The Fox and The Wolf: A Tale of Modern Magic

Prologue

The darkness of the night obscured almost everything, making the parking lot seem small and isolated. The two men were little more than shadows. The whine of a siren could be heard in the distance.

"See how much easier that was when you cooperate?" asked the unkempt man, looking down.

The detective lay in a heap at his feet, his arms twisted at odd angles. He didn't reply.

The sound of the siren grew closer, and now it was accompanied by flashing blue and red lights that intermittently illuminated the scene.

"Now do you see what your stubbornness has caused?" the unkempt man asked the detective. "This is all on you."

"Freeze!" screamed a police officer, pointing his gun. "This is the police. Interlock your fingers and put your hands on your head!"

The two police officers had opened the driver and passenger doors of their patrol vehicle, and each was using one as cover as they aimed their weapons at the unkempt man.

The unkempt man obeyed the order.

"Now turn around slowly," said the officer.

Again the man complied.

"It's not my hands you need to be worried about, officer," he said as he did so. "It's my eyes."

Instinctively both officers looked at the man's eyes. Their faces melted into expressions of wide-eyed horror as their arms began to move all on their own. Slowly but deliberately both police officers placed the barrels of their own guns directly against their heads.

The unkempt man put his arms back down.

"You see?" he said. "It's all in the eyes. Window to the soul and all that. You'd be surprised some of the things the eyes are the window to, actually."

The man grinned conspiratorially.

One of the officers was desperately trying to pry his arm away from his head with his other arm. The other officer watched the mystery man, trembling. Every part of his body except his gun arm, which was preternaturally still.

"Can you feel it? The pressure at the back of your mind to pull the trigger?" asked the man, pacing around the terrified police officers. "It's like a taut elastic band that I'm holding at the apex of it's stretchiness. All I have to do is let go and... snap."

The man over-pronounced the final 'p' in 'snap'.

"So I wouldn't make any sudden moves if I was either of you."

The lights continued to flash red and blue as all three men stood there for an excruciating moment. A wet spot slowly began to appear on the pants of the second police officer.

"Now you two appear to be very lucky men," said the unkempt man, breaking the silence. "I'm rooting around in your minds right now and I can't see anything particularly complex. It looks like it'll be less trouble for me to just erase your memories of tonight."

The man stopped and tilted his head for a second.

"What am I thinking?" he said with a laugh. "That memory trick didn't work out so hot for that last people who used it. I had better keep this clean."

He pantomimed letting go of an elastic band.

"Snap!" said the mystery man.

There were two simultaneous gunshots.