Update
Today, I started the scene of Morgana casting a spell to protect the Black Zodiac. I'm a bit rusty on some of my mythology and paganism, at least compared to when I wrote the original short, so it took a bit to get into the mood of the thing.
Current Word Count: 22,792
Scene of the Day
I pulled up in front of the Black Zodiac, right when
scheduled the next night.
The building itself was pretty impressive, having once
been a skating rink before it was closed down.
In the time that Collin owned it, he’d decided that
painting the whole exterior jet black was the way to go.
The club’s name was written in silver, runic symbols
above the door, and the whole structure exuded a distinct magical hum.
A duffle bag in one hand and a small cage in the other,
I made my way across the lot.
The sudden screeching from inside the cage only made me
jump a little, though the reaction was a testament to how tense I’d gotten on
the drive over.
Collin was sitting at a table near the door, waiting for
me, when I got inside.
“What’s that for?” he asked with a nod at the cage.
I pulled the latch from the door, and a beautiful, large
black raven shot out into the air.
She circled around a few times before landing on my
shoulder and rubbing against my cheek, the strange magic the bird had tingling
against me.
“This little lady’s Nyx.”
“A familiar? I’d’ve expected a black cat, if I’m honest.
Haven’t ever seen a normal bird that big,” he added after really taking her in.
“Cats don’t like me, much. This girl, though, is perfectly fine with
bein’ around me. Saved me on a job a few years back, and since her owner wasn’t
really alive anymore when it was over, she switched.”
Smiling, I pet the raven and felt sparks where our auras
met.
“She’s kind of an incoming death detector, too. Figured
we could use all the help we can get.”
“Oh? I haven’t heard of familiars doing that. Is it like
a canary in a mine?”
“She makes a serious racket whenever something bad’s on
the way. I don’t know if her previous owner did somethin’ to ‘er or if she’s
some kinda’ weird offshoot from the Umbra playin’ with the natives, but she’s
got hella’ psychic ability.”
As I spoke, she took to the air and nestled comfortably
into a rafter, head swiveling as though to survey the whole club.
“I usually let ‘er stay at home, but we’ll be needin’
all the warnin’ and help we can get, if those guys come at us again.”
“Fair enough. So tell me what we’re going to be doing.
Shielding the Zodiac, I think, won’t keep them out for too long.”
With a nod, he pushed to his feet and led me into the
main part of the Zodiac.
The inside was really something to behold, even with the
club closed down for maintenance.
Rows of big, spotlessly cleaned wooden tables lined the
whole room, forming a large ring of empty space in the center.
While I imagined it was normally covered with inebriated
dancers, right then, it was cleared to show an eight-pointed star with various
magical symbols etched into an ornate circle.
A long, pure black bar made of marble sat taking up the
whole left side of the room.
Unlike the practical circle in the dead center of the club,
the bar was covered in runes and zodiac symbols that seemed purely for
aesthetics.
What was most impressive in the room, though, was the
monster of a man standing behind the bar.
He stood just over six feet, all of his height made of
obviously trained muscles covered top to bottom in black silk.
His shaved head caught the low lighting from above,
giving him a nearly corpse-like pallor that was only made more obvious by his
long but well-maintained black beard.
The vaguely Russian features to him identified him as
likely being the mysterious Mikhail, who looked like he could kick some serious
ass just standing in place.
“Alright, here’s what’s gonna’ happen. Theoretically,
anyway. I’m goin’ ta’ cast a spell ta’ protect the Zodiac. It’ll be strong. At
least as strong as my office. Which they got through anyway, so I doubt it’ll
hold fer long when they come. But it will
slow them down, else we’d’ve been dead yesterday, and that’ll give me
enough time to get them. Hopefully.”
“A more concrete plan’s never been laid out,” Mikhail
mused. “You’re a lot smaller than I would’ve thought you’d be.”
Nodding, I headed to the bar and extended my hand.
The second we shook, I felt like my skin was literally
on fire, though I managed to keep my poker face up until I could slip the hand
into my pocket.
“Mikhail, right?”
“That’s me.”
“You’re the bouncer?”
“And the bartender.”
“You get what I asked for?”
“Ready and waitin’ for your special touch,” Collin cut
in, bringing my gaze back to him.
He indicated the collection of supplies sitting in the
center of a nearby table, the whole bundle releasing a slight glow into the
air.
Bulbs of crushed onion and garlic sat with five candles
lay unlit next to them, each one a different color to represent the elements.
“No clover?”
Not that the clover would be necessary, really, though
it couldn’t hurt.
He pointed over his shoulder, and I found a bundle of
the small things hanging over each window, the front door, and the hallway that
we’d come in through.
The fact that I hadn’t felt anything was probably a bad
sign.
“Good deal. Alright, ya’ boys aren’t squeamish ‘round
magic, I assume?”
Both of them gave me a smirk in response, and with a
shrug I headed over to my supplies.
My duffel bag released several clangs as I set it down,
and I got to work pulling out the other things I wouldn’t trust someone to have
on hand at a bar.
When everything was together on the table, I finally
pulled out the small, fatally sharp dagger I’d brought along just in case.
I fought a shiver as the sheathed blade slipped into my
jacket, keeping it on hand in case things got messy.
With that done, I put the crushed onion and garlic into
a stone bowl and began grinding them into a fine powder.
Once it was totally mixed into one solid, white dust, I
poured the mixture into a black, steel dish.
As soon as the powder landed in the second bowl, the air
became tense.
I felt my heart speeding up as the heavy air settled
onto my shoulders.
Something was watching.
By Collin and Mikhail’s fidgeting, it was something that
wasn’t only interested in me.
Whether that was a good or bad thing remained to be
seen.
My mind and body calmed down as I went to work setting
the candles up around the dish.
The world faded from existence as my breathing slowed,
until all that was visible to me were vague glowing shapes.
Throbbing pulses of light began to make their way
through me, starting in my brain and working their way to my toes.
I fell into rhythm with the universe as the magic began
to rise.
“Spirit of fire, I call on the strength of thee, Djinn.
Let my magic this night be strong.”
With just my words, the red candle ignited in a burst of
blue fire.
The room turned chokingly warm around me as the
elemental moved into the room.
Ever since the fight with the Ifrit that Collin had
mentioned, I’d picked up a bit of paranoia calling on its cousins, the djinn.
To date, though, telling the monster that it would die
alone and un-avenged had proven true, as seen by my not being lit on fire.
Shaking the thoughts off, I let the calm talk over again
and focused on the golden blur before my hazed sight.
“I call on the flexibility of the Sylph, master of air.
Make my magic malleable and adaptive, able to take on whatever would seek to
harm those in this domain.”
The next candle lit with a burst of air which whipped my
hair up in a red curtain.
“Gnome, powerful spirit of the earth’s will, grant my
magic your sturdy support in protecting this domain.”
A green candle flared up with a heavy scent of damp
earth and lilacs in response.
“I summon the Undine, elemental of water, and ask thee
to grant thy peaceful grace this night to stay all harmful intents.”
The whole room flooded with light as a fourth, blue
candle lit.
Taking a deep breath, I pushed my hand forward, directly
center of the four flickering candles.
Their heat lashed against my arm, but even as I was
burned, the magic wrapped around me and reversed the damage.
I felt the elemental magic coiling around my entire
body, my mind expanding as the summoned spirits fused part of their magic into
my very soul, if for a very short time.
“Akasha, that which binds all things through the divide,
I call thee here, to join the forces of this reality together for this spell.
Take this power as sacrifice, and protect this domain in place of my tribute!”
My arm became coated in a brilliant skin of swirling
color, and as I watched, the magic was sucked into the purple candle’s flame.
It grew into a pillar of multi-colored fire as the other
four candles were snuffed out.
The magic was finally fully taken, leaving me feeling
very shaky.
In return, the fire lit the entire room with a powerful
glow that washed everything out.
Moving fast, I brought the knife from my jacket and
slashed through the column of flames.
The steel turned purple as it passed through, and power
thrummed through my entire being as the light intensified.
“With this fire, I cast out all darkness! As this
section of reality burns, let all evil intent be charred and destroyed at the
threshold!”
With that, I touched the glowing blade to the herbs in
the dish.
They went up in a bright puff of silver fire and smoke,
and then, it all vanished.
No comments:
Post a Comment