"a," =speech "a," =thoughts "a," =through intercom or television "a," =magic "a," =dream

Kindred Spirits

One day later. Lucas' POV

I could feel the sun's rays hit my face. I opened my eyes and regretted not drawing the curtains last night as my room faced east meaning I would receive an early wake up call otherwise. I looked at my alarm clock and saw it read 8:47 so I got up and went about my usual morning routine. As I walked by my parents room, I noticed a sock on the door handle and knew that they had sex last night and wouldn't be up until about ten.

Two hours later found me sitting on the couch going through my emails. The majority of them were from friends back in my hometown asking how I was settling in. A few were from a colleague concerning a case I had done for him a few months back. When I was finished, I started to ponder what I was going to do today when I remembered the business card that girl from yesterday gave me. I pulled it out and started to study it.

The card was a typical business card made from an off-white card stock with a water mark revealing it was made by Primatech Paper Products. The front of the card sported the logo of the bookstore, which consisted of the name "The Dark Forest" written in black ink with a bevel-tipped pen and the words one on top of the other. To the side of this was a collection of black trees in front of a moon. The logo itself had a purple background and border. On the back of the card was a phone number, an address and the times the place was open.

Having nothing to do, I wrote a note telling my parents where I was before grabbing my jacket. I debated whether or not I would bring my backpack for a few minutes until I decided to bring it along. The walk to The Dark Forest took about ten minutes and it was about 11:00 A.M. by the time I got there. The building was four stories tall and made of black bricks. All of the windows but the ones on the fourth story had thick, purple curtains the same color as the purple from their business card blocking out any view of the inside and I could only assume it kept light from getting inside as well. Above the main entrance was a sign with the same logo from the business card but I noticed some black lights on the bottom of the sign so I could assume that some of the sign was painted with fluorescent paint. Overall The Dark Forest was very much the goth bookstore/cafe that I expected it to be.

I walked through the front doors and found myself in a large open room. The walls were painted black with a spirally design in green. The floor was painted a similar purple to the one from the business card and had the same spiral design as the walls but in black. About five feet from the front door was a desk that I could guess was where the host/hostess would ask if you were here just for the books or if you wanted something to eat. All along the walls were bookcases that were filled with books. The bookcases in particular were black and from what I could see of the one next to me had the same recurring spiral design in purple. They also had branches that stuck out about six feet and had eight feet in between each branch. Looking up I could see the ceiling of the room was about three stories up and had a large, elaborate chandelier hanging down. The other floors were open and had bookcases lining the walls with catwalks going along them. The stairs leading to the second floor were spiral staircases that were on either side of me and connected to a catwalk that went from the front of the room to the back on the second floor. The staircases were surrounded by tables that were organized in a way that allowed people access to them. Besides the chandelier the lighting in the room consisted of lamps with a goth look to them. All around the room, I could see goths, punks and emo teenagers eating and reading all kinds of books. Overall the place looked good while still holding that goth atmosphere.

I walked over to the front desk and waited for a host or hostess to come out. After a few seconds the girl who gave me the business card came out and started up the usual welcoming before recognizing me. "Welcome to The Dark Forest. I will be your hostess- oh hey! You actually came," she said.

I did a quick glancing look over, a technique that I had come to master during my time as a P.I. The hostess outfit she was wearing consisted of black dress pants, a purple blouse and a black overcoat, in the waist pocket of which was a ticket to some new movie. On her left shoulder was a name tag with the name "Mary" on it in the same black ink and bevel-tipped pen style from the logo, revealing her to be right handed. Speaking of her hands, the fingernails were covered in purple nail polish. Her auburn hair, which based on the color of the roots was her natural color, was held in place by a green hairband. While it seemed like a few minutes to me, I knew that all of that was actually seen in a couple of seconds.

I smiled and replied, "Well you made it seem like this would be a nice place to be so I just had to come Mary." The expression on her face when I said her name went to shock before it turned to realization after I pointed to her shirt and explained, "Name tag." I looked around and remarked, "Pretty interesting place. Is the food any good?"

"I can't tell you, that would get me in trouble with the boss," Mary said. "But you can try it yourself if you follow me." She turned to the front desk to grab a menu and something that looked like a black pedometer before leading me to a table near the spiral staircase on the left. I noticed that she kept on glancing at the clock with a look of impatience which told me she's getting off of work soon and wants to hang out with me. I sat down and she handed me the menu and the pedometer thing before explaining, "This will tell you how long it will be until your food is done and warn you at five minutes no matter where you are."

"Will you join me when your shift is done in a couple of minutes?" I asked. Her face turned to shock again and her jaw dropped. I chuckled before answering, "You kept on glancing at the clock with a look of impatience. That told me your shift is nearly done and you want it to end already so you can hang out with me."

"Your quite observant," she said in awe of my deduction.

I nodded and said, "When you come by I'll tell you more about myself." She nodded and walked off to do her job. I opened the menu and tried to figure out what I wanted for lunch.

About thirty seconds later, someone sat down across from me and said, "Just finished my shift cutie. Now we can talk." I looked up to see a person who looked exactly like Mary but I could see a couple of things that told me she wasn't. Her fingernails were sporting black polish, her hair was parted on the right (indicative of a left hand person), and her ears had spots where piercings used to be.

"You're not Mary. You're her twin sister," I said before looking down and continuing my search for something to eat.

"No I'm not," the twin said.

I smirked before putting down my menu and explaining the four reasons I knew she wasn't Mary, "Yes you are. One, your nail polish is black not purple. Two, you part your hair on the right side like a left handed person while I know thanks to Mary's name tag, she's a righty. Three, your ears are pierced while your sister's aren't. Four, you flirted with me which your sister hasn't done once. And five, you outright denied you were Mary's twin instead of saying that you don't have a twin, which is something you would have done if you didn't have a twin."

The Mary doppelganger blinked in surprise at my statement and said, "Alright, you got me. I'm not my sister, my name is Christina. You're quite observant if you saw things that most people wouldn't have. So why was Mary talking to you, cutie?"

"She recommended this place to me yesterday," I answered.

"Ohhh, you're the pizzeria guy," Christina said.

"Yeah and I would appreciate it if you didn't scare him off with your flirting," I heard from behind me. I turned around to see Mary wearing a black spaghetti strap shirt, a pair of black jeans and black leather boots.

"You didn't tell me that pizzeria guy was hot," Christina said.

"Because I didn't want you to scare him off," Mary replied.

"It's fine Mary, I'm used having people flirt with me," I said. "Back in my hometown, I heard rumors that there was a group of girls who wanted to share me amongst themselves."

"Really?" the twins asked at the same time, to which I replied with a nod.

Mary whistled and remarked, "You must have been pretty popular at you old school."

I smirked and informed, "Actually, I already have several doctorates."

"No way," Christina said. "You would have to have gone to college for eight years to get a doctorate."

"I was a child prodigy. I started school when I was five. I was skipped up a few grades because I was to smart but then I had to be sent a special private school for other prodigies because I was still to smart and I took college level courses through out my high school level classes. I took part in a special program run by Harvard for prodigies and achieved my doctorates when I was fourteen. It was all rather complicated," I explained. The girls that were sitting with me had looks of shock and disbelief when a waiter came by.

"Welcome to The Dark Forest. I will be your waiter Manny. What would you like to drink?" he greeted while taking out his pad and pen.

"I'll have Mountain Dew," Mary replied.

"Ditto," her sister added.

"I'll have Dr. Pepper," was my answer.

"Coming right up, I'll ask your order when you're ready," the waiter left to get our drinks.

The moment he was out of hearing range, Mary and Christina pounced on the opportunity to ask me questions. "What subjects were your doctorates in? Were they difficult to write? Where was the private school you went to and who ran it? Is the program with Harvard still running?" the sisters asked me, alternating between each other.

"My doctorates are in psychology, chemistry, software and hardware design. Once I knew what I wanted to write, the doctorates wrote themselves. The private school was run by CERN. It was in Switzerland and I don't know if the prodigy program is still going. It's been two years since I was in Harvard," I answered in rapid fire.

"You were in Switzerland? That must have been quite the experience," Mary admired.

I smiled and confirmed, "I got a tour of CERN labs and got to spend a bit of time just doing leisurely activities. Skiing in the mountains was a lot of fun, especially on this one path that had some very sharp turns."

"I'm so jealous of you," Mary said.

Christina flirtatiously smiled and said, "All that skiing must have given you quite the workout." She then scooted closer to me and started to stroke my chest. "I'd like to see what you're hiding under this shirt of yours. Or maybe what you're hiding under these," she requested while moving her hand down towards my privates. I caught her hand before it could go any lower than my waist.

"Christina!" Mary scolded exasperatedly. The flirtatious twin in question pulled away pouting at her sister. The responsible twin continued her scolding, "You can't just molest him in public or at all!"

A few seconds later the waiter returned with our drinks and asked, "Have you decided what you are going to eat?"

I answered, "I don't know about those two but I'll have the five piece chicken strips with French fries."

Mary turned to Manny and said, "I'll have the hamburger and mash potatoes."

"Hotdog and hash browns please," Christina placed her order.

The waiter nodded and wrote down our orders before saying, "Your timers will turn on once I get your orders to the cooks." He then walked off to place our orders.

Christina waited until he left before turning to me and asking, "So hot stuff, what else did you do in Switzerland?"

"I didn't spend all of my time in Switzerland. I spent at least one weekend in other places like Germany, Sweden, Italy, the UK, the Netherlands and France," I informed.

Mary's eyes widened before she asked, "You were in France? I've always wanted to go there. Where did you stay?"

I smiled, finding it funny that the stereotype of girls being obsessed with France actually applied in this case, and answered, "I stayed in a hotel called 'Le Bristol Paris.'"

"You were in Paris?!" the twins shouted, drawing the attention of some people nearby before the guys went back to what they were doing. The girls on the other hand surrounded us and started asking the same question.

Deciding to tease them a little, I answered in French, "Oui, je étais à Paris." A good number of the girls swooned at hearing the practiced French while the rest were either surprised or impressed. I smirked at their reactions and deciding to keep up the tease, I stood up to get a book while saying, "Je vais revenir bientôt, mes chéris." I heard the swooning girls sigh in admiration while I walked over to the desk where you pay for your books. On the desk were maps of the book store that showed where all of the different genres and types of books were kept. I took one and looked for the section on fantasy fiction before going there. The section was on the second floor in the left hand corner towards the back of the building. I was about to walk back to the staircases when I noticed out of the corner of my eye several of the girls were walking towards me with a predatory look in their eyes. I sighed in disapproval before pretending nothing was wrong and walking into a crowd of people standing near one of the bookcases. I whispered to myself, "Absconde me a conspectu," and turned invisible. Nobody noticed me disappearing from view as the crowd was too busy doing whatever it was they were doing and they were obscuring the girls' ability to see me. I continued walking up the stairs and into the fantasy section where I whispered the dispelling charm and searched for a book.

A few minutes later, I heard my timer beep for the five minute mark and hurried my search for a book to read. I grabbed a book that caught my eye and walked down to my table. In my absence the girls that had been crowding around me earlier had gone back to their tables and Christina had left to do something. Mary was sitting at the table reading a book that from the title and cover I could tell was one of those books that talked about. She looked up to see me coming back and greeted, "There you are. When you walked into that crowd Christina and I lost track of you."

"I went up to the second floor to grab a book," I told her as I sat down. Mary nodded and went back to her book as I opened up mine. Christina joined us a few seconds later with a romance book. The waiter came a few minutes later with our food, which was very good. The twins and I talked about my activities in Europe, The Dark Forest itself and a bunch of other stuff. Overall we had a good time and I felt like these two would become great friends. After our meal and we returned the books we had been reading, the twins offered to give me a tour of Jump City which I accepted. They showed me all of the great attractions, such as the pier that doubled as a carnival, as well as all of the important buildings, such as City Hall.

We rode the bus in between the major junctions and to pass the time I designed a costume for my superhero identity. The costume had seven pieces that would magically replace whatever clothing I was wearing when I said a particular Latin phrase. The basic pieces consisted of a silver duster, a white dress shirt, black dress pants, black boots, black gauntlets and one of those masks that only covers the eyes and sticks to the face. A domino mask I think its called. The duster would be covered in a quarter-sized hexagonal grid with protective seals in the center. The dress shirt and pants would have enchantments that mitigates physical damage from things like clubs, knives, swords, punches and kicks. The boots would have enchantments that allow me to run faster, jump higher and mitigate the damage I would receive from a fall. The gauntlets would be leather and metal with enchantments that enhanced my strength. The mask would have enchantments that make it so only I and people I give permission to can remove it and that exude a protective shield like my coat. All of the enchantments would be done using runes either sewn into the cloth with gold thread or carved into the hard material. I felt quite proud of my design and knew I could get the materials from Hexiphilius rather quickly. I would have to ask him about that when I get home.

When the girls were done showing me around Jump City, it was 3:27 P.M. The bus had stopped in the park, leaving the three of us sitting on the park bench. I thanked the twins, "Thanks for the tour girls. It was nice meeting you two."

"It was nice meeting you too. Say we never got your name," Mary said.

"Yeah, you never told us your name handsome," Christina agreed.

I smirked and said, "I guess you'll never know."

"Oh come on, just tell us your name," the girls said at the same time.

I noticed one of those stone chess tables nearby and challenged, "Alright, but don't expect it to be that easy. If you two can beat me in chess, I'll tell you my name."

The girls smirked and Mary said, "We're on the chess team at our high school. We'll beat you down hard."

"How is this possible!?" the girls were screaming ten minutes later. I had beaten them three times already and they had insisted on rematch after rematch.

"I was on the chess team at CERN laboratories," I revealed. "I went up against some of the smartest people in the world. It kind of makes you have to learn fast."

The girls faces turned to absolute rage at me not telling them that little fact before they turned to disappointment and said, "Now we'll never know your name."

I smirked, pulled out a piece of paper that I had written an hour ago, put it on the table and said, "My name is Lucas." I walked away smirking, knowing that the girls would find my phone number on it and sure enough the girls screamed in joy behind me.

Hope you like this chapter of Kindred Spirits. Stay tuned for the next chapter.