Wizards in the Streets

"I think you just gained a follower there, Max."

The man in the sagging wizard’s hat turned his head back toward the dirt road behind him. Sure enough there was a mangy looking...thing, about a dozen yards behind him, slinking about near the tree line.

"Well to be honest, calling that creature a thing would be a bit insulting to other things named ’things.’"

Max shook his head at the inane patten of his thoughts just took. The exhaustion he was suffering must be affecting him more than he expected.

"No matter, focus first Max and deal with this. Before it decides take offense on not calling it a ’thing’ and tries painfully nosh on you personal bits for kibble as a result."

Turning fully around, Max brushed the thin purple cloth cape draping his shoulders aside, revealing what looked to be a rough hewn walking stick, broken crudely near the top. Paying no mind to the potental spinters that might be thrust into his hand, Max gripped the stick frimly, broken end out and pointed at the thing, which was now gibbering in a warbling cry and rushing towards him.

Max could see the dank, foul encusted claws rend grooves in the dirt, flinging clods of sod. Some of which clung to the pale naked skin, sticky with patches of its own gray slime. The beady black eyes almost loomed over the muzzle, but that was overwhelmed by the rows of sharp teeth that filled the rat shaped head. He could almost swear that he could see the foul scent of decay and death expell in a fog of panting grunts.

"Xpeloriu!" Max grunted as the creature staggered advance towards him grew faster.

A glow of green and white that had begun to emit from the tip of the broken end he held peaked, and a with a great "woosh" of air that brought a smell of ozone that stung Max’s nose, a streak of green-white light struck the creature in mid leap, not less than a few feet away from him.

With a tortured howl, the creature erupted in a white blast of steaming gore and blackended chunks. But as gore’s original form was still in motion at the time, Max cursed as he was hit with said gore a moment later.

"..and damnit!" He concluded his cursing as one final bloody bit hit him near his left eye.

He tried to shake and brush the offal off his person and his robes, robes that were garishly printed with stars and crecent moons. But all he did was speading the mess until it seemed the stars and moon were crying tears of blackened blood along with his face.

"You do know that was a bit overkill." a voice said his shoulder, amusement tainting it. "It was just a chupacabra, a small one at that."

"Shut up Joe, this was your idea to go this way. And I was in bit of a rush. I’m adverse to getting up that close and personal with any of rodent with daggers for teeth." Max replied, pushing the end of the now blackened walking stick into the blood splatted dirt to smother the still glowing embers on its tip with a faint hiss. "Luckily, that should be that last of them though.

The broken walking stick then decided to snap into several brittle pieces as Max poked it deeper into the dirt.

"Well that’s another focus dead." Max said, tossing the remains of said stick into the tree line once he was assured that the embers were extinguished.

"No surprise there. You really need to make a better focus than using broomsticks you just buy at the local hardware store to carve those runes, Max." Joe said as Max examined the end to see if it was fully extighised. "Or learn to control your magic better. Or both."

Max glared at the figure nearby, the tattered hooded and now bloodstained wizard’s hat drooping over his brow for a moment before he pulled it off in irritation and tossed it at him. The figure was rather non-plussed by it, as the hat went right through figure’s chest without pause.

"Really Max?" the ghost mocked.

"Yea, yea. Sorry about that Joe, it’s just been a long night." He said while stepping over to pick up the discarded wizard hat, while trying to avoid stepping on the bloody chunks still scattered about.

The ghostly figure remained non-plussed by his current expression.

"Well being dead tends make most folks like that anyway." Max mused, glancing at the see though man dressed in as a 60’s gangster outfit, which was peppered with half a dozen bloody, bullet holes. "Joe more than most during this time of year. Back luck and all getting offed on that All Hallow’s Eve Massacre Party back during the Mafia turf wars."

He then glanced down on the rented wizard’s costume, sighing. It was a total loss, there was no way he would get his deposit back. So much for trying to stay incognito from the normal people out and about in this park this close to the suburban neighborhood to avoid causing a panic

"All for the doing the job of playing the equivalent of an exterminator to mythical giant mutant rats that breed faster than caffeinated bunnies and had a taste for all things fleshy, like pets and children. Well at least this time I’m getting paid."

He turned back down the path and to the parking lot where he hoped he could get to his car where it was parked before anyone spotted him looking like some bloody mass murderer.

But if anyone did, he might be able to explain his disheveled and blooded state as part of the costume to any local trick or treaters. And hopefully not scar them, or any authorities they might call, for life.

"Joe?"

"Yea man?" the ghost replied as it drift-walked next to him.

"I think I’d agree with you. I’m beginning to really loathe Halloween."

----

Max looked at the face in the steam coated bathroom mirror. Brown hair, normally shaggy, clung like a skullcap on his narrow head. Dark brown eyes and tanned skin framed a face that some girls he overheard once call "somewhat handsome in a dangerous sort of way," whatever that meant.

Personally he thought that he looked a bit thin and haggard, though with all the activity the last few days would explain that.

"You know, if I did know you better, I’d say you were admiring yourself. But only a mother could love that mug." Joe’s voice drifted from the doorway leading to Max’s small townhouse apartment.

Max snorted, ignoring the impuse to bicker back. He instead dried the rest of the water off, trying to ignore the aches still with him, even after the way too short hot shower he took, just before the old water heater drained and blasted him with icy cold streams in response.

Slipping into a set of worn kakis and a dark t-shirt, printed with ironically enough, a scenic view of a moon and a starlit night over a forest. Picking up the black garbage back which now held his ruined costume, he tossed it asside next to the main doorway leading outside. Kicking his bare feet on a well abused coffee table covered with random books, junk mail and orther ditrus, Max leaned back on the sofa cushions with a small groan.

"Well with luck, this is the last night for magical hotspots. Things should die down back to normal levels within the week. I hope." Max said, glancing over to the ghost, who was currently reading a newspaper floating freely near his face. "You sure that nest back there was the last batch out there? Last thing this neighborhood needs a bad infestation case of giant rats."

"Pretty sure." Joe replied as he waved a finger as another page turned for him. "Margret and Jill were quite insistent that that was the last one in the park. But with those girls, you never know. They tend to be flighty with recalling all the important info at best. Might not hurt to check a few night later in the week."

"After I heal up and rest Joe. These last few weeks have been crazy, even before the girls mentioned about the breeding nests and you came to me afterward about it, as you well know." Max replied as he tried to stretch without pain and then uttered another groan that indicated his lack of success.

"Yea, yea. It has been a bit wilder than normal. First it was that possession of that old Vietnam vet by that Indian spirit. Then it was that wannabe coven of goth witches would got a bit to big for their britches and you had to pull them out of the hell-fire, literally. And then, huh, what was the other thing? You really never motioned it."

"The missing person case." Max winced as sore mucles protested his current position, "Turned out it was just a runaway angsty teen, not a changeling kidnapping like I thought. Damn brat complained the entire time until I dropped him off at the police station."

"Kids today," Joe lamated in a mocking tone, "Young whipper-snappers, get off my lawn and I had to walk uphill both ways in the snow. What are you Max, an old man already? Your only twenty-four for Pete’s sake."

"That old?" Max mocked back before sinking deeper into the cushions, "It’s not the years though, its the milage, to quote a famous movie archeologist. Keeping up in the past few days, Hell, the past week have been brutal."

"Well they do say no good deed goes unpunished." Joe quipped as another page turned by itself, peering at another news column. "Like this fellow here."

The ghost took an exaggerated moment to clear his non-existent throat, causing Max to roll his eyes.

"Police reported that a man, Fred Terrier, claimed that he picked up a unidentified female hitchhiker, described only to be blond and in her 20’s, down by the Interstate 9, who after a few miles he proceeded to crash into..."

A sudden pounding on the front door interrupted Joe before he could go any futher. A moment later the paper dropped, fluttering to the floor as Joe’s form vanished like it was been blown away by a stiff wind.

"She here, and don’t mind me if I’m not." was the ghost’s last words as he vanished.

"Wait a minute Joe, what..." Max started to ask, confusion and irritation marring his face while glancing at the closed door.

As if timed, a strong, angry and rather feminine voice came from the other side. Max then realized what Joe had meant, as he listened to the swiftly rising and angry female voice behind the what he mentally dubbed now as ’the Doorway of Doom.’

"Maxmillian! Maxmillian DeFoster! I know your in there mister!" the woman on the other side said, still pounding on the steel frame to emphasize her mood, "The engine hood on that junker of a car of yours is still warm and I can see the light from the crack under the doorway, so I know your awake. Open up now before I do it myself and get really annoyed!"

Max cursed softly as he jumped out off the couch, ignoring the returning protest of his aching muscles. Padding on bare feet to the door, he debated if he should peer out the peekhole before tossing it as a bad idea.

"Hell, she would be just upset enough to shove the peekhole into my eye with her pounding like that. And knowing her current mood, she would enjoy that."

Sighing deeply to brace himself, Max whispered a few words as he felt a faint rush of power fade from around the doorway. Another soft sigh later he put what he hoped to be a sincere looking smile, and unlatched the locks and opened the door with care.

Max glanced down at the alburn haired and barely three foot five broad shouldered woman standing at the doorway, dressed in a unusual combination of a matronly mother outfit and grease mechanic. The near black eyes flashed with heated emotion as the puffed cheekbones flushed red with blood on the broad face and jaw, matching the bright locks of braided hair.

"Angela, good evening! I was not expecting you." Max began, trying to ignore the rather large looking set of tools, one of which was a pipe wrench almost as large as her, slung over her wide hips. "I was going to call but things got..."

"None of that!" the female dwarf snapped, "Your still overdue on the rent, again."

Muscled arms crossed and a large foot began to tap. Oddly enough the large foot’s tapping, while not heavy, was still deep and ominous on the old welcome mat. It almost made him feel like he was a ten year old again, caught playing hooky again from Sunday school.

"How does she do that? She makes me feel worse that old nun teacher I had back then. That is, if said nun was also three feet tall and could whack you silly with large metal tools instead of a long wooden ruler."

Max shuddered internally at the thought of have those two women in his past and current life having to meet, and what disciplinary hell would to happen to him afterward, unlikely that would be as it were.

"I said I would be able to pay at the end of this week Angela." Max said as tried to calm the small yet powerful brewing storm of a dwarf-kin, and a female one at that, smile still in place, "I just finished a client job, you know. The bloodsucker rats that have been infesting around lately? I’m about to go to the client and pick up the paycheck."

Angela’s expressive frown cleared as the soft, yet ominous foot tapping stopped.

"The Ch’neh’kaba’ki? That is what been stirring up the fens? Vermin should of died out long ago." she replied with some disgust.

But she then frowned once more, deeper if that was possible, as a thought occurred to her, "But that’s easy work for you, such as your kind is inclined to do. What took so long for you to finish until now?"

"Well it was the other flare ups that kept me busy. Kind of hit the same time, you see?. You know how the nights leading to Samhain can be at times." Max shrugged, hoping that the dwarf matron- mechanic and current landlord would not see fit to smash his bare feet with a wrench in her current mood and would rather see reason instead with his excuse- er, explanation.

An answering snort came from the still glowering woman, but hostile look was subsiding. Max sighed internally but he did not let his smile drop in any case. No need to provoke her any more than needed.

"Or any other dwarf-kin for that matter, not if you want to stay in one piece."

"Alright then. That I can understand." Angela said, shaking her head. "But you are still late. You can’t just keep doing this Maxmillian, there are rules of this place that have to be followed. You of all people should know that, knowing what the consequences are, especially for your kind."

Max winced. He had hoped she would not of reminded him of that bit of potential trouble that tended to happen to people of similar abilities like his. Trouble he managed to avoid so far, but he was pushing the boundaries.

"Your right, as usual Angela. I’ll see what I can do to get that paycheck to you as soon as I can." he said, brushing his still damp hair back in unconscious self irritation.

"You do that. Just drop it off in the box as usual." Angela said as she turned down the narrow hall toward the stairwell after Max nodded his agreement, but then she paused. "And Maxmillian?"

"Yes?"

Max looked up, seeing the female dwarf-kin looking at him with a rather new peeved expression.

"Uh oh. What now?"

"Next time I see that spirit of yours walking though my garage, in my kitchen, or my bedroom at night or at any time, I’ll show him and you that my kind can really keep anyone, or anything, buried six feet under, forever."

With that statement, the small woman moved quickly and quietly down the stairwell.

Max winced once again as he closed the door. That explained the ghost’s rather sudden disappearance just before she announced herself.

"Joe!"

Next Chapter: Chapter Two