Vanessa (The Magician – Chapter Three)

This is the third chapter of the serialization novel I am working on, The Magician. To read the previous chapters, click here

Want to listen to this instead of read it? Check out M. Ray Davis’ podcasted version!

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Vanessa

Vanessa Rankin sat at her desktop computer that same evening, listening to music stream through her wireless headset as she typed her latest paper. Her attention span was limited, however, because the music kept making her fingers dance otherwise. And every time her fingers danced, she cast the magic with which she was born.

Colors streamed from her fingers, lighting up the room as they did so. She had been blessed by a magical ability to stream colors as easily as she streamed the spells of her magical lineage. Emotions heightened the ability, which was a trait passed down from one of her notable ancestors. Certain kinds of music touched her soul in a way that she was able to create spectacular shows of light and colors. But so far, she usually limited those shows to just herself and a few close friends and family members, playing around with her magic as she went about her life as normally as possible. Her mother Evelyn had caught a few of her acts, smiling as she watched her daughter’s magic surreptitiously. Evelyn was proud of the magic her daughter could do, even if it terrified some of the others in their family.

After all, that gift had come from Evelyn’s lines. It was an innate ability only a few magicians could ever do. Vanessa was one of them, and if channeled correctly, the magic would be something of wonder.

But Vanessa was also trying to get some research done and a paper finished. Despite being descended from some of the more famous families of magic in the new world, her father’s maternal line frowned upon magical means for income. So she was learning to also do a normal line of work, getting her master’s degree in history. She had declared her intent to become a historian at one of Allium’s many museums. It was her dream job.

The magic that ran true in her veins was hard to ignore though.

It wasn’t as though the non-magical line of her family disliked magicians. It was just that Vanessa’s paternal grandmother came from a normal line that had made their money from steelwork in the early part of last century. Vanessa’s gran’s grandfather had a stipulation in his will that had carried for generations. The only way to inherit any portion of the Birdwhistle fortune was to accomplish some sort of mastery in a non-magical occupation. Lawyers for the latest generations of the family had found that equated to having acquired some sort of trade certificate or degree that could be actually used to find work. Carleton Birdwhistle didn’t frown upon magicians, just the fact that they could use their magic for shifty gain. He detested that idea.

Carleton was a pretty cunning man and thoroughly covered all of his bases. The will was magically binding, due to a spell cast by one of his lawyers, a man who was also a magician. Thus, no magicians in or out of the family could use coercion or magical means to gain any Birdwhistle funds.

The Birdwhistles were dying out though. Most of the later generations were not having many male heirs, so the name itself was slowly dwindling. While Gran had married into the Rankin line and had two sons, they carried the magical Rankin name versus the normal Birdwhistle one. 

However, being a Rankin carried merit too. After all, Ezekiel Rankin was a magician made of legend in his own day. His family lines had helped to found the new world as well, rubbing close shoulders with the magical Tamberlanes, Zamoras, Hennesseys, Jamesons, and other old-world families who helmed the beginnings of the new country. These pioneers dreamed of a world where magicians and normals could live side by side.

The Rankins came from money in the old country, bringing it with them as they fled. It was them who had used magical trickery to increase and maintain their fortunes. Ezekiel’s grandfather Abner Rankin was never trusted by Carleton Birdwhistle because of his unscrupulous ways at gaining even more fortune and fame. But the latter generations had resorted to honest days’ work and investments to keep their fortunes strong.

And while Vanessa was born into those lines and those fortunes, she was determined to make a name for herself. She also intended to keep all of her ancestral lines remembered. She was a lover of history, as it were. She was divested in learning all of their stories, especially the one of the ancestor who had given her the very powers she was now demonstrating.

The song ended and Vanessa shook her head at the distraction as she continued her typing. She could not give way to her emotions and use her magic right now. She had to focus on the paper. It was extremely late that night and she only had to finish her edits, since this part of her paper was due at eight the following morning.

The research she was doing that night was on recognizing the various classes of magicians. She looked at the edits her friend had sent her to add some more information to her paper. It was her first assignment for her new advisor and she wanted to make an impression.

A domoniketes is one of the rarer classes of magicians. They have learned to control magic by dominating other magicians and submitting them to do their bidding. Reginald Chancer was the first to ever mention this class of magician. His works from 1580 common era stated that the domoniketes was an evil class of magic, the darkest ever created, and thus the rarity of the class was advantageous because the chances of running into a domoniketes were very slim. However, some modern historians, such as Manolo De Cardova and Odette Paine, state that classing domoniketes magicians in a class by themselves is misleading since these magicians actually do not exist. 

The pathomotus, on the other hand, is a well-documented though not well-known class of magicians, despite being the rarest distinctions of magicians known to all men. Estelle Hobbes was the first record keeper to ever record the name, as her records date back to the 1720s common era when the first of such magicians, unnamed of course, came from the old world to the new in search of a better life. She also made the distinction between pathomotus and the other classes, though she did not name the other classes she was referring to, so that was lost to time. It was also Hobbes that observed that the pathomotus can actually feel the magic that is being created, bringing into it their emotional range.

However, the lines of pathomotus magicians are rare. It is also theorized, though not proven, that the pathomotus ability is an inherited gene in magician families, one that runs strong especially in lines that are full blood. However, research into that idea is insufficient and lacking, since the magical class is exceedingly rare indeed. Only a few of this kind of magician have ever been studied.

The two classes, while the most scarce of all classes of magicians, are also the most fascinating to those who live on the fringes of society. These two classes have become, in the words of the aforementioned Odette Paine, “the stuff of all created legends in our known world.”  The pathomotus and the domoniketes, while dissimilar in nature, share a great deal of similarities in that they are both widely written about though few have been known to exist.

She smiled as she read through her paper one last time, nodding with a bit of pride. She finished her paper with a stunning conclusion and then turned her music up as loud as she could bear.

She closed her eyes as she felt the beat of the instruments. She let her hands bob and weave as she painted with her magical colors. There was something carefree about the way she allowed the magic to just flow, giving movement and light to the rhythm. Her face had a look of pure joy as she moved with some internal desire to just create.

It was mesmerizing. It was fluid. It was even graceful. It was how she communicated with herself. 

A lone black sedan was parallel parked along the curb across from her apartment. Its solitary occupant was watching the colors flash through the drawn sheers. The man was scribbling notes in shorthand by streetlight as he spied on the young woman, watching the colors as he worked. He dared not use a cellular phone, for he was afraid to draw attention to himself in the darkness.

Vanessa had no idea she was being watched as she created her magic. If she had, she would have drawn the blinds

Click here for the next chapter – Return

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Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction written by K. S. Wood, and thus is copyrighted 2023. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.  No part of this work may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.  All rights reserved.

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