David Whitman sat in the plastic chair with a book on the desk before him.

He had always loved to read. For the past few years, he had been into information on the occult. Norse runes, witchcraft, paganism. It all fascinated him. He had become engrossed in the idea of magic and had the almost chronic habit of picking up books on the subject wherever he could. Bookstore clerks came to know him on a first name basis as he scoured the shops for hours in search of anything new.

When he first began studying the history of such religions and their beliefs, he thought that the whole sorcery topic was just a little something to occupy his spare time. A little hobby of legends from the world’s history. But the idea that it might have held some sliver of truth was still an enjoyable thought.

How long have I been at this? Dave mused from time to time. Probably too long, I suppose.

He had started his reading of the material when he was in his early teens, which had garnered more than raised eyebrows from his classmates. Some quick math told him that he had been studying the material for nearly twelve consecutive years so far.

During that time, the Spirits came.

His interests towards the occult magnified almost overnight. The times when he would search only his local bookstores were long gone. He called publishers all over the country to ask about their latest copies on anything involving or related to magic.

Dave’s hobby had resulted in several contacts. A large number of them were new-agers who Dave found too damn cheerful for his tastes. But every now and again, he was able to find someone who was a serious practitioner of what Dave like to refer to as the "less contemporary" religions.

It was through one of those contacts that Dave was led to the book he was now looking over. He had been told that it had belonged to one of the Spirits. At first, he had almost been skeptical enough to laugh at his friend. However, Dave practically leapt out of his skin upon closely examining the thing.

The book was written in a language unlike any of the others used by occult religions he had researched in the past. Furthermore, the book had symbols throughout it which were similar to ones worn on the robes of the Spirits Dave remembered seeing in the newscasts years ago.

The cost had set Dave back financially, but it did not matter to him. He had an actual spell book written by one of the very wizards who had just so recently left this world after their short visit.

Not long after he had purchased the book the problems began. By the end, it had cost him nearly everything short of his life. It was still something he often reflected on with more than a hint of regret. The book had now become an object which he had come to hate, respect, and desire to know more about all at once. Even to this day, he found himself asking why he still possessed this object.

The spell book certainly was an impressive piece of work. It had a dark brown, leather cover with those strange symbols etched into the surface. Also, rather than paper, the pages were made of parchment. The writing along with the construction of the book, had all obviously been done by hand.

Learning to read even the simplest of the writing had taken him years. But the drive to understand had become almost as strong as his other hobby, martial arts.

Like reading, the fighting styles were just something that Dave caught onto easily and stuck with over time. He started his training at the age of fifteen and never stopped after that. He learned much throughout those years. His efforts earned him his black belt, and even after that, he had gone up several degrees. He would have loved to continue going up through the ranks, but the new laws prohibited such training among citizens. Though Dave still practiced regularly at home away from prying eyes. It helped to keep in touch with the arts, especially when living here in Chicago.

Dave’s bedroom used to display his love for both hobbies, but now he was limited to only the filled bookshelves. There was a time when the few empty spots on the wall could have been filled with an hanging set of nunchukus or maybe even a katana on a mounted rack to be seen by any who cared to look.

Dave’s bed was positioned off to the side to allow room for the shelves lining the walls and the table in the room’s center. A modest window gave a view of the urban neighborhood in which he lived.

"Hope Rob’s not getting too bored." Dave muttered as he removed his glasses to rub his eyes.

Odds were that Robert Thompson was anything but bored.

Rob’s television had died on him last week, and Dave could tell his friend was having withdrawal from the old tube. From the other side of the bedroom door, Dave could hear the commentary of the night’s football game.

Dave told himself that he would allow the book only five more minutes of his time. Then he would get up from the uncomfortable plastic chair and head out with Rob to get something to eat.

It was just that one flash of inspiration Dave had at work during the day that now kept him riveted to his desk. An idea of the strange language’s sentence structure came into his head while writing up a memo to his supervisor. Once he got home, Dave started studying the spell book while the idea was still fresh in his head.

He repositioned the thick glasses that compensated for his near-sighted vision back upon his nose. He had considered contact lenses or corrective surgery, but Dave felt they were either too bothersome or too expensive. Not that his appearance mattered to him much. He did not see himself as handsome or unattractive. He merely felt that his was just another face in the crowd. Though he had to admit that his most noticeable feature was his pair of dark eyes. They bordered on that point between brown and black. Dave thought that they were the reason why he was able to get the occasional smile from a pretty girl.

At the age of twenty-six, Dave stood just a hair under six feet tall. He had a thin, yet muscular build from his exercises. His dark brown hair was slightly longer than what it needed to be and always had the annoying habit of getting in his eyes at the worst possible moments. He meant to get it cut one of these days, though he never could quite get around to it.

He always preferred loose clothing. A gray, cotton sweater and khaki pants covered his slender frame. On his feet, he wore a pair of black tennis shoes.

Dave checked the digital watch on his wrist, then resumed scanning across one of the pages as he translated. What he could understand, he had written in English on a sheet of paper. The paper read:

Spell _________ incantation

___________ teleportation/summoning _____________

between the Spirit’s _________ subject _____________

____________ the following ___________

Dave furrowed his brow in concentration as he brushed the hair out of his eyes. All he needed was the meaning to a key blank spot and he would have a basic idea as to the spell’s guidelines.

He had tried casting a few of the spells himself. All those attempts had been failures, not surprisingly. The book said something about magic being more than a few words and gestures. It required a person to hold a certain mind-set for it to work.

Trying to understand the spell book’s setup had turned out to be a simple enough matter. Many of the first pages were used as a table of contents. The rest was a combination of spells with their characteristics along with some kind of personal journal. The journal parts were scribbled and unreadable to Dave. It was as if the writer’s whole demeanor changed between the practices of sorcery and recording daily events.

The current problem Dave was facing was the exact page on which this spell might be written upon.

Dave took another look at the page before reaching for the yellow folder sitting at the desk’s edge. He opened the folder and fished out the paper on which he kept his translation of the language’s number system. After a minute or so, he found the page number he would need to look for.

He flipped through the parchment sheets. And after a moment of examination, Dave’s eyebrows shot up.

The incantation was simple enough. Also, he found no mention of the state of mind needed for casting the spell. That was strange. All the other spells had some kind of mention of what Dave had translated as ‘enchanted thinking’. If what Dave was assuming was accurate, he should be able to cast this spell by just reading it out loud.

He decided that Rob might be interested.

"Hey Bobby, I think I’ve found something!"

From the living room, Dave could hear the television being shut off. Following that were Rob’s lumbering steps.

"You know I hate that nickname." Rob grumbled. "So are you ready to mosey along or not?"

The first word that most people had in mind when they first saw Rob was "huge." He was twenty-five, six-foot four inches, two-hundred seventy pounds, and virtually all the mass was muscle. His eyes were a slightly lighter shade of brown than Dave’s. His brown hair was short and parted in the middle while buzzed close on the side and back. His face was somewhat round and open with a tan complexion. It always gave a hint to his partially Native American heritage.

Dave looked up at Rob from his chair. Rob worked out regularly and liked having it show. He wore a black T-shirt that advertised his favorite football team, the Pittsburgh Steelers. The shirt stretched over his rock hard chest and exposed his thick arms to make him look rather intimidating at first glance. A pair of blue jeans of a less constricting fit and white sneakers completed Rob’s attire.

"I might have good news and then I might have better news." Dave said enthusiastically.

"Might?" Rob raised an eyebrow.

"Just listen for a second." Dave wanted to make his point quickly. Talking to Rob was almost like talking to a brick wall when he was hungry, so Dave was going to have to get his point across fast.

"Whatever. The sooner you get this out, the sooner we can go get somethin’ to eat."

"I think I found a spell that I can actually experiment with." Dave was actually on the verge of smile, something he rarely did. "Better yet, it might let us get in touch with the Spirits."

"You’re still this obsessed with that magic shit?" Rob questioned. "I knew you were still into it, but damn, man! I thought you would have toned down a bit over the years."

"I can’t give up now." Dave countered. "You know why I’m doing this."

"And you know why I keep tryin’ to get you out of this apartment." Rob said in a controlled voice. Rob almost never lost his temper with Dave and he always gave the smaller man a bit more room than he would with other people he knew. "It’s over. You need to get on with your life and put this stuff behind you."

"Not after what’s happened." Dave argued.

"What happened is that we nearly both got killed over that damn book." Rob shot back. "And what about your mother and Meagan?"

"Don’t bring them into this conversation." Dave said flatly. "Just don’t."

Rob knew that tone of voice. It was Dave’s way of saying that he was not going to back down in an argument. So, Rob let out a deep breath and took a different approach.

"Look." The large man said. "I thought you said that magic needs that Zen thing or whatever you call it."

"Enchanted thinking." Dave responded. "That’s what I thought too, until I looked this one spell over. It could be the key to finding the Spirits and maybe understanding what everything up to this point might mean."

"The Spirits just left." Rob said. "No good-byes, no packin’ up the bags. And you know they probably did it for a good reason."

"Then casting this spell could help us find out what that reason was. Who knows? Maybe they got called away for something, or maybe some unexplainable force got in the way.

"Or maybe." Rob stressed the "maybe." "They just got sick of us and decided to get away while the gettin’ was good.

"I mean, look what they left us in. No freedom to do anything. The WMC took care of that once they got into politics. Last time I checked, we can’t vote anymore, can’t have the average Joe go out of state for a family outing without clearing it with the local police. Shit, the whole Bill of Rights was given a swift kick in the ass."

"But look at the waves the Spirits made by just being here." Dave said. "Imagine what it would do today with the way things are. The Spirits might be the key to setting everything right."

"Or the Spirits could be sitting right back, laughing at the hole we’ve all gotten ourselves into."

This was where most of their conversation on magic went. Rob distrusted the whole topic while Dave was a borderline fanatic. Many such discussions in the past had resulted in heated arguments.

"But this could be the start of something big."

"I know you wanna find some way to beat the system." Rob said. "Hell, half the country wants to right now. You know I’m just about as pissed at the WMC for what they did as you are. But do you think this is the way? Even if it does work?"

"I have to at least try." Dave answered.

"Okay, I’ll make you a deal." Rob said. "It’s a win-win situation for you. I’ll stick around to watch you try this. If this spell thing works, fine, we’ll deal with things from there. If not, we’ll go get us a meal and I promise that I’ll listen to any little thing about magic you have to say just as long as you promise to lighten up once in a while."

"Sound’s fair." Dave admitted.

"More than." Rob added. "So how long will this take?"

"Just let me read out this much." Said Dave, pointing at several lines on the parchment.

"You can read that?" Rob frowned at the handwritten characters.

"My pronunciation will probably be a bit off the mark, and I can understand maybe a fifth of the words--."

"Wonderful." Interrupted Rob sarcastically.

"But," Dave resumed speaking. "I really don’t think that will matter much."

"Fire it up then." Rob was visibly happy to have finally come to an agreement. Dave could be downright stubborn once he set upon something.

Dave took in a deep breath and looked over the page. With a soft chant, he began to read off the words to the incantation. The words came at a stop and go pace as he read out syllables he had never spoken before. After the second line, Dave found that the words came easier if he let the spoken language simply flow out instead of concentrating on each individual sound.

"Fehu keroth elhaz moranoth." Dave spoke.

* * *

Rob stood back with his thick arms crossed over his massive chest.

Maybe it’s better this way. He reasoned. Maybe what Dave needs is to simply get the whole conjurin’ and brimstone theme worked out of his system. It’s not as if he wants a human sacrifice or try drinkin’ some goat’s blood.

He’s still haunted by what happened back then. He must still see their faces. Hell, it took me a long time to stop remembering the old house before… No! I’m not gonna be able to get Dave to move on if I start to linger on the past too.

At least Dave’s gotten better. He was a wreck after… Damn it. Now I’m doin’ it again.

I’d better get old Dave movin’ as soon as his act’s over.

"Turanna ti muka sus." Dave went on. "Burean neoth suwilo isa."

* * *

Dave was halfway through, but there was still no indication that the spell was working. The doubt he felt at the beginning of the chant intensified as he drew closer to the end.

Before he reached that point, something amazing happened.

At first, Dave thought that it was a trick of the light. A figment of his imagination caught out of his peripheral vision. But he stopped the chant to look straight at the thing.

In front of the tiny desk, right beside Rob, appeared a slight blur. Rob jumped back from the anomaly.

"Holy shit!" Rob exclaimed.

The blur seemed to take no notice of Rob. It was approximately a foot in diameter and hovering at least three off the blue carpeting that covered the bedroom floor. The strange blue looked like a tiny, vertical sheet of fog. It wavered in its position, its depth swirling in almost random patterns.

"It actually works." Dave whispered in astonishment.

Before he could dwell on the accomplishment any longer. The anomaly began to shrink in upon itself.

The spell! Dave realized. The incantation was still incomplete.

Quickly, he went back to the book and searched for the place where he left off. Finding the spot, he resumed the chant. The blur stopped shrinking and then began to expand.

Rob cautiously took steps back from the something neither of them could truly explain.

"Chu rotos kir shrath." Dave said, completing the spell.

With the words spoken, the blur stood taller than Rob. It now looked like a glowing circle of mist. The center gave off a soft, white light.

Dave stood from the table and joined Rob in simply looking at what defied everything they believed in.

The two of them walked in opposite directions around the thing. As they looked at it from the side, they could see that this strange creation was as thin as paper. After finishing their slow lap around the two-dimensional cloud, they stared into the white light within the mists.

"You still hungry for pizza?" Dave looked to Rob.

"I just lost my fuckin’ appetite." Rob said. His eyes suddenly went wide as he looked deeper into the roiling mists. "Who the hell’s that?!"

Dave turned to look back into the cloud to where Rob now pointed.

Something within that field of shifting white light was moving. Dave squinted and saw that Rob was correct. There was definitely a person in there. More importantly, that person was walking straight towards Rob and Dave.

Unable to find a better course of action, the two of them stepped away from the anomaly.

As the unknown figure drew closer, they could tell that the person was definitely male and human. The man’s robes flapped around him with each step he took.

He took one final step from within the light and set foot upon the carpeted floor of the Chicago apartment.

Both Rob and Dave watched with eyes and mouths wide open.

Dave estimated the man’s age to be somewhere in the early forties. His short, black hair was just starting to go through those first stages of gray. The man had a clean-shaven face that displayed a visage that looked as if it had been chiseled out of stone. His robes were cinched at the waist with a white cord. The entire outfit had symbols that Dave found familiar embroidered in silver thread.

While Rob and Dave continued to stare, the Spirit laughed with good humor.

"I don’t believe it." He chuckled with a soft voice. "We’re still remembered here. Then there may be hope yet."

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