It's an actual urban fantasy story. There's no interdimensional travel, no space/time conundrums, none of the stuff that has been in Tole's saga. It's just straight up Earth...Dallas, TX to be precise. The main character, Trip, is refusing to reveal his last name to me for some reason, so I've decided he doesn't have one.
Other weird bit is for some reason I decided that this one needs to be in present tense and third person.
Hope you like it.
-Wayne
Trip sits at the bar in his usual spot in his favorite dive in the poor section of downtown Dallas sipping at his bourbon. Last week word had come to him through his usual contacts that there is a new coven of warlocks in town. Not that he really cares. Sure, there was about to be an upswing in mysterious disappearances, but people have been killing each other for as long as they’ve been on this rock. Trip really doesn’t worry about it, but it pays to know what's going on in the city
He looks around the bar and takes note of the usual crowd for a Saturday night. There are a few new faces. He notices that unlike his and the other regulars' clothes, their worn jeans and t-shirts are actually new and not worn from wear. Trip turns back to his bourbon and thinks, "Most likely they’re some of the gentrification idiots thinking they can renovate a loft and coexist with us rabble down here in the scummy parts of town. Morons."
A few sips later it dawns on him that Suzanne, the only waitress in this dive, isn’t running around carrying drinks to the tables. He motions to the bartender, Heather, and asks her where Suzanne is. "She’s gonna be late. Been down at Dallas PD filing a missing person report on her daughter. The kid didn’t come home from school today."
Trip lowers his head and stares into his drink thinking, "Better not be those goddamned warlocks. If they stick to homeless adults for their rituals, we'll never have to cross paths. If I find out they're taking children, I'm going to have to get involved. Sonofabitch."
Heather asks, "Everything alright? You look like I just told you your dog died."
"Yeah," he replied. "I just realized that my night is probably going to get more complicated than I wanted. Bring me another drink. Would ya?"
"Sure thing," she says, putting on a crooked grin.
Heather sets the drink down in front of Trip and then goes back to slicing lemons and limes for her bar caddy. Someone comes in the door and Heather looks up to greet them. The distraction causes her to put a deep cut across one finger. She cusses, and Trip feels his blood magic surge in response longing to turn her blood to its use.
Instead, Trip gets up and walks down to where Heather is nursing her finger. "How bad?' he asks.
Heather is cradling the hand in a bar towel to catch the falling blood. "Think it's to the bone. Definitely gonna need stitches. Lemon juice burns like a bitch. Goddammit I hate being a klutz."
"Let me take a look," Trip says, reaching out for her hand. "I used to be a medic in the army. Let me see if I can do anything to save you a trip to the ER. This may feel a bit odd."
Heather holds out her hand to Trip who takes it and looks it over making noises like he's giving her an examination. The cut is pretty deep, but he's healed worse. Trip calls to his magic, and it responds. The blood flow from Heather's finger slows and then stops. The platelets begin their work of closing and healing the wound, but instead of days, Trip's magic accomplishes the work in seconds. He leaves a small superficial cut that will heal of its own accord in another day or so.
After he's done, Trip releases his magic and then Heather's hand and says, "Wasn't nearly as bad as you thought. Just a scratch really. Should be fine in a couple of days. Keep it clean. Wouldn't want to get an infection."
Heather looks at her finger and then at Trip. He can tell she doesn't buy his story, but she won't push it. Magic isn't unheard of and a lot of talented healers make serious money doing what Trip just did. One rule of the world Trip lives in now though is that everyone has secrets, and if they want you to know, they'll tell you. Otherwise, you keep your nose out of other people's business, and you get to keep it on your face.
Trip's particular kind of magic is one best kept out of the public's eye. Blood mages like Trip were all but hunted to extinction out of fear, and truth be told, rightly so. Blood mages are ridiculously powerful, and around five hundred years ago a few banded together and almost conquered and enslaved a third of the world's population. The ones who escaped the hunt have been in hiding since, and they work hard to stay hidden.
Trip came into his power after the purge. Luckily, he was found by another blood mage and taken into hiding to be trained. He was taught to fear and control his power, or it would control him. He's managed to stay hidden for almost three hundred years by living on the fringes of society. His plan has always been safety through obscurity, and it has served him well.
Suzanne comes out of the back room tying her apron around her waist and breaking Trip's walk down memory lane. Her make up is fresh, but Trip can tell she's been crying. "The police aren't gonna to be much help down in this part of town," he thinks. "To them it'll be just another runaway in a long line of runaways. Shit."
"Hey Suzy," he says as she walks by. "Heather told me what's going on. I'd be glad to help look for your kid if you want. I'm guessing the police weren't much help, and it's not like I've got anything else to do."
She stops and takes a deep breath and then she just sort of slumps over as she turns to look at Trip, "They told me Beth probably ran away after a fight with me or something. They said they see it all the time and she'll probably come home when she gets hungry enough. I tried to tell them we hadn't even had an argument and she never goes anywhere without telling me, but they wouldn't listen. I'm scared she got grabbed by some human traffickers or some shit, and I'm never gonna see her again. I don't even know why I'm here, but I couldn't just sit around and hope she comes back, and I've looked everywhere she usually goes."
"It's ok. I can do more than the police," Trip tells her. "The streets have eyes, and I know some of the people who do the watching. Someone saw something, and I'll find out what. People who mess with kids just piss me off. Let me help. I promise I'll make it right... one way or another."
Trip put a little more venom in the last bit than he intended and his magic pushes to be released. He puts the power back in its box as Suzanne takes a step back. Trip can feel Heather looking at him again, so he waves her down and orders another drink. He takes a pull at the bourbon, turns to Suzanne and says, "Sorry Suzy. Like I said, I get a little intense when kids are involved. As soon as it gets late enough for the folks I need to find to start roaming around, I'll get started."
"Thanks Trip," she says, laying her hand on his shoulder. "At least someone in this city gives a shit. You're a good man."
"Bullshit," Trip replies. "I'm a lot of things but a good man ain’t one. I'm just another asshole."
"Sure you are," she says kissing him on the cheek. She walks away to get to work and leaves him with his drink.
Midnight arrives about five more glasses of bourbon later. The police patrols in this part of town really lighten up after midnight which brings out the folks who make the street their home. Nobody to run you off from the dumpsters makes finding dinner a lot easier. There's a hierarchy though and proprieties that must be observed. Trip knows most of the street folk in this neighborhood won't talk to him without the permission of the neighborhood Duke, and permission from the Duke has a price. Probably best to start there.
There are several currencies on the streets. The particular Duke that Trip needs to bribe happens to be partial to chocolate and Scotch whisky. Trip sweets talks Heather into selling him a bottle of Glenfiddich Reserve that he knows she keeps behind the bar for the yuppies and then he hits the corner bodega for a handful of top shelf chocolate bars. The alley behind the bodega seems like as good a place as any to find one of the local urchins and sure enough the sound of a dumpster being sorted greets Trip's ears as he rounds the corner.
He walks up to the dumpster and bangs on the side, and the filthy face of a kid who can't be more than fifteen pokes up and says, "This space is mine by right."
"I'm not after your supper," Trip replies holding up the paper sack with the chocolate and booze. "I need an audience with Duke John. I bring tribute. Finish your hunt. I'll wait."
"Oh, I'm done. There ain't shit in here anyway. Follow me," the little urchin says climbing out of the dumpster and heading down the alley.
A few blocks away Trip is led through the back door of an abandoned warehouse. The building is dark, so the urchin reaches into the rags he's wearing and pulls out a glow stick like you'd get from a carnival booth, her cracks the ampule inside and gives it a shake. The pale, green light from it doesn't extend very far, but at least Trip can see where his guide is.
The sound of shuffling feet is coming from the darkness surrounding him. Trip touches his power enough to raise the sound of heart beats to an audible level for him. There are so many that even he couldn't have given a count which means more than a hundred people are watching him from the darkness.
Just ahead Trip can see light showing under a door way ahead of him, and the urchin has stopped in front of it. Once Trip catches up to him, the urchin knocks on the door in some coded pattern. He looks at Trip and says, "The Duke moves his court every night to keep the local authorities out of his business. Knock pattern changes every night too, so don't be thinkin' you're gonna be able to just walk in here later."
"Wouldn't dream of it, kid. Wouldn't be here now if it wasn't important. Can we get on with it, or do you need to try to intimidate me some more?" Trip replies.
"Hey, it's your funeral," the urchin says as he bows. The doors open and the urchin follows their motion with a flourish of his leading arm saying, "Enter the audience chamber of his Lordship, Duke John."
Trip stands in the doorway of what was probably the receiving dock for the warehouse. There is a tattered red carpet that leads from the doorway into the room. There are tiki torches every four or five feet along the length of it. The torches are stuck in dirt in bright orange buckets from a local home improvement store.
At the other end of the carpet is a dais made from shipping pallets and on top of that rests a huge overstuffed recliner. The fabric on the chair is torn, but it's clean. It leans ever so slightly to the left hinting at a broken frame. The chair is occupied by a mountain of a man his bulk enhanced by the mounds of rags piled on his body as clothes and the beard that covers his face and half of his chest.
Trip remembers when Duke John was just an urchin like the one who had led him here. John had been serving his own Duke at that time, and Trip had tried to help get John off of the streets. It turned out that he was perfectly happy with the life of an urchin and had plans of his own to rise to power over the streets of Dallas, and Trip's help had almost derailed those plans. Twenty years later things are still strained between them. That lingering animosity is precisely why Trip had brought the Duke's favorite scotch and expensive chocolate for his bribe.
The sound of the opening door captures Duke John's attention and he bellows, "Who has the stones to come in here unscheduled? I'm not due to hear reports from my scouts for another hour."
Trip steps into the light of the first set of torches, bows without breaking eye contact with the Duke, and says, "A memory."
At the sounds of Trip's voice Duke John's eyes widen making the whites stand out in harsh contrast to the filth on his face. He comes down off his dais and down the carpet moving at as close to a run as someone of his size can achieve.
Trip had known that coming here meant a fifty-fifty chance of a fight, so he braces for the punch he expects to come when the Duke closes the last of the distance. What happens instead catches Trip completely off-guard. The Duke engulfs him in a tremendous bear hug and laughs. Trip isn't a small man, but the Duke is the size of an NFL lineman, and scoops him up as if he were a child.
Trip manages to pull in enough air to ask, "Does this mean you don't want the scotch?"
The Duke drops him almost immediately and asks, "You brought the Glenfiddich?"
"The fourteen-year-old reserve and that ridiculously expensive chocolate you used to always lift back in the day."
"Come on. Let's sit down and have a drink. You can tell me why you're here. I have a lot to discuss with you too. You're timing's perfect. Something strange is going down on my streets."
