Beyond the Veil

Author's Note:

I apologize for my extended absence. I know apologies aren't necessary, but things have been very hectic. My job slowed down a lot and I've been picking up part-time jobs on the side. On top of that, I fell pretty hard a couple weeks ago and have been recovering. I'm okay and I'm intending to start updating on my old schedule with new chapters coming out every Friday. In a week or so, my schedule will be changing and I'll be releasing new chapters on Monday instead.

I hope you all enjoy and I'll see you next time!

-Ottie

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The weather on the surface wasn’t much better than the torrential downpour taking place below the street. Already drenched from the subterranean weather, the water pelting my skin from above didn’t make much difference, except that being topside meant Kaden couldn’t protect us with a forcefield.

He glanced at me as we climbed the incline up to the sidewalk. Forcefields must take a lot of magic, because his pupils were dilated. There was plenty of iris left, but the difference was noticeable.

“Did you get a key to Sebastian’s car?” I asked him once we were on the pavement.

“I…didn’t think of that, to be honest,” said Kaden. “It’s okay. We’ll just take the bus.”

“You can’t just use magic to open his car? I doubt he’d mind.”

“We’re not stealing your boyfriend’s car,” he said, putting unnecessary emphasis on “your boyfriend.” “Besides, magical cars have protection against magic. I’d end up using so much magic trying to get in, I’d probably turn into a Siphon.”

“We’re in the middle of south city Saint Louis,” I said. “We can’t walk to Crestfall.”

“Well, technically, we’re near the southern part of south city,” said Kaden. “We’re only a couple of miles from the south county line. Plus, we’re not going to walk. We’re taking a bus.”

“Nearest bus stop is that way,” I said, pointing toward Gravois Avenue.

“Nearest bus stop is right here,” said Kaden, pulling a purple card out of his wallet and holding it out as if inserting it into an invisible ATM. With a loud crack, a double decker, violently purple bus appeared out of thin air down the road and rolled toward us. The display on the front read “Night Bus”.

“Really?” I chuckled. “The person who came up with this couldn’t think of anything better than ripping off Harry Potter?”

“Hey, the author of Harry Potter spelled it ‘knight’, with a ‘k’,” said Kaden. “Besides, it’s just the bus that runs at night. There’s an orange Day Bus, too.”

The bus came to a soft stop in front of us and we climbed aboard.

“Two,” Kaden said to the person in the driver’s seat before holding his card up to a payment terminal.

As Kaden moved into the back of the bus, I realized the person sitting in the driver’s seat was a genie. I followed Kaden, sitting down next to him in an open double seat near the middle of the bus.

“What exactly do genies do?” I asked.

“They grant wishes,” said Kaden. I was waiting for him to explain further, to say something about me forgetting everything I know about magic, but he never did.

“And how are they different from fairytales?” I said.

“Not by much. I mean, they don’t necessarily live in lamps. They can live in any inanimate object. Also, they don’t work for free. They grant wishes based on payment.”

“Wait a second. Genies ask for money? Can’t they just make money?”

“Not magical money, but yes. You see, genies can absorb value from objects they touch. The more an object is valued by the person handing it over, the more power the genie gets from it. It’s also like a high for them. Since money is the most valuable tangible thing on the planet, genies ask for money.”

“Huh. So…this genie driving the bus. Why are they…”

“Some just use their powers to do regular jobs. This job, for instance, is perfect for a genie. The government wishes for them to take people where they need to go, the genie gets money every time someone gets on the bus. Genies can warp reality to a certain degree, and so they can move the bus around, make it invisible to mortals, and detect when people need a ride. Since genies can’t turn into Siphons, they don’t need as many breaks as a witch or warlock. To top it off, genies don’t get bored. Ever. Not as long as they’re collecting valuables.”

“But working for a company? That seems weird to me.”

“They get more power and more of a high, though that’s not the right word for it exactly, when the person or entity gives them something they value. What does a company value more than money?”

“That’s a good point, actually.”

The bus came to a stop and the lights above mine and Kaden’s seats blinked three times.

“Our stop,” said Kaden. I followed him off the bus and back into the rain. We were at the end of my parent’s block. I couldn’t see their house from here, but I knew this area well.

“How did you know where my parents live?” I asked.

“I didn’t. The bus knew we were together, that we were going to your parents’. You knew the location of your parents’ house, so the bus knew where to go. And because we’re in a mortal area, it dropped us off at a corner.”

“Why does a corner matter?”

“Not all corners, but only ones that align with the cardinal points, the convergence of which creates a nexus of magicka that aids in the concealment of such actions which, magically speaking, are of a surreptitious nature by design.”

I blinked at him several times while my brain tried to process that.

“Did you swallow a textbook?” I asked.

“Sort of. Warlocks and witches go through different schooling. While we learn about math and history and such, we also learn about the fundamentals of magic. Hey, let’s get going. I’m soaked to the bone.”

We turned and started walking toward my parents’ house. I stared at the sidewalk as it passed beneath me, and I felt excitement growing inside me. In just a couple minutes, I’d be seeing my parents. Though my life had changed, I was looking forward to getting back to my normal parents.

And that’s when I remembered that my parents probably aren’t normal. Unless I’m adopted, at least one of my parents is a phoenix.

I saw Kaden stop in my peripheral vision and turned back to see him staring past me. I looked back at him and was shocked to see he wasn’t looking at me, but up at one of the houses. The look in his eye scared me and I whipped around.

A house on this block was burnt to the ground, most of it a wet mass of ash, though some support beams poked out of the ground.

“Damien, don’t,” Kaden said halfheartedly as I walked forward.

I climbed up the lawn and walked toward where the front door used to be. I walked into the entrance hallway and it was almost as if the house had reformed around me. Though the house was destroyed, I could still see where the coat rack next to the door was supposed to be. A part of the wall that still remained showed me where the closet was supposed to be.

I turned right into the living room. This seemed to be the least affected part of the house. Three of the four walls still stood and even one of my mom’s ugly paintings mostly survived the inferno, though the top left corner was destroyed and the rest was warped by either smoke or heat.

I walked through the spot the couch used to be, now nothing more than a slurry on the ground, and went into the kitchen. I guess marble isn’t fireproof. The countertops were mostly intact, though the island in the center of the kitchen had disintegrated, the marble countertop cracked in three pieces was laying on the floor.

I moved back toward the back hallway and walked through the now nonexistent doorway. The floor here creaked a second before giving out without warning. The splintered wood cut into my side as I fell down and landed hard on cement.

I would’ve cried out in pain had my skull not smashed open against the floor. As blood poured out of my head, my eyes darted around the room. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a good luck before my eyesight faded into black.

When I reformed, I was still lying on the floor, but with Kaden next to me.

“Welcome back,” he said, standing up and holding his hand out to me. I grabbed on to it and let him pull me to my feet. “How do you feel?”

“Not the first time I’ve died,” I said. “At least I didn’t burn my clothes off this time.”

Now on my feet, I looked around the only room in my house I’d never seen and never knew existed.

“Can you use magic to make sure the rest of the house doesn’t fall down on top of us?” I asked.

“No need to,” said Kaden, touching the wall with his fingers. “This entire basement is enchanted, except for the floor where you fell through. That spot was just normal wood. The rest is fireproof and can withstand a hundred tons times its own weight.”

“You can tell that by touching it?”

“No, I used magic. A spell to detect magical properties. You were down for about five minutes.”

“So my parents were magical?”

“At least one of them. Come look at this.”

I followed Kaden to the center of the basement. It looked like something out of a wizard movie. A small cauldron sitting on a black wooden table, a set of shelves filled with strange-looking books, and a circular white table covered with phials and surrounded by odd ingredients, plants, animal parts, and vials of liquids.

“One of your parents must be either a warlock or witch,” Kaden said. “Or they hired one to do some work for them, either way.”

But I wasn’t paying much attention to him. I was looking at an orange-yellow glow floating in the middle of the basement.

“Do you see that?” I asked, pointing at it. I felt a strange pull toward it, like I was supposed to walk toward it.

“See what?” asked Kaden.

I ignored him and walked toward the glow. The closer I got, the brighter the glow got and a figure became visible inside it.

“Damien?”

“Shhh.”

When I was less than a foot away, the figure in the warmth became clearer. It was my father.

I walked into the light and it flashed around me, enveloping me like my father’s embrace. He and I were standing in a bubble of warm light. I looked over my shoulder and saw Kaden, frozen in time, reaching out toward me.

“What’s happening?” I asked my father.

“It’s good to see you, too,” he said with a smile.

“Sorry,” I said, “it’s great seeing you. But are you even actually…here?”

“No, I’m not. Phoenixes can leave imprints which can contain messages for other phoenixes to find, especially those in their own bloodline.”

“So you are a phoenix?”

“I am, and so are you, apparently.”

“And Mom?”

“Your mother is a witch.”

“But why didn’t you ever tell me? Why hide this from me?”

“I can’t tell you here, I don’t have enough time. Imprints fade after a while and this one has been waiting for you for too long. I’m sorry we didn’t tell you the truth, but we wanted you to try for a normal life. We intended to tell you when you graduated college, when you could decide for yourself. That’s clearly not an option anymore. Listen, Damien, there are things about the magical world, about being a phoenix that you need to know.

“But I can’t tell you right now. Listen very carefully. Phoenixes can find one another, but you’re too new for that. You need to go to your grandfather’s house, my father.”

“But you told me both of your parents died.”

“Technically, that wasn’t a lie. Both of my parents are phoenixes and they’ve died several times. They both live in Lunara, a magical community in downtown Saint Louis. The entrance is on Olive Street, on the bottom level of the Schnuck’s parking garage across from the Sushi AI.”

My father’s eyes snapped over my shoulder.

“Who is that?” he asked.

“That’s Kaden. He’s a warlock and…my boyfriend.”

My father’s eyes widened as a smile cracked across his face.

“You have a boyfriend?” he asked, his voice full of warmth. “I’m guessing he’s the one that pulled you beyond the veil?”

“He is,” I said. I thought about telling him about Sebastian, but I wasn’t sure how my father would react to me having two boyfriends, or the information that I might be polyamorous. “Why can’t you tell me what you need to tell me?”

“These imprints aren’t foolproof. If someone else had found it, they could’ve extracted the information from it. I don’t know what it is, only that you need to know. About your boyfriend, he’s welcome to take anything from here he needs. But I’m running out of time,” my father said, glancing down as his form started to fade. “Find your grandfather and he’ll help you. He should be safe. When your mother and I left the magical world, we left no traces back to him. When you do find us, I won’t have any recollection of this conversation, so make sure you tell me about your boyfriend again. Oh and use that grey phial to—”

My father’s imprint faded and the bubble of warmth around me vanished. Kaden’s hand closed around my shoulder, making me jump.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “What are you seeing?”

“It’s what I saw. There was a kind of glow. My dad was inside it.”

“Your dad?” he echoed.

“He’s a phoenix. He left me some kind of imprint so I could speak to him. He told me to find my grandparents, that both of them are phoenixes living somewhere called Lunara.”

Kaden frowned. “Lunara? Why would they be there?”

“You’ve heard of it?”

Kaden nodded. “You’ll find that a lot of magical communities have names that give hints about the kind of creatures that live there. Mostly, anyways.”

Lunaria sounds like Luna, so guessing what kind of community it is isn’t hard.

“It’s a werewolf community,” I said. “Why do different species live together like that?”

“Well, they don’t always. Take Crendace, for example. All kinds of beings live there. But vampires get along best with vampires, werewolves get along best with other werewolves. It’s just how it works. It used to be that, a long time ago, the races hated each other. It’s only been fifty years or so since we all started getting along and living together peacefully. Crimson Alley and Lunara are just two examples of places that used to be strictly for one race.”

“Why are the names ridiculous?” I asked. “What’s the name of one of the warlock communities? Mystica?”

“Yes,” said Kaden. “It’s located in Jefferson City and is the magical capital city of Missouri. The country’s magical capital is in Washington, D.C., and is called ‘Cabalistic’.”

“And that means…”

“Cabalistic means relating to magic.”

“Of course it does. Oh, and my dad said something else. He said you can take whatever you can use from here. This place was my mom’s. She’s a witch. And he said something about a grey phial.”

“This is an enchanting table,” Kaden said, walking over to the table with empty phials. “All these phials are empty, except this one.”

He held up a grey phial that looked like it was full of half-mixed cement.

“It’s a fill and seal phial. It’ll fill the entire basement with cement and seal it off. It’s a very common phial used to hide magical areas from mortals.”

Kaden kept the phial and started looking at the books, supposedly deciding which to take. I looked around the basement, but most of it was empty.

“I wonder what my mom’s active power is,” I said aloud.

“No way to tell. We’ll be able to ask her when we find her. Did your dad’s imprint tell you why they hid magic from you?”

“He just said he wanted me to have a normal life and that he was protecting me from things I don’t know about the magical world.”

With nothing else to look at, I returned to Kaden. He’d grabbed four books from the shelf.

“Knrihs,” he said, his hands around the books. They shrunk down, small enough to fit in his pocket.

“If my mom is a witch, does that make me a warlock?” I asked.

Kaden’s eyebrows moved together as he thought. “Yeah, it would, although I don’t know how it works with phoenixes.”

“So I might not be?”

Kaden just shrugged.

“Let’s get out of here and try to find your dad,” he said, moving back toward the hole in the ceiling. I wasn’t sure how my parents ever got down here but as they were both magic, I figured it couldn’t have been difficult for them.

I joined Kaden at the edge of the hole.

“Evohm,” he said, lifting his hand and sending me up through the hole. I landed, leaned down, and grabbed Kaden’s hand. I pulled, but couldn’t lift him with just one hand while I was bending over like that.

“Use your super strength,” Kaden said.

“I don’t know how.” Instead, I got down on one hand and my knees and used my leverage to pull him up enough to grab the edge of the hole. With my help, he was able to climb up next to me.

“We really have to do some training with you so you can figure out how to use your powers.”

“Don’t I know it. Hopefully my grandpa will be able to help me. Let’s go back to Crimson Alley and grab Sebastian before going to Lunara.”

“It’s barely been a few hours,” said Kaden. “Let’s go to Lunara and give him time to follow his lead with the Trifecton.”

“Okay, seriously, what’s your beef with Sebastian?”

“I don’t have ‘beef’ with Sebastian,” said Kaden, rolling his eyes. He pulled the grey phial out of his pocket and threw it down into the hole. It burst and liquid grey started expanding, filling the whole of the basement. “But we’re competing, aren’t we? If I’m going to win you over, we need to spend more time together, just us.”

He stepped toward me and wrapped his arms around me.

“What if I don’t want to choose?” I asked, looking up at him. “What if I want you both?”

“That’s not the way it works. You have to choose one of us. Preferably me, but I’ll respect your decision either way.”

“Let’s just get going,” I said, pulling myself away from him.

We stepped outside and I stopped in my tracks.

“I tried telling Peter you wouldn’t be stupid enough to come here,” said Natalia. “But you just had to prove me wrong, didn’t you?”

“Leave us alone, Natalia,” I said, sounding braver than I felt.

“Or what?”

“You’ll go the same way as your sister,” I said, taking a stance like I was about to use my powers.

“Please,” said Natalia. “You didn’t do that on purpose. And while I might not be able to kill a phoenix, I can kill a warlock.”

Moving so fast she was almost a blur, Natalia closed her fist and thrust it toward us, sending a tendril of shadow directly at Kaden.