The Magic Shop

by Justin Swapp

  “Hurry,” Pat said, sounding proud of herself, “we won’t have long. We have to get you out of here.”

  “Somebody help them,” Ellie yelled as one by one, the bodies of the patients began dropping all around them. With some effort, Pat helped Marcus and Ellie pull their grandparents across the floor and around their corner of the hall to safety.

  “What’s happening?” Marcus asked as he saw a patient next to him fall to the ground after being struck by a blaze of magic. There was no blood, just a large hole in his chest.

  Marcus covered his mouth. “I thought they were sick?”

  “Some of them are,” Pat said as another patient fell, “but most are like Anabell. Think of this as a refuge for people like us. They come and go as they please, but they play the part during visitor hours.”

  “Look, they’re pushing him back,” Ellie said, clapping. Then she pointed to the advancing group of Nevada State patients closing in on Sol.

  “I’m getting Mirella,” Marcus said as he jumped out behind the patients and followed them as they advanced down the middle of the hall, ducking and dodging the magical blasts in their wake.

  Ellie ran after him.

  Marcus collected his brim. “What are you doing?” he asked as Ellie caught up to him. “Are you nuts?”

  “I couldn’t let you risk it alone,” Ellie said as she ducked a jet of magic and grabbed Mirella’s legs. Marcus grabbed her arms.

  “I just couldn’t leave her behind,” Marcus said. “I had to save her.”

  “From what,” Ellie asked, “fate?”

  “From Sol,” Marcus said, “from herself. I don’t know. I just can’t leave her here. There are too many unanswered questions.” They lugged her back down the hall towards their grandparents and Pat.

  “What?” Marcus asked when he saw the angry looks on his family’s faces.

  Pat wore a scowl on her face. “What were you thinking?” Pat asked as she smacked Marcus on the arm. “That was very foolish, not to mention dangerous. You could have been severely hurt, or gotten your sister killed.”

  “I don’t expect you to understand,” he said, wincing and rubbing his arm. “I had to get her, okay?”

  “Oh, no,” Ellie said pointing at several other patients as they fell to the ground. “How can we help those poor people?” The bodies in the hall were beginning to pile up.

  “I wish there was something we could do, Ellie,” Pat said as she tightened her lip. “But they knew the risk was coming here.”

  “Come on,” Marcus said, “I have my brim and know how to—”

  “They’re more much more experienced than you are, Marcus, and they’ve trained for this day.” Pat wiped her forehead. “Look, we’ve got to get your family out of here. The problem is that there is only one way out, and Sol is blocking it.”

  “Then we’ll have to have to go through him,” Marcus said. Then he turned just in time to witness the last of the patients fall to the ground, and he shouted, “no!”

  “Any other tricks up your sleeve?” Sol asked as he emerged from the other end of the hall, kicking bodies out of his path, his cane bouncing in his hand. “Now give me my family.”

  “Leave us alone,” Marcus yelled from around the corner. He scrambled to think of something to do, something to say. “We never asked for this.”

  Sol continued to advance, stepping over his victims, and seem become angrier with every step that he took.

  “Give me my family, Padrizia, or I will shred you all to pieces,” he said. “Last chance.”

  “Padrizia?” Marcus asked, one eyebrow raised. “If I had a name that sounded like ‘Godzilla’, I’d go by ‘Pat’, too.”

  Then the unexpected happened. Marcus saw the look on Sol’s face before it actually happened. It was like Sol sensed it coming, but just didn’t want to believe it.

  Something exploded in the room next to the hallway. Smoke, soot, and debris launched into the hall, properly burying the patients that lay outside the door.

  Blasts of the brightest blue flew from the smoke, looking like the lightning bolts in an electrical storm. Sparks ricocheted off the walls, creating an almost web-like pattern. The shadows under Sol’s eyes became deeper and the sparks reflected in his eyes as he lunged backward, parrying the magic with his cane.

  Then there was a terrible yell, like something that had been pent-up for years. It made the hair on the back of Marcus’s neck stand on end. It was raw and primal—a war cry.

  Someone darted out of the room. It was another patient, with a brim in each hand. He screamed, pitching tendrils and bolts of energy with one hand, then the other. With each step, ashes fell from his body. Magic enveloped Sol.

  “What the?” Marcus said, breathing heavily. “Where did that patient come from?”

  Sol dove to the ground, narrowly dodging the series of magical bursts that cracked the ground open. He retreated back to the corner at the end of the hall before he could return fire.

  Pat’s eyes welled up, a smirk forming on her face. She bent over and shook Charlotte.

  “Wake up, Charlotte,” Pat said. She did the same for Winston.

  “What is it?” Marcus asked. “What’s going on?”

  “That’s your uncle,” Pat said.

  “Impossible!” Sol said, pulling back around the corner as blasts of magic grazed the walls and flew past him.

  “How’s that possible?” Marcus asked, pointing at the soot-covered man charging down the hall.

  “It worked,” Ellie said, clapping her hands together. “It must’ve worked.”

  Anabell shot to her feet and started toward Caleb, but Pat grabbed her arm and held her back.

  “Let go,” Anabell said angrily, trying to brush Pat off, but she must have had a vice-like grip on her, because Anabell was unable to get away despite being much younger and stronger.

  Caleb continued advancing, hurling magic at Sol. “All you do is hurt people, Sol. You Dun-Bhar take and hurt and destroy. Now your way has come full circle, and you will die.”

  “You are a thief,” Sol said, returning blasts of magic. “A thief of the worst kind. You stole my children from me, Caleb, and you have the gall to judge me?”

  “We protected them from you, Brother. All you wanted them for was the new magic they brought into the world.”

  “You don’t know me or my heart,” Sol said.

  “I know your ways,” Caleb said. “The ways of the Dun-Bhar are selfish and destructive. Deplorable.”

  “Selfish? Magic was given to us for our use. To want it and to use it is not deplorable, it’s our nature.”

  “Is that what you were going to teach the children?” Caleb asked as one of his blasts of magic finally connected with Sol and threw him back onto the floor.

  Sol screamed out in pain.

  “Now you’ll pay for all your crimes,” Caleb said. “We will take you before the Kabbahl and they will determine your fate. And as you might recall, the Kabbahl is not always kind.”

  Sol laughed and placed a hand on his shoulder, where the magic had pierced him. “The Kabbahl? The Kabbahl hasn’t been functional for years. You’ll be lucky if you could get them all in one room.”

  Caleb fired more magic and another bolt connected with Sol. He gnashed his teeth and tried to suppress the pain.

  “You will suffer for what you took from me,” Caleb said. “Whether by the Kabbahl’s hand or by mine, it will happen, Brother.”

  “I will do no such thing,” Sol said. He lifted his cane and waved it over his head. His brim traced a circle of red light above his head, and as if he had opened the panel to a lighted room, bright beams of light reached down and enveloped him, then folded in on themselves, taking him with them.

  The hall fell quiet. Only the sizzling sounds where magic had struck the walls and Caleb’s heavy breathing could be heard.

  Then there was a rustle next to Marcus, something stirring.

  “Son?”

  Somehow Marcus knew the voice
wasn’t directed towards him. He turned around to see his grandfather struggling to get up, then to move forward, clutching his shoulder still.

  Caleb turned around, still breathing heavily, as if he had just run a marathon. His face was angry and his eyes were hard, but then his eyes met Winston’s, and all the harsh emotions seemed to melt away from his face.

  25

  Homecoming

  Soot and dust settled around the room.

  “Is it really you?” Winston asked, wasting no time getting to Caleb and wrapping his good arm around him.

  Before Caleb could answer, Anabell rushed to him and embraced him too.

  “It worked, honey,” she said as she sobbed. “You’re here! I can’t believe it. We had no chance until you… came back.”

  “Son,” Charlotte added, her lower lip quivering, and her voice sounding equally unstable. She, too, had gotten up and made her way to Caleb. She didn’t wait for Anabell to let go of him though; she just wrapped her arms around both of them.

  Marcus swallowed. He was trying to sort out all the different feelings he was experiencing at that moment. He was astounded to see his formerly drooling uncle now fully functioning and handling himself like he was some kind of heroic force in the magical world. Anabell looked like a new woman. Charlotte and Winston hadn’t appeared so happy in ages. And at their feet was the most confusing thing of them all: their mother. Marcus had barely met her, and really didn’t know anything about her. Then their father…

  “How did Sol just disappear like that?” Marcus asked. “He’s never done that before.”

  “I don’t know, but, more importantly, what do we do with her?” Ellie asked, pointing at Mirella.

  A heavy silence filled the room, and all of the attention they had showered on Caleb fell awkwardly to the floor, to Mirella.

  “She should die,” Anabell said. “She and Sol have been trafficking magic and enslaving magical creatures, not to mention how many times they almost killed us… and Caleb. She’s of no worth to anyone.”

  “Hey, that’s my mother you’re talking about,” Marcus said sharply.

  “Yeah,” Ellie said. “You have no right to sentence her.”

  Caleb put his hand on Ellie’s shoulder, and then on Marcus’s too, and pulled them in close. “Don’t judge her too harshly,” he said softly. “She’s upset because of what they did to me. But I’m better, as far as I can tell, and this decision can be made later when we’ve all had time to gather our wits. We should leave. It’s not safe here anymore.”

  “We should visit Elba,” Winston said wearily, “she’ll know what to do.”

  Caleb hesitated. “Elba? As in—”

  “Pat,” Charlotte said, “do you think you can get us to the restaurant so we can find Elba?”

  “It will take some extreme concentration and quiet,” Pat said, “but yes, I think so.”

  Pat got up and gathered some things and returned to the room where Caleb had come from. The rest followed.

  What before had been a very clean, even sterile, operating room had now become a certifiable dump. The walls still gave off smoke and steam, fragments and debris from the procedure Caleb underwent littered the ground, and almost everything was blackened in soot and ash.

  Cupping her brim, Pat closed her eyes.

  “Gather round,” Charlotte said, waving her arm. She pointed at Mirella. “Caleb, her too.”

  Caleb dragged Mirella towards the rest of the group as everyone filed into the operating room and formed a circle around Pat.

  As Pat began mumbling like they always did when they were trying to pull off a spell, Marcus wondered what it was that they said. He was quickly distracted, however, when a wall of flames surrounded them, just like with the dragon.

  Holding his breath, Marcus waited for the nausea to kick in, but in a moment, the flames had vanished, gone before he felt sick and disoriented. Marcus looked around and saw a restaurant. He wondered how long it had been since he had been here the first time. The red carpets, and chairs, and other Chinese-style decorations were just as he remembered them, and he could still smell the soothing aroma of licorice in the air.

  Then he remembered the underground passage and a chill ran down his back.

  Elba appeared, as she always did, as if she had known they were coming. “What’s the matter?” Elba asked, “I came as soon as—”

  Elba stopped, swallowing hard. Her eyes fell upon the addition to the group.

  “Caleb…” she whispered, then paused for a moment, her eyes shifting to Pat. “It actually worked, then? Fascinating.”

  “What do you mean?” Pat asked. “I got the recipe from you, Elba.”

  Everyone gaped at Elba. “The spell made perfect sense on paper. I just hadn’t had a chance to test it quite yet,” she explained.

  “You say that like you’ve got no dead test subjects lying around this place,” Marcus said, and as quickly as he did, Ellie slapped his shoulder.

  “No mention of me?” Mirella asked as she slowly got to her feet and waved a hand sardonically. “How rude.”

  In a flash, Elba grabbed Mirella by the back of the neck and jammed her brim against Mirella’s forehead. “Welcome,” she said through gritted teeth.

  Raising a hand, Caleb said, “Easy there, Elba. We’ve come for your counsel, not for your… other services.”

  “Counsel?” Elba asked. “Why?”

  “We need a clear head to help us decide what to do with her,” Caleb said, looking sharply at Mirella. “If Anabell had her way, she would kill her. Furthermore, we need to make the Kabbahl aware of what they have been doing, and you’re the only one that knows how to contact the Kabbahl.”

  “It’s not possible,” Elba said. “We’ve already exhausted all of our means.”

  “But you did it before,” Ellie said. “Why not now?”

  “You already summoned the Kabbahl?” Caleb asked, astonished.

  “Of course we did,” Elba said. “There was no choice. Mirella and Sol had stolen the Phoenix skull we had set aside to heal you, not to mention that they were trafficking magic to humans.”

  Elba snapped her fingers and a manservant appeared. “Go prepare a table for us at once,” she commanded. “We some need privacy before the celebration.”

  “Celebration?” Marcus asked.

  “It’s not every day that someone evades me in death,” Elba said, eyeing Caleb with interest. “I always thought that this one was special.”

  Anabell snarled.

  Moving in close to Marcus, Ellie’s eyes widened. “That must have been how she knew we were coming.”

  “Isn’t anyone worried that Sol will come for Mirella?” Anabell asked. “We should just leave her here with Elba and be done with her already.”

  “He’s injured,” Caleb said, “so he will need time. Plus, I’m here, so no, I don’t think he will come any time soon. He’s shown a history that he’s willing to leave his loved ones behind. We will need to find him, though.”

  Marcus patted Ellie on the back, and he took a deep breath. “Do you think we could ask Mirella,” he paused, “I mean, our mother, some questions?”

  At that moment the manservant returned and informed them that their table had been prepared.

  Without answering the question, Caleb guided Mirella forward, following the manservant, who led them to a private room. Mirella complained, mumbling something about Chinese food, domestic animals, and food poisoning.

  Silky red and gold material adorned the tables and walls of their private room, and thin paper globes of various colors hung down from the ceiling, barely shading their light.

  They each took a place around a long wooden table. Elba took her place at the head and Mirella sat beside her, facing the children. Charlotte and Winston sat on either side of Caleb, and Anabell sat across from him where she could look at him.

  “You must be famished,” Elba said to Caleb. “Why don’t we get you some—”

  “We want to talk to our mot
her,” Marcus said bluntly, and then, thinking better of it, added, “please.” He felt something move in his pocket.

  Caleb considered him a moment and then seemed to forgive this impropriety. Without another word he nodded, albeit begrudgingly.

  “How could you abandon us?” Ellie asked. “All these years, we thought we were alone.”

  Marcus put his hand in his pocket and removed his brim, but kept it under the table. He stared at the black wisps, rotating it in his fingers. “And I want to know why you hurt people,” Marcus said before she could answer Ellie’s question, “hurt my family.”

  Mirella’s countenance softened a little as she gazed at Ellie. “You don’t really think that, do you? Why would I want to leave my children?”

  “Maybe it was too hard? I don’t know. Abandonment happens all the time though,” Ellie said. “We watch the news.”

  “Be honest with us,” Marcus said, examining her face, still coddling the sphere in his hand.

  “I’m your mother,” Mirella said, “and I would have never let anything come between us if I could have prevented it. What do you think I’ve been doing all this time, why I keep popping up?”

  “What about Sol?” Marcus asked. “Would he?”

  A look of shock flashed across Mirella’s face. “Of course not,” she said, as she slapped the table. Tension ran across the table as the rest of the group stiffened.

  “Well, he left you for dead, didn’t he?” Ellie asked.

  Marcus began to feel intrigued by the shadow magic he held captive in his brim. He wondered how it could have imprisoned a powerful, ancient beast for so long.

  “Oh, stop your dribbling,” Winston said, giving Mirella a disgusted look. “If you cared so much, you wouldn’t have allowed the way of your precious Dun-Bhar to jeopardize the lives of our grandchildren.”

  At that moment several servants appeared beside the table, their arms bearing trays of strange food and drink. The aroma was sweet but pungent, and the warm steam lifting off the food was inviting. Marcus wondered when he had last eaten.