by David Meyer
DESTROYING MAGIC
By David Meyer
Guerrilla Explorer Publishing
Destroying Magic Copyright © 2018 by David Meyer
Guerrilla Explorer Publishing
Publishers Note: This book is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, establishments, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever without prior written permission of the publisher and author. Your support of the author’s rights is greatly appreciated.
First Edition – December 2018
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Table of Contents
Copyright
Acknowledgements
WARNING!!!
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Author’s Note
Ready for More?
BEHEMOTH Excerpt
CHAOS Excerpt
About the Author
Books by David Meyer
Acknowledgements
My deepest thanks and appreciation go out to Dr. Jose Lopez as well as everyone else at the Norman Parathyroid Center. I’m not sure this book would’ve ever been finished without your excellent surgical care. Also, thank you to Dr. Patrick Nguyen and Dr. Robert Silver for diagnosing my condition and encouraging me to deal with it.
Tremendous thanks as well to Julie, for your love as well as for editing this book. Thanks, Dad, for your promotional assistance. And finally, thank you, Ryden, for letting me see the world through your eyes.
WARNING!!!
Your life is in danger.
Don’t laugh. This isn't a joke. Listen to me very carefully. I need you to look around. And if you see anyone watching you …
Run.
Run as fast as you can. Run as if your life depends on it. Because, quite frankly, it does.
You see, there’s a war going on right now. A secret war, pitting me and my fellow dropouts against the greatest magicians in all of history. But don’t worry about us. We’re safe, at least for now. Worry about yourself. There are powerful people out there who will do anything—and I do mean anything—to erase our very existence from memory. So, please, for your own sake, read this book in private, away from prying eyes. And whatever you do, don’t tell anyone what you’re about to learn.
Last chance. Are you absolutely certain you want to do this?
You are?
Well then, welcome … welcome to the war.
Welcome to DESTROYING MAGIC.
Chapter 1
I, Randy Wolf, am a magic school dropout.
Yeah, you heard me right. Just fourteen years old and my future is already in serious peril. Now, you don’t have to say anything. I already know what you’re thinking. Namely, what the heck happened?
Well, I didn’t drop out on some fool whim. And I certainly didn’t do it because I’m a poor magician. Actually, I’m pretty good with a wand, not that that’s a big deal. Most kids master the basic spells at a young age. That’s why institutions like the Roderick J. Madkey School of Magical Administration—whew, what a mouthful, huh?—focus on other things. Theory, history, social commentary, interpretation, and the like.
No, I dropped out because—and this is embarrassing to admit—I racked up failing grades across the board in my first one and a half quarters. And the Roderick J. Madkey School of … let’s just call it the Madkey School, okay? … doesn’t tolerate failure. So, I was given a choice. I could either accept expulsion or drop out on my own accord. The latter, it was firmly suggested, would allow me to save face. Once I left Madkey, I could make up a reason for my early exit. Like maybe tuition proved too expensive. Or maybe I was allergic to sasquatches. Anything, really. Anything but the truth. Which was, simply put, that I couldn’t hack it.
So, I dropped out. And yet, I didn’t leave. I’m still at Madkey. Not as a student though. Rather, I’m a staffer, working an assembly-line job alongside other dropouts. Now, you’re probably wondering why I’d suffer such an indignity. It’s simple, really. Madkey isn’t just any old school. It’s the school. Heck, it’s even bigger than that. Madkey is the birthplace of modern magic. It’s the unequivocal center of the magic universe. I spent my entire life dreaming of its sacred halls. And I’m not ready to part with them just yet.
All told, I’ve got a roof over my head, a steady job, and best of all, I spend every minute at the greatest place on Earth. I should be counting my blessings. But instead, I’m walking around on eggshells. For if there’s one thing I’ve learned from this whole experience, it’s that there’s no such thing as rock bottom.
Things can always get worse.
Chapter 2
Snap!
My wand, a brittle stick of aspen, splintered down the middle. The auburn glow faded away. My lip curled. Scowling under my breath, I slammed the broken tool onto my workstation.
Lifting my forearm, I wiped sweat from my brow. My workstation consisted of an old hickory table, rickety on four uneven legs. A ball of sticky, rock-hard dough rested on its pockmarked surface. My job was to knead the dough, then convey it to the next workstation. Simple enough, assuming one had a working wand.
A new wad of dough materialized on the table and I frowned in displeasure. Unless I called for a stoppage, which was unthinkable, the dough would just keep coming and coming. It would pile up, consuming every inch of my workstation. There was only one way out of this mess.
I needed a replacement wand.
Twisting my neck, I scanned the kitchen. Dozens of workstations, situated in four crooked lines, occupied the room. Staffers stood behind each workstation. Brows furrowed, they waved their wands, uttering the same spells over and over again.
If you’re like most hum
drums, you probably picture magic as this wondrous, spectacular gift. I mean, come on … who hasn’t wanted to clean a room with the mere flick of a wand? Or even better, whip up some savory doughcream at a moment’s notice? It sounds too good to be true, right? Well, here’s the thing …
It is.
Take doughcream, for instance. It’s baked ice cream, enchanted so as not to melt. It constantly changes flavors so you might get a taste of chocolate, pineapple, or pepperoni pizza at any time. Or you might get them all at once. It’s the luck of the bite, so to speak.
If you want to make doughcream, you can’t just say, “Go, doughcream, go!” and flick your wand. Oh, no. First, you’ve got to locate and reel in the ingredients and supplies (and don’t even think about trying to conjure them up out of thin air). Next, you’ve got to enchant everything in very specific ways. Various levitation spells are required to get the right amounts of everything into a mixing bowl. And so on and so forth.
Now, you might wonder why this requires so many individual steps. Why, you might ask, can’t they be combined? It’s because magic is set in stone. This means we’ve got to work with the spells we’ve got. And as you’ve no doubt guessed, an easy doughcream spell simply doesn’t exist. But more on that later. My point is this. Making doughcream by yourself takes forever. Assembly-line magic is much more efficient, especially when you’re trying to feed a population as large as the one housed at Madkey.
My gaze fell on Jaxon “Jax” Vegrold, would-be senior and current Kitchen Manager. He’d dropped out of Madkey three years ago, during the middle of his freshman year. I didn’t know the exact reason, but I suspected it had something to do with his temper.
“Busted wand,” I called out.
He glared at me for a long moment. Then he pushed back a mop of blonde hair.
“What’d you do?” His tone was gruff and accusatory.
“Nothing.” I held up the wand. “It just broke.”
His cheeks grew rosy red. He was a bit on the short side and built like a wall.
“Dang it, Randy.” His voice bubbled with righteous fury. “We don’t have time for this.”
“Hey, it’s not my fault.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
Jax was in an extra-foul mood and with good reason. He faced constant pressure to keep us on schedule. With the Victory Feast looming, that pressure was through the roof. Even so, I wasn’t about to let him take out his anger on me.
“Talk to Galison,” I replied icily. “Tell him we need better wands. That is, unless you’re afraid of him.”
Nobody dared stop working. But I noticed my fellow staffers stiffen up. A few gazes shot our way.
“You’ve got three minutes,” he said, his look one of sheer contempt. “Then I’m writing you up.”
“You’re all heart.”
I made a beeline for the door and hustled out into the adjoining hallway. This part of the school, consisting of dimly-lit corridors and dusty, unadorned rooms, was known internally as Shadow Madkey. It allowed us staffers to cross campus and perform our duties with minimal disturbance to the students and faculty.
Some staffers hardly ever left Shadow Madkey, choosing to avoid awkward interactions with those that we served. Others, like me, ventured out into the main facility whenever possible.
Just outside the kitchen, an enormous banner caught my eye. It hung from one side of the dingy, dank tunnel, boldly proclaiming, Happy Victory Day! in freshly-painted black lettering. The accompanying image was an impressive likeness of Lanctin Boltstar, Madkey’s famous headmaster. A scrawled signature in the lower right-hand corner identified the artist as Leandra. That is, Leandra Chen, fellow staffer and one of my closest friends.
I hurried past the banner. The hallway was a tight squeeze, the available space reduced by decorations and magical gizmos. They were intended for that evening’s feast, which marked the beginning of Madkey’s Spring semester.
I squeezed past stacks of paper ribbons, emblazoned with Victory Day slogans and enchanted to unfurl, curl up, and unfurl all over again. I stepped past crates of bottomless goblets. And I passed by an enormous cake, covered with thick frosting and adorned with miniature cool-lights. A cool-light, by the way, is essentially bundled illumination at room temperature. Wrap your brain around that for a minute … the cool-lights exist at room temperature. Yeah, I don’t get it either.
In less than a minute, I reached a supply room. A dusty sign, stuck fast to the metal door, read, Faculty and Students Are Your Priority. Serve Them Always and Without Question. The mantra—a constant presence in Shadow Madkey—didn’t bother me. But it irritated my fellow staffers to no end.
Twisting the knob, I opened the door. The room was spacious, quite tall, and filled with a musty scent. Metal shelving racks, piled high with mixing bowls, cauldrons, ladles and spoons, enchanted gloves, self-cleaning rags, and many other things, lined the walls. Chests of drawers, marked with scribbled notes, filled the middle of the room. Thanks to well-placed cool-lights, I was able to read some of the notes.
Baby “Nessie” Teeth: Acquired in blockbuster 1967 trade with Harley Fee (a.k.a. the Tooth Fairy)
Cursed Poster Boards (Warning: Do not, under any circumstances, show them scissors!)
Humdrum Magical Products (Contents include: tablets, light bulbs, power cords, cellphones, toy cars, etc.)
On any other day, I might’ve lingered in the room for a minute or two. But with dough piling up on my workstation, on a day where I’d already be working long into the night, I was in no mood to waste time. So, I crossed the floor, slipped between a couple of chests and headed to the far wall.
A rack, three times my height, awaited me. Thousands of wands, old and spindly, were piled upon its dusty shelves. A sign, black ink on white paper, read, Wands: For Staffer Use Only. As if anyone else would want them.
Staffer wands were notoriously poor quality, a fact that kind of amazed me. It wasn’t like we needed the fancy wands given to incoming freshmen. But at least they could’ve given us ones capable of surviving more than a week.
Rooting around, I noticed a wand that was thicker than the others. Extracting it from the pile, I held it up to a cool-light. It was made of cypress and seemed relatively stout.
I gripped and regripped it. It was a far cry from the one I’d received at the Madkey Orientation. That wand, harvested from Boarst Sacred Grove, had molded to my hand. A dream to use, I’d hoped to keep it after dropping out of Madkey. Unfortunately, it took flight almost immediately, presumably in search of a more deserving owner.
I maneuvered the wand a bit. It wasn’t great, but it was serviceable. So, I stowed it in my pocket. As I turned to leave, a very soft noise—a shallow breath—accosted my ears.
Heart racing, I twisted around. My gaze fell on the far corner, which was shrouded in darkness. I didn’t recall it being that dark on previous visits.
My curiosity was piqued, but I really needed to get back to work. I started for the exit. However, a faint snore stopped me cold.
My gaze twisted back to the dark corner. Someone was sleeping there? On Victory Day, no less, when it was all-hands-on-deck? Oh, boy. If Galison found out, he or she would be gone in an instant.
I ventured into the darkness. My heart palpitated and I found myself breathing faster and harder.
A mass took shape before my eyes. It looked like … yes, it was the curled-up form of a tall, lanky man. He lay in the corner, facing the wall. His dark gray pants and matching pea coat were smudged with reddish dirt. He wore heavy boots, which lay in a small puddle of water. His wand holster, attached to his leather belt, was empty.
Circling around, I glimpsed the man’s olive-colored skin and gleaming white teeth. His dark hair was closely-cropped and he had a day or so of stubble on his chin. Surprise registered in my brain.
That’s no staffer. My heart beat faster and faster. That’s MacPherson.
Deej MacPherson was co-chair of the Magicology department. He was famous fo
r his heroics on Victory Day. Alongside Headmaster Boltstar, he’d helped end the Chaotic tyranny once and for all, ushering in the Golden Era of Structuralism. Since then, he’d carved out a career for himself as one of Madkey’s most esteemed professors.
I frowned. Something was very, very wrong here. Outside of Galison, I’d never seen a single professor in the bowels of Shadow Madkey. The idea that he’d just wandered in here for a mid-day slumber struck me as absurd.
“Professor?” I whispered. “Are you …?”
I trailed off as more snores escaped his lips. Switching tactics, I gripped his shoulder and gave it a little shake.
“Professor?”
I gave him more shakes, each one harder than the last. Still, he refused to stir. Finally, I wrenched at his arm, causing him to roll onto his back. And yet, he remained fast asleep.
Saliva pooled in my mouth and I pulled my hands away from his body. Peering closer, I noticed his sickly pallor. He seemed to be biting his cheeks. His skin, normally a bit wrinkled, was stretched tight across his visage.
Beads of sweat ran down my arms as I gained my feet. This was dark, sinister. It had the whiff of magic to it. And yet, that was impossible. Sleeping curses, as everyone knew, existed only in the realm of fiction.
As I ran for help, I found myself inundated with questions. Who had done this to MacPherson? How?
And why?
Chapter 3
“Come, Mr. Wolf. We have questions for you.”
The voice, rotund and perfectly enunciated, belonged to Professor Cherry Wadflow from the Numerology department. Skinny and severe, she wore a slim-fitting black dress and kitten heels. Her hair was pinned up on top of her head. Her hands were balanced on her hips and she stared at me like I was a pesky fly.
Nervously, I followed her into the supply room. MacPherson, still snoring up a storm, lay right where I’d left him. His Magicology co-chair, Professor Beatrice Norch, stood nearby. She was a refined, plump woman, wrapped up in a tasteful, flowery dress.
“Hello again, Mr. Wolf,” she said, shooting me a sharp-eyed gaze. “Thank you for your patience.”