Black Magic - Chapter One: Sometimes I Hate This City
Chapter 1: Sometimes I Hate This City
A man on the street carrying a box full of lollipops asked me to donate a dollar to his foundation, a charity for children with terminal diseases. I scowled and asked him who's life my one dollar would save, but then he started yelling at me and making a big scene in broad daylight. I just laughed at him and walked away, ignoring the unending cursing and threats that followed in pursuit. He was wearing two different shoes and had beer on his breath, but the real giveaway, the real deal breaker, was the fact that the bum was doing this little scam of his right out in front of a liquor store. I really hate it when people try to manipulate your emotions like that, all for a little extra money. Somewhere, someplace, right now, there's a kid dying from an incurable disease, and I often wonder what that kid would think if he knew that his fragile life helped get a hopeless, degenerate wino another bottle of booze. Pisses me off...
In stark contrast to the first, previously mentioned bastard, I saw another homeless man panhandling for spare change just a little further down the street. He told me the truth, the simple truth, and only asked for enough money to buy himself another pack of cigarettes. Sympathetic towards an honest man in need of his crutch, one who didn't lie about his fix, I tossed him five single bills and continued walking. As I threw back a second glance, to see if my charity was appreciated, I noticed something rather interesting. The man had yet to take my five bucks up off of the sidewalk and continued begging, pleading to every person that happened to stroll on by. Though the sight of hasty city pedestrians ignoring a bum's pleas strikes me as no great surprise, it's to be expected actually, nobody even shot him an aggravated glare. Nobody saw him. Nobody heard him. It isn't that they didn't care, more that they COULD'T. I turned around and returned to where I had dropped my five dollars, picked them up, dusted them off, and offered them to him directly. He looked up at me with a warm smile and tried to accept my generosity, but when his hand met the money, it became transparent and passed right through. Briefly baffled, I tried to hand him the five singles again, and again to no avail. This man was a ghost, a lingering phantom seeking whatever may have eluded him in life. Perhaps he'd died penniless and destitute, alone and unable to fend for himself, or maybe just he died without a smoke stuck between his chapped lips and simply wanted another hit of nicotine before he was whisked away to Shangri-La. But in death, the story itself rarely matters; only the end result. He was dead, very dead, and my five dollars weren't going to change that. So, in understanding, he pulled his hand back and scratched his unshaven chin, still smiling, and proceeded to slowly vanish. After a few moments, he was gone completely.
My name is Dominic Michael Christopher and here in my humble home, Twilight City, California, the massive metropolis just north of San Fran, these are the kinds of sights and sounds that I've grown used to dealing with each and every day. Excluding myself, it isn't very often that anyone takes notice of the many paranormal happenings that plague this place; and by many, I of course mean MANY with a capitol everything. I can bare witness to all sorts of weird things because of a gift I have, or curse depending on how you look at it, called 'The Sight'. Though more commonly known as the sixth sense, it's a peculiar little talent that allows me to see what would normally be invisible to skewed and skeptical human eyes. I can see it all, every little supernatural detail, and I'd be an amazing liar if I tried to say that it didn't take its toll on my sanity sometimes. I'm only 17 years old, probably one of the only people in this city, state maybe, that can use the innate power of The Sight to deal with and even help quell some of the craziness that bubbles up through the cracks and sewn seams that connect our world and the spiritual world. Ha ha, or maybe I should say spiritual worlds; unless you want to get caught off guard and with your panties down, the key is to pluralize the word 'world'.
I first became aware of my own potential about 10 years ago when I was confronted by my very first ghost. His name was Dante, or at least that was the name he was willing to give me. He didn't look like much, especially not in the terrifying kind of way one would expect from a shade of his age, some 300 years or more. He was perhaps only a child when he died; small, with a thin face covered in black matted hair, and a child-sized black business suit as well. This appearance struck me as rather innocent, though I would later learn that he could change his form and clothing at will, as he saw fit. I would have ran away immediately had it been something frightening to appear before me in a flash, but I was fortunate enough to find Dante. I distinctly remember suddenly spotting his jade eyes, glowing brightly in the darkness of the library he haunted.
He reacted in shock as I spoke to him, having gone ignored and unnoticed by most, and waited a long while before trying to reply. It had apparently been several decades since his last contact with another living human, but once the conversation got started, it didn't stop for a long, long time. Dante might have actually been my first friend, though I was too young to really remember many other friends before then, and that friendship maintained throughout the years to follow. We even made an oath, a pact of brotherhood, and as lucky as I was to have a brother like him, intangible and centuries wise, I still had no clue at that point as to the powers he possessed. As it turned out, Dante was a warlock's apprentice during the days before he had died, and during the many years that followed his death, he passed through a thousand walls, scoured the land, and memorized every little tidbit of magical knowledge that he could find. This obsession with the mystical and the supernatural transformed him into the world's biggest, most expansive repository of arcane information anywhere. On top of that, Dante had absolutely no problem at all with passing on his amassed knowledge to me, creating a pet warlock's apprentice of his very own. In fact, he once told me that magic, it's power, came from the depths of the practitioner's soul, and that possession of The Sight was a strong indication of a very strong soul. Hell, he even claimed that an 'unpolished gem' such as myself would have been a sad and sorry waste if left untrained in the arts of sorcery, unaware of my own potential. It wasn't as though he forced the training on me, but I certainly couldn't have said no, that's for certain. What else could I do, huh? I was getting lectured by a ghost, so why not go as far as to believe in the existence of wizards, magic, et cetera, et cetera.
So, here I am now, the most famous spellcaster in Twilight City's magical underground, and every bit a year short of the purchasing age for cigarettes. I wouldn't ever openly admit to be as such in public, that would both humiliate me and put a target on my forehead, but I challenge you to name even a single breed of fiend or monster that I haven't tried to fend off with an enchanted baseball bat. Yeah, it can get a bit complicated at times, but I try reasonably hard and usually get rewarded well for my efforts. Some rewards come in the form of money, which is a reward that I'll always more than happily accept, while others come in the form of tribal harpy girls named Kala, which I'll also accept with a smile. And considering how GREAT feathered wings feel when clutching your sweaty back while on your way to third base, that smile may or may not be somewhat animalistic.
It occurs to me that I might have over-explained that one and made some a bit uncomfortable... and I almost care.
But before I get too carried away with my secret life and its various stipulations, I should finish up on my ordinary life, as boring and uninteresting as it is. I'm a sophomore at West Central High School, one of those generic, cookie-cutter schools long forgotten about by the government responsible for funding them. I tend to get stamped with the 'unsavory delinquent' label by most of the staff seeing as how I'm always sleeping in class or ignoring instructions. I've been in a few fights as well, more than a single digit can amount for at least, but who's really keeping score anyway? Besides, I'm not the kind of person that can stand by and simply watch someone weak get bullied and pushed around by someone who doesn't even deserve to be strong. Sadly, around here, and most schools for that matter, it's a bit of a common occurrence. Yep, high school, also known as 'the sociopath factory'.
As far as my home is concerned, I've lived in this city my entire life; in a small house right on the edge of the poorest district, a primarily Japanese community lovingly dubbed 'The Beast Pit'. My father, Gregory Adams Christopher, works as an English teacher at a small Japanese school. My mother, on the other hand, died before I even had a decent shot at remembering her. Sadly, though I don't have much memory of her, the same can't be said for my Dad, who took it, as would be expected, pretty damn hard. He threw himself into his work in order to get his mind off of her; going into private tutoring, raising money for extracurricular functions, and even teaching night school as well. He can be an idiot sometimes, always trying to do more than one man can do in a single day, but he actually cares about the kids he teaches, so I guess I can't be too upset with him. If I recall correctly, I actually resented and despised him when I was a little brat because I wanted to move away from this town, but just look at me now. My Japanese has gotten pretty good, almost fluent in fact, and I've become a respected member of the local community. I've even attended the ceremonies at the local Buddhist temple a few times in the past, not to mention having enjoyed some special alone time in the archery fields behind the shrine. I don't know why, but practicing archery is like my crack cocaine, heroine, and angel dust all rolled into one big ball of joy.
Finally, last but not least, I should mention my insane stepsister, a Chinese-American psychopath named Rebecca Lianne Christopher. Adopted at the behest of my mother, Rebecca, otherwise known as Beck, has been in the family since before I could remember. Older than me by a year and a half, she's my elder sister to boot. Fiery, flowing red hair, viridian green eyes, and adorable freckles are her most striking features, leading most to believe that she is actually descended from a stereotypical Irish family from Dublin. This always aggravates her to no end, and believe me when I say that aggravating Beck is a bad, bad, bad idea. The reason for this is simple. As impossible as it may sound, Beck just so happens to be a martial arts practitioner, an expert if you were to ask me, and has won her fair share of medals and trophies to prove it. She took the silver medal at the regional aikido tournament and took the gold at the state karate championship. Hell, to be brutally honest, Beck is a manlier man than me at times, and I'd be lying again if I said that I didn't call on her for assistance every so often. Don't look at me like that, okay? My line of work might be somewhat dangerous, but you'd be amazed at the kind of pain she can inflict, even on a magical or spiritual creature, vampires included.
So, all in all, that's pretty much my life. Take it or leave it, absorb it however you will, just don't try to deny it or refute it. I have to admit, though sometimes I hate this city, all the magical nonsense and teenage drama, I would have never known friends, family, and neighbors like these had I resided anywhere else... But damn, I should have left a long time ago...