Greetings all. I wasn't going to post this, mostly because I'm just trying to get the book done rather than worrying over what people think about it. But I decided I'm going to share it anyway and see what people might think. I always appreciate critique, that's how you improve after all. However, I am more than likely not going to implement any changes until I've written quite a bit of the novel. My goal is to finish it and then make any changes required.
INFERNAL ORIGINS
A Jackson Grey Novel
Chapter One
I didn’t like being tied to a chair. It brought up bad memories for me. I sighed inwardly, this was supposed to be an easy job, get in and get the item for the client, and get out. Quick and easy, that’s what this was supposed to have been. Someone had once said that most plans don’t work out exactly the way they were intended to, and I was beginning to find that statement to be very true indeed. I had driven from my office in downtown Meridian to the upper residential area. I had parked and observed this house, waiting for the owner to leave. Once he did, I had broken in using my magic to force the lock. Sadly, that’s where the plan had fallen apart. The house had wards, runes etched into its walls that activated upon my intrusion into their masters home. The jolt of magic that was sent coursing through my body had knocked me out, hence my current predicament. The client had been human, he hadn’t made this seem like a supernatural issue. “He stole an item from me. A ceremonial dagger. Chinese in its origins. I want it back, get it for me and I’ll pay you well. Use any means you have available to you, just don’t kill him. I’m no murderer, even if he did steal from me.”
Quick and easy I had told myself. Your rent is due soon, I had told myself. No need to do the normal legwork you usually do, just get in and out, I had told myself. Myself was an idiot of the highest caliber. I strained against my bonds, to no avail unfortunately. The rope was threaded with silver. Silver was bad for us supernatural types. Looking around the room, I tried to see if there was anything of use. There were some cabinets and a couple of shelves attached to the white walls, and I noticed that off to the side of the room there was a table that appeared to be inlaid with several types of glyphs. I could feel the magic pulsing from it, but what really interested me was the knife that laid on top of it. It looked nice and sharp, perhaps sharp enough to cut through my bonds. I prepared to call forth my air magic, when the door to the room opened. A young man stepped into the room. His hair was brown and wavy, his features average, though he wore black rimmed glasses. He wore an expensive looking tan suit, which fit his lean frame well. He smiled at me, and it wasn’t the nice kind of smile. It was a predatory smile, one that implied that there was some unpleasantness in the future.
“Hello there, little thief,” He said to me, his voice honey smooth. I smiled back at him, “Hey there bud. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m currently tied down here. Would you mind maybe letting me go and grabbing me some water? Thanks.” The young man punched me in the face, hard. It snapped my head to the side, my long wavy black hair became tangled in front of my eyes. I shook my head and blew the hair out of my face. Anger filled me, hot rage sparking within me. Sue me, but I didn’t like being hit in the storming face. I spit to the side and glared up at the young man, “For that, I’m going to storming eat you.” I snarled the words at him. That seemed to give him pause. He looked at me with a raised eyebrow, “What are you some kind of thieving canabal?” I didn’t respond to him, instead I reached within myself, where there resided three sources of power, I gathered up the power, leashing my will and casting it forth, thinking about what I wanted it to do, It was vastly weakened due to the silver, but I was strong and it was enough. Snow white glyphs appeared on my arms, wrapping themselves from my wrist upward, I used the magic to wrap the knife on the table in tendrils of soft air, and then I yanked on it. The knife flew from the table at a deadly speed and buried itself into the back of the young man. He cried out and I kept tugging on the knife with my air magic, causing it to bury itself deeper into the man’s back, deeper and deeper the knife went, and as I used the magic to literally yank the knife through the man's body, he screamed. Oh man did he storming scream. The knife finally cut through the mans chest, and he dropped to the floor, very dead. The knife floated in the air, wrapped up in the tendrils of magic I had used on it originally. Pulling on the tendrils, I floated the knife toward me, and finally behind me and into the waiting grip of my right hand.
It took me a bit, but I managed to position the knife into a cutting position about the silver threaded rope that tied my hands together. I reached again within myself and gathered up called upon the demonic magic within me and sent it coursing through the knife. A thread of red lightning coated the blade like a thin edge, and I used it to cut through the rope and the accursed silver that were its threads. Once free, I allowed the knife to fall the floor before standing up and shaking my hands out in front of me, trying to restore circulation. I felt the magic within me surge to its normal strength and as I did, Lilith appeared before me. Have you ever seen Jessica Rabbit? LIlith looked a bit like that, except her eyes were a luminescent green with cats pupils instead of human ones. Her skin was a pale ivory white and her presence felt absolute. The demon was apart of me, her very essence was tied to my soul, the energy that made me who I was. She had a satisfied smirk on her face as she looked down at the dead man.
“Your penchant for murder grows, my host.” I shrugged at her words. “He hit me, and tied me up. I don’t like being tied up.” I said the last words with a huge helping of anger. Lilith’s eyes softened as she said, “I know Jackson.” I shook my head, ready to move past the issue. It took me a while, but eventually I found the dagger. It was in a locked safe in one of the upstairs rooms. Once I had found it, I made my way out of the house, or at least I tried too. In the living room, I found guests waiting for me. Four of them to be exact, and they looked none too happy to see me. “Well, hello folks,” I said to them.
They didn’t say hello back, and I have to say, that hurt my feelings a little bit. Lilith appeared before me, there was no flash or anything special to announce her presence, one moment she was simply there. “What will you do now, my host?” She grinned at me and vanished. Lilith loved violence, reveled in it actually. One of the four men stepped forward. He addressed me in a gruff, deep voice. His voice reminded me of gravel. “You are Jackson Grey.” He made it a statement, but I answered him anyway. “Why, do I owe you money?” The man nodded at this and waved a hand toward me, “Take him.” The men, including gravelly voice man, rushed me. I dodged one as he swung a punch toward my head, but even with my supernatural reflexes, I was unable to dodge the punch that one of the men aimed at my side. It storming hurt, let me tell you. Normally, I would be unconcerned with a mere human punch, but this wasn’t that. The punch launched me sideways and into a wall. I crashed into it, banging my head and falling to the ground. Ooh boy, so these fellas weren’t merely human. That punch had some kind of magic behind it, I could feel the waves of it pulsing off of them now.
Magic was kind of like a living thing, it wanted to be used and when it was, if you knew how, you could feel it. Think back for a moment on a time where you felt truly happy, think about all of those warm feelings you had at the time. That was what magic felt like. It just made you happy to use it. Which was dangerous if you weren’t careful. These men loved it, I could see it in their eyes, they loved using it and as a result, they were loving what they were doing to me. I got up from the ground, groaning. Luckily I healed pretty fast, or I probably wouldn’t be getting up right now. “damnation guy, that hurt. I suppose it’s my turn now.” I gathered forth the elemental power inside me and I formed tendrils of air, shaping it into a sphere like vortex that hovered just above my open palm.
Then I accessed a different power within me, one of the three, it was a dark demonic magic, gifted to me by my bond with Lilith, black glyphs appeared on my arms, mixing with the white, and I added that to the spinning ball of air. The result was a ball of crackling red lightning. It wasn’t much power for me and the entire process of forming my demonic lightning ball, as I had taken to calling it, took next to no time. The men were apparently very surprised that I could do magic.
They were transfixed on the demonic lightning ball, and I raised my hand a bit, their gazes followed it. “You shouldn’t have come here, fellas. You shouldn’t have attacked me. I should kill you all, but I’m going to give you a chance to run away, far away, to a place that I will never find you.” I had hoped my threats would be good enough to make them run away, to spare me from having to kill them. They weren’t, instead they merely spurred the men out of there reverie for my magic and into action. They ran at me again, their fists ready to deliver more pain. They didn’t get the chance, as I hurled the demonic ball of destruction at them.
It exploded on impact, lightning crackling forth with a kind of chaotic glee. Being struck by lightning is nothing to joke about, if you don’t believe me, look it up sometime. As the magical ball of lightning, supercharged with demonic energy struck the men, it engulfed them. Normal lightning would have popped their blood vessels, maybe made their hair catch fire. This lightning however ate at their skin, burning them and their bones to ash. They didn’t even have time to scream before they died. In mere moments, the men who had attacked me where nothing but ash. Unidentifiable piles of ash. Easy to clean up for TAI, The Arcadian Investigators. I reached inside one of my leather dusters pockets and pulled out the dagger that my client had tasked me to retrieve. So much violence, for such a simple weapon. It didn’t appear to be magical, I would have felt it by now if that were the case. So, why then, were people trying to kill me over it?
