The Book of the Magi

by Billy Spencer

  He knew that this story was very odd, and it did not make sense to him. Why would people be hiding in their home, like someone was there to kill them, or do some sort of harm. It also didn’t make sense that these people seemed relieved to see him, as if they knew him for years. They looked at him like he was some sort of savior, like a kid looks at a superhero getting ready to take down the bad guy. But Lucuris felt that it could not be that at all, he wasn’t a savior, not for anyone. He wasn’t a hero, although he always dreamed of being one, but so does everyone who is into video games where you are saving the world from destruction, or comics where you have the power to help and change the world. But there is always a price, nothing good comes for free, and anything you obtain as free could be used against you.

  “They told me that I was there to save them, that I was there to banish the great evil, and to give their people hope. I was shocked by my surroundings and the fact that these people felt I was some godsend. I tried to get why they were hiding, and all they could tell me was a great evil awoken. To destroy their lands in a few years, and would kill every grown up within their village, enslave all their young children, and move on to other planets throughout their universe. They told me one thing that was chilling though, the children would not be killed like the grownups, but sacrificed, blood sacrifices. I didn’t understand why, they were just kids, nothing but innocent. Until one of them told me it was for awakening their true powers. The full power of a Mage. Blood Magic is what this great evil wants to awaken. This evil would sacrifice the children at their youngest age, in order to use their own blood as fuel for magic. Powerful magic that would cripple even the greatest of Mage’s within their dimension. Forbidden magic when it came to their lands, and one they would wish to be forgotten for good. Once this evil unleashed the blood magic upon the land, they would travel to different dimensions, where beings were in their youngest age in terms of evolution. They told me that this being is headed for planet Earth, and all within this planet will be held captive, and tremble by the might of the Blood Mage Lucidian,” Lucuris said trembling to his knees after saying the final word in his sentence.

  Abigail grew more worried as she saw that one word brought her brother to the ground, as if he was about to pass out. She kneeled down beside him, cradling him within her arms, trying to calm him down. She could feel and see him trembling even worse than before. “Lucuris, I don’t know what to say to all of this. I know this story is a dream, but to you it is real. I wish I could help, to figure out the meaning of all this. I know you are scared. I have nightmares too. But I have a feeling these are more than just dreams, to others this would be silly, people would laugh at the thought of what you said. They would mock you, but I believe every single word you say,” Abigail said while looking her brother in the eyes, showing him that she was determined to help him in his time of need. To help him figure out what all of this meant. Who was this great evil coming towards them, sure it could be just his imagination, but to him dreams never felt so real, until he started having these certain dreams. Ones where magic was reality, and nothing was limitless to one’s mind.

  Lucuris stared up at Abigail, and saw tears start to trickle down her cheeks, and onto his face. He felt like he did something wrong, that he had hurt her in some way. Slowly he began to get up from being held by his sister and started to rummage through his closet. “There is no point staying inside tonight sis. I am not going to get any sleep or to relax, plus I need to clear my mind,” Lucuris said knowing that he was afraid to go outside much but more afraid to just be alone at night. “I know this is all hard, and makes no sense, hell sounds like something out of one of those storybooks we use to read as kids. I am just glad that you have my back, even when it sounds silly the story, I told you,” Lucuris said while giving Abigail a quick smirk.

  “You know, you were acting pretty sad, and well I hate it when you are down like that Luc, breaks my heart every time. I know it is hard to make friends, and just be with people you enjoy, but you just have to remember it won’t always be like this. I won’t let you fall, without holding on to you, plus you got that big brain of yours, girls love a guy with smarts. Well not all girls! But you know some do, just not at first. Sometimes you want to be with someone totally not for you, just so you can see what kind of adventure they can lead you on,” Abigail said as she began walking towards Lucuris’s bedroom door.

  “Oh, wait Abigail, ummm, where do you want to go? I mean I don’t really go out, and I kind of just go to the usual places. Video game store, bookstore, electronics store. Anywhere else in this town interesting to go check out?” Lucuris said grabbing his bag and walking towards Abigail.

  Abigail knew just the place to go, somewhere exciting that her brother might enjoy. She had a smirk on her face, while placing a small hat on top of her crimson red hair. She thought that maybe her brother needed a little bit of excitement, something to get him happy, even for just a second. Lot of the teens, and adults like to go out and try to find something to discover, or a dangerous place to explore, like an old warehouse, haunted house, all that silly stuff. She didn’t want any of that, it was complete nonsense to her. What she wanted to do was take Lucuris to a little group that she joined, not too long ago. To her they called themselves the “Outsiders”, not your typical kliq. People in the group were not labeled as emo, Goth, nerd, otaku, jock, or anything, just people who shared a thing in common and that was pretty much anything abnormal. There were people that loved aliens, who believed in vampires, and some who think dragons exist. Abigail could hardly contain her smile, just by thinking of showing Lucuris this awesome secret she had been hiding, from everyone. She knew it was only fair to share something so private, because he shared something with her.

  “Let’s go Luc, I have something to show you,” Abigail said grabbing his arm, wrapping her hand around his hand and dragging him out of his room, with a smile and brightly lit eyes upon her face.

  Chapter 2

  Abigail led Lucuris to a cave just by an abandoned schoolhouse. The weather was cold, and the wind was fierce. Lucuris could barely see due to his hair covering half his face but he tried to keep pace and keep up with his sister, as they made their way inside the cave. Lucuris pulled out his phone and notice it took them an hour or two to get to this location, luckily they took Abigail’s car, but he could tell how dark it was getting and feared of something bad happening. Like a random fight, or animals coming out to attack them. He started to tremble trying to walk shoulder-to-shoulder with Abigail but could only see her excitement as they began to enter the cave itself.

  “I… I don’t know about this Abigail, it’s really dark, what is in here?” Lucuris asked Abigail as she held his left hand leading him in the cave. He could feel the damp, cold air, around his body. His shoes began to get wet, if he knew he was going into a wet cave he would have probably not worn his converse. The water just slid right in, and just made his feet wet as his socks were soak with water. The feeling was uncomfortable to him, but he was more worried what was at the end of the tunnel. The thoughts rolled in his mind as to what could be hiding in this cave. It seemed like no one even knew it existed, he sure didn’t, but somehow his sister did. Lucuris could not remember how many left, and the rights they had taken when they continued into the darkness itself. That scared him the most, the feeling of the unknown, the uncertainty made him uneasy. His stomach started to feel queasy, and it felt like the room was starting to spin.

  What seemed like forever was probably only a few minutes, but it was enough to freak Lucuris out, that he had enough of this dark and damp place. A place that seemed to be isolated from the world... “I can’t take this anymore Abigail, tell me where we are going right now, Or I am heading back home alone,” Lucuris yelled slamming one foot to the ground in a wet and muddy puddle. His eyes darted at nothing but darkness, but he knew his sister could hear him loud and clear. She was not the only one who could hear him though, and he could hear a few voices echoing in his ears, bu
zzing with small chuckles and little conversations. It sounded like there were over a hundred people surrounding him, trying to take him away into the dark abyss.

  “So… this is Lucuris, Luc, what do you want here?” A voice said, demanding an answer from Lucuris. A large object bumped into him and pushed him to the side trying to knock him down.

  “Stop being a jerk, be nice to him” A louder voice said, commanding the others to back off, he knew it was his sister just by her tone and sharpness of her voice. Abigail slowly grabbed Lucuris and tried pulling him forward, but he would not budge. “What the hell Luc, come on...trust me we are almost there, just a few more steps!” Abigail said trying to convince Lucuris to follow her orders. She kept a firm grip on his hand, but he tried to pull out, and away, but could not, he was too weak from being out this late, he was cranky, hungry, and sweaty and he smelled like someone pissed on him.

  “Who are these people… why am I here Abigail? Is this some prank? some sick joke, you want to show your friends?” Lucuris yelled trying to pull back his arm and keep it close to his chest. He felt like something was up and didn’t like being in the dark. He hated being the butt of everybody’s joke. Thinking that someone was laughing at him, seeing how idiotic he must look. It was the feeling of embarrassment, and Lucuris hated it.

  Abigail slowly came close to Lucuris and held both his hands in hers, and just planted her forehead against his, to reassure him that she wasn’t going to let anything bad happen to him. “We’re going to a place where we can be us...where we are a team Luc. Just trust me. I promise if you don’t want anything to do with it, you can just say so and we’ll split. Just follow me and let me introduce you to my group of outsiders,” Abigail said grabbing Lucuris’s hand and holding it to the side of her hips as she began to bolt farther and farther into the cave. All Lucuris could do was have faith in his sister, to keep pushing forward, because to him, she was his Light in the darkness, and he had to know who these people were. If they were friends or enemies. Maybe they were like him, just lost people trying to find a place to belong.

  “I trust you Abigail. I don’t know who these Outsiders are, but I want to meet them, because if they are someone who you can trust, then maybe I can trust them too,” Lucuris said trying to keep pace, but the excitement was overwhelming him, he could feel his hands sweating holding onto Abigail’s hands, he wanted to go faster, to get to the place they needed to go. He wanted to meet these faceless voices that he just so happened to run into, but all of a sudden disappeared.

  Finally, after a few more minutes Lucuris and Abigail saw a light that was dim at first and then grew brighter as they got closer to it. What Lucuris saw was silhouettes of three people standing anticipating their arrival.

  “Heh, you guys seem a bit tense. Come on man don’t be afraid my bro won’t bite,” Abigail said as she continued walking closer to the three people waiting for them. None of the mysterious people moved an inch, they just stood there motionless.

  “What are we inviting randos now? You know no one can know about this place. We specifically said, NOONE but us will know...gah what the hell,” One of the figures said as they turned on a second light illuminating the room. The person who turned on the light was a young-looking man, who wore a black suit with a tie. He turned to Lucuris without any hesitation, and swung his fist across Lucuris’s cheek, knocking him to the floor in one hit.

  Abigail saw what happened and pushed the man away from her brother. “Who the hell do you think you are Nick? What’s wrong with you? Luc didn’t do anything, don’t take out your shitty frustration on him...Asshole,” Abigail said while standing between her fallen brother and Nick.

  “Do whatever the fuck you want Abigail, but like I said before, no one is allowed here, and you know why. He is your responsibility. I am not doing crap if he gets himself in more than he can handle,” Nick said as he gave Lucuris one last hard glance and began to walk away into the back of the room muttering to himself in anger.

  “So-so sorry, Nick can be kind of blunt when it comes to meeting new people...Anyway my name is Jessica, but you can call me Jess, or Jesska whatever you want,” Jessica said bending down in front of Lucuris giving him a big smile, as she reached her hand out to him to try and help him up.

  Lucuris felt relieved that she was nice to him, a total stranger. He took Jessica's hand without hesitation and noticed how wonderful she looked. Her hair long, going past her shoulders, and her dark brown eyes were all he could see when looking at her. Just how beautiful she looked, as if he was looking at an angel, something so out of this world, that he could not help but blush, and all he could do was have a big goofy smile on his face. “Thanks...sorry to cause so much trouble, it’s just Abigail told me about your little, group?, or club, and I thought it seemed to be really cool...it’s like a secret society,” Lucuris said with excitement, as he began to look around the room and just seeing a lot of books, and some sleeping bags, it seemed like they were camping out, but then again secret clubs always have to have a base of operations. Lucuris was amazed by how many books were spread across the walls, it seemed like they have been working hard when it came to the construction of this room. It wasn’t as wet as the actual cave because someone took the liberty to build an actual room, and that is what Lucuris was in, a really big room. He also noticed a generator, probably how they were able to have lights in that room, it was pretty jaw dropping to him, and he just wondered how long it must have taken them to build it.

  “Were not a special group, society, or club...we’re a team. Please don’t subject us to such childish labels,” A young man said holding a laptop in one hand, and the other hand pointing at Lucuris staring him right into his eyes. Lucuris didn't notice him at all being there, but he did remember seeing just a few shapes of people, he must have missed the last one while being punched by the brute called Nick.” My name is Ichikori, but you can just refer to me as Oracle if you would like,” Oracle said while turning his eyes from Lucuris back to his laptop monitor. He seemed to be uninterested in who Lucuris was, and seemed to just keep to himself, and be in his own little world.

  “Sorry bro didn’t mean for this first meeting to be so...awkward. But these guys are my friends, they are actually the only friends I have to be honest,” Abigail said shyly showing a smile as she began to walk towards the back of the room to where Nick was.

  Lucuris stood there in awe for a few moments trying to look his new acquaintances up and down. He noticed that Nick himself seemed to be kind of the angry type, due to how he greeted Lucuris, but also felt he was a person who was a protector of the sorts. He could tell Jessica was pretty nice just by the way she treated him, she had the nurturing type of personality. The only one that he could not figure out was Oracle, he did not have enough of a conversation or interaction of any kind with him, and he seemed kind of an enigma.

  Lucuris walked around the room, eyeing the books that were placed on the walls. Many of them were supernatural type of books. You had werewolves, vampires, zombies, ghost, stuff that he only saw in movies, or TV shows. He also saw books on demons, and exorcisms which caught his eye, but one book in that section caught his attention the most. “Magic rituals, of Heaven and Hell” Was the book title. Lucuris picked it up and began skimming through the pages. “Wow...this is pretty amazing. Magic was used in rituals by exorcisms to call forth companions they called familiars, to aid them in battle,” Lucuris said to himself in a small whisper.

  “Yea, the companions helped the exorcist in time of dire need. To the exorcist of that time those demons were considered friends,” Jessica said as she appeared in front of Lucuris out of nowhere.

  Lucuris tried to hide his face behind the book, trying to not look her in the eyes, he always had trouble communicating with people, and he couldn’t possibly talk to Jessica and stared her in the face at the same time without blushing. “Th-These demons were friends of the exorcist? But I always thought, well from the movies I saw that demons were all evil, and just wa
nted to harm humans, and take over their bodies. The demons seemed to enjoy putting another being in pain...How could someone who called themselves an exorcist call one of evil spawn a friend?” Lucuris asked barely eyeing Jessica as she began thinking, placing a finger on the side of her head.