The huge scaled claw grasped me around the waist and bore down. At this exertion, the last feeble energies that made up my shield collapsed, and the sharp digits, each at least a half foot wide, slowly began to sink into my hide. It was excruciating and added more to the panic and terror erupting within me.

I had already summoned my barrier several times throughout the battle, only to have this forty-foot-long, scaly brute seemingly, almost lazily wear it down and then sink his fangs or claws in my flesh. At this point, I was tapped out. Exhausted of all my resources, I beat on my captor’s grasping hand with all my remaining strength. My arms spun like scythes, restricted from full strength by the positioning of the hand grasping me but still respectable in my own eyes. Bruises and shallow cuts formed and healed almost immediately. Damn dragon regeneration. Of course, my similar regeneration was the only reason I was still alive.

Through my adrenaline and fear, I was overjoyed not to feel the claws sink into my body inch by inch. I had blocked the pain from my wounds at the start of the battle, and I really couldn't decide whether to curse myself or not; it also meant I had exhausted my energy reserves a tiny bit sooner. A small part of me idly decided I was glad. If this thing was going to kill me, and it looked like it wasn't avoidable, I could at least try to keep what was left of my pride and dignity by not screaming like a piglet.

Out of psionic tricks, I tried one last ace in the hole and fuzzily willed my body to make the transition from the scaly form I wore to a formless cloud of mist. I saw a movement from the corner of my eye, and then the universe went black.

I think I was conscious for a minute or so before I realized it. The world seemed surreal; the gigantic leering dragon face hovered over me like one of the old-time derelict human construction cranes I ran across in one of the city ruins. So absurdly huge, I felt I had been shrunk to the size of a mouse for a moment. As things came more into focus, I noticed the incredible pain in my head and some red liquid pouring into my eyes and over my body... and, of course, the ever-present spears of pain piercing my side.

A low rumbling reverberated around me, and it took me a moment to realize that the dragon was speaking to me. “Finally awake? I was afraid I broke you prematurely.”

I wanted to say something sarcastic and witty, but it was all I could do to keep my eyes focused on that huge face. The creature was even larger than I remembered it being during the battle. My muddled brain tried to grasp this oddity. Did he use some sort of spell to grow? Why would he? He had already won.

It suddenly dawned on me. My skin was pink; well, what I could see of it under the blood. I was in my human form. Now I was baffled. I did not remember changing into anything. The last thing I remembered was being sucker-punched while planning my escape as a cloud of animated gas. There was absolutely no human form involved in my plan.

“I see you noticed your new condition, my little trespasser,” the dragon stated in his rumbling gravel tone.

“Huh,” I angrily mumbled through a jaw I could swear was broken. Even when you heal as fast as I do, see if you can come up with something clever to say when you feel like your head, sides, and chest are going to explode or burn up, respectively. Honestly, I have been hit with fusion grenades and walked away feeling better.

“Your companions were merely human, so I simply eliminated them. I expect no more or less from vermin.” The giant paused in thought. “You, however, are another issue. You are from a branch that I thought had died off, but still, a dragon is a dragon.” The creature’s next pause was filled with menace. “A dragon should know better than to trespass on another's territory, even a hatchling such as yourself.”

“Hrphhgr.” I filled the pause with my broken jawed wit. Okay, even I didn't know what I had tried to say.

“I have been experimenting with the older magics from the time of the birth of our race. Lesser beings tend to explode when you apply them, but you... you came at a good time. I think these won't kill you,” he stated gravely while his other massive hand came into my view and painfully poked my chest. “But they will expand my understanding of how they interact on ... well... you, and help keep you out of my home.”

Looking down to my chest where the dragon was tapping, I suddenly realized there were new symbols etched there. Marks emblazoned and appearing like red tainted scars. The two new symbols on my chest were not my work; however, looking at them, I instinctively knew what they were. One was the symbol for ‘human’, and the other was for ‘anchor’.

A slow surge of panic percolated through my numb brain. I had no idea what language these were in, but I had an instinctive knowledge of numerous things, many of them mystical in nature, and somehow I knew what these meant. And somehow, deep down, I knew I was screwed.

“Yes. I see you understand.” A rictus grin stretched across the thing's face as it realized I knew what he had done. “No more changing shapes for you. You came to my home as a human, and now you'll stay as a human as you leave.”

He still had one hand wrapped around my waist and his claws embedded deep in my body. This filled my attention as he stood up straight, and I jerked up in the air like I was a marionette, or more aptly, a hooked fish. It elicited a low moan. The motion hurt quite a bit. Damn, I guess that technique I used to banish pain had worn off while Mr. Evil had been at work; we hadn't been formally introduced, so that was how I thought of the creature.

He turned away from me, and my panicked eyes feverishly darted over the area we were in. We were in a clearing, and there was no sign of the fight, nor thankfully the remains of my friends. That would have hurt more than this guy’s talons in my gut. What did catch my attention was a rather large circle chiseled into the ground. My handy instinctive knowledge triggered, and I knew that the circle was meant to open a dimensional portal. Once I realized this, I spread out my senses and realized that we were smack dab in the middle of two ley lines crossing, a point of enhanced power and incidentally a weak point in the fabric of reality. I was starting to get a bad feeling about this guy’s plan.

“When I get back, I am going to rip your guts out and feed them to the demons,” I finally spit out as my jaw healed enough for me to garble out. There were always demons slipping through the rents and tears of our battered world. You might as well get some use out of the horrid things.

I think he understood because his other hand came out in a blur and broke my jaw again. Did I mention I am a moron?

“You are exceptionally powerful for one so young. Unfortunately, you had to try your hand against me.” I could almost hear mirth in his voice underneath his natural malevolence. “You will find that I am likely to be the most powerful dragon you'll ever know, at least until I send you to meet the dark dragon god.” I had figured that out. We are hugely territorial, but I had met a few others... briefly. Mr. Evil was in his own class. He must have been at least ten millennia older than anyone I knew of.

I am not really up on the nuances of various world religions, but I would have to be raised in a box not to understand his reference to the patron god of evil dragons. I think he was promising to kill me. I suppose this was only fair since I had just threatened something similar, if more graphic.

“By the way, you will be staying exactly where I send you until I come to see the results of this little test. The second rune will ensure this.”

My eyes went a little wide at this. Rune magic was a very powerful lost art that was said to be forbidden to learn. I guess being a badass ancient dragon makes you fearless in certain areas. As Mr. Evil was gloating, he reached the circle and began the process of activation.

I stared hard at the circle while he absentmindedly waved me around in the air. I couldn't draw this circle or any other, but part of the hereditary knowledge that allowed me to know what it was also told me that the specific squiggle there was the place you put the coordinates that controlled where this thing went, and more importantly, where you were in relationship to it. I rallied my wavering concentration to impress this information on my brain. If that old lizard were right, I wouldn't be able to use my powers to teleport back. I would have to do it the hard way.

I think that Mr. Evil got tired of me wriggling around. Admittedly, he was about three times stronger than me and far healthier, but I like to think I was strong enough to distract him from the more complex magics involved in creating a portal. I even tried to bite his hand, but human necks turn out to be pretty inflexible. One moment I was upright, craning my neck towards his talons, and the next, I had been flipped upside down, and I was seeing the ground race towards me.

I woke up covered in sweat and engulfed in almost complete darkness. That's okay, I see in total darkness, but the trip hammer of my heart and the laborious breathing was not typical. Or at least it hadn't been before an ancient creature killed all my friends, trapped me in human form, and then exiled me to another dimension. I guess that's what growing up is all about.

Without turning on the light, I looked at the barely luminescent clock and noted that I had gotten two hours of sleep. Not comfortable, but plenty for me. Sighing, I trudged to the kitchen, got out a roasted ham I had bought from the store, and stuck it in the cooler for later. Precooked, it really does taste better in human form that way. Who knew?

Slowly the sweat on my skin evaporated, and the energetic heartbeat slackened as my body realized it wasn’t about to die. I was too young for this crap. At my age, I should still be mindlessly throwing myself into stupidly dangerous situations, not waking up in the middle of the night scared of some scaly boogieman.

I walked back to the study and used a trickle of mental energy to lift one of the books from the pitiful remaining stack of less than twenty ragged hardcovers leaning up against the wall. They varied in age and condition, from the newly printed synthetic nupaper to the old yellowed, barely legible, acid-stained paper of bygone eras. There was a slew of furniture options to choose from in the cozy room, but I slumped into my favorite overstuffed faux leather chair. My hands were still greasy from the dead pig, so as I finished off the last bit of meat and licked the juices off my hands, I levitated the book, moving it in front of me and read. I flipped through the pages rapidly, my eyes scanning the page in a second before moving to the next one.

This massive tome was a more recent copy of a copy. After about twenty minutes, I felt a mild throbbing as the concentration I was investing in the levitation and memorization of the book started to wear on me. I was tempted just to ignore it and continue, but memories bubbled up where injudicious overuse of even minor abilities had caused my resources to run dry at critical points. Grunting in slight dismay, I floated a towel from the kitchen to me and wiped my hands clean while allowing the book to fall lifelessly into my grasp.

I know bibliophiles that would kill me for touching a book without thoroughly washing my hands, but I was too discouraged to worry. The book I was reading was what this world had to supply regarding magic. A quack wrote it—a really verbose quack with diarrhea of the mouth or quill in this case. When one of my kind is born, we get a lot of baggage and a cornucopia of gifts. We inherit the general memories of our forefathers and some genuinely staggering physical gifts. That’s not to say that I remember what my father ate fifty years ago on a Tuesday, but I get a seed of their skills. I know how to make a pie, add, subtract and multiply, whack people with some basic skill with a sword and even know Ohm's Law for electric circuits. My parents must have been true Renaissance people. I can't say I am an expert at any of these things, but these seeds can grow more rapidly than you'd expect with a bit of practice.

The skill I most value from my inheritance is knowing what to do with my psychic power. All of my kind, and in fact all of our breeds, have it bubbling up inside us, much like our magic. Most don't do much more with it than toss around balls of energy, form a sword, or move furniture around—basically, flashy parlor tricks.

Someone in my ancestral line must have been a true pioneer because once I started to develop my skills actively, I found entire repertoires opening up from my hard work and meditation. Not to boast too much, but I haven't met anyone better and may never unless I ever actually meet my ancestors. Moreover, I truly enjoyed exploring the powers of the mind, delving into the sleeping potentials and teasing them out, working with it until it blossoms into a true gift. That’s what psionics are to me, and I love them. This is more than a little odd for one of my kind of any age since, to be honest, we relate more to magic. Heck, in so many ways, we are magic. I still had my intuitive knowledge of magic, which was once more than enough. I took to my budding memories of my psychic potential like a duck to water and never looked back. Until I got exiled here.

Nowadays, the love of my life isn't all that helpful. Psionics are great for mind over matter, controlling minds, healing, short distance teleportation, and many other tricks. Still, I have yet to see a psionic talent that bridges the dimensions with the power of his mind alone. For that, you need magic. Even my digging into my ancestral memories didn't hint at future skills in this direction. My inherent ability to move between the gaps between the dimensions had been stifled by whatever rune the ancient dragon had placed on my chest, and my only hope to get back or even leave this dimension was to learn magic myself or find a friendly mage.

The problem I was having was that this dimension didn't know squat about magic as far as I could tell. Before I got stuck here, the place that I had called home was what this world would consider a post-apocalyptic wasteland. The particular town I came from was a little stunted in science; however, it was crawling with magic users of a multitude of varieties. In that tiny corner of the scorched earth, the people and whatever assorted riffraff that had fallen through the cracks in reality had rediscovered magic and used it to pick up civilization by its bootstraps and trudge onward.

I looked once more at the book in disgust. Here everything I had found was cloaked in religious nonsense and generally useless. I had avoided magic in my old home for the most part, but the part of me that made my race what we are just knew what was real magic and what was fiction. I was tempted to throw the book to the ground but lacked the emotional energy. I simply sighed, dropped it back to the reject pile, and pulled another from the larger stack. Tomorrow I would go to the antiquities bookstore on my way about the city and give these away. Books were rare enough in this new world that I would feel guilty to remove one from existence even if it was just a piece of crap.

I was just settling down for another long read when a pounding came from my front door. Dropping the book on a nearby table and getting up from the comfortable overstuffed chair I had situated myself in, I shuffled to the door and opened it. Squinting a little at the rising sun, I looked at my visitor. I was a little surprised to see a thin, twenty-something young man with mousy brown hair peering down at me from a few inches of advantage, swaying on his feet and looking like he was about to collapse any minute.

Frowning in concern, I moved forward to support him and led him into my home, noting in passing that he was dripping blood on my carpet. Oh well, I keep all my lovely things in my other apartment. I kept telling myself that as I avoided looking at my carpet being ruined.

“Jeremy... I wish you’d be more careful.” I shook my head sadly. I had Jeremy on an ongoing contract. In my opinion, he was the best private eye in the city, and he liked dressing the part. He wore an old baggy trench coat and a wrinkled off-white dress shirt. Unfortunately, he had a bad habit of playing the hero; I think his clothes were in better shape than he was. He was also a good friend despite his lack of fashion sense.

“Hey, the job’s dangerous, jealous boyfriends and all that.” He gave a small, breathy laugh that quickly turned into a groan. “Sorry to wake you.”

By this time, we had reached the kitchen, the hardwood floor guaranteed that no more of my rug would be damaged, and I casually tore the coat he was wearing off to expose a bloody gunshot wound. A slight resistance told me it was actually armored cloth. Probably resistant to heat and stiffened on impact to dissipate kinetic energy. It was likely why he was still alive and not spending the night being resuscitated in the local hospital.

“Hey, that was my favorite coat,” Jeremy jokingly whined. It looked out of place on his six-foot-four wiry frame and rugged features. How he got here with that wound boggled my mind; it's not as if we're close neighbors. He lived at the edge of the bad part of town, nicknamed the Blight by those that knew of it and couldn't avoid thinking about it, whereas this house was in a middle-class suburban area of Arc. “Turn on the damn light. It feels like a tomb in here.”

“Yeah, well, you obviously haven’t spent much quality time in a tomb if you think that. You can have my old coat.” I turned the light on and then ripped his shirt open to expose the wound. “And a shirt. Now hush, this takes some concentration.”

I took a deep breath and opened my inner eye to examine the damage. Within a few minutes, I knew exactly what was wrong with him. “You need to stop smoking; that’s going to kill you sooner than some punk's gun,” I quipped, only half-joking. He didn't have cancer or anything; these days, no one did, but he did smoke. Humans are pretty fragile, and they really shouldn't tempt fate. They may have to regrow his lungs someday if he ignores it.

“Then I'll die free.”

“The way cigarettes are taxed? Dream on.” During our banter, I was readying my hand over his wound, and when I thought he was distracted, I slipped it in, my hand passing through his skin as if I was a ghost.

“You know, if you took my offer, you could heal this yourself,” I muttered as my hand found the bullet. At my touch, it too became insubstantial, and I lifted it out of his body with no resistance. As my hand pulled out, I could see the wound closing up. “Okay, psychic surgery complete. I hope your insurance covers this.” The tiny slug was utterly flat. The coat must have almost completely stopped its momentum unless Jeremy’s hide was a lot tougher than I thought.

“No way, I have enough on my table as a PI,” he said as his fingers ran down the side where the wound had been. “Good work, as usual, Professor.”

“Stop calling me that,” I snapped. “I hate nicknames. If you cracked a book occasionally, it wouldn't be such a shock that someone wants to look at one.” These days the ‘old tech’ was a holographic display, and everyone looked at you as if you were a human anachronism if you didn’t have a neural interface. My entire home was a museum.

“Ah, come on, I heard someone calling you that already.” I winced at hearing that. Too late to discourage it, I guess. Probably some smartass bookstore owner. I hate smartasses... other than me, I mean. “Besides, you play it down, but you have some serious powers.”

“Well, I play it down because the fewer people know what I can do, the fewer idiots I will have after my head.” I wave a finger at him condescendingly, only half teasing. “Besides, there's always someone stronger than you.”

“Voice of experience?”

“I don't want to talk about it. You saw the aftermath yourself.”

Jeremy was one of the people who found me some time after being thrown out of my world. Apparently, I was quite a sight at the time.

“I thought you just got caught in a mugging.” I grimaced at the thought. What the hell did he think could have done that to me? A delinquent velociraptor looking for a score? To be fair, he had no clue of my less than mundane state at the time.

“Oh no, it was... er... I guess you would call it a demon.” How do you describe an ancient dragon and a magic portal to a guy whose only frame of reference was the contemporary 2090 AD urban landscape and perhaps a few fantasy and science fiction books? Well, and old movies. “Anyway, I don't really want to talk about it.”

“Damn, should have known that you had a story behind it,” Jeremy offered. Now I knew he was fishing. I was only slightly annoyed; he’s a PI. Being nosey is his life. Fortunately, he handled me not talking about things gracefully.

“Oh, come on, I've known you for almost a year.” Okay, maybe not always that gracefully.

“Maybe I'll tell you later, now shut up,” I grunted. This world was weird. I had heard things could be different in the various dimensions. Back home, the ambient magic was so great that my very structure oozed with it, fortifying me and my abilities and psionics. So much so that I could take a small nuclear bomb at ground zero and get up again if I was near a node or a ley line. Here, I had all my abilities sans the ones that the runes repressed, but I wasn't nearly as tough as I once was.

“So who is it that's calling me 'Professor'?” I tacitly changed the subject.

Jeremy wasn't fooled, but he let it drop. “You know people in the bad parts. If you're going to take on the muggers, you better expect people to talk.”

“Crud,” I grumbled. I have been using the same shape and face to visit the poorer parts of town to get my books. I guess people were finally starting to notice that if they try to mug that guy, he's going to hand you your ass. I could change faces, but I would have to deal with the additional mugging attempts. Yeah, some parts of town were so bad you knew you were guaranteed to get jumped. For a city that was named to be the pinnacle of the modern concept of a megalopolis, Arc had some pretty crappy places. Some of them are pretty darn close to the upscale homes.

“Oh well, how bad could it be?” I asked philosophically.

“I heard some rumors,” Jeremy offered quietly as he walked over to the sink and started using a wet cloth to get the caked blood off his skin. Great, another thing I need to buy. I hate shopping.

“The mayor is thinking of forming a new police force using supernaturals,” Jeremy said while frowning at the stains on his pants.

I am not sure if it contributed to parts of the city sucking so hugely or it was just natural for a city this large. Still, people have been saying that ever since the vampires and the various shifters came out of the shadows and somehow got civil rights, the city has gone to hell, and the police can't control them. Both are almost immune to standard weapons, so who can say they are wrong.

“Well, that sounds like a good idea.” I looked at him closer. He didn't seem pleased. “Okay, I give up. Why isn't it a good idea? This city is hell on earth in some areas. Just because I don't want to play hero doesn't mean it's not a good thing if someone else does.”

“There's talk about him cracking down on freelancers and vigilantes.”

“Okay, that is going to suck for some of the other more hated vigilantes, but I still don't see how it's that bad. If anything, it'll burden the police even more. It will probably go back to normal in a few weeks after enough police drop dead.” Jeremy gave me a flat look. I shrugged; if mortals want to make stupid decisions, they will be weeded out by their god, Darwin.

“Yeah, it's going to be bad for everyone, but I think you should be worried about yourself... Professor.”

I was momentarily distracted by thoughts of the bloodbath. It was then that his words finally reached my brain.

“Profess... wait a damn minute here,” I exclaimed hotly. “I am not a hero or vigilante. I have work to do! I don't have time to waste.” My words faded away as I saw Jeremy raise an eyebrow. “Okay, it's not a waste, but I have other things on my plate. I don't have time to spend chasing after supernatural genetic waste.”

“So you say, but you have had your share of heroic actions since you got here.”

“That was all self-defense. They were in my way,” I complained. I think there might have been a hint of a whine in my tone. I hated that. I may be young for my race, but I am still manly. “Let the police hire a few werewolves they trust. That should balance the system a bit.”

“And Kingston,” Jeremy asked as he moved into the living room and put his feet up on my table. Damn, he is such a slob. If he tried to light up, I was going to toss him out on his butt. Then I froze. Kingston? Did he know about Kingston? I knew Jeremy was good, but how did that happen.

“You're guessing,” I accused.

“I was until you responded,” he grinned smugly.

Kingston had been a reasonably successful mob boss that had disappeared off the crime scene about six months ago. That was when I came into a very significant amount of cash. Okay, I suppose it wasn't that big a stretch when someone goes from living out of the YMCA, and the government-provided housing, to owning several properties and placing Jeremy on permanent commission.

What had actually happened was less than glorious justice. I had knocked out one of the lower-level thugs, checked his mental health, and then merged my mind with his. After that, I changed shape into his form and walked into Kingston’s hideout. I had to work my way up the ladder a little, but they didn't have any defenses against a psychic shapeshifter.

The only challenging part was the actual mind merge. This is a grueling mental talent where you and the target actually share all your memories. For the next few hours, you know everything that your mark does. It's also incredibly dangerous. If you bond to someone that is insane, you will likely come away suffering from the same mental illness. If he is nuts enough and your unlucky enough, he may just put you in a coma. I had to be very careful picking my targets.

The other downside is that the bonding is a full exchange. For several hours they know everything about you too. I had to force my ‘donors’ into a temporary coma. When it wore off in a week, they didn't remember a thing about me.

The other hard part was once I was close to Kingston, and I examined his aura, I realized that, yes, he was nuts. So I abducted him, forcibly cured him of his psychosis through another very exhausting and time-consuming psionic procedure, and then bonded with him. The cure I know is only temporary without reams of therapy afterward, and it doesn't change that you’re an evil man.

I put him in a temporary coma, transferred his money through several accounts, changed faces, walked in a bank and physically walked out with it, changed faces again, and moved it bit by bit into other accounts. I did this using Kingston's own skills as a very unscrupulous but imaginative bookkeeper to cover my tracks and set up alternate identities. He was a very talented man.

I never did figure out why he vanished afterward; when I left him, he was safe and sound in a hospital occupying a temporary bed in the coma ward. I looked into it later, and he checked himself out a week after I checked him in and then just vanished. His organization sort of fell apart, and I am guessing another good fellow took over.

I did all this not because I wanted to be a hero, but because I was destitute and needed to change this status without harming anyone who didn’t deserve it. I am still unsure whether to be guilty about what I did, so I usually avoid thinking about it. Denial is comfort food for the brain.

So when Jeremy dropped his bombshell, I suppose it was silly to be surprised. I have always admired his skills as an investigator, and although strangers may not have noticed anything, I may as well have been waving a red flag to him. After a moment’s reflection, I just sighed. “No comment.”

“Anyway, if people ever find out that you took out Kingston, they may jump to conclusions about your orientation.”

Damn, I hate politics. Back home in post-holocaust-ville, all I had to do was worry about whether our patrols would run across hostile neighbors.

“I'll cross that bridge when we come to it. I have plans in place, but I kind of like my life as it is.” I paused a moment to clarify this statement. “As frustrating as my research is.”

“Dead end,” Jeremy prompted politely as he got up and walked into the back room. Once he left the room, I surreptitiously sidled over to where he had sat and noted the scuff marks on the table. I would have to buff that out and get the carpet cleaned. Sometimes, friends are a real pain in the butt.

He came back a moment later with a shirt and jacket that vaguely fit him, though perhaps a little baggy. He usually wore loose clothing, so this was not a significant change, except for the better-quality material. “Well, not completely. I am going through the last stack.” I winced at the thought of the last twenty books. “But I think in the time I have been looking for something real about magic; I have found maybe five books. And they weren't beneficial,” I added sourly—a couple of cantrips and wards for evil spirits. I could light a cigarette with my thumb; home dimension, here I come!

“It could be that I have a lead for you,” the rumpled PI dropped with nonchalance.

This perked me up right away. “You found something? Why didn't you say something sooner?”

“I think there was something about bullet wounds,” he said, with a slight edge to his voice.

“Er... right, sorry about that.” I kept forgetting humans got worried over this stuff. People have actually called me insensitive. Jerks.

“There's a new shifter in town. A girl called Mei Ling. Some kind of hotshot martial artist bounty hunter.”

“And she interests me how?” I prompted. Not that I doubted the man, I am just like that.

“She's hunting some kind of witch or wizard.”

“Huh?” Disappointment flooded through me. “The wizard is a villain? That does me no good. An evil wizard is more trouble than they are worth. They are notoriously close-mouthed unless you swear eternal servitude to them or some such garbage.” I felt myself on the verge of pouting. “Are you sure it's a witch or wizard? I thought they hadn't been outed yet.” I am sure they exist, but they hide far better than the other supernaturals I had found in this world.

“Not officially, but anyone who's not a halfwit can guess some of what's offstage ready to come into the spotlight. Besides, can't you…” Jeremy tapped the side of his head suggestively.

“Bah, you can't take magic by force... well, unless you're some whack job of a blood mage.” Agitated, my handed gestured to try to get the point across. I had seen the Italian mafia in movies do it, and it seemed cool.

Jeremy barely ducked my swinging hands, muttering curses under his breath. It's his own fault; he was the one that insisted I see The Godfather.

“Well, wizards would have books about magic, right? You're bound to get better stuff than what you’re combing through.”

That thought stopped me. He was right. Anything had to be better than the useless time-wasters I was looking at now.

“So, are you interested?”

“Okay, this seems a good lead.” Getting down to business, I continued. “Five hundred credits in your account now. If this pans out, one thousand more credits.”

“Great. She is staying at this address,” Jeremy said while pulling a stained folded square of nupaper from his pocket. I gingerly took the rather abused sheet between my thumb and pointer finger and noticed relatively fresh traces of blood on it.

“Okay...” Slightly nonplussed at the tattered state of my directions, I unfolded the cheap plastic textured sheet and began to read. “She's at the Hotel Riviera? That’s across town in one of the upscale neighborhoods.”

“Well, not everyone stays at the YMCA when they first visit the city.” That earned him a glare.

“By the way, I assume you took care of the problem you had?” I asked while gesturing at his side where the bullet wound had been.

“Yeah, it was just a misunderstanding over a client's possession,” Jeremy said casually, waving away my concern. “Anyway, I have to head home; I need to sleep. We can watch Mad Max later.”

“You should get some better protection if you won't let me show you a few tricks.”

“I was wearing protection. That coat you ripped off me kept that thing from tearing me in half.”

Looking guiltily at the coat lying on the floor in pieces, I glanced back at him. It hadn't felt that armored. “Okay, buy another one. On me. Maybe have a force field built in it.”

He snorted. “That is restricted military technology. I'll have to settle for armored coats. These days it seems the only time the military lifts a finger to do anything is if they find someone using their tech.”

I walked him to the door and looked out as he rode off in his old beat-up blue car. It was such an old piece of junk that I don't think anyone ever tried to steal it despite it being an antique. He had once extolled me with a detailed description of its history and why it was such a fantastic find. I think I purposely blocked out that memory. Hardly anyone used streetcars these days, although the recent renewed interest in 20th-century fads may change that.

The sun was well up, and the city around me was now active. I suppose some people just like working at night. I walked out and made a leisurely tour around the block to stretch my legs.

The mostly deserted neighborhood was squarely middle class in appearance and well laid out, which was likely one reason the crime rate was so low. The streets were wide and empty of cars on the surface; there were no hidden nooks and crannies for criminals to hide. The other reason may have been that I had bought most of the houses around me, so there are fewer potential victims. A piercing, high-pitched whine came from the distance, and I saw a mag-lev commuter train barreling by on the tracks several thousand feet away, so fast that it was almost gone before the noise reached me. I frowned. I came from a city full of magic users of various flavors, and even now, the technologically oriented city threw me off if I paid too much attention to it.

I turned my attention straight upward to see the various air cars, bikes, and scooters flying high above the street. At regular spacing, there were floating buoys that acted as traffic beacons. I used to love flying.

Absently fingering my chest where the runes lay under my shirt, I scowled at the hover cars as I turned back to the house. A faint humming sound swiftly grew behind me reached the door.

“Are you the Professor?” A voice drifted from the lawn at my back, and I hunched my shoulders. Damn, I hate it when Jeremy's right.

Turning around, I was somewhat surprised to see a fully uniformed police officer, complete with rigid light body armor and automatic rifle. “I have heard some people calling me that.” He didn't look hostile, just a bit officious. Even if the morning was relatively cool, the armor couldn't be comfortable. Yep, looking closer, a fine sheen of sweat covered his brow. Maybe the ‘advanced’ technology required for refrigerated armor was restricted to the military too.

“Sorry, sir, I just had an address and a title. We couldn't find your phone or vid number,” the officer said pleasantly. It didn't look like I was being arrested, but heck, if I knew what he wanted.

“I don't have a phone, er, working phone,” I said, shrugging. The policeman just looked at me like I was a madman. Most of the people I know look at me the same way. I can't stand the things, always making weird noises just before venting a foul-smelling gas. I used to know some psychics that had a special relationship with technology. I am not one of them and never even tried to develop such a thing. I almost have to be in a meditative state to keep my energies from interacting with the new chips.

“Um, right.” He seemed a bit flustered by my flat response. “I am Officer Cromwell. Er... well, Lieutenant Monahan asked me to see if you'd mind consulting on some crimes.”

This took me back a bit. “Me? I don't have any background in criminology.”

“The crimes involve magic, sir.”

I understood now. It's not like the city didn't have its hidden magic users; it’s just that most of them were very much like mystics or shamans. They had an intuitive knowledge of how to cast specific spells. To learn more, they would meditate and become ‘enlightened.’ Useless. They had no idea how magic worked, just how to contemplate their navel. Perhaps that was harsh, but there was some truth to it. I couldn't cast verbal spells yet, but I knew magic, felt it in my bones... and it didn't hurt to have lived in a city full of braggart mages. Damn, I missed them.

So basically, the reason they needed me was very similar to why I was looking for educated wizards. If a crime involved magic, either a supernatural entity committed it, a mystic did it, or a wizard did it. They needed me for my ‘academic’ reputation rather than my vigilante experience. My mind flashed back to my conversation just a few minutes ago. A captured wizard would leave books behind. Surely the nice police officers wouldn't need all those books.

“Okay.”