A Modern Warlock

Zane Joly

            The full moon shone down upon the massive circle of rocks known as Stonehenge. The only movement came from a whirling cloud of wind and dirt with a single passenger atop it, descending from the sky. It landed about forty feet away from the several millennia old structure.

            A man stepped off the air elemental. He took out his phone and checked the time. “Oh, you got me from New York City to here in an hour. Impressive.” He tapped his screen and five shimmering orbs of light appeared in the air for a few seconds, then faded away.

            In a voice like a storm wind blowing through a forest, the elemental said, “Five stars! Thank you very much. Have a wonderful night.”And with that, it disappeared into the air.

The man, who went by Jett, was wearing a sweater, jeans, and tennis shoes, with a worn blue backpack. His skin was indigo and horns protruded from his skull, both features he usually disguised when around humans. He continued to look down at his phone. It was his pride and joy. He had spent over a decade putting it together. It was more than just a phone, it was his grimoire, the vessel for a warlock’s power and knowledge.

            The case was made from a demon lord's dried and carefully treated hide, and could deflect bullets without leaving even a scratch. The glass of the screen was made from sand from the fifth circle of hell, part of the remains of a desert arch-elemental, and the ash from a vampire mage staked through the heart. The outside of the phone itself was made from obsidian, gathered from a volcano giving birth to a lava dragon. All the metal in the phone was gold, stolen from an elder dragon’s hoard. The batteries were filled with a miniature eternal storm, keeping it charged. The camera was the reptilian eye of a Deep One, and it constantly shifted its attention, looking all around.

            He leaned forward and said to the phone “Grimoire, give me fey sight.”

            The neutral, slightly mechanical sounding voice said “Okay, playing ‘Hay Fight’”

            Jett managed to turn the sound off before the song began to blast, giving away his position to the enemies he knew were near. “Stupid voice-recognition never works,” he muttered to himself as he turned off his grimoire’s voice activated feature. He’d do this manually.

            Jett tapped buttons until he got what he wanted. He lifted his phone up to get a good view of the stone circle, then pressed the fey sight mode. The eye on the front of his phone started to glow pink, and he carefully observed what the camera showed on his screen. Everything had a pink tint to it, but not only did the camera show what was in the darkness, it also showed the dozen invisible mages patrolling the outside of the stone circle. They were all wearing ear-pieces. Good.

            One of them noticed the pink glow, so Jett had to act quickly. He frantically opened a couple applications, and pressed a few more buttons. In moments, he was connected to the audio feed for all the mages' ear-pieces. With some settings it had taken him a long time to figure out, he could play the audio from his grimoire into their feeds, without him hearing it from his phone.

            He remembered to turn the sound back on, then switched to his music app and hit shuffle on his siren song playlist. As soon as they heard the magical song, all the mages froze and started to sway gently in place.

            Jett smirked and walked past the paralyzed guards, who had all now turned visible, as they couldn’t keep focusing on their invisibility spells. He reached a point ten feet from the very center of the stone circle.

            The warlock tapped the feature on his grimoire that allowed it to pair with other mystical artifacts, called Bluefang. He tapped the option that said ‘add new artifact’ and spoke the incantation to awaken Stonehenge.

            Runes and complex lines flared to life and began to glow red on the stones all around him. Jett tapped in the five rune code to pair his grimoire with the stone circle. It had taken him a long time to find that rune sequence, and he could have auctioned the information off for a few million dollars probably. But money wasn’t worth much to someone with his power. He was after something far more valuable.

            In agony, he stared down at the screen as it displayed the word “connecting” followed by three dots. Then it shifted to “connected” and the runes and lines on the stones shifted to the same indigo color as Jett’s skin.

            The phone’s signal was strongest at the full moon, and the stone circle empowered it a hundred-fold. With this raw magic at his command, the warlock texted a short message all the way down to a specific demon lord in the first circle of hell.

            U up?

            What? Came the reply.

            Jett smirked. On the demon’s end, this would be a telepathic conversation.

            Never mind, it was just a joke. I’d like 2 summon u 2 the mortal realm 4 an infernal task of immense significance. But 2 summon u, u have 2 agree 2 it. You’ve done the drill b4.

            Very well. I hereby agree to your summoning.

            The warlock clutched the phone tight in his hand and began to chant. The wind began to howl around him. One by one, he watched the stars black out and the full moon turn flaming red. At least, from his perspective. They would appear normal to everyone else.

            In the infernal glow of the stones, Jett lifted his arms high, and purple and blue fire sprang from his open hand and his grimoire both, racing towards the grass in the center of the stone circle, which was incinerated in seconds. The paralyzed mages were pulled from the siren’s song and screamed as their souls were dragged out of them as fuel for the summoning.

            The pale blue essences of their souls coalesced in the center, in a glowing white mass. Jett continued his incantation and focused his fire on that glowing white sphere. Its light faded more and more, until only an orb of pure black remained.

            Then there was an explosion which knocked the warlock against one of the stones. It hurt like hell - metaphorically of course, Jett had been there and it had been a lot worse. Wheezing, Jett slowly stood up. A twisting mass of darkness and red fire was floating a few feet above the ground.

            The warlock stepped back behind the first ring of stones. “Maggozkrijen, razer of cities, butcher of thousands, incinerator of reality, demon lord of flame! Come!” he yelled out.

            The shifting mass shuddered for a moment. It did not change form, but a voice like sharpened abyss came from it, saying “WHAT DOES ‘YOU UP?’ MEAN, MORTAL?”

            “It was just a joke, ignore it,” he said. It had been a few centuries since Maggozkrijen had been summoned to this world. He might need to be caught up on a few things.

            The demonic mass of energy surged towards Jett, but the runes on the stones just in front of him flared and the demon lord stopped like he’d hit an indestructible wall. Most mortals didn’t know that stonehenge had been first constructed to safely summon very powerful demons.

            “Yeah, that isn’t going to work,” said the warlock.

            Maggozkrijen grumbled a little bit, then said “WHERE IS YOUR GRIMOIRE, WARLOCK?”

            “Right here,” he said as he held up his phone.

            “THAT IS NOT A GRIMOIRE. THAT IS A SMALL RECTANGLE WRAPPED IN THE SKIN OF MY KIN.”

            “Oh yeah, it is. It's from Zaquilwavre, one of your fellow demon lords. And circling back, it totally is a grimoire. I summoned you with it, didn’t I?”

            “BUT… HOW DO YOU STORE ALL YOUR SPELLS ON IT? THERE ISN’T ENOUGH SURFACE AREA.”

            He had his spells stored in ebook form. “It’s newfangled technology. Hey, check this out.”

            The warlock pressed another couple buttons, then showed the demon lord his screen. “WHAT? THAT IS JUST A BLUE LINE WITH A BUNCH OF LETTERS AND SYMBOLS ON IT.”

            “It’s called a link,” said the warlock, “just press it.”

            He moved it slightly forward so it was inside the first circle of stones and the demon could reach it. A shadowy tentacle reached forward and tapped the link.

            Brilliant white light suddenly began to radiate from the grimoire and the demon screamed and slapped the phone away, but it was too late. “HAH!” laughed Jett as he picked up his undamaged phone, “That link took you to a rune of binding. Which you willingly read, even if only for a split second. That means that you serve me now. You demons are always careful to not fall for the binding rune trick, but you never expect it from a link. You know, humans actually do a similar thing, where they trick each other into watching this music video of a love song sung by a red haired human about how he’s never going to- well, anyways, you serve me now.”

            With a voice that had the clear subtext that he wanted to kill Jett, Maggozkrijen said “I… SERVE.. .YOU… MASTER.”

            “You're damn right you do. Now, I have very simple instructions for you. I want you to possess and infuse your essence into this object, and stay in it until I tell you to do otherwise.”

            The very smug warlock took the gray rectangle out of his backpack and held it forward.

“WHAT IS IT?”

            “It’s called a charger. It makes sure that electronics continue to work. My laptop made from the smelted shards of a crystal ball is out of juice, and I needed a major magical power source to keep it running. And you could probably last for a few thousand years!”

            “I HATE YOU SO MUCH.”

            “Sorry, but I watch all my shows on that thing. I’m currently binge scrying on the celestial realm, and I really need to know if Talnos the Holy Radiance ends up with Veisra the Purifier.”

            “THIS IS HUMILIATING, DEGRADING AND - WAIT, TALNOS? I THOUGHT SHE WAS WITH KWALI, THE DIVINE WARRIOR.”

            “Did you not know? She cheated on her!”

            There was a gasping sound from the demon lord “NO! BUT THEY WERE SO PERFECT TOGETHER!”

            “I know right? C’mon, get in the charger. We can watch it together.”

            “OKAY, THAT ACTUALLY SOUNDS PRETTY NICE. BUT IF I DON’T KNOW THIS, IT'S GOING TO DRIVE ME INSANE: WHAT DOES ‘YOU UP?’ MEAN?”