Blame Games
October 27 th ,
I open the front door to find Justicar Stewart Hannity standing on my porch. “Madame Warlock, my apologies for the early call. I was asked to come speak with you regarding the incident at your shop.”
The “incident” in question was the widow of the man who killed my mother in a drunk driving accident deciding that the whole “Thou shall not suffer a witch to live” thing was an actual thing. She showed up at the shop a couple of days ago and tried to stab me. While disconcerting, I was never in any real danger. I’m proficient in defending myself so the only real damage was to a display case. But she made very public rants about witchcraft and devil worship and my mother “returning from the grave” for revenge before committing suicide in jail.
So I’m not surprised to find a Justicar at my door.
Potential breaches are a huge risk to the magical community. Some people don’t understand why we have to go to such lengths to prevent mundanes from learning the truth about magic. There are even some vocal factions that think going public with the truth might actually be a good thing. These people have a naïve view of human nature. Individuals, under the right circumstances, can come to terms with the existence of the supernatural. Houston’s Aunt Ruth is an example. She knew her sister was a psion and she knows that Houston has powers. But it took her a long time to come to terms with that knowledge.
But humanity as a whole? I didn’t live through the Inquisition, but as a member of the College of Evocation it is a required field of study. Tens of thousands of people, both witches and mundanes, were murdered. And while the root causes of these atrocities were complex, those complexities don’t change the reality that people were murdered simply because others felt comfortable with the idea of slaughtering witches. And the fact that someone tried to stab me to death for being a witch only proves those people still exist.
I let Justicar Hannity in and offer him some coffee. We sit down at the kitchen table and he pulls out his tablet and a silvery metal sphere from his briefcase. He twists open the sphere to activate the secretary spider. The glasslike figure twitches for a second and then settles into place near the tablet.
“Before we get started, how are you holding up?” he asks as he finishes setting up his equipment for the report.
“I’m not curled up in a ball under the bed. Not that the thought isn’t appealing.”
“We don’t get a lot of these cases in industrialized nations, but we’re seeing a lot more of them in the Middle East and Africa. The majority of the victims aren’t even witches. Just accused.”
“That sounds unnervingly familiar.”
“Exactly. All the more reason we need to take extra precautions when we have incidents here in the States.” He rests his elbows on the table and folds his hands under his chin. “Not to sound ominous, but just know that this entire thing is a formality. Don’t take any of the questions I am about to ask personally. All of this is just standard protocols. With the public nature of the accusations and the political climate being what it is these days, we just need to dot all the i’s and cross all of the t’s.”
“Is that why you are here instead of Steve?”
“Steve is the senior Justicar in the region, but he recused himself from this investigation in order to avoid any semblance of a conflict of interest.” He smirks. “And, you know, potential Hellfire.”
“But you aren’t afraid of being engulfed in Hellfire?”
“From what I understand you only set your friends on fire, so I should be good.”
“All these years and I still don’t hear the end of that.”
Stewart taps an app on his tablet and reaches out to start the secretary spider. “I’ll need to interview your apprentice and your ward as well. Are either of them home?”
“No, they are at the shop.”
“You reopened
October 27 th ,
I open the front door to find Justicar Stewart Hannity standing on my porch. “Madame Warlock, my apologies for the early call. I was asked to come speak with you regarding the incident at your shop.”
The “incident” in question was the widow of the man who killed my mother in a drunk driving accident deciding that the whole “Thou shall not suffer a witch to live” thing was an actual thing. She showed up at the shop a couple of days ago and tried to stab me. While disconcerting, I was never in any real danger. I’m proficient in defending myself so the only real damage was to a display case. But she made very public rants about witchcraft and devil worship and my mother “returning from the grave” for revenge before committing suicide in jail.
So I’m not surprised to find a Justicar at my door.
Potential breaches are a huge risk to the magical community. Some people don’t understand why we have to go to such lengths to prevent mundanes from learning the truth about magic. There are even some vocal factions that think going public with the truth might actually be a good thing. These people have a naïve view of human nature. Individuals, under the right circumstances, can come to terms with the existence of the supernatural. Houston’s Aunt Ruth is an example. She knew her sister was a psion and she knows that Houston has powers. But it took her a long time to come to terms with that knowledge.
But humanity as a whole? I didn’t live through the Inquisition, but as a member of the College of Evocation it is a required field of study. Tens of thousands of people, both witches and mundanes, were murdered. And while the root causes of these atrocities were complex, those complexities don’t change the reality that people were murdered simply because others felt comfortable with the idea of slaughtering witches. And the fact that someone tried to stab me to death for being a witch only proves those people still exist.
I let Justicar Hannity in and offer him some coffee. We sit down at the kitchen table and he pulls out his tablet and a silvery metal sphere from his briefcase. He twists open the sphere to activate the secretary spider. The glasslike figure twitches for a second and then settles into place near the tablet.
“Before we get started, how are you holding up?” he asks as he finishes setting up his equipment for the report.
“I’m not curled up in a ball under the bed. Not that the thought isn’t appealing.”
“We don’t get a lot of these cases in industrialized nations, but we’re seeing a lot more of them in the Middle East and Africa. The majority of the victims aren’t even witches. Just accused.”
“That sounds unnervingly familiar.”
“Exactly. All the more reason we need to take extra precautions when we have incidents here in the States.” He rests his elbows on the table and folds his hands under his chin. “Not to sound ominous, but just know that this entire thing is a formality. Don’t take any of the questions I am about to ask personally. All of this is just standard protocols. With the public nature of the accusations and the political climate being what it is these days, we just need to dot all the i’s and cross all of the t’s.”
“Is that why you are here instead of Steve?”
“Steve is the senior Justicar in the region, but he recused himself from this investigation in order to avoid any semblance of a conflict of interest.” He smirks. “And, you know, potential Hellfire.”
“But you aren’t afraid of being engulfed in Hellfire?”
“From what I understand you only set your friends on fire, so I should be good.”
“All these years and I still don’t hear the end of that.”
Stewart taps an app on his tablet and reaches out to start the secretary spider. “I’ll need to interview your apprentice and your ward as well. Are either of them home?”
“No, they are at the shop.”
“You reopened
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