Marrisa, is and places a hand on her sister’s back.
Magus Targun sits down and looks at the three of us with a scowl. “This is going to get so fucking complicated, quickly. Now, as for you, young human, or Kevin,” he says, holding up his hand just as I had been about to be stupid and open my mouth again to remind him of my name. “You pose a very large dilemma. You are the first human to have ever visited Vraka. Or any of the Magical Worlds. I think the only reason no one freaked out downstairs is you would pass as a Changeling that isn’t in animal form.”
He places his staff against the wall behind him, and sets his head into his hands, with his elbows on the desk, and rubs his temples. “You should not be here. My daughter, Marrisa, broke a law that we have had in effect for thousands of years. She broke Article 1.”
“Sir,” I ask, trying to wrap my head around all this. “What do you mean Article 1? Lori mentioned that if I did not have Magic in me, because of that vile shit I drank by accident, that she,” I point at Marrisa, who had sat back up and was now glaring at me. “Would end up spending time in jail?”
Magus Targun nods, placing his hands flat on the desk and looking at me. “Article 1 was a law that was created to keep the human race away from us. Right now, you are not on Earth. You are in the world of Vraka. The Changeling World. My daughter brought you through a Portal to our world, from Earth. That was the law she broke. Not interacting with you, or even being on Earth, which is more of a policing issue, but bringing you here. Article 1 states. No magical being shall in any way bring a human to any of the eight Magical worlds. Doing so will result in the stiffest penalties and possibly death, based on the severity of the actions. The good thing is, she only brought you over. If she had brought over, say, ten humans, she would have been given the death penalty. Even I could not have saved her sorry ass.”