Mayer The Mage's Code

Book 1 Search
1. Auflage 2021
ISBN: 978-1-0983-5980-5
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet/DL/kein Kopierschutz

E-Book, Englisch, 238 Seiten

Magic is a dying art, and most of the world has no idea it exists. A young detective begins investigating an elusive criminal with a talent for disappearing. A college student makes an incredible discovery hiding in plain sight. Both find themselves clashing with the same mysterious man, a sarcastic stranger in a black bowler hat- and he's not the only danger they face.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Mayer, Daniel

Leseproben

Chapter 2: The Ghost and The Madam
While I do enjoy drawing comparisons to phantoms or specters, they are ultimately misnomers for my state of being. I am not dead, nor have I ever been. Even with the benefits of my phantom form, more appropriately called my æthereal form, there are some trappings of mortal life I cannot fully escape from. I still require some nourishment from time to time, though even if I didn’t require it, I would start to miss the sensation of eating and drinking after too long. Even relieving oneself brings a certain sense of… well, relief. In hindsight, that sensation is likely to be the entire reason behind this turn of phrase existing. The intricacies of language can be puzzling at times, so I am occasionally caught off-guard when etymology turns out to be so straightforward. I seem to have meandered somewhat off of the point. In addition to the previously mentioned bodily functions, I have found that sleep is completely impossible as an apparition. I suppose this is because it is a function of the living human body. If the choice were left to me, I would have generally preferred to remain eternally sleepless, but attempting to do so seems to have some detrimental effects on the mind, clouding thoughts and twisting memories into jagged thorny little things that become difficult to grasp. Besides which, eternity has a tendency to become boring after some time, so any quiet hours that can be given over to sleep, even fitful and restless sleep, seem well worth the investment. All of this is to say that there is no avoiding the occasional need to become an ordinary flesh-and-blood human being from time to time. It’s far from ideal, but with a minimal investment of time and observation, it becomes fairly easy to blend in among the regular folk long enough to acquire what I need, even if my clothing choices are not always appropriate for the setting. Existing only for brief periods of time can make regular human existence difficult, however. In the modern era, it is rather difficult to obtain reliable employment without references, a place of residence, photo identification, or really any discernible proof that one does in fact exist. As such, I have had to make do stealing what I need to survive and sleeping in abandoned and condemned apartment buildings. It’s a very simple way to subsist. Perhaps that’s why it suits me so well. My thefts have generally been minor and I tend not to take from the same locations again if the owners have suspected anything amiss. The police have no motivation to waste their time and resources on such minor crimes. Besides, I had an acquaintance in a position of power on the force who would guarantee most of my handiwork would not see any follow-up investigations. I had no reason to expect that any man with a badge would become a problem for me, yet that was exactly what had happened. It was rather exciting, in a way. It had been a long time since I had any sort of real enemies to contend with. Here was a man who seemed to know my face, had some misguided desire to hold me accountable for my crimes, and even more surprising, escaping his grasp was not a trivial matter. At some point I would need to play detective myself to learn more about this young man, who he was, how much he knew, and just how potent his abilities were. He seemed unaware of what he was capable of at the time, but it was hard to know how long that ignorance might last. Obviously, I needed some time to plan. I could not conduct my usual business in the same neighborhoods while this young detective was still poking his nose around. And so I was forced to wander elsewhere, which turned out to make quite a fateful difference. As I drifted uptown, the scenery became less familiar by the moment. When I had some measure of privacy, I returned to human form in order to get a clearer picture of the area. Though I was obviously approaching the more affluent areas, and no doubt more fruitful grounds for the business of thievery, I noticed that while the buildings grew larger and more immaculate, they also seemed to be getting older, the styles of architecture scrolling backward through time as I passed by them. One building in particular struck my fancy in an inexplicable way. By its size and opulent appearance, it could appropriately be described as a manor. A painted wooden sign at the front of the property declared this place to be the Lewis Museum, accompanying a nearby official placard from the city marking the building as a historical site. This placard described the building as having been passed down through several old and presumably tremendously wealthy families for over a century, until finally being renovated and opened to the public as a sort of cultural museum, educating locals on the rich history of their own hometown. I had no special attachments I could speak of to this place, but something about the museum struck me as intriguing. General admission was also free without a guided tour, which was a hard proposition to pass up even for someone like me. “Welcome,” a middle-aged man said as I walked through the main entrance. He was seated on a folding chair nearby, dwarfed by a confusing bronze sculpture of an awkwardly-proportioned horse and a tiny old man. “You interested in a tour today?” “No, thank you. I’d just like to peruse the exhibits a bit if that’s alright.” “Sure, no problem. If you like what you see, we’d appreciate it if you’d leave a small donation, or just tell your friends to come have a look.” I nodded and kept walking. I might have considered his request another time, but as it stood I had limited cash to give and no friends to invite. I easily spent thirty minutes or more leisurely wandering the ground floor of the museum. While I’m not a great appreciator of architecture nor interior design, the manor was really rather pleasant to look at. Ornate carpets and hand-carved wood molding had obviously been fitted with great care and attention to detail. The interior had likely been refurbished in recent years, but the spirit of the original Victorian design was generally well-preserved, even if some of the museum’s pieces felt strangely out of place and time. Many of the furnishings in the parlor and the dining room, as well as the paintings on the walls, had accompanying signs detailing their histories. If these were to be believed, a large armoire and the dining set were over a century old yet still appeared to be in an impressively attractive state. The game room had no furniture, instead holding a large collection of antique vases, sculptures, wood carvings, and various other miscellaneous art. Most of the pieces appeared to be Asian in origin, but most prominent cultures from around the world were represented somewhere in the room. The sun room had an inexplicably vast array of paintings of fruit, which I only then realized where unusually abundant in other rooms as well. The sign made specific mention of this collection, but no reasons for its existence were offered. Perhaps it was not my place to question another man’s obsession with fruit. I turned back and proceeded up the stairs, passing an impressive row of tall stained-glass windows and a portrait of a woman standing amid a grove of trees, which of course bore bright red apples. The second floor’s most notable feature seemed to be a large set of double doors. The sign beside the doors clearly indicated this room was off-limits without accompaniment by a tour guide. Of course, I at once became incorporeal and drifted through the locked door, into an enormous gallery. A long wooden table stood in the center of the room, lined with rows of high-backed wooden chairs. In most of these chairs, mannequins dressed in luxuriant Victorian clothing were seated and posed as though I had just floated in on them in the midst of enjoying their afternoon tea. Despite their simple plastic faces with mostly blank expressions, they had an uncanny sense of livelihood about them. This was even more pronounced when they all turned as one to look at me. If they could see my face at that moment, as it appeared they could, they must have seen the utterly flabbergasted expression I was wearing. Their crude faces seemed to twist into similar expressions, some with a hint of fear or disgust mixed with their surprise, and perhaps a touch of anger. The round one nearest me looked the most afraid, while a tall one near the far end of the table seemed more stoic. For a long moment, we all froze in silence. The door opened behind me. I instinctively turned back to look as a young tour guide led a small band of Asian tourists into the room. For a moment I was distracted by this girl’s sudden appearance. Her excited chattering about the history of the building was of no interest to me, but as I peered through the æther at the slightly distorted image of her face, I couldn’t shake the sense that she seemed familiar to me somehow. Neither she nor her charges seemed to pay any mind to the mannequins that had come to life before my eyes. As I turned back toward the table, they all seemed to be back in their original positions, their faces neutral and lifeless as before, if still a little uncanny. I wasn’t sure what to make of all this. For the rest of the afternoon I drifted lazily in the sky above the old museum-manor, pondering what was so unusual about this place, what made it feel so magnetic. I considered going back inside in human form to confront the tour guide, but decided against it. Even if I did somehow know her, based on her age, she likely didn’t know me. What’s more, if I did know her but couldn’t recognize her, then no doubt I had forgotten her for good reason. It was generally best...