Corrupt Magic

1. The Deep South

Chapter 1

The Deep South

The flatness stretched on for miles in every direction. A sea of grass and corn stalks flowed in the late September breeze. It felt like there was not a single soul left in the world as Mitra stretched her cell phone high up toward the sun, trying to get better reception. When she glanced at it and noticed she still had no bars, she huffed in irritation.

The two-lane road was devoid of traffic but she still glanced down both directions, hoping to see some sort of sign she might have missed. It was a futile effort though, because she never missed anything. Mitra was the sort of person who noticed things others didn’t; rarely did a single detail escape her attention. She had been watching for a sign for miles, trying to find the way back to the main highway. This “shortcut” was anything but short, but Haris had assured her this way was faster. He was also sure they weren’t going to run out of gas, but she had a feeling she would need to be a bit more firm on that one. She had no intention of walking miles to find another gas station.

Glaring at the empty road one more time, she walked back to the green, beat-up truck parked on the shoulder and climbed into the passenger side of the cab.

“Still nothing,” she said over the blaring country music, yanking the door shut. “You actually like this stuff?” she asked. She had never been a fan of the twangy sounds of acoustic love songs.

“Hm?” Haris said, looking up from the map he had pulled out of the glove box. She had picked it up at the last stop, though Haris had promised he ‘knew where he was going.’ “This? I like to immerse myself in my environment. Be one with my surroundings,” he said mystically, with a smile. He bent back down to the map and pointed. “I’m pretty sure we are on the right track. We just need to follow this road for…a few more miles and we’ll come back out to the highway. And then we should be in Tennessee tonight.”

Mitra sighed, mentally preparing to walk down the highway in the dark when they got lost again and ran out of gas. “I hope so. I feel like we are wandering around in a massive corn maze.”

Haris folded the map back up and tossed it in the back seat. He snorted. “That’s Illinois for you,” he said and put the truck back into gear before pulling onto the road again.

To Mitra’s annoyance, he turned up the music.

They had only been traveling for a day and a half, even though it felt like much longer. They had left Haris’s house in northern Michigan right after their friends Kinza and Zaid had gone through the portal in Haris’s basement. The portal that would transport them to another portal on the other side of the planet so they could go to the magical hidden city in Tanzania.

Mitra still had a hard time remembering all that stuff was real. The last few weeks had been a nightmare for her. First, her best friend went missing and her grandmother refused to say where she was. And then she found Kinza casually walking through Chicago a week later with a man she’s never seen before. And then Kinza told her she was the long-lost heir to a civilization of people with magical abilities and she had to go live in that hidden city for the rest of her life as their queen. If Mitra was being honest with herself, it still hadn’t set in yet, that she wouldn’t see her best friend ever again. In her mind, she would wake up tomorrow and they would both go to work, cleaning toilets for the fancy businesses in downtown Chicago.

Yet here she was, hunting a deranged monster with magic powers across the country with a sometimes equally deranged red-haired guy she met a few days ago. Seriously, was he ever in a bad mood? Mitra didn’t understand how he could be so cheerful all the time.

She glanced over at Haris in the driver’s seat. A pair of sunglasses sat over his eyes and his fingers tapped against the steering wheel out of time with the music. She didn’t know how she felt about him yet. He had flirted with her relentlessly since they met at Kinza’s house a few days ago, but he seemed to have a similar disposition with everyone. He was always teasing or grinning, cracking jokes at the worst times. She could have sworn he did it more with her, though…

Haris caught her looking and waggled his eyebrows over his glasses. “Want to take a picture? It’ll last longer.” Point in case.

Mitra crossed her arms and turned back to the road without answering, thankful she also had on a pair of gigantic sunglasses that partially hid her blush. She refused to be embarrassed though; she just was not that type of girl.

Literally nothing made him mad either. Mitra had tried for the first day, taking over the crackly stereo and pumping her most obnoxious songs through the speakers. Haris only bobbed his head along with the noise. She even went so far as to start backseat driving, telling him to slow down or use his blinker or speed up, but he only remarked on how helpful she was being. Maybe he had been sarcastic. Either way, she gave up on trying to push his buttons pretty quickly seeing as it had little effect on him. They had a job to focus on, anyway.

Kinza and Zaid had filled her in on the ubir that they were chasing. Apparently the Anunnaki—Kinza’s people—weren’t supposed to just leave their city, or they would lose their memories and powers. A group of rebellious Anunnaki discovered a way to leave while keeping their powers, but it required routine blood sacrifices and warped their minds over time. They turned into something very close to a monster from a children’s nightmare, stealing people in the night. Similar to a d**g addiction, the longer they practiced this ritual, the more broken their minds became, until they were killing people for pleasure.

The ubir normally moved throughout the world alone, but they would occasionally form small groups of twos or threes and cause that much more damage for the venari—the Anunnaki bounty hunters—to clean up. Kinza and Zaid had run into one of these packs a few weeks ago, killing two of them, but the third escaped. Basma was her name, and she was supposed to have some sort of agility power, like a zombie gymnast. Kinza had described her as more aware than the others. Maybe she had been practicing the blood rituals for less time. Either way, they couldn’t let her go free, so Haris had offered to track her down for Zaid.

Mitra had immediately demanded to come along, but she wasn’t ready to admit to herself why yet. Instead, she thought about how it had been a thousand times more boring than she expected monster-hunting to be.

“Remind me why we just couldn’t have used the portal at your house to pop down to one of the others down south instead of driving the whole way?” she asked. The windows were cracked; the further south they got, the warmer it was and Mitra was relishing the breeze whipping over her long braid.

“We aren’t allowed to,” Haris replied brightly. She could tell he didn’t like that fact based on the slightly pained smile. “They’re only for Anunnaki; venari specifically. No humans allowed.”

“So you guard over the portal your whole life. You operate it so the venari can use it. And you keep it hidden from other humans. Yet Ummanu can’t use it?” She was a bit skeptical of the rules between the Anunnaki and their Ummanu allies.

“Pretty much,” Haris said. “But in all honesty, we don’t really travel much. What we’re doing right now is pretty unconventional. Ummanu don’t keep tabs on ubir, let alone track them down. We have a few things to protect ourselves, but we try to keep off their radar. Which is what makes this so exciting!”

Mitra secretly had to agree. Despite the endless fields of corn and wheat, the thought of tracking down a rabid Anunnaki had her energized in a way she hadn’t been in a long time. There was nothing in her life that had her springing out of bed in the morning as much as this.

Haris had started singing along to the music, and not quietly.

“Do you want me to drive?” Mitra asked.

“Not a chance!” Haris sang and kept on driving. “Either way, we shouldn’t be far now. Look up where the motel is again on the map.”

“Why do we have to stay in a grimy motel?” Mitra said, reaching into the backseat for the map.

“Do I look like I’m made of money to you?” he asked, making a face behind his glasses. “Portal-guarding doesn’t exactly pay much. Nothing, in fact. I still have to have a human job to pay the bills.”

“You do all that for free?” Mitra asked. She couldn’t find anything on the map so she pulled out her phone. Still no reception.

“Yup. I’m a good Samaritan,” Haris said, running a hand over his hair.

Mitra checked her phone again and yelped. “I’ve got reception!” She quickly looked up their location and how far it was to the motel. Haris was off by a few hours, though. She gave him the directions and took a screenshot of them, just in case.

“I think we should go over the evidence again,” Mitra said, putting her phone away.

“Well, there isn’t much,” Haris said. “We know Linda said there was a body found by the local police a few miles outside of Jackson. They said the blood was drained and looked a bit ritualistic, which tends to be the ubir’s trademark. But that was days ago. I got another hit from an Ummanu named Abe down in Louisiana, something about more murders that way, too.”

“I’m guessing we’ll stop and check them both out if we don’t find Basma here?” Mitra asked as they flew down the highway.

“Might as well.”

“What do we do when we find her?”

Haris turned to her with a devilish grin. “Do you know how to fight?”

Mitra snorted and looked out the window, but deep down she could feel that thrum of excitement building.

* * *

“Sorry kids, that’s all I got.”

Mitra and Haris stood dejectedly on Linda’s white-painted porch. The two-story house sat in a picture-perfect suburban neighborhood in Memphis that looked like it could have come out of a magazine. The potted plants on her doorstep were immaculate and her two kids played in the yard while mommy had a “business meeting.”

The woman herself looked nothing short of a typical soccer mom. Short blond hair, expensive athleisure, and one eye on her kids at all times. Mitra was a little baffled that this woman had connections to the Anunnaki and even knew what the ubir were. She looked like she was about to attend the local PTA meeting after they were done before proceeding to the town bake sale, where she would present her “famous” snickerdoodle cookies just like last year. She didn’t have time to ogle at the pretty house or smell what was baking in the oven before Linda had jumped into her story about the murders.

They had spent the night in the grimy motel Mitra had detested and gotten up early to get a head start, making it into town by late morning. Linda had invited them in and offered them sweet tea and some lemon bars, which Haris accepted enthusiastically. She had gone over the murder that had happened five days ago now, but it was just as Haris described. A ritualistic murder of a young woman outside of Jackson. The body was found on the train tracks with the throat and wrists slit; something she couldn’t have done herself. The police had found little signs of struggle and no suspects whatsoever.

When it was clear that Linda wouldn’t have any other helpful information, Mitra took the opportunity to drill the woman with questions about being Ummanu in plain sight, what her life was like, or if any of her family knew. Mitra wanted to take every opportunity to ask about the people who lived this lifestyle before she went back to her boring life with strict rules and expectations. She answered patiently and when she had gone to check on her kids, Haris elbowed her.

“This isn’t an interrogation. I can tell you anything you want to know about being Ummanu,” he said.

“I’m just curious,” she replied. Mitra had always been a curious child and a thorough student, to her parents' delight. She just wanted to know more. “A week ago, none of this stuff existed for me.”

They had taken their leave, saying goodbye to Linda with a promise from Haris to connect more in the future.

“Well, now what?” Mitra said while jumping into the driver’s seat. Haris didn’t complain, only tossing her the keys.

“Just start driving,” he said. “I’ll see if I can give Abe a call.”

Mitra navigated through busy Memphis and out to the highway again, headed south. Haris had a conversation with the man named Abe, yet he had an odd expression the entire time and asked the man to repeat himself more than once.

“That was fun,” Haris said, ending the call.

“What?”

“That’s the thickest accent I’ve ever heard. He said they had two murders down that way, similar to the one Linda described. The last one was two days ago, though. I still think it’s worth checking out.” Haris leaned his head on the back of the seat, drumming his fingers on the door.

“Alright, Louisiana it is.” It was quiet for a moment before Mitra asked, “So, how did you get into this stuff?”

Haris rolled his head to look at her, brown eyes questioning.

“You said you would tell me whatever I wanted to know,” she reminded him.

“Ah, right. Well, I—” he hesitated as if thinking “—was chosen on a game show as a child,” he said with a totally straight face. “Something about my look screamed ‘defender of portals, hunter of monsters, most attractive dude alive.’ Or something like that.” He finally flashed her one of those grins of his.

Mitra shook her head, trying not to laugh. She had spent her fair share around guys, having a string of boyfriends in high school that all wanted to impress her with their shiny cars, fancy clothes, and stoic demeanor. She couldn’t help but compare Haris to the other guys she’s known, so she felt like she was stuck in a group project with the class jokester.

“Ha, ha, so you just happened to have your career chosen for you as a child. Must be rough.”

“Yep,” Haris said, leaning his seat back and placing his hand behind his head. “Unlike you. The world is your oyster.”

“If only,” Mitra grumbled to herself. She would’ve given anything to have the kind of freedom he did. Everything had been chosen for her since she was a child. Her parents pushed her career options, her extracurriculars, and even certain boys in her direction. They loved her dearly, but sometimes their love could be suffocating. She had managed to get them to let her take a year off before college, citing that all the wealthy kids did it. But in reality, she just wanted more time. More time before she had to start working toward a career and a life she didn’t want. Every day, she dreaded having to fill out college applications to the nation’s best medical schools while fending off her mother’s constant prodding for her to go on a date with a friend’s “perfect” son.

She didn’t have to think about that right now, though. With the blue sky above her and the beat-up truck beneath her, she turned up the volume and let the obnoxious music Haris had chosen wash over her as they headed to the deep south of Louisiana.

* * *

They chose to stay one more night in a motel, to Mitra’s disgust. She could have sworn the bed had bugs, so she wrapped herself in a towel before laying on the floor to sleep. Haris had no such qualms and was tucked beneath the blankets on his bed and asleep within minutes.

Mitra had a hard time falling asleep, so she scrolled through her phone, looking at social media, the news, and old pictures of her and Kinza. She wondered what her friend was doing at that moment. Was she safely back in that magical city of hers, or was she hunting monsters just like Mitra? They had seen each other almost every day for years, so she had felt bereft this last week without her. It seemed that Kinza had her life all figured out now and Mitra was approaching…nothing.

As she did every night, Mitra sent a text to Kinza, knowing that she wouldn’t receive it unless she left the city—no reception in magical lands. She told her how her day was and what she and Haris were up to. She suggested that the two of them take a real road trip sometime soon, knowing that it would never happen.

Mitra wiped a tear that had slipped out of the corner of her eye before shutting her phone off and attempting to sleep. Just before she drifted off, she had the rebellious thought that maybe that was why she wanted to come with Haris. While she was off monster hunting with him, it felt like she was still part of Kinza’s world, and the moment it ended, her best friend would be beyond her reach.

* * *

It didn’t take them long the next morning to get down to Thibodaux. Abe lived just a few miles from there, seemingly out in the middle of nowhere. Mitra couldn’t get over how humid it was, even in September. She was glad they had stopped to get clothes at a random store, but the t-shirt and cutoff shorts she had on still felt like a parka.

They drove down a single-lane county road further south, following the directions Abe had given them. Apparently, he had his own plot of land out here where the portal was. The further they got, the more trees and water they found. Houses and buildings disappeared behind them and they finally found the mark on the side of the road where the driveway was. It went on for another quarter mile through the trees; the truck bouncing along on the uneven road.

They pulled up to what Mitra thought was a literal junkyard.

“Are you sure this is it?” she asked.

Haris slowed the truck down, peering out the windshield. “Um, not really…”

They looked around a lot filled with various old cars, tires, scrap material, a bathtub, and even a school bus. There were also scattered children’s toys, piles of wood, dog crates, the three dogs themselves, and a broken kiddie pool. Mitra finally spotted the house beneath a curtain of wind chimes and wind fans. The single-story shack was actually relatively decent in size, if you actually made it to the door without tripping and harming yourself.

The dogs had little interest as Haris pulled up as far as he could and killed the engine. On the side of the makeshift driveway was an old sign that said “NO TRESPASSING.”

“Maybe we should call again…” Mitra suggested as they got out and walked up to the door.

“I think it’s a little late for that,” Haris replied. There was a large porch across the front of the house, and it looked like the short staircase had fallen in long ago, replaced by a few cinder blocks. There was no way the owner would hear them coming with the army of wind chimes blowing, but they went up and knocked on the screen door.

At first, there was no answer, so Haris knocked again, harder this time. They heard movement from within and saw a shadow on the other side of the frosted glass of the inner door. The thumping of footsteps grew louder just as the shadow loomed on the other side of the door.

After what felt like a year, the door opened and on the other side of the screen, Mitra saw exactly what she had dreaded. An older man stood there, a little taller than herself, but three times as wide. Wild tufts of gray hair stuck out from underneath the straw hat, and she caught a glimpse of several missing teeth in the angry face of the man as he pushed open the screen door.

Mitra waited for him to yell at them for trespassing.

Then, in the thickest southern accent she had ever heard, “What took y’all so long?!”