Chronicles of the Phantastorious
By Ichabod Cowler
For Livi
Prologue
It was dark in the alleyway by the town, with the lanterns being the only source of sight around the brick walls. In the very back of the alleyway was a small little shop, almost no different from every other shop in town. It had a sign, a little door with a few windows, and if one looked in, they could see all the various items that the owner was attempting, feebly or willingly, to sell. However, it was almost like every other shop. This shop was different from other shops in the idea of what it was selling. Other shops were usually for clothing, animals, food, furniture, and other basic needs and desires of life.
This shop was of a certain magical desire. And while the shops, at least to a regular human mind, were very magical in normality, this was a very different type of magic.
Rambinski Bolovardi, the owner, manager, and master of the store, was working in the dark, damp basement that was hidden cleverly in a cabinet under the counter of the store. He was sweating as he was pushing his large hands up in place of the giant vehicle he was creating. The vehicle had 6 legs sprouting from underneath it, 3 on each side of its giant round body. That was all that could be seen of it, however, hiding underneath a thick tarp. Rambinski crawled out underneath, pulling out a handkerchief to his sweat soaked forehead and wiping it across his creased brow. He was dumbfounded that coming to Cheshire would've put this much work on him. He was getting a lot more exercise from creating this massive thing, and yet he was still thin as a rake!
The odd creation was nearly done. The body needed its power now, something to bring uniqueness to itself. "Now, to wait for the pretty girly" he said to himself in his thick Russian accent. His time at relaxation didn't allow him any time to notice a thick smoke seeping through the bricks behind him as he rested his worn-out, bandaged hands on the table. His panting grew slower, finally in a relaxed state, the spittle from his mouth gone, and his aching body back into a place of ease. The smoke twisted behind Rambinski's head, almost dancing and having a bit of fun. Rambinski sensed this almost automatically. He was sweating again, his eyes wide open, his look of contentment now transformed to a look of anxiousness. He quietly and subtly reached for a wrench near his hand on the table.
He turned around quickly and shouted with his voice piercing through the wind. He swung the wrench at whatever was behind him and he succeeded. He had hit the table, and with a fairly good hole in it, resulting from the blow.
He hadn't hit what he expected his target to be, however. As an insult to injury, the table was a well-crafted gift from his babuchka. At the realization of this, Rambinski began swearing in Russian up and down the basement. He was too angry with his faults that he didn't notice the smoke behind him again, or perhaps he did notice and chose not to address it. It quietly as ever picked up a crowbar, which lifted up to the side of his head eerily. He turned to see this phantom crowbar and let out a short but shrill shriek of shock, before passing out from the bash on the head with this ghostly object.
The smoke released the crowbar, letting it clatter to the ground, as the small blood mark from Rambinski's bruise on his temple leaked near the bar. The smoke began illuminating from its black, foggy presence into a more reddened color of black. It swept about itself in the room, forming something shaped like a human. After spinning and twisting, the dark, black, fiery, red smoke was decreased to nothing more than white, steamy, see-thru smoke from a thin, black cigarette. Holding the cigarette was a thin, curvy, voluptuous woman in a very revealing red night-gown. Her skin was pale, and her hair was shaggy and black, almost pointed up like cat ears. But her most distinguishing feature was her mischievous, probably devious, fanged grin.
She hummed a short verse of a Russian lullaby Rambinski used to know, just to make sure he'd be put to sleep. She took a peek underneath the tarp to look at the construction. She giggled wickedly to herself then, and began talking to herself, though moreso to the unconscious magic-shop owner. "I must say, Rambinski, you tool," she began in a drifting, slow voice, "you've done quite well. The architecture is quite deceiving. I love it unreservedly!
"Now all that's left is to start the bloody ritual thing that he spoke of." She let out a sigh of impatience. The smoke-lady's eyes closed as a black light emanated from underneath the tarp of the vehicle. The machine, whatever it was, seemed to be glowing with an unearthly power, being caused by the smoke-lady. Her eyes opened wide and her pupils were now color-changing slits, like a snake's eyes. The colors from underneath began rapidly changing as well, as if the vehicle would've been hot, cold, sticky, tasty, disgusting, or anything else if you touched it or licked it (not that you should have been licking it in the first place).
Finally, she stopped. The colors rapid-fire changing ceased.
"Humph!" She said. "That was pathetically easy! I swear, the boss could've just gotten off his high-horse and done that himself!" She was changing back into smoke, twisting and turning in the wind, heading out through the bricks again. Even in this form, her voice whispered in wind, "I'd better be getting something out of doing his work for him!"
The creation was now complete. The smoke-woman didn't have to worry much more. She passed her anger by with the reassurance that all she had to do at this point was sit and wait in a comfortable throne.