Chapter Three

Matt becomes interested in the missing child.

What does a wizard do for a living, you ask? Tell fortunes, sell snake oils in a traveling sales show? Work the physic hotlines for a few extra bucks while having a good laugh at the expense of others?

Well, I’m not sure about others, but I run a shop. A magic shop. Yeah, sounds sort of corny, I know, but it’s a living. What do I sell? Well, just a bunch of things one would need for a spell, but I don’t sell instruction books. That would just be negligent on my part. I’ve got a few ‘potions’ laying around, everyone expects that of a magic shop. There’s your typical ‘love potions’ and good luck charms. I’ve got all the ‘nice’ things, but none of the ‘evil’ stuff. No curse your boyfriend things here, or turn your cheating lover into a toad stuff. I’m not into that sort of thing, and won’t promote it in any form, even if it is a bogus one. I’ve got my principles after all.

I live in a nice, little loft above my store, having bought the entire, two story building all for myself some time back. My parents weren’t too happy with loaning me the money for it, but they soon quieted up once they say how well a magic shop can clean up in a decent size city. Lots of people want a quick fix to their problems anymore, and magic offers them that, or so they think.

Granted, sometimes I get the serious customer, one who really knows their stuff, and we can really have a great time as they go over the items they need for their spells. I get quite a few complements for my stock from those who know what they are doing, and it makes me puff up a bit with pride that I’m such a stickler when it comes to such details. The sad thing is, I don’t get to do that often. Magic users are pretty rare, actually, and we don’t hang out in large groups. You might be able to find about ten in a large city if you really look…hard.

Well, I got showered and dressed that morning, headed off into the living room, intent on going down to the store to get it all set up for when we opened in an hour, and found Edwin sitting in front of the tv watching the local news. A paper was sitting on the coffee table, the paper turned to a page with a picture of the boy we had seen on the news last night. I could never figure out how he turned pages in papers and books, but he somehow managed to do just that when he felt like it. It seemed as if wings would kind of be a hindrance when it came to such activities, but Edwin had somehow managed to figure it all out, and to keep that secret solely to himself.

“What are you doing?” I asked, wondering why Edwin was taking so much interest in this case. What was there about the boy that was getting his attention, and holding it so well. Usually, not even a shiny object could keep him this interested for this long. I had originally thought this was a one time thing, something we would talk about once and it would never come up again. Apparently, I had been wrong in that assumption. Well, as the old saying goes, assuming things only makes an a*s out of you and me. What sort of asinine thing was I getting into here?

Edwin, who had been perched near the end of the table, spun about on one foot, almost losing his balance, which wouldn’t have hurt him too much, what with the fact he had wings and all. Looking up at me, he stuttered, “Oh, oh, Matt. Hello. Good to see you this morning, old boy. How are you doing?”

I just glared at him, knowing he was hiding something from me. Edwin was never this pleasant of a morning, not unless something was up that he didn’t want me to know about.

He fretted and fiddled about with a paper, smoothing out the edges, and then folding them up again with his toes. After a while, he finally gave in under the weight of my gaze. “Alright, alright…I’m…sort of worried about the boy.”

I smiled, not believing how much attention he was giving this. He had never shown this much interest in a missing person before. “Oh? He remind you of an ancient relative, or something?” I asked, sitting down to the kitchen table with a donut and a cup of coffee.

Edwin fluttered over to the table, and lightly landed in the middle of it, glaring at me with his black eyes. “No, he does not remind me of an old relative. There is just something about this boy. I…I have a feeling deep in my gut that he may need our help.”

“The police are looking into it,” I said around a mouthful of donut. I’m not always as proper as I can be around Edwin. Who needs to practice perfect table manners in front of a raven.

“No, I think he might need our…special talents.”

That caught my attention. I looked up from the sports section of the page, and stared hard at the raven. “What do you mean? You think he needs a wizard for some reason.”

Edwin started looking about, ruffling his feathers as he took in everything in the room except me.

“Edwin,” I said as sternly as I could with powdered donut in my mouth.

He looked back up at me, and sighed. “I…think the boy may have some special…abilities. I think that is why he has disappeared, and I’m worried that if he is not found soon…”

He didn’t finish the statement, and he didn’t have to. A kid that young with special powers who disappeared had more than likely been taken by someone who would not care if he harmed the boy or not, just as long as he got what he wanted from him. Slamming the coffee cup onto the table, and spilling a good portion of the scalding liquid onto the hard wood table, and raged at the raven, “And you didn’t tell me this last night? You waited until this morning to even mention this to me? What the hell is wrong with you? The kid’s been gone for hours now. Anything could have happened to him.”

Edwin puffed up, and huffed at me, “Well, you didn’t seem to care that much last night about him.”

“It was different then.”

“Yes, he was just your average, run of the mill kid. Who cares about them? They disappear all the time.”

I bit my lip, feeling both pissed and like a heel at the same time. It shouldn’t be any different now, but it was. Now, he was my responsibility somehow, while last night he had been someone else’s. Funny, how we humans work, isn’t it. If we think it doesn’t involve us, we pass it on to someone else without a second thought, even if we could help out. I had pushed this kid aside because I thought the cops had everything in hand, when I really could have been of some help. I abandoned him because I was too concerned over myself instead of the kid, and now it might cost him a lot more than just his life. I had to find him, and quick. Still…Looking at Edwin, I repeated, “Why didn’t you tell me last night.”

The raven looked off to the side, and said, “I…wasn’t sure last night. Like I said, it’s just a feeling. I could still be wrong, but I don’t think so.”

Huffing, I grabbed my jacket on the way out the door. “You stay here, see if you can come up with anything to help us on the boy.”

“Aye, Aye.”

I knew Edwin would be on the internet before I even got out the front door. For a bird, and a guy who was 400 years old, he had taken to computers awfully fast.

I pulled up in front of the precinct in my beat-up old Camero. Okay, you’d think an owner of a magic store, and a wizard, would have been able to afford better, but let’s just say that I pay the bills, have a bit left over for a few luxuries, but I don’t count a car as being one of those. They’re a bit too expensive for my taste, and if it gets me to where I’m going, who am I to complain. Edwin loves to remind me all the time that back when he was alive, all they had were horses to get them from place to place, and you sure didn’t get anywhere very far very fast. I was happy with my car, and wouldn’t trade it for a thing.

I got out of the car, and ran up the steps, the edges of my brown, leather jacket hitting against my worn jeans. I got in, and immediately started looking for Michelle Jones, one of the best detectives in the world, and a close friend of mine. I’d helped her out on a few cases, and she helped me out on a few things. It was as mutual agreement that made us both happy. I’d met her in school, and we had just hit it off from the start. Not as lovers, mind you, but as really good friends, the sort of friends that just last forever and ever, even if you move apart. Well, we were still in the same city, had always been, and worked well together. Real well.

I found her at her desk, talking on the phone in a rather heated tone. I could tell by what was being said that it was over the kid I was looking for, and should have known she would have been right on top of it. Missing persons were her specialty, and finding missing kids was sort of a crusade for her. She’d never rest until they were found. That sort of attitude had upset her captain more than once, but then again, it had saved a lot of kids’ lives as well, so he sort of overlooked it after a while. She could be hard core and a hard a*s, but that’s what made her the best at her job, and no one who really knew her would have her any other way.

I sauntered over to her desk, and waited for her to slam the phone back down in the cradle, wincing in pain for the poor thing. Talk about shooting the messenger, and I wandered if the thing would work right ever again.

She glared up at me, and I knew right then and there she was not having one of her good days. She usually offered me some sort of sardonic smile, or at least a bit of respect. Today, I was just another unwanted interrupting in an otherwise stressful, unproductive day. Seeing this, I felt my stomach go crashing into my feet. They hadn’t found the kid yet, and time was running out. Within the next 48 hours, her staff would be cut in half, the captain assuming that the kid was dead and no longer a high priority in the find the person pile. It was a terrible thing to think, but that was usually the way it went, and not a lot of precincts had the sort of money to keep up the manpower to look for a kid that was more than likely dead. He’d just become another statistic, and that hurt Michelle to the core. It hurt both of us in this case.

“No word on the kid?” I asked, knowing she would know who I was talking about.

“You mean the Tryvor case?” she asked, a bit of an edge to her voice that said she was busy and if this wasn’t the most important thing in the world that I should leave now.

Nodding, I said, “Yeah, Victor Tryvor. I think that was the kid’s name. No word?” I asked with more hope than I actually felt. If I was reading her wrong, and they had found the kid, this would make my job a whole lot easier.

She ran her hands through her dark, coppery colored hair, and I had my answer just off that one gesture. “No. We haven’t heard a damn thing, not even a ransom note. All the family’s been accounted for, so it wasn’t a disgruntled relative that ran off with the kid. Without any demands, it’s looking pretty grim for this kid. I wish they would send us something, but the parents weren’t all that financially sound, so if they kidnapper actually knew who they were picking up, which is usually the case with those that kidnap for ransom, they would have known that they were trying to milk a dry cow.”

I really felt for Michelle on this one. It was starting to sound like some pervert had swiped the kid, and would use him before killing him and dumping him in the nearest lake. Well, I’m not sure how well my news would go over with her, but at least I knew that wasn’t going to be the case. No, he’d be alive for awhile, but it wasn’t going to be the most pleasant experience in the kid’s short life.

Leaning forward, I uttered softly so that I was sure only she would hear, “Can you get me anything of the kid’s. Something personal or with sentimental value would be best.”

Michelle had been around me long enough to know what I was asking for, and her head snapped up. “You’re going to try to find the kid, aren’t you?” she asked, a note of hope in her voice. I didn’t often help with much around the police station, but when I did, I usually got results.

Nodding my head, I said, “Yeah, this is sort of…a wizard thing, if you know what I mean.”

She stared at me in confusion for a few moments before finally saying, “What, the kid’s a wizard, or something like that?”

“Something like that,” I admitted, looking about to make sure there was no one around to listen in on the conversation. That was the last thing either Michelle and I needed right now. It would sound like we were both nuts, and I sure didn’t want to spend any time in a straight jacket locked away in a white, padded room.

“How could something like that happen, then?” she wanted to know. “Wouldn’t his parents have tried to protect him somehow? I don’t know, with a magic spell or something?”

I shook my head, suppressing a laugh. I’d known her for so long, but there were still a lot of things she didn’t know about my kind. For instance, she had never met my parents, and didn’t know what they were like or what they did for a living, and I now found it rather amusing to think that she thought they were wizards too. “That’s not how it works. A wizard isn’t born from two wizards, or there would be a lot more of us around. Usually, it’s two normals who have a kid with special talents they don’t understand. No, the parents might not even know what they’re kid is. The kid might not even know what he is. There’s no way they could have guessed this would happen, or know how to protect him from it, especially if it was another magic user who snatched the kid.”

“Why would they want him?” she asked, a good enough question. “What would they get out of the kid if they’re magic users too?”

I shrugged, not sure how to explain all this to a mortal. “It depends on what he is. There’s a lot of different magic users, some tend to be good, some tend to be bad. If a bad one got him, they could be using him for their own benefits. They could be trying to take his talent, use him as a source of power…There’s a whole slue of things they could do to him.”

“And if a good one got him?” she asked, a sparkle of hope in her eyes.

I hated to crush that hope so soon, but I had to say it. “I don’t see why a good one would want him. We tend to stay to ourselves, not wanting to draw too much attention, if we can avoid it, and we don’t use anyone to gain what we have. We get it through study and patience.” Placing my hand on her shoulder, I said, “I’m sorry, Michelle, I can’t give you any false hope here. We have to find that kid, and we have to do it soon.”

She nodded, looking up at me through watery eyes. Wiping her tears away, she said, “Sure. Sure, I’ll see what I can do for you. I’m going out to the Tryvor’s later today anyway. Maybe I can talk them into giving me something the kid cared about.”

“And if they don’t want to?” I just had to know.

She smiled at me. “Then they can just report one of their son’s possessions missing.”

Author's Note

First Draft