Convergence - Chapters One & Two

CHAPTER ONE

I’m sure north-central Missouri can be beautiful at certain times of the year. In the middle of March, with piles of dirty snow crusting the roadsides, and a chilly rain that was sometimes a mist and sometimes a drizzle and sometimes big, fat, wet blobs splattering so hard against the windshield that I could hear each individual droplet of misery, it was not a delightful place to be.

That was my fault. I was deliberately following the bad weather, a long slant of cold weather front that was a wet blanket across the northern half of the USA. It had been starting to rain in southern Indiana two days ago, when I got ambushed on a lonely country road in the middle of nowhere. Since then, I drove steadily west, keeping in the rain where drizzle and spray made it less easy to see the bullet holes in one side of my truck. Also, the rain made it less conspicuous that I was driving just over the speed limit, and hugging the right shoulder of the road. Staying on the right meant cars would not pass me on the right, and would not notice the dents, the thick sheet of plastic I’d taped over the right rear window of the truck, and the scorch marks on that side. It helped that my truck was dark blue, it would be difficult to tell that the paint there was a bit scorched and bubbled, from when a Mercedes SUV erupted into flames in front of me, after it got rammed by a GMC Yukon. The Yukon had also gone up in flames, that part was my fault.

At first, I suspected the Yukon was driven by feds, it looked like the kind of vehicle the FBI or some other agency would have in their motor pool. You might think that was good news, if the feds had acted to protect me from the bad guys, but it is not. The government had been hunting me for years, and in my experience, they weren’t any less ruthless than whoever the hell the other guys were. All I know is, the woman who fell out the driver’s door of the Yukon wasn’t wearing an FBI jacket, neither was the guy in the passenger seat, and I didn’t find any kind of federal ID on anyone I was able to search.

Right before the ambush, while I was driving along a two lane road in the forested part of southeastern Indiana, my mind wandering in a daydream, a big silver Mercedes SUV came roaring out of a side road and skidded to a stop in front of me to block the road. I got a brief glimpse of guns pointed at me out the SUV’s windows while I jammed on the brakes, fishtailing until my bumper stopped inches from a crash, then I slammed my truck into reverse and floored it, just as a black GMC Yukon flew past on my right and rammed hard into the Mercedes. Tires spinning and slipping, I rolled blindly backwards into a ditch while the silver SUV erupted in flames and the occupants of both vehicles engaged in a raging firefight that ended with everyone dead. Except me. I’d like to say that I instantly sprang into action, but the truth is I was frozen with fear and shock. My hands had the steering wheel in a death grip and while I knew I should let go of the wheel and reach for my gun, I just sat there for a long second, my brain locked into asking OMG OMG OMG did that really just happen?

Somehow, I got moving and out of the truck, I don’t remember that part. I know that I had yanked open the Yukon’s warped driver’s door, to pull out the bleeding woman from behind the wheel, but my effort to drag her away from danger tracked a trail of leaking gas with me. That gas connected with gas pouring from the burning Mercedes, and presto! The Yukon caught fire from under the hood. At least I pulled the woman away from the fire to lay her down on the wet leaves beside the road, and I pulled open her jacket to see where the blood was coming from, but her eyes rolled back and she coughed up blood, and then she was gone. Her companion in the passenger seat, a big guy, was clearly dead even before I got to him, my first clue about his condition was the ragged bullet hole in his forehead. For sure he was dead weight when I pulled him from the car that was already on fire, so he didn’t protest when I flopped him down at the side of the road.

Of the four guys in the crispy Mercedes, two managed to stumble out the other side of the already burning vehicle, the driver and guy behind him on my side got crushed by the heavy Yukon and probably died on impact. The two injured guys shouted weakly and struggled to crawl away from their burning vehicle before collapsing and dying of ugly gunshot wounds. Whatever they had been shouting, they weren’t speaking English. To my untrained ears, it sounded like some Eastern European language, but they could have been cosplaying Klingon for all I knew. 

It may seem callous, but I quickly rifled through the pockets of the guy from the Yukon, while his lifeless eyes stared at me. All I came away with was a wallet but no type of law enforcement ID, a Glock sidearm with a spare magazine, and a sense that every time I tried to sleep, I would see that dead guy staring at me. The woman also had no FBI or any kind of official ID on her, giving me no clue why they had intervened to help me. Or whether they had been trying to help at all.

Whatever their intent, the two from the Yukon were serious about it. In addition to the Glock the guy had in a shoulder holster, they both had Hecker & Koch MP7s equipped with suppressors, what most people call a silencer. That was another clue those two were not federal agents; I’m pretty sure that suppressed machine pistols are not standard issue by the FBI. The guys in the Mercedes had a type of weapon I wasn’t familiar with. They were short bullpup rifles, with the magazine behind the trigger, also equipped with suppressors. Vaguely I remembered seeing something like those weapons in a magazine. French-made? Maybe Israeli? It didn’t matter.

For a long minute, I stared at the burning Yukon. The glass was not just crazed and spiderwebbed from bullet impacts; there were large-caliber holes punched clean through. The woman had a Kevlar vest and still a round had penetrated, the blood she coughed up had come from her lungs.

Whoa.

Whoever was after me, they were using ammo powerful enough to penetrate a Kevlar vest. The Mercedes guys had to have been equipped with armor-piercing rounds. It’s a damned good thing neither group were concentrating their fire at me, and that was another clue. Whether one or both groups were pursuing me or trying to protect me, maybe they didn’t want me dead, not immediately. What did they want?

I was afraid to think about it.

Despite the muffled sound of suppressed weapons, two burning vehicles attracted attention, and even a two lane road in the woods of rural southeastern Indiana has some traffic. Putting my truck into four wheel drive got me out of the ditch, and I inched past the Yukon, cringing with fear the gas tank would explode. After I got away from the ambush, and my racing heart slowed down enough for me to think, I pulled over at an abandoned gas station and inspected my truck. It technically wasn’t my truck, it was stolen. Not stolen by me, I had taken it from the guy who stole it originally. That made me feel better about it. The truck, an anonymous dark blue F-150 extra cab that looked like a million other work trucks across the nation, had belonged to a plumbing company. After I acquired it, I swapped license plates and stuck magnetic signs on the doors. The signs read ‘F.E. Lawrence Landscaping Services’, with an Indiana phone number to match the truck’s plates. The phone number was bogus, chosen at random from a group of burner phones I had owned and discarded. Why ‘F.E. Lawrence’? It wasn’t anything memorable, that’s why. The logo wasn’t bright or cute, it was instantly forgettable. That was intentional.

During the firefight, no one actually shot at me, they shot at my truck, or maybe my truck just got caught in the crossfire. One bullet nicked a tire, I suspected that when the truck started pulling to the right, and sure enough, that tire was going flat. A can of Fix-a-flat and a battery powered air pump solved the problem enough to get me an hour down the road, where I pulled over and swapped the bad tire for the spare.

To cover up a handful of bullet holes on the passenger side, I took the magnetic sign off the driver’s door and rearranged both of them on the passenger side. My hands shook so much that the first couple times I put the signs on, they were crooked. Smashing out the rear window on that side made it less obvious the window had been hit by bullets, and I covered it with a sheet of clear plastic and duct tape. Again, nothing too unusual in a well-used work truck. The front passenger door window had only one bullet hole near the bottom, that was covered up by carefully rolling the window partially down while guiding it with a hand so it didn’t shatter. It did look odd to have a window open in cold rain, so while I drove, I held a white plastic pen in one hand; hopefully anyone noticing the open window would think the pen was a cigarette, and that I didn’t want to roll down the window on my side to let the smoke out. Sticking to the interstates helped me avoid attention, most police cars checking for speeders were parked in the median strip and couldn’t see the battered right side of the truck.

Smart, huh?

If I was smart, I wouldn’t have blindly driven into an ambush.

The main problem with the truck was it leaked coolant from somewhere, probably a fragment of bullet had nicked the radiator. There had been a lot of bullets flying around on that road. Stopping at three different auto parts stores, I bought radiator fluid, and a bunch of small stick-on magnets to cover up the bullet holes in the passenger side. One of the little magnets was a Hello Kitty, I hoped that anyone noticing would think it ironic. The ‘F.E. Lawrence’ signs I then discarded, the authorities might be looking for a blue F-150 with that logo. Also discarded were the Indiana license plates, swapped for a bogus set of Ohio plates from the batch I kept under the driver’s seat. With any luck, no one would pay attention to me, until I had to get rid of the truck and find a new ride.

That sucked. I had only been in Indiana for only a few days, having been chased out of Louisiana, where I spent more than two months in relative warmth and sunshine. That’s another story. Now I had to start over, again. Yeah, it had been stupid of me to spend two months in one place, I should have known better. Leaving Louisiana hadn’t been prompted by a specific threat, just a feeling that I was being watched. When I got to Indiana, in the middle of a rain shower that was turning to sleet, I questioned whether I was just being paranoid. Then the ambush happened.

Yeah, I was being paranoid.

Just not paranoid enough.

Why didn’t I buy three gallons of coolant at one store, instead of making three separate stops? Because a customer buying a single gallon of radiator fluid is not memorable, it happens all the time. Three gallons? That prompts questions and a discussion at the register, and I didn’t want a clerk to remember me.

That wouldn’t be healthy for either of us.

If it sounds like I know a lot about keeping off the grid and under that radar, that’s because I do. I’d been on the run for the past six years, ever since my Aunt Sarah was murdered, by people who wanted me. Like, local police, the feds, and by whoever had killed my aunt.

It wasn’t healthy for anyone to be around me.

The temperature gauge was creeping into the red again, and little puffs of steam were coming out the sides of the hood. In the drizzle and spray from passing cars, it was barely noticeable, but it would soon attract attention. Plus, you know, eventually seize the engine. I needed to pull over somewhere and dump in the last half gallon of coolant. After that, I had to buy another gallon and eventually get the radiator fixed, except I was also running out of cash. The wallet I pulled off one of the dead guys from the Mercedes had credit cards and several hundred in cash. Those credit cards were useless to me, either fake or stolen, each card with a different and almost certainly bogus name. The cash could be useful in a pinch, problem was they were crisp new twenties, and I couldn’t be certain the bills weren’t marked or otherwise traceable.

Damn it. I needed gas, radiator fluid, and something to eat, and my wallet had less than eighty of my own dollars. If you are ever considering the glamorous life of a fugitive, don’t. The work doesn’t pay well.

There, up ahead. A diner, on a two-lane highway, just off the interstate. A low, brick building that had seen better days, the illuminated ‘D’ in the sign was broken so it read ‘iner’ and I thought that was perfect. Locals ate at a place like that, so the food must be good. I could park the truck in the side lot, out of the way, let the radiator cool down before dumping in the remaining fluid. Down the road a ways I could see a gas station, it should carry gallon jugs of coolant. As I flipped on the turn signal, I scanned the diner parking lot. No police cruisers, and nothing that looked like an unmarked cop car. My truck would attract no notice there.

Stepping out of the truck, I stumbled into a puddle over my ankle, drenching my shoe.

Damn it.

My day just kept getting better and better.

Outside the heated cab of the truck, the day was more miserable than I was ready for. Up on the interstate, truck tires whined as they threw up clouds of spray, thump-thumping over the cold steel expansion joints of the bridge over the two-lane highway. Tossing the hoodie up, I put my head down and trudged across the parking lot, avoiding chunks of dirty ice that had collected in the wheel wells of cars, and fallen off when the car hit one of the many potholes scattered around the parking lot.

Oh, hell.

Standing in the drizzle, I found that my feet couldn’t move. The problem wasn’t my feet, it was me.

What was I going to do?

Where was I going to go?

Where could I go, on less than a full tank of gas, in the middle of Missouri? I had no plan, none at all. There was no one I could call on, no one I could call for help. People who knew me ended up dead, so I made a point not to make connections with anyone. If the people hunting me thought I had made a friend along the way, that friend would either be taken and used as bait to lure me from hiding, or killed to ensure I didn’t try to seek help from friends. To ensure I knew that I couldn’t get help from anyone. That I was alone. If you think I’m being paranoid about that, I’m not. It happened. A girl I cared about is dead, because the wrong people knew I cared about her. I was on my own, that’s the way it has to be.

When the truck inevitably broke down, or the money ran out, whichever came first, I would be out of options.

Jamming my hands into the pockets of the leather jacket I wore over the hoodie, I got my feet moving again, and quickened my step toward the front door of the diner. Because I wanted to get out of the chilly rain, and because any normal person would. To linger in the parking lot would be suspicious, like I was casing the place for a robbery. Which I was not doing. I’m not a thief. Except when I steal from criminals, I consider that a simple redistribution of resources. That’s what my Aunt Sarah told me, and she was a wise woman.

Until she ended up dead.

Dead, before she could teach me much of anything useful about magic.

Oh, I should have mentioned that. My name is Kazimir Wolfe, or ‘Kaz’ for short, although I never use my real name.

I’m a wizard.

I know, magic doesn’t exist.

But it used to exist.

And I didn’t know it at the time, but magic will come into our world again.

Unless I can stop it.

Duke the dog slunk between the dumpster and the brick wall of the diner, pressing himself against the bricks to stay under the eaves of the roof. The bricks were cold and damp but the steady, soaking rain was chilly and wet, his infallible dog instincts told him to stay out of the rain. No amount of shaking could get his fur completely dry. He never would have left the warm, dry house where he lived, if his task was not so urgent.

Where he used to live. Where the Lady used to feed him breakfast every morning. A hearty bowl of dry kibble. Plus toast, possibly bits of egg or bacon or whatever the Lady was eating that morning; Duke had perfected the Sad Brown Eyes look that usually yielded a treat. Sometimes, if the Lady was distracted, or not feeling well, as had happened more often recently, he could not just phone it in with the standard Sad Brown Eyes. More effort into the performance was needed, including the Low Pathetic Whine, the Chin Resting On Her Leg, or if he really needed to bring out the big guns, the Paw On Leg. Not pawing at her leg, that annoyed her and could backfire on Duke, banishing him to the dog bed in the corner of the kitchen, where he tried his best to look remorseful and sad and to curl up as small as possible, while staring at her in abject misery.

Those time-tested techniques rarely failed, and really only failed when the Mean Girl was there, telling the Lady not to spoil him.

He had never heard anything so ridiculous in his life. What was the purpose of sharing your life with a dog, if not to spoil each other with affection, snuggling together on a cold evening, taking a walk on a sunny day, or giving treats? To be sure, the giving of treats had been entirely one-sided, ever since he brought home a squirrel he had caught in the backyard. It wasn’t like he had asked her to cook the thing for him, he offered it to her out of devotion and loyalty, and her rejection and shouting that he was a Bad Dog and to get that disgusting thing out of the house right this minute, had hurt him. The next time, he made sure the squirrel was a particularly fine specimen of tree-dwelling rodent, but the Lady inexplicably had not been happy about it again.

Humans. No one could understand them.

Duke had not been given his breakfast that morning; he suspected that breakfasts being conveniently provided in a bowl on the floor was over. The Lady had not gotten out of bed that morning, she had gone to bed extra early, not feeling well and looking especially frail, shivering in her nightgown as she slowly climbed the stairs up to her bedroom. Duke had tucked himself extra tightly against her, giving her all the body heat he could provide, and her shivering eventually stopped.

But everything else stopped also. In the morning, her cheek was cold when he nuzzled her face His dog instincts told him she was not getting up that morning, or ever again. That made him inconsolably sad. Not about the lack of breakfast, that only made him hungry. He would never again lean against her on the couch, while she watched the big glowing box that made noise, and she absent-mindedly stroked the fur around his neck. Never again go for a ride, where she drove slowly and only on familiar roads, and never at night. Never again could he whine until she rolled down the passenger side window, so he could stick his head out and experience the ecstasy of flying. Never again would he feel the soul-aching loneliness, when she parked the car and left to Do Whatever Mysterious Thing Humans Did, and he had to stick his nose out the partly open car window, sniffing the air to find out Where She Went and What She Could Possibly Be Doing and When She Would Be Coming Back.

She always came back, sometimes with a little treat for him, and if she had forgotten to buy a treat, there was always a tin of mini biscuits in the glove box. Mini biscuits he could smell and drove him crazy, because he never could figure out how that glove box opened.

Door latches, and doorknobs, were just a few of the many mysteries in Duke’s life.

Like, why had he left the warm, dry house that morning, to trot across soggy fields that still had crusty, dirty snow in the low spots, and squeezing under a fence to go around to the side of the roadside restaurant, huddling under the too-short eaves that had fat drops of cold water dripping on his disheveled coat. Next to a dumpster that smelled mostly of nasty things but there were also tantalizing aromas of things he could eat, whether he should or not. Eventually, he might need to find a way into the dumpster.

But not now.

Now, Duke had important things to do. He did not know why he was waiting, only that he had to do it.

Waiting for Him.

And watching for Them.

Hopefully, He would arrive before Them, for Duke had no real plan if the worst happened, other than to warn Him, and tug on His sleeve to pull Him away from danger.

Duke did not actually know what He looked like, only that his dog instincts would know that He was a good person, and the one for whom Duke was waiting.

Duke also did not know what They looked like.

That didn’t matter. He would know Them when he saw them.

His keen sense of smell might pick up the faint whiff of brimstone that sometimes followed Them, no matter how much They tried to conceal it. He would know.

So, he waited, standing rather than sitting, he did not want anything other than his paws touching the cold pavement. He waited and waited, as one after another of the Big Shiny Rolling Things pulled into the parking lot, and people went into the restaurant, or people came out the door of the restaurant, got in their Big Shiny Rolling Things and left. None of them were of any interest to him, except he yearned to beg from them, when the swirling breeze carried the scent of hot, delicious food from the vent on the roof. His stomach growled and it almost made him forget his purpose. He reminded himself to focus, to focus like when he saw a squirrel right outside the window. As the morning wore on, and the traffic in the parking lot grew more sparse, Duke began to shiver, and to despair.

Until-

There!

A Big Shiny Rolling Thing pulled off the highway, splashing through puddles to pull around to the side of the restaurant. It parked in an awkward space, away from anything else. When the driver got out, he stepped in a puddle, and pulled the hoodie up over his head to keep out of the steady, cold drizzle.

The same drizzle that had Duke soaked to the skin. He couldn’t shake himself dry yet or he would be seen as the man walked by, the-

It was Him.

His heart pounding, Duke willed his traitorous tail to be still, and crouched down, walking backward into the shadows.

CHAPTER TWO

The bell on the front door of the diner rang its sad, flat tone. Ever since the little metal ball on the end of the rod broke off, it made a half-hearted dink sound, rather than ringing like a proper bell. On busy days, Kim relied on the bell to tell her a customer was coming in, but that morning had been slow. No one wanted to go out in the miserable weather. She would rather have stayed in bed rather than getting up to drive to the diner, but bills had to be paid. And when she got to work, the diner was at least cozy and warm. Vic was too cheap to replace the bell, but he did understand the importance of cheery lighting. The diner even had fresh flowers here and there, a bit of color after a cold and dreary February, and a miserable early March so far.

Kim brushed the front of her apron flat before she turned around. The breakfast rush, what there was of it, was over. Probably the bell announced a regular customer, coming in for coffee. She would have to listen to the same jokes, smile whether she wanted to or not, and keep quiet when they took up a booth for an hour, asking for refills of coffee, and leave a twenty cent tip that she was supposed to be grateful for. Be nice, Kim, she told herself as she turned toward the door. They’re just lonely and want a place to-

He-llo.

Coming through the door was not a regular.

Coming through the door was Trouble.

He was around her age, she guessed mid-twenties. Maybe a bit younger, the stubble of a beard made him appear old than he probably was. Not sandpaper stubble, like the two-day growth guys got when they were too lazy to shave on a weekend, the rough stubble that scratched her cheek. His had grown out a bit and was long enough to tickle, a beard that was long enough to give her a thrill when she closed her eyes, and felt that beard against her cheek while a guy kissed her.

Bad-boy stubble, her mother called it, and warned Kim against guys like that. 

A leather jacket over a blue hoodie, worn blue jeans, work boots. A tousled mop of longish curly dark brown hair she wanted to run her fingers through, with strands of lighter brown on top. A guy like that didn’t highlight his hair, she guessed his hair had been bleached by the sun to get those streaks. He had a bit of a tan, too, starting to fade. He had been in the sun recently.

Whoever he was, he stopped just inside the door, looking to the empty booths to his right, then left and-

Caught Kim’s eye.

Lifted his chin ever so slightly to acknowledge her. A silent ‘hello’. With a thumb, he pointed to the booths on the left.

She stepped out from behind the counter. “You,” she caught her breath. “You want to sit by the window?” She cringed. Like anyone cared to see the view of gray drizzle, and cars throwing up spray on the highway.

“Yeah,” he said, his lips curling up in a smile. “That’d be great.”

“Coffee?”

“Uh,” he looked like he had to think about it first. “Sure.”

As he slid into a booth, she turned to pick up the coffee pot, and Vic looked at her. He shook his head once, a gentle, fatherly warning. Vic meant well, but he was old, and married, and Kim did not want to spend her life working in the diner. She wanted excitement and fun and adventure, and that morning, she’d be happy just to talk with the cute guy.

Don’t be stupid, I told myself. The waitress was cute. Early twenties, blonde hair cut in a bob, probably her natural color, based on her eyebrows. It’s a thing I’d learned to notice. Like I noticed the diner didn’t have any security cameras I could see. That was good, anyone hunting me couldn’t use video to get a positive ID anyway, so they couldn’t be sure.

When I caught her eye, I’d automatically smiled because she was smiling at me, before she cast her eyes down for a moment. It’s a flirting thing girls do. I think. I’m not an expert on girls, or an expert on really anything.

Especially, I’m not an expert on magic, even if as far as I know, I am the world’s leading authority on the subject.

The point is, I smiled at her. I shouldn’t have done that. It’s a common courtesy that, in my case, could get people killed. Get her killed. If the bad guys thought she meant something to me, thought they could use her against me, I would be putting her in danger.

Be anonymous. I needed to not be memorable. Just a guy passing through, eating a late breakfast. No one she would think about or be able to describe the next day. For her safety, I needed to be just a customer, soon forgotten.

“Here’s your coffee,” she set it down in front of me, with a bowl overflowing with little plastic packets of cream. “I’m Kim,” she pointed to her name tag.

“Thanks,” I said, looking up with just a tiny smile. She was cute. I’m a guy. It would be odd, and memorable, if I didn’t smile at her. Holding the coffee in my hands felt good, the truck cab never got warm enough due to the open window. “I’m Matt,” I lied.

“You want a menu?”

“Yeah, thanks,” I said, making minimal conversation, not encouraging chit-chat. “It’s been a long day already,” I explained, shaking my head with a sigh and looking down the table. If she thought I was being a jerk, she would remember that. Don’t be jerk, just be a guy trying to get through another day. I looked up but kind of past her, like I wasn’t interested.

“I know the feeling,” she replied, I could see the skin around her eyes crinkle with disappointment.

She brought a menu, I studied it while sipping coffee. I ordered a breakfast combo, the best value for my limited funds. It would be enough to last until dinner. For my dinner, so I wouldn’t have to stop anywhere, I also ordered a turkey sandwich to go.

While I ate, I pretended to be busy on my phone, which was dead, I’d even removed the battery and SIM card to be safe. Holding it tilted away so no one could see the blank screen, I tapped randomly on it, while I stared out the window at nothing, wondering what the hell I would do next. When I finished eating, I still had no idea.

Leaving a tip just over twenty percent, again to not be anything memorable, I tucked the sandwich in a pocket of my jacket. “Thanks,” I said as I stood up. “That was good.”

“Any time,” she wasn’t smiling as much. “Going far?”

“Oregon.” That just popped into my head, I don’t know why. No, I know why. It meant I was going far, and wouldn’t be at the diner again. Forget about me, was what I meant. “It’s a long drive,” I added, draining the last of the coffee.

“Hope you have better weather,” she said while looking past my shoulder, out to the dreary, rain soaked highway.

With just enough of a smile to be polite, I mumbled, “You too,” and walked toward the front door, pulling the hoodie over my head.

Being in the warm, cozy diner made stepping outside into reality even worse. In a week or two, maybe, the piles of dirty snow at the edges of the parking lot would be gone. Green blades of grass would begin poking up from the matted brown remnants of last year. Wildflowers would appear out of nowhere along the roadsides. Later, someone would plant flowers in the space between the diner and the sidewalk. It would be pretty, a bit of cheeriness even on a dreary day. Later.

If I wasn’t depressed already, stepping out of the diner into the pervasive gray of a cold drizzle would have done the trick. No, saying ‘trick’ wasn’t me making a wizard joke.

The walk back to my truck was slower, because with each step, I was hoping for inspiration, a flash of insight about where to go and what to do. I had nothing, other than that I could not go to Oregon, thanks to my stupid remark. That sucks. The rain was supposed to end halfway across Wyoming, leaving clear skies across most of the western US. It would be nice to see Big Sky Country, or was that the slogan for Montana? I didn’t know. If I had an unused burner phone, I could look it up, but my last active one got tossed at a gas station in Illinois.

South. I would drive south. Big cities helped me remain anonymous, there were so many people. Maybe backtrack to St Louis? No, the people hunting me knew I sought a big city whenever I had to move. If they tracked me to the diner, an unlikely event but I had to assume they would, they could put a pin in a map and figure I might be going to St Louis. Maybe I should southwest to Dallas. Or southeast, to Nashville?

That was all just a fantasy. Unless I used the cash I got off the dead guy, the truck wouldn’t have enough gas to get anywhere. Using that cash created a risk that I would be tracked. But, maybe that was OK? Yeah. Drive west, then use the dead guy’s cash to fill up the truck, and go to a Super Walmart to buy groceries and some clothes, and gift cards. It would take time for the cash to be tracked, if it was tagged at all. If it was, maybe that was a good thing. Let the hunters track me to western Missouri, then I turn south, go to Oklahoma or Arkansas. Something like that.

Having a plan, even a half-assed plan that would only last two days, made me feel better. Looking under the truck, there was a colorful skin of antifreeze on top of a puddle, it looked like it was dripping directly from the radiator. The amount of coolant lost wasn’t as big as I feared, although if that meant the radiator was already mostly empty, that was a bad thing. The half gallon of coolant I had left disappeared down into the radiator, without coming close to filling it. Hopefully the gas station down the road had some I could buy, since I needed gas anyway.

There was a small dumpster beside the diner, I lifted the lid and tossed in the empty coolant container, and-

“Hey,” a voice said. “You gonna eat that?”

Jumping back, I reached into the pocket where I kept the Glock pistol. “Who said that?” I asked, feeling like I was reciting a line from a thousand horror movies. It was probably just a guy down on his luck. Like me. I knew the feeling.

“Me.” A dog walked slowly out from behind the dumpster. It was a sort of skinny golden retriever. Mostly. Possibly some type of mutt. I like mutts. This dog was wet and cold and miserable like I was, hanging its head.

“This is your dog?” I called to the unseen guy.

“No,” the dog insisted. “This is me.”

Holy sh-

“You- You can talk?” I whispered, looking around. There was no one else in the parking lot. To be sure someone wasn’t screwing with me, I checked behind the dumpster. Nothing. It was empty. “You can talk,” I repeated stupidly. Yeah, I’m a wizard, but that was the first time I saw actual magic, other than me doing lame tricks.

A talking dog. What the hell?

“Yes,” the dog coughed. “Apparently.”

“How?”

“Magic.” Somehow, the dog managed to add a ‘Duh’ into that single word. “You are a wizard, right?”

“Y- Yeah. Sort of.” Squinting at the dog, I knelt down to feel around its collar, trying to find a speaker. It was just a collar. “I never heard of a talking dog before.”

“You’ve heard of dragons?”

“Sure.”

“But you are surprised to see a talking dog.”

“Look, there are no dragons.” My knowledge of that subject was vague. “Not anymore. Not for a long time.”

“Can we get out of the rain and talk about this?” The dog said. “I’m cold.”

The dog was shivering.

“Yeah,” I said. “Sorry. Uh, I can’t take you in the diner.”

“I meant your truck.”

“Sure.” Both of us splashing through puddles, I opened the rear door on the driver’s side, and the dog jumped onto the back seat. He. He jumped onto the back seat. “I got a towel, let me dry you off, OK?”

“I would like that, thanks.”

Under the seat was a stack of old towels, I rubbed his fur dry while I thought. A talking dog. OMG. Were They now using magic to track me? Aunt Sarah told me magic might be slowly seeping back into the world, though I had seen no clear signs of that. Until now. If the dog was being used against me, I-

No. I didn’t believe the dog harbored evil intentions. He looked so friendly. A bit dopey, but he was a dog, so you’d expect that. When I finished with the towel, he held up a front paw. “Uh,” I guessed, “you want to shake?”  

“No. Are you going to clean off my paws? The Lady always cleaned my paws when I came into the house, or got into her car.”

“Oh, sure.” I wiped the paw, the towel came away with dark mud. Which was all over my back seat. Screw it, I could throw a blanket over the seat. “Who is the Lady?”

“My Lady. I live with her. Lived with her,” he hung his head again.

“Is she a wizard?”

“No.”

“But, oh. You didn’t talk to her?”

“The talking thing is new to me. Just happened this morning, it’s kind of exciting!” His tail thumped on the seat. “Hey, you gonna eat that?”

“Huh? What?”

He sniffed the air. “There’s a turkey sandwich in your pocket. I didn’t get breakfast. I’m hungry,” he pleaded, looking at me with sad brown eyes.

“Yes. I mean, no. You can have it. Uh, we should get out of here.” A car was pulling into the parking lot, the elderly couple inside were peering at me, standing there in the rain with my truck door open. I got in the driver’s seat. “Wait a minute, let me,” I pulled an old wool blanket from under the back seat, and put it on the passenger seat. “Are you OK with sitting in the front?”

“Ooh, yes!” The dog said as he leapt onto the front seat. “Can you please leave the window open?”

“I kind of have to. There’s a bullet hole in it.”

“Oh,” his eyes grew wide, staring at me. Then, any potential danger was forgotten. “What about that sandwich?”

“Here,” I reached into a pocket, unwrapped the sandwich, and tore off a piece.

He stared me. “That’s it?”

“You want the whole thing?”

“I’m hungry.”

“OK, fine,” I unwrapped the rest of it and laid it on the passenger seat. “Don’t eat too fa-”

Two bites.

Two bites, to eat a whole freakin’ sandwich. More like choke down a whole sandwich, he gagged as he swallowed the thing. “Oh my God. Did you even taste it?”

“It was good,” he licked his lips.

“How would you know?! You’re supposed to take time to enjoy it. Have ever heard of ‘savor the flavor’?”

His eyes narrowed. “Sounds like a good way to lose your sandwich. You gotta eat it before someone else does.”

“I gave it to you, I wasn’t going to steal it! There’s no one else around here.”

“It’s a dog thing. Urp,” he burped right in my face.

“Oh that’s- You’re supposed to say ‘excuse me’.”

“I’m a dog, remember?”

“If you’re going to talk like a person, you need to act like one.”

“I’m a dog,” he insisted.

“Uh,” the elderly couple had gotten out of their car and the wife was hurrying into the diner, but the husband was staring at me. Cupping a hand to my ear like I was talking on a phone, I nodded and waved to the guy. He gave me a funny look, but turned and walked toward the diner’s front door. “We should get out of here. Where are we going?”

“You’re asking me?”

“You’re wearing a collar. You must live around here, right?”

“I do. I did.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Lady, she,” he looked away, out the open window. “She died last night.” He blinked, his eyes watering.

I never saw a dog cry before. I hugged him and he slumped against me, heaving with sobs. Have you ever wondered whether your dog really loves you, or just hangs around you for the food?

He loves you.

You should love him.

“Hey, hey? She died last night?” I asked. “Is anyone else in the house?” My guess was no, since he mentioned not having breakfast.

“No, it was just the two of us.” He blinked away tears.

Another car was coming into the parking lot. “We need to go, somewhere.” I started the truck, and eased out onto the highway, headed toward the gas station.

“So, no one knows about your Lady?” I asked, driving slowly because I was not sure where I should be going. The truck still needed more coolant, and the gas station was up the road. Finding a talking dog hasn’t changed the facts about the leaking radiator.

It had changed everything else.

“No.” The tip of his tail lifted once and dropped, limp and sad.

“I, uh, should take you home anyway.”

“I belong with you.”

“Why?”

“You are a wizard.”

“How do you know- I’m only sort of a wizard. There really isn’t much magic stuff I can do,” I admitted. Enough magic that I had bad guys, and feds, and feds who might be bad guys, and probably others, hunting me.

“I belong with you,” he insisted. “Hey!” He excitedly stood his front paws on the door sill, sticking his nose out the window. “I know this place! That tree, a big fat squirrel lives in it.”

 A big tree, maybe an oak because the branches still had dead, brown leaves clinging to them, was at the corner of the highway and a side road. Pumping the brakes, I brought the truck to a stop.  “Should I turn here? Do you live down this road?”

“I’ve never driven, how should I know?”

Regardless, I made the turn. “What about that house?” I pointed to a place we passed. “Do you recognize it?”

“Maybe.”

We made several wrong turns, until he barked excitedly. “Here! Here!” He almost lunged out the window, I grabbed onto the scruff of his neck and hauled him back in, then pressed the button to roll the window up so it was open only a few inches.

“This is where you live?”

“No. But my Lady walked me here. The people who live in that house would give me treats, if they were outside. Can we stop? Maybe they have treats.”

“No, we are not stopping.” The house that got him excited, a one-story brick ranch, was at the corner of a dirt road. I took the right turn on a hunch and drove on, avoiding the deeper potholes. It was easy enough, there were only five houses on that road, four clustered together on what looked like five acre lots, and at the end of the road, a small two-story farmhouse. The other houses might have been built on land that originally was part of the farm. If it was a farm once, it appeared to be dormant now.

“Is this it?”

“Yes! Yes!” He put his front paws on the dashboard excitedly.

“Stay in the truck,” I held onto his collar.

The house was old, it needed a fresh coat of white paint. The faded blue shutters were real, some of them sagged on their hinges. No front porch, the front windows on the first floor had fixed awnings over them. Green and white striped aluminum awnings, of the style nobody uses anymore.  The walkway to the front door was concrete that had cracked and crumbled over the years, it hadn’t seen any efforts at maintenance in a long time. A dark layer of fresh mulch that lined the street side of the walkway showed that the homeowner was taking some care of the place, maybe she would have planted flowers there in the spring. Behind the house there was a single car garage, at the end of the gravel driveway, the bottom couple inches of the garage door was splattered with mud. Overall, it just looked depressing, or maybe that was the weather. 

I stopped the truck in front of the garage. “We need to talk.”

“We need to go in,” he insisted.

“I’m not going anywhere, until I know what’s going on. First, what is your name?”

“My Lady called me Duke. The Mean Girl sometimes called me ‘Duck’,” his tail drooped. “My Lady didn’t like that.”

“Who is the Mean Girl?” I looked at the house, fearful someone was looking back at me through one of the darkened windows.

“She comes sometimes, to visit. Sometimes she brings the Mean Man with her. I don’t like him either. He smells like pine trees. The Lady said he wore too much cologne, she always opened the windows after he left.”

“All right, now we’re getting somewhere. You started talking only this morning? How did that happen? Did you always have magic?”

“I don’t have magic.”

“Then how-”

“I am channeling the spirit of a wizard from ancient Babylonia?” His doggy tongue stumbled over the word.

“You said that as a question.”

“I only know what he tells me.”

“Babylon, huh? What’s his name?”

“He says you should call him ‘Marduk’.”

“Marduk? No, I can’t call a dog Marduk. Marmaduke, maybe,” I added under my breath.

“He says ‘Marmaduke’ sounds sufficiently grand,” the dog said, wagging his tail happily.

“No, I- I can’t call you Marmaduke.”

“Why not?”

“It’s a long story. Uh, I’ll just call you ‘Duke’, OK? That was the name of John Wayne’s dog.”

“John Wayne? My Lady likes him,” he brightened. “She called him ‘The Duke’.”

“No, that was his nickname. John Wayne’s dog was named ‘Duke’. Is that OK?”

He looked up, like he was having a private conversation. “Yes, that is acceptable.”

“Great. Can you tell me why a wizard from ancient Babylon channeled his spirit into a dog, in Missouri?”

“The dog part was a mistake,” Duke hung his head, avoiding my eyes. “He is kind of embarrassed about it.”

“I would be. No offense, Duke.”

“None taken,” he said with a dopey grin. “He says you couldn’t channel yourself into anything.”

“Ah, he’s right about that. So, this was all a mistake?”

“No. Being in a dog is a mistake. He is here now, because you are here, now.”

“You’re not like a, fan club or something?”

“No. I am here because you need me.”

“I need a talking dog?”

“You need an experienced wizard to guide you.”

“My Aunt never mentioned this channeling thing.”

“Was your Aunt a wizard?” Duke’s voice became deeper, and he spoke slowly. My guess is at that point, I was talking directly to Marduk.

“No,” I shook my head. “Uh, she taught me about stuff, little things. She called them ‘tricks’. She taught me what little I know. She said nobody could do real magic now, because magic left the world.”

“She is partly correct. If she was not a wizard, and you would know if she was, she might have been drawing on your power, when she performed ‘tricks’.”

“I don’t have any power. Not much power.”

“You have enough that I recognized you, I was drawn to you, across time and space,” he said, sounding less like a dog when he spoke of magic.

“You’re here to, what? Train me?”

“To train you, and guide you. Anything I can do, to prepare you to assist you, to do what is needed. Your Aunt never explained any of this?”

“She told me there used to be magic in the world, but it’s almost gone now. That’s good, because if it ever comes back, it would be a disaster.”

“It would be the end of this world, as you know it,” Duke agreed. “Come, we must go inside.”

As he spoke, he sounded less and less like a dog, and more like, whoever the hell was in there. But Duke or Duke still had a friendly, dopey doggy expression. “Please,” he said, sounding entirely like a normal dog again.

Like a normal talking dog.

Which was not normal.

“OK.” I figured someone, who was not a dog, needed to check on his Lady. Maybe she had suffered a stroke and needed help.

Remembering to use gloves so I didn’t leave fingerprints, I tried the side door of the house. It was locked. There wasn’t a mat or a flowerpot to hide a key under, and no other obvious hiding places. I know about that stuff because I have resorted to being a burglar from time to time. I’m not proud of it, but when you’re living off the grid and being hunted by the feds and bad guys who want to kill me, you do what you have to for survival. “Do you know where your Lady hid a key?”

“No.” Duke nudged my leg with his muzzle. “If you will get out of the way, I’m going in the doggy door.”

“Uh,” I stepped aside and crouched down to examine the dog door. It was low and narrow. “I, don’t think I can fit through there. You got another idea?”

“Yes. I’m going in.”

“That doesn’t do me any good.”

“I will go inside,” Duke said slowly, looking up at me. “Get the keys off the hall table, and bring the keys to you.”

“Oh.”

“Duh.”

I felt like an idiot. “Sorry. Yeah, do that.”