Robert Weinberg - A Calculated Magic

Roger shook his head. “No, thanks. You’re the third skin specialist I’ve consulted.” There was a note of quiet desperation in his voice. “The others ran all the tests imaginable. They took samples of skin tissue from my elbow and analyzed it for weeks. The results were identical in both cases. Absolutely nothing.”

“You have no idea what might have brought about this condition?” asked Philips. “You’re a scientist. Maybe an experiment went wrong?”

Roger grimaced. “I work with computers, doc, not chemicals.”

Wearily, he pulled on his shirt and began buttoning the buttons. He should have known better. No doctor living could help him with his problem. They were bound by conventional teachings. It never once occurred to any of them that they might be dealing with a manifestation of the supernatural. In reality, Roger needed an exorcist, not a specialist.

Unfortunately, finding a real ghost breaker in modern California was no easy task. There were plenty of spiritualists in the phone directory, offering assistance in everything from love potions to fighting demons. They came in all nationalities and religions, both sexes, young and old, black and white. Only one common thread bound them all together. Each and every one of them was a fraud.

Financed by one of Roger’s numerous secret bank accounts, a team of private detectives investigated the background of all of the self-proclaimed psychics. Not surprisingly, most of them turned out to be well-known con men or women, whose only talent consisted of making their clients’ money disappear.

Those few spiritualists who checked out clean, the detectives visited. The investigators offered huge sums to anyone capable of demonstrating actual psychic powers. Despite hugely extravagant claims of great and miraculous powers by each individual, none of them was able to perform any actual feat of black magic or sorcery.

After weeks of fruitless searching, Roger fired the detectives. He was still convinced that supernatural beings with amazing powers existed in the real world. He knew it for a fact. Sooner or later, the investigators would have found the right one. Unfortunately, Roger didn’t have time to spare.

“You’ll stay in touch?” asked Dr. Philips as Roger rose from the examination table. “If those blotches grow bigger, we could try radiation therapy.”

Roger grimaced. “I doubt if I’ll be back. I’m off to Las Vegas tomorrow. Hopefully, the answer to all my problems lies there.”

“Las Vegas?” said Philips. “I didn’t know there were any major cancer clinics located there.”

“There aren’t,” said Roger. “I’m going there to see an old man about his payments on a mountain.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” said the physician, sounding puzzled.

“Neither do I,” said Roger, heading for the door. “But that’s not unusual. I rarely do anymore these days. Mere mortals are not privy to the secrets of the Gods.”

“Whatever you say,” declared Philips, shaking his head. He obviously thought Roger was slightly demented. “I’m an agnostic myself.”

“So was I,” said Roger. “Once.”

Stepping into the street a few minutes later, Roger squinted in the harsh sunlight. According to the city directory, there was a travel agency located within two blocks of the physician’s office. He glanced down at his watch. The doctor’s appointment had lasted six minutes longer than he anticipated. However, he had allowed an eleven-minute margin of error in his schedule. His day was proceeding pretty much according to plan.

Roger was meticulous to a fault. A computer programmer for twenty years, he believed in exactness. Each morning, he mentally outlined his schedule for the next twenty-four hours in fine detail. Once decided, he maintained that routine no matter what happened. Though most people thought Roger was slightly crazy, he considered himself the soul of logic.

A tall, thin man with a scraggly beard and thinning brown hair starting to gray at the temples, Roger appeared to be nothing more than the usual California computer jock. His sloped shoulders and intent, slightly glazed glare reinforced that image. Few people realized that he was president of one of the most powerful consulting firms on the West Coast. And none of that select number knew the secret of his success.

Five years ago, Roger had been a computer hacker working for a minor software company in Silicon Valley. Smart but not brilliant, his obsession with exactness had lost him jobs with most of the major firms in the computer industry. Thus, he struggled in obscurity, earning a salary barely enough to cover the high cost of living in California.

The big change in his life came the night he attended a New Age seance. Convinced by the event that the occult existed, Roger spent weeks investigating spells necessary to raise demons. He soon concluded that black magicians, unwilling to reveal their closely guarded secrets to others, deliberately changed their invocations when committing them to print. It was as if the spells had been published in code, without a key. But medieval sorcerers had not taken into account the greatest code breaker of all time—the modern computer.

Less than a month after attending the seance, Roger raised his first demon. Soon he was making his talent pay, in a manner never considered by earlier sorcerers.

An unexpected talent for deception made Roger extremely rich. Quitting his job, he set himself up as a business consultant, specializing in correcting problems no one else could solve. Using black magic, he summoned a host of minor fiends and sent them out on missions of industrial espionage. Invisible to all but their master, the devils proved extremely capable agents of destruction. And they cleverly disguised their efforts so they appeared to be the result of accidents or employee blunders.

Needless to say, Roger’s corporation displayed an uncanny ability to spot and eliminate such troubles. Within a short time, his firm had earned the reputation as the company that solved problems no one else could handle. Within months, Quinn Enterprises had risen to national prominence in the consulting field, After a year, there were company offices in major cities throughout the United States. And there was talk of expanding overseas.

Much of the work handled by the firm was routine and required no supernatural intervention at all. His competent and capable staff handled those matters. Roger reserved his demonic allies for special efforts.

The invisible creatures made wonderful spies. They eavesdropped on confidential conversations and copied confidential documents with ease. Knowledge was power and Roger knew the secrets of most of the major corporations in the country. From such information came even greater wealth. But too much was never enough, and Roger wanted still more. It was a path that led to disaster.

Seeking more powerful allies, one night Roger attempted to raise one of the demon princes of hell from the Bible. Unfortunately, he forgot that the names of most of the major devils from the New Testament were based on the titles of ancient pagan gods. Instead of raising a demon, Roger summoned the Crouching One, Lord of the Lions, a long-forgotten Babylonian deity.

Not subject to any of the usual binding spells, the demigod frightened Roger. When it was accidentally freed from the magic circle holding it prisoner by an unexpected earth tremor, the being proved to be more trouble than he could handle. Roger reluctantly found himself serving the Crouching One in the demigod’s quest to rule the world.

At the door to the travel agency, Roger once again muttered a silent prayer to whatever powers existed that kept the Lord of the Lions confused about the power of direct dialing. The ancient god still did not understand the modern world. Otherwise, it might realize that making reservations to Las Vegas didn’t require Roger taking an afternoon trip downtown to a travel agency.