Spellchaser Chronicles – Six Years Gone

“It’s not a big deal, I’ve probably got some stuff in my closet upstairs. It’s been a few years, but Montesquieu can probably help me resize it, right?” I looked over to my father’s assistant, who nodded. “That settles it then. Tomorrow morning, I take Simon, Remé and Xallis out to a tailor to pick up some clothes for formal occasions so we can go see the Jester. We’ll probably head to the Clerk’s Ward, I know of a few places near the Festhall that might have what we need and are within what we can afford to spend on clothes right now.”

With tomorrow planned, everyone headed to whichever rooms they’d claimed for sleeping quarters. We definitely going to need to succeed in obtaining some kind of land the next day since Chaser’s Manse was about to burst at the seams, even with the few extra guest rooms we had in the basement for “railroad business.” Even packed as it was, it was more then my friends and I had seen in quite a while in terms of accommodations, and it felt exceptionally good to be back in my own bed, which is where I was headed as soon as I figured out which of my outfits I had left at home I would be willing to show up to court in. I pull my closet open to start transferring my new clothes onto the hooks and evaluate what I had left behind when I left Sigil.

I had robes. A closet full of robes, mostly linen or cotton and dyed all those subdued colors you wear as an apprentice trying to prove yourself as an arcanist. I had forgotten how hard I was trying back then to prove myself. I pulled out a green robe that I remembered as having been a favorite. It had, I kid you not, silver stars embroidered on the sleeves and down the chest. I balled up the robe in my hands, trying figure out a way other then burning the robe to hide the heated flush the was running through my cheeks. It’s as I’m kneading the robe in my hands and debating ignition that I notice the good-sized box sitting in the bottom of the closet, B.C.-Goodwill stenciled on the side.

“Thank you, Monti,” I dropped the robe into the donation box Montesquieu had left in my room and proceeded to evaluate everything else in my closet. Aside from the rough traveling clothes I brought back from the prime everything I grabbed went into the Goodwill box at my feet. Not only was none it presentable enough for politics, but they all screamed of trying too hard. I had to remind myself of the needy several times when particularly embarrassing/offensive articles emerged from the closet. I was almost finished with the closet when I found the one thing that merited a maybe. It was robes, like everything I had apparently worn when I was sixteen, but these were done in a black silk with a prismatic thread stitching though it. It didn’t scream “Respect Me, I’m an Arcanist!” like everything else and it was silk, so the material and pattern was presentable enough for a major function; that said, it was still robes. I was about to drop it in the box for the bleakers when I remembered where I got them. Celadine. She had made this for me before I left the city as a birthday present. I never had the chance to wear it before Dad suddenly pulled up stakes and took me wandering worlds for five years giving me my final training in magic. I decided there was no use throwing away something I’ve never worn, but it wouldn’t do for tomorrow.

I hung it back up on the hook and finished sorting through the rest of my clothes then crashing into my bed; it was as I lay in bed drifting off that my mind started to wander to thoughts of my first love, “I wonder what she’d been up to. Maybe she’s still working at her mom’s shop. Maybe that’s where we should go to get clothes....”


“Okay, the place should be right around here.”

“Very good. I know of a wonderful little cocherestaurante a few blocks from here. Come find us at ‘Amanecer.’ You know where it is, yes?” I nodded to Manuel, and he lead a hungry pirate and a groggy vampire off to grab some breakfast. I motioned to my friends to follow me, and we headed off down a street as I tried to place where “Stitched by an Angel” had ended up with all the changes in the city of the past six years; it took a few minutes and a street didn’t connect in the same place as it used to, but “Stitched” was still roughly where I remembered it.

“Is it staffed by actual Angels, Abe?” Xallis was staring at the slightly luminous white letters of the building. I noticed he was actually trying to avoid looking too hard at the mannequins, but didn’t want to ask.

“It used to be. The original owner was a Lillend by the name of Rererlehiel, but it’s now operated by her daughters and their descendants, the original seamstress having headed Arborea a few centuries ago. They still do excellent work though, some of the best in the city that you’ll find for prices that wouldn’t bankrupt a dragon.”
“Interesting.” Simon was ‘off’ right now, using only a few words. Probably prepping himself for what all figured was going to be a very challenging confrontation against the Jester after we finished here. “Xallis, could you help Remé? I think she might need the assistance.”

Simon’s bodyguard gave him a strange look before letting herself be lead into the store by an excited half-elf who shouted, “That matches my hat!” as he dragged her inside.

Simon turned to me and I felt his presence in my mind :I’m not sure of the culture here, Abe. What do you recommend?:

I thought about it for a moment. I could still feel Simon there, waiting for me to answer as I took a look at my friend and tried to figure out how to make the quiet mentalist fit in where standing out was the norm. :I’d probably trust the apprentices in there, they won’t steer you in a wrong place, and they do work that you would probably be more comfortable with. One recommendation though – Brown is for druids, forget that cloth comes in that color.: I smiled through the slightly sour look he gave me as he turned and headed into the store. I tried to approach the store, but it kept felt like something was holding me back, my feet just weren’t moving as fast as I wanted them to be.

I closed my eyes, letting my senses expand and tried to feel if I was being hit with some magical attack; all I saw as I looked inwards was nerves that rattled me as bad as terror magics. I took a deep breath, and separated my thoughts from my emotions; it’s not exactly pleasant, but it was a trick I figured out watching Simon that was useful in dealing with mortal and supernatural tests of mental fortitude. My mind clear and my nerves reduced to a low rattle, I was able to start walking towards the store again, stopping in the window to look into the store. I took a look at the styles that Ambriel el Rererlehiel had in the front window, examining them with the thought that it might be a good idea to pick up a piece done by a master tailor. Through the mannequins, I could see Xallis rushing around the store, a teenage girl and Remé running after him as he dove head-first into the world of style, trusting the whispers of his mad god to guide him. I couldn’t see Simon, but he was probably arguing with one of the apprentices about what constituted an appropriate outfit for a civilian dignitary to wear.

And behind the counter, Celedine, her rainbow patterned hair shimmering in the light, looking like it could begin to glow at any moment. It actually could, when she was happy. I headed over to the door, swinging it open. As the silver bells attached to it began to jangle, I said hello to my first girlfriend for the first time in six years, “Hey Cel. How’s life?” Those were almost my last words as a heavy wooden hat stand came hurtling towards my head. I managed to bring my hand up to intercede and a wave of sound hurtled toward the heavy wooden object, turning it into toothpicks about a foot away from my head.

“Abraxas Spellchaser, you sodding bastard. You walk back into my life after what you did, and you act like nothing happened? Give me one good reason to not beat you with a stick and throw you out in the street.” She had emerged from behind the counter, wielding said stick in a menacing fashion in my direction.

“Uh, your mother probably doesn’t want you damaging the store. And what did I do?” I cut off that line of argument quickly as I saw the expression on her face; some signers are just as willing to embrace a good angry rage as they are to let themselves be carried away by a happy moment. “Okay, can we at least head to a backroom for this argument? Please?”

She sighs as she turns and heads to a door behind the counter. I follow her behind the counter, but she turns on me as she places a hand on the door. “I’m giving you ten minutes, and then you’re going to leave and not come back here again.”

I’m through the door and have closed it behind us before my mouth gets me into trouble again, “Ten minutes? I’m not sixteen anymore, Celadine.” The hallway is small enough that I don’t have any place to move when she turns and lands a punch dead center in my stomach. Instinctively, I curl around my stomach and miss the armor I wore on Octogoth for a moment.

“Neither am I, but that doesn’t mean it hurts any less. One more joke like that –”

“Right, say no more.” I nod and take a few deep breaths. “I’m sorry, it just slipped out there. Why do I have a feeling those words are going to be on repeat in the next few minutes?” I look at her and motion to the door she’s leaning against, “Can we go somewhere and sit down now?” She opens the door, letting us into the business office of “Stitched by an Angel,” motioning me to sit down in one of the chairs in front of the desk while she positions herself behind it. We sat there for a few minutes, looking at each other. We’d both changed in the past six years; I had grown a little taller while getting a lot leaner, travel and people threatening my life on a weekly basis hardening the overeager teenager I’d been. Celedine had just grown more beautiful, the past six years giving her time to fully grow into her celestial heritage; it’s cliche, but she looked like an angel, rainbow hair and silver eyes. Currently the angry, avenging type angel about the punish the wicked, but still. “What happened Celadine? I know I got pulled away from the city, but–”

“Got pulled away? Let me tell you what happened: I had just slept with my boyfriend, who I was very much in love with, for the first time. My first time. One of those important experiences that’s supposed to be a treasure in a life that never provides enough, and then the Shitheel vanishes, leaving me alone. Oh, and let’s not forget the day I realize he’s missing a war breaks out in the city on our doorstep.”

It’s a short few sentences, but they hit me like a ton of bricks, “Okay.”

“Okay? You said you had something to say for yourself, why not try?”

“Because I know what happened on my end, and even I’m inclined to agree with the hanging judge. I’m sorry, let me tell you what happened and then I’ll get out of your hair. Which looks wonderful by the way, love the way you have all the colors blended in the braid.” She looks me in the face for a second before she seems to come to the conclusion I’m not trying to avoid the subject, just distracted. She’s always been–but that was the past now. “The day I vanished, I was getting ready to head out and meet you, just like you wanted. I know you didn’t get into the festhall very often and you wanted to hear your father play. But as I’m getting ready to head out, Dad rushes into the house, tells me to pack a bag of travel clothes, that I’m about done with my apprenticeship, there’s just a few more exercises that we need to do and time is of the essence. You remember how anxious I was to accomplish something in his eyes back then, right?”

Celadine nods before giving me the rolling get on with it motion. “I had packed the bag before I remembered our date, but I asked him if it could wait. He was insistent, we had to go. He grabbed me and my bag and opened a portal I’d never seen him use in the house before. You’ve heard me try and describe what I remembered of the Shadow before, right? All grays that are also the real colors at the same time. We came through the portal somewhere in the shadow, a boat dock with a small speedboat tied to it. Nerick throws my bag in the back of the speedboat as I’m hunting the arch we just passed through, trying to find out how to open it. I tried to figure it out in vain for several minutes before Dad used the graduation exercises carrot again, which finally got me into the boat. He untied the boat, and I blacked out at some point after the boat started moving.

“The next five years we spent traveling Primes, not sticking anyplace for more then six months. It was a set of graduation exercises, I suppose when I look back on it. I actually lost track of time as we went world-walking and I saw Dad at work for real for the first time. After a graduate education in trouble-making with Dad, he dropped me off on a Prime called Octogoth. It’s a near-magic dead world, but there was business I had to finish there; stuff from before. It took me a year to build up enough magical energy to escape. And I swear to you, upon my name and my power, I’ve been in the city less then forty-eight hours and you’re the first place I headed when I was able to move with someone chasing me out a window.” I drew a symbol across my chest as I swore the oath. Had I been full of shit, it probably would have lit me on fire. Having said everything I could think to say, I slumped back into the chair to wait for her to tell me to leave.

“It wasn’t your choice?” I nodded in response. “That... makes it hurt less.”

“You need to know, I did love you. With all the stupid and fiery passion of a teenager.”

“So teenagers are stupid?”

“I was. I spent last night looking through my closet, the only thing that didn’t scream of trying to hard was the robe you gave me. Doesn’t mean the feelings weren’t any less intense, but we were young; more inclined to let ourselves be swept away with them.”

“Some would say it’s the only way to find all those bits of life that are worth living.” She smiled as we started to fall back into old patterns. We both grew up in a city where arguments about how to live your life were how you said hello, and it seems even with the factions gone, there are some habits that remain.

I smiled in response before the situation came back to me. This wasn’t a happy ending, just the end. “You may be right, Cel. I know I’ve rarely had as much fun as when we were together. I’m sorry that’s in the past. I’ve spent long enough riling you up. You know of another tailor you’d trust? I still need to find a new set of clothes for the city.”

I had pulled myself out of the chair and turned to the door when her voice stopped me. “Trust? Maybe, but there’s nobody better. At least that you can afford. Follow me.” She came up next to me and nudged me with her hip away from the door, opening it and heading further down the hallway to one of the workshops in the back. As she lead me into it, I saw her name in paint on the frame of the door.

“Your own workroom? It seems like we’ve both left our apprentice days well behind us.” Celadine was flipping through a rack of clothes at the back of the room, but her crystal clear laugh wasn’t muffled by the cloth.

She turned to me, her multi-chromatic hair beginning to shimmer and shift, a wide smile across her face. “Drop ‘em, Spellchaser; I need measurements, I doubt any I took six years ago are going to work.”

I did what the lady said, slightly embarrassed as I stood there in my boxers after I finished. “True, I suppose. Charred sheets of paper are hard to read, aren’t they?” That got another laugh out of her as she pulled her tape out and began to see how I measured up. We both got a little quiet as she went about it. I mean, it was just a professional thing, she’s probably done this a hundred times in the six years I’ve been gone. Didn’t stop it from being weird.

“You know, “ She picked up the conversation as she was measuring my inseam, “I blamed the war on you.”

“Past tense?”

“Like you said, we were sixteen. I only blamed you until I was eighteen or so.”

I laughed as I came up with the rejoinder. “I think that between the two of us, I wasn’t the one worth going to war over.” That set her laughing as well, which was probably a bad thing to do when your tailor is holding needles and measuring tape in your inseam; she stuck me with the needles, then slapped my leg and reprimanded me to hold still.

“I actually think I’ve got something that will fit. I’m going to guess you’ll want something in blue?” She had stood up and was taking down the measurements; I looked at her confused for a moment before she tapped the side of my face next to my eyes, which glowed with the signature of my magic. I rolled my eyes and nodded. “I’ve got one that will fit now without too much adjustment and could make a few more in the next few days...” From there was the business of planning out a new wardrobe with the beautiful fashion expert, with me trading my cloak for a slightly more stylish jacket that went with the outfit she had ready and could design around. It took time to plan things out and adjust the one completed outfit, and large amounts of jink were exchanged, but I had one outfit for the meeting with Jeremo, and several more that would be delivered to Chaser’s Manse in the next week.

I was walking out of the back area ahead of her, after letting her know that I needed to check on my friends, telling her it was only a slight chance they’d burn the building down without supervision. After a quick glance that the store wasn’t actively in the process of burning down, I turned back to her, “Could I convince you to take dinner with me sometime?”

“If you try hard enough.” Maybe it’s not a happy ending, but it might just be a good place to start again.

Spellchaser Chronicles: Fatherhood (Day 3) - Google Docs

Abe was five years old before Dorian confronted me about the nature of the life we were living. I had just finished collecting a few degrees, and Abe and I had been invited out to Dorian’s manor to celebrate. It was the typical small party that when the person that was celebrating was either Dorian or Myself. Hyacinth had plenty of family who she loved to gather around her whenever she or Lucitia had an opportunity to celebrate something. In fact the last such party had been just last month. I’ve got both birthdays fairly well memorized by now, having been asked to take over the kitchens for the party on almost every single opportunity. Hyacinth says that maybe in a decade or so it will make up for not being there to cater the wedding. But Dorian and I didn’t have an extended family here, mine mostly explained as being off in England and lacking the funds to travel, while Dorian’s paperwork declared him an orphan who had grown up as a ward of the state of Wisconsin. So when Dorian and I actually felt like celebrating something, we celebrated with our families.

I had been expecting to do this same for this occasion, but Dorian sent me a messenger asking me to come celebrate with him and his family. I had sent the messenger on his way and emailed my acceptance of his offer. Maybe it was needling him over the way he interacted with technology. Okay, it’s entirely the fact that the man runs an international corporation and still has a personal assistant kept close to him to handle his technology like a seeing-technology dog. I was in the Adricus kitchen prepping the dinner, an interesting variation on an English pudding dish mixed with some of the spicy aspects of Asian cuisine. I was just sticking the plates in the oven when I felt Dorian standing behind me.

“May I ask why you’re doing this?” I finished arranging the dishes in the heat before I turned around to face Dorian.

“What, exactly? Cooking at what is technically my own party? None of your cooks has my experience, and besides, I’ve always preferred to craft a meal with my own two hands.”

“In that case, why aren’t you on the Food Network, trailing a thousand stupid house-wives in awe of your cooking skill? You know that this place carries no influence on the real world, so why not live out some idyllic life where you’re not struggling to put yourself through college as a single father, relying on free day-care from the college you’re attending.”

“And you think that would be my option, some talking head on a cooking show? It’s too public, and besides it takes three years of advanced math to begin to follow what I do in a kitchen.” I motioned with one hand to a small bowel of egg whites that were whipping themselves into frozen waves and a rain of glitter seemed to appear over the bowel as my magic gently folded in the brown sugar and honey into the cake’s batter. “Plus, let’s account for the fact that I tend not to use most kitchen tools in a standard manner.”

“Then be a hidden master of the world, pulling the strings of the puppets. It’s not like you need to worry about stepping on my toes afterall. This world disappears on what will be the child’s tenth birthday. It’s a construction, a dream.”

Ah, and here we have the mistake in perceptions. “Dorian, you’re wrong. This world is a dream, but I think you don’t understand whose dream it is. Could you call your assistant in here, please?” Dorian looked at me for a second before making the small gesture with his hand that caused his assistant’s ring to light up. Dorian had apparently told the young idiot that it was accomplished by one of his researchers in microelectronics. Then again, was he supposed to tell the kid it was magic?

It didn’t take long for his current assistant, a dark-haired young man who looked like he spent most of his time when he wasn’t working sitting in front of his computer hunting down other young professionals in the digital deserts of the Internet, to get down to the kitchen. “You paged me, Mister Adricus?”

“I asked him to, Jacob. I had a few questions I wanted to ask you. I need to settle a bet between Dorian and myself.” An expression of jaded boredom passed quickly over the young man’s face, but was stilled quickly into neutrality fast. “Dorian, prepare a memory charm please.” I saw Dorian’s fingers tense as he began to work the energies that he would need to alter his assistant’s memories when my little experiment was done. I released the spell I had started when realized where Dorian’s questions where heading. I felt the spell hit me and wash over without effect and do the same to Dorian. Then again, we already had the benefits of what this spell would do on us.

Time for the questions. “Jacob, if you could, please inform me when was the first time we met?”

“A few months ago, just after I came to work for Adricorp. I had to relay a message to you about some event Dorian had you cater on my third day of the job. You were to cater the Adricorp New Millennium party.”

“Thank you Jacob. What year is it now?” No sense in a build-up, let’s just push straight through to the real questions.

“Two thousand and four.”

“What game do you play in your down-time?”

“Team fortress right now, but I switched over to EVE online last year.”

“Okay, and what year did you leave Adricorp, and where are you working now?”

“Um, I quit in oh one after getting an offer from a New York firm. I worked for them for about a year before starting my own trading company on the street.”

“Interesting. Now the memory charm if you would Dorian. Leave him just the question about his after-work activities, but not his answer.” I saw the look of utter confusion embrace Dorian’s assistant then begin to fade as the spell took effect.

“I play Team Fortress, I like the dynamic of working in a group against an opposing side.”

“Thank you, Jacob. I thought that might be the case. Dorian thought you wrote. There’s that bet settled.” Dorian motioned for Jacob to leave, which he did after a brief look at the two of us like we were both insane.

Hm, have to give the kid credit for that assumption.

I turned back to Dorian, and after a quick check that the meringue was were I wanted it, started in on my explanation, “This isn’t just the five people in your little safe-room dreaming. Whatever spell you did is pulling on the dream-lands, letting single mortal in this place join in and have their memories messed with.”

“Interesting. I should have guess that would happen. It makes sense, the spell has to pull the accessories from somewhere. I will have to make a note of it when the spell ends. But still, why does that matter? You’ll have a world that remembers you. That’s only a call for caution, not this total hiding that you’re doing.”

“Paperwork. The more I did, the bigger a foot-print I would leave on the grid. And your spell isn’t going to fake that.”

Lack of Energy

I been trying for the past two days to work up to writing something, but I keep running into this block of a giant lack of energy. Not sure what's causing it. Also not sure If I'm helping it by clocking out earlier and earlier each night.

I mean, I have something of a reason to try and start sleeping early, I have to wake up by 5:30 to be able to get to work on-time. And I'm not able to operate on less then 8 hours of sleep.

But this current block is something else. Maybe I didn't go into this with enough planning, figuring that maybe I'd try to force through it? Maybe it would actually be helpful to spend a day or two outlining what I want to write and then get back to banging out words, I might have a better idea of what I want to do.

I think one of the problems that I've had in my writing is I'm not good with crowd scenes, those things that are more then one or two characters basically set up against each other to play off of each other.

I want to try and write this, not for any real publishing reason. I mean, publication would be nice, but there's so many esoteric things about the story that are hard to get into and understand. In addition, even though I'm working with a story and world that is mostly there, I've got a amount of world-building that I need to do to divorce the character from its roots because of the amount of IP that I'm pulling from other places.

Okay, Gameplan: Spend the 5th and the 6th trying to plan out the story and see if I can find some kind of track it's in, then spend Saturday and Sunday catching up on my word count, because I'm already 3 days behind schedule if I want to actually complete this on time.

Day 2 and the first stumble

What I wanted to try didn't feel like it was going to work. Shouldn't be a problem, and I should be able to write around it, but lost yesterday coming to that conclusion. Here's a bit from the scratch pad:

My name is Abraham Xavier Chauser, I’m eleven years old, and my father is a space alien. I’m not sure if that makes me a space alien or not. But things have been really weird ever since dad stopped working for Uncle Dorian and moved back east. I had to change schools and everything.

How do I know my father’s a space alien?

Word Count: 63

Spellchaser Chronicles: Fatherhood (Day 1)

I think I’m probably the best person to narrate this.

Afterall, It’s my story. Or at least it’s mostly mine. I know what happened, and saw things from a perspective that Abe won’t understand just yet. He may not ever, though I hope he will read this and understand it someday. But I’m never going to be able to tell this if I don’t know where to start it.

Probably best to start it where it truly began. A dark or stormy night would have carried more portent, but Earth has never been very receptive the demands of the universe in the creation of atmosphere. It’s actually probably one of the things I like most about it, it decided to give me a sunny and warm fall day when I came. I had come back to Earth seeking an old friend whose help I needed, even though I hadn’t seen him in over fifteen years, and I had never really been able to call him a friend. But I had need of Dorian Adricus, and I knew where to find him.

Most dark and powerful wizards have the unbearable tendency towards tall dark towers in the middle of nowhere. Dorian, it seems, had opted for the eight-digit mansion a mile outside of one of the largest cities in the most powerful nation of the world. But then, he had always been more of a Bond Villian type, even when he lived in a tower. I stood in front of Dorian’s house and started to knock on the door, but I noticed the buzzer beside the door before my knuckles hit the finely polished oak doors of this “Wizard’s Tower.” I looked up to one of the windows of the second floor, where I guessed Dorian would have his personal office. All the better to keep an eye on what may approach. By Nightmare, he had cleared most of two acres around the house of all the timber to leave it a clean view of approach.

It took three minutes for the first servant to come to the door. My guess is that they probably had to go check with the master of the household how to deal with the strange visitor. The servant was human and male, with a slight graying in his hair. “Mister Adricus would like to know who it is that you are, and what business you have with the CEO of AdriCorp.”

So. The bullshit game. Not a suprise, but not what I needed right now. I slipped into a British accent that I used when I needed it, “Let Dorian know that Nevin Chauser, an old college mate of his, has ran into a spot of trouble and was wondering if he could beg a favor off his old drinking buddy. And let him know that it’s of burning importance.” The servant nodded and closed the door in my face. Which means that I was being give the run around, and there was a decent chance I would have to carry through on my threat if Dorian didn’t agree to see me.

It seems my worries were over-blown as a few short minutes later I was ushered into a sitting room just inside off the main entrance two minutes later, with Dorian standing near a tall cabinet waiting for me. The years had been kind to him, he still didn’t look a day over his early thirties, with only the slightest touch of silver in his hair. Which is pretty good for someone I know to be in his mid-fifties at the earliest. “Nevin is it now, Spellchaser? I do hope you’ve come for a reason other then to offer pointless threats to my house and home.”

“When you sent the monkey to open the door pretending not to know me, I had to make sure you knew I wasn’t going to go away. I’m in need of your help, Dorian, and I can’t take no for an answer.”

“Truly? And what urgent need would lead you to come to me? And threaten my wife and child in our home?”

“Fuck. Dorian, I didn’t know there was anyone here but you and whatever servants you had in your... employ.” I was surprised, I had guessed that Dorian would be alone. That’s what I get for not double-checking, fuck it all. This wasn’t going to work if I could get his honest help. I dug a fist-sized chunk of onyx out of my pocket and tossed it at Dorian, where I stopped it short of him and had it hover a foot in front of him. “That’s why I need your help Dorian.”

Dorian reached out slowly and took the large black glass in his hands, turning it over and gazing at it. As he looked at it, I saw his eyes begin to glow as he examined the stone. “You’ve got something in here. This is a living person. Why turn them into a shard of glass?”

“Set it on the ground and let me show you.” Dorian moved and knelt down, placing the onyx on the carpet in the middle of the room. Once he did, I let him move back to the edge of the room before I removed the magic that bound the stone. As my power and will flooded out of the stone it began to grow in size, changing shape and color as the figure that I had carried here in my pocket returned to normal size. “I had to carry him through the Shadow-lands, that’s not good for any-one's sanity, and this one already has little enough of it.” The figure has finished its transformation. A small human figure lay on the carpet between me and Dorian. His hair was black as the onyx had been, his small frame covered in a tattered linen shirt. From where both Dorian and I stood, we could see, at the child’s wrists and ankles, the marks and scarring that comes from chains and shackles. Thankfully the shirt covered his back, or we would be able to see the pattern-work of scars that covered that surface as well. I had seen them when I had grabbed the child, but even now, even with all I had seen and done, it made me want to throw up.

Dorian had always been of more spare stuff, but it seems that the past decade and a half had soften some of those edges, I could see him holding back his bile the same as I was. Or maybe it hit deeper. Something else was glittering in Dorian’s eyes as he looked up to me. “Why do you bring this slave into my house? What’s so special about him?”

I could see the child begin to awaken from the non-aware state that the transmutation had locked him into. “Dorian, is your house shielded?”

Dorian looked at me speculatively. “Why would I need it in this supposedly magic-dead world?” I glare at him. “Lightly shielded. Even I have trouble using most of my resources and the continued expenditure of defensive magics was considered mostly unnecessary. Why, and is the problem you or the child?”

“The kid, he’s a natural.” That’s the start of an explanation, but I’m not sure we were going to have time for the full one just now. Abridged it was then. “When he’s awake, he calls something. I’ve looked to try and break the link, but I can’t find it.” As I said the words “something” I could begin to feel the presence of something else start to emerge, its presence like an slimy ooze that dripped over the tips of your fingers. Whatever it was that had followed us here, it was going to come through in about 3 seconds. I looked to Dorian and shouted, “Like old times!” before I wheeled towards the window in the front of the house and the thing that was using it as a door. The window, almost a dozen feet across and half that in height was covered with a black film that ate away at the definition of the window, until it hung in the air like a hole in the universe. Before the portal had even finished forming, the thing had begun to reach out through the portal, its claws scratching the wall around the window and the floor in front of the window. First one claw as large a medium-sized dog clawed into the floor of Dorian’s house, then another as the thing began to pull itself through. It hunched itself over double as it finished pulling its wide black form into the room. Its skin was covered in scales, its form a mixture of a frog and a man the color of dying coals. It was easily the size of a sports utility vehicle. It looked at Dorian, the child and myself and smiled a toothy grin three feet wide.

I moved to place myself between the child and the fiend. “Creature. I give you one chance. Leave this place now and tell your master to desist in this hunt.” Let’s hope this idiot was a talker, that was the perfect straight line for a talker.

Thank goodness for small mercies and great arrogances. “The child belongs to the Dark Powers, Tenjin. Our masters have marked him. We will find him no matter how far you run from us. Every hole that you run to, we will wrench from the earth and cast into the fire. We will raze to the ground every hut that offers you shelter, and visit such foul visitations upon the inhabitants that none will let you touch their front stoop ever again.” At which point the portal behind the creature snapped shut with a sound like a crack of thunder.

As the creature looked back at its closed exit, Dorian responded with a much simpler threat. “You will not threaten my household.” Dorian’s words rang with a level of finality and conviction. He held his hand out, palm up. A small red onion appeared in his outstretched hand, and a paring knife in his other. He took the knife and slipped it briefly into the skin of the onion. The creature suddenly shuddered as a trickle of smoking blood began to roll down the side of the fright mask it called a face and its eyes bulged in its sockets.

“Dorian, you seem to have this well in hand.” I made a brief motion with my hand and a shimmering long and slender dagger flew. That should make sure that big and ugly didn’t get a chance to do anything really stupid. “The house isn’t guarded enough, but you’ve got a safe room, right? Where’s your lab?” I felt a familiar tingle at the back of my mind and let Dorian in.

The floorplan of the entire house flowed into my mind, with each room labeled. “Get my family down there. Hyacinth is in the library on the second floor, and my daughter Lucita is in her bedroom. Get them, then get yourself and the child to the safe room.” I bent down to sling the child over my shoulder and started heading for the stairs.

Just as I was about to leave the room, I turned and looked at Dorian, “Try not to enjoy this too much.”

“He threatened what is mine. There is no such thing as too much.” And he cupped the onion in one hand and slowly began to slice a piece of the skin off the onion. I started running, and was halfway up the stairs before I heard the creature’s screams really start.

I had barely reached the top of the stairs and the hallway where Dorian’s wife and daughter were before I almost ran into them coming the other way, both mother and daughter about to run headfirst into danger. I held up a hand and Hyacinth stopped in her tracks, grabbing the teenager by her shoulder. “Nerick? What’s going on? Where’s Dorian? Who’s the boy?” I think she was trying to conceal it from her daughter, but I could see the slender white gun in her right hand. It seems after the kind of life we lead, noone every really loses their edge.

“He’s taking care of business. And he would very much like us to head to the kitchen.” I motioned down the hallway that would take us to a stairway that lead to the dining room.

“And he’ll join us in his saferoom after he’s finished dealing with whatever it is that’s screaming. You will explain this monster in my household Mister Spellchaser.” The girl’s face, which was already a study in confusion, began to push to new heights of not knowing what was going on. Her mother grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her down the hallway and towards the kitchen. She tried to resist once, only to be re-inspired by the terrible screams that echoed through the house. We reached the stairs quickly, and I let both women go ahead of me. They were more agile then I was, especially carrying a child. Into the dining room, which I would later see in several prominent photographs of political figures and into a kitchen that looked like it belonged in a restaurant, steel surfaces and clean white tile. Hyacinth was ahead of me and halfway across the kitchen towards the fusebox on the back wall. She threw the door open and flicked a series of breakers, causing half the lights in the kitchen to go out. And in the side of the kitchen that was now covered in darkness I could see a new stairway opening, leading down to the basement level. Hyacinth closed the metal door to the fusebox and started hustling her daughter towards the new stair-well. “He thinks he has secrets from me.”

“Well, I’m sure he does. That was part of what attracted you to him in the first place. Just not stupid things like where the safe-room is in case of a supernatural attack.” We moved quickly down the stairs to a concrete box two stories down, the walls polished smooth and a heavy iron ring in the floor, encompassing most of the room. There was a recess near the ceiling of the room from which track lighting issued, suffusing the room in a slight blue glow. And folding chairs. Black, metal folding chairs. I’m not sure what I expected, but for some reason, that wasn’t it. I started laughing at the strange juxtaposition, though a look from mother convinced me that a laughing madman wasn’t what her daughter needed right now. We waited there in the safe room for only a quarter-hour or so before Dorian came down the stairs, carrying enough blankets over a shoulder it looked like he carried another child.

He reached the center of the ring and tossed the bedding on the ground. “They’ve worked the bindings into the child’s mind. Every day of his life they’ve worked it into his mind and soul. They’re going to have to go. I can do that, it’s what you came here for after all.” He’s right. I don’t have the skill to separate that kind of link, Dorian does. He organized the blankets in the room, making a bed for his wife, his daughter and the child. “We’re going to have to stay down here until this has been done. But. Spellchaser, you have to make a decision. I’m going to replace this child’s entire memory. It will kill him unless I give him an anchor. It has to be you, you’ve put my family at enough risk already. We will be there to help, but replacing those memories is your job.” He began to walk paces around the child, and I could feel the magic begin to coalesce in the air. I began to feel the magic seep into the air and work its way into our minds. “What is the child to you? Your servant? Your page? A nephew perhaps, that you come to see from time to time.”

I could feel it, the magic tighten around us. The next words out of my mouth would determine the shape of the spell. And its strength. I looked around me, at the family Dorian had built. I knew there was only one right answer, but did I want to give it? By Twilight and Nightmare, I did this for a reason didn’t I? I looked at the child, whose was names by the cultists I had stolen him from for a Demon to call and bind him to their dark will. I would subvert their magics. I had to. “His name is Abraxas Spellchaser, and I adopt him as my son.”

I felt the magic snap shut around us as we all fell into the spell.

Word Count: 2812