Magic Awakening: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Spirit War Chronicles Book 1)

by Stephen Allan

  I saw the sign for Durty Nelly’s, and then a man appeared out of a thick red fog.

  Carsis? What the fuck is this drug?!?

  “In here!” he screamed, holding open a door.

  “Brady—”

  “In here, come on!”

  With no time to waste and a massive serpent just a couple seconds away from eating me, I had no choice. I dived just as the beast said in a deep, almost mutilated voice, “Welcome to your destiny, Sonya Ferguson!”

  The door shut behind me, I felt lightheaded, and I passed out in pitch blackness, praying that my hostel host had saved me and not just given me a worse fate than Devil’s Eye.

  Chapter 3

  When I came to, I felt a soft bed underneath my body—the one in our hostel room. Promising. Carsis hadn’t trapped me in a prison cell or the basement of Durty Nelly’s.

  I was resting on my right side, my right ear pressed against a pillow, my left ear starting to pick up conversation between two men. Carsis was one. Brady was the other. I made sure to stay as still as possible, the better to eavesdrop on their conversation.

  I did crack open my eyes to figure out if I had shaken off the frightening illusions from Devil’s Eye. One thing was for sure—I should have actually listened to Carsis instead of assuming he was pushing me toward the drug.

  I’d never felt so happy in my life to see a blank white wall. Maybe it would get worse when I rolled over, but for right now, I took not seeing a war between spirits.

  Slowly, the conversation between Brady and Carsis became audible. I remained as still as I could, making sure I did not reveal that I had awoken.

  “… too strong for her, I told her that that drug was only to be used by experienced users,” Carsis said with his thick Dutch accent. “You know what she saw.”

  “I did. I tried. But try telling that to Sonya, I’ve been trying to keep her in line for over a dozen years now without any luck,” Brady said. Of course not. You can lead me, but you can’t control me. “In any case, though, will she be okay?”

  “Eventually, yes. That drug’s potent enough that it’ll keep her on the mend for probably a couple more hours.”

  “More? But she’s had nearly the entire morning and afternoon to recover—”

  “I know, Brady, I know. But you just have to accept that, OK? Listen, go have a drink at the bar. Take some time. If they say why, tell them Carsis said you could have one. We gotta give Sonya her space. If she wakes up, I’ll tell her what I told you.”

  I could hear Brady sigh. What I would’ve given to known how Brady really felt at that moment. Hell, what I would’ve given to know if I’d still be seeing demons and weird shit for the rest of the evening. On the one hand, that could be kind of cool. But on the other hand, I didn’t need more hallucinations that had me yanking out Ebony and Ivory. The girls needed some rest as much as I did.

  Ebony and Ivory. Oh, shit.

  I waited until I heard the sound of the door shutting. As soon as that happened, I made no pretenses of being asleep. I first felt for my guns, found them behind me, and grabbed them and cocked them. I didn’t point them at Carsis, but I had them ready to fire if needed.

  “Relax. I’m not going to harm you,” he said with remarkable calm. “Although you probably won’t like what I’m about to explain to you.”

  “Like how you pushed me to Devil’s Eye?” I said, using the tone of voice I’d used on captives who I needed to strike fear into.

  “Did I not warn you not to take that drug?” he said, unconcerned with my posture or threat. “You made that choice. But, to be fair, it might have done you some good. It helped you see what is coming before it would have overwhelmed you.”

  I noticed as he talked he still had puffs of smoke coming from him, like little wisps from a fire. I didn’t smell a cigarette or a fire, though, and the smoke wasn’t as thick as before. How did Brady not say anything? Or had he when I’d passed out? I wished I’d have a recording of their conversation before I woke up.

  “I’ll explain all this,” he said, waving his hand over the smoke. “But we don’t have much time. The Brits will be back soon, and God bless those two, they are not as well equipped to handle danger as you.”

  I stood, the better to give myself a chance to defend myself should anything happen, but that came from my natural state of caution, not a sense of actual danger. Still, Carsis’ tone suggested I might do well to stay alert.

  “I might as well say it as straight as I can because no buildup will help it make any more sense. Sonya, what you saw wasn’t fake. It wasn’t a hallucination. What you saw was the spiritual world, full of demons, come to life.”

  The fuck?

  I scrunched my eyebrows. This felt… this felt like a trick.

  No, it didn’t. But I wanted to believe it was a trick. I wanted to believe that Carsis was playing some sort of cruel prank on me.

  “Are you trying to fuck with me? Mess with my head while I’m on the drug that you pushed me toward?”

  “Do not blame me for your decision!” Carsis said with surprising force, though the rest of his words came out calmer. “I warned you in as clear language as I could that taking Devil’s Eye would end badly for you. The reason experienced drug users can take it is that they do not get terrified by what they see, even though the effects are the same. But even for someone as strong and clearly well-trained as you, Sonya, I knew it would end badly.”

  “I’m sure you knew I’d see spiders, leviathans, demons and a Cerberus, am I right?” I said sarcastically, but it was a defense mechanism. I knew what I’d seen. Lashing out didn’t change it.

  “Just as I knew you would see people getting bit by demons before being dragged into the spiritual realm.”

  The sardonic smile on my face got wiped away like dust from fine China, quickly removed when it dawned on me maybe Carsis at least had seen the things I had now seen.

  “The real miracle is that when you became visible to the demons, they didn’t bite you. I don’t know why, but you should consider yourself extremely fortunate. Extremely. Here’s the deal I’ll make with you now, Sonya. I’m going to tell you everything that’s going on and everything that I know, and you won’t interrupt me and won’t ask questions until I finish. Once I do, you can ask me anything you want. But as soon as the Brits walk in here, we mention that you just took a drug too strong for you and we move on. Is that clear?”

  I nodded. I still had a lot of doubt in my head. I had a strong feeling that this was an incredibly well-done prank by Brady. But as a CIA agent, I constantly repeated of one of the biggest rules in the agency: trust your gut.

  And my gut said listen to Carsis.

  “For thousands of years, the God Yevon has watched over humanity and the spiritual realm, allowing humanity to live out its life as each individual desires while protecting it from the forces of hell,” he began. “But the king—Dark Lord, God, whatever term you want to use—of hell, Mundus, has always sought to achieve complete control not just over the spiritual realm, but the human realm. Every so often, with enough forces stored up, he launches an attack to take over the spiritual realm, then humanity, and then heaven. Every time, he’s been stopped. But this time… it’s different.”

  Everything in my atheist head said to just laugh at what was said. Yevon? Mundus? What kind of cult bullshit was this?

  But Carsis spoke so seriously, and I’d promised to listen to all that he said, that I listened intently and gave him the benefit of the doubt. If, when it all ended, I still felt it was a lie, I would be polite, not smoke any more weed, and then promise to never return to Durty Nelly’s.

  “In the past, Mundus would just attack. Sometimes he’d advance slowy, sometimes he’d break through to the human realm suddenly, but as soon as those forces killed a human, Yevon sent the armies of heaven down to protect humanity and would wipe hell’s ranks clean. But now, he’s gotten the idea to not kill humans, but to convert them into his soldiers. You see that with the demons
who are biting humans—turning them into shifters, or humans who, when Mundus commands it, will turn into monsters. What kind of monster you turn into at the moment the dark lord commands it depends on many factors, but you’ll generally see werewolves, dragons, vampires, and other evil creatures. He did this slowly at first, testing to see if he could get away without catching the eye of the Powers or the Virtues.”

  “The what?” I said, forgetting that I shouldn’t interrupt. But what was I supposed to do when he went from monsters to conceptual nouns as concrete things?

  “Powers and Virtues, essentially the angel watchmen of Earth for heaven,” Carsis said, a sly smile coming across his face. “Powers are distinguished by the smoky haze that emits from their bodies when we are outside the physical world. Which explains this,” he said, waving his hands over his body.

  I displayed no obvious reaction, having learned long ago that body language spoke louder than anything I could say. Inside, though, my mind racked for answers. This was getting absurd. My hostel owner, a type of angel? An angel that saved me from an aerial serpent intent on eating me after I blasted a Cerberus with my pistols?

  Devil’s Eye. It was a hell of a drug!

  But what I saw could not pass for hallucinations. I was too in control of my body, too sure of my senses for it not to be fake. My gut knew this was real even though my mind wouldn’t accept it.

  “Virtues are not truly distinct from humans, in that their spiritual form is the same. But they take on paths that connect them the closest with the spiritual world—poets, writers, musicians, philosophers, and so on. Odds are good, Sonya, that you have run across one in your lifetime.”

  DJ?

  Really? No way.

  “Is there—”

  “Let me finish, please,” Carsis said, holding a hand up. “Most people who get sucked down by the drug wake up damaged. They’ve been bitten, awaiting the moment that they become a slave to Mundus and fight heaven for control of the spiritual and human realms. But you are different, Sonya. For whatever reason—your training, your sense of awareness, your grit—you fought past what you saw. You were not scared.”

  I was. I’ve never been more terrified. I just know how to push through fear.

  “I have tried to reach Yevon to allow us to act, to push back against the demons and to prevent this drug from spreading, but, for better or for worse, Yevon believes so strongly in free will that until a demon kills a human, no angels shall wage war upon a demon. Which means that if angels cannot fight this battle, at least in the human and spiritual realm, then humans must take up the fight.”

  Oh hell no. No. If this is actually a thing, fuck it. I’m on vacation. I’m here to relax and have fun. I am not here to fight.

  “Sonya, I need you and Brady to fight.”

  “No way,” I said. “You’re out of your goddamn mind. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you on the drug, Carsis, but this is absurd. And if this is real, do you really think my brother and I can make a difference against the forces of hell?”

  “I don’t think you’ll have much of a choice, Sonya,” he said, which pissed me off more as my grip on my guns tightened. “You have skills precious few others have. You can stop the spread of Devil’s Eye. You can fight the demons as they try and push through the human realm. You can do these things. You don’t have to win the Spirit War. You just have to hold Mundus off long enough so that he grows impatient and fights humanity. Then the forces of Yevon will come, and all will be fixed.”

  No, no, no. This couldn’t be real. It was only the first day of vacation, and I somehow found myself in trouble already. How?!?

  “And if I say no?”

  “You are talented and skilled enough, Sonya, that the demons will come for you,” Carsis said. “Brady, too. You don’t get a choice in the—”

  The door handle turned.

  “So sleep plenty tonight, don’t go partying too crazy, and you’ll be over the drug tomorrow, OK?” Carsis said, his voice shifting from ominous to cheerful and doting. I couldn’t decide who got lucky—me for not having to hear any more of this nonsense or Carsis for not having to see me pissed off enough to fight.

  Carsis rose, giving a reassuring nod to the Brits, and left the hostel room. Nicholas and Richard walked in, and Brady trailed behind them. I gave serious thought to cornering Brady and asking him if he’d gotten the same story from our hostel owner. But at least, at the moment, I wouldn’t. I didn’t want to look like the crazy American psycho to the Brits.

  “We heard you had quite the experience with Devil’s Eye,” Nicholas said. “That’s nothing to fuck with, love.”

  “I’m well aware of that, and don’t call me love,” I said. “I just made the mistake of pushing too far. Did you guys do it?”

  “No, and after hearing from Brady what happened, I don’t think we will,” Richard said. “We’re just glad you’re all right.”

  I shot a look at Brady, curious to hear what he had told the Brits, but he instead made his way to the bathroom. Nicholas collapsed onto his bed, scrolling through something on his phone, leaving just Richard standing near an outlet, trying to plug his phone in.

  “What the hell did Brady tell you guys?” I said, trying to put a hint of warmth so as not to scare off the Brits.

  “He said it hit you somewhere around pancakes and you just became really woozy as if you’d drunk an entire bottle of gin,” Richard said. I tried to listen for any hint of disbelief or doubt from Richard, but he spoke too nonchalantly. “He said you went to the bathroom and just disappeared, but fortunately he found you passed out at the front of the hostel. He and Caris dragged you up here and have watched you ever since.”

  It kind of lined up with what I’d experienced, though that left a huge gap between the bathroom and the hostel. If Brady knew—as I strongly suspected—then he had made it a point not to tell the Brits. For good reason, I suppose—the experiences I’d had in that gap felt like the sort of stuff you’d put in an Eli Roth movie.

  Just what was with Devil’s Eye? Was I still high on the Devil’s Eye and had imagined my encounter with Carsis? Did Brady or one of the other guys know what had actually happened, and had just pretended like nothing had happened for the sake of some weird “normalcy?”

  No, no, no, it couldn’t be real. If I were on a mission, maybe I would pursue further what I’d experienced. But not on vacation. Not on the vacation of a lifetime, meant to be spent with Brady. I wouldn’t believe it. I wouldn’t bring it up with Brady. We’d continue our vacation, and in a week’s time, this would just turn into my “most stoned” story.

  I thanked Richard for letting me know as Brady emerged from the bathroom, rubbing his eyes. He looked exhausted, his shoulders slumped forward. Between taking care of my sorry, stoned ass, the red-eyed flight, and having a hot Aussie in the same room, I almost felt sorry for him. Clearly, the free drink hadn’t worked.

  “What did Carsis tell you while I got my drink?” he said, his voice weary.

  I did not want to deal with this. I’d had my drug fill, it didn’t work out, and now I could move on to enjoying the evening in Amsterdam. I hoped.

  “How do you know if Carsis even said anything to me? I was passed out when you left.”

  The look on Brady’s face could not have looked more exasperated.

  “Brother’s intuition, sis.”

  Damnit. As much as I wanted to rebuke him for that, for as much as I followed that principle, I couldn’t say anything.

  “I’ll tell you on the way to food,” I said to give myself time to come up with a good story. “I’m starving. Let’s go get food. SkyLounge? I was looking at it before we came here and thought it looked amazing. Like dinner at the top of a Vegas casino.”

  “That would be what you remembered from Vegas,” he remarked, but it carried remarkably less humor than before, even if the words were teasing. “Yeah, let’s go.”

  “Brits? Do you guys wanna come?” I asked, hoping their presence would keep Brady f
rom pestering me too much.

  “Oh, sorry, lo… Sonya, Sonya, we just got burgers,” Nicholas remarked.

  “In Amsterdam?” I said with a cocked eye.

  “You should try Grizzly’s. Right next door and holy hell, so good.”

  I almost burst out laughing at his choice of words. If it was intentional, the dude could troll pretty effectively. I needed the laugh because I was not looking forward to the next couple of hours.

  Brady and I descended the stairs, and I saw Carsis behind the front desk. I looked at him, hoping he might give me an indication of some kind. But when he looked at me, he only gave me a short nod. I went back outside with Brady and began our walk to SkyLounge.

  The journey took us about fifteen minutes, during which I had no similar encounters to what I had experienced while under the influence of Devil’s Eye. I instead enjoyed the gentle, cool breeze, the bikers passing by, and the boats gently motoring down the canals. The quiet Amsterdam I’d fallen in love with before I got high had returned.

  But there were a couple of small, strange sensations I could not ignore.

  One, I had a strange feeling more people than usual were watching me. For better or worse, as a fit woman with long hair and a normal face, it was not unusual to get passing looks, catcalls, or other mildly annoying but mostly harmless signals from interested men. But these seemed different. These seemed more probing, more watchful, less flirtatious—or what passed for flirtatious according to some men—and less “innocent.” The eyes of those who looked upon me—even the women—did not carry desire, but scorn. When I looked at a couple of them, they looked normal, though one had a brown color that almost looked like a blend of red. I tried not to think of demons or shifters, but the words of Carsis just didn’t go away.

  Two, I kept getting the same fiery gut feeling like I’d eaten too much junk food. But I still hadn’t eaten since arriving in Amsterdam, and the pains I had were not the pains of someone desperate to eat. It felt like my body somehow warning me that demons were near…