Witch Blues: A Marshal of Magic tale (The Marshal of Magic Series Book 2) Read online

  WITCHMAS

  a Marshal of Magic story

  by

  Chris Lowry

  @copyright 2016

  Grand Ozark Media

  All rights reserved

  Can I send you a copy of GUNS AND MAGIC – A Marshal of Magic Tale for free?

  Other works by the author

  CHAPTER ONE

  A trio of witches gathered on the edge of a parking lot at an abandoned warehouse between the airport and downtown. The property had once housed a furniture supply store in the fifties but was derelict for the past forty years. The time had not been kind.

  Teenage vandals broke the windows with chunks of concrete and rock, which let in the elements. Rain, ice, snow and storms had worked their way through the wooden interior so that all that remained was the brick shell, and the occasional still standing wooden floor in the five-story building.

  The homeless population of Memphis had scurried through the windows seeking any form of shelter from the harsh winds that roared down the Mississippi River. Some died in collapses, others were killed during infighting, and gang initiation rituals. It was a dead place, a dead building haunted by faded memories.

  "Can you feel it?" whispered Hilda.

  She was taller than average, beautiful in a cold ice queen manner, and stood in front of her two compatriots at a point of a triangle drizzled in blood on the cracked concrete.

  "The ghosts are calling," answered the shorter one on the left.

  She had long curly red hair that cascaded down to the small of her back and delicate features that made her look like the youngest, and a small silver necklace made of letters that read Cassidy, her name.

  "This is going to be fantastic," growled Hilda in a husky rumble.

  The third witch pulled a grimoire, a book of magic, from a messenger bag on her hip.

  "This should be enough."

  "It will be enough," said Hilda.

  She bent down and scratched another symbol onto the ground in front of the triangle. She pulled a small penknife from a pocket on her dress and pricked her finger to infuse the rune with her lifeblood.

  A breeze whistled across the lot, stirring up dust and debris.

  "Now," she said.

  Carla opened the grimoire to a marked page and ran her finger over the text. It was in Latin, written in a faded calligraphy in splotchy brown ink that barely stood out on the parchment.

  "We call on thee."

  Cassidy mouthed the words with her.

  "Again," ordered Hilda.

  "We call on thee," they said together.

  It flowed into a chant, slow and melodic. Their voices blended in a vibrating harmony that echoed against the pockmarked brick and bounced back toward them.

  Wind stirred again, and ghostly apparitions began to gather on the edge of the lot, leaking through the cracked windows in the building, surrounding the trio.

  Carla set the grimoire down behind them and pulled a white rabbit out of her pouch.

  It squirmed in her hands and she clenched down tighter.

  Hilda reached back with one hand and Carla passed the rabbit to her.

  She held up the passive bunny and sliced open it's throat with the penknife. She dripped the blood across the rune. Her voice joined the others as she drew a line from the rune to the tip of the triangle.

  "We call on thee, we call on thee, we call on thee."

  The blood reached the triangle and red light erupted from the rune to burn against the brick wall. Ghostly figures were drawn toward the light and sucked into it.

  A black clawed hand reached through the portal and gripped an edge. It pulled the opening a little wider, enough for a second hand to jab through. Now it had two hands on the portal and ripped it open. A sound like fabric tearing accompanied by ghostly moans roared through the air.

  A giant head emerged from the dark hole. A massive red face framed by ram's horns and a hyper muscular body, like a caricature of a comic book hero slid through the opening and rolled into a wary stance.

  It flexed massive shoulders and turned its head to the wind to sniff. It was nine feet tall, shoulders broad and defined, with a hairy pelt that ran down its spiny back.

  "Sullamaie," Hilda smiled.

  She dropped the rabbit and unfastened her dress. It fell to the ground and puddled around her feet.

  "Sullamaie," she said again.

  The creature turned to face her and leered.

  Hilda settled back on the concrete, her feet still at the point of the triangle. She opened her knees and invited the demon to take her.

  "Sullamaie," Cassidy and Carla said with her.

  The demon rumbled toward them. It kneeled in front of Hilda, planted a hand on the ground and jammed into her.

  She bit back a scream.

  The demon tilted back its head and roared.

  It finished in a moment and rose.

  Cassidy dropped her dress and kneeled on all fours into the triangle.

  The demon sniffed and moved to her next.

  Her hair fell across Hilda's face as they stared at each other, eyes locked. Cassidy wasn't as strong and shrieked as the monster took her.

  "Sullamaie," Hilda reached up and caressed the young witch's face.

  "Sullamaie," said Carla.

  The demon growled again and leered at Carla with bloodshot bulbous eyes.

  She dropped her dress and fell forward on her hands and knees.

  All three witches were in the triangle.

  The beast moved to Carla and grabbed her waist with massive hands. She screamed too.

  Cassidy and Hilda put their hands on top of hers as they chanted.

  It finished again with a roar that split the night air. Carla collapsed beside her fallen coven. The witches stopped their chant.

  The beast dug clawed fingertips into the ground gouging claw marks into the concrete as it was slowly drawn back into the portal. It bellowed in defiance.

  A shadow darted across the parking lot and scooped up the Grimoire.

  Cassidy reached for the book thief.

  "No," shouted Hilda.

  Too late.

  Cassidy's foot scuffed through the blood and broke the plane of the triangle.

  The portal collapsed with the demon still on this side.

  It roared and bounded toward the witches.

  Hilda scrambled up.

  "Fortress," she screamed and crossed her arms in an X in front of her naked chest.

  The demon bounced off an invisible field. It roared again and ran for the edge of the parking lot.

  "Damn," Hilda muttered.

  She glanced at the thief as he disappeared through a hole in the fence on the opposite side of the parking lot.

  "What do we do?" Cassidy asked.

  She held her head down and refused to meet Hilda's burning gaze.

  "The thief of course," she spat. "He has our property."

  Carla held out their dirt encrusted dresses and they donned them.

  "We can't summon Sullamaie without the grimoire," she said.

  Cassidy nodded.

  "He's going to do some damage."

  Hilda caressed her stomach.

  "Damage was the plan all along," she smiled.

  CHAPTER TWO

  He paused at the edge of the fence to look back over his shoulder. The witches were getting dressed. At least that's what he thought they were, witches or some other type of supernatural villain.

  They had to be villains because what type of person summons a demon and then does that with them.

&n
bsp; It couldn't be for any good purpose that was for damn sure.

  Tyrone took off through the brush and bounded up on a railroad track.

  He was less than a mile from downtown and the small pub where he was supposed to meet the man who hired him.

  After the meeting, he had one plan.

  Get the hell out of Dodge, because that giant bullheaded demon didn't make it back to the underworld or wherever else it had come from. It was currently running loose in Memphis, and the direction it was headed in took it straight to St. Jude's.

  He wondered if he should call the police.

  Wouldn't that be an ironic little kick?

  A thief calling the cops to ask for help.

  Technically it wouldn't be help. Tyrone would be warning them about a disaster in the making, though he wasn't sure they would believe him.

  He wasn't quite ready to believe it himself even though he had watched the ritual and summoning with his own eyes.

  "Damn," he said and scrambled down the railway embankment to cut across a ditch.

  He could see the baseball stadium up the road several blocks away. There were cars lined on either side of the road which meant people, but he didn't slow or relax.

  The streetlights on this side of town were still subject to being shot out or knocked out, and the streets were bathed in darkness.

  The man who hired him had warned of supernatural AND mortal bad guys and Tyrone was a man of caution.

  His erstwhile employer and predicted the ritual, and advised the best time to grab the book, and had paid in cash with a promise of more to follow on delivery.

  He was accurate in prediction, so Tyrone thought he would listen when it came to the warnings as well.

  He could smell a wind blowing off the muddy waters of the Mississippi River, the sickly sweet stench of dirt and decay that carried laughter and strains of blues guitar off Beale Street.

  The bar wasn't far now.

  He heard a roar from the east, something that sounded like a cross between a lion and Godzilla.

  Even though he was running fast, he ratcheted it up a notch or two to go even faster.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Before that movie came out, you could have called magic the fifth element. I hesitate to even use the word magic because it conjures (see what I did there?!) up images straight out of Vegas.

  Damn illusionists.

  They fool everyone into thinking that has something to do with magic, or the tricksters who roam around in cheap tuxedo's pulling rabbits from hats. They're pale imitations of what Magic is really about.

  I was nervous and taking it out on poor mildly talented hacks. Be glad there weren't any around, although a street performer on the corner up from Beale was using sleight of hand and misdirection to entertain the pre-ball game crowd.

  It was a Tuesday night in Memphis, the Snowbirds were getting ready to play and I was on my first blind date in eighteen years. Nineteen years. It had been so long, I couldn't remember.

  How I fooled someone into setting me up on a blind date is a whole story in itself, as was the reason I haven't been on one in practically forever.

  I selected the bar because of its proximity to her neighborhood, which was on the river and just North of 240. Downtown crowds would be thick, but during the game, the bars and pubs tended to empty out as people wandered to the stadium.

  There would be plenty of people watching as the game let out, just in case the conversation was running light, and of course the pub since libation is the best social lubricant ever created outside of a love potion.

  Love potions are illegal by the way and if I catch you using one, I'm legally obligated to arrest, detain or even kill you depending on the severity of the offense.

  If you're a wizard, that is.

  The badge on my belt lets me do that.

  The power in my will lets me enforce it.

  Marshal of Magic.

  That's my title, and job, and even though I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a calling, I'm pretty darn good at it.

  Most of the time.

  That's because I'm lucky.

  Very lucky.

  At least at magic.

  Right now, I didn't feel very lucky as I stared at the clock above the bar for what must have been the hundredth time.

  I did it enough to make the bartender notice and she shot a dimpled smile my way.

  "You need another hon?"

  I tilted up the brown bottle and swirled around the two sips of brew inside.

  "Please," I said and swallowed the rest of the Southern Pecan craft beer down with a satisfied grunt. It wasn't ambrosia but smacked pretty good of being a powerful social lubricant.

  She popped the top on a bottle and swiped it in place of the empty in front of me. I appreciated the artistry.

  There was a mirror that ran the length of the bar and I faced it full on so I could watch the door.

  I didn't look that bad tonight.

  Not for a ninety-five-year-old man.

  I didn't look it though. That's a perk of being a wizard, the slow aging process. I was born in 1921 and looked forty. I'd look forty for the next three or four hundred years, and then age slowly over the next hundred or so more.

  If I lasted that long.

  Most Marshall's didn't.

  I'd had the job for two decades which made me practically an old timer in the ranks.

  I looked old in the eyes, I thought.

  But after what I'd seen in the Sidhe Wars, which you called World War II, and the Fairy incursions, on top of the hunting of Warlocks and Sorcerers and Sorceresses which were what we called Wizards gone to the dark side, I wasn't surprised.

  She was definitely late.

  I had arrived early.

  Like I said, nervous.

  Eyes up at the clock again. Fifteen minutes late.

  "Damn it." I sipped the beer, and pondered why being stood up bothered us as a people so much.

  Nobody liked rejection, but it's not like I knew the woman who was a no show. The cold heartless woman who probably hated dogs.

  The door opened and my heart fluttered.

  A young sweating black guy flitted in.

  He pulled the door shut after him and glanced around the room.

  I knew that look, so I glanced around the room too.

  He scowled.

  I guess the person or persons he was supposed to meet wasn't there either.

  Or maybe he was stood up too.

  He walked toward the back and caught me staring in the mirror, giving him some serious eyeball.

  "Who the hell are you?"

  I turned around and set my back to the bar. Sure the mirror was great for watching the comings and the goings, but nothing beats a good old fashioned face to face when you do this.

  I slipped open the side of my leather coat to reveal my badge.

  "Marshal?" he squeaked and blanched.

  Totally worth it. Every time.

  I did the eye thing up and down, trying to track details. I wasn't too worried about him. He didn't give off that low level vibration users of magic can feel off of each other, and my precog always gave me about two seconds of a head start on anything.

  "Nice grimoire," I said.

  He glanced down at the book, then started to shove it in a backpack over one shoulder.

  I let my hand ease down to the edge of my belt.

  "You don't look like a practitioner."

  The Judge said a couple of us Marshal's watched too many Westerns growing up, that we had this sense of spell casting like gun slinging.

  But I was the Marshal of the East. If you think I was bad you should see the guy from the West.

  The young man in front of me licked his lips.

  "I- um-"

  Um is the universal signal. It lets the person you're talking to know that you are now about to lie your ass off, and that your mouth was engaged before your brain started.

  "I'm meeting someone it belongs to," said the man. br />
  Nice recovery.

  "What's your name?"

  I used the squinty eye thing a lot of people know from Clint. Clint rocks by the way.

  "Tyrone," he answered.

  "Tyrone," I rolled it around my tongue. "You're playing with forces that are beyond your ken."

  He nodded and wiped the back of his hand across his sweaty brow.

  "Don't I know it."

  "Why don't you just leave that with me," I suggested and patted the bar.

  He looked like he wanted to.

  "I would, sir," he said.

  Sir? Do I look like a sir? Or was it just a respect thing?

  "But I can't," he finished.

  I nodded.

  Didn't have to talk.

  Just squinted.

  I let my eyes say it all.