The Haunted Onsen

by Phil Gabriel

  “Pe-Daeng,” I said, “would you like to learn more magic?”

  She gave me a suspicious look. “You want to change our deal?” she asked. Her hand caressed her purse.

  “I want to offer you a better deal,” I said. “Would you like to become my student?”

  “What would I have to pay for these lessons?” she asked.

  “Pay, why noth—” I started, then interrupted myself. This cynical woman would be wary of free gifts and promises. “You would have to swear to be loyal to me, follow my orders, and help me with my endeavors.”

  “Follow orders?” she asked, looking at my crotch. “All orders?” She shook her head. “I don’t like having a boss.”

  “OK,” I said. “It’s up to you. I don’t think you’d make a good student anyway. Too cynical and suspicious. We’ll stick with the original deal.”

  I stepped behind the couch and touched her temples lightly. “Try to relax,” I said. “This is going to feel strange, maybe hurt a bit.”

  “Hurt?” she said. “Why?”

  “I’m going to reshape your eyes, repair any damage, and increase the number of photoreceptors in your eyes. It will cause some pain. More than that, it will be disorientating.”

  Kitty-Sue spoke in Thai, much too quickly for me to understand. John understood, but had little interest in my Deals. He sat back and sipped his whiskey while we bargained. I continued my preparations for healing Daeng’s eyes.

  “Wait,” she said as I started massaging her temples, readying the magical probes that would allow me to reshape her eyes.

  “If I become your student,” she said, “will I still get paid for this trip? Get to keep the job?”

  Had she thought that I would not keep a promise? She didn’t know much about me or magicians in general. “Yes,” I said. “You will keep the job, the better eyes, and the clothes.”

  “Chai-ka, Ajarn-Scott,” she said, “I’ll be your student.”

  I took a look down her robe, which had fallen slightly open as she talked to reveal the slightest hint of nipple, and resigned myself to only looking for the foreseeable future.

  “Then you’re my student,” I said, sealing our new relationship. I sent tendrils of magic into her head, focusing my attention on her eyes. The hardest part first; I examined the number and types of photoreceptors. Sure enough, she had the extra cone cells that designated a Pentachromat, someone who could see all five of magic’s primary colors.

  I drew from the pool of energy I had taken from John and encouraged the photoreceptors to multiply. I could have jumped them up to the maximum, but that much change in vision could cause madness.

  Once the photoreceptors were humming along nicely, doubling at my request, I slowed time down to look at the shape of her eyes and corneas. Reshaping the eyeballs to eliminate focusing problems required a delicate touch. I cleaned the vitreous liquid of any floaters, strengthened all the muscles related to eye movement and focusing, then enlarged capillaries in her eyes.

  Next, still at maximum speed, I examined her cornea. I saw her problem, the reason she couldn’t get beyond the basics of magic. Pentachromats have corneas that allow the infrared and ultraviolet spectrum through. Mundanes’ corneas block these extra spectra. It helps protect the sensitive parts of mundanes’ eyes from too much radiation. Daeng had cornea only slightly more transparent to these bands than a normal human.

  I took a deep breath and thought for a few sped-up moments. I could transform her cornea, giving her full spectrum magician vision. But even with her limited number of photoreceptors, that would be like bringing a person who had lived below ground in a lightless cavern up to the desert. At the least, it would cause migraines and a lot of confusion. At worst, it would cause madness. I had to tread carefully; driving my student insane would not help with this mission.

  I settled for setting up a slow change in her corneas. I increased their transparency to the extra spectra by ten percent. Then, over the next few weeks, her cornea would become more and more transparent, giving her time to adapt. Not a great solution, but the best I could come up with.

  I had started to come out of the healing trance when an inner voice said, What if she betrays you? Are you going to trust a bar girl you just met? I wanted to ignore my paranoia, but it had saved my ass on several occasions. I temporized, leaving hooks in the spell-work on her eyes that would allow me to reverse the changes. If she stayed a loyal student, she would soon be able to remove the hooks and continue the upgrade work on her eyes herself. If she tried to betray me, I could drop her back to her previous state. A magical prenuptial agreement.

  Finished to the best of my ability, I let time speed back up to normal. The time trick isn’t magic; it’s more a matter of going into overdrive. That lets me do it even when my magical reserves are low. The downside is that it takes a lot of physical energy and speeds up the aging process. Using the trick had once saved my life, but left me as a toothless bald old man. It had taken weeks of rest, good food, and the exercises I hated to restore my youth.

  I looked down at Daeng and saw tears streaming down her cheeks. The operation had been painful. I continued rubbing her temples and urged her body to release endorphins to counteract the pain. Her tears dried and she took a deep breath. Looking down past her nose, I could see her nipples harden, pushing out the material of the robe. Her legs squeezed together and her hands started stroking her thighs. The scent of her arousal wafted through the air. Too bad I couldn’t do anything about that.

  Kitty-Sue’s hand reached from behind, resting on my shoulder, and I felt the tips of her claws at my throat. She whispered in my ear from behind, “Boss, I think she’s had enough of your hocus-pocus.”

  “Yes, Kitty-Sue,” I said as I slowed down the stroking, “I don’t want her to grab my wand.” That quip brought a tightening of the grip on my shoulder. I dropped my hands and took a step back. The claws at my throat retracted.

  “Pe-Daeng,” I said, “how do your eyes feel? Is your vision improved?”

  She looked around the room, blinking quickly as her eyes took in details she would never have been able to see before. “I can read the numbers on the thermostat!” she said, pointing to the thermostat mounted on the wall twenty feet away. Then she brought her fingers very close to her eyes. “I can see the sparkles inside my nail polish. It’s like looking through a microscope.”

  Then she looked at her arms and shook her head. “Why do I have these spots on my skin?”

  “Yeah,” I said, “in ultraviolet, almost everybody has those spots.” I stepped from behind the couch and stood in front of her.

  “But you don’t have them,” she said. Peering at John, she added, “And neither does Khun-Peter.”

  “I can teach you to smooth out your skin so it’s an even tan even under the extra spectra,” I said.

  “What are those tattoos on your arms?” she asked.

  “A type of...” I hesitated. What was the word in Thai?

  “Those are a type of Yantra tattoo,” said John. At her puzzled look, he used the more popular term. “Sak yan tattoos.”

  I held up my right hand, palm facing me, and trickled magical energy down my tattooed meridian lines and into the circled pentagram on the back of my hand. Each triangle of the pentagram lit up with one of the colors of the magical spectrum: infra, red, green, blue, and ultra.

  She shut her eyes quickly and said, “Stop that! It hurts my head.”

  “Sorry, Pe-Daeng,” I said, “it’s a lot to get used to at once.” And it’s only going to get worse.

  “Even with my eyes closed, I see those other colors,” she said, then placed her hands over her eyes.

  “Will I have to get those tattoos, too?” asked Daeng, keeping her hands over her eyes.

  Kitty-Sue stepped from behind the couch and said, “No. Not all magicians get them.”

  “Anyway,” I continued, “it will be a long time before you are at a level that tattoos like mine would be useful.”

&nb
sp; Daeng pulled her hands from her face and peered at all of us. As she took in Kitty-Sue, shock appeared on her face. Daeng’s new vision had pierced Kitty-Sue’s glamour. “You’re not human! You have big ears and two tails. What are you?” She grabbed her purse.

  I had to suppress a smile at the idea of this human trying to use a knife on my inhuman girlfriend.

  “I’m still me,” said Kitty-Sue gently, “and I mean you no harm.”

  Daeng shook her head several times and squeezed her eyes shut again. Tears leaked out from her closed eyes. Damn, even having her eyes clear slowly wasn’t enough to allow her to adapt. The slightest expansion of her magical vision was painful for her.

  “Pe-Daeng,” I said, “you’re going to have to get used to seeing things differently.”

  “It’s too much,” she whispered.

  Maybe she wasn’t capable of handling magic. I might have to reverse the changes to keep her sane. I was preparing the spell when Daeng did something unexpected. She snatched her old glasses from the table and popped them back onto her nose and peered through the lenses.

  “That’s much better,” she said. “Not so many colors now.” She looked at Kitty-Sue and said, “You look human now.” She pulled her glasses down on her nose to peer above the glasses and shuddered. She quickly pushed the glasses back. “This is better, but everything’s kind of blurry,” she said.

  I glanced at John to get his opinion on whether Daeng could help us on this mission. He shrugged his shoulders, leaving the decision to me. I was glad I hadn’t jumped Daeng up to full sensitivity all at once. Even a ten percent glimpse of the magical world was proving too much for her to handle.

  I debated pulling the enhancements that allowed her to see magic. Of course, the improved vision would remain; a deal is a deal. But I had taken her as my student. I needed to find a way to train her. The glasses, with their lenses that blocked most ultraviolet and infrared light, seemed to help her. Maybe I could do something with them.

  “Pe-Daeng,” I said, “close your eyes and give me your glasses.”

  Squeezing her eyes closed, Daeng took off her glasses and handed them to me. I had to pull them from her grip. “Don’t worry,” I said, “you’ll get them back in a minute.”

  I cast a transformation spell on the lenses, changing the curvature to remove any magnification. I changed the composition of the glass to make it more transparent at mundane light frequencies and block more of the ultraviolet and infrared spectrum.

  “Here,” I said, handing the glasses back, “try these now.”

  She put the glasses on and opened her eyes. She stared at her arms and said, “Good, the spots are gone.”

  She looked at the thermostat and said, “I can still read the numbers.”

  Then she looked at Kitty-Sue, squinting in an effort to see if there was anything unnatural about her. “No tail, no big ears,” she said. “You look much better this way, Pe-Kitty-Sue.”

  Kitty-Sue looked nonplused. She was much prouder of her kitsune features than of her mundane glamor, but she took the compliment with grace. “Thank you, Pe-Daeng,” she said.

  Kitty-Sue turned to me and said, “What now, boss?”

  Before I could answer, Daeng asked, “Why do you call him ‘boss’? Isn’t he your teacher, too?”

  “Oh no, honey,” said Kitty-Sue. “I’m his bodyguard.”

  The expression that crossed Daeng’s face was almost too quick to see. First, surprise that this tiny Japanese woman, almost a head shorter than her, could be dangerous enough to be a bodyguard. Then the realization that Kitty-Sue was much more than she appeared.

  “Pe-Daeng,” I said, “your first lesson in magic is that relative size is not an indicator of how dangerous someone is.” My thoughts flashed back to Ashley. In human form, she had been much smaller than me. But only an idiot would underestimate her power.

  Turning to Kitty-Sue, I said, “We need to rest. I used a lot of energy to fix Pe-Daeng’s eyes. Pe-Daeng will have to sleep and dream to start adapting to her magical vision.”

  The girls exchanged a look that I couldn’t fathom. Then Kitty-Sue said, “We aren’t tired. We have lots of energy. Someone promised us a shopping spree.”

  It was now about 7:00 p.m. The shopping center should be open until at least nine. How much money could Kitty-Sue and Daeng spend in two hours? A lot, I decided. I reached into my satchel and pulled out a Gold American Express card.

  Handing the card to Kitty-Sue, I said, “We’ll have dinner when you get back. Try not to overload your suitcase.”

  Kitty-Sue looked at me in surprise. “I’m not going to let her use my suitcase. We’re buying new luggage for her.”

  18

  Dancing with Nang Tani

  Late the next morning, we were grouped together near a large tree in Lumpini Park. Despite the steady drizzle of rain, we were formed up next to Daeng. I was on her immediate right. On Daeng’s other side stood Kitty-Sue. An iPhone propped at the base of a tree was playing Spotify on random to provide music.

  “You want me to teach you to dance?” asked Daeng as she pushed her rain-spotted glasses up on her nose. She shook her hips like the thousands of other bar girls in Bangkok.

  “Not like that,” I said, only slightly distracted as Kitty-Sue copied her moves perfectly. “We want you to dance as you did in the club. Not a sexy dance.” I made a few motions, clumsy compared to Daeng and Kitty-Sue, reaching for the waves of magical energy that swept through the area. Damn magic flew through my fingers like a school of tiny fish. Until I was attuned to the area, I couldn’t gather more than a fraction of the local energy.

  “OK,” said Daeng, “you mean like this?” She swayed back and forth in the graceful patterns of a classical Thai dance.

  The music changed to a Thai composition. Without interrupting her steps, Daeng said, “How did you change the music from here? Magic?”

  I opened my mouth to tell her about Euterpe when Kitty-Sue jumped in. “It’s his imaginary girlfriend.” Then she said something quickly in Thai. I only caught the Thai word for crazy.

  I closed my mouth and concentrated on the dance, matching Daeng step for step on her right. Kitty-Sue matched her on her left. The music helped keep the rhythm of the dance.

  However, Daeng was still not gathering all the energy she could. With the glasses hampering her vision, she was missing the heaviest magical flows.

  “You’re going to have to take off your glasses to complete this lesson,” I said.

  She was hesitant, but I was insistent. In a few minutes, she was dancing without her glasses, expertly gathering magical energy with each motion. Kitty-Sue and I moved with her, matching her steps. Gracefully in Kitty-Sue’s case, somewhat less gracefully in mine. John, already attuned to Bangkok, stood by the tree and watched.

  I was sure we made quite the sight and was thankful for Kitty-Sue’s privacy bubble that protected us from prying eyes.

  That was until I made a turn and saw the bark of the tree behind John form the shape of the face of a woman. For an instant, I was sure it was an optical illusion caused by the random pattern of the bark. Then, on my next pass, the face winked at me.

  We continued our dance. Kitty-Sue seemed to anticipate the moves. Although her style of magic didn’t require this attuning, she appeared to enjoy the exercise.

  After several more minutes, as my breathing was becoming labored, Kitty-Sue asked, “Boss, why do you need to move like this to top off? Didn’t you say you could make the magic come to you?”

  “Once attuned,” I gasped, “I can do that. But first I have to...” I trailed off as I tried to put the concepts into words.

  While thinking, we continued the dance. A few children, between the ages of six and ten, had noticed us. More open than adults, they could easily see through Kitty-Sue’s privacy bubble with the piercing gaze of innocence. Two joined our dance, lining up beside Kitty-Sue and making our line five dancers long. The other children stayed back and watched, swaying in time t
o the music.

  I noted one of the child dancers, a girl of about ten, was absorbing a tiny amount of magic. Another potential magician? Or a witch? Only time would tell.

  Back to my explanation to Kitty-Sue. Attune? That word didn’t quite capture the idea. Match resonance? As if Daeng was a tuning fork emitting a vibration and I was a nearby unit that needed to match her frequency? Yes, in mundane terms, that might be a close analogy.

  “…match my frequency to the local magic. Pe-Daeng is already attuned. By matching her, I can come into resonance much quicker.” Most people would not have been able to follow the thought, but Kitty-Sue had seen how I would drop off into thought and complete a sentence minutes or hours later.

  The dance was working: the wisps of magical energy that had escaped my grasp earlier now flowed into my hands, feet, and chakras. I felt the warmth of magic fill my reservoirs at a trickle.

  At the next turn of the dance, I saw her step from the tree. A beautiful Thai woman with long, long obsidian hair and skin with a light green tint. She had a bright red flower of an unknown plant gracing her left temple. The center of the flower faded to a delicate pink shade. She wore a green top that left her midriff bare, and a skirt of dark green was wrapped around her hips, nearly reaching the ground. Her clothing appeared to be composed of interwoven leaves. Her bare feet moved soundlessly on the grass, not bending a blade as she moved.

  She made no sound, but John smoothly stepped to the side as she approached from his rear. There was no creature, natural or supernatural, that could stalk the world’s greatest hunter. John nodded and smiled at the tree spirit.

  She was a Nang Tani, a Thai tree spirit. In Western terms, a dryad. They could be either bothersome or good. Since John didn’t seem alarmed, I assumed she was no danger to us.

  She stepped closer to our group, hips swaying to the rhythm of our dance. She stepped into place with perfect timing, taking a position in front of Daeng. Her steps were slightly different than Daeng’s, which caused a flash of confusion on Daeng’s face. However, Daeng quickly adapted, matching the motions of the Nang Tani. My estimation of my new student rose considerably. Unlike the stubborn Koji-san, she was open to learning from those who knew more.