James Swain - Dark Magic

“Really? That’s incredible.”

“Here’s the bad part. They called themselves the Order of Astrum.”

Peter felt the blood drain from his head. He stammered as he spoke. “That’s not possible. The Order of Astrum practices dark magic, and are cold-blooded murderers.”

“They weren’t always that way,” Liza explained. “In the late 1980s they started hiring themselves out, and your parents fled to New York because of it. The Order tracked them down, and did away with them. The Order has been doing bad things ever since.”

He took a deep breath. His parents were good people. This couldn’t be true.

“Are you sure this came from the FBI?” he asked.

“Positive.”

“Maybe you read it wrong.”

Liza reached across the table, and rested her hand atop his. “It was all there. Your parents were original members of the Order of Astrum. I didn’t read it wrong.”

He felt himself growing angry. What he knew about his parents’ past, he’d learned from Milly and Max. Had they known all of this, but never told him?

“Damn them,” he muttered.

“Peter, what’s wrong?”

“They’ve been holding back on me all this time.”

“Your friends?”

“Yes, my friends.”

He slapped the table with the palm of his hand. Heads turned throughout the restaurant. He suddenly was being bombarded with thoughts, and knew what every person in the restaurant was thinking. He’d never experienced anything like it before. It was unnerving, and he threw down money and stood up.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said.

“Please sit down, and tell me what’s wrong.”

He shook his head. The room was changing, the red tones and warm wood turning the color of bright red blood. The angry beast buried deep inside of him was taking over.

“I’ll meet you outside,” he said.

He stood beneath an awning and waited for her to come out. Cars and yellow cabs raced past on the rain-soaked street. He didn’t really know who his parents were, which meant that he didn’t really know who he was. It was like becoming an orphan all over again. Moments later, Liza came through the front door, and saw that he was weeping.

“Oh, Peter, I’m so sorry,” she said, and hugged him until the aching pain went away.

Langston Turnbull was a retired shopkeeper from Wales who’d had the misfortune of being the same height and build as Wolfe. Wolfe had spotted Turnbull on the beach in sunny Spain while on vacation, and later drowned him so he could steal the Welshman’s passport. The passport contained the only photo Wolfe had of the dead man. Physically, they shared much in common. Facially, not as much. Turnbull had sandy hair, a round face with flared nostrils, and wrinkles. Wolfe looked nothing like him.

That was about to change.

Wolfe waited until dusk before leaving his hotel. The police knew what he looked like, and would eventually track him down. By turning himself into Turnbull, he could check into another hotel under his new identity, and stay out of the law’s grasp.

There was a Duane Reade drugstore on every block in New York. Entering the branch on Eighth Avenue near his hotel, Wolfe glanced at his reflection in the window. His face was swollen and bruised, and would only draw further attention to himself.

He grabbed a shopping basket and started his search. The aisles were jammed with merchandise. How anyone could find what they were looking for was beyond him.

He heard the tiniest of noises. Someone had crept up behind him. Based upon the sound their feet had made, the person stood about five-two, and weighed a hundred pounds.

He spun around. “Yes?”

A diminutive Hispanic woman in a blue store uniform stood behind him. The last time someone had snuck up on him like that, he’d punctured their windpipe.

“I’m Carmella, the store supervisor,” she said. “Can I help you?”

“Your store’s layout is confusing.”

“Tell me what you want, and I’ll help you find it.”

Carmella guided him up and down the aisles. It was like having his own personal shopper, and he grabbed a tube of hair dye, a pair of barber shears, nail polish, a tub of makeup, hair spray, and a pair of cheap reading glasses.

“All done?” she asked.

Wolfe had to think. He’d turned himself into Turnbull before, and there was always one item he forgot to purchase before he made the transformation.

“I need a piece of plastic tubing,” he remembered. “A half inch wide, and a few inches long. My wife asked me to pick some up.”

“Do you know what she needs it for?”

“Love, we’ve been married twenty years. You learn not to ask questions.”

“Smart man. Let’s ask our pharmacist.”

Carmella talked a bearded man in a white lab coat into selling Wolfe a piece of plastic tubing. Wolfe paid for the items at the checkout with Carmella ringing him up. Behind the checkout was a cork board covered in flyers. One flyer had Wolfe’s face plastered on it with the word WANTED. If Carmella saw the flyer, he was done.

He nervously glanced around the store. The other employees were out of earshot. He sized Carmella up. She looked frail, and would be easy prey.

“Forget something?” she asked.

“Do you have the time? My watch has stopped running.”

She consulted her watch. Wolfe lifted his arm, prepared to chop her windpipe with the side of his hand. It was a trick he’d learned in the army. Without her windpipe, she couldn’t cry for help, and would die without anyone being the wiser.

Motion caught his eye. Outside the store, a pair of uniformed policemen walked past, swinging their night sticks in unison. He covered his mouth as if coughing, and watched them pass.

“It’s a few minutes past six,” she said.

He backed away from the counter, and moved toward the exit. He wanted to tell her to buy a lottery ticket. It wasn’t very often that one of his victims got away.

“Have a nice day,” she called after him.

Bathrooms in hotels were ludicrously small, and hardly big enough for a grown man to stand in. Hugging the sink in his room, Wolfe unscrewed the bottle of clear nail polish, and began to coat his face with the tiny brush. Facial recognition technology was used by most law enforcement agencies to catch fugitives, and was considered infallible. Wolfe knew otherwise. The software used in these programs recognized twenty-five different points on a person’s face. If four of those points were changed, the program could be fooled into thinking the person was someone else.

Soon the bottle of nail polish was empty. He dried his face with a hair dryer, then crinkled his cheeks, and made dozens of wrinkles appear. He looked ten years older already.

The next step was his hair. The hair dye he’d bought was called Just For Men, and he generously brushed the product into his scalp. Before his eyes, his hair turned from black to sandy blond. He didn’t look good as a blond, but neither had Turnbull.

Then came his face. Turnbull’s face was decidedly smaller than his. Wolfe solved that problem by brushing his hair onto his forehead, and carefully molding it into place with hair spray. It made his face look smaller than it really was.

His nose also needed work. Turnbull had flared nostrils. This was where the plastic tubing came into play. Cutting off two small pieces, he slit them open and stretched them out, then shoved them into his nostrils, causing both to expand.

The last item of business was the Order’s tattoo on his neck. Wolfe sported multiple tattoos, and they’d all faded over time. Not the Order’s. It was still as vibrant as the day he’d joined, something he’d never quite understood. He covered it with pancake makeup, and made it disappear.