The Misfits of Magic

It's a Scorcher - Part 1

"I'm not going to die.  I'm not going to die," Gale repeated to himself as he walked up the dimly-lit driveway to the door.  He stood at the threshold of the vampire's lair and questioned his sanity. There were a million things he could be doing instead of this; instead of convincing himself that he wasn't going to get sucked dry this evening. 

To top it off, his digestive track had decided that now was the time to protest the decisions of the brain.  Greasy dinner taco regret welled inside his gullet, and then the door opened and he was face-to-face with one of the world's most dangerous predators. One, who by the wry smile on her face, knew exactly the effect she was having on the human in front of her.

"Don't you fret none," cooed Mrs. Abaroa, with the barest hint of her oversized canines peeking from underneath her ruby-red lips. "We fed early tonight just for you. Please, come inside." The vampire mistress, the juxtaposition of a succubus and a Southern Belle, moved a fraction of an inch to the side and Gale squeezed in past her amble bosoms. Her breath tickled the back of his neck as he slipped past her and into the house. His blood ran cold as a soft moan escaped the vampire's lips. Gale suspected he now knew what a sentient chocolate bar would feel like.

It wasn't normal for Gale to make house calls, but then again nothing about his line of work was normal. Or in popular demand, for that matter. Supernatural creatures were a secretive lot, with most of them unwilling to let a mere human know that they, too, suffered from maladies of the mind. Just like humans, they could be batshit crazy, even if they didn't admit it.

But Gale knew better. There was a seedy underbelly of emotional and mental sickness plaguing the supernatural community, and nobody was taking it seriously or talking about it. He had endured ridicule and scorn from his peers, friends, and even his family. He had nonetheless opened the "Supernatural Psychological Agency," or S.P.A. as he liked to call it, despite everyone's insistence that it was a worthless endeavor; no elf or werewolf would ever seek a human's help. He intended to prove them wrong, be a trailblazer and expose the problem of supernatural sickness. He would become a hero to the other-lifed. In the six months since he had opened his clinic, though, he'd only had three clients.

His first client had been a Garden Gnome who refused to keep rabbits out of the garden he was supposed to guard. A pair of elves who told him the old gnome was unhappy and needed a pep talk brought him in. Gale dove in with gusto, his excitement barely contained; he hastily shut the door on the elves as they left the clinic.

The problem began immediately. The gnome refused to talk, no matter what Gale asked or how he pleaded. His two years of community college and two years of state college hadn't prepared him for such a recalcitrant patient. The gnome just sat in stony silence staring at the increasingly frustrated psychologist. Maybe he was a homophile - afraid or distrustful of humans. There was, after all, still a lot of anti-human sentiment in the supernatural community.

In desperation, Gale had tried a comforting pat on the grizzled gnome's shoulder, and was horrified when it had fallen from the chair and shattered into a hundred pieces on the laminate floor of his tiny office. For one heart-stopping moment Gale was sure he had just murdered a fairy, until the snickering and laughter from outside his window caught his attention. The elves that had brought the gnome in were doing a literal ROFL outside, holding their sides with tears streaming from their eyes. The gnome had been a fake; one of those human-made ceramic ornaments that had been so popular before the Reemergence.

His other two clients were almost as bad, but Gale was determined to persevere. Eventually the supernatural community would need him, and he would be ready. And it looked like tonight was that night. Mr. and Mrs. Abaroa, distinguished vampires, had a problem and needed his help. Vampires weren't known to be pranksters, so Gale was pretty sure this was a legitimate call. He hoped. They were know to be cruel and heartless hunters of humans, though. He could be a snack instead.