Science and Sorcery

by Christopher Nuttall

  Matt stood up, walked over to the end of the bed and retrieved the medical records. He was no doctor, but learning to read them was an essential part of police training, mainly for when criminals claimed to be ill, insane or tried to make other excuses for their crimes.

  “Read this,” he said. The first doctor had written a whole string of question marks; the second had written a note questioning the first doctor’s competence. He hadn't believed that someone could recover from having their butt cheek torn free so quickly. Matt, who had seen how odd the first werewolf’s body had been, believed it. “I think that you’re not entirely human any longer.”

  He passed Buckley the record and frowned, inwardly. If Buckley had been tainted by magic, and Matt could see the magic...what the hell was he?

  Chapter Eight

  New York, USA

  Day 6

  Calvin awoke at 11am, much to his surprise. His mother normally bellowed at him to get out of bed to go to school, but she hadn't said a word in the morning. Puzzled, half-convinced that the events of the night had just been a dream, he pulled on his shirt and jeans before walking down to the kitchen, A pair of notes sat on the table; one from the school, informing his parents that the school would remain closed until Monday, the other from his mother, telling him to behave himself. Calvin found himself chuckling as he realised that it had been real after all. Moe and his cronies would never pick on him again.

  Pouring himself a cup of milk, he picked up the paper and looked at it. The front page was dominated by a story about a woman who had developed the power to heal people with her bare hands, something that he would have found unbelievable if he hadn't somehow incinerated Moe with his own magic. Glancing inside, the next few pages constituted of related stories, some of them thoroughly confusing. Strange lights had been sighted at legendary places of power, followed by a number of incidents and deaths. The paper was short on detail, but Harrow had told him enough to read between the lines. Magic was flowing back into the world and the old places of power were coming back to life.

  And his powers were real. Feeling a strange sensation in his chest, he picked up a bowl of water and triggered the spying spell, looking for Marie. Unsurprisingly, she was running down the street with a pair of girlfriends, exercising for cheerleader practice. Calvin fought down a flash of disappointment, almost laughing at himself. It was nearly noon; she wasn't going to be naked right now, was she? Some fiddling with the spell allowed him to see her covered breasts, bouncing invitingly under her shirt as she ran, but it wasn't quite the same. Shaking his head, he looked for three other girls he knew from school; two of them, like Marie, were taking advantage of their time away from school. The third, Sandra, looked up the moment the spell formed, as if she was looking back at him.

  Calvin cancelled the spell frantically, irrationally convinced that Sandra had sensed the intrusion, perhaps even sensed him. She was the smartest of the cheerleaders, a group for which he normally had nothing but abject contempt; it was possible that she too had the smarts to make magic work. Or maybe she had some inherent talent that was coming to life as magic flowed back into the world. Calvin found himself shaking as he poured the steaming water into the sink and found himself something to eat from the fridge. What if Sandra drew the connection between Moe’s death, someone spying on her, and Calvin himself?

  He mulled it over in his mind as he ate breakfast and then wandered back upstairs. What exactly was he doing? Magic, Harrow had said, and he had no reason to doubt her, but how did it actually work? He’d burned Moe to death, along with two of his cronies, and later somehow created water from nothing. Or had he? The water had been real, but where had it actually come from? A little imagination provided too many ideas for comfort. If he could make something out of nothing, where could he stop?

  “Mana is the source of magic, the power behind the spells,” Harrow had said. Calvin took that to mean that humans, magical or mundane, didn't produce mana for themselves. That had to be true, or the utopia where brains, not strength, determined social position would never have fallen. There had to be an outside source of mana that, for whatever reason, had stopped working for thousands of years. And now it was back.

  Thoughtfully, he opened his wallet and produced a ten-dollar bill. Harrow hadn't mentioned any spells for counterfeiting money – there might not even have been money when she’d been free, although he found that hard to believe – but more money would be very useful. Calvin’s family might not have been living on the streets, yet he’d felt the shame of poverty and of being bombarded by the taunts of those who were granted bigger allowances by their parents. What if he could produce a duplicate ten-dollar bill?

  Concentrating, he tried to focus on what he wanted. There was a surge of mana and a second bill appeared in front of him, only to fall into dust when he caught hold of it. Calvin swore out loud and tried again, but the second result was no more successful than the first. But then, he was trying to get something out of nothing. Snorting, he picked up a sheet of paper, held it behind the original bill, and tried again. This time, he produced something that looked like a ten-dollar bill, and remained fairly stable, but it felt wrong, as if an incompetent forger had tried to print out fake money on ordinary paper. Calvin experimented with crumpling it up, rumpling the paper, before admitting that forgery didn't seem to be very easy. There had to be some trick he was missing.

  Or maybe there just wasn't enough mana in the air yet. Harrow had said that the mana was flowing back into the world, enough to trigger dormant werewolf genes in people who had had no idea that they were werewolves. And many other mystical creatures too. The newspaper had reported vampire attacks in Chicago and San Francisco, sightings of mermaids in the Potomac and even zombies in Haiti. How long would it be until there was enough mana to turn someone into a snail?

  He allowed himself a long moment to imagine Moe being turned into a snail and being crushed underfoot, before pushing the thought aside. Magic didn't make someone all-powerful, or whatever had happened to Harrow and her friends would never have happened. The thought was entertaining, but if someone happened to be turned into a snail, what happened to the rest of their body mass? Even the smallest human was a giant compared to a snail, far heavier than the crawling creature. Did mana interface with reality itself and change things, or were some magical tales nothing more than legends?

  Harrow had told him to practice, so he started by summoning fire and – this time – trying to deduce what actually happened when he used his magic. The air seemed to grow very hot, very rapidly, before the flame actually came into existence. No wonder Moe had burned so fast, he realised, as he cancelled the spell. The mana had generated so much heat that the real question was why the school itself hadn't burned to the ground. Or, for that matter, why Calvin hadn't been scorched by being so close to the fire. Clearly, there were laws at work that he didn't even begin to understand.

  Twenty minutes later, he had run through every spell Harrow had taught him that could be used without a human target and felt tired, almost dizzy. Magic clearly exacted a price, he realised as he walked back downstairs and retrieved a bar of chocolate from the fridge. His mother would be unhappy to learn that he had eaten a whole bar, but there was no choice. He needed a sugar rush and he needed it now. Mana ebbed and flowed around him as he ate the chocolate and drank a glass of milk, before walking back upstairs and turning on his laptop. Logically, he couldn't be the only magician whose magic had started coming to life – and if there were others, they might be trying to reach out on the internet. He knew better than to make contact after what had happened to Moe, but he could certainly browse the bulletin boards and see what they said.

  The internet had never been as restrained as the mainstream media. Where the newspapers had reported werewolves, vampires and outright magic in a tone of mild disbelief, the internet gleefully picked up and magnified each and every rumour. He looked up the incident at his school first and recoiled in shock when he discovered that a num
ber of internet forums had made the correct deduction; Moe had been a bully who had finally been killed by one of his victims. Any rational discussion was effectively obliterated by two sets of trolls; one in favour of killing bullies on sight, the other shocked by the deaths and the seemingly tacit approval offered by many posters. But there was nothing, thankfully, that linked Calvin specifically to Moe.

  Breathing out, he concentrated on reading as many stories as he could, even though it was impossible to determine which ones might be true and which were nothing more than the product of mass hysteria. Police departments had reported a higher percentage of people winding up trapped outside naked, as if they’d been drunk – or werewolves. The federal government was still flapping about just what was going on, but various police departments had asked people who thought they might have been werewolves to report to them for medical attention. One rather sarcastic poster pointed out that they’d been swarmed with people claiming to be werewolves, including several who hadn't transformed at the light of the full moon. The real werewolves were either unaware of their true nature or were keeping their heads down. They might be charged with murder because of what they’d done while under the influence.

  Those weren’t even the weirdest tales. A doctor reported a girl who seemed to have drowned, in the middle of the Nevada desert. The police suspected that it was murder, but they didn't have any clues that might lead them to the perpetrator. Calvin couldn't imagine what sort of spell would do that to someone, if it hadn't been a case of the poor girl discovering her hidden heritage at precisely the wrong moment, but he suspected that he could learn. Clairvoyants were reporting that they actually could talk to the dead, although the dead weren't always happy about being disturbed. One report stated that a clairvoyant’s house had been torn apart by invisible forces, while the woman herself – and her clients – had been stripped naked, pinched so badly that their bodies were still bruised, and then dumped outside. Calvin would have found that absurd, if he hadn't read the line that stated that the clients wanted to know where their uncle had hidden his money. Maybe you could take it with you when you left after all.

  And then there was the story of a girl who had grown bigger breasts, or the girl who had suddenly become the most attractive woman in the world, or the folksinger whose voice seemed to be able to perform magic, or the swimmer who had grown gills and a tail...

  A crash from downstairs interrupted his musings. Calvin stood up, wondering if the police had finally drawn the connection between him and Moe and come to arrest him. Killing Moe had been a service to humanity, but he wouldn't expect the police to see it that way. They served the established order, the same order that wanted to keep the nerds and geeks and everyone else with brains firmly under control. Feeling magic billowing around him, he advanced to the top of the stairs and sighed in relief when he saw Mindy. His sister might be irritating as hell – little sisters always were – but she wasn't the police.

  “You’re so lucky,” Mindy said, as Calvin walked downstairs. “They didn't cancel my school.”

  Calvin shrugged. “You don’t go to the same school,” he reminded her. “No one died at your school.”

  “Petal might have,” Mindy said. She smiled, expecting her brother to listen to her. “No one has seen anything of her for three days and the teachers are worried.”

  “I bet they are,” Calvin said sardonically. No one had given a shit when Moe had treated him like dirt, but someone as attractive as Petal...well, it would be a different story for her. “I’m sure she’s fine.”

  “She normally goes on Messenger or Yahoo Chat as soon as she gets home from school,” Mindy said, seriously. “Right now...she’s been completely silent. No one knows what has happened to her.”

  “She’s probably ill,” Calvin said. He found it hard to care. Petal was seven years younger than him and went to a different school. Either one would have put a barrier between them, even if Mindy and her friends hadn’t tormented him during one of her birthday parties. It had just been another reminder that he didn't have any friends to attend a birthday party of his own. “Why don't you go see her after school?”

  “Because mom says that I am to come home and not dawdle on the way,” Mindy said. Their mother hadn't quite believed most of the reports sweeping the nation, but she’d believed enough to insist that her children came home before dark. God alone knew what was going to happen during the next full moon. “And I have tried to call her and there was no answer.”

  Calvin sat down at the table as Mindy started to prepare canned soup. His kid sister got to come home for lunch, unlike him, something else that rankled even though his school was too far away for him to get home for lunch and then back again before classes resumed. There were times when he wondered if he had been adopted, or if there was some dark secret behind his conception; Mindy took far more after their mother than Calvin did after their father. But they did look alike...if only he’d had their father’s muscles instead of the face. His life would have been much easier. What if his mother had cheated on his father and the man he’d been raised to call daddy wasn't his real father? The fact they shared the same looks could be the product of wishful thinking. Or maybe it was the other way around.

  Or maybe he was just being silly.

  “You want some?” Mindy asked. “I used the whole tin.”

  “Yes, please,” Calvin said, rolling his eyes. Mindy was such a kid. Any fool could tell that an entire tin of soup was too much for one young girl. Their mother would throw a fit if she found out that Mindy had wasted half the liquid. She might even save it and insist on Mindy reheating the soup at a later date. “And some toast as well, if you please.”

  He waited while Mindy finished cooking lunch and then spooned it out into a pair of bowls, before sitting down facing him and tucking in. Calvin ate slowly, enjoying the taste, while reading the newspaper again. Mindy chatted about nothing until she finished eating, whereupon she brought up a friend of hers who believed in magic. Calvin found himself listening with new interest as she spoke.

  “Dana has this charm her Indian grandmother gave her,” Mindy informed him. “She says that it protects her from evil.”

  “Oh,” Calvin said. He considered pointing out that they were supposed to be called Native Americans these days, before deciding that it was a waste of time. “And does it actually work?”

  “She says it does,” Mindy admitted, doubtfully. “But she was also saying that her grandmother invited her to the reservation for a ceremony, one that might be very important for her future.”

  “Oh,” Calvin said, again. It was easy to fake disinterest, even though he had the feeling that Native American magic rituals might start working now. Harrow had implied as much. “Maybe you should ask her for a protective bracelet for yourself.”

  Mindy glared at him. “You’re not taking me seriously,” she protested. “You’re weird.”

  Calvin fought down the sudden hot surge of rage that threatened to consume him. People had been calling him weird, or worse, for his entire life, yet it hurt the most coming from his kid sister. Mana started to boil around him and he forced it down hastily, fearing that he might lose control and incinerate Mindy too. He couldn't do that...slowly, the mana came under control, fading back into the background. And then he opened his eyes, unaware that he’d even closed them, to see Mindy staring at him in horror.

  “What...what happened?”

  He would have cursed himself for a fool if there had been time. Mindy was his kid sister; they shared the same genes. Whatever had made him a magician might have done the same to her. Maybe she didn't have the benefits of Harrow’s teachings, but he hadn't needed his tutor to kill three bullies. He could teach her...but he couldn't take the risk of her tattling to their parents, or to the authorities.

  Calvin concentrated, summoning a spell Harrow had taught him and holding it firmly in his mind. “Nothing happened,” he said, casting the spell. Harrow had warned him that mental manipulation requ
ired practice, for the human mind was often unpredictable and difficult to control, but there had been no time to practice on someone else. “You saw nothing. You came home, you ate lunch with me and then you went back to school.”

  Mindy looked...dazed, almost hypnotised. Calvin felt a flash of concern, one that was driven away by the grim awareness that he had come very close to exposing himself. This power might be fun, if less spectacular than burning Moe to a crisp, but using it on his kid sister...

  But there was no choice. He told himself that he had no choice.

  Afterwards, Mindy ran off to school, seemingly unaware that he’d cut a slice out of her memory. Calvin hoped that the spell had worked, knowing that there was no way to be sure. Even the Demon Headmaster had had trouble with hypnosis, and Mindy was smart. Would she notice that her memories didn't quite make sense?

  Shaking his head, he washed the dishes and headed upstairs. Harrow had told him to practice and practice he would. And then he’d work out how to get a living subject for his experiments.

  Chapter Nine

  Washington DC, USA

  Day 7

  “They don’t want me to come with you?”