Chapter 2

The following character appears here and in other parts of the story:

David De Tocqueville

Powerful Ley Line Magic user, 6’-0’’ tall with broad shoulders, 40 years old, dark hair and violet eyes,

As soon as Josh pulled into my driveway, I knew there was a problem. The house is set back from the road some hundred and fifty feet or so, and the driveway curves as it approaches the house, so that the house is not visible from the road, as it is mostly hidden by two rows of large oak trees near the road.

As soon as the car crossed the property line, I detected the Ley Lines on it. There were two Ley Lines on my property and not one as was usual, and they crossed right under the house, creating a huge pool of Ley Line Magic. Why had I never detected it before this, I wondered, but decided that even though I had been an Earth Witch, I wasn’t sensitized to the use of Ley Line Magic, as I was now, since I had been rebuilt by it.

As we pulled up in front of the house, Josh had a question.

“Where is your car?”

“I took it to town to meet a customer, but left it in a restaurant parking lot, and walked to the meeting location,” I told him. “I’ll need a ride there to pick it up,” I finished.

“Okay, we can do that tomorrow,” Josh told me with a smile, before changing the subject.

“You sure look a lot different, Maddy, a lot sexier,” he said with a big grin.

“Yes, I do, but there is a Demon out there who is probably real upset that I’m still alive. Whoever sent him will also be real unhappy when they learn that I’m still alive also,” I told him. Josh swallowed hard on hearing this.

“I had forgotten about that. What do you intend to do?” he asked.

“I’m going after the bastards ... both of them, but not until after I’ve learned more about handling this new Ley Line Magic ability that I have somehow acquired. I’ll need to go to Atlanta to one of the book stores that carry books on Magic. You may not want to go with me, as it could be dangerous to be seen with me, or to be around me,” I told him.

Atlanta had become a real hotbed of Magic after the world wide revelation of Ley Line Magic back in 2015. It just happens that the Atlanta area has an unusually large number of Ley Lines, and Ley Line crossings blanketing the entire area with Magic. A lot of Magic users of various kinds had moved here from other parts of the country where Ley Lines and their crossings were more rare or even totally absent. Properties with known Ley Line Crossings had zoomed in value, as those able to use the Magic sought to control the sources of it. Even properties with a single Ley Line running through them or across them had gone way up in value.

This had completely changed the complexion of the city, as many of those afraid of Magic or not caring for it had moved away from Atlanta. Those opposed to the use of all Magic had also targeted the city initially, until some of the more powerful Magic users had grown tired of their protests and other activities, and simply sent them elsewhere to get rid of them. They usually wound up someplace that was rather unpleasant and far away from Atlanta. There are still the occasional small protest about the use of Magic in the city and its surrounding area, but they are never very loud or held for long, as no one wants to come to the attention of those powerful Magic users again. I had never been one of them, but I had to wonder if that was changing?

“I’ll pick you up tomorrow at noon and take you to get your car, but I don’t want to go to Atlanta. There are some people there, that I don’t want to meet again,” he told me.

“Have they been bothering you?” I asked.

“Some, they want me to join the Wizard’s Guild, and I would just as soon remain an independent,” he told me.

“All right, I’ll see you tomorrow, and thanks for coming to pick me up, Josh,” I told him before leaning over to give him a kiss on the cheek.

“You’re welcome, Maddy. Al was right though; your Magic is different. Even I can detect that, and you smell terrific for having been a burned corpse,” he told me with a huge smile, as I opened the door to get out of his car. After some hesitation, Al jumped out of the car and followed me to the front door, while Josh turned the car around and drove off my property.

While the outside lights had come on automatically when the car pulled up in front the house, I found that I could now see very well into the darkness surrounding the house. I would need to create new charms or wards around my property to try to keep Demons and other things of the night from entering it and causing me trouble, but that was for tomorrow also, For tonight, a little dinner and some sleep. Al was ready to eat also, but then, he is always ready to eat being a cat with a fast metabolism.

As we approached the house, I fumbled in my purse for my keys, but when we reached the door, it opened before I could insert the key. The front door is original to the house. It is solid oak and thicker than modern doors being over two inches thick with a small window at eye level. Its lock is still the same one that came with it, and is often difficult to get open. I had considered getting a new lock, but hadn’t found one large enough to fit the existing recess. It, and the door had certainly never opened by themselves before ... at least not for me. After entering and closing the door, I found the lock was again locked, which greatly surprised me. Still, I thought it very handy if it would continue to do that when my hands were full but not admit strangers or Demons.

My first priority was clothes, as I still had on just a sheet. It occurred to me then that my previous clothing might not fit me now. I would need to check, but later. For now, a robe would do since I was starved, I realized. Upstairs after donning my nicest robe, that nearly closed all of the way over my enlarged breasts, I headed downstairs to the kitchen. I realized that I would need a lot of new clothes with this figure.

On reaching the kitchen to make dinner for both of us, I received a shock as soon as I turned on the lights. There was a man sitting at my kitchen table. He was easily 6’-0’’ tall with broad shoulders, dark hair and violet eyes, like I now had. I recognized him after several seconds, as I had seen him on the news and his picture in the local newspaper a number of times. He was one of the three most powerful Magic users in Atlanta and possibly the most powerful. It was David De Tocqueville.

“So little Witch, you have joined the club,” he said without even so much as a good evening.

“Club?”

“The group that uses Ley Line Magic. We’re a rather small distinct club. It is hard to join, and we all know each other. You, however, are a bit different from the rest of us. You didn’t start out as a Ley Line user. You weren’t invited into the club, and yet here you are,” he said.

“I didn’t ask to join, but I wasn’t given a choice,” I told him, as I stood there across the table from him in just my robe and some slippers. It was a robe that did little to conceal my new charms, and De Tocqueville had definitely noticed.

“Yes, we know. We all felt the surge of Magic earlier tonight. It wasn’t caused by anyone using the Lines. We can all tell when one of us uses the Lines for something, but this wasn’t caused by any of us. There was no signature to it, and it was an unusually large and strong amount of Magic that moved through the Lines, by itself it seems. One might almost say a massive amount of Magic.

“Several of us eventually followed it to the hospital where you had been taken, but that was only after the surge had subsided. It was easy to follow the trail backwards then to where the ‘Event’ had occurred also,” he told me.

“That demon tried to fry me, and managed to turn most of me into a crispy critter. I was only saved by the few amulets that I had in my bag, and only on that one side,” I told him.

“So, you will be looking for that particular Demon then?” he asked.

“For him and for the one who sent him,” I told him.

“Yes, I’m sure they are both unhappy about your survival. Be warned though, that they will be expecting you,” he told me.

“I’m aware of that, and that’s why I need to find out how this Ley Line Magic works. I’ll be going into Atlanta to see if I can find any books on it,” I told him, before realizing that it may not have been a good idea to reveal my plans.

“Be careful which ones you choose. The best ones are written by Dragons. They can be hard to find and are expensive. Some of the others are full of bad information,” he warned me.

“I’ll need to practice some before going after that Demon. I guess I can do that here on my property,” I said.

“Yes, how convenient that you just happen to have two of the Major Ley Lines in the area crossing on your property, and none of us realized it. How could that happen?” he asked in an uncertain voice, before continuing. “That could be the reason why you were attacked, you know,” he finished with a grin. It didn’t look good on him, but he vanished right after that.

“Well Al, it looks like we have our work cut out for us. You may want to remain here when I go to Atlanta tomorrow,” I told my Familiar, as I removed things from the refrigerator to make for dinner. I would open a can of cat food for Al before starting to eat.

That night I had nightmares about what had happened to me. It was the same nightmare over and over. Each time, I woke up screaming when the Demon set me on fire and stood there to watch as I burned. By the fifth time, I was pretty fed up, before something occurred to me.

“Is there something in the dreams that I needed to know, or observe?” I wondered out loud. So, I thought back on how the dream had gone each time, and was shocked by this new ability to recall this most horrible event with such clarity. As I thought about the dreams more carefully, I started to notice several changes or things that were highlighted or stood out in each one. I found a notepad in all of the junk on my dresser, and started making notes of the inconsistencies. It was soon obvious there was at least one change or highlight in each of the five dreams while some had more than one. My ability to recall the dreams in exacting detail brought each of them out for me to record, but it gave me the willies each time.

The major difference, as far as I was concerned, had to do with the Demon and his shape or appearance which changed in each dream. I would remember each of them when I went looking for him. I went back to sleep following that and didn’t dream anymore that night. In the morning when I awoke, I found that Al had returned to the foot of my bed.

“Your screaming kept me awake, so I moved to the living room,” he told me. “What did you do to stop it?”

“I figured out that the dream was a little different each time, and made a list of the differences. I was shocked that I could remember what happened to me in such detail. After listing the differences, I slept pretty well for the rest of the night,” I told him.

Following breakfast and a good hot cup of tea, I started on some charms figuring that I might need them before, or while I learned Ley Line Magic and how to use it. I was, or at least had been, a classically trained Earth Witch and knew how to make many kinds of charms, and amulets in addition to being able to cast many spells using Earth Witch Magic.

While the ingredients for charms and amulets were more easily available now, the price had gone up substantially. This was why I had a small garden in back of the house for growing herbs, and also harvested many of the wild plants and weeds that grew on my property. Plants that had been started by my ancestors. True, it was a lot of work, but you couldn’t always find fresh ingredients at those stores. Often Chinese medicine stores had the best ingredients, as they had a long history in preserving them, but they were more expensive now also.

Josh arrived just before noontime. I had put several of the different kinds of the new charms that I had made in my shoulder bag in case we ran into something unusual. I had also needed to search my closet to find something to wear that I didn’t look like I had been poured into. I finally found a dress that would fit me with just a bit of the use of a clothing charm. I definitely needed a new wardrobe.

“Where did you park?” Josh asked after Al and I had gotten into his car.

“I left it in the strip mall with the Thai restaurant and the Italian restaurant in the traffic disaster up the highway. It’s parked near the military surplus store,” I told him. The next town closer to Atlanta has two major highways that go through it. They also crossed in the center of town, and it took longer to get through the town than it did to get there from where I live.