fuonlyknew

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Enjoy this glimpse inside A Criminal Magic

A CRIMINAL MAGIC is a historical fantasy that takes place in Prohibition-era America, but magic instead of alcohol has been prohibited.  It follows sorcerer Joan and undercover agent Alex as they become entangled in the magic underworld.  We pick up with sorcerer Joan, on the eve of her audition for the criminal Shaw Gang:

A block of cold cement takes shape amid the forest. It looks like a prison, maybe a warehouse, with a narrow stitch of windows running like a border around the top. There’s a little gravel lot surrounding the place, a small white island shining under the hazy moon, but no cars besides Gunn’s.

“We’re here.” Gunn nods to the backseat. “Grab your things.”

We crunch across the gravel lot and approach the warehouse entrance. Gunn takes off a block of wood that’s barricading the door on our side, props it against the concrete wall. Then he opens the door and offers me his hand. I just think Ruby, Ruby, Ruby, Ben, Ben, Ben, and I force myself to grasp it, to allow this gangster to lead me by the hand into a locked warehouse in the middle of nowhere.

It’s too black inside to see anything, and so I step carefully, the scuff of my work boots against the concrete floor the only sound through the dark lofted space. It takes a near minute for my eyes to adjust, and when they do, I see the floor is littered with at least a dozen occupied cots.

“Who are they?” I whisper.

“The other sorcerers,” Gunn answers. “Fifteen of you in total, though only seven will be staying beyond my experiment.” Seven.  I look around at the smattering of satchels littered around each cot, each sorcerer thrown over a thin mattress like a twisted bag of flour. Old, young, men, women, from what I can make out. I wonder where they’re from. I wonder what they can do. I wonder if they’ll all perform circles around me in whatever “experiment” awaits us tomorrow.

Stop. You will succeed. You must succeed.

Gunn clutches his keys in his palm, and the sudden jangle prompts a few of the sleeping sorcerers to grunt and roll over. “I need to go. It’s late, and we’re starting nice and early tomorrow.”

“Wait—” But the word hangs there alone. There’s too many other ones to choose from—where are you going you gonna leave me here where the heck are we—that I can’t figure out where to start.

“That one’s yours.” Gunn points to the one empty sunken mattress in the corner. He tips his white fedora, a cotton ghost floating in a haunted warehouse, and turns on his heel. “Get some rest.”

“Mr. Gunn—” I whisper, but he’s already back out the door. He closes it, gives a faint grunt as he slides the block of wood over the door to lock it on the other side.

Nerves on fire, I force myself to tiptoe around the minefield of sleeping sorcerers and lie down as quietly as possible on the empty cot. The thing’s all coils and sharp edges, but I just close my eyes, wrap myself around my knapsack, and pray for a sleep as deep and dark as sleep can get.

But I’m too wound up. One of the men a few feet away shifts with a squeak in his cot, and I give a gasp before I can help it. Another wheezes—whispers?—while a nearby cough nearly sends me jumping off my mattress.

I turn over, close my eyes, pinch out the warehouse. I need to calm down. I need to cut my fear out, bottle it, and put it on a shelf.

But then I feel something warm and soft slip up against my neck. I give a startled yelp and whip my head around. “Who’s there?”

No answer. And no one has moved. But I feel it again, this time on my arm, that brush of softness like a large paintbrush. No, softer, almost—almost like fur, and then the quickest slap of something else, like the whip of a tiny tail.

Out of the darkness molds something half the length of my forearm and twice as wide, whiskers prickling my skin, little feet pattering over my fingers. Fur. Tail. Rat.

I push the animal away as hard as I can, and the thing goes squealing, flying to the border of the next cot, but it doesn’t skitter away. Instead it comes back at me again, bounds forward like a hell-spawned rodent and starts climbing over my right leg. I sit up, kick at it, hear myself whimpering. Do not cry Joan do not cry Joan—

I attempt to push it into the fuzzy dark that swallows the back of the warehouse, but the slippery bastard manages to squirrel out of my fingers, bounds up my arm, and races over my stomach, its dirty paws pressing into my shirt as it attaches itself to my other arm. I writhe away, swat at it as it runs over my shoulder, into my hair. “Get off!” I command the small monster.

As soon as I say it, I hear a soft, muffled chuckling.

And then, to my immediate right, a woman’s voice: “Leave her alone, Stock.”

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