Black Magic

by Russell James

He froze. He was about to trespass into a building, and he had the intention of stealing something once inside. That was one broken commandment and two steps on the wrong side of morality. He was a man of the cloth. What devil’s temptation got him out here in the dark of the night?

  He shook his head. His was no devil’s work. The evil in the town brewed within that building, not within him. Sure he was using some questionable tactics, but in the pursuit of a righteous goal. The ends always justified the means when working in the name of the Lord. He braced his shoulder against the door and gripped the crowbar.

  On a whim, he first reached for the door knob. He twisted it and the tumblers clicked to grant him entrance. Like parting the Red Sea for Moses, the Lord had removed this far smaller obstacle for him. Praise God.

  He pushed the door halfway open and sidled into the pitch-black back room of the Magic Shop. He closed the door without a sound. He trembled with anticipation.

  He clicked on the flashlight. Lyle’s smiling face lit up, just inches from his own.

  “Hey, Rusty!”

  A baseball bat slammed into the side of the Reverend’s head and darkness returned.

  Chapter Forty

  Rusty Wright awoke to a splash of cold water and a flash of bright light. His arms and legs were bound together. His head pounded like a bass drum and there was a ringing in his left ear, the one the bat crushed.

  As his eyes finally focused, he saw he was still in the back of the Magic Shop, surrounded by tricks and props. From his neck to his ankles, he lay in a narrow wooden box on some kind of gurney.

  “Wakey, wakey,” Lyle sang. He had an empty plastic cup in his hand. “Sorry to interrupt your slumber, but time is of the essence. My time, that is. Yours has about run out. Sorry about the bat. I could have done something more magical, but, honestly, you had it coming. Breaking into someone’s place of business. You sinner.”

  The Reverend struggled against his bonds. “You’re crazy. Let me out of here!”

  Lyle gave Rusty a condescending, downward glance, like when an adult hears a child say something utterly clueless.

  Rusty looked around the room as well as his limited mobility would allow. The box was in the center of the floor pentagram.

  “I was right. This shop is the work of Satan!”

  Lyle shook his head in angry exasperation. He yanked Rusty’s head back by the hair and shoved a rag in his mouth.

  “Two thousand years and you Christians still get it wrong,” Lyle said. “Sorcery isn’t witchcraft, isn’t Satan worship. Three different animals. This…” He circled his index finger around the room. “…is sorcery.”

  The cloth absorbed every drop of moisture in Rusty’s mouth. He wanted to scream but it took all his concentration to breathe through his nose and keep from suffocating.

  “Now tonight’s trick,” Lyle said, “is a classic. Sawing a woman in half.” He pounded on the box like an auctioneer. “I just need a volunteer from the audience.”

  Lyle bent his head next to Rusty’s. “You sir? You’d like to volunteer?”

  Rusty mangled a muffled reply of “drop dead” through the gag.

  “What’s that?” Lyle said, hand melodramatically cupped to his ear. “You say I promised to saw a woman in half? Well, sir, in some circles, you would qualify.”

  Lyle grabbed the end of the long box and pulled. The box began a fast counterclockwise spin around a central axis, staying centered on the pentagram.

  “Notice, ladies and gentlemen, no mirrors, no wires, nothing up my sleeve.”

  Rusty’s head did some kind of rollercoaster ride. The spinning box and his major concussion vied for the right to make him deathly ill. If he threw up into the gag, he’d choke on his own vomit and die. He closed his eyes and prayed.

  Lord though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…

  Lyle stuck out a foot. The gurney wheel hit it. The box jerked to a stop. Rusty’s head snapped back and forth like it was on a spring. His swelling brain felt like it was going to burst through his skull. He let out a whimper.

  Lyle reappeared with a long metal saw in his hand. It looked like a prop from a silent movie about lumberjacks, with a heavy wooden handle and a row of jagged, uneven teeth along the silver blade. Lyle flexed the tip back and forth with his free hand. The saw made an oscillating warble.

  “Now, ladies and gentlemen, note the saw. Completely real in every way. Sharp enough to slice through steel, so our mushy volunteer here should be no problem.”

  Rusty made another wriggling, futile attempt to force open the box.

  “Normally such physical trauma would send the subject unconscious with pain,” Lyle said. “But through the wonders of magic…”

  He pointed to each tip of the pentagram on the floor. As he did he chanted “hakeesh alasim”. The tips glowed. When he completed the fifth, the entire drawing blazed with light. A shudder ran through Rusty and every muscle in his body locked.

  “…our volunteer won’t have to miss a thing!”

  Lyle slid the saw’s blade into a slot in the center of the box. It dropped down and hit Rusty just above the waist. His stomach muscles flinched under the heavy impact. Sharp metal teeth punctured his shirt and gouged his skin. Warm blood trickled across his belly.

  Oh Lord, my savior, he thought. Save me from this devil of a man.

  Lyle looked into Rusty’s eyes. “Smile. You’re the star!”

  He gave the saw a vicious, rearward yank. The blade tore through Rusty’s skin with the finesse of a feeding great white. A wet, ripping noise echoed inside the box. Pain, white and hot as the center of the sun, exploded within him. Tears burst from his eyes and he screamed into the stifling gag, a wailing high-pitched shriek only torture could elicit.

  The next forward thrust of the blade dug deeper. Organs caught on the irregular teeth, and when the blade yanked them to the right, the shudder inside him ran all the way up to the back of his throat. A second wave of pain, somehow, unbelievably worse than the first, rolled up into his pounding head. His cry came out in a wailing stutter. At the end of the stroke, the saw blade penetrated far enough that the teeth rested midway down his frozen forearms. His chest deflated as his shredded tissues oozed away.

  Two rapid strokes hacked through his arms. He felt his hands disappear as they separated, heard their twin thumps as they fell lifeless into the wooden box. His bones splintered as the blade dragged through them. Daggers of scorching pain pierced the base of his skull. His head rolled back, wide eyed, the sensation too horrible to allow him to scream.

  The final stroke tore through his spine. The serrated separation rocked his torso against the sides of the box. Something warm and thick puddled up around his shoulders. Blood filled his throat and he choked.

  “And, voila,” Lyle announced. “One man is now two!”

  Lyle rolled the two boxes apart. Blood and organs hit the floor with a thick splat. Rusty’s hands followed with two dead, wet thuds.

  Sweet Jesus, this can’t be real, Rusty prayed through the torrent of pain.

  “And our volunteer has experienced it all!” Lyle said. “But he hasn’t quite seen it. Let’s show him what he’s missing!”

  Lyle pivoted the top half of the box up, raising Rusty’s head. The box went fully vertical and the bottom hit the floor with the gushy crush of Rusty’s spleen. The rest of the organs in his torso dropped to the ground and yanked his head forward like a puppet’s.

  Rusty stared straight into the bloody empty cavity of his lower body. It smelled like shit and piss and copper. An intestine flapped over the edge like an undigested sausage.

  His mind snapped, unable to fathom the incomprehensible. He did not hear Lyle’s last victorious taunts. He did not feel the saw blade against his neck. He only knew when it cut his spine for the final time and the world went forever dark.

  Lyle sighed, smiled and leaned back against the wall. Blood dripped from his hands and speckled the legs of his pants. The Reverend’s entrails see
ped to the edge of the floor pentagram. He propped the preacher’s severed head back up on top of the box, glazed eyes looking across the room.

  It had been a long time since he’d killed with his own hands. The magic made it so easy to do it remotely, like the stupid waitress’s heart attack or the animals swarming from the swamps. Ah, but what a liberating experience using the saw had been. He missed that physical contact, the sensation of having life seep away through his fingers.

  Across the millennia he’d been alive, that was the one true constant. From his youngest days he’d found the death of any creature pleasurable, and killed any insect or animal he could overpower. As he grew older, he loved the days when the calves were slaughtered or the hunts brought down deer and bison, because he could openly indulge his bloodlust to the praise of others, a far cry from their reaction if they saw him when he silenced family pets in the night.

  Would his master ever have taken him on as an apprentice if he knew the cold, dark current that ran though his heart? Most certainly not, and Lyle had hidden his inclination from his instructor until their last night together, when their roles reversed and Lyle taught the old man a few things about the art of ending life.

  As a boy he’d liked kicking over ant mounds. He’d watch the stupid creatures scurry in panic to save their young and right their world turned inside out. Now every hundred years or so, when the ennui of immortality set in, he did the same thing with mortals. He’d plan a Grand Adventure.

  And now the time was ripe. His last obstacle was removed. The cavern under the Apex plant hummed with the power the magic had unleashed. Lyle’s own apprentices were hard at work topping off the tank. His two unwitting assistants with the clouded whapnas were about to be summoned.

  The Grand Adventure was about to shift into high gear.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Autumn Stovall awoke to the unaccustomed sensation of Oscar’s soft, insistent head butting. She stirred in bed with great effort. She had been up late analyzing the plant samples from the green swaths around town. She’d found no reason for their rapid growth. It was as if someone had just turned on the “springtime” switch all plants have buried in their genetic code.

  She opened one eye. Oscar acknowledged her change in consciousness with a plaintive meow. She reached out to pat his head and he bounded away.

  “Fine. Be that way.”

  Sunlight flashed in under the camper’s thin shades with each flap from the morning breeze. Strange item Number Two. The Everglades’ air was usually still as death each morning until the sea breezes worked their way in.

  Oscar trotted the length of the RV floor, leapt into the passenger seat, transited the dashboard, jumped down to the driver’s seat and started a second lap. Autumn checked his food and water, but both were full. In fact, they looked untouched from when she filled them last night.

  “What’s the matter, Osc?” There wasn’t a cat less likely to be agitated than Oscar. He slept through south Florida thunderstorms.

  Oscar stopped on the dashboard and stared out the window.

  Autumn exited the RV to total silence. No splashes of water, no drone of insects. All the vibrant sounds of Everglades life were gone. Strange item Number Three.

  The deep blue sky above made her feel like she could see up into space. But the rising sun burned crimson in the east. Black puffy cumulus clouds enveloped all horizons. Falling rain made gray curtains beneath the clouds. Both coasts were getting hammered by thunderstorms. That was usually an afternoon event, and usually only on one coast or the other.

  She turned to see Oscar peer out at her through the RV windshield. She probably anthropomorphized her cat way too much, but she was certain the look in his eyes said “Get back in here!”

  Carlina arrived at the Congregation of God at eight-fifty a.m., brimming with enthusiasm for the revival’s start. The rest of the volunteers would be there soon and they would spend the day scrubbing the church and working the grounds. The burst of life around the fountain needed a bit of trimming to keep the walkway clear. Inside and out, the church would look its best. If the revival went as planned, plenty of new folks would be in attendance, and you know what they say about first impressions.

  She first checked the tent and mini-stage at the side of the church. She’d last seen it in the darkness and in the daylight it was much more impressive. The tent shone like a mountain snowcap in the bright morning light. The edges ruffled in the soft morning breeze. The REVIVAL sign’s big red letters could be read from across the street. Great advertising, but also she had a few members of the congregation posting notices around town. Wilbur Garrison, the Citrus Glade postman, would even drop flyers in mailboxes today. Delivering items without postage was against regulations, but Wilbur felt the Spirit move him to bend the rules a bit.

  Carlina checked the front door of the church, but it was locked. Odd, since Reverend Rusty would have already been up and working by now. She went around back to his parsonage and knocked on his door. He didn’t answer.

  Strange. His car was in the driveway. Worst-case-scenario thoughts ran through her mind. Heart attack. Slipped in the shower and unconscious. Stroke. She fumbled for the spare key hidden in the potted palm by the door. The door creaked as it opened.

  “Reverend?” she called from the doorway. When no one answered, her concern doubled. She bustled through the living room, arms pumping with each shift of her stocky frame. “Reverend!”

  There were no dishes in the sink. Coffee wasn’t brewing. The Rev never started a day without coffee, what he called God’s natural stimulant. The Reverend could be dead. She rushed down the short hall and threw open his bedroom door.

  The bed was made. A set of dark blue pajamas lay draped over the back of a chair at a small desk. He never went to bed. Sometime after she left last night, the Reverend disappeared.

  Where would be go? Did he need to spiritually prepare for the evening, spend time in isolation like John the Baptist? Surely he would have told her. Wouldn’t he?

  She left the parsonage and ran into Eric Thompson. The retired schoolteacher wore a faded old golf hat and carried a pair of long garden shears in his gloved hands, ready to give the shrubbery a haircut.

  “Reverend Rusty in there?” he asked.

  Any answers she had would only breed more questions she couldn’t answer. The Reverend would return from wherever he went. She hoped. She couldn’t divert her volunteers from their mission readying the church for the revival.

  “He’ll be by, Eric. He mentioned having the bushes trimmed out front.”

  Eric gave the shears two quick snaps. “I’ll cut them down to size. Amazing how they kicked into overdrive this time of year, isn’t it?”

  “One of God’s gifts,” Carlina answered.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  “And we’ll get the weather this morning from Chuck Randall,” the WAMM anchor said. “Chuck, what’s going on out there?”

  Whitney had the day off, at a minimum. The local news knew how to play up any story, to spread a little panic and bump up some ratings. This was not one of those times. They hadn’t brought the trusted Chuck Randall in early to make a ratings point. They thought his gravitas might save lives.

  “Reggie, what we are seeing is unprecedented,” Chuck said. A map of south Florida with an isobar overlay filled the screen behind him. It looked an awful lot like an archery target. “Low pressure systems like this usually form in the Atlantic Ocean. But we have one forming overland, centered off Alligator Alley near the town of Citrus Glade. Barometric pressure has dropped to 28.2 so far.”

  The screen switched to radar. Huge swaths of green arced across the Miami area, across north of Sebring, down through Naples and south across the Keys. Patches of red flashed within the green where violent thunderstorms hammered away.

  “This system is drawing energy and moisture from the sea surrounding us. In the past dozen hours, a tropical storm formed right over the south end of the state. Normally such a system woul
d move either north or west, but what has just been named Tropical Storm Rita hasn’t moved at all. Both coasts and the Keys have already seen several inches of rainfall and winds of over forty miles per hour.

  “This storm has stymied most of our prediction models, but the consensus is that it will grow to hurricane strength. Evacuations of the Keys and all coastal regions have been ordered. Southbound lanes of the Turnpike, I-95 and I-75 have all been switched to northbound traffic.”

  The camera closed on Chuck until he nearly filled the screen. He looked straight out of millions of televisions across the state.

  “This will become a killer storm,” he said. “Do not wait. If you live along the coast or in a high rise or have special needs, head north now.”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Mayor Flora Diaz slammed down her office phone in frustration. The county supervisor had been worse than useless. He’d been useless and insulting.

  She wasn’t surprised when she called Florida Division of Emergency Management. Tallahassee was as shocked by the arrival of Tropical Storm/Hurricane Rita as anyone. Help was coming, but it was a long way away and would be there in time to help in the aftermath. She hadn’t expected much more.

  But the county supervisor not only could spare no deputies or resources, he confessed that he didn’t know Citrus Glade had a mayor. He thought the dead town had been re-incorporated into the county years ago. He said he had coastal population centers to worry about and didn’t have time to worry about “the boonies” as he put it. When he hung up, Flora felt lost.

  A killer storm was more than she had bargained for as mayor. She had no real leadership experience, not for something like this. The mayor's position was supposed to be mostly PR, cheerlead for getting a few businesses started up, manage the micro budget, organize the Fourth of July fireworks with the Elks Club. Life and death decisions were for someone else, somewhere else.

  Andy knocked on the door and entered.