Ed Sutter's 3-Book Box Set, page 34
My new customer—I supposed she was a customer—was about five feet seven, with gold-red hair cascading down her back, and from what I could tell, her mini-skirted navy blue business suit covered a body swimsuit models would be envious of. Then she turned to face me, and I got the full force of her looks. She had huge, slanted blue eyes, high cheekbones, and perfect teeth. Her scarlet silk blouse was open one too many buttons to be totally businesslike, but I wasn’t complaining. She had a magnificent set of—uh, eyes. Yeah, eyes. That was it.
I broke my lust-induced trance to say, “Ma’am, may I help you with anything?” Anything at all?
She smiled, no doubt fully aware of the effect she had on men, and replied, “Actually, I’m looking for someone. I understand that Zacharias Torres is the proprietor of this establishment?”
I nodded. “Yes, Ma’am, but he’s not here right at the moment. Can I tell him you stopped by, and what this is about?”
She smiled again, and I felt like a dog that had been patted on the head. Good doggy!
Then she went on, “Please tell him that Lindsay Lavell stopped by. Here’s my business card. I’ll be in town for a few days, and I’d like to speak to him about some rare items that I believe he may be in possession of.”
“Okey-dokey. I’ll be sure to let him know.”
She turned to leave, but then turned back suddenly, probably catching me looking at her butt. I blushed. So sue me.
She gave a small smile and said, “I’ll be staying at the Biltmore down on Camelback. Ask him to give me a call as soon as possible.”
Wow! I took a deep breath and wondered, what was I doing before Miss July came in? I drew a blank for at least two minutes. It may have taken that long for the blood to get back to my head from wherever it had gone. Oh yeah! Classes.
* * * *
It was about an hour later that Zack came in. He’d been out at an estate sale. I gather that the deceased had been a noted collector of esoteric—here read magic-related—objects. Besides the main business of the usual stuff like books and movies about the supernatural, herbs, magic wands, or Tibetan rosaries, Zack also did a fairly lucrative side business in hard-to-find magical implements and literature. Now, we’re talking the real thing here, not some New Age hokum. The boss liked to exercise some discretion in whom he sold stuff like that to. People had been known to do very bad things with magic, so Zack tried to make sure he didn’t sell some potent grimoire, say, to a guy who wanted to use it to pick up girls. He only catered to serious practitioners.
“Hey, Boss!” I called.
He smiled back. “Hi, Alec. How’s business today?”
I replied, “Pretty slow, actually, but you had a visitor.”
His eyebrows rose. “Oh?”
“Yeah, it was this totally hot redhead named Lindsay Lavell. Here’s her card. She wants you to call her at the Biltmore as soon as possible. I gather that she might be one of your practitioner customers.”
He looked down at the card. “Hmmm. Lavell. That rings a faint bell for some reason. I know I’ve never met her, though.”
At that moment, Zack’s niece and the love of my life, Marina Torres, came in the door. Marina has long, wavy black hair and big brown eyes. She’s slim, but round in all the right places. We’ve been friends since we were little kids, but the last couple of years, things changed. A lot. Think Salma Hayek in black jeans.
Today, Marina was dressed for work over at Chandler Public Library. She wore a black polo shirt, black jeans, and black tennis shoes. Hey, she likes black! What can I say?
“Hi, Alec,” she said, “Hi, Uncle Zack. What’s up?”
He smiled at her. “Oh, somebody named Lindsay Lavell stopped by asking for me. I can’t quite place the name. Sounds familiar though.”
Marina’s brows rose in surprise. “You mean you don’t know who Lindsay Lavell is? And she came into the Magic Shop?”
I volunteered, “Oh, yeah. She was in a couple of hours ago. She said she’d heard that Zack had something she was interested in.”
Marina looked at me. “Tall redhead? Gorgeous? Probably dresses really well?”
I nodded. “Sounds like her all right.”
Marina replied, “Oh my God! Lindsay Lavell is one of the richest women in the country! She owns Lavell Cosmetics, a clothing line, the most successful fashion magazine in the country, and a chain of clothing stores, all of which are international corporations.”
Just to show I’d been following along, I said, “Lavell Cosmetics?”
Marina looked at me like I was an idiot. “You mean you’ve never heard of Lavell Cosmetics?”
As she said this, the door chimes rang again, and Doctor Megan Lee came in. Tall and lean, with sun-bleached hair and a great tan, Doctor Lee was a world-renowned archaeologist and was, as near as I could tell, in a very hot relationship with Zack. She was wearing cargo shorts and chukka boots with a loose, sleeveless cotton shirt.
She smiled and said, “Lavell Cosmetics? Is Zack branching out to women’s’ accessories?”
Zack smiled at her, and who wouldn’t? He said, “Not this year. We got on this subject because Lindsay Lavell apparently stopped into the shop earlier looking for me. Marina was just giving a dissertation to us ignorant males as to who she is.”
Megan made a sour face. “Lindsay Lavell? That bitch!”
“Whoa!” said Zack, “I believe I detect the faintest hint of disapproval here.”
Megan gave him a wry smile. “This Lavell person is the worst kind of collector. She buys up antiquities, and then squirrels them away, never to be seen by the public again.” She started pacing, always a bad sign. “She’s also been implicated in several cases of outright theft of valuable artifacts, mostly of a reputed magical nature. Of course, nothing’s ever been proven, and she has a battery of the best lawyers that money can buy.” She paused and then said, “The bitch!”
Zack rubbed his chin. “A bitch indeed. I wonder what she wants from me.”
Megan came over, hugged him, and then held him at arm’s length. She said, “Whatever it is, don’t trust her.”
He kissed her on the forehead and said, “I don’t plan on it.”
They separated, and Megan looked around at all of us. “I have really exciting news! Marina, you’re going to love this.” She leaned back so she was half-sitting on Zack’s desk. “About a year ago, an untouched tomb was discovered in Egypt. The occupant of the tomb was Imhotep!” She looked around at our blank faces. “Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of him!”
“The Mummy?” I volunteered.
Marina suddenly brightened. “Not the Mummy, you dope. The real Imhotep was born a commoner in the Third Dynasty. He went on to become a scribe, an architect, a healer, and the Grand Vizier of all of Egypt!”
I couldn’t resist. “What’s a Grand Visor?”
Zack said, smiling, “Alec, I know you’re not that dumb.” Marina looked unconvinced. He went on. “A Grand Vizier was comparable to a Prime Minister. He would basically rule the country, answerable only to the Pharaoh.”
“So this was some guy, I take it.” I said.
Megan nodded and replied, “Oh yeah, he was some guy all right. Not only that, but they’ve taken the relics from his tomb on a world tour, and the tour’s coming to Phoenix!”
Marina said, “That is so cool! When does the tour arrive, and where are they going to be?”
Megan said, “They’re coming to the Phoenix Art Museum in two weeks. I’ve got tickets for all of us to go.”
Marina and, to a lesser extent, Zack were very enthusiastic. I couldn’t help but think, Mummies? Who needs mummies?
I’d had a kind of crash course in Ancient Egypt a few years before, when I accidentally came into possession of a gold amulet made by one of the high priests of Egypt. The amulet had been made for Alexander the Great, and it had this tendency, unless I was real careful, to grant my wishes, but always in unexpected ways.
Along with it, I’d found out that I was a distant descendant of Alexander, one of the greatest conquerors of all time, and possibly the greatest warrior of his age. Now, that in of itself would be kind of cool. Unfortunately, it also seemed that I was a reincarnation of old Al, and for a while there was some question as to who was going to get to run my life. It worked out in the end, but the Macedonian conqueror was still there in my head, but now we worked more as a team. It can get kind of confusing, though.
Overall, my life had been a lot better since I got the amulet, but there were times when things totally sucked. I didn’t know if this was because of the magical properties of the amulet, but it made me very wary of things having to do with Ancient Egypt.
Like I said, who needs mummies?
Physics
That late May evening, with the house air conditioning going full blast to ward off the early summer heat, I was sprawled across my bed reading about dark energy. Hey, I’m no Einstein, but we’d had a bit of an adventure the previous summer that got me started on what I call scientific magic. That may sound contradictory, but it made sense at the time, and it still does—to me, at least. What I’m talking about is the application of scientific principles using magic as a power source. The Ancient Egyptians called the magical force that pervaded the universe Heka. The Chinese call it Ch’i. The Japanese call it Ki, and the Hindus call it Prana. It seemed highly likely to me that they were all talking about the same energy or maybe the same set of energies.
Western science has largely ignored such talk, especially when it’s tied to Third World religions, blowing it off as religious bunk. After all, those countries aren’t as technologically advanced as we are, are they? How could they be more advanced in what amounted to theoretical physics? I was no longer so sure, and the new Western theories of dark energy seemed very much in line with the whole the-universe-is-full-of-magical-energy theories from around the world.
That’s why the book. Of course, like all popular science books, the author felt he had to start with guys like Newton and Galileo. This not only gave the reader all the background for the more modern theories, but it also made the book longer. Apparently, they think they’re going to get paid by the page. Hey, they could be right!
Anyway, you might think this whole business of technology powered by magic is baloney, but I’ve seen it work. It was amazing. An exoskeletal suit powered by Heka took me to space and got me back again, opening a whole can of whoop-ass on a fleet of alien invaders on the way.
Yes, a whole can.
That’s what got me interested in scientific magic and then theoretical physics.
Now, my girlfriend, Marina Torres, thinks I’m some kind of wizard. Although I think she’s overstating the case, she does have a bit of a point. A wizard is one of the wise; someone who knows things that other people don’t know and can do things that most other people can’t do. By that definition, I am kind of a wizard. The wise part, well, not so much.
According to this guy, scientists had been getting some readings that didn’t make total sense given the known theories about energies like gravity, electromagnetism, the strong force, and the weak force. Since they couldn’t explain some weird readings they were getting, they theorized that there was some other force at work, which they dubbed dark energy. This dark energy is supposed to compose as much as seventy-five percent of our universe. This was kind of disturbing to me to have so much of the universe more or less undefined. On the other hand, it left me free to come up with some weird-ass theories of my own, such as scientific magic.
Besides, like I said, I’d seen devices that worked on some sort of motive power that I didn’t think could be explained by old Sir Isaac Fig Newton. But it seemed to me that if there really is this dark energy floating around all over the place, it would seem to be a likely source for this power, whatever you wanted to call it.
In the end, I guess it doesn’t matter much what you call magical energy. All you’ve got to know is that it works. And boy does it work!
The only trick for me was to figure out how to apply it. This made me wonder if someone already had without necessarily knowing what they’d done.
* * * *
The warehouse space had seemed pretty large when they’d rented it, but now it was filled with equipment—lots of equipment. In the center, a tower of girders rose up to the roof. The people who’d rented the building were somewhat paranoid about being discovered. This paranoia ranged from fear of others stealing their research and claiming it as their own to government agents shutting them down for using too much power or not having a license to do such research or spitting on the sidewalk.
Were any of these scenarios likely? Probably not, but that wasn’t the same as saying they were impossible. Paranoia has its own logic.
This was a research facility, way out on the cutting edge of some new and hopefully revolutionary technologies. The problem was, until a design was refined, it couldn’t be patented, and if any other researchers got wind of what was going on here, they might be able to beat this group to the punch.
John Murdoch was forty years old, and this was going to be his crowning achievement. He’d worked for several of the R&D facilities around the country and here in Arizona, and he felt it was time to go out on his own. Instead of going for venture capital to fund his experiments, he’d sold his house and gotten money from his parents. That way, no nosy investors would be looking over his shoulder, saying, “Are you through yet? Where’s my return on investment?”
Murdoch had even more reason to be nervous about his experiments than normal, though. Unknown to anyone but himself, his research was being guided by a dead man. The physicist’s great-grandfather had died in the sixties, and of course, young John had never met him. However, he almost felt that he’d grown up with the man from all that his father and grandfather talked about him. The elder Murdoch had been an immigrant from Ulster where his family had lived for centuries, ever since emigrating from Galloway in Scotland.
Coming to the United States, young Shane Murdoch had gotten a job as first a janitor, then a general handyman, and finally a technologist for the most eccentric scientist of his time, perhaps of all time. The scientist and inventor’s name was Nicola Tesla.
Himself an immigrant from Serbia, Tesla had initially distinguished himself when he worked for Thomas Edison. Tesla did an excellent job, but Edison just hated him. When designing something, Edison had to write all his ideas, notes, schematics, and designs on paper to keep them straight. Tesla, on the other hand, had the uncanny ability to model new designs in his head, somehow being able to envision them in all three dimensions without ever committing the new ideas to paper. This drove Edison, a man with a large sense of his own self-worth, totally bonkers. When Tesla proposed that alternating current was the most efficient method to use electricity, as opposed to the direct current that Edison espoused, matters came to a head, and Edison fired Tesla.
Tesla, none the worse for wear, turned around and invented an alternating current generator and sold the rights to George Westinghouse. When Westinghouse’s new corporation proceeded to beat the holy hell out of Edison’s business, Edison’s hatred of Tesla reached new heights.
Tesla had gone on to captivate and frustrate the scientific community. He announced tantalizing discoveries, but he rarely published his findings or applied for patents. Thus, there was always a lot of mystery surrounding his work. Occasionally, Tesla would appear on stage, cloaked in huge arcs of static electricity. It looked like no one could survive in such an environment, but Tesla would sit there in the midst of bolts of lightning, calmly reading the newspaper.
When Tesla died in 1949, it was thought that at long last his research would become public knowledge, but as near as anyone could tell, the eccentric inventor went to the grave with his most tantalizing discoveries still recorded only in his own head. He left virtually no documentation of his research.
Or so it was thought at the time. When John Murdoch’s grandfather had died a few years ago, the youngest Murdoch received only an old steamer trunk as his inheritance. Not much of a fortune. He hadn’t paid much attention to it, but stashed it in his attic as a memento of the first American Murdoch.
Because of the connection to his family, Shane Murdoch’s grandson, John’s father, had always been fascinated with Nicola Tesla. In his very old age, Murdoch’s grandfather had told the wide-eyed boy tales of the great inventor. Tesla’s exploits had seemed like magic to the young boy, and he had classed the inventor with stories about Merlin and Moses, the wonder-workers.
Shane Murdoch had evolved over the years with Tesla from a humble janitor to a fabricator and lower-level engineer working with the hardware of Tesla’s inventions. In his thirties, the elder Murdoch had struck out on his own, gaining patents on a number of electro-mechanical inventions of his own, but he’d never forgotten his apprenticeship with the Serbian genius.
He’d maintained a friendship with his mentor for the rest of the inventor’s life, and when Tesla was in his final days, he’d entrusted Murdoch with all his papers and research notes. Tesla had had ideas ripped off before, at least one time through the agency of Thomas Edison, and he wanted to make sure his research didn’t fall into the wrong hands.
Murdoch had safeguarded the research materials, but he’d never delved into their contents himself. Perhaps he’d felt that it would be stealing, and he had his own design ideas anyway.
When John was looking for a place to store some old books, he came across his great grandfather’s trunk and finally opened it and went through its contents. In it, he found reams of notebooks—Tesla’s vanished research. Apparently, Shane Murdoch had spirited away the papers at the time of his boss and mentor’s death.
Of course, the research was all seventy to one hundred years old and couldn’t have any useful applications in today’s technological world. Science had moved on and far outstripped the accomplishments of the world of Nicola Tesla and Thomas Alva Edison.
