18 Dec Magic Vs. Magick

Three years ago, I was in a class of highly respected magicians.  Every sleight of the hand, trick of the lightning I have seen and replicated.  I once even won a large sum of money on one of those television programs as a runner up.

I had a gig for 20 years where I worked in a small venue in Las Vegas on Tuesday nights and I made a decent income doing bachelorette parties during the rest of the time.

I finally retired shortly after my 56th birthday because no one really wants to watch an old man try to crawl out of a locked barrel.  It was firmly set in stone when I tripped over one of the bars we used in the old I can make you levitate routine.

So I retired and decided to get a non-entertaining gig, RV sales, which often required a different sleight of hand.

I was discussing what could be a very good sale for a used RV when a young man interrupted my conversation.  He was lanky and had shaggy light brown hair  he was annoying on first glance as he stood there he smoked a cigarette blowing smoke in my direction all the while a cellular up to his ear.

“Hey you’re that guy from The Blue Room, ain’t ya?” he asked, snapping a photo of me with his cellphone.  “Oh, man, I got great news! Talk soon!” he said into his phone and quickly tossing it into his pocket.

I had been recognized before and usually I’d just pull out my deck of cards, do a quick trick, they’d have a good laugh and move on.

So I said excuse me to the gentleman I was trying sell the flashy RV with all the bells and whistles to, and asked the customer if he could be so kind as to wait while I finished with this gentleman. Nodding, he kept his eyes on me intensely as he watched me from behind the sign next to our business.

I finished the sale, which only took me thirty-five minutes, as the customer paid in cash, and then I watched the customer drive off in his new RV.  I turned back, and there was the guy still waiting for me.

I laughed and pulled out my deck of cards while I twiddled my white mustache.

“Pick a card, young man.”

He just stared at me and instead of picking a card he looked right at me intensely.

“I have other tricks up my sleeve,” I joked.

“He’s perfect,” the young man said to no one.

“It’s about my lunchtime,” I said mildly annoyed by this brief interaction. “Here’s my business card come back if you are interested in buying an RV.”

I was getting tired and my stomach growled. I began walking away when he put his arm out in front of me stopping me in my tracks.

“You like it here?  I know a way you could make a very large sum of money!  Better than what you make in sales here!”

“Look,  I’m about to go to lunch. Maybe come by another day,” I said, trying to blow him off.

“Let me introduce myself I’m Dan Carter and I remember seeing your act a few years ago. Where are you going for lunch?  It’s on me, just let me have 30 minutes of your time.”

I was too hungry to care if this guy bought me lunch.  If he wanted to spend money on a stranger who was I to stop him?  Luckily, the RV dealership was next to a 24 hour diner and so we met there taking a booth by the front of the crowded diner.

A waitress came right over and took our orders and then it was time to interact with this oddball.

“You are a magician by trade. The great Eddie Cavalier!”

“Was.  I’m now retired.”

“That’s fine, but my boss is always on the lookout for new talent.  We are in the business of some of the greatest showman you will ever meet. I’ve already consulted my boss and he likes your portfolio of work.  He remembered seeing you at The Blue Door.  Your phantom act was particularly of interest to him. What luck finding you today!”

“Look, I’m sure your boss is a great guy and I’m sure he pays as good as the next venue, but I’m retired from the entertainment industry.”

“Well, we aren’t in the entertainment industry.  We are actually paid paranormal investigators.  Only difference is we create illusions for our customers to get out of certain types of contracts.”

I looked at this young man squinting in confusion.  “I don’t think I understand, Dan.”

“Well, it’s pretty simple.  We have clients that pay us for what we can do with ghosts, landlords mostly. I can tell by the look on your face you are still confused.  Let me start from the beginning.”

I listened to him as he explained to me how it worked. Here was the basic breakdown:

When landlords couldn’t get rid of squatters in buildings or non-paying tenants, they were called as a bit of a last resort.  Most of their customers finding them through word of mouth.  Even with the normal 30 day evictions the tenants lingered or would trash the homes and apartments as a form of retaliation.  Scaring them into disappearing on their own was the best, or so Dan said.  I tried to keep my face from showing how amused I was listening to this insane proposition.  Living in Vegas had taught me that nothing was too crazy.

“How do you do it?  I mean how is it the tenants don’t know you’re there?” I sipped on my coffee listening intensely.

“We get keys from the landlords and hide in areas of the homes often setting our equipment up when they were at work. Sometimes we just hide in basements or attics. When 3am rolls around, the witching hour, as they say that’s when our show begins. Once we laid in wait for hours until a husband and wife had fallen asleep with rats running across our feet while we were hidden the attic of an old apartment building.”

I listened and just as I was about to thank him for lunch, (he paid) when he said something strange.

“We make a lot of money.  We charge by the job and the last one made us over 100 grand just for a small apartment building.  The most recent job we have taken on is a rather large apartment building.  Tenants need to be out so the property can be sold for a new hotel that was going in its place and there are a few hangers on that won’t leave.  Our last job we scared them really good with our tricks.” He chuckled and then shoved a large bit of hash browns and gravy in his mouth.

“Isn’t it dangerous?”

“How so?”

“I mean you’re pissing people off.  What if you scare them so bad they attack you? What if they don’t believe in ghosts?”

“I understand your concerns. That isn’t usually an issue.” Dan grinned cocking his head slightly.

“I find that hard to believe young man.”

“Let me just show you a trick,” he said, winking.

I sat there and watched him. He asked the waitress to come over.  The older woman came over smiling and he pulled out his hand.  It was completely missing.  Just a bloody stump appeared in its place.  I knew it was an illusion and even if there hadn’t been blood it still would have been unnerving to say the least.

She was holding a pitcher of ice water and promptly dropped it upon viewing the stump.  Standing up to help the waitress, I noticed on the floor by the water, there were cockroaches in place of the ice cubes crawling about.

Dan pulled out a handkerchief from his shirt sleeve and handed it to her.  She wiped off the water from her cheek and when she looked down the cockroaches were gone and so was the bloody stump.  Now using  both his hands he helped her pick up the ice.

She looked distraught and had a hard time composing herself.  I could see the confusion on her face.

“I’m sorry, I’m not feeling well,” she said, and one of the other waitresses helped her towards the back of the kitchen.

I looked at him and smirked. “How?”

“Magic,” he said with a smile.

“Come on.”

“Not all tricks should be shared.” He stood up and tossed me his card walking out of the diner.

It was my turn to feel bewildered.

That evening I sat in my study thinking about what had transpired.  I didn’t think I needed to bother calling, however, it was around noon the following day dealing with some asshole customer who couldn’t decide if he wanted to buy an RV because he still loved his old one, when I thought maybe I could be doing something else.

Some hours later I found myself sitting in the same diner staring into a cup of coffee.  I pulled out the card and looked at it.  I called Dan.  He arranged a meeting over the phone within minutes and I was to meet  his boss the next day to discuss things.  I had to get the approval of Dan’s boss before he deemed me worthy to take me on.

The meeting took place inside of an old pawn shop on the edge of the city. I entered the tiny building and it smelled of too many cigarettes and wasn’t well lit.  A bleach blonde haired woman in her late 40s met me, first with a handshake.  I noticed her long red nails and her cleavage. She wore a bodysuit with a palm tree pattern and blue jeans.  She told me  to wait in the lobby and “Big Sam” would be with me shortly.

She chewed gum loudly and I guessed she was the receptionist.

“You’re older than I thought.”

“Thanks,” I said, perplexed.

“No, honey, don’t take it personally.  Big Sammy has this way of recruiting kids off the street and most aren’t even done with high school.  It’s nice to see someone that isn’t a kid.  He’s going to love that.”

“Why is that?”

“Because the young ones don’t last.  They always disappear after pay day.”

I stood there looking at her as she licked stamps and stuck them on envelopes.

“You can sit,” she said, pointing to a pink chair.

I looked down and there was an orange cat sprawled out in the chair.

“Oh, that’s Elvis. You can move him.”

I smiled and looked at him again.  The cat opened one of his eyes, which was emerald green looking at me as if to say don’t you even think about it!

“Oh, Elvis! Get up! Go chase mice!” she said, popping her gum loudly picking up the fat cat and placing him in the back of the office.  She resumed her place at her desk licking stamps and loudly chewing her gum.  I took off my jacket and placed it on the chair before sitting down. The chair was ragged, stained and covered in lumps of cat hair.

I took a deep breath and played on my phone while I waited.  It must have been another twenty minutes when the man they referred to as Big Sam finally came out. Sam was very tan and had long black hair, which was in a ponytail with bits of sweat pouring down his forehead. A thick gold chain necklace of a crucifix was hanging from his chest and bits of black curly hair stuck out from the top of his unbuttoned dress shirt. Big Sammy looked like every old mafia guy you had seen in the movies.  He handed a pile of papers to the receptionist and then eyed me.

“Marti,” he turned to the blonde woman. “We have the great Eddie Cavalier in our presence! Please sir it is a great pleasure meeting you! Please come in my office.” He shook my hand heartedly and I followed him.  “This is a real pleasure I can’t tell you how often I used to watch you in the Blue Room!  Vegas is a town of many illusions but you being in that RV lot that day Dan found you was one of the best yet!  Maybe I should pinch myself!” He laughed loudly.

I smiled at him, but wasn’t entirely sure what to say.

“Dan explained what we do here, right?”

“Yes, although I’m not entirely sure what I’ll be doing.”

“No issue there. My boys will show you the ropes.  Not that there are many you don’t already know.”

“When would I start?” I asked.

“Tonight.  I’ll make sure you get a cut of the payment when I’m paid in full.”

“Does it usually take a long time to get paid?”

“No, I can advance the payments if need be, but you have to stick it out no matter what.  Big Sam doesn’t like to get double crossed.” Big Sam spoke of himself in third person as though he held himself in high esteem.

So this was the racketeering operation they ran.  I wasn’t sure what brought me here, except for the promise of a large paycheck.  They were like supernatural loan sharks.  I wasn’t sure about all this and I could tell by the look on Big Sam’s face he meant business.  I wondered if that is where some of those teenagers had disappeared to. Did they leave or did something else happen to them? I didn’t want to think about it.  This is the most interesting thing that had happened to me in a long while and I missed performing. This crazy scheme was probably the closest I would ever get to getting paid to perform magic tricks. I thought about it and then Big Sam reaching into his drawer pulled out a large wad of cash.  He handed me a chunk of it.

“There’s five thousand there.  Just to keep you quiet about this just in case you don’t want to join our little troop.  If you do they meet  at midnight at this address.” He wrote down an address and slid it across the table toward me.

I smiled at Big Sam and he winked at me.

“So it’s a deal?”

“Yes!” I exclaimed none too happy to take the large sum of cash in front of me.

We shook on it and that was the initial meeting.  I half expected someone to jump me upon leaving because of the cash but I managed to get to my car safely and five thousand dollars richer.

I decided I’d be going to meet these illusionists before I was handed the address of the location.  I felt o owed myself that much. Who knew it could be fun, maybe.

At exactly midnight I pulled up towards an old warehouse.  I expected there to be a small crowd of cars but I didn’t see anyone else.

I turned on my brights to see if anyone else was around and then I got a loud bang at my passenger side window startling me. When I looked over,  I realized t was Dan.

“Turn off the lights!”

I complied and turned off the headlights. He juggled the handle to my passenger door and I caught the cue and unlocked it.  He got in and sat down and didn’t say anything for a moment, looking around. That is when he told me to drive around the corner of the lot and park my vehicle.

We sat in silence for another few moments and then he addressed me.

“Never park in front of the place in question.  Never use headlights or make noise.  We are basically scoping out the place tonight.  We got to get a feel for what the schedules are of the tenants so we can have when the best time is to set up and begin our operation.”

“I think I’m finally starting to understand how this all works. How long does it take to gauge?”

“On average a couple of weeks, but this place here should be empty.  There’s a few stubborn assholes who just wouldn’t take a payout so it’s up to us to scare the living shit out of them.” He laughed hysterically.

“Where is everyone else? Big Sammy said I’d be meeting some other guys?”

“You will.  After we all finish our shifts in a week we compare notes.  Our shift is Midnight to 5:00 am then the next guys show up and so on.  When week is up we meet with Big Sam and try to decide when to go in and set up.”

It was essentially a heist minus the theft.  I sat there with Dan watching the building until my eyes began to droop. He shook my arm and I looked down at his hand.

“A little pick me up?” He held out a small bag of cocaine and I shook my head.  “What about Adderall?”

I looked at him and laughed pulling up my coffee I had next to me. “Strictly caffeine guy.  At my age I may die of a heart attack.”

“Suit yourself.” He popped two Adderalls and then sat back.  He was focused on the old looking building and I just tried to remain alert. What seemed like days instead of hours passed, and then the sun began to come up. That is when two headlights met my vehicle head on.  Dan was watching the building with a dazedly expression upon his face.

“I think we have company.”

“Huh?” He mumbled and then looked at me.

“Ahead.”

“Oh yeah, that’s Marcus and Jet. We can go. I’ll see you tonight same time same place.” With that he got out of my car and disappeared into the early dawns light.

I drove home in a daze perplexed at what I had just done for the last six hours. I wasn’t sure I hadn’t completely lost my marbles.  They all made what we were doing seem natural.

The following night was the same as was the next.  After a week of stakeouts, watching few of the tenants that were still living in the building, Dan declared it was time to set a plan into action.

Originally, I was told Big Sam would hold a meeting to decide when to go in the building and set our equipment up.  Dan seemed to have his own ideas.

Dan called a meeting nearly a week and a half later and declared Big Sam gave his okay on our entering the building.  I was a little uncomfortable going ahead since I hadn’t seen Big Sam say it was okay myself, but Dan seemed to run things from the beginning.  Dan was Big Sam’s right hand man in charge and he had found me and set up the meeting with Big Sam.  I decided not to question it.  We met in an old storage unit not far from town surrounded by desert.

Inside were hundreds of props used in magic shows.  I recognized them all.  They had a levitating table, hundreds of “magic” mirrors, fog machines and multiple notebooks and blueprints, which I guessed were for the building layouts.

“Thanks for coming guys.” Dan said, pulling out a small bag of pills and popping three in his mouth and proceeded to open a beer and chug it down.  He took a deep breath and then belched loudly.

No one seemed to find it as obnoxious as I did.  The other guys looked as shabby as Dan.  Dan wore a black leather jacket with black boots and goggles on his head.

Jet was a tall lanky guy with a black Snoop Dog t-shirt on and tight black jeans .  He wore saddle shoes like everyone used to do in the 80’s.  He wore red rimmed glasses and kept a green comb over his ear.  He had leather gloves with the fingers hanging out.

Marcus stood tall and wide long blonde hair shaved in a Mohawk wearing a long black raincoat and a white tank.  He too looked like a misfit of fashion and all three combined looked like a really bad steampunk band.

I sat in a short sleeve dress shirt, polished brown dress shoes with matching slacks.  I felt over dressed.

“We haven’t seen anyone there in two nights,” began Marcus “But the old bag lady is still there with her nephew.”

“I think there are two others, but they are in a gang. It’s going to be hard to keep track of the gang activity coming and going at night.” Jet said rubbing his chin deep in thought.

“We can go in later today. I think if we dress as fumigation workers no one will pay attention to us.  We can easily get in.” Dan said pacing.

“That’s suspicious.  Three or four random workers all in fumigation masks?” Marcus asked.

“Like Ghostbusters,” laughed Jet.

“Not funny,” Marcus said, rolling his eyes.

“Technically we are fumigation workers, just of people.” Jet said adjusting his glasses.  He pulled up a deck of cards and made them dance by themselves on the table in front of him.  I watched him while I tried to figure how he was able to move them so quickly.  It wasn’t your typical card trick.  The cards flew out of his hand and onto the table and back into his hands.

I shook my head blinking and then I thought of it.

“Painters.  It’s not unusual for painters to come in multiple numbers.”  I suggested thinking it sounded as stupid as their idea.

“That’s awesome!” said Dan, clapping his hands.

The others smiled nodding in agreement.

“Good job, old man!” Jet said, patting me on the shoulder.

Were they serious? It was a half-baked idea if I ever heard one.

Dan grabbed a rolled up blueprint off the floor and began mapping out where and how we would set up our magic tricks.

They gathered everything up and I noticed they didn’t take any supplies with them, except for a medium sized chest.

“What do you want me to bring? What sort of tricks do you want me to perform?”

Dan patted me on the shoulder. “Everything we need is in this box.”

I was confused, but being new I didn’t question it.

We all got into what Dan lovingly called the Shaggin’ Wagon.  We through on some painters t-shirts and baggy pants.  We drove to the building and parked the Shaggin’ Wagon in the back.

Dan put his steampunk goggles on and they seemed to suit him even in his painters uniform.  He carried the blueprints under his arm and Marcus carried the chest under his arm.

Jet had a small backpack and he pointed to a ladder from the back of the van for me to carry.

I looked at Jet confused.

“It has to look authentic.  What painter doesn’t have a ladder?” He laughed.

I shrugged it off grabbing the ladder and walked up to the building following the others.

We were able to enter the building completely undetected by any of the tenants that were left.  The building already felt abandoned even though we knew of at least seven or eight people that were still living in multiple floors of the apartment building.

Walking down the halls I couldn’t figure why anyone still chose to live there.  The walls were cracked and the ceilings leaked. Ants were everywhere and on a few occasions while walking I saw more than one roach scattering across the floor. Parts of it had garbage piled up  from where the other tenants had already moved out and left it as is.  No wonder the owner was selling this property to have it bulldozed.

Dan found an entry to the attic area of the building that had a sign marked: HAZARDOUS AREA.

Dan parked the box on the floor and the others settled in around him as they made themselves at home.

Dan lit a cigarette and the others sat around him doing their own thing.  I stood, watching them trying to figure out where I fit in.

Finally Dan looked up at me and smiled. “Eddie we are going to be here for a while.  Why don’t you show us one of those cool card tricks.”

The others chuckled to themselves as they watched me.  I nodded smiling ready to show them my “card on fire trick.”

Dan picked a card and after I shuffled it I grabbed a lighter from Marcus lighting the first card on fire, knowing it wasn’t Dan’s card. Burning it turned into the card Dan had selected.  I did the trick at lightning speed. It was a simple trick of bait and switch.  I watched the others watching me and as they laughed I felt suddenly like an amateur.

Marcus took out a coin and then he put it behind his ear.  Looking over at Dan he pulled the same coin from Dan’s mouth.  I chuckled as I had never seen the trick done so closely. We killed time showing each other magic tricks back and forth, then as we got tired Dan took a look at his watch. It was nearing 3am and we could hear people yelling and laughing just below us in the hallway. Dan looked around the room and had an excited look upon his face, like one you would see on the Joker.

“Showtime, fellas.”

Marcus stood almost jovial taking off his painters uniform to reveal winged tattoos on his back that glowed in the dark.  He put on a black shirt with a strange symbol in white on the front of it.  Dan did his usual, a line of coke and a few pills to pump himself up.  I had gotten used to Dan’s usage of drugs during the last couple of weeks.

I anxiously watched them all changing clothes as though they were going into battle.  Dan handed me a dark blue sweatshirt and I put it on.  I guessed the theme was to wear all dark and blend in with the night.

I looked over at Dan and Jet who also wore symbols on the front of their shirts.  They were different from the one Marcus had on, almost like Sigils.  I didn’t understand what was going on but I followed them as they grabbed the chest they brought with them.

I watched as they all three snuck down from the ceiling in the dark hallway.  There was barely any light because the landlord had most of the lightbulbs removed as a deterrent from staying longer.  I slowly followed them as they stood in the center of the hallway and all three seemed to form a triangle.  Dan was the first to move and he opened the chest slowly pulling out a pair of ten sided polygon dice.

Dan proceeded to roll the dice and when he did, that is when I realized what he was doing.  There was a light that appeared from the pair of them. The sides closest together moved in closer and connected to each other.  After they moved in, the light went out and that is when I could see it.  Down the hall were two tall shadows.  Jet then pulled out a mirror  from his backpack placing it in the center of where the dice were.  The reflection of the dice in the mirror now faced the direction of the two shadows at the end of the long hall. The flickering lights were now completely off and the hall pitch black.

I heard a hissing and then I realized the shadows were slithering like snakes up the walls and into the vents of the apartment building.

Screams came from inside the walls all around us.  Terror bellowed out from every direction and then I heard doors slamming and people running.

I heard rattling above me in the ceiling where the vents were and then I heard a gust of air as though someone turned on the central air.

Then the sound stopped and I heard nothing.

The air was dry and cold after the screaming stopped.

Then I heard something that sounded like someone running down the hallway toward us.

It was so loud I thought whoever it was would run clear into me going at lightning speed. I saw a woman, older, wearing ragged clothing, and as I went to move out of the way, Dan stopped me.

“She can’t see or hear us. She’s gone…” Dan trailed off, and then I saw the woman run through the wall. Then a man limping on a cane fell into what seemed like a void that opened in the middle of the floor. Others came, and they disappeared into the ceiling like phantoms. I stood bewildered. This presentation had to be the best illustration of magic I had ever seen. Was Dan doing this for my benefit? Was it a hologram?

Then I felt it.

A tremor surged through me.

I bent over as it’s electric current kept me frozen in limbo. I couldn’t move and my eyes now closed, opened to see what the cause of my convulsions was. I saw that Dan, Jet, and Marcus all we’re experiencing the same thing. Only the reason had me petrified to the bone. At the end of the hallway, those two slithering creatures were the cause. I had no idea how they were doing it, and I had no idea why we were subjecting ourselves to this.

As I thought about this, I heard Dan speaking telepathically to me: Let it finish, Eddie. Relax.

It was as if he were getting high off the energy of the spirits taking in their essence. The dice on the floor part and those shadows disappeared. Alight at the end of the dark hallway flickered back on.

I walked out of the building, confused and pale. I had no idea what happened to those people, but there was blood on the walls and the hallways’ tile floors.

I left in a hurried rush and planned never to look back, but I knew Dan would not let me go for whatever reason they needed me. Not to mention, my life was theirs now. If I tried to stop, they’d kill me, that much I knew.

A few days later, I picked up a newspaper while I was out with Dan scouting our next set of victims. An article about four vagrants had been found drained of all of their blood in an old apartment building across town.

I knew instantly that it was the building that Dan and the others had me accompany them to in the newspaper article. I was angry that I had been lied to, and their so-called magic wasn’t what they said it was and whatever magic they were using was evil. It was magic I had only heard about in fairytales.

I sat in the car with Dan looking out at the city as the people went to and fro. Dan received a phone call, and then he began to drive away.

“Change of plans, Eddie,” he said, speeding out of our parking spot and driving towards the hills. There was an old Tudor style house with a perfect lawn. It had green grass that almost looked fake. It was so pristine. There was something about the place that looked as though the only occupants were ghosts.

“What is this place?”

“Sonata Manor. It was the home of one of the country’s top composers. The only occupant left is the old composer’s daughter. Should be easy enough to get rid of her,” Dan chuckled to himself.

I was not too fond of the sound of that. I knew what Dan had up his sleeve after the bloodbath at the other house.

“Is all this necessary for one person?”

“Yes, but we will do things a bit differently.”

“How so?” I asked.

“It will be faster,” Dan smirked. “The cash will be the biggest yet, but the payoff won’t be as fun though,” Dan lamented.

Whatever he meant by that.

So that night, we sat in our cars and waited for all the lights to go out. Jet and Marcus were ready too. We got out of our vehicles dressed like ninjas – all in black, so no one in the neighborhood would spot us. We climbed the trellis in the back of the house headed towards the attic.

I managed as well as I could. Lord knew that I wasn’t as limber as I once was at nearly sixty years of age, but I made due.

When we were inside, all I could smell was old tobacco like my late grandmother used to smoke. She was half Native American from Kentucky and never let a day of hard work go by without her and her pipe. The other smell was much worse, like a funeral home.

“What is that smell?” I asked.

“Who cares, old man? Let’s just do what we came here to do.”

We did the usual set up, and then at the darkest hour of the night, Dan and the others took out their dice. Once on the floor, they began to stand in order. This time Dan asked me to stand by the attic door so that I could keep things in line.

I felt my hands shake when the two dark figures appeared again. They were like ballet dancers the way they weaved in and out of our circle before descending into the cracks of the floor and down the walls as if made of light and shadow.

We waited, and we waited. There were no screams of terror.

Dan looked at me, worry in his green eyes.

“Something is wrong,” he said, walking over to the two dice on the floor.

“What is it, man?” Jet asked, bouncing around like he was feigning for a hit of some kind.

“They should be done by now,” Marcus said, looking around.

Marcus exploded then before our very eyes. We were too shocked to be frightened. Blood covered our faces, and his insides left splashes of blood all upon the ceiling.

Dan looked at Jet and me and began to hold the dice one in each of his hands.

“Go back to where you were summoned!” He held his eyes shut tight, but nothing came.

Then in the doorway appeared a woman who couldn’t have been more than twenty at the most.

“Are you looking for these, young necromancers?” she asked, holding up two small shadows with some dark magic of her own.

“Dan pulled out a gun to my amazement and shot at her.”

“Dan, what are you doing?” Jet screamed.

The bullets never hit the young woman. There was something about her eyes, something I couldn’t place. She looked at me then.

“You aren’t like them, but you must go and never come back.”

“Eddie, no! Don’t go, man! Don’t listen to her. She is just a stupid, blind bitch! Look at her eyes!” Dan was nervous, and I could see him shaking. The young woman had some dark power, that was for sure. IT was darker than Dan and all the rest combined.

“I am giving you seconds, old man,” said the girl, and I did not stop to think I went out the window to the attic the way I came.

I looked back for only a second to my horror to see Dan and Jet’s entrails being ripped from their bodies. Blood splattering the walls, and my cheek as I went out of the attic window, in the same manner, I had come.

I went as fast as I could, not understanding fully what had happened but having a fairly good guess.

Some time passed, after which I returned to my sales job selling RV’s in the desert. I put my one mishap in an otherwise untarnished life away. Hoping against hope that whatever I had participated in, I’d be forgiven at the end of days.

I was writing up a sales slip for a customer when I got a tap on my shoulder.

“Oh, give me just a sec-” I stopped in my tracks.

It was the young woman from the Manor.

My hands dropped the pen I was now holding.

“You are Eddie, am I right?” she asked chipperly.

“Um, yeah, how can I help you?”

“Let’s not play games. You know why I’m here, don’t you?”

“I want to tell you I’m sorry for what happened. I didn’t know what was going on when I got involved with those guys.”

“Save it. I don’t care how you came about those men. I do, however, think we could be perfect partners.”

“In what?” I asked her.

She pulled out a box and opened it. This time, she had five dice inside it. I looked at her peculiarly at first, then she spoke.

“This was their first mistake – they didn’t count on my being a witch. I eat necromancers and spirits for breakfast. I hope you don’t mind. I added your three friends to their little collection. Time for them to work for us, what do you say?”

I was stunned and also alarmed.

“I am out of the haunted house business,” I said to her as sincere as I could be.

“I don’t want to make haunted houses, silly. I want you to help me collect the bad spirits from them. They taste divine, and they give you a bit of a buzz too.”

I thought back to Dan and when he seemed to get a buzz off those people dying. She just wanted to eat their souls and catch a buzz, and I wanted no part of it.

“Come on, Eddie, I’ll make it worth your while.”

“I’m a good young lady. It isn’t my thing. I hope you understand.”

“The more bad souls that are eradicated, the better this pious world. Look, if you change your mind, here is my number. I think we could work together.”

When I looked down at the piece of paper she handed to me, I noticed that it had a moon and stars. Her name was Celine. I chuckled to myself because I was done with magic. I tossed the paper in the wastebasket, but when I looked up, she was gone entirely. There was no way she had gone from here so fast.

That was several years ago now. The whole thing has given me pause to stop over the years. I wonder how Celine is sometimes doing. Whether she realizes it or not, she saved me that day. She let me escape.

It is strange, though, that once a year, I get a box with a new dice in it. I put them away on a shelf and don’t take them out. I know it is Celine that is sending them to me, and I understand why. She is hoping I will change my mind and join her.

The other day I got the most recent one, this time with a note.

Eddie,

One witch to another, won’t you reconsider? Do you think no one knew your secret? Everyone knew it. You think we don’t know how you got so famous performing tricks that no one can really do?  

C.

I smiled at the letter. So what if it was true, so what if my magic was real? I’d never tell because a true magician never reveals their secrets.