One autumnal afternoon, sunlight and the aroma of garlic from the oriental restaurant upstairs flooded Nostradamus Magicks. Since the regulars shunned both, Jack could hide behind the counter to avoid restocking duties. He was smirking over a New Age book on urban elementals when a customer’s melodious voice startled him.
“Can you tell me how I might find a spell?”
“A spell to do what, love?” Jack replied in his posh accent. Most girls melted when he used verbal charms. Not this one, however. He studied her high cheekbones and long-lashed, dark eyes.
“A love spell for marital bliss.”
“I suggest the classic, ‘Crone’s Book of Spells,’ a selection of Victorian enchantments to guarantee faithfulness in a husband,” he rattled off, admiring her golden hair and ivory complexion.
“No, for me.”
“Not sure what you mean, love.”
“I used to be enchanted with my husband. So what if he dribbled food when he ate? He was so cute. Then one day I realized I hardly knew this man. He’s always angry with me, and when I ask him what’s wrong he accuses me of being too sensitive. That’s why I need a love spell for myself, to go back to seeing my husband in a rosy glow.”
Lots of girls came into Nostradamus Magicks. Most were college students looking for enlightenment, some were Goths seeking the dark side, some were Neo-pagan Wicca wannabes and in October they all just wanted an authentic-looking costume. This one was tall and lean, with a Garbo languor of unstudied elegance. Jack couldn’t imagine what she’d done to cause marital strife.
“Pardon me for asking, but have you tried counseling?”
“Yes, the therapist said I need to accept responsibility for my part in this. I let him treat me badly in the first place so he thinks it’s all right.”
The wonders of modern psychology made Jack long for the old days when a gentleman could rescue a beautiful lady from her cruel husband. Now one could be sued for alienation of affections, as if the husband hadn’t done that all by himself.
“I recommend an herbal infusion of motherwort, passion flower and ginseng. Drink this tea twice daily, whilst reminiscing about your wedding day.” Jack put an equal scoop of leaves from each bin into a baggy.
“Will this really work?”
“It’s a start. Come and see me again, love. I’ll do a spot of research for a more permanent solution.” He watched as the mysterious lady glided into the sunlight.
The shop’s owner clomped down the stairs and Jack scrambled to look busy. “Bill, I’ve a question about inventory.”
“You should’ve finished with that by now.”
“Where are those Nostradamus T-shirts I designed?”
Bill smirked. “Backordered. But the other shirts are selling just fine. The old guy holding a skull goes over big with our Goth crowd. I like the creepy font.”
“Mind if I take the sample of my shirt?”
“On the shelf.”
Jack retrieved it for later, reasoning he’d nothing to lose by an old trick. When Dejanira feared she was losing Hercules’ love, she used a philter made from the blood of a centaur on his shirt to guarantee loyalty. It worked so well that Hercules burned to death from a guilty conscious. A talisman of Mars might also protect the lass from her husband’s hostility. “How’s stock on Magical Needs?”
“We sold the last talisman of Venus to the blonde who just left.” Bill shrugged. “More are on order.”
No wonder she exuded grace and desirability, he thought. She’s an adept. “Do you know her?”
Bill raised an eyebrow. “Christie comes every Wednesday and reads books as if we’re a lending library. Not the New Age mumbo-jumbo. The Crowley books, Enochian magic and the scholarly texts.”
Uh-oh, Jack thought. This girl, with her instinctual grasp of magic could become a rival. Better find a way to make her an ally.
* * * * *
The magic shop’s basement location lacked windows, a drawback to any other business. A glamour spell shielded the cavernous back room, making it appear as a storage area where he’d set up housekeeping for the time being. Since even the basest of metals turned to gold in his hands, Jack used plastic kitchenware for his alchemy equipment. The twenty-first century was a boon to his tinkering. Nobody suspected him of bending the laws of nature.
Locating the philter of centaur’s blood, he applied it to the inside of the shirt and spoke the incantations. Then he took out the crystal in which he kept the earthbound spirit of Sir Edward Kelley, once his partner in research. Kelley was an opportunist, a sensualist, and had become Jack’s oldest friend through no fault of his own.
“Four centuries hath it been ere I bore corporeal form,” Sir Edward moaned, “should I ever succeed to ‘scape, my first physical act shalt be thy destruction.”
“You’d be arrested, talking like that. They use drugs for madness now, horrors worse than Bedlam. Count your blessings.” Jack blew dust off the geode and polished it a bit, admiring the flickers of light dancing in its rough shape, the unhewn shards of quartz thrusting outward.
“Doctor Dee, thou hast a woman in thy sights.”
“I want you to observe and report back on an adept who requires my assistance.”
“I canst but obey thy commands.”
After setting the spirit familiar on his task, he consulted his books of Enochian magic. Jack thought himself safe from detection when he’d secreted his notes away from the library at Mortlake upon Thames, but then three centuries later Aleister Crowley published a series of books based on his work.
He flinched as Bill opened the door, flooding the room in fluorescent light.
“Jack, this was supposed to be temporary. When will you find an apartment?”
“Sorry, I didn’t realize I was presuming.” Jack looked around and saw what mortals saw. Moving boxes were piled to the ceiling, an army-surplus sleeping bag lay crumpled on a cot. Books mingled with dishes in plastic crates. Soon it’d be time to move on.
* * * * *
Friday morning, Jack had barely unlocked the door when the lanky blonde came running down the stairs. “May I talk to you in private?” she pleaded.
He nodded to Bill and led her to the tarot reader’s booth.
“The tea you gave me didn’t help. I looked through my wedding album and all I could remember was how horrid everything was. My in-laws were so rude! My mother-in-law ridiculed me to my friends. My brothers-in-law drank all the champagne. Their children ran wild, one nephew actually ripped off my train and I never did get the chocolate handprints out of my dress. My father looked so sad in the photos. Before the ceremony he asked was I sure and I told him I felt compelled to marry my husband. It was love at first sight, but now I’ve messed it up.”
“Why do you think you’re to blame, love?”
“Because yesterday I tried a clear-sight spell on myself and when I looked at my husband, I saw a monster. That can’t be right.”
“Christie, let me see your palms.” Jack examined her long hands with their pointed fingertips, the palms crossed with spidery lines. The lifeline was strong and arched, extending well into the wrist and paralleled by guardian lines. A good sign, meaning she lived something of a charmed life. But what most impressed him was the girdle of Venus: an unbroken line looped between the first and little fingers, running deep and clear, over the heart line. Seldom had he seen so distinct a line, among the rare hands bearing such a mark of genius. Judging from the crosses all over her palms, her creative energies were severely blocked and she’d had no opportunity to develop her great talent. Also, she had ink stains on her fingers.
“I see you work with numbers and ledgers.”
“That’s right, accounts receivable. My husband says it’s a safe, steady job for me. You can see that in my hand?” Christie anxiously fidgeted with her watch. “I really shouldn’t stay long.”
“Pardon, love. How long have you known your husband’s family?”
“My husband asked me to marry him a few days after we met. I don’t know what possessed me to say yes,” Christie blushed. “Tomorrow is our third anniversary. His mother is planning a special dinner for us.”
“You got married on Halloween?” Jack tried not to sound incredulous.
“It seemed logical at the time. The caterer, the hall, the photographer, even the minister was only available on the thirty-first.”
“This may seem an odd question, but have you ever seen them in direct sunlight? Not just cloudy days?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“How about full moons?”
“No and I don’t see what it has to do with a love spell for me.” She stood, buttoning her coat. “I’ve stayed too long. If I’m not at work my husband will notice.”
“You work together?”
“My husband is a medical student. He calls me between classes.”
“Let me give you a Nostradamus T-shirt, it’s a bit big for you but maybe it will fit your husband. Please feel free to call my mobile phone any time, Christie.”
Bill whistled between his teeth as the door shut with a chime. “When the devil can’t buy your soul, he sends a woman to win over your flesh at no cost to him.”
* * * * *
Sequestered in his cloaked alchemy lab, Jack invoked the spirit familiar in his crystal.
“Tell me what we’re up against, Sir Edward.”
“A nest of incubi hast thou stumbled upon. Corporeal forms taken, they draw sustenance from a single source: the considerable energies of a woman greatly gifted with magicks naturally endowed, enabling said demons into an earthly paradise not limited by mortals’ dreams. An instant and their history wast created falsely in the minds of all they met. When banished shall they seem as dreams of a feverish fool, insubstantial and of no consequence.”
“So this’ll go beyond the simple exorcism called for in cases of an elemental.” Against such an infestation, Jack knew he needed to amplify his power through a medium of his own.
He took out his cell phone to leave a message on a nocturnal friend’s voice mail, when it started chiming.
“Jack? Can I tell you something?”
“That’s why I gave you my private number, Christie.”
“I used to have this recurring dream,” she said in a hushed tone. “I would wake up in the night, surrounded by a golden light. I sensed this woman at the foot of my bed, cloaked in black. When the light dimmed, she sank through the floor. I’d get up, check around under the bed and nobody was there. It felt so real! I could hear my clock ticking and occasionally a car going by on the street.”
“How often did it occur?”
“A few days a month; I figured it was PMS. Since I’ve been married I don’t dream at all.”
“An idle question, love, but does your hubby lose a lot of patients in his ward?” He heard Christie’s slight intake of breath.
“My friend who’s a nurse at the hospital says they’ve had a rise in mortalities this year.”
This confirmed it for Jack. The incubus feasted on patients in his convenient medical practice.
“No details over the phone, love. May I come to your anniversary party?”
Jack made note of the restaurant, then hit speed dial and spoke a few words of Enochian.
* * * * *
The corner pub Jack frequented was now a literary café where he met with a particular girl, pale with dyed-black hair and multiple piercings, swathed in a leather biker jacket and torn jeans. To his surprise, a prim blonde in a sweater set and tweed skirt languidly motioned him over.
“Lizzie? This is a new look for you.”
“I am in love, my dear doctor Dee. My new beau is a professor of Economics. For now it suits me to play out his fantasy. Later he will play at mine.” Her teeth glinted dangerously in a sly smile as she stubbed out her cigarette on a napkin. “But you didn’t summon me to discuss my feeding habits.”
“I was wondering whether you’d me help release a magical adept trapped by elementals.”
“Pft. The light of day dispels them.”
“This is a unique case that could put your community at risk. The medium is highly gifted and unaware of her abilities.” As he studied Lizzie’s huge, slate-cold eyes, Jack realized what this could mean to him as well. If these elementals were successful, more would cross from the astral plane and logically he’d be their next victim.
“Incubi cannot take corporeal form without a steady supply of psychic energy.”
“The adept is a virtual power plant. For the last three years she’s enabled an entire family to materialize and inhabit the waking world.”
“Three years is the limit of their enchantment. It must be fading.”
“I believe they’re planning something to extend it.”
“So the ritual must take place on Samhain, they cannot wait until Walpurgis Night.” She plucked an ice cube from her water glass and crunched it between sharp teeth.
“Indeed. They’re hosting an anniversary dinner for the blissful couple, and the bride’s feeling the strain.”
“Tell me Jack, why the interest in rescuing a potential mage? Freed of her thralldom she could be a powerful rival, a threat. She might discover your secret.”
“Or she could be a disciple, an equal. She reminds me of you before the Change.”
Lizzie shook another Dunhill out of the pack. The bartender called out “Ma’am, you can’t smoke that here.”
“Smoke what?” She innocently met his eyes.
An ashtray appeared. The napkin was whisked away.
“Isn’t that rather a nasty habit, love?”
“Not like it’ll kill me.” She flicked a slim gold lighter and inhaled deeply.
“I’d welcome your assistance, love. Will you be my date tomorrow evening? We have a dinner to crash.”
“Anything to break up a marriage.”
* * * * *
Just after dusk he met Lizzie outside Ajax Cafe, which still served the best prime rib in town. The neighborhood hangout had been around for as many years as their clothes, long enough to go out and come back in fashion.
“How dapper you look,” she purred.
“Lizzie, you’re always a stunner. Shall we go in?”
The restaurant had preserved the decadent feel of a post-war dinner and dancing venue. Votive candles glimmered at linen-covered tables around a small dance floor. A sax player ran through his paces while the tuxedoed pianist kept pace at the baby grand. Reserved tables aside, their party wasn’t difficult to find. The incubi clustered, pale and stooped, around the queen succubus. A stench of decay mixed with sulfur lent a sickening note to the cloying sweetness of their artificial perfume.
“How can no one notice their essential wrongness?” whispered Lizzie. The room hummed around them as patrons mingled or sought privacy together. Elderly couples shuffled to the rhythm, a bohemian couple shared cosmopolitans and herbal cigarettes.
“Because to mortal eyes, they’re a handsome bunch: a mother and her well-mannered sons and grandkids. The daughters-in-law are the sickly looking ones. Sir Edward tells me that the oldest son is on his third wife, the other just married his second. Christie’s husband is the youngest and most successful.”
Lizzie shuddered. “What happens to the offspring when the enchantment is broken?”
“They’ll return to the spirit plane with their sires.”
“Good riddance.” They watched the children poking, snapping at and hitting each other. Jack counted five tousled heads, their green-tinted complexions and sharp teeth blurred by movement as they evaded each other’s fists and mouths. The mortal mothers tried to limit the damage, anxiously catching chairs and other scattered objects displaced in the tussle.
The matriarch brought order with a wave of her hand, swaying in her filmy purple dress. “Where is Christina?” she announced. “We cannot start without the guest of honor.”
“She’s being difficult again,” said the tallest of the incubi. “She doesn’t like the dress you sent her. She thinks it’s too revealing and says the spangles are scaly like a snake.”
The lady in question strode confidently from the powder room. Her sequined dress looked serpentine indeed, its purple skirt shimmering in the soft lighting. Whether the bodice was revealing or not was a moot point, as she’d pulled the Nostradamus T-shirt over it, artfully knotted at the hip and worn off the right shoulder.
Every eye in the room was drawn to Christie as she stood regally, her long lashes sweeping high cheekbones, her firm chin thrust forth.
Jack blanched, wondering at her poise while wearing the talisman. Then he noticed the small sparks emitting from the shirt, even while she serenely took her place at table. He chastised himself for doubting her ability to control Dejanira’s simple magic.
“When you said you’d compromise and wear the dress,” remarked Christie’s chinless, sallow-faced spouse, “this isn’t quite what I had in mind.”
“Take off that horrid shirt!” The queen succubus shrieked. Swallowing audibly and rolling her eyes, she resumed a more civilized mien. “Christina dear, you’re ruining the elegant lines of the dress.”
“It’s too cold for a strapless gown this time of year,” Christie snapped.
“Let’s not argue,” begged one of the mortal wives.
“Yes, let’s take our seats,” said the other wife. “I think she looks cute.”
“And who invited you?” said the middle son, as Lizzie and Jack took the chairs beside him.
“I did,” announced Christie. “Jack’s my friend.”
“This is family only,” said the elder son, as the waiter artfully dodged elbows to fill wineglasses from an unlabeled bottle the color of blood.
“It won’t matter in a moment,” said the matriarch, her sly eyes glinting. “Time to toast the happy couple.”
It was starting sooner than he’d thought.
“Here’s to three years of marital bliss,” intoned Christie’s demon lover, raising his wineglass.
“Here’s to the three lucky women we’ve married,” recited the middle son, mirroring him.
“Here’s to the third bride, outlasting all others,” announced the eldest son.
“Here’s to the ties that bind, three plus three plus three to eternity,” declaimed the queen succubus.
“It’s coming,” Jack whispered to Lizzie, taking her hand under the table. “Cover me.” He invoked the four watchtowers, north, south, east and west, blocking the incubi’s plea for angelic attention. In his astral-projected state, Jack saw through the glamour superimposed over their true images. Darkness slithered between fanged teeth in lipless mouths as they chattered amongst themselves. Outwardly, they fussed over a toppled wineglass. In reality, they rallied their forces and prepared to draw on Christie as their medium.
These were stronger than any elementals Jack had previously faced. Coldness clenched his stomach as they turned on him. Malignant black eyes fired pernicious currents that froze the words on his lips and stopped the breath in his lungs. Lizzie squeezed his hand and called on Azriel, her patron angel. Jack felt the protective aura she raised, but saw that it wouldn’t be enough against a united assault. Amongst his scrambled thoughts, one rose to the top: nearly half a millennium of living hadn’t improved his instinct for self-preservation. As he felt the impact of their venom attacking his defenses, Christie rose to her feet.
“Stop this,” she commanded. “I won’t be the focus of your enmity.” On the astral plane Jack saw the energy pulsing towards her repelled by the T-shirt and returned threefold to the incubi. Boundaries blurred as they burst into flames, too startled to even cry out as their earthly existence crumpled into three misshapen lumps of coal. Their spawn whimpered and dissolved, not leaving so much as a chocolate fingerprint. Only the queen succubus withstood the backlash, her throbbing purple aura pushing icy tentacles through the astral shield.
“Do you think it’s that easy to be rid of me?” she hissed. “A son may come and go, but a daughter is forever.” The succubus drew on stolen energy that Jack was helpless to protect. His head pounding and his vision clouding, he felt Lizzie crumple against his shoulder.
Christie’s eyes widened. Her golden aura brightened as she rallied all her resistance. “Leave me. I want to be alone.”
The queen succubus ignited, knocking over another wineglass and a candle. While her combustion was limited to the spiritual plane, her last act spread the fire to the material world and her wail of frustration blended with the siren that started as soon as black smoke rose to trigger the alarm. The table flared up, and then the sprinkler system dowsed everything in the room.
“You’re on your own, explaining this one,” said Lizzie as she shook herself like a cat and fled. Jack looked up at Christie, who spread her arms to waltz in the sudden shower. The staff hustled people out the exits and he could hear fire trucks in the distance.
“Haven’t you ever wanted to dance in the rain?” She laughed with delight.
“We should go now, love.” He took her elbow and escorted her to the nearest exit. Outside, paramedics distributed blankets and medical care. The patrons weren’t injured, only shaken.
Jack focused on the manager as he explained the fire’s probable cause to a policeman. The electrical wiring was recently upgraded and they blamed the contractors for shoddy work. No mention was made of the strange party or the missing perpetrators.
“Christie,” he said as he wrapped his suit jacket around her shoulders, “did you see what started the fire? It was at our table.”
“I’m sorry, Jack. This hasn’t been such a good first date. You bring me to a fancy restaurant and I burn it down. I’m not usually this clumsy.”
“I’m sure it’s not your fault, love.” Reality had readjusted itself, so that the incubi vanished even from the victim’s memory. Jack watched a former daughter-in-law chatting animatedly with a fireman. It looked like somebody would get lucky tonight, he thought.
“May I still buy you dinner?”
“No thanks. I need to get out of these wet clothes.” She shook her dress and the sparkles vanished, leaving a damp, ankle-length black skirt that clung in all the right places. “Can I return your jacket later? Maybe I’ll stop by the shop tomorrow.”
“Of course, love. See you then.” He watched Christie walk down the street. She turned and waved as she unlocked her car, then drove away.
“So you’re just letting her go.” Lizzie took Jack’s arm as they wandered off into the shadows. “But I won’t let you off that easy. There’s still a matter of payment.”
“I don’t begrudge you that. Without your help, I couldn’t’ve held them off.”
Later, when they’d retired to his room and sat in companionable silence among the moving boxes, after she’d suckled at his neck for a bit and rested her head on his shoulder, Lizzie sighed in sated pleasure. “I don’t know why you long for romance when you can’t truly love. You’re chasing shadows. I prefer you this way, with your stone heart. We all pay a penalty for living too long.”
Jack listened to Lizzie’s heart, beating ever so slowly with his blood, and bid his philosopher’s heart to respond. Lizzie was right. As much as he ached for Christie, he couldn’t feel more than attachment.
Doctor Dee knew he wasn’t the first man to sacrifice his life to an obsession, but he was the first to successfully gain another. He wondered whether he would’ve made different choices in his mortal lifetime, had he understood the implications of creating the elixir of life within his own body. Recalling his youthful self required more powerful magic than he could summon. Jack imagined the smooth surface of his heart, the dark lapis laced with gold. He felt its coolness within him and sighed.
Tessa Johnstone currently resides in Geneva with her husband and two cats. Life as a foreign service spouse has provided her with a long resume and granted her much time to write. Her stories have appeared in various e-zines, and she is currently working on a much longer version of this story which she hesitates to call a "novel" for fear of frightening off her muse.
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