Black Magic (Black Records Book 1)

by Mark Feenstra

  The artifact dealer never once looked back at me, but I sensed he knew exactly where I was at all times. He slipped through spaces in the crowd that closed a second before I could follow, and he was gaining distance on me as we fought our way down the busy sidewalk. He couldn’t outpace me for long though. People turned off in all directions the farther we got from the arena, and it was only a matter of time before my route to him wasn’t blocked by a human barricade.

  Felix must have realized the same thing, because he ducked sideways into a narrow laneway a few seconds later.

  He was running all out by the time I reached the entrance to the laneway, and I snapped off my magical sight and sprinted after him. While not nearly as old as Norman Weathersby, Felix wasn’t all that spry. I was confident I could catch him before he reached the next street. I doubled down, fought through the ache in my joints and the throbbing in my head, and pushed my legs to carry me that little bit faster.

  Felix surprised me by cutting left into an even smaller side alley. Like an idiot, I ran full tilt around the corner and straight into hands that snatched me by the jacket collar to spin me sideways before shoving me up against the wall hard enough to knock the wind from my lungs. Felix held me with a grip so strong he’d lifted me off the ground a little. I stood on tiptoes, laboring to suck air into my lungs against the pressure of his bunched fists pressing hard against my chest.

  “Who are you and why are you following me?”

  I put my hands up in the air in a gesture of surrender. “I’m Alex Black and I only want to ask you a few questions about Norman Weathersby.”

  His grip loosened a little, and I sank back to the ground. Able to breathe more easily, I forced a smile and tried to look as nonthreatening as possible.

  “What do you know about Norman?” snapped Felix. “Why are you interested in him?”

  “I just want to know about the artifact,” I said. “I know he’d recently come into possession of something valuable, and I think identifying it might help me track down his killer.”

  “Killer?” asked Felix. A puzzled look fell over his face and he relaxed his grip on my jacket even further. “Norman is dead?”

  “You didn’t know?”

  He shook his head. “This can’t be true. I heard the rumors, but I never in a thousand years thought it would resurface. If this is indeed true, it’s very bad for all of us.”

  “What’s bad, Felix? What exactly is the artifact?”

  Felix let go of me entirely. He paced up and down the alley, shaking his head and muttering to himself in a foreign language. It sounded vaguely like French but it was nothing I could understand from a few years of forced lessons before I’d given up on the public school system altogether.

  “Felix, I need you to calm down and talk to me for a second. Preferably in English.”

  He whirled on me and stared at me with such fear in his eyes I nearly broke and ran. For the briefest of moments, I didn’t want to hear what he had to say, and I certainly didn’t want to have to be responsible for dealing with it.

  “If the amulet is in play, then we’re all doomed,” he said, a white fleck of foamy spit flying from his lips. “I didn’t want to believe the rumors. I reached out to Norman to find out the truth, and now I understand why I haven’t heard from him. If he’s dead, then it’s not safe for me here any longer. They’ll think I know about the book. They’ll kill me when they’re done torturing me.”

  “Book? Amulet? Slow down a minute here. What’s this about a book?”

  He hunched his shoulders and scanned the entrance of the alley nervously. “It’s not safe here. Not safe to talk about these things in the open. They’ll be coming for me if they have it. They’ll wanting to know what I know, and they won’t care if I don’t have the answers they seek.”

  “Who is ‘they’, Felix? Who are you afraid of?”

  “Does it matter?” he said with a psychotic burst of laughter. “Whoever is after this kind of power won’t hesitate to destroy anything that stands in their way. I’ve got to get out of here before they come looking for me. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll run far away from here too.”

  “Alex?” called Brody from somewhere far down the block. “Are you back here? Where the hell did you go?”

  Felix’s eyes widened and his eyes turned angry as he reached into an inner jacket pocket.

  “You lying bitch,” he spat. “Thought you could trick me into giving you information on how to activate the amulet? I told you I don’t know anything, so leave me alone!”

  “I’m not tryi—”

  I was cut short before I could finish. Time slowed to a crawl when Felix activated whatever artifact he’d been reaching for. With my sight still active, I saw the scintillating wall of kinetic energy build from nothingness into a rapidly moving force that raced away from Felix’s body. It was only out of fear-driven instinct that I threw up my own comparatively weak magical shield a fraction of an instant before the spell slammed into me and sent me flying backwards.

  My head hit brick at high speed. Black spots swarmed across my vision. Bile rose in my throat, and immediately after slumping to the ground, I rolled over and threw up a mix of stomach acid and partially digested licorice. An ear-splitting drone wailed in my ears, and it was all I could do to keep from passing out when I collapsed onto my side.

  “Alex?” said Brody as he rushed around the corner. “What the fuck was that sound?”

  He crouched next to me and placed a hand on my shoulder. When I didn’t look up at him or react in any way, he brushed hair out of my eyes and placed two fingers on my neck to check for a pulse.

  “What happened?” he asked. “I heard you scream. Where are you hurt?”

  I tried to tell him to go after Felix, but all that came out was a low and unintelligible croak. All I wanted to do was sleep, and the longer I lay there, the more I hated Brody for trying to keep me from doing so. Still, some part of me fought to stay present, and I dug deep into my reserves to activate a risky little move that flicked magical energy through my central nervous system in order to perk me up enough to at least sit up and keep from passing out.

  “Where’s Felix?” I managed after a few deep breaths.

  “I didn’t see him,” answered Brody. “You were alone when I came around the corner.”

  “He must have run after he hit me with an artifact.” I reached up and touched the sore spot on the back of my head. “Dammit.”

  My fingers came away sticky and covered in blood. My mind reeled at how well and truly fucked I was. Then I passed out.

  Chapter Six

  My eyelids were gummy and dry when I managed to peel them open again. Bright colors flashed on the wall in front of me. As I took in the unfamiliar surroundings, I slowly pieced together that I was lying on a couch in someone else’s home. Even the dim light emanating from the TV stung my eyes, and I winced when I tried to lift my head for a better look around. There wasn’t a part of me that didn’t feel like it hadn’t been tenderized with a sledgehammer. Layered over the usual magic hangover headache was a distinctly throbbing pain emanating from the base of my skull. The memory of my high speed collision with a brick wall was enough to make me grit my teeth and force myself up into a sitting position.

  Something reeked of garbage, and after looking down at the dark colored stains on my jacket and skirt, I was pretty sure it was me.

  “And she wakes,” said a voice I didn’t recognize.

  I squinted against the glare of the TV and saw a gnome-like man sitting in a beat up leather recliner. He wasn’t wearing the jaunty red hat, but his pointy white beard and rosy cheeks were enough to bring to mind a half dozen Travelocity jokes. I bit them off before I could say anything stupid. The guy was too tall to be an actual gnome, and since I couldn’t feel any obvious pain to indicate that he’d cut me open to steal my organs, I rolled with the assumption he was probably human.

  All the same, I slid my hand under my shirt and checked my belly
for new incisions. You can never be too careful where gnomes are concerned.

  “How’re you feeling?” asked Brody.

  He sat with phone in hand, as though he’d been typing or reading a message. I saw the half empty beer bottle on the coffee table in front of him, a dead companion resting beside it. I couldn’t remember a thing about how he’d managed to get me here, let alone where here was, but it was obvious I’d been pretty far gone if he’d been able to move me that far without me having any memory of it.

  “How long have I been out?” I asked.

  “You’ve been unconscious for almost three hours,” said Brody. “I didn’t know what to do when you passed out. The wound on the back of your head looked pretty serious, so I called Lorelai and she told me to bring you here.”

  “And here is…?”

  “My place,” said gnome-man as he leaned forward and kicked the footrest of his chair down. He drained the last of whatever was in his rocks glass before setting it on the fat padded arm of his chair. “I owe your friend Lorelai there a few favors, so I cleaned you up as best I could. Not much I could do cover it up without shaving a patch of hair off your skull though.”

  My eyes widened to cartoon-like proportions, and I impulsively reached for the back of my head to check the damage. Thankfully, I discovered nothing but damp hair from where he’d wiped the area clean. Although it hurt like bloody murder, the wound seemed fairly superficial. My fingers came away only slightly red from where the blood seeping from my scalp hadn’t yet fully clotted.

  “I figured you wouldn’t want to go to a hospital,” said Brody.

  “Good guess,” I mumbled. “I’m not a big fan of doctors.”

  I checked my life charm bracelet. The bead hadn’t activated, so at least I hadn’t been any real danger.

  “Lucky for you I’ve had my medical license revoked,” said the talking beard. “So although I’m technically still a doctor, I won’t give you a lecture about how you shouldn’t have been doing whatever it was that left you in this state.”

  “Not that I don’t appreciate the care, but who are you?” I asked.

  “Samuel Jenkins, at your service,” he said. “There’s two Oxycontin on the table there if you want them for the pain. I don’t normally give out the good stuff, but you look like absolute shit.”

  “Is that your professional opinion?” I asked.

  He shrugged and leaned back in his chair again. “Lorelai told me to do what I needed to do to get you back on your feet again. If you’d been in my ER, I’d have you doped up enough to stay under for another few hours while we got some liquids and fresh blood into your system. You don’t seem to have lost that much from your wound, but you look like you’ve gone a full bout with Rhonda Rousey.”

  “I don’t follow boxing,” I said.

  I caught Jenkins rolling his eyes at Brody in my periphery as I looked down at the two green pills. My first instinct was to snatch them up and swallow them before my brain could stop me. This was followed closely by an urge to crush them up and rail them off the coffee table. In the end, cold rationality overruled both options. Only bad things lay in wait down that road. As good as I’d feel in the short run, I couldn’t afford the downswing and subsequent craving for more when the effects eventually wore off.

  Brody tapped his phone a few more times before shoving it in his pocket. “What exactly happened in that alley?”

  I stared at Jenkins, and he drew himself up out of his chair with an exaggerated sigh. With a look that made it clear how much I was inconveniencing him in his own home, he collected his glass and shuffled off into the kitchen. I almost instinctively tapped my sight in order to verify he wasn’t actually a giant gnome, but the waves of pain cascading through my body were enough of a warning that I needed to rest.

  I motioned for Brody to come sit next to me, waiting until I was sure Jenkins was out of earshot. My body was so out of gas I could barely stay sitting upright let alone trust my intuition. The guy didn’t look all that sinister, but it didn’t seem worth sharing what little I’d learned with a total stranger.

  “Felix was really freaked out,” I said, voice pitched low. “He was blubbering about someone hunting him down to find out what he knew, and before I could get anything out of him, he activated an artifact that emitted a force pulse strong enough to blast me against the wall. You showed up a second later, and I’m guessing he was already gone?”

  Brody nodded. “You were alone when I got there. I heard the sound of whatever hit you, then I heard you scream. That’s how I found you.”

  “Well, I think our friend Felix is in the wind now. He was scared enough I doubt he’s still in town. Our best bet is probably to go back to the gallery to see if we can uncover anything that will explain what had him so spooked.”

  “You’re not going anywhere right now,” said Jenkins as he re-entered the room. Ice tinkled in his glass as he sank into his recliner. He leaned back to kick the leg rest into place, sipped his drink, then tilted the glass in my direction. “I recommend you take one of those pills, sleep for a day or two, and then eat and drink your body weight in food and electrolytes.”

  He looked me up and down. “Maybe twice your weight.”

  I licked dry lips and glanced at the green pills again. Just one OC80 could go for as much as sixty bucks on the street. As painfully aware of the consequences as I was, I didn’t think I could stop myself from getting high If I spent another minute in the presence of those two little green bundles of deliverance. One quick swallow could temporarily erase every bit of shitty hurt I was feeling.

  “Thanks for the advice, but I think I’d rather sleep in my own bed if that’s all I’m capable of.”

  I made a feeble attempt to stand up, resulting in Brody having to jump up to catch me before I pitched forward onto the coffee table. My stomach churned with acid heat. I was so hungry and empty that tremors wracked my body when I tried to use any of my muscles. To keep from focusing on how great it would feel to down even one of the Oxys, I thought about my bedroom and the soft warm bed waiting for me there. Normally a leftover quinoa salad wouldn’t get me too excited, but as hungry as I was, the idea of shoveling spoonfuls of slightly dried out grains and vegetables into my face was about the only thing giving me the strength to get out of Felix’s creepy apartment.

  Brody slipped his hand around my waist and helped me shuffle towards the door like a feeble newborn calf. I didn’t bother thanking Samuel Jenkins for whatever he’d done for me while I was passed out, and if the sound of the TV becoming unmuted before we’d made it five steps from the couch was any indication, he’d already moved on with his life.

  “I know where we are,” I said after we’d taken the elevator downstairs and emerged onto the street. “My place isn’t far from here.”

  Brody helped me into the car, then went around to slide into the driver’s seat. I gave him directions to my apartment while trying to think of something I could say to get him to go away. All I wanted to do was eat my salad and fall into bed, and I didn’t really like the idea of having him sitting around my apartment while I was all but dead to the world. There’s nothing quite like a post-magic blowout sleep, and I had a feeling this was going to be a long one.

  “So,” said Brody when he made the last turn onto my street.

  “So.”

  “How’re you feeling?”

  “Not gonna lie,” I said. “I’ve been better.”

  “How about you invite me up for a cup of coffee, then we go through the motions of pretending like that’s what’s really going to happen before getting down to doing what we really want to do.”

  “Which is?”

  “Tearing each other’s clothes off and fucking until the sun comes up.”

  He pulled into the space I indicated, and I looked out the window and saw the muted blue light of the impending sunrise. A bird chirped merrily somewhere, as though we’d driven from the real world where I’d just had my ass kicked into an animated film w
here the heroine is never knocked down so hard she can’t get up.

  “Shouldn’t take long,” I said as wryly as I could manage.

  I smiled though. Damn me if the guy wasn’t a big handsome ball of charm. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad having someone watch my back after all.

  “You can help me up the stairs, but I’m afraid I’m all out of sugar, so I can’t offer you any “coffee”.”

  Brody’s dopey smile reaffixed itself to his face. “Don’t worry, I wouldn’t really try to hit on you while you’re in this state. Even if you did manage to get your clothes off, you’d probably make me do all the work.”

  He grabbed my bag from the space behind my seat, hopped out of the car, and came around to fetch me. Once he’d opened the door, he took my hand and helped me out with surprising gentleness. The faintest whiff of sandalwood still wafted off his skin, and as I stood there with my head on his shoulder while he closed the car door, I thought about how nice it would be to have him curl up in bed beside me. The emptiness I felt after using magic was more than a physical loss; it drained me to the very core of my being. I’d never asked any male mages if they experienced the same thing, but it was like the worst kind of PMS combined with the feeling of having been dumped by the love of your life.

  It was worse than coming down of a quad shot of OC80s, and that was saying a lot.

  “Am I hurting you?” asked Brody.

  We’d made it as far as the curb before I started crying. Like I said, using too much magic fucks you right in the feels for a while.

  I shook my head and sniffed back a glob of snot threatening to escape from my nostril. “I just want to get upstairs.”