Stranger Magics

by Ash Fitzsimmons

  It took me a moment to place the name—I’ve never been a great patron of the cinema, particularly not of those films featuring the Disney brand of magic. “The cartoon with the elephant?”

  “Yeah. Little elephant, big ears, holds a magic feather to fly.” Slim shook the wand back and forth, making the brown powder settle deeper into the core. “Thing is, he doesn’t actually need the feather—he thinks he does, but it’s all in his head. ‘Believe in yourself,’ all that bullshit, you get me.”

  “Sure, sure . . .”

  He tamped the powder down with a thin rod, then resumed filling the wand. “Harrison put binds on Pavli and the kid. Pavli, no problem—could have left him alone in a room full of wands, and he’d have been impotent. But the kid—”

  “Toula said he made the bind incomplete,” I interrupted, but Slim cut me off with a curt headshake.

  “Same bind. Same spell, same procedure, and she was only two months old.”

  I felt a slight chill up my back. “What’re you saying?”

  “I’m saying that she’s stronger than the grand fucking magus,” he replied. “He’s not letting her do magic—he can’t stop her.” Slim tamped down the new layer of brown powder, his mouth a grim line. “I’ve been crafting since I was fifteen—done pieces for some of the most powerful in the Arcanum, and for some of the weakest. You get a really weak wizard or a witch, you give him rowan filled with dragonscale, yeah?”

  “You still have a supply of dragonscale? When did any of you last make the crossing?”

  “Believe me, it’s recycled,” he muttered. “Which was why Toula was apologizing up there—she thinks her wand’s a dragonscale.”

  I watched him seal the end of the wand with dark putty and a lighter. “It’s not, I take it.”

  “Sawdust and brown sugar. Finely ground and mixed, so it should look like dragonscale if it ever leaks out. By the way,” he said, giving me another red-eyed glance, “if you were ever in the neighborhood of a dragon and wanted to help a guy out . . .”

  “I’ll keep that in mind, but I haven’t been to Faerie in seven hundred years.”

  “Just think of me if you ever go back, okay?” He pointed to a ceramic pot on the shelf beside me. “Hand me that, if you will. It’s just wood stain.”

  I watched Slim doctor Toula’s new wand until it was dark and solid, indistinguishable from many of the wands I’d destroyed over the centuries. “You feel the magic disappearing, don’t you?” I finally murmured.

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “Which means that whatever bind is restraining Toula is going to fail eventually.”

  “Yup.” He held the wand in a pair of plastic salad tongs and continued to paint.

  “Of course, by the time that happens, there won’t be enough magic left for anyone to do anything, let alone her.”

  “So I hope,” said Slim. “But if y’all get the tap open again and she’s unbound . . .” He paused, twirled the wand around, then set it in a makeshift drying rack. “What makes you think Harrison will be able to bind her again? All she’s been talking about for years is figuring out how to make him lift the spell—so when all of this is said and done, assuming whatever you come up with works, we’re going to have a little Pavli on our hands, and she may just have some scores to settle. Get it?”

  I shrugged. “What are you suggesting, then?”

  “I’m not. I can’t do jack about it, and I don’t know what to tell you. Just trying to warn you, that’s all.” He took off his magnifier and pushed himself up from his stool. “Wouldn’t say we’re friends exactly, but a bartender–patron relationship is quite nearly sacred, wouldn’t you say?”

  I smirked back at him. “I’d say I’m almost touched, Slim. By the way, if Toula knows you as Rick, then where did Slim come from?”

  “I’ve carried that one for a while,” he said, and gestured at his gut. “If you make fun of yourself, you beat everyone else to the punch, see?”

  Slim began to move items around the table—tidying up, I assumed, but failed to see the logic to his system of organization. After a moment, I turned my attention to the dusty canisters and jars filling the shelf beside me; watching Slim toss bits of metal around made my skin crawl.

  “It doesn’t hurt, you know. And I promise I’m not going to bean you. Well, not intentionally.”

  I whipped around, the row of cloudy glass specimen jars I’d been studying forgotten, and found Slim grinning in the bulb’s crimson glow. “You—”

  “Are slightly sensitive to emotional changes. I put two and two together when you started twitching.” He patted a wrench against his palm, then put it safely aside. “We’re not all complete duds. Mostly duds, but not always complete.”

  Silently floundering, I struggled to find the right response. So, you’re a mongrel was rude and unnecessary; the crafters wizards employed were always mongrels, sensitive to magic but unable to manipulate it. Their limitation made them suited to working with delicate magical energies that a wizard could easily knock out of place, while their sensitivity helped them know just how hard they could push before starting an explosion. You’re not a dud would also be unappreciated. Slim didn’t strike me as the sort of fellow craving empty platitudes.

  I settled for, “Why didn’t you tell me about . . . this?”

  “What, my day job?” he replied, swinging one meaty arm around to encompass the sub-basement workshop. “It’s on a need-to-know basis. And it’s not exactly a secret that you don’t like wizards.”

  “I like tiki bars a hell of a lot less, man.”

  Slim chuckled softly. “Well, then, if you can bring yourself to make the best of a bad situation, you’re still welcome upstairs. Your brother, however, is not.” He gave me a pointed glance, then cut his eyes to the ceiling.

  “Really, I’ll pay you for whatever he drinks . . .”

  “It’s not the booze that bothers me, Colin—correct me if I’m wrong, but that is the Puck, yes?”

  “Best watch it with the name.”

  “If it were my nickname, I wouldn’t like it, either.” He squinted at me in the red light. “He’s the one who closed off Faerie, though? How?”

  “Damned if I know,” I replied, moving closer to him to keep my voice low. “Some sort of trap—opened a gate, waited until . . .” I paused, not wanting to relive the previous night. “Waited until enough bodies went through, then closed down the whole thing.”

  “Mm. Not his own creation, then?”

  “Mab’s, he claims.”

  Slim hissed, a sudden intake of breath against his clenched teeth. “Yeah, this is one rodeo I want no part of. Hope you understand, but the sooner I see the back of you, the better.”

  “Understood. Just give the wizard her stick, and we’ll see ourselves out.” I headed for the staircase, but turned on the first step to meet Slim’s eyes. “Just one question: How’d you recognize me?”

  He smirked. “Arcanum-reared, and you aren’t exactly disguised. I keep tabs on most of the witches and mongrels and duds around here—we’ve got a little support group, you know.”

  “I’ll pay up when this mess is sorted out. And if something happens to me . . .”

  “I’ve got your bank account on file.”

  “Good man.”

  Before I could take two steps, Slim clapped his hand on my wrist and squeezed. “My father was from Mab’s court,” he said in a low rush. “Raped my mom. And when he came around again to kill me, she cut his fucking head off, Highlander style.”

  I met his eyes and nodded.

  “You packing steel?”

  “Will be. And the kid is.” Slim’s brow furrowed, and I explained, “Seminarian with a sword. Don’t ask.”

  “Man,” he muttered, releasing me, “your crew’s not just motley. That is a fugly crew up there.”

  “Yeah, but it’s all I’ve got,” I said, stepping up into the basement.

  Slim turned off the red light and followed me. “I know, I know,” he said quietly.
“Best of luck. Glad this ain’t my fight.” He suddenly paused with his hand on the switch and stiffened. “Have you given any thought to what else happens when the magic’s gone?”

  “You mean the dark magic situation?” I murmured. Away from Slim’s storeroom, I could detect a new scent in the air, a faint odor of gardenia and formaldehyde beneath the citronella smell of magic, and I folded my arms. “Yeah, I know.”

  “Got a plan?”

  “Get Faerie opened again before the border turns into a sieve.”

  He nodded and pushed the button. We waited while the steps descended, and then I followed Slim back toward the ground floor. As he opened the trap, I heard Toula’s voice to my right: “Don’t be stupid, there is no magical boarding school. I went to public school and dealt with . . . ah, Rick, it’s gorgeous!” she exclaimed, reaching across the bar to take the wand he extended to her. “Perfect! Thank you so much!”

  “No problem,” he grunted, then pointed to the door. “Out, y’all. It’s past my bedtime.”

  Toula led the way, half dragging Joey along as she continued to mock him. Robin fell in behind them, still clutching the now half-empty bottle of whisky. I glanced at Slim, shrugged, then headed out into the morning to the cacophony of competing church bells.

  Chapter 9

  I seldom drove between my place and Slim’s. The distance was slightly less than a mile, and when the sea breeze mixed with a decent buzz, the walk home could be quite pleasant. But that morning, I was entirely too sober to enjoy the exertion, and besides, I couldn’t very well leave my car parked outside the bar—what would Mrs. Cooper say?

  I had expected to pile everyone back in, drive home, and set Toula to work in under five minutes, but she had other plans. “I didn’t eat breakfast,” she griped, buckling her seat belt, “and this ain’t exactly a cakewalk I’ve got ahead of me, so I’m going to need feeding.”

  After a pass through a drive-through on the outskirts of town, I drove home smelling charred meat and grease, wondering where the hell the weekend had gone so very wrong. The last time I had seen the inside of my garage had been Saturday morning, and Olive had been slouched beside me, complaining about the hour and my culinary skills.

  As Joey puttered in behind me, I lowered the garage door with a button tap, then slid out of the car, careful to touch nothing without my leather buffer. “When you drove in front of my building, up the alley—what did you feel?” I asked him as he pulled off his helmet and strolled over.

  His brow furrowed. “Nothing special.”

  “Shit,” I sighed, and slammed the car door.

  Toula came around to join us, still clutching her burger. “Wards failed, huh?” she asked, perhaps a touch more enthusiastically than was necessary.

  I resisted the urge to slap her lunch out of her hands. “They didn’t fail, they’re intact—”

  “Oh, I know, and they’re pretty,” she replied between bites. “Nice work. I mean, that’s like wizard-level detail you’ve got there.”

  “I’ll try to take that as a compliment,” I muttered, heading for the garage door. The whole place smelled wrong. I picked up the undertones of dust and mildew, overshadowed by the sharp odors of engine exhaust and fries, but the familiar scent of magic was faint and fading—and the warning hints of dark magic were growing stronger. Palms up, I closed my eyes and tried to feel my carefully built wards. Still there, I sensed with relief, but weakening.

  Toula joined me and nodded at the invisible barrier. “Yours are a hell of a lot stronger than mine, man.”

  “Let’s hope so. I’ve been at this slightly longer than you have.”

  She snorted. “I’m serious, it’s a nice network. Tidy. Just . . . you know . . .”

  “Yeah.”

  We were still staring at the garage door in silence when Joey cleared his throat. “Is someone going to tell me what’s up,” he asked, “or are we just going to stand around all day and watch paint peel?”

  “It’s his wards,” Robin offered, digging into a paper bag. “Coileán has his little fences, and with the magic fading . . . poof.” He pulled a burger free, tucked the bag under his arm, and unwrapped his food with one hand.

  I scowled at the garage door. “It’s worse than that. The enchantment holding the wards together took work. Once the wards fail, it’ll be history, and I’ll get to start from scratch when this is over.” I sighed again, then took a bag from Toula and helped myself. “My guess would be that anything dependent on a constant stream of magic is going to go down in the next day or so.”

  She pursed her lips. “It’s dropping faster than I’d thought it would.”

  “Not if you consider how many of these power-sucking constructions exist. Think about the security network at the Arcanum silo . . .”

  “Oh, right. That thing’s massive.” She glanced at Robin and said, “They’re going to be so pissed at you when it fails.”

  My brother merely shrugged. “What do I care? And how would that be any different from the status quo?” He smirked at me and added, “The only wards that matter right now are the ones around this hovel.”

  I stared him square in the face for a long moment, watching the corners of his mouth twitch. “If anything happens to my stuff,” I murmured, unblinking, “and I so much as think it was due to one of your people, I’ll kill you. If you need to pass the word along, you can borrow my phone.”

  Robin sniffed. “What could I possibly want with your stuff? I mean, look at this place.” He spread his free arm, encompassing a broom, a rusty snow shovel, and six dead roaches. “Please tell me it’s bigger on the inside.”

  “Please don’t,” Toula whined. “Whovian geometry makes me queasy.”

  I headed for the inner door and pulled my plastic-capped key off its hook. “I’m serious, Robin. Feel free to try my patience if you’ve tired of life. If not, the phone’s upstairs.”

  He stayed in the kitchen as the rest of us ate, mumbling into the handset in nearly unintelligible Fae. When I had finished picking at my burger, I left Joey and Toula in the living room and slipped back to my bedroom, which was still the pink mess Olive had left the morning before. Before Toula could see it, I returned it to its normal appearance. The reminder of Meggy and Olive hurt, and I wasn’t about to sleep on pink sheets.

  “Okay, people, here’s how this goes down.”

  Toula sat cross-legged in the depression I had worn in my couch, her wand across her lap. Robin had unpacked the trap, an unremarkable black six-inch cube, and Toula had placed it on the coffee table in front of her. The table’s normal layer of account books and shipping logs had been relegated to my office nook. We had unplugged every device in the room at Toula’s bidding and pulled the shades, and now, leaning against the bare spots on the wall, the three of us stared at her with varying degrees of wariness. Robin maintained his usual look of casual indolence, but Joey’s jaws were clenched, and his hand had wrapped around the silver crucifix hanging from his neck.

  “I’m going to do what I was doing this morning before we were interrupted,” said Toula, sparing a cross look for Robin. “Colin, you’re going to feed it, just like before. Galahad, you’re going to keep Tink out of my way. Got it?”

  “Let’s just get this over with,” I said, cutting Robin off as he started to speak. “You two, kitchen. Give her some space.” I waited until they were behind the half wall, then took a seat in the armchair beside the couch and exhaled slowly. “Whenever you’re ready, kid.”

  She closed her eyes, held her new wand out like a conductor’s baton, and began to mutter.

  The popular conception of magic is that in order to make something happen, it’s necessary to wave a stick and shout a set phrase in bastardized Latin. The stick part is usually true for wizards—wielded properly, a wand is an excellent focusing tool and amplifier—but there are no true magic words. A wizard can yodel his grocery list, for all the difference it makes, so long as it puts him in the right frame of mind.

  Toula’s
preferred mantra sounded suspiciously like “Lorem ipsum dolor,” but I decided to confirm this only after the trap stopped glowing.

  I felt the spell she wove, sensed the tendrils flowing around and through the box, and tentatively began to feed it, strengthen it, bolster it against the magic protecting the trap. Toula’s face reddened, then paled, in her effort to conjure the traces forth from the box, and I tried to ignore the migraine that threatened more forcefully with every passing moment. Pushing power into a spell was difficult enough, but doing so in an environment that was already drained of magic was painful.

  “How much longer?” I muttered, risking a glance at the wizard.

  Toula sat motionless in the middle of a storm of green swirls, her eyes open and fixed at some point beyond the horizon. “I’m in,” she whispered. “Hold it . . . keep it . . .”

  Someone rapped thrice on the kitchen door, a loud report in the near silence of the apartment. The sound alone almost broke my concentration, but I knew, even with my focus directed elsewhere, who my caller had to be. No one but Mrs. Cooper ever came up the fire escape.

  Unfortunately, my kitchen door was decorated with four quarter-panes of frosted glass—too distorted to show her who was in my house, but clear enough to show her that I wasn’t alone. “Mr. Leffee!” she called through the door. “Are you there, dear? It’s Mrs. Cooper! Are you all right?”

  “Damn it,” I muttered, then waved at the kitchen, hoping someone was looking out in time to see me flail. “Robin!” I hissed. “Get in here!”

  He wandered in a moment later, keeping well clear of the etheric maelstrom flowing around Toula. “Yeah?”

  The rapping at the door increased in tempo. “Take over. I’ve got to get rid of her.”

  He cocked his head back toward the kitchen. “Want me to—”

  “No. Just take over here.”

  “Please don’t tell me you’re sleeping with that,” he sighed, but slipped into my seat as I vacated the chair. He closed his eyes, screwed up his face, and forced power into Toula’s spell—not as gracefully as I had, I noticed with slight satisfaction, but effectively enough to leave the wizard undisturbed in her work.