The Parasite

Chapter 2: Good night Magic City

That evening Henry went off to his apartment in the city using the large public access carriage that rode from the guild mansion into the city. The carriage itself was far too large and held far too many people to be pulled along by horses, so instead the carriage was propelled with magic that forced the wheels to spin.

By nightfall the carriage had reached Henry's neighborhood, a cramped, overcrowded maze of alleyways, shops, and rundown buildings which held countless single room apartments. On the fourth floor of a building called the Queen Mary's Delight Henry pried open his door and stepped into his dimly lit apartment. The only light source in the room, being a tacky lamp set up on the kitchen counter, to the left of it was a small wooden desk with a magic powered radio set up on top of it. Henry sat down at the desk and tuned the radio to the proper frequency before pulling out the file Marshal had given him.

Before opening the file, Henry glanced at the gray wax stamp that had been placed on it. The stamp read with blocky letters manere in umbra all who read this are forever sworn to secrecy. Upon reading the words out loud the stamp dried up and turned to ash allowing Henry to open the file.

Opening the file, Henry found a set of papers and photos detailing an upcoming operation that was to be spearheaded by the guild. The job was to investigate a gang controlled warehouse, suspected of housing illegal magical items which members of the gang had been caught selling on the black market. Included in the file was a list of names paired with faces and descriptions including appearance, criminal record, and supposed roll in the gang. Among these names was that of the one who was believed to be the gang's leader, a young man by the name of Jackson O'Connor. Unfortunately there wasn't much else besides his name and face as while he has been spotted with the other members on many occasions his role in the gang was unknown, but something about his description gave Henry a bad feeling, as there seemed to be a year long gap in his record before he suddenly reappeared a few months ago. Henry shook his head and refocused himself, questions of Jackson's year long absence would be answered once he was captured.

After finishing up reading the file Henry turned up the volume on the radio as he got out of his rickety wooden chair and walked over to the window of his apartment. As the song on the radio ended the scratchy voice of the radio station's host came on to give a quick speech. "This is your host Sal coming at you live from the one and only home of the Mages Guild of America, broadcasting to you over the waves of magic that run through the air itself. But, my friends, I'm afraid it's time for those waves to run silent, since we've reached the end of our broadcast day. But don't you worry because both the music and I will be back tomorrow morning, but in the meantime I'm saying goodnight magic city."

Henry removed his jacket and adjusted his shirt as the man on the radio spoke, and as the radio clicked and static poured through the speaker Henry stared at the night sky, wondering about something he had heard before. A long time ago someone had told him a story about a knight and a dragon, although Henry could only remember how it ended. After years of the knight serving the dragon, it grew weak and found out that the knight was poisoning it slowly, by the time the dragon knew it was too late as the dragon was far too weak to defeat the knight. It was nothing more than a children's story, but even still Henry found himself thinking about it more and more recently.

Elsewhere in the city there were those who began their work under the cover of darkness, moving like shadows in the night as they congregated around a warehouse built near a train station. Lanterns illuminated wooden crates and brick walls as the sounds of a train coasting into the station rang through the streets. In the darkness one of the train cars doors opened into an alleyway allowing crates to be unloaded and quietly moved to the warehouse. As the figures toiled away they were suddenly alerted to danger as a guard marched around, checking the train cars. Before the guard could find them the figures closed the car door and retreated into the alley, and as the guard passed by he felt a chill run down his spine, caused by the dozens of eyes watching him intently before he moved on allowing the figures to resume their work.

Before long the warehouse bustled silently as the figures returned with their haul as others bought and sold whatever they could. In a back room of the warehouse one of the figures surrounded itself with radio equipment as it broadcasted a stream of music into the air. As time marched on the figures toiled the night away until finally the sun rose, sending them retreating into the shadows once more.