Tales of Magic and Misery: A Collection of Short Stories by Tim Marquitz

by Tim Marquitz

  I exhaled into my gloved hands, letting the heat wash over them. Wisps of steam glistened in the gloom of the streetlights as I started another lap of downtown. The rags I’d worn for three days straight stank of sweat and desperation in equal measure. Time was running short. Someone would fall victim soon, and tonight, I needed it to be me.

  I’d affected a wounded gait when I began my hunt, my leg dragging out behind me to soften my profile, my shoulders hunched beneath my long coat as best I could. At six-foot-eight, it took a lot to present myself as vulnerable. My beard grown out, splotchy patches of gray discolored the black. A little grease smeared across my cheeks and a half-empty bottle wrapped in a paper sack completed the look.

  Cars hummed in the distance, the highway a tenuous landmark in the distance hidden behind the gray buildings jutting into the sky. The bright eyes of the offices gleamed, taunting the homeless who huddled in the cold below, blessed shelter just an elevator ride away yet forever out of reach. Wrought iron bars kept the rabble in their place, the creak of hinges a dirge that lulled them to sleep on stone mattresses. My heart sank, and I wondered for a moment if I was doing them a favor by prolonging their lives. Guilt chased the tail of that thought, but a raspy, cigarette-tainted question kept me from dwelling on it.

  “What’s in the bottle, old man?”

  From the mouth of the nearby alley, a handful of punks crept. A quick glance told me they weren’t the ones I sought. Little more than boys, they spread out to circle me. Crooked smiles painted their lips with malice. The redness in their gazes stood out in stark relief against the white, courage bolstered by numbers and whatever chemicals they’d imbibed.

  “Got any cash?” another asked as he eyed my tattered coat.

  “Them fuckers always have money stashed somewhere.” The first stepped forward as he spoke, reaching for me.

  “Fucker?” I asked, the strength of my voice startling them.

  I didn’t give them time to reply. A jab to the first’s throat dropped him. He slumped, hands clasping his neck, a whistled gasp leaking from bluish lips. The others hesitated, clearly weighing their options as I straightened to my full height. I wasn’t the easy mark they’d made me out to be, but that wasn’t my concern. My cheeks burned with fury. I’d spent days searching for a supernatural predator only to find sheep parading as wolves. Was this who I was here to protect? It sickened me to think these opportunistic scum were who I’d dedicated my life to defending.

  The click of a knife opening sounded in the still air, a flash of silver blurring my direction. I grabbed the kid’s wrist and twisted it aside, slamming the base of the whiskey bottle into his solar plexus. The bottle shattered inside the sack, the stink of cheap liquor stinging my nose. The blade clattered across the asphalt, and I tossed the kid after it. He landed with a sullen thud, glass clinking as I discarded the sopping bag. The others found their courage in unity, perhaps believing they could put me down if they all attacked at once.

  Had I stood there and boxed with them that might have been true. While I wore my eons well, I was still bound to the coil of a sixty-five year-old man competing in the purview of youth. Unlike them, though, I had other options.

  Magic flared to life at my fingertips, reddish flutters of my will made reality. I spread my arms and smiled, baring teeth.

  “Are you sure about this, boys?”

  They weren’t. The three teenagers stopped dead in their tracks, gazes darting between my hands and what I suspected was a look of grim resolve exhibited on my face. They wanted none of either. In silence they fled, leaving their companions to squirm where they’d fallen. A gentle nudge with the tip of my boot sent the nearest one scrambling after his friends, the last of the group struggling to his feet to chase behind, his frantic pleas for them to wait filling the air with desperation. I watched until they disappeared, stumbling around the far end of the alley and out onto the next block. Maybe they’d even learned a lesson, though I doubted it. I sighed and glanced about to make sure I hadn’t been seen.

  My stomach lurched at seeing a cloaked woman standing just yards away.

  “I knew you’d come,” she said, recognition sinking into the pit of my stomach at the sound of her voice.

  “Ania.” The name was ice on my tongue.

  She grinned, the delicate curve of her lips doing nothing to ease the horror of her countenance. A thick band of scar tissue ran across the space between her temples. Seared red, the skin puckered and warped, there was little more than two swollen lumps where her eyes had once been. Blackened threads were woven through the wounded flesh, their frayed strings like eyelashes fluttering in the breeze. Streams of silver ran from the corners in perpetual mourning, her tears turning misty in the early morning chill. She looked exactly as I remembered her.

  “My mother has not forgotten you, Rahim Alakha.” She slid her hood back to reveal the dark whirls of her unkempt hair, tangles clutched about her long, pale neck. “She would like to see you again.”

  “Eris is dead.” Even I could hear the uncertainty in my voice.

  “You know better than most how untrue that is, wizard.” Ania shook her head. “And please, my mother always preferred the name the Romans bestowed upon her.”

  Discordia, the goddess of strife, but I dared not speak it aloud. I swallowed hard against the realization of what had drawn the daimona, Ania, to Earth.

  “You seek to return her to flesh.” There was no need to question it. I knew the truth of it the moment the words spilled free of my mouth.

  I felt the pressure of her sightless stare. “We need only a little more time, a little more blood, before our mother’s return. She will reign once more in the absence of the usurper Yahweh.”

  The cold chill of the grave skittered the length of my spine. God’s departure had brought with it many consequences, but the return of the old pantheons He disposed of would usher in the end of times for a fragile humanity no longer under the Almighty’s protection.

  “Why have you lured me here?”

  Her grin widened. “The process requires blood from the line of the ancient kings, scion of Sargon.”

  She was on me before the threat settled in my ears. A crystalline sword appeared in her hand, the wings of her cloak swept aside as she advanced. The first cut set fire to my veins. It slashed through my coat sleeve and sank deep into flesh, drawing a line of oozing darkness. I leapt back with a hiss, readying my magic but what I saw brought me pause.

  The translucent length of the blade darkened at the tip, coming alive with a crimson shimmer. Ania grinned and ran a thin finger down the length of the sword.

  “Do you not miss my mother, wizard?”

  Memories assailed me from an age long past, Eris’ face hovering above mine, her full lips whispering soft words of encouragement, but I pushed all that aside. Our moment, like the age of the Greeks, was gone, little more than a mote of history in the wash of time.

  I shook my head. “I miss nothing.”

  A flick of my wrist loosed a bolt of energy at Ania. Reddish-orange tracers lighted her face as she sidestepped, flutters of ash following its passage as the hem of her cloak was seared through. She darted in low, and I met her motion, releasing yet another burst of energy. She laughed, the sound callous and cruel, as she shunted my magic aside with the blade, its sharpened length cleaving a trough along my chest before I could move aside.

  Fiery agony brought tears to my eyes, only furthering Ania’s glee. Her smile gleamed behind the reddening blade as she loosed its edge once more, the tip biting into the meat of my shoulder. Teeth clenched, I willed more power into my fist and drove my knuckles into her jaw. A flash of light exploded before me, stealing my sight for an instant, but there was no mistaking the comforting feel of bone colliding with bone.

  Ania grunted and spun about, wisps of energy trailing the welt that distorted her cheek, but I chided myself for crowing about my gossamer victory and pressed the moment. Sharpened points of mystical spears appeared at my be
hest, a thought sending them careening toward the daimona. She growled low in her throat as she righted her balance and charged forward. A flicker of a smile touched my lips at her foolishness, only to be wiped away by my own.

  The spears passed right through her as though she were a ghost.

  Her sword cut a deep gash in my thigh, its redirection tracing a furrow up my hip and into the meat of my side. I cursed and shoved her back just as my leg gave way, dropping to my knees on the cold asphalt. Blood stained the street a darker black beneath me.

  Ania raised her blade, the fluid of my life sloshing inside its depths. Only a few inches remained unfilled. “My sisters hoped you might be more amenable to mother’s rebirth, but I knew you’d fight to the very last. You were always a warrior, Rahim.” She shook the sword before me. “It runs in your veins,” Ania began with a sly grin, “and now it will run in Discordia’s.”

  One hand pressed to the wound at my hip, warmth pooling against my palm, I raised my other hand and summoned my magic. It erupted with a rosy sheen, its pulse throbbing as its power built.

  She waggled a finger at me. “Have you not learned your lesson, wizard? Your powers were a gift from my mother, and she would never allow them to be used against her children.” Ania drew closer, taunting me with the sword. Mocking tears oozed from the remnants of her eyes. “And though I am certain Mother will mourn your passing, it is for the greater good that I free your soul from this wretched shell of flesh and bone.” The sword shifted in her hand as she came to stand before me, the crimson point aimed at my heart. “She will forgive my trespass, but I can never forgive yours, son of Sargon.”

  “I have much to atone for, child,” I admitted, lowering my face as she prepared to plunge her blade through my chest, “but the scales will have to remain unbalanced for a short while longer.”

  With a thought I released the energy gathered about my hand, its purpose served. The taint of lycanthropy shrieked to life, its mystical signature hidden from Ania by the pulse of my sorcery. I raised my eyes to meet hers as the change washed over me, fur and slabs of dense muscle warping my form at an unnatural pace. The useless hand that clutched magic a moment before now bristled with razored claws.

  Ania gasped and thrust the point of her blade into my chest, but it was too late. I swept it aside and dug my ursine fingers into her abdomen. Flesh parted and the coppery stink of death gushed down my forearm while I drove my paw deeper and deeper into the well of her torso. Her screams metamorphosed into moist gurgles, frothy bubbles reddening her lips. A tremor shook her frame, and her legs buckled, leaving me to support her full weight. I reached up with my other hand and clasped it behind her head, pulling her so we were face to face, my breath streaming across her marred features.

  “I am not the man I once was, Ania.” She swallowed as if to speak, but only blood came out. I pulled her closer. “I am sorry for what I must do, but your mother will never again walk this Earth.”

  Ania twitched as I spread my paw inside her, its sharpened points shredding her lungs and tearing at her heart. Her body spasmed and went still, slumping like a discarded doll. I yanked my arm free and let her topple to the street. The scarred wells of her eyes stared empty, the last of her life spilling out across the asphalt. I stood over her a moment, feral instincts screaming in conquest, but the man buried deep within the beast knew the war had yet to be won.

  Ania’s sisters still lurked in the world, likely plotting the return of their mother as Ania did, and only chaos and ruin would come with Discordia’s resurgence. That would not happen. I raised my head to the sky and roared a challenge. I would see the sisters put down, their mother forever condemned to the darkness between worlds.

  “This I promise, my love.”

  The Err Apparent

  Originally published in At Hell’s Gates Volume 1 2014

  “Bell, book, and candle, candle, book, bell, forwards and backwards to damn us to Hell!” the group chanted, their voices piercing the darkness, spears of intent cast in clouds of wispy breath. The full moon loomed overhead. Shimmers of silver light cast a funereal pall over the forested clearing.

  Of course, all that might have been more impressive if I weren’t the Devil’s nephew. You know, been there, done that, got the “My Ex-Girlfriend’s Dad Nailed Your God” T-shirt.

  Guess you had to have been there.

  Anyway, like I was saying, these clowns had amateur written all over them, but the aesthetics were nice. If they’d have thought to bring some beer, this shindig would have been awesome. Nothing like an ice cold Budweiser to set the mood while you’re summoning demons. Or more like when you’re greasing the robes of the local goth chicks in hopes of getting a crotch-dusting of face paint and black lipstick. From the looks of it, the crowd was a ten-to-one ratio of innies to outies. Nice odds for an after ritual gangbang.

  I crouched behind a tree, staring out at the cultist who was running the show. He wasn’t much more than a kid. I could see the fresh acne scars on his cheeks from where I lurked, his hood doing nothing to hide his pasty features, which were cast in stark reflection by the excessive amount of candles encircling the pentagram spray painted on the rocky ground. A hot little dark-haired number, splayed out in the nude, was tied in the center of the circle. She squirmed enough to stiffen my posture, but the thin cords that bound her limbs wouldn’t hold up to a light breeze let alone a motivated S&M session. Probably not even an M&M session. She clearly wasn’t so much a sacrifice as a volunteer. Whoever clued Abe into the Mascara Theatre troupe playing out in the woods hadn’t known a whole bunch about real magic or they wouldn’t have thought this was worth anyone’s time. Made me wonder why he sent me.

  The kid’s voice—Malcolm if I remember what the sheriff told me correctly—hit a crescendo, the rest of the wannabes following right after. Whatever deviant Hello Kitty fetishes Malcolm had brewing inside his skull, there was no way he was to blame for the brutal murders that had plagued Ruidoso these last few months. I could smell pussy from where I hunched, and I don’t mean any of the lady parts. If that kid had a spine it was held together with Cheetos dust and Warhammer model glue. He was a slick operator when it came to the shadow brigade of disenchanted forest dwellers, but there was no way he was a killer. He probably screamed for mama when he saw a roach. Malcolm was nothing but a fake, I was sure of that.

  And that’s why I was shocked to see a creature appear in a puff of malevolent smoke, its emaciated form hunched over the now still sacrifice. She wasn’t acting anymore. Her screams went from piercing to gurgling as jagged claws flashed in the light of the full moon. The coppery stink of blood graced the air, and the world erupted with terror.

  #

  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

  The day started off with much less excitement but, to my delight, only a little less role play. Abe had gotten a call from someone he knew warning him about a supernatural connection to the murders and chose to send me to investigate. That right there is proof that everyone makes bad decisions now and again.

  Regardless, determined to do my best by Abe, I donned a nice pair of slacks, some black loafers, with black socks if you can believe it, alongside a button up white shirt with a tie that actually didn’t have skulls or goat heads on it, and the classic blue windbreaker of the FBI, and set out in search of information with false identification in hand.

  That led me to the most recent crime scene and a surly old sheriff by the name of Charlie Watson. I bit my tongue and kept from asking where Holmes was as he tromped up to greet me, meaty paw shaking the shit out of my hand. His callouses had callouses and probably could out lift me at the gym.

  “Glad you Bureau boys could finally make it down,” he said, making a show of glancing around me. “Though, I gotta admit, I kinda figured there’d be more of ya.” His disappointment was tepid. I don’t think he really cared how big a deal the FBI made of the investigation as long as they took it off his hands. “What’d ya say your name was again?”

&n
bsp; “Calvin Hobbes.” I answered, giving him my best used-car salesman smile, hoping he never read the Sunday funnies. He didn’t seem the type. “The office sent me down to check things out. If I need them, they’ll be out here with helicopters and dogs and more donuts than you can shake a stick at.”

  Watson’s eyebrow inched up. “Whatever the Bureau thinks best, I guess.” He shook his head. The old boy was a bloodhound, used to sniffing out bullshit, but when it came to the government—I bet he even pronounced it guvment—everything stank. “Anyway, this here body turned up this morning sometime. Coroner ain’t had time to determine much but he figures it’s only been in the mud three to four hours, maybe. Rigor ain’t even set in yet.” He started off to where the coroner knelt alongside the victim. “C’mon. Get yourself a good look at this.”

  I started to decline but remembered why I was there. “Sure. Let’s get right on that.”

  Watson chuckled and had the venerable—mostly because his face looked as old and rigid as the monuments at Mount Rushmore—coroner pulled the pinkish sheet off the body. The rank stench of intestine soup nearly blindside me. My eyes teared up as if I’d been snorting onions and my stomach knotted. I’d seen enough death to not be too bothered by it, but there’s nothing like the funk that creeps out of a dead person’s bread basket. So much for breakfast.

  “Purty, ain’t he?”

  “He’s something,” I answered.

  The body looked as if it had been mugged by a gang of honey badgers on PCP. From head to toe the man’s skin was shredded and hung off in wet ribbons. His face was missing, as were the rest of his juicy bits. I shuddered at seeing the gnawed out cavity that used to be his crotch.

  “How do you know it’s a guy?”

  Watson pointed to a blood splattered wallet that lay a short distance from the body. “Just a guess at this point, to be honest.” He shrugged. “ID inside is for a Wilbur Hankins, but it’s ‘bout twelve years expired. We’ll check the address on it, but I’m not expecting much. Figure this boy was living on the streets given the state of his clothes. Outside of the blood and all, I mean.”