A Magical Team

Chapter 1-3

While they drove into the city from Lex’s estate, Dirk kept glancing at Tonio then away. After a few minutes of that, Tonio said, “Go ahead, ask questions. I won’t bite your head off for doing so.”

“All right. Exactly what do you and this team my father mentioned do?”

“At the risk of stating the obvious, since we’re cops we catch the bad guys.”

“No duh. But I know there’s more to it than that.”

Tonio nodded. “We go after the untouchables.”

“Meaning what? The ones who are walking around free because they had good lawyers?”

“Among others.”

“That smacks of vigilantism.”

Tonio shrugged. “Some would call it that, but we only go after those who deserve it. For example, using their money or power, of whatever sort, to influence a jury or a judge is not acceptable.”

“No s**t. But there can’t be all that many of them. Not enough to have a team to go after them.” Dirk looked perplexed as something else occurred to him. “Is this team made up of magic users? How do you get away with that? We’re not supposed to exist.”

“Says the kid who is one.”

“That didn’t answer my question,” Dirk muttered.

“Sorry. Okay, there’s a man in the city, a very powerful mover and shaker as they say, who, for reasons I’m not allowed to go into, made an enemy of a rather nasty necromancer. This man and Lex were friends, so he came to him for help.”

“He knew what Father is?”

Tonio waggled his hand. “Yes and no. This man didn’t know his enemy was a necromancer, he only knew some very strange and terrifying things had begun to happen in his life. Your father, as you well know, has a reputation for dealing with the paranormal.” Tonio chuckled. “It’s funny, people are quite willing to believe in ghosts and goblins and such, but refuse to accept the possibility there are magic workers among them.”

Dirk nodded. “Personally, I’ll take a sorcerer over a ghost any day.”

“Agreed. Anyway, back to the story. Lex helped his friend and in the process he had to let him know exactly who, or rather what, the person was who had been making his life miserable. Once the man got over his shock, he and Lex put their heads together and came up with the idea for the team. They went to the police commissioner, and—well from what Lex told me it was a very interesting meeting. In the end the commissioner believed them and the team was formed, with Lex’s input of course.”

“But,” Dirk said, tapping his lips, “would I be right in presuming the commissioner’s the only one who knows what you really do?”

“Yep. To all intents and purposes, as far as the rest of the department is concerned, we’re a very elite unit, set up to deal with the worst of the worst. The ones the law couldn’t touch without our help.”

“Do you actually go after them, or just after—what? Rogue magic users who’ve taken up criminal activities?”

“I think calling them ‘rogues’ presupposes they’re doing something criminal,” Tonio replied with a smile. “We go after both. After all, if we didn’t bring down the occasional felon who’s managed to, and I use the term loosely, ‘legally’ avoid incarceration, we’d lose the reason we supposedly exist.”

“True. Another question, how do you find out about rogues if no one believes sorcerers are real?”

“We, meaning the team, and Lex, and a couple of his associates, keep our eyes and ears open, listen to rumors, follow up on any reports about what might be considered off-the-wall happenings. Something that suggests someone is practicing the dark arts for whatever reason. By the way, not everyone on the team is a strong magic user, though the majority of us can use magic to one degree or another.”

Tonio turned into the headquarters’ parking lot at that point, ending Dirk’s litany of questions for the time being.