Black Magic Friday by E Frost (books to read fiction .TXT) 📗

When I turn my head to follow the movement, it’s gone. I only meet my own reflection – black hair, black clothes, black messenger bag, black sunglasses, and now a black scowl – but nothing else. Nothing out of place.

“Zee, come on!”

Not wanting to lose her in the crowd, I hurry after Lin, tripping through an obstacle course of men’s shirts that have fallen off a “last chance” rack. I pity the store employee who has to pick them up. They’ll get trampled.

The elevator takes us up a level, but plunges us deeper into the fray. The next level is wall-to-wall bodies. I can’t even see the sale racks. Lin’s undeterred as she plunges into the mass. I trail her, trying to keep her black pony-tail in sight as she weaves between the other shoppers. How does she even know where she’s going? She must have memorized the battle-plan, I mean, floor-plan.

I catch up with her at a huge double-rack of winter coats. She has two padded coats that look identical to me, one in each hand, and is holding them up for comparison.

Until a middle-aged woman tears one out of her hand with a snarl. “I saw that first!”

Okay, that is beyond too much. “Hey,” I say sharply, putting some power behind the word.

A goateed young man turns from the opposite rack, moves up behind the grabby woman and shouts at me, “Don’t you threaten her!”

I wasn’t. Not yet. “Let’s all—”

But I don’t get to finish telling them all to calm down. A hard shove from behind knocks me into the rack of coats. I grab the rack to keep from falling. Another shove sends me sagging into the rack, as a young man in a plaid coat and jeans hurdles me to grapple with the grabby woman.

In his wake, in my peripheral vision as I tangle in the coats, there’s a dark, oily movement.

“Zee!”

Lin grabs my arm and starts pulling me out of the coats. Then she’s thrown on top of me as two women jump into the battle over the puffy coat.

“Out the other side,” I shout to Lin. I duck down and crawl under the coats. Standing up in the middle of the rack, between the parallel hanging bars, elicits cries of surprise from the shoppers on the far side of the rack, but gives me a good view of the fracas unfolding behind me.

There are now six people involved in the tug-of-war over the coat, which has torn and is shedding stuffing in all directions. Onlookers ring the opponents. Cell phones begin to flash, chronicling the mayhem. And in their glare, I see that dark, oily movement again, sliding between the combatants.

Goosebumps rise on my arms, despite the warmth of the overcrowded store, as I realize what that movement is. What’s incited the battle, beyond the usual irritation and aggression of competitive shopping. And why every small injury today has been so magnified.

Hidden behind my sunglasses, I roll my eyes up until all I can see is the blackness behind my eyelids. Opening my Second Sight, I whisper, “Show yourself.”

In my Sight, the Basement looks mostly the same, although there’s a pixie nest buzzing under a lingerie display two aisles over, and a man holding up a flashing cell phone glitters in a way that no human being should. I ignore the fae and focus on the fight. The oily movement resolves first into a black ribbon that weaves the combatants together, and then into a tiny, hunched man with horns, a tail and clawed hands that drag along the linoleum as he creeps between the fighters.

An imp.

I’ve seen imps before. I know that, like their greater demon cousins, they come in several flavors. I’m not sure what flavor this imp is, but based on the effect he’s having on the shoppers, I’m guessing he’s a rage demon.

Demons feed on powerful human emotions, but I know from dealing with the greater demon who nearly stole my soul, they also incite those emotions. This imp is having his Thanksgiving feast a day late, and he’s about to incite a full-scale riot in Filene’s Basement. On the busiest shopping day of the year.

I blink until my eyes roll back to their normal position. Hesitate. The imp might be here because of me. The greater demon’s interest – and maybe the mark he left on me – have turned me into a bull’s-eye for infernal attention. I might have drawn the imp here. But he’s not paying any attention to me – he’s found a rich source of emotion to feed on. I could probably slip away while he’s busy. Hell, with everyone focused on the fight, I could probably Earth Walk right out of here without anyone noticing.

But that would mean leaving everyone in the Basement to the imp’s very untender mercies. Including Lin, who has never Earth Walked before.

Damn.

I reach down between the suffocating coats until I find the messenger bag riding my hip. I open the top flap and slide my hand in gingerly. What I’m reaching for is sharp.

My fingertips brush cool metal. I find the less-pointy end of the needle and pull it out of the bag’s lining. Holding it up, eye-to-eye, I reach out with my other hand, pinch together my thumb and first finger and draw my hand through the air, describing an invisible thread. I draw the thread out for a yard, then push it through the eye of the needle. A glimmer of power follows my movements, and when I take the threaded needle and draw it through the air in a wide loop, that glimmer explodes into fireworks.

Everything around me freezes: the swaying coats, the flashing phones, the tussling shoppers. They become streamers of colored light, waving gently through the air while Time follows the loop I’ve created. It’s