Fiction River: Hex in the City by Fiction River Page A

unrepentant murderer in payment.”
    There was a chuckle. And then a low, evil voice whispered fire and brimstone and damnation in her ear:
    “Let’s go.”

 
     
    Introduction to “ Somebody Else’s Problem”
     
    Annie Bellet may be a Pixie. When I met her I could see she was a kindred spirit and had the spells within her. “Somebody Else’s Problem” confirms my suspicion, but if I tell you why it’ll ruin the magic (magic with a c when I describe emotional magic).
    Annie is a full-time speculative fiction writer and author of the Gryphonpike Chronicles and Pyrrh Considerable Crimes Division fantasy series. She has sold short stories to more than a dozen magazines and anthologies. She holds a BA in English and a BA in Medieval Studies and thus can speak a smattering of useful languages such as Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Welsh. Her interests besides writing include rock climbing, reading, horseback riding, video games, comic books, tabletop RPGs and many other nerdy pursuits. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and a very demanding Bengal cat. About “Somebody Else’s Problem,” Annie writes:
    “I read an article about rats being trained to detect landmines and it got me thinking about how that could translate over to a fantasy setting. I took inspiration from that idea and put it into a future/alternate Detroit where magic is only somewhat legal and rats are used to sniff out the illegal magic. I also had tattoos being used, because I love tattoos and am fascinated by the many ways in which they are represented in various cultures.”

 
     
    Some body Else’s Problem
    Annie Bellet
     
    Roosevelt Park slid by outside the bus window as Verity Li found her usual seat five back from the driver and sank down onto the scarred plastic. It wasn’t a long bus ride home from the Office of Banned Magic satellite building adjacent to Michigan Central Station, but every afternoon it seemed to stretch on a little bit longer. Knowing they were on their way home, her magic-sniffing rat, Ruby, stirred inside Verity’s sweatshirt pocket, sticking the tip of her pink nose out.
    Verity glanced around, the bus interior shadowed and dull from behind her sunglasses. Most of the seats were full, some people already standing as preference, but no one paid any attention to her. At work she had to wear the lettered jacket that said Detective and OBM in big, easy to read letters. Here she was just another commuter in jeans and a hoodie, bundled up against the September chill.
    She leaned back and closed her eyes, opening her mind to Ruby’s through their tattooed spell-link, letting her cat-sized friend tell her about the world through their joined noses.
    Someone had stuck fresh gum to the bottom of the seat. Ruby was interested in that but Verity slid a hand inside her sweatshirt pocket and stroked the rat’s super fine white fur, keeping her in place with a little tug on her harness. Grease. Dust. Human sweat. Stronger smells of charms, the fresh mint of protection charms and the pine sol bite of charms that were supposed to ward off the common cold. All legal magics, the kind of minor things that anyone over the age of eighteen could purchase from licensed venders.
    The bus stopped and a new wave of scents slipped over her. Wet cement. Half-eaten yogurt. Then a sharp, fake-watermelon scent found Ruby’s nose. She twitched and gave her signal squeak.
    Verity opened her eyes and tightened her grip on Ruby’s harness. That was the smell of a banned kind of magic, invisibility. She looked around, spotting the offender by where her eyes refused to stick, the person a blurry outline that her brain didn’t want to focus on. Ruby could have taken her right up to the person, if she’d asked. She reached into her jean’s pocket and pulled out a Pez dispenser, dropping a banana pellet into her sweatshirt pouch and mentally sending calming thoughts to her rat.
    It was misdemeanor level magic. And she was tired, off