There was a lot of weird energy in the spiritual world. As a result, I barely slept again. I'm heavily considering signing the house back over to my mom. It would save me some grief. I've had to deal with this for a couple of years now, but it seems to be getting worse lately--especially when I’m asleep. I wake up to my alarm and my head screams at me that I need more sleep. It’s pounding. My eyes are too heavy to open, but when I finally manage the herculean task, they have that lazy muscle feeling. Sitting up, I rub my face and neck. My body is sore. I reach for the t-shirt and shorts I set aside. I stumble and hop around the room to wrestle the shorts on. Then I realize I have to relieve myself and just let them fall back to the floor before I even bother buttoning them. I want to cancel today.

Why do I keep putting off getting groceries? I ask myself when I finally make it downstairs. I'm looking, yet again, through an empty fridge. I suppose I'm not doing it on purpose. It's been an interesting few days. Right now, though, I need to just pick something up to eat before I have to endure work. The morning workers at the drive-thru on the corner are going to start recognizing my face.

There’s not a lot going on when I make it to the bookstore. It’s a slow business day, but after what I’ve been through lately, I’m not at my most personable. I'm anxious and agitated. I keep looking at the clock, hoping it'll be time to go soon. It was a mistake to wait until today to go. As I muddle through my shift, coworkers ask if I'm okay. I just kind of grunt. They seem to get it. I'm putting some books away when I feel someone behind me. I should probably turn around but, like I said, I’m not in a very ‘customer service’ mood at the moment.

“Can I help you find something?” I ask, still concentrating on what I am doing.

“Possibly,” a deep voice responds, “Do you have any books on necromancy?”

I snort a little louder than I should. “If we do, they'll be in the spells and supernatural section.”

“Hmm, okay,” he says. “What about dark auras?”

“In what respect?”

“Much like yours, mongrel.”

The hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention, and I whip around. The way it's spoken made me think it's the incubus again. Luckily, it isn't. The wisps in the air tell me it was a spirit and the books pelting me in the back tell me it was an asshole. I turn back around and sigh. The shelves I've been organizing are all emptied of their books, and there is now a giant mess on the floor. I get to work picking them up, grumbling angrily while I do. Anna walks up when I'm almost done. “Hey, Mike!” she says, which is her normal greeting. It's good to hear, but she gets the same response my other coworkers get: A grunt. She caught me kneeling as I'm putting a couple of things back on the bottom rows of shelves. In my periphery, I see her look down at the books that remain on the floor, then she looks at me.

“You don't look so well. Are you okay?” she asks. Her eyes are squinted and her mouth is in a half frown. She looks genuinely concerned. “I would feel awful if you got what I had after helping me through it.”

I actually snort at this. “Yeah, I don't think so,” I say.

She tilts her head to the side. “What, do you have, like, superhuman immunities or something?” She says, rolling her eyes. She means it as a joke, but it's not far from the truth. I haven't had a cold in years. It takes a particularly resilient strain to get me sick. And even then, they burn through pretty quickly, never around for more than a day or two. It's not like a fever is something for me to worry about.

“Something like that,” I say. I don't think there will be an incubus trying to seduce me anytime soon. It would be pointless. A benefit of being half demon is that we're immune to most magic like that. Not magic in general, but abilities like hypnotism and seduction, abilities that twist the mind and take away people’s will. If demons could perform that magic on each other, the hierarchy would be more chaotic than it already is.

Anna smiles and shakes her head, letting out a short laugh. “Guys. You’re all the same. All of you are Superman.”

I look back down at my task. “Super-something,” I respond, finishing shelving and standing up to look at her. She looks much better today now that I'm seeing her from my usual vantage point. The last time I saw her, she was pale as a ghost and sweating buckets. Her hair was matted to her head and her eyes couldn't focus. Now, her color is normal, and she is perhaps even more red in her cheeks than normal. Kai's “tea” really did the trick.

“I wanted to say thank you for taking me home and making sure I was settled. It was a very kind gesture.”

I lean past her and grab another stack of books that can be shelved near me. “No problem,” I say. “You needed help, and I was there.”

She looks at her hands and fidgets. I can tell she wants to say something, but I'm not going to press it. It may be insensitive, but I don't have time for this. My shift is almost over and I’ve got a lot to do after. I start shelving the stack in my hand, trying to finish so I can leave right when I'm off. I turn to her after placing the last book.

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“Well,” she starts. But I interrupt.

“All that matters is that you're feeling better,” I say, and clean up the area that I was working in. “I gotta go, I got some errands to run. I'll see ya tomorrow?”

“Yeah, I'll be here.” She nods. Her face brightens up and I can see the tension leaving as she relaxes a little. I know what was going on. She felt like she owed me something. But in actuality, I owe her. That whole thing happened because of me. She wouldn't have been a target, at least not by that guy, if it wasn't for me. I can understand how she feels indebted, not knowing that it was my fault. But even so, I wouldn't accept anything. She walks away with a bounce back in her step. Hopefully, me playing it off as another day made her feel better, but I can't dwell on it. Right now, I've gotta go see a man about a knife.

My brakes give out a high pitched squeak slightly as I creep up to the local wizard guild house a short time later. I feel uneasy even being near this place. The practitioners within are not street or Vegas performers. They are real, honest to God, Wizards. The kind that you read about in fantasy novels. And they are, for the most part, a ‘suffer no demons’ crowd. Magic has always fascinated me. It's an art form, no matter what it's used for. Black, white, red or whatever, it's summoning energy from nowhere and everywhere and using it for what you desire. Humans have been the most adept at harnessing it. Probably because they have no choice, nothing else to fall back on. If you don't have magic, you're just human. That makes you much more susceptible to beings born or made with magic. I learned a few things when I was younger. I can do some things, but they're mostly parlor tricks. Things you'd show a kid. There are those in the city that know more than me.

Those would be novices.

I'm below them.

But those inducted into the guild are in a different category all together. I step out of my car and feel the energies surrounding the building. If I were to walk up without being invited, I would be walking away with missing limbs or not walking away at all. The wards and spells woven into and surrounding the building are very powerful, and I can almost see the ebb and flow of it all. The closer I get, the more the hairs on my arms stand on end, like there's crazy static in the air. I stop at the edge of the pathway leading to the doors, as I was instructed when I called on the way here. The voice on the other end was distorted in a way that made it sound like the phone they were using was very old. I once heard the first recorded voice at the Smithsonian; there was so much background noise and static that you could barely tell a human voice was speaking. This voice was only slightly less distorted than that one. Ultimately, the only word I understood was “stay.” So here I stand.

And stand.

And stand.

After about twenty minutes of me just standing here, pacing, considering if I’ve been brushed off and thinking about leaving, the wards part like a curtain and the doors finally open. A small, limping figure shambles out of the large double doors. The figure’s movements are arthritic, causing the cloak it’s wearing to shake. The figure hobbles toward me and stops about two yards away, raising a shriveled and liver spotted hand, pointing at me. Its pale white, bony fingers are tipped in yellowing, claw-like fingernails.

“Who are you?” comes a raspy, shaking voice. It sounds like they’re drunk and on the verge of coughing up dust.

“Is this a test?” I ask. “Are you going to ask me my quest and my favorite color too?” I should probably keep a lid on my sarcasm, but stress really brings it out of me.

“Do you not wish us to aid you, demon. Hm?”

That gives me pause. I don't like people calling me that. Especially when I didn't tell them. I decide now is not the time for snark, so I try a more subservient path. I bow regally, as is the custom in dealings between species of power.

“I am Mikael Balthazar.” Yes, that is really my last name. One an Angel, the other a wise man. I'm neither, and I'm okay with it.

The wizard's withered hand pulls back the hood, and with it goes the illusion. There is now a woman who appears to be in her late 50s standing before me. She has a hard expression on her face, and crows feet are starting to show at the corners of her eyes. Whether those are from laughing, smiling, or giving the withering glare I’m getting now, I can’t be sure. The robes she's wearing have changed to a more ornate set, inlaid with jewels and gold thread accents. They obscure every bit of her except her head and hands, which also are no longer the old spotty things they just were. Her skin has changed from pale to a very dark bronze and it seems a natural skin tone–no fake bake here. It’s close to mine, but I assume we’re not from the same circles. Her hair is dark too, but she has a few grays here and there. Her posture is nearly perfect and she seems to command respect.

“Greetings, Mikael,” she says, returning the bow. “I am Olvira. I am one of the Archwizards of this guild. You sought us out to perform a scrying spell, yes?” The raspy voice is replaced by a mature, authoritative one. She has an accent that sounds like a mixture of middle-eastern and British and I've decided I'm not even going to try to place it.

“That is my intention, yes,” I say, keeping my hands at my sides. I know they will be at least a little distrustful of me. They’re fairly distrustful of anyone not initiated.

“Do you have an item owned by the intended target?”

“Yes, I do. I will grab it from my pocket. Is that okay?” I ask.

“Of course.” She inclines her head.

There's a slight smile curling on the edge of her lips. She must like how formal I'm being. That's good, because it doesn’t come naturally to me, this is hard. I reach into my coat pocket and grasp the knife. I try pulling it out slowly, I use my index finger and thumb to hold it non-threateningly but it gets stuck. My eyes flick up to her and I give a weak smile as I start tugging harder. I grasp the hilt fully and pull and it rips free as I brandish the blade. As soon as she sees what it is, her lips pull away from her teeth in a snarl. It was an instinctive reaction, and it startles me. With a few quick words and a gesture of her hands I’m knocked on my ass. I drop the knife and it lands in the dirt near me, blade down while she stands over me, ready to attack.

“Is this a threat, demon?”