THE WORLD OF MAGIC
“I’ll let Elaine and Charles take it from here,” said Valerie.
Charles stood up and looked at Molly so seriously she thought he might never smile again. He took a deep breath and said, “Molly, magic runs in our family. I know how perform magic. Not a lot but enough to get by in the magical world. Most of our relatives can also do magic.”
“I’ve never seen anyone in my mom’s side of the family do magic,” said Molly, “I think I would have noticed something like that.”
“Your dad’s family didn’t use magic, at all. They were hunters.”
“Hunters? Of what?”
“Witches,” said Charles, “You dad’s family, the October family, they were witch hunters, they had been for generations. Although towards the end they didn’t just hunt witches they hunted all kinds of magical creatures.”
Molly looked at Charles skeptically then at Valerie and said, “Oh come on.”
“This is serious Molly,” said Charles, “You mother was a witch. It’s how your mom and dad met.”
Molly stopped. For a time she did not move and all expression drained from her face. Finally she said barely more than a whisper, “That is not funny Charles.”
“I told you this was serious,” he replied, “Your dad left his family to be with your mom. Haven’t you ever wondered why you never met anyone on your dad’s side of the family? He married a witch. They didn’t want anything to do with him.”
Molly just stared for a long time again then said, “Are you saying this has something to do with my mother’s death?”
“I don’t know about your mom’s death,” said Charles, “your dad never told any of us about it. We trusted him when he told us he took care of it.”
“Excuse me,” said Valerie interrupting. A minute ago Valerie had been acting so smooth and in control. Now she seemed surprised.
“What’s this about her mother’s death?” said Valerie, “This is the sort of thing I asked you about Charles.”
“It was family business,” replied Charles without looking Valerie in the eye.
“I understand that,” said Valerie, “but given what we are asking your cousin to do, it would be best if I stay informed of everything.”
Molly wanted to ask a hundred different questions. But she was quickly seeing no one in here had the answers. She decided then that she would say yes to what they wanted. Because it might ultimately lead her to the thing she had been looking for most of her life.
“Do some magic,” said Molly.
Charles and Valerie looked at Molly. Elaine who had been sitting quietly looked up as well.
“You want me to believe that magic is real. Show it to me. One of you, do something magical.”
Charles and Valerie both appeared to be at a loss for words or ideas. Elaine stood up and said, “Okay I know something. Can I borrow a pencil?”
Elaine snatched a pencil. She held it out open palmed towards Molly. Elaine began to whisper to herself. The pencil began to turn black. It changed shape and moved. It became a snake. Elaine smiled as it slithered up her arm. The snake wrapped itself around Elaine’s neck. It changed color and became gold. Elaine reached behind her neck and unfastened the gold snake necklace and handed it to Molly. Molly took it and looked it over. It was made of gold and it looked like a snake. It glowed slightly and became warm. Molly dropped it. When it landed on the floor it was a pencil again.
“Son of a bitch,” said Molly.
She looked at each of them again. Elaine smiling pleased with herself. Valerie sat back causally in her chair. Molly looked at Charles who was far more solemn than usual.
“So magic runs in our family,” said Molly.
“Yes,” he replied.
“And you do magic? How many people in the family know about this?”
“Everyone but you knows about it Molly.”
“And is there a reason everyone decided to keep this from me?”
“It’s how your mom and dad wanted it. With your dad’s family’s history with magic users, they thought it best if they raised you unaware of magic. They didn’t want you to get caught up in it all. After your mom’s death your dad still didn’t want you to know and the family respected his wishes. Then when your dad died, you were an adult and we thought it would be better if you just stayed unaware.”
“Are you kidding me? You think I like not knowing…”
There was a knock at the office door.
“Hey Valerie are you busy?” asked a man.
“Come on in Jim,” said Valerie.
The man that entered the room was white in his forties. He was wearing blue hospital scrubs.
“Oh are you having a meeting in here?” he asked with a smile.
“This is my husband Jim Field,” said Valerie.
“Nice to meet you,” said Jim reaching out to shake Molly’s hand.
Molly accepted the handshake.
“We just got a call from Shannon,” said Jim, “and she is on her way over.”
“Great,” said Valerie as she got up form her chair, “we better do this in the lounge. This office is way too small. Charles, Elaine, take Ms. October to the lounge. I’ll meet you there as soon as Shannon gets here.”
Molly followed Charles and Elaine down the hall.
“That was her husband?” asked Molly, “he was a bit old for her.”
“Actually they are about the same age,” said Elaine.
“What?” said Molly, “He’s got to be in his forties? And what is she like nineteen?”
“Valerie is forty five,” said Elaine, “and Jim is only two years older than her.”
“She’s forty five? Does she use some magic to make herself look so much younger?”
“Valerie doesn’t use magic often,” said Charles, “it’s complicated. And it’s personal.”
They came into the lounge. Molly had walked by it a few times since she had arrived. It was a decent sized area. You could have had a nice office party there. There was a couch and some chairs in a corner. There was a pool table with a pool cue rack along the wall. There was a candy bar vending machine and a soda machine as well.
Molly knew she was going to need to sit down and think. She went for one of the chairs. A number of thoughts began to dawn on her about her family.
“So magic runs in our family?” said Molly to Charles, “Does magic have anything to do with the fact that you don’t talk to your brother Alexandre anymore? Or why no one ever wants to talk about him? I assumed it was drugs but now I can’t be sure.”
Charles sat down on the couch across from Molly. Elaine sat down next to him.
“Alexandre was never on drugs,” Charles began, “When Uncle Louis was raising us he taught us magic. I never got past learning some basic spells. But Alexandre had a greater affinity for it. It was never enough for him. A few years ago he started studying older darker magic. He became obsessed and ran off. There are systems in place to monitor and police dark magic users now. Every once in a while I hear news about Alexandre. None of it is ever good.”
“Holy crap Uncle Louis,” said Molly, “He taught you magic.”
“He taught a lot of people magic,” said Charles, “It was sort of his calling.”
“Did magic have anything to do with his death? I know the police said it was a home invasion.”
“We think Uncle Louis was killed by another sorcerer,” said Charles, “The local magical authorities down in Louisiana investigated but they only found small traces of the magic that was used. Whoever killed Uncle Louis knew how to cover their tracks both magically and regularly.”
“What about you?” said Molly to Elaine, “Is there magic in your family? Is that how you became a witch?”
“I’m not a witch,” said Elaine, “I’m a sorceress. It can take some time to get used to all the different terms. But as to how I got into magic. When I was in high school I was all into goth culture. Mostly because I was always angry at my parents and wanted to get back at them. Anyway I got involved with this group of kids that was into paganism and stuff. There was this one guy in the group through, his name was Arthur, we called him Arty, and he was a little more hardcore than everyone else. He got this idea we should do a pagan ritual. What none of us were smart enough to figure out at the time was that the ritual wasn’t pagan it was satanic. Arty was trying to raise a demon slave to serve him and he was going to sacrifice all of us to do it. The ritual did not work the way he thought it would. That’s actually how I met Valerie and it’s kind of a long story after that. I’m not sure if I really have time to go into it.”
“I hate to interrupt,” it was Jim entering the lounge, “But Shannon and the investigator just got here. Valerie will be up with them in a minute.”
Jim went to Molly and said, “There are still a few things we need to go over before you meet your partner.”
“Partner?” said Molly, “When was it decided that I needed a partner?”
“No offense Ms. October but you know next to nothing about the magical world. You are going to need help navigating your way around. And there are other issues to consider. The vampires have insisted that one of their own be involved given the significance of the case to them.”
Before anything else Molly had to be clear on one thing Jim had said.
“Did you just say vampires?”
“Oh right,” said Jim, “No one told you about the vampires yet. Well all of the items stolen from private collections were from collections owned by vampires. And the ones stolen from museum and galleries were items the vampires have been trying to get back for years.”
“Vampires are real?” said Molly.
“Yep,” said Jim, “And I’m sorry you don’t have more time to get used to the idea but they will be here any minute now.”
