Character Chat Monday

A friend of mine is doing a fun little contest where she pick a topic and then you have your character write a response to said topic. This week's topic is disguises.

Anyways, I had a lot of fun writing my entry, so I thought I'd share my mind drivel for your bored afternoon amusement. Take it as seriously or not as you want to.

Character: Phil, a detective in Devil's Tongue

Disguises are a tricky thing. Some people think of disguises as something bad, the people who use them only characters intent in hiding their true purpose. For me, my disguise is my freedom.

In St. Louis, no one cares if magic users are good people. You could play around as a kitchen witch or produce big things like a sorcerer, it don’t matter. Magic isn’t trusted by most mundanes. Magic can’t mix with technology, people are too afraid of lawsuits to try healing (that they admit to), and for some, it’s not natural. Otherwise, why would it only appear now over the past decade?

But I’m getting away from the point. I know why some magic folk hide; given the sometimes lethal consequences of shootin’ sparks outta your hands, it’s no wonder people try to fit in. At least if you’re a magic user, you can hide your magic from the mundane and keep your job. It’s safety – safety in anonymity.

I didn’t realize I had magic until seventeen. I was a late bloomer, and I didn’t have any of the usual manifestations kids had. I saw mom sweet talking dad but giving off a hate that’d chill a hot glass of wine. I thought I’d imagined it, until I saw it kept happenin’ – I could feel what others felt, even get a whisper or two of their thoughts if it was strong. I caught my girlfriend cheating on me that way. I never told anyone, and I hid it away from the world. I mean, is it really magic if it doesn’t have sparkles?

I called it my intuition, and my intuition rolled me through cop and up to detective in no time. I always catch my man and I never had a case go wrong. I even got in with Grigsby, the hardest homicide captain around and leader of the city’s homicide division. By then, magic had come out of the broom closet and was sashaying its way across the US. Grigsby hated it; so, naturally, we all hated it.

Grigsby, my division, even being a detective on the right side of the fence, even if it was the wrong men – that was my disguise.

Until the one night we picked up a guy in his mid-thirties for homicide. His girlfriend was stabbed more times than I care to remember. I always got the hot seat; people loved how I worked them over. Only this one was different; he was a magic user. I suppose now that I’m stuck at this new job I’d better be PC about the terms.

Anyways, this guy didn’t do it; we both knew it, but he didn’t’ have an alibi, and Grigsby – I’d never seen him so mad. He arrested the guy, and I had to do some fancy footwork to prove the innocence that I knew from this guy. It’s not just feeling – it’s knowing.

That case was the crack in my mask. No way would an ordinary detective, especially one on Grigsby’s team, fight so hard for a magic user unless there was something he knew about the accused. Those weeks of terror in his office were worse than hearing my dad rant about witches and their good for nothing lifestyles. I transferred to the county cops to get away, but Grisgby had his last say – the bastard made sure I got stuck in the new magic crimes unit. As a favor, he said.

And people wonder why I hate my new job.

I’m grabbing these pieces of my mask and keeping it in place as much as I can, but in a magic crimes unit, with people who actually care about this stuff, how long will my safety last? Sure, technically the law can’t discriminate, but tell that to the magic users who get mysteriously let go in this right to work state.

I like being free and like everyone else. I’ll do anything to keep it that way.