Demons and Magic

PROLOGUE

The night was cold. Lights flickered past the broken shards of what was once a window pane as a guy, holding a boomerang in one hand, nearly ran over Nathan as he hurried out the front door, pulsing bass thrumming in the air.

His head was aching and this party was clearly not helping. In the past three hours since his ‘birthday party’ had officially started, he had to break out two fights, one drunken accident, and even keep someone from diving off of the roof of his best friend’s house and into the pool.

He was grateful for all this, really. The cake was delicious.

But apart from what Jackson’s mom had baked, all of this didn’t seem to match up to what Nathan had initially imagined his eighteenth birthday would be like. He almost couldn’t believe he took a day off work just so he gets to trip on discarded plastic cups every ten seconds.

“Aye, wassup, birthday boy?” Warren Castillo, the captain of the basketball team, jeered and slapped him hard on the back, laughing as he made an awkward greeting back at him that only went half-heard.

Sometimes, he couldn’t tell if this really was ‘his’ party just like Jackson had told him or if he was just an excuse to wreck his house.

Either way, this party was a mess.

He navigated himself around the crowd, his phone pressed tight against his right ear as he scrambled to escape the bustle of drunken teenagers who probably hasn’t even reached the legal drinking age, yet. He heard that about a hundred people turned up and hours later, the air was already thick with the smell of liquor and smoke.

He can’t believe that Mrs. Reid actually let Jackson have this party. This is already getting ridiculous.

“Hello?” he said over the phone as soon as the door closed behind him, his denim jacket slung over one shoulder. “Are you still there?”

“Nathan? Are you in a party?” The familiar voice of his mother came on and he cleared his throat, glancing around at the trashed backyard, slightly feeling sorry for the people who would be cleaning it up the next morning.

The lawn was filled with beer cans and piles of pissed on burnt wood, the deck chairs occupied by couples making out. Someone had also puked on the pool, and he wasn’t exactly sure, but he thinks there was a sock floating around, too.

At least he hoped it was a sock.

“Yeah, mom,” he answered, his voice sounding a little hoarse from shouting at people. “It was Jackson. He threw a party. Thought I’d help in.”

There was an audible scuffling noise from the other line, a hushed conversation, and a tearing of a paper before his mother’s voice came on once again.

“Well, it’s getting late. You need to be up early tomorrow or you’ll miss your exams. Did you already study for it?”

“Yeah, I did, ma. I’ll go home in thirty minutes, I promise.”

“Don’t forget to pay last month’s rent, Nathan. I wouldn’t want Mrs. Pratchett to think ill of you.”

Walking back inside the hall packed with people laughing and yelling at each other over the loud noise, he decided to go and find Jackson to tell him that he was leaving.

When he got on the second floor however, he was pulled by the arm towards one of the more empty rooms, the door clicking lock behind him.

The acrid mixture of scented candles and stale pizza that filled the air was the first to catch his attention. There were about twelve other people inside the room, each one seated on the hardwood floor forming a rather misshapen circle.

“Aye, dude! Where have you been?” Jackson asked as soon as Nathan was forced to sit across him, his oddly-colored hair vibrant against the candlelights. “I’ve been looking for you.”

Nathan wasn’t paying attention to him though as his eyes examined the strange picture drawn on the floor with a piece of chalk. It was something he had only seen on horror films and closely depicted those shady images on the back of tarots.

“What is that?” he finally asked, pointing at an awkwardly drawn head of a goat in the center of a pentagram.

“That, my friend, is the Baphomet symbol. We’re going to do a summoning ritual,” Jackson said casually as though he was just explaining why his hair has gone alarmingly green. “And since you’re the last one to sit inside the circle, you should do the honors of offering your blood.”

In an instant, Nathan’s head snapped to his direction, his face distorted in an incredulous stare. “What?”

“Hey, I don’t make the rules.” Jackson chuckled and tossed a small blade his way. “Just a little blood. It won’t kill ya.”

“No,” he answered before they could even protest and was about to stand up to leave when the girl beside him pulled him back to sit on the floor.

“Come on, Nathan. It’s just for fun. You’re not scared that demons would actually come out, are you?” the brunette sneered, her lips stretching in a taunting smirk as they all gave him a challenging gaze. “It’s just one drop. Go on.”

Nathan drew in a sharp breath and sighed, his eyes darting across the circle towards his best friend who was only grinning stupidly at him.

“If you don’t believe something will come out, then what’s the point of this?” he shot, but the girl only shrugged.

“That’s why it’s called fun, genius. You don’t have to have a reason to have fun.”