Black Magic

by Russell James

  Her voice came as if it had been shattered and reassembled out of order. Random, choppy syllables. The phrases made no sense but he understood the tone. Harsh. Angry. Threatening.

  Her anger intruded on the blissful world that encased him. If she didn’t calm down she would ruin everything.

  Suddenly her face reassembled from its fractured pieces and broke through his haze. Inches from his, she looked scared. She screamed his name as she shook the front of his shirt.

  “Paco, what’s wrong with your eyes? Stop this, now!”

  Stop? He couldn’t. He wouldn’t.

  He tapped her forehead with the wand.

  “Bakshokah korami.”

  She vaporized and a thrilling rush consumed him. She was the biggest thing he’d vanished. Bigger felt better. He floated over to the couch and tapped it.

  “Bakshokah korami.”

  He shuddered with the surge as the couch flamed and turned to mist. He tapped a table, a chair. Sulphurous smoke fogged the room. Paco’s mouth hung open. Drool dripped onto his shirt. Oh, bigger felt so much better.

  The whole house. What if he could vanish the whole house? He tapped the wand to the wall.

  “Bakshokah korami.”

  Flames burst around him, the fire that he had always admired from afar. He was now part of it, within it.

  The last second of his life was perfect.

  The house and a good chunk of the ground around it disappeared in an orange flash and a pall of smoke, leaving a sandy crater behind. Rain splattered the sides and ran down to the bottom. Water collected and as it rose it covered a single gold coin and a black wooden wand.

  Chuck Vreeland rolled over on the living room couch. Wind whistled through the eaves of the house. The damn storm wasn’t over yet. His plan was to drink himself into a stupor for the whole thing. The plan wasn’t working.

  He swung his legs down and kicked a few empty beer cans across the floor. His distended stomach rolled onto his lap. His head spun a bit as he righted himself. Time to renew the fading buzz. He grabbed the open can on the end table and swallowed the last few flat, warm ounces. That wasn’t going to cut it.

  Lucky for him, he’d stocked up for the emergency. Two cases of beer and three bags of Cheetos from the Food Bonanza. No hurricane was going to starve him out. He wobbled to the kitchen to refuel.

  Light shined out from all around the edges of his son Zach’s door. The house had lost power before he fell asleep. If the kid had a way to power his computer for video games but his father had to drink warm beer… He lumbered down the hall and threw open the door to Zach’s room.

  “How the fu–”

  He hadn’t had enough to drink to explain this away. Three glowing silver rings floated in front of Zach as he sat at his desk. His head rolled in a lazy circle in sync with the spinning rings. His eyes were a solid blue milky haze.

  In his alcohol-addled state, all these inexplicable components became background noise to a lone observation. His pistol lay on the desk. The gun that he kept locked up. The one that violated his parole. He charged in to retrieve it.

  “Now boy, how the hell did you get my–”

  As soon as he crossed the threshold, Zach turned to him with his unfocused, clouded eyes. He pulled the gun off the desk and fired at his father without aiming.

  The bullet pierced Chuck’s forehead between the eyebrows and the force threw him back into the hall. He was dead before he hit the floor.

  Zach placed the smoking gun back precisely where it lay before. He stared back up at the spinning rings.

  To the magic, Chuck’s fleeting interruption was nothing of the sort. Power flowed unimpeded along the Vreeland house pipes and out to the cavern below the Apex plant.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  By afternoon the sky was black as coal. Gusty winds swept through Felix’s orange grove and bounced the trees back and forth like a child would a rattle. Standing on the front porch, he worried that the wind would strip his renewed crop of oranges from the branches and leave him no better off than before the miracle had blessed him.

  But his bigger worry was for his wife Carlina. She had left for the Reverend Rusty’s revival early that morning and he had not heard from her since. The hurricane forming around them made the idea of an outdoor revival suicidal. He hoped the Rev would have enough common sense to call it off. After all, weather is an act of God. The Almighty couldn’t be sending that mixed a signal.

  He tried his cell phone for the third time since noon. Another fast busy signal. Every circuit was jammed. Cell service had overloaded as soon as the evacuation orders were posted.

  The WAMM News at Noon showed evacuation traffic snarls that stretched up both coasts. The Overseas Highway from the Keys was one long parking lot. For once, it paid to be in the middle of nowhere. No evacuation traffic would run up CR 12. Citrus Glade was the focal point of what everyone was trying to escape, ground zero of hell.

  He couldn’t stand the waiting. He had a feeling Carlina was in trouble and he needed to get her home.

  He entered the house. A gust of wind shook the rafters above him. The sky was almost dark as night. Power had been out for an hour and Angela colored by flashlight in the shadowy living room. She turned to face her father when he entered.

  “Where’s Mommy?”

  There’s the million dollar question, he thought.

  “She’s in town. Where’s your brother?”

  “In his room. As usual.”

  Dim blue light flickered out from under the doorway of his son’s room. A hurricane rocked the house on its spindly foundation and Ricky was playing some hand-held video game, instead of out here with his sister. A sad day in the Arroyo household when the youngest daughter is the one with her head on straight. Enough was enough.

  Felix threw open the door to his son’s room and stopped dead in the threshold.

  Ricky sat at his desk, hands in the air, eyes staring at and through his desk. Glowing playing cards moved across the desk unaided. A row of cards flipped over and back. Two piles shuffled in slow motion. The six of diamonds rose up on one point and pirouetted like a ballerina.

  “Santa Maria!” Felix rushed in and yanked Ricky back from the desk. The boy did not react. Felix grabbed Ricky’s face, turned it up to his and shook.

  “Ricardo! What are you doing? Mirame!”

  Nothing.

  Felix grabbed Ricky at the shirt collar and raised his hand to strike some sense into him. Visions of his own father flashed through his mind, memories of this scene from the reverse point of view. He dropped Ricky like he was on fire, then wrapped him in his arms.

  “Ricky,” he whispered in the boy’s ear. “It’s your father. Wake up.”

  Ricky shivered in Felix’s arms. Felix pulled back a few inches. The cards fluttered to a stop on the desk and the blue glow dissipated.

  “Dad?” Ricky looked confused.

  Felix swept the cards into a pile and held them in front of Ricky.

  “What are these? Where did you get them?”

  “Cards,” Ricky mumbled. “The Magic Shop. Just a trick…” His eyes fluttered closed.

  Magic. Real, dark magic. Like he’d heard that the Santa Muerte cult of the Mexican drug gangs practiced. There were miracles from God and there were those that were not. God did not mess with playing cards. He shoved the deck in his back pocket and lifted his semi-conscious son into bed. The cards felt warm.

  The Magic Shop. What had Carlina said about it? Something about the Reverend’s bad feelings. Why hadn’t he paid more attention? So worried about the harvest…

  Well, he had his priorities straight now. He’d put a stop to whatever his son had dipped into. He needed his family back together, safe at home, now. He couldn’t wait for Carlina’s return. He went back to the living room.

  “Listen,” Felix said to Angela. “Your brother is asleep in his room. You two stay here. The storm will get worse and you do not need to be outside. I’m going to get your mother. I’
ll be right back. No candles until we get back.” The last thing he needed was to return to a burning house. “Got it?”

  “No candles, check.”

  He kissed Angela on the forehead and went out the door.

  Felix saw three cars on the way into town, all heading south for an escape via Alligator Alley. But inside the dusky city limits, Citrus Glade was uninhabited. Food Bonanza was closed, but from the looks of the shelves through the window it might have been due to low inventory as much as the growing storm. Even the Zippee Mart was closed and that place was open on Christmas Day.

  He pulled up to the Congregation of God Church just in time. Carlina and two other women were locked in a desperate rain-swept battle to keep the revival tent from going airborne. The wind had unstaked one end and now flapped the tent like a horizontal flag. The revival crew clung to the upwind ropes. Carlina’s panicked face turned relieved when she saw Felix’s truck.

  The snapping canvas and the high wind made speaking impossible. Felix ran to the tent and dropped the remaining upwind tent poles. The canvas went flat and Carlina and her assistants wrestled it to the ground. The four of them rolled it up like a giant burrito. A wave of violent rain blasted across the lawn. With the tent under control, the other two women made a hunched dash to their cars in the parking lot. Felix followed Carlina into the church sanctuary.

  Carlina wrapped her arms around her husband in a wet, appreciative hug.

  “Thank God,” she said. “We were trying to take down the tent when the far side broke free. We were about to ride that thing all the way to Sebring. Wait. Where are the kids?”

  This wasn’t the time to talk magic cards. He had those under control. He patted the back pocket of his jeans. Empty. He must have left them in the truck.

  “The kids are home safe and sound,” Felix said.

  “Ricky and Angela alone? How could you think that was a good idea?”

  “They’re fine,” he said. “You were the one I was worried about. Where’s Reverend Wright in all this?”

  “I don’t know,” Carlina said. “He wasn’t here when we got here. No one had heard from him. Of course the phones are out…”

  Something had happened to the Rev. This revival was his baby and there was no way he’d not be around for every step leading to its birth.

  “Where would he go within walking distance?”

  “The Magic Shop,” Carlina said. “He was sure it was evil. He said there were secrets in there.”

  Felix knew the Rev was right about that.

  Wind hit the side of the church hard enough to make the roof shudder. Rain lashed the windows.

  “I’ll go over and check it out,” Felix said. “This storm will get worse long before it gets better.” A fresh deluge hit the side of the church as if on cue. “Head home and take care of the kids. I’ll be right behind you.”

  Back in the Arroyo house, Ricky opened his eyes. His mouth felt like a wad of cotton. His muscles ached. His temples throbbed in sync with his pounding pulse. Where was he? Why did he feel so…empty?

  He closed his hand around the sharp edges of the magic cards. Oh, yes. The cards. He had been at his desk. Doing magic. The power. The ecstasy.

  The coin in his pocket warmed. Ricky crawled out of bed and into his desk chair. He spread the deck of cards out on the desktop in one long, overlapping row.

  “Bakshokah serat.”

  The cards stood on end like soldiers awakened to attention. Ricky’s eyes turned an opaque blue and the cards began to dance.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Andy and Autumn had moved into the DPW office and out of the weather. Autumn watched rain lash the street through the window.

  “How could they move?” Andy said.

  “Who?” Autumn said.

  “The snake, the gators. They had charcoal for a brain.”

  Autumn thought a moment. “Maybe only after they died. Whatever fueled them had no outlet and fried their gray matter. I’m guessing. None of it makes sense.”

  “Like the plant growth spurt along the water pipes.”

  “Or the sudden rise of a hurricane,” Autumn said, “with the eye over Citrus Glade. Your little town here has issues.”

  “Only in the last week,” Andy said. “This place has been listed under ‘boring’ in Wikipedia for years.”

  The office door opened. Felix stood there, soaked to the skin.

  “Thank God you are here,” he said. “I saw the truck in the lot. I need some help. Some backup.”

  “Doing what?”

  “It will sound crazy.”

  “We’re experts in crazy today,” Autumn said.

  Felix gave her a quizzical look.

  “Autumn, Felix,” Andy said. “Felix, Autumn. She’s a biologist working the ’Glades.”

  Felix touched his hat and water splashed on the floor.

  “It’s the magician, Lyle,” Felix said. “He gave my son magic cards. Real magic. Float around and glow magic. It sounds nuts but I saw it myself. The Rev went to check out the Magic Shop last night and never came back.”

  “I can’t believe he’d leave the church unattended in a storm like this,” Andy said.

  “Something bad happened,” Felix said. “I want to check that shop and I need numbers on my side. And right now, you are the closest thing we’ve got to law enforcement.”

  Andy skipped adding some gallows humor about that confirming it was the end of times.

  “Real magic?” he said. “You’re sure?”

  “I’ve seen it.”

  Andy glanced at Autumn to hear the voice of scientific reason.

  “Hey,” she said. “I can’t explain the animals with the fried brains and glowing blue eyes, or the wild strips of growth along the water lines. I’m ready to call it magic.”

  “And all this started after Lyle Miller opened the Magic Shop,” Andy said. “I met Lyle in passing and he made my blood run cold. Even my mother said he’s creepy as hell.”

  “When all the probable answers are discounted,” Autumn said, “you must consider the improbable.”

  “We’ll check the place out,” Andy said. He looked through the falling rain with concern. “But I don’t trust the local wildlife.”

  “I’m their best friend, and I don’t trust them,” Autumn said.

  “Wait one,” Andy said.

  Andy ducked out into the rain and returned with the M-16. Autumn looked impressed.

  “Okay, John Rambo,” she said. “Now I feel safe.”

  “I’m sensing you have a sarcastic streak.”

  “Really?”

  “Ready when you are, Felix,” Andy said.

  They headed out and dashed through the waves of rain to the Magic Shop’s front door. Locked, of course. Andy shaded his eyes with his hands and tried to peer through the door glass. The low light made it difficult to see, but he swore the interior was empty. If the Rev thought there was something amiss, he wouldn’t have seen it from here.

  “This way,” Felix said.

  He followed Felix on a quick, splashing jog around back. The rear door stood open an inch. The buzz of flies echoed in the room. The hair on Andy’s neck went to attention. He opened the door with the rifle’s barrel. Rain splattered in and soaked the floor.

  The darkened sky offered only the barest light and everything in the back room was little more than bulky shadows. He pawed at the wall until he found a switch. No power. He swung open the door to let in the waning daylight. He gasped.

  A rectangular box about three feet long stood upright in a puddle of blood and organs. The Reverend’s head popped out of the top of the box, though it was impossibly short for his body, like he was some twisted jack-in-the-box toy. His eyes had a cataract-like glaze of the dead.

  “Oh, dear God.” Autumn gasped.

  “Santa Maria,” Felix said.

  A duplicate box rested on four wheels to the left. The Reverend’s feet protruded from one end. A large intestine snaked out of the other.

>   Andy averted his eyes. Horrific Afghanistan memories flashed by on fast forward. Bile rose in his throat like he was going to vomit. He sucked in a deep breath and spit the vile taste from his mouth.

  He made a wide circle around the carnage in the room’s center, Felix and Autumn right behind. Through the dried blood, he could make out the edges of some type of star painted on the floor. On a bench along the wall lay large yellowed architectural drawings. He flipped one over and then the next. They were floor plans. The legend on the lower right corner said APEX SUGAR.

  “Oh God,” Autumn muttered, transfixed by the Reverend’s remains.

  “Autumn,” Andy said, “come check this out.”

  Autumn sidled over to the bench, eyes still glued to the two-piece body of the dead preacher. She finally cast her gaze to the drawings. “Apex Sugar. The stripe of growth heading south goes there. That could be it.”

  “Be what?” Felix said.

  “The focal point,” Andy said. “The birthplace of the hurricane and every other bit of hell this town has seen recently. From the looks of this place, Lyle Miller has been running some serious black magic through the town. I’m going to guess it’s generating Hurricane Rita, the only hurricane to ever have no track. If the storm keeps building strength, it will scour both coasts clean.”

  “If Lyle isn’t here, he’ll be down there,” Felix said.

  “Then we had better go now while the roads are passable.”

  Movement in the doorway to the shop caught their eye and the three of them froze. A sheen of tiny blue dots were interspersed between the strings of beads. They pulsed, flickered and wavered, a narrow screen between the storeroom and the store floor. The dancing pointillist fabric shimmered and a high whining buzz overpowered the sound of the rain outside.

  Autumn cocked her head with a look of vague recognition. She stepped to the doorway and extended a hand toward the opaque obstruction.

  “If I didn’t know better…” she said.

  Two tiny blue dots, so close they appeared as one, broke formation from the doorway. They hovered and landed on the back of Autumn’s hand. She pulled it back and up to her face to inspect it. Horror filled her eyes and she slapped the back of her hand. A drop of blood shot out between her fingers. Her head snapped around to face the others.