Fiction Fridays - Untitled Magic Story

I've decided to start this new weekly column, Fiction Fridays, partly as a way to get some feedback on what I'm writing and partly as a way to keep me writing. With that in mind, here's the first little snippet of something I've started... I'm not sure what, if anything, it's going to amount to, but here it is.


The first thing I should tell you is that Harry Potter is bullshit. Wait, no, that’s not the first thing I should tell you. Sorry; after everything I’ve been through in my short life… I’m younger than I look, trust me… the mind starts to get things a little jumbled sometimes. I’ll do my best to keep things relatively linear for you.

So, first thing: magic is real.

Second thing: Harry Potter is bullshit. Magic is something you’re born with. You either have it or you don’t and there’s no fancy school filled with friendly old people with beards and funny hats who teach you what to say while you daintily wave a wand in the air. Fucking wands. Who thought up that nonsense? It’s all about words of powers and hand gestures, and for some things, you don’t even need those. For the simplest spells, just the thought, or even the sheer intent, is enough. And for the most powerful mages, even the harder feats can be accomplished through sheer force of will. Sounds sweet, right, all that power? You’d think so, but you’d be dead wrong. First you have to be able to pay the toll magic demands on you, and if you can do that, well, bastards that powerful catch the eye of the Covenant, and once they have their eye on you, you only get one of two endings…

That’s where this whole mess started for me. I was on a job for the Covenant. Before you ask, no, I’m not powerful enough to get their attention, at least not in that “one of two endings” way I just mentioned. But I am powerful enough, and, more importantly, skilled enough to do some work for them from time to time. Like they say, it pays the bills, and every now and then they’ll toss me a scroll that I might be lucky enough to use to pick up some new trick.

Gotta feed the magic, after all.

So there I was, tracking down this idiot who called himself the Sultan of Sunset Park. Obviously, I was dealing with a real high-level intellect here. The Sultan… his real name was Bob Leviwitz… had been selling his talents to blanks, people without magic. There’s nothing wrong with that, as a rule, mages do it all the time; fortune tellers, palm readers, psychics. Some of them are scam artists, and some of them have real magic, selling it to make a few quick bucks. That’s fine, most people think they’re all full of crap anyway. The problem here was that Bobby was selling himself as an assassin, and that’s a no-no. Too many blanks start dying too close together, it starts drawing attention, and that’s when the Covenant gets involved.


So there it is, whatever it is. Feedback of any kind would be appreciated.