Burn With the Burning

Fire, fire was everywhere. The entire warehouse serene and business like in the moment exploded with fire and destruction. People were running screaming everywhere, some on fire, some just running from the smoke and flames, others trying to steal things in the mayhem. But mayhem and fire was everywhere. I was among the wreckage burning with glee I hadn't felt since I'd given in to corruption. The men with guns had run away, Ned ran with them, thankfully he was apprehended while fleeing the fire (the police were alerted when suddenly a building went up in flames, he was later convicted on not properly paying his property taxes you have to love a good tax conviction).

All of that didn't matter to me though, I was burning. I was using the flame from the fire to fan other flames and causing destruction wide spread across the entire warehouse. I had become one with the flame, letting it into myself and bathing in it (not literally but I came pretty close). I couldn't help myself, I guess because for so long I'd let myself simply exist as a necromancer, as someone who kept things in check, I had freed myself and in that I destroyed. I destroyed everything. Chandler would later complain I made it harder to go after Ned because I destroyed all the evidence but to hear those complaints I had to stop burning and I didn't do that for a time.

I actually left the warehouse partially enclosed in flame and just walked off down the street. No one would come near the burning man as he just strolled around watching the world through my world of flame. I probably came close to corrupting myself, but I exhalted in the flame. When I finally extinguished it was near the river. I sat there naked as the day is long just relaxing in the post fire serenity of it, like sex only without the messyness.

"I always hate that when I think I've got you, you do something like this and survive." Morley ruined my moment of serenity, because that's what he does he ruins things. He's a ruiner. I know I say this after I literally burned an entire building down because I was moderately mad. Look I'm a hypocrite you know this!

The Man Behind The Man

We moved beyond the room of runes deeper into the underground complex Ned used to store and ship out dangerous magical artifacts (this is where people who aren't magical make so many mistakes, like they can't tell one from another so they'll have something rather benign next to something that could kill them instantly and have no clue). Ned was moving fairly fast I had to walk briskly to keep up. We arrived at his real office and he left two men outside. The inside of it was also covered in anti magical runes, he also had some weird electrical devices set up I later found out canceled out recording equipment.

"So your making a play on Morley eh?" Ned was talking that conspiracy whisper people like to make when no one else is around.

"Several times he's tried on my life, I can trace most moments of misery in it to that man, its about time I give him some in return." Like I've always said the best lies are truths. Wait that, nevermind keep going.

"And you want me to risk my operation to help you take him down?" Ned didn't seem like the kind of guy who would care about what I did with what I acquired.

"I don't see how you helping me locate something of mine anyways would put you in danger."

"Looking for anything associated with Morley would be dangerous." He was balancing something on his hand, it looked like a human bone of some kind, but I couldn't make out what it was.

"Well then we're done here, if you aren't going to help I'm out." At this point I was wondering what exactly Chandler wanted me to find other than this warehouse. It was kind of out of the way, but not exactly hidden, I have to admit I hadn't gotten very many good instructions on what to do here.

"Hold on, hold on we're negotiating."

"We are?"

"You're a businessman you know how this goes I tell you no, you ask what I can do and we go back and forth on this." This seemed a little too confesionary and I was right it totally was.

"So what can you do for me Ned? And what will it cost?" He smiled and put the bone down.

"Let me show you what I got Trezlan, and then we can talk about cost." He hustled me out of his office and past a bunch of dangerous stuff into a backroom with no exist and a lot of men with guns. "What I got is you, and what I'm going to get is a lot of money from Morley."

"Well aren't you a peach Ned." He clamped the shackles on me and then all kinds of awful things broke loose. And by that I mean I blew some shit up, because it had been a while and sometimes you just have to blow something up, especially if that something think they can turn you into someone awful.

If You Know Me You Know This is a Bad idea

"Sit." There were guns all around and the room was covered in anti magical runes, it was one of those threats without a threat. There were two chairs mine and the man across from me. He was in a nice suit and smelled faintly of woman's perfume which had won him the nick name in the underworld of Nancy Ned, though Ned was not one to actually be a polite guy Chandler showed me the list of dead people attributed to him.

"I'm just glad to have a meeting with you Ned, its Ned right?" Being polite is always important when meeting someone of a higher criminal class than yourself, there are rules to these things very large lengthy hidden rules.

"Ned is fine, and you claim to be Trezlan Lorentino, the fifth one I've dealt with, though I'll admit the previous ones were all white, coming in as a dark skinned man brave, stupid, but brave." I was patently insulted that my legend had apparently changed my skin color. Just like apparently my very red hair has become white or black depending on the story. Now seeing as I'm a person who spread rumors of myself this annoys me that someone was counter spreading rumors.

"I assure you I'm the real deal, I've been out of circulation for a while, but I've gotten back into things and I'm in the market for something I lost along the way."

"And that's why you have wormed your way into my organization, hoping to get something you lost? Or are you working for Detective Chandler?" I heard the hammer hit back behind my head, I knew that the jig as it were, was probably up. I was cool as the other side of the pillow, I was the king of not losing your cool. It's why I didn't like immediately light the room on fire and kill everyone in attendance. I certainly did not start stammering and over explaining in a panic because while I thought I could use magic I certainly did not want to test it against all the runes in the room.

"I want to kill Morley!" I basically went with the truth among all truths. I figure if they knew who I was, they'd know who Morley was and they'd know I was legit, even if I was not. Ned gave me a stare for a bit and the nodded at the guy behind me and I heard the release of the hammer and put the pistol away.

"And how do you know Morley?"

"How do you think? He's my gods damned enemy man has tried to kill me several times as of late, I think its about time I return the favor." Ned seemed to chew over my honesty for a moment.

"People have seen you with Chandler..."

"I was playing him to get to you to kill Morley, its been decades since I've been in the business, you think I knew who to get a hold of?"

"Fair enough, if you're screwing with me Lorentino I'll cut you up into little pieces." I nodded at him.

"Ned I wouldn't lie to you, I only lie to people I know." This was of course a lie. And Ned knew that, but what he didn't know is what I knew so he let me play along before dropping the hammer as it were. Ned was a nice guy like that.

Sliming My Way Up The Chain

Unlike when I was able to effortlessly take over the Pavarossi criminal empire (because it was turned over to me...) getting my way into the magical smugglers was extremely difficult. Like I thought I'd just drop my name show my extensive knowledge on all things magical and be in like something thats extremely easy to be in with, but no they immediately suspected I was a liar, charlatan or worse fraudster! Criminals! How dare they question the great Trezlan Lorentino! Apparently in my absences there have been several Trezlan Lorentino's who have emerged to claim my throne (which seems weird because the only thing I really have is that people are constantly trying to kill me, probably why those Trezlan's never hang around very long they get dead and fast). So I basically had to work low level deals for not that magical things to try and get an in with the people who ran things. Which took months. I swear the things I did for Chandler I'd never do for anyone else. And all this time Chandler was chomping on my ass to get better info and to go higher up the chain.

I swear "doing someone a favor" usually means putting yourself out so some jerk can act entitled about getting your help. And that's my role in life gods damn it! For as often as I am accused of this kind of behavior I'm more often at the whims of a person like Chandler, than doing it to anyone else! Especially since Nidget died/isn't dead/I have no idea anymore! I need a new shorty side kick, if only those back to life spells actually work. Wait I have an idea... nevermind uhh magic smuggling yeah it was a pain in the ass, but eventually I got to the man in charge and then was immediately betrayed, because nothing is ever easy!

Undercover? No I'll Stay Above Them

There were police all over, taking samples, talking to each other, talking to Chandler, talking to me. The death of someone in a policeman's apartment apparently drags out an entire army of people all with a specific job. I didn't all know what those jobs were, but I was of course still kind of drunk while they were asking all these questions that implied I did something bad (Chandler was the guy who shot him!) apparently he was some low level bad guy from some lower crime family (organized crime why do you keep coming up in my life? Its like it goes in cycles sometimes you eat a lot of one type of food, sometimes you keep running into organized crime). If he hadn't specifically wanted to kill Chandler I would have suspected someone followed me home (I didn't exactly slink my way back, just hitch hiked). It was a rough couple hours as I sat there and answered questions and demonstrated where everyone was and what they said, by the time it was all said and done I wasn't even drunk anymore which sucked because I liked the drunk feeling, but the tired put upon thing that replaced it was no fun substitute. Eventually everyone found their way out of Chandler's apartment so it was just me and him and the outline of a body with dried blood.

"I thought you were in the magic division of your department?" It was the first thing I had to ask, because I was confused how someone working with magical people could run into the mob.

"Well I haven't always worked for the magic division, and crazily enough magic is involved in a lot of organized crime, a fact which you obviously are probably well aware of." I wasn't actually, but that's more I hadn't dealt in illicit magical stuff for a long time, a fact that shamed me how out of touch I'd become with it.

"Well I have been out of town for a while." Chandler who has also sobered up (killing a man tends to do that to you) gave me a sour look, and then he started smiling in a way that was disconcerting.

"You know you could just be what I need to deal with these assholes."

"Someone who doesn't know them at all? I fail to see," And then it dawned on me, "Nope not going to happen Chandler."

"You'd be perfect, your name is probably already known to these clowns and they'd never suspect someone as arrested as you are with working for us."

"Or they'd suspect it right away based on how often I'm arrested! But I'm not a snitch unless it benefits me, and this would not at all benefit me." Chandler just kept on smiling and I knew I was screwed and sure enough three days later I was standing in front of a cellar door with my hat in my hand and I knew I'd been screwed by some policeman juju. Stupid liking people it makes you do things you totally hate to do!

Everyone Has Enemies

Detective Chandler can't handle his liquor at all. Like I'm a practiced drinker after centuries of drinking all kinds of horrible things, but Chandler clearly didn't have nearly my amount of experience or ability at handling the amounts of drinking we'd done. He ended up leaning on me so much on the way back to his apartment I was basically carrying him the whole way. I didn't mind because I was drunk myself and thus more open to physical contact even if from another man (look sometimes when your drunk sexuality becomes more fluid... we didn't sleep with each other or anything I'm just saying if something like that happens it doesn't mean anything, ok I've said too much). Chandler was so drunk and incapable I had to find the correct key to open his apartment door (thank the gods he only had 3 keys on the ring, if he pulled out a janitor ring we'd have been there till he sobered). I got him into his sparse apartment laid him to bed and slinked out (I left his clothes on, but seeing as he's a grown man he can take them off himself I'm not some kind of pervert.). I was slinking out of his apartment because I was drunk and feeling funny when I heard the click of a hammer.

"Sit down." I figured for a brief moment that Chandler had some how sobered up, got his gun and was now threatening me before I turned around and saw a completely different person just standing there like an asshole. Since I was still very drunk I'll admit I didn't exactly put the right kind of movement to sitting down. I held my hands up with a goofy grin and then collapsed on to one of the few chairs in the room like a goof.

"You got me officer, I was trying to help a fellow man to bed." Again fairly drunk not exactly judging the situation rationally.

"Chandler in there?" I looked into the room and back at the gunman and shrugged. I mean he had to have seen me and Chandler walk in, he had to have seen me come out, so who else would be in the room.

"Probably? I mean he gave me his keys, its got to be his place probably." He reared back with his pistol like he was going to strike me with it, and then thought better on it seeing as how drunk I was (I handled my liquor better than Chandler but I was still excessively drunk, and I'm an asshole so you know twofer).

"Stay where you are." Now I was drunk, but I could tell this guy probably wanted to harm if not kill Chandler, and while I was kind of not super useful right now I had to do something. So I stumbled after the gunman who looked at me like a parent does a small stupid child. I mean I wasn't even able to get to my feet, I just kind of fell on the floor near him and for my trouble and he kicked me in the face. Which seemed like a gross over compensation for my drunken stumbling, how did he not know I wasn't just trying to go to the bathroom? I ask you this knowing full well I intended on trying to stop him from hurting Chandler. As I was trying to get to my feet I heard a gun shot, shockingly it was Chandler, apparently he wasn't as drunk as I thought. The man who had hit me collapsed on the floor his last breaths spent looking into my eyes.

"Should you like call this in or something?" I didn't want to have to testify to something in my state, but I was pretty sure you can't just shoot someone even if they intended on killing you.

"Give me a minute I'm way too drunk and if I call it in like this I'll lose my job." So throw out what I said about him not being too drunk. Still he was a damn good drunk shot, which is something he should have been lauded for, but modern authorities frown on this kind of thing I guess. So silly.

And There Are Times I miss Home?

When I got home (rode the bus it was a nerve wracking experience that I'll not want to repeat here, it just solidified my desire to never have children) there was a fire, two separate bank robberies, and a hostage situation (it stemmed from one of the bank robberies). So many awful things happened at a time I started to question why I came home at all. I mean I'm not a police officer or really an anything, but so many bad things going on that I wasn't involved in made me worry that eventually those bad things would involve me! It was so bad I invited Detective Chandler out for drinks so I could complain about things... Well I wanted to complain but he got there first the selfish jerk didn't he know I only asked him out so I could complain? What the hell Chandler!

"It's like every day something stupider happens, and you weren't even in town so I couldn't blame you for it at all." I admit in the short time I'd known the man he already had the dislike for me of a seasoned vet, in a way it was nice also insulting because come on!

"Yeah that's, that's not good, aside from the fact you assume I would be involved in every crime, that's insulting I do a lot of not bad things too!" Not many mind you, but enough to balance the scales ordinarily. We weren't at Valryms who was still in recovery, it was some policeman's bar where I felt completely out of place.

"I like how you said not bad things, it was like you were hedging your bets on recent activity."

"About that..."

"I don't want to know about what you may or may not have been involved in, you weren't in town and that's good enough for me." Chandler was a pal like this, he had this "I don't know what you did, I'd prefer not to, so don't tell me." It was nice from an authority figure. Therod used to just suspect me in everything and constantly threaten to murder me. I assume it was the loss of killing people authority that prompted this new kinder gentler police. Or maybe Chandler was just a nicer guy. Nah it was the can't kill people without paperwork.

"So shit sucks all over huh?"

"Real bad man, real bad." And at that we clanked glasses and drank in silence for the rest of the night. Like men, men who are avoiding their real problems to have completely new ones invented by alcohol. Gods I love being home!