“Dave,” he said. “What the hell are you doing with the lights on?”
“Damn,” Dave answered from the Vista. “Sorry man.” The marker lights in the car went dark. “It’s clear down here.”
“At two a.m. it had better be,” said Ken, a red headed kid with a rash of freckles across his cheekbones. He slipped behind Jeff to join Bob and Paul. He brushed against Jeff’s butt as he squeezed by.
“Watch it, homo,” Jeff said.
“It’s your ass,” Ken said. “It’s so enticing. We’re here in the dark…”
“Hey,” Bob snapped. “You girls want to shut the hell up and start spraying?”
Twin lightning flashes lit a big cloud like a floating anvil-shaped lantern. Thunder crackled across the sky five seconds later.
Marc, the last boy on the tower sat at the opening where the access ladder met the catwalk. His feet dangled through the opening. Both hands gripped the catwalk rail. He was the slightest of the group and he had to brace himself against a renewed gust of wind that rocked his thick curly black hair back and forth. There were only four cans of paint, so he could have stayed in the car on watch with Dave. But there was something to prove by climbing the tower, though he wasn’t sure of it was to the others or to himself. The journey did enlighten him about one thing. He was definitely acrophobic.
“We better hurry,” Marc said. “We don’t want to be up here in the rain.”
“You said we’d have clear weather,” Paul said to Ken as Ken handed him a can of white spray paint.
“No,” Ken said. “I said there was a twenty percent chance of a shower. When I have a few free hours, I’ll explain probability to you, Jockstrap.”
“There’s a one hundred percent probability I’m going to throw you all off this damn tower if you don’t shut up,” Bob said. The spray can in his hand started to hiss. “If we don’t do this tonight, they’ll have time to paint over it before graduation. Let’s go.”
“All for none…” Paul said.
“And none for all,” the group finished. The teen’s unofficial motto, in its sarcastic denial of camaraderie, completely represented theirs.
Paul, Jeff and Ken joined in and the side of the tower sounded like a den of spitting cobras. The “G” in “Go” lost a few of its edges. A “B” took shape on the tower’s side.
Another bolt of lightning arced from the anvil cloud to the ground. This time the thunder reported only a second after. The smell of rain wafted in on the breeze. A spray of fat drops splattered against the tank like machine gun fire.
“Hey, guys,” Dave’s voice said from the walkie-talkie in Jeff’s belt. “It’s starting to rain down here. Is it raining up there?”
“No,” Ken answered to himself with a roll of his eyes. “It always rains from the ground up.”
Jeff gave a quick look at the peak of the tower, then at the approaching cloud. “This thing is one hell of a conductor. We should…”
Lightning split the sky above their heads. The thunder was simultaneous and sharp, so loud that the boys could feel it rumble.
“Hang on, wussies,” Bob said. He gave the tower one last blast from his can. He stood up and leaned back against the railing. “Go Minutemen” had been transformed into “Blow Minutemen.”
Paul gave his “L” one final shot of red. He appraised his work with an admiring stare. “How did Ms. Kravitz ever give me a D in Art?”
Marc stood at the ladder, one foot on the first rung. “Let’s go!”
The air around them seemed to come alive, as if the molecules had decided to dance in circles around each other. The hair on the boys’ arms stood on end. Jeff’s walkie talkie buzzed like a cicada. A freezing downdraft swept the catwalk. Five heartbeats went into overdrive.
“Lay flat!’ Jeff shouted.
The boys dove for the decking. Marc, already on the ladder, just hung on.
A white light blinding as the power of God enveloped the tower. Deafening thunder blanketed the boys and the air turned hot and dry. Uncountable volts pumped through the tower as the lightning bolt ripped from the spire on the peak to the ground below. Jeff’s radio exploded in a shower of sparks and melted plastic. The boys’ bodies jittered against the catwalk decking, belt buckles clanging against the steel. Clothing smoked and there was the disgusting smell of burnt hair. The split second seemed to last forever.
Black Magic
Russell James
In this magic shop the magic is real. And the trick is on you.
Citrus Glade is a dying town that needs new businesses, but the one that just opened is doing much more harm than good. Stranger Lyle Miller’s magic shop seems to only stock what its select customers desire. When four outcast boys buy common party tricks, only Lyle knows what those tricks can really do. As subtle changes occur around town, a few residents realize that something is amiss…and getting worse. But it may already be too late. Lyle’s black magic has empowered more townspeople to help him execute his Grand Adventure, a plan that will reduce the town, and half the state, to rubble.
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
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Black Magic
Copyright © 2013 by Russell James
ISBN: 978-1-61921-300-5
Edited by Don D’Auria
Cover by Scott Carpenter
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: May 2013
www.samhainpublishing.com
Black Magic Page 24