Magic Children

Chapter 1 Wabash, Indiana -Vali

Dust lives on everything in this part of the country. Not far enough out to be called west. Not full enough of people to be called east. Just nothing. The place everyone thinks about when they say the middle of nowhere. Nothing to run to, but plenty hide from where there's more corn and drunken moonlight than there is people. I never much liked the Midwest, but I suppose I like it more than other parts of America. At least the Midwest knows it has secrets and lets them live among the farms and the fields beneath the glowing oppression of the never ending sky. The rest of this godforsaken country would prefer to believe the past didn't happen, the future will surely come, and everything will be all right in the end.

But this isn't happy story. It was once, then it shall become fire, then probably just nothing as we all fade away into the memory of things that probably didn't happen.

"Where is Angel Tlaco?" I ask, as I sit on the worn red leather seat in the mostly empty diner. Aurora Frigg is tall in front of me, but no less pretty for it with hair that refuses to be straight or curly, cupid grey eyes, and short fingers that fiddle with just about anything while she talks.

"I don't know who that is. Or who you are," she says, putting down the coffee in front of me.

"Yeah, you do," I say, tipping my head to watch her as she lies.

"No, I don't. If you're looking for information you'd do better at the Wabash Herald," she says, but she doesn't move.

"My name is Vali Rindr, I'm with the FBI," I say, setting a badge she has no intention of looking at on the counter between us, "You might want to tell your boss something came up---or I will. We're gonna be here for a while."

"No. We aren't. Because I have no idea who that is," she says.

"Really? You don't remember Angel? I think you do. And I think you know where he is," I say, not at all nicely, since she does know who Angel is. If I had a hundred dollars I'd wager she whispers that name every goddamn day. Just like I do.

"I can't remember someone I've never met," she says, flatly.

"You grew up in Lyons Colorado, a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. Near Lyons Public Defense Research Facility, where your daddy worked," I say, flatly, "But I bet you don't know that either do you?"

"I know where I grew up, yes, that's public record, congratulations," she says, fiddling with the ties on her dumb blue and white waitress uniform. She hates it by the way she tugs at it and twists her head. Some women were born for silk, some men too I guess. She's definitely one of them. Finer things meant to roll of those thin shoulders, though they probably look better with nothing at all.

"What happened at Lyons Public Defense Research Facility isn't public record though--- is it?"

"You'd know more than me, I don't work for the government."

"You met Angel in Lyons, didn't you?"

"No. I don't know anyone by that name."

"You met him the summer you were fifteen."

"I just told you. I've never met anyone by that name."

"August the year you turned eighteen, you left Lyons and never came back. Not too much later the whole damn town burned down, killing over three hundred people and injuring countless others," poison drips from my lips. Murdered. Dead. "Dead at the hands of Angel Tlaco."

"I told you, I don't know that name. No one by that name was at my school, you can look that up," she says, flatly, but her eyes move a bit in an interesting way every time I say his name.

"But I'm not gonna bother. Because both you and I know Angel Tlaco didn't go to Lyons Public High, because he lived in Lyons Public Defense Research Facility," I say, satisfied, resisting the urge to fiddle like her and adjust my cheap suit.