Mages in Manhattan Read online

  Mages in Manhattan

  A Tokyo Supernatural Novel

  Phil Gabriel

  To those who walk the streets of Tokyo, this most modern of cities, but still hear the whisper of spirits and feel the touch of magic

  Text copyright © 2017 Phil Gabriel

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover Art by:

  Runno

  ISBN: 978-0-9908349-1-5

  Created with Vellum

  Foreword

  Dear Reader,

  Welcome to the story of Scott, Kitty-Sue, Akiko, and the magical underworld of Tokyo.

  This story is the first full length novel set in the Tokyo Supernatural world. The first short story, The Ghost in Roppongi Station, is available on Amazon, as well as on my website. I have several other shorts set in the same universe.

  If this is your first look at this world, I did my best to make this a standalone novel.

  The next novel in this series is completed and available on Amazon. A sample chapter is included at the end of this book.

  To keep up with future updates, please subscribe to the Tokyo Supernatural newsletter.

  Enjoy!

  Phil Gabriel

  One

  Prey of the Pack

  The car slammed to a stop, bouncing my bound form against the divider. The driver had careened through the streets with abandon, securely strapped in himself, taking pleasure in the thumps and moans of his cargo. The bastards had even gone to the trouble of disconnecting the emergency interior handle that would have let me open the trunk from the inside. Even though I was bound, they were taking no chances.

  We finally came to an abrupt stop, which slammed my abused head against the divider one last time. The trunk was popped open, and cool forest air rushed in. The full moon was almost painfully bright to my dark-accustomed eyes, and I squinted as several inhumanly strong hands grabbed my arms and pulled me from the trunk.

  The car’s stereo suddenly came to life, playing Creedence Clearwater Revival’s version of “Bad Moon Rising.” My captors turned abruptly but maintained their grip. “Never mind,” said the red-haired were. “That crap happens all the time around these types.”

  I was dumped in the center of a circle of jeering werewolves, who were still in their human forms but showing the rabid anger of their kind. Even with my hands bound behind me, I managed to tuck my head in, roll over my shoulder, and come to my feet. Landing on my back would have marked me as helpless prey and brought out their pack instincts.

  I ended up facing the pack’s alpha, Frost. He smiled at me like a parent proud of a toddler’s first steps.

  Now that my feet were on the earth, I could feel the slightest trickle of magical energy flow up through the soles of my bare feet. The magic was met with an immediate sharp increase in the temperature of the shackles holding my arms behind my back. The scent of burning flesh wafted through the air.

  His smile was huge, exposing his canines as he inhaled the aroma. “Please don’t use your magic,” he said. “We prefer our meat rare.”

  Ignoring the pain in my wrists and forearms, I smiled back through gritted teeth. “I will wear your ears on my belt as a trophy.”

  Frost roared with laughter. “A last, great act of defiance! I love magicians!”

  The rest of the pack laughed along with him, the laughs turning into howls. He continued, “Now to make this fair—”

  “You’re going to cut off the shackles?” I interrupted.

  With a casual movement, he slapped the side of my head, leaving a set of bleeding claw marks and a ringing in my ears.

  “Not that fair, Scott,” he said. “We will give you a thirty-minute head start before we begin the hunt. That’ll give the new cubs time to change.” As if to show he didn’t need extra time, he transformed into his half-human, half-wolf hybrid form, the form only senior weres could take. As he shifted, his tailored suit tore across the shoulders, and he casually used his claws to finish ripping off the constraining garment. Behind his back, several of the new pack members shivered in excitement as their snouts extended and fangs sprouted. The full transformation would take a while for them.

  “Thirty minutes,” I said. “When does the clock start?”

  “From the moment we pulled you from the trunk…,” he said to my retreating back as I headed towards the tree line, his laughter following me.

  Damn, five minutes wasted while they played with their prey. I started an internal countdown as I darted under the trees. The moonlight cut off abruptly, and the brambles and bushes formed an almost impenetrable barrier. Without magic, I was down to my purely physical resources: I was strong, but not as strong as a wolf; fast, but not as fast as a wolf; smart, but not smart enough to have avoided getting captured. The damned cuffs holding my hands behind my back made running almost impossible, my slower-than-a-wolf pace made even slower by my balance problems.

  I had excellent night vision, but the forest was dense with undergrowth. Even being able to see every step wasn’t much help. Still, I ran as quickly as possible, hoping to put enough space between me and the pack to give me time to work on the magic-negating cuffs. As I ran, my invisible satchel bounced against my side with each step. If only I could access the contents of the satchel, the fight would be fair. But even if my hands were in front, making the satchel accessible, opening it required magic. I cursed myself for having locked my most potent weapons away.

  The brambles were shredding my feet, leaving a blood trail for the pack to follow. Not that my passage through the forest was unnoticeable; I was leaving a trail a blind man could follow. After five minutes by my internal clock, I was gasping for air and slowed down, only to hear the howls of the pack as they started to follow. Damn werewolves. I always knew they were untrustworthy. I controlled my breathing and increased my pace.

  I needed a clear space to face the pack; letting them harry me from the underbrush, nipping at my hamstrings, was a quick route to the other side. Finally, I came across a small clearing. A huge tree had fallen recently, its trunk near the roots almost seven feet high. Due to the shade of the giant tree, the undergrowth in the clearing was minimal, and it hadn’t had time to grow back. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better than nothing.

  I braced my back against the trunk and struggled to control my breathing. My fingers fumbled at the manacles, feeling for a keyhole or release. I used to be pretty good at that, in a previous life, but my lock-picking skills had withered thanks to my increasing dependence on magic. As I strained at the manacles, Frost entered the clearing, followed by his pack. He took a few moments to change his mouth to an almost-human configuration to speak. “Are you ready for the hunt to end, Scott?”

  A sense of calm came over me as I stepped forward to face him in the center of the clearing. Between one step and the next, my mind flashed back to the happier days of just a few weeks before, and to the path that had led to this moment.

  Two

  Domestic Bliss

  Three Weeks Earlier in Tokyo

  The morning after my battle with Jorōgumo, I was awoken by the late February sunshine streaming through my bedroom windows. Although still tired (and prematurely aged), I forced my way out of bed.

  After visiting the toilet, I made my way to the kitchen/living room. Opening the door allowed the smell of cooking to waft out of the room.

  Standing in front of the stove, wearing nothing but an apron and her collar, was Kitty-Sue.

  “Ohayo, Scott-san,” she said as she turned towards me. The apron barely covered her four breasts. Kitusne have no use for modesty. She commenced chopping vegetables, lending a kinetic component to her beauty, four jiggling mounds making interesting patterns under the apron.

  “Breakfast will be ready
in just a few minutes,” she said.

  “Ohayo, Kitty-Sue,” I said. “Thank you for cooking. Where did you get the supplies? I’ve been gone for months. The cupboard must have been bare.”

  “I went to the Maruetsu Petit market this morning, before you woke up.”

  Kitsune are not normally considered the domestic type, but Kitty-Sue was surprising in a lot of ways. I turned on the stereo, and the first song that popped up was “Foxy Lady” by Jimi Hendrix.

  She quickly completed breakfast for both of us, placing the dishes on the dining room table. As we were sitting, I felt the tingle of magic and smelled the faint hint of ozone and perfume. A mist appeared in the center of the room and quickly coalesced into the form of a well-endowed girl in the miniskirt and blazer combo of a Japanese senior high school student. She took one look at my physical condition and Kitty-Sue’s partially unclothed condition and brought her hands up in attack position. Energy flowed around her hands.

  “Akiko-san,” I said quickly, “it’s OK, she’s helping me. Don’t attack her!”

  “Why you old now?” she asked. “Who make old?” She pointed at Kitty-Sue. “This, this succubus? Drain your life? Where you been? You gone long time.” At least she relaxed her posture and let the energy fade away.

  “It’s a long story. First, introductions are in order. Kitty-Sue, this is my student, Akiko. Akiko, this is Kitty-Sue.” I stumbled at that point, unsure of how to describe my relationship with Kitty-Sue. Was she a student? No. Was she a pet? The thought of introducing her as a pet, and her reaction, sent shivers down my spine. Friend? Maybe, but I wasn’t sure of her true loyalties. Maybe there was a word in Japanese to describe it.

  They surprised me by stiffening up, bowing formally, and muttering polite greetings. I had to stifle a laugh at Kitty-Sue’s tail sticking up in the air and Akiko’s miniskirt riding up dangerously as they bowed. My life had suddenly become a Japanese anime show.

  “Akiko-san, would you like to join us for breakfast?” I said.

  “If not too much trouble. I would enjoy some coffee,” she said.

  Kitty-Sue finished setting the table; I noted she only set two places. She sat primly at one spot and indicated I should sit at the other. Her tail lashed back and forth nervously. She pointedly ignored Akiko.

  “Oh, too bad!” she said. “I only cooked enough for the living.”

  “No problem. Akiko is an accomplished magician,” I said. “Akiko, show how well you’ve learned Schrödinger’s spell.”

  Schrödinger’s was the first spell I taught Akiko, a way to use quantum entanglement to copy items from our world to her ghostly plane. The first thing I gave her with the spell was coffee and a fancy chocolate confection. Little did I know, it was White Day in Japan, a holiday when males give chocolate gifts to their girlfriends. That led to some problems with our relationship; I wanted to maintain professional teacher/student roles while Akiko kept trying to intensify our relationship.

  Akiko quickly prepared the spell, energy flowing from her hands as she spoke one word. Suddenly, where there had been only one breakfast in front of me, there were now two. Ghostly duplicates of my dishes now sat beside the originals. Akiko moved the ghost dishes to her section of the table, smiling her sweetest smile at Kitty-Sue.

  “Itadakimasu,” she said, the traditional Japanese phrase used before a meal.

  “Itadakimasu,” Kitty-Sue and I echoed, before starting to eat. Although angry at being outmaneuvered by a ghost, Kitty-Sue remained unfailingly polite.

  Kitty-Sue had prepared tamagoyaki, a Japanese-style egg omelet, as well as several other dishes. I noted with pleasure that she had also prepared fried bacon. The girls dug in with chopsticks, while I used a knife and fork. The arthritic joints in my hands would have to be healed before I could use chopsticks again.

  About halfway through my meal, I realized that Akiko had not used my original duplication spell.

  “Where did you learn to trigger a spell with only one word?” I asked Akiko.

  “It make spell easy, hai? Is a problem?” she asked.

  “No, quite the opposite. That was to be your next lesson. I’m glad you learned it on your own,” I said.

  I thought the two were starting to get along, since the meal went smoothly. That is until the end. Kitty-Sue took a bowl of rice, stuck chopsticks into the bowl vertically, and placed it in front of Akiko.

  “Here, I know this is how you eat your rice,” said Kitty-Sue.

  “Why thank you,” said Akiko, accepting the bowl and pulling out the chopsticks. Akiko set the bowl in front of herself, gathered energy, and morphed the rice bowl into a pet dish. On the side of the dish was now printed “Kitty-Sue” with a picture of a cat. Akiko placed the bowl on the floor.

  “Pet supposed to eat on floor, not on table with real people,” said Akiko. “What name is ‘Kitty-Sue’? I won’t name pet I hate Kitty-Sue.”

  “Scott gave me that name, ghost. What did he give you?” challenged Kitty-Sue.

  “He gave me this ring,” said Akiko, holding up the ring she wore on a golden chain around her neck. The ring was a shintai, a spirit home; I had created it years ago, and later gifted it to Akiko to allow her freedom of movement in the physical world.

  “He gave me this diamond collar,” said Kitty-Sue with a haughty look, running her fingers over the collar around her neck.

  “He share magical knowledge with me,” responded Akiko.

  “He shared his bed with me!” said Kitty-Sue. Foxfire magic gathered around Kitty-Sue as Akiko brought her hands up, preparing a spell.

  “Enough! Both of you, stop!” I said. A mental tug at the collar and Kitty-Sue shifted to her fox form, another command and the spirit of Akiko was forced back into her shintai.

  Kitty-Sue scampered to the floor and hid under the table. Akiko’s ring sat on the table, vibrating with her efforts to manifest.

  “I’m calling a time-out for both of you. I need peace and quiet to recover, and your fighting is interfering,” I said. “Akiko, you can manifest anywhere else but here. Kitty-Sue, you can take the collar off any time you want, but you will have to leave.

  “I’m going the start my recovery process. It will take several weeks to get back to normal. I will either continue with the two of you, getting along, or all alone. Either way is fine with me. What is not fine is this in-fighting. It’s ten thirty now. I will be working in my room and should be back out at 6:00 p.m. Until then, I want no disturbances.”

  Having laid out my demands, I pulled myself up from the chair and hobbled out of the kitchen. Two steps down the hallway brought me to the second, smaller, bedroom that I had set up as my workroom. The effort of opening the wards protecting the room left me gasping. So much work to do, so much to recover.

  Once safely behind my wards, I looked over my setup. On the floor, golden filigree embedded in the tile formed an eight-foot-wide circle. Inside this circle, also made of gold, was a pentagram, oriented to magnetic north. I checked the orientation carefully, using both a tripod-mounted magnetic compass and a digital compass. Before the warded circle was activated for spell-casting, the digital compass worked fine; after the circle went up, it was useless. The magnetic compass always worked. But magnetic compasses can be disturbed by large motors or large metal objects. Comparing the two gave reliable results.

  Satisfied that the pentagram would not have to be realigned, I opened the cabinet and took out five candles, each composed of materials that represented the five primary colors: infra, red, yellow, blue, and ultra. I used to wonder what “normal” Trichromats saw when viewing the extra colors. The responses I got ranged from gray to white. My Pentachromatic vision, now weakened by rapid aging, showed infra and ultra as weak pastels, not the vibrant primary colors I remembered. One of my most important tasks would be to bring my vision back to normal.

  But not the first task—I had to work on the physical aspects first. Sure, there were some shortcuts, but they all required items I didn’t have. Back to th
e old-fashioned methods.

  Where I once could place and light the candles with Air and Fire, now I had to shuffle to each point of the pentagram, bend over with difficulty, and place each candle in position. I had a set of matches in a drawer, meant to be used by my student. I burned my fingers three times lighting the candles.

  Standing in the center of the pentagram, I said the Words and made the Gestures, weaving the strands of magic, and failed. The magic slipped through my arthritic fingers like smoke. Another attempt, with more concentration, also failed. Damn, this was hard. Finally, an all-out effort that left me trembling and dizzy succeeded in bringing up the ward.

  It was flickering and weak, probably not strong enough to stop a determined kitten, but it stopped the psychic clamor of the city and allowed the slow infusion of the five colors of magic through each of the points of the pentagram. For a few minutes, I stood in the flows, bathing in the energy, using it to fill reservoirs that had been totally drained. After a few minutes, I had taken in as much energy as my ancient cells could handle. Time to start using the energy.

  Bending down slowly until my palms were on the floor touching the lines that ran from the red and yellow points, then extending my legs to touch the infra and ultra lines with my toes, left my head aimed at the blue candle. Different orientations for different spells. This was the orientation best for recuperation.

  It would be nice if recuperation didn’t require any effort, but magic doesn’t work that way. Something has to be given for every gain. No pain, no gain.

  Quickly going through a mental review of my training, I skipped past handstand push-ups; didn’t think I was up to that yet. Start out with clapping push-ups, which should be easy. I pushed down with my palms as hard and fast as I could, tightening up my back and legs, expecting to pop up into the air.