I stopped not far from the taped-off job site crawling with police officers and crouched down next to a few bags of cement mix. It wasn’t dirt, but it would do—I just needed something simple to see what we were dealing with. I pulled one of the bags away from the wall and found a thick black glove pressed up against the corner. It was the sort of glove I’d used last summer when I stripped the deck, dense rubber with a bit of tack poured over a white fabric base. The glove itself had already picked up a contingent of concrete dust I had to brush off. Underneath that dirt, and barely visible along the dingy cuff, were the letters “TS” in permanent marker.
I turned the rubber over before tossing it aside. This was an active job site, and anything I found could have been brought in by anyone.
I opened one of the concrete bags and let the fine powder spill out over the wood floor, then dug my finger into the loose aggregate and began drawing the sigil. A few more flashy bits of Magick came readily to mind, but this was far safer—sort of like testing the water with your toe before you jumped in.
I finished the symbol and brushed aside the loose mix, waiting for something to happen. The complex series of interlocking circles and radiating lines had a gothic motif going for it, which made sense given I’d picked up the trick from Morgan. She had been a master at sigils, and her fascination with the designs of a particularly dark Magician had made this one a frequent visual. The girl was convinced the Ten Spins and the other long dead old Magicians had secrets to share with her, and in the end it was that belief that had done her in. It took me a while to come around to that, and I still wasn’t keen on seeing, let alone using any of that old Magician’s designs, but it was certainly what the task called for today. Ten Spins’ Infernal Bonelight only glowed in the presence of the scariest and most powerful of the dearly departed, Old Dead.
While New Dead were a whirling mess of fiery spiritual energy, Old Dead meant they’d found a way to avoid being kicked off to the netherworld—and had grown powerful in the process. Old Dead had secrets, deep and powerful secrets, and they weren’t afraid to use those secrets to keep them here. That’s what made them so dangerous—the will to live when coupled Deep Magick was a terrifying one-two-punch.
The key was their bones, and for maximum power they all had to stay together—which is why it was so important they didn’t.
The symbols in the concrete dust remained dark.
Thank God. I’ve got too much on my plate already.
My phone chirped twice in rapid-fire succession, pulling me away from the undead detector.
The first was from Cathy and caused my heart to skip a beat.
Dad, u there?
Yes, you okay?
Y, found magick stuff on internet :D
I ran a frustrated hand through my hair. My daughter was now scouring the internet for Magick with her phone—while at school—and undoubtably finding all manner of nonsensical made-up bullshit. She’d gone from ready to vomit all over the front seat to being an internet Magician.
No! Please don’t, just focus on your chemistry test.
:(
I mean it, Catherine Law.
I looked up the necklace. It’s a Lenar’s Logic Loop, right?
Yes. Keep it on!
Says it will mute my Magick :(
Cathy!
Fine… :/
Technically she was right. The Logic Loop would do exactly that, keep her Wild Magick outbursts under control, at least until she was strong enough to overpower it—that was a sobering thought.
Are you wearing the necklace?
My daughter sent back a ‘nod’ emoji along with a string of tiny icons there was no way I’d decipher without my glasses on.
Is that a yes?
While I waited for my daughter to respond I checked the second message. It was from the world’s best mechanic.
Gene, got to order a few parts, going to be a couple days. Sorry!
I let Rob know it was okay—I’d had an Imp in the engine compartment and must have sent the little guy into fits when I froze up the radiator—whatever it took to fix that amount of damage was fine.
No problem, Rob. Thanks.
Sure thing. Will let you know on Justine.
Crap, I’d completely forgotten about that promise. Still, Rob was repairing what had to have been many thousands of dollars in Dad Wagon damage for exactly zero dollars. The least I could do was hook up his girlfriend with the spirit of her dead mother—provided the ghost actually wanted to talk to her daughter.
My phone chirped again—it was Cathy the sorceress supreme.
I’m wearing it, except when I took it off to try some Magick!
I turned the screen off before my head exploded. At that moment, I was sure if Justine was anything like my daughter, her mother might not be too keen on talking to her regardless.
“Gene, anything else you want to do? You need to burn some incense or do a little dance or something?” Sharon asked, joining me in the hallway.
“Uh, what?”
“John told me all about the ‘magic’ you used to save him from some tree person a few years ago. I want you to know I think you are a complete sham and a charlatan of the lowest caliber.”
“Okay—”
“And if it were up to me I’d be talking to FDLE about you, not some ancient bones tucked into the wall of this museum,” Sharon said, her eyes burning holes in my chest. “So, do your dance or whatever, and I’ll be waiting at the car—you’ve got five minutes.”
This sort of reaction to my profession wasn’t unusual—in fact, it was rather commonplace—but it wasn’t something I had been expecting from Sharon.
So much for Magickal foresight.
Right. I’ll get my MC Hammer pants on and bust out some of my best moves on this epicenter of evil unrest—the dead hate modern dance.
“No. I’ve seen what I needed to see. I did notice we might have some wiring issues. We could get dinged for that.”
Sharon glared at me.
“But hey, what do I know? I’m just the exorcist.”
The lawyer stomped back toward her car and I turned to wipe away the sigil with my foot, then stopped. I’d missed a loop and bent down to fix the mistake.
The instant my finger closed that circle in the dust the seal glowed a bright and angry green. That’s when I felt it: the surge of evil Magick, both wild and unpredictable, coupled with the distinct sound of crackling electricity. Kinder Construction was in the process of taking down some walls, which meant they’d have to have turned off the electricity, but I’d have to tell that to the live wire that dropped from the ceiling and snapped to life behind Sharon.
Crap.
16
That's all Volts
While I wasn’t the biggest fan of Sharon the lawyer, I wasn’t about to watch her get murdered by Old Dead—not on my watch.
“Sharon!” I shouted, trying to get the attorney’s attention.
“Save it for someone who cares, Gene,” she said, continuing to stomp her way back to the lobby, completely oblivious to the spark-spitting utility-grade death-viper stalking her like a nature documentary predator.
Damn it—why is it always the skeptics that need saving?
There wasn’t enough time to catch up to Sharon, and I wasn’t equipped to tangle with however many watts that wire was carrying. I was a Magician—what little I knew about electricity I’d picked up from the home improvement store.
Don’t touch the black wire, Mr. Law.
The sparking copper head poked up only a few feet from Sharon and her flashy sportcoat.
Shit!
I traced the wire back to a utility box just past the police tape and ripped it open, then yanked out the cut-off and tossed the black plastic breaker to the ground. I spun around, expecting to see an impatient Sharon and an incapacitated black wire—no such luck. Then it hit me: our wire snake wasn’t channeling his power from the grid. The Old Dead bones were funneling a few thousand watts of evil juice straight through the wa
ll—more than enough to leave us with a crispy critter instead of our lead counsel.
“Hey, what are you doing over there?” one of the police officers assigned to the scene shouted to me. She was a young woman—mid-twenties maybe—with her short hair pulled back tight and serious expression on her face. She’d already stepped right through my sigil and was now eyeing me with more than a healthy dose of suspicion.
The glove!
“I need that glove,” I said, alternating between the young officer and the killing coil of copper.
“That what?” she said, approaching slowly in that nonchalant-yet-puma-taunt manner that good cops pull off with ease. “What glove?”
I pointed to the wire snake now scant inches from sending untold watts of heart-stopping power into Sharon and her skirt-suit, then to the dust-coated-neoprene glove not far from her boot. “Glove, now!”
“Oh, shit.” The officer finally made the connection and tossed the dirty rubber glove to me.
To anyone watching this was just a solid piece of situational awareness. Rubber is an excellent insulator, and jamming it in between these arcing poles should stop the conga-line of electrons rolling down the wire.
Yeah, that’s what it looked like, but that wasn’t what it was.
These weren’t normal electrons, this was Magick—evil, Old Dead Magick running up from a wall that was saturated in it. The only way to break that flow was with Magick’s mortal enemy—science.
I jammed that dirty piece of chemistry between the poles, stuffing it into position and hoping to hell it worked. Sharon and I might not see eye to eye, but she was doing her best to protect her client, and I could respect that—no sense in her getting fried for it.
The surge of evil Magick flickered but still found a way to roll through the expertly crammed neoprene. The live wire reared back for the strike, sparks dripping from its coppery teeth.
I don’t get it, the rubber… it’s covered with dust, you idiot!
I pulled the glove back out and rubbed the concrete dust off on my shirt before stuffing it back in the control box. I now had a nicely stained white dress shirt, but there was enough science making contact to put a damper on the flow of Magick.
Just like in-laws during the holidays.
The wire snake clattered to the ground, its black body vanishing amid the construction debris. The sound of it falling must have gotten Sharon’s attention, because she swung around and motioned to me to get moving.
No, no thanks necessary, all part of my job as the company’s resident exorcist.
“Wow, that was close,” the young police woman said, admiring my rubber-glove-stuffing skill. “How did you think of that?”
I shrugged. “School, I guess.”
The police woman’s eyes traced the wires, then she stopped, tilting her head to one side. “Hey, the wires are disconnected, how…”
I didn’t turn around to respond, but instead beat a path for Sharon’s car. There was no time to explain the physics of Magick—I had a job to do, a pissed-off lawyer to deal with, and now Old Dead in my town.
Life just keeps getting more interesting.
We drove back to the office in silence, and frankly I appreciated it. I had more than enough mental ground to cover all by myself. Somehow in less than twenty-four hours I’d managed to turn my life completely sideways.
I had a daughter who was now starting to experiment with internet Magick; I’d narrowly avoided being murdered by New Dead twice; my apprentice had an Imp I’d accidentally brought back from Hell trapped in a 3D printer I was sure we didn’t need; and, to make matters worse, there was a partial Old Dead skeleton being exhumed from the property we were responsible for.
Sharon parked her town car in one of the reserved spaces and we parted ways with little in the way of words spoken. Like a separated couple we’d keep it civil in front of the other employees, but there’d now be a constant undercurrent of frustration.
Just another thing to add to the list—the lawyer didn’t like me. I swung by the vending machine on the way to my office, my stomach reminding me I’d missed lunch. I fed the few dollars I had in my wallet in and received a package of salt-coated peanut butter crackers for my efforts.
I opened the door to my office and tossed the opened package on my desk. John might have given me a great opportunity, but he hadn’t really set me up with much in the way of a space to work in.
‘This used to be the mail room, Gene. Sorry, was the best we could do on short notice.’
This was my fourth year in that office. So much for short notice.
It wasn’t that bad—it had a wall covered with tiny wooden cupboards, each one a numbered mailstop for inter-office messages that had long ago been replaced by emails and texts. I’d re-purposed them as a holding place for details on Magickal items, derelict spirits, demonic sightings, and even the occasional coupons for Porter’s favorite clothing store. That wall had become a physical representation of my hopes and fears—thank God it had enough boxes to keep up.
I took a seat in the taped-up green chair behind my desk. The desk was an old utility door with a few 4x4s drilled in for legs. I didn’t complain. It was solid wood, and I figured in the event of a doomsday scenario—Magickal or otherwise—I’d be safe hiding underneath it.
The chair was another story.
At first I’d accepted it because it was the polite thing to do, and even then I was certain given its age and terrible wear that it had to be Magickal. Perhaps my butt would join the butts of other great men and women in that wondrous green-duct-taped chair of destiny.
Yeah… no.
It was just a swivel chair with a few busted springs. No Magick, no padding, and no way I could sit on it without getting a sharp spring in the backside.
I hated that chair.
This was the time I would have loved to look out a window and take in the majestic Florida afternoon—perhaps admire some sand hill cranes as they grazed in the short grass, or watch the clouds roll in for the afternoon rains, but that would mean I had a window with a view of that. I didn’t.
My office offered an exquisite vista of the back parking lot: broken pavement, a towering stack of pallets, and blocking most of that amazing view—a concrete post.
I sighed and returned to the tall stack of papers sitting on my desk.
When I wasn’t handling the rare Magickal issue, I’d become Kinder’s only Human Resources representative. These daily missives from the rank and file formed the bulk of my job.
OFFICIAL COMPLAINT - Lunch taken from the fridge. I placed a nice pastrami on rye with…
I picked up my phone and pressed zero. “Marge, let’s get that coffee.”
17
Cream, Sugar, and Creepy
Marge and I didn’t go far. We liked to use the client-entertaining conference room on the first floor. When John Kinder wanted to impress the big bucks, he brought them to that room, so logic would hold that that was where the best coffee would be too.
“Um, Donut Hut, or the good stuff?” Marge asked, spinning the tiny display of plastic single-serve coffee packs.
“Marge…”
“Right,” she said, pulling out the secret stash of name-brand pods from inside one of the myriad of cabinets below the counter. “Why did I even ask?”
“Damned if I know,” I said, kicking back in one of the plush leather conference room chairs.
Not a single butt-offending spring. Is this how the other half lives?
“What’s on your mind, Gene? You look like hell.”
Funny you should say that, I opened a portal there last night. Hell is hellish this time of year.
There were a lot of things I wanted to say, but Marge was about as Magickal as dryer lint, so I had to keep this talk well within the realm of the mundane.
“I went to one of Cathy’s martial arts classes last night—still feeling it today.”
Marjorie smiled—one of those whole-face, room-warming smiles that reminded me how much
I enjoyed talking to her. She may not have a lick of Magick in her, but she had mastered the art of friendship, and I was lucky to have her in my life.
“That’s a really sweet thing for you to do. That girl is lucky to have a dad like you. I bet she’s getting big. Oh, it’s been forever since she came in the office. How’s she doing in school?”
“She’s got a boyfriend,” I said, using fancy air-quotes that fit perfectly when talking about Cathy’s suitors.
Marge’s smile shifted right into a laugh—one of those good-natured kinds that you can’t help but join along with.
“Ha! I’m guessing you aren’t too keen on that? Still, she’s getting older. Why, when I was her age I’d already had multiple boyfriends. One of them talked about us getting married after high school but—”
“Gah! No more!”
“I was going to say that was a different time. Kids these days get to go to college, and from the looks of it, Cathy’s more than smart enough to get into just about any school she wants to.”
“College? Marge, you’re killing me. I just need her to learn how to drive without smashing a mailbox or rolling through someone’s garden first. Let’s save the college talk for a few years down the road.”
“Oh, Gene. It’ll be here before you know it. One day you’ll wake up and look in the mirror and wonder where all the days went. Trust me.”
“Already there,” I said, pointing to the gray streaks above my ears. “My family is draining my lifeforce from me.”
Marge chuckled and adjusted her mug. “You look dashing, Gene, you always have. I bet Cathy’s boyfriend is just the same—tell me all about him.”
“I’m still in the information-gathering phase, but I’ll let you know as soon as I find out more. I just try not to think about it.”
I’ve got more than enough things to think about right now as it is.
“I get it, but she’s growing up. You better look alive before these moments pass you by.”
“Way ahead of you. I’m thinking I’ll just lock her in the house until college.”
Dead Set Page 8
