Chapter 1

People stopped believing in magic and fairies when they started living in cities instead of houses near the woods. It was as if the stone walls, the skyscrapers and border posts were enough to shield them from the supernatural evil that lives in the forest under the cloak of darkness. People fooled themselves into thinking that the urbanization of the world caused all forms of magic to die. Maybe some of it did since who would choose to spend a life's worth of apprenticeship only to learn a few tricks that could be done in a few seconds by a man-made machine? 

But there's a distinct form of magic that, contrary to popular belief, still continues to live: evil magic. Only fools believe that evil has an end. And like the people, it migrated from the woods to the urbanized cities. It lurks in every corner, every dark alleyway, every single space where people are alone with their thoughts and their fallible hearts. Evil lurks in places that could never cultivate love and happiness. 

Cali spends most of her days in these dark and cold crevices of the world, not because she wants to but she has to. It's her lifeline. The same way she has to get to class early in the morning, on the hottest day on record since spring began. Summer is not due to start in less than 2 months and already the people in Alleford city could feel its scorching temper. 

The wind felt like the smoke coming out of the oven when you take out a batch of freshly baked cookies, only this time it wasn't accompanied by a delicious smell, only the pungent polluted air of the city as Cali stepped off the bus. As she walked the last block to campus, she contemplated on whether she should just skip the class entirely and spend the rest of the day in the cafe across the street, whose air conditioning unit has been broken for the past couple of months and since the owner was too cheap to have it fixed, it's always too hot or too cold. 

Glancing at its glass windows, she saw that the baristas and waitresses were wearing sweaters inside as if it's a cold fall morning and not a blazing hot taste of summer day. She was about to cross the street, fueled by heat and the desire to feel the cool wind of a broken air conditioning unit, when a woman walking her golden retriever passed in front of the cafe and suddenly, she's back to the events of the previous night. 

A darkened room with white walls lined with golden frames that looked like rusting pipes in the moonlight. A broken chandelier on the floor, crimson liquid flowing from underneath. A golden retriever trying to pull something from the carnage, its paws stained with the liquid on the floor. 

A distant sound of a car horn ringing brought Cali back to reality. She turned around and headed straight to campus. She had to go to class because within those walls she's only a social science student, not the person she was the night before. She has to go. It's her lifeline. 

When all her classes ended by afternoon, Cali was glad that she didn't skip any of it. She was no one but a student for a day. She felt like she could finally breathe again. While her friends were gathered in the library, she headed straight to her other role that makes her forget the darkness that resides within her. 

Professor Aspen was sitting in his small desk by the window of his office crammed with books. The 60-year-old linguist and English literature professor had been Cali's boss since sophomore year as a student assistant. She would spend her after class hours on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays in his cramped office, sitting on the small corner of his old leather couch filled with books and documents with her laptop propped on her lap. That's five hours searching the web for articles on the paper he's writing while he sits on his desk reading a first edition Dickens or Nietszche. 

She offered to organize his books and help install a new shelf in the office so there would be more seating room and walking space but Professor Aspen sharply declined, saying he has a system and any form of disruption to it would mean chaos in his mind. Chaos that he couldn't afford now that he's in the "precipice" of his work that would be his legacy, the mark that he would leave this world. 

Cali read his initial draft and she had to bite her tongue to stop herself from telling him that it would end up in a marked down cart a year after its publication and sold in a secondhand bookstore after two. For all the darkness and depravity in her heart, she couldn't bring herself to be cruel to an innocent man. 

When she arrived at his office, it was more cramped with books than last Wednesday. She glanced at her designated space in the couch and it had gotten smaller, it was as if someone measured her body and perfectly allotted a space for her, like a piece in a toy block tower. 

"Good afternoon, Professor Aspen." She greeted the old man who's sitting cross legged on his leather swivel chair with a first edition book on his wrinkling hand. She turned her eye to the spine of the book and saw the name Dickens which means he's in a good mood. Any works of Nietszche or Sartre means he's invigorated about something or someone. 

"A pleasant afternoon to you as well, Calypso." He greeted as he met her gaze on his half moon spectacles. She hated how he always used her first name to address despite her multiple attempts to get him to call her "Cali". A part of her thinks that it's one of the reasons he took her in as his assistant, since not a lot of people use Calypso to name their child. Who in their right mind would name their child after a woman who was cursed to spend hundreds of years stuck in an island, hopelessly falling in love with any man who gets washed up on her shore, only to have her heart broken when they leave and never come back as they promised? No one. Except her parents, of course. 

"Have you finished going through the articles I sent you?" Cali had to clench her fingers in a tight fist to control her frustration at the old man. The articles he was referring to were four articles with more than twenty pages that he had sent the night before. How he had expected her to have thoroughly gone through them over that short span of time while still keeping up with her studies is beyond her. 

"I am almost done with them, professor." 

He grunted a reply while giving her a long disgruntled look before returning to his book. If this happened during night time, she would've crossed their distance within four seconds and gouged his eyes out with that letter opener on his desk that has a handle shaped like a mockingbird. But, alas, it is daytime so all she can do is lower her head and take her spot on that cramped couch. 

To her friends, Cali needed the money to stay in school but with her five grand monthly allowance from the Legion, she could pay herself the money the old professor is giving her with more to spare and she wouldn't have to sit uncomfortably in that crammed couch looking for source articles online for five hours a day. What she really needed is access to his rare books collection in his estate on the outskirts of the city. 

The professor is old money rich and like most of his kind, his career is only a hobby for him. He teaches in this university and works on his manuscript for, in his own words, "the joie de vivre" and to leave a legacy behind. Cali thinks he's just a bored old man who has too much time and money in his hands before death claims him. Such boredom had made him fond of what he liked to call 'the extraordinary', but are really just nuanced mundane lives of others. Still to her credit, his eccentricity had led him to choose her, a social science student who simply likes to read, to be his student assistant amongst all the other lit major students in the campus. 

For the next three hours, Cali worked on the articles Professor Aspen had given her to write a summary about which he would read sometime during the weekend and determine if they're fit for his work. An hour before her shift for the day ends, the professor looked up from his book and asked her to get them coffee at his favorite cafe near the edge of the campus. 

Walking down the deserted hallway of the English department, Cali felt like a ghost haunting a castle. The gothic buildings of the campus assumed its phantom-like persona, as if it's an infrastructure right out of a Mary Shelley's novel. Twilight had long been gone and without a clock in hand, one could mistake the time to be midnight instead of early evening because of the dimmed hallway lights and how almost every faculty office was locked up, save for the ones who had student assistants working on some gigantic paperwork for an idle professor. Cali, with her long floral skirt, oversized white cardigan and loosened long dark brown hair, did look like a bereaved ghost haunting a darkened hallway. 

But as she stepped out of the building and into the school grounds, she looked like the type of person she had been imitating when she entered the university, a nerd who had the wardrobe of a 40 year old librarian. Her mind felt like a huge puddle of muddy water as she traversed the cobblestone walkway in her leather boots. Her eyes were tired from staring at her screen too long, her head heavy for being awake for almost forty hours and her limbs creaked like old machinery after sitting in a restrained hunched back position for a long time. All this on top of her sore arms after what she had to do the night before. But despite her body's complaints for her abuse of it, her heart was at least as tranquil as the lake water in autumn. Her mind was too busy trying to keep up with the pain her body was feeling and the intellectual cartwheels it had to go through to do her job as a student assistant that no thoughts were spared for the events of last night. 

Cali was ravishing herself in this tranquility when it was disrupted by a massive boulder as she entered the almost empty cafe. There sat at the only occupied table, the meteor that crashed into the tranquil lake in her heart, the man she had deemed to be her making and her ruin two years ago. He sat there like a force of nature, with his thick black hair swept back and wearing a dark collared shirt hugging his swimmer's body with its sleeves rolled to his elbow. He turned to the direction of the door when the bell announced her arrival and she saw his handsome features framed by thin rectangle eyeglasses which did nothing to mask the darkness in his eyes. A darkness that Cali had found herself being sucked into every time she finds herself before it. 

"Cali?" A high pitched voice disrupted her from her thoughts as a willowy figure materialized in front of her, like a woodland fairy flying towards a wanderer. But instead of a sparkly lace dress, she's wearing tight white jeans and a pastel pink top that accentuated her perfect figure. And like fairies in the forest, her long brown hair softly fluttered in the wind like they have a tacit understanding about her grand entrances. 

"Hi, Isme." Cali replied with a forced smile as she tried to calm her rapidly beating heart and regulate her breathing. After a full-blown episode of the circus shit show she calls her life for the past 40 hours, the last thing she needed was to see these two together. She didn't need that one last reminder of the normal life she could only dream but never have.

"What are you doing here? I thought you guys are pulling an all-nighter in the library for the midterms on Monday?"

"Nicole and the others are there. I didn't join them because I still had to get some work done for Professor Aspen." Cali answered, feeling her eyes wanting to glance at the man behind Isme to check if he's still looking but she reeled in her desires and forced herself to meet the gaze of the person in front of her.

"He's still asking you to work on exam week? I thought that's against the rules or something."

"Their department's exam week was postponed due to some issue with the faculty or something so technically he's not making me work during exams. Also, it's not really against the rules or anything."

"Really? They should've made that illegal!" Cali had to resort to digging her nails in her palm to stop her eyes from rolling in annoyance at Isme's pouty high-pitched tone. Hearing twenty year old girls talking like childish highschoolers always irks Cali to the point that she wants to punch them so hard on the throat that their vocal cords would shatter into pieces. 

"You should've applied for that scholarship like Peter did so you wouldn't have to work as a student assistant." She stopped to turn back at the man a couple of steps away from them. "Hey, Peter, come here, do you think you could help Cali apply for that scholarship?" 

Cali heard the scrape of the metal chair on the wooden floor of the cafe and she instantly felt her heart drop to her stomach. His footsteps echoed in her ears and try as she might to lower her head and not meet his gaze, the magnetic pull of his presence forced her to look up into those inky black pools beneath lenses. It was a small glance. The casual glance a person does when they're in a group conversation and the topic shifts to a particular individual in the circle. But that was all it took for her insides to burn and her knees to weaken like a lump of clay. A simple glance. A three second eye contact and all her sanity was out the window. 

He began to say something but she couldn't hear it. It was like being submerged underwater with her eyes wide open. She can see everything around her, the seabed, the corals, and the dark colossal figure heading her way but since she couldn't hear anything she had no way of knowing whether it's a sea monster or a massive ship. All she knew is that it was going to barge right through her to kill her. 

"—a quick application. Why didn't you apply?" Suddenly, she was pulled back on Earth when Isme directed a question to her. She didn't catch a word any of them said and quickly grappled for clues from her previous statement as to what she was referring to.

"Uhm— I...didn't qualify." 

"Seriously? But you've got better grades than Peter." 

 "I don't think it was about the grades." 

It was about the fact that she didn't actually apply. She didn't need financial assistance. And the only reason she was working for Professor Aspen was for his book collection which she couldn't really say out loud as it would risk her being seen as suspicious. 

"You should try to reapply, what that professor is doing to you is inhumane, making you work on exam week. You should get Peter to help you." 

"No, it's fine." Cali immediately said before the man beside Isme could speak. "Professor Aspen doesn't give me much work. I think I've studied more in his office than actually do work for him. He doesn't really need an assistant, he just likes helping a student out." 

In her years of doing her job in the night, Cali had become a professional weaver of stories and lies which means it only took those few words and a mask of a genuine face for Isme to believe her. 

"That's kind of him. So, you're really just studying there in his office right now?"

"Yeah, but don't tell anyone because the school administration knows I am currently working." 

"Of course, don't worry, Peter and I will not say a word about this." 

"Are you guys here to study?" 

"Yes, Peter's been helping me with Professor William's class. I could never keep up with his lectures, how about you?"

"A little bit, I guess?"

"Lucky you then! Did you know that Peter had to come over and stayed up all night with me the day before our finals in his class last term? It was the only reason I passed! So I told him that we have to do that again this coming Sunday because there's no way—" Isme's words were cut off by Cali's ringtone. Her mind was still reeling from the fact that Peter spent the night at Isme's house to study with her and that he's going to do it again this weekend, so she absentmindedly answered her phone. 

A man's voice. Then something about an important matter. But she knew she couldn't handle that in this situation so she said a quick "Can't-talk-right-now-call-you-later" to the caller before hanging up and facing Isme and Peter again. To her surprise, she was met with a bewildered Isme, eyes wide and mouth hanging open. Peter on the other hand was looking at her with an unreadable expression. No, he wasn't looking, he was staring. Like she's a mathematical anomaly or something. 

"I didn't know you could speak another language!" Isme excitedly said. 

"What are you talking about?" Cali chuckled nervously, trying to recall the phone conversation she just had. 

"Just now, you were speaking a different language. What? You didn't notice? That's amazing. Are you so used to it now? I've never heard you speak like that before."

She answered that call without thinking. Her mind was filled with thoughts of Peter and Isme in a candlelit bedroom, books sprawled forgotten on the floor as they stared longingly at each other, that she forgot to use her head when she answered the call. 

"What language was that? Italian? Spanish?"

"Elkmish."

Cali's neck almost snapped as she turned to Peter when he uttered that word. She searched his face for answers, but still, she saw the exact same unreadable expression he wore seconds ago. Her nightly excursions had given her sharp instincts when her safety and identity was in jeopardy and so before she could assess her surroundings and think of the best course of action, her predatory impulse took over. 

She grabbed his collar and pushed him against the brick wall of the cafe with so much force that the decorative lamp above it rattled in its post. Isme screamed from behind them and she heard the rustle of feet coming up from behind the counter, but she didn't care, her mind had locked in on a target. 

"Who are you?" She demanded with gritted teeth as she fully locked him in that position with her other hand. Finally, she saw a shift in his expression. It wasn't fear. 

Astonishment. 

"I should be asking you that question." He said, trying to break free from her grasp, but he couldn't overpower her despite his best efforts. 

"Cali, what are you doing let him go! Someone help us please! What are you doing just standing there?! Get her off him!" 

"Ma'am, you can't do that here. If you want to fight, please leave." The barista said from a couple of feet away, maintaining a safe distance from the raging customer. 

"How do you know Elkmish?" She said, tightening the grip on his collar to restrict his airflow. There it is…fear.

"I-I learned it…from…the…internet…" he stammered as his face started to turn red.

"Don't lie!" 

"You bitch! Let him go! Why are you doing this?!" 

"It—It was my...grandfather. H-He…studied…ancient…language." 

She stared into his eyes. Those two black orbs that had always reeled her in like a hooked fish in a line. Those eyes that made her feel like an apple on a tree being pulled by gravity towards the ground. Like her entire being is made of iron filings, broken into scattered pieces, and he, the magnet, can make her whole again by pulling her in with those eyes of his. To be honest, the constancy of his effect on her brings her comfort every day in her chaotic pathetic circus of life, where every night is different from the previous one. 

But now as she looked for any faltering of his pupils, any indication that he was lying, she felt her heart sinking for she had officially lost the constancy. For now, like her night excursions, his eyes, him, had become mercurial. 

He's lying. He knows something. Whatever it is, for Cali, it is enough to forfeit his life. But not yet. Not in the daylight. Not with these many witnesses. 

She let him go, took a step back and watched him collapse on his knees trying to catch his breath. It was then that she felt something else inside her. This is not the first time she has done something like this and in every instance that she was forced into a corner to attack someone, her heart and mind is devoid of any emotion or thought except anger and her opponent's next move. 

But as he sat there helplessly, catching his breath, looking at her with contempt in those mesmerizing black eyes of his that used to send her on a spiral out of her corporeal form, she felt something stirring in the pit of her stomach. Fear. 

For the first time in 4 years, she felt fear. Gut-wrenching, heart-hammering, breath-stealing fear. Before it showed in her face, she marched out the door without looking back. 

Cali feels like the world has shifted out of orbit, turning everything around her upside down. She feels like her power is slipping through her fingers. As if someone is pulling it away from her. 

She didn't just lose control by attacking someone in broad daylight with witnesses like some sort of gangster in a male dominated action movie, she lost her power for a second. 

She was afraid. 

In her line of work, that's the one thing that would send her to her grave. And it's all because of him. The bearer of her comfort and the bane of her existence, Peter Griffith.