Friday. 11 AM.
The Day Before.
At my last job, when someone called in ranting about seeing a monster under the Buck O’Neil bridge, I’d probably have dismissed it as a crank call and hung up on them.
I missed those days.
“Yeah.” I nodded into the phone, scratching down a tally mark on my notepad. “Yes. We’ve gotten some calls about it already. I talked to the folks at Cryptid Control, they’re going to get someone out there next week and relocate the poor guy—yeah, they think it’s a troll. Uh-huh. Thanks for calling.”
Setting down my phone, I leaned over my laptop, looking over layouts for next Sunday’s paper. I still lacked a story for the front page, but that was alright. I had all day to turn something up, and if nothing particularly flashy got uncovered I could rearrange which stories went where and type up a lifestyle piece to fill the gap.
What bothered me more were the empty ad spaces. I could fill those in with generic content, too; there was always a story somewhere that could fill a page, but fluffy lifestyle stories didn’t pay the bills. Ads did.
The paper was still young. I’d find some advertisers soon.
Or I’ll go belly up. One or the other.
For both problems, I had time. Stories could be dug up, advertisers could be persuaded, it was just a matter of putting in the leg work.
I sipped my coffee and made a face. Bitter. Next time I was at the store, I needed to buy milk.
My phone rang. The caller ID didn’t recognize the number, but I answered anyways. It was probably spam, or possibly someone calling about the bridge troll, but I couldn’t exactly ignore it. Even if only one call in a hundred had a story behind it, I wouldn’t be doing my job right if I didn’t field them all.
“Levi Lawson, The KC Warlock Weekly,” I said, pronouncing my name clearly with a long ‘e’ sound at the end. “How can I help you?”
“Levi?” Despite my prompting, he still pronounced my name wrong, speaking with a thick rural accent. “This that newspaper I’d heard about?”
“Yes,” I said, smiling into the receiver. I’d been told people could hear when you smiled, and I didn’t want him to know that I thought he was stupid. “The KC Warlock Weekly. How can I help you?”
He didn’t seem to notice anything. “Yeah, eh, well, my name’s Manolis. Mike Manolis. I wanted to report a theft, so you could run a story about it in your little paper.”
That caught my attention. “Have you gone to the police?”
“Police won’t do nothin’ about it.” I heard something like an exhalation before he continued. “And it’s too small-time for the counsellors, even if one of ‘em’s in town.”
There’s a counsellor in town?
I paused, moving the receiver away from my head so I could open an app. I’d lost count of how many times I’d asked this question, but it was the best way to start any interview. “Mike, do you mind if I record this conversation?”
“By all means.”
Opening the recorder, I pressed the red button and watched to make sure it had started to run. And, for the second question I’d asked more times than I could count: “Alright, why don’t you tell me what happened?”
There was a pause. Based on the breathy sounds, he was probably smoking while we talked. “So, you know Maggie’s place, right?”
“The magic shop, over near Martini Corner?” I cradled the phone against my ear, pulling up a couple notes I had on the place.
“That’s the one. I bought a full dozen pathfinding stones from her, and then the minute they actually showed up, she went and gave them to someone else!”
“Pathfinding stones…” I tapped a finger on my temple, trying to think. “Remind me what those do?”
He paused again, breathing out another puff of air. “You know leylines, yeah?”
“Roughly.”
“Roughly?” He wheezed, in a way that sounded a bit like laughter. “How’re you running a magic paper and you don’t know about leylines?”
“It’s not about knowing everything,” I explained, as I pulled up my notes with a couple keyboard shortcuts. “Anything I’m not knowledgeable about, I research before I write about it.”
“Fair enough. Do a lot of research, then?”
“Less now than I did a few months ago.” I looked at what I’d written, skimming the highlighted portions. “Anyways, okay… Leylines. Conduits that magic can travel down, connected by spiritual forces?”
“That’s them,” Mike said. “Leylines, lifelines, spirit lines, they’re all the same. Like conductors for power. You put a pathfinding stone on a leyline and it’ll tap into it, like putting a turbine in a river.”
“Alright, fair enough.” It was a mixed metaphor, but I’d gotten his point. I tapped out a few notes, reminding myself to pick up a book on the subject. “How much is one of those worth, exactly?”
“Well, that’s the thing. Pathfinding stones are a bit like lobster.”
I stopped taking notes. “What was that? I don’t think I heard you right.”
“Lobster. Y’know. Live in the ocean? Tasty?”
“Okay, I did hear you right, but I’m confused.”
He chuckled over the line, and I had to wait for him to take another drag before he explained. “You ever eat lobster here in town? It’s expensive, yeah?”
“Yeah,” I said. “But it’s good with ketchup.”
“Eh… what?”
“Never mind. You were saying?”
“It’s expensive, and what we’ve got here in KC ain’t half so good as the stuff you can get for a dollar if you live on the coast in Maine. You’re not paying for the quality, you’re paying for the shipping.”
That made a little sense. “And they don’t make pathfinding stones nearby, I take it?”
Another chuckle. “God no. Nobody in town’s got that sort of equipment, and even if they did, you’d either need to pay to get someone in Chicago to bounce you the juice you’d need, or you’d have to wait until one celestial event or another to finish ‘em.”
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“Alright, so they’re expensive to make, and expensive to ship,” I clarified.
“And they’ve got to be tailored to work geographically. Further off you go from where they’re designed to work, the less good they’ll do you. These ones were specially built to work in the Kansas City area. Took the dealer two months to build ‘em.” He sighed. “It’s a damned crime, what Maggie did.”
“So you needed the stones urgently?” I asked.
“Damned right I did. Can’t run my business without ‘em.”
I asked a few more questions so I could fill out the article, made sure I had his name spelled correctly, and hung up. I’d swing by Maggie’s later to get her side of the story, then type it up and have a decent half page filled.
As I wrote some things down on my notepad, I said, “Computer. Remind me to go by Maggie’s before my date.”
My virtual assistant, who I’d renamed to something fun, responded cheerfully. “Alright, setting a reminder.”
I glared down at my layout. I can swing by Buck’s. Maybe he’ll-
My train of thought was interrupted by a fuzzy head bumping into my ankle. I reached down, scratching my cat between the ears. “Hey, Worf,” I said. “Are you hungry?”
Worf sat down and looked up at me with big eyes, mewling loudly. I glanced up at his automatic feeder, but I’d reloaded it the day before.
“Just attention, then,” I said, giving him another scratch before I returned my focus to the topic at hand.
There was a comment that Manolis had made that didn’t sit right with me. While my kitty snaked around my ankle and curled up for a nap on my shoes, I punched in a number and called up Kennedy.
It rang seven times before picking up. “Levi. What do you want?”
“Kennedy, how’s my favorite council agent?” I smiled into the receiver. Just to make sure it came across, I even showed my teeth. “I had a question for you.”
“Dammit, Levi. I’m not your own personal press release,” Kennedy said. I could hear them shuffling papers on the other line, multitasking as they chewed me out. “It’s not my job to help you out with one of your stories.”
“I never said anything about a story.” It was technically true.
Kennedy wasn’t buying it. “Then what’s it for?”
I’d been hoping I wouldn’t get asked that. “Just give me a thirty second answer and I’ll leave you alone.”
There was a sigh, and a short pause before they answered. “Promise you won’t make me hound you about your paperwork this month? Last time it was a week late.”
“Six days,” I corrected.
Another sigh, even more breathy and drawn out than the last one. “Levi…”
“Sorry. I promise.”
“What’s your question?”
Straight to the point. There was no reason to waste the commonwealth’s time. “What’s a counsellor doing in Kansas City?”
“Nothing,” Kennedy replied immediately. “The council doesn’t have any agents dispatched to that area.”
I frowned. Mike had no reason to lie about it, though it was always possible he was just mistaken. “Are you sure?”
“Levi, I process all our warrant orders for that region. Yes, I’m sure. Nobody’s there on official business.” That was that. I expected them to hang up, but instead they asked, “Why, what did you hear?”
A follow-up question was rare, coming from them. “Just that there was a counsellor in town.”
“Maybe one of our people is there on a personal trip, then, but they’re not acting on behalf of the commonwealth.” Kennedy shuffled a couple papers. “I’m not sure who it’d—”
My phone started to ring again.
“Hey, I’ve got to let you go. Let me know if you hear anything?”
“Sure, but there’s nothing to hear. Do your paperwo—”
I hung up on them, answering the next call. If this is about the troll...
Putting on a smile, I said, “Levi Lawson, The KC Warlock Weekly. How can I help you?”
“They’re going to kill me.”
The voice on the other line was cold, quiet, light. It sounded feminine, though I couldn’t be sure. Whoever it was, they believed what they were saying. It was no crank call, if my judgement was anything to go by.
“Alright. Stay calm. Can you tell me your name?”
“Andrea. Andrea Hills. You have to listen. If you don’t, then the fishwife is coming for me and I’m not tall enough to get away from her.”
…
Saturday. 12:15 PM.
“Hold it,” Murray cut in, interrupting my telling. “Andrea called you yesterday morning?”
“That’s right,” I nodded my head, pausing to sip the lemonade I’d been given. The ice had melted a little, but it was still cold and refreshing in the midday heat. “It would have been around a quarter after eleven. At the time, I had no idea who she was.”
Davis furrowed his brow in thought. Given his features, it was a surprise to see his forehead move that much. “And she was ranting about a fishwife?”
“I’m getting to that.” At least they were listening. Listening was better than pummeling. “Can I continue?”
Murray sat back, crossing her arms. “Go ahead.”
…
Friday. 11:10 AM.
“Erm…” I raised an eyebrow, puzzled by what I’d just heard. Maybe this was a crank call after all. “I’m sorry, who is the fishwife?”
“The fishwi- The fisherman’s daughter!” Andrea exclaimed. “She works down by the docks. I think she knows I found out about her boat, and she’s not happy about it.”
I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. A year ago, I would have thought magic was a bunch of ridiculous claptrap. Maybe the fishwife was real, too. “Alright, start from the beginning. Can I record this?”
“No,” she said, quickly. “I don’t want you to do that.”
“If I don’t record it—” I started to say.
“Then don’t! Recording is not fine by me.”
Alright, if she didn’t want to be recorded, I wouldn’t argue with her. “But you want me to write a story about this? Or help you get somewhere safe?”
“No.”
“I… then what do you want?”
“I want to give you something. That way I’ll be immune, and she can’t get to me.”
“Alright. Ma’am?” I paused, to see if she would respond, then continued. “Ma’am, I’ll do what I can, but I’m really struggling to follow what you’re telling me.”
“No,” Andrea said, frustrated. “Her carps… she must have fed you her carps. That’s how she works. She’s not a fishwife, she’s just a fishwife.”
The more I listened, the more I was certain that she wasn’t totally straight in the head. Maybe she was high, maybe she just needed a professional’s help. Either way, it wasn’t the job of a reporter.
I couldn’t just hang up on her, though. “Alright, ma’am. Where are you, right now?”
“At my house. I live next to the museum. It’s pink. Not the museum - my house.”
“Is that the Nelson Atkins museum?” I clarified, making a note.
“That’s right.”
“Okay. I think you should probably stay there. Do you have a friend you could invite over, to check up with you?”
“I don’t want to put any friends in danger.”
But you’re willing to put me in—I shoved down the thought. “I think you should just stay there. Lock the doors and get some rest. If you still have this problem tomorrow, call me back, and I’ll see if I can help you.” Hopefully, whatever she was on would wear off, and I wouldn’t have to deal with her. If not, though, I’d have to figure something out. That was a problem for tomorrow.
She sounded uncertain. “But… The fishwife can get through locks.”
“I’ll look into it, don’t worry. It’s going to be fine. The safest thing you can do is stay put.”
“Alright. I’m going to stay here. And you’ll check up on it?”
“Of course,” I lied. “Stay safe, ma’am.”
“Okay.” She sighed in relief. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
“You’re welcome.”
I hung up.
I didn’t know it at the time, but I’d just signed Andrea’s death warrant.
I could have gone to help her right away, or sent for aid, or done any number of things.
Instead, I’d told her to stay put and wait for assistance that I had no intention of giving. Before I would realize my mistake, she would be dead.
And then I smiled, content at having done a good deed. I took a sip of my coffee, dismissed the whole conversation from my thoughts, and bent to pet my cat.
By the time my phone rang, I’d all but forgotten about Andrea and her fishwife. “Levi Lawson, The KC Warlock Weekly. How can I help you?”
“Did you know there was a troll under the bridge, over by the airport?”
Rolling my eyes, I sighed, adding a tally mark to my notepad.