Prologue
The call came during his first show of the year. Niel Arthur Hotep had been in the middle of shooting sparks from his fingertips when a cell phone vibrated in his pocket. It burned red-hot against the magician's thigh, nearly smoking a hole through his pants. Must be one of those calls… He stopped what he was doing and stared hard at the crowd, then made some improbable excuse and ran backstage.
Alone in his dressing room, the magician answered his phone. The heat subsided to a pleasant warmth and static crackled in his ear. ''What do you want from me, O great and powerful one?" Niel asked, knowing that his sarcastic tone wouldn't be understood. There was still only static coming from the other end of the line. This was a normal effect of trans-dimensional phone calls, but it was unusual for his master not to have spoken up and made some bizarre request by this time.
"Hello, anyone there? Azin g'ranl taph?" he asked into the void. A thin, piping voice answered; a little girl hoarse from singing monsters to sleep.
"They've all gone down…" she said, trailing off into nothing.
"Who? Down where?" asked the magician, bordering on hysteria. His right hand tightened into a razor-clawed paw, but he had himself under control before he could shape-shift completely. The girl, or whatever she actually was, managed to reply again.
"Everyone. They're down … where you are now … He was angry and broke through the wall… … " and then there was just static again. The magician ended the call and cursed to himself. He didn't care what the others did, as long as they left him alone. But if the Master was loose in this world, well, that was a problem. The magician could be in a thousand places at once, but he was no match for that kind of raw, destructive power.
Then he thought for a moment and realized that the situation wasn't quite as bad as he thought. The rest of them usually couldn't take human form, so they would be powerless. They would be disoriented. For a few decades, they wouldn't even know their own names.
Niel had no idea what to do, but creatures like him never bothered to make plans. He left the dressing room and returned to the stage, where his audience awaited. The poor fools were hypnotized so strongly that they hadn't even noticed he was gone.