On the streets of... #5

After everyone got their partners, the briefing ended. Carlos' new partner was an old dude called Carvelli. He had a glorious cloud of white hair around his long face and he wore a long, black coat that had a red lining. He kinda looked like an old stage magician. Molly (that was the prettier McRoy's first name) was a detective for two years now, so she got her own newbie.

She, Carlos and I went to the kitchen to get some coffee. There was no coffee machine. I mean, what the fuck?

'See? Shithole,' Molly shook her head. Red locks danced around her face. I wanted to kiss her real bad.

'There is a coffee shop across the road,' Carlos remembered.

'Kowalsky!' a voice exploded behind me. I turned around and even grabbed for my gun out of sheer reflex (reflex answering the sudden and loud noise, not my name, you understand. I don't shoot at people who know my name). I didn't have one on me, of course.

It was my new partner, Rourke. Now that he was standing I could see that he was average height, but very muscular under his blazer and old-school blue jeans.

'Sir?' I asked.

'What the hell do you think you are doing? Where is your weapon? We got a case, we have to go.'

'I don't have a weapon yet, sir, the briefing ended like forty seconds ago, I….'

'So go and get one, kid, if you won't be downstairs in five minutes, I'm gonna leave without you,' and with that, he left.

'What a jerk,' said Carlos.

'Everyone is stressed out now,' I shrugged with a confident smile. 'We will be best friends by the end of the shift, just watch.'

Carlos knocked his fist to mine. Molly gave me a smile and touched my arm as a way of saying goodbye. I still felt it even when I opened the door of the armoury up on the second floor.

I looked around a little confused. It was a tiny little room cut in half by a counter and a fake wall. I had the feeling that it was probably a broom closet in its previous life.

'Erm… Excuse me,' I said to the uniformed man behind the counter. 'Where are the guns?'

'No guns,' he shook his head. 'Only these,' he gestured towards the stuff in front of him on the counter.

"These" were magical things. Regular and extendable batons with Runes on them, a couple of small balls that looked like marbles, wands made out of different materials, something called the "Retainer" (it was a stamp with a spell on it that stopped people to use magic if the spell was stamped on their skin) unbreakable handcuffs, and a number of gadgets I had no idea what they were for whatsoever.

'There must be at least a taser somewhere,' I said desperately.

He pointed at the wand.

'See this? Signs of Power, Order, Body and Connection. The spell is called the Shocker.'

A spell with four components. Yeah, that was absolutely something I could do.

'Pepper spray?' I basically begged. The bastard showed another spell: Air, Fire and Poison. Great. Just great. Cheap motherfuckers trying to save on guns and equipment. Maybe McRoy was right after all. Both of them.

'Vest? Tell me you got vests…'

I got lucky, there was a bulletproof vest in my size. Needless to say, that one was the only thing in the armoury that wasn't magical, which means, it didn't protect me against magic. Fucking unbelievable.

I ended up with the vest, an extendable baton (on the basis that even though I probably couldn't produce much magic with it, I could still hit people on the head) a Retainer, a pair of handcuffs and a ring that had the Rune of Movement on it. I also grabbed a few marbles: they were called instant spells. They were working spells stopped and imprisoned in the little glass ball, waiting for the moment when the marble breaks and they can happen. Or so the guy behind the counter said, I had no idea. Apparently, the blue ones worked like a taser, the red ones let out a cloud of teargas and the grey ones were the magical equivalents of a flash grenade. It would have been much more logical if the ones with the teargas were grey, because, well, teargas is grey, and I was sure I will mix them up in a life-threatening moment. That's how I roll, baby.

I signed the papers and ran down to the garage. I toyed with the idea of using the poles, but my hands were full. Maybe next time.

Rourke was already sitting in the car, legs out on the garage floor. He was eating a sandwich and followed me with his weird grey eyes as I was getting closer.

'Enjoy,' I said and he nodded. See? We are gonna be best friends in no time. I put my vest into the trunk, attached the baton to my belt, and put everything else into my pockets. Then I sat in the car. It was an older, unmarked model and when I say older, I mean, older than me. The dashboard was supposed to have a computer built in, but there wasn't one, only the police radio, a very old and big one at that.

Rourke finished with his sandwich, pulled his legs into the car and closed the door.

'Alright, kid,' he started.

'Pete,' I said.

'Couldn't care less,' he answered, not missing a beat. 'Here is the deal. I have nineteen months until retirement. Not sure how good you are at math, that is less than two years. When that time comes, I will give up my badge and gun… Hell, my fucking wand, apparently, with the biggest, happiest smile anyone ever saw on my face, and I'm saying that after having two kids and three wives. Now, I will only be able to do that, if nineteen months from now, I will be still alive. Any question so far?'

'Are those wives… Like, one by one, or all together like a harem?' I asked.

He looked at me silently for what felt like those nineteen months he was so obsessed with before he continued.

'How do I stay alive for the next nineteen months, you ask? By not taking stupid risks. That's where you come into the picture. You, kid, are the type who would be taking stupid risks because you want to prove yourself, or you feel like you actually need to stop crime, or whatever. I get it, you are young, and you want to make a name for yourself. For all I care you could be a dead hero for the city, really, that's your business. After I left for a cabin somewhere in the middle of nowhere where nobody will bother me. Until that, you will do everything in your power to keep me alive, and in exchange, I will not make your life miserable. And believe me, kid, if there is one thing I am fucking good at, that's making people miserable. Ask my ex-wives.'

I didn't need to. He really looked like a man of his word. He was still staring at me with that intense grey look so I nodded.

'Good. Now, I've read your file. You aren't completely useless, apparently, when it comes to police work. How is your magic? According to your file, you are a five, but that's only raw power, not skill. Don't sugarcoat it.'

You see, in high school after the little wannabe sorcerers learned the first Rune in the book, the Movement, there is a test. They put weights in front of the kids and give them the Rune. The whole thing is very straightforward: if you can, using the Sign, lift and keep in the air the smallest weight, which is 30 pounds, you are a "ten". If you can do that with the second weight, which is 60 pounds, you are a "nine". If you are able to lift or move a weight, but you cannot keep it up for half a minute, you get a plus half, like "seven and a half". Which means more than eight means here, because whoever invented this system must have been an idiot. They could have made one the weakest and ten the strongest but no, that would have been way too easy to follow.

Of course, you only have to try one weight a day because it wouldn't be fair otherwise. You might be able to lift 270 pounds well rested but not after you lifted a bunch of smaller ones earlier. Also, there were people "out of category ", or “zeros” who were able to go over 300 easily (that's a one, the highest officially numbered rank), but the average sorcerer was somewhere between seven and four. At least power-wise, a moderately skilled sorcerer on the seventh level could still easily brew some serious trouble, you understand. Magic is a bitch.

Bottom line, I lifted 180 pounds so I was a five. I could have probably got a four and a half, maybe even a four, but I had said I surely could not go higher because I didn't care at all. I still don't.

'To be honest, sir, I'm not really good at it. I haven't practised it in years.'

Rourke groaned.

'Fucking brilliant. Okay, kid, you just won eight hours of unpaid overtime every week. When your shift is over, or before it starts, you are gonna head to the gym down there,' he pointed towards a door I haven't even noticed yet. 'And you are gonna practice the basic spells for an hour. On your day off, one and a half hours. Sounds reasonable?'

'No, sir,' I said, because I hate myself, that's why. 'How about you come with me, to teach me, sir? That's your job, after all.'

That intense stare again. Then, when I was starting to think that maybe I should exit the vehicle in a calm manner (like: "Help, this fucking maniac wanna kill me, heeeelp!"), he nodded.

'Fine.'

'Also, I have a date tonight, so can we start tomorrow?'

'Yeah, about that,' Rourke said. 'I don't say that Molly McRoy is Satan's fiance, but that's because good ol' Lucifer already has a restraining order against her. I don't care what or who you do in your free time, but here is the first piece of advice from me, because that's my job as you pointed out: stay away from her.'

'She seems like a great girl,' I objected.

Rourke shrugged and started the engine.

'Your funeral,' he added.

What a cheerful fella.