Magic Read online

  An

  ANTHOLOGY

  of the ESOTERIC

  and ARCANE

  Edited by

  JONATHAN OLIVER

  First published 2012 by Solaris

  an imprint of Rebellion Publishing Ltd,

  Riverside House, Osney Mead,

  Oxford, OX2 0ES, UK

  www.solarisbooks.com

  ISBN (epub): 978-1-84997-458-5

  ISBN (mobi): 978-1-84997-459-2

  Cover by Nicolas Delort

  ‘If I Die, Kill My Cat’ copyright © Sarah Lotz 2012

  ‘The Wrong Fairy’ copyright © Audrey Niffenegger 2012

  ‘Shuffle’ copyright © Will Hill 2012

  ‘Domestic Magic’ copyright © Steve Rasnic Tem and Melanie Tem 2012

  ‘Cad Coddeu’ copyright © Liz Williams 2012

  ‘Party Tricks’ copyright © Dan Abnett 2012

  ‘First and Last and Always’ copyright © Thana Niveau 2012

  ‘The Art of Escapology’ copyright © Alison Littlewood 2012

  ‘The Baby’ copyright © Christopher Fowler 2012

  ‘Do As Thou Wilt’ copyright © Storm Constantine 2012

  ‘Bottom Line’ copyright © Lou Morgan 2012

  ‘MailerDaemon’ copyright © Sophia McDougall 2012

  ‘Buttons’ copyright © Gail Z. Martin 2012

  ‘Nanny Grey’ copyright © Gemma Files 2012

  ‘Dumb Lucy’ copyright © Robert Shearman 2012

  The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owners.

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Edited by

  JONATHAN OLIVER

  FIFTEEN NEW STORIES

  OF THE SORCEROUS ARTS BY:

  Sarah Lotz

  Audrey Niffenegger

  Will Hill

  Steve Rasnic Tem and Melanie Tem

  Liz Williams

  Dan Abnett

  Thana Niveau

  Alison Littlewood

  Christopher Fowler

  Storm Constantine

  Lou Morgan

  Sophia McDougall

  Gail Z. Martin

  Gemma Files

  Robert Shearman

  CONTENTS

  Introduction, Jonathan Oliver

  If I Die, Kill My Cat, Sarah Lotz

  The Wrong Fairy, Audrey Niffenegger

  Shuffle, Will Hill

  Domestic Magic, Steve Rasnic Tem and Melanie Tem

  Cad Coddeu, Liz Williams

  Party Tricks, Dan Abnett

  First and Last and Always, Thana Niveau

  The Art of Escapology, Alison Littlewood

  The Baby, Christopher Fowler

  Do as Thou Wilt..., Storm Constantine

  Bottom Line, Lou Morgan

  MailerDaemon, Sophia McDougall

  Buttons, Gail Z. Martin

  Nanny Grey, Gemma Files

  Dumb Lucy, Robert Shearman

  About the Authors

  Also from Solaris

  INTRODUCTION

  JONATHAN OLIVER

  THE WORD MAGIC, for many, will conjure up images of gentlemen in dinner suits pulling rabbits out of hats and producing bunches of flowers from their sleeves. For sure, you can find the popular image of the magician here – the entertainer reveals himself in both Alison Littlewood’s ‘The Art of Escapology’ and Robert Shearman’s ‘Dumb Lucy’ – but you will find much about the magical arts that may not be familiar to you within these pages.

  Genre fiction has had a long and complex relationship with magic. Horror fiction has often featured diabolists and their dealings with devils, cults pervade the works of pulp pioneers such as H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard and magic is an integral part of fantasy fiction as a whole. What I am seeking to do with Magic, however, is not to fulfil your expectations but exceed and confound them. This is a collection of unusual fiction; indeed an anthology of the esoteric and arcane.

  One question that you’ll find repeated throughout is, what is magic for? The uses to which the arts of sorcery are tasked are often concerned with human desire. In Alison Littlewood’s poignant tale we have the child’s desire for magic and a magical existence come up against the realities of the world as experienced by adults. In Gemma Files’ story, ‘Nanny Grey’ we have a darker side of desire, where magic is used to lure a young man driven by sexual need into a horrific encounter. ‘First and Last and Always’ by Thana Niveau (a magical name if there ever was one) shows us how we can want something too much and how playing with magic, without true understanding, is a very dangerous undertaking. As it is in Will Hill’s story ‘Shuffle’, the structure of which is something of a trick in itself.

  The thing about magic, is that it often confounds understanding. And, of course, when we write about magic we are often trying to express impossibilities. Sophia McDougall demonstrates herself to be more than capable of this in ‘MailerDaemon’ in which a computer programmer finds herself with a gift she’s not sure she asked for, and Robert Shearman’s beautifully apocalyptic tale shows us the possibilities of an impossible love. In Audrey Niffeneggers’s story, ‘The Wrong Fairy’, we are given a glimpse into an impossible world through the eyes of the father of a very famous writer. While in Liz Williams’ ‘Cad Coddeau’ we are taken back into the time of legend, where myth and story grow into something impossibly beautiful.

  Of course, one of the most common uses for a spell is to help another. When the motivation is pure, this can bring about a positive change, as demonstrated in Storm Constantine’s story ‘Do as Thou Wilt.’ Lou Morgan, too, shows us an act of magical sacrifice in ‘Bottom Line’ that throws new light onto a morally ambiguous character. Sarah Lotz’s comic tale ‘If I Die, Kill My Cat’ shows the consequences of leaving an altruistic magical act unfinished. In Gail Z. Martin’s ‘Buttons’ we have a group of esoteric investigators whose mission it is to help people through the use of magic. In effecting magical change, however, the moral may not always be pure, as is clear from Dan Abnett’s politics-meets-magic story ‘Party Tricks’. Help sought also has a sinister side in Christopher Fowler’s story of magic gone wrong, ‘The Baby.’ Sometimes the magic user may not realise how far they have gone, as we can see when Steve Rasnic Tem and Melanie Tem introduce us to a mother who may not have her children’s best interests at heart in ‘Domestic Magic’.

  While these tales show many aspects of magic, it is worth remembering that the act of writing has its own magic. I hope, then, that you find as much enjoyment in reading the works of the prestidigitators herein as I had in gathering them together.

  Jonathan Oliver

  August 2012

  Oxford

  IF I DIE, KILL MY CAT

  SARAH LOTZ

  There are things in the following tale that are true. I’m not going to tell you what they are, but let me assure you that it’s none of the mundane stuff. After reading Sarah’s brilliant and witty story, I did wonder whether the UK government could look to the arcane arts to solve a few problems. Or maybe they already do that, and none of us realise.

  “THERE’S GOING TO be maggots,” Lindiwe sighed, batting at the blowflies bobbing around her breathing mask. Others gathered in clumps around the light fixtures and swarmed over the single mug upturned on the draining board. Save for the flies, the house was a typical Sea Point rental property: parquet floor
s, white walls, cheap appliances and minimal furniture.

  I dumped the chemicals in the kitchen and joined her in the hallway. I was already sweating like a bastard under my protective gear, but I’d rather melt than take a chance – hepatitis is no joke. “How long before the body was discovered?”

  “Four or five days,” Lindiwe said. “Apparently he died in bed, nothing suspicious, suspected heart attack. Client said the cops took him away yesterday.”

  “That long in this heat? Then maggots are the least of our worries.”

  “Yeah,” Lindiwe huffed. “There’s going to be maggots and goop. My favourite combo.”

  My phone vibrated in my jeans pocket. I ignored it; no way was I going to strip off my coveralls to answer it. Probably just my sister again. She’d been calling me non-stop since she got back to Cape Town. She could wait.

  We clumped down the corridor, pausing to peer into a dusty bathroom, a spare room containing nothing but a daybed, and then, in startling contrast to the rest of the house, an office space stuffed with clutter.

  “I think we’ve reached New Age central,” I said, checking out the astrological charts tacked up on the walls, the dream-catchers hanging from the ceiling and the shelves heaving with polished stones. Leatherbound books and catalogues with photos of crystals on their covers were stacked in piles on every available surface. Judging by the titles, most seemed to be in German.

  “Check,” Lindiwe said, nodding at a woollen robe draped over the corner of a shelf. “You think he was a Jedi?” I knew what was coming next. “Search your feelings, Rachel,” she said, breathing heavily into her mask and putting on the Darth Vader voice she uses at every opportunity. “I am your father. You know it to be true.”

  I snorted. I’ve heard it a million times, but it always cracks me up.

  I opened the door at the end of the corridor, a cloud of flies gusting out to greet me. Ground Zero.

  The room contained nothing but a pair of mismatching side tables and a double bed, overfed maggots squirming lazily in the duvet’s folds. The bed linen was black with decomposition fluid, and I was relieved I’d remembered to change my mask’s filter and couldn’t smell the aftermath of what had to have been a lonely death.

  Lindiwe lifted up the duvet to assess the extent of the damage.

  “Wait,” I said. The corner of what looked to be a passport was peeking out from between the mattress and the base. As I pulled it out and flicked through to the back cover, a piece of paper fluttered out of the centre pages and drifted onto the floor. Lindiwe retrieved it while I stared at a photograph of a middle-aged man with watery blue eyes. “Dead guy was Austrian,” I said. “Named August Schuller.”

  “Yeah? Whoever he was, he clearly had problems.”

  She passed the piece of paper to me. The words, ‘If I die, kill my cat,’ were scrawled on it in shaky handwriting.

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  Lindiwe shrugged. “Maybe he wanted to be buried with it or something.”

  “You see any sign of a cat?”

  “Police might have taken it away.”

  “Yeah, well I hope they didn’t follow his instructions. You want to start bagging the linen? I’ll go get the rest of the stuff.”

  I headed back towards the kitchen, pulling off my gloves and hood to wipe away the rivulets of sweat trickling down from my scalp. I piled the chemical bottles on top of a hazmat box, freezing when I heard a faint noise. That couldn’t be right – it sounded almost like a baby crying. I held my breath. It couldn’t be coming from outside; the flats that flanked the house were still under construction. No – it appeared to be emanating from behind the door on the other side of the kitchen, one we’d missed when we’d done the recce.

  I yanked it open, yelping as something shot out towards me. I retreated, looked down and into the eyes of a small black cat. It mewled at me. It was super cute, but also super thin, the ridges of its spine and ribs clearly visible under its coat.

  “Rach?” Lindiwe yelled. “You okay?”

  “I found the cat.”

  Lindiwe swished her way towards me. “Where was it?”

  “In here.” I peered through the door, fumbling on the wall for the light switch. Strip lights hissed into life, revealing a small garage, empty but for the remains of a ripped bag of cheap dry cat food. I spied a small bathroom and toilet nestled in an alcove. If the cat had been trapped in here since its owner died, at least it’d had water. The cops probably figured it was too much of a schlep to deal with it. Bastards.

  It snaked its body around my legs and I picked it up and carried it over to the kitchen counter. “Shame,” I said. “She must be starving.” I found a tin of tuna in the cupboard and unearthed a tin opener and a bowl.

  “How do you know it’s a she?”

  “I checked.”

  “We’d better call the SPCA.”

  “You ever been to the SPCA, Linds? It’s like Belsen for four-leggeds.”

  “So what do you suggest? Shall I call the rental agency, get them to deal with it?”

  “They won’t give a shit. Maybe the dead guy’s family will want her.” I could try contacting whoever was listed in the ‘in case of emergency’ section in the back of August Schuller’s passport. It was worth a shot. If not, I could call a cat sanctuary that had a non-euthanasia policy.

  While Lindiwe started shoving the soiled bed linen into incinerator bags, I searched the house, looking for a cat box. Nothing. Not even a cat bed. Using a screwdriver, I stabbed holes in the lid of a hazmat box, and stowed the cat inside it with a bowl of water.

  WHEN WE SHUFFLED out of the house, arms full of equipment, two guys dressed in identical slick suits were leaning against the side of our van. Their gold jewellery glinted in the afternoon sun; Ray-Bans hid their eyes.

  “Not again,” Lindiwe sighed.

  The taller of the two, a fellow with faint acne scars and a disarming grin, stepped forward. “Madam,” he said to me. “I hope you are having a fine day. I represent a certain party who would be interested in conducting some business with you.” He bent down to inspect the hazmat cat box.

  “Don’t touch that!” I snapped.

  For the thousandth time I cursed Lindiwe’s insistence on displaying our ‘Crime Scene Cleaners’ logo so prominently on the side of the truck. It’s a magnet for unscrupulous muti sellers who believe that adding body parts to herbal remedies will enhance the power of the ‘medicine’ they sell to promote wealth, luck and better erections. It was the second time that week we’d been approached by agents eager to purchase the biological waste we collect. They weren’t fussy – anything would do: brain bits, fingers, even teeth.

  “You’re wasting your time,” I said. “We’re not interested.”

  Undaunted, the guy increased the wattage of his smile. “But madam, this is an opportunity for you to–”

  “You’re sick, you know that?” Lindiwe jabbed a finger in his face. “Now fuck off before I call the cops.”

  The muti agent’s smile snapped off and he and his sidekick slunk away. A minute later I saw them roaring past in a shiny black Mercedes sedan, an Orlando Pirates sticker on its bumper.

  I whistled. “Nice car. We’re in the wrong business.”

  “They make me sick.” Lindiwe glanced at me. “You haven’t told your sister pricks like that are stalking us, have you?”

  “Are you crazy? She already thinks I’m infested with evil spirits as it is. Keeps nagging me to go for a cleansing.”

  “So have one. How could it hurt?”

  “Are you serious? Since when did you start believing in all that ancestor crap? I thought you were into Jesus.”

  “Whatever.” Lindiwe turned her back on me and stalked back into the house to fetch the rest of the gear. Me and my big mouth. Religion is one subject we tend to avoid, and for good reason. Lindiwe is well aware of my hardcore agnostic tendencies and rarely discusses her own beliefs. Mopping up after murders, hijackings and suicides take
s its toll, and I suspect her weekly church visits are her way of coping with the horrors we encounter on a daily basis.

  I deal with it in my own way: vodka and mindless reality television.

  The atmosphere between us still frosty, we heaved the ruined mattress into the van to drop off at the incinerator, and set off towards Kloof Nek Road, air-con cranked to full power.

  We’d barely driven a kay, when the traffic in front of us slowed to a crawl.

  “Rush hour?” I asked.

  “Accident,” Lindiwe said, as we inched past the cops setting out cones along the side of the road.

  A policewoman signalled for us to stop. A tow truck hauling a concertinaed mass of black metal pulled off the hard shoulder in front of us. As it shuddered away, I caught a glimpse of an Orlando Pirates sticker stuck to a dented bumper.

  “Think it’s the same guys?” Judging by the state of their car, they couldn’t have escaped uninjured.

  “Instant karma,” Lindiwe said. But she looked shaken just the same.

  VICTOR, ONE OF the Nigerians who lived in the flat directly below mine, appeared in his doorway as I struggled past his flat, juggling the hazmat cat box, a litter tray and the cat food I’d bought en route home from the incinerator. The delicious aroma of spicy stew wafted out his doorway, reminding me that I hadn’t eaten all day. “Yo, Rachel,” he said. “There is someone waiting for you outside your flat. I let her through the security gate. Strange chick.” He shrugged. “She said she was your sister.”

  Great. As if the day couldn’t get any shittier. I slogged up the stairwell, found Naomi sitting cross-legged outside my door, wrapped in a colourful blanket. She looked every inch the white sangoma: barefoot, dreadlocks threaded with beads and goat-hair bracelets looped around her wrists.