Sullivan's Book

Oxana drove for seventeen hours before finally arriving at her late brother’s home. If anyone knew Oxana, her driving a pickup truck existed in the same alternate universe as a hare hauling shell for shelter. She lived with a dogged affinity for climate change. Still, she suffered the truck, grateful in her present circumstances to have something to drive.

The estate was stationed at the end of a long driveway that Oxana couldn’t see, given the amount of snowfall that blanketed the property. She pulled up as close to the house as she could. Sizing the place up, Oxana wondered how her late brother had lived here alone. He must have had some sort of help. A maid, at least. Someone had to be maintaining the place, otherwise Oxana thought she would rather go back and endure the Four Trials all over again, minus the maiming.

She parked the truck, not bothering to grab any of her things. Her bladder wouldn’t allow it. She only removed the keys and snatched a small envelope from the cupholder. She took it up with her right hand and, with that same hand, reached across herself to open the door, using her left elbow to push the door open.

Under a baggy heap of purple knit glove, the new growth of Oxana’s left hand resembled the potato rarely chosen at the grocery store; a rather small spud of a mitt with oblong buds for fingers, mostly peanut sized. It had been lost, harrowingly, during her Sky Trial and was regenerating all the same as her right eye, which she lost in the first of her trials, the Sun Trial. Thanks to the seemingly unlimited magicks of the Eldreds, her hand and eye would return to normal in a matter of weeks.

Oxana hurried through knee high snow and up the stoop. She got to the oaken door and cradled the unsealed envelope at the crease of her left elbow, opening it enough to extract a disc-shaped key with a slot cut through it. Without effort on her part, it moved on its own while still in her hand, connecting into a matching keyhole. The sound of gears, and then a click, made it clear she was welcome. Oxana nudged the door open slowly, at first.

A dance of vanilla and mahogany beckoned her forward. She stepped in and was dumbstruck. As she entered the foyer, she saw lit candles everywhere. The home was warm, and she could see the fireplace was on. This creeped her out enough to let out a hesitant hello.

Oxana wasn’t alone after all. An apparent resident was home and barked his way softly into the room. The Labrador was lovely in its demeanor, looked healthy, and had a collar with a tag that read ‘Fender’. This made Oxana happy, then afraid. Her brother had passed months ago and, as far as she knew, the only way to get into the house was in her right hand.

It wasn’t but a day or so before she settled into the fact that the house was kept warm, lit, clean, perfectly scented, and stocked with food and drink by magical means.

It took almost two weeks for Oxana to pack all her brother’s personal things, a hard task to complete. She had cried so much, even though it hurt her growing eye. She chose to stow much of the boxes in the basement, which she found to be, by far, the strangest room. It was deep beneath the house, unnecessarily cavernous, and empty. It reminded Oxana of a small underground coliseum. There was nothing there but a dozen or so columns that lined the curved walls, and a strange cut in the stone wall that seemed to resemble a door. Its apex nearly reached the ceiling, around forty feet high. She knew curiosities like these were in the territory of being a Magus, but still the place was hard to get used to.

Oxana saved the master bedroom for last, be it consciously or not. She emptied the closet down to the last woven, surrounded by her brother’s lingering scent. As she stepped out with the last of the wardrobe, she noticed something strange beneath her foot; a glow of sorts, brightening the dark closet for a moment. Or at least she thought she saw something. Perhaps her eye had been deceptive. She paused, then retraced her last step. No, there it was again.

The floorboard she was stepping on had a faint, teal glow to it whenever her foot made contact. Curiosity freed her arm of the clothes. She set them on the floor as she crouched down and knocked on the plank. It was loose, and not so hard to remove. The subtracted wood revealed a large space underneath. In the hole beneath the board was a very large bag, zipped shut, and quite dusty. It was heavy and took a couple of one-armed heaves for Oxana to pull it out. She unzipped it and her breathing became voluntary.

At first Oxana could only focus on the money, her eyes welling up with so many questions.

Stacks of cash resided within, more than she’d ever seen. She stared for a bit, slack jawed, eventually remembering to breath. She took a moment, then blinked past the tears and money to view the remaining contents. Also in the bag, Oxana discovered an unloaded revolver, bullets, a folded up map of the United States with several of them marked with X’s, a circular piece of metal with similar filigree as the key to the home, and a small black notebook that seemed to be new and entirely blank.

Oxana took a couple of hours to ponder the contents of the bag. The money had added up to $20,000, which totally blew her away. She worried why her brother would have needed a “go bag” such as this. She decided to put everything back in the hole, all except for the metal piece and the notebook. As a Magus, she felt magic from these items. There was almost a sense of connection with the book particularly, a light tether, but that thought was interrupted by the sudden croak of the doorbell. She stuffed the metal piece in her pocket and made her way to the door.

Oxana opened the door slowly, sending her left eye to scout the scene. It was a sheriff, quite young, and well groomed.

“Hi, sorry to bother you ma’am. I’m Sheriff Beadley,” the sheriff was polite, but seemed unnerved.

“Hi. Can I help you?” Oxana made sure to cross her arms, hiding her child-sized left hand behind her right elbow.

“Uh, maybe. You see, a good buddy of mine used to live here, Sullivan. In all honesty, I came all the way out here out of personal curiosity. No one’s seen or heard from Sullivan in months. Are you family at all or…?” Beadley let the question linger as his eyes quivered a bit. He couldn’t help but stare at Oxana’s eye patch.

“Yeah, yeah, he’s my brother, he um, well I’m sorry, but he passed seven months ago.” Oxana waited in silence as Beadley took the loss. With the look of a man who’d gamble his last dollar on a jackpot, he took off his right glove and slid his coat sleeve up several inches.

“Would it happen to have anything to do with this?” Beadley shook nervously whilst watching Oxana’s eyes, holding his sleeve up on his forearm. Central on his wrist, a peculiar sigil glowed in a soft iridescence. He returned her silence with more of his own.

“You…you’re an Initiate?” Oxana was taken aback.

Beadley took a huge risk exposing himself, but it had been worth it. The ice broke. Oxana respected that and invited the sheriff, who introduced himself as Jake, inside. Fender wanted no part of Jake, which Oxana thought odd. The dog barked endlessly, so Oxana apologetically put him away. She made coffee and explained Sullivan’s death dealt to him by the creature Galim, and how Sullivan had marked Oxana as his Initiate without her knowledge. Jake asked about her trials, knowing she was bound to secrecy. A Magus never tells. She could only describe the pain of the sacrifices she made to make it out alive.

She’d never met anyone in the Culmination besides the Eldreds and was happy to talk magic with someone other than them. Jake listened well and made it easy for Oxana to express herself. Later, as the conversation dwindled, Oxana felt the urge:

“There’s something I want you to see,” she said, guiding Jake to the basement door. “The basement is strange, and there’s something on the wall down here. Maybe you know something I don’t?” Even as a Magus, Oxana still felt vulnerably new to all of this. Any help was helpful.

The pair descended into the basement, which was dimly lit by an unknown, cool light source. Fender’s acoustic barks became fainter, but never ceased. Oxana lead the way down toward the adjacent wall with the outline shaped like a doorway.

She was eager and walked ahead, her voice echoing: “See, doesn’t it look like a door?”

She expected Jake to say something, but he didn’t. She only heard his gun clack. She turned stiffly to see Jake pointing his firearm at her, maneuvering himself between her and the wall. Oxana couldn’t swallow, nor speak.

“Give me the key. I know its in your pocket, I can feel it,” Jake demanded, no longer polite. He was aggressive, but quivering. Oxana froze for too long, so Jake fired a warning into the ceiling. Oxana jumped and put her hands up, sans thought. Jake made a quick move to her pocket, removing the metal piece. With the gun still on her, he touched the metal piece to the doorway. It magnetized to the wall, instantaneously radiating a frigid pulse of energy, then a swell of brilliant electricity, finally unveiling a plasmid portal that caused an intense wind throughout the chamber. The light it created was overwhelming.

“I’m sorry, but I have to finish what Sullivan started!” Oxana could barely hear Jake’s final words as he shouted through the gusting energy.

He seemed about to step into the portal when an enormous hand came through from the other side of the abyss; one that was ape-like but swift. It was deft as well, with four dark-furred fingers that were capped with razor-sharp claws, each at least two feet in length.

It grappled the unexpecting Jake, who had been too overcome with fear to move quickly enough. He screamed as his feet left the ground, his voice trailing off as he fainted.

Fender’s distant barks became desperate yowls as Oxana watched the gargantuan creature, horns first, appearing from the portal. In that moment, she actively wished she hadn’t locked Fender up and that he was there with her now.

She felt an oddly peaceful sensation then, and suddenly Fender appeared at her side, growling, and holding the black notebook in his teeth. He dropped it next to her and continued barking at the beast. As it entered the room, it leered at the hapless girl, letting loose a bone melting roar.

Doom fell over Oxana for a breath, but then she noticed the notebook. It was glowing. She picked it up and fumbled it open as best she could. A wave of relief blanketed her as she observed the now radiant tome. Each page was inscribed with shimmering sigils and markings that were all too familiar now. This was Sullivan’s spell book. His spells. She just survived the Four Trials, and now she had spells. She could do this.

Oxana faced the beast, one-eyed, and with one good hand suspending the glowing book. She begun casting a sigil, and could have chosen any offensive spell she wanted, but instead chose Love as her weapon. The type that blinds the Dark Ones. The kind that calls the sun.