Witchmas

Don't Ask for Trouble

CH. 3

Before that movie came out, you could have called magic the fifth element. I hesitate to even use the word magic because it conjures (see what I did there?!) up images straight out of Vegas.

Damn illusionists.

They fool everyone into thinking that has something to do with magic, or the tricksters who roam around in cheap tuxedo's pulling rabbits from hats. They're pale imitations of what Magic is really about.

I was nervous and taking it out on poor mildly talented hacks. Be glad there weren't any around, although a street performer on the corner up from Beale was using sleight of hand and misdirection to entertain the pre-ball game crowd.

It was a Tuesday night in Memphis, the Snowbirds were getting ready to play and I was on my first blind date in eighteen years. Nineteen years. It had been so long, I couldn't remember.

How I fooled someone into setting me up on a blind date is a whole story in itself, as was the reason I haven't been on one in practically forever.

I selected the bar because of it's proximity to her neighborhood, which was on the river and just North of 240. Downtown crowds would be thick, but during the game, the bars and pubs tended to empty out as people wandered to the stadium.

There would be plenty of people watching as the game let out, just in case the conversation was running light, and of course the pub since libation is the best social lubricant ever created outside of a love potion.

Love potions are illegal by the way and if I catch you using one, I'm legally obligated to arrest, detain or even kill you depending on the severity of the offense.

If you're a wizard, that is.

The badge on my belt let's me do that.

The power in my will let's me enforce it.

Marshal of Magic. That's my title, and job, and even though I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a calling, I'm pretty darn good at it.

Most of the time.

That's because I'm lucky.

Very lucky.

At least at magic.

Right now I didn't feel very lucky as I stared at the clock above the bar for what must have been the hundredth time.

I did it enough to make the bartender notice and she shot a dimpled smile my way.

"You need another hon?"

I tilted up the brown bottle and swirled around the two sips of brew inside.

"Please," I said and swallowed the rest of the Southern Pecan craft beer down with a satisfied grunt. It wasn't ambrosia but smacked pretty good of being a powerful social lubricant.

She popped the top on a bottle and swiped it in place of the empty in front of me. I appreciated the artistry.

There was a mirror that ran the length of the bar and I faced it full on so I could watch the door.

I didn't look that bad tonight.

Not for a ninety five year old man.

I didn't look it though. That's a perk of being a wizard, the slow aging process. I was born in 1921 and looked forty. I'd look forty for the next three or four hundred years, and then age slowly over the next hundred or so more.

If I lasted that long.

Most Marshall's didn't.

I'd had the job for two decades which made me practically a old timer in the ranks.