Daniel Czyjak was completely fucking lost. There was no other way for the fifteen-year-old blogger to describe it. He and his parents, Thomas and Renata Czyjak, had moved to the United Kingdom three weeks ago; Daniel had protested leaving his friends behind, but had been ignored by his parents. After all, it wasn't every day that a woman in a company like Grunnings was made a general manager.
And if that promotion happened to come with a transfer to the parent branch, a fifteen-year-olds whining wasn't going to do anything.
The blogger turned another corner, and froze as he saw something completely unexpected. Instead of turning and running like any sane person would have, he pulled his iPhone and turned on the recording function. This was definitely going on the Wall of Weird on his blog. Internet stardom here I come, he thought as he captured what appeared to be a really good special-effects duel between two guys wearing dumb robes.
Daniel unconsciously moved forward to get a better angle and stepped on an aluminum can in the alleyway. He swore under his breath as the duel-thingamajig stopped and the two men spun to look in his direction.
The blogger, finally aware of the danger he was in, stood up from his crouch, muscles tensed to run.
"Incarcerous!"
Daniel tried to move, but it was too late. Ropes from nowhere wrapped around his arms and legs, binding him tight. He measured his full length on the ground, somehow managing to keep hold of his iPhone.
The one who had thrown the ropes that acted like really grabby tentacles from one of his anime came to a halt in front of him. Up close, Daniel could see that the man's robes were lime green and decorated with vibrant blue stars. He had to wonder if the man was color-blind or just fashion impaired.
"A muggle," the man muttered before turning to his companion. The other man, wearing bright blue robes with blue sparkly-things all over them, muttered a fairly dirty word under his breath. (Daniel had to assume it was dirty, given how little he knew about British cussing. It was like trying to speak French!)
Daniel kept filming, glad that the two fruit loops hadn't noticed his iPhone (of course, it matched the color of his hoodie, and was hidden fairly well by the baggy folds of the material). Who knew what guys like this could get up to? For that matter, the teen had to wonder what the statutes against sex offenders were in the UK.
"Teodor, you'll have to do the obliviation. I'm not very good at them."
Teodor, the one in the lime green robes smiled. "Orion, you were never very good at anything besides incarcerous." He looked down at Daniel, who smiled nervously as he aimed the button camera up at his captors. "Obliviate."
Daniel looked around the alley, wondering why he was sitting there. He didn't remember coming down this way, and definitely couldn't remember the sun sinking so low. The blogger checked the clock on his phone and began swearing—he should have been home over an hour ago!
Out of idle curiosity—mainly because his phone was saying it couldn't hold any more video, and he couldn't remember turning the video capture on, Daniel hit the cancel button. After a few seconds of digging through his brain to try and find the memory of his missing hours, he opened up the video file.
"Holy shit," he said, watching the two guys in hideous robes duke it out with bright, flashy lights apparently shot from the ends of pointy little sticks. This was definitely Wall of Weird material.