James Swain - Dark Magic

He ate his bag of warm nuts. To throw off any curious passersby, he glanced at his watch every few minutes, as if awaiting someone’s arrival. He also regularly took out his cell phone, and pretended to be having a conversation.

He repeated the charade until nine-thirty. By now, the vendor had gone home, and the block was deserted. He was soaked to the skin, and his cheap suit had started to fall apart.

Then, his luck changed.

A taxi pulled up to the Dakota, and Milly Adams climbed out, wearing a mink stole and a mink hat. With her was a young woman in jeans and a sweater. The second woman was Milly’s spitting image. This had to be Holly Adams, the last name on his list.

Wolfe smiled through chattering teeth. What was the expression? Kill two birds with one stone. Or two psychics with one pair of hands.

He started across the street.

His victims stood beneath the building’s awning, oblivious to the danger they were in. That was good, because he planned to snap them both like twigs.

The front door opened, and a doorman stepped out. Beneath his blazer was something substantial, perhaps a gun, or billy club. Wolfe decided to take the doorman out first, just to be safe. The element of surprise was his. It was all he’d ever needed.

A new person came through the door. Wolfe instantly recognized him. It was Peter Warlock, dressed in his magic-show outfit. Three birds with one stone, he thought.

“Where have the two of you been?” Warlock said. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

Milly Adams dismissed him with a wave, and went inside. Her niece gave the young magician a kiss on the cheek, and followed her aunt through the front door.

Wolfe stopped in his tracks. These women were not stupid. They knew their lives were in danger, yet had chosen to venture outside. Had he missed something?

Rain poured down the back of his collar. He heard a noise that was louder than the rain. Like a tornado bearing down on him. He slowly turned around. The army of crows was flapping their wings and shrieking at him in a mad chorus. The power of their wings was so great that the rain was blown sideways. They looked ready to rip him apart.

Wolfe was not fond of animals. A tiger had nearly torn him to pieces in Kenya, and a monkey had chewed off a piece of his ear in India. The crows looked particularly formidable. And there were lots of them.

He who runs away, lives to fight another day.

A soldier had said that. A very smart soldier. He turned away from the building, and headed up the street. The crows’ shrieking was so loud that he couldn’t think. He had experienced fear many times in his life, but nothing like this.

He took off at a dead run. He heard a sound like a page being torn out of a magazine, amplified a thousand times. He glanced over his shoulder.

The crows were after him.

He looked for a restaurant to duck into, or an alley, but there was nothing. At the next corner, a cab pulled up, and a well-dressed couple disembarked. Wolfe grabbed the door before it closed, and hopped in.

“Go north,” he told the driver.

The cab sped away, and Wolfe fell back in his seat. The idea of retirement had never seemed more inviting than it did right now. A banging sound broke his concentration.

“What was that?” the driver asked.

Wolfe turned around. A single crow had caught up to them. It slammed its beak against the glass while its bloodred eyes tore a hole into his soul.

“Something’s attacking my cab!”

The driver drifted over to the curb and hit the brakes. As he opened his door, the crow flew into the cab. Flying through the open partition into the backseat, it bit Wolfe’s face. Wolfe grabbed the bird with both hands, and pulled it away. Clutched in its beak was a piece of his disguise, the rest of which hung off his face like dead skin. The bird shrieked like an angry schoolteacher before going limp in his hands.

Wolfe was shaking as he got out of the cab, and tossed the dead bird into the gutter. The driver stood a safe distance away, looking at him fearfully.

“You’re a zombie!”

Wolfe decided to steal the cab. He’d broken so many damn laws that it didn’t really matter. Soon he was speeding north on Amsterdam, wondering how he was going to explain this to the men who employed him.

Movement in his mirror caught his eye. Two blocks behind him, Peter Warlock was running down the middle of the street, chasing him. He’d seen a lot of strange things in New York, and the notion that the young magician might somehow outrun the cab did not seem as crazy as it might have a few days ago.

He punched the gas, and watched Warlock disappear.

“Coward!” Peter yelled at the fleeing cab.

He stopped in the middle of Central Park West as the cab’s taillights faded away. He’d caught the license plate, and pulled out Special Agent Garrison’s business card from his wallet, and punched the FBI agent’s number into his cell phone. Garrison picked up on the first ring.

“Who’s this?” Garrison asked suspiciously.

“This is Peter Warlock. Wolfe just tried to attack two of my friends. He’s now heading north on Central Park West in a stolen yellow cab, license plate number 9AH 4B7.”

“How’s he dressed?”

“He’s wearing a cheap dark suit and some kind of fake skin that makes him look like an old man. I didn’t recognize him at first. A bird tore most of it away.”

“A bird?”

“I’ll explain later.”

“Right. Was anyone hurt?”

Peter looked at the cab driver, whom Wolfe had knocked to the ground, being helped to his feet by a well-dressed couple. People were always saying that New Yorkers were cold and unfriendly, yet in fact the opposite was true. The driver was shaken up, but no worse for wear.

“The driver got knocked on the head, but it looks like he’s going to be okay,” Peter said.

“What about your two friends? Did Wolfe hurt them?”

“No, but he got close.”

“I’m alerting the NYPD. Hopefully, they’ve got a patrol car in the area, and can run him down. I need to know your friends’ names, so the police can get a statement from them.”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“You’re playing a dangerous game. Your friends are in danger, and so are you.”

“Telling you their names won’t change that,” Peter said.

He hung up the phone and started walking back to the Dakota. A black object lying in the gutter caught his eye. It was one of Milly’s crows, its body broken and lifeless. He picked it up, remembering all the times he’d seen the crows perched in the oak trees across from the building. Every psychic had secrets they did not share, or a past they did not talk about. The crows were part of Milly’s past, and he knew little of their history.

Holly was waiting inside the lobby. The shock of what had happened had sunk in, and her face was ashen. Seeing the dead bird, she let out a tiny sob.

“Oh, no.”

“You weren’t supposed to go out,” Peter said.

“My aunt thought it would be okay if we went to dinner together.”

“It wasn’t okay. Damn it, Holly. Wolfe came that close.”

His voice was trembling, and he tried to control himself. Seeing into the future was often terrifying. It was more terrifying when no one would listen.

“Please don’t be angry,” Holly said as they rode the elevator upstairs.

“I have every right to be angry,” he said. “You’re behaving like a child.”

“Peter, please stop. I can’t stand when you act like this.”

Holly had never had her loved ones taken away from her. Hopefully, she never would.

“Just listen to me,” he said. “We have these amazing powers, but in reality, we’re no different than anyone else. We can still get sick, still die. We’re mortal. Stop acting like you’re not.”