Crimes of Magic: The Witch's Artifact

Crimes of Magic:

The Witch’s Artifact

(Case 1)

by Richard L. King

Copyright 2014, Richard L. King

All rights are reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form, (printed, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, filming, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance, by name or personality, to real people, living or dead, is coincidental.

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Table of Contents

Copyright

Chapter 1 - The Beginning

Chapter 10 - The Middle

About the Author

About the Sequel

Chapter 1

It was a typical cool and drizzly February day in Portland, Oregon as I locked my car and walked up the steps to my front door. I had just returned from a trip to Powell’s Bookstore where I had found an old book on Celtic magic. Before I could climb the stairs to my apartment, I heard a familiar voice.

Hey Professor! Want to ride along on a real-life investigation?

The voice belonged to my favorite tenant, Rachel Chase. Rachel, a thirty-five year-old private investigator, had moved in over a year earlier. She would sometimes come up to my apartment for coffee, and we would chat about her latest case or about my research into magic. I had grown to like Rachel. She is interesting and very independent, not to mention attractive. I had never gotten a ride along invitation before.

That sounds very interesting, I replied. Would you like to come up for tea and tell me about it?

Sure, what’s for tea?

How about Sumatran coffee and PB&J sandwiches?

Yummy, Rachel said, and we climbed the stairs to my apartment.

Years ago, I had ritualized my late afternoon food cravings to create my own version of teatime. Because of my somewhat unconventional meal schedule, I always get a little hungry around four o’clock in the afternoon, so why not just admit this fallibility and have a small meal?

We went upstairs to my apartment, which was the entire second floor of my Portland style house. I had bought the house ten years earlier, when I retired from the software business at the age of forty. I had done some renovations on the house so that I could have two rental apartments on the ground floor, while I live on the top floor.

What’s in the Powell’s bag? Rachel asked.

It’s an old book on Celtic magic, I replied as I hung my hat and jacket on the coat tree.

Is there anything about witches in the book? It might come in handy.

What do you mean?

We’re going to go looking for a witch.

Is this the ‘ride along’ you mentioned?

Yes it is. Are you interested?

You certainly have my attention. By the way, the only sandwich bread I have is whole wheat with flax seed. Is that OK?

Sure, I’ll eat anything.

I made the sandwiches and brewed the coffee—black for Rachel, with half-and-half for me. We sat at my kitchen table and began our tea.

This is good coffee, as usual, Rachel observed, and the sandwich is good, too.

Simple but tasty, I agreed.

This case I took today is right up your alley, Professor.

Rachel had always called me Professor since our first meeting when she signed her lease. I have never been a professor or even taught a single course, but when I explained this to her she said, You seem like a professor to me, and that’s what I’m going to call you. She likes to give people and things nicknames, and somehow these names seem to stick. Now both tenants call me Professor.

OK, give me all the details.

I got a call this morning from a woman who asked me to investigate a witch. I thought since you’re so interested in magic, you might be interested.

I’m all ears, I said.

I think it’s just a standard P.I. case, Rachel said. This rich lady thinks that her husband is having an affair with a witch. I’ve investigated quite a few adultery cases, and although they aren’t my favorite, they’re usually pretty easy to solve. I really don’t think there’s anything supernatural going on here, but the client thinks witchcraft is involved. I’m all for anything that gives me an edge in getting new business, and I think you could be my edge here.

I’ll be glad to render any assistance that I can, I said.

Actually, Professor, I think that this will just be a standard investigation, but I thought you might like to tag along. It’ll be fun. You always like to hear about my cases, and this should be a simple one you can jump into from the start.

That sounded good to me. Anything that allowed me to spend more time with Rachel would sound good to me. I had been trying to figure out an excuse to do this, and now fate had done the work for me.

Rachel is a remarkable woman who, although fifteen years younger than I, is very mature and intelligent for a thirty-five year-old. Not that I am an expert on thirty-five-year-old women, or any women for that matter, but once you get past her extroverted persona, you realize that she has a deep understanding of people, their motivations and their foibles. She also has a good heart and a quick mind.

Rachel is a slender five-foot six with short, dark hair, brown eyes and a bold nose. Her hips are small, but her breasts are slightly larger than one might expect. Her fashion sense is uniquely Rachel. When dealing with the public, she often wears black tights and a dress or skirt a couple of inches above the knee. When she is doing surveillance, jeans and a tee shirt will suffice.

I’m game, I said. What’s the plan?

She called me just after lunch. By the way, her name is Phyllis Overgarden, and I said I would come talk with her this evening. I was writing a report on my current case when she called, and I didn’t want to jump up and go over right away. I asked if she would rather meet at my office, but she said that she would rather have me come to her house this evening. I told her I would come over about half an hour from now. We should get going.

Well, that’s pretty short notice, but as it happens, I’m at loose ends at the moment, and a break in the routine would be welcomed. Let me grab a different jacket, and I’ll be ready.

Mind if I get a Ziploc to put this half of my sandwich in? Rachel asked.

Help yourself, I said as I went into my bedroom. I put on a tan raw silk jacket, and put a few things from a dresser drawer into the jacket pockets before I went back to the kitchen.

No padded elbows, Professor?

I did have a jacket with padded elbows, but I was fighting the stereotype.

This is it, I said, and nothing black. Do you think I can venture out into Portland after dark without wearing black?

It’s a stretch, but for a middle-aged man, it’s acceptable, Rachel replied.

Middle-aged? Am I middle-aged? Well, if I live to be a hundred, then I guess I’m middle-aged, but I would like to think I’m younger than middle-aged. Does Rachel see me as middle-aged? I don’t think I’m that much older than she is. Does she see me as a doddering old man?

Come on, we’ll take Fred, Rachel said.

Fred is the name Rachel has given to her silver Honda CR-V. Just as she has named me Professor, so she has named her car Fred. Should I insist on driving? Would that be the manly thing to do? Or would it come across as old-fashioned, or even worse, chauvinistic? A guy just can’t catch a break these days. Damned if you do; damned if you don’t.

Fine, I said, let’s go.

Chapter 2

How do witches fit into your theory of scientific magic, Professor? Rachel asked after we had buckled up and pulled out of the driveway.

"Well, as you know, it isn’t really my theory. My friend Ward Thompson came up with the theory."

Howard (Ward) Thompson is my friend and previous boss at SimBiotic Arts, a Portland software company that creates virtual reality games. Ward is the founder and genius gamer, and I had been one of his three initial employees. The other two were professional programmers, while I was a physicist by training.

"It reminds me of The Matrix movie," Rachel observed.

"The theory isn’t quite like The Matrix, I replied. In The Matrix, people’s bodies existed in the real world, while their minds existed in an artificial reality. According to the theory of scientific magic, reality itself is like a virtual reality game. Some would say that this reality exists in the mind of God. Ward believes that it exists in something like a gigantic computer. I guess such a powerful computer might as well be the mind of God."

So what about witches? Rachel repeated. How do they fit in?

Well, witches cast spells and spells are an important part of Ward’s theory. In fact, a wizard is Ward’s mentor. According to the theory, casting a spell is just running a hidden application in the universe’s software operating system.

Ward had come up with his own theory of reality. As a coder of artificial reality, he began to notice how the limitations of the real world were similar to his limitations in creating artificial worlds. For example, the fact that nothing can travel faster than light in the real world seemed to Ward to be similar to limitations on how fast players could move through his artificial world. He thought that both limitations were due to a lack of computing power.

Another example was that in his simulations of forests and oceans, he had to use probabilities to determine what the terrain would look like when a player wandered through it. He thought that the same limitations applied in the real world.

You know that riddle, ‘If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, does it make a sound?’ Ward once posited. Well, not only does it not make a sound, it doesn’t even fall. Until somebody comes along to observe it, it’s just a statistical probability. The universe doesn’t have enough computing power to keep track of every tree and insect. When somebody comes along, the tree goes from an indeterminate state to either standing or fallen. Unless something is observed by a player, it hasn’t really happened, Ward had theorized.

So casting a spell is hacking the system, Rachel observed.

That’s an astute observation, I replied, but technically, it’s not a hack, it’s an exploit. A hack would actually change the universe’s system software. As far as we know, the system code can’t be changed. An exploit, however, merely runs an application that is already coded into the system, but is hidden and can only be accessed by casting the appropriate spell.

Drawing symbols and lighting candles seems like a pretty low-tech way of running hidden software, Rachel observed.

Remember, these hidden apps have existed literally from the beginning of time. Wizards had to be able to access them long before computers, electricity or even simple machines were invented. It all had to be done with symbols and ordinary objects.

So witches know how to do all this hacking, Rachel said.

"I don’t think that all the spells that exist in modern times are the real thing. I think that in ancient times, there were real wizards and sorcerers who could work real magic by casting spells, but I think they guarded those secrets pretty closely.

I suspect that people tried to copy the authentic spells, and the spells of today are derivatives of those copies. I doubt that many people can cast a real spell these days. If they could, magic would be commonplace.

That’s what I’m thinking, too, Rachel agreed.

That’s not to say that no one who claims to be a witch can perform magic. There are bound to be a few spells that have survived the centuries. Even an imperfect copy of a spell could have some effect, just as buggy software can usually accomplish something. There are likely to be more bad side effects if the spell, or software, isn’t perfect.

We drove into Portland’s West Hills. This is an upscale neighborhood with many houses built on the steep slopes of the hills marking the city’s western perimeter. It is a well-established area of mostly old-money homes. Most of the newly rich are buying in the gentrified sections of town. The houses in the West Hills have great views of the city and of Mount Hood. I was expecting Phyllis Overgarden to be ancient, snooty and