No Magic, No Problem

by Blair Daniels

  "I'm sorry. I can't come back." I gently patted his hair. "You almost died."

  "I'm fiiine."

  "Only because you got lucky." My voice cracked, and suddenly, the tears came on. "Next time, you won't be."

  "Okay. But let me tell you why you should stay. You owe me that, at least."

  "I don't owe you anything."

  "I saved your life."

  "Fine."

  "Okay. First—" he held up a pale finger— "I liked working with you. Sure, you're a bit eccentric—"

  "Hey!"

  "—and you don't have any powers, but... you put in the effort. You wanted to belong. I know how that feels, standing on the outside like that, trying to fit in. I mean, for goodness' sake, I'm a dhampir! Vampires mock me, and humans think I'm mad. And you, a human from a famous magical family... I'd reckon you have it even worse than I do. Hunters view you as nothing—"

  "Really, Gavin?!"

  "—I don't mean offense, but it's true. And humans, they don't have the culture you grew up with. They don't even know basic magical history! They think the moon landing was for some 'space race,' not to defeat a lunar demon. Can you imagine that?!"

  I broke into a laugh. "If only they saw the unedited footage of the moon landing! Well, actually, they still might not believe it. It looks like a bad sci-fi movie."

  "I know! It looks so fake!" His laughter melted into a mischievous smile. "So, if you've officially quit... you're not an employee of NIMP anymore."

  "Yeah. That's what happens when you quit a job, Gavin."

  "So, that means… we don't have to fill out a ream of paperwork if something happens between us."

  My heart fluttered in my chest.

  Before I could reply, my phone buzzed loudly in my pocket. Reluctantly, I took it out. It was a number I didn't recognize.

  "Hello?"

  A familiar voice came from the other line. "Kira. Where are you?"

  "Jim?"

  "Yes. Where are you? We have a meeting. Didn't you hear the alarm?"

  "Jim... I actually quit, this morning."

  "What? Kira, we need you. You're—"

  "Jim. I just spent ten minutes telling Gavin the same thing—I'm not coming back."

  "But—"

  "I'm not good at combat fighting. You know that, better than anyone."

  "I agree."

  "Well, thanks, Jim." I paused. "Wait. Then why do you need me?"

  "Something happened, that, uh..." For the first time, Jim's deep voice faltered. "That involves you."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "You just need to be here. Right now."

  The call disconnected.

  "Shall we go, then?" Gavin asked, a loopy grin on his face.

  I nodded.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  We raced through the laundromat and into the elevator. "What do you think Jim was talking about?" I asked, furiously pressing the button for floor 8. And 4.

  Gavin shook his head. "No idea."

  "Damn Jim, and all his mysteriousness." The elevator ascended slowly, groaning underneath us.

  Ding.

  The doors parted to the medical ward.

  "You tricked me! You told me we were going to the meeting—"

  "You're not sober enough to go to the meeting!"

  "Nonsense! I'm sober as a jury."

  "You mean sober as a judge." He didn't step out of the elevator, so I pushed against his back. "Come on. Out with you."

  "No. I need to be at the meeting." His tone turned soft and serious. "I need to know what Jim was talking about. About you."

  The elevator doors began to slide shut.

  "Please?"

  I involuntarily laughed. He was asking me for permission. "Okay, fine. But don't tell the nurses I let you, okay?"

  "Your secret's safe with me."

  The elevator ascended.

  When the doors parted, we walked out into the atrium. Morning sunlight shined down on us through the glass ceiling. The water sparkled as it spiraled through the air. We hurried down the hall, until we were standing in front of the lounge.

  "You first," I said.

  He raised an eyebrow at me, then pulled the heavy oak door open.

  All the Hunters were seated around an oval table. As I stepped in, every eye snapped to me. A hushed silence fell over the room, broken only by a whisper: "that's her."

  It felt like 1st grade at Moorshire Magic Academy all over again.

  When my classmates found out I was a Steele, they looked at me like I had two heads. (Actually... it was worse than that. One of my classmates did have two heads, and they were a lot nicer to her.)

  They all continued staring. "Uh... sorry I'm late," I said, quietly.

  A few people frowned disapprovingly, but Thomas waved me on. "No problem—as long as this means you’re not quitting anymore.” He wiped his brow, then narrowed his eyes at Gavin. "Aren't you supposed to be in the medical ward?"

  "No. Released this morning," Gavin lied.

  Thomas looked at him suspiciously, but didn't ask any more questions. We took seats next to each other, at the opposite end from Sandra and Thomas. My heart began to pound. Gavin grabbed my hand under the table and squeezed it.

  Sandra stared at me. She was the red-haired woman from a few days ago—the one that had almost fired Abby. The edge of her scar poked out from her berry-colored cardigan, and her sky-blue eyes bored into mine. "The creatures you fought at the Great Swamp metro stop were dead bodies—reanimated and controlled by a necromancer."

  The room was so silent, you could hear a pin drop. Or a faerie kiss.

  "Necromancers, if you don't already know, are insanely powerful. They use dark magic to raise people from the dead, and then control them. All it takes is a touch to the deceased's forehead and—" snap! she snapped her fingers— "the neural connection is established."

  "And necromancers are immortal," Thomas added.

  "Yes. Necromancers use the magic on themselves, too, so they're near immortal. But—and this is important—they're also insanely rare. There have only been twenty-six necromancers in the history of the entire world. The last one, Ryan Banks, was captured in 1998." She turned to me, blue eyes locking on mine. "By a Miss Gertrude Steele."

  Gavin squeezed my hand again, and I felt his eyes on me. But I couldn't tear my eyes away from Sandra.

  Gertrude was my grandma's little sister. She passed away several years ago. I'd heard she was an excellent Hunter, who kept at it even into her 60s. But I never heard that she captured a necromancer.

  Then again, I was only two in 1998.

  Sandra took a deep breath, shuffled her notes on the desk, and continued: "NIMP sometimes acquires monsters that independent Hunters have caught, since they don’t have the facilities to contain them. We simply catalog them in our online database, and then take them down to B1 or B2. Ryan Banks was one of these monsters—however, somehow, his file was corrupted. Thomas and I went back and looked, just a few minutes ago. All records of him being held in B2 were wiped clean."

  A horrible dread settled in my stomach.

  "He cloaked himself in an invisibility spell, as well, so that no one would see him down there. Hoping we’d forget all about him, and leave his cage empty."

  The face of the blond man flashed through my mind, and I couldn't breathe. Couldn't move.

  "But a few days ago—when he saw a Steele in B2, before his very eyes—he must've gotten angry. He signaled for one of the monsters to trip Kira, leading her to fall right into the button. Or, possibly, one of the monsters did it themselves. Steeles are responsible for imprisoning quite a few of our monsters, and no doubt they weren't happy about one working here."

  How'd he know I was a Steele?

  But then it all came back to me. Right before I tripped, Abby and I were talking... about how I was a Steele. Right. Every monster that understood English knew the gravity of that.

  "When the cage opened, he made his escape. Ryan Banks, known by
the alias 'the Gravedigger.' Thomas, please show them the photo."

  Thomas pulled out his laptop. He clicked a few times, and then turned it to around.

  It was a photo of the blond man.

  The blood drained from my face. I felt lightheaded, dizzy, faint. The room started to spin. I gripped the table.

  He's real.

  When I saw him in the medical ward... he wasn't some hallucination, some product of my subconscious. He was there.

  Inches from me.

  Thomas snapped the laptop shut. Sandra, maintaining her composure, continued: "As some of you probably remember, Ryan Banks was a tech billionaire. A '90s Elon Musk, if you will. He was also an accomplished sorcerer—he embedded tiny bits of magic in his products to get a leg up on the competition. A simple antigravity spell to make a laptop impossibly light, a pocket dimension in the CPU to increase computing power—things like that."

  "But it's illegal to expose magic to any civilian—" Thomas started.

  "He didn't care about laws. He was above the law. Paid off people left and right so he wouldn't get caught. No one cared much anyway, since his technology wasn't hurting anyone." Sandra looked out at us, her expression grim. "Then his wife passed away, and all that changed. He began to dabble in dark magic. Within several months, he successfully raised his wife from the dead. But he didn't stop there."

  My stomach twisted in knots.

  "By the time Gertrude caught him, he'd raised fifty-six. After he was captured, she re-buried the bodies herself. A remarkable woman, through and through—"

  "Wait. Fifty-six?" Thomas asked, growing pale. "Usually it's less than ten, isn't it?"

  "Yes. It takes a lot of mental power to send neural signals to other people, besides yourself. Imagine having to walk ten different directions, or hold ten different conversations, all at the same time. Necromancers simply run out of brain power at about ten." She glanced at us, gravely. "But somehow, he did fifty-six. And he will do it again—or worse."

  I felt paralyzed. Numb. Frozen. Every other Hunter stared at her, unmoving, unblinking.

  "I'm worried for all of us," she said, her icy eyes finding mine. "But, most of all, I'm worried about you, Kira. Because it seems like he has a personal vendetta against you. Thomas, show her the footage."

  "I don't know if that's the best—"

  "She deserves to see it."

  My heart raced. Vendetta? Footage? What is she talking about?

  Thomas clicked around, and then turned his computer towards us again. A grainy image filled the screen.

  "There are security cameras in the metro stop and along the tracks," Sandra said. "This is the footage we've caught."

  He pressed play.

  At first, I couldn't tell exactly what was going on in the mess of dark pixels. But then I could make out writhing shapes. The undead. They were all turned towards the wall, dragging their fingers along the cement.

  Murmurs broke out through the group. "What are they doing?" Eric, the water elemental, whispered.

  After a few seconds, they backed away from the wall. They turned to the camera, their eyes glowing white in the camera. Their skin rotten, their bones poking through.

  They stepped further away, and I saw it.

  Writing on the cement wall. In thick, dark red letters, it read:

  I WILL MAKE YOU ONE OF THEM , KIRA

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  "We will do everything in our power to give you extra protection, Kira. Now, what powers do you possess?"

  I wasn't expecting that. I sat up straighter in my seat and forced a smile, my heart still hammering in my chest.

  "Why do you want to know?"

  "To assign you someone with complementary powers, so you—"

  I was saved by the bell. Beep! Beep! Beep!— an automated voice filled the room.

  "Emergency in the morgue. Floor B. Please report immediately."

  The morgue. I didn't want to fill in exactly what that could mean.

  The sound of scraping chairs filled the room. We all sprang up and raced for the door.

  "Kira, are you all right?" Gavin whispered to me, as the chaos surrounded us.

  "Why could no one else see him?" I whispered back. My legs moved sluggishly, as if I were walking through honey. I felt like I was on autopilot. Like I no longer had control of my body, and I was watching a movie unfold before me.

  "I don't know," Gavin said.

  "Did he reveal himself only to me? To play with my head?" I whispered, staring blankly at the elevator ahead. "Because it worked. Last night, when I saw him, I thought I'd gone crazy."

  "You saw him last night?!"

  "Yeah. While I was watching over you in the medical ward, he came in. I thought it was my imagination... Wait. How did he get in? You need an ID card to get into the building, don't you?"

  "Yeah. Listen, Kira, were there any other times you saw him?"

  "When we were dancing—"

  "Dammit," Gavin said. "I'm going to tell Thomas and Sandra about this, all right? You go ahead. I'll catch up."

  Before I could ask him to stay, he'd disappeared into the swirling blur of chaos.

  I felt myself step in the elevator. Abby stood a few people away from me. "Kira, are you okay?" she asked.

  "I... I think so."

  "I'm so sorry I didn't believe you. You saw him, you told me you did, and I didn't believe you." She grunted in anger as the elevator descended. "Ugh. How dare he target you like this, for something your relative did!"

  "He's an evil man, Abby," Jim boomed behind me. "He is drawn to evil, like a moth to a flame."

  "That's real helpful, Jim," she said, rolling her eyes.

  "It's true."

  "I'll protect you," Abby said. "And so will Jim! And Gavin, too, when he gets better. We'll make sure he doesn't get near you."

  "Thanks," I said. Deciding not to mention that I still planned to leave NIMP, and never look back.

  The elevator opened into a cement hallway. We walked towards the double doors in complete silence, then pushed them open.

  A man wearing a white lab coat stood at the front of the morgue. Sunglasses, tan skin, and hair slicked back. Singing Stayin' Alive to himself.

  Which was oddly appropriate, given the circumstances.

  I got to him first. "I'm Chad. The medical examiner." He said his profession in a sultry tone, as if he'd were a male model for GQ.

  "I'm Kira."

  I shook his hand. When I pulled it away, his phone number was written on my palm.

  "What? How did you—"

  He wriggled his fingers. "Magic, baby!"

  "Oh, get on with it, Chad!" someone shouted at the back.

  I licked my finger and rubbed madly at my palm, trying to wipe it off. It didn't smudge one bit.

  "Okay. So we have a teensy-weensy problem," he said, holding up his thumb and forefinger to indicate that it was, indeed, a very tiny problem. "I heard something moving in there."

  He pointed to the steel doors behind him. Which all, presumably, opened to drawers with dead bodies on them.

  "Wait—I hear it now. Sssshhhh," Chad said.

  A heavy silence fell over the crowd.

  Then I heard it.

  Scrtch. Scrtch.

  My entire body froze at the horrible scratching sound on the other side of the door. There was, most likely, a dead body in there. Clawing at the metal, trying to escape.

  "I've been hearing that sound on-and-off all morning," Chad said. "But I thought it was just random sound. Like the building settling. But then it got louder, and I realized it was coming from there, so... I pulled the alarm."

  Scrtch. Scrtch.

  Scccccccccctch.

  "Have you opened the doors yet?" a red-haired man asked in the back.

  "Nah, man. I wanted to wait for you guys."

  "Great," someone muttered behind me.

  "I guess, I did open the doors last night around 8 to put a body in, and none of them seemed to be... moving, then."

/>   Scrtch.

  "Okay. Everyone get ready." Erika stepped forward, her black curls pulled into a bun. "When I count down, Chad—" she spit his name out, like it was something venomous— "you open the doors, okay?"

  He nodded.

  I slowly stepped forward, my heart pounding in my chest. Images flashed through my mind. The army of the dead, noiselessly marching up Maryland Ave. The blond man. The dark letters on the walls of the subway.

  "3..."

  Chad's hand locked firmly on the handle. The scratching grew louder. I reached behind me, and realized far too late I no longer had the scimitar; it was property of the zombies, now. I reached in my purse and pulled out the only thing remotely sharp—my knitting needles.

  "2..."

  A ball of flame danced in Abby's hands—Jim readied his spear—

  Scrtch!

  The door shook underneath Chad's fingers. As if someone threw their entire weight against it.

  He yanked away and squealed like a little girl.

  "Chad!" Erika yelled. "Open the door!"

  "But I—"

  "Open it!"

  He squeezed his eyes shut behind his sunglasses and pulled.

  Thunk.

  The door swung open.

  Nothing leapt out. We gathered around, peered in. A dark, hollow space—only filled by a metal rolling tray and a white sheet.

  It was empty.

  "Nothing's there?" Erika asked, confused.

  But Chad was staring at it. Sunglasses off. Mouth agape.

  He ran over to the next door. Thunk. Empty. Thunk. Also empty. Thunk. When he got to the fourth one, we all gasped.

  It wasn't empty.

  But the skinny old man inside was perfectly still. No sign of life. "I don't understand. He was making the noise?" I asked.

  "Or we imagined it," Jim replied. "Fear is a powerful tool—one that often plays tricks on our mind."

  True that.

  “Better get him just to make sure.” One of the men stepped forward, black curly hair pulled into a messy ponytail. He pulled a dagger from his pocket, then stabbed it in the center of the forehead. “There.”

  Chad grimaced. Nausea flooded me.

  Then he shut the door, locked it, and moved to the next one. And the next… and the next. But they were all empty.