Magic is an App | Book 1 | Chapter 12

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CHAPTER TWELVE

I Become a Teenage Investigator

It got quiet by the time I reached the bottom of the staircase, where I crouched down and peered through the railing. The shadows in the corridor flickered as if stirred by something more than just the recess lighting sputtering overhead, and I could just make out something happening along the basement’s long corridor, which smelled faintly of old cleaning supplies and dust.

Boiler room…

I crept closer, footsteps feather-light, careful not to trigger even a squeak from my sneakers. Someone shouted, a muffled sound swallowed by concrete walls, and I ducked behind a stack of old chairs pressed against the right wall. That’s where I held my breath, listening for hints of why these Brook-Sci students were somewhere they shouldn’t be.

“We told you not to run, Enzo,” said a familiar gruff voice.

Through the space between the stack of chairs, I caught sight of Hank’s enormous frame. His fist cracked against the cheek of a kid whose sagging shoulders seemed all too familiar to me now. Enzo stumbled back from the blow and right into lanky Vince, who kept the boy from falling. This was no act of kindness, though. Vince served as the post that allowed Hank to hit his human punching bag in the gut, making Enzo double over, though Vince refused to let him drop to his knees.

My hands balled into fists, but I didn’t rush out of my hiding spot. I couldn’t. A lot of kids circled Enzo, too many for me to fight off all at once. Some of them were familiar, like Margot the Brunette and the pink dreadlocks girl, but most were unfamiliar faces. They looked older, probably juniors or seniors, and they all exuded the same oppressor aura flowing out of Hank.

“I’ll be honest, Enzo.” Hank patted the kid’s shoulder. “No one here thinks you’re worthy.”

Laughter filled the space, and Enzo, his face pale, looked down at his shoes.

“We all start out unworthy, Brother Hank,” one of the older boys said.

He was tall like Hank, but built like a guy who just walked out of a cool jeans ad. Blonde, with a narrow face, and a red-carpet smile—yeah, I’d punched a few faces like that back in L.A.

“But courage,” he stepped forward, and the low lighting seemed to train on him like a spotlight, “she gives everyone a chance.”

“Preach, Brother Felix,” Margot said.

She, like the other girls in that circle, looked at Brother Felix with blushing cheeks and starry-eyed gazes.

Brother Felix flashed his friends a roguish grin. “Enzo Rossi just needs to prove himself.”

Enzo looked up with an uneasy expression, though there was a glimmer of hope in his gaze, and I couldn’t blame him. I knew what it was like to hit rock-bottom and be desperate for a helping hand. Unfortunately for Enzo, I’m all he’s got.

“Hear that, Enzo?” I could see the amusement on Hank’s face. “Our senior brother wants to give you a chance. You can find glory in the Coliseum, too.”

The Coliseum—I’d heard that word yesterday, and I guessed this was what they called the arena I’d stumbled onto where I saw two teenage gladiators try to kill each other.

“I-I can?” Enzo asked, drawing me back into eavesdropping.

“If our old shuttle Davey Schumer managed it,” Hank gestured to Scum Blade, who I now noticed half-hidden behind the bigger kids, “why can’t our new shuttle do it too?”

Scum Blade’s cheeks turned the color of apples while the other kids snickered at his expense.

“Do you want a ticket to the Coliseum, Enzo?” Hank asked.

I wasn’t sure if it was just a trick of the basement’s low lighting, but I could swear the shadows grew around those kids while they poured poison into Enzo’s ears. On Hank, it almost looked like something was looming ominously over him, a shadow that moved separately from the ones staining the walls. It wasn’t just him either. Including Brother Felix and Margot, four others among the two dozen kids carried dark apparitions on their backs.

I rubbed my eyes, but after a second peek, the apparitions had vanished. Although this time, I didn’t think they were just figments of my imagination. They looked like echoes of the shrine’s specters, like something evil was leaking through to our side. The shiver climbing down my spine felt too real, and it was a feeling I’d experienced twice before in bizarro Brook-Sci. I hoped I was wrong, because just the thought of those specters outside of the astral plane made my stomach queasy.

“H-how do I get a ticket?” Enzo asked.

“To gain the courage that will change your fate, you’d have to sacrifice something up. Something of equal value to the courage God will give you,” Hank said, sounding like he was reading off a script.

“W-what do you want?”

I knew the answer even before Hank said her name.

“Give us Bella.”

“Bella Rossi would be a worthy sacrifice,” Brother Felix agreed.

Some kids nodded. Others wet their lips with their tongues. The sight made me want to vomit.

I wondered why they wanted Bella, though. What made her a worthy sacrifice?

“N-no.” Enzo shook his head. “I-I won’t.”

Here he was, being offered a chance to join the cool kids’ cult, and under threat of violence too, but once again, Enzo refused to give his sister up. The kid was braver than I gave him credit for.

“Yes, you can,” Hank insisted, frowning now.

“You just need more motivation,” Brother Felix agreed.

All too quickly, Enzo, with arms pressed tightly to his sides by Vince and Margot, got herded along like a reluctant prisoner into the boiler room whose doors opened inward to admit its visitors.

Damn…

It was time to decide. Could I be brave for someone I barely knew?

The answer came quickly.

I rushed out of my hiding spot—and that’s when a hand grabbed my coat and yanked me back into the shadows.

I whirled around, my fist raised, and then—“Dre?”

Dre’s gaze flicked toward me, wide with urgency, and he pressed a finger to his lips.

“Did you hear that?” someone asked.

“Should we check?” someone said.

The glimmer of a phone’s flashlight beam darted across the stack of chairs, forcing us to press ourselves tighter into the darkness, barely daring to move or utter a sound. Beyond our hiding spot, footsteps echoed, a slow creak, the cautious shuffle of shoes on cement.

“Anything?” the first speaker asked.

“No,” the second speaker replied. “Probably just rats. I hear the basement’s infested with them.”

“Shit. I hate rats.”

The voices moved away, winding back toward the boiler room’s doors. Although I waited for my heart to stop thumping like a nervous drum solo before I glanced over at Dre.

How’d you find me? I mouthed.

I was here first. Saw them take Enzo, Dre mouthed back.

Again, I peeked through the gap in the stack of chairs.

An older-looking boy and girl stood on either side of the boiler room doors like they were guarding it. With Dre’s help, it wouldn’t be hard to overpower them, but it’d be a noisy fight, and I didn’t like our chances against their reinforcements.

Dre had been right to pull me back. The boiler room would’ve been a suicide run. But luckily, I knew another way into the astral plane, and I might not have to brave it alone after all.

We snuck our way out of the basement, up the first-floor hallway, and toward the row of lockers we’d passed the day before. It was here, among the hustle and bustle of students too busy with their own shit to pay us any attention, that we both started talking at once, our urgent whispers tumbling over each other, so desperate to share what we’d seen and guessed that it took us a second to untangle the words.

“Did you know any of them?” I asked.

“Math league, debate team, history club,” Dre said.

“No chess club?”

“City tournament. Gone all week.”

Anyway, while Dre wiped his sweat with a tattered-looking handkerchief, he shared the tale of how Hank and Vince had ambushed him on his way to homeroom.

“If I were a second slower, and if The Law didn’t show up around the corner…I got lucky.”

“Then what happened?”

“After I got away, I doubled back and followed them.”

“That was ballsy.”

“Yeah, but that’s how we juvie kids roll.”

He raised his hand, and I slapped it hard. It was our first official high-five.

“When I caught up with Hank and Vince,” Dre continued, “they were shepherding Enzo to the basement. I followed, and then you came down.”

“Why didn’t I see you?”

“I ducked under the stairs when I heard you coming. I didn’t know who it was until I snuck up behind you.”

Dre admitted to only partially hearing Hank’s mad rant, so I caught him up on how the cult of bullies wanted Bella as a sacrifice.

“They called us sacrifices too, but I still don’t know what that means.”

“That’s what we’re going to find out, amigo.”

“Wait—you serious?”

“Yesterday, I didn’t want more trouble, but trouble came looking for me again today.” Dre unlocked the locker between us and took out the long, triangular blue bag he’d stashed in there. “I want to know why. So, if you’re rushing into hell, then I’m with you.”

Dre’s grin was infectious, and it was like the weight on my shoulders lessened a bit.

“But this time, we go ready to party.” He unzipped the top of his bag, revealing the flattened tip of a fencing foil. “Low-carbon steel, ninety percent iron, flexible, durable—suitable for hunting specters, aswangs, fairies, or whatever else comes crawling.”

“Cool,” I said.

He wasn’t the only one who came prepared, though.

I showed Dre the first-aid kit I’d brought to school. They were leftovers from when I was part of my old school’s boxing team; some old pain-relieving patches, small bottles of antiseptic and petroleum jelly, bandages, and an unused ice pack.

“Nice, practical,” he nodded appreciatively. “But we’ll need some not-so practical items too.”

Dre passed me the doggy bag he’d pulled out of a side pocket in his fencing bag. When I checked its contents, a lightbulb lit up inside my head.

“This is like the iron thing, isn’t it?”

Inside the doggy bag were two items: a braid of garlic and a large rock salt container.

“After clashing with El Diablo yesterday, I researched old folk tales for ways to fight him in case we ever hung out again.”

“Right,” I nodded, once again noticing I wasn’t the biggest nerd in school. “Ancient cultures used salt and garlic to ward off evil.”

“Lola always claimed that condiments save lives.” Dre took the doggy bag back. “I didn’t think she meant it literally.”

“Wish we had more iron,” I said.

“I’ve got it covered.” Dre shut his locker tight. “Did you bring the gloves?”

I nodded, though I wasn’t sure why I bothered. It’s not like Guillermo’s old fighting gloves could hurt specters.

“Come on. There’s someone you gotta meet.”

Our next stop was Brook-Sci’s Science Center—a more modern glass and brick structure to the left of the fortress-like main building. It housed most of the science and technical labs, including a metal and woodworking shop class at the end of a corridor lined with reinforced glass doors. Light spilled out from under the door we stopped at, accompanied by the low hum of machinery and the sharper tang of metal striking metal.

Dre paused, rested his hand on the handle, and then looked back at me with a conspiratorial wink. “Ready to level up?”

I didn’t know what to expect, but I nodded anyway.

He pushed open the heavy door, and a whiff of ozone and wood met us. The room was spacious, brightly lit, and full of kids too focused on their workbenches to notice the two visitors who’d snuck in. We made it about halfway to the back of the class before the teacher caught us.

“What’re you doing in my class, Pascal?”

The teacher was a short but fit middle-aged Hispanic man with slicked-back hair framing his round face and a thin mustache around frowning lips. He looked up at us from his spot overseeing a blonde girl working on what I could only describe as a scrap iron unicorn.

“Yo, Sanchez,” Dre said, unbothered by the teacher’s unwelcome tone. He wrapped an arm around my shoulder and said, “Ollie’s new. Wants to check your class.”

“As an elective I might take,” I chimed in.

By now, it was obvious I sucked at improv, but Sanchez didn’t seem all that interested, which was why our fib coasted without scrutiny.

“Fine.” He jerked his chin toward an empty workbench near the windows. “Show me what you’ve got. I don’t have time for tourists.”

On that discouraging note, Sanchez ignored us, turning his attention back to the blonde working on the metal unicorn.

“What Sanchez means is he doesn’t have time for guys,” Dre whispered.

As if to prove Dre’s point, I noticed the teacher’s gaze wasn’t on the blonde’s work, but on her chest instead.

“Beware Brook-Sci’s teachers, amigo. Most are as messed up as their students.”

“Even Bones?”

Dre’s face turned contemplative.

“Nah, Bones is by the book. But he’s the exception.”

Again, proving Dre’s point, we saw Sanchez place a hand on the blonde’s shoulder, and though she didn’t look up, her fingers paused. It was a tiny hesitation that made me think she was uncomfortable with the teacher’s attention.

“Go ahead. I’ll catch up,” I said.

I moved quickly, sliding my hand across the workbench behind Sanchez so that a bunch of tools clattered noisily on the floor. Sanchez jumped, but I’d already slipped away, stepping right next to Dre, who’d arrived at a workbench near an open window.

When I glanced over my shoulder, Sanchez was cursing at the student whose table I’d disrupted. I didn’t feel too bad about letting him take the heat since he’d stood by and let Sanchez be a creep. Meanwhile, the blonde, her nose smudged with grease, gave me a grateful smile as if she knew it was me who got Sanchez to leave her alone.

“You should’ve poked his back with a screwdriver. That might keep the pervert away for a day,” said a muffled voice.

The girl whose workbench Dre leaned against looked up from her work. She took off her welding mask and brushed a strand of hair from her face. Almond-shaped eyes turned to me, and I saw a quiet confidence in her gaze, the kind that made you think she’d be comfortable fixing a broken engine as much as diffusing a ticking bomb.

“Ollie,” Dre gestured to her, “meet Yuna Han. Best fabricator in Brook-Sci.”

“Hey,” Yuna said, turning back to her work.

“Hey,” I managed back, though I seemed to have forgotten my next words.

If Bella Rossi was the traditional brunette beauty that you’d see headlining a teen movie, then Yuna Han looked like a K-pop idol hiding in a shop class’s ugly blue apron. She had long chestnut hair she tied behind her head in a ponytail, though strands of it fell to frame a milky, delicate-looking face that seemed to contrast how expertly she wielded a soldering iron to weld a sharp spike onto a…

“Are you making a pauldron?”

I’d visited enough of George’s movie sets to know the proper names for medieval armor pieces, and this pauldron, though it was still a work-in-progress, looked like a prop belonging in one of my stepfather’s movies. It was that well-made. I especially liked the iron spikes Yuna was adding to it.

“The school’s sponsoring an art show in three weeks. When it’s done, my piece will be a full set of armor inspired by heavy metal music imagery,” she explained distractedly.

“Cool-cool. I like rock too.”

I shut my eyes, feeling my cheeks going hot because of how cringe I sounded. Luckily, Dre was around to keep me from looking any lamer, explaining to Yuna that we needed some work done on my gloves.

Yuna took her time inspecting the items I placed on the workbench, her thin lips frowning at the chafing leather and uneven padding.

“You want me to add iron to these?”

“Yes.”

“Spikes or studs?”

“Dealer’s choice.”

“You cool with me cutting holes into this?” Yuna asked, though she’d already set to work, cutting lines on the knuckles without waiting for my go-ahead.

After she cut eight holes in each glove, Yuna attached eight gleaming iron studs to them, securing the studs with screws on the inside. She did more too, stitching some of the ripped white leather back together and adding some foam to even out the padding. The upgrade took less than fifteen minutes, quick by anyone’s standards, and she hadn’t half-assed the job either.

When I got them back, I had zero complaints. The gloves looked much better than when I bartered them from Guillermo. They were well-worth the twenty bucks Yuna asked for payment.

“Yo, Yuna.” Dre picked up a jar of iron nails he’d found on her workbench’s supply box. “Can we take this?”

“Eight bucks,” she said.

Dre turned to me. “So, I’m low on cash.”

“I’ve got it,” I said.

I didn’t mind paying for things that could increase our survival rate in bizarro Brook-Sci, though I was curious why Yuna didn’t ask us what we planned to do with a jar of nails. But something in her eyes said she already knew. Or she at least had an inkling.

Yuna shrugged. “None of my business.”

Yep, she was clearly Brook-Sci material.

“Next time you need my help…”

Yuna gave me a calling card for the Steelworks Junk Shop along with an address in Greenwood Heights, which, if I remembered correctly from repeatedly browsing my map app, was a neighborhood just north of Bay Ridge.

“Find me there on weekends. I can make you better items for a price,” she said, offering me a sassy smile that made butterflies dance in my stomach, but in a good way.

Yuna’s smile lingered in my mind all the way to the narrow alley. But seeing the splash of red on a piece of gravel was a cold reminder of how it’s been thirty minutes since the cult kidnapped Enzo.

“This is the spot.”

I dropped to one knee, and after a deep breath, brushed the ground with my finger.

“Nothing’s happening, amigo,” Dre pointed out seconds later.

“Shit.” I glanced left and right, but the alley stayed normal. “I thought this could work…”

“We’re missing something,” Dre said, brow creasing. “Tell me what happened again. Don’t leave any details out.”

While I explained the circumstances that led to my stumbling onto the astral plane, a crazy idea formed in my head.

“Hit me,” I blurted.

Dre didn’t look too surprised. The dude was quick on the uptake.

“You think reenacting the beating will wake the portal?”

“Violence—that’s what happened here, and it’s what’s happening in the shrine. Maybe that’s the toll we need to pay.”

“It’s weird how your mind went there so fast.”

“You didn’t disagree, though.”

Dre shrugged.

“Because it makes sense. Kind of. Wanna try it?”

I nodded.

“Go for it.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I can take it.”

“Clench your teeth, amigo.”

Turned out, Dre wasn’t just a fencer. He knew how to punch, too. He smacked me on the cheek harder than Hank’s friends did, sending me reeling into the fence behind me.

“Anything?” he asked.

“Hold on.” I needed a second to shrug off the pain. “No, it’s not—”

Then I heard whispering, a single soft voice on repeat whose words meant nothing to me except that it caused goosebumps to grow on my arms.

“I hear it,” I said.

“Really?” One of Dre’s eyebrows hitched up. “I can’t hear anything.”

“Hit me again.”

Dre didn’t hesitate. By the third punch, he heard it too. The whispers that made his face pale and his eyes widen. Although at this point, whatever supernatural force fueled the whispers already had me in its grasp. Blood trickled down from my cut lip, splashing onto the ground. Just a drop, and certainly not enough for the line being drawn on the gravel that looked like vines extending outward to take root beneath us.

“Magic,” I whispered.

It was like an eye opening underneath me, and the world shifted, twisting upside down as if I were a passenger on a plane barrel rolling across the sky. When the spin stopped, the world that righted itself wasn’t the same.

The cloudy sky above had lost its vibrant daytime colors. In its place, the heavens were bathed in shades of garish red.

“We did it…we’re back,” I whispered, my voice sounding hollow, like it didn’t belong.

My sneakers sank lightly into the sand that spread out in all directions.

I looked around, my brow creasing, heart thumping wildly. “What do we do next?”

Whatever plan we cooked up, we had to move fast. Enzo could already be in dire trouble.

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