A Second Chance

UNFINISHED WORK IN PROGRESS

The second Hailey pulled to a stop outside the warehouse and cut off her car’s engine she began to hear the strange sound. Stepping out of the rusty junk heap on four wheels and onto the street she glanced up and down the dark road trying to figure out just where the noise was coming from. Old, abandoned warehouses lined either side, their ancient hulking brick buildings creating monstrous looming shadows in the night.

Hailey felt, more then heard, the deep rumbling sound. It vibrated in her chest cavity as though fragments of it were on a frequency too low for her to perceive. There was also an odd echoing quality too it, unearthly, mechanical maybe? Perhaps someone had finally rented out one of these neglected buildings and was running an ancient piece of mill machinery or maybe an old vent fan was just spinning loosely in the wind.

In the distance the lights of the city shown brightly, but here on this dilapidated street it was nearly pitch black. A few street lamps spotted, the city refurbishment didn't reach this far out and they neglected to replace the broken street bulbs. All the warehouses were abandoned down here anyway, so far as the city officials knew.

Hailey reached into the passenger side and pulled out three large pizza boxes. The scent of green peppers, sausage, and spicy tomato sauce filled her nostrils. If she hadn’t just spent the entire dinner shift managing the fast food joint it had come from, it might have made her mouth water. As it was, she was sick of the smell of pizza and eating pizza.

She hated her job but it had one huge perk. On the nights she closed she could gather up all the uneaten slices from the buffet and bring them out here. She had been a homeless teen once, she knew just how much the free food meant to the kids that crashed here. Hailey balanced the three boxes on one arm and snagged a gallon jug with the other that she had refilled with soda from the store’s fountain.

*****

Joshua stalked down the darkened alleyways, his strong presence making him appear taller and sturdier then he actually was. While this sort of subtle magic was very different from his talent manipulating fire, several years working as a liaison to the elves had taught him a bit of their glamour.

He couldn’t pull off anything fancy like total invisibility, but it was enough that he could hide the gray hair amassing at his temples and smooth the deep wrinkles around his eyes. To the average bystander he exuded the robust and youthful appearance of a man in his late twenties. In reality he was nearing sixty.

That was pretty damn old for a rank and file war mage, like himself. Most didn’t survive long enough to grow old. The fact that he had proven himself more then capable time and time again didn’t seem to mater to the powers that be. One day the assignments just stopped coming. He’d basically been put out to pasture, retired with no notice, no explanation.

Typically someone of his age and skill would have been promoted, given a place teaching in one of the schools or a position on one of the minor counsels, so the sudden silence stung even more. He’d given up so much of his life to serve The Conclave and now they had just abandoned him. He didn’t regret his choices, but he did sometimes lament that he would never have a family, never have a child to pass his talents on to.

Joshua’s job as a bouncer at a local nightclub payed the bills now and the hours between the club closing and sunrise were spent patrolling the city. If he couldn’t serve The Conclave anymore, he could at least make himself useful protecting the local population from the monsters, human and otherwise, that prowled the city after the sun went down. It gave him a sense of purpose and let him keep his skills sharp.

Joshua’s still keen eyes inspected every shadowed corner as he passed, his ears prickling at each new sound until his mind identified it and placed it in its proper mundane category. His footsteps echoed down the empty streets, the lonely alleyways, the little hidden courtyards that spotted the vast city of metal and cement along his nightly route.

He was nearing the outskirts of the warehouse district when his feet abruptly brought him to a halt. A strange growling sound played just on the edges of the human range of hearing. He inhaled deeply and caught a whiff of rot on the night breeze. The hairs on the back of his neck immediately stood at attention.

This was not the normal scent of decaying trash or even a decomposing animal carcass. This was the unnatural odor of an animated corpse. His eyes darted around, and his body instinctively fell into a fighting stance. He strained his senses but he couldn’t pinpoint where exactly the sound or smell was coming from. Magic and years of training had given him better senses then the average human, but he had never been particularly skilled at tracking. Which is why he had Hunter.

The rat, having woken as soon as she sensed her master’s unease, had already wriggled out of Joshua’s pocket. She hooked her needle-sharp claws into the leather of Joshua’s duster and climbed up his chest to perch on his shoulder. There the big brown rodent sat back on her hunches, wrapping her thick tan tail around the back of the mage’s neck for balance, and energetically sniffed at the air.

Hunter’s black eyes glinted intelligently in the light of a nearby lamppost. She made a little huffing sound just before sneezing wetly right into Joshua’s ear. The mage flinched and grimaced, mentally berating himself for not seeing that coming...again. No matter how good the conditioning or how strong the familiar bond, a rat was still a rat. It had taken him six months of rigorous training just to get the headstrong critter to stop wantonly vacating on him. A small fortune and many dubious looks from the local dry cleaner later and he was finally able to move on to more prudent lessons.

Hunter made a soft chittering sound and Joshua offered her his hand. He gently lowered the rat to the ground, still keeping a wary eye on his surroundings. Hunter however, had no such concerns for safety and happily leapt off her master’s hand before he had even fully bent down. Thudding slightly as her paws met the pavement, she eagerly darted off down the street, faster than a rat of her bulk should have been able to. Joshua had grown to expect as much from his familiar and immediately gave chase.

Hunter stopped so abruptly that Joshua nearly stepped on her tail. The rat flashed him a quick scowl over her shoulder. He got the sudden mental impression that it was a condescending look clearly meant to scold her human counterpart for being so clumsy. As was the nature of rats’ attention spans, the thought was gone almost as soon as it was formed.

Hunter stood again, sniffing the air distractedly, her front paws trembling. Then she turned her head to face a door across the street from them. Her whiskers twitched twice. The slight gesture would have been lost to anyone else, but to the mage it was as good as a hunting hound pointing at fallen game.

The low vibrating growling was stronger here and Joshua’s skin pimpled with goose flesh. The smell of rot was also coalescing into a thick cloud.

Joshua bent down and scooped up the rat, offering her a small treat from a pouch on his belt, before depositing her back in his coat pocket. Looking both ways he quickly crossed the dark street and stood in front of the old warehouse, his hands already beginning to warm with the fire magic he was calling forth.