Strange Magic

  Strange Magic

  Gord Rollo

  LEISURE BOOKS NEW YORK CITY

  A Stranger in Town

  The Stranger sat, looking out the windows of the truck. No guards or sentries stood watch outside the town, no lookouts to warn Kemp. The town of Billington sat unprotected and at his mercy.

  A vision began to form in his mind, surely a message from the trunk of secrets, because when he closed his eyes to concentrate there was blood everywhere. He saw himself walking through streets stained red with the life juices of his enemy, rivers of gore running in the gutters, and dead bodies of innocent people piled on the sides of the road like sacks of foul-smelling trash on garbage day. In his hands, he carried the severed head of Wilson Kemp, his ultimate prize in the coming fight. It was a wonderful revelation, a harbinger of things to come and it pleased the Stranger immensely.

  “Man, I can’t wait. This is gonna be so much fun.”

  This one is for my children: Amanda, Andrew, and Emily. Forgive me for always writing you cool cats in as characters in my books. Couldn’t resist!!!

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  A Stranger in Town

  Dedication

  Friday, September 18

  Chapter One: The Stranger

  Chapter Two: The Clown

  Chapter Three: The Pervert

  Chapter Four: Under the Cover of Darkness

  Saturday, September 19

  Chapter Five: Hardly a Laughing Matter

  Chapter Six: Pick a Card…Any Old Card

  Chapter Seven: Love Can Overcome Anything

  Chapter Eight: The Disappearing Man

  Sunday, September 20

  Chapter Nine: Savior in the Bottom of a Bottle

  Chapter Ten: A Walk in the Park

  Chapter Eleven: Interesting

  Chapter Twelve: Message from the Heatseeker

  Chapter Thirteen: Temptation

  Monday, September 21

  Chapter Fourteen: The Stairway to Hell

  Chapter Fifteen: We’ve Only Just Begun

  Chapter Sixteen: King of the Castle

  Chapter Seventeen: Missing the Bus

  Chapter Eighteen: Bloated, Disease-Ridden Ants

  Tuesday, September 22

  Chapter Nineteen: Last Day

  Chapter Twenty: Dark Secrets

  Chapter Twenty-One: The Greatest Show on Earth

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Digging Up Corpses

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Night Falls Faster

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Pick a Card…(Redux)

  Chapter Twenty-Five: She’s Dead

  Chapter Twenty-Six: The Midnight Meeting

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: Water in a Bottle

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: Perverted Peeping Priest

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: Hook, Line, and Sinker

  Wednesday, September 23

  Chapter Thirty: Finally Face-to-Face

  Chapter Thirty-One: The Boundary Between Life and Death

  Chapter Thirty-Two: Down Into the Dark

  Saturday, April 17

  Chapter Thirty-Three: Some Nightmares Never End

  Chapter Thirty-Four: Footsteps

  Praise

  Other Leisure Books by Gord Rollo

  Copyright

  FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 18

  THE STRANGER, THE DRUNKEN CLOWN, AND THE PERVERTED PEEPING TOM

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE STRANGER

  As with most things wicked, the war of the magicians began in darkness. Dark thoughts. Dark prayers. Dark secrets. Dark deeds. All overlapping shadows locked tightly within the Stranger’s ruthless cold heart. No guns were fired, no trumpets sounded, no armies charged but the countdown to inevitable violence had surely begun. Silence for now perhaps, but Wilson Kemp’s luck was finally running out…

  The final night of the Stranger’s hunt was bitterly cold, the sky filled with storm clouds as black as his ever-wicked mood. Only the light from one small flame in the middle of a damp wooded clearing fought valiantly to hold the stygian darkness at bay.

  It was losing the battle.

  Once, not long ago, the fire had blazed with the blinding strength of a hundred armies, causing the night to panic and retreat to safer distances. The entire clearing had been visible then; out to and including the ring of tall, sturdy pine trees encircling the small fire like an indestructible fort wall. Inside the coniferous battlements was an area roughly twenty feet across with an uneven grassy terrain that reeked with the fragrance of fresh pine. A couple of dirty dishes and some soiled blankets lay strewn beside an old antique travel trunk on the left side of the clearing. The king of the light, the raging fire, sat almost in the dead center of its natural kingdom, seated upon its flaming throne. It had cockily dared the night to take its best shot.

  The darkness had been smarter than that, choosing to hold back, contain its fury, and play the waiting game. It surrounded the insolent light, cutting it off from its supply lines; then waited for the inevitable. The fire had started weakening, its armored circle shrinking by the minute. The trees were no longer visible, and with the battlements down, the night had rushed in to bombard the fire with frequent sneak attacks. It would attack, then withdraw; attack, then withdraw, slowly driving its weakening enemy to its knees. Soon the night would move in for the kill.

  Heavy footsteps sounded in the nearby woods, foretelling the arrival of someone new to the fray. Like magic, a man appeared out of the gloom into the fading circle of light. He carried an armload of sticks and broken branches over beside the campfire and set them down gently.

  He was a tall, sinister-looking figure, maybe six foot one and rake thin. Everything about him was dark, from his jet-black hair and scruffy beard to his full-length black wool overcoat that hung low over his dirty black cowboy boots. The taut skin on his bony face and hands was the sickly white pallor of someone unaccustomed to spending time getting to know the sun. His eyes, though, were the darkest things about him, peering out from deeply recessed optic cavities like twin black holes in the white galaxy of his face. It was hard to pin down his age. People would guess the Stranger to be somewhere between forty-five and fifty, but they would be wrong. His frail-looking body was far more powerful than it looked and many a man had foolishly underestimated him.

  Silently, he stood and watched the fire die. He considered tossing a few branches onto the flames, helping it in its fight, but decided not to. The fire wasn’t his ally; he was a friend of the night—a kindred nocturnal spirit of sorts.

  Besides, he liked to watch things die.

  Ordinarily, he took great pleasure in observing death, but apart from an occasional crackling hot ember, this sadly inadequate blaze offered no comfort. It was depressing the Stranger. For him, death was a powerful ally, a close friend, and something to be treated with respect. There should be frightened prayers, and anguished crying. There should be desperate wails of despair, and high-pitched screams of unbearable agony. There should have been at least some begging for mercy. Unfortunately, there was none of these, so the shadow-shrouded man conjured up screams within his disturbed mind and enjoyed what he could from the fire’s final struggles.

  In the dying light, his dark eyes gazed around his makeshift campground. Campground was too strong a description for this barren place: refuge was better. The tall Stranger basically had nothing to his forgotten name, save for the dirty dishes and crumpled tattered blankets, but that didn’t bother him in the least. The only thing in this world that meant anything was the antique trunk, which his eyes locked on and lovingly caressed.

  The trunk itself wasn’t spectacular. It was nothing more than a 72" × 30" × 24" wooden traveling crate, fancied up with wood stain, leather straps, and some colorful bra
ss buckles thrown in for show. The buckles had tarnished long ago, losing their shine; the wood stain was cracked and peeling. The cheap mahogany frame was rotting and long past its prime, but the thick leather straps were as strong and unblemished as they’d been when first put on. On the trunk’s front side, in fading red letters, a shaky hand had painted a crude sign. Barely legible now, the sign read:

  FIRE AND ICE

  The Greatest Show on Earth

  The Stranger’s thin lips curled into a cruel grin as he slowly, almost reverently, reread the familiar words. He walked over and gingerly sat down on the trunk’s domed lid, his frail weight enough to cause the rotting wood to slightly sag. The deteriorating condition of his beloved trunk didn’t trouble the Stranger, since the trunk itself meant nothing at all. It was the trunk’s contents that were important.

  Inside was something so wonderful, just thinking about it sent a chill down his spine. It held such priceless treasure, such an incredible secret, and he was the only one who knew about it. The power he sat on top of thrilled him and he thought of it often, but tonight he had other important things to think about. He yanked his thoughts away from the trunk and let them drift to darker places.

  A mental image of a man began to come into focus. Anger began to boil within the Stranger, as always, wiping the smile from his skeletal face.

  “Wilson Kemp!” he said, hissing the name between clenched teeth, fighting to control his sudden fury.

  The tall man literally shook with hatred for the imagined man. Kemp wasn’t his real name, but a reliable source had informed him that was the name he’d been using for a long time now, hiding from the world. No matter—the Stranger could hate him equally as much, regardless of what he called himself. The Stranger had been searching for Kemp without success for over a year now. It had been a year of bitterness and lonely, near-intolerable frustration.

  “Why can’t I find the bastard?” he asked the darkness. “Where can he be hiding?”

  The disappointment was driving him mad, and only the strong belief he was getting closer to his enemy kept his reason intact. He had to be close now; he just had to be. The search had been exhausting, covering the better part of the northern states. He’d started out last August near his hometown in New York State, traveled east to Maine, then slowly swung across the central states to end up in Washington. From there, he’d started east again, along the rim of the country, to where he presently camped. This unusually cold early Friday morning was his 389th day on the hunt.

  The wooded clearing in which he sat was just off U.S. Highway 80, about a mile and a half from the community of Warren, Ohio. Warren, located in the northeastern corner of the state, was less than twenty miles from the Pennsylvania border. The Stranger had traveled nearly full circle. He was sure he was getting close though; he could feel Kemp’s presence burning like a white-hot poker embedded in his cold heart.

  A lonely owl broke him out of his stupor with its annoying, repetitive question those of his ilk always seem to be asking.

  “None of your goddamned business who I am,” he shouted at the unseen inquirer.

  As quick as the bird had come, it was gone, reducing the noise in the forest to a quiet hush. This suited the Stranger just fine; he liked the quiet of the early morning before the sun broke the horizon. The peace gave him time to plot his revenge on Kemp—and what blissfully sweet, painful revenge it was going to be.

  “If only I could find the bastard,” he muttered.

  Again his train of angry thoughts was derailed, this time by a small stray dog approaching out of the dark woods. Dogs always wandered around him in search of a handout, or at least to warm themselves by the fire. This particular mutt was real mangy, small and pathetic-looking. At first glance, the Stranger thought it looked a bit like the famous old movie dog Benji, only this little guy lacked the Hollywood pampering—its black and brown hair tangled and knotted with burrs and clumps of dried mud.

  The Stranger hated animals of all kinds and usually would have reached for a large jagged rock. If he had a good shot, and luck was on his side, maybe he could smash the worthless piece of crap’s skull on the first throw. More often, he’d simply send it away whimpering and limping into the night.

  He reached for a fist-size rock and was about to throw it, but suddenly changed his mind. He felt close to Kemp and that made him feel good. Charitable even. Maybe it was this satisfying feeling of nearing his enemy, maybe it was because this mutt resembled Benji, or maybe he was just going soft but regardless of the reason, he allowed the stray to curl up beside him and the ever-dying fire.

  The dog sighed contentedly, having finally found a warm place to ward off this unusually chilly night. It appeared to be cold, sad, and lonely. These were feelings the Stranger couldn’t understand; such emotions were alien to him. He didn’t feel the frosty wind blowing around him at this moment, nor did he notice the damp, musky-smelling clothing he was wearing. He didn’t even feel the heat cast from the fire. Lighting the fire was more symbolic than anything, just something he always did. There were many reasons for having a fire each night, including the fact he liked to watch the flickering flames perform their dance before disappearing into the night air, but it was definitely not for the heat. He was beyond such meaningless comfort. His volcanic anger for Wilson Kemp kept him warm. Hatred was the only feeling he could relate to now.

  The dark man scratched the mangy dog behind its ears as it settled into a contented dream about whatever it is mangy dogs dream about, his own thoughts drifting back to Kemp and his plan for revenge. It was then the antique trunk on which he sat began speaking to him. It spoke no audible words the outside world could hear, but the message was clear in the Stranger’s head.

  The trunk had located Kemp.

  Finally.

  The trunk was the Stranger’s secret weapon, his reliable source that had somehow found out the name their enemy was hiding under. Now it was telling him the bastard was hiding in a town called Billington, in Pennsylvania. He quickly pulled his old, torn, dirty map out of his inside coat pocket.

  “Where…where?” he asked, his long, pale finger tracing up and down the entire state of Pennsylvania.

  Just as his frustration level hit the boiling point, he found it. Billington, Pennsylvania. On the map, it looked like a decent-size town in the northwestern part of the state. Billington lay on Highway 62, right where the Allegheny River crossed. It was about halfway between the cities of Pittsburgh and Erie but a little off to the east. He found the scale of the map, and quickly determined how far away he was.

  He was close. Real close.

  If his calculations were accurate, less than ninety miles separated him from Kemp. Ninety miles!

  The tall Stranger was pleased, so pleased in fact, he actually reached down and tenderly stroked the dog’s sleeping head. His thin, icy lips started to curl into an evil grin and the feeling coming over him was the closest to joy he’d experienced in a very long time. He laughed out loud and snapped the small, fragile neck of his new pet with one quick clenching action of his powerful fist. The mutt let out a tiny yelp and as its legs twitched for the final time, the last of the embers in the fire died.

  The battle was over; the darkness had won.

  The Stranger sat in the dark, petting the dead dog and smiling happily until the sun rose to wake up a rooster on a nearby farm. The overzealous rooster continued to crow with annoying regularity, which ordinarily would have sent the Stranger into a rage but not today. No, today for the first time in a year, he actually whistled as he gathered up his meager belongings. He placed the dishes and blankets into the antique trunk and then as an afterthought, also placed the corpse of the recently killed dog and gently laid its broken body on top of the blankets. After closing the trunk and lovingly buckling it up, he took great care to make sure all traces of his stay in the clearing were erased. He made sure the fire was fully extinguished, then covered the pit with dirt, sticks, and pine needles.

  He took
one last look around, eyeing the clearing critically, acknowledging he’d done a good job. No one would ever know anyone had spent the night there, which was just how he wanted it.

  The rooster was singing his song again off to the dark man’s left. He noted the direction. He intended to find that rooster because where there was a rooster there was a farm, and where there’s a farm there’s transport. He had ninety miles to cover before he got his hands on Wilson Kemp and he sure didn’t feel like walking them.

  Hoisting up one end, he dragged the trunk of secrets into the thick foliage of the woods. Within moments, the Stranger was gone.

  The black and rust-colored rooster on the fence post crowed yet again, perhaps for the hundredth time this morning. It apparently liked to hear itself sing because almost immediately, it began huffing and puffing to prepare for a new rendition.

  “Shut up, Ricky!” Duke Winslow screamed, throwing a handful of dirt and gravel in the general direction of the bird. “I’ve been up for hours already, so shut your trap.”

  Ricky the rooster, obviously offended, jumped down from the fence and strutted defiantly off to find a more receptive audience.

  “Finally,” Duke whispered, adjusting his Cincinnati Reds ball cap back down near his thick, bushy eyebrows, where he always wore it.

  He’d worn his hat like that, low and tight, for so many years now he actually had a permanent crease on his forehead to mark its position. Of course, with Duke just turning eighty-one years of age, the hat crease was only one of many lines on his wrinkled, barely noticeable brow.

  “Damn bird. Gets more sleep than I do, then has the nerve to harp on for hours. Stupid thing would sing all day if I didn’t shut it up.”

  It had started this nonsense about two years ago, just after Duke’s wife Jenny passed away, finally losing her battle with cancer. She had always come out and talked to Ricky, telling it what a pretty bird it was. Now the bird continued to sing, not realizing Jenny wasn’t coming to talk to it anymore. Duke knew exactly how the bird felt—he missed Jenny something fierce too.