Magic Steals

• • •

THE owners of the comic shop were college kids. We only met one, Brune Wayne, a short blond guy in his early twenties, who spent way too much time at the gym, waved his arms when he talked and immediately explained to us that he was named after his grandfather and lamented that he was only one letter away from being Batman. His partner in crime, Christian Leander, was helping his parents with some furniture today. The comic book shop was just like all the other comic book shops in Atlanta. With computers gone, paper books and comics once again became a viable form of entertainment, and the shop was doing good business.

Jim knew way more about comics than I had expected. He and Brune had clicked and Brune showed us around, talking nonstop. It was too bad about the nice old lady, and they did get a letter but they thought it was a prank, because nobody would pay crazy money like that, so they threw it in the trash. And these are hand-painted miniatures. A local guy makes them. Look, they are magic. The dragon’s eyes glow. Isn’t that like the coolest thing?

By the time we got out of there, my ears were ringing and I had so many comic book titles and superhero names stuck in my hair, I’d need to shampoo twice to get it all out. But one thing was clear. Brune didn’t have a mean bone in his body.

Frustration nagged at me. Anyone who could summon a whole swarm of jenglots was dangerous and wasn’t afraid to kill. So far all we had were possible victims. Pulling off that kind of magic took dedication and years of practice. None of them felt that powerful, magically, and none of them seemed to have the kind of money hiring someone of that power would require, not to mention dropping a million on buying up this property.

We had to make progress and soon, because he or she would try to finish what they started. I couldn’t face going back to the Indrayani family and telling them, “So sorry your beloved grandma is dead because I was too stupid to figure out who was responsible.”

“Look,” Jim said.

A car pulled up to Vasil’s Deli. A man got out. He was in his fifties, with salt-and-pepper hair. He walked up to the deli’s door, keys in hand. His fingers were shaking. His face was pale, his eyes bloodshot. He dropped the keys, crouched to pick them up, finally managing to get one in the lock, opened the door, and stepped inside.

Jim and I walked toward the deli. The CLOSED sign had been flipped to OPEN. The man was sitting in a chair, slumped over the counter, nodding off. Jim opened the door and I saw it, the dark furry cloud of magic, wrapped around the man, hanging off his back like a revolting liquid sack bristling with boar quills. Thin, slimy strands crossed his neck, garroting his throat, and stretched across his face, trying to worm their way to his nose and his eyes.

I jumped onto the counter and grabbed his hands. The magic hissed at me. The liquid sack on the man’s back broke and a nest of black furry snakes erupted, wriggling toward me, each armed with a dark beak where the mouth should’ve been. Jim cleared the counter and sliced through the phantom snakes with his knife. His blade passed through them. They didn’t even notice.

I pushed with my magic. The beaks struck at me, gouging bloody wounds in my arms. I pushed harder, trying to purge the awful darkness. It persisted, tightening around the man. I strained. The magic slithered back, retreating from his face but clenching to his back.

The man opened his blue eyes and looked at me.

“Mr. Vasil?” I asked.

“It’s Mr. Dobrev,” he said quietly. “Vasil is my given name.” He looked at my hands holding his. “Don’t let go.”

“I won’t,” I promised.

“Dali, talk to me,” Jim said, his face grim.

“You see the magic?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Right now I’m holding it back, but this is all I can do. If I let go, it will swallow him again.”

“Why is this happening to me?” Mr. Dobrev asked.

“We don’t know,” I said. “When did it start?”

“Two nights ago. At first it was just a heaviness, then a headache. I went to bed early. I thought I had caught the flu. Then she came.”

“Who is she?” I asked.

He leaned to me. His voice shook. “The hag.”

“Tell me more,” I said. “Tell me about the hag.”

His face went slack. He had big, rough hands, the kind strong men who work with their hands a lot get, and his calloused fingers were trembling. He was terrified. “I opened my eyes. The bedroom was dark. I felt this oppressive weight on my chest, so heavy. Like a car. My bones should’ve cracked and I don’t know why they didn’t. And then I saw her. She was sitting on my chest. She was . . .” He gulped the air. “Thin . . . like a skeleton. Long, matted grey hair, black fur on her arms, and fingers with talons, like a bird. Long talons, just like in the painting.”

“What painting?”

“A painting I saw . . . long ago. She sat on top of me and stared. I couldn’t call out to my son. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even wriggle my toes. We stayed like this for hours. I finally fell asleep and woke up tired. So tired. Last night she came again. I could barely move this morning. I think she’s trying to kill me.”

Jim looked at me.

“The old hag syndrome,” I said. Most of my magical expertise was tied to what Westerners considered Far East, but I had some education about European myths. You can’t live in the U.S. and not be exposed to it. “Before the Shift, people thought it had to do with deep sleep paralysis, which occurs when the brain transitions from rapid eye movement phase to wakefulness. Sometimes mental wires get crossed and the brain partially wakes up but the body remains paralyzed, as if we are still asleep. It feels like a great weight is pinning you down and you are frozen. Before the scientific age, people thought it happened because of demons, incubi and succubi, or sometimes, old hags. If the legends are true, she’ll feed on him until he is dead and I don’t have the power to purge her like this.”