Flashfire

Ch3

"Shouldn't you be doing something?"

"I am doing something."

"You know what I mean. Something, productive."

"This is productive."

"I mean, something that will put food in your mouth."

Caleb growled and turned to look over his shoulder. He himself looked somewhat demonic, in the dark, shadows running and dancing across his face in the flickering candlelight. Liam was happily doing lazy flips in the corner of the bar.

"You don't have to block out light completely," Liam continued, twisting in the air. "It's really not necessary for things to work."

Caleb sighed heavily, roughly rubbing his face with both palms. He then turned back to the open book laying on the ground in between his crossed legs. "It's less about the darkness and more about having peace. Hard to concentrate when I can see people milling about outside."

"Do you know how fun it is to fly?" Liam said. "I never thought I'd like it, but I don't get dizzy, or that weird floppy feeling in my stomach."

"Must you always be so annoying?" Caleb grumbled.

"You're the one that keeps summoning me," Liam retorted, flying at breakneck speed and coming to an abrupt stop so his opaque face was centimeters away from Caleb's. For a moment the pair just watched each other, one breathing in a hitched sort of way, the other not breathing at all. Liam reached out to touch Caleb's hair, but his hand passed right through. He brought his hand back to his chest, clasping at his faintly red plaid shirt.

"Oh. I keep forgetting I can't do that."

Caleb didn't reply.

"You're the only thing I miss, you know."

And just like that, Liam gave a soft sort of smile and faded away quickly.

"Liam?"

Caleb knew Liam was gone. He thought he would try, anyway, hoping the spirit was just playing one of his games.

"Liam?"

Silence.

Giving another sigh and shaking his head, Caleb got to his feet. Carefully he stepped out of the chalk circle he was getting better and better at drawing, careful to not accidentally kick any of the tea light candles that were almost snuffed out already. It was time to see if any of the stale bread he had left out had attracted any rats, and to eat some stale bread himself. As he entered the kitchen, a memory floated through his brain, playing like a movie.

~

"EW."

Caleb had been standing in the bar's kitchen, broom in hand, cleaning. Honestly, these days he didn't know what else to do with himself. Plus it was practical.

A dead rat was laying on its side, way beneath one of the steel shelves. In a morbid sort of way, Caleb wondered how long it had been there for. He didn't want to touch it, broom or not. Regardless, he started to try and get to it. However, it had conveniently decided to lay down and die in the corner.

The first time he made contact with his broom he had shouted in disgust, the broom handle clattering to the floor. Willing himself calm, Caleb picked up the broom and tried again. At a standing angle there was no way he was going to get at it properly, though. So, setting his jaw, Caleb got down on his hands and knees, then his stomach, and fished the dead creature out that way.

It was dusty. Caleb scrambled to his feet, unable to wipe the look of disgust from his face. Gathering the last of his courage, he swept the dead thing into his dustpan, and swiveled on the balls of his feet to the large round trash bin on wheels.

"Good thing you weren't around any time the inspectors showed up," Caleb mused to the dead thing before he slid it into the trash.

But he didn't do it. He stood there, glued to the spot, staring at the rodent in his metal dust pan. A thought had occurred to him, and with it a wicked grin. No, he wasn't going to dispose of that rat at all.

No longer feeling disgusted, he put the dustpan down on the counter and sprinted out of the kitchen. He didn't stop, racing up the steps that led to the apartment above the bar. As he barreled in, it wouldn't be until later he realized it would be the first time he had come into the apartment without being sad.

Caleb poked around frantically, cursing himself for forgetting where he had put the important book. After several minutes, he found what he was looking for.

"Ah ha!"

He grinned. He had bought it on a whim. It was expensive, and he had used the very last of his savings to purchase it. It hadn't just been the book itself that had been expensive; he ended up bribing a friend to go into the dark web to find someone who would sell such a thing. After all, a demonic book of spells wasn't exactly something you could just waltz into a library and find.

It wasn't what he had expected. He had expected an old, tattered book, mysterious and ominous. Instead it was a well-worn, inconspicuous looking black bound book. No one would even know there was anything strange about it until they opened it up. In fact, when it had first arrived, and he had torn into the Amazon box, he had assumed that he had been swindled.

But then he opened the book. It was a jumble of pictures, diagrams, and words. Some of the words were English. Others, Latin. Yet others were gibberish. With some research (where, once again he had to enlist the help of his tech-savvy friend), he had discovered it wasn't gibberish at all.

It was a language called Fòdil. Its origin wasn't quite known, only that it came from ancient times, long before people had even figured out how to write. Caleb had originally feared the book, assuming that just by reading it something demonic would happen. However, that hadn't been the case at all.

He had spent the past couple of weeks reading the book front to back. It looked even less like a demonic book now, with multi-colored tabs labeling important things, and various slips of paper poking out at odd angles. Caleb hadn't tried anything yet.

But that was about to change.

Leaving without even shutting the door behind him, Caleb jogged back downstairs, book gleefully in his hand. He easily found chalk; they had written weekly and daily specials on a blackboard. Setting the spellbook on the counter, he went into the kitchen. Not caring, Caleb tore through everything like a twirling dervish. He didn't stop until he found what he was looking for. Sadly, he had only found five candles, but it would have to do for now.

Grinning and humming a happy tune to himself, Caleb took up the dustpan with the dead rat and headed back to the main bar. Unceremoniously he dumped it on the ground. Taking up the chalk then, he drew a circle around the rat. When he was done, it was more like an oval. He frowned, but was so excited he didn't really care much. Then he went about setting up the five candles.

Finally, still grinning, with shaking hands, he took up a match and struck it. The flame burst to life, and quickly died down like it was supposed to. Caleb carefully sat, and had he been able to see his own face, he would have seen how deranged the screw-up smile made him look.

"Let's do this."