by Kezzy Sparks
The two felines, though, have crawled out of the house but are still confined within the invisible walls. Their eyes don’t glow reddish yellow as much because of the bright sunlight, but still it isn’t hard to tell something is wrong with them. There is a certain viciousness about the two, and I am forced to stun them once more with my stinger.
As I do that, I regulate the stings so as to avoid over-stunning the little brutes. Reason is since I am taking them to a shelter, they ought to be a little active when I reach it. While brandishing the stinger, I am at risk of being seen by the public conducting a magic operation, but I have my back to the road and so conceal the wand that way. The road has no traffic, too, and that means I am not much in violation.
The demon is still tethered to the tree like we left him last night, but is much livelier.
“The striped gray one is called Tyrese,” he points while speaking in Quimglich. “The black is Wheeler.”
“And you, who are you?” I snarl at him even if he is passing useful information. Actually I heard The Mage mention those names, although at the time I couldn’t tell which cat was called what.
“Ratan,” he says. “That’s what I’m known as.”
I heard The Mage call that name, too, but for now I ignore the fiend. I am here specifically for the cats.
Protecting myself with gloves once more, I pick up the felines. Like yesterday I don’t want these two in the Corolla’s cab, but then because I am going to a shelter, I can’t dump them into the trunk. That will be like acting very cruelly, and if the workers see that, they will be upset—meaning I might be prosecuted for animal cruelty myself. I therefore throw the two onto the backseat, then start off.
Ever driven along with prisoners who wanted to kill you? Now that’s me, and it feels so surreal. I have to keep glancing back in case those two recover enough to launch an attack from behind my back. The felines are really nasty, and the musty, urine like odor still hangs about them, even though it’s not as downright foul as last night.
The shelter worker who welcomes me is a young woman, barely twenty but in uniform. She is green eyed and has a long, blonde braid hanging behind her head. Her name is Cindy.
“What have we got here?” she gives me a wide smile, but it’s soon erased the moment she glimpses my black magic cargo.
She has never seen cats like this!
“Abandoned at my farm” is all I say as I see the shades of fright crawling on her face.
I have no time, though, and must get things done. I put on another pair of anti-black-magic gloves but don’t offer any explanation to the worker. I blame Zed for the whole mess.
Cindy glares at the gloves but for now says nothing. I pick up Tyrese. He meows weakly.
A grimace instantly plasters itself on the young worker’s face, but she soon steadies herself—and actually ventures to feel the feline with her bare hands. I suppose she has told herself it’s her job. “Such a lovely thing,” she says. “He looks strange and quite sickly, though.”
I really can’t help her because there is no room for me to explain the lingering effects of my magic sting. All I say quietly is, just wait a few hours from now. Indeed she will get the surprise of her life when the two become fierce again.
“You are so careful,” she says of my gloves. “How did you know to have them with you?”
Ugh, her question knocks me down. “I figured a risk of infection,” I offer guiltily. “You never know with lost and ill...things.”
Now acting braver, Cindy caresses the cats, pressing her fingers into their ribs. They whimper some more.
“They are hurt for sure,” she says, “might have to call in a vet.”
“Not a bad idea,” I say, again recoiling from the information I am hiding. “You guys know better.”
“Good on you,” she says, letting Tyrese down and picking up Wheeler to cuddle him against her chest.
I shudder as I see the feline’s black head lie near Cindy’s breasts. That thing has the ferocity to rip her nipples off, even with her shirt on. Zed must be blamed should that happen.
The transaction is close to completion although there certainly will be some form filling. We do that, and then I am free to go.
Before I drive away, however, I remember one very important thing. The Mage might come here to reclaim her felines, and that would be an unacceptable thing. She could press the two back into her evil service.
“Please call me first should anyone want to adopt them,” I say to the girl. “I’d like to keep tabs on what will happen to these two.”
“Yes, we will do so,” Cindy says. “Thanks again, Mel.”
I leave it at that and head back home. This is a very bad idea. Keeping black magic alive by nurturing it.
***
Despite the ground I have covered since Wednesday, I still avoid giving Casey any details. I don’t want him going to The Mage’s, or Tyler’s, or Eve Lynn’s home to cause trouble. Tyler especially is a concern because he never dabbled in magic and is totally untouchable by us.
Later in the afternoon when I am in the office, I decide on another reveal.
“Hope it gives some light,” I murmur.
What I actually want is something more insightful—since I am stuck and Tyler won’t tell me where he mailed the case. We need to find that thing asap.
Later on, a locate too, might be a possibility, but right now there isn’t much of a need to worry much with it because I now know who harmed Casey, and where she lives.
I lie on the bed again, with the amethyst. Unfortunately, it’s all pretty much the same, only that the ice crystals have grown thicker, and it’s colder.
Dejection zaps me. “Oh God, dear me.”
Truly, this is leading nowhere. What can I do? My heart cries for a resolution. An innocent life is in ruin while I, the person he put his hopes in, can’t find an answer.
As I am grieving like that, a possibility hits me. Why don’t I visit all of Buffalo’s morgues and ask? The idea might be as far-fetched as the one I had of going to the Postal Service headquarters and reclaim a parcel I hadn’t posted, but I hope the result in this case will be different. Funeral homes aren’t owned by the government, and the directors might pay a sympathetic ear to someone desperate enough. Like me.
Buoyed by this thought, I jump into the Corolla and drive to the parlor nearest to my office. Purposefully, I park in the lot, but after seeing the groups of sad mourners and grim-faced directors, I realize my idea won’t work. How could I say it? Did you ever receive a brown case in the mail, one that contained…
I am at the point of falling sick, but it is then that I get a totally different idea. Yes, we will hold a séance and ask the dead for intervention! That really could work. Being a huntress or wizardess can only take you so far, and I have always known it’s also good to ask for the help of other paranormal entities out there, like the dearly departed.
So, then, we will do it. I will get hold of Casey and Megan and float to them this fantastic new plan.
Sixty-two
I drive back to the office with my mind still on the idea, and once I am at my desk, I don’t waste any time to call.
Casey and Megan don’t object to my plan.
“Anything that it takes will be fine,” Casey says.
“Good, let me work on it.” I hang up.
Immediately, I put my mind to gear. As far as this goes, my imagination is that we will choose Casey’s dead grandmother Florence as the one to call upon, and once she comes we will ask her the pressing question. Being out there, she might have a better idea of where her grandson’s family jewels went.
Because I have no experience holding séances myself, I resort to the guild for assistance. They refer me to a medium who apparently is also a pianist specializing in classical music. His name is Thor Petrao. I speak to him, and he says he can do it for me any day, and my response to that is why not tonight. So we set a time, and later on in the evening, I drive to pick him up. Thor lives in
Queenston, close to the Canadian border, which in that area is essentially the Niagara River.
“Do your clients have a piano,” he asks, “in a suitable place, or somewhere?”
“Yes they do,” I say, “to one side of their living room.”
Several times I have been to Casey’s house and know his grandmother left him a grand Kawai that’s perched in the sitting area.
“That should be good then,” he says, “because I always play music before communing with the dead.”
In Thor’s study is a baby Steinway that I figure we would have had to transport if Casey hadn’t one. Such a thing would have been cumbersome, and I thank Casey’s grandmother for leaving him one.
Imagination is already killing me as we drive. Thor has been said to be an expert. What will the outcome of this whole exercise be for us? The most useful, I hope.
Casey and Megan welcome us. Both of them try to project a relaxed outlook, but I can see how much torture a forced platonic state can inflict. Behind Casey’s eyes is a broken sad sparkle only matched by the silent pain in Megan’s face. My desperation to change all that is the reason I went all that far to Queenston to get Thor.
Preparing for the séance means huddling together and discussing the objective of the time-honored exercise, but honestly it’s hard telling Thor exactly what the object of tonight’s quest will be. I end up hinting to him that this couple we are here to help has lost highly valuable materials contained in a dark brown case.
For his part, Thor thinks it’s most likely jewelry that is missing, because he continually looks at Megan and either verbally or by facial expression says I am sorry for your loss. Not that he can’t be trusted to maintain confidence if he were told of the exact thing we are gathered for. He is a sworn guild member and wouldn’t go about preaching, but I thought about it and decided, because of the sensitive nature of the problem, to skip revealing things for now.
Great thing is our medium doesn’t press us for details. He is content with looking into ‘recovering a missing brown case that contains highly valuable materials.’
We are to sit and communion at Casey’s dinette table that presently has four chairs, but Thor wants five, so we scramble to find another one. The four of us will each sit on one, while the empty one will be reserved for Flo to take when she visits. Florence is Casey’s maternal grandmother, the one I named my pixie ward after.
Finished with the sitting arrangements, we also set five amber-colored glasses on the table, for the pouring of a special altar wine Thor instructed me to buy. The fifth glass is for Flo.
“We may now begin,” he says.
When we came, Thor brought along a small leather briefcase, and as he opens it, I peek at some of the contents: candles, a couple of wands, and then some bottles of I know not what. He brings out some incense, and believe it or not a little pot, and then from a pocket in the upper side of the case, a sheaf of worn papers that turn out to be written music.
“It’s only ceremonial, no one is going to smoke,” he says as he lays the twist of marijuana into a tiny china plate.
“We start by setting the mood with some music.” He points at the piano. “What tunes did Florence like to listen to, or play?”
“A lot,” says Casey as he stands up to check in his grandma’s entertainment center. “Let me see.”
He fetches several old vinyl albums, but apparently that’s not what Thor has in mind.
“I’m sorry those won’t do for today.” Thor shows him his sheets.
Casey looks a little flustered, but that’s okay.
“You may start sipping your wine,” the séance guru says.
We light the candles and turn off all gadgets and electric lamps. It becomes eerie and darkish, but the candles’ flicker makes for a mystic night. I get tense as an unknown energy takes hold of my body. Megan is also overwhelmed and she shivers slightly. Casey looks sedate, his face drawn.
Thor starts slow on the piano, but in a while, he picks up. His fingers traverse the keys in long sweeps. When he sings, his voice melds with the keys’ melancholy sounds and then the two rise to the ceiling before cascading down in echoes. His face is tight, his eyes distant, his lips only opening slightly to blow the harmonious air out of his throat.
I am so mesmerized by his play, it transports me to a distant place, almost like what happens in my dreams with the amethyst.
In time, he finishes his play and then comes to sit with us. He starts to pray, and the magical energy level in the room intensifies. Megan trembles, and in a moment, it’s almost like she is convulsing. With her eyes closed she gazes at the empty chair that we set for Florence, her eyeballs rolling but with the lids closed.
“Tell me what you are hearing,” says Thor. “What are the spirits saying about your brown box.”
“The spirits took me and showed me,” she says after she settles down and becomes normal, “a glass building with a deep a basement where it was very cold.”
That’s interesting, and it ties in with what those recent reveals have been showing me.
“In there, I saw people who seemed like students, but then they also wore lab coats making them look like researchers,” she adds.
“Are you sure?” I say with great interest. “You didn’t see any dead bodies or gurneys and somber gray-faced funeral directors.”
“No, nothing of that sort. Just professionals with books, microscopes, standalone lenses and other medical gizmos.”
Casey is dumbfounded, but then so am I. What does this mean? Recently I’d finally concluded his parts had been mailed to a morgue for final destruction, but as it happens, his set is stuck deep inside the basement of a research lab, at least according to this séance.
I ponder the insight. And now that we have gotten it, I realize perhaps I should have imagined such a scenario—because I remember concluding that the last people to come into contact with his parts had no knowledge of magic and were thinking to preserve them the scientific way, and that’s refrigeration. Oh God why did I fail to see this possibility?
Thor, uninformed as he is, is now the most confused of us all and that makes me sorry. He still has the image of a chocolate-brown case full of pricey jewels, and he wonders how that could become frozen in a research lab.
“The thief who stole has a phenomenal way of hiding things,” he says, his voice sounding regretful that the exercise did not shed good light.
“It’s fine.” I attempt to explain. “The séance has done a great job. Thank you very much.”
Thor wraps everything up with a short prayer, and then thanks the spirit of Casey’s grandmother for the light she has given.
We also thank him, and then he must be driven back. As the two of us get out, we leave Casey and Megan pleased with what has happened.
Back in Queenston, I drop Thor off, and then I head home myself. By eleven-thirty, I am asleep, content with the fresh glimpse, but also mildly worried if the researchers won’t pick up the case and start operating on its contents before we can do anything…
***
Later that night when I am deep in the trenches of slumber, I see a silver haired, but really not so old, lady come to take me. I have turned into a very young girl with beautiful pink ribbons in my hair, and I wear small white sandals. The old woman holds a book and has a handbag. She doesn’t say where she is taking me to, and at first I think she is Christian, and therefore we are going to church.
We walk for very long however, past some chapels and funeral homes I know of, until we reach downtown Buffalo. It’s nighttime; the streets are dead. We cross several roads, and then we come to stand near a sign. She points up to it and says read. It’s hard for me to, since I am so young, but I remember the letters: Ellicott. I look down the street and one particular building with lots of glass on its frontage strikes me. Before I can run to it, the old woman vanishes, and I wake up.
This is telling, and I am more than thrilled.
Sixty-three
It’s a Sa
turday, The Mage’s first morning after having exited the Scarlets—her witching home for upwards of two decades. Truth to tell, she might have wanted to spend the rest of her days with the esteemed coven, but then shit happens.
Looked at another way, though, she brought all this on herself. Assisting the client was one thing, but the main reason was that she needed to prove her powers. She wanted to show all those in the underworld that she had come a long way and could do things only a few others could boast of. What’s magic good for anyway if it doesn’t get used? She is sworn to be a badass mage, and that’s all this was meant to prove.
The air in the motel room tastes new; the a/c is on, making only the slightest paddling noises. Last night she phoned a cult called the Fiends, and they said yes, come, we never get tired of recruiting new, very special talent. Her position would depend on what she brought to the group. So in certain ways it’s great to be moving on, despite the losses she suffered.
Isn’t it a pity, however, that with all the pollution, sinning, and general disregard for nature, some powerful magic of old won’t reach its full potential anymore? The broom she concocted yesterday doesn’t fly like she intended it to. It only rises high and then remains fixed in one position. No amount of magical coaxing can make it go anywhere. The reason for that partial failure, she’d later found out, was that the earth—from which brooms of this type are supposed to derive some of their magic—was now so spoiled to the extent its energy wasn’t any longer easily available for harnessing.
Honestly, that was a big bummer. For she sure would have wanted to fly on the contraption to that address, and then make waves as she introduced herself, circling above while balanced on its wood handle, yet sadly that now can’t be done. An epic feat is denied her. The personal airplane she dreamed of is a near total impossibility!
What else, then, can she do to make a splashy entrance? Not so much for sure, because other things bigger than the broom are simply unattainable, but hey, for top mages like her that can’t be the end of the game. She has a backup, and she will resort to it. Yes, that penis of Casey’s. She ought to reclaim it and take it with her! Coupled with that finger she still has, the two could bring her quite an attention!
