Chapter 1

January 1

It was a dark room, awfully quite too, for a shop in middle of the busiest street in old Delhi. The smell of jasmine from the incense is intoxicating, because this is a shop run by sisterhood of silathae: a group of spider demonesses like Arachne or Jorogumo. I am here for a new suit, no one can write words of power in each thread and weave it into artifact level cloth and stitch them into power armors. They are the best in business. After the cold war, they stretched their business all over the word. They are a bit expensive, as they only accept goods with history and spirituality. Those are hard to get even in a black market auctions. These women are attracted to power. But no man can survive a night with them. It is the law of nature, not their fault. They are kindest paranormal women I ever met. Two of them were taking my measurement. Cannot spell their name, it’s not possible in English. Both were dressed as Nazgul. Trust me none can resist their charms. Those black cloaks are enchanted cloths, which will appear as thick black cloak to normal eyes. They become more transparent the more you are trained in art of illusions. Now they are, to my eyes, wearing thin grey muslin cloaks from crown to toe, totally naked underneath. One is taller than me; 6’4” with a 6 inch heal. Her size is 38 DD-30- 40. Toned abs, arms and leg. Her legs are like trained runner. But she walks like she floats around me. Her short hair finally makes it like she is a soldier. She is wearing only a gold Kasu Mala, a traditional long necklace comprises a collection of little coins that add to its charm, which comes all the way between her nipples, Her nipples are large and pointy, almost size of my pinky and half an inch long. Like a crown in those massive globes which stands tall defying gravity her skin is golden color with metallic purple color hair like Hyllus diardi. The other one is short petite woman, 30A-24-22 size. She is 4’6” with an ankle length flowing hair. She was wearing a gold hip chain embedded with diamonds. She has an iridescent greenish hair with iridescent silver skin like a Cosmophasis umbratic. They are running their hand all over my body. They made me undress to my boxers for better measurement. I am using every chant, trick, imagination to stop me from having them then and there. I know I will not survive an hour.

Officially I work in Department of Defense, special investigations division, who writes white paper based on my investigations. I am not good at my job. I use it only for tax purpose. My actual paid job is Occult Investigator on paranormal spy agency, which doesn’t exist. You can call me Ra, my true name is sealed, I am a Mantrikam who is ritualist, curse breaker, ghost buster, demon slayer, talisman writer plane walker, charm maker, jack of all trade. I got the job because of nepotism. Yes, my family is doing it thousands of years. We lost most of our history, but we are the ones you call to (trust me my second cousin tried a Collider, we are still searching for him). Most of my family, like 99% of them, lives ascetic life searching. So many live in rural areas, or in wilderness to avoid people. Some will venture in the world trying to use their eager power to conquer it. You might have seen them running cults or as advisors to some rich and powerful. I am the black sheep of the family. Not ascetic or ambitious, just want to enjoy all pleasures of life. Every family has one like me. So got a job in branch of government which doesn’t exist, who answers only to 5 people. When those 5 people gather in an office, it means war. So we are free to do our jobs. In simple terms I am in grade 5. Not powerful or weak. I just reached 27. I need to reach grade 6, as 3 is a very powerful number. Grade 6 is the mark between powerful sorcerer and truly powerful sorcerer. I am starting this record/log/journal (not a diary) for future research purpose only.

I got the call then, the office clerk, and the one who answers the phone and calls us when we have a job. He calls according to the closest to the incident. There are not many of us; we were spread through the world, mostly on official business like espionage, counter strike. Not much different form regular spies, magical defense of a country is the similar. Some mineral mines, miles north of Kanpur, UP, India. Used to be wheat fields, now became unusable when river Ganges changed course few decades ago. Now some of the workers are missing. Like every horror movie I know. Someone pulled some heavy strings to make the agency involved.

January 2 So I reached there by 4 am, and set up my camp by 5 am. I set up some basic wards too. I attached some sensory charms to couple of drones and released them to increase my surveillance range. Got those from a shadow government, of a old world country, they have the best AI operated surveillance systems. Then I started to set draw a mandala using colored ash. You get those colors by mixing ash with basic metals. Ash is obtained burning roots of redfruit creeper (Corallocarpus epigaeus), woods of red sandal (Pterocarpus santalinus), leaves of neem(Azadirachta indica), flowers of hibiscus (Hibiscus rosa-sinensis), fruits of scarlet gourd (Coccinia grandis) I sit naked in the middle and start my searching ritual at twilight. It takes 6 hours to find what is causing the troubles. I will be done by noon. But I sensed it as soon as I entered the formation. Those bloody nincompoops, they dug into ‘Pathala Ganga’, a massive underground river that runs along the river Ganges. It is not a river of water, but of pure primordial energy. Many modern occultists mistake it for ley lines, as its common if you don’t know the local geography. It’s not good or evil; it’s a freaking force of nature. They are found it every planes of existences. When you encounter one you run, they are calamities waiting to happen. I channeled the power in my search ritual using few hand signs. I start investigating. Those miners were not missing; they were devoured by superbugs evolved from leaking energy. Fuck they are not paying me enough for this. I changed my hand signs and fused my mandala with defensive charms and upped my defense to few levels, then called the clerk and yelled at him to get his ass here now. I sat down and started to erase my existence so they don’t track me down and hunt me. Those bugs are evolving fast; they are close to lesser demons. But they are moving in formation, like trained soldiers, leaving no traces. As evolved from primordial energy they must follow the rules of nature. They should be territorial and searching for mates to multiply, unless they have a queen. Fuck a queen in magical community, is close to demi goddess, Grimm brothers basically wrote around them. The queen is gathering faith, and backed by the primordial energy, she just need to establish her authority and lay down the laws.

A black SUV pulled over. A bit cliché for government wet work I am naked inside my ritual circle chanting and making hand signs. I was going beast mode to find what kind of species the queen evolved from as it will give an understanding of what types of laws will she lay down. Even if they have achieve human like intelligence, unlike thousands of years of trail and errors of human civilizations they are primitive, so they tend towards their instincts. A fat man with beige pants and yellow shirt exited the SUV. I laugh every time I see him; one of my friend0 named him Mr.Doughboy, as he looks exactly like the logo. He is named Ravi Kumar aka RK; he is a government sponsored fixer/ bag man. He can make all your troubles disappear. He is a grade 3 charmer who can control lesser demons and higher ghosts or weak mind people. If he is here this is not a entirely department sanctioned job. Someone has the pull and connections to do this

“whatzup Dark magician”