Despite my ravaged body, I was back on the rooftops that evening, and Marilyn was right. There were thugs all over the Mulberry Estate and its surrounding areas. I crept from rooftop to rooftop with my binoculars watching the derelict parks, underpasses, foot tunnels, and garages. They were everywhere. Usually in groups of four or five and they didn’t look like they were just loitering. I saw a few tell tale signs of weapons on and around them. They were twitchy and restless as if they were waiting for something. Were they waiting for me?

  I never considered that taking down that little gang would have any real consequences but here I was looking at the results. I always knew the gangs of New London’s Boroughs were particularly territorial, but I hadn’t expected they would perceive me as a threat to their control. I also didn’t think people would be foolish enough to hold me up as some sort of symbol to rally behind… to be honest I hadn’t really thought about anything. I just wanted to take down some bad guys.

  “Well, looks like they don’t want to be taken down,” I muttered to myself as I stared intently through the binoculars.

  Who were all these goons and where had they come from? What did they want? The Mulberry had grown wildly out of control with some 10,000 residents crammed into space that would be tight for 5,000. It was impossible to know everyone. They could have all been local thugs or drafted in from the other ghettos of New London. I had no way of knowing. I groaned as I straightened up from my crouch and massaged my sore quads. There was only one way to find out: I had to interrogate one of them.

  “So I’ll just zip down there with my super duper magical Mage powers, snatch one of them up, and hang him upside down from the building edge until he talks. Easy.” I muttered sullenly to myself.

  I had no super duper Mage powers left. Other than my Grandad’s bat strapped to my back and the Grapple Cord, I didn’t have any enchanted gear left. I didn’t have an ounce of the Agility Potion still in my system, for all intents and purposes I was just regular old scrawny me. In fact, I was a little bit worse because of this flu and my aching muscles than regular old me.

  I wiped my nose on the back of my hand and limped across the four storey yellow brick’s roof to get a better look at the gang I was trailing. They were just kids really, not much older than me. They were the usual combination of dirty, dishevelled, and outlandishly dressed as was the style amongst knuckle draggers in the Boroughs. These lot had spiked mohawks of various colours, tattoos that looked more like crayon drawings, piercings anywhere that was obscene, and they were wearing far too much leather. The gang style was apparently derived from some ancient movie called ‘Warriors’ or something. I’d never seen it, but these types loved it.

  I sat on my haunches watching the gang below me. They snorted, they spat, they cackled, they had play fights, they swore and screamed at the top of their lungs, and they menaced the general vicinity. They were also drinking heavily, glugging from tall brown bottles and passing them around.

  “I need to piss!” one of them announced loudly, slightly slurring his words.

  He stumbled around the corner and into the abandoned little square of grass that passed for a park in the Mulberry Estate. I ghosted after him. The goon had a dirty blonde mohawk with a metal bar through his nose. He was skinny and had hard, sharp features like a bird of prey. He spat on the floor and then stood in front of a tree, unzipping himself. I slid down the drainpipe on the side of the building, landing with only a small thud and stole into the park behind him. The thug groaned as he emptied his bladder, rolling his neck left and right as he did. I wouldn’t get a better chance than this. I waited for him to finish and begin zipping up before I made my move. I crept across the park and whipped my Grapple Cord at his ankle.

  “What the…” he slurred drunkenly and then he was yanked upwards by his feet.

  The punk cried out in surprise as he was thrown into the air. I looped the Grapple Cord over the limb of the tree he had pissed on and secured the Cord around its thick base. The goon hung upside down spinning around and around while screaming. It turned out I had moved too quickly and he didn't finish buckling up his tight, ripped jeans, and now they flapped around his waist, gravity being the only thing holding them up.

  “Waaahhh!! What’s goin’ on!” he cried out, waving his arms wildly. “Who’s there? This ain’t funny! When I get hold of you I’m gonna…”

  “You’re gonna what?” I growled from behind him, trying to make my voice sound deep and threatening, and only managing to sound like I had a sore throat as well as a blocked nose.

  “Who’s that?” the goon said, trying to spin himself around. “What d’you think you’re doing?”

  “Don’t worry about who I am,” I hissed, spoiling the effect by coughing involuntarily. “All that matters is who you are.”

  “Who I am?” the thug repeated.

  “Yeah… who are you?” I said.

  “I’m Ralphie,” the goon replied.

  Well that wasn’t helpful.

  “I mean who are you… who do you work for? What are you doing here?” I growled.

  “I was just taking a piss!” Ralphie moaned.

  “No… not here…” I said in frustration. “I mean on the Mulberry Estate! Why are you all here?”

  “I dunno!” Ralphie said, his face starting to turn red. “Come on man, cut me down! I ain’t done nothing!”

  “Who do you work for?”

  “You’re that guy aren’t ya?” Ralphie said, his tone pleading. “You’re the one that beat the shit out of Festus and his gang? Come on man, I’m just a nobody, you ain’t gotta hurt me!” Ralphie babbled. “Just let me down and I’ll leave and I won’t say a word to no one, I promise!”

  “How did you know it was me?” I asked, my gruff voice slipping.

  “Everyone knows man! Some crazy guy with weird powers, that’s what Festus told the coppers. Said you attacked them for no reason!” Ralphie said.

  “They’d been terrorising the Estate!” I said fiercely.

  “Yeah right, sure. Festus is a right wrong ‘un, you ain’t gotta tell me,” Ralphie said, nodding his head. “But I ain’t like him. I ain’t hurt nobody!”

  “Yet.” I said.

  “Oh come on man!” Ralphie pleaded. “Don’t do no juju on me! I swear I’ll leave and I won’t come back!”

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “You know I have powers?” I asked.

  “Yeah, Festus said you was doing all sorts of weird stuff,” Ralphie babbled, nodding his head vigorously.

  “Well then, you’d best answer my questions before I do some weird stuff to you!” I grimaced, that came out wrong. I really had to work on my vigilante patter.

  But it had the desired effect on Ralphie. He squirmed and shook his head vehemently.

  “Naa man, you ain’t gotta do nothing to me! I swear! I’ll tell you whatever you wanna know!”

  “Who do you work for?” I asked.

  “Brick! Alright, I work for the Syndicate!”

  “Why are you all here?”

  “He told us to come down here and put the people back in their place, show ‘em who’s boss… and to find you,” Ralphie said, his voice hoarse.

  “To find me?”

  “Yeah. Find the guy who done over Festus and his boys. Brick’s put a bounty out on you, but no one knows nothin’ about who you are. I swear!”

  “So this is all happening because of me?” I said, more to myself than Ralphie.

  “Yeah… I suppose,” Ralphie replied.

  “Where can I find this Brick?” I asked, jabbing him in the back and making him cringe.

  “Trust me mate, you don’t wanna find him. You sound like you’re just a kid. Trust me, Brick is bad news. Don’t matter how many spells or whatever you know, Brick’s a animal, leave him well alone.” Ralphie said.

  “Where can I find him!” I snarled in Ralphie’s ear.

  “I dunno!” Ralphie said, cringing again. “I told you, I’m a nobody, I’ve only seen him a couple of times.”

  “Where?”

  “Different places!” Ralphie whimpered. “Usually they just get us together at the docks or somewhere!”

  I gritted my teeth and exhaled deeply.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’m going to let you down, but I want you to stay on the ground and count to ten before you move, understand?”

  Ralphie nodded his head.

  “If you move before ten… I’ll blow you to pieces with my powers. Got it?”

  “Yes boss!” Ralphie whimpered.

  “Make sure you count loud!” I said as I willed the Cord to go slack.

  Ralphie fell in an unceremonious heap and kept his nose pressed against the grass.

  “One! Two! Three!” he shouted with his hands on his head.

  I disappeared back on to the rooftops and away before he had gotten to nine.

  *

  "Mageling! I didn't expect to see you back on your feet so soon," the Pigeon King cooed, flapping his wings. "Welcome!”

  I limped into the deserted park, a grim look on my face.

  "What is the matter, boy?" the Pigeon King asked, seeing the thunder in my eyes.

  "It's my home," I said, then thought for a moment. "My kingdom is under attack.”

  This seemed to garner the Pigeon King's interest. His golden eyes widened, and he flapped a wing at the cooing and pecking pigeons around him, silencing them.

  "Someone attacks my vassel's kingdom?" the Pigeon King asked.

  "Yes," I replied. "They are a gang known as the Syndicate.”

  "Ah, the Syndicate," the Pigeon King replied.

  "You know them?" I said.

  "Of course." The Pigeon King threw his wings wide to his collected feathered followers. "I know a great many things that go on in this city.”

  "How?"

  He waved his wings at his followers.

  "My boy, is there a square inch of this city where you have never seen one of my feathered followers?" Now that I thought about it, he was right. Pigeons were as ubiquitous in New London as red buses and delayed trains. "They bring me a great many tidbits on their wings, and this Syndicate is well known to me."

  "Well, they've invaded my home," I said. "And they're hurting people, and they're looking for me.”

  "And why would they be looking for you?" the Pigeon King asked.

  "Because I took down some of their members," I said.

  "These would be the four men you brutalised and earned yourself a gut wound from?" the Pigeon King said.

  "Yeah, that's them," I said, unconsciously rubbing my hand against the scar on my stomach.

  "And now they have come to exact revenge from you? How tantalising," the Pigeon King said, and he seemed legitimately excited. "Whatever shall you do, mageling?"

  "I want to defeat them."

  "You do? Why?" the Pigeon King asked.

  "What do you mean why? I told you," I said. "They've been hurting people, and they're doing it because of me. It's my responsibility."

  "But they don't know who you are," the Pigeon King replied. "Do they?"

  "No," I said.

  "Then all you have to do, my boy, is stay out of their way. Surely they will grow bored and disinterested after a short while. Humans are so very good at that," the Pigeon King said with a flippant shake of his head.

  "But what about the people they're going to hurt?" I said, perhaps more forcefully than I meant.

  The Pigeon King looked down at me.

  "Are these people who are family to you?"

  "No," I said.

  "Do you owe them some great debt?" he asked.

  "No," I replied through gritted teeth.

  "Then, boy, it is none of your business. Besides, you're too busy paying your debts to me to be running around defeating villains," the Pigeon King clacked his beak, and with that, I felt like the conversation was over.

  "Listen, you don't understand," I said to him. "They're hurting people because of me, and I have the power to stop them, so it's my responsibility." I practically shouted this at the Pigeon King.

  He looked down his beak at me, then flew from his perch and hovered in front of me. I suddenly felt hundreds of cold pigeon eyes focused on me.

  "What about your responsibilities to me, mageling?" the Pigeon King asked. "You are in my debt, remember? You would have no life to throw away in some foolish, ill conceived heroics, if it were not for my kindness."

  "Either you help me," I said to him evenly, "or you don't. Either way, I'm going after them, and yeah, I'll probably get killed. So I guess you and me will be even then."

  I turned around and began limping away.

  "Tell me, boy, why did you come here?" the Pigeon King called after me.

  I stopped and looked over my shoulder at him.

  "Because I need power," I said frankly. "I need way more power than I have, and you're the only creature I know that can teach me the Craft."

  "It's power you seek?" The Pigeon King's voice had gone strange.

  It wasn't the usual melodic exuberance of his regular voice. This voice was raspier, more unnatural, as if it didn't even emanate from the pigeon's body. I felt a shiver crunch down my spine, but I held my nerve and turned to face him.

  "I need to know how to read that book. I need the Craft. So yeah, it's power that I seek."

  And the Pigeon King smiled, as much as a pigeon can smile, a dark look in his golden eyes.

  "Well then, boy, I may be able to teach you something, but it will not be quick. You cannot simply learn the Craft in 24 hours. While I admit, as talentless as you are, you have shown some remarkable grit and determination, but it takes decades, centuries to learn the Craft properly.”

  "I don't have that long."

  "Oh, you mortals, always in a rush! I can aid you in this campaign of yours, but you will owe me more than you did before," the Pigeon King said.

  "Fine, whatever," I said.

  "No, boy, understand, you owe me, and a debt in our world means far more than what it does in yours." There was that rasp again to his voice, and I felt as if the Pigeon King and I were the only two creatures in the whole world. A shiver of cold ran down my arms. I licked my lips nervously and then nodded.

  "Then I will be in your debt, Pigeon King."

  "Wonderful," the Pigeon King rasped. A black shadow reached around him, stretching as far as my eye could see. "Wonderful," the guttural voice repeated again.