Barbed Wire Dreams

by ScaraMedn

She's a veteran cop. He's a perennial ragamuffin. That's all there is to it, as far as she cares. Then, something happens that Detective Hopps can't explain or accept. The smug fox she knows and tries to ignore comes to her aid with lightening pulled from the wires and graffiti that snarls. Now, she has to decide; run like hell, or embrace the barbed wire dreams.

1. Prologue

Cities are strange things. Every one is unique, possessed of its own character and personality. They are places where living things reside; they live, love, suffer and die. They're places where dramas and comedies play out every hour of every day. Their occupants each bring their own energies and ambitions, their talents, hopes and fears. They are melting pots filled with the emotions, beliefs and actions of their myriad inhabitants.

In their infancies, cities are merely cyphers, hollow shells built for the use of their occupants. Over time, they grow and change, expand and crumble with the changing times. Before long, cities come alive with more than the sum of their residents. They take on a life of their own with their own spirit and will; their own personality. Their own soul. Even an abandoned city can feel haunted by the ghost of what it was when living beings walked their streets and lived their lives as cells of the greater being.

Anyone can feel the soul of a city as they walk it's streets. You can taste it on the air, feel it in the rumble of traffic. You can hear its voice in the roar of traffic. You can see its purpose in all its majesty in any direction you look. You can sense it's life in the ambient bustle and know it is aware of you. That is, if you think to pay attention.

Every city has a soul. Every city is alive.

There are some mammals who understand this as more than the platitudes of city planners and mayoral candidates. There are mammals who see that tripe for what it is; small minds taking credit for the workings of something greater. There are mammals who listen when their city speaks, who feel the warp and weft of the urban reality that most mammals ignore. They are few, but gifted in their environment as the shaman of ancient tribes were. The druids and spirit walkers, shaman and dream speakers gained power through their understanding of the spirit of the land and what is a city but another variety of same?

The ones adopted by the cities to hear their voices are few. Very few. They have no homes, but the streets and structures of the city itself. They are rare just as the shaman of old were and equally elusive.

I am one of these. My name is Nicolas Wilde. I am a sorcerer.