Science and Sorcery

by Christopher Nuttall

  Matt stared at him. “But...surely we wouldn't surrender if the President was captured.”

  “She might think you would,” Golem said, after a moment. But the whole concept of democracy was somewhat alien to him. The Brotherhood had been a loose democracy and Atlantis had had an elected council; there hadn't been anything else in his time that could charitably be called democratic. “Or she might just take some territory from you and assume you’d leave her alone.”

  “But we wouldn't,” Matt said. “Is that how sorcerers behaved in your time?”

  “Very often,” Golem said. Absently, he wondered if Enchanter had deliberately intended to drain away all the mana. The Thirteen had devastated large chunks of the world and it was quite possible that some of the other sorcerers would have tried to follow in their footsteps, risking what remained of the planet. Perhaps Enchanter had believed that it was time to give someone else a chance to rule the world. “They just took over countries when they wanted power.”

  “No stability at all,” Matt breathed. “And their power would make it hard to argue with them.”

  “Correct,” Golem said. “The older sorcerers eventually grew out of it, but that didn't stop the younger ones causing a great deal of hardship for helpless mundanes. Even the ones who weren't powerful enough to claim a country were still perfectly capable of causing trouble.”

  “Then we have to get the President out of Washington,” Matt said. “Or would she be able to find him?”

  “She might well be able to use a picture of him to locate his hiding place,” Golem said. “But the students here are doing well with their protections. I believe they may be able to hide him.”

  They might be able to do more than that, he knew. He’d been taught how to produce simple wards, but they’d not suffered from his preconceptions – and Enchanter’s rather limited lessons – and they’d produced a series of interlocking wards that were actually much stronger than the basic wards Golem had taught them. They were useless for personal protection – warding a person was tricky unless done properly – but they could help to safeguard the ridiculously oversized buildings the modern world insisted on using. Harrow would have some problems trying to crack them unless she risked direct contact, which would expose her mind to a counterattack.

  “Or she might just hide,” Matt said, “and wait for the mana to build up to a usable level...”

  “She won’t,” Golem said. He looked up, trying to make Matt understand just how serious the situation had become. “Sorcerers can get drunk on their power. If she cannot draw enough mana to suit her from the surrounding area, she will start sacrificing people to boost her strength. She will become invincible very quickly.”

  “There's no such thing as an invincible enemy,” Matt said, firmly. “I put a shot through Calvin’s shoulder, despite his wards...”

  “And if you had shot him, your world would not be in such great danger,” Golem retorted. “The Queen of Nightmares knows far more than I about magic...”

  “I was thinking about that,” Matt said. “How much of her knowledge would be useless?”

  Golem felt a hot flicker of irritation. “She is a sorceress with decades of experience,” he said, wondering if human impatience felt the same way. “She will have served a proper apprenticeship with a tutor who built up her knowledge, step by step...”

  “That’s not what I meant,” Matt interrupted. “You’ve had to teach your students how to use the limited mana available here. Will she be able to do the same?”

  Golem started to object, and then thought better of it. “She did teach Calvin, so I assume that she knows that there isn't as much mana as she remembers,” he said, slowly, “but there is a world of difference between watching someone else do it and doing it yourself.”

  He looked down at his inhuman hands. “And what do you think we can do with it?”

  “I don't know,” Matt said, “but there has to be something there.”

  He looked up as Caitlyn came into the room, followed rapidly by two officers Golem didn't recognise and the made werewolf. Joe Buckley claimed to be able to control himself and he should be fine, outside the full moon. Golem had warned his allies of the dangers, which was about all he could do. Besides, no werewolf was a threat to him.

  “I have to brief the President in thirty minutes,” Caitlyn said, without preamble. Unlike some of the Kings – and sorcerers – Golem had known, the President seemed remarkably patient. “Do we have any way of tracking Calvin Jackson?”

  “Nothing reliable,” Matt said. They exchanged grim looks. “He could be anywhere by now.”

  “Yeah,” Caitlyn said. “And if we don’t find him in time...”

  Golem put it into words. “All hell will break loose.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Near Washington DC, USA

  Day 35/36

  The motel had a sleazy atmosphere that nothing, including a cleansing spell, could have removed. Calvin lay on the bed and wondered, absently, just what happened when the lights were out, because he could sense a psychic disruption in the local area. Even the mana field seemed to be jumpy. He hoped it didn't mean that the police were closing in on him, because he was tired. The day he’d spent on the run had been nightmarish.

  They shouldn't be able to track him, he told himself. He’d used scattering spells to make it impossible to use magic to home in on him, wrapped a glamour around him that should have fooled even an unblinking security camera – and using magic to convince the motel owner that he’d seen an ID that did not have the name Calvin Jackson. That had been surprisingly easy; judging from the appearance of the motel, it had a habit of taking people who didn't show any ID at all. The handful of newspaper cuttings on the wall in reception certainly suggested that a number of politicians came to the motel to relax and enjoy themselves – and cheat on their wives.

  How had he fallen so far? Every decision he’d made seemed to have made perfect sense at the time, but in hindsight...he’d been tempted and he’d fallen. Harrow had taught him how to use spells that corrupted him, weakening his sense of decency and even goodness, if there was such a thing. And yet he still found it hard to really care. The sacrifice might well have cost much more than Sandra’s soul. If Harrow hadn't asked him to sacrifice Mindy, of all people, he might never have questioned her at all.

  The newspaper in his hand had a massive picture of him on the front page. Calvin had no idea where it came from, but the story underneath was thoroughly unpleasant. He was wanted for terrorism, murder, voyeurism and black magic; the FBI had issued a warning that he was to be considered armed and extremely dangerous. The second page had a collection of interviews with his former classmates, mostly badly slanted against him. Even in death, it seemed that few were willing to speak out against Moe.

  “They threatened my family,” he said, as he reached the fourth page. The first three pages were completely dedicated to him. He hadn't seen anything like it since the President had been elected. “A mob went to the house and threatened to burn it.”

  They strike at the weak because they dare not strike at the strong, Harrow said. Her presence in his mind was almost overbearing, now that he’d allowed her brief control of his body. The memories of being moved like a puppet still chilled him, even though he’d permitted it to happen. Once you are established in the new world order, they will not dare to threaten your family – or you.

  Calvin nodded. Whatever had happened, and he saw now that Harrow had manipulated him, there was nowhere else to go. He glanced around the motel room, took one look at the broken television, and then looked back at the paper. Normal visitors didn't come to the motel to watch television, it seemed. Calvin, despite everything, had blushed furiously when he’d realised what they did come to the motel to do.

  There is nothing about their ally in the paper, Harrow said. Calvin, who still remembered the inhuman creature charging at him, shivered. I wonder where they found him.

  Calvin scowled. “You are con
vinced that your enemies left him behind to wait until the mana returned?”

  I can see no other explanation, Harrow said. The mana drain in your world was total. A Homunculi should not have been able to exist, even in diminished form. But if he were linked to the mana keeping our prison in existence, he might have been able to survive.

  “Right,” Calvin said. It certainly sounded logical. “What is he teaching the government?”

  Magic, Harrow said, flatly. He may not be able to match me as a tutor – there was an odd hint of self-satisfaction – but he will be patient and persistent. Homunculi never gave up in the old days. There were strict agreements covering their creation because they could be very dangerous, and very difficult to stop.

  Calvin remembered the creature absorbing a blast that should have killed it, and then surviving a fall down into the basement, and shivered. “Can they be destroyed?”

  Anything can be destroyed, Harrow said. You just need the right spells.

  There was a long pause as she returned to her contemplations. Calvin shrugged and read through the rest of the paper, feeling some alarm as he read an op-ed by a known right-wing commenter, who wanted all magicians rounded up and taught in separate schools. Most commenters were nothing more than loudmouths, but after what he’d done a great many people would be prepared to agree with him. A left-wing commenter pointed out that while the proposed laws banned using magic to humiliate people, they didn't ban humiliating people without using magic. The magicians could be punished for defending themselves against tormentors who were not breaking the law.

  They’re frightened of what you could do, Harrow said, softly. Better to keep you down than risk having you realise that you are far more powerful than they.

  Calvin nodded. As a child, he'd read a story about a family of pigs who’d brought a wolf baby into their house and used him as a servant, rather like Harry Potter’s aunt and uncle. The wolf had been bossed around and bullied until the day he’d snapped and eaten the pigs, an ending that had struck him as happier than The Ugly Duckling. Right now, bullies like Moe couldn't hope to cause as much damage as someone like Calvin...but allowing them to be humiliated would only ensure that there would be more people like Calvin. There was plenty of information on spells on the internet now, some of them surprisingly accurate. It wouldn't be very long before other teenage magicians sprang up and started turning their tormentors into toads.

  Pushing the pleasant thought aside, he turned to the international section. Most of the world seemed to be having problems with magic, ranging from magicians who had just discovered their powers to weird events occurring near the ancient places of power. Various governments were trying to come up with laws to deal with the problem; China and Russia had decided to conscript magicians as soon as they appeared, while Europe was asking them to come forward and join the government’s research program. A report from Britain was entitled ‘Queen founds Ministry of Magic,’ followed by a line stating that lawyers were standing by.

  Darkness fell rapidly over the parking lot, leaving him feeling oddly ill at ease. Harrow had noted that the darkness had hidden all kinds of nasty creatures in her time, but most of them had died out when the mana faded away. Even so, there was a sense that the darkness wasn't his friend – and not just because of the vampires that might be hiding within the shadows. The motel receptionist had complained that fewer people were coming to the motel, just because they were scared of vampires, werewolves and things that went bump in the might. It was apparently cutting into their profits.

  Shaking his head, he walked downstairs to the diner, where he ordered a burger and fries, along with a large milkshake. A moment later, he wished he hadn't bothered when he saw the insects flying through the room; clearly, whoever was in charge of health and safety in the District of Columbia had never bothered to inspect the motel. There were only a handful of other customers and they all looked as shifty as Calvin felt, as if they too were on the run. One of them, a loud and boisterous trucker, was bitching to his friend about just how heartbreaking it was that they could no longer drive at night, before breaking into sniggers that suggested they really didn't care. Probably not, Calvin thought as the waitress put his food in front of him; they could go to the motel and rest, rather than spending half the night cooped up in a cab.

  “Your milkshake will be along in a moment, honey,” the waitress said. Calvin would have placed her age at twenty, from her voice, but she looked thirty. “Your first time here?”

  “Yes,” Calvin said, nervously.

  “I thought so,” the waitress said, with a grin. “Every year, there are always a handful of kids who come out of the city to try to find something naughty. Have fun.”

  Calvin flushed as she walked off, swinging her hips in an exaggerated motion that had him unsure where to look. The drivers laughed at his discomfort before returning to their meals, leaving him feeling embarrassed – and half-determined to curse them. Only the fact that he needed to keep a low profile kept him from throwing the first spell. Instead, he turned to his burger and eyed it suspiciously. It really did look as if they’d overdone the grease.

  The burger tasted much better than it looked, as did the fries. Calvin ate quickly, knowing that he'd be glad of the meal in the next few hours, and then drank the milkshake. The waitress bobbled back to his table, dropped a few heavy hints about tips and then removed the empty plate, complementing Calvin on eating so much and yet remaining so slim. Calvin swallowed the impulse to point out that all she was seeing was his glamour. His real face was probably instantly recognisable by now. He was about as recognisable as Osama had been before he’d been killed in Pakistan.

  Smiling to himself, he stood up and walked out into the parking lot. Music assailed his ears from the nearby building, a black box illuminated by glowing lighting that advertised lap dancing, strip shows and sexy women. He would never have dared walk anywhere near one of them before, but right now...he could do anything. Besides, his wards would keep him safe if someone tried to mug him. Pushing the door open, he stepped into a world of darkness, broken only by brilliant spotlights that flashed across the stage. Bracing himself, he slipped into the building and took a seat at a nearby table, before looking up at the women on stage. He couldn't resist staring at them.

  They were dancing madly, slowly pulling off their clothes in time to the beat of the music, using their hands to draw attention to their breasts. Calvin was silently thankful that he'd secured the glamour in place, because his concentration started to suffer the moment he saw the girls. He’d watched plenty of girls undressing through magic, and he’d undressed both Sandra and Marie, but he’d never seen anything like it.

  It was odd, but sex with Marie hadn't been that great. Certainly, it had been nothing like the stories he'd read on the internet, or heard whispered throughout the school. But then, she hadn't been a very willing partner – and she’d really done nothing more than lying on the floor while he did all the work. Calvin had wondered, for a time, if there was something wrong with him, before deciding that it would probably be better when a girl went to bed with him of her own free will. When he was a powerful magician and one of the rulers of the world, as Harrow had promised, girls would flock to him, eager to bear his children.

  He felt his excitement rise as the show continued, despite the fact that there were only a handful of customers in the room. Calvin found that hard to understand until he remembered what the receptionist had said about people being scared to travel out after dark. Besides, Moe had boasted of visiting strip clubs and the like, but right now Calvin was pretty sure he was the youngest person in the room. The girls didn't seem to care. They just danced for their handful of paying customers, throwing the remains of their outfits towards the tables. A pair of panties landed in front of Calvin and he felt himself blush, under the glamour. Nothing in his life, even magic, had prepared him for such a scene.

  The music died down as the dancers moved off the stage, still naked. Calvin watched th
em walking out to the various tables, wondering if the dancers were prostitutes as well as everything else. A moment later, one of them stopped in front of his table and smiled down at him. Calvin found it impossible to take his eyes off her bare breasts. They were larger than Marie’s breasts...

  She smiled. “Buy the lady a drink, darling?”

  For a moment, Calvin felt utterly flustered, and then smiled. “Why not?”

  Harrow had warned him not to touch alcohol or anything else that might have an effect on his mind, as it would weaken his ability to control his magic. Calvin ordered a lemonade for himself and something called a Screaming Orgasm for the dancer, who told him – with a smile – that she was called Jewels. He felt oddly relaxed in her company, even though he could never have said why. She was older than him, at least twenty, with eyes that looked older than the rest of her. And yet she managed to put him at his ease.