Magic City: Recent Spells Read online

  MAGIC CITY:

  RECENT SPELLS

  edited by

  PAULA GURAN

  Copyright © 2014 by Paula Guran.

  Cover art by Joseph Corsentino.

  Cover design by Sherin Nicole.

  Ebook design by Neil Clarke.

  All stories are copyrighted to their respective authors, and used here with their permission.

  ISBN: 978-1-60701-436-2 (ebook)

  ISBN: 978-1-60701-427-0 (trade paperback)

  PRIME BOOKS

  www.prime-books.com

  No portion of this book may be reproduced by any means, mechanical, electronic, or otherwise, without first obtaining the permission of the copyright holder.

  For more information, contact Prime Books at [email protected].

  CONTENTS

  Introduction: Metropolitan Magic — Paula Guran

  Street Wizard — Simon R. Green

  Paranormal Romance — Christopher Barzak

  Grand Central Park — Delia Sherman

  Spellcaster 2.0 — Jonathan Maberry

  Wallamelon — Nisi Shawl

  -30- — Caitlín R. Kiernan

  Seeing Eye — Patricia Briggs

  Stone Man — Nancy Kress

  In the Stacks — Scott Lynch

  A Voice Like a Hole — Catherynne M. Valente

  The Arcane Art of Misdirection — Carrie Vaughn

  The Thief of Precious Things — A. C. Wise

  The Land of Heart’s Desire — Holly Black

  Snake Charmer — Amanda Downum

  The Slaughtered Lamb — Elizabeth Bear

  The Woman Who Walked with Dogs — Mary Rosenblum

  Words — Angela Slatter

  Dog Boys — Charles de Lint

  Alchemy — Lucy Sussex

  Curses — Jim Butcher

  De la Tierra — Emma Bull

  Stray Magic — Diana Peterfreund

  Kabu Kabu — Nnedi Okorafor (with Alan Dean Foster)

  Pearlywhite — Marc Laidlaw & John Shirley

  Acknowledgements

  There’s a bit of magic in everything

  And then some loss to even things out.

  —Lou Reed “Magic and Loss”

  INTRODUCTION:

  METROPOLITAN MAGIC

  Paula Guran

  I. Magic

  Magic used to be “real”—meaning people believed in it. (Some folks still do. Maybe we all do, to some extent . . . but that’s a tangent we won’t explore here.) Magic influenced the course of natural events or achieved the impossible. But it took special powers, or preternatural talent, or sorcerous learning, or special words, cryptic symbols, or strange spells, or manipulation of the gods, or . . . you get the idea . . . to access the supernatural side of things. Magic might be all around, but you had to know how to reach it because there was always a border, an edge, a barrier between the mundane and the magical.

  Without reality, there was no magic. The real and the unreal coexisted and were mutually dependent. Without the natural, there could be no supernatural; no paranormal without the normal.

  Authors use magic in many ways in their fictions, and learned people have produced many erudite words to discuss how they do so. I’m neither learned nor erudite. I merely want to offer the thematic premise for this anthology. But I think we can all more or less agree that for fantasy and/or magic to truly and effectively capture the reader’s imagination, it still needs to be grounded in reality. (Or perhaps be the reverse of it. The equation still holds.)

  You can create your own fantasy world (or entire universe)—one where “our world” doesn’t exist—but to successfully tell your story it will need to have its own reality—its own rules and limitations—even if it is quite different from our (consensual) reality. Magic may be common in the imagined world, but it still needs to function with self-contained consistency or at least an attachment to customarily accepted concepts whether they are arcane secrets or the sciences.

  Or you can base your fantastic story in a version of our world and bend it to accommodate the magical. These environments can be open—where the existence of the supernatural is known to exist, at least by some—or closed—where “otherness” is concealed from common knowledge. A magical world can exist parallel to our own: sometimes accessible through a gateway or portal, or perhaps with some bleeding back and forth across that barrier I mentioned above. It can even be, overall, the world we live in, but where magic once functioned in the past and has now “thinned” out to nonexistence (or nearly so).

  Whatever the magical “system” or fantastical world an author invents, when it comes to magic there’s often some price to pay to use it—as minimal as the draining of physical energy or as dire as death. Maybe that’s a remnant of our primal idea of the balance between the natural and the supernatural.

  II. Cities and Recent Spells

  These are stories about various magics set in the varied realities of those comparatively permanent human settlements we call cities.

  For most of you reading this, a city—large or small—is your native environment. And even if you live in a rural area or very small town, our society is primarily urban and you, personally, have vital connections to cities. Cities are, more than ever, our world—the primary symbol of our current reality.

  All these stories were written in the twenty-first century, a time in which this urban reality rules more than ever. In fact, except for two tales, all were written within the past decade.

  Most of them have contemporary, if fantastically modified, metropolitan settings—Chicago (twice), Cleveland, Detroit (maybe twice) and Kalamazoo, Las Vegas, London, Los Angeles, New York (three times), Providence, Seattle—and a few fictional but modern-day nameless, cities. I wanted, however, to offer at least a glimpse or two of very different urban locales. In “Alchemy” Lucy Sussex take us back to the ancient city of Babylon. Scott Lynch provides us with an example of an “other universe fantasy city” with “In the Stacks.” Alison Wise, in “The Thief of Precious Things,” takes us to a near-future city. And no modern collection of stories about magic and cities could be considered complete without at least a short visit to Bordertown—a city invented by Terri Windling (and written about by many writers) that lies on the border between “the Elflands” and “the World”—which Catherynne M. Valente provides in “A Voice Like A Hole.”

  Love, crime, vengeance, salvation, revelation, adventure, triumph, tragedy, and more all mix with magic in the cauldron of the city. Expect to meet wizards, witches, faeries, magicians, demons, elves, shape-changers, magic-makers without convenient labels . . . and, of course, the unexpected . . . on our supernatural streets.

  Writers-as-characters seek out magic (as in Caitlín R. Kiernan’s “-30-”) or, as Angela Slatter’s protagonist does in “Words,” conjure it themselves. We visit universities—cities have always been places of learning—twice: once in the Lynch story and, in a much more modern context, with Jonathan Maberry’s “Spellcaster 2.0.”

  Sometimes, as in “Paranormal Romance” by Christopher Barzak or Elizabeth Bear’s “The Slaughtered Lamb,” your own magical powers don’t seem to do you, personally, much good. Magic can be a city-dweller’s career—like it is for the wizards in Jim Butcher’s “Curses” and Simon R. Green’s “Street Wizard,” or a way of life, as it is for characters in “Seeing Eye” by Patricia Briggs or Amanda Downum’s “Snake Charmer.” Humans can intera
ct with fairies and their magical powers in very different ways as shown in Delia Sherman’s “Grand Central Park,” “The Land of Heart’s Desire” by Holly Black, and Emma Bull’s “De la Tierra” (among others).

  Magic can suddenly enter your metropolitan life unexpectedly as it does for a lawyer in Nnedi Okorafor’s “Kabu Kabu” and a high school boy in “Dog Boys” by Charles de Lint. Or it can be there all along, but undiscovered—as many things often are in cities. Such discoveries are made in Diana Peterfreund’s “Stray Magic,” “The Woman Who Walked with Dogs” by Mary Rosenblum, “Stone Man” by Nancy Kress, and Carrie Vaughn’s “The Arcane Art of Misdirection.”

  And don’t be surprised to find some of our protagonists to be on the younger side. Children and young adults seem to be able to find magic more easily than grown-ups—or perhaps they more desperately need it to survive the city as Nisi Shawl (“Wallamelon”) and Mark Laidlaw and John Shirley (“Pearlywhite”) show.

  Are these stories “urban fantasy”? Well, that’s a term that started out defining one thing, was accidently applied to something else, and is now changing yet again. But if you want to keep it simple, to quote one of our authors, Elizabeth Bear: “In urban fantasy you don’t leave the chip shop and go to another world to find the unicorn. Rather, the unicorn shows up at the chip shop and orders the cod.”

  Most chip shops are found in cities and towns. Urban areas.

  23 February 2014

  (John Keats died on this day in 1821)

  Paula Guran

  The City: London, England.

  The Magic: A night in the life of an urban public servant: lots of responsibility, hardly any authority, and the pay sucks . . . but when you can See all the wonders of the hidden world, you walk in magic and work miracles, and the night is full of glory.

  STREET WIZARD

  Simon R. Green

  I believe in magic. It’s my job.

  I’m a street wizard, work for London City Council. I don’t wear a pointy hat, I don’t live in a castle, and no one in my line of work has used a wand since tights went out of fashion. I’m paid the same money as a traffic warden, but I don’t even get a free uniform. I just get to clean up other people’s messes, and prevent trouble when I can. It’s a magical job, but someone’s got to do it.

  My alarm goes off at nine o’clock sharp every evening, and that’s when my day begins. When the sun’s already sliding down the sky towards evening, with night pressing close on its heels. I do all the usual things everyone else does at the start of their day, and then I check I have all the tools of my trade before I go out: salt, holy water, crucifix, silver dagger, wooden stake. No guns, though. Guns get you noticed.

  I live in a comfortable enough flat, over an off-license, right on the edge of Soho. Good people, mostly. But when the sun goes down and the night takes over, a whole new kind of people move in. The tourists and the punters and every other eager little soul with more money than sense. Looking for a good time, they fill up the streets with stars in their eyes and avarice in their hearts, all looking for a little something to take the edge off, to satisfy their various longings.

  Someone has to watch their backs, to protect them from the dangers they don’t even know are out there.

  By the time I’m ready to leave, two drunken drag queens are arguing shrilly under my window, caught up in a slanging match. It’ll all end in tears and wig-pulling, but I leave them to it, and head out into the tangle of narrow streets that make up Soho. Bars and restaurants, night clubs and clip joints, hot neon and cold hard cash. The streets are packed with furtive-eyed people, hot on the trail of everything that’s bad for them. It’s my job to see they get home safely, or at least that they only fall prey to the everyday perils of Soho.

  I never set out to be a street wizard. Don’t suppose anyone does. But, like music and mathematics, with magic it all comes down to talent. All the hard work in the world will only get you so far; to be a Major Player you have to be born to the Craft. The rest of us play the cards we’re dealt. And do the jobs that need doing.

  I start my working day at a greasy spoon caff called Dingley Dell. There must have been a time when I found that funny, but I can’t remember when. The caff is the agreed meeting place for all the local street wizards, a stopping off place for information, gossip, and a hot cup of tea before we have to face the cold of the night. It’s not much of a place, all steamed-up windows, Formica-covered tables, plastic chairs, and a full greasy breakfast if you can stomach it. There’s only ever thirteen of us, to cover all the hot spots in Soho. There used to be more, but the budget’s not what it used to be.

  We sit around patiently, sipping blistering tea from chipped china, while the Supervisor drones on, telling us things he thinks we need to know. We hunch our shoulders and pretend to listen.

  He’s not one of us. He’s just a necessary intermediary between us and the Council. We only put up with him because he’s responsible for overtime payments.

  A long miserable streak of piss, and mean with it, Bernie Drake likes to think he runs a tight ship. Which basically means he moans a lot, and we call him Gladys behind his back.

  “All right, listen up! Pay attention and you might just get through tonight with all your fingers, and your soul still attached.” That’s Drake. If a fart stood upright and wore an ill-fitting suit, it could replace our Supervisor and we wouldn’t even notice. “We’ve had complaints! Serious complaints. Seems a whole bunch of booze demons have been possessing the more vulnerable tourists, having their fun and then abandoning their victims at the end of the night, with really bad hangovers and no idea how they got them. So watch out for the signs, and make sure you’ve got an exorcist on speed dial for the stubborn ones. We’ve also had complaints about magic shops that are there one day and gone the next, before the suckers can come running back to complain the goods don’t work. So if you see a shop front you don’t recognize, call it in. And, Jones, stay away from the wishing wells! I won’t tell you again. Padgett, leave the witches alone! They’ve got a living to make, same as the rest of us.

  “And, if anybody cares—apparently something’s been eating traffic wardens. All right, all right, that’s enough hanging around. Get out there and do some good. Remember, you’ve a quota to meet.”

  We’re already up and on our feet and heading out, muttering comments just quietly enough that the Supervisor can pretend he doesn’t hear them. It’s the little victories that keep you going. We all take our time about leaving, just to show we won’t be hurried. I take a moment to nod politely to the contingent of local working girls, soaking up what warmth they can from the caff, before a long night out on the cold, cold streets. We know them, and they know us, because we all walk the same streets and share the same hours. All decked out in bright colors and industrial strength makeup, they chatter together like gaudy birds of paradise, putting off the moment when they have to go out to work.

  Rachel looks across at me, and winks. I’m probably the only one there who knows her real name. Everyone else just calls her Red, after her hair. Not much room for subtlety, in the meat market. Not yet thirty, and already too old for the better locations, Red wears a heavy coat with hardly anything underneath it, and stilettos with heels long enough to qualify as deadly weapons. She crushes a cigarette in an ashtray, blows smoke into the steamy air, and gets up to join me. Just casually, in passing.

  “Hello, Charlie boy. How’s tricks?”

  “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”

  We both smile. She thinks she knows what I do, but she doesn’t. Not really.

  “Watch yourself out there, Charlie boy. Lot of bad people around these days.”

  I pay attention. Prossies hear a lot. “Anyone special in mind, Red?”

  But she’s already moving away. Working girls never let themselves get close to anyone. “Let me just check I’ve got all my things; straight razor, knuckle duster, pepper spray, condoms and lube. There; ready for anything.”

  “B
e good, Red.”

  “I’m always good, Charlie boy.”

  I hold the door open for her, and we go out into the night.

  I walk my beat alone, up and down and back and forth, covering the streets of Soho in a regular pattern. Dark now, only artificial light standing between us and everything the night holds. The streets are packed with tourists and punters, in search of just the right place to be properly fleeced, and then sent on their way with empty pockets and maybe a few nice memories to keep them going till next time. Neon blazes and temptation calls, but that’s just the Soho everyone sees. I see a hell of a sight more, because I’m a street wizard. And I have the Sight.

  When I raise my Sight, I can See the world as it really is, and not as most people think it is. I See all the wonders and marvels, the terrors and the nightmares, the glamour and magic and general weird shit most people never even know exists. I raise my Sight and look on the world with fresh eyes, and the night comes alive, bursting with hidden glories and miracles, gods and monsters. And I See it all.

  Gog and Magog, the giants, go fist-fighting through the back streets of Soho; bigger than buildings, their huge misty forms smash through shops and businesses without even touching them. Less than ghosts, but more than memories, Gog and Magog fight a fight that will never end till history itself comes stumbling to a halt. They were here before London, and there are those who say they’ll still be here long after London is gone.

  Wee-winged fairies come slamming down the street like living shooting stars, darting in and out of the lamp posts in a gleeful game of tag, leaving long shimmering trails behind them. Angels go line dancing on the roof of Saint Giles’ Church. And a handful of Men in Black check the details of parked vehicles, because not everything that looks like a car is a car. Remember the missing traffic wardens?

  If everyone could See the world as it really is, and not as we would have it—if they could See everything and everyone they share the world with—they’d shit themselves. They’d go stark staring mad. They couldn’t cope. It’s a much bigger world than people think, bigger and stranger than most of them can imagine. It’s my job to see that the hidden world stays hidden, and that none of it spills over into the safe and sane everyday world.