Original Fiction Suburban Sorcerer

[S'task]

Chapter 1

You never know what is out there in the world. We like to think we do, we like to think we know it all, that the material world is all that there is. That science can explain everything. Even the religious tend to think in this manner, at most they see God and the supernatural as a far-off thing, a distant thing that isn't active in the day to day, even as they pray for miraculous healing. "God helps those who help themselves" is a longstanding saying, and sure, there is some truth to that. If you believe you believe that God gave man intelligence and mastery over the world and thus science and technology are the methods that man uses to explore and master the world around him.

But just because there's truth to materialism, that much of the world is made up of matter and follows the laws of physics, doesn't mean that there's all there is to it. Sometimes things beyond material understanding appear in the world. These often become myths, legends, folktales, and cryptids. Haunted places, ghosts on the battlefield, apparitions… many people report seeing them, and it makes our materialist world uncomfortable, squirming in our chairs because so many sightings of anything else would be taken as evidence… but not for the supernatural.

Fortunately, the vast majority of these things are harmless. Echos of human emotions and souls from long past. Sometimes scary, often sad, but not really able to interact with the world. There's no such things as true ghosts, only these impressions left behind. But other times there's something malevolent involved. Sometimes it's not just the ætheric echo of the tragic passing of a human soul, sometimes it's something else. Sometimes it's a "visitor", some being from dimensions beyond our own that is slumming it in our world, usually those are harmless too, the interdimensional equivalent of sightseers, but then there's the times it's worse… far far worse.

Sadly, this was one of those times. I'd received the call from the State police informing me that one of these visitors had decided to crash a college party near George Mason University. That was a bit of an unusual place for this kind of thing, Mason wasn't exactly known for being a party school. The area, right next to the city of Fairfax in the suburbs of Washington DC, tended towards more attempts at "travelers" trying to possess important politicians and ambassadors who lived in the area. Yeah, yeah, I know, protecting those assholes and the powerful, but it pays the bills and even the worst of the lot don't really deserve those kinda things happening to them… well at least I keep telling myself that.

Further, Mason didn't usually have crazy parties, wasn't known for its frats or sororities as such groups tend to draw these kinds of things due to their antics and shenanigans, and the usual hotbeds of crossovers where you have ripples in the æther tended to be out towards Manassas and the historic battlefield there. Ghosts might only be echoes, but places of mass death like battlefields always have a weaker veil between the material and spiritual. I'd hate to work in Europe in eastern France or western Russia, I hear they have nearly daily incursions there.

Anyway, this was originally sold to me as a class 4 hostile incursion. A weak bogeyman creature had entered our world and decided to cause some havoc. It might be a weaker demon or one of those travelers who happened to be an asshole, but regardless mundane weapons that function based on silly physical laws like F=MA tend to not do much more than slow them down, no matter how big that M or A were. Which is where I, and people like me, come in.

I walked up to the converted single-family home in the dead of a warm Virginia summer night. The crickets and cicada singing their various songs and the occasional yellow flash from the fireflies lit about the poorly lit neighborhood. The full moon provided the bulk of the light along the unmarked suburb neighborhood, the streetlights few and far between mostly at intersections, which this house, at the end of a cul-de-sac, was quite distant from. Said cul-de-sac was full of cars, mostly focused around the house I was approaching, a two story place with a postage stamp plot of land, subdivided and sublet for college students who wanted more privacy to rent while going to the nearby college. In addition to the private cars a small collection of police and ambulance were sitting out front of the house, surrounded by a milling crowd of college students, state and county police, and medical personnel checking over said college students. Next to one of the ambulances lay three gurneys with blankets over everything on them, so death was already here. The college students tended to have distant looks in their eyes, drunk, stoned, or simply in shock, didn't matter to me. I approached one of the state officers who wasn't at the moment and cleared my throat.

"Excuse me officer," I began, getting the attention of the lanky and dark-skinned man, "I'm the specialist the governor called for, Stefan Almaran."

The officer looked me up and down, clearly skeptical. I can't entirely say I blame him, I'm of average height, my dark brown hair cut short but not well combed or styled with a similarly brown goatee, and while I tried to keep in shape, I wasn't built or anything… ok, maybe I did have a bit of a pudge. These things happen as you get older and your metabolism slows down. Perhaps the only thing I really have going for me is my eyes. Stormcloud gray eyes ain't exactly common and they do tend to leave an impression on folks.

"You have any ID?" the officer inquired, and I replied with a nod, fishing my cell phone and wallet combo out of my pants pocket and flipping it open to show the officer my ID. He studied it and gave me another look, taking in my casual cargo pants and t-shirt combo and leather sandals. Not exactly proper East Coast Professional attire, but comfortable in the humid heat of the region.

"Well Mr. Almaran," the officer began, walking towards the front door of the house with a wave of his hand indicating I should follow, "we got a call of a disturbance about an hour ago and when we arrived we had all kinds of chaos."

We slipped between a group of college students, a mixed group huddled near one each other all looking shocked and scared. "We got everyone out, but they all kept muttering about the 'thing in the basement'. We sent one officer down to investigate and… well, the last report on the radio was 'that ain't right, that ain't…' and he got cut off. One of the older officers made a call…"

"And now I'm here," I finished for him, pulling out an aged, long stemmed, meerschaum pipe from one of my cargo pants pockets and a tobacco pouch. The officer crinkled his nose disapprovingly as I packed the pipe with a dark black tobacco while studying the house.

"This is the first time you've seen like this," I stated to the officer, who nodded, "and you just think you guys should go down there guns blazing."

"Well, maybe not guns blazing," the officer demurred, "but really, none of those kids had anything more than a scratch on them."

"And the corpses."

"Ain't killed by bullets of physical trauma, likely just Oded. This looks more like someone had a bad trip, found someone ODed and panicked."

"And your officer?" I finished packing the pipe and put my tobacco pouch away.

"Likely just trippin' balls too, who knows what they were smoking in there."

"What indeed," I said, raising the pipe to my lips and and holding up an empty hand to the officer so he could see I had nothing in it, "but you know, there's more to this world than is imagined in your or I's philosophy." As I finished quoting the Bard I cupped my empty hand over the pipe and took a few long draws on the long stem. Quickly puffs of sweet smoke filled my mouth, the warm tingle of nicotine helping calm my nerves and focus my mind. The Office paused, surprise on his face.

"How did you…"

"More to this world…" I merely repeated, leaving him behind as I walked up to the front door and entered the house.

 

[hyperspacewizard]

Sweet I love good urban fantasies can’t wait to see how the magic system is set up.

 

[Seras]

You should threadmark it.

 

[Rocinante]

Starts off promising.

I'll continue to read if you post more.

 

[S'task]

I have chapter 2 complete, I'm going to try and make sure I have at least one chapter more finished before I post the next.

And @Seras added the threadmark. Kinda thought it wasn't necessary for chapter 1 without other chapters year.

 

[Vyor]

Biggest problem I can see is the lack of a consistent tense. Sometimes you're using present tense and on other occasions you're using past tense. It's a bit jarring. Aside from that...

But just because there's truth to materialism, that much of the world is made up of matter and follows the laws of physics, doesn't mean that there's all there is to it. Sometimes things beyond material understanding appear in the world.

*looks up at title*
*looks at statement*
No shit. Unnecessary exposition takes the reader out of the experience, this is one of those times.

Further, Mason didn't usually have crazy parties, wasn't known for its frats or sororities as such groups tend to draw these kinds of things due to their antics and shenanigans

You already said this.

Anyway,

My suggestion is to never use this baring dialogue and the occasional use during more diary styled sections. It ruins flow.

Next to one of the ambulances lay three gurneys with blankets over everything on them, so death was already here.

I'd swap the two halves of this line to something more akin to this:
"People had already died, the three covered gurneys alongside the ambulances told me that much"

Flows a little better.

"And the corpses."

"Ain't killed by bullets of physical trauma, likely just Oded. This looks more like someone had a bad trip, found someone ODed and panicked."

"And your officer?" I finished packing the pipe and put my tobacco pouch away.

"Likely just trippin' balls too, who knows what they were smoking in there."

"How did you…"

Not really enough description for this parts, I don't know how the officer is standing or speaking. What tone is he using? Is he aggressive or standoffish? Maybe relaxed?

 

[S'task]

*looks up at title*
*looks at statement*

Title came after that opening monologue was written, and I'm not sure I'll settle on that title.

My suggestion is to never use this baring dialogue and the occasional use during more diary styled sections. It ruins flow.

I'm purposefully going for a dialogue style for the narration, hence my use of it, but may cut back.

Not really enough description for this parts, I don't know how the officer is standing or speaking. What tone is he using? Is he aggressive or standoffish? Maybe relaxed?

Can see what you mean here, will add some description to the exchange.

 

[Vyor]

Title came after that opening monologue was written, and I'm not sure I'll settle on that title.

It's more just... I'm imagining the title will still convey that it's urban fantasy, right? So the establishment of "there is fantasy in my urban" isn't super needed in the exposition.

 

[Rocinante]

It's more just... I'm imagining the title will still convey that it's urban fantasy, right? So the establishment of "there is fantasy in my urban" isn't super needed in the exposition.

Or telling people in other ways could work better.

The thing in the basement, or self lighting the pipe tells us, too.

I agree, I see where you're going for with making it told as dialog, but parts of it seem...well I'm not really sure how to describe it. But heavy on exposition I guess is one way. I'm not really accurately saying what I am trying to get at though.

 

[S'task]

Like I said, it's a working title. If I do truly settle on it, I'll rework the opening, I've received some feedback on the opening being a little to drawn out and exposition esq. anyway. However, if I come up with a title I like more that doesn't immediately scream "this is urban fantasy" I'll likely keep the opening though trim it a bit.

 

[S'task]

Chapter 2

I entered the converted suburban home. The layout was pretty common for the area, a short entryway that ended almost immediately in a combined common room and kitchen. A hall split off from the kitchen going towards what I figured would be bedrooms, though the door at the beginning of that hall was half ajar and the light from a bare lightbulb illuminated what appeared to be the stairs to a partially finished or maybe unfinished basement. The smell of alcohol, weed, and popcorn filled the main room, a large TV sat on the "what to watch next" menu of some streaming service or another, whatever movie the students had been watching when things went down long since ended.

I took a slow walk around the room, releasing puffs of tobacco smoke as I studied the area, the smooth stone of my pipe warming in my hand as the tobacco glowed softly. Nothing unusual here, not for a college party. Heck, there was less alcohol than I expected, and while things were chaotic from people leaving quickly, it didn't look like this party was that wild, more like a bit of a laid-back movie night of some kind.

"So what exactly happened here," I wondered out loud as I made my way towards the basement door and as soon as I touched the handle to fully open the door I felt it.

Perhaps felt is a bit of a strong word, the sense one develops to these things isn't as precise as the sense of touch, or any of the actual physical senses, it's like a niggling at the back of one's mind, or a feeling of wrongness or fuzziness to the world. In this case it was a strong sense not just of wrongness, but of predator. The kind of feeling most folks only experience when meeting an angry bear or other such wild beast. In other words, not one most folks living in cities and suburbs ever had to deal with. Except maybe arachnophobes, I've heard some describe the feeling like that an arachnophobe gets when seeing a spider, but since I'm not an arachnophobe, I can't say that is same feeling I get.

I nod to myself and take a long draw on my pipe, walking over to the kitchen table I notice an ash tray with more than a few half-smoked blunts laying on it, and tap the partially burned tobacco out, pocketing the pipe. I was going to need both hands for this. I then returned to the downstairs door and began heading down.

The stairway wasn't finished, below it through the slats one could see the house's water heater and washing machine and dryer. The concrete floor of the unfinished basement was partially covered with various area rugs and large carpet cuttings haphazardly spread about. In one corner another television sat with a ratty old couch and various gaming consoles hooked up to it and on the other side a ping pong table had been repurposed for other uses. Papers, pencils, a collection of tablets, notebook computers, hardback books, and lots and lots of small plastic dice giving away the game being played. But none of that was what really concerned me. No, what concerned me was in a bit of an open area of the room standing on the bare concrete floor: a humanoid shape that one couldn't quite look directly at no matter how hard one tried was kneeling over a uniformed body, short thin arms ending in hands with much much to long and thin fingers tearing and pulling at the body of the police officer, though no flesh or clothing was disturbed on the body.

"Great," I mumbled to myself, "this isn't a class 4…"

With my mumbled complaint the figure started and turned its mostly faceless head towards me, a sharp toothed grin splitting its forehead open and showing a glowing red throat.

"More to feed on," the voice that came from the mouth was raspy and had an odd echoing resonance, "you should not have come down here, I was just about to leave, you poor, poor mortal."

"A talkative one," I responded, "that's a nice change of pace, usually all I get are feral monsters that are no smarter than an animal."

The figure cocked its head, confused why I wasn't panicking. I took a casual step towards it and slipped my hands into my pockets.

"You are different," the figure wheezed, "you have seen things."

"Yup, so, before I destroy you for violating the Fifth Commandment, want to tell me how you got here?"

"You cannot harm me mortal, your weapons cannot harm me, while I," the figure was suddenly next in front of me standing barely a foot from me not really moving normally so much as simply changing location and stance. It was a bit taller than I was, probably just breaking six foot, and while I still, somehow, could not directly see it, I knew it had the build of a lanky predator, corded with muscle. It thrust its hand into my chest before I could react, grabbing at something beyond mortal flesh and attempting to tear it from my body. I grimaced in pain for a brief moment before it suddenly screamed in pain and pulled its hand back, its fingers disintegrating and covered in what appeared to be blood or maybe deep red wine, hard to say because it was still next to impossible to look directly at the thing.

"Yeah, that ain't gonna work. My soul is already claimed and covered," I informed the creature coolly while raising a hand from my pocket, "but the news gets worse for you. You see, I know things most mortals these days don't."

I make a quick motion with my hand and from the shadows sprung forth lances of darkness, impaling the creature with a noise the cross between the squishing of flesh and an electrical discharge. It let out a scream and squirmed trying to escape the impaling shadows.

In case it wasn't obvious from my pipe lighting earlier, I can use what most would call magic. It's a rare gift these days, and not one that has much use in day to day life as it's best described as the manipulation of the spiritual world to impact the material… and to do the simplest things takes way more work than just manipulating the material world directly. However, unlike material tools, magic could harm beings like the thing writhing on the dark spears of shadow now impaling it.

"I'm going to ask you again, how did you get here?"

"Summoned," the creature moaned, unable to escape, "by one like you, sorcerer."

"Thank you," I nodded and made another quick motion, this time a blade of shadow lashed out from the rafters and cleaved the creature in two, its form rapidly dissolving, washed away back into the æther from whence it came. After wiping my fingers off on my pants to clean graphite from my fingertips, I went over to the officer laying on the floor and looked for a pulse. Finding none I shook my head sadly before heading back up the stairs to report what I'd found. Hopes that this was a simple incursion caused by kids messing around with stupid shit dashed. Making my way back outside the front door I sat down on the front steps and pulled my pipe back out, my hands shaking slightly and breathing heavily from the magical exertion.

"What happened?" the officer I'd spoken to early made his way over to me as I finished packing my pipe.

"I've dealt with the… problem," I answer, fishing a lighter from my pocket and flicking it to light the flame, the officer staring at me as I lit my pipe in a conventional manner, "unfortunately your fellow was dead long before I arrived."

The officer glared and turned to shout at the paramedics who came running, splitting around me as I puffed on my pipe scanning the area absentmindedly. Someone summoned a Soul Eater, a spiritual assassin, to kill college kids. What kind of demented malicious person would do that?

"Hey officer," I barely spoke loud enough to hear, "what can you tell me about the kids who died?"

I pointed to the covered gurneys with the stem of my pipe before returning it and taking a long draw, the taste of the smoke soothing after my fight. The officer turned to me with a quizzical look.

"Why?"

"This wasn't random… at least one of them was targeted."

The Officer stared at me for a bit and then sighed.

"Two girls and a boy, they were pulled out by their friends who fled the basement from whatever attacked them."

"A Soul Eater," I stated calmly, blowing smoke away from the officer.

"A what?"

"Exactly what I called it, it's an extradimensional being that sever the soul from the body, thus killing the body, and consumes the soul."

"Sounds like a demon or…"

"No… not a demon, just an extradimensional predator. Demons… they're different, more concerned with corruption and such than killing."

"But…"

"I know, I know, but I need to know about the victims. One of them was the target, I think. It might be better for you to think about this as a hit against them with a weird ass hired assassin. The assassin doesn't matter so much, it's the person who hired, or in this case summoned, the assassin that's the real criminal."

The office paused and sat down next to me, pulling a crumpled old pack of cigarettes out of a pocket. I offered him my lighter, which he took and lit while taking a long pull on the cigarette, the foul smell of overly dry and chemically treated tobacco mixed with menthol and paper swirling with the sweeter, smoother smoke of my pipe.

"Two girls and a boy. We're still in the process of interviewing and gathering information, but we do have names. Sherol Miller, Agatha Townsend, and Malik Rathore. All students at GMU, the girls twenty-one, and the boy twenty-three, Malik was one of the residents of the house."

I nod and fish around one of my cargo pockets fishing out a business card, offering it to the officer.

"If you can pass that on to the officer who ends up leading the case, I, or someone like me, is going to have to consult on the investigation. I wish it was just an incursion where you get to pass the paperwork off on me, but I'm an exterminator, not a detective."

The officer took the card, giving me a hard look before snuffing out his cigarette on the concrete step and flicking it into the yard. I waited a few minutes as he walked away to go consult with his fellows, taking a few last puffs on my pipe before tapping the ash out in the grass and grinding it with my foot to ensure any embers were snuffed out. I then walked back towards my car parked at the far side of the cul-de-sac. A rogue sorcerer who was after college students. Not my favorite type of problem to solve, but it seemed like I was going to have to help solve it.

 

[posh-goofiness]

The cop is oddly accepting of what normally would sound like nonsense. Is the paranormal more known in this universe?

 

[S'task]

The cop is oddly accepting of what normally would sound like nonsense. Is the paranormal more known in this universe?

Yes, thought I hinted at that by the fact that our narrator was brought in by the State Police to clean up the supernatural incursion. It's still not common per se, and depending on the jurisdiction most police will go years, decades, or even full careers without encountering any, but it's a known factor that in this universe has been becoming more common over the last century, but especially since the 1960s. That's why the officer first things drug overdose over "supernatural killer" it's a lot more likely that a couple of college kids would die due to drug OD at a party than it is for a Soul Killer to pop up. For a equivalent scenario which is a more likely cause for a gunshot death at a college party, drunken college kids fucking around with a gun when they shouldn't have, or a professional assassin from the CIA comes in and executes someone? It's kinda like that, everyone knows there are assassins for something like the CIA in the world, but you don't ever really expect to end up encountering one of their kills.