Pro magic tip: demons always show up when you least expect them. As I shoveled a barrier of snow in front of my shop, three of them appeared on the roof, roaring against the wintry moon.
I took a few steps back, the cold snow seeping into my boots.
The demons focused on me, their spinning, blue nebula-like eyes glowing, their smooth black horns dull in the moonlight. Four-legged, with the build of a pit bull and the teeth of a shark, they stalked down the side of the building—an old brownstone in the heart of the city—growling at me. Their claws scratched against the brick and left long white marks.
“So it's gonna be like this, huh,” I said.
I let down my hood, and the wind blew my hair about. The chill tore through my face, and I could hardly feel my cheeks. My eyes watered in the bone-chilling cold.
Fourth demon encounter this month. The magic suppressant charms weren’t working.
“Darius,” I said, throwing a snowball against the window. “Get out here and see what you did.”
Darius’s lanky frame was a shadow in the front of the shop, and he was sweeping the floor. I threw another snowball.
He stuck his half-braided, half-afroed head out of the door, shivering in the cold.
“It’s too cold out here to be playing, cuz,” he said.
And then he heard the growling and looked up slowly.
“Damn,” he said, shaking his head. “Why does this always happen around two o’clock in the morning?”
“You only have one job,” I said, gripping my shovel tightly. “Protection spells are not supposed to be that hard.”
“Ain’t my fault,” Darius said, shuddering. “You know I can cast that spell with the best of them.”
He grabbed a puffy coat with a fur collar, threw it on, and joined me in the snow. His hands glowed with warm fire, and the flames bloomed all the way up his arms, suffusing his face in an orange glow. He yawned.
Darius was my cousin. A wizard.
Not the kind you’re probably imagining in your head right now—you know, the wizard with a pointy hat, a star-swept robe, and a gray beard, but a black, eighteen year-old wizard who loved South Pole jackets and who routinely forgot to do his chores—namely, casting a protection spell around my shop. A wizard whose magic and lack thereof always got his big cousin into trouble. But he could throw fire and cast spells like a boss whenever the Somnients showed up, so I usually forgave him.
“At least these bad boys didn’t show up when the sky was really dumping snow on us,” Darius said.
The beasts landed in the snow and inched toward us, breathing smoke and sulphur.
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