Magic. A Rough Guide

By Nathan McGrath

Wireless communication was wiped out 50 years ago. No Wifi, Radio, TV, Mobile, or Radar.
Even your remote control won't work.
Eldritch lightning bolts flash across dawn skies creating power blackouts.
Magic and Sorcery, creative power in the hands of ordinary people, is real, a threat to social order, a terrorist crime.
Nights have become a hunting ground for monstrous predators.
Meanwhile, hidden from the world, vampires search for an ancient book of spells that could enslave humanity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nathan McGrath
• Release date: Oct 18, 2017
• ISBN: 9781310962684

Nathan McGrath

About me: I live with my partner in North London. Oh and our dog.H and a few other friends said I should go to college so I did. Came out with a degree and Science Masters. Spent the rest of the time working with kids, mostly teenagers.When I’m not writing I’m reading modern and classic sci-fi. walking the dog, cooking, baking, on the PS5, or watching thrillers and sci-fi.

Book preview

Magic. A Rough Guide

Nathan McGrath

Copyright © H.H Dervish

2022. Smashwords Edition

The author has asserted their moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, copied, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the copyright holder, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead in this or any other universe, past, present or future, is purely coincidental.

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Chapter One

"The distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion."

Albert Einstein

The dusty road slopes downhill under the slate-bare, sunless sky and branches out through a barren, windswept landscape. A wide valley scarred by a seeping, dried-out river dotted with blisters of farms and bruised by shadowless, silent villages.

He’s back here. Brilliant. If only he could find whatever he was meant to be looking for, this might all end.

Adults turn their heads and dismiss Chris with tired eyes. Tall, gaunt people, their bronzed skin covered in pale, grey blotches, stand in small groups or sit on porches of run-down houses. Ragged, listless children sit in groups, some with an older child who draws images of strange creatures in the air. The animals fly off and disappear, leaving the children to stare like statues at nothing. Other kids wander along empty streets. Pebbles kicked into the air drift, then slide down to throw up pockets of lazy dust when they land.

A distant rumbling shakes the ground, and the groans and creaks of straining timber fill the streets. This is different. Way ahead of him, way past the fields beyond the village, something’s coming up from the ground. No one else cares that a pyramid is coming up from the ground. Damn thing just keeps getting bigger. Massive dust clouds foam and clump like a thick fog around the base. The thing’s enormous. For a second, a mesh of golden runes glows across the surface and fades away, leaving a pattern of scars. He should check it out.

Someone shouts behind him, and Chris turns and steps to the side. A cart pulled by some enormous six-legged dinosaur rattles past him towards the Pyramid. The cart’s got a large wooden cage covered in chains. It doesn’t look like there’s anything inside. Then something that must have been on the floor jumps up and grabs the bars. What the hell? It’s two girls, twins, no older than five, maybe six. Their little hands grip the thick bars, barely reaching around. Their mouths open and close like they’re screaming, but no sound comes. They look terrified. Chris looks around at the other people, but they all turn away from him, looking guilty.

The rumble of wheels and rattle of chains turn into tambourines, and the tight beat of bongo drums drags Chris out of the dream.

*****

He sat up in pitch darkness to a muffled mess of music from one of the low-rise blocks. Fumbling for the light, Chris switched on the bedside lamp, and a dull yellowish glow filled the room. The clock on the shelf over his desk comes into focus. It was past midnight, way past, almost twenty past. What? No, that couldn’t be right. He felt around the small bedside cabinet and found his watch. Rubbing his eyes, he peered at the luminous hands; it had the same time. Who’s … Jesus Christ! Rubin. He’d actually gone and done it. God’s Chosen Penitents were all good as dead. That bloody idiot actually believed God would protect them from the reavers, and the followers fell for it. And whose dumb idea was it to add singing and bloody tambourines to their stupid ‘Test of faith’? That racket’s a bloody ‘dinner’s ready’ call to reavers anywhere near the estate. Those poor people. Maybe some wouldn’t look, wouldn’t make eye contact, and survive. Fat chance.

It would be a miracle if anyone on the estate managed to sleep that night. Maybe Granddad’s awake. No, wait, the old man’s away somewhere. Chris pushed off the duvet, swung his legs over the edge of the bed, and sat up, checking the thick blackout curtains were fully closed.

Down across the square, Rubin’s lot are singing ‘My Sweet Lord.’ That nutter is gonna get everyone killed. Little Eddie and Gareth were a real laugh when their parents weren’t around. And old Mrs Fontaine with her weird sayings, and Jackie, she’d told him she would run away when she turned eighteen. They were all going to die tonight.

The rumble of hooves echoed off the housing block on either side of the road leading into the estate. Oh no, Chris groaned. The noise scattered across the pavement, jumped onto the green, rolled back onto the road, and crashed into the chanting, shattering it into screams. Short death groans, and grunts drowned in the snap of bones, joints tearing apart, and flesh ripping. The screaming lasted less than a minute. One minute for the reavers to turn people into pieces of meat on the bone and start eating.

Chris went out into the hallway, where the noise wasn’t so bad and sat on the steps. Someone in the block, it sounded like a girl, was screaming. No, actually, it was coming from outside. She must have kept her eyes shut in the middle of that hell. The loud, ravenous gnawing and deep guttural growls of satisfaction, like a bunch of guys, totally pissed and having a great time at a free, all-you-can-eat party. The monsters were totally into it, a hundred per cent revels, loving every single second, minute after minute, on and on.

The eating ended with deep, long howls peppered with bones snapping, snarls, and what might even have been laughing; that was weird. A clatter of hooves, and they’re gone. Other noises filled the silence; Dogs barking, people sobbing, some pretty loud, some idiot praying aloud, and children crying. A few hours later, another rage, or maybe the same, turned up, scuffled about, grunted, and growled. It really did sound like they were talking. That same scream cried out again but muffled like it was in a room somewhere. Then those reavers left.

The last time something like this happened was months ago. Then it was just one guy. The CCTV camera inside the entrance to the block caught the whole thing. Well, aside from the reavers who don’t show on screen, like vampires. The guy, pissed out of his head, staggers to the tower block entrance and fumbles for his keys. He leans forward to open the door, falls forwards, bangs his head, slides to the ground, and falls asleep. The noise of the reavers arriving wakes him up. He stares at something. That had to be the moment he made eye contact. You see him lifted off the ground then the screen goes blank. Of course, the security firm deleted the bit where the guy was ripped apart and eaten. Bang, dead, just like that, shredded. Hardly anything left of him, just bones. Even his ripped clothes had pretty much all the blood sucked out. No one heard a thing. Guy probably didn’t even have time to shout. People who saw CCTV of other people being eaten say reavers must have long, razor-sharp nails or talons because of how the throat and heart are ripped into before anything else.

The second time Chris woke up and turned to face the clock, it was 6.47. He could have done with a couple of hours more sleep. Instead, he sat up slowly and stretched. Then he opened the curtains, &*&$%, he swore, squinting at the clear sunlight and streaks of blue lightning darting across the sky. Dan’s gang was already out in the square outside the low-level block, going through the flats and cleaning out anything useful. They were even piling stuff into a van. That screaming last night must have been Jackie. Miss Keats held her hand and an arm around her waist, leading Jackie to her place.

No hot water, then. Chris threw water over his face and went downstairs to the kitchen. The kettle spluttered on and off, so he stood there with his finger on the button. Bloody eldritch lightning. He finally got some boiling water and made a cup of tea with the last half inch of milk. He didn’t bother with toast. The last few slices of their bread ration would do for lunch. He drank the tea while flicking through one of Granddad’s notebooks. The old boy had filled this one with notes, magicians’ hand movement drawings, Feynman diagrams and what looked like wiggly elastic bands. Oh, right, string theory, that was it. Chris shoved the journal away, made himself a peanut butter and jam sandwich, and ate while looking across the city. The lightning was dying down. Chris finished breakfast and poured the last few drops of tea into the sink. The lift should be working by now, might as well get some milk.

The lift stank of bleach and piss. Chris avoided leaning against the graffiti-covered wall. He yawned up at the lights over the door, blinking down through the odd numbers. The doors finally ground open, and he headed out of the building, sliding his hands into the pockets of his hoodie.

The green outside had been churned into a layer of soil and clumps of bloodied grass. He walked around it and joined a few dozen people bunched into two groups, standing along the small front gardens of the three-story block. More people stood further away, moving their heads and craning their necks for a better look.

The doors and windows of all the Chosen Penitent homes were open, so you could see right into where they lived. Had lived. Died, could you call being ripped apart and eaten alive ‘died’?

Chairs, shreds of clothes and broken bones lay scattered in churned, blood-sucked clumps of soil and grass. Pieces of jewellery, crucifixes, Stars of David, tambourines, broken guitars, strings of bells, candles, small statues of saints and other holy characters were strewn across the narrow stretch of lawn along the front of the block. Religion, great job, guys.

Other people on the estate shot quick looks on their way to work while parents led their kids to school along the path that took them away from the block.

Someone pointed back at the other high-rise block, and Chris followed their gaze. Jesus, he murmured. From the claw marks and gouges on the concrete, someone must have peeked out and made eye contact, so the bloody reavers climbed up the concrete walls and smashed through the windows to eat the guy. They must have some weird way of knowing when someone is looking at them.

Then Father Duncan, the Community Protector, turned up, ringing a bell like there was no tomorrow, along with a bunch of volunteers from his congregation, and started handing out leaflets and trying to talk to people. Then a minibus pulled up. New Lycus recruits, bunch of knobs in cheap urban combat uniforms, stepped out and got to work putting up barriers in a T-shape, splitting off the two groups and where it happened. Someone in the crowd called, Clive, you back? Where’s your blankey and slippers, you wanker? This got the crowd laughing. Clive shifted the rifle strap up his shoulder and scowled. The other tossers stood around posing and bossing it up, trying to look mean and serious, making the most of their day out with real guns, while their supervisors, three big guys in crisp, sharp uniforms covered in brand logos, wandered up and down the line.

A prison bus rumbled up, and the back doors swung open. A dozen guys, zombied magicians dressed in bright green overalls, the dull red lights of suppressor collars blinking an ugly blood red, lumbered out and shuffled into a line to collect their cleaning equipment. Shaved heads, totally blank faces, some with fresh lobotomy scars. No way Chris would risk that.

Murmurs rippled through the crowds behind the barriers. People shuffled and craned to see if there was anyone new they might recognise. A couple of women ran off crying.

Here we go. Some people worked up the guts to tell everyone what they thought.

It ain’t right. Magicians are people too.

Yeah, Satan’s people.

What if it was your kid?

I bet they summon them.

You should all be arrested.

Go to hell.

What, like your sister?

A barrier went down with a heavy clang, and Chris walked away in case it all kicked off.

Yo, Chris, Andy caught up with him. Alright? His cheek twitched, making him blink, and he scratched the long scar under his scraggy blonde hair.

Hey, Andy.

Talk about insane, eh? Eh?

Yeh, you got my comics?

Course, in the bag. Andy swung the backpack hanging over his shoulder and unzipped it to show Chris the half dozen comics inside, Can I come up and finish reading them?

Really? No, you had them all week; give ’em here.

Oh, come on. Don’t blame me. Mandy came round last night. I didn’t have time to read them all. Look, I got a couple of phials.

Andy had potion? That wouldn’t be a bad idea after last night. Fine.

Cool, cool cool cool. Wait, where you going?

Shop, Chris said, raising his hand with the empty bottle, get some milk.

Oh yeah, delivery day. Rocky was selling cheese slices the other day.

Chris gave him a sideways look, Real cheese? You believed him.

Andy shrugged, hitched the backpack up his shoulder, and walked alongside Chris, his strange bouncy walk stopping him from walking in a straight line.

Saw Jim yesterday, Andy said, his eyes darting up and down the street, down to see his mum.

She changed her mind about Hannah?

Nah, said he was here to pick up his football gear. There’s a local team down there. Wow, that is so cool. A giffiti of a dragon drinking from a pool in some hyper-colourful oasis covered the wall down one side of the shop. It forever scooped up water and tossed its head back. Vision’s tag was in the bottom corner.

That is such cool graffiti, Andy said, D’you think that’s what they see?

Giffiti, it moves, Chris said.

Wish they had a potion so we could see that stuff, Andy said, getting himself stuck with Chris in the shop’s doorway. Andy pushed through and went over to the magazine rack. Chris went to the fridge and took out a bottle of milk.

Hey Andy, Amir called out from behind the counter, you must buy something this time.

I need to see first, Andy protested.

I only see your friend buy comics. Shame on you for not buying any.

This got to Andy. He grumbled something and gave Chris a guilty look. Then, he stared at the comic for a few seconds, fumbled through his pockets, kept a hold of the comic, and joined Chris at the counter.

So, Mr Chris, Amir said, taking the empty bottle, When am I going to see those comics you bought? It’s been a month. You haven’t sold them to Eric, have you? You know I give best prices.

Chris glanced at Andy, Tomorrow, I promise.

Amir nodded, then, leaning slightly to one side, looked past Chris, Hey, Penny, watch your boy.

Penny hadn’t noticed her kid, Eddy, eating a small plum. She gave Amir a guilty look and slapped the back of Eddy’s head. I’ll pay for it, she scowled at Eddy, who stared up at her, confused.

Miss Keats does the best plums, Andy said.

Mm, Chris mumbled, let’s go.

In Chris’s bedroom, they cracked open a phial in front of their faces. The potion inside dissolved into fumes that drifted up and curled into their ears. Andy settled on the floor, leaning against the bed, and picked up a comic.

Chris stood at the open window, the cool breeze on his face translating into a thread of melodies that weaved through his mind. The last streaks of silvery blue snaked through the sky, adding more layers to the tune. The streaks eventually faded, and the music changed along with it. Made sense, eldritch lighting, potion. Magic, like they say, ‘Everything is Connected.’

London was a broken maze of streets, houses, new tower blocks, and ugly patches of rubble and wasteland, untouched since the war. With the lightning gone, radios and TVs were working again, and the distant, steady drone of traffic rose from the streets. Digital screen hoarding boards blinked into life. Way off in the distance, south of the river, gleaming streams of colour moved and curled like an oil puddle across the Enclave dome. How many magicians were in there now? Not even Lycus knew.

Would you run away when you’re called up for testing? Andy said behind him, lowering the comic.

Too right he would. The best thing that could happen was for his magic to switch on before the call-up for the test arrived; then, he’d know not to hang around and get necked if it came back positive. He had it all planned out; fake ID, a little magic here, a little magic there, build up the cash, get rich in no time. Running off to the Enclave like most other guys? Right. And no way was he going to tell Andy, not anymore. Not since he hooked up with Mandy, who started dragging him to the Free Church every Sunday.

Are you? Chris asked.

Am I what?

Going to take the test?

Mandy says the laws there to protect us from sin? Andy shook his head. Then he looked down and lowered his voice, Chris.

What?

You know what? Andy carried on in a whisper, I reckon if I was a magician, I’d fly off or disappear before the test. Don’t tell Mandy, though.

It’s not worth explaining how that didn’t make sense; no one had ever seen a magician fly.

Yeh, Andy found a thread and clung to it, I’d go secret like. Magic my face so no one would know me, start making exotic stuff to sell.

Right, Chris murmured. Andy would never get better or be the same guy he’d known since they were kids. Some reward for saving his little sister’s life.

Down on the green, the cleaning crew shuffled in and out of the block with buckets, mops, brooms, and plastic waste bags. Beyond the estate, Miss Keats showed Jackie around her allotment, pointing out herbs and vegetables. Jackie looked alright. She even smiled a few times. Dolores, one of Miss Keats’ regular helpers, pushed a small wheelbarrow between the rows of vegetables. She must have a hundred pairs of dungarees. He’d never seen her with the same pair. Her long dreds, full of ribbons and beads, hung over her check shirt.

’Ere, Andy said, what if you were a magician, in secret like, would you go out with a magician girl?

Not Colin and Briony again.

I bet he went with her back to the Enclave. You could go too. Get a hot magician girlfriend born there, grew up hundred percent full-on magic. Just think, magic sex.

Give it a rest, Andy. It ain’t funny anymore. You’re just being weird.

Andy laughed, Come on, man, who wouldn’t? Just ’cause they don’t have souls--.

No souls? Mate, don’t start with religion. We had a deal.

Yeah, but Jesus--.

No, just stop.

Shit, he didn’t expect Andy to be so shocked. Hopefully, he wouldn’t tell the community protector.

Chris elbowed Andy, Just kidding.

Andy responded with his cheerful, dumb smile.

Forget it, Chris said, come on, let’s play some Killzone.

Copy that, Andy slung the comic onto the floor.

Hey, Chris said, careful.

Sorry.

Chapter Two

"Always hold fast to the present. Every situation, indeed every moment, is of infinite value, for it is the representative of a whole eternity."

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The loud, dull thud of foot-thick willow and oak doors slam shut, and thirteen iron bolts slide and lock in place, sending an oily black glow through the tangled veins of crystal and iron runes woven across the door’s surface. The noise resonates across fields of barbed concertina wire layered with condensation that glints in the morning light like a constellation of fallen stars.

The slate grey security ambulance rumbles along the narrow tarmac road and away from the vast prison.

Faint vibrations rattle through Lizzy lying on the thin mattress, and her body shakes, drawing her out of heavy sleep. She tries to force her eyes open and fails. What’s happening? This isn’t her cell or one of the lab containment units. The close, grubby sweat of men, stale, unwashed clothes, chemicals, plastic, and metal. That noise. Is she...? No. A hollow groan turns her stomach. She’s in an ambulance. This, her body, there’s a different, new drug inside her. She can’t tense up, and her breathing remains slow and shallow.

Try moving again. No. Straps on her arms and legs dig into her skin. An unfamiliar sizzling swarms through her nerves, and she grimaces. What have they put inside her?

She’s waking up.

What?

I saw her move.

That’s impossible. Give her another dose.

I just did.

Then give her one more.

You what? It could kill her.

Give me the bloody syringe.

The ice-cold needle slides through her warm, soft skin into a vein, and Lizzy becomes a ruddy-soaked glob of flesh, muscle and sinew clumped around fragile bones, with no mouth to scream. No time passes. She finally reforms, but now that other thing inside spreads, working through her mind, searching her memories of something, of her magic. Lizzy is dragged into a dense fog, pinched with the ratty squeal of rusty wheels. Ghostly shapes emerge from the smoky shadows. Porters with blank faces push gurneys on which girls, pale and naked but for flimsy shorts, are bound down on thin mattresses. Purple, red, and brown bruises rise and fade across their limbs. Other girls strapped in wheelchairs stare agonised at nothing, their bulging eyes gleaming blood red. With long needles rising from their heads, Petite, younger girls lie, mouths open in silent screams. Then she’s at the door to her cell. But it’s grubby, blood-smudged and covered in short

No. Lizzy stumbles back and falls into a blue sky above a forest road. There’s an ambulance going along the road below her. All the metal is transparent. She can see herself lying on the gurney, wearing a thin t-shirt and pyjama bottoms. A podgy, balding guard in a creased, pale grey uniform leers over her. His breath stinks of tobacco, and his sickly green aura clings to him like cancer. Another man dressed in a white lab coat and smoking blows out a light grey plume, and the aura around his stubbly face turns a grey-green. She used to see auras when she was little. How long ago was that?

They’re deep in the forest, miles away from the field of razor wires half a mile wide around the prison. The ambulance turns off the broken tarmac and churns down a long-neglected track. Gears grunt down, and the ambulance lumbers into a clearing, following a sharp incline that curves alongside a drop to a dry stream. Birds scatter up into the sky, and trees fall silent. Creatures scuttle away through the undergrowth. Heavy wheels crunch over roots, broken twigs and branches, and the movement of Lizzy’s body down there resonates in her up here.

The scars of tyre marks still cover the ground. It’s been here before, a long time ago. It parks up by some rusty oil barrels where a pile of bones and burnt clothes lie half-buried under the ashes of an old fire, and the engine cuts out like an ancient beast clearing its throat.

A large raven swoops down over the trees, its charcoal ebony wings stretched out. It circles once and then settles on a high branch. It ruffles its feathers and then takes a couple of steps to better view the ambulance, tapping its claw.

The cabin door swings open, and the driver, a fat man with a doughy face, steps down and heads to the back. He tramples over charred fragments of bone and wood, unbuttoning his grubby uniform jacket. He’s got the same ugly eager expression as the people inside the ambulance. He bangs his stumpy fist on the back door, spits a piece of gum, then mutters something and wipes the back of a hand across his stubbled jaw.

The stocky man inside opens the door and says something, so two men step into the vehicle laughing. The metal door clunks shut.

Me first.

Lizzy snaps back into her body. There are hands all over her, gripping, pushing her shoulders down, grabbing her wrists, undoing the straps on her legs, and pulling at her pyjamas.

She cries out, and her slurred, angry protest makes one of the men let out a guttural laugh.

There’s a sickening sensation across her chest. She takes a deep breath, and that thing inside her spews from her abdomen.

Lizzy sits inside a churning inferno cut through with a shattered web of ugly thick black fumes. Shadowy figures thrash about and drop to the floor. A grinding creak, a loud clang, and a glowing white light appears on the firestorm’s edge. A doorway.

Lizzy floats upright, head bowed, arms hanging limply by her side. She drifts through the door into a cool haze of browns and greens and, settling on earth, hobbles to the other side of the clearing. A gentle breeze blows across her thin, faded grey pyjama bottoms and T-shirt.

The uneven grind and creak of metal bending echo through the forest, scattering the birdsong. The stench of burnt flesh and plastic, cut with the sharp, acrid smell of chemicals and metal, bleeds out across the clearing in a pool of black fumes and spreads around her. Lizzy scrunches her face, puts a hand across her nose and mouth, and twitches her fingers. Kupok kuppasumida. It’s a simple spell. Mum had taught her after tiring of constantly telling her to close doors. Behind her, the ambulance door slams shut, muffling the firestorm inside. Magic courses through her again after so long, so long.

The forest jumps forward and back in time, switching between is and was, blurring in and out of then and now. Only Lizzy is still in time. She breathes slowly and deeply, and the browns, greens, and golds settle. Reality responds to her attention. A ‘now’ ripples out from her and through the forest to the reality beyond. Crisp, fresh air soaks into and through her. Centred, she relaxes. She is finally here, now.

The starless black raven stands out from the haze of colours and stares at her with ebony eyes reflecting nothing. Lizzy gazes back, and both tilt their heads. Behind her, the ambulance crunches and buckles inwards with slow, jerky motions like a beast’s dying convulsions. Smoke and shards of flame spurt through blackened metal cracks. The windscreen shatters in a spray of shimmering fragments that hover motionless in the air and then drop, crackling across the soft ground. The door snaps off from the top hinge, hangs at an angle, then breaks off and thumps down. Slow waves of black smoke bloom and ripple across the clearing, throwing ash and leaves into the air.

The raven hops along the branch and then flies off with harsh and furious cries of Kraaa, kraaa, kraaa.

Lizzy stumbles out of the clearing and weaves away into the forest until there are only the sounds of birds and whispering trees. The air it’s so fresh, so alive. A million shades of sun-speckled greens and browns phase in and out of focus around her. Trees, bushes, and wildflowers shudder and shift in her wavering attention, full of uncertainty. Lizzy takes a few long breaths, and the forest responds like a painting coming into focus; colours and contours sharpen. Yet, something’s not right. Something is missing. Oh, yes, the real wall, the prison’s constant cold, faint hum, it’s gone.

A forest. Was this