Dead Magic

By Tracey Dyck

The door of Sebastian’s Magickry opened with a tinkle of the bell, precisely fifteen minutes after closing time.

“Can’t you read the sign?” I asked without glancing up from the beans I was sorting on the back counter. “We’re closed.”

A floorboard creaked. Something shifted in the atmosphere, like the faintest current of electricity firing between dust motes. “Even for a paying customer?”

I turned around. A man stood in the half-open doorway, a trench coat and fedora obscuring his features in sepia shadow. I smirked at his getup. “It’s quarter after six, Indy. On a Monday. Come back tomorrow.”

“See, Tami…” he began.

How did he know my name?

“I don’t think you quite understand.” He took three easy strides toward me, past a purple tapestry and a grandfather clock. “There won’t be a tomorrow if you insist on kicking me out.”

A laugh bubbled out before I could stop it. Did this guy just step out of an action flick? The costume and cheesy lines came off as ridiculous in the shop’s cozy confines. “If that’s a threat, Uncle Seb is going to be back from town any minute. He’ll kick you out himself.”

The stranger took another step, passing the Excalibur replica on the wall and the display of fake dragon scales below it. Funny how summer tourists couldn’t recognize a highly polished river rock when they saw it. People saw what they were looking for—that was what Uncle Seb counted on. Most of our customers smiled indulgently at our collection of ‘magical’ objects. An enthusiastic few were convinced we sold long-dormant talismans of real power.

The man came to a stop in a beam of sunlight struggling through the dust-smeared windowpane, and the glow peeled a mask of shadow off his face, revealing white skin pulled tightly over his skull and teeth visible through paper-thin lips.

I clutched the countertop to keep from staggering. Okay. Not Indy. “What are you?”

He smiled. “I’m what you killed.”

“Great.” My hand drifted toward the cell phone in my back pocket as my voice shook. “Except, I’ve never killed anyone. I couldn’t even squash the spider I found spinning a web in the witches’ broom display.” Slowly, I palmed the phone, keeping it out of sight below the counter.

“Not just you, Tami,” he said. His own hand slipped under his coat—going for a gun? “You and this whole cursed world.”

My thumb poised to make an emergency call.

“Ah, ah, ah.” He whipped out not the expected pistol, but a twig—a slender branch the length of a ruler, crooked and knobby at one end. A wand?

Again, I didn’t know whether to give in to the terror knocking my knees together or release a laugh.

“You’re not calling anyone for help.” He flicked the wand. A bolt of light sizzled from its end, lanced through the counter, and struck my phone. It flared hot in my hand before turning stone cold.

I jammed the power button. The screen remained black. “I had sixty percent battery life ten minutes ago! What did you do?”

“You’re a slave,” he sneered. “Things like that”—he pointed at my dead phone as if it were a giant slug—“are giving off a toxic frequency. Your gadgetry killed magic in this world. I’m here to restore what once was, to repay you for your crimes.”

It would be nice if our Excalibur replica was actually sharpened. That is, if bringing a sword to a gunfight with the Grim Reaper dressed as Indiana Jones would actually save my skin. I scanned the shop for another weapon, discounting the beans scattered across my counter, the golden eggs and magic mirrors and genie lamps on the shelves, the pied piper’s magic pipe, advertised at twenty percent off when purchased with a book of spells. The trident leaning in the near corner. The trident.

I lunged for it. The edge of the countertop jabbed into my hip as I threw myself past it. Before my fingers could wrap around the trident’s rusted staff, another burst of light hurtled from the stranger’s wand. But rather than strike me, it crashed into the trident. I hit the floor on my hands and knees.

The trident quivered in place. A metallic ring shivered in the air, taking far too long to die away. It rang and rang and rang until my ears throbbed.

I covered them. “Make it stop!”

But he just smiled through translucent lips as the noise grew louder. The trident rattled and spun on its end like a whirling top. I scooted backward. Rust peeled off the weapon to reveal gleaming blue metal underneath. It took on a light of its own, revolving, pulsing like a planet out of orbit.

“I said make it stop!”

“This is the reawakening, Tami!” he shouted over the din. “It’s what your dear uncle never wanted to happen, and it’s what I am hell-bent on bringing to pass.”

The trident’s light grew so bright, I could barely look at it. Beneath the whine, a rattling and clinking surged. The purple tapestry tore itself from the wall and zoomed across the room, airborne. The grandfather clock boomed midnight. Excalibur beamed like a miniature sun, adding to the trident’s glare. Golden eggs cracked. Smoke puffed from the spouts of genie lamps. Somewhere, a mirror shattered. All over Sebastian’s Magickry, baubles and trinkets whistled and shook and flew.

All the blood drained from my face, and a scream lodged in my chest.

There was a horrific crack.

The beans—gone. In their places, a small forest of thick green stalks split the counter into pieces as roots plunged downward and trunks shot to the ceiling. Wood groaned.

My heart hammered. “Make—it—stop!”

“My dear Tami, that’s what you are for.” Heedless of the erupting chaos, he strolled toward the door, then glanced back at me with a grin and tipped his fedora. “Aren’t you the magic killer?”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tracey Dyck writes YA speculative fiction with lifelike emotion and a healthy dose of dragons. She placed as a finalist in two of RooglewoodPress’s fairy-tale anthology contests, and has published several short pieces of fiction and poetry in her local newspaper. Currently working toward a marketing diploma, she lives in Manitoba, Canada, with her family. You can find her where life and story intersect at her website.

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