Chapter 4

Maureen still has the Narrative:

As the door to the apartment swung open to reveal the back-lit form standing in the hall, the malevolence radiated by the creature struck us, and it was like a blow from a baseball bat or a hammer would be.

“Cast Magic Fire!” the Leader of the Council shouted, and all six of us cast the spell for Magic Fire while aiming our fingers at the creature in the doorway. Streams of Magic Fire hit it full strength for a number of seconds, but they appeared to have little or no effect on it. After the first few seconds, one of the streams flickered and then went out. It was Angus’s, and he nearly collapsed against me.

Just as I was reaching for him with my free hand to steady him, a spell in a strange language appeared in my mind, and I repeated it quickly. To activate it only required the use of a single word, I quickly realized as I completed it.

“Zoroaster!” I shouted, as I continued to pour Magic Fire on the creature with the fingers of my right hand, and supported Angus with my left hand.

The creature, whatever it was, immediately began to burn from the Magic Fire that the five of us were still pouring into it and it was soon reduced to nothing but a bit of ash on the floor. We all canceled the Magic Fire that we were using.

In the meantime, Angus had sagged against me, and was breathing with difficulty. I helped him over to the sofa and sat him down there.

“Are you going to be all right, Angus?” I asked.

“That ... that thing, it got into my mind with its hate, and I couldn’t do anything. I never felt so helpless before,” he told us in a quiet but frightened voice.

“What was that?” I asked immediately following that.

“It was a demon, but fortunately, it was one of the lesser demons, and one of the least powerful in fact,” the Leader of the Magic Council told us.

“How did you defeat it?” the Council Member # 1 asked.

“A spell suddenly appeared in my mind. It was in a strange language, that was nothing like Gaelic, and I just repeated it. On finishing the spell, the word ‘Zoroaster’ appeared in my mind, as the word to activate the spell. I shouted it, and our Magic Fire immediately began to have an effect on the demon or whatever it was,” I told them to strange looks from all of them.

“Where did this spell and the word come from?” the Council Member # 3 demanded out of turn.

“I have no idea, and I don’t know what language it was in either. It just suddenly appeared in my mind, as I reached out to help Angus,” I told them.

“Zoroaster was a leader in Persian Magic, but that was many thousands of years ago,” the Leader of the Magic Council told me. “How could you know an ancient spell in Persian?” he asked.

“I have absolutely no idea. As I said, it just appeared in my mind. I never even stopped to think that it could have come from the creature in the doorway. It just seemed to be the correct thing to use to defeat it. It just felt like the correct thing to do,” I told him and the others.

“We need to do a bit of repair work,” the Council Member # 2 told the others, and that was when I glanced back at the door to the apartment. The door had been partly destroyed by our use of Magic Fire, and the door casing and the walls near there were also damaged as well as the floor and the carpet. The wall of the hallway opposite the door had a hole burned in it and was black for several feet around the hole. All of this damage was quickly disappearing under the repair spells they were using. I needed to return my attention to the Council Leader then, as he was still speaking to me.

“You certainly have a strange and powerful Talent, Maureen. Even I don’t remember any of the spell from ancient Persia,” he told me. That was when I remembered Agent Parks.

“We need to check on Agent Parks. He is still in the parking lot,” I told them.

“Go ahead and check on him and bring him here. We will look after Angus while you are gone,” he told me.

I could sense that Parks was still in his vehicle and transferred to the parking lot appearing beside his car. He was just sitting there behind the steering wheel as if frozen, but I could detect that no spells had been used on him or the vehicle, which wasn’t running.

“Parks!” I shouted at him after opening the driver’s door. He came awake instantly on hearing his name and stared at me.

“What are you doing here?” he asked in a confused voice.

“I came to talk to you again, but had to fight a demon who appeared at your apartment door. You have been sitting out here in your car for some time,” I told him. He immediately looked at his watch.

“How can it be 8:20? The news was just coming on at 8:00 when I parked,” he demanded.

“Someone or something appears to have hypnotized you,” I told him. “You responded to your name and woke up when I shouted it,” I finished.

“The FBI had people try to hypnotize me and they couldn’t. How could I have been hypnotized then?” he asked in confusion.

“The FBI wasn’t using Magic to assist them,” I pointed out.

“You need to come with me,” I told him next, as I pulled him out of the car, slammed the door, and started the transfer spell to move both of us to his apartment.

Less than a second later we appeared... somewhere, but it definitely wasn’t Agent Parks’ apartment, and he was still screaming in pain. He had started just as I began the transfer spell. While the noise had been distracting, it immediately faded out and didn’t bother me as I looked around at where we had arrived. Someone or something had hijacked or altered my transfer spell, as it was apparent that we had arrived in the basement of some abandoned or partly destroyed building.

There was a woman, a tall older woman from her appearance, standing some eight feet or so in front of us by a large table covered with equipment. She had just broken a vial of something after we appeared, as I saw part of the vial was still in the air on its way to the floor, and that was when I realized that time had slowed down for me. Parks’ screams were also no longer audible.

I could see that she was just starting the spell, and I could see what appeared to be blood from the vial on the fingers of her right hand, as she started the glyph for the spell she was casting. It had to be a Black Magic spell, as White Magic never required blood or other substances to work. This extra step had slowed her down some also.

I had never canceled the Magic Fire spell that I had used against the demon, but had put it on standby. I spoke the word now to bring it back up to full force, and Magic Fire leapt from my fingers and hit the Witch, or whatever she was, before she could finish her spell.

As the two different types of Magic collided, there was a huge explosion that threw Parks and me back against the wall behind us, but tore the Witch apart and then consumed all that remained of her. Time seemed to have resumed its normal pace again also, before we were able to move.

After a few seconds, there was nothing left of the woman, who I presumed was a Witch, but a few bits of ash which soon disappeared in the smoke where she had been standing. The large metal table had been knocked over and the various bowls, pots and other things on it were scattered around on the floor. There were the remains of a salt circle in several places on the floor, but nothing remained in the area where she had been standing but a large burn mark on the floor. Agent Parks had also stopped screaming, I noticed.

Using the wall that I had been thrown against to help me stand, I checked my arms, legs, and back to ensure that I was all right, before I pulled Agent Parks up to stand beside me. He was damp from sweat and was still breathing erratically, I noticed. We both stood there and pulled ourselves together for a couple of minutes before saying anything.

“What happened? Where are we?” Parks finally managed to ask.

“It appears that someone or something hijacked my transfer spell. As for where we are, I have no idea. There was a woman here when we arrived, and she was in the process of casting what I believe was a Black Magic spell. She had broken a vial of what appeared to be blood to help power the spell. Time seemed to have slowed down for me, as I watched her, and I had plenty of time to recall the Magic Fire spell that I had been using, and which I had only put on hold and not canceled after we destroyed the demon who had appeared in your open apartment door,” I told a very confused Agent Parks.

“Demon ... what demon?” he demanded in shock after a few seconds. “There are real demons?” he asked quietly after a few more seconds.

“Of course there are,” I answered, before explaining, “We had arrived in your apartment a few minutes earlier to talk to you again, when we sensed you arrive in the parking lot,” I told him.

“We ... what we? Who was with you?” he demanded having picked up on what I had said.

“I brought one of my teachers with me. We wanted to learn why you can’t use your Talent,” I explained.

“And where does this supposed demon that you mentioned come in?” he demanded.

“We were waiting for you to enter your apartment, but what opened the door wasn’t you. It was a demon. My teacher realized it wasn’t you as it approached the apartment and warned us,” I told him.

“And you used fire against this supposed demon? Who have you killed, and is there anything left of my apartment?” he demanded in an angry voice.

“We eliminated the demon, there wasn’t anything left of him after I used an ancient spell so our Magic Fire could get through his protective wards. Your apartment is just fine. The Members of the Magic Council restored it to its previous condition. They stayed to help my teacher while I came to get you. We were hijacked when I tried to return us to your apartment,” I finished.

“Wait a minute, who are these Members of the Magic Council that you mentioned, and how did they get into my apartment?” Parks demanded in an upset voice.

“The Members of the Magic Council were in your apartment when my teacher and I arrived there. They had already circumvented the audio and video bugs that the FBI had planted in your apartment today,” I told him.

“Have you people turned my apartment into Grand Central Station? Is every Magic user in the world going to be passing through there now?” he demanded in a still angry voice.

“There are only four of them in addition to my teacher and me. Besides, as I said, they had already circumvented...” I was saying, as he interrupted me.

“The audio and video bugs that the FBI had planted in MY apartment today?” he finished in a loud voice, and paused for a few seconds. “How could you know that, and why would the FBI do that? I work for them,” he finished a bit confused.

“Have you considered that they may not trust you any longer?” I asked. He looked like someone had slapped him on hearing this.

“Why ... why wouldn’t they trust me?” he asked in a very quiet voice after a short time.

“You failed to capture me, and then you reported that I had visited you last night. Perhaps someone told them about your locked up Talent. Or perhaps they already knew about it,” I told him, only guessing.

“This is all too fantastic to believe,” he muttered, not wanting to believe what I had told him.

“Be that as may, it is the truth, and it is time that we returned to your apartment. Someone is liable to have noticed that explosion down here and sent people to investigate. We don’t need to be here when they arrive,” I told him, and cast the transfer spell again for his apartment. We actually arrived there this time.

“What happened?” the Leader of the Magic Council demanded when we appeared in Park’s apartment. “We felt the use of Black Magic and also an explosion of Magic Power a short time ago,” he finished.

“Someone or something hijacked my transfer spell when I tried to transfer Agent Parks to his apartment. We appeared in what looked like the basement of an abandoned building. There was what I believe was a Witch there casting a Black Magic spell as we arrived. The strangest thing happened then as time seemed to slow down for me. I no longer heard Parks screaming, and I had time to look around at everything in the basement, before bringing my Magic Fire back from standby to full force, and fired it at the Witch who was still in the process of casting her spell. When the two kinds of Magic collided, there was an explosion which tore the Witch apart, and her various parts were consumed by the remaining Magic Fire. We transferred out of there as soon as we had recovered, as the force of the explosion had tossed us against the wall of the basement behind us,” I told him.