The knocking woke me up.

  My first reaction was panic –the same kind when you oversleep on the day of your exam– and the second was fear.

  Half-developed films flashed through my memories: Seeing Ruth for the first time, the Valentines and the Baeks, the knowledge that I was alone in all this, all ending with the Fox-sister.

  …I think I’m traumatized.

  Only a day into this and I had enough material for the nightmare bank for years to come.

  The knocking hadn’t stopped.

  I managed to drag myself up, noticing that the RV was still drowned in darkness. Either I’d only gotten a few hours of sleep, or this was Tuesday night. In the first case, I was only kind of screwed. Remember, tick tock. In the second case, I was definitely screwed. Because, tick tock.

  I walked over to the door, grabbed the handle and immediately stopped.

  Sunset comes early in December. If you live in the States, you know why. Daylight savings. Still, it had been dark for quite awhile, and I didn’t need a clock to tell that it was late. Probably later than my instincts told me.

  So who was on the other side of the door?

  The only person who knew I was here was Emyrith.

  I took my hands off the handle.

  The knocking slowed down, then stopped.

  I wasn’t sleepy anymore. In fact, I was wide awake thanks to the adrenaline that jumped started my nervous system.

  “Who is it?” My voice was rough. There was no peephole in the door.

  I could sense the hesitation through the door. Surprisingly, it was a girl’s voice that answered, “I’m looking for Jain Shin Hallow. Do I have the right place?”

  Instead of answering right away, I walked over to the Circle. A lot of it had faded away. Then I grabbed my gravity knife and walked back to the door.

  The person knocked again. “Hello?”

  “If this is the start of a knock-knock joke, you’re not going to like the punchline.” I brandished the gravity knife to… do something.

  Come on. Just because I’ve been bullied doesn’t mean I’ve stabbed people before. Besides, the knife wasn’t really for protection. It was a keepsake.

  Still, having it in my hand was doing loads more for my confidence than not having it. “I’m not opening the door until you tell me who you are, and why you’re here.”

  There was a slight pause, and the rustle of fabric. Then I nearly screamed as a white envelope was squeezed under the door. Being the manly man I am, it was only nearly.

  Cautiously, I picked up the envelope and ripped it open.

  Inside was a business card. But no phone number, no email, no social media account, and no address.

  Just a name, engraved in a sort of beige inlaid with red-ink. Assad Xiaozhi Paris.

  “My name is Abigail and I work for Mr. Paris. I’m here to take you to him.”

  My sleep-addled brain begrudgingly got the cells working again.

  “Wait here.” I gruffed.

  “Understood.”

  I walked away from the door and grabbed my backpack, digging out my dad’s letter.

  Your mother was a powerful Shaman, and had a contract with a powerful lineage of spirits. Search out a man named Paris in Chinatown, he will guide you in the matter.

  Hope flared to life, bright enough to pierce through the overcast dread from after my summoning.

  “You said your name is Abbie?”

  Another pause, then, “My name is Abigail.”

  “Ok, Abbs,” There was a long-suffering sigh from the other side. I tend to have that effect on people. “I’m going to open the door. Before I do, back up.”

  There were footsteps. “Done.”

  “You swear you’re not here to harm me?”

  “...I don’t think I am.” I didn’t miss the hesitation in her voice.

  “What kind of answer–” I bit back the curse, “You swear you were sent here by Paris? Chinatown?”

  “Yes.”

  I finally opened the door and got a look at my guest.

  Abigail was… she was kinda hot.

  Abigail was what the male members of the homo sapien species would call a ‘goth baddie’. Frilly black dress, shawl with fur on it, knee-high boots, the whole set –the kind you’d expect from a goth-maid cafe in Japan or something.

  There was more color than black to her outfit. Her hair, for one. The tips of her wavy hair looked like they’d been dipped in a kindergartener’s art project. Pink, silver-white, neon-blue, orange, ocean-green, a myriad of dizzying colors that reminded me of LED signs of moody undersea coral beds.

  “Nice to meet you, Jain Shin Hallow.” She greeted.

  “Yeah.” My oh-so eloquent self replied.

  As a general rule, I try not to engage with the female members of my species. Why? Well, cause I’m a male teenager and male teenagers are stupid. They lose brain cells the second they lay eyes on a pretty girl. For someone living the life I did, you couldn’t really afford stupidity.

  I think even more so now.

  Especially considering that she didn’t look much older than me.

  I squinted at the source of light behind her. It was a –I kid you not– black SUV limousine with a snow plow attached to the front.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  “Wait, you meant we’re heading to him now. Like now now?.”

  “Yes. Mr. Paris said you’d want to get there before Witching Hour.” Despite the outfit, Abigail was anything but goth or maid. She spoke in terse, precise intonations, more like a secretary of a tech CEO or something.

  Whatever this Witching Hour was, it sounded important. “You literally just showed up. I don’t even know what I’m supposed to bring.”

  She cut me off, “He has prepared everything you might need for the Familiar ritual.”

  Her words caught me off guard. “Oh.”

  “I assume you’ll still want to bring some personal belongings. I’ll wait in the car.” She suddenly stopped and casually tossed over her shoulder, “By the way, your crotch has a tear, Jain Shin Hallow.”

  “I know that.” I scowled.

  I didn’t. I don’t know why I felt the need to say that. Refer to my theory on males losing brain cells in female presence.

  She’d already disappeared inside the limo.

  I closed the door behind me and looked down. There was a huge crotch tear that showed my yellow ducky boxer briefs. "Stupid cheapass, dollar store–"

  After changing, I immediately got to packing. Spare change of clothes, my knife, chalk, and even some books all went into my pink backpack.

  All the while, my brain screamed that this was as fishy as a sushi buffet on a hot summer’s day.

  This whole situation was too perfect and it reminded me a little too much of Emyrith’s appearance. Just when I needed someone, they popped up. Emyrith to help me navigate the legal matters of my mom’s will, abjugating on my behalf with the Practitioner families. Then right as I was at wit’s end on how to get a familiar, my mom’s old friend shows up.

  I wouldn’t have gone at all, except that my dad’s letter had specifically name-dropped him.

  It was starting to bother me a lot that my dad’s letter knew enough to even outline the series of events. Emyrith, the safe house, Paris…

  Like he’d been preparing for this.

  I knew that. But it was another thing to subconsciously hold that knowledge in my head versus having the solution planned out for me years in advance thrust in my face like an alien lifeform whose babies burst out of my chest.

  Damn, I felt like an NPC playing along to a script. Just like them, I didn’t have a choice either.

  Right before I headed out, something caught my eye from the circle where I’d banished the Fox-sister.

  It was a small accessory about the size of my palm. A pendant –three burnished coins bundled together– with cloth-cords that hung loose.

  When I picked it up, I felt the low hum of power coming from it. Pocketing it, I left the RV.

  The blizzard had no desire to let up. I waded through knee-deep snow and got my shoes all wet. The rear passenger door opened and Abigail was waiting for me in the back.

  “We can go.” Abigail said.

  The limo hummed to life and began to pave a path through the snow.

  “I see that you’ve changed.” Abigail noted. “Water? Soda? Chips?”

  I brought out a water bottle from my backpack. “I brought my own.”

  She arched an eyebrow at my backpack but didn’t comment. Somehow, that was more insulting than anything else she could have done.

  Within minutes, we’d left the mobile home park and were driving through the freeway. A bunch of garbage trucks with snow plows passed by us, leaving great mounds of dirty ice on the emergency lanes. More than once, we were pelted by bullets of salt as they passed us by.

  The skyline of Manhattan was beautiful in a snowstorm and tonight was no exception.

  “I’m obligated to tell you that Mr. Paris has ordered me to answer your questions,” Abigail suddenly said. “For the sake of saving time once we get there.”

  “Ok,” I tore my gaze away from the window and locked eyes with Abigail. “You said you work for him. Are you his secretary? Assistant?”

  “Yes.” She replied.

  “You don’t go to school?”

  “I do.” Then she added, “Part-time.” Then much more dryly, she added, “I think he meant questions about your situation.”

  “Yeah, I’m just trying to figure out if you’re human or not.”

  And she froze.

  My Third Eye was going haywire.

  The moment I stepped foot in the car, my Third Eye locked onto Abigail. Since I’ve awakened the Third Eye, I've seen things. Visions of what I presume is the past, plus supernatural beings invisible to the naked eye. But I also never had trouble seeing normal people before.

  Abigail did not look normal at all.

  There were… colors coming off of her, superimposed on her real self rooted in reality. It’s hard to describe. Like an outline of herself curling off of her in waves, but different. A pink-outline of a skeleton that extended from her left shoulder and evaporated, while a translucent image of a tail-like limb that swooshed around her ankles, which too, disappeared.

  A dozen of those images happened at once. Sometimes a green ghastly hand overlaid on top of hers, then a nest of snakes –all of them just outlines, different colors, nearly invisible, smoke-like, disappearing and appearing constantly. Limbs, heads, tails, nails, fangs, you name it.

  Beneath all that was a gray-vapor wrapped around her neck, but that was actually the faintest. The other images, though fleeting, were stronger and made it hard for me to focus on the gray. But if I focused on it a little more–

  “Jain Shin Hallow, you’re too close."

  And I realized that in the effort to zoom in on her neck, I’d leaned closer and closer to her chest.