Married to a Sorcerer

Chapter One: Alecto

Banging sounds and odd smells floated through the floorboards of the old Victorian house, reaching the small, dark woman sitting up in bed, causing her nose to wrinkle with displeasure. Suddenly, a boom that shook the house on its foundations. Sighing loudly, the woman got out of bed and began the long descent down the three flights of stairs to the basement.

Being married to a sorcerer, especially Thomas Grey, who liked to experiment, meant that this was not uncommon, waking to find the bed empty and the house full of various colors of smoke. Tonight though, Alecto's husband had not even come to bed, and it was nearly four o'clock in the morning, as the clock told her, literally, as she walked by it.

A quick glance around the living room could have told you that the inhabitants of this house were not your everyday next door neighbors. Lamps that dimmed as Alecto entered to reflect her mood; a fireplace that was using a long fiery tongue to pull logs into its depths; and, her personal favorite, a couch that would change hardness with just a thought.

Sweeping past a tv remote that was scuttling around on all fours, Alecto approached a large black bookshelf filled with every shape and size volume you could think of. Studying it carefully for a moment, she reached a hand out and tickled a turquoise leather bound journal's cover, which let out a child-like giggle as the bookshelf swung open towards her, revealing a gray metal door inscribed with runes and symbols in languages long forgotten on this earth. There was no doorknob. Smoke was issuing from underneath, and with it, the scent of exotic flowers mingled with something more unpleasant, like rotten eggs.

Placing her hands on the center of the door, Alecto whispered an incoherent word and the door slid open to show her a set of dusty marble steps that descended into darkness.

Grabbing a candle off the nearest end table, she began the descent. The temperature dropped as she followed the smoke to its source. At the bottom of the steps lay another door, this one unmarked, with a large golden handle in the shape of a snake. The snake writhed to life and hissed in warning.

"It's alright, Cynthia," Alecto whispered. The snake calmed and the door swung open, and light blinded Alecto.

Before she could utter a word to the man standing at a cluttered workbench whom she knew to be her husband, there was an explosion of light and sound; a scream, from her or her husband or both, she didn't know; a concussion of air that threw her back onto the staircase.

Spellbooks, vials of potions, and strange metal instruments flew across the room, crashed and shattered against the walls and floor. The door was ripped off its hinges and landed on top of her. The thud of boots near her head, too heavy to be her husband, a whispered word, accompanied by a flash and her husband's scream, and all went black.