"Oh, nuh-UH." I pivoted on a toe, spun, walked the other direction, away from the trollish Dr. Michelle.

Right into Todd, who'd been following me. He had his smile-mask face on. Then he flickered into bird-of-prey mode, blank and intense.

I tried to step around him, to leave. He hopped to the side, then the other way, blocking me.

I see.

"You thought we wouldn't be able to find you here," Michelle said. "When will you learn that you can't get away–"

I spoke into my phone. "Red alert, bitches. Anyone in the group. Bad people on the Tourist Winnie, my location. Covenant of Man."

Todd saw my alarm and was blank-faced with amusement. Michelle was smug and had her speech ready.

"After what you did," she began. "You'll never have another day's–"

I still faced Todd, so I stepped forward, put my hand on his shoulder, dancey-danced behind him. I'd done this one a few times starting in middle school, and it was all muscle memory now, learned at the feet of my uncle in the Navy.

"Gluck," Todd said from inside the prison of my arm. I had him in a headlock. Squeeze. Squeeze. The back of his head, where I'd nailed him with that padlock, cradled by my palm.

Squeeze.

Michelle's eyes were huge, her mouth a yelling cavern filled with outraged teeth on the lower levels. She pulled at me, yanked desperately at my shoulder, but it's called a headlock for a reason, isn't it?

"We just want to talk that's all!" she was yelling, and "Oh my god let him breathe you asshole!" The usual.

Humans. Guess I don't fit the phenotype after all, whatever Lux had meant by that.

Todd was red. Squirming, kicking. I lowered him so we were both crouching. His EFH boots scrabbled on the cobblestones. I couldn't see his eyes, but at this stage the bully's confidence shifts towards introspection. I'm sure he was blank-faced with regret.

Michelle had given up her gloating grin, that was for sure. She rained hammer blows down on my head and shoulders. You know: I'd been the target of that move from others and hadn't found it impressive then, either. You just close your eyes as you get punched and wait for the headlock to work its magic. And she had zero strength in those middle-aged arms. It felt like raindrops.

"Oh god you're killing him!" Michelle stopped with the hitting and faced the pedestrians around us. It was all pedestrians, mostly Human. A few stepped forward, looking concerned.

Lir popped in from nowhere, standing atop my head and shoulders like he was a pigeon on a statue. "Tourist Winnie, this is a law enforcement matter. These two are terrorists from the Covenant of Man. We have evidence, video, testimony. You don't have to help us, but you can keep all of us here until the mahout can judge the situation."

The crowd looked at one another. Lir was a local Cazador, well-liked. They knew him. He was good with smoothies.

"Assault!" shouted Michelle.

"You wait your turn," I told her.

Her eyes went wide, those lower teeth temporarily sheathed. She looked around, noted the crowd wasn't looking friendly. Spun and abandoned Todd.

"Don't let her go!" Lir said. "She sucks!"

The crowd began spinning up magic of its own: barriers, lenses, God knew what. A city of Magic-users had been kicked, and now…

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Michelle did something of her own, though. A burst of light, a symbol briefly etched in the air all around her. She ran in weird long leaps. She was able to run, not restrained by the Magic of the crowd. "Shit," I heard her say.

"No you don't," Lir said, and ran down the supine body of Todd. He went chasing Michelle through the skinny streets.

Todd was out of commission. Red-faced and gasping. I lay him gently on the cobblestones. He wasn't unconscious; that's actually quite difficult to do, but he'd been slowed down in whatever dumbass villain rant he'd planned.

Well, the rant Michelle had planned. She was the fire engine, Todd was the dalmatian.

Adaobi and Lux stood above me. Lux, as usual, drank it all in with a kind of wild glee.

I nodded to Adaobi. "Other than that, Ms. Lincoln, how was the play?"

The Tourist Winnie had a single jail cell. Usually it held drunks, not terrorist spokesmodels. Todd slumped miserably on the bench. "I'm not like you," he said to me. "I'm a mahout. I have my rights."

Adaobi just looked at him. Rolled her eyes, addressed me. "If this guy was so prone to being a damn monster, don't you think we should have done something about it?"

"His friends are a bad influence on him," I said lamely. "He was shaping up. Don't you think you were shaping up, Todd?"

He groaned and rubbed his neck. "Just wanted to talk."

"Guys like you…" she said, and he withered visibly under her gaze. "Guys like you," she said again.

"I'm…I have my own Winnie now. I get respect."

He withered further as she watched him. Magic was in play here, some kind of thing Adaobi was doing. Burrowing into his mind, perhaps. He twitched. "Stop it," he mumbled.

"And you," she said, facing me. "You couldn't just let them make whatever bullshit speech they needed to make so they'd go away?"

"I…I'm sorry, Ms. Adaobi. Do it." I bowed my head.

I felt her rummaging around the junk drawer that was my brain. It eventually stopped.

"You do mean well," she finally said. "Lux and her damn attack dog. And the PTSD nightmares, bad news, man. But now I have a mahout who's also a terrorist, and he was assaulted on my Winnie."

Lir showed up in the little police station, dragging a bizarre sculpture, a series of wires twisted into a rough Human shape, dripping Runes. "She'd put a seeming on this," he said. "She was never here to begin with. Just wanted to talk shit over Zoom."

"I don't know what that means, Lir. I also know you're one of these," and she pointed at me.

His ears went down and he looked dejected. "I'm sorry, Ms. Adaobi. Do it." He bowed his head.

The two of them stood motionless for a bit. I knew she was looking around in his head like she'd been in mine.

"Christ," she said finally. "You're both nuts. The same kind of crazy. The same guy!" She looked at me. "But you're worse."

"Ha!" said Lir.

"I'll go," said Todd. "I'll just leave. I…I know I messed up."

"Technically you didn't even DO anything, Todd. You got beat up before you could threaten someone on my Winnie." Adaobi was magisterial, cold. "And your Winnie belongs to Caravan. You have commitments here."

"I'll give up the Winnie. I haven't even named it yet."

"No giving up a Winnie. You're in for life, my man. You're going to be confined to your Winnie until the Council can decide how to handle this. Lir, escort him, all right?"

"I'm sorry I lied to you about not being Owen Walsh, Ms. Adaobi." And I could feel remorse coming from the little Cazador.

"Ohhh…I knew something was up with you. You're bad at lying." She watched as Todd mooched down the narrow street. "That guy is trouble. Whoever visited him made everything much worse. He's about to boil over and I'm not sure what to do with him."

I frowned. "I…want to make it up," I said slowly. "I want to help here."

She looked at me appraisingly. She'd just read my mind, taken my measure. "Be ready at sunrise, I'll pick you up and we'll get to work."

I was surprised at how happy that made me.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.