AN: here comes chapter 3, hope you like
"Let's do my house today," Simon said outside school the next day. The sky was gray, the air humid, and heavy droplets of rain came down around us.
"I've got some stuff to do," I replied.
"What? But this is, like, a tradition!"
"Ben…" Gina said gravely—now with us after skipping yesterday. She wouldn't even be here now if she hadn't escaped her after-school detention by claiming to be an insomniac. "…Simon's right." John snorted, and Gina glared at him. "Well, it is tradition, just like my sleeping all the time unless I've had caffeine. Besides, Ben, what are you doing that Simon can't join you?"
"I've got some stuff to do, and I want to do it alone," I repeated. "I want to do it myself."
"By your…" Gina raised her eyebrows and gave a slight laugh. "Sounds like you found your big boy pants while I was gone."
"Can't you stop fighting?" John suggested. The bus he usually got on wasn't coming for another five minutes so he wasn't going to end up running like hell today.
"Nooo, because this is the biggest fucking thing of this year!" Simon yelled.
John opened his mouth to say something again. I took the opportunity to run away from them knowing that they were gonna start a fuckin' fight. I heard their protests behind me, but none of them went after me. I kept running, and didn't stop until I came across a secluded park.
I tried to sense my friends, as I seemed to sense everything else.
They were still in the school yard, except for John, who was now…ah, getting on the bus. I smiled.
Now I just had to sense for Cole.
I had started leafing through the tome this morning before school; yesterday I'd been too tired to do anything.
It was all crazy. My life was just as weird as it could possibly be.
The grass was wet, so instead of sitting down like I wanted to, I merely leaned against the tree and concentrated. I sensed for Cole, and felt him in the rich, leachy side of town. I concentrated and transported myself there.
When I felt solid ground beneath my feet, I opened my eyes to see flames, dancing in front of my eyes. It made me stagger and fall on my ass, yet again.
"Fuck," I muttered. I was in some sort of penthouse, an expensive one and Cole was working on the computer, looking at me curiously out the corner of his eye as he his fingers popped along the keyboard.
I imagined how much fun it would be to put him on fire just to see what he'd do.
"Don't you have school?" he asked. I got up, my stomach still hurting like a bitch from yesterday.
"No," I retorted. "It's over."
"Then what are you doing here?"
There was annoyance in his tone, like he only wondered what I was doing here because he didn't want me here.
"I want you to tell me stuff about this whole magic thing instead of giving me the whole fuckin' bible about demons, gossip, how to get someone in bed, how to kill witches…etc."
"So you've looked through it then. Have you got it with you?"
"Yeah, I do," I replied.
He nodded. "What do you want to know?"
"How did I get here? I know how I did, but how could I? And how did I kill those demons last night? Magic doesn't exist."
"Yes, it does, you flamed here, though I saw you shimmering yesterday. You killed those demons last night by 'freezing' them, something you do instinctively when you're afraid." His voice took on a snobbish tone. "You also threw fireballs, something that you probably need to learn the theory behind considering they were so puny."
I still stood there, so he brought a couch from thin air and I sat down.
"Flaming and shimmering are means of transportation, right?" I asked.
"For demons, yes," he replied. "It's in the book somewhere, all you have to do is to read."
He smirked a bit, as if there was some sort of inside joke replaying in his head that I wasn't aware of. How fuckin' irritating can you be? One of the lamps on his desk blew up. Cole just sighed; this was so fuckin' normal that nobody raised an eyebrow.
I took the tome from my bag and started leafing through it, wishing it had some sort of index in the back.
I finally found a page that said 'Shimmering' with one of those weird letters that are nearly impossible to decipher.
Shimmering is a mean of transportation (common) among demons.
To be able to shimmer you concentrate on the spot where you want to go and if you're powerful you will be able to do it, if you're scum, you will not be able to do it.
(Think of it like a automobile coming at you and you have to get away, or that the Source of all Evil will assassinate you [or give you an athame and wait until you understand what he wants you to do].)
To be able to shimmer is to be able to do anything.
There were also some pictures of what could potentially go wrong, like one's body becoming completely transparent.
"This thing sucks."
"It's a grimoire, and the Shimmering text is a bit lacking," he said. I frowned bitterly and his laptop burst into flames.
Cole seemed surprised, but annoyed more than anything. He waved his hand and the fire stopped, then disappeared. His laptop was completely unblemished, as if it hadn't been touched.
"You suck," I tell him. "I need help with this, not some rascist text about shimmering. If you knew the text was gonna be vague, why'd you make me find it in the first place? Just explain to me how to do Shimmering."
He quirked an eyebrow. "Fine. How did you do it yesterday?"
"I concentrated on a spot and went there," I said.
He nodded. "It's easier when you're pumped full of adrenaline. How did you do it today?"
"I…ah, concentrated," I said. "Again."
"Then you know how to do it. You have done it. Why do you need help?"
"Eh..."
He smirked.
"But what's the difference between shimmering and flaming?"
"It looks different. And you should know that while shimmering is common, flaming isn't. I recommend you concentrate more on fire balls and less on transportation, because there's not much in that grimoire about transportation that you haven't already understood."
I rolled my eyes. "But I want to learn the theory behind it."
"It's simple. Concentrate."
"Well, that's what you say," I mumble.
"As did you."
"Fire balls," I said, firmly changing the subject. I leafed through the book until I finally found a page with 'Fire Balls' written across the top.
Usually thrown around by powerful demons, such as our clan.
Fire balls come in different shapes and strength.
The most powerful fire balls are thrown by the Source of all Evil.
To create a fireball you direct your 'emotions' into your hand, like creating a gateway for your 'emotions'.
"So I just 'direct' my emotions into my hand?" I asked Cole.
"Obviously," he drawled.
I held out my hand in front of me, palm up as I intentionally faced Cole. I 'directed' my 'emotions' into it. It worked, but not in the intended way; Cole reacted quickly, stopping the line of fire before it hit him, and that was the issue.
What continued spouting out of my hand was not a ball of fire, it was a line. And the fire was blue. It looked almost like a large blue laser had shot out of my hand, something that I knew wasn't supposed to happen.
"Can you stop that, Ben?" Cole asked annoyed.
"You always stop the stupid fire before it can do any fuckin' damage!"
Yet another lamp exploded.
Cole took a deep breath...then a few more.
"You need to learn to control your temper, otherwise you might blow up your friends, or even your house."
"Of course I wouldn't do that. You're stupid. How do I do this?" I asked, wanting to get on with the magic.
"But it could happen, fool boy, even if you don't mean for it to. Don't just think about fire, Ben, think about the shape you want it to take." He gestured toward the wall in front of him. "Aim for the wall."
I did the same motion that I would do if I'd throw a ball in gym.
It didn't work.
"More like back and forth," Cole suggested.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
He stood up, his right arm bent at the elbow as he moved his fist backwards then forward quickly and a ball of energy (energy ball?) shot forward and hit the wall.
Smoke now wafted up from a perfectly round burn mark in the wood.
"Maybe we should go somewhere else to practice," I suggested. "I might burn the building down."
"I have to work. You can go somewhere else by yourself." His lips curled into an amused smirk. "Ah, and try not to kill anyone when you do."
"Not funny," I muttered, putting the tome back in my bag. I didn't look back at Cole as I began to concentrate on shimmering back to my room.
As soon as I arrived I lost my footing and fell backwards onto my bed. The tome in my bag pressed into my back, hurting it slightly.
"Fuck," I said. I realized was going to have to enter through the door, instead of just shimmering into my room and falling onto the bed.
This is so fuckin' stupid!
An aching sensation comes into my head and I feel a migraine creeping up on me. I thought those had disappeared.
I dropped the bag onto the floor with a thump then shimmered outside. I walked through the front door and right upstairs to my room. I'm not noticed because Grandpa caused some explosion or something in the kitchen. Or it might have been caused by me. Who knows?
I take an aspirin and swallow it with a glass of water.
A girl of six, seven, eight huddles in a corner as a woman who look like her falls, a knife stuck in her gut.
The image in my head had hit me so hard and unexpectedly that I nearly fell over.
What the fuck?
Was that a premonition?
…I don't want to have premonitions.
I got on the internet, intent on finding out the side-effects to eating too many aspirins. The site I found told me that the consumption of too many pain relievers can cause stomachaches, nausea, heartburn or even vomiting. Dizziness and ringing in the ears are less common symptoms. Of everything that came up, I found nothing about hallucinations.