True Magic

by Colin Sims

  “Sort of,” she said. “There’s like a million backdoors all over the world. Most of them are ‘restricted access,’ unless you have a key like this one. It’s from the SIA.”

  I was impressed. “Membership has its perks,” I said and she beamed.

  It was late afternoon as we stopped in front of my apartment building. I couldn’t help but wonder if I should invite Cassie up, or at least ask her to come get a coffee or something. It just seemed like the polite thing to do. Plus, it seemed a shame to waste a good magic hour.

  What’s a “magic hour,” you ask? It’s that time of day that everyone on Earth can’t get enough of. It’s that little window of pink-grey light that arrives right after sunset. I suppose the proper word for it is, “twilight,” which was a really cool word, until a certain series of novels ruined it. Then there’s the word, “dusk,” which sounds vaguely Klingon, and doesn’t have much romanticism to it. Thus, magic hour.

  Cassie studied me a moment like she was waiting for me to say something. A few options ran through my head. 1.) “So I guess this is it.” 2.) “Hey, thanks for showing me around!” 3.) “Hey, wanna come up to my room?”

  Sadly, I went with Option One.

  “So I guess this is it,” I said.

  She frowned a little and cocked her head. “You mean you’re not gonna give me a ride?”

  Now it was my turn to frown. “Uh, my car blew up, remember? Besides, isn’t the backdoor thing faster?”

  She shrugged and shuffled her feet. “I guess,” she said. “But I thought you might like to take her for a test drive …”

  “Her?” I asked.

  Cassie stepped aside theatrically.

  I’d seen it parked on the curb when we walked up, but now I was coming to realize it was for me.

  And you’re probably thinking that I was about to receive a Ford Batmobile of my very own. That would be the logical choice, right? Wrong. Waiting for me on the curb and glittering in the pink-grey light, was a brand new, powder blue Vespa.

  That’s right. Like a scooter.

  When my eyes widened, Cassie jumped and looked ecstatic. “I picked her out myself,” she said, skipping over to it. “I call her Mary Lou. Isn’t she cute?”

  She was cute. Very cute. I could easily picture a high school girl riding her through the streets of Rome with her best friend and having the time of her life. A dude doing the same, however, not so much.

  “How did you get it?” I asked.

  “The BPI did,” Cassie said. “It’s to help with your cover story. Just tell people you traded in your other car.”

  “For a Vespa?”

  She shrugged. “It’s better for traffic.”

  I stepped closer to admire my new ride. She had sleek lines, chrome trim, and a vintage design. “I don’t know what to say,” I said.

  Cassie leaned forward to rub Mary Lou’s seat in little affectionate circles. “She’s really comfy. So whaddya say? Give a girl a ride?”

  There was something in Cassie’s eyes that made me feel like I’d give her a ride anywhere. Besides, who could refuse a little scooter ride during magic hour?

  A minute later, we were cruising up Sunset with Cassie’s arms wrapped around my waist. The night was warm with a cool breeze and Mary Lou purred like a kitten.

  Now, to an outside observer, I might have looked like a dork riding a baby blue Vespa with an inexplicably hot girl on the back. But in my head, I was anything but. I was Lancelot returning home from a great victory. And Mary Lou? My trusted stead.

  Chapter Five

  This Is How You Dance

  Over the course of the next week, I learned a lot of things. None of them had anything to do with my college classes—which I mostly skipped—and everything to do with my brand new Vicipaedia. The thing was a marvel. I was fast on my way to becoming the biggest magic nerd on the planet. The book started with the longest Table of Contents in human history. It had a thousand titles listed in chronological order, and if I picked one, the Vicipaedia morphed into the original book. Some of the books, I noticed, were highly useful, like Thaddeus Kroeber’s Introduction to Dark Creatures: Where to Find Them and How to Destroy Them, whereas other titles were more obscure, like A Magical Interpretation on the Evolution of Horsemanship in the Mongol Empire: 1236-1307. (Which I’ve now read, by the way, and it was surprisingly good.)

  But the number of titles inside the Vicipaedia wasn’t the cool part. As Quentin briefly mentioned, the book came with a “photo-memory spell,” and with that spell came the granting of a wish held by every student since the dawn of time. I could now Good Will Hunting every single book inside the Vicipaedia within a matter of minutes. I could literally read each page faster than I could turn it with my finger.

  As a result, I was now rapidly making up for lost time. I was learning everything that I should’ve been learning for the past twenty years—instead of filling my head with algebra and Ethan Frome. I mean, who cares about stuff like that when you can learn the secret history of goblins in World War II? Or perhaps the Treaty of Trolls that ended the American Revolution?

  By the following Friday, I was a veritable expert on all things Magic. However, I still sucked at being a wizard. I’d spent hours inside the Solitar practicing spells, and so far, I had only mastered two: Firelight and Firebolt.

  Firebolt was my first “offensive spell.” I could fling a small bolt of fire at things and set them alight. But don’t get too excited about that. The Firebolt wasn’t a Fireball, which apparently is a much more destructive thing to be used by badass wizards only. Think of it like this: A Fireball is like a Molotov cocktail the size of an oil drum. A Firebolt is a Molotov cocktail the size of one of those little whiskey bottles you find in the mini-bar of a hotel room. Plus, it only had a range of about ten yards. (See? My football field was coming in handy.)

  Either way, I practiced both spells to the point where I could do them in my sleep, which, according to Evil McFadden, meant it was time to learn the spells as “cantrips.” A cantrip is an easy, low-level spell that a wizard can cast automatically, skipping the whole “forming the spell” phase using the Imago, Canti, Fulmen, etc …

  “I would like to inform you, François, that in my living days, I taught hundreds of potential wizards the art of spellcasting. Some of them were quite gifted, while others took a bit longer to master the craft. You, on the other hand, are like nothing I’ve ever seen. I dare say that if I took up the challenge of teaching a mongoose to play the cello, I would find quicker success than I am presently. Your sheer lack of talent is so severe as to be fascinating. Truly!”

  I’d learned not to pay attention to McFadden while learning anything new. He was clearly of the old school when it came to techniques of instruction. Or actually, he was old school when it came to everything. No one wore a suit like his who was born in the last century and not attending a costume party. I was actually quite surprised he didn’t smack me with his cane more often.

  “It’s hard,” I complained, failing for my ten thousandth time. “I need to use both hands.”

  (By definition, a cantrip needed to be done one-handed.)

  “Ah,” McFadden said. “A keen summation of your difficulties. It’s ‘hard.’ You should have said so earlier. With feedback like that, I know exactly what you need.”

  I looked up at him hopefully. “What?”

  “A new brain. Yours is clearly defective.”

  I winced and went back to practicing. It really was hard, too. It wasn’t just that I sucked. The best way I can describe doing a cantrip is with a piano analogy. Everyone knows that song Heart & Soul, right? (It’s the one Tom Hanks plays in Big.) If you recall, it has a bass clef part and a treble clef part. Most people who’ve never taken piano lessons play the song as a duet, with one person playing the left hand, while the other person plays the right. If you take some lessons though, you’ll learn to play both hands at the same time. It’s not easy to do. Each hand is playing a separate melody. Doing a spell
one handed—i.e. a cantrip—is the same principle. It’s like you have to teach yourself to stop thinking if you want to have any hope of getting it right.

  I’d been at it for hours—a fact which McFadden reminded me of every two to three minutes. Eventually, I gave up.

  “Perhaps you’re not as dumb as I thought!” McFadden exclaimed. “Quitting is clearly the most sensible course. And if, perchance, you decide to quit magic altogether, well then I applaud you, sir. From the bottom of my heart.”

  I told him I’d see him tomorrow and caught the beginning of a heavy sigh before I exited the Solitar. I looked at my alarm clock and sure enough, the readout was a surprise. I’d discovered earlier in the week that time moved at a different speed inside the Solitar than it did outside. By my calculations, it moved at roughly half of normal speed. That meant that for every two minutes I spent inside the little Zippo, only one minute passed outside. So in a way, I could literally double my lifespan. Twenty-four hours in a day was for chumps. I could have forty-eight hours. (Although the sleep deprivation thing would catch up to me eventually.)

  Anyway, the clock said it was only 11:23 am, even though I’d been in the Solitar for half the day.

  A quick shower and a bowl of Fruit Loops later, I was riding Mary Lou to Ralph’s to buy Meagan some flowers. I hadn’t talked to her since our anniversary debacle and I figured it was time for a romantic gesture. I wasn’t sure how mad she was—but if I had to guess, I’d go with Level Five. (Five is the highest number.)

  The trouble was that Meagan lived in a sorority house.

  Now, contrary to what National Lampoon movies might tell you, large gatherings of attractive coeds in one spot is not paradise. In fact, it’s one of the scariest environments on Earth. These girls knew a thing or two about solidarity, and if Meagan was pissed at me, then they were all pissed at me.

  I scootered up to the pink-trimmed Beverly Hills mansion and parked outside the main door. I freed the roses from an impromptu bungee cord knot and straightened my clothes. I patted down my hair. I took a deep breath. And I entered.

  Now as any wise man will tell you: Sometimes in life you get lucky—sometimes you don’t.

  Today was one of the lucky days. The sorority house was empty. All the girls were probably on campus. As for Meagan, she only had one class on Friday at four, so there was a good chance she’d be home. I headed up the winding stairs to the second floor where she shared a room with a girl named Krista. Krista was a dark-haired Southern belle with a thick accent and a powerful hatred for yours truly. (Come to think of it, everyone in Meagan’s life hated me.)

  I’d just rounded the stairs when I heard a familiar giggle. It was a sweet sound—and Meagan made it whenever she was feeling frisky. I smiled involuntarily until I stopped, frozen in place …

  When I was eight years old, I caught my dad red-handed delivering Santa’s presents. He wore an angry scowl as he labored at assembling a red bicycle while drinking a beer. I remember how the sight of him like that turned my whole world upside down. See, I was a sucker. I genuinely believed in Santa Claus. Other kids at school were skeptical, but I believed.

  Well, catching my girlfriend making out with Jake O’Malley—the star quarterback for the UCLA Bruins—made me into a sucker twice. The other kids at school had tried to warn me, but no … I refused to see that Santa Claus was a fraud.

  And so Meagan and Jake continued to go at it. They were standing in her doorway as she leaned up on her toes with her hands pressed to his chest.

  His hands were firmly placed on her butt.

  I slid backward a couple steps down the stairs. For some reason, the big thought in my head was: Is this the first time? Or the hundredth?

  “Babe, I gotta go,” I heard Jake say to the sound of another giggle from Meagan. “I’ll be back for Round Two in a few.”

  The best way to describe Jake’s voice would be to say it sounded like Keanu Reeves doing an impression of himself. It was that bad.

  “More like Round Two Hundred,” Meagan purred. “I can’t believe you kept going like that!”

  “What can I say? I’ve got stamina and you’ve got that ass.”

  There was then the distinct sound of a meaty paw slapping a girl’s bare butt cheek.

  I chose not to listen to anymore. I know it makes me sound like a wimp, but I slunk away instead of charging in. There are probably a number of reasons why—but all I can say is that emotions are funny things. Sometimes they’re not what you’d expect. Like, for example, you’d think “anger” would be the first emotion upon seeing your girlfriend getting groped—and liking it—by Jake O’Malley. Instead, I felt an irrational need to hit the Burger King drive-thru for a Whopper. See? Random.

  I didn’t do it, though. I just went outside and stared at Mary Lou’s handlebars for ten straight minutes in a dumb stupor.

  The next thing I knew, I was walking heavy-footed up the stairs to my apartment. Buckner and Brian were playing Xbox in the living room and offered me a controller. I trudged right passed them in a daze. I was moving like an ape, with my arms hanging limp while I took small, dragging steps.

  Did Meagan say, “Round Two Hundred?” I thought. Like just counting today or …?

  When I got to my room, I locked the door behind me. Buckner called out something about a girl stopping by, but it was muffled. I looked to my bed and shuffled toward it. It was time to go to sleep—the best way to solve any problem. Before I got to the edge, however, my phone rang. I dug it out of my pocket and saw that it was a blocked number.

  “Hey!” a familiar voice exclaimed when I answered. “We have an assignment!”

  I blinked. “Cassie, this isn’t a very good time.”

  “Yeah, but there’s something big going down. I just talked to Rosewood. He thinks there’s a connection between Professor Steinberg and whoever is trying to kill you. I can’t say anything more on the phone. I’m parked outside.”

  I peaked through my window and saw Cassie’s Mustang. It looked inviting. Perhaps a little magical jaunt would do me good. I needed something to get the image of Meagan and Jake out of my head. And the sound of that ass slap.

  “What kind of assignment?” I asked.

  “The big leagues,” Cassie said. “Now get your cute butt out here! We have to hurry!”

  Damn. Did she have to say it like that?

  • • •

  Apparently Cassie had the Presidential Suite at the Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco on permanent standby.

  “It’s useful,” she pointed out, dropping a pair of large duffel bags on the parquet floor. They hit the wood with a disconcerting heaviness that would’ve made any hotel manager wince in sudden pain. “It has lots of space.”

  “Cassie, I still don’t get what we’re doing here,” I said, checking out the massive balcony through the sliding doors. It was late afternoon and I squinted against the Sun. We were in the middle of downtown with a view that swept across the entire city, including the Golden Gate Bridge.

  “We’re here for this,” she said, pulling a rocket launcher out of her duffel bag.

  From my extensive action movie knowledge, I knew it was a Russian-made RPG-7. It looked brand new and gleamed in the fading sunlight. No sooner did I admire it, though, than it disappeared inside a holding disc the size of a poker chip.

  And now, my friend, comes the point where I actually know things. At some point over the past week, I’d read Pedro Villamizar’s Notable Inventions of Alchemy in the Twentieth Century, and I knew everything there was to know about holding discs. First off, they were originally called “Discs of Holding,” because someone had played Dungeons & Dragons a few too many times. (And you’ll only get that joke if you’ve played Dungeons & Dragons a few too many times.) Second of all, they could only hold a limited amount of stuff—roughly twenty pounds. Cassie’s, however, were state of the art HD-320s, which meant they could hold thirty-two pounds. The catch—if you could call it that—was that holding discs were highly volatile.
Once something like an RPG got put inside, the little poker chip became like a ticking time bomb. They usually blew after about twenty-four hours.

  “You’re a big fan of bazookas, aren’t you?” I said.

  “It’s not a bazooka,” Cassie answered while giving me a look. “And who isn’t?”

  “So I guess we’re here to kill something big?” I asked.

  She pulled one of those massive grenade launchers with six barrels out of the second duffel bag. (It’s called a Milkor MGL, if you wanna Google it.)

  “Nope,” she said. “It’s an extraction job. Much tougher.”

  She zipped the grenade launcher into a holding disc and then reached for an AK-47 from the same bag.

  “Does extraction mean ‘kidnap?’” I asked.

  She stood and wrinkled her nose. “Why do people always say ‘kid’ nap? Like even if it’s an adult? I don’t get it.”

  She slipped a thin file from a nearby bag and slapped it on the suite’s dinning room table. “This is who we’re after,” she said, opening to the first page. It had a glossy photograph of the target paper-clipped to the corner. “His name is Aeroth,” she said. “He’s a Vampire Lord. He’s also the one who sent those vampettes after you. We’re going to ‘kidnap’ him from his nightclub and deliver him to the BPI. They’ll handle the interrogation. They’re really good at that sort of thing.”

  As I looked at the photo, I couldn’t help but smile a little.

  Why did I smile, you ask? Well, you know the guy in the picture, “Aeroth?” I knew him. Well, okay. Not personally or anything. But I’d read about him.

  “Aeroth was created by a Venetian Vampire Lord named Daemon in 1432 in Madrid,” I said matter-of-factly. “Since then, his most recent accomplishment was as a Nazi scientist during World War II. He led the charge in human experimentation and was decorated by the Führer himself. He went by the name of Baron Von Traubel back then. His hair was shorter, but that’s definitely his face.”

  I was kind of showing off, but I couldn’t help it. Cassie just squinted at me a moment before she continued.