Bella awakens at night to a very loud noise from below her room. She shoots up from her bed and listens carefully. From her intuition, it sounded like a bottle falling and breaking on the ground. She hears more rustling coming from the shop below. She grabs her hairpin from her nightstand, enlarges it to the size of a wand, and gets up from bed. Still in her night clothes, she walks through the door to her shop. She slowly takes steps, keeping her back to the wall as she descends the stairs. When she reaches the mouth of the stairs, she hears people whispering. She swears under her breath. It's another robbery. She wants to go back to her bed and wait for the police tomorrow. She would not risk any injury or damage that way, but she doesn’t want to lose any of her products. It's costly to make new mixtures and she can’t afford any loss of revenue. She grits her teeth, frustrated at her position. Bella turns the door knob silently before kicking the door open.
When she enters the room, she sees three people cloaked in black surrounding the safe. They all look over her in unison, pulling knives out.
“You all have 5 fucking seconds to get the fuck out of my store before I kick your teeth in.”
Bella snaps her fingers and the door swings open. One of the thieves looks over, considering their options.
“And why would we do that? We came here for something and we’re not leaving without it.”
“I don’t fight with steel, I fight with what you people call ‘magic’. I can give you guys a world of hurt if I wanted to, but I’m trying to give you a way out. I got in trouble for breaking the last robber’s bones. That was about two months ago, and I think he was just able to walk last week. So one last time: Get the fuck out of my store.”
One of the robbers bolts out the door as soon as Bella says her last words. The remaining two groan as they shift their stance to Bella, ready to attack.
“He was a smart one for leaving.”
“He wasn’t smart, he was nervous. We’ll make sure he regrets leaving us behind.”
Bella smirks
“Only if you’re lucky to get out of here”
Bella quickly points her wand at the shelf and flicks it towards herself. A bottle is pulled from the shelf and falls onto the second robber. It shatters, spreading its contents all over the robber’s shoulders. The robber falters and Bella rushes towards him, kicking him in the crotch. Bella sweeps his legs, making him fall to the ground before she picks him up with the wand, tossing him out the open door. The remaining robber lunges towards Bella with a knife in hand. Bella holds up the wand to make contact with the robber’s arm, blocking the knife and preventing it from plunging into her chest. She pushes hard to keep the knife from entering her body, but the robber pushes harder. She kicks again at the robber’s knees, causing them to fold and hits them with the robber’s body with her shoulder. On the ground, he scrambles to get up and throws his knife at Bella. The knife makes contact and is stuck in Bella’s knee. Bella grits her teeth to not yell in pain and kicks the robber once more in the stomach. She points her wand at his body, picking him up with levitation. She slams him against the ground with levitation.
“And you.. Don’t come back, you hear?”
Bella swings her wand and watches the robber fly towards the giant window at the front of the store, shattering it. He tumbles across the street and hits a garbage can on the sidewalk opposite to her shop. Bella pulls the knife out of her knee, dropping it on the floor. Bella limps towards the rotary phone mounted behind the counter and register. She picks up the phone from the cord and hits the red button mounted on the side of the dial.
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“Police? I would like to report a break-in.”
“So you said the assailants broke in and attempted to tamper with your safe?”
Bella takes a sip from her coffee cup, provided to her by Marcus after he arrived on the scene.
“Yeah. They came in, tried to steal my shit, I kicked their ass, they ran away, and I called you guys.”
“Did you happen to get their identities? See their faces or anything?”
“No. All of them were wearing black masks and cloaks. Nothing I could see in the dark. There were three of them though. One ran away as soon as I made threats. The two others I tossed out of the window after they attacked me. One of them stabbed me. That bitch’s knife is one the counter if you want it.”
The police officer sighs as he puts his pen and paper away.
“Thank you Bella. Don’t know if anything will come of it cause no one was able to find the last few crooks that got into your store, but we’ll try.”
Bella downs the last of her coffee and throws the cup into the garbage can.
“It’s not my job to catch criminals! What do you want me to do? Hunt them down in the middle of the night? Pin them to a wall with my staff and make them confess their crimes?”
“Do you at least have a magic spell that can track their blood or smell or anything?”
Bella groans. Everyone here doesn’t understand her craft. They tend to think that “magic” can do anything.
“No. No I cannot.”
“Well I have the boys look into that. Until then you rest your leg.”
The officer affixes his hat to his head, picks up the knife from the counter and wraps it in a bag, nods at both Bella and Marcus, and leaves the shop. Marcus looks over at Bella, who is looking at the dawning light from her window. Marcus begins to open his mouth to talk, but Bella cuts him off.
“Don’t fucking speak Marcus. We can bounce back from this… somehow.”
“Mind illuminating me how we will do that?”
Bella leans forward in her chair, itching at the bandages on her leg.
“Its a Hail Mary, but I have an idea. I’ll need to leave the city for a while.”
“And how is that gonna help?”
“I’m sure you know the story about Merlin: the man who burned the world. Well in my family and most other circles of people who operate arcane arts, we have a story. The story says that the spell he created for Eldon and Xurvur revitalized nature after destroying it. However, there are talks that Xurvur has something far stronger hidden in the landscape. Supposedly at the spell’s ground zero is a substance that could advance magic substantially. It's called Ichor.”
Marcus crosses his arms at Bella. He doesn’t seem to be following where Bella is going
“Ok. And what do you suspect you do about this ‘Ichor’?”
“I make a pilgrimage to the ruins of Xurvur, get the Ichor, come back, and use it to solve our problems.”
Marcus sighs. He sits on the edge of the counter.
“God this really is a Hail Mary. Are you sure about this Bella?”
Bella puts her hands together and fiddles with her fingers, pondering the question. She looks at her bandages, still slightly red from the blood. She wants to keep making a living from this shop, just to spite everyone who is trying to push her out. She wants to make a life here, but she needs help. Marcus is just not enough. She needs something strong. Something to prove that magic can hold its own over machinery.
“I am Marcus.”
