Fantasy Noir

I think it was earlier today, when I was a mix of caffeine and bundled nerves. I could’ve probably jumped at hearing a simple mouse scampering under the floorboards, but what was marching outside was a lot larger than a mouse and probably had more political implications. Now I’m starting to understand why most investigators, private or public, choose to drown themselves in booze. That way they wouldn’t have to deal with even half the stuff I’ve come across in this damn world. No, my particular poison happens to be coffee, and that’s probably the reason I can sense this much magic in the air at the moment.

Turn on any form of media in the past two days, you’ll probably have heard about it by now: Teenaged elf of Drow descent, shot by a Metro Cop who happened to be another elf, yet a few shades lighter. Lots of human talking heads on the TV now asking why such racial tension? Aren’t they the same race? Yeah, and humans of different origin totally didn’t spend centuries hating each other over similarly stupid reasons. I decided to switch the channel when the phone rang.

“Howard McFadden, private eye at your service.” I spoke in a surprisingly rushed voice. Caffeine was still running through my system at that time, you understand.

“McFadden, you deal with elves, right?”

If I knew what I was getting into, I would’ve hung up the phone and done something a little less life-threatening, like maybe taking a trip down to the zoo, covering myself in pig blood and sticking my head in a tiger’s mouth. But at the time, I was thinking that I could really use the money and there wasn’t anything good on TV anyway, so I replied, “Well, I deal with all sorts of people.”

“I’ve got a problem and I kind of need your help.”

“And you know an elf is involved?”

“Well, not exactly…”

“What do you mean not exactly? Did you get his face? His color? Creed? Do you know if it’s a he?”

“If I knew all that, you think I’d call you?”

“You tried taking it up with the cops?”

“They told me to fill out a form.”

“And you don’t want to wait?”

“I have the money to pay for your time on this matter.”

That was all I needed to hear at the time. Landlord was riding my ass and I had to consolidate my office and home into one building just to cut down on the number of bills. So I took the job. She told me to meet her at a cafe close to H Street in 15 minutes, so I decided to put on my hat, my jacket, my good pair of dress shoes and take a quick walk over there. Under normal circumstances, it wouldn’t be too hard.

Upon further reflection, maybe I should’ve waited a little longer. Not only were the drow and half-drow descendants still marching down the street, but the police in riot gear were beginning to form a kind of phalanx near the end of the road. And when you have that much magic energy in one area, all it takes is one little spark…

“Hey! Hey!”

Oh God, it had to be the caffeine. I really wished it was the caffeine at the time, but no, there was some kind of tiny little faerie flying around. Oh God, was it going to start something here? What the hell did it want?

“Hey! Listen! You think you could direct me to the Mall? I’m getting kinda lost, these street signs are starting to blend together! How come there’s no J Street? Hey, are you listening to me?”

If it was not for the caffeine, I probably wouldn’t even be able to keep up with her incredibly fast method of talking. I couldn’t tell if she was already on a similar kind of stimulant or if that’s just the way that her people talked. I haven’t talked to many fairies of that size, but the few I did were awfully impatient. Some scientists theorized they must’ve been the descendants of some kinda twitchy insect, but it was difficult to prove, because they wouldn’t stay put long enough to be studied, and anyone who tried to force their compliance usually found themselves in a rather embarrassing position.

“Wow, there’s a protest huh? Whodathunk these folks would come out into the sunlight for a march? I thought they usually skulked around in the dark, funny how times change huh? Huh? Hey!” I tried to ignore the fairy and instead started maneuvering through the crowd. All I wanted to do was get to my meeting with a potential client, but I guess the fates decided that simply having the drow march down my street in protest wasn’t bad enough. Now some fairy was harassing me.

A short moment later someone launched a few fireworks. Even with my heightened senses there was too much damned magic in the air for me to figure out whether or not it was cheap bottle rockets or the fairy demanding my attention or maybe some kid with pyrokinetic powers was showing off to his friends nearby. In any case, the riot police had the excuse they were looking for, and started moving in. Various spiritual protection calligraphy was etched on their riot shields as they fired off tear gas in the crowd’s direction.

Some of the crowd scattered, but the ones on the inside who couldn’t get out were squished. Some of them tried fighting the police, only to get smacked down by “less-than-lethal” equipment: rubber bullets, stun guns, Tesla gloves, you name it. They were prepared.

Of course, having the misfortune of being in that very same crowd as I was trying to cross the street made things problematic. I wasn’t decked out in riot gear, which meant that one over-excited riot cop had no problem punching me with a fully-charged Tesla glove and cuffing me while I was recovering from the shock. Good thing I accidentally left my gun at home, or else things would have probably been worse.

There wasn’t much I could do at the time as I was thrown in a truck with several other Drow and sympathetic protesters and trucked down wherever it was they would take us until the whole incident blew over. However, being falsely arrested by the city’s finest was going to be the least of my problems. Well, maybe not the least, but definitely in the bottom three next to getting slapped by a woman I liked and the jukebox at Murphy’s not playing classic rock after I already paid for it. I’ll get to those in a moment.

_________________

It seemed to be standard procedure for most protests that involved a sizeable number of people: There were too many to crowd into the local station, so they would truck people down to an off-site, ad-hoc facility. Usually something where fencing was hastily set up, but there were enough guards with dogs to make up the difference. Kind of an “X-Ray by the Bay,” if you will.

They’d take down our names and our prints, then think of some minor charge to slap us with unless they had evidence we tried to resist. Of course, “tried to resist” is quite an objective term, as in “that Drow’s ribs signaled intention to resist when he was on the ground gasping for air while they mercilessly impeded the policeman’s boot.” Or “this perp clearly tried to kill her by chanting a deadly magic spell disguised as asking for a ride home in an elvish dialect.”

Nonetheless, I was a white human male, so I assumed I would be one of the luckier ones in this thing. Not to mention my only crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Still, that didn’t make things any more pleasant when they funneled us into three straight lines like cattle. “McFadden, huh?” The police cadet looked strangely cheerful as he took down my prints, “What do you do for a living?”

“Private detective,” I replied without missing a beat. “See the hat?”

The cadet looked at my hat, and then back at my face. “You sure you’re not an actor? That getup seems kinda last century.”

I will admit he had a point. This particular outfit hadn’t been seen by most people on the street since pre-Integration times. But I thought it was a unique look, a feeling that even in this crapsack world I owned something that made me look and feel pretty damn good. Also, I spent enough money on it to feed a family of starving goblins for a year, even though those fuckers will eat anything. So you better believe I wore it every time my job allowed it.

“Alright, Mr. McFadden, you’ve got two choices here.” The cadet slid a piece of paper to me on the cheap folding table, “Sign this document saying your arrest was for legitimate reasons, and that you apologize for inconveniencing this police department. You’ll have a minor charge on your record and possibly be marked as a radical instigator for the Kingdom’s purposes, but as long as you don’t commit another crime…”

“Wait a minute,” I stopped him in mid-sentence, “A radical? Me? Do you know how cynical I am about politics?”

“They don’t pay me enough to know that, McFadden.”

“Look, they marched down the street where my office was located.”

“Why didn’t you stay inside until the situation had passed?”

“Because I had a client to reach, one who probably thinks I stood her up and as we speak she’s probably left the cafe already.” Also left unsaid: it would have a negative affect on future business. Sometimes when you do a good job, people recommend you to their friends, like the Vermatti healer who cleans up your STDs with no questions asked and no noticeable side effects. However, when you do a bad job, rest assured that people will complain about you to everyone the first chance they get, like a restaurant where the food takes an hour to arrive, and when it does there are a couple flies hovering a little too close for comfort over your table. Unless you happen to be dining in the Green Quarter. Down there, such a place would be considered a high-class eatery.

Ah, but I’m getting off track here. Anyways, I was trying to find a way to explain to the cadet that while I appreciated what this City’s Finest were doing for protecting the people, I wasn’t involved in any sort of political protest and not only deserved to be let go, but without even the minor charge of “instigating radicalism.”

“So you care about the plight of the poor, oppressed Drow?” The cadet chuckled at his own little joke, though I had a feeling the Drow standing in line behind me didn’t find it as amusing. “Well, if you want to fight that charge, we can send you down to the station, and you can file a report with them. But with so many people in the system, you may have to wait in line.”

Looking back on the series of events that followed, I probably should’ve just taken the deal and gone home. Then again, considering I had lost my potential client at the time due to circumstances beyond my control, I decided I had nothing to lose by unleashing my caffeine-fueled frustration on this poor police cadet.

“Lemme tell you somethin’ bub.” I leaned in real close, close enough that I think the rim of my hat bonked his forehead and he recoiled slightly from the impact. “I have been working in that office for over a year now, and I will be damned if I am treated like some goddamn criminal. I did nothing wrong, and the worst any of these people did was protest against what they saw was an unjust system!”

“Sir, please calm down or I will have you arrested.”

“Oh sure, one count of false arrest isn’t enough for you people? I will have my day in court! Just like all of these people, who were swept up and mercilessly beaten!”

I know, you’re probably asking me what the fuck I was saying at this time. But may I reiterate that I was under the influence of copious amounts of perfectly-legal stimulants. I will say I was feeling pretty good at the time though, considering that a few Drow standing around waiting for their turn started giving me a slow clap. Maybe I even inspired them to band together and launch that class-action lawsuit against the city that would later be settled for a decent sum.

What I do know is that a pair of lightly-armored policemen slammed my face down on the table in front of the cadet, cuffed me again, and then threw me into a policecar where I was driven down to the local precinct. Trust me when I say that things would find a way to get worse.