Crime Spells.

Martin H Greenberg.

Loren L Coleman.

Foreword.

Loren L. Coleman.

I've always been fascinated with the idea, apparently shared by so many people, that magic-if it does or could exist-would somehow make everything easier.

That you can get something for nothing.

You hear it in conversations all the time. After something happens that was easier than it should have been, someone will shrug and say, "Must have been magic." Searching for the solution to a hard problem is described as "needing some magic." And a windfall, a bonus, a lucky occurrence: "magical."

I suppose the quick and easy answer for this is to blame some of the old fables. Aladdin and his magic lamp, for instance. On the surface, it sounds like such a great deal. Three wishes, no waiting. Don't need a permit, no license, and the IRS doesn't even have a check-off box for the value returned from the djinn. There is no downside. Right?

Ahh, but the fine print. That's what everyone tends to forget when reminiscing about the "grand olde days," when magic was real and talking fishes still granted wishes for the low, low price of being returned to the water. Even in the Disney animated flick, Aladdin's wishes don't bring him the happiness he thought he would receive. No sudden drop-off on Easy Street for him. In the end, he's lucky enough just to break even.

If you think about it, he was fortunate to even make that.

Because there has never been an invention or discovery for which someone did not pay a price. Often a heavy price. And right on the heels of implementation often follows the disreputable element. The shady side of the street. You know: Crime.

Feats of skill led to gambling. Corporate espionage is only a shade younger than corporations. And nothing revitalized the p.o.r.n industry like the internet.

Which is what made me wonder about the shadier side of all this magic for which everyone yearns. Would the IRS (or someone) try to collect their due from chiseling wishmongers? What happens when magic is used to handicap the ponies? What kind of people are going to step forward to save us from all this "easy living?"

And once magic is outlawed, will only outlaws have magic?

Reading this anthology, you may begin to find answers to some of these questions. We'll scratch the surface, certainly. Poke at some of the softer bits you've been hiding. In the end, though, I think you'll find that this is only the beginning. The start of the path-one filled with many twists, turns, and pitfalls-but worth taking regardless. That you knew all along that you could not get something for nothing.

Because nothing is free.

Not even magic...

Web Ginn House: A Zoe Martinique Investigation.

by Phaedra M. Weldon.

A toaster spun across the room straight for my head.

Luckily I was out-of-body (OOB to the initiated), so the blasted thing drove right through me and into the ceramic clown behind me. Crash!

I hate clowns.

But then again, how rude! I didn't feel the solid object, but I sure as h.e.l.l was going to remember it later as a migraine on the physical plane. Oh, I could choose to go through things, like doors and walls, but when I did that, I was prepared. Nothing like walking down Peachtree Street and having some very angry spirit bean you with a kitchen appliance.

Though I'm not sure which is worse-the flying ginzu knives or the hideous furniture flashback to 1964, complete with plastic couch cover.

Whoa! Look out-a juicer!

Oh, speaking of rude, let me introduce myself. Name's Zoe Martinique. Long e sound. Not like toe. I'm not a ghost or anything-not even a distant relation to Danny Phantom (but it'd be cool to have his white hair)-but a living, breathing (and ever curious) Latino Irish American who just happens to travel out of body.

Sounds weird, huh?

Yeah, most people hear Latino and Irish, and before they see me, they think, "She either looks like Jennifer Lopez or Opie Griffith."

h.e.l.l, you think if I looked like JLo, I'd be incorporeal in north Georgia dodging toasters? Nope. I'd be making me some s.e.xy music videos and racking up husband number two.

I'm a stick with mounds of brown hair, brown eyes, and freckles.

Ack! This time a Betty Crocker cookbook spun at me, hard cover open, pages flapping in the wind. I moved to the side and did a nice duck behind the sofa. The book dented the wall behind me, just missing-I stopped and glared at the garish figurines on the shelf-what were those things? Gah-ceramic harlequins.

Hideous.

Mental note: I really hate clowns.

If I could, I'd let loose with some rather colorful metaphors about now, but even incorporeal, the SPRITE equipment set up throughout the two story house would hear me on tape. And that just wouldn't do.

Oh, yeah, SPRITE stands for Southeast Paranormal Research Investigators for Tactical Extermination. Uh-huh. What killed me was their obnoxious little logo of a fairy holding a ghost around the neck.

Sick, sick, sick.

But with that kind of publicity, I'd rather not be noticed by them. I might be invisible to the naked eye, and I'm not that sure I won't show up on film, but for some strange reason I can be heard. Learned that the hard way once and nearly gave one of my targets a heart attack.

Let me set the stage here so it doesn't seem like I'm babbling.

I learned I could go out of body six years ago, and once I got past that whole adolescent need to spy on people (like boyfriends, hussies who stole my boyfriends, cheating boyfriends), I learned I could make money with this little talent and have for the last two years. I rent out my services for information gathering. Well, okay, I snoop. The code word is Traveler-I'm a Traveler for their information needs.

Don't try this at home, kiddies.

I've also learned the more under-the-table it sounds, the more money customers are willing to pay. People prefer to dish out high dollar for something they think is illegal-and I have a mortgage that keeps a roof over my physical body, which is at present resting comfortably in my condo near Piedmont Park.

I sell my services on eBay. I know, odd modus operandi (I love using those words), I admit, but as I said before, I Travel for people, and my friend and Magical MacGuyver of all things spooky, Rhonda Orly, handles the business end of things. eBay was her idea.

And as of two days ago, three days before Halloween-which is tomorrow-I received a request from a repeating client. I never know their names or their locations, just their e-mail addresses. This guy's handle was Did a good bit of odd Traveling for him these past two years.

Paid good too. His requests were pretty straightforward. Snoop on this meeting, report back in detail. Watch this couple, report back. Watch this building, tell me what happened between yadda time and yadda time. My information wasn't admissible in court-I had no physical proof (as an incorporeal ent.i.ty I couldn't lift anything solid, so no takey evidence from the scene). I couldn't even take pictures like a private investigator.

But the clients didn't seem to care. They trusted me, and I enjoyed the work. I often thought they'd find my methods a bit... questionable. And if not the methods, then maybe my attire. I usually went out in black leggings, black turtleneck, and black bunny slippers. They were so cute with their nylon whiskers and pink ears. I could honestly say I loved my job.

Except when it put me in front of hurling objects.

My instructions sent me to Web Ginn House Road in downtown Lawrenceville, Georgia. I live in Atlanta. The a.s.signment was to investigate a haunted house, though my client neglected to tell me I'd be sharing s.p.a.ce with a spook team. Oh, I believed in ghosts. Trust me. My mom has a couple living at her house-and I don't mean one or two ghosts, I mean a couple as in they're together. Tim and Steve. Quite a pair. She lives in Little Five Points-the artsy part of Atlanta.

But as for actually seeing ghosts other than those two-nope. This was a new experience for me. And it was just cla.s.sic that I was doing it the night before Halloween.

Yay. Go me.

This time I wasn't paying attention when two of the members of SPRITE meandered into the room. The hurling of dangerous objects immediately ceased when they stepped in with their equipment held out in front of them and flashlights fixed to their foreheads.

"Randall, look over there!" the thinner of the two men said in an excited whisper. He was pointing in my direction, so I exited stage right, out of the line of fire of whatever electronic ghost snooping gadgetry they had in their hands.

"How the h.e.l.l did these kitchen appliances get into the living room?" Randall, the wider of the two, with less hair, stopped looking down at his display and looked at the ceramic mess to the right of the couch. He had a light strapped to his forehead, and he shined the beam onto the floor.

"I told you I heard something in here," the thinner one said. I thought his name was Herb, though I wasn't sure. "I hope the cameras caught this on tape."

"Oh, h.e.l.l. Clowns," muttered Randall. "I hate clowns. Menacing alien creatures."

I liked him.

"Well, you know what this proves, don't you?"

"What, Herb? That ghosts hate clowns?"

I slapped my hand over my mouth. Nearly chuckled out loud on that one.

"No, that poltergeists aren't always phenomena attached to teenagers entering p.u.b.erty. No kids live here."

Poltergeist?

Interesting. Maharba never mentioned anything about poltergeists.

I felt a slight vibration then, something racing up my back. It was the same feeling I'd had right before the first object sailed through me. Martinique Spideysense.

Yep! And there it was! I didn't actually see what the flying object was at first because this one came from the living room and not the kitchen. I did feel it as it pa.s.sed through my chest-a sort of odd pressure.

There was a moment of dizziness as I moved back to see a clock smash against the wall beside the ceramic mess. Whatever this thing was, I got the impression it was targeting me.

Oh joy.

"You see that? The clock's still plugged in." Herb moved over the broken ceramic toward me.

Still plugged in? Electricity. Was that why I felt like I'd been zapped? Might be-I'd always heard that electronic equipment went fritzy around electromagnetic ent.i.ties (or so Rhonda had said on occasion). So why shouldn't they have the same effect on out-of-body girlies like me?

"Herb... rewind the thermal imager..."

That's when I saw the first of what looked like a whitish tentacle ooze its way around the feet of the couch. I stepped back and stared at it with mounting fear as it wound itself around the stubby couch leg on the front right. Another appeared from beneath, a soft white iridescent squidlike arm, and wrapped itself around the front left.

"Oh geez..." Randall said. "Do you see that?"

"Oh, the f.u.c.k I do!" I blurted out and moved out of the way just before the entire couch launched itself into the air and came at me. I had just enough time to duck down the hall to my left as the yellow-with-pink-flowers piece of furniture bounced into the wall and landed on top of the floor-model television.

Sorry about the furniture, but what the h.e.l.l was that? I ran down the hall and circled around to the den, avoiding the kitchen and its whirling appliances altogether. I was getting winded, which in Traveling speak meant I'd been out of body a good while. Four hours appeared to be my limit before all sorts of nasty afflictions screwed up my physical self.

Headache (migraines), lethargy, upset stomach, dark circles under the eyes-not attractive to the opposite s.e.x.

I stopped in my astral tracks once I entered the den.

It was there, standing in the center of the room, all glowy and horror-movie-of-the-week.

A giant squid. And I mean a giant freakin' squid. The thing looked as if it were made out of smoke and ash. A monochromatic nightmare of infinite proportions.

This thing made clowns seem normal.

Well-maybe not.

And the mother was staring right at me.

Oh, no way!

The tentacles were stretched out all over the house, but here in the den was where the body was. I'd overheard the SPRITE team talking about the upstairs bedroom being the central area where most of the activity was centered, not the den.

So, how come no one told this wacko sea animal he was in the wrong room?

Astral wind picked up, and I actually felt my incorporeal hair stand on end. Two of the tentacles lashed out at me, and I screamed as I watched them try to wind their way around my ankles.

Try being the key word here.

They melted right through me. Coiled and then oozed away.

It never touched me.

Well, not completely true. Something happened, because I was abruptly cold. While Traveling, I never experienced the elements. I could actually step out of my body naked (which had been my first one or two full experiences) and not feel a thing.

But my teeth were chattering. My ankles were the coldest, and they were knocking together. Ah! Even my bunny slippers had frost on their nylon whiskers.

Yikes!

"There it is again!" Herb shouted from the end of the hall. The two SPRITE members had moved to the start of the hallway where I had backed into.

Thunder vibrated within the house. Two more members of the team bounded down the stairs from the bedrooms, their little devices up and ready as they descended.

"Oh, Jesus, what happened here?" came a female voice. That would be the one called Boo. The one that looked most like Rhonda, with black hair and pink eyeshadow.

"Boo," Herb said in a whisper. "You and Ron circle back around to the den and get a shot of this thing."